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fluffytwo
Joined: 24 Sep 2016
Posts: 139
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 Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2017 5:01 pm Post subject: PhD-level thinking? |
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(Or, In Defence of Authenticity)
Happy New Year!
Came across a rather confused article the other day while searching for something or other ELTy. The author (a David Barker, guest blogging on Betty Azar's Teacher Talk blog in a 2011 piece entitled 'Why I am not a fan of the Communicative Approach') ultimately just seems to be trying to ride the distant coattails of Michael Swan (Barker alludes and links to two downloadable and 'far more eloquent' 1985 ELTJ articles by Swan, though I'm not sure they ultimately agree on anything other than a few relatively minor or somewhat abstract points) while being more vociferous than most about the supposed evils imposed by too many (any?) attempts at real communication. According to Barker, it seems the best you can hope to develop or attain in a classroom is "pseudo communication" (so why bother, right?  ).
By way of explanation he goes on to recount two lessons that he obviously thinks were the bee's knees (but they weren't lessons he himself taught, just ones in which he was a FL learner, strange that eh, or perhaps he is simply trying to showcase supposed talent other than his own).
In the first a French teacher
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| had us chain-drilling 'What’s your name?' and 'How do you spell it?' around the class. Everyone already knew everyone else's name, but the point of the exercise was for us to practice the pronunciation of the alphabet. There was no real communication taking place, but it was still very useful practice, and every student in the room was fully engaged in the activity. |
In the second a Japanese teacher used that staple of imaginative teaching, a pen (maybe their previous lesson had even been the classic 'Is this a pen?'), but put to even greater service by helping the students learn to ask and answer about (its) whereabouts and thus plenty of possible classroom locations ('Where is the pen?' 'It's under the book'). Again,
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| As both parties to the conversation could clearly see both items, it would be difficult to claim that there was any real communication taking place. There was, however, a great deal of language learning taking place. |
and
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| All of us were quite aware that the purpose of the activity was simply to practice the prepositions and relevant grammar structure, and everyone seemed to find it quite beneficial enough without having it turned into "pseudo communication". |
Some readers may find nothing objectionable with what Barker says (despite his twice acknowledging that there was little or no real communication to foster all the supposed learning), and some may even have or be on their way to PhDs themselves and thus feel very entitled to and sure of their if not his opinions. Back in my PhD-less world however, all I know is that asking for much less spelling names is hardly the lifeblood of, or even that good a starter for, that many exchanges (unless one is working as a very brisk [almost brusque?] receptionist, or is engaged in language banditry, or has been stopped by the police for some reason, or your class never simply has the register called or makes nameplates or goes through brief self-introductions to quickly establish who's who, no volunteering of names in Barker's world it seems!), except perhaps in occasional 'Can I take a message?', 'Do you mind if I ask who's calling?', and 'How do you spell that please?' moments when answering the phone for example, and there are in any case more straightforward ways to practise the letters of the alphabet (the Alphabet Song, lists of initialisms, spelling bees for tricky words, possibly the NATO phonetic alphabet or similar). Plus if they had previously learnt and thus already knew each other's names, why weren't spelling difficulties (assuming there were any) dealt with at that previous time? (Next thing you know we'll be being told this is an excellent example of recycling to boot. 'What's your name?', very useful phrase that!). It is ironic then that that French lesson is actually full of the very thing that Barker is railing against: communication, or rather and indeed just a truly pseudo attempt at it, and I for one would have no objection if it were cut or at least rethought in this particular instance. Barker is "essentially" trying to make a case for asking questions that one already knows the answer to, and for spending inordinate time on rather basic stuff, but for no clear reason other than it makes practice somehow "more productive", and planning doubtless "easier". There seems little desire to ever move onto more involving (though possibly slightly more involved) things. Surely this is holding students back, and just flogging them things they may already know or could at a pinch learn "unaided" (unhindered?). Personally, I wouldn't take (pay for) lessons like that French one, although I can see how they might give one the illusion of socializing, "fun" etc.
As for the Japanese lesson (well, the equivalent English version, as translated by Barker), one has to admire any explicit grammar teacher (which is what Barker seems to count himself as) who can so fearlessly countenance "slipping in" a decidedly pushy-sounding definite article that effectively bars any real-world listener intruding from beyond the classroom and daring to ask 'Er, what pen?' ('My pen! The pen that I was just using! The one with the Mickey Mouse in a bikini illustration on it! What have you done with it?!' 'Ah, thanks, at least I now know which pen, though I'm afraid to say I don't know where it is as I didn't actually see where you put it last, so please stop strangling me'), and it's not like there are any other items more deserving of a necessary and thus easier-to-grasp definite article (the remote control, the keys, etc? Rack, rack), is it. All that is on display there is teacher rhetoric (the pen), a lack of phrases for dealing with genuine unknowns ('Sorry, I haven't seen it, have you checked behind your ear? Or rather, between your ears?'), and a lack of approach-level thinking to help things (determiners etc) in the wider language fall into place. Either way I would spare the students the "realia" pantomimes and knock up an interesting picture (or possibly some dreaded info gap pairs of pictures) with plenty of fun little details for them to be getting on with. Or perhaps I'd simply fall back on a reasonable textbook for this sort of basic stuff such as Side by Side (which IIRC asked where people rather than objects were, with the answers including not just locations but also and at times instead the activities the people were likely engaged in: 'Where's Tom?' 'He's [in the front garden] washing the car', that sort of thing). Then, there are plenty of perfectly serviceable illustrations of the meaning of (English) prepositions, and indeed examples of the basic uses of 'where', in learner dictionaries etc, so why waste too much time teaching them in class, especially if the exemplars and general methodology are underthought and thus undercooked.
There are worse lessons out there than the two that Barker has endorsed, but (to return to the start of his article) surely part of the reason that he has 'very heated discussions' with people who feel that 'CLT is actually just an umbrella term for any kind of teaching where the goal is to improve the students' ability to communicate', and "thus" that 'under the "correct" definition...CLT actually embraces things like Grammar-Translation and the Audio-Lingual Method', is due to CLT not always leading the way sufficiently communicatively, and not exactly being averse to using questionable or throwback, "forgotten era" methodology itself. There is more to 'language learning' than just running through a limited range of rather decontextualized, somewhat too basic or stilted-sounding, and possibly quite inappropriate items or exchanges. The challenge rather lies in showing what works better (versus may not quite!) in the real world, and there is no use in shying away from that challenge. Real people are perfectly free to disengage from subpar conversations.
But then, one will never become a fan of CLT (or rather, authentic communication) until one actually tries to become an honest-to-goodness practitioner of it, that is, one who tries to live by at least a few of the potentially helpful watchwords (authentic, "etc"), and simply claiming that a classroom can never be that real is simply not good enough, nor particularly clever or insightful if improved understanding and ability in students (and teachers!) is the aim. The data and exemplars feeding into things should be real, at least at first, but much seems made up (invented, and potentially iffy) and with an air of unconvincing unreality about it right from the very start, which must surely affect processes of acquisition (scoff at them though Barker may in his quest for relentless top-notch "teaching" and "learning"). Less of the empty panto rhetoric and mere teacherese, if you please (unless it's for humorous effect LOL).
So, one can only club students over the head with the equivalent of rusty bent lead pipes so much until such behaviour becomes rather pointless, if not counterproductive. It really should be the teacher's job to try to make more fall into place than just fragmentary bits and pieces via more or less random (and often "purpose-invented") examples, and as there is the whole and wider language to take account of, and more importantly, to profitably gain inspiration from and exploit, what's the problem? There is everything to gain and little to lose. Unless of course one prefers to not bother and simply whip one's and the class's way through lashings of rather mindless "practice", that never quite coheres or gels that well with real-world discourse, functions etc. We should be trying to develop truly capable students, not just barely able ones with little real idea of appropriacy (etc). Grammar, "structure" etc shouldn't be abstracted away at all from real-world expectations and (counter)effects. These may be but two examples, but if you feed students "just enough" dull or blunt items, don't be surprised if their powers of expression end up lacking.
One of our New Year's teaching resolutions should thus be to not just teach whatever arises from off the top of our heads, but to stop and ask if it is in fact used and genuinely useful enough to be spending time on in preference to perfectly possible alternatives. All that's really required is a bit of thought each time. Shoo away the pseudo.
Anyway, here is the link to the whole article:
http://azargrammar.com/teacherTalk/blog/2011/04/why-i-am-not-a-fan-of-the-communicative-approach/ |
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fluffytwo
Joined: 24 Sep 2016
Posts: 139
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2017 3:09 am Post subject: |
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As 'Fresh Sawdust' I've posted a shorter and hopefully more succinct take on Barker's views via the comment(s LOL) below a related blogging of his. It'll be interesting to see if he responds.
http://azargrammar.com/teacherTalk/blog/2014/02/a-question-of-terminology/
Here's what I posted (with some slight corrections or additions):
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Hi David. You don't need an accepted definition of CLT to ask basic but still communicatively-informative questions about the language you're teaching or learning, and it's easy to show how asking such questions would help improve the (inauthentic) classroom practice that you've endorsed (especially in your earlier article), and incidentally debunk the strawman "No inauthentic questions!"-spouting CLTer that you've painted (that is, genuine CLTer objections may have more to do with possible alternatives than with having NO alternatives, but as you seem unwilling or unable to grasp the communicative mindset, you're consequently unable to posit what those alternatives might be, which is I think doing the reader, or at least the casual reader, to say nothing of any actually capable CLTers, a disservice).
For example, the paired questions of 'What's your name?' and 'How do you spell it?' ('How do you spell that?' (deixis 101?)) from that (French) lesson you took are a *possible* pairing (assuming the name presents any real spelling difficulties), but who is asking the question, and why? Brisk receptionists (too brisk?), perhaps, but for anyone else this will hardly be conversational gold dust, and there are in any case more straightforward, and yes, somewhat "non-communicative" ways to practice the alphabet (e.g. The Alphabet Song; lists of initialisms; spelling bees for tricky words; and possibly the NATO phonetic alphabet or similar), so why not teach the students how to e.g. start conversations (albeit with practice "strangers") in a more interesting and authentic way than engaging in apparent language banditry? Pseudo communication indeed!
It's a similar story with the (Japanese) lesson you took, although there it isn't so much the question (asking for the whereabouts of things, which is an understandable and necessary-enough need sometimes) or indeed the answer (the students were after all in on the act of "hiding" things beforehand, and prepositions or similar aren't that hard to learn in such basic senses in my experience) that's the problem, but rather the assumption being made in the general phrasing regarding the "knownness" of objects such as a ("the") pen etc. Back in the real world, people could be forgiven for asking 'Er, what pen?' in reply to 'Where is the pen?', but in the sort of "easy" lesson that you so love (easy for the teacher, but of no great help to the student) you decree that prepositions, not determiners nor any other form of identifying modification for the noun concerned, is to be today's focus, and are thus content with the imposition of rhetoric and pseudo-phrasing that needs a veritable pantomime to support it.
Unfortunately real English is more complex than that (e.g. even if we were to simply say 'Where's my pen?', it still might need further describing), so the least we could do is compile lists of nouns that actually support the definite reference (the remote control, the board eraser, the keys, possibly the only stapler in a small office, rack rack), and an ambitious lesson might consider the differences within a set of examples such as: (on the street) 'Is there a toilet around here?' (or possibly 'Where's the nearest toilet?' for more advanced students needing to get to grips with the aforementioned identifying modifications), cf. ?/*'Where's a toilet?', versus (in a restaurant) simply 'Where's the toilet?', versus (if you're a new guest in somebody's home) perhaps 'Can I use your toilet? (which solves both the whereabouts and a permission to use question in the one utterance). But even if we stick to just your focus on producing prepositions, the fact remains that improving the selection or suitability of the determiners vis-a-vis the nouns in question will at least aid passive understanding of that "unrelated" area.
I hope the above will help people appreciate and now give due consideration to factors of authenticity, complexity (though this is obviously consistent and systematic enough when taken as a whole rather than in too-select or patently invented, random-coverage parts), and real-world use, but if you and others would prefer (perhaps due to time constraints or whatever other excuses) to continue to confine your practice to pseudo communication, then so be it. All I can say to that however is that the more thought one gives to authenticity (and if necessary consulting authentic data etc), the easier it becomes to design more realistic, wide-ranging and thus effective practice. Don't knock it until you've actually tried it. |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2017 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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| All those words get in the way of communication. |
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fluffytwo
Joined: 24 Sep 2016
Posts: 139
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2017 5:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Please don't worry yourself Scot, as that nice Mr Barker has replied to me over on Azar's blog. Sorry for making you read all those words that were full of sounds and meanings yet communicating nothing. I will try less hard next time, I promise ! |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 11534
Location: On a Short Leash
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2017 6:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Gawd, anyone who wades through all this deserves a PhD! |
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fluffytwo
Joined: 24 Sep 2016
Posts: 139
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2017 6:11 pm Post subject: |
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| But they'll need a CELTADELTA too, let's not forget! |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2017 9:37 pm Post subject: |
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| I have learned to be wary of those with doctorates in Wafflology. Sorry for my cynicism. |
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fluffytwo
Joined: 24 Sep 2016
Posts: 139
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| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2017 11:18 pm Post subject: |
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I like a bit of cynicism, keeps people on their toes.
Anyway, I just think it's interesting how little ultimate difference there is (IMHO) between what Barker admits is, indeed champions as, less communicative practice, and the supposedly much more communicative practice that anyone who is a CELTAed+ fan of CLT employs (assuming of course that their objections to anything at all inauthentic leaves them with enough or anything to teach, which I doubt is the case at all. Most seem to settle for quite inauthentic).
So, I don't see much of a difference, at least not in the linguistic tastes and selections generally being made, nor in the general Peter and Jane-like tone of the "two" methodologies being used.
Probably the only time anything remotely authentic gets introduced in many classrooms is when a random newspaper blows in off the street, or the TV or a movie gets put on to take the strain. |
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fluffytwo
Joined: 24 Sep 2016
Posts: 139
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| Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2017 5:24 pm Post subject: |
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As my first reply to Barker has yet to appear on that blog (it's 'awaiting approval', perhaps due to being longer than average), I'll paste it in here in the meantime (and again, with corrections and slight additions). If you can find no reason to disagree with it other than you didn't want to really read it, please don't bother to comment.
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Hello again David (or should I say Dr Barker!), thanks for replying, especially so promptly!  I'd've replied quicker myself had I not had some non-ELTy tasks to complete. Sorry also for the parentheses, but I find they become a bit unavoidable when adding lots of little points, reformulations or asides here and there, and when time for rewriting and shortening things down isn't infinite.   Oh and I also like smileys a bit, as you can see.  Anyway, I'll try to make this post a bit more readable, and having your post to respond to helps!
Regarding who is and isn't a CLTer (or what is and isn't CLT), there are actually plenty of teachers (in fact I'd hazard that it's the majority, if internet discussions are anything to go by) who do and thus see nothing wrong with lessons pretty much like the ones you took, yet they('d) consider themselves Communicative teachers through and through, and often have at least a CELTA or similar to "prove" it. The bar is thus pretty low as to what constitutes "communication", so one man's (your) perceived absence of it is another's "generous dollop" (so you each see yourselves as helping[s], in your "different" ways). Either way, you both feel that what you each do is (in:)authentic enough for certainly just a classroom (mere practice, drills etc), and as we generally just call ourselves language teachers rather than communicative language teachers, the (big) C can in literal practice lie dormant, merely assumed and paid the scantest lip-service, most of the time...unless of course the "unfortunate" teacher gets a wannabe heretic or apostate observing or advising them against the orthodoxy of the day.
Anyway the reason for the above "confusing" state of affairs surely has something to do with how mere method- rather than approach-level thinking took over CLT (thanks, UCLES, BC etc), meaning that the revolution wasn't as thorough as some would like to believe (and for anyone who hasn't read it, Lewis' The Lexical Approach is pretty good on how founding principles were abandoned and often throwback methods "fallen back" on, simply for want of actually understanding or trying that much with the new. Thornbury also isn't bad, at least for tracing continuities than rocking the boat "too much").
Now I'm not saying that one needs to go dusting off old Widdowsons or Brumfit & Johnson or Wilkins or Hymes or whatever, as it should be obvious enough that one of the central aims of CLT was (and still is) to consider real-world factors and expand and/or amend the stock of linguistic items such that the user's (learner's) general if not specific communicative needs are being adequately met. From that quasi-definition it should furthermore be obvious that utterances like 'Where's the pen?', while "fine" in a sterile, overly-controlled and rhetoric-laced classroom, become adrift and indeed cannot but seem functionally inappropriate in the real world (unless one is e.g. witnessing an argument between someone looking for a pen that they know the other knows about, and presume has stolen, but since when did dramas like that ever get a real look-in in most classrooms).
To repeat what I said before, the definite article there is making an assumption that the noun concerned generally does not warrant, to which I'd add that there are in any case more polite and indirect ways of asking (versus pretty much brusquely demanding) where things might be: 'Do you know where...?', 'Have you seen...?', and so on (hence the function of Asking Where Things Might Be can be fulfilled by more than just the one exponent of 'Where's...'). You really need to address this issue of "linguistic stock" (and thus why some, dare I call them genuine CLTers again, might place little stock in your limited selections) to understand what the essence of CLT is (IMHO). Otherwise, and with all due respect, you will continue to seem more interested in abstractions and perhaps too-fine or artificial distinctions than in fully grasping the nettle of how to more substantially increase (real-world) communicative ability.
Personally, I take words like 'where', 'pen', 'book' and 'under' either as a given, or (if teaching absolute beginnners) will make the trickier of the items ("e.g." 'the') more amenable to learning and indeed acquisition (or is that a totally false dichotomy in your classroom world? Or, do you just leave the acquisition, the "real learning", to the real world? etc LOL). I certainly didn't find it too hard to learn such basic Japanese under my own steam, and recall getting eyeroll strain when the couple of JFL lessons that I had to sit through during my initial JET prefectural induction went through cr*pola like 'Kore wa pen desu (ka?)' ('Iie. Sore wa PPAP' ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W3sslyiUfg )). "Bonus": my sis once told me about her JFL learning experience (just the one or two lessons before she voted with her feet LOL) and it was exactly the same for her, right down to the pen example. I asked her if she could think of more compelling alternatives, but as she isn't a language teacher let alone a CLTer, her mind drew a blank. She was duly impressed with my (off-the-top-of-my-bonce) suggestion that one might be better looking through each other's photo albums and explaining or asking questions about the people, places etc pictured, but "it's hardly rocket science", is it!
Hope all that answers the questions you had in your second paragraph ('I have never met anyone who self-identified as a CLTer while adding “but not a particularly genuine or capable one.” That was the crux of my argument, really: I can’t say what a “genuine” CLTer is because I don’t know what “genuine” CLT is'), and to showing that I for one am not making claims to illustrious titles, but simply trying to point out what the linguistic facts and allied "behaviours" are "beyond" the classroom, as opposed to the easy fictions that are peddled within most of them (CLT banner or not hanging on their door). The "final" arbitrator or arbiter is thus the language itself, no matter how much one would prefer to simplify, escape from, or ignore it, and as I've often said in various discussions, 'It (the language itself) contains, provides, could well be, the very methodology, provided one looks closely enough at it'.
I am not by the way opposed to things like rote learning of vocabulary (best done at home though, just invest in a decent dictionary!), a certain amount of drilling, giving succinct instructions and explanations (in the students' L1 if possible, when teaching mononational rather than multinational classes I mean, as this helps prevent a "wall of sound" in which the actual L2 focus items can get lost) etc, so I'm not arguing for 100% real-time communication all the er time as there'd be quite a lot of silent downtime if we did that (even though, to misquote Debussy, "a good half of music is the spaces between the notes"), but the less authentic is ultimately no substitute for as much honest-to-goodness, as-near-authentic instantiation ("Be the examples") as possible. I'm always amazed at how many teachers plump for invented, artificial-sounding examples and arm's-length instruction when more authentic communication could be just within their and the students' grasp (were certainly the teacher to bother to make better selections). Why the divide between classroom and real world? It's not like most classrooms supercharge that much (other than money, from impressionable and potentially wishful if not lazy students). Point taken though that many supposedly "hardcore" CLTers may be drifting along not wanting to do anything too *rote* (I'd hesitate there to say inauthentic - for that, see next clause instead!), while at the same time not doing anything particularly communicative either, I suspect (but hey, I'm just repeating myself now)!
Tl:dr version of our posts might be that rote is rote (which is fine, assuming and PROVIDED THAT one is mastering actual facts and relative norms), but that inauthentic is indeed usually just plain inauthentic (or, the mental effort required to internally if not externally "authenticate" the "usage" may simply not be worth it - not that 'Where's the pen?' is in quite the same league as things like that silly 'Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo' LOL). Putting that another way, just as nobody would want to be learning words from a dictionary that had too many latent or possibly unattestable usages in it (though how likely is that nowadays given that most learner dictionaries draw upon corpus data), nor should anyone want to be trying to learn grammar from too many "purpose-invented" sentences (this is however unfortunately still happening in classrooms, despite all the reams of authentic data, revealing criticism of inauthentic methods, etc). It's counterproductive, doesn't help get the hills of beans into tins any quicker.
Just for a final laugh (and if you've got the time), can I ask what you make of the following two beauties (sources in brackets)? Do they strike you as fine and dandy, "approved" (approvable?), good (for) teaching? Granted they're a bit more complex than pens and books and names, but it doesn't seem as if the thinking behind the pedagogy presented has increased at all commensurably to cope with and indeed help reduce the extra demands that will be being placed upon any students unfortunate enough to have to sit and suffer through this "teaching through" the language (in the same way a bulldozer bulldozes snow aside, say).
> 'They'd started the meeting when she arrived' (Given only a "She was late" rather than any possible "No she wasn't!" reading via the CCQs [urghh] and "contrasting" 'They started the meeting when she arrived' in Gower et al's TP Handbook [Heinemann, 1996], but similar stuff is presented in e.g. Aiken's still in-print Teaching Tenses. I mean, it's not like the Past Perfect example could be describing the same event as the Simple Past one, just in somewhat "Rewound" or "Flashback" rather than straightforward "Play" mode, is it?! NB: Do NOT mention 'already' and 'by the time', or partial alternatives like 'without her'!)
> 'We ran downstairs to find our wonderful presents [which were] hidden under the tree' (Rolf Tynan masterclass on "reduced relative clauses", from the DVD accompanying Harmer's TPOELT. Whatever you do, don't mention COMMAS!!) |
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danshengou
Joined: 17 Feb 2016
Posts: 434
Location: A bizarre overcrowded hole
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| Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2017 10:03 am Post subject: |
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| spiral78 wrote: |
| Gawd, anyone who wades through all this deserves a PhD! |
And right you are  |
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OhBudPowellWhereArtThou
Joined: 02 Jun 2015
Posts: 1168
Location: Since 2003
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| Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2017 10:36 pm Post subject: |
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I will never understand why so many contemporary language teachers (including those who teach English to young e1 learners) oppose learning by rote. Every other discipline, whether it be physical (e.g., boxing, soccer, etc.) or art, mathematics, dance, or music, pretty much require repetition. In fact, the simple definition of learning is the acquisition of a behavior. The quickest way in which to learn anything is to repeat the behavior many times.
How many musicians (good, mediocre, or bad) will deny that repetition is a major component of musicianship? |
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A Token of My Extreme
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 76
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| Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2017 12:09 pm Post subject: |
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The gist of the post, from My Extreme’s perspective, seems to be that there is an audacious, hopeful extreme where both CLT theory and practice work well together. On the flip side, there is a null hypothesis extreme where CLT neither works in theory nor in practice.
There seems to be evidence of CLT working for some in theory but not in practice, while for others CLT works in practice but not in theory. A number of teachers think up lessons off the top of their heads which may be a sign that authentic communication could work when performed off the cuff.
Clairvoyantly speaking, My Extreme senses a willingness among some students to talk about psychiatrist approved, police approved, customs approved and department of education approved, etc., pictures. These pictures show the most probable communication scenarios in students’ lives—such as asking for an approval, filling in tax forms and attending a funeral.
My Extreme sees other seers seeing students interacting and communicating in an authentic manner when they are asked to comment on memorable quotations; for example, “I will never stop complaining.(Margaret Cho)”, “Hell is other people.(Jean Paul Sartre)” and “Write something, even if it’s just a suicide note.(Gore Vidal) ”.
Still, other teachers find their students desperately wanting to talk about authentic western culture and values, so they view and discuss some western cinematic masterpieces such as 10,000 Dollars for a Massacre, For a Few Dollars More and Kill Them All And Come Back Alone.
For some ESLers, CLT could prove to be a dead end without off the top of the head authentic communication. It also seems that off the cuff authentic communication may provide exciting new possibilities for the skilled ESL cowpunchers to knock ‘em dead and make a killing. |
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fluffytwo
Joined: 24 Sep 2016
Posts: 139
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| Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 1:34 am Post subject: |
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Might be better to pick up whatever discussion here instead:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=115577
Either way, I can't see the point in arguing for rote learning or whatever in the abstract while not addressing the (dys)functional effect of intoning and droning stuff like "Where's the pen?" with a straight face. Sure, it's a possible phrase, but is it really that widely used outside of Goodfellas-like nightclubs, for example?
A "skilled" teacher may be able to smooth over the functional cracks with crooning lullaby tones, but in the real world the student won't want to come off sounding like Robert De Niro after his money, and there may be Joe Pescis to contend with, right, RIGHT? |
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A Token of My Extreme
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 76
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| Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2017 5:30 pm Post subject: |
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| The extremely smart students may want to know how to ask “Where’s the pen?” as the pen can be mightier than the sword. |
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fluffytwo
Joined: 24 Sep 2016
Posts: 139
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| Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 3:37 am Post subject: |
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| I doubt Dr Barker's students ever get on to any idioms regarding pens or indeed swords as he's always too busy beating them over the head with a rickety old clapped-out shinai. |
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