Deleted

[revel]

Hey everyone!

Thanks so much, Larry, for your last post. Your example of your wife is excellent and exactly the example I use in class (anecdote about a Spanish friend commenting that he preferred the person I am when speaking Spanish over the one I am when speaking English, not because of the language, but rather because of the personality changes he noted through the change of voice).

Your comments in the second paragraph are also quite on the mark.

"Note, especially, the variety of communicative uses he introduces."
These are objectives that can be gleaned from the material in question, from any material that will be used in class, and that must be identified by the teacher before entering the class in order to highlight them through the activities using the materials. Class preparation is not simply noting down what page or exercise you will cover, but most importantly, the reasons and the objectives for covering that material with that particular group of students.

"He is not so much interested that they pronounce every word "correctly" .... but emphasises that they pronounce clearly (it can be understood) and appropriately to the context."
In my classes, the clear pronunciation of individual words is considered an "error" and my students rapidly learn to correct that habit, especially when they listen to me and realize that I never say "to" or "at" or "on" as a separate entity but rather use it as an important part of the whole. If they want to spit out entire sentences, they have to stop trying to do so using individual words.

"Drill it most certainly is, but revel has a specific, definite, and logically supportable reason for drilling like this."
This reason is supported in a number of teaching theories: Remembering is Repetition. There is no discipline in the world that does not require the repetition of its most basic parts in order to construct its complexity. I have mentioned ballet and music many times before as examples, but driving a car, washing the dishes, reading a novel, all of these are activities heavily based on habit, and habit is nothing more than the repetition of action.

"It takes preparation and skill to lead this kind of drill...."
I must admit that it took me about a year to get a handle on this type of drill work. It has improved my own English very much. It has made my articulatory apparatus more flexible and thus has aided my learning of Spanish (which, by the way, I have learned applying my own "method"). Though it is not now always necessary (I've been drilling this way for twenty years), I usually go over a new exercise a couple of times before presenting it to a class. I am supposed to be, after all, the expert.

"....done with sensitivity and attention to the students' "boredom scale", it can be fun."
It is incredible fun! Not only with kids, who are more open to sing-alongs and chants. Adults may be more reticent to singing, but I am a domineering teacher and they have no choice and finally recognize the value of the exercise when they feel they are communicating. I remember one particularly long drill that practiced "There's a" and "There are" that I did with adults. Nearly thirty sentences "There's a book in the room, There's a table in the room, There are two windows in the room." etc... that we did without even pausing for breath. At the end of the exercise the students broke out spontaneously in applause, congratulating themselves and me for the experience. Be firm from the first day and you will soon find your students "trained" into doing just about anything.

Well, tomorrow morning, a new step for all of you to contemplate and perhaps try out in your classrooms.

Thanks again Larry (we're creating a monster here! )

peace,
revel. [/i] [/i]

[LarryLatham]

So far, so good, revel.

However, despite my support for your methods so far, they are different from methods I used when I was actively teaching. I wish I had run across this thread years ago, because I might have modified some of the things I did.

I also must warn you that I might not always like the way you do things, so enjoy the support while it's here, because I could be critical later on.

Whatever happens as we delve further into "interpretive ESL", though, be assured that I've seen enough of your ideas here at Dave's to have developed a sincere respect for your professionalism and skill.

Larry Latham

And by the way, I don't want to forget to thank you for taking the time and energy to lay this out for us, revel. It is not a small accomplishment in itself. It may look deceptively easy to just write down as you have, but we all know how much you must have had to put into just how to write it down. I notice the number of views is climbing!

[revel]

Good morning guys and gals!

The First Role Play

You will need:
1) Several simple dialogues (I again suggest the “Streamlines” series if you can get your hands on it) of the “Hi, what’s your name?” or “Could you pass the salt, please?” type, from ten to twenty lines in length.
2) A deck of playing cards.
3) A Box of Props (go about your house and collect small, hand-holdable things, my box includes: a wooden spoon, two cell phones, a salt/pepper set, a wine bottle, a wall bracket, a wrench, a lipstick, a harmonica, a bow-tie, etc…)
4) A stop watch or a watch with a second hand.

Before class: Make copies of the dialogues for every class member. Pull pairs of cards out of the deck, one card for each class member, if you have an odd number of students, make pairs and one trio. Play with the stop-watch until you control it like a track-coach.

In class:
Warm up with some pronunciation drill and some sentence exercises (about ¼ of the class time). Get the students to laugh at least once.

First: Go over one or two of the dialogues with the entire class. Drill. Iron out vocabulary confusions and pronunciation challenges.

Second: Having shuffled the pairs of cards, go about the room, with the cards fanned out, saying “Pick a card, any card” to each student, who then, as in a card trick, choose a card. Students then must find their partner, on their feet, asking everyone “Have you got the 3?” or “Who’s got the Queen?” They then sit with their partner.

Third: Give the instructions for the activity:
1) They must choose one of the dialogues already practiced and choose what role they will play in the scene.
2) They must decide where they are when the scene is taking place.
3) They can add one or two sentences, but basically should use the dialogue as written.
4) They will be expected to practice for presentation and notes.

Fourth: Have them work for about two minutes. Time them. Walk about and answer questions, listen to their work. Stop the class.

Fifth: Tell them that the preparation time is over and it’s time to practice. This means doing the dialogue over and over again until the time is up. Most students will do the dialogue once or twice and then shut up. That is not acceptable. You will give them about five minutes for rehearsal, and they must repeat the dialogue over and over again until that five minutes has ended. You will have to walk about the room saying “again”, answering the question “Again¡!¡?¿?” with “Yes, again!” Some will say “We’ve already done it twice!” to which you will respond “Well, do it again, you still have x minutes left!”

Sixth: While you are walking about making sure students are rehearsing, give each pair a prop. Tell them that one way or another, they must include this prop in their dialogue. (One of the most amusing cases, the dialogue was two people in an airport waiting for a late plane, he was an appliance salesman and she was a top model and the prop was an iron. They managed to get the iron in by having her lose her luggage and needing to flatten her curly hair before leaving the airport. He just happened to have an iron in his luggage….)

Seventh: Put the students in an audience group (insist that there be at least two rows of seats, not a semi-circle or a line, but rather a group of audience, line the chairs up yourself if necessary, students tend to make a semi-circle if left to their own devices, must be the beast in them….) leaving a space for the scene. Leave a couple of chairs for use in the scene, maybe a table. If the scene does not need chairs, don’t let the students sit to do their scene.

Eighth: Watch the scenes. Scenes are done without scripts. That's right, the students have to remember the conversation without a piece of photocopy to rely on! Take notes. At the end of each scene, or at the end of all the scenes, make notes, perhaps on the board for everyone. You might have one or two of the pairs repeat their scene, you stopping them from time to time to drill something or make a comment, this is not presentation but rather rehearsal with a “director”.

Notes for the teacher:
1) When taking notes, don’t be nit-picky. Note things that will be useful for all of the students, not just for the pair who have stuck their foots in their mouths. It is important to the students to realize that they are all in the same boat despite their “levels” or capacity for using the language.
2) Don’t let students become too wrapped up in inventing new sentences at this first stage. More time should be spent repeating the dialogue than trying to construct sentences.
3) Find a moment in the exercise to outline the structure of the dialogue, be it “greeting, reply, question, reply” or be it “petition, response, question, answer”. That structure is there. Offer alternatives to things said in this structure: “I’m sorry?” for “What did you say?” for “Excuse me?” for “Could you run that by me one more time?”
4) During preparation, when students ask you vocabulary or such, write your suggestion on the board, someone else in the group will ask you the same thing, and everyone will learn from the doubts of others.
5) Announce the scenes: “And now, Pilar and Toño are going to offer us ‘I love you, Fiona’”. Applaud the scenes with hand-clapping. (It’s good to also applaud the end of the class and for the teacher to thank the students at the end of class, it’s thanks to them that we have bread on our tables!)
6) Don't tell the students at first that they will be doing the scenes without scripts, this just makes them nervous during the preparation. When the first couple rises to do their scene (you choose the order at random from the same cards you have used to make the pairs), you gently take their photocopies away. In the future they will get the gist of the exercise and be more prepared for that unscripted moment of the class.

I have been calling the Butane company for years to order bottles of gas for my hot water, my heating stove and my cooker. One of the first times I telephoned, I made the mistake of asking for a bulb (bombilla) of gas instead of a bottle (botella or bombona). Since then, I always prepare the simple phone conversation with Butane before picking up the receiver, making sure I don’t forget to use the correct word in my exchange. The exchange is always the same and I always practice it. Improvisation is easier when you are ready for the variations that can pop up in any day-to-day conversation. Find a similar story to tell about your language use (like how many times you repeated such and such in the bathroom mirror before asking your boss for a raise, asking the bank to extend your mortgage, telling your wife you’re having an affair, telling the kids that Disney World is out of the question this summer….)

Objectives: Observation of conversational structure. Preparation of day-to-day language. Pair work. Rehearsal techniques. Getting over embarrassment in language use. Controlled improvisation. Giving and accepting approval from peers. Using physical items as crutches. This class structure should be used always when doing role plays, having such a structure helps students concentrate on the work at hand, which is preparation for presentation.

This may seem complex. It is not for the well prepared teacher. Later chapters will make this seem like child’s play!

peace,
revel.

[LarryLatham]

Whew!

Definitely impressive!

All of us have worked with written dialogs, revel. Many of us, myself included, have complained that the dialogs written in most coursebooks are phony, unnatural, unreal, and contrived. I still think so.

But you have shown us how to get some real value out of them. I am indeed impressed. Your training as an actor and work in drama has clearly prepared you in ways I had never thought of for working with students using written dialogs. Of course, the more natural the dialogs are to begin with, the better this exercise will be. So it will pay, I believe, to search for the best you can find. If you're skilled at it, you could write them yourself, I suppose, but be careful: many people delude themselves into thinking they can write. Few can pass muster! Especially with dialog.

I read your post twice over, revel, to get the most from it that I could. I'll probably read it one or two more times, because there's a lot in there. But I do have a few questions: First, I don't understand this instruction:

4) During preparation, when students ask you vocabulary or such, write your suggestion on the board, someone else in the group will ask you the same thing, and everyone will learn from the doubts of others.

What does this mean?

Also, you ask students to work with one of the dialogs already practiced with the group as a whole. What do you (they) do with the others?

In addition, why do you insist that in the presentation phase, there be at least two rows of chairs? And what's wrong with a semi-circle?

Larry Latham

[LarryLatham]

Why are only revel and I involved in this thread? Is it not of interest to the rest of you?

Larry Latham

[Lorikeet]

I'm lurking, never fear It's very interesting, has food for thought, but I'm not sure I have anything to add at the moment.

[LarryLatham]

OK, Lorikeet. It's good to hear that you're around and at least thinking about it.

Larry Latham

[revel]

Good morning Larry, Lorikeet and all the anons reading this!

I am all too happy to address your questions, Larry.

The first, about writing teacher's responses on the board is easy. When the students are working in pairs, there ought to be a lot of noise going on in the class, which sometimes makes it hard to hear what you are saying when they ask "How do you say xx in English?" I also use the Spanish phonetic system to note pronunciation, so I put the word on the board with its pronunciation so that students can note it next to the dialogue: Can you run that by me one more time [ka niu ran that bai mi uan mor taim]. Finally, since most will be working on the same dialogue (they choose from two or three possible dialogues) different groups will often ask you for the same information, noting it on the board demonstrates how common certain words or expressions may be as substitutes in the context of the simple printed dialogue. Everyone benefits.

I think the first criteria the students use in choosing a dialogue is its apparent simplicity over another. Or perhaps it is because it is shorter than the other, easier to remember (after the first role play, they know that they will have to practically commit the dialogue to memory). In any case, the dialogues are rather short and very general (the ones from "Departures" at least) and are mainly sources for their own script writing later on in the process. When, for example, later on I ask them to do a specific context, they will have material from earlier classes that they may not have used but will be useful in constructing a scene. I also believe firmly in the reuse of photocopies, each worksheet my students receives is gone over at least three times, so if they did dialogue 39 but not 40, the next time they will have to use 40 since we've already seen them do 39. I also instruct them that these dialogues are a kind of contextual dictionary that they have as a reference tool when preparing themselves for "real-life" English usage.

Finally, the grouping of the audience. This might be just a personal choice, but I don't think so. Look at different types of theatre. The proscenium stage creates a fourth wall that only allows "rays" of energy to pass from actors to audience and vice versa. Theatre in the round forces the actors to distribute the energy in a more 3 dimensional manner. Street theatre often directly involves the public in the presentation. In the class, the traditional rows of desks is often best for lectures and tests. The semi-circle allows all to see one another as well as the teacher. Making a small audience with at least two rows keeps students focused on the "actors", an important bit of discipline, since it is already difficult for those presenting if those who should be listening are intercommunicating among themselves and not paying attention to the scene. I want the presenters to see the rest of the group as a mass, not as a line of individuals, one being very critical, another not paying attention at all, another making fun, etc. It seems to help them overcome shyness and embarrassment in doing their scenes. This placing of students also makes a different kind of atmosphere in the class, if I can play with the lights, if I can frame the scene with a couple of tables, we are no longer in the ESL classroom but rather in the restaurant, in the train station, in the living-room.

Whatever we are saying, it has gone on inside our heads first. Most of us have lost the ability to communicate telepathically and so have to speak for the others to know what is going on inside of our heads. And what is going on inside of our heads is imaginative, creative, it's thought. I am trying to create a kind of test-tube where imagination or thought is the source of language, and not a grammatical rule. It's an important connection to make for students who think with their own language, or perhaps think without language but tend to form their thoughts in their own language since it is the first tool they have to share their thoughts with others. The classic stage/audience set-up is not often used and helps to foment a bit of that creativity, create a creative atmosphere.

Hope I've been clear with my answers!

I think, Larry, that other readers are either turned off by these too-lengthy posts, or have little to contribute out of respect for the topic. Everyone has explained the difference between "this/that" and has an opinion on such, while I have not met another teacher who has done this kind of work with ESL, so some may hesitate before sharing their ideas. I would like to keep the posts short but the material is trying to come out thorough and that makes them longer. That's why it's coming out in chapters....I ought to write a book, I guess. Would anyone buy it and read it and put it to use?

peace,
revel.

[LarryLatham]

They might. It's obvious that you've spent a lot of time and energy thinking about this, and a book showing teachers how to make use of some of the concepts of theatre in an ESL/EFL classroom just might be a winner. Consider it, revel.

As Lorikeet has said above, there is much food for thought in this thread. I, for one, am certainly not put off by the lengthy posts you've so generously given us. Quite the opposite. I'm grateful for your sharing some of your insight. Despite having been a working teacher for years, and achieving a measure of success at it, judging from many of the comments of my students, you have thought about it and developed it in ways which never entered my head. Thanks for that.

It makes me wonder how many others there may be out there who have put the principles of their outside fields to work in the classroom, with good results. It is my firm feeling that the educators who worked out the standard methods for teaching language have either not done a very good job, or perhaps did improve on methods used previously (in the distant past), but have not taken new findings about human learners into account. (Oh, I know there has been research done, but much of what passes for research in the field of education doesn't impress me much, I'm afraid). Language teaching is not very well done, it seems to me, because too many students study language for years without making much real progress. Fresh thinking is urgently needed, and more of what revel has done here might revitalize and improve the teaching of language in general, and English in particular.

Are there any engineers turned teachers, business people, dentists, architects, soldiers, taxi drivers turned teachers out there who have something we can use? Something we so desperately need?

Larry Latham

[coffeedecafe]

does anybody start out teaching one word sentence concepts like a child would use, [and hang the grammar]. an example, on a one on one basis, and also as a class round games. teacher or first called student announces subject-hamburgers, good- next person -no- ,then-yes- then -why- then because................. makes for very early dialogue. let the student point and the teacher give name color or activity, then trade places. let the student make a statement and the teacher ask, "why". see how many 'why' questions it takes the student to stump the teacher. reverse roles? or do most of you work with people who already have some english?

[Lorikeet]

I sometimes work with students with no English to start, but I didn't quite understand your idea.

[woodcutter]

I think I already said all I can say about the Revel method. It's great, but it probably works best with Revel at the centre, a classically trained actor no less, a musician, an energetic fellow (perhaps with the schedule to allow this!) - and with non-Asian students. It is a piece of art, and the original artist will be hard to top. As a kind of method, it will be resisted by some students, especially if executed badly, as it probably will be initially, and you will need the strength of character to overcome this, as well as the conviction that this is acceptable teaching.
As I've said, a Revel method school would be something I could believe in, though I'd be intimidated if I were to apply, I must say. Lacking this, I think we just have to take whatever ideas we can digest here and incorporate them tentatively into our Latham method, Woodcutter method or whatever. I don't think anyone can arrive at school tomorrow and be Revel!

[Duncan Powrie]

Language teaching is not very well done, it seems to me, because too many students study language for years without making much real progress. Fresh thinking is urgently needed, and more of what revel has done here might revitalize and improve the teaching of language in general, and English in particular.

I've said it in various ways and guises, but I'll say it again: what would probably really improve matters would be massive doses of top-notch, well-ordered input (you know, that thing called ENGLISH that our students are so desperate to learn!).

Lewis is obviously a finger pointing in the right direction, but it seems as if the hard work is still going to be down to us teachers to whip the lexis into shape and make it align with structural, situational, functional, topic-based etc syllabuses etc. I suspect that each of us eventually has to write (or at least start or seriously consider writing) a textbook (more like a series!), adding our insights as actors or doctors or even just as language teachers scratching out a living in whatever country; and once we've got and given a little satisfaction that way, we have to be prepared to modify things for each new, specific bunch of students that comes our way (our books should therefore be flexible and adaptable).

I alluded to this thread in the "Help! EFL teaching in a UK secondary school - advice needed" thread (just to create a stir - and revel took the bait, HA! ), seems like Woodcutter was thinking kind of the same thing...but obviously, people are welcome to post what they like, and I am sure we enjoy reading it even if it doesn't always chime with what we ourselves do!

[revel]

Good morning all!

Of course I take the bait, I enjoy a good de-bait (and someone help me get my foot out of my mouth if it ends up lodged there! )

I've probably mentioned the following anecdote before, but well, the nature of my work has me repeating the same things year after year and I'm pretty well used to it. Soooo, here goes!

A fellow teacher has decided to make English grammar posters (twelve in all, regular letter sized paper) meant to simplify his explanations. They are basically a review of verbs, copied from some book or other, with three word explanations (Present Simple is used for: stative verbs, customs, everyday actions, etc...) with a couple of simple examples. Now, there is no problem with this idea, though the information they contain is something he should be teaching and repeating to his students instead of pointing to on the wall.

The problem is that he thinks that every classroom in our academy should be decorated with these twelve posters. The rest of us don't necessarily need to point to a poster to support our explanations. I don't want them at all, another teacher would prefer it were one single poster even more simplified. The creator of these twelve posters gets a little huffy and says that if we can't agree on calling the thing a "verb root" instead of just a "verb" then maybe the posters shouldn't be put up at all (which is one reason I don't want them). I say, if he wants to put up posters in his class as part of his teaching method, go for it, but don't ask that everyone do so, in my classroom those posters will simply collect dust, they are simply not dinamic enough.

And yet, when I suggest that pronunciation is a good basis for learning ESL, they all get into a frizzy, who am I to be prescribing what they should be doing in their class? They're totally wrong, I am not prescribing anything at all, they can do whatever they want to in their class, even if it doesn't work. I am not proposing the "new, improved, perfect, one and only way" of teaching ESL. I consider myself part of a team. One teacher teaches grammar quite well. I do not. I teach communication quite well. She does not. Over the five or six years a student will spend with us, he/she will have the opportunity of trying both our "methods" and it's up to the student to get the best from each.

Finally, I give you the words of Woodcutter:
"I think we just have to take whatever ideas we can digest here and incorporate them tentatively into our Latham method, Woodcutter method or whatever. I don't think anyone can arrive at school tomorrow and be Revel!"
and Duncan:
"....but it seems as if the hard work is still going to be down to us teachers to whip the lexis into shape and make it align with structural, situational, functional, topic-based etc syllabuses etc."
words that I agree with whole-heartedly.

Get what you all can out of it, and if you can't, don't try it, it can indeed be a disaster for everyone concerned. (Asians are, by the way, difficult cases in this way of teaching, but well, when teaching in New York more than 60% of my students were Asians and they also had to do these exercises, like it or not, the power of a forceful character was necessary! I would say, understanding the many difficulties involved in teaching in Korea and China where we are outnumbered, these are exactly the difficulties that should be challenged, met and worked upon, might help cure some of the problems I read about from teachers in those situations, and then again, might not! )

peace,
revel.

[Duncan Powrie]

I've said it in various ways and guises, but I'll say it again: what would probably really improve matters would be massive doses of top-notch, well-ordered input (you know, that thing called ENGLISH that our students are so desperate to learn!).

Before some clever s*d says, "But surely revel was using English in his pronunciation work?!", I'd like to say, sure, but why spend so much time working on differing ways to say the one example? Are more than one or two ways valid or useful? I'd prefer in studying an authentic (and, I hate to say, native-speaker) example, appreciate why it was said its (single) way in its context (e.g. in a movie scene), and then move on to considering OTHER, unique examples. To spend time on alternative ways to say one example, you will end up not being able to see the woods for the trees (i.e., just what is a good performance?!), especially amoungst "amateurs" (and students, not actors). The great performances are "obvious" enough, aren't they? Copy, imitate, impersonate, exaggerate etc the original by all means, but don't imagine they said it very differently (from the actual original) too much!

This is kind of what I mean when I say, "I have yet to read a convincing account of the function of prosody in communication" (on the Secondary school thread), I think revel's approach, whilst interesting, doesn't really clarify meaning/use=function in any systematic way, and could even lead to confusion. I myself would prefer to let prosody take care of itself, on the basis of more genuine (i.e. not "forced") examples.

The subconscious works in wonderful ways, and to involve the conscious mind in identifying "choices" can start to play havoc with meaning (just take a look at what happened on the "be committed to" thread ).