Zero semantic content

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 11:54 pm

The Callan method is unfortunately still popular where I am. I am getting to the point now, however, where I can usually tell which of my students have learnt English using this method by the way they speak and write.

The most common thing that identifies them is sentences without real meaning such as "I have a pet at home." Great, but what I and any other reader wants to know is exactly what kind of pet: a dog or cat, and perhaps it's name. I often also get a strange disjunct that goes like this, "I have a pet at home. Our dog is wonderful." This is not L1 interference, it appears to be a direct artifact of the Callan method. The method, by the way, uses a drill with the question, "Do you have a pet at home?" To which the disciple (I use the word advisedly) has to reply, "Yes, I have a pet at home," or "No, I don't have a pet at home." I haven't been able to determine whether this kind of speach and writing carries over into the student's L1, I hope not but I wouldn't be surprised.

I was wondering if anyone else had noticed anything like this. I suppose they could be called method-induced mistakes. Also what are the technical terms for these particular kinds of mistake.

Metamorfose · Post by **Metamorfose** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 12:20 am

"I have a pet at home. Our dog is wonderful."

Being a non-native speaker what would a native speaker of English say? And by the way, I'd never use such a sentence in my native language, I'd very likely start the sentence telling that this pet is a dog.

it appears to be a direct artifact of the Callan method. The method, by the way, uses a drill with the question, "Do you have a pet at home?" To which the disciple (I use the word advisedly) has to reply, "Yes, I have a pet at home," or "No, I don't have a pet at home." I haven't been able to determine whether this kind of speach and writing carries over into the student's L1, I hope not but I wouldn't be surprised.

In fact, I've got some books on teaching French and one is to find the same kind of construction, I am quite aware that in English one might answer this already artifical question with Yes, I do/No, I don't or any kind of comment on it, don't know how it would work in French though.

I was wondering if anyone else had noticed anything like this. I suppose they could be called method-induced mistakes. Also what are the technical terms for these particular kinds of mistake.

Over usage? Over correction?

That's funny, where does it come from anyway? An idealised form of language which no native makes use of but the non-native learner has to perform it as it were the norm?

José

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 12:42 am

Remember the threads a year or so ago where woodcutter was defending full-sentence answers as if they help, and as if the forms wouldn't be present elsewhere in a well-designed course (e.g. why demand 'Did you bring sthg?' 'Yes I did/Yes I brought it' when you could simply say 'Yes' there, and have 'Oh, I brought (you) some wine/that thing you wanted etc' in a different unit. It may of course be helpful sometimes to oppose e.g. present and past forms of a verb within the same lesson, but it doesn't provide very strong practise in (differing) functions).

Andy, I'm not quite sure where the 'disjunct' comes from (you don't mention it as being part of a drill, but I'm assuming it is).

The technical term for this is 'mindlessly parroting' LOL.

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 1:37 am

Metamorphose wrote:

Being a non-native speaker what would a native speaker of English say? And by the way, I'd never use such a sentence in my native language, I'd very likely start the sentence telling that this pet is a dog.

I'd probably write:
"I've also got a dog called Fido. He's wonderful."

I wouldn't even use the word "pet" if I've got a dog, I've got a pet - it's implicit.

Fluffyhamster wrote:

Andy, I'm not quite sure where the 'disjunct' comes from (you don't mention it as being part of a drill, but I'm assuming it is).

I mentioned a drill that the Callan method uses vis "Do you have a pet at home?" The actual example, "I have a pet at home. Our dog is wonderful," came from a student answer to an assignment where the students were asked to write a letter to someone who was looking for a pen-friend.

I don't understand what you mean by "Where's the disjunct?" It's hardly a logical progression of ideas.

The technical term for this is 'mindlessly parroting'

No, I mean the technical term for the style fault of writing a vacuous statement first that would have been implied by what follows. As in my example.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 7:56 am

Heh, I wasn't disagreeing that it wasn't a disjunct, Andy, I was just wondering if it was a sequence that all Callan students were taught.

From what you've said, it just seems to be the strange product of lone student, right? If so, I don't know if that is a fault of the Callan method or a lack of awareness in general (students elsewhere can make the same sort of silly sentences > "discourse", maybe because not too many courses anywhere do a good job, and/or because the pace is too fast and students are asked to do things that they are still no more than half-capable of doing).

Maybe the sort of term would be 'overexplicitness', 'redundancy', 'lack of ellipsis' etc.

Some of my students recently wrote the same thing in response to a picture prompt: 'My cat was/got run over by X's car/a car' (stuff in bold is not needed due to the meaning of 'to run over an animal' (with a car)).

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 9:14 am

fluffyhamster wrote:
Some of my students recently wrote the same thing in response to a picture prompt: 'My cat was/got run over by X's car/a car' (stuff in bold is not needed due to the meaning of 'to run over an animal' (with a car)).

Not needed?

My cat was run over by:

a steamroller/ten-ton truck/car/bus//train/tractor/cat-hater, etc.

Try Google toolbar for options.

My cat was run over to the vets by my sister.

Anyway, you need to keep those words in if you want the student to fall for this bit of Callannonsense:

8 Baht a word compared to 32 Baht

The cost of lessons at a private school varies from school to school, town to town, country to country, and, of course, from year to year; but if, for example, a 50 min. lesson costs 140 Baht (by Callan Method School Bangkok 2005 rates), it is seen that a Callan student pays 35,280 Baht for his 210 hours (252 lessons of 50 min. in duration) of preparation for the Cambridge FCE examination compared with the non-Callan student's 141,120 Baht for his 840 hours. (1008 lessons of 50 min. in duration).This means that to master 4,400 words the Callan student pays 8 Baht a word compared with the non-Callan student's 32 Baht!

The student should learn to think in terms of "cost per word taught" and "cost for a complete preparation" rather than in terms of "cost per lesson". The number of words he learns per lesson does not depend so much upon himself, or on his teacher, as upon the method the teacher employs.

http://www.callan.co.th/Html/callanmeth ... #chapter30

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 9:17 am

Fluffyhamster wrote:

Heh, I wasn't disagreeing that it wasn't a disjunct, Andy, I was just wondering if it was a sequence that all Callan students were taught.

No, I don't think it's a sequence their taught but I get the feeling that it is nevertheless an artifact of the method rather than something that the method fails to tackle as it is not a pattern I see in low level adult students. I do see this pattern from children not taught using the Callan method, however.

From what you've said, it just seems to be the strange product of lone student, right?

No, that's what I'm saying. These patterns are very pronounced. There's also the use of old-fashioned words which are taught using the method. I listen to the student and read their writing then I say, "You were taught using the Callan method, weren't you." I've never been wrong on this yet - the patterns are that distinctive and obvious. It's like the ability to identify the origin of a learner from the mistakes they make. A student who says, "It is very problem," is almost certain to speak a Turkic language. Sometimes the even say, "How do you know, I didn't tell the office."

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 10:24 pm

Metal wrote:

The student should learn to think in terms of "cost per word taught" and "cost for a complete preparation" rather than in terms of "cost per lesson". The number of words he learns per lesson does not depend so much upon himself, or on his teacher, as upon the method the teacher employs.

And if they are obsessed with how many words they know, they will have missed the point that English is a phrasal language.

My point, though, is that if you learn using the Callan method, you end up speaking weird English, reasonably intelligible and good enough to pass the FCE but still weird and I mean weird.

This is different to L1 mistakes. Most native speakers do not regard L1 mistakes as demonstrating the speaker is in some way "odd". Many of the mistakes caused by the Callan method on the other hand truely sound "odd".