Job Discussion Forums

[biffinbridge]

I've taught loads of beginners and I really don't believe that exposing them solely to native speakers is the best way to teach them.

Many schools in Poland now team teach...I think that's good.

Are there any die hard TEFLERS out there who never use L1 in the classroom?

BTW-I think that approach is insane.

[Richfilth]

I started out team-teaching, which was reassuring for the first two months, but I was only given speaking and writing tasks. No grammar, no vocab unless it was really necessary, no listening, and all with teenagers.

Unsurprisingly, this left me with little else to do but talk about writing and write about talking with them. Plus, the little scrotes failed to take me seriously because every time I corrected them they retorted that "Monika the Grammar Teacher" had told them something different.

As for not using L1, in vocabulary-specific areas (I teach some ESP classes) it would be ridiculous not to use it, and for some learners who fail to grasp theoretical grammar, language comparison exercises (comparing the passive "I was born" to the egotistically active "Urodzilem sie") make certain aspects of the language accessable as well as memoriable.

It doesn't matter whether its Berlitz, Callan or Communicative; anyone who subscribes to a Method and tries to stick rigidly to it will always have a fundamentally flawed teaching approach. Avoiding L1 like it was Ebola is one of those flaws.

[spiral78]

I agree. I think it's possible to overuse L1 in a classroom, but it's a very handy tool in some situations when you've got it.

Also, it's refreshing to see somebody explicitly state that following any method or approach slavishly is doomed to failure (sometimes, at least).

I wish that newbie level teacher training courses placed more emphasis on ways in which teaching contexts require flexibility. Although it's important to give newbs some general basics that work in most situations, to imply that any one method is 'best' is to fly in the face of decades of research in the field, not to mention the practical experience of however many thousands of us are currently teaching language.

[spiral78]

P.S. Biff, I think there are lots of teachers out there who never use L1.

Just consider all of those multitudes of newbies who don't know any of their student's L1 (at least, not yet)

But they are not likely to be the most effective teachers, either. Some experience in country/culture/language learning always helps.

There's also the aspect of teaching immigrants, which is a whole different field in some ways. In Canada, any given class could include students from as many as 12 different L1s. Impossible to use anything but target language in this situation. However, the needs and motivations of immigrants are quite different from TEFL students, so classroom dynamics are obviously not the same either.

[ratsareeatingmybrain]

Whether you use L1 or not will partly depend on what levels you teach. In Poland I learnt lots of Polish by looking up words I knew would be difficult to teach / explain to beginners.

Now in Lisbon I only teach from pre-intermediate (that means this is their third year, just to clarify) up and I simply don't need L1. I have big groups (12 is the smallest) and there's always someone in the group strong enough to understand what I'm getting at, even in those more complicated moments. You can check they've really understood with concept questions and that's that.

[biffinbridge]

I think there's also a time dynamic.

With intensive courses, students at lower levels get 'fried brains' after about 3 lessons/hours a day.

As do the teachers:)

[afowles]

I never used Polish in the classroom, even when I had grasped a few of its straws.

I personally did this to prevent students from thinking of language learning as a series of translations from Polish into English. It's tricky to explain some concepts using English only to beginner students, but then again beginner students don't need very complex concepts in English. They should focus on the basics.

Just a personal opinion. I'm far from a language learning theorist.

[Kootvela]

I use L1 for time economy and avoiding confusion, explaining difficult concepts, etc. I see no crime here