Job Discussion Forums

[rj]

From a student perspective, I think the Hollywood version of a teacher is a bit off. I've had teachers who tried that route and it was a disaster. I may not like *insert subject* but at least teach me enough to pass the exams and make attending worth my time.

Of all the teachers I've had, several have been what I would consider very beneficial. They taught me what I needed to know for the course, but also managed to relate it to the real world. Rules and theories from textbooks are fine and good for exams, but when someone teaches you how to apply it to your life then you have really learned something.

Teaching me enough to pass the test will get me through the test, but I doubt I'll remember it beyond that. There are short-term benefits but long-term is lacking. Teaching me the wonders of critical thinking and reasoning may be great in the long-run, but if I flunk the exam then the short-term benefits are lacking. For the student to benefit most I'd say you need a bit of both.

[Ludwig]

'lilali', now that you have expressed yourself somewhat better, you have actually touched on a very important point, viz., triggering the interest of the students.

Chomsky ― a staunch supporter of the critical period hypothesis ― when referring for example to L2 instructional input in his 'Language and problems of knowledge: the Managua lectures' (Mass.: MIT Press, 1998) suggests (p.181) that "99 percent of teaching is making the students feel interested in the material. Then the other 1 percent has to do with your methods."

It should not be forgotten that, although Chomsky is generally regarded as "a paper-and-pencil theoretician" (I quote Pinker's popular science 'The language instinct'), he does in fact have direct experience of language teaching. To support his early studies, for example, Chomsky taught Hebrew in the afternoons, evenings and at Sunday school (see Barsky 'Noam Chomsky: a life of dissent', (Mass.: MIT Press, 1997)). His comments, then, may be viewed as not totally irrelevant.

However, if and when interest levels are raised there needs to be a teacher in place with the ability to carry the students through to the conclusion of a syllabus so as to make that initial spark of interest worthwhile.

[Ace]

Do you really have reachable, teachable students? Actually I'm leaving a dead-end college and just worked for a month at a real college where the kids were so great it took my breath away - and got me working hard again too...I guess I answered my own question...but seriously, don't you feel they only want to learn 'standard English' from us...the same way they're supposed to learn stardard Pinyin? (yes, China loves everybody to be the same...)

My grammar and spelling seems to be better than a lot of others on this site (and you're English teachers...?) but I've seen my students reach for a dictionary, in front of me, to check whether I was right ('breive' ...I spelled it 'brave' for her, and she's the editor of the school newspaper too, stuck up, smug little b***h).

I've had them try to argue with me over grammar too...one sentence, horrendously wrong, I try to suggest correcting a verb and they refer to an previous part of the sentence, equally egregious but more complex than my life would be worth to explain...they think they're following what their wise Chinese English teachers have taught them. Of course, for students like this I just shrug and move on...