How to get rid of the 'Bottom-up Syndrome'?

Duncan Powrie · Post by **Duncan Powrie** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 7:23 pm

oops I meant to say "Damn I should've made Stephen's point myself...except that it may be possible, if the student believes it to be so (and is a natural linguist to boot) FOR THEM TO LEARN A LANGUAGE (OR PARTS OF IT AT LEAST) UNCONSCIOUSLY...what I've been asking about is really to do with student choice, rather than in trying to impose my own approach...I might be laboring under a misapprehension by believing that improved descriptions have anything to offer students or even teachers..."

Lorikeet · Post by **Lorikeet** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 7:26 pm

As an aside, this board allows you to edit your replies if you want to, and also to delete them if you get there before someone else posts. I am not sure if the delete works after it's part of a thread. I didn't want to test it and drive everyone nuts

Duncan Powrie · Post by **Duncan Powrie** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 7:30 pm

Yes, sorry Lorikeet, I just became aware of the edit option...I'll try to control my urge to post the reply ASAP and check through it for mistakes - it'll help improve the readability of not only my posts, but help the general flow of everybody's ideas!

Duncan Powrie · Post by **Duncan Powrie** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 8:36 pm

Here's a thought: I wouldn't want to say top-down vs. bottom-up is an entirely false dichtomy (and besides, dichtomies can be useful for thinking), but they could perhaps be usefully combined into "understanding" or "comprehension" as far as the language classroom is concerned. I only suggest this because I think it would encourage teachers to not focus on extremes - establishing context without envisaging possible language use therein OR teaching language items and expecting them to be learned without a supporting context/environment - but rather, to focus on both poles at once and bring them together somehow in a hopefully very natural and satisfying way...I'm still working out what exactly such a "natural pedagogy" would be like, and I find the wealth of information in the latest dictionaries very helpful and suggestive in this regard (moreso anyway than the very sketchy suggestions you'll find in most CLT materials)...I'll just close by saying that I don't expect students to have their noses in dictionaries every spare minute, but I am amazed at how many English teachers feel they can get by (and feel they are getting by fine) without them!

Vytenis · Post by **Vytenis** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 10:11 am

Duncan Powrie wrote:Thanks for replying, Vytenis! Sorry about my writing - sometimes I am ashamed to say it, but I am a native speaker! Anyway, obviously the Communicative Approach has a lot going for it, and I can understand your faith in it compared to your earlier learning experiences...so, let me put it another way (and other learners, please feel free to respond!): Do you think that there is too great a responsibility placed on the learner to "perform" in communicative classrooms - that they become victims of the "You learn to speak by speaking" dictat (when in natural acquisition, listening is so very important)

Absolutely! There is nothing worse than putting pressure on the student in the classroom to "speak". How can they speak if they don't know HOW to speak in the first place! One learns how to speak correctly, naturally and fluently only by listening a lot first. And besides, what is the point in speaking-for-the-sake-of-speaking anyway? When we learn a language in the natural environment we do not normally speak for the sake of speaking. Rather we speak for the sake of communication. That is, we use the language according to its direct function and not study it as a body of knowledge to be memorized and only later used according to its direct function. That is not to say that I am totally against studying the language as such. In many situations it has its merits too. But for me it is dull, difficult and boring. And I have this faith in the communicative approach not so much from my own learning experieces (and not from blindly adopting some fashionable -ism either), but mostly from my teaching expetriences. I have had too much frustrations with my students to leave me any doubt that "school-subject" approach to a foreign language is absolutely hopeless.

Roger · Post by **Roger** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 10:32 am

I won't need to dwell on the point raised by Stephen: you acquire your first tongue to a large extent subconsciously. But not the whole of it. I think it is at the heart of how you are going to view the world, how you conceptualise things - and that most speakers of an L2 automatically tansfer to their second language; it is the job of a language teacher to help his or her students to visualise things in the native speaker's way. This may mean to for the student to learn to conceptualise things anew.
This is no doubt the biggest challenge - to think diffeently. But it's a must for the speaker of any L2.
As said by Duncan and Vytenis, listening (or reading!) is the key to understanding not only of what is being said but of how the target language functions. Over time the student will no longer tanslate or think about the meaning of parts of sentences as he or she will become familiar with the language.
I am glad someone else said the "dictat" of practising oral English is counterproductive!
I don't think coercion is psychologically desirable for learners of any language!

surefire · Post by **surefire** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 11:33 am

What an interesting discussion.

I learnt French "bottom up" at A-level ie having to memorise and regurgitate endless lists of entirely random vocabulary and grammatical structures none of which I can remember now. The French that I can still use to communicate with now was all learnt "top-down" ie in classroom discussions and from deducing meaning from context, often in "authentic texts".

I have only been learning how to teach EFL for one week

so have VERY little experience but from the reading I've done it certainly seems to me that the way in which you teach should consider the learners' motivation for learning.

And yes it can be nerve-wracking for students to speak in class but how else will they begin to develop enough confidence to use the language in situations where it will be useful...?

Like I said I'm only a week into my Teacher Training course but reading these interesting posts makes me exicited about becoming knowlegeable enough to take part in these discussions more fully...

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 4:16 pm

Don't worry about being knowledgeable enough to take part in these discussions.

Leaving aside the ones who don't know what they're talking about half the time and the ones who nobody knows what they're talking about most of the time.......

would be a big mistake because it would leave virtually nobody. Certainly not me.