Teacher Discussion Forums

Li practices what he calls "Crazy English," an unorthodox method of instruction that can be best described as English as a Shouted Language. With rock and rap reverberating for backround music, a typical seminar sees the 30-year-old Li strutting about on stage like James Brown, leading his stuttering disciples in mass yell-alongs consisting of English slogans, buzzwords and catch-phrases. "No pain no gain, no pain no gain!" Li barks. "Don't be afraid to make mistakes and lose face! Learning English is not mental work! It's physical work!"

http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/99/0730/cs5.html

His approach has been around for a while. I reckon it could be just what Chinese and other oriental learners need to get over their shyness and improve their confidence...I just hope they can always manage to tone it down in their conversations!

fluffyhamster wrote:His approach has been around for a while.

Make that, 'His "approach"...'.

The reporter wrote:He certainly didn't learn the instructional technique at one of China's iron-pantalooned universities. The self-described "real loser" says he hit upon Crazy English while failing his English lessons at a Lanzhou academy. He found he could remember better and speak more clearly by baying pronunciation drills at street lamps and overflying pigeons.

That last sentence there made me laugh!

fluffyhamster wrote:His approach has been around for a while. I reckon it could be just what Chinese and other oriental learners need to get over their shyness and improve their confidence...I just hope they can always manage to tone it down in their conversations!

The shouted lesson came from him.

metal56 wrote:The shouted lesson came from him.

Ooh hiya metal, sorry I had something in my eye there...ah, so the shouted lesson shouted came from Li, huh? I'd never have guessed!

That's one method I've heard quite a lot about, since certain Chinese students think it is wonderful, the answer to everything. (My general view, if I haven't got it across, is that there is no absolute answer, farty textbook+games method included) I certainly think it's a good way to teach a class of thousands. Can't think of another way to do it.

If it was really cheap to get in the stadium it'd be truly worthy stuff, but as usual, I'm not sure that is the case.

woodcutter wrote:(My general view, if I haven't got it across, is that there is no absolute answer, farty textbook+games method included)

I rather got the impression you were a direct Direct Method man, totally opposed to everything else (that is, the umbrella-like Communicative Approach).

I say that about you being a dDMm on the basis of your other posts elsewhere on Dave's; and your clear distain for anything resembling a "communicative" approach (which, incidentally, I share) is clear enough in the second half of your sentence there (but all that shouldn't put you off from going back to the original sources for developing a decent CA, or reading guys like Lewis, who have).

Not at all. Learner differences are very important. There are physical differences, (right/left brained etc), differences in development (1st time language student or multi-lingual?) and, most of all, differences in taste.

These should be catered for properly. Where we cannot, then Textbook+Games is a reasonable best-of-a-bad-job.

What I think about direct method teaching is that it is the most suitable one for very driven, linguistically advanced students.

woodcutter wrote:What I think about direct method teaching is that it is the most suitable one for very driven, linguistically advanced students.

How do the learners get to this mythical 'linguistically advanced' state when their teachers don't seem to know the first thing about discourse?

And when you say "driven", you'll forgive me for wondering if (in the light of our past history, and also metal's recent thread on reduced relative clauses with passive participles) you mean a whip is being cracked a bit too hard or the students are begging for it (they're probably the same thing, a nice cosy SM symbiosis. Beats doing serious applied linguistics of a nighttime, I suppose).

But I do agree that Textbook+Games (TG! ) is not an approach for the serious student or, therefore, their needs-to-get serious teacher; that being said, however, you rant on about methods other than the Direct all being of a "covering a multitude of sins" school type, whilst ignoring the fact that many Direct teachers, and the the method itself, are not, taken a whole, "serious" outside their own little comfort zone.

Ah, but I just realized, perhaps by 'linguistically advanced' you more mean to say that the students are more linguistically savvy than perhaps even their teachers, and will therefore forgive whatever sins are committed by the teacher (not that these could ever be so heinous as what goes on in heathen schools). But being savvy and actually knowing something are actually two quite different things (intelligence versus knowledge, facts - let's leave behaviour out of this for now*), so the question that still remains is, how do Direct teachers ensure that this knowledge base is necessary and sufficient to result in learning/assured performance later? I myself imagine that any teacher who wants that knowledge base ("that is sufficient enough to result in learning/assured performance later") has, in fact (and like it or not) to become serious. Would the threat of reading even something as basic as Harmer make teachers like or even "worse" than you kick and scream, woody? (Not meant to be a genuine insult, OK? Just an artifact of the argument process, "sticks and stones", y'know? ).

Are you in principle opposed to improved teacher education and professional development for others (if not for yourself)? If you are (at least for others), why, for gawd's sake? ! I can only guess at the answer, but it is probably this: you don't want to even consider the possibility of changing, somehow improving your ways, even when you can see the language is telling you that what you are doing is ultimately unnatural despite its apparent pedagogical charms. I don't think it should be so hard to use Direct methods of e.g. "interrogation" when, linguistically speaking, questions are actually needed, or its methods of "expanding" when, linguistically, it is necessary to do so.

In either case, there is obviously nothing wrong with taking a time out from the more natural resulting (study of the) discourse to repeat whatever phrase cognizant of, feeling and appreciating its communicative function here and now, in the here and now (see my Philosophy in EFL 101 primer on the 'What the H is a sentence?' thread!). What seems wrong and puzzling to me at least is your insistence that adding forms that have no functional bearing provides "vital" practice. As Larry also said on the just-mentioned thread, '(Fluffy, "yeah or "yes", whatever, the students gets very little out of saying it) > But I submit they get very little out of saying longer sentences as well', to which I would add 'that are not of the "here and now" '.

Admittedly, all those examples we spent time discussing were not complex ones, but my concern is that if we can't even get such simple matters into some kind of entirely convincing shape, is that a good sign that more complex matters will be dealt with properly, or will they somehow just fall into place, "naturally"? I guess you'll say that the further practice in your "basics" provides the better (simply more extensive?) basis for "progressing" (through your "structured" syllabus).

You must've heard of the difference between "quantity" and "quality", but again, here we have a dichotomy that is resolved when we simply think in terms of "larger quantitities of quality" instead.

*Why? Because I think intelligence has to be applied in mobilizing language knowledge to some extent, even if there are ready-made phrases lurking once we "decide" - consciously or only semi-consciously, ?unconsciously is what, not awake?!).

woodcutter wrote:Not at all. Learner differences are very important. There are physical differences, (right/left brained etc), differences in development (1st time language student or multi-lingual?) and, most of all, differences in taste.

These should be catered for properly. Where we cannot, then Textbook+Games is a reasonable best-of-a-bad-job.

What I think about direct method teaching is that it is the most suitable one for very driven, linguistically advanced students.

These should be catered for properly. Where we cannot, then Textbook+Games is a reasonable best-of-a-bad-job.

Textbooks and games do cater to certain intelligences:

1. Linguistic
Children with this kind of intelligence enjoy writing, reading, telling stories or doing crossword puzzles.

2. Logical-Mathematical
Children with lots of logical intelligence are interested in patterns, categories and relationships. They are drawn to arithmetic problems, strategy games and experiments.

3. Bodily-Kinesthetic
These kids process knowledge through bodily sensations. They are often athletic, dancers or good at crafts such as sewing or woodworking.

4. Spatial
These children think in images and pictures. They may be fascinated with mazes or jigsaw puzzles, or spend free time drawing, building with Leggos or daydreaming.

5. Musical
Musical children are always singing or drumming to themselves. They are usually quite aware of sounds others may miss. These kids are often discriminating listeners.

6. Interpersonal
Children who are leaders among their peers, who are good at communicating and who seem to understand others' feelings and motives possess interpersonal intelligence.

7. Intrapersonal
These children may be shy. They are very aware of their own feelings and are self-motivated.
(text from Bill Allen, photo from http://www.ed.psu.edu)

OK, let's take music, which I often use. Some love it. Some hate it. If I could set up a music driven class, some would find it very motivational. Others would find it hell. You have to separate the people out, otherwise you are just covering all the bases, not catering to differences.

woodcutter wrote:OK, let's take music, which I often use. Some love it. Some hate it. If I could set up a music driven class, some would find it very motivational. Others would find it hell. You have to separate the people out, otherwise you are just covering all the bases, not catering to differences.

And who said otherwise? Not I, that's for sure. If you have a class for 9 months with the same students, at one time or another, they each will have to put up with something they don't like.

But if they choose their method, and are given the right information to help them choose, instead of having the method forced upon them, the disliking can be greatly reduced.

woodcutter wrote:But if they choose their method, and are given the right information to help them choose, instead of having the method forced upon them, the disliking can be greatly reduced.

Is it method we are discussing? I thought it was approach and practical in-class exercises. Also, how many people realise what kind of learner they are? Telling about methods is a mental activity and one may need to know something about the metalanguage and jargon used to explain such things.

There are many short, user-friendly, tests on the Internet that allow to student to get an idea of what way he or she may study best.

I think there are a fair number of contexts in which students could be given a choice, the most obvious one being evening classes in a large town. What good does it do the learner to take your tests if their are no choices available, only individual teachers trying to do a little piece of everything so that everyone has a crumb to chew on.

Learners can easily see what they like, and since motivation is key, that is the main thing.

Fluff, I find it hard to respond to your post, I can't follow all of it. Why do you think I am against teacher development? Why do you think I am such a stick-in-the-mud, when I am merely defending a theory I do not really make that much use of? I'm not sure I said anything was vital. It's just that I think direct teaching is involved with giving a new item, showing how it is used, and then letting the students use it communicatively, to a far greater degree than is normal. I'm not sure why everybody simply seems to dismiss the point I keep making that if you work in a Callan type school, you can see the students improve using the sentence-spinning methods before your very eyes. I'm not sure why anyone but a behaviourist would violently object to it. Perhaps because none have you have ever taught using ferocious correction, it's difficult to contemplate!

Often mainstream teachers seem to think that every ability must be within the students already, and all they have to do is set up some wacky roleplay and let it come out.

By driven I mean focused on learning fast, so that 'boring' is a complaint of no consequence - people who would only take pleasure from what they felt was really working. Linguistically advanced, well, that's someone who knows something about languages. I don't see the problem.