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[Dr.J]

I feel like the time is coming for a new TEFL theory.

In particular, I am not convinced that the crapness of TEFL methodology in Asia is down to a) crap teachers b) crap students c) crap cultural hierarchies etc. I really get the feeling that I'm missing something (besides 50% of my brain...).

I get the feeling that I am just using the wrong end of the screwdriver. Do you know what I mean? Everyone is pushing so hard, but the problem is that someone left the hand brake on, not the amount of effort we are putting in. Am I making sense, or just gradually succumbing to a TEFL theory-induced Jesus complex?

Apologies for over use of the word 'crap'.

[struelle]

[Roger]

I wish that people who use buzzwords such as "grammar-translation method" would also enlighten others on what they actually mean.
I don't know what this term means, honestly, although I studied linguistics in the 1980's for over six years; this term was NEVER used in any lecture I attended.
Yet, I keep hearing and reading it in a foreign environment where TEFL is done in a time-worn fashion that revolves around rote-learning, to which are added some communicative ingredients. Open any teacher instruction manual, and you stumble across "modern" concepts such as "total immersion", "TPR", "communicative approach" and what not.
Let's face it - it's a muddle if not a mess, a melange of methods that don't harmonise. Rote-learners are essentially using their memory, not their social skills; therefore they cannot use any "communicative approach". Rote-learning also means people mainly LEARN a language by means of their own first tongue, memorising vocables and grammar rules but not applying them daily.
To me, it would appear that the so-called "grammar-translation method" is a fictitious concept concocted by theoreticians that don't know how people the world over acquire and learn languages.
The only time I may have used this "method" was when I studied Latin; all other languages were acquired WITHOUT TRANSLATING. As I can see here, I learnt foreign tongues differently from how Chinese learn them, and the difference shows also in the efficiencies: the CHinese method, which heavily relies on word-by-word translation is inadequate, inefficient and often misleading. If this is the "grammar-translation method", then I understand why so many are strongly opposed to it; yet why have they voiced so little opposition to it when they were doing their job?
This is, after all, our mission: to change the learning habits of our charges and their own teachers.
It doesn't mean Chinese and other East Asians should adopt the latest teaching styles from the West. I think, the whole outlook of people to education must change; away from the quantitative to the qualitative, from theory to more practical skills; from "knowledge" to skills.
A second or foreign language is more than knowledge; it is an ability, a new culture; it certainly modifies a person's character.
Are we too shy to insist that our students need to develop their individuality and characters? It may jar with the local sensitivities...

[Teacher Lindsay]

struelle wrote:-

[guest of Japan]

Yes, Roger. The "Grammar-Translation Method" is the "Rote learning" you described.

[shmooj]

You might want to ask for your money back on that MA

The Grammar Translation method is usually the first one described (check out, for example, p378 of Crystal's Encyclopedia of Language).

The Lexical Approach is absolutely beautiful but it will/does fall flat on its face in much of east Asia (as, arguably, communicative approaches have done). The reason is down to something called transfer of training first defined by Selinker in 1972 and boils down to the fact that acquisition can be hampered by how students have been taught before.

IOW, after having completed at least 6 and possibly more years of the Grammar Translation method at school, students who then go on to study via the Lexical Approach will find the approach itself so alien an approach to learning that it will effectively prevent acquisition from taking place.

The reverse is often our experience in learning languages in the Far East. I will next week bring to an end a series of private Korean classes which I insisted from the outset would be communicative but which, instead have been simply audiolingual. I cannot learn that way and, despite sometimes violent arguments with my teacher, she cannot teach that way. It does my head in and depresses me. So, I will quit and forge out on my own.

Some evidence, albeit anecdotal, why approaches with all the theoretical promise in the world, can fail and why I believe that even the beauty of the Lexical Approach without simultaneously being used alongside strategies to counteract what Grammar Translation has done to our students' brains, will not succeed.

What we really need are Anti-Approaches

[waxwing]

Well, first let me say how happy I am to see such an unashamedly intellectual thread in this forum! About time too! (one of the reasons I love this country is that somehow they still respect intellect..)
I couldn't possibly weigh in against some of you guys with the big quals, but I'll offer an opinion anyway..

[Roger]

Teacher Lindsay's suggestion would fall flat anywhere in China, with any kind of students.

Those who are addicted to Stephen Krashen, probably fail to see a serious proviso that he supplies:
For students to competently use their second tongue, they must have developed what Krashen describes as a "monitor", which is an intellectual kind of 'black box' that records the students behaviour in the target language and tells him when he or she is using it inadequately.
That is, the CONSCIENCE of a student must be trained so he KNOWS and RECOGNISES his own mistakes, and those made by others. There must be a self-correcting mechanism.

This is conspicuous in CHinese students by its absence! They are totally unaware of their own miscommunications. They never, for example, correct the erroneous use of "he" or "she" even though this would seem to be a very self-evident one to do! They don't respect SVA either, and even when they WRITE their ENGLISH so that it is visible and mistakes can easily be identified, they have to be pushed to identifying them, and pushed some more to take corrective measures. Do these corrective measures ever last? I wonder!

But, why do students in other parts of the world fare so much better?
The reason - according to me - is that elsewhere students don't reinforce their own mistakes by practising unthinkingly. The major difference might be that they have to learn to ANALYSE grammar structures and to practise in writing before they start using them orally.
For example my former French partner's daughter had to practise in writing English and German CONJUGATION. Thus, as she wrote the following lines her mind got inured to the particular differences between the various statements:
- Ich kaufe ein Kilo Kohl
- Du kaufst ein Kilo Kohl
- Er kauft ein Kilo Kohl
- Sie kauft ein Kilo Kohl.

I have never heard of Chinese English learners doing this in English, even though it would be a lot easier (and no doubt more effective) as English verbs only have two forms (or one in the case of modal verbs, and 3 in the case of 'to be').

The introduction in China of conversation classes has helped in no way except in fossilising bad English.

[shmooj]

So, in following on from what I posted, what Roger's post seems to be saying is that certain approaches can actually work against language acquisition in some cultural contexts.

I haven't read about this anywhere in general - just some brief papers in a few scattered journals about how certain approaches don't work in some limited contexts.

For my MA, one of the first papers I wrote was how communicative language teaching to children in Japan was a misapplication for a variety of reasons.

Anyone else consider this and therefore what approach SHOULD be used in, say, China.

[guest of Japan]

It is my feeling that the fundamental dilemna isn't necessarily the methods and approaches themselves, but rather the situations and parameters that we are asked to try to work with.

Large class sizes

Over-emphasis on quantative tests

Cultures where students are taught to be passive learners

Limitation of resourses

Mixed ability grouping

Exausted students

Seemed irrelevance or the subject in the cultures we teach

Limited classroom learning time

UNCHANGING SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION - This last one has to do with the original posting. In much of Asia the teaching style is still grammar translation. The direct method looks fun and exciting in comparison. I don't think we are due for a paradigm shift yet, because the systems are still four paradigms behind.

Shmooj, I don't teach young learners so I'll avoid trying to answer your query.

[Teacher Lindsay]

waxwing wrote:-

[struelle]

A few general replies to make:

(1) The lexical approach has a significant parallel with the grammar-translation method. In fact, it's not that removed at all and students in East Asia could use their previous experience and transfer that laterally to the lexical approach. Even though East Asian students are poorly trained in lateral thinking, a good teacher could show them how to make the shifts. Then, their GTR training would even help them out.

Basically, both methods use cumulative approaches. GTR begins with simple structures such as pronouns and verb congugation, then it usually moves to the present simple, present continuous, past simple, etc.

The lexical approach does pretty much the same thing, except it uses a functional syllabus. You may see a text that first does conversation mechanics: greetings, introductions, closings. Then it moves on to family life: describing families. Then it may go on to school life: describing events in sequence. The text would keep going, and build on previous functions.

FWIW, you can see the parallels: Conversation basics use present simple: My name is ____, I am a _____. Describing uses demonstratives: There is ____ there are ____. Talking about a school day uses time prepositions: First, then, before, after.

It's just that the grammar is embedded within the function.

By the way, the Side By Side text gives an excellent overview of the grammar-translation progression. But since the two methods parallel each other so nicely, I can teach a class with Side by Side and just use the pictures and stories (without explaining a single grammar point)

The best purely lexical textbook I've seen is Super Goal for teens.

(2) The lexical approach goes hand-in-glove with Krashen's theory, but these are not the same thing. Krashen focuses more on acquisition theory, while the lexical approach is more empirical.

In theory, you could teach the lexical approach and have poor results (just like with grammar-translation) if acquisition isn't dealt with properly.

- Roger wrote -

[shmooj]

[guest of Japan]

[Dr.J]

Thanks for the interesting posts!

I understand and sympathise with the point about being eclectic. But a "non-approach", despite being attractive in a Zen buddhism kind of way...I get the feeling that we can give just a little more advice to people aiming to be teachers.

At the moment I think exposure is the key. A human being is the kind of creature that naturally likes to see patterns and rules in heaps of information. If you look at a cloud, it makes a shape without any effort at all. The students just need exposure and strict error correction. Human beings also like to generalise too much.