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[moonraven]

How much first language interference is okay in the classroom?

[cybercutie]

Good question, moonraven. I wonder that myself.

[ls650]

[moonraven]

Yep. All those.

[Guy Courchesne]

Hey a teaching thread!

Both in our TEFL program practice modules and in ESL classes, I think Spanish in the classroom has a place in the lesson, depending on stage and the activity.

I believe that straight translation should be a last resort when working on new vocabulary. A good class plan shouldn't be introducing vocabulary so far beyond the students that translation is required, though it happens.

At times, language pattern analysis may be needed, I think, at beginner levels or very high levels. By analysis, I usually mean grammar or specific writing styles. Sometimes it can be a benefit to explain in L1, outside of teaching, in order to have the students find a grammar pattern, or to work around style concepts such as the weight that a certain expression may carry in a busniess letter context, for example.

In pair and groupwork, sometimes task instructions can be given in Spanish, particularly if the instructions themselves are well above the students levels.

I find it common that lower-level students ask higher level students in a whispered voice what the meaning or translation of a word is (que dijo la maestra?). I see that as helping to even out a mixed level class.

Also in pair and groupwork, I think it common that the students negotiate the end language product in L1 before returning to the class and teacher in English. I think if the activity didn't specifically focus on English used to negotiate the end product, then I would let it go. If the activity specifically called for both English in negotiation (Q&A, asking permission, and similar functions) and an end product in English, then it is important to restrict L1 use at this stage.

I've watched non-native EFL teachers use nothing but Spanish when teaching beginning groups...pure translation and analytical work. It seems to bring beginner students up to a communicative level quicker than immersion, when talking about adult learners.

[Tamara]

[MixtecaMike]

Enforcing a Second Language Only policy in a classroom is a terrible thing, it basically says your language is bad, our language (in this case, English) is good.

Punishing kids for speaking their native language at school went out in the 1950's in most parts of the world (hopefully), so why do ESL teachers try to enforce it now? To cover up their own inablity to communicate effectively with students. i.e. You can't understand me so I'm damned if I'll let you communicate with your peers.

Thinking back to my numerous language classes at elementary, secondary, university and even private language schools in Oz and NZ I am certain I NEVER had a teacher that refused to speak English at all.

I doubt many English speakers who study another language have either. (Please note I said MANY, not ANY)

In all seriousness, "English Only" is just pure imperialism, at its worst.

(Excuse the rave, it's just that this subject is very dear to my heart)

[Guy Courchesne]

Some of our teachers have taken Spanish classes in Mexico where they were in a total immersion environment. I've heard of this for French class as well, in Montreal. It makes a very big difference if you study the language in a country where that same language is dominant.

Mike, you hit the $10 question...effective communication. There is a language between English and Spanish that we can all access...the language we think in naturally, which is image, feeling, sensation, that which doesn't need words and that all humans as animals share.

Even a beginner class can be shown the word 'mother' without translation by using universal images of a baby held by a female figure.

Moonraven, I'd like to hear your answer on this. Didn't I read in another thread that you haven't done straight EFL work, instead working in various levels of primary and secondary education, as well as post-secondary? I try to bring our previosly mentioned Socratic approach into my ESL classes, even at basic levels, Curious if this was in your thinking...and how that works for you in this context.

[moonraven]

Thanks for asking, Guy. I asked the question that started this thread because I feel that although it's a simple question, the subject is very complex.

The only environment in which I have taught and trained teachers where no Spanish was permitted after the first 20 minutes of the first class of Basic English I was that of Harmon Hall. The party line there was very firm: NO SPANISH--and there were signs in every classroom reminding the students of the rule (along with NO FOOD and NO SMOKING). As director, teacher and academic coordinator, I obviously enforced that rule and trained other teachers to do so as well.

Because HH advertises its policy and students pay money to have that policy applied to them, I really didn't see it as blatant imperialism--or at least no more blatant than the policy of the Mexican government to insist on "English for Everybody". (Need I say that I am fairly sensitive to cultural and other types of imperialism?)

I have to say that in the HH environment, the No Spanish policy worked--or at least the TOEFL scores and number of Univ. of Michigan certificates in the school that I directed indicated that it did no harm to the students' learning.

In HH students volitionally accept the policy of No Spanish--as opposed to other environments in which I have taught here where many teachers struggled to IMPOSE the rule of No Spanish on students when it was not part of the playing rules from the beginning. I have never attempted to impose the rule, but I have not prohibited teachers who worked under my supervision in other than the HH environment to struggle with the process of imposition either. Perhaps they learned about the complexity of the learning process by doing so.

I have found, in non-HH classes, that a certain tolerance of use of the first language frequently provides just the safety net (maybe illusory) that many students feel that they need in order to relax and open themselves to learning. Since motivation is the key factor in learning, I am particularly interested in supporting what motivates students to learn.

That said, I always tell students that over-reliance on their first language creates obstacles to their learning to feel confident in another language.

When I am teaching the English language--or teaching IN the English language (as opposed to when I am giving courses in Spanish) I do NOT present vocabulary by translating it into Spanish. I use visuals, stories, realia, student victims--er volunteers, etc.

I also allow students to use Spanish when they are preparing activities to present to the rest of the class--if they NEED to do that. Most work in my classroom--regardless of what subject I am teaching--is done in groups or teams, and I am as interested in building teamwork skills--or almost--than in language learning. However, students do NOT use Spanish when they are presenting--whether individually or in groups. On the very few occasions when students lapsed into Spanish--probably because of nervousness in front of the group--their classmates have ALWAYS immediately said: "In English!"

Probably there is a balance point--a perfect equilibrium moment--when students feel sufficiently attached to their first language not to feel threatened by the process of learning another. One of our taks as teachers, in my opinion, should be helping students find that point. It is another element in the art of teaching.

[Guy Courchesne]

Excellent points...I think we have a lot in common in our approaches to teaching/coaching in EFL classes.

I was hoping to hear more from you on the Socratic approach. I know it is best applied in perception and conceptual circles on general topics. It's difficult to work with in low-level EFL classes, but has been a great tool for me in training teachers in a TEFL program.

I start my TEFL course by discussing student motivations in language acquisition, using Mexico as an example. After that, we get into student objectives in learning and real world usage, with the aim of bringing a student-centered approach to lesson design and program delivery. After that, I strongly depart from typical TEFL course routines to work on perceptual/conceptual language presentation techniques, with strong emphasis on the teacher examining the role that culture and experinece play in how we communicate ideas to each other. The idea is to make the TEFL student aware of the reductions or deconstructions possible in negotiation of meaning or new language structure/function during elicitation (CCQ's for you CELTA types), presentation, and feedback routines.

After we mentioned the Socratic approach in a thread some weeks back, I realized it helped define what I had come to in my TEFL course teaching style without formally calling it such. Some TEFL students have struggled greatly with this concept, so I've been refining my presentation technique into a visual graph in the shape of a pyramid. Basic, high-frequency concepts, grammar construction, vocabulary, and appropriacy models fit nicely into the bottom levels of the pyramid, upon which we build more specific and less-frequently used structures and concepts. I found that the way I was describing movement up and dow the pyramid, and the way I lead the TEFL students to its understanding was basic Socratic reductionism.

Love your thoughts/experiences on this model. When I apply it to EFL classes, I have to change it slightly as the goal is language production, rather than teaching technique. I found that at the base of the pyramid there is a strong communicative function level that depends not on language but on internal agreements/concepts that I believe are shared by most of us as humans. A lot of this is old hat to any linguist, but it's the movement downward to this functional level that I'm interested in as far as how we access it as teachers. This is where realia and pictures come in, yes, but beyond that, it makes me think that L1 use isn't necessary at all in a class. We could be focussing more on LΘ, where Θ represents the language functions common to us all.

[moonraven]

Guy,

Sorry, but I didn't feel that the Socratic approach was central to the question of this thread.

I use it in the EFL classroom, but far less than when I teach other subjects in English or in Spanish. When I am teaching the English language--especially at the lower levels--I tend to use an approach very similar to that used by Freire in literacy programs.

[Guy Courchesne]

I am not familiar with Freire, so, you have given me some homework...

I'll pick your brain later on Socrates. I think you and I are the only two who would even consider it valid.

[moonraven]

They have most of the Paulo Freire books at that bookstore just west of the Gandhi that's across from Bellas Artes. I think it's called Porruya--or something like that. Or you can get them at the main Gandhi--which is off my beaten path.

The Socratic method of asking questions is absolutely key if you are trying to develop critical thinking abilities in students. Here in Mexico, students have been conditioned not to ask questions and have not been given questions to respond to. They love the attention and respect that comes from someone asking what they think. Especially slower students--most of whom more or less gave up on participating right from the get-go of primary school.

When my incoming university students wrote their evaluations of a Learning course I developed and gave in Spanish last summer, several of them mentioned that the questioning process was extremely useful in their getting to know their classmates and THEMSELVES--at 18 they indicated that they really didn't know themselves at all well, and that the process helped them to do so.

[Guy Courchesne]

Nice application in learning the self and others...I have had very few really creative students in my EFL classes. I think you may be right about Mexican primary and secondary education. I note what you say particularly in mathematics, as does the UN in international testing.

I ran an intermediate EFL class once with racism as a debate/discussion topic. After getting lots of student output on racism examples of the US black/white issues, and a little on similar color lines in Mexico, I turned the tables on the students and asked if racism ever worked against what the class perceived as a typical white American male or female. I got some interesting opinions from the students, things such as Americans are good looking...eliciting further, I was told that all Americans are good looking. Students were a little shocked when I offered my opinion as saying this is a form of racism, just for effect, but we got a lot of interesting communicative language work done in the exchange.

[moonraven]

Four years ago I did a project on Prejudice with 9th graders. This was ESL, so we spent a month or so on the project. We saw some films, and they made some pretty good videos. They also wrote and presented plays, and one group of boys did an improvisation (with costumes but no script) of the EZLN in the Congress--about a week before the EZLN spoke to the Congress. Since they saw prejudice as the root of the "Chiapas Conflict", they also had a formal debate about the solution to the problem.

There were two groups of 9th graders. One group was able to come to a resultion in the debate. One group wasn't.

One girl asked: "Hey, we solved the problem. Why hasn't the Mexican government?"

A boy answered: "Because they don't want to."