Let Go of the Matrix! - the non-grammar approach

[abufletcher]

Abu hijacked your thread, as he has been doing to pretty well every other one on the forum,

Obviously posting any comment that runs counter to the status quo of the dominant posters on this forum (who appears to be firmly stuck in Chomskyan presuppositions) amounts to hijacking. There is obviously only one proper way to answer a grammar question. And that's with a grammar answer. Likewise, any position incompatible with orthodox linguistics is obviously "confused." Leading interactional linguists like Paul Hopper and Sandra Thompson (as well as an entire field of emenent scholars from a host of fields doing Conversation Analysis) are, I would assume, also "confused."

Just for the record though I'll clarify that my "no-grammar" claim rather than being a rejection of "grammar" per se, is meant as a rejection of the sorts rigid and autonomous grammars that have been the Holy Grail of mainstream linguistics. I'm quite willing to concede the existence of something "grammar-like" and therefore "language-like" if both are radically redefined in much broader and dynamic ways. The "no-grammar" view is also meant as a brainstorming tool to help people look in new directions. Sometimes it's useful to kick off your shoes, let down (or cut off) your hair, and run barefoot through the grass.

The "experts" on this forum, however, are clearly not comfortable looking in certain directions.

But I also agree with lolwhites who points out quite rightly that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Personally I find many Chomskyan/nativist/formalist claims to be quite extraordinary (e.g. "poverty of stimulus") and the offered "proof" to be anything but. BTW, a nice "counter-balance" to the views to be found in Pinker's "The Language Instinct" (which whether they recognize it or not sums up the views of many of the dominant posters) is the book "Educating Eve: The 'Language Instinct' Debate" by Geoffrey Sampson.

[abufletcher]

I would like to apologize to Mesmark though if my posts have done anything to minimalize the valuable headway he has made teaching English through the "avoidance of premature grammar."

He's approach may not be anything theoretically new. But it IS vanishingly rare -- both in Japan and most of countries, if we are to judge by the available EFL materials. For this reason alone he should be commended for his personal innovations. BTW, only an idiot would equate Mesmark's obviously carefully structured lessons with "a native speaker chatting away."

[lolwhites]

Whether or not posters here are, or consider themselves "Chomskyan" is a moot point; Chomsky has consistently said that he cannot see how his theories can be applied to the teaching of foreign languages and, as a language teacher with an MA in Linguistics, I can testify that the nothing I studied for my degree was of any relevance to teaching MFL with the possible exception of Phonetics and Phonology.

I don't think I've argued anywhere on this thread, or any other, for standing in front of a class and prattling about "grammar rules" - I consider lesson time far too precious for stuff students can get from a book if they want it that badly. But I'm still not clear what abu and mesmark count as "teaching grammar". Let me give one example from my own teaching: I won't give students lists of "verbs not normally used in the Continuous", but I will encourage students to think about why the meaning of certain verbs make it highly unlikely that they will be used in "BE + V-ing" type constructions. My favourite example is to ask them why they think I've been cutting wood for the fire sounds OK but I've been cutting my finger with a bread knife is odd (i.e. meanings, not rules). Personally, I'd call that "grammar teaching". Do abu and mesmark consider that to be off-limits?

I think I can understand where mesmark is coming from, but suspect that he/she may have been so put off by the methods used in mainstream schools in Japan (understandably, I've had enough badly-taught far-Eastern students myself to know, and not just the far-East either - most Western European educational systems have a lot to answer for) that he/she has gone to the opposite extreme.

In any case, all the examples so far have covered speaking - no mention of writing, which involves all kinds of skills that can't just be acquired. Even native speakers have to learn how to write properly. My written French is peppered with grammar mistakes unless I check it properly.

[abufletcher]

Here's the syllabus for my talk-in-interaction class for first year university "false beginners" (i.e. people who've studied English for many many years but can do a single thing with it).

Of course they don't actually hear any of this terminology. What they do learn to do is to "do these social actions." On paper a lot of this might looks like "old fashioned" functional approach stuff. But that's just the tip of the interactive iceberg.

Note the near total absence of not just traditional "meta-grammar" but also traditional areas of EFL grammar instruction, i.e. no verb tenses at all. And PLEASE don't tell me about how they are learning the grammar elsewhere. That's just not true. Is a lot of what they produce fairly fractured. Yes. Absolutely. But then syntactic accuracy isn't my goal with this class. The goal is to enable these students to have a sustained (even if highly fractured) casual conversation in English by the end of the semester (as measured by a 15 minute video-taped 3 party conversation). I should add that I've learned not to presuppose ANY useful language abilities. Most of these students can't even respond properly to "How's it going?"

BTW, you might be surprised at just how bad "native speaker intuition" is at predicting how the items listed below actual work.

I. Interactional objectives
a. opening a conversation (on the phone and face-to-face)
1. doing greetings
2. identifying oneself
3. “how's it going” and interactionally suitable replies
4. stating the reason for the call (or proposing a first topic)
b. doing pre-closing moves
1. Phrases such as: “Well, I've got to be going now.”
“Well, it's been nice talking with you.”
2. Making plans for the future (“see ya tomorrow in class”)
c. closing a conversation using a standard “two-step” pattern
d. invitation/offer sequences
1. making simple invitations
2. accepting an invitation using a “preferred turn shape”
3. rejecting an invitation using a “dispreferred turn shape”
4. using pre-invitations to avoid rejections
5. “go-ahead” moves following pre-invitations
6. “blocking” moves following pre-invitations
7. responding to blocking moves
e. request sequences
1. making simple requests
2. granting a request using a “preferred turn shape”
3. refusing a request using a “dispreferred turn shape”
4. using pre-requests to avoid refusals
5. “go-ahead” moves following pre-requests
6. “preemptive offers” following pre-requests
7. “blocking” moves following pre-requests
f. assessment sequences (“assessment” = “opinion”)
1. making simple assessments, e.g. “This's great!”
2. agreeing with assessments (preferred turn shape)
a. “upgrade” assessments
b. “same evaluations”
3. disagreeing with assessments (dispreferred turn shape)
a. “weak agreements” + “weak disagreement”
e.g. “It was but…”, “I think so too but…”
4. using “tag questions” in assessments
g. telling news
1. using pre-announcements like “Guess what?”
2. responding to pre-announcements
3. telling news
4. responding to news
a. oh + assessment
b. really? (prompting further news-telling)
5. avoiding telling news:
A: How was your day?
B: OK (B has no news or does not wish to tell news)
vs.
A: How was your day?
B: Great! (B has news and wants to tell it)
h. telling stories in conversation
1. using story prefaces
2. responding to story prefaces

II. Linguistic objectives
a. increase the students' overall rate (speed) of talk by:
1. teaching them to “chunk” talk
2. working on intonational contours
3. focusing on the negative interaction impact of pauses
b. teach linguistic patterns associated with various sequences

III. Cultural objectives
a. differences in English and Japanese telephone openings.
b. English speaker stereotypes of “monotone” speakers
c. English “tatemae” such as “Maybe some other time.”
d. Japanese/English similarity in use of dispreferred turn shapes
1. English speak most definitely DO NOT say no directly!
2. Parallels in pause and hestitation tokens.

[abufletcher]

BTW, I suspect a lot of our differences stem from the radically different students we teach. The first time newbies to Japan try to do anything even vaguely like "communicative" or "discovery" learning activities they realize that this approach to teaching is predicated on a foundation of normal interactive/interpersonal skills in the classroom. Skills which the Japanese education system has done it's very best to surpress. I've never had to to work so hard in my whole like to teach an active hour of English.

And I completely agree that writing can be a separate set of skills. And there is probably not single "methodology" for teaching the great many and varied skills that together get lumped into the umbrella term "Language."

[woodcutter]

The main problem with English education in Japan and Korea is Japanese and Korean. The uninspired burbling at the board seems to bring then results in other fields.
If you have to learn how to restructure your sentences in order to communicate, language learning is abominably difficult, takes a vast amount of time and effort.

That is why, matrix or no matrix, we will usually fail in teaching English to the average student in such places.

[abufletcher]

I don't buy into the "linguistic distance" argument much. It sounds reasonable but it just hasn't been borne out in my experience teaching a huge range of people coming from a huge range of language backgrounds. For example, it would be silly to try to argue that Japanese or Korean are typologically more distance from English than Arabic (having studied all three myself I can get you that's false) and this is why Japanese students are so much worse as language learners than Arabic students.

Success in language learning (and language teaching) is only very minimally connected with the learner's L1 and is instead related to a host of other much more significant factors. These "other factors" include the overall methodology (or even more broadly "educational philosophy") held by both teachers and students and the degreee to which learners engage in the process of dynamic language learning.

BTW, the "linguistic distance" argument is very much mired in Chomskyan thought and Chomskyan views on language. Everyone loves to hate Chomsky and no language teacher, it seems, wants to admit that they hold Chomskyan views on language. But when push comes to shove, any honest evaluation would reveal that the picture that the vast majority of the world's EFL teachers hold in their mind of language, would sit comfortably with most Chomskyan perspectives. If you have four furry paws and go "bow wow" you ARE a dog whether you'd say so or not.

[woodcutter]

When you say you have studied them, to what level are we talking?

In Mexico, pretty much all the teachers I worked with could communicate in Spanish, even after quite a short time in the country. Including me. In Korea, virtually nobody has any communicative ability to speak of even after several years. That includes me rather less, but more than I should like to admit I suppose......

I know people think teachers in Korea are the dregs, but even so! (In fact the English teaching diaspora is a good opportunity to see how well other languages are learned by English natives, because the variables are few, unlike for comparing students from various places in North America)

Which non-SVO speaking students have a good reputation as English language learners?

Has anyone on this board genuinely approached fluency in a non-SVO language? How can any student of Japanese believe they have not benefitted from a certain amount of light being shed on how that language differs from ours, which always requires the monster, grammar?

As to Chomsky, if you would refrain from trying to intellectualize things in such an inappropriate way, (the usual habit of persons with groovy headline grabbin' theories) we might get somewhere. The idea that weird tongues in far off lands are hard to master was not Noam's, nor need it rely on his models (which to my mind, people love to say they support, since it sounds clever).

[abufletcher]

So are you claiming that Chinese and Vietnamese EFL learners (for example) learn better or faster than Japanese or Korean speakers since Chinese is not a SVO language? That hasn't been my experience.

My point is that if Japanese and Koran EFL learners have major problems the source of those problems is more likely to be the (poorly done) grammar-focused instruction they receive rather than typological differences.

It's my belief (supported by some 24 years of EFL teaching experience) that a "chunked" approach to language learning largely circumvents the "linguistic distance" problem. When I've taken this approach with classes of students from mixed L1 backgrounds, the individual learner differences have been much greater than variation based on L1. The SVO vs. SOV (and all that goes along with that) problem seems to be a much larger issue if what you are trying to do is to teach students to generate/translate "sentences" instead of producing contextualized "used language." At beginning/intermediate stages (let's say for the first few years) what learners really need more than anything else is massive exposure to and practice "manipulating" chunks of used language. What is they need to built up vast stores of pre-fab and/or formulaic language chunks.

Generation of novel and/or creative sentences is something best saved for advanced students.

BTW, another way to think about this (and at the same time test your view on language) is to ask yourself how much of "language" do you consider to be "rule based" and how much "idiomatic or formulaic." If you feel it's about 80/20 (which probably represents the mainstream linguistics view) then you're obviously going to think that teaching structure is important. If on the other hand, you've come to the conclusion that (used) language is maybe closer to 20/80 in favor of "pre-fab" structures then you're unlikely to spend your classtime presenting traditionally conceived of grammar structures.

Today in class I was working on request formats. There is almost nothing novel or creative about most of the request people actually make in the world. A few stock building blocks are all that are needed:

(couldya)(wouldya)(show me)(tell me)(gimme)(how to)(where.....is)...

By the way I was also showing them the ways that people use "Wouldya mind...." as a generic situated request format together with pointing to this or that, e.g. "Would you mind...(pointing to open window)" --> "Sure. No problem." I also point out that the best way to get help is to simply "state your problem" ("I don't know where___ is"). The systematically preferred next action to such a statement is a preemptive offer of help. Only if that fails do you need to take things up a notch and do a formal request.

No reason to present grammar (or even claim that there IS grammar) in any of this.

[woodcutter]

As Stephen said, that sounds just like behaviourism. All the same, grammar was taught while such ideas were king. I wouldn't especially want to argue that language "doesn't work in that way" so that "your students will never learn anything". I am arguing against your own extremism. You can't teach every single past tense sentence as a chunk - why not just at least mention that -ed will go a long way!

You have ignored my question regarding Japanese. How good are you, and how do you feel you would have got on with no grammatical explanations at all (and don't you think you would you would have provided yourself with some anyway, crudely?). Don't you find that you wish to make your own sentences up even at a low level?

As to the Chinese, I reckon they are better with less effort than Koreans, as it goes.

[abufletcher]

As Stephen said, that sounds just like behaviourism.

Behaviorism is one of those ideas that was thrown out in the "Chomkyan revolution" but which has enjoyed a significant rebirth is a new more dynamic form. Skinner-esque behaviorism does have some serious flaws. But many of those issues have been resolved (or really understood more clearly) within more recent and more progressive views on "situated learning."

As to the Chinese, I reckon they are better with less effort than Koreans, as it goes.

They may well be. But if they are, I very much doubt it has anything to do with the fact that one is a SOV and the other isn't. You may consider my views extreme but I see the "grammar" folks as being just as extreme in thier attempts to reduce everything to systematic differences.

Since we clearly come from two very different camps I expect we're just going to have to agree to disagree on just about all the major issues. I will of course feel I have a right to represent "my camp" in any and all forum discussions.

[woodcutter]

Yes, lots of teachers are very extreme, in a quiet way, and make uncomfortable bosses. As do you, perhaps!

This is modern debate - washing of hands, blurring of lines of thought by quotation/citations of unseen stuff. "Situational learning" is the key, a most progressive business. Out with all the old (gasp!) grammar books then - forbidding leather tomes like "ye Person to Person" and "ye Touchstone".

Well, I am very busy, so it's as well. In terms of opposing this kind of thing, I seem to be in reasonably close accord with the grizzled forum heroes for once anyway!

[lolwhites]

I assume from abu's teaching programme that he focusses on speaking skills, which, if my experience of Japanese students is anything to go by, would go a long way to compensating for deficiencies in the mainstream school system. It actually looks to me like a pretty good course on the face of it, though I suspect a course that had to cover other skills would look rather different.

Oh, and for the umpteenth time, why oh why do people insist on bringing Chomsky into it when he consistently says that his theories have no bearing on teaching second languages?

[abufletcher]

Oh, and for the umpteenth time, why oh why do people insist on bringing Chomsky into it when he consistently says that his theories have no bearing on teaching second languages?

Irregardless of Chomsky's wishes, his ideas on the nature of language and the scope of linguistics have come to form the core of the "picture of language" that most language teachers today carry about in their heads. This is a picture of language as a highly regularized, highly "mathmatical" system which is used to "generate" largely novel sentences ("an infinite number of possible utterances from a finite set of rules). In short, the "Language as Machine" metaphor.

I don't think many in Applied Linguistics are much interested in his TG, or GB, or later Minimalist theories as such, though there is much debate (within those who do see a link between "universal grammar" and second language learning) about how and to what extent UG may be applied "a second time" round.

Nevertheless it's impossible to deny that the "spin-offs" of these ways of thinking about language have had an HUGE impact on language teaching. For example Krashen's Monitor theory is ultimately reliant on something akin to Chomsky's LAD for what happens to that "comprehensible input" once it makes it past the "affective filter."

[abufletcher]

though I suspect a course that had to cover other skills would look rather different.

This is, of course, a class that would fall under the umbrella terms "speaking" (or maybe "speaking/listening") but it is at the same time much MUCH more specific and task oriented than a generic "speaking" class. BTW, it's paired with a second semester course entitled "Action English" what focuses a bit more on transactional language (though I reject the "phatic/transaction" dichotomy).

As you might well imagine, I wouldn't feel comfortable with the usual ways of spliting up the EFL pie into the traditional 4 skills (or 5 skills if you count "grammar" as a separate skill as some teachers do). This specific class is designed to redress the excesses of Japanese high school English education but most of my other courses are more "mixed skills" and I'm trying my best to figure out what a "chunked" or "lexical approach" view would mean in such courses. I see my main job as providing massive access (either through written or oral channels) to used language rather than training students in the "techniques" for generating novel utterances.