Londo - what you sent me privately is highly relevant, and I can't imagine why you wouldn't put it here. It is a more convincing case than we have seen thus far!
FH - For the 1000th time, my method of choice is essentially to give input and ask a question in which learners must come out with that kind of input while engaging in bona fide communication with me, which I will correct. Why you insist on the mechanical nature of it I do not know.
Lol - My Trinity course mentioned other left-field methods, but none of them has many followers. Of other methods out there which are actually popular, apart from grammar translation, there was nary a peep. And every non-method school I ever worked in has had the same kind of books, same kind of expectations, forced me into the same method!
The 'Communicative Language Teaching' Fraud Revealed!
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
Surely they don't observe every lesson and pull you up for not following the "method", and I imagine you have the nous to supplement your book with your own material. I really can't believe you, of all people, find it hard to adapt and use more than one "method", even in the same lesson.every non-method school I ever worked in has had the same kind of books, same kind of expectations, forced me into the same method!
I work (for 4 more weeks anyway) in FE and the people who observe my lessons want to see me adapt what I do to according to the needs of my students, not slavishly follow some method.
-
Londo Molari
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Tue May 24, 2005 9:19 am
I am well aware Krashen is not the architect of CLT. His baby is the 'Natural Method', but with so many fuzzy methodlogies out there, especially in ESL, CLT has come to cover a multitude of evils.
Just looked at the profiles of people debating here and I realise that we are mostly from the UK and using UK termonology that needs defining for the non-UK posters and lurkers:
FE = Further Education (post 16/adult education)
MFL = Modern Foreign Languages (as a subject or subjects at school)
I missed this on page one:
'To train as a teacher in the British state school system takes one year of postgrad study. Is it so much easier to teach English to Japanese kids as it is to teach French to English kids that the former only requires one month's training while the latter needs one year'.
Do you know what you need to teach English to Japanese kids? A degree in anything (for the visa requirements) and a smile!!! If you are in the country already on a different visa, just the smile will do. I kidd you not! BUT if you try and teach children at elementary school you will be stopped. English isn't learned by studying, it's just picked up by magic by playing games with a foreigner, singing inane ditties and talking to him or her in Japanese, no less. Any comments Dr. Krashen?
Just looked at the profiles of people debating here and I realise that we are mostly from the UK and using UK termonology that needs defining for the non-UK posters and lurkers:
FE = Further Education (post 16/adult education)
MFL = Modern Foreign Languages (as a subject or subjects at school)
I missed this on page one:
'To train as a teacher in the British state school system takes one year of postgrad study. Is it so much easier to teach English to Japanese kids as it is to teach French to English kids that the former only requires one month's training while the latter needs one year'.
Do you know what you need to teach English to Japanese kids? A degree in anything (for the visa requirements) and a smile!!! If you are in the country already on a different visa, just the smile will do. I kidd you not! BUT if you try and teach children at elementary school you will be stopped. English isn't learned by studying, it's just picked up by magic by playing games with a foreigner, singing inane ditties and talking to him or her in Japanese, no less. Any comments Dr. Krashen?
-
woodcutter
- Posts: 1303
- Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2004 6:14 am
- Location: London
I don't want to supplement. I wanna talk like a lady in a flower shop...
No, hang on. Let me start again. I don't want to supplement. That leads me into TWALTing. I want to practice a methodology I feel more comfortable with. The method you love best, you teach best, gotta be, eh?
I wish you'd leave the kids alone, Mr.Molari. The lessons with them are chiefly a phonics exercise anyway, so the less qualifications and the more bum-wiping skills the better. Grammar translation is for proper scholars.
No, hang on. Let me start again. I don't want to supplement. That leads me into TWALTing. I want to practice a methodology I feel more comfortable with. The method you love best, you teach best, gotta be, eh?
I wish you'd leave the kids alone, Mr.Molari. The lessons with them are chiefly a phonics exercise anyway, so the less qualifications and the more bum-wiping skills the better. Grammar translation is for proper scholars.
-
Londo Molari
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Tue May 24, 2005 9:19 am
On the contrary, I think that language teaching/learning for young learners is an essential issue to debate because a lot of the methodologies that the comedy theorists dream up hinge on their perception of the way children supposedly learn languages. This dictates the rules such as 'children learn langauge through play so if we play games we will get the same results'. Totally untrue. Welcome to Phantasy Language learning 101 (i.e. ESL teacher training)! These weak ideas become widely accepted as they seem to have some substance behind them to people who are not language learners themselves, and then these ideas inevitably find their way into adult language educational practices too.
As for merely a phonics exercise, I have to disagree with you yet again. Give me the classes and a free hand and I'll have them producing far more than a few simple phonics drills.
'Grammar translation is for proper scholars.'
Guess what! I agree with you! And only proper scholars, or, let's reword that as 'people willing to study hard and for a prolonged period with dedication and interest' will do anything worthwhile with the language anyway.
As for merely a phonics exercise, I have to disagree with you yet again. Give me the classes and a free hand and I'll have them producing far more than a few simple phonics drills.
'Grammar translation is for proper scholars.'
Guess what! I agree with you! And only proper scholars, or, let's reword that as 'people willing to study hard and for a prolonged period with dedication and interest' will do anything worthwhile with the language anyway.
Objectives
Good morning all.
Will try not to ramble. Will stick to my theme. My theme this time is the objectives that ought to be set up well before the teacher meets the student in the classroom. Those objectives will come from different fronts. In general, there will be objectives based on parental expectations, in the case of kiddies studying. Then there will be the objectives of the organization that offers the classes, provides the space and the blackboard and the chalk and the book. The book itself will have more or less clear objectives in the presentation of the material. In spite of or because of or in spite of this material, the students themselves, whether children or adult learners, will enter the class with their own objectives, though like the parents already mentioned, those objectives are more like expectations than clearly outlined, structured, achievable goals. Finally, that is, finally in my list but not finally in order of importance, the teacher will have his/her own personal objectives.
Some of these objectives are shared among all of the objective makers. Parents, schools and even some teachers have an objective of occupying kids in hours of useful activity that will contribute to their development as people who can then go out and live independently. Administrators and teachers might share an objective of producing a quality product that will keep the teacher in work and the academy earning money. Parents and some children will sometimes share the objective of really learning that second language. These are the pretty objectives.
Realistic objectives, that is, those that are really there. The parents need to feel that their kids are safely placed in the care of other adults while they, the parents, are doing other things that distract them from the proper observation of their kids. Day-care is one solution, regular school meets this objective for many hours, afterschool activities usually fills in the gaps. If that baby-sitting service is coupled with a learning activity so much the better, the objective of watching kids is not contrary to the objective of helping them to learn new things.
The objective of the administration might be simply to make money. We need at least five kids in this class paying the monthly fee or we can not meet the costs of providing that class (teacher, lights, heating, chalk). This is a repeat industry, we want students to repeat year after year, and so the quality of the service offered must animate them to repeat. This is not necessarily a question of quality education but rather, is based on the evaluation of the "had a good time" scale of the kids, or sometimes "got a better grade" evaluation in their school exams.
Text books usually have their objectives clearly lined up in an introductory chapter in the teacher's book and one can clearly see these objectives reflected in the table of context. Text writers want their books to be used and they often bend over backwards to make sure that teachers can understand and use and apply whatever material is offered.
Students are full of complex objectives. From "I want to have a good time" through "I want to learn English" to "My folks force me to come since I am failing English in school...." but day to day, specific objectives have to be given to them, none will enter the classroom with the objective "To practice the rhythmic pattern of the present continous and gain agility in making questions and responding with short answers in negative and positive."
Finally, the teacher is the one who is directly in front of this mess. Teachers must make daily objectives. No one "method" will answer to all of the objectives that can come up. If the objective is to get the kids or adults to work in pairs or as small groups, you might need to play a few dice-based games first to get them to cooperate before getting down to the nitty-gritty of whatever small group, pair activity is required of them. If no one is opening their mouths enough when saying "I" or "right" then you may have to spend ten minutes with pronuncation stretch exercises like "aisle/alley, buy/bad". If spelling words correctly is the objective today, then they will have to work with the alphabet and maybe do spelling bees, and maybe copy every word they got wrong ten times, and maybe have regular spelling quizes. If they are on the point of using "would" they might need to do thirty sentences with "would" properly contracted, in affirmation, negation, interrogation, get their lips wrapped around those combinations that will show up in almost all "would" sentences so that when asked to concentrate of what they are saying they don't have the added interference of having difficulty in articulating what they ought to be saying.
Speaking about "methods" without pointing out the objectives of each of them is, as far as I can see, simply each person touting their own and being critical of the rest of us. I personally don't believe that a single one of us will be personally responsible for a single student developing into a full fledged English speaking individual. That's a lifetime effort and the only person who is with the student all of his/her life is the student him/her self. As there is no teacher who will take a student from absolute zero through absolute fluency, thus there is no method that does so either.
(All this is what I wanted to say earlier when I got rambling....)
peace,
revel.
Will try not to ramble. Will stick to my theme. My theme this time is the objectives that ought to be set up well before the teacher meets the student in the classroom. Those objectives will come from different fronts. In general, there will be objectives based on parental expectations, in the case of kiddies studying. Then there will be the objectives of the organization that offers the classes, provides the space and the blackboard and the chalk and the book. The book itself will have more or less clear objectives in the presentation of the material. In spite of or because of or in spite of this material, the students themselves, whether children or adult learners, will enter the class with their own objectives, though like the parents already mentioned, those objectives are more like expectations than clearly outlined, structured, achievable goals. Finally, that is, finally in my list but not finally in order of importance, the teacher will have his/her own personal objectives.
Some of these objectives are shared among all of the objective makers. Parents, schools and even some teachers have an objective of occupying kids in hours of useful activity that will contribute to their development as people who can then go out and live independently. Administrators and teachers might share an objective of producing a quality product that will keep the teacher in work and the academy earning money. Parents and some children will sometimes share the objective of really learning that second language. These are the pretty objectives.
Realistic objectives, that is, those that are really there. The parents need to feel that their kids are safely placed in the care of other adults while they, the parents, are doing other things that distract them from the proper observation of their kids. Day-care is one solution, regular school meets this objective for many hours, afterschool activities usually fills in the gaps. If that baby-sitting service is coupled with a learning activity so much the better, the objective of watching kids is not contrary to the objective of helping them to learn new things.
The objective of the administration might be simply to make money. We need at least five kids in this class paying the monthly fee or we can not meet the costs of providing that class (teacher, lights, heating, chalk). This is a repeat industry, we want students to repeat year after year, and so the quality of the service offered must animate them to repeat. This is not necessarily a question of quality education but rather, is based on the evaluation of the "had a good time" scale of the kids, or sometimes "got a better grade" evaluation in their school exams.
Text books usually have their objectives clearly lined up in an introductory chapter in the teacher's book and one can clearly see these objectives reflected in the table of context. Text writers want their books to be used and they often bend over backwards to make sure that teachers can understand and use and apply whatever material is offered.
Students are full of complex objectives. From "I want to have a good time" through "I want to learn English" to "My folks force me to come since I am failing English in school...." but day to day, specific objectives have to be given to them, none will enter the classroom with the objective "To practice the rhythmic pattern of the present continous and gain agility in making questions and responding with short answers in negative and positive."
Finally, the teacher is the one who is directly in front of this mess. Teachers must make daily objectives. No one "method" will answer to all of the objectives that can come up. If the objective is to get the kids or adults to work in pairs or as small groups, you might need to play a few dice-based games first to get them to cooperate before getting down to the nitty-gritty of whatever small group, pair activity is required of them. If no one is opening their mouths enough when saying "I" or "right" then you may have to spend ten minutes with pronuncation stretch exercises like "aisle/alley, buy/bad". If spelling words correctly is the objective today, then they will have to work with the alphabet and maybe do spelling bees, and maybe copy every word they got wrong ten times, and maybe have regular spelling quizes. If they are on the point of using "would" they might need to do thirty sentences with "would" properly contracted, in affirmation, negation, interrogation, get their lips wrapped around those combinations that will show up in almost all "would" sentences so that when asked to concentrate of what they are saying they don't have the added interference of having difficulty in articulating what they ought to be saying.
Speaking about "methods" without pointing out the objectives of each of them is, as far as I can see, simply each person touting their own and being critical of the rest of us. I personally don't believe that a single one of us will be personally responsible for a single student developing into a full fledged English speaking individual. That's a lifetime effort and the only person who is with the student all of his/her life is the student him/her self. As there is no teacher who will take a student from absolute zero through absolute fluency, thus there is no method that does so either.
(All this is what I wanted to say earlier when I got rambling....)
peace,
revel.
-
woodcutter
- Posts: 1303
- Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2004 6:14 am
- Location: London
Yes, I do suspect less rambling would integrate you better, Revel! Objectives, I think, are different for each individual, each parent, each face at each desk. But we must deal in classes. That's why we need methods in order to keep a grip on them.
Londo, I think people of all but the youngest ages learn in a way that is more grammar translation than pick-it-uppery. We agree on the same heresy there. My point is that all the same, most children do not wish to engage in formal study, cannot concentrate on it. If you teach old fashioned GT style, you will be teaching the cream and leaving the rest to flounder and disrupt. And as I've pointed out already, Korean and Japanese kids pretty much are taught as you wish by their local teachers. Since the kids are unmotivated, it leads them into the habit of not biting into the target language. Modern methods would rather have us teach them all, even if it is badly, even if the explanations take time and sweat. This is a common dilemma in education, but whereas we cannot separate out kids in middle school very easily, we can do it easily in language institutes.
Anyway, since you can't speak Japanese, how are you going to teach them? And what is Lol supposed to do with the multi-national class?
Londo, I think people of all but the youngest ages learn in a way that is more grammar translation than pick-it-uppery. We agree on the same heresy there. My point is that all the same, most children do not wish to engage in formal study, cannot concentrate on it. If you teach old fashioned GT style, you will be teaching the cream and leaving the rest to flounder and disrupt. And as I've pointed out already, Korean and Japanese kids pretty much are taught as you wish by their local teachers. Since the kids are unmotivated, it leads them into the habit of not biting into the target language. Modern methods would rather have us teach them all, even if it is badly, even if the explanations take time and sweat. This is a common dilemma in education, but whereas we cannot separate out kids in middle school very easily, we can do it easily in language institutes.
Anyway, since you can't speak Japanese, how are you going to teach them? And what is Lol supposed to do with the multi-national class?
-
fluffyhamster
- Posts: 3031
- Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:57 pm
- Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
Yeah, but is what Cambridge flogs actually representative of CLT and/or pointing the way to what CLT could be(come) and achieve? (There may be mention of TBL etc on the CELTA now, but I wonder if the methodology really has changed appreciably).lolwhites wrote:Perhaps if CELTA trainers didn't insist on pushing CLT as the way, rather than one way (as it was on my CELTA) we wouldn't be haviong this discussion. Even the Diploma course seemed to work from the assumption that there is one way to do it. The PGCE, by contrast, emphasised the need for a variety of styles to suit different students. There's more than one way to skin a prescriptivist.
Like I say, those who want to seriously debunk the Communicative Approach would to my mind need to say what is so misguided about what the various authors present in seminal collections such as Brumfit and Johnson's The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching (OUP 1979), or what Widdowson especially has gone onto argue (he can often seem quite reactionary and anti-CLT in his attempts to thrash out a compromise!), and let's not forget the great synthesizer Michael Lewis:
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... 3141#13141
Then, there are dozens more serious authors with valuable ideas who can be comfortably included under a broad CLT umbrella.
Basically, I think those who turn away from CLT and its implications are often taking steps backwards as far as syllabus design and derived methodologies are concerned.
-
joshua2004
- Posts: 264
- Joined: Sat Nov 20, 2004 7:08 pm
- Location: Torreon, Mexico
I think we can all agree to disagree since reading most posts on this thread, I can tell people are saying the same thing, just in different ways. Where the disagreement lies is in how it is being said.
It seems to me, Londo is making the point that we shouldn't blindly trust CLT or any methodology. That CLT has become so accepted that for anyone to try and use it effectively and wholly, is to prescribe to an extremist religion that which doesn't change or adapt or evolve. This is an important factor for any methodology or namely any teacher; the ability to change and get better.
It seems to me, Londo is making the point that we shouldn't blindly trust CLT or any methodology. That CLT has become so accepted that for anyone to try and use it effectively and wholly, is to prescribe to an extremist religion that which doesn't change or adapt or evolve. This is an important factor for any methodology or namely any teacher; the ability to change and get better.
-
fluffyhamster
- Posts: 3031
- Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:57 pm
- Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
I don't think it's necessarily a case of getting better that constitutes beneficial change: often it's just a case of not doing things as badly as before...doesn't need to be anything earth-shattering (except when it comes to choice of texts - what was it Kurosawa said? 'With a bad script, even a good director can't make a good movie'? Something like that ね!).
-
JuanTwoThree
- Posts: 947
- Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:30 am
- Location: Spain
-
woodcutter
- Posts: 1303
- Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2004 6:14 am
- Location: London
Where I and Londo seem to differ from the rest of you though, is that we feel that languages are learnt by translating in the head, and that the CLT writers are wrong to create myths about classrooms from their observations of young kids. The denigrating of grammar translation et al by misguided minions is therefore upsetting. The very people who should be giving us helpful advice on how to learn are holding us all back.
I have done my best to take on the great and the good, FH. It isn't easy!
Let me add one nugget to that corpus. There is an article today in the guardian about how maths teaching has failed in England and Wales. The experts have been piddling around with that for years, attacking the boring old tweed jacketed teachers, trying to jazz it up. Hasn't worked, because students are not bringing motivation into the class, no doubt. Treating the teacher as the problem will not provide the solution.
I have done my best to take on the great and the good, FH. It isn't easy!
Let me add one nugget to that corpus. There is an article today in the guardian about how maths teaching has failed in England and Wales. The experts have been piddling around with that for years, attacking the boring old tweed jacketed teachers, trying to jazz it up. Hasn't worked, because students are not bringing motivation into the class, no doubt. Treating the teacher as the problem will not provide the solution.
If we're honest with ourselves, we probably all translated "in our heads" when we first learned a foreign language. Where we may differ is about how explicit it has to be. When I did my CELTA course, we had some lessons in Mandarin to show us what it would be like for our students. The teacher spoke not a word of English, and, yes, I translated in my head. Crucially, I translated phrases and not individual words.
Why are my EFL classes full of Spanish people who write Spanish with English words? Might they have had one G&T too many?
Why are my EFL classes full of Spanish people who write Spanish with English words? Might they have had one G&T too many?
A little experiment
Good madrugada, all.
I just tried a little experiment while trying to compose my thoughts for this contribution. I was thinking about my high school French teacher, Mrs Lane, who insisted that we try not to translate our thoughts from English to French but that we rather try to work out what we want to say with whatever French we had at our beck and call. She did not condemn translation but rather wanted us to take advantage of what we already knew and build upon it. Naturally, at one point or another in every new lesson, she had to tell us what those new words and structures meant and though I don't remember exactly, I am sure she explained those meanings in English.
This led me to think that perhaps I ought to brush up on my French. I work with a French woman who would be more than happy to speak in French with me, we already communicate in Spanish and occasionally in English (when that Englishman who only speaks English is with us, for example). I tried to pull out of that cob-web-ridden closet a sentence like "I'd like to speak French with you, Annie, to improve my speaking and brush up." But I did not think of the sentence in English, rather it came to me in Spanish since that is the language we normally use to speak with one another. I tried to translate that sentence, me gustaría hablar en frances contigo, Annie, quiero mejorar mi conversación y repasar un poco and the sentence translated itself into Catalan.
I probably translate every day of my working life. I often find students struggling against translation interference when trying to make sentences in English that wouldn't make much sense translated "literally" into Spanish, or viceversa. I wouldn't suggest that translation in the class is a no no, though I wouldn't use it as a basis for my teaching. That's all. Look how short this one was.
peace,
revel.
I just tried a little experiment while trying to compose my thoughts for this contribution. I was thinking about my high school French teacher, Mrs Lane, who insisted that we try not to translate our thoughts from English to French but that we rather try to work out what we want to say with whatever French we had at our beck and call. She did not condemn translation but rather wanted us to take advantage of what we already knew and build upon it. Naturally, at one point or another in every new lesson, she had to tell us what those new words and structures meant and though I don't remember exactly, I am sure she explained those meanings in English.
This led me to think that perhaps I ought to brush up on my French. I work with a French woman who would be more than happy to speak in French with me, we already communicate in Spanish and occasionally in English (when that Englishman who only speaks English is with us, for example). I tried to pull out of that cob-web-ridden closet a sentence like "I'd like to speak French with you, Annie, to improve my speaking and brush up." But I did not think of the sentence in English, rather it came to me in Spanish since that is the language we normally use to speak with one another. I tried to translate that sentence, me gustaría hablar en frances contigo, Annie, quiero mejorar mi conversación y repasar un poco and the sentence translated itself into Catalan.
I probably translate every day of my working life. I often find students struggling against translation interference when trying to make sentences in English that wouldn't make much sense translated "literally" into Spanish, or viceversa. I wouldn't suggest that translation in the class is a no no, though I wouldn't use it as a basis for my teaching. That's all. Look how short this one was.
peace,
revel.
What do you do with a student for whom your method doesn't work? Is your institution big enough that they can find another group at the same level where the teacher's method is different? Presumably they aren't expected to sink or swim.I want to practice a methodology I feel more comfortable with. The method you love best, you teach best, gotta be, eh?
Don't get me wrong - I'm no fan of the trendy "learning styles" questionnaires that read like a "how good is your love life?" quiz out of Cosmopolitan, but don't you accept that different things work for different people and the successful teacher adopts a variety of activities to make sure everyone gets something? What's more, a variety of activities keeps the students engaged, so they carry on learning rather than switching off after 15 minutes.
You may have a favourite method, but I suggest that a little experimentation never did any harm. Next time, try doing something different for 10-15 minutes. If it doesn't work, you'll know for next time and won't have lost a great deal. If it does, you'll have just improved your teaching.