Empirical linguistics (i.e. a corpus-based approach) isn't "pseudo-science", in fact, it is hard to think of a more scientific approach. The linguist goes into the field, collects data, analyses it, makes provisional descriptions, and refines those descriptions through examining the data more closely (or collecting further data, or asking others to make additions to or qualify any theoretical statements etc). Even the subjective labels of grammar dissolve away because one is dealing with forms (for practical purposes, from morphemes upwards, into words as spoken or written); and from there we have more holistic 'constructions' rather than somewhat hazy ("slot-and-fill" grammar) 'structures'.
I don't think I need to defend all this, especially viz-a-viz whatever the "language experts" who wrote Avalon's or Callan's or McTwat's syllabuses deem cutting-edge and essential for students to learn (besides, most of what is to be found in more traditional courses is also covered in e.g. the COBUILD English Course, plus a fair bit more (that isn't to be found in the traditional)).
So, woody, I would question exactly what you think qualifies somebody as a "language expert", able to write a (good) course with a methodology that does justice to the language (at least as contained in the book).
I would also point out how you go from 'speaking of methods' to '("undesigned") classes' in consecutive sentences. The point is, one can design courses, but not classes; one can imagine how a class will go, and also imagine that it went well, but that is always to take the perspective of the teacher, who may be even less of an expert than the course writer...or more of one! (I'm thinking dodgy Japanese highschool textbooks here, that go from all too easy and pat dialogues to stilted written narratives at the turn of a page, all of which must be memorized with scant regard to its utility to the learner immediately or eventually (if truth be told, some of it will never be of any use)).
Put simply, the text is obviously an object of study, to study, but the way people approach it is wide open. You could read it silently or aloud, fast or slow, with one or both eyes open or closed, individually or in pairs or in unison, seated or standing or even standing on your head, with or without the aid of a spliff or two, in class or at home or even in the pub, but the important thing is that you read it at some point; the value is in the text, not in the exact manner in which it is taken in and digested (and then excreted! LOL). I myself have a sneaking suspicion that often the text type and the manner of learning it need not be at all similar in order to produce effective learning (think of the learner who reads a dialogue silently, mentally sounding out the words and focusing on what they find salient, rather than what the teacher imagines is so important).
Following on from the above, just what is 'snake oil' in the context of ESL? It can't refer to the actual product, because surely almost every school uses some sort of book, and they all contain something (from weak to medium to authentic British c*ckney badger bone, too strong for many), and when applied, there is at least some effect. So the question becomes, what is the effect e.g. what is learnt? Well, the simple answer is, what's in the book. Extravagant claims of 'You WILL learn English here at McTwat's, we guarantee I mean kid you not!' should be seen for what they really are (saying): You will learn some English here, and to get a good indication of what you will learn (and how you'll be learning it), please look at pages 1-200 of Let's Not!: pages and pages of stultifying drills with little or no ellipsis or other natural features. Good eh! Nice and easy for you, I think. So, the question now is, where do you sign!'.
Mithridates and his secret
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fluffyhamster
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woodcutter
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Poor old Mithridates must feel very confused if he bothers to check this "misrepresentative" thread out a second time!
I don't really feel you are trying to engage with me, FH. I'm always trying to get people to focus on what actually happens in CLT, not what should. Flaws in methods are not the point. The gurus of CLT, though they would not admit it or claim to believe in the truth of it, have created a situation where students and many teachers both believe that "any old jolly thing in English" is somehow scientifically better than some kind of structure. The books can give structure, but since we are told that "teacher talking time" etc is a bad thing, many people are not concerned with that. More months of training along those kind of lines isn't going to help.
Or perhaps you feel that structure, along with graspable explanations, is also not part of a teacher's job?
An hour of "Any old jolly thing in English with uncle Dunc" can fit snugly enough into the awesome workload of a top-notch student. Most anything can, and that's why teachers of all sorts have similar results. One thing it is supposed to do though, is motivate people to study hard, because of all the super fun, and I think it is a terrible failure at that.
I don't really feel you are trying to engage with me, FH. I'm always trying to get people to focus on what actually happens in CLT, not what should. Flaws in methods are not the point. The gurus of CLT, though they would not admit it or claim to believe in the truth of it, have created a situation where students and many teachers both believe that "any old jolly thing in English" is somehow scientifically better than some kind of structure. The books can give structure, but since we are told that "teacher talking time" etc is a bad thing, many people are not concerned with that. More months of training along those kind of lines isn't going to help.
Or perhaps you feel that structure, along with graspable explanations, is also not part of a teacher's job?
An hour of "Any old jolly thing in English with uncle Dunc" can fit snugly enough into the awesome workload of a top-notch student. Most anything can, and that's why teachers of all sorts have similar results. One thing it is supposed to do though, is motivate people to study hard, because of all the super fun, and I think it is a terrible failure at that.
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Londo Molari
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Well said Woodcutter!
'One thing it is supposed to do though, is motivate people to study hard, because of all the super fun, and I think it is a terrible failure at that.'
And one place this is particluarly evident is Japan where elementary school pupils are wound up into a frenzy of fun with utterly mindless pap. The thinking is that somehow tha fun and games will make up for the seeming deficiency in the Japanese to learn English. The whole country has been brainwashed into the belief that it is actually doing some good when it quite obviously isn't! Are the rest of the lessons in the curriculum based on games and silly ditties? No! Of course not! And people learn something. It's only English that is given the clown treatment. The thinking is that somehow having a foreigner who jumps around and plays games will make the kids confident and unafraid to use thir English later on. Of course, if they actually had some English to use beyond a few memorised phrases there might be some sense in it, but there isn't. They do seem to find English harder than most other nations, but what they need is more real language work, not less! I got into a lot of trouble for saying that last year.
Parents think that they would have been able to speak English too, had they just had a foreign clown to communicate with. Utter nonsense of course! Yet while people believe that games lead to fluency - a belief held firmly in place by all those language schools and foreign teaching organizations - then there will always be a market for the sort of moronic drivel a la Genki English. To be honest I don't blame Genki English for doing what they do. If the Japanese are stupid enough to buy into it and spend a ridiculous sum every year on having blond clowns in classrooms, then they deserve all they get. What is more, elementary school can be a lot of fun, even for me...but teaching and learning a language it ain't!
If you give kids the chance to have a riot, they will! They will shout, scream and run about - that's the point of the lesson and, after all, English is 'fun'! I have had teachers open the door to the class on occasion while I am 'teaching' because they think, due to the noise levels and things being thrown about, that the kids are unsupervised and running amok. I'd hate to have to try to learn in an environment such as that. But then again, they aren't learning, are they?
For the adult conversation classes, just let them pidgin away, pretend to understand them and tell them how well they are doing, then get them to fill in the blanks while listening to 'Top of the world'. And if you sing it too, they'll really love you for it. It's a kind of prostitution really. But that's what people want, so that's what you give them. No wonder anyone can teach in Japan!
'One thing it is supposed to do though, is motivate people to study hard, because of all the super fun, and I think it is a terrible failure at that.'
And one place this is particluarly evident is Japan where elementary school pupils are wound up into a frenzy of fun with utterly mindless pap. The thinking is that somehow tha fun and games will make up for the seeming deficiency in the Japanese to learn English. The whole country has been brainwashed into the belief that it is actually doing some good when it quite obviously isn't! Are the rest of the lessons in the curriculum based on games and silly ditties? No! Of course not! And people learn something. It's only English that is given the clown treatment. The thinking is that somehow having a foreigner who jumps around and plays games will make the kids confident and unafraid to use thir English later on. Of course, if they actually had some English to use beyond a few memorised phrases there might be some sense in it, but there isn't. They do seem to find English harder than most other nations, but what they need is more real language work, not less! I got into a lot of trouble for saying that last year.
Parents think that they would have been able to speak English too, had they just had a foreign clown to communicate with. Utter nonsense of course! Yet while people believe that games lead to fluency - a belief held firmly in place by all those language schools and foreign teaching organizations - then there will always be a market for the sort of moronic drivel a la Genki English. To be honest I don't blame Genki English for doing what they do. If the Japanese are stupid enough to buy into it and spend a ridiculous sum every year on having blond clowns in classrooms, then they deserve all they get. What is more, elementary school can be a lot of fun, even for me...but teaching and learning a language it ain't!
If you give kids the chance to have a riot, they will! They will shout, scream and run about - that's the point of the lesson and, after all, English is 'fun'! I have had teachers open the door to the class on occasion while I am 'teaching' because they think, due to the noise levels and things being thrown about, that the kids are unsupervised and running amok. I'd hate to have to try to learn in an environment such as that. But then again, they aren't learning, are they?
For the adult conversation classes, just let them pidgin away, pretend to understand them and tell them how well they are doing, then get them to fill in the blanks while listening to 'Top of the world'. And if you sing it too, they'll really love you for it. It's a kind of prostitution really. But that's what people want, so that's what you give them. No wonder anyone can teach in Japan!
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fluffyhamster
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OK, I'll agree with you woody that quite a few (perhaps even the majority) of mainstream (CLT "proper" and/or CLT wannabe) schools, all of whom are saying communicative this or communicative that, may not actually be delivering very much, and emphasizing "fluency" practice over "accuracy" or, indeed, playing quite silly games all day and night (and I'll also agree with Londo that the whole situation in Japan is quite a mess...thought the Japanese themselves have a big part to play in that, because they do rather get their knickers in a twist obssessing over quite pointless things a bit too much).
What I won't accept, however, is that there aren't ANY, GOOD "communicatively-minded" teachers out there, doing as good if not a better job than e.g. Direct Method, drill-and-"thrill" drones (OK, teachers, to extend a professional courtesy that you don't seem to want to offer, woody).
I really don't know where you've been for the past decade or so if you think that any teacher with a modicum of experience under their belt somehow won't be aware of the importance of form (I hesitate to use the word 'structure' because of its historical connotations) or will feel that teacher talking time is bad. Corpus Linguistics, The Lexcial Approach, TBLT etc, hello?!
Lastly, and obviously, 1) a motivated student will make any teacher's job easier and 2) following on from my first paragraph in this post, I really don't see why a serious course can't also be interesting, humorous, playful etc - these are all sought-after aspects of real communication, after all.
P.S. I prefer to use 'Yesterday Once More' to 'Top of the World'.
What I won't accept, however, is that there aren't ANY, GOOD "communicatively-minded" teachers out there, doing as good if not a better job than e.g. Direct Method, drill-and-"thrill" drones (OK, teachers, to extend a professional courtesy that you don't seem to want to offer, woody).
I really don't know where you've been for the past decade or so if you think that any teacher with a modicum of experience under their belt somehow won't be aware of the importance of form (I hesitate to use the word 'structure' because of its historical connotations) or will feel that teacher talking time is bad. Corpus Linguistics, The Lexcial Approach, TBLT etc, hello?!
Lastly, and obviously, 1) a motivated student will make any teacher's job easier and 2) following on from my first paragraph in this post, I really don't see why a serious course can't also be interesting, humorous, playful etc - these are all sought-after aspects of real communication, after all.
P.S. I prefer to use 'Yesterday Once More' to 'Top of the World'.
Shoobie doo lang lang....
Hey all.
I've got a colleague that thinks it's fun, funny, even instructive to put on a tape that has got some Spanish singer phonetically blasphemizing E Presley's "In the Ghetto". A friend who took part in that farce was actually quite offended that the teacher had wasted class-time with the "exercise". I didn't get involved.
I use "I'm so lonesome I could cry", gets those Spanish people to lengthen their vowels, a stretch exercise they sorely need. I like "The Queen and the Soldier", it offers a bit of poetry interpretation and S Vega's voice is pretty clear and easier to understand than most. "Coat of Many Colors" by D Parton is another of my favorites. And naturally, sometimes "Tom's Diner" gets a bit of present continuous example into the classroom. Sometimes we have camp-fire sing-alongs with any of these songs to warm up the class a bit. In a 200 hour course for which I am responsible for 100 hours, I suppose the actual time spent on songs of this type, with their objectives, is no more than two hours in total, and not all in the same day.
I'm wondering if those blonde clowns are all fresh teachers with little experience and far away from home with little clout to insist on doing what they think is right rather than what they have been told is right. I was not aware that there was so much clowning around taking place in the ESL world. If I were king of the world, those people would certainly not work long in my academy. Fortunately, I'm just an ESL teacher and don't have to worry about such things, only have to care for the 150 or so students who pass through my classroom every year.
peace,
revel.
I've got a colleague that thinks it's fun, funny, even instructive to put on a tape that has got some Spanish singer phonetically blasphemizing E Presley's "In the Ghetto". A friend who took part in that farce was actually quite offended that the teacher had wasted class-time with the "exercise". I didn't get involved.
I use "I'm so lonesome I could cry", gets those Spanish people to lengthen their vowels, a stretch exercise they sorely need. I like "The Queen and the Soldier", it offers a bit of poetry interpretation and S Vega's voice is pretty clear and easier to understand than most. "Coat of Many Colors" by D Parton is another of my favorites. And naturally, sometimes "Tom's Diner" gets a bit of present continuous example into the classroom. Sometimes we have camp-fire sing-alongs with any of these songs to warm up the class a bit. In a 200 hour course for which I am responsible for 100 hours, I suppose the actual time spent on songs of this type, with their objectives, is no more than two hours in total, and not all in the same day.
I'm wondering if those blonde clowns are all fresh teachers with little experience and far away from home with little clout to insist on doing what they think is right rather than what they have been told is right. I was not aware that there was so much clowning around taking place in the ESL world. If I were king of the world, those people would certainly not work long in my academy. Fortunately, I'm just an ESL teacher and don't have to worry about such things, only have to care for the 150 or so students who pass through my classroom every year.
peace,
revel.
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woodcutter
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What makes you think that corpus linguistics or the lexical approach have any influence FH? Recent CLT writing takes in some of that, granted. However, it then becomes a conceptual mess, nobody really knows what CLT means, and how many people read much anyway?
No, most people are taught, and hold to a very clean CLT concept. Nothing has any special value at all, except making people produce natural joyful utterances straight from the heart.
Now, these joy-lovers are given a textbook written by CLT writers who have a slightly different view to that. It is actually quite a rigourous system, lots of grammar, phonics work, almost like a "method". The joy-lovers feel confused. They have not really been taught how to use this forbidding PC tome, with its grammar points and recycling. It reminds them, gasp!, of old-fashioned teaching. They just kind of try and get it out of the way as quickly as possible, before having some fun. They create a right pig's ear out of their bag of mixed messages.
No, most people are taught, and hold to a very clean CLT concept. Nothing has any special value at all, except making people produce natural joyful utterances straight from the heart.
Now, these joy-lovers are given a textbook written by CLT writers who have a slightly different view to that. It is actually quite a rigourous system, lots of grammar, phonics work, almost like a "method". The joy-lovers feel confused. They have not really been taught how to use this forbidding PC tome, with its grammar points and recycling. It reminds them, gasp!, of old-fashioned teaching. They just kind of try and get it out of the way as quickly as possible, before having some fun. They create a right pig's ear out of their bag of mixed messages.
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Londo Molari
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CLT books with grammar in? Wow! What a concept! It would never take off in Japan where the best CLT textbooks are those with no grammar, lots of communication and photographs of smiling Americans. So, publishers of ESL books are all trying to make better texts with easy English and nothing of any real value in them. That's what the punters want so that's what they make - it's good business. (Did I really say 'punters'?) xxxCENSOREDxxx University Press do a really mindless one called xxxCENSOREDxxx that is perfect to take to class and get the punters to pretend to study for an hour and think they've learned English. It's full of photos too, which provide the answers to the listening exercises so that when they don't understand they still get the answer right and 'feel good' about themselves. It's a piece of cake to teach too!
I was thinking of writing one myself - totally inane, ridiculously easy, lots pf pictures and unrealistic situations with lots of friendly foreigners, and, of course all foreigners are happy, smiley and friendly, just like the ones doing the TV English programs, right? Just like the happy-smiley, touchy-feely blond and sporty who is teaching their kids English at elementary school, right? Somebody is in for a shock when she goes overseas! Yes, make it the most moronic load of crap available with a teaching guide with unrealistic suggestions (My favourite ones are the ones that instruct the teacher to tell the beginners what the lesson is going to be about and what the targets are. How for f' sake? If the class could understand that much they wouldn't need the basic class, now would they? Of course you could explain it in pictures, but what a waste of time for something that isn't necessary anyway!) for how to conduct classes and loads of pictures. Sell it for 3500 yen a pop and watch the profits roll in. Well, that's what the other publishers are doing! They just don't admit it.
I was thinking of writing one myself - totally inane, ridiculously easy, lots pf pictures and unrealistic situations with lots of friendly foreigners, and, of course all foreigners are happy, smiley and friendly, just like the ones doing the TV English programs, right? Just like the happy-smiley, touchy-feely blond and sporty who is teaching their kids English at elementary school, right? Somebody is in for a shock when she goes overseas! Yes, make it the most moronic load of crap available with a teaching guide with unrealistic suggestions (My favourite ones are the ones that instruct the teacher to tell the beginners what the lesson is going to be about and what the targets are. How for f' sake? If the class could understand that much they wouldn't need the basic class, now would they? Of course you could explain it in pictures, but what a waste of time for something that isn't necessary anyway!) for how to conduct classes and loads of pictures. Sell it for 3500 yen a pop and watch the profits roll in. Well, that's what the other publishers are doing! They just don't admit it.
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fluffyhamster
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Of course Corpus Linguistics has had an impact, woody, and the Lexical Approach too (the latter though is only going to chime with those who aren't satisfied with what the CELTA offers - not that RSA/UCLES is the sole rightful interpreter of what's "communicative" or not, of what is and isn't going to aid long-term success in communicating; the former has something to offer everyone, it's much more 'straight off of the shelf', little need for justificatory waffle). Are you trying to lose all credibility here on Dave's, or are you just yanking my chain? 
).
Londo, whichever book you're referring to, you make it sound more like a Monbugakushou-approved piece of pap than something not wholly indefensible (that is, I don't especially wish to defend e.g. (New) Interchange much, but last time I looked it had big "Grammar Focus" boxes and at least a few structure-focused exercises and/or activities). What, exactly, is (proper, lovely, juicy, honest-to-goodness) "grammar" to you guys, then? (I think I know how you'll both answer that, but I'll ask anyway, what the hell...).
Of course sentences from the heart, from real memories, are going to have a special value! (Sorry, that beauty was just begging to be "misconstrued"!woodcutter wrote:Nothing has any special value at all, except making people produce natural joyful utterances straight from the heart.
).I think you'd be surprised, woody. I mean, I'm a "communicative" teacher, and phoneme frequency lists, grammar and the like (within reason) get me salivating: certainly, I see it as part of the teacher's job at least to get to grips with all this stuff and organize it in a way that would seem helpful or logical (and natural too, why not!).Now, these joy-lovers are given a textbook written by CLT writers who have a slightly different view to that. It is actually quite a rigourous system, lots of grammar, phonics work, almost like a "method". The joy-lovers feel confused. They have not really been taught how to use this forbidding PC tome, with its grammar points and recycling. It reminds them, gasp!, of old-fashioned teaching. They just kind of try and get it out of the way as quickly as possible, before having some fun. They create a right pig's ear out of their bag of mixed messages.
Londo, whichever book you're referring to, you make it sound more like a Monbugakushou-approved piece of pap than something not wholly indefensible (that is, I don't especially wish to defend e.g. (New) Interchange much, but last time I looked it had big "Grammar Focus" boxes and at least a few structure-focused exercises and/or activities). What, exactly, is (proper, lovely, juicy, honest-to-goodness) "grammar" to you guys, then? (I think I know how you'll both answer that, but I'll ask anyway, what the hell...).
One things I've yet to see on this list is how Londo avoids the all too common situation where students' utterances are grammatically correct but totally unnatural.
I wasn't aware that CLT meant taking grammar out of it altogether and chatting away in pidgin English; that strikes me as a gross distortion. I'm not saying grammar isn't important, but it isn't the be all and end all. Londo seems to be railing against the "keep 'em happy and never mind how bad their English is" approach, which is fair enough but to say "that's CLT" is hardly fair.
I wasn't aware that CLT meant taking grammar out of it altogether and chatting away in pidgin English; that strikes me as a gross distortion. I'm not saying grammar isn't important, but it isn't the be all and end all. Londo seems to be railing against the "keep 'em happy and never mind how bad their English is" approach, which is fair enough but to say "that's CLT" is hardly fair.
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Londo Molari
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Had such instances come up before, I would have responded to them. Of course idiomacity must be taken into account, but if you don't know what is grammatical then you can't recognise what isn't grammatical but is idiomatic. How do you do one of those smug smiley things?
It is the fact that grammar is played down so much that I am 'up-playing' it. Vocabulary is just memorisation, and a certain amount of contextual knowledge. Use of correct vocabulary depending on the context is, however, pointless if your grammar is crap. It is like those trendy phrases teachers teach to their students such as 'Hey, what's happ'nin, Dude?'. They then use it and follow it up with pidgin. How ridiculous does that sound?
Correction needs a base to work fro, Yes, I know the ESL ideal is not to correct and let the students just pick it up through remodelling - a useless technique unless the students have the structure to work from. To echo what I said above, you can't explain what's idiomatic unless the students understand what is grammatically correct, which is why this catch-phrase stuff doesn't work.
Should we correct? You betcha! EVERYTHING should be corrected. This isn't demoralising if we get away from the run-before-you-can-walk expectations of ESL and CLT and start from scratch with a firm grammatical foundation and hight expectations of learning and studying from the students. It all comes down to hard work - something your average or even slightly above average Tom, *beep* or Hiro just refuses to do.
It is the fact that grammar is played down so much that I am 'up-playing' it. Vocabulary is just memorisation, and a certain amount of contextual knowledge. Use of correct vocabulary depending on the context is, however, pointless if your grammar is crap. It is like those trendy phrases teachers teach to their students such as 'Hey, what's happ'nin, Dude?'. They then use it and follow it up with pidgin. How ridiculous does that sound?
Correction needs a base to work fro, Yes, I know the ESL ideal is not to correct and let the students just pick it up through remodelling - a useless technique unless the students have the structure to work from. To echo what I said above, you can't explain what's idiomatic unless the students understand what is grammatically correct, which is why this catch-phrase stuff doesn't work.
Should we correct? You betcha! EVERYTHING should be corrected. This isn't demoralising if we get away from the run-before-you-can-walk expectations of ESL and CLT and start from scratch with a firm grammatical foundation and hight expectations of learning and studying from the students. It all comes down to hard work - something your average or even slightly above average Tom, *beep* or Hiro just refuses to do.
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fluffyhamster
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Why do you think idiomatic language is ungrammatical, Londo?Londo Molari wrote:Of course idiomacity must be taken into account, but if you don't know what is grammatical then you can't recognise what isn't grammatical but is idiomatic.
Sounds like you strongly believe in a slot and filler approach. Nothing wrong with that per se, except that the quite limited range of structures and random lexicalization don't help students learn as much as they could be (and need to be). (I'm not advocating slavishly emulating native speakers word for word, it's just, I think there are a lot of functions that one might like to express that just aren't done justice by structural courses).It is the fact that grammar is played down so much that I am 'up-playing' it. Vocabulary is just memorisation, and a certain amount of contextual knowledge. Use of correct vocabulary depending on the context is, however, pointless if your grammar is crap.
And why the aversion to phrases generally? Haven't you heard, phrases are all the rage nowadays? They have all the structures you know and love so well, plus a whole lot more. As John Sinclair says, more of what we say is idiomatic (closed choice) than finding expression through "open choice" principles (generally, I believe similar underlying grammatical constraints operate, and even in phrases like 'You ain't seen nothin' yet!', there is a non-standard grammar that is operating perfectly consistently).
Why do you assume students in a CLT class won't have (been previously exposed to) the form already? Like I've said several times now, there has long been an empirical tradition in British (Applied) linguistics, and CLT at least has not been loathe to draw upon the findings of such research.Correction needs a base to work fro, Yes, I know the ESL ideal is not to correct and let the students just pick it up through remodelling - a useless technique unless the students have the structure to work from.
That's news to me. Once again, you are taking an idea to an extreme and shooting it down. The choice isn't a stark "correct everything or correct nothing" - everything has its time and place. Londo thinks it's best to correct every single mistake; maybe he could draw our attention to some research that shows his approach works.I know the ESL ideal is not to correct and let the students just pick it up through remodelling - a useless technique unless the students have the structure to work from.
Before you ask when the right time and place is, I'd say the main ones were:
1) When the student is making a mistake that is below their level. If a low level student is trying to get something across that's clearly beyond them, help rather than corection is on order.
2) When the error is on the aspect of language being focussed on. If you're doing -ed pronunciation, by all means coorect the student who says "finish-ed" with three syllables instead of two. However, if your lesson is about developing reading skills, it doesn't help to distract everyone by correcting every minor error (especially as, if you're going to do it properly, you will have to explain why it's wrong)
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woodcutter
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CLT has no real meaning at all, in the Lolwhites/FH version, and one can bet that what those two do differs widely. It simply means that students must be given some sort of chance to use natural sentences of their own, sometimes. There are many ways to do that, and one could even fix it to the end of a GT class.
By the way, it seems to me that the "science" behind CLT is simply research showing that a joyful, natural utterance is better retained than any kind of artificial one. As usual, such science is unnecessary, that's obvious. The point is whether the extra work needed to facilitate it, and difficulties involved, are worthwhile.
I haven't seen the "science" try to take in the experiences of people who like GT, or other things - often very successful learners like Mr.M. And, Fluffy, you know, I am not Conan the Barbarian. Outside of MA holders and beyond, among ESL teachers, I am possibly in a the top percentile of language related stuff read. Almost certainly, if the works of Latham, Olsen, Jones and Powrie count!
By the way, it seems to me that the "science" behind CLT is simply research showing that a joyful, natural utterance is better retained than any kind of artificial one. As usual, such science is unnecessary, that's obvious. The point is whether the extra work needed to facilitate it, and difficulties involved, are worthwhile.
I haven't seen the "science" try to take in the experiences of people who like GT, or other things - often very successful learners like Mr.M. And, Fluffy, you know, I am not Conan the Barbarian. Outside of MA holders and beyond, among ESL teachers, I am possibly in a the top percentile of language related stuff read. Almost certainly, if the works of Latham, Olsen, Jones and Powrie count!
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Londo Molari
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Tue May 24, 2005 9:19 am
Why do you think idiomatic language is ungrammatical, Londo?
No, of course not, but some is. 'Long time no see' being a prime example. The point is, if it's idiomatic and ungrammatical how are you (the teacher and the student) going to know unless you have a solid grammar base to work from and to use for comparison. If it is idiomatic and grammatically correct too, then what are you complaining about? I was responding to lolwhites' challenge.
I have nothing against phrases. They are an essential part of language learning, but they are nothing more than learning vocabulary i.e. they depend solely on the ability to memorise. My problem with phrases is that people may learn the phrase but without knowing the grammar they are unable to recognise and manipluate the various features to suit a vast number of situations (and still get it right!). So, for example, you get students who have learned 'It's a car' saying 'It's a my car'. Of course CLT allows this because it's 'communicative'. Don't correct them! Let them try and communicate. This is just the beginning of the slippery slope.
Grammar is the key to language learning.
No, of course not, but some is. 'Long time no see' being a prime example. The point is, if it's idiomatic and ungrammatical how are you (the teacher and the student) going to know unless you have a solid grammar base to work from and to use for comparison. If it is idiomatic and grammatically correct too, then what are you complaining about? I was responding to lolwhites' challenge.
I have nothing against phrases. They are an essential part of language learning, but they are nothing more than learning vocabulary i.e. they depend solely on the ability to memorise. My problem with phrases is that people may learn the phrase but without knowing the grammar they are unable to recognise and manipluate the various features to suit a vast number of situations (and still get it right!). So, for example, you get students who have learned 'It's a car' saying 'It's a my car'. Of course CLT allows this because it's 'communicative'. Don't correct them! Let them try and communicate. This is just the beginning of the slippery slope.
Grammar is the key to language learning.
I don't really disagree with anything you've just said, Londo. In fact. this is beginning to strike me as a re-run of the "Communicative Language Teaching Fraud Revealed" thread we had a few weeks back.
It should go without saying that students need to be able to string sentences together in order to communicate. They also need to learn that not all "gramatically correct" sentences are good English. They need to go beyone the level of the sentence and look and coherence, cohesion etc - grammar won't help with this. They also need to know about register. The student who comes to the UK and says "Give me a coffee" isn't making any grammar mistakes but is asking for a punch on the nose; there's been a communication failure which grammar cannot account for.
Grammar is a key, not the key.
It should go without saying that students need to be able to string sentences together in order to communicate. They also need to learn that not all "gramatically correct" sentences are good English. They need to go beyone the level of the sentence and look and coherence, cohesion etc - grammar won't help with this. They also need to know about register. The student who comes to the UK and says "Give me a coffee" isn't making any grammar mistakes but is asking for a punch on the nose; there's been a communication failure which grammar cannot account for.
Grammar is a key, not the key.