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Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

I think that on both sides of the argument, there are times when complete immersion is preferrable and time when a little L1 is needed. What we can probably all agree on is that it is not productive to work almost completely in Spanish, as a good many Mexican English teachers do at elementary and secondary levels.

Justin Trullinger · Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 5:50 pm Post subject:

It's worth mentioning that we're in a very individualized field, with no "always true" answers. I agree with Gregor that none of the situations I mentioned are hopeless to a monolingual teacher. And I've taught some multilingual groups, where I obviously didn't speak everybody's L1.

Spanish, to me, is a valuable classroom tool, although I believe in limiting its use. It goes without saying that I speak it rather well, and wouldn't find it as useful if I didn't.

I have valued colleagues who speak relatively little Spanish, and none in the classroom. Or even one who, do to a specific student problem, denies all knowledge of the language. (She's actually rather fluent. Shhh.) And it works for them.

Different strokes for different folks.

Regards,
Justin

Gregor · Joined: 06 Jan 2005 Posts: 842 Location: Jakarta, Indonesia

Justin Trullinger · Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2005 5:46 pm Post subject:

Translators in class?! Good heavens, I've seen schools in Latin America that don't even provide board markers. An actual human being who has to be in class all the time for these people to be understood?! Are you yanking my chain?

I understand where you're coming from. And I have teachers who agree with you...and to paraphrase your words, they do their jobs well, so that's jake with me.

I can think of cases where the students L1 presents classroom advantages for me, so I use it in those cases. Period. But I wouldn't say it's 100% necessary, and in all cases it should be fairly minimal.

Any competent teacher doesn't NEED to speak the L1 to be understood. We all have our own ways to get the point across. Sometimes it helps, but needing a translator to give instructions? Good God! Haven't these people heard of demonstrations? Or of anything at all?

Regards,
Justin

Perpetual Traveller · Joined: 29 Aug 2005 Posts: 651 Location: In the Kak, Japan

Gregor · Joined: 06 Jan 2005 Posts: 842 Location: Jakarta, Indonesia

Justin, I am NOT kidding you. They're called TAs, but they are there only to translate. In some cases, they translate almost every word the teacher says.
It's a Chinese thing. They study English at school. That's their "real" English class. The teaching method is rote memorization, though, and VERY little speaking. The ESL here in most cases is just abysmal.
There are exceptions. In my school, we have ONLY foreigners and ONLY English in class. In fact, the arents have occasionally complained if a teachwer uses any Chinese. And rightly so. They know better (I'm the DoS, so it very much is my decision, but the parents back me up).
The only time I've used Chinese is when it's a VERY advanced class and we'd compare the languages. I use it in advanced groups exactly because they very clearly don't need it. It won't interfere with what I'm trying to teach them.

But, yeah, actual translators in classes. This is one reason why I'm leaving China - I'm tired of fighting the mindset and culture. I'd have left already but I was waiting for my wife to get her Green Card. Ultimately we're going to try to return to Mexico.