Job Discussion Forums

johnslat · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 2:54 am Post subject:

Dear fliffyhamster,

Maybe the difference is you're writing about "trainees" whereas I'm writing about everyday, run-of-the-mill EFL/ESL students. But who are your trainees going to be teaching? Linguistic students? If so, that "two tenses" is fine.

When the "unreal conditionals" are spoken/written, the listener/reader automatically "translates" the meaning to the present:

If I had a million dollars . . .

(Ah, he doesn't have a million . . .)

Ergo, the "present unreal."

Regards,
John

fluffyhamster · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 5:14 am Post subject:

Actually I'd like to think this sort of stuff is ultimately for students too, John.

Now it may well be that a multiplicity of forms, tenses and meanings are perfectly manageable, but the impression I'm getting is that they are a handful for at least the teachers, and as currently "taught" take years rather than mere months to really get one's head around (although I honestly believe it could take just weeks if not days, given the right terminology).

As for your "automatic sense translation", if that were true for non-natives ("Just implant and turn on your UG, folks!") then we'd all be out of a job...but perhaps you just meant "Context, ~ , ~ ", or something like that...in which case, I'd refer you back to here: http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=899427#899427 ...that is, 'If I had a million dollars...per day I mean...I'd spend it in a flash, as that was nothing compared to what I usually received as a day's allowance from my trillionaire banskter father'. (See, context LOL. That would be simply a 'temporally remote' usage, with a 'whenever' meaning for a much weaker 'if'. EDIT: For those who might be wondering if this usage of 'if' is genuine, especially as one can search in vain for relevant entries and then examples in e.g. learner dictionaries, here's what the Chambers Essential English Grammar and Usage says: if ... REAL CONDITIONS 4 regular occurrences in the past ... If it rained we took the bus).

johnslat · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 11:56 am Post subject:

Dear fluffyhamster,

I think we're a pretty good example of different strokes for different folks (which would, I'd say, apply to our students as well.)

What you see as "simpler," I see as much more complex - and, I'm sure, vice versa.

Of course, the problem is - if you have students with both your type of mentality and mine in the same class, how the heck can you make "tense" understandable to both groups.

Of course, I think that my way is "more understandable" for ESL/EFL students, especially those at the lower/intermediate levels. But I'm pretty sure you believe the same.

Regards,
John

fluffyhamster · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 6:47 pm Post subject:

To be honest John, I haven't explicitly implemented much of this (remember that I was a mere AET in Japan for quite a number of years...though that did give me the luxury of lots of time to think and reflect), but I can well imagine some of the difficulties (at least initially) would be like you suggest. On the other hand however, I don't need to imagine the difficulties that current approaches certainly pose, because I've seen, read about, and answered them for real often enough!

johnslat · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 9:07 pm Post subject:

Dear fluffyhamster,

It'd be interesting to know if anyone has implemented it. For all I know, it could be a better, more productive way of teaching tense - though, I'd be very leery of trying it with lower level students.

Another problem that might occur: almost all the textbooks usually used in EFL/ESL classrooms call the tenses by the 12 different names - which some students might find confusing.

Regards,
John

fluffyhamster · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 6:51 pm Post subject:

You can find a few bits and bobs online if you Google stuff like 'elt textbooks incorporate lewis' remoteness'. Here are some links (in increasing order of length and complexity, and the first of which (by a guy named Alex Tilbury) is particularly interesting and puts across a lot of points that I wish I had made, but far better than I would ever have been able to!), and a copy-n-pasted discussion:

http://ihjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/journal/Issue_16.pdf (as printed numbers, pages 20-25 (22-27 of the actual pdf))
http://is.muni.cz/th/12904/ff_m/DiplomaThesis.txt
http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2510/01/1992corbett1phd.pdf

johnslat · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 7:16 pm Post subject:

Dear fluffyhamster,

Thanks - very interesting. I'm still not sure, though, whether the concept of "remoteness" would be any easier for many lower-level ESL/EFL students to grasp than the concepts of "unreal" (for 3 of the 4 conditionals) and "indirect/reported" speech.

But it bears thinking about.

Regards,
John