What the H is a sentence?

[metal56]

True or false?

In these two sentences, "I must study" and "I ought to study", / the first sentence means that I have no alternative, I must study;/ whilst the second sentence means that I have an alternative, I can go to the cinema if I like, or for a walk,/ but I am under a moral obligation to study./ It would be a good thing if I studied./

[metal56]

AS WE HAVE NOW STUDIED ABOUT A THOUSAND WORDS AND A LOT
OF THE GRAMMAR, CAN YOU HOLD A SIMPLE CONVERSATION IN
ENGLISH ? Yes, as we have now studied about a thousand words and a lot of the grammar, I can hold a simple conversation in
English.

(LOL! With a machine, maybe.)

True or false:

In these two sentences, "I must study" and "I ought to study", / the first sentence means that I have no alternative, I must study;/ whilst the second sentence means that I have an alternative, I can go to the cinema if I like, or for a walk,/ but under a moral obligation to study./ It would be a good thing if I studied./

What language does a Callan teacher use to help students understand "under a moral obligation"?

[JuanTwoThree]

M56, is that Polish pdf really the Callan method ( because if so it's a load of frowsty old balwarks) ? Or is it somebody attaching the Callan name to a load of frowsty old balwarks of their own devising?

[fluffyhamster]

That Polish pdf may or may not be genuine Callan stuff, but it sure does resemble the kind of crap (especially the alternative, or-type questions) that I encountered in a silly little book called, ironically enough, Thinking in English (ed. H Palmer!, pub. Kaitakusha? I'll try and dig it out so we can all have a good laugh).

I was expected to waste even just a good ten minutes using it at the start of every lower-level class in a certain school that I worked at (not a chain school, an independant, "progressive" one that in its heyday probably resembled what the Model Language Studios are doing with their "Pinch and Ouch" drama method - at least, that was the admittedly better but still very "thin" book that students progressed onto previously, now it's all New Interchange, what's worse I wonder!). I got a lot of flak for withdrawing it from a business class, but if my boss were to be believed, it was so very helpful, essential even, for students who'd 'loved it' but who, for some inexplicable reason, were still unable, years later in the "intermediate" classes, to string two words together unpainfully.
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... =7893#7893

(I directed woody back to that 'Direct method positives' thread earlier, in relation to the quality of textbooks used in Avalon schools)

I personally find it frustrating if not insulting to be working for bosses who presume they know better just because they themselves have had the "experience" of "teaching" (what, back before the bubble burst in e.g. Japan, when studying "English" was a faddish hobby that people didn't so obviously need, but could actually afford to waste a LOT of money on - salaries, and doubtless fees, were apparently substantially higher then...but "value" doesn't seem to have become more of a watchword, even though now it really should be!), but who in fact know almost nothing about English (especially discourse beyond the sentence level, or, for that matter, below it!), don't in fact care that they don't know anything, and who are certainly not interested in changing their materials and methods to help the students learn and thereby help retain their teachers!

If I had to choose between an instructor with no teaching skills or with no grammatical knowledge, I would go for the latter. Especially if my own grammatical metalanguage was undeveloped, for then the explanations would be all the more difficult.

Me, I'd go for a guy who was aware of at least the short-term effects of what he and the students were saying! And why do you seem to think that a teacher's underlying grammatical, discoursal, whatever knowledge has to be or is made explicit in classes? All that's being attended to is the quality, type, ordering, sequence etc of the input (not specifically alluding to Krashen, and not drawing an analogy with computers either!).

Fluffy, "yeah or "yes", whatever, the students gets very little out of saying it.

Perhaps. But I submit they get very little out of saying longer sentences as well.

Beat me to it again, Larry! All I can add is, why does woodcutter seem to think that students don't get anything out of saying (just) 'Yes/Yeah'? And what about the points I made much earlier - rather obvious ones, perhaps, but ones that don't seem to have been paid much attention by woody at least - that students will have plenty of opportunities elsewhere (in a well-designed course) to make longer sentences, longer sentences that actually have a communicative function to play.
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... 3798#13798

Seems we have entrenched and are now just repeating ourselves...

[LarryLatham]

True or false?

In these two sentences, "I must study" and "I ought to study", / the first sentence means that I have no alternative, I must study;/ whilst the second sentence means that I have an alternative, I can go to the cinema if I like, or for a walk,/ but I am under a moral obligation to study./ It would be a good thing if I studied./

False!

Larry Latham

[woodcutter]

Mmmm, entrenched is the word. I have pointed out to you, time and again, that students fed on such odd looking fare do develop, and that the schools will eventually close if they do not. Yet you just ignore it, and keep maintaining that such unnatural things are doomed, doomed. Callan (at least at Avalon) has a reputation for having some questions which are a bit strange. That can be a drawback, but producing the unnatural sentences is good practice for general construction in any case, and as I have said, the students being born with some common sense, linguistic rigor mortis does not set in. Other approaches have other drawbacks. Sometimes huge ones.

Boring? Well, Metal's mirror image, the fire breathing instructor at Avalon who hated traditional teacher training, stalked the classroom like a linguistic terminator, spewing sarcasm and corrective exactitude. I was shocked, but nobody was bored. That guy, who did not like me and my Trinity TESOL wetness, was a very popular teacher. Please do not fail to read the previous sentence.

Simple, perhaps misguided, grammar explanations are not the issue here. They are also popular in mainstream teaching, and it is in fact mainly certain method schools who do not use them. In order to do away with them, I feel we need to be highly sensitive linguists. Most ESL teachers are not, and never will be.

[metal56]

True or false?

In these two sentences, "I must study" and "I ought to study", / the first sentence means that I have no alternative, I must study;/ whilst the second sentence means that I have an alternative, I can go to the cinema if I like, or for a walk,/ but I am under a moral obligation to study./ It would be a good thing if I studied./

False!

Larry Latham

Indeed.

[metal56]

Mmmm, entrenched is the word. I have pointed out to you, time and again, that students fed on such odd looking fare do develop, and that the schools will eventually close if they do not.

The End is Nigh! See the Opening Schools' demise and observe Wall Street's "crash".

Fooling students into thinking they can hold a conversation in English is the game of Avalon. Sure Avalon's students can hold a conversation of sorts with their teachers or each other, but let them try their "skills" out on a non-too-tolerant NS.

[fluffyhamster]

I have pointed out to you, time and again, that students fed on such odd looking fare do develop, and that the schools will eventually close if they do not. Yet you just ignore it, and keep maintaining that such unnatural things are doomed, doomed.

We aren't ignoring it, we're just accepting it as a fact of applied linguistic life. Anyway, you yourself seem to be forgetting that smaller schools have their successes too.

the fire breathing instructor at Avalon who hated traditional teacher training, stalked the classroom like a linguistic terminator, spewing sarcasm and corrective exactitude. I was shocked, but nobody was bored. That guy, who did not like me and my Trinity TESOL wetness, was a very popular teacher. Please do not fail to read the previous sentence.

Popularity of sensei in martial arts is often due to the masochism of the students (I've been there, done it, I do know about such things ). Maybe it's the same in ELT?

Simple, perhaps misguided, grammar explanations are not the issue here. They are also popular in mainstream teaching, and it is in fact mainly certain method schools who do not use them. In order to do away with them, I feel we need to be highly sensitive linguists. Most ESL teachers are not, and never will be.

Hmm, so it's not the student's who can't handle the truth, but the teachers themselves (too, according to you now), especially those in 'mainstream teaching' (and not method schools)? Do I just have to take your word for all of that? Okay, fine...but are you seriously suggesting that language professionals of whatever level should be excused trying to increase their language awareness and do better simply because doing so involves (would involve for many, sure) "growing pains", and that this in turn excuses giving poor practice and teaching worse than one could?!

(I'm not saying give the teachers themselves a rocket, but the trainining institutions, textbook writers and bosses could do with pushing the envelope that bit more, raising the bar that bit higher. More can and should ultimately be expected of teachers, and if they can't help themselves to help their students more, they should be lent a hand and given a hand and guidance).

[LarryLatham]

Perhaps the apparent popularity of some poorly trained teachers (or teachers with insufficient knowledge of the language, at any rate) can be accounted for by their accomplishments in other skills useful in the classroom. For example, they may be energetic, cheerful, friendly, personally caring. All those things tend to make teachers popular, but cannot, by themselves, make for an effective teacher in terms of effeciency in student learning of English.

The point is that a teacher's popularity is not necessarily a measure of his effectiveness. He might just be quite a nice person! He might also have enough "teacher training" to know how to make lesson plans, be organized, and follow all the 'proper' classroom procedures, etc. As a point of discussion, I believe that a really good English teacher will have sufficient knowledge of the language and its grammar so that he could (not that he necessarily would, much of the time) do it off the cuff, and make it up as he goes. Such a teacher is prepared for any student questions that may come along--even if it occasionally means he has to say, "I don't know".

Try to imagine, if you can, how effective or inspiring a physics or chemistry or biology teacher would be if he or she just knew how to follow the textbook, and could not helpfully answer students' questions except to say, perhaps, "That's just the way it's done!".

Larry Latham

[woodcutter]

Yes, shock, horror, I think that most ESL teachers are not very accomplished. They want to travel and have fun, and will not do the job that long. Grammar skills are not what they might be. Plenty of blunders on display here from those who are long-term and take an interest in their job too, including yours truly.

I suggested in an essay that simple procedures were, partially for that reason, generally better than complex ones which can easily go astray, and I was properly taken to task for it.


Avalon say that their students do reasonably well in Cambridge exams, even though the course is based mainly on oral skills. I believe them, (they weren't selling anything to me at the time), though I suspect you broad-minded souls may not.....

[fluffyhamster]

I see you've expanded your post, Larry, giving us more to appreciate (no irony intended at all). Once the preparation is as good as it can be, yes, it's time "forget" it all to some extent, to only draw on the depth of wisdom they have accumulated if it is required, rather than "automatically" stringing it out in ultimately wearying "pearls of wisdom" (the part can never be greater than the whole at any moment in time, that is, the present moment in time is all we have, so we'd better make the most of it and do our best here and now, and not comfort ourselves with the simple illusion that the whole is the sum of its parts, and that what we do now won't matter if we believe we are making up for it elsewhere in the "whole").

This seems a simple philosophy, and indeed it is, but let's not mistake the easily-won insight for the hard-won. Developing a philosophy of something takes a lot of experience, thought and "work in progress", and the foundations we lay are on our path are not just to make a nice base on which we can stand on the spot and admire how far we've come. My son. Or Grasshopper.

I do actually agree with you, woody, that developing one's oral language provides a great basis for the other modalities...but if the orthography bears a close relationship to the spoken language there is no reason to hold back on reading or writing and becoming familiar with the grammar of the other modalities sooner rather than later.

I guess we'll never know if those students' scores would've been higher had they studied elsewhere...but not everyone would see an external exam as being a fair reflection of what was taught; that being said, if a course is in any way limited or only provisional, should there be a "test" at all (unless it is purely for the student's own sense of progress, rather than "competing" with others and ultimately the whole of the English language itself!)?

[fluffyhamster]

Some more "religious" guidance:

MANTRAS: Intoning 'The-Eng-lish-lang-uage' has a pleasant cadence and therefore a very "centering" effect, and can guide a teacher through almost any crisis, no matter how career-threatening.

On the other hand, 'Lan-guage' is too short and seems to have a disturbing effect on the brainwaves and thought patterns. It is often associated with great evil, with which it shares a two-syllable structure, as dicovered by Razzmouse Risk, a Danish patsry chef who looked like a happy hamster but who unfortunately became involved with Applied Linguistics (see below), and thus distracted from more serious pursuits such as Historical Linguistics, and who therefore sadly choked to death on a donut doing Direct Method expansion drills.

Anyway enough history and dangling participles.

'Ling-uist-ics' is pleasing to some, but not everyone.

'Ap-plied-ling-uist-ics' is a no-no straight away because of the risk of saying 'lied', and the associations of 'plied' aren't much better are they. Generally, the two 'plosives' there can make it sound like you are letting off some gas or dropping something large down a toilet, which is obviously best avoided if you don't want to block the pipe.

[metal56]

Avalon say that their students do reasonably well in Cambridge exams, even though the course is based mainly on oral skills.

The question is whether doing well in an exam shows that one knows and can use the language to communicate with.