Job Discussion Forums

[RBJfaraway]

Hey folks. So, I am wrapping up my 120-hour in-class TEFL course as of tomorrow. I'm really excited because it's been 4 weeks of 10 hour days (at least) and sooo much hard work. It has basically consumed my life, and although it has been immensely beneficial, I can't help but gush about how happy I am that it is over. That being said, during my observed teaching practice with the ESL students at my school, I have been observed by two different instructors. These two instructors have diametrically opposing styles of teaching grammar.

The first is what has been described to us as the descriptive style of grammar teaching. This style of teaching eschews straightforward instruction of traditional grammar rules and structures. In other words when you teach a new tense, like the past perfect, you don't use the words "past perfect", you don't show them a timeline, and you don't go into great detail about how it is formed. Rather you create some kind of authentic context in which it is used and tell the students how to just put "had" into a sentence. In this manner you just use it and use it and use it until they get it. This instructor suggested that this was the modern way of teaching and it's not effective to teach the other way.

The other way is prescriptive, basically the opposite. Using grammar terms, conjugation charts. the word "conjugation", and teach them grammar structure in detail, then make them practice. This technique strikes me as old school, and boring, yet very effective. This is the way I learned my L2 (Spanish) and I find it easy and natural to teach this way. I found it infuriating that my evaluator trashed me for using the word "preposition" while teaching how to describe location with prepositions.

So my question is, on the continuum between these styles where do you fall? What do you find effective with Chinese learners. I want to teach in an academic setting with any age group above elementary, not a business english or "adults who take english classes after work" type setting. I would love to hear your opinions on, and experiences with these styles though.

P.S. Sorry this post is so long. I'm sure you know these terms, but I laid out my impressions of them so you could check me if I'm not using them correctly or if I'm missing the point. Thanks.

[Jeremiah]

Thank GOD I am just an Oral English facilitator.

99% of the people reading this forum are simply that. We were hired to get the kids talking. Nothing more or less.

I can picture it now, a zealot on a mission walking into a class of Chinese university students thinking they can "teach" English. Get off it.

Facilitator - Hi, my name is Bob. I will "teach" you how to SPEAK English. I will also try to impress you with my command of grammar.

Class - Hi. I already know how to move my mouth and our Chinese teachers told us that they will "teach" us grammar; why do you want to do that too?

F - Because I'm serious. If you are 1 minute late for class = minus 1 point, 5 minutes late = minus 5 points. This is a serious class. I will not tolerate sloth.

C - F you! When will I get a chance to talk? Will you lecture to us all day? Do you even care?

F - Yes, as long as they pay me!

Yunqi

[RBJfaraway]

[Jeremiah]

Easy. Come over and see how you wasted money on a CELTA.

I'm sure a CELTA would come in handy in more demanding nations, but, in my opinion, it is not necessary for China.

Therefore, I highly recommend www.onlinetefl.com for those interested in edutaining in China.

"i-to-i" all the way.

Nick - no need to reply; I have 3 rolls of toilet paper.

[xiaolongbaolaoxi]

I try very hard to not use explicit, set in stone, this is the rule type lessons, mainly due to the number of exceptions and not wanting to bore myself to death. However, many of my adult students were very comfortable and definitely wanted "This is the way it works all the time" type stuff.

The surest way for me to shut a class up was to start writing something related to conjugation, declension, etc. on the board. Will completely kill a class that is just beginning to talk.

Perhaps the best grammar lessons were the ones that happened to focus on it without telling them that we were focusing on a particular construction... a little more worried about saying/writing something than saying/writing only the correct thing. Second best was error correction... write a sentence with deliberate errors and get them to fix all of them. Alternatively, what are situations where you break the grammar rule... informal speech, it's a famous quote that many native English speakers would know ["Ain't no way no how"], it's a sarcastic way of saying it, etc. Third best, give a basic concept (buying fruit,) and get them to use the vocabulary with different (but random) constructions... simple past (they provide/act out an example,) past participle, modal (moody fruit?), etc. This tended to keep the grammar geeks happy while not beating the mere mortals over the head with dangling participles or flaying them with split infinitives or exhausting them with (wait for it) run-on sentences. If you are teaching students preparing for college entrance exams, they may appreciate this a lot; practicing and identifying various constructions that they are expected to know.

If you do explicit grammar lessons, get ready for "the Chinese teacher told us that it was supposed to be the other way." Yeah, the Chinese teacher who is incomprehensible on best of days. If you are going to use/present a particular rule, look it up on the net that day just to make sure that you have gotten it and the exceptions down pat.

Grammatically mine, I mean yours,

XLB

[RBJfaraway]

[Jeremiah]

This is why Dave's has become a cesspool. Negativity? Who?

Thu Aug 05, 2010 1:31 pm = Yunqi
Thu Aug 05, 2010 2:18 pm = RJB

I'm sure the blood was boiling during the time. 47 minutes to grow some?

Now, that was hostile/negative.

Where are AnthyP and Ilunga, even Roger, when you wish they were here?

For your information, I was adding to my "post" when you responded, therefore, since another person had contributed it seems as if I edited my original post. I was simply adding to it before you or anyone else had typed something.

Call it a CREATIVE/WRITERS mind.

Get off it. I guess your insecure, inquisitive nature surfaced. How should I "teach"? What the hell did you spend the money on a TEFL course for?

More negative/hostile opinions.

You shouldn't always read between the lines. What I typed had nothing to do with you. Why? Because I have no idea who you are, nor do I care. I was simply sharing my perceptions relating to your question.

Either way, what I typed is the truth that I have encountered. Your new job may be different. Hopefully you enjoy it.

Yunqi = Good Luck!

PS - It is around 3pm here. Early morning in the UK or USA. Go to sleep or better yet, get laid.

Positive Advice.

[RBJfaraway]

[xiaolongbaolaoxi]

... because there was a textbook and the adult students pretended to look at it before class, they at least had a clue that grammar and syntax was coming their way, and what form (as it were).

But, I really tried to stay away from starting off with a lot of grammar vocabulary... the whole affective filter thing. Once they got a whiff that grammar was the focus, it became a very zero-defect scenario, which as I am highly defective, was not what I wanted. If they ask, "Is this the umptysquat partimodiple?" fine, but otherwise stating "Today, you will experience death by gerund, only the strong will survive" is probably not a good way; they focus way too hard on getting it right as opposed to just conveying meaning.

They are most likely having explicit, repetitive, soul-sucking grammar lessons inflicted upon them in other classes. Let someone else play the evil witch. (I don't have it immediately near me, but I remember something like "Grammar Practice Activities" by Penny Ur was good for ideas, and I used a lot of them in conversation classes; "say what we know how to write, but saying it more naturally" was the pitch. If I knew that there would be a lot of repeated sounds, used tonguetwisters as well. As /v/ is very easily confused with /w/, tonguetwisters or listening drills using these phonemes helped... moving back and forth from examples/scenarios that would use will/would very/much/a lot helped to break up the monotony.)

As an aside, whatever you do, do not ever try to explain rules regarding semicolons. In that way lies madness.

Nominatively and accusatively,

XLB

[MisterButtkins]

I don't teach grammar in my classes unless kids are making the same mistake over and over again. Then I do a really simple, quick lesson to review that area, since as everybody has said, they've probably already seen the grammar in a class with a Chinese teacher.

[nickpellatt]

LOL at Jeremiah ... who may have forseen that I would pop into this thread!

RBJ faraway - congrats on finishing your course. But, I have to point out, I think both your course tutors are a lot closer in what they believe than you think.

Prescriptive grammar is following the hard rules that lay out English grammar, even though native speaker sometimes ignore or break these rules.

Descriptive grammar is different ... this is English as it is actually used and spoken, and may include non-standard usage, which frequently breaks the so called rules of grammar. An extreme example of this might be 'txt speak' or the type of language found on internet forums, newspaper headlines and in rap songs. All valid forms of communication, but things that often break prescribed rules.

It would appear to me that both your tutors seemed to use prescriptive techniques in their teaching styles, but presented it in different ways. One tutors illustrated the rules of construction clearly by labelling parts of speech on a board ... one tutor didnt write the parts of speech BUT instead modelled the speech frequently and perfectly in the hope that students would recognise the structures, and in time...copy them perfectly.

Both can be equally valid...they are just two ways of skinning the same cat IMO...but I feel the second is less likely to produce success in many contexts. Of course, as native speakers we dont learn grammar in the way of the first example...we have no need to! We learn through modelling which surrounds us from birth in every situation we encounter English in....and there are 10000s of those before we can even speak!

Students in China dont have that advantage...and for students in many Uni settings, even less. They may only see you for 50 minutes once a week...and regardless of how perfect your modelling of speech is...they are just so infrequently exposed to it, that really...that are unlikely to 'get it'.

Relying just on modelling speech gives us the often seen result of students making the same mistake time and time and time and time again. Correcting them doesnt alway work as it doesnt always get to the very root of the problem and they may not recognise the reason for their error. Sometimes, we do need to be able to break it down to parts of speech within simple clauses for them to be able to recognise their mistakes, and then self correct them.

It really does appear from your post that both tutors pretty use prescriptive grammar but present it in a different way.

As a teacher I think being able to identify issues with grammar, language awareness, L1 interference and using IPA to correct pronunciation issues are going to help make you a better teacher, and used correctly can help your students improve their English.

I dont agree that any of these skills arent needed in China...not everyone has said skills, but having them may well make you a better teacher, and as a result...help your students to get better results too! Teaching grammar isnt a teacher led activity BTW....its about teaching students to USE grammar...big difference.

You can teach grammar lessons and have the students talking and interacting just as much as another teacher who isnt teaching a grammar lesson. I have a couple of good grammar based tasks in my little book of standard lessons, and all involve the students talking for 80% of the time. There is no reason why you cant take some of the things you learnt on a CELTA course and successfully use them in China, especially in terms of communicative stuff.

I dont think Im the finished article as a teacher...far far from it (Im a bit lazy sometimes which may be part of the reason) but doing a Trinity course really made my 3rd job in China a heck of a lot better than my 1st and 2nd job...and at that time I only had an i-i cert. You can take as much as you want from your course and use it in China...true, most people dont, but that doesnt mean it isnt accepted, welcomed and successful here.

[Lobster]

Certainly I believe that teaching applied grammar is a useful and necessary part of language instruction. That being said, you also have to consider the target group when deciding whether or how much grammar instruction to employ. Younger students and beginners will benefit more from sentence pattern drills, while older and more advanced students can benefit from learning the grammar basics.

Many of them already are familiar with the concepts, but they won't know the English terminology. It also depends on whether you are employed as an English teacher or an "oral English facilitator". As NP noted, this really has little to do with the prescriptive/descriptive grammar argument, and more to do with course content. Unless someone asks you why English speakers respond with "It's me" instead of "It is I" when queried about who is at the door, you won't have this come up. More important is an understanding and correct use of grammar reduces misunderstandings and miscommunication.

I hear a lot of complaints about grammar teaching here. Most of it comes not from students, but from FTs who don't adequately understand the subject they're teaching or know how to make learning grammar an enjoyable and worthwhile experience. For example, using poetry as a vehicle to point out grammatical flexibility can be fun, as can analysing the crocodiles' speech patterns in the Pearls before Swine comic strip.

An evaluator who has a hissy fit because you used the term 'preposition' strikes me as a clown; considering that this is a particularly difficult aspect of correct usage. To me, instructors who respond with "We just say it that way" do not draw on their students� higher abilities and are being evasive and condescending. What I hear is "I don't know how to explain what an irregular verb is, so I'll pretend it's too complex or boring for your little mind to grasp."

I think that those FTs who have already mastered another language would agree that knowing the grammar of the second language helped them become more proficient and accurate in its use. Why should our students not benefit in the same way?

RED

[nickpellatt]