Job Discussion Forums

[leeroy]

In an 'Elementary Conversation' class today (a contradiction in terms, if ever there was one) - I did a quick test of the students' knowledge of past tenses. Predictably, in free speech they all use the present ("Yesterday I go to the shop") - but in feedback, they all knew that the correct form was "I went".

"You see" - I began to lecture... "You know the past tense, but when you're speaking you use the present."

I got nods and smiles of appreciation - "Oh teacher! You know the ways of our mind so well!"

Which got me to thinking... (Undoubtedly, books have been written about the subject, nonetheless, I'll bring it up here...)

There is an obvious gap between what the students know, and the English they use. How to bridge this gap is the question - this isn't about teaching them new things - it's about activating the stuff they already know. I've got these guys for a week - they know the past tense (they're mostly Asian - they know Past Participles and Non-Defining Relative Clauses in principle!)

And so to dip into the fountain of knowledge here at Dave's, what do you find effective strategies for activating that passive grammar and lexis?

[shmooj]

Quite simply I won't accept language from a student who I know can do better. I am extremely strict with them about this. Some resent it but most, after getting over the initial barrier, start to enjoy the challenge and are always encouraged by their results.

One of the main strategies I employ is using non-verbal signals. To take your example, I have a signal for shifting present to past tense which is sticking my thumb back over my shoulder. All my students know they then have to self-correct.

I have developed a range of signals for issues and often develop new ones using the board too for students with particular recurring issues. For example, timelines are essential for helping students to self-correct tense issues like perfect tenses and for prompts to do with prepositions.

Now, I teach the same students week after week for years, which obviously not everyone has the privilege or doing. After a while (perhaps a few months for some) I notice that even the slightest indication from me towards one of these signals will be enough for them to correct. I had a student who simply could not form third conditionals. Using these techniques and patience over two years, she can now form them, albeit hesitantly, with no problem at all now. Obviously, both teacher and student feel absolutely great about this.

[Glenski]

I'm fairly strict, too. I wait for the student to come up with the answer, and if it's wrong, I politely say no, then wait for them to answer correctly. Some say I wait too long, but I'm in Japan, so I wait because of the cultural pause that seems to be longer for Japanese. It also makes the students realize that I'm making them work for themselves, instead of giving them the answers. If nothing else, it might force them to learn how to ask for the answer in English, whether from me or another student.

[Corey]

Great question. I have tried the strict approach but Latinos get resentful easily. One thing you have to be careful about is not training the student so he/she stops and thinks before saying each word. This can become an even greater bar to fluency I think.

It might sound ironic for a conversation class but maybe some good ol' fashion drilling might help. Or perhaps have students listen for other students' mistakes.

Good luck,

Corey

[Sherri]

What you described is not unusual and part of the whole learning process I think. It is important to raise the students' awareness of this--if they don't already know. I try to spend some time getting my students to learn what their problem areas are. One way is to get them to record themselves talking about something--anything (unscripted), like retell a conversation they had with their partner or a group discussion. Then have them listen again and transcribe what they said. They look at the transcript and correct their grammatical mistakes and I ask them to draw conclusions about the types of mistakes they are most likely to make. As my students are Japanese frequent errors are subject verb agreement, prepostions and article usage.

I ask them to concentrate on one grammatical problem at a time so they don't get over-whelmed when we are doing a fluency-based activity with a focus on grammar. Problems like subject verb agreement or tense are generally pretty easy to fix with a little awareness-raising. Articles are another story, but luckily as I tell them, making a mistake with an article rarely significantly changes the message, while mistakes with tense or prepositions may.

[Lynn]

I'm also very strict. Actually it's part of the school's policy and methodology. Total and immediate correction. I took me a while to really work with this system, but now I love it.

I used to work at a different school. I had to take over an upper-intermediate class. My warm-up exercise included, "Her name is Maria. She likes pizza. My name is Ching and I like soccer" (they sat in a circle)However, not one student could produce the correct English. "She name Maria. Her like pizza..." Even though they couldn't get the basics, I still had to use the required text. So I had to move on to more advanced grammar. It was a little frustrating.

At the school where I work now, this would never happen. Actually, it still does. Because they are adults and this is not mandatoryo education, a student can basically stay in any level he/she chooses.

[Capergirl]

Excellent topic. I have noticed this with my students, too, and it's quite frustrating. Just last week, I was reviewing adjective order with two of my students (in a tutorial). They continued to make mistakes in practice exercises, but when I asked them what kind of adjective each was and where it should be in the sentence, they were able to tell me. Example jumbled sentence: I live in a (two-story, white, big) house.
Correct sentence: I live in a big, white, two-story house.
The students could tell me that big goes first because it is a physical description of size, white goes second because it is a physical description of colour, and two-story goes last because it is a type (of house). Nonetheless, they continued to write the wrong adjective order on their papers. It was a bit frustrating.

I also find that my students have a problem with pronoun agreement when speaking, but they will rarely make pronoun errors in their writing. I know that when they are speaking, they pay less attention to grammar than when writing, but I'd like to think that something like pronoun agreement is a fairly basic skill that one would have mastered by the intermediate and advanced levels.

[leeroy]

Thanks for the interesting replies so far...

Today, I did indeed do some substitution drilling. (I love drilling! Honestly, on my CELTA, my tutor informed us that drilling was a "blunt tool", and he didn't much care for it. As an impressionable youngster, I took his advice to heart and made a mental note never to do it. 2 years later I realised how full of it he was... In IH London, they are a strange bunch indeed. Anyway, I digress...)

The concept was very basic, and a little behaviourist. I wanted to hammer in "yesterday" and past tense verbs in the same sentence, kind of as a way of "sticking them together".

Hence, on the board (or something similar)

Yesterday-------I----------met some friends
------------------You-------saw a film
------------------He--------ate pizza
------------------She-------drank a beer
------------------We--------went to school
------------------They------had lunch

I would say a present tense verb (like "we meet") - and they all chimed out "Yesterday we met some friends!". So then I say "she go", and they all chorus "Yesterday she went to school!".

Although it was amateur psychology at best, the idea was to get them to convert the present tense forms as they heard them to the past tense while linking it with the word (and hopefully the concept) of "yesterday".

(Perhaps with hindsight, I should have got them to remember the phrases on the board and then erased them before starting the drilling...)

It worked (I think), after I presented a model, they all described what they did yesterday without a hint of present tensage - much better than yesterday, in fact...

[Sherri]

Leeroy
I still think the way to go is to raise the students' awareness of their grammatical problems and then get them to self correct when appropriate. Being "strict" is OK but you can't do it all the time, and in the classroom I don't think you should. If we corrected our students mistakes--even just limiting ourselves to grammatical mistakes--we would be correcting them all the time. There is a time for looking for accuracy in their speech and a time for building fluency and other skills.

Drilling may work in the short term, but it is unlikely to have a long term effect apart from perhaps helping them to remember the form of the past tense. The example you gave will not do much for them if they want to use the past tense outside a controlled exercise. I may be wrong, but I think you will find that they keep on making this mistake. They won't always be using the past when framed with "yesterday".

Try getting them to do a communicative task which could have them use the past tense. Stress to them that you are looking for grammatical accuracy in verb tenses and let them go. Work on one glaring grammatical problem at a time, raising awareness as you go. The rest is up to the students.

[leeroy]

Sherri

Agreed, drilling is no substitute for communicative practice - but it complements it quite well.

As others have mentioned, "Hot correction" (as I think it's called) can be risky - as if you're constantly interrupting the student(s) it can be a bit de-motivating. But, delaying it and going over students' emerging errors later sacrifices the immediacy and the "freshness" of the error/mistake in question.

Life's never easy is it?

[Sherri]

"Hot correction"--old technique, new name. If it and other tried and tested ways of dealing with grammar (like drilling, PPP) actually worked, this kind of discussion wouldn't be necessary. It takes a variety of techiniques and activities, coupled with building the students' awareness of their weak points and learning styles.

[dreadnought]

I think the best way to get students to use all the language at their disposal is to make sure they have plenty of preparation time before answering/feeding back (feedbacking?). When students are put on the spot, they tend to fall back on the structures they are most familiar with. 'Course, this doesn't exactly mirror real life as your students aren't going to be given the same courtesy out on the streets. However, knowing that they have time and that they have to publicly perform, they will really focus on accuracy and draw on all their linguistic resources.

Or at least that's what I read somewhere.

[dreadnought]

[scot47]

Well we teach the third conditional because it is easy to test !

Seriously i am sure that is why we are where we are.

Does anyone ever feel that students learn DESPITE what we do in class ?!

[Sherri]

I am totally in agreement with you, dreadnought and scot47. Dividing up conditionals into 3 different kinds and then presenting them in this neatly packaged way is a classic example of how grammar is over-simplified in textbooks.