Do Second Language Teachers ever succeed?

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 5:19 am

When we teach one on one, we can cook something special up for our student. It's not easy though, to work out just what they need, and want, take them in just the right direction. Very hit and miss business.

However, many teachers are under the impression they can do this for more than 10 people all at the same time. This is perahps the central myth of modern teaching. How ludicrous it is. The 10+ people in front of you will most likely only have humanity in common, so you should stick to a system that has been found to work well with human beings.

What you can do is find out what goes down well with the gang. That is quite a different thing, isn't necessarily helpful at all. Woodcutter's sling the sticky tomato game is usually a big winner. Any newbie teachers here, if you find yourself in the classroom next to lol, you aren't going to out-teach the competition, but you might make the students love you more, by a few dirty tricks!. Certain roleplays and discussions are also really just classroom warming devices.

If you play the omnipotent magician, produce specially prepared goodies from your creative bag all the time, then what you are doing is encouraging the students to behave like placid guppy fish, and not get to grips with whatever system you have in place, preview, review etc. They have do a lot of work, and the only way to cut the hours down a little is by doing it wisely. Why not set a good example?

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 7:33 am

It's not about individually tailoring every activity to one student or another, or reinventing the wheel; life is far to short for that.

What it is about is having a wide variety of activities at your disposal which you spread over 4 or 5 classes so everyone gets something that works for them. That doesn't mean that the students can just switch off every time an activity doesn't "fit their learning style" (incidentally, I hate learning styles questionnaires but that's another story) because I expect them to adapt, which is what successful learners do. It's not a soft approach and I expect a lot from them, and experience has taught me that I can get more work out of them this way than any other.

Londo Molari · Post by **Londo Molari** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 12:09 pm

I hate all that learning styles crap too. It's just another excuse to blame teachers for students' failures and pile more unnecessary responsibility on us. There are so many aspects of language learning that you simply can't adapt to a kinesthetic-dominant learner, for example. The learner has to adapt to what is possible within the confines of the subject to a certain extent! More touchy-feely nonsense!

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 12:17 pm

In case you haven't read it, here's a link to an article on learning styles that came out in The Guardian about 14 months ago.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekl ... 75,00.html

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 9:09 pm

We're getting pretty off topic here, I think I should revive Londo's thread to examine the intricate process of the myriad of decisions the CLT teacher makes on an hourly basis, and how those desicions are in the end mainly based on what will go over well with the class, and how the teacher is led into being a twisted lazy TWALTing creature, because the most conscientious decision will nearly always involve hard preparation or risk, yet perception of success is based chiefly on class mood.

Learner styles, we've been there before. If there were much truth to all that, then Woodcutter's world where 100 flowers bloom, 100 method schools contend, would be all the more vital. Instead of doing lots of useless stuff, you could choose what worked for you. To my mind though, we are not "kinesthetic learners" or whatever, pure and simple, but we have a highish, or normal, or lowish ability at whatever, and our levels are in a process of flux. In all, it is something beyond the radar of the language teacher. To justify CLT on the basis of chucking out loads of random stuff in the hope that a small specially suited segment of the class will latch on to it and wake up for 10 minutes - it beggars belief. Yet, since it has the rosy scent of inclusiveness, academia constantly rakes this up.

That's what the guardian person really wanted to say, I think.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 4:02 pm

I'm not sure what you mean by hard preparation, unless you mean reinventing the wheel with every class. Do put me right if I've misunderstood. Nor is "chucking out loads of random stuff" a fair description of doing different activities to suit different strengths and weaknesses in the class. I don't feel it's fair to say that perception of success is based chiefly on class mood - that rather depends where you're working. Where I worked (until yesterday but more on that later), most students did an UCLES exam - KET, PET, GCE, CAE, CPE or IELTS and it's the results that count.

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 9:33 pm

No, "chucking out random stuff" is very precise technical language, since you have not done a diagnostic test of any kind. Unless you split people up then providing different stuff is about fairness to all, rather than being about a general improvement.

Things are changed somewhat by "teaching to the test", (complete TWALTing will be punished) but less than you might think, for my money. (Plus, being judged on test results is pretty rare in TEFL, and carries its own set of problems).

First, a good method which increases language learning by 50% over two years is still going to be pretty insignificant even over three fairly intensive months, which is a long time for a teacher/class combo. So the strain of trying to employ one will not help the teacher much.

Second, CLT scores well enough in "how good is this method" tests because it is a second rate learning method which seeks to include people who do not wish to really go for it. Since that is a huge number of students, the teacher who does manage to make everybody pay attention by motivational means will not necessarily suffer bad scores. (Also, the method I have advocated only works well with small classes.)

Look, it's like this. Bill Bryson's popular science book is a great book. It has a place in the world. It helps most of us to learn. It is not, however, the acme of science. It should not be used on Harvard courses. If science teachers were forced to adopt Brysonism, and always pepper their lessons with anecdotes about crazy boffins, it would be a disaster.

As to "reinventing the wheel", that IS the general idea. You are supposed to tailor the old tricks to the new individuals, at least, otherwise you are method teaching. That process takes some work.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 5:58 pm

chucking out random stuff" is very precise technical language, since you have not done a diagnostic test of any kind.

Who says I haven't done a diagnostic test of any kind? In my (now ex) school students did a lavel test, piece of writing and had an interview before being admitted to class, so we know plenty about them before they've even come through the door. Don't you remember what I said about close, careful monitoring and homework?

As to "reinventing the wheel", that IS the general idea. You are supposed to tailor the old tricks to the new individuals, at least, otherwise you are method teaching. That process takes some work.

"Tailoring the tricks" usually only involves a minor adjustment - adding in an extra step to an activity, for example, or having a longer lead-in. Like I keep saying, it ain't rocket science and it certainly ain't reinventing the wheel - just good prep plus the minute by minute decisions a teacher takes all the way through a class.

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 10:22 pm

It is worse than rocket science in a way, knowing whether your tailored activities have hit the spot for a large number of individuals is almost unknowable. Teachers tend to assume they have done it when the activity goes well. As I said though, going well is dependent on hitting the right enfotainment buttons more than meeting class needs.

The diagnostic test - I mean one which determines whether the people are "kinesthetic learners" or whatever. Since the whole concept is such crude intellectual shoddiness, I doubt if anyone uses them.

Have fun in France. I wish you were going to more typical badlands though!

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 10:58 pm

At least we can agree on the auditory/kinesthetic stuff. The worst thing is the questions read like a personality test from Cosmo, and the same student could do the same "test" the following day and give completely different answers. Unfortunately for FE, it's a practice that the inspectors like to see so everyone is made to do it.

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 2:38 am

Yes, horrible, so why bring this stuff up?

Perhaps because "Textbook Method" classes are essentially an ancient and sound procedure based on teacher demo/student practice, and it takes some desperate scrambling for people to justify their teaching on loony-tune modern principles.

I was watching a Discovery history prog last night. Oh, how I hate and despise enfotainment when I actually have a little expertise to bring along. I wonder whether if I get into history teaching, though, whether snoozing at the back and screening this jelly-brained stuff won't actually cop me better exam results. After all, most people presumably want to watch 'history-as-cheap-dumb-repetitive-detective-novel' history.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 3:06 pm

I've only got ten minutes left in the net cafe, so I'll be brief: Chris 'Class War' (got it cheap in a bargain bin) Woodhead had it right about 'learning styles', multiple intelligences etc, then?

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 10:53 pm

What did he say?

By the way FH, we are using a new series at school "Touchstone", heavily based on corpus linguistics. It is the same old thing as ever, but I must admit it does avoid some pitfalls of other books (notably "interchange") which use some horrible obscure stuff.