Teacher Discussion Forums

You might have worked out what this thread is about from the title alone...

The scene: a junior high school classroom in Japan.

The target language structure: A ASK/TELL B to V

Japanese Teacher of English: Tanaka-kun, can you please close the door. (T-kun complies. The JTE pauses momentarily before capitalizing on the context she has created by pointedly saying): I asked Tanaka-kun to close the door.

Of course, the Assistant English Teacher, when present, may well be asked to contribute a few examples off the top of their head, , and there might be a fairly fun (for students who get into the spirit of things) "Consequences"-style 'A asked B to _____' activity, but let's stick at this moment in time with just the single example in its context.

Any comments? e.g. do you find this sort of example/context defensible? And would you agree that 'told' could be substituted for 'asked' here (given the context - the classroom, with teacher in charge of students - which surrounds most "imagined" contexts - i.e. contexts "imagined", therein).

I agree that this kind of context is important to teach, but maybe in a more direct way than you are doing it.

One activity that has worked well for me is to have a "King" or "Queen for the day". That person wears a paper crown and can ask anybody to do anything. . .

"I want __________ to close the door."
"I want __________ to do a dance."
"I want __________ to turn on the radio."

It did wonders for my Latin students who were always trying to say "I want that. . ." Also those who thought that "I want" + name meant that you were in love with them; not the case.

Of course you could always follow up reporting on what happened with "______ asked _______ to. . ."

Also works well with "expect;"
"Teachers expect students to. . ."
"Men expect women to. . ."
"Parents expect children to. . ."
opened up some interesting conversations and got everybody involved.

Thanks for the reply Tara (though I'm not the one - if and when* I'm asked - who's usually stumped for or short of "communicative" ideas at the schools I visit!).

I just thought it was interesting that non-native teachers can produce grammatically very sound sentences, but never seem to get around to incorporating and reworking them into contexts where they would make absolute rather than only partial sense, especially functionally (versus grammatically).

Of course, none of this may matter if students can make the leap later (and who wants to burden schoolchildren with possibly "too much"), but it is puzzling (and becomes inexcusable) when similar methods are repeated with more mature learners (who really should be able to handle and appreciate expanded contexts, in terms of text/time/place).

As an aside, I thought of some examples, made gapfills and got the students to think of what the missing verbs could be e.g. (I ran out of money last weekend so) I asked Bob to _____ me some money/50 dollars.

I guess my instructions were something like 'What did I say(What do you think I said) to Bob? (The implication being, you students can use the very same sentence if you are ever in a similar situation).

The students were working on it when the JTE started to say something to them, then turned to me and asked, 'Duncan-sensei, shouldn't they be writing: "YOU asked Bob to lend YOU some money"?'

I hadn't thought of that...but again, the example the teacher-students produce is strangely functionless (although I appreciate you could argue it makes more sense, especially for those for whom the 'I' = 'You students too, potentially' is too much of a leap at this moment in time...but still, such people would hardly be likely to e.g. "echo" '(Oh, you ran out of money, and) Bob lent you 50 dollars huh/sorry, how much? etc', or e.g. exclaim e.g. 'You asked BOB to lend you some money?!'... because they aren't attending to real contexts-forms-functions enough!!!).

*Sub-thread: is the 'if' and/or 'when' redundant in the phrase 'if and when', in your opinion?