Ode to rigidity

[LarryLatham]

Well, old Derek has just enough interesting to say about language and acquisition to perk up my ears a bit. And the fact that he co-authored a book with William H. Calvin, whom I know from my readings (his The River That Flows Uphill is an excellent introduction to evolution) certainly lends some respectability to his credentials. But he does confuse me somewhat by leaving out one rather salient fact: Children under age 7 without question do learn language in this "natural" way that he champions. It remains to be seen whether adults can, although many of my own personal ideas about us learning to teach better lean rather heavily on the prospect that maybe they can.

Larry Latham

[woodcutter]

I've said before that Revel sounds like he provides a good and useful adventure ride, and that's what we should aim to do. However, he describes his flexibility in toning something down because certain individuals can't cope with the real stuff. That is precisely how most people practise their flexibility - by using what they consider to be a less effective method because certain people get in the way.

So when I say that there should be "community language" classes for those with "special needs" I am not demeaning it, I think there are zillions of students without enough confidence to participate in an efficient class, and there should be something aimed at them. When they gain confidence, they can move on. Students with the tenacity and drive to do a three hour a day direct method course are perhaps relatively few, but I believe they will tend to improve faster then the more relaxed Headway students, who might be having a better time.

The city of many choices already exists to some degree. There is direct method, there is Headway method. There are maverick teachers. This Pimsleur thing seems popular. However all of them operate as aggressive cults, attacking the value of the others. The Headway Method people are perhaps the worst, because they refuse to be a method, and claim they are an all encompassing approach. Students are positively discouraged from testing the water of each and making a desicion based on their own needs. As Larry says, there is no real way for us to discover if people are 'left-brained' 'field dependent' or whatever, and anyway I believe students change and develop. The only people who can flex appropriately are the students, yet we try and prevent it.

I don't think whether Larry uses a lesson plan is the issue. He obviously teaches in a way which shows some similarity with the natural approach. Students should have a chance to give him a whirl, but they can't expect him to turn grammar Nazi on demand.

If students have all made an informed decision for a style they like, there's gonna be more positivity around. As Duncan says, you can't get a homogenous group, but you can at least get a group who are pulling in vaguely the same direction.

[revel]

Hey all!

Woodcutter has set me thinking with his comment: "....he [revel] describes his flexibility in toning something down because certain individuals can't cope with the real stuff." I have always perceived it as mentioned earlier as the identification of the common denominator, but have to admit that to a certain extent, it is true, the choices I make among my "hip-pocket" resourses often appear as a toning down of the material, almost an act of "walking at the pace of the slowest pilgrim" .

I usually don't leave decisions in the hands of the students. Their beliefs about what they need are often in direct conflict with what they really need. "I need to memorize the three column list of irregular verbs for the test on Friday" (actually, an outside belief imposed upon the student by a non-native EFL teacher) really ought to be "I need to learn to use the irregular verbs in a contextual fashion so that when I am faced with the five that appear on the test next Friday I'll be able to easily fill in the blank with the appropriate word. What's more, once I've learned those verbs in context, I'll never again have to worry about that silly three column list in the appendix and can get down to brass tacks in my study of English."

We are not living in Ancient Greece where learning seemed to be a daily, all day activity among those who had the luxury to study. We can not separate the class content from the "two hours a week at 20€ an hour" reality. We ought not let students tells us what to do in class. I'm sure I've mentioned the Japanese student, Meri (it's one of my favorite anecdotes) who insisted that what she needed was to converse when what she really needed was some basic pronunciation and structural drill. Her case was extreme in that when her personal beliefs about her classes were challenged she became weepy eyed and closed up. Even Alejandro, a non-native EFL teacher who's level of conversation is quite high and who's teaching is more than acceptable, came to me for help. In the first classes when he tried to control the direction of the material, little was noted in his notebook. Once I had identified his "weaknesses" or "needs", he had to "shut up" and listen to me and suddenly we were filling pages with word diagrams, lesson plans, techniques for teaching little children, etc. If a student came to me asking for help with maths I would immediately refer him/her to my friend Cristina, who is a maths teacher and controls the language involved in talking about maths, something I do not. Meanwhile, while that student is in my class, he/she simply must accept the help I am able to offer. Once that help is identified as not being appropriate by the student, the student has every right to seek another instructor who can give the needed aid. Even so, that decision should often be in the hands of the teacher as an "objective" outside observer and not necessarily be made through the "inside", "subjective" beliefs of the student.

Oopss, being inflexible again!

peace,
revel.

[woodcutter]

Three cheers for Revel posting problems with students, rather than filling his class with imaginary happy automatons!

The "girl who cried" has a point in not seeing Revel as a language doctor, for lengthy service isnt an absolute guarantee of quality. Revel has a point in feeling he's in a position to know better. In the average school, the teacher always loses this argument, it is always what the student wants, never what the student needs.

[fluffyhamster]

In the average school, the teacher always loses this argument, it is always what the student wants, never what the student needs.

I'm not sure the students ever totally gets what they want, they often don't actually know what they want (beyond a primitive urge to be allowed to "communicate" somehow). I think you could say that at least some of their needs will get met, regardless of how bad the teacher or method is.

The main problem I've found is when you have bosses who seem to take too "much" (but never enough, they are busy boys) or too little of an interest in language, and are either seemingly incompetent or way too "overcompetent" (if you can't top them for personality or looks or supposed charm or size or whatever, what you say doesn't count), supplying you with sub-standard or plain crap textbooks and often expecting you to also use a very rigid lesson structure/methodology on top of that to the letter. Or, there are other issues that arise more from business concerns than the general methodology but that seriously affect the lessons no matter how they might be conducted, and that therefore need to be addressed, but which seldom are to the teacher's satisfaction.

In these circumstances it is only the backseat teacher's wants that are being met (to massage their ego), rather than the actual teacher's needs (and I think a teacher's needs are or end up reflecting to some degree their students' wants if not their needs). You might say the actual teacher should go elsewhere if they can't adapt to the regime...and often that's exactly what they end up doing! Leaving the "experts" to forget about their coffee for a moment and show everybody how it's done (if they can remember how, it's been so long).