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gaijinalways
Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 2279
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 Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 2:22 pm Post subject: Teaching a language without knowing it |
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Hmm, you know I get criticized for not speaking great Japanese while living in Japan while being married to a Japanese  . but I teach in what is supposed to be a primarily English environment and my wife's English level was much better than my Japanese level when I arrived. I have been making efforts to better my Japanese, though at times I feel annoyed with those who think because they have a language skill they should lord it over the rest of us who are more linguistically challenged.
But enough about my 'embarassing' details, what about my Japanese collegues who teach English entirely in Japanese? Now of course, if they were teaching literature, perhaps it might be defensible, but regular English classes 90-95% in Japanese?! Interestingly, with one Japanese colleague I had whose English level was quite good, he taught an English 'grammar' class in Japanese because he said 'it's not a language class'! Since when is grammar not identified with language  ?
I'm sure most of us have met them, English teachers who don't speak a lick of English. I know for my own sake knowing Japanese helps with some translation that I do as well as recognizing cross-transferance errors (and just helping in general life  ), but how can you teach what you don't know?!
Okay rant over, back to Golden week vacation=translation, 4 days off |
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moot point
Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Posts: 441
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| Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 2:35 pm Post subject: |
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| I personally think it is beneficial to know the L1 language, especially when teaching a homogenous group. It will not only save you time but you could quickly remind them of grammar points they learnt in their L1 by speaking their language. They relate to that and will allow you to quickly progress to the task at hand by quoting your current fellow colleagues who can't/won't speak English while teaching a grammar course. |
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guangho
Joined: 16 Oct 2004
Posts: 476
Location: in transit
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| Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 2:47 pm Post subject: |
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This is not about learning the L1, which is something teachers should try to do if they will live in a place for an extended period. I was always amazed by foreign teachers in Korea who had been there 10+ years and whose total Korean was "Annyong haseyo."
But this is about English teachers who do not speak English. In no other field would this be acceptable- i.e. I would not dream of opening my own chiropractor clinic or auto repair shop because I know nothing about either. Nor would I try to become the head of NASA or run an organic vegetable farm for the same reasons. Barbershops, accountancy firms and Moroccan restaurants are also out.
However where EFL is concerned, it is considered perfectly okay-nay, even prestigious- to run a language school or teach in a public school as an English teacher without speaking a lick of English. In Korea I met many public school English teachers who could not speak English to save their lives. They treated it as a 9-5 gig to stave off boredom, not as a profession. Most were young women, miffed that they have not yet gotten married for the sole, yet seemingly romantic purpose of being able to stay at home and buy shoes online. |
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moot point
Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Posts: 441
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| Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 3:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| This is not about learning the L1 |
Is it? gaiginalways please clarify.
guangho, if your Korean colleagues are just spending time with no knowledge of their profession than that is indeed a disgrace. However, at least here in Japan, the English teachers here in Japan from the middle school level and on through graduate level most definitely have had years of education in the workings of English. Sure, some (many?) don't speak it very well but they certainly know the dificulties of learning English for their fellow-countrymen than we know, as they've experienced it themselves.
On a tangent, I had a few beers with my fellow local English teacher a little while back. When I asked him about why he wanted to become an English teacher (here in Japan), he said he wanted to change the whole stereotype about the typical English teacher here. That is, the guy in the pin-striped suit who is usually from an upper-class family. I'm curious, but is this stereotype also typical of the Korean English teacher? |
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Henry_Cowell
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley
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| Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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| guangho wrote: |
| But this is about English teachers who do not speak English. In no other field would this be acceptable.... |
And don't forget the American junior high school and high school German teachers who don't speak very much German. Or Spanish. Or French. Unfortunately, this is still a common occurrence in foreign-language teaching throughout the world when there are insufficient numbers of native speakers to teach the L2. |
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thrifty
Joined: 25 Apr 2006
Posts: 1665
Location: chip van
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| Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 8:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Because the four weekers have such a great success rate around the world.. Non-native teachers versus TEFLers! |
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Perpetual Traveller
Joined: 29 Aug 2005
Posts: 651
Location: In the Kak, Japan
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| Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 9:08 am Post subject: |
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| Henry_Cowell wrote: |
| And don't forget the American junior high school and high school German teachers who don't speak very much German. Or Spanish. Or French. Unfortunately, this is still a common occurrence in foreign-language teaching throughout the world when there are insufficient numbers of native speakers to teach the L2. |
What I can't understand is where the opposite is true, such as in Germany. There are plenty of Native English/French speakers willing to work there and yet they prefer to employ Germans as English/French teachers with the end result that the students learn some pretty archaic words and at times, incorrect sentence structure.
PT |
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Henry_Cowell
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley
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| Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 6:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Perpetual Traveller wrote: |
| What I can't understand is where the opposite is true, such as in Germany. There are plenty of Native English/French speakers willing to work there and yet they prefer to employ Germans as English/French teachers with the end result that the students learn some pretty archaic words and at times, incorrect sentence structure. |
This helps to preserve German identity.  |
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Justin Trullinger
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 3110
Location: Seoul, South Korea and Myanmar for a bit
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| Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 6:10 pm Post subject: |
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Lot of obstacles to putting proficient speakers into many teaching scenarios. Unfortunate, but true.
I know a guy in Wisconsin who teaches high school Spanish on the strength of having done two semesters of Spanish in college, something like ten years ago. Doesn't speak, and his pronunciation is appalling, but they couldn't find anyone else. (It's a small school, so he also teaches social studies and coaches football.) And I know plenty of fluent Spanish speakers here who are qualified teachers and would LOVE to spend a year in Wisconsin...
But try to get their qualifications recognised. Now try to get them the visa. Now understand that if they have the kind of qualifications that the US will recognise, and are well off enough to receive a visa to the US, then they're already making way more money than they would in Wisconsin...
See what I mean? Frequently in Quito, I meet US Spanish teachers who come down here to brush up- some are pretty good. Some are terrible. It just depends...
Justin |
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sonya
Joined: 25 Feb 2006
Posts: 51
Location: california
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| Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 9:57 pm Post subject: Re: Teaching a language without knowing it |
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| gaijinalways wrote: |
what about my Japanese collegues who teach English entirely in Japanese? Now of course, if they were teaching literature, perhaps it might be defensible, but regular English classes 90-95% in Japanese?! Interestingly, with one Japanese colleague I had whose English level was quite good, he taught an English 'grammar' class in Japanese because he said 'it's not a language class'! Since when is grammar not identified with language :roll: ?
I'm sure most of us have met them, English teachers who don't speak a lick of English. ... but how can you teach what you don't know?!
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I'm not trying to defend flang teachers who don't actually speak the language (which is lame), but this teaching grammar in the other language makes sense. take your colleague for example, he apparently speaks more than a lick of English, and so he obviously knows English. You might argue that he *knows* (in the understands the inner-workings sense) English better than most native speakers do, who just sort of open their mouths and let the words fall out without knowing why they fall out the way they do.
So why does he teach mostly in Japanese? When the language is so completely different from the L1, like English and Japanese, there's no way you can explain the grammar to the students in the target language. They just won't comprehend the concepts and nuances of what you're explaining, at least not until their level is much higher. It seems like you have to explain this in their native language. In the states, classes like French and Spanish are entirely taught in French and Spanish because, well, these languages are pretty similar to English. The Asian languages, however, are mostly taught in English until the students have a grasp of how the language works and can begin to understand what you're saying in that language. Otherwise, it's wasting time to explain things like measure words or derivative as well as inflectional suffixes in Japanese or Chinese to them, they have no idea.
And perhaps the difference is more like the difference between a grammar class, which is getting to know the nuts and bolts of the language, which the Japanese teachers teach; and a more conversation/speaking, putting what you learned in grammar to use class, which the foreigners teach. |
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Justin Trullinger
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 3110
Location: Seoul, South Korea and Myanmar for a bit
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| Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 11:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| In the states, classes like French and Spanish are entirely taught in French and Spanish |
No, they aren't. At least not always. I'm not taking a stand on whether they should be, but I have a family member taking a college Spanish course in the states right now, and some of the instruction is in English.
| Quote: |
| there's no way you can explain the grammar to the students in the target language. |
Erm, why not? Just because the languages are very different? According to this view, there would be no way to teach grammar to multilingual groups-and a lot of us, at least occasionally, deal with multilingual groups. If you teach in the US, the UK, or Canada, for example, you're unlikely to be able to explain the grammar in Spanish, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Arabic, Korean, Serbian, Armenian, and Hmong. But all of these L1s may be present in the same classroom. So to teach grammar, explaining it in the target language is the only option. If this were impossible, the whole field of ESL in those countries would be impossible. It is not.
I'm not one of those "English Only!" in the classroom advocates. I believe that, where possible, some use of students L1 in the classroom can be beneficial. But the idea of a need to give long grammar explanations in the L1 strikes me as narrow. There are many ways to get grammar across, and many that don't require use of the students first language.
That said, a class that's taught 95% in Japanese strikes me as being 100% theoretical- no practical use. If they want to write long papers, in their own language, about the grammar of English, it may help. But I honestly don't know of anything, other than speaking English, that improves your English.
| Quote: |
let the words fall out without knowing why they fall out the way they do.
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This is the way most people speak their native language. But teachers of a language, native or otherwise, should have a more developed sense of the workings of it. Those who are unwilling or unable to cultivate this knowledge are not teachers. If I wanted to teach Spanish, a language I speak well, I would still have to review a lot of the grammar that I learned so many years ago. Part of learning a language well is through practice, to sublimate the rules to the point that they don't have to be consciously considered. But part of teaching a language is to have a conscious awareness of them.
best,
Justin |
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Henry_Cowell
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley
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| Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 11:35 pm Post subject: Re: Teaching a language without knowing it |
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| sonya wrote: |
| ... there's no way you can explain the grammar to the students in the target language. |
This is a common misperception among instructors who have taught only in an EFL environment.
In ESL classes, you don't have the luxury of having students with the same L1, so you must explain in English. The textbooks also explain entirely in English. It's not that difficult, even at the most elementary levels. You don't need to explain every "nuance." |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 12:07 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| So why does he teach mostly in Japanese? When the language is so completely different from the L1, like English and Japanese, there's no way you can explain the grammar to the students in the target language. They just won't comprehend the concepts and nuances of what you're explaining, at least not until their level is much higher. It seems like you have to explain this in their native language. |
Well, I don't know about explaining the grammar in the L2 but I think that all of us have learned the nuances of English without having someone explain them to us in another language. So there is no reason that one cannot learn a foreign language only in the L2. Furthermore it is not only in Canada, the United States, and England that people learn. If a German, French, Swedish person goes to Japan to study Japanese they probably won't get an explaination in their native language. |
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sonya
Joined: 25 Feb 2006
Posts: 51
Location: california
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| Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 4:25 am Post subject: |
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Perhaps not in their native language, but a lingua france would be handy.
Some people pmed me for my reason behind saying this, so here is an anecdote.
I spent a summer at Helsinki University studying Finnish. My class was pretty cosmopolitan.. a dane, several anglophones, germans, a brazilian, two japanese, a russian, etc. The text book was in Finnish, and the teacher spoke entirely in Finnish for the first week.
Barely anything sunk in that first week. We got the idea that there were greetings.. that "min� olen amerikalainen" meant "I'm an American" or maybe "I'm from America", but in general we only got the gist of things. What's the difference between illative and allative? why could the words move around? what does it mean?? We didn't really know what we were saying, and our Finnish (obviously) wasn't up to par to asking questions. We just mimicked what she said.
The teacher was fantastic, extremely creative, very talented at teaching, but after the first week of basic phrases she was trying to explain something and it just wasn't sinking in... at all.. we didn't get what the pattern to mimic was. The entire class was really dull, people would take half hour/hour long bathroom breaks or look like they were being physically hurt. It felt more effective to bash your head against the wall than to try to learn Finnish in Finnish. Then the Brazilian girl dared to ask a question in English, prefacing it with an apology, and the flood gates were opened. After that most of the grammar was (far more effectively and painlessly) taught in English, with a lot of practice and examples in Finnish.
It just makes way more sense to explain grammar in a language they will be sure to understand, until their comprehension skills are good enough to understand explanations in English. this is of course seperate from practicing conversation, which should obviously be done in the target language. |
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gaijinalways
Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 2279
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| Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 4:52 am Post subject: |
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moot point wrote
| Quote: |
| I personally think it is beneficial to know the L1 language, especially when teaching a homogenous group. It will not only save you time but you could quickly remind them of grammar points they learnt in their L1 by speaking their language. They relate to that and will allow you to quickly progress to the task at hand by quoting your current fellow colleagues who can't/won't speak English while teaching a grammar course. |
I agree about knowing the L1 of your students (or in some cases L1s). As to reminding them about grammar points they learnt, you are refering to points in the L2, right? If that is the case, I can't say that it would necessarily help. Knowing the rules alone doesn't mean that one can necessarily use them correctly. There is a differance between being a grammarian and a fluent speaker.
quangho wrote [quote]But this is about English teachers who do not speak English. In no other field would this be acceptable- i.e. I would not dream of opening my own chiropractor clinic or auto repair shop because I know nothing about either. Nor would I try to become the head of NASA or run an organic vegetable farm for the same reasons. Barbershops, accountancy firms and Moroccan restaurants are also out.
However where EFL is concerned, it is considered perfectly okay-nay, even prestigious- to run a language school or teach in a public school as an English teacher without speaking a lick of English. In Korea I met many public school English teachers who could not speak English to save their lives. They treated it as a 9-5 gig to stave off boredom, not as a profession. Most were young women, miffed that they have not yet gotten married for the sole, yet seemingly romantic purpose of being able to stay at home and buy shoes online. [quote/]
Yes, it is quite hard to understand. I see it repeated here in Japan quite often.
moot point wrote
| Quote: |
| guangho, if your Korean colleagues are just spending time with no knowledge of their profession than that is indeed a disgrace. However, at least here in Japan, the English teachers here in Japan from the middle school level and on through graduate level most definitely have had years of education in the workings of English. Sure, some (many?) don't speak it very well but they certainly know the dificulties of learning English for their fellow-countrymen than we know, as they've experienced it themselves. On a tangent, I had a few beers with my fellow local English teacher a little while back. When I asked him about why he wanted to become an English teacher (here in Japan), he said he wanted to change the whole stereotype about the typical English teacher here. That is, the guy in the pin-striped suit who is usually from an upper-class family. I'm curious, but is this stereotype also typical of the Korean English teacher? |
Ha? This has hardly been my stereotype, if I have one, of a Japanese English teacher in Japan. Yes, some of them have been abroad, but some of them have been forced to teach it in the public schools, hardly because of their upper class upbringings. As to studying English, remember many of them have only studied it to pass the tests given in Japan, hardly to be able to use it, and quite a stretch from being able to teach it. At one of the universities where I teach, some of the Japanese English teachers complain about hving to teach it, preferring instead to teach 'content' classes in Japanese, possibly about 'British' or 'American' culture  .
Strangely enough, my wife complains about bad English now at an international school where they have a clerk teaching classes (presumably as a sub until they hire a more qualified teacher, heh, heh ) whose English my wife doesn't like to listen to as she said the clerk's English is so heavily accented its torture to listen to. Then again, I had a German graduate student teacher who I could barely understand : but at least I could read the formulas on the board in mathematics  .
guangho wrote:
| Quote: |
| But this is about English teachers who do not speak English. In no other field would this be acceptable.... |
Henry_Cowell wrote in response:
| Quote: |
| And don't forget the American junior high school and high school German teachers who don't speak very much German. Or Spanish. Or French. Unfortunately, this is still a common occurrence in foreign-language teaching throughout the world when there are insufficient numbers of native speakers to teach the L2. |
Henry, I was fortunate in that the foreign language teachers in my schools were native speakers who moved to the US. It is true there has been a shortage of foreign language teachers in the US, though in some schools they have hired foreign nationals (rather than US citizens) under a policy passed a few years ago. In addition, by my 4th year of high school french, the class was conducted entirely in French with university credit due. Compare this to what I see here in Japan, some students who cannot make a sentence either oral or written after 6 years of study  .
Perpetual traveler wrote
| Quote: |
| What I can't understand is where the opposite is true, such as in Germany. There are plenty of Native English/French speakers willing to work there and yet they prefer to employ Germans as English/French teachers with the end result that the students learn some pretty archaic words and at times, incorrect sentence structure. |
There can be various reasons why that may be so. Here in Japan, educators seem to think all the grammar needs to be explained in Japanese for the elementary levels (as well as straight translation methods using the 'Yakudoku method'), and then 'magically' the students will move from grammar based exercises to communicative English with the native speaker teachers. And of course if they don't, it must be 'the fault' of the foreign teachers.
We also get the archaic word and phrases (and don't forget 'unique' pronunciation), with some incorrect and/or phrases that a native speaker would never dream of uttering . Sometimes our bigger job here in Japan is 'unteaching' some of the incorrect English our students have been 'taught' (given might be the better word) in junior and senior high school.
A fellow lecturer told me about the writing classes they teach at a university where all the lower level clases are taught by Japanese instructors. Students get to the third year of the program and yet they still are unable to write at the sentence level, never mind the expected essays. It seems the students still can't make the transition to English structure writing after 2 years of native Japanese 'help' (and don't forget the 6 years of study prior to getting to university). |
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