Teacher Discussion Forums

Anyone out there with experience of what this person is talkng about?

http://education.guardian.co.uk/tefl/te ... 30,00.html

I was instructed to give history lessons in English in China. It was extremely silly, and like torture for all involved. The main thing to be said for it, in my view, (even in a BANA context) is that it makes the poor unfortunates on the receiving end of it work like crazy to try and keep up. However, others will just give up.

If the class had actually been learn-English-through-history, or vice versa, then that would have been a different story, and I tried to push it in that direction.

Pilot studies wigth children are very encouraging. Sorry I don't have a link. But it is the same principle as bilingual education. Children acquire language naturally with enough exposure. And with adults the switch to task and theme based training is sort of the same principle: when people forget that it's an English lesson and wax eloquent about child-rearing is when we know we've got things right.

The problem with teaching subjects in L2 is not that the student's L1 suffers, nor that he doesn't learn the L2 better than he would otherwise, but that he falls seriously behind in the subject being taught in L2.

From the article:

"We should also consider teachers on Clil courses. They experience a constant tension between content and language not only in terms of what and how to teach, but also in terms of assessment. When assessing student assignments, should they focus on language or on content? Are they to disregard language mistakes when after all, the main purpose is to teach the specific subject?"

I have been very frustrated this year working with a program that expected me to teach content and language at the same time. I learned in teacher school that an ESL student in a history class, for example, is not to be penalized or "graded" for language. If you can tell that they got the main ideas, they get full credit, despite grammatical errors or even demonstrating their knowledge in a nonverbal way.

In this case, if content teachers are not supposed to be language teachers, that just cries out for at least one period a day where someone is a language teacher for these students--(presumably. . . me!)--that is exactly what we don't have. When I argue for this, I am told that the students are learning content AND language at the same time.

The language class, for its part, would need to be thematically organized; in other words, it needs to teach language through content. You test the students, not on how much they know about the subject, but on how much vocabulary they learned, and whether they are using the grammar that you studied, and whether they increasing in their fluency and command of the language.

You have to be clear about your goals. You can teach language through content or content through language, but I am not conviced it is advisable to try and do both at the same time.

"You can teach language through content" - language will always have/be "content", but this content is not always easy to classify e.g. it doesn't matter if "war" is mentioned in the context of "history" or "politics", just so long as it is mentioned somewhere (in an English class) as being an important word, and illustrated with examples showing important collocations etc. (In an English language class, the context could even be something as "light-hearted" as 'war movies').

"or content through language" - I think it would show a lack of respect for e.g. history as a discipline if dubious or shoddy language (and, in turn, probably wooly arguments or presentation of evidence) were considered "acceptable" (and to whom, in this case an English language specialist or a historian, if one weren't both!); more importantly, however, I am concerned about the effect/impact a CLIL approach has on the student's understanding of and subsequent potential performance in the underlying subject/content, especially if they have to at some point compete in their L1 with students who have studied the subject in the L1...but perhaps the whole point of CLIL is to send the students ever outwards into an increasingly English-speaking world, in which case, those students would be at an advantage over their compatriots - but not over native English-speakers, who will have obviously been held to much higher standards linguistically in all their subjects (and who will probably therefore also have reached somewhat higher standards in the subjects themselves!).

Ultimately, language is content (and content is language), and there is no dichotomy, and therefore no problem when students learn subjects in their native language. The "obvious" advantage of CLIL (improving English) seems to me to be outweighed by the pressures it puts on students (and to some extent, their teachers, even native English-speaking ones); then, we should be asking ourselves exactly what level of English is achieved in the subject.

That is, when the Guardian writer says, 'The main advantage of Clil seems to be the fact that the target language is acquired in a rather effortless way', a modifying 'of the subject' is noticeably absent between 'language' and 'acquired' there (at least, the language of the subject as it is expressed in or surrounded by good English).

What I suspect rather happens in your average CLIL course is that the students English "generally improves", but only in very non-specific, non-subject, general way (which is not tested outside of English language classes proper, if they actually exist in CLIL schools), whilst the linguistic performance in the subject is a half-baked mish-mash of learnerese that satisfies neither the teacher (especially native ones) or the students (who could obviously express themselves better in their L1) at a deep psychological level.

These sorts of linguistic problems might be overcome with careful planning and a linguistically principled selection of e.g. the English of "history" (the subject of history), but how often does that happen, really?* And would this have an impact (real, or even just perceived) on the "easiness" of English ('This specificity is making everything too difficult! Surely it shouldn't be so difficult to just "say" what you "mean"! We mustn't make the students come to hate English - we must (try not to patronize them and) applaud whatever lacklustre efforts they make in English for whatever complex subjects! Hopefully, we won't be expected to teach English Lit as part of our curriculum, then we'd really be in trouble!' )? And what of the skill of writing in the L1 about whatever subject? Does that also just "take care of itself" too? (=not happy fluffyhamster).

Probably things like CLIL are more the brainchilds of incompetent bureaucrats than linguists (and probably meagre linguists at that), and anyone who might express some reservations, along with some serious suggestions for improving the programme before it gets "up" and "running", could well be labelled a stick-in-the-mud or a no-can-do. But who, I would ask, is being the more realistic and practical here in the long run?

I suppose that ultimately, as a teacher, I would have no objection to CLIL if the materials were ambitious and aimed high (higher than the students would probably achieve, on average, and nearer to a native level of performance/"competence" - saying exactly what they mean/most often intended to mean), but would the students then have objections still - or even more objections? Perhaps I should make things easier...but I am nobody's fool/b*tch/hamster etc, as an applied linguist or as e.g. a historian (not that I am that good at either discipline, but I do try to do my best, and try not to kid people when things really aren7t up to whatever task).

*I went for an interview recently for a job at a consortium of colleges that apparently helps Japanese students to study in the US, and was asked if I had ever taught "Writing" (the way it was said implied it started with a capital letter). I said no, that I had taught English, but was aware of what "writing" generally involved (I was thinking, but obviously didn't sassily say, 'Pen, paper and thoughts'). I also wanted to go on to say, thoughts in Japanese (for/from/of the students) that need to somehow find expression in English...and felt like asking if they had heard of e.g. the University, and Academic Wordlist, but I managed to restrain myself and just had to presume that they wanted to know if I had done any "creative writing" kind of classes)...so I just said I obviously was aware of what "academic writing" involved (being a graduate), and that even so-called "conversation classes" (the bulk of my experience, "unfortunately") often involved reading in order to discuss, "process writing" etc, all without mentioning how much easier this was in English if you were a native speaker already in command of 99% of the vocabulary!!!

Interestingly, I met (=was forced to meet) one of the students who was going to study in the US. It took her at least ten seconds/several repetitions to understand the question (not from me), 'Where are you going to study?' (=tell the fluffyhamster visitor the name of the college you've been accepted at, at least). Maybe it was a cultural thing, a misunderstanding regarding the simplest of questioner expectations? Then again, this kind of lack of smooth communication seems to be quite frequent between "teachers" and "students".

Like many colleges and universities in the UK, mine is investing heavily in the lucrative international student market. All too often this consists of some cashier liberating a poor student of £4,500 then putting them in a mainstream class. The consequences are often as dire as they are predictable; the student learns very little in the way of Business Studies, Physics or whatever and often picks up very little English.

Teaching the students another subject in L2 is all very well providing that (a) the student has a sufficient grasp of L2 in the first place, and (b) they have an appreciation of the culture and philosophy of they education system they find themselves. Student who are used to rote learning, being spoonfed and told what to do get very unsettled when asked to go away and do research in a library, or come up with ideas of their own.

It looks as though the Spanish government is going to adopt CLIL. My experience in Spain suggested to me that the problem was they taught mainly translation and verb forms but no skills.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/tefl/st ... 29,00.html

Preparing an ESL student fotrthe potential shock of a foreign "study culture" is obviously an important part of their academic preparation, but I just get the sneaking suspicion that there is a strong temptation at the top to implement more "process" rather than linguistically-principled, selection-wise, "product" syllabuses - it's certainly easier for the administration (who may not be linguists at all), and potentially less daunting initially (if in the long-term less helpful) for teachers.

Who knows what is more daunting for students: seeing what has to be learnt or not seeing what has to be learnt! In practice, they probably often have to more or less teach themselves, whilst incidentally picking up the odd bit of English here and there.

I like that vague and contradictory "tentative but encouraging results", quickly followed by loose talk of students understanding "their own language more" (Spanish, or their English? ) and improving "cognitively". The rough linguistic level of success of the JET Programme, and not much more? (Not that I want the schoolkids to be pushed harder! I'd prefer it if English was left to senior high school-age if not the university level, and was abolished as an entrance examination subject entirely in e.g. Japan. Then those with a genuine interest and motivated to study could concentrate on sensible goals and possibly get somewhere in their studies).