Too much presentation; not enough practice and production
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
Too much presentation; not enough practice and production
The age old problem with intensive courses seems to be this: there is always too much material packed into too short a period of time. Teachers have to plow through the material in order to make sure that it is all covered by the end of the course, and this inevitably results in there being way too much presentation in the lessons and insufficient time for practice and production activities. Is this just my experience, or have most other teachers of intensive courses experienced the same problem?
I experience exactly the same thing. It is as if the designers of curriculum, for lack of a coherent theory of language learning, decide that they'll just hit them with everything and keep everyone terribly busy so that they can tell administrators that they've covered all the bases. But covering things is about all that occurs. We would be much wiser to reveal the language through practice and use.
I have notived that many times it is only the students who already have a general grasp of what is being taught that progress while those who really need to learn it are left behind.
I have notived that many times it is only the students who already have a general grasp of what is being taught that progress while those who really need to learn it are left behind.
Makes you wonder, doesn't it, if perhaps it would be better just to put the students through some kind of English immersion simulation (where it would mostly be just practice and production)? I've learned Spanish without ever having taken a proper course in it. Of course, my grammar is not the best, but at least I have learned to communicate on a daily basis in the language.