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Dream_Seller · Joined: 01 Feb 2014 Posts: 78 Location: China

Repeat after the teacher (vocabulary) robotic-ally for about 10 minutes or who knows how long....

It seems students that are well meaning also want to get lost in some tangent about a pronunciation rule. As if by memorizing every single pronunciation rule they will get better at speaking English. It really seems like this is how Vietnamese students like to learn or are used't to learning.

Neither of the two methods are ones that I use to learn a language and I do not think they will be helpful to speak English. Nevertheless, I have been asked numerous times to do these things. I also feel I am doing students a disservice as maybe they do actually feel they learn this way. When I try to tell them to not focus on "rules" but instead focus on listening and watching English TV they get frustrated.

If I did this during any type of observed lesson, I would lose points as both have zero effectiveness in spending time on in class time. I'm sure these same issues apply to Korea, China and other Asian countries. And these questions are coming from students who are showing interest in learning. How do you handle these issues? I might also add, many of these students have never studied with a native speaker before. At places where students have, they rarely if at all ask to simply repeat after me.

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

Berlitz:-) It has worked for them for decades and decades and decades.....

There is also some myth among EFL students that you can 'reduce or eliminate' your accent. It's probably based on some pretty widespread advertising, and not actually based in feasible reality. Most NNSs are going to sound like NNSs their entire lives, and that's OK!!

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

So who knows most about how to learn ? Teacher or student ? can I suggest that most people have ideas about learning that are quite wrong ?

fluffyhamster · Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2015 4:01 pm Post subject:

Vietnamese students may do too much pronunciation practice, but 5 minutes say wouldn't be uncommon anywhere really. It ultimately depends on what a particular lesson is covering, and as most have new vocabulary items, connected pronunciation issues (e.g. contractions, intonation), and so on, I doubt you'd be criticized for paying attention to it if the content actually warranted it. Listening is of course very important but there are some things that students will need at least a little practice with in order to produce reasonably well - it can't always just be done in the ears and brain (or the results from such may not always be as good as one would hope or imagine).

Dream_Seller · Joined: 01 Feb 2014 Posts: 78 Location: China

I appreciate the responses. I can do the parrotting thing but what I have seen in Vietnamese classrooms is that it is quite monotonous. I sort of think that the student knows what is the best way. I don't have a lot of experience as a teacher and from what I gather those who responded have much more. So thanks.

fluffyhamster · Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 10:51 am Post subject:

If you're just repeating decontextualized words then you may need to provide a bit of minimal context, if only for variety's sake. For example, there isn't much point in students chanting sea, sea, sea if the context in a textbook is talking about 'the sea' generally. Or, if it is or "has to" be just 'sea' then surely it forms part of a compound (sea salt, sea levels, and so on). Same thing with 'see' - you could at least make it into an intoned question (See? (=Instruction-patter rhetoric, or perhaps in the sense of "So you were wrong!", and so on)), or Did you see...that new horror series on TV last night? Go > Don't go! Go to...the bank, the shops, school, work, etc.

One resource that may help is the Oxford Dictionary of Collocations:
http://www.ozdic.com/collocation-dictionary/sea

But if the word you're looking for isn't included (at least not as a starting-point entry) in that, you may want to consult a more general dictionary instead e.g. http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/ .

Lack · Joined: 10 Aug 2011 Posts: 252

It's the same way in China in many places. Very frustrating. I do this when I teach kids and get told by the parents that I'm a good teacher. I feel bad about this. But I know it isn't a good way to really learn a language.

I want to develop some program with which a motivated student could learn English more fluidly and naturally. But then if they can't do it with foreign teachers, would some program really help? And then I'm back to square one.

Languages have rules, but those are more or less well-made approximations of how that given language should work. And at least with English, it works except when it doesn't. Given that English doesn't really follow its own rules most of the time, how can one teach (kids especially) to speak well?

I wonder how language teaching and learning would be different if grammarians have never gotten together and imposed "rules" on language.

fluffyhamster · Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2015 11:45 pm Post subject:

I don't have much time for this "English is full of exceptions to arbitrary rules", but the thread isn't really about grammar anyway (though I'd agree that one can certainly learn to speak if not write without studying grammar much at all). I guess it's about how one develops an ear for the (regularities and rhythms of the) language, and from that fluency rather than just accuracy (not that the two are unrelated). I remember reading somewhere that the FSI said one of the best predictors of foreign-language ability was auditory memory, something like that. That is, if you can't hold enough of it long enough it your head to reproduce it reasonably well, you're going to have a tough time LOL. But students can record themselves and compare their efforts to model phrases in the privacy of their own homes nowadays.