An argument for reading in the target language

[Atréju]

Heu...

How do you like this for a theory:

Statement: the productive knowledge of a language is always less than the passive knowledge of a language.

Statement: as the productive knowledge of a language is always less than the passive knowledge, practising productive knowledge will never result in the productive knowledge growing greater than the passive knowledge.

Statement: the extra linguistic input that practising productive knowledge garners is non-existent, or very small, it serves merely to strengthen and bring back to memory passive knowledge already in the mind. ( Or, differently put: you don't learn, or hardly, new words from talking with your classmate or writing something, knowledge already present only gets strengthend. )

Statement: Watching television or listening to the radio is not very productive in building your vocabulary because in speech normally only the 2000 most frequent words are used, and you don't have the time to check for the meaning of words.

Hypothesis: for productive knowledge to grow (quickly), you will have to raise its plateau - receptive knowledge.

Hypothesis: the best way to let passive knowledge grow is reading in the target language, with the dictionary handy.

( For an argument on the efficiency of reading in building vocabulary, see my thread on 'sandwich stories.' )

[Stephen Jones]

I would say reading without a dictionary is the way to go.

[fluffyhamster]

"Reading with a dictionary" is a contradiction in terms. It would seem better if we explicitly said STUDYING with a dictionary in distinction to truly READING (once you are at the point where you'd know or be able to ACCURATELY guess the meaning of 99.95 % of all the words and phrases you were seeing), rather than offering silly advice about locking dictionaries away when they are still going to be needed. To put it another way, most learners of English will never be at the point where they won't need a (bilingual?) dictionary by their side, and even native speakers will have the occassional need to refer to dictionaries (although they don't need to be carrying one around with them all the time).

Atreju, I haven't read your Sandwich..es hmm sandwiches (walks off to fridge like Homer Simpson) thread yet but I really will try to go back and get beyond revel and woodcutter's comments to your actual words (provided I don't get distracted by something else on the way!)...

But I will say this for now: there's nothing obviously objectionable with your "theory"; it is similar to what guys like Krashen have been advocating, and even before him, I suspect people knew books were a good source of knowledge.

I'd actually be more interested in hearing how you would propose the most frequent 2000-3000 words or so be taught, because they do not form a simple, basic and discrete orderly list of items to be ticked off one by one, but reoccur and recombine much like DNA to produce a wonderful and complex myriad of linguistic forms. In contrast, the more advanced (i.e. less frequent) words are probably easier to acquire simply by virtue of being so much more distinct (they "stand out" more); and they may ultimately only be understandable not so much from context but more by paraphrase (definition) using the more basic words.

So, I am just wondering if you are perhaps a little too eager to press on ahead to where you see the "real" challenge lying (developing "passive" knowledge in order to increase/transform it into "productive" knowledge, if I've got you right); I would say that there must still be many gaps in "spoken" courses and coursebooks that could take much more time than many people reckon is needed to fill (and fill profitably), and I think a good "productive" knowledge would help no end in expanding a "receptive" knowledge "base" (rather than vice-versa), although obviously the two things are connected at some point(s). But perhaps I should just assume that you would/could/can teach these basic words thoroughly and in your own special way and without any problems or issues cropping up.

When I had one of my first classes with a small group, I told them that I was an identical twin. For at least one member of the class, both of those words were new (I paraphrased and then translated). This woman then had an idea (I could see her eyes light up): she began, In school...your teachers...did...they...ask...'Are you...Stephen?'(my brother's name).

Okay, so she was quite a low level, if people could easily and perfectly fill that communication "gap" maybe they'd be ready for reading sooner rather than later, but the point is, she was "successful". Now, if I had left it there you could indeed say that 'only knowledge already present (only) gets strengthened', but I started thinking about the notions of possible comparisons/comparing, and discriminating on the basis of those comparisons etc and realized that here was a great chance to learn a wide range of words and phrases:

Your teachers,

did they ask...are you Stephen/who are you?
did they know...you were Duncan/you weren't Stephen/who you were?
did they know which of you was which/D/S?
could they tell you...were Duncan/weren't Stephen?
could they tell you (apart) from Stephen?
could they tell you (two) apart?

That might be a confusing range to present a student (but it is by no means exhaustive), so I decided that "telling A from B" was the new and core item that I wanted to contextualize as much as possible, and we spent at least a good 15-20 minutes looking at dictionary examples to see the kind of things that people might have problems telling apart. This in turn led into a more vocabulary concerning real vs. fake items. I finally made sure that they knew about e.g. telling/knowing somebody was lying (compared to telling two objects apart/"A from B"). Even "basic" things like can+tell vs. do+tell (and do+know vs. can+know vs....etc etc) can't ever be assumed of learners.

More advanced or keen students could be directed to thesauruses and then to dictionary entries to "read" the words in short, clear contexts (the example sentences). They could try to fathom why "distinguish" is not an exact synonym for "tell" by this "reading", rather than taking a teacher's word for it that the former is simply "more formal" or "used more in writing than speech". A quick glance through the examples in my Seiko electronic OALDCE has, for example, shown that 'distinguish' can be immediately followed by 'between' ('tell' has to have 'the difference' inserted between it and 'between'), and quite a few of the following nouns (A and B separated often simply by 'and') appear to be of the "abstract" sort. These are just vague impressions , but they are a start, and looking at collocations in this way points the way to contextualizing the real and pertinent differences beyond throwaway labels such as "formal" or "written".

I think it is up to course writers to try to cover words in this manner (starting with a clear spoken context) - I doubt if many of us can think of an English course that actually covers 'tell' in this "depth". Probably the main if not the only meaning given for 'tell' is its reporting function, and even if its distinguishing/discriminating/"knowing" function is touched upon, perhaps the subtle difference from 'know' is not made very clear (e.g. I knew/could tell he was lying; Can you tell A from B, Can you tell the difference between A and B, Do you know the difference between A and B, ?Do you know A from B. Correct me if you spot any errors in this analysis, it is from memory rather than from clear and careful notes!).

In directing students to simply read as much as possible, the exposure they are getting to vocabulary is far too random (and much of it might be of little use productively, in their own speech); and (here's a thought!), perhaps a lot of what they read will also only in fact be 'knowledge already known' too! (It will certainly be beyond the control and ability of the teacher to select for its potential and actual utility). I suppose it all depends on what it is exactly that they are reading!

Lastly, if you have the subtitles option on, watching movies is another way to practise "reading". HOWEVER, I was watching Gods and Monsters once with some Filipino friends, and sometimes I'd pause it and check their understanding of the language they were reading, hearing and "seeing" in action and context when it seemed important to do so or they seemed to want to know something (it was a Japanese copy, only with English and Japanese subtitles, no Tagalog, "unfortunately").

This movie has a complex and very well-written script, so obviously they couldn't pick up everything, but even so, with all the extra means to pick up on the meaning of the forms (including having me sitting there alongside them to explain!), it seemed like a lot of it was going over their heads. I really do think we teachers overestimate just how much can be gleaned from contextual "clues" (this is, in fact, one of Folse's "Vocabulary Myths" - 'Guessing words from context is an excellent strategy for learning L2 vocabulary'. See the link below for more details of the book); often unknown word follows unknown word, and only the vaguest of meanings can be gleaned...and books are probably less "interactive" overall than subtitled movies!...all of which kind of leads me back into my opening paragraph above...

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... php?t=1754

I suppose I am ultimately saying that there is some difference between incidental learning, and incidents that are capitalized upon to greater effect in terms of learning "depth" (and practical use, primarily in speaking, but also, potentially, in writing too); and I would prefer such incidents to be planned (or at least accounted for) somewhere in the syllabus.

Maybe our "two" approaches would converge if one gives students a planned course of reading (with extension activities), Atreju? A reader in English.

I personally prefer shorter to longer texts/contexts (unless the study item in question is a discourse marker that needs a longer context in which to reveal its function).

[LarryLatham]

I am lurking here, and find this thread quite interesting. Some good stuff here from all three of you so far. I'll just comment that I nearly always tell students (either classes or one-on-one students) that I'd like them to read novels. My reasoning is that (1) they can select novels from whatever literary genre they personally find interesting (and indeed, I encourage them directly to consider their personal interests in their choices), and that helps to ensure that they really do read, and (2) a good novel (hopefully they'll choose a good one--sometimes they ask me for advice) will have lots of dialog that will almost always be greatly superior to that found in any English coursebooks, and that dialog will be accompanied by context, allowing students not only to see what people say, but to have a pretty good idea why they say it like they do.

I personally endorse such reading, but I must admit I'm not aware of any research findings that this practice really does bear fruit. Do any of you know about that?

Larry Latham

BTW, I am a native speaker, and I still like to keep a dictionary handy when I read. I often feel that my vocabulary is deficient.

[fluffyhamster]

Well, I'd guess that fiction is one of the main if not the main kinds of reading that Atreju has in mind, Larry.

I fully agree with all that you said about dialogue in novels, I like the way it blurs the line between reading and learning how to speak; contemporary novels would seem better for this purpose than older, "classic" ones.

I can't imagine any research would show reading not bearing fruit at all (or being more of a hinderance than a help)! But I'll keep my eyes peeled and try to remember exactly where I read anything addressing the benefits of extensive reading (I suspect there must have been many a reference that drifted by me like a cloud of feel-good bromide).

[woodcutter]

'Does it bear fruit?' is an immensely silly question, but Larry is not to be blamed, he is only following convention in asking it. Until people start writing about the relative efficiency of different approaches instead of 'does it bear fruit?' then reading their learned musings is a waste of time.

I tell ye once more, the evil and wicked Grammar Translation Method bore fruit, as almost anything will.

[LarryLatham]

'Does it bear fruit?' is an immensely silly question, but Larry is not to be blamed, he is only following convention in asking it. Until people start writing about the relative efficiency of different approaches instead of 'does it bear fruit?' then reading their learned musings is a waste of time.

You are oh-so right about this, woodcutter. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, as well as everybody else's. The relative merit of different approaches is a much better way to look at them than the way I put it, and I should have known better.

Larry Latham

[fluffyhamster]

The only problem with "relative efficiency", woodcutter, is that each method's efficiency will be...well, relative! That is, subjective, depending on who you ask...besides, even if you scored top marks for efficiency in teaching in a variety of "Which?"-style surveys, there'd be no guarantee that your students would unfailingly demonstrate complete learning: there are too many variables.

Ultimately, "efficiency" only has any real meaning in the context of students not feeling that you are totally wasting their time and money; that is, when the teacher is trying their best to prioritize and fulfil their many (often conflicting) roles and responsibilities.

[fluffyhamster]

Notice that I stressed the students' perceptions and wishes. You may be fully prepared and itching to lecture, drill and correct, but if they want a "communicative" lesson you'll have to change tact; conversely, if they are e.g. "serious" asian learners, they may expect you to just give them the "real deal" and tell them how it is rather than waiting for them to show you, or join you in hugging a tree. (That "real deal" is interesting...a lot of communicative activities are nothing of the sort, but a lecture on natural discourse isn't exactly "showing how the language is used" either).

I believe that we have to be as knowledgeable and prepared as can be to give a variety of classes; if the students want an easy time, we can sit back and only use a fraction (the really interesting or fun fraction) of what we know "we" could be doing, and if they want to see what we've really got up our sleeve besides a few duff magic card trick games, then we can roll our sleeves up and get down to something more serious (but again, it depends on the learners' wants and needs if we are to be "seriously communicative" or seriously "otherwise").

[fluffyhamster]

Basically, woodcutter, if you haven't already done so, I really recommend that you read The Lexical Approach (and if you have read it, I suggest you read it again. Wow, I sounded like Larry then!). I'm saying that not out of impatience, but in all sincerity.

You see, although you are sceptical about communicative approaches, the fact is (as Lewis makes clear), a lot of the recommendations of the CA have only been partially implemented or not really implemented at all, which means that a lot of what people are now doing has more in common with older approaches (at least as far back as audiolingualism) than you might realize. The history of teaching has always been one of sniping from each side of the progressive/traditionalist fronts, with teaching itself being the no-man's land in the middle that stays pretty much confined to the same dreary strip of territory. There have been different campaigns and battles, but the major methods of warfare (ways to marshall and deploy the troops, types of ammo, targets etc) haven't ultimately changed that much.

Well, what's the problem then, you are likely exclaiming. The problem for you, if you really are honestly interested in doing the best you can, in "efficient" teaching and learning, is that Lewis is actually worth listening to. He is interested in the same thing as you, and we all, are: a competent speaker where once was a faltering learner. And to achieve this end, he is more interested in form than you might imagine (if he was only advocating a "stronger" version of the CA without the focus on form, then I would agree with you and other people critical of newfangled modern approaches that maybe older methods are better, where "form" i.e. grammar at least, is "taken care of").

Obviously, his genius is expressed in his title: he has synthesized recent research and findings into the nature of language (it isn't all just neat and tidy grammar) and is trying to make pedagogical recommendations on that basis. If you choose to ignore people like him, who are not just the same old progressives but people who actually have something new to say about language (and anyone who's also been listening to the likes of John Sinclair, one of Lewis's influences, will have heard the Chomskyian paradigm beginning to shift and groan recently) then you are not really teaching "real" language (well, language as real as it can be, dragged as it always is into a classroom and reanimated by Teacher Frankenburgers), only "going through the motions" (however seemingly efficient they may be); you would only be eliciting language-like behaviour, not real language and thus real behaviour.

Lewis doesn't make it easy for the reader, and he leaves a lot unsaid and for us to figure out, but anyone who approaches his book with an open mind surely will be forced to exclaim at at least one or two points, "He really does have a point there!".

[LarryLatham]

While I am certainly with you in your appreciation of Michael Lewis, Fluffy, I don't think you have given enough thought to woodcutter's point that relative merit is exactly the point. No matter what we do as teachers, ultimately the measure of whether we are doing the right thing depends on what else we could be doing. If we do something that helps students, that's great. But if that is done at the expense of not doing something else that would have helped more, then we're doing the wrong thing, even if it's helpful. I am solidly behind woodcutter's judgment on this point.

Larry Latham

[fluffyhamster]

If you look back at your post in question, Larry, you'll see that you wrote '...really does bear fruit', and that to me is quite different from saying just '(does it) bear fruit (even only one pathetic lousy shrivelled bit of fruit)'.* I and I think everybody else (apart from woodcutter, it seems) probably knew what you meant just from your possibly subconscious yet still subtle qualification there (i.e. your use of 'really') and would not have bothered questioning that you are "only" (that is, mainly) interested in as big a harvest as possible.

Anyway, while we're still on the subject of "relative merit", why doesn't the guy who seems to have not looked much beyond the Direct dictats of something like the Avalon method (and who might, for all I know, honestly think we should go back to using the Grammar Translation method!) write us a nice, lengthy, balanced and above all serious survey of every method that's ever been used over at least the past century, and tell us exactly where the Communicative Approach has got it all so wrong (much like Lewis has gone to the trouble of telling us), if that's what he really wants to do (seems he does)?

I'll tell you why he doesn't need to: 1) because there are quite a few surveys available, most more broad/with less of an agenda than Lewis and our potential writer here** (see the initial suggestions I made on the 'Help the aged' thread), that could save us reinventing the wheel (and EFL history) or boring each other to death here on Dave's, and 2) Is he really the man for the job?! (Besides, I think I would probably prefer to just re-read my Howatt, and maybe my Lewis too ).

Good luck to our fearless (hapless?) writer if he thinks he can reach more conclusive findings than many more qualified and probably better writers have (not?) been able to regarding the Holy Grail of teaching (that exists for some even given the current state of research; but also probably for us all, at least those of us prepared to give up our old belief systems, in a much more advanced future) - "the Perfect Method"!

* Maybe my shaky yet swift take on the semantics here will open up a whole new sub-thread.

** I appreciate that we all have our agendas on Dave's and are often saying more or less the same thing in a subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle "variety" of ways, but even so, if a point is clearly made and well reasoned at least the first time it is expressed, there's a fair to good chance that it will indeed be taken that little bit more seriously instead of being seemingly dismissed out of hand every time.

[fluffyhamster]

No matter what we do as teachers, ultimately the measure of whether we are doing the right thing depends on what else we could be doing. If we do something that helps students, that's great. But if that is done at the expense of not doing something else that would have helped more, then we're doing the wrong thing, even if it's helpful.

I believe I had all this covered when I said '...the teacher is trying their best to prioritize and fulfil their many (often conflicting) roles and responsibilities.' Obviously we are all hoping (even if we don't always have the time and energy to actively look) for something that could help our students more (and thus make our jobs easier) than what we are doing at the moment.

But I still think that where there is a potential conflict of teaching and learning styles, you can pump your supermethod all you want and think you are making headway when, in fact, you may be pushing against an unspoken and therefore unseen wall of resistance (that's not to say we should abandon communicative methods entirely, though, which is what woodcutter seemed to be building up to saying on his 'East Asian Students' thread on the Adult Education forum*).

Maybe instead of building up to blatantly rhetorical questions like 'What is (?"relatively speaking"?) the "best approach since sliced bread" ' (W.Cutter, Cutter's Way or the Highway pg 1), we should be asking ones like, 'Are the Direct Method and the CA so different? What aspects of the former have been included in the latter, and why? Which haven't, and why not?'

* I could see where he was headed there - 'Teacher must be top dog in Confucian society, Direct Method, teacher-led classes good there!' - and was and am sympathetic to his views (in fact I probably said things for him a bit too much there, but he didn't disagree with anything I'd said ); but since I am also ultimately more a fan of the Communicative Approach (that is, a "real" or at least more real CA than prior ones, like Lewis has clarified it), I have to entertain uncertainty and the possibility of...um, multiple possibilities!

[fluffyhamster]

...I have to entertain uncertainty and the possibility of...um, multiple possibilities!

Hmm, that makes me sound like I am ideologically committed to the principle of eclecticism - I'm not. But I do think it will be a "fact" of teaching until that Perfect Method comes along and covers up the obvious joins and blends (see all the guff above about Holy Grails).

In fighting (to name another field where eclecticism at present reigns supreme, from Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do to "No Holds Barred"), the perfect method for winning is, when you really think about it, ultimately a gun. "Unfortunately" learning a language is not or as quick or as simple a matter as beating the crap out of somebody, but that doesn't stop woodcutter reaching for his "big stick". (Hmm perhaps I should say "big" stick instead, will that get more of a laugh? ).

Anyway, I hope I haven't been boring you all senseless. Anyone still following this thread? Ah, okay, I thought as much, I'll go annoy or upset somebody on another forum instead then.

[fluffyhamster]

Actually I just looked up "eclectic" in my New Oxford Thesaurus of English, and was interested to see that it generally seems to have a "good" meaning:

eclectic

ﾘadjective
1 they played an eclectic mix of party music
wide-ranging, wide, broad, broad-ranging, broad-based, extensive, comprehensive, encyclopedic, general, universal, varied, diverse, diversified, catholic, liberal, all-embracing, non-exclusive, inclusive, indiscriminate, many-sided, multifaceted, multifarious, heterogeneous, miscellaneous, assorted.
-opposite(s): narrow.

2 an eclectic approach to teaching the curriculum
selective, selecting, choosing, picking and choosing; discriminating, discerning, critical.
-opposite(s): dogmatic.

(Here's the NODE entry too):

eclectic adjective
1 deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources: her musical tastes are eclectic.
2 (Eclectic) Philosophy of, denoting, or belonging to a class of ancient philosophers who did not belong to or found any recognized school of thought but selected such doctrines as they wished from various schools.
noun a person who derives ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources.
DERIVATIVES
eclectically adverb
eclecticism noun
.
ORIGIN late 17th cent. (as a term in philosophy): from Greek eklektikos, from eklegein 叢ick out・ from ek 双ut・+ legein 祖hoose・

(Sorry about the kanji there, it's a blip on my Japanese PC. Have fun filling in the letters!).

Certainly, in martial arts, it has nothing but good connotations.

Why then is it that in teaching/learning a language (which is, as I've said, a much more complex business), is there sometimes a negative connotation associated with the word/approach?

Still, we are lacking historical perspective if we think that the Direct Method, or the Grammar Translation Method before that etc were not also eclectic in their own way(s).