Job Discussion Forums

[cimarch]

I subscribed to the 'Developing Teachers' newsletter last year some time. I normally just skim through it but this month something caught my eye. Maybe these will help some of us convince some people they're going about things in the wrong way. I know, it's unlikely, but if you can convince one person...

[Ace]

Most of my students, the overwhelming majority in colleges anyway, want to learn Chinese English grammar so that they can pass their Chinese English exams. Only a few want to learn to communicate in English, (or indeed, any language, it often seems to me...) and even fewer want to trouble themselves with 'oral English'.

[Ace]

yeah, the more I think about it, very few of my Chinese students want to trouble themselves with anything at all that requires mental effort, moral courage or independent thought...

[Roger]

We have read such criticisms a number of times - they become repetitive and ever less convincing!

To begin with, the author is saying nothing new but the very obvious, arriving at wrong conclusions. The reason why grammar is needed in ESL or EFL is simple: the learners start at a much later stage than when they started learning their L 1. They are grounded in their mother tongue, and they only acquire - or learn - the L 2 in an "intellectual" way, comparing it to their first tongue. How they can learn "chunks" (or "collocations") is not clear to me! They have learnt to conceptualise the world through the medium of their first tongue; if one wants to teach them an L 2 without centering it on grammar right from the start (though you would inevitably have to do it later, just as we all had to study English grammar when we were sufficiently mature too) one would have to start from scratch by teaching children from bab age on. The children would then have to acquire two sets of thinking - they would become perfect bilingual speakers.

I am not saying our Chinese English teachers teach grammar effectively, - far from it. But grammar is part and parcel of English learning precisely because the first language of our students has very little grammar to study. English grammar is therefore the No. 1 intellectual stumbling block just as the tones are the No. 1 challenge for us who study Mandarin. You can't learn Chinese without studying the tones, can you?

Again, this Krashen type is mentioned... In the past, I disliked anyone who was talking about being "sympathetic to our learners" and who advocated the use of English, any English even to the detriment of accuracy; but I have read an introduction to his theory, and must say that many proponents of his theories don't understand him very well.
Krashen says that students should communicate in their target language - orally or otherwise - when they have developed what he called a "monitor", which is in my language, INTUITION, or the feel for the language.
Listening to my Chinese charges I never have the impression they have any INTUITION; they speak haltingly, translate word by word - and, of course, often wrongly! - and they have a lousy intonation. I don't even mind their pronunciation!
Krashen wants L 2 learners to be their own teachers, i.e. know when they make a mistake, and learn from it. This I hardly ever see in China. Therefore, grammar instruction is still the best, albeit a bad best.

[randyj]

As Ace says, the vast majority of Chinese students just want to pass their examinations. Listening and speaking skills receive little emphasis in testing (although this is changing). As a teacher, I feel obligated to give the students what they need. On the other hand, grammar is the enemy. It gets in the way. Overemphasis stifles language production.

In Shenyang four years ago I regularly attended an English corner, an informal, chaotic affair in a park with a huge statue of Mao pointing east. One particular high-school student showed up every night. He could speak well, and I attributed this to his sustained practice in the English corner. Practice is so important.

The debate about how people learn language frankly bores me, because in a place like China it has limited practical value. The real key is individual motivation, and I do not know where that comes from.

[kowlooner]

Cimarch - thanks for the article and link. Not a bad read.

I would agree. I've found that by emphasizing simple grammar (just past tense and correct use of articles, mainly) my students have improved quite significantly, both in speaking and writing. Beyond that, I just try to have them get comfortable talking in English.

There are several problems with grammar-based methods. For one, textbooks tend to introduce tenses and structures in tiny little chunks associated with a certain topic or function. The same grammar is then taught again a bit later with a slight change (different topic or function) but with no reference back to the earlier lesson, making it seem as if they are learning something totally new. This just makes grammar seem much more intimidating.

Second, an excessive focus on grammar does get in the way of communication, and I must disagree that most students are not interested in conversation and just wish to get good exam marks. Of course they want to get good exam marks, but they're not stupid. They know if they can communicate to a degree that the exam results will follow.

That said, I have to admit I teach only small groups of up to five or six students. That makes it much easier to force students to talk, strengthen their vocabulary, improve their confidence, and monitor for what I consider the more important grammar points they need to master.

In large classes, grammar-based instruction provides structure, something both students and teachers want. It's not the grammar that's important, it's predictability and manageability. Even small groups have the potential for a descent into chaos. For large classes, that potential may be magnified, and so there is a perceived need for something that will keep them in line. Thus grammar-based instruction is more of a management or discipline tool than an effective teaching method. Unfortunately, it's not a particularly good management or discipline tool either.

If you can de-emphasize grammar in class in favor of communicating, then do so. It's not that grammar should be totally avoided, but as a focus it's weak. For almost any classroom size, any teacher should be able to have exercises and activities that build communicative ability without classroom chaos. Even then, the chaos may just be on the surface, a reflection of students actually enjoying the process of learning. Any teacher that doesn't try and simply relies back on a grammar focus is either lazy or in an extremely disadvantaged classroom situation, and generally it is not the latter.

[go_ABs]

The students I teach are young students and therefore not looking to pass their exams. Also, the school I'm at is an outside of regular hours school, where the students pay (a lot) to come and receive extra tuition in various subjects.

I don't touch grammar. I don't want to and don't need to. I teach with a focus on pronounciation and useful words, slang and idioms, for the slightly older ones.

I figure that when the students receive English education in their Chinese classrooms, as most of them do, the focus there is textbook-based and grammar-focussed.

Many of my students have a grounding in English and the classes I teach help them grow in confidence, speaking clearly and accurately; something their Chinese English teacher can't give them (to such a degree). Also, and no less important, is getting away from solely textbook-based approach and into something that is not only useful, but fun: I hope that at least some of my students like English enough to keep on with it in the future (and of their own accord, not their parents').

I haven't been around the ESL block for long (still making my way up the first street, as it happens), but that's how I see it.

byebye