Can they handle the truth?

[fluffyhamster]

"Ideally", the actual language as it is spoken, not an abstraction of it. Achieving this necessarily involves paying attention to real patterns in connected discourse

Really? This sounds awfully good, but think about it a bit more. Think about the way native speakers actually converse. Are we asking our students to practice that...precisely?

Sure, a lot of native speech is messy and could do with tidying up (for example, what I call "junk" at the following thread:
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... 5582#15582 ), but it can provide us with a good starting point, especially with regard to the sort of things we can leave out (assume) in rapid speech.

Note, Larry, that I didn't +prescribe or -proscribe any one particular variety of English in my post there. I was thinking more of how people talk in general, about what language is for (that being said, the students will need to learn how people who speak English, non-native or native, do generally go about it, especially when it is NS+NNS, or, increasingly purely out of just "interest", NS+NS. NNS+NNS research is harder to come by - but see Jenkins below - although I suppose that taking the arguments to their logical conclusion, NS teachers will be needed less and less as the century progresses (possibly a little "optimistic", if the overall success of the foreign language teaching and in Japan or China is anything to go by - not that everyone in those countries has to be speaking English), due either to the "success" of ELT or perhaps the growth of e.g. China and the decline of the US, who knows!

But assuming I won't be out of my usual kind of job just yet, obviously, implicitly the one variety of English that I am going to feel most comfortable with is RP/BrE, but I actually have no preference for it over GA/AmE; and, as you will probably recall from your being a long-time member of Dave's, I've written quite a few posts in which I champion the concept of International or World Englishes as a fact we have to accept, with an "aggregate/averaged/mean" standard as an ideal.
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... =5173#5173
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... =9493#9493
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... =9884#9884

Projects like the ICE are a step in the right direction, as is Jenkins's research and proposals for a phonological Lingua Fraca Core based on notions other than just correctness according to NS norms.
http://www.baal.org.uk/bkprize_2001.htm#2
http://www.eltnews.com/features/eltbooks/020.shtml
http://davidd.myplace.nie.edu.sg/reviews/jenkins.htm

I've also mentioned on Dave's how I am irritated almost by some of the proposals that are made regarding the "detail" of the (mainly, I must admit I have concentrated on, NS) models to be made available, but given what I've said immediately above, obviously I would prefer there to be a flexibility over the amount of "required" detail and slavish emulation of an "international" standard in addition to or in place of the RP/GA etc one(s) I might still need to and/or be expected to use (often, ironically enough, by quite insistent S/FL learners or schools).
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... 3710#13710
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... =9272#9272

Then again, I did also write this:
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... =9724#9724

Talking of details is difficult divorced from specific contexts, acticvities and tasks, but I kind of outlined a general approach on that "Dogme" thread:
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... 1839#11839

I suppose at a pinch some of what I wrote on the "Rinvolucri" thread was also about reaching an appropriate level of linguisctic specification in terms of topic and discourse structuring especially:
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... 3387#13387
(actually I'm jumping on a bit through that thread with the link there to a post you said you didn't quite get, Larry, read back a bit also - from 3rd post up from bottom of the second page also)

Lastly, I think Frame semantics gives us some ideas of what is "essential" (recent post here):
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... 3838#13838

Sorry that this post is so "cobbled together", but actually, when you think about it, that's the great thing with putting the hours in on Dave's: we each build up a symbiotic, partially shared book that we can always go back to, and refer others to, in relation to topics that seem connected. Tell me if the links I've posited were connected or way off, anyway (if they were way off, I guess I shouldn't try to save time the next time, and actually give the issue more thought than I might have presumed I had already!).

But generally, I think/hope you'll be able to detect my concern with simplicity and economy (and you know how I like thinking of "clearer" ways in which to express what I imagine were another person's underlying propsitions! I feel I don't do this unnecessarily, it only appears that way because whatever forms are put up for discussion are meant for discussion, especially when they have possibly controversial meanings assigned to them by one person or another that others believe would be expressed better - and more consistently - by another form instead).

[LarryLatham]

I presume you'll let me answer this, Larry, even though I wouldn't classify myself as a gentleman.

Absolutely, Lorikeet! And not only that, but your answer most certainly adds dimension to this discussion.

my goal is communication. I want them to be able to understand each other. I want them to be able to get across their ideas. I want them to learn how to figure out why someone else isn't understanding, and how to do what's necessary to make them understand. I do different things in my classroom, but once a week I have them discuss a topic in groups of three for about 20 minutes. The goal is purely communication.

...It's rather a different idea than some teachers have. Why do you do it this way, or perhaps I should ask, why is this your goal?

Larry Latham

[LarryLatham]

Most of all I want then to get used to the idea of speaking for an audience - not just repeating phrases but speaking to someone who needs to understand them and understanding the anwer back. Negotiation of meaning is what it's sometimes called.

This sounds interesting. Can you expand your ideas a little, lolwhites? I'm especially interested in how you get them to do that, and how you know, but even more important, how they know they have accomplished that.

What do I want them to practise? Lots of things:

Conversational interaction, transactions, fluency, confidence, pronunciation...

Whew! This sounds like an awful lot to do. Do they do all of that at the same time? How can you keep track of what they're doing and how well they're doing? Do you offer any guidance?

Larry Latham

[fluffyhamster]

I was also forgetting this recent thread (re. NS knowledge of their own language, metal's "versus" mine):
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... 4269#14269

Or this:
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... 3131#13131
(The thread Atreju started that we all hijacked, especially me)

I am into Corpus Linguistics, concordances, dictionaries, examples a lot, so there is an explicit focus on language (obviously, "English") in most of my posts. But this is more lexicogrammatical accountancy than what should explicitly happen in a classroom. You have to e.g. look at the context and functions behind the language and come up with tasks and general script outlines, prepare the students for their roles (not saying I necessarily do a roleplay, 'prepare the students for their roles' could entail anything from giving them a picture, text or wordlist, brainstorming, questioning, eliciting, directing etc in activity or just a relaxed chat environment), and make sure that any language that was essential to the task but wasn't forthcoming ("errors of omission, hesitation/disfluency or avoidance altogether") is supplied if not before or during then certainly more or less immediately after (and tasks can always be repeated again, in which case the first run-through was the dress-rehearsal). In each case, noses aren't in books and knuckles are being rapped if there isn't proper S-V agreement or a mistake is made, because the focus is generally on the language in relation to the communicative function/purpose/intended meaning/proposition/outcome etc (I sometimes like to use many not exactly synonymous words to see what bells get rung).

[LarryLatham]

Wow, Fluffy, that's a lot of links! (Referring to your previous post, not the one just above this one). I paged through some of them, but have to say that I don't quite get your central point. Can you simplify for me?

Larry Latham

[woodcutter]

My previous post was merely to point out that while you all seem to think that a mild piece of teacher led extending will destroy a student, all the inter-student babble is wonderful. Neither is a big problem, in my view.

If you don't know what I mean about the way teachers talk, Fluffy, clean your ears out! I expect that you use that kind of rather special intonation for teaching yourself, for your own teachers no doubt used it.

Then try and see if you hear the students repeat it back.

Lolwhites is right to say that group work is the only way ina large class. The direct method only works with a small group.

[Lorikeet]

my goal is communication. I want them to be able to understand each other. I want them to be able to get across their ideas. I want them to learn how to figure out why someone else isn't understanding, and how to do what's necessary to make them understand. I do different things in my classroom, but once a week I have them discuss a topic in groups of three for about 20 minutes. The goal is purely communication.

...It's rather a different idea than some teachers have. Why do you do it this way, or perhaps I should ask, why is this your goal?

Larry Latham

My teaching situation may be quite different than some of the others here, Larry. First of all, I teach adults in a noncredit community college setting, in an English-speaking environment. Almost all of them are immigrants. Some of them are newly-arrived; others have been here a long time. Some have jobs, some don't, some are recently laid off. Some worked for many years and took care of children, and are now returning to school. Most of them have no confidence in speaking English, and very little opportunity to practice (Unless they have English-speaking significant others or a job with American co-workers, the English class can be the only time during the day that they have to speak English.) In my situation, I am able to select what books I want to use as long as they cover what is in the curriculum for the level I am teaching. (I can't find any I like anyway, so I write my own material anyway.) I can use whatever "method" I want. The class sizes are generally 20 to 40.

I have lots of goals for my students, but one of them is for them to learn how to communicate so they won't be afraid to try, and they will have some coping mechanisms when someone doesn't understand.

Is that what you meant?

[Lorikeet]

If you don't know what I mean about the way teachers talk, Fluffy, clean your ears out! I expect that you use that kind of rather special intonation for teaching yourself, for your own teachers no doubt used it.

I'm interested in knowing what kind of special intonation you are talking about. I talk to my students in two ways. One is the same way I speak normally. I use that for teaching listening, for side comments, for dictations, and for regular speaking. The other is a slower way with more pauses, but still natural--sort of a lecture-type speed. I use that for explaining things I think are important. I never talk down to them. I don't think it accomplishes anything.

[woodcutter]

It's discussed in one or two books I've read, can't remember what. Roach?

Anyway, imagine someone saying "Now, class, open your books to page 4....today we are going to look at dangling participles!".

This will be probably be delivered in a deliberate, rather high, regular and monotone style, reserved for explaining to inferiors. It's the natural "I'm a teacher, I am" style, and I don't think it should necessarily be viewed as "talking down".

[Lorikeet]

This will be probably be delivered in a deliberate, rather high, regular and monotone style, reserved for explaining to inferiors. It's the natural "I'm a teacher, I am" style, and I don't think it should necessarily be viewed as "talking down".

Ugh sounds awful to me :p

[fluffyhamster]

If you choose to view it that way, then everybody, however subtly and in their own special way, talks down to everybody else on Dave's even when they are doing "no more" than presenting "their own" views...but I bet you still enjoy the spectacle of a good old-fashioned academic duel when one develops because of a misunderstanding brought on by sloppy writing and/or thinking (they often amount to the same thing), especially when you yourself are involved (or do you find it tiring)!

And I don't think you can assume or even begin to imagine what anybody really actually teaches like, just on the basis of their "voice" here. The contexts are so different (net, writing, academic vs speech, about ?) that nobody would assume their "Dave's" voice whilst teaching for real. You might be surprised to know that I am softly-spoken to the extent that outside of the classroom, people often don't catch what I say, whilst within it, volume doesn't seem to be quite such a problem, but I am certainly not shouting at the students. As for talking down to them, who'd do (or could do!) that, if they wanted to keep their job for long? The problem I've found is actually the reverse, where wierd bosses seem to attract wierder students, the latter of whom can end up concentrated in one class and giving every teacher they go through a hard time (I've only had the one class like that, but boy are they memorable. I think they reduced the teacher longevity/turnover rate to 4 months - the length of a school as well as the eikaiwa school's term).

In that context, the inter-student babble was not exactly wonderful to behold, and if I'd tried much "teacher-led extending" I think they'd've detroyed me or bitten whatver I was extending clean off!

Hmm my own teachers, well, the quieter and more thoughtful and considerate ones impressed me the most; the ones who were always changing the pace sometimes help inject a bit of life into a dull day but I generally feel that type of person makes classes seem overall like an "assault" course with an armed forces PTI (yup I've done that sort of thing too. I was in the Airborne Tactical Commandoes, I was a drill instructor with quite a voice, strangely enough. I guess the uniform does make the man - hello, sailor! ).

I know students need to get their mouths around new words, but generally I haven't been having people repeat things that I've said back at me much for years now. I might get them to repeat something they tried to say but weren't quite successful with, after "optimizing" it on the board or in their notebook, or directing them to a good dictionary example etc if the means were totally beyond them (and I often find that with that sort of student, there isn't enough contact time or discipline on their part to want to do more than try to have a nice enjoyable conversation once a week , which is fine with me, albeit slow). I don't quite know what I'd do if I suddenly had the same class of gung ho students every day - I guess my above approach would be even more successful!

Some more links for you, Larry:
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... 1554#11554 ('Teacher, how do I learn good English?')

[fluffyhamster]

If you don't know what I mean about the way teachers talk, Fluffy, clean your ears out! I expect that you use that kind of rather special intonation for teaching yourself, for your own teachers no doubt used it.

I'm interested in knowing what kind of special intonation you are talking about. I talk to my students in two ways. One is the same way I speak normally. I use that for teaching listening, for side comments, for dictations, and for regular speaking. The other is a slower way with more pauses, but still natural--sort of a lecture-type speed. I use that for explaining things I think are important. I never talk down to them. I don't think it accomplishes anything.

I'd be interested too, I suppose, but I did also say:

I'm not sure what your first paragraph is referring to (and don't much care for the sound of it anyway), so I'm picking up/attacking this thread again only from where you've come back into it. Hope that's OK with you. (reassuring wink)

The way I talk simply reflects the content of what I am saying, and because what I/we are saying is often (not always, but at least sometimes) as close to a "real" conversation* as I can make it, the give and take, flow, topic shifts, floor-passing etc are all achieved by everyone similarly, through a more natural series of prosody features (at least, that's how it appears to be "working" to me). Sometimes there are pauses or moments of silence that are a function and reflection of genuine thought about what somebody has said (and said in a possibly unguarded or offhand manner, versus in a state of near-constant tension or affected behaviour).

There may be a tendancy among trainers to adopt loud voices but generally they do not ever appear to be injecting negative qualities such as arrogance into their (reflex) "inflections", and even if they don't seem aware that conversation ultimately proceeds best between two more equal partners rather than from one big button pusher pushing it, most teachers thankfully go onn to necome more thoughtful types than the training seemed destined to produce (and the trainers, if and when they reappear in actual schools, overseeing a work context, would do well to take note of this stramge phenomenon and ask themselves why - for what reasons and towards what possible ends - their advice has been largely and roundly ignored).

So, no need for me to clean out my ears because there is nothing like that around me for me to hear, as also seems to be the case where Lorikeet is at least (and she sounds like a right "demon" in class compared to me, despite her very laidback and cool persona on Dave's ). Or, would we all only (and "better") hear it if we went to a Direct Method school?

This thread was good:
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... php?t=1351 (about being genuine, humorous etc in pepping up classes: 'Help me with management of class with humor')

*Albeit one between a good and a not-so-good English speaker - even in larger classes I still try to talk to one student at a time or address the whole class as "you" in a friendly, inviting manner, I don't like nominating and pouncing on students who really would rather not make eye contact let alone talk, and such schoolkids didn't sign up, motivated, for the English class anyway...which isn't to say that they don't enjoy listening to some sometimes interesting "conversation" of a few good jokes/"misunderstandings and laughter, I need to become a little larger than life in the big class, but not too much, and generally, this process of "changing" doesn't affect my voice so much as my thinking and upping the humour and passion quotient, I want to be there and look like I do.

[fluffyhamster]

It's discussed in one or two books I've read, can't remember what. Roach?

Anyway, imagine someone saying "Now, class, open your books to page 4....today we are going to look at dangling participles!".

This will be probably be delivered in a deliberate, rather high, regular and monotone style, reserved for explaining to inferiors. It's the natural "I'm a teacher, I am" style, and I don't think it should necessarily be viewed as "talking down".

Thankfully I haven't had to teach a class that had to get involved with intricacies such as danglies, but if I were, that wouldn't be how I'd go about it. (Probably you meant that as a joke, unless you really do want us to imagine a class ploughing throough a book on [the grammar of] writing, how grammar "can help with style").

I imagine setting a more interesting assignment (if improved writing was a required element) and only looking at errors if and when they occured (I prefer the focus to be on correct examples, noticing the essential features within and orders within them); and then, in relation to providing feedback, I might simply just provide written corrections and suggestions on the papers and let students read through, compare, ask each other or me questions etc (I often write things like 'Ask A to show you his paper, he made a similar mistake' or 'B came up with some good examples, read hers'), and if there were a common resource that I wanted everyone to refer to, I would do it indirectly: 'Hey about these mistakes (these 'dangling participles'!) you made, I think there's something on page 50 of such-and-such a book...hmm are there any other good books?'. There is more left unsaid, implied (implicature) - note I don't say 'hmm are there any other good books that we can look at?'.

These subtle differences between "Classroom English" (which I generally try to avoid like the plague) and real usage may seem pedantic or a pain (to achieve) to some of you (then again, maybe not, it's not like you guys aren't smart enough to have realized it without me pointing it out), but it is actually quite easy and stems from seeing the class as a "group" of individuals assembled for so-called "convenience" (and whether this aids learning ultimately depends on if they want to be there, not only with the subject teacher but also each other - e.g. Japanese schools can e.g. suffer from spates of year-wide bullying, hazing etc, it seems), and addressing them with that very useful thing known as "the second person pronoun" (which allows the teacher to blur the line between individual and group to "see" who has something they genuinely and actually want to say - although obviously, my focus narrows to an individual when I am talking to one who has "spoken up"!).

I actually got criticized for not using Japanese students' names relentlessly (well OK even the once), in a newish class which would've recoiled, vomited, screamed, cried at (the reasons for - see below, and elsewhere on Dave's) the possible "nominations". It was like, if you don't know the names of over 400 students within a few weeks you don't care about "them". That may well be true, and my method might actually need to be altered in large classes, but I think it can become effective (with unmotivated classes) over time (as opposed to whip-cracking) and reflects natural conversation more (and in the Japanese context, reflects a genuine cultural difference that the Japanese should get used to if they do actually want to improve and speak English according to social norms other than their own. People outside of and therefore unaware of Japanese culture won't know that they "should" be mollycoddling the Japanese person with continual reassuring or "cute" - as said by the gaijin foreigner speaking a bit of japanese just then, did you hear! - vocatives such as 'Takahashi-kun', they needed to get used to the "cold", hard realities of 'You').

There is generally an overuse of words like 'class' (a class of toddlers?!), "everyone' (not much better), direct imperatives (actually, very natural and neutral in the context, if you like your classroom to resemble a crisp, polite and impersonal as-efficient-as-can-be learning environment), and just remembering to slot in a name every now and then outside the context of getting a sleeping student at the back of a loooong classroom doesn't achieve much more (other than to signal 'Yes, I know your name and have committed it to my memory somehow, among hundreds of others, you should be impressed if you aren't already. Now I have something to say to you:...' ). I've found a not-too-loud and often quite soft 'Hey, aux+you+/appropriate NP+VP' works just as well (in classrooms without sleeping students, at any rate), and as I have said many times, the focus should be on what is said/could be being said/the language of actual conversations.

[LarryLatham]

My teaching situation may be quite different than some of the others here, Larry. First of all, I teach adults in a noncredit community college setting, in an English-speaking environment. Almost all of them are immigrants. Some of them are newly-arrived; others have been here a long time. Some have jobs, some don't, some are recently laid off. Some worked for many years and took care of children, and are now returning to school. Most of them have no confidence in speaking English, and very little opportunity to practice (Unless they have English-speaking significant others or a job with American co-workers, the English class can be the only time during the day that they have to speak English.) In my situation, I am able to select what books I want to use as long as they cover what is in the curriculum for the level I am teaching. (I can't find any I like anyway, so I write my own material anyway.) I can use whatever "method" I want. The class sizes are generally 20 to 40.

It sounds like you have rather an ideal situation, Lorikeet. One that many here will envy. The best part of it seems to be that "they" (you all know who I mean) leave you alone to do your thing. Of course, from "their" point-of-view, you do have lo, these many years of experience to guide you. If "they" can't trust you, then who?

I have lots of goals for my students, but one of them is for them to learn how to communicate so they won't be afraid to try, and they will have some coping mechanisms when someone doesn't understand.

OK, this is kind of what I mean't when I asked you why you have your students practice their English. But if you could, can you expand on this? What actually happens in your class during this time? Do students revert to their L1 in desparation sometimes? What is the real value of "so they won't be afraid to try, and they will have some coping mechanisms when someone doesn't understand"? Is it more than a way to help them feel better when people don't understand what they say?

Larry Latham

[Lorikeet]

I have lots of goals for my students, but one of them is for them to learn how to communicate so they won't be afraid to try, and they will have some coping mechanisms when someone doesn't understand.

OK, this is kind of what I mean't when I asked you why you have your students practice their English. But if you could, can you expand on this? What actually happens in your class during this time? Do students revert to their L1 in desparation sometimes? What is the real value of "so they won't be afraid to try, and they will have some coping mechanisms when someone doesn't understand"? Is it more than a way to help them feel better when people don't understand what they say?

Larry Latham

I also have the luxury of a class with students from different language backgrounds. Yes, occasionally they "lapse" into their native language while searching for a word. In general, because the groups have people with different native languages, they use English. I want them to feel confident enough to go to a clerk in a store and ask a question. I want them to be able to repeat the question a little differently if the person doesn't understand at first. They sometimes draw pictures for each other. Sometimes they ask me to come over and they explain what word they are looking for. I tell them I'm a "walking dictionary." Mostly, the students say they need "conversation practice," but to me, reciting the words in a ready-made conversation is reading or pronunciation practice, but not conversation practice. When I give my students a list of questions to ask each other, I explain that they are going to have a discussion. That means if they don't get to all my questions, it doesn't matter. Tangents that lead to meaningful discussion are perfectly appropriate. The goal is to communicate in English. Does that make sense?