Job Discussion Forums

[valley_girl]

I know that this debate has raged on and will continue to rage on among the ESL community for some time, but here goes...

Do you teach informal language in your classes? Do your students learn idioms, slang expressions, reductions, etc.? How much importance should we place on the informal - but much used - versions of our language?

I'll give an example. If you have taught your students about countable and uncountable nouns, then they know that coffee is uncountable but a cup of coffee is countable. Furthermore, suppose you have taught your students that grab means 'to take quickly'.

Then imagine that a student walks out of your class and a native speaker asks him or her, "Hey, would you like to go grab a coffee?"

Since most of my classes at the moment revolve around speaking and listening skills, I have found it impossible to get around informal language in the classroom. Moreover, I find that when I teach both formal and informal language - with the constant reminder of when to use which: "Never on a formal essay." (insert finger wag) - that the students speak much more like native speakers and appear to be more fluent.

Comments welcomed.

[Stephen Jones]

What is meant by informal and formal language is often a badly formulated set of rules put into a text book by somebody who barely understands them anyway.

There is nothing informal about using 'a coffee' meaning 'a cup of coffee'. The usage is so common that textbooks that teach you should use 'a cup of coffee' or 'a glass of beer' are causing considerable confusion, both among students and teachers.

Now 'grab' in the sense of 'something quickly' is an informal usage, though very common. Whether you should teach it or not depends on the level of vocabulary the students already have and the importance of their understanding normal conversational English. If you don't feel that being able to understand fairly straightforward everyday conversation is a prority for these students , then leave it out, though I would nearly always teach anything that comes up spontaneously for recognition purposes at least.

[ChicagoCubMike]

If you don't teach your students colloquial English, they'll never improve their oral/aural comprehension. Real people don't speak like they do in language textbooks, in any language. I know some teachers feel that brining in colloquial speech muddies the so-called proper learning of language fundamentals. But I've yet to meet a teacher who doesn't use the same informal speech that some TEFLers eschew in class. Just because it's "street-English" doesn't mean it should be learned in the streets. Precisely because of what it is: everyday, informal English is what they'll use most of the time long after they leave our classrooms.

In other words, if you say it yourself, teach it to your students. Just make sure the administration isn't around the day you cover cursing

[deezy]

I agree with CCB... if we listen to ourselves we naturally talk in idioms, metaphors, etc. plus collocations of course. We often don't realise we're doing it, it's so natural to us. What does "you've got a long face" mean? What does "it made my blood boil" mean? Howya goin'? "Wicked" (meaning terrific)? I could go on...there is a huge richness in the English language which students miss out on if you don't teach them.

I don't suggest you teach "Up the apples" or "Going for a ruby" unless they want Thamespeak though.

[denise]

I teach informal language. Not, uh, formally, but when new phrases/grammar structures arise, I like to point out the textbook form vs. the spoken/casual form, just so that students are aware of the differences. I see no point in limiting students to what they get in textbooks, because doing so would leave them unable to comprehend most of what goes on around them.

d

[lagerlout2006]

The problem with slang and idioms is students sound ridiculpus trying to use them most of of the time. For a friend of mine there is no such thing as simply rain---it's always "rain cat and dog." Nobody uses this expression (or rarely) and it's wrong anyway unless it really is raining like hell.

Students are better off sounding like a textbook I think...

[dyak]

I think the other problem with slang and idiomatic language is that native speakers use them to express their own personality; we don't all use the same idioms. So if it doesn't really fit the personality of the student then they are going to sound silly. When it does and they have convincing intonation, it can really work... though come to think of it they can all use f*** pretty well from day one...

[denise]

I agree with lagerlout that students sometimes sound ridiculous. They need to know when it's appropriate to use slang, and, in the case of some of my dear students, swear words.

There's also a difference between understanding and using informal language. I want my students to understand it, since they will theoretically be going to US colleges and interacting with the students, listening to music and movies, etc. I give my listening classes an eavesdropping assignment where every week they have to take notes on a conversation that they overhear in English. They hear all sorts of informal expressions, slang, swearing, reductions, etc.

I am less worried about teaching the students to use these expressions, but if they ask (which some of them frequently do, since they interact with American college students here), I will happily tell them.

d

[Roger]

Yes, students do sometimes sound ridiculous when they use those idiomatic expressions and nonstandard phrases.
I think the reason is they don't know alternatives to them. They treat them as their everyday English, all-size-fits phrases.
And that's not their fault.
The fault is that some of us seem to think teaching means we must tell them what they must memorise, then reproduce. We are thus making choices on behalf of our learners, and that's a dubious thing.
When you start learning a language you have no choices. You learn and internalise your tutors' language.

And, for our students of English the same should obtain: they should stumble across such variants of English rather than be pushed to them.

They should first of all know how to find out that a given phrase is a colloquialism rather than depend on some authority to inform them.
They must develop a discerning mind on matters of English.
This doesn't seem to happen, particularly in oral classes.

[valley_girl]