Creating "quaint" speakers?
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Creating "quaint" speakers?
Intermediate learners sometimes sound rather quaint as they struggle to obey the rules of written grammar even in the most casual of conversational exchanges. What can teachers do about that unfortunate situation? Are we to blame for creating masses of "quaint" speakers?
Last edited by metal56 on Thu Sep 13, 2007 9:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Creating "quaint" speakers?
Intersting post, Metal. Perhaps the problem goes back to the differences between spoken and written English. This is a phenomonally difficult concept for L2 learners to comprehend, whatever the L2 might be. The ideal approach would be to have all students learn to speak before they ever see the written word, much like NESs learn from childhood. But that is obviously impossible, not to mention impractical. If there is room in the curriculum, devoting several classes a week to oral English, in which there is no written text and no written exam, just might help a little bit.metal56 wrote:Intermediate learners sometimes sound rather quaint as they struggle to obey the rules of written grammar even in the most casual of conversational exchanges. What can teachers do about that unfortunate situation? Are we to blame for creating masses of "quaint" speakers?
What are you doing in your classes at present to address this problem? Looking for insights here.
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Anuradha Chepur
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How would that prevent/sway the teacher from introducing "quaint" language?The ideal approach would be to have all students learn to speak before they ever see the written word, much like NESs learn from childhood.
The majority of my classes are based on authentic materials - as a necessity. I teach business English and work with language-in-use in that area. I try to stay away from most EFL coursebooks, but have a couple of favourites, such as Natural English (Oxford University Press 2002). I constantly negotiate the study program with the student. I discuss how language is used in the L1 and compare it with that found in EFL coursebooks. I ask how alien some of the language found in EFL coursebooks sounds to me, a native speaker.What are you doing in your classes at present to address this problem?
Probably not. My feeling is that "What is the meaning of" is normally followed by "this interruption". I don't think I've regulary heard a native speaker use it to ask for the meaning of a word or expression. The BNC gives "what is the meaning of this word" as appearing in the Academic register, and even then there is only 1 example in 1 million words.I mention in another post that I don’t let my students use “What is the meaning of….” (textbook language) but instead insist on “What does xxx mean?” when asking for definitions. That comment belongs here as well. Am I teaching them my own form of not-quaint English?
How would that prevent/sway the teacher from introducing "quaint" language?The ideal approach would be to have all students learn to speak before they ever see the written word, much like NESs learn from childhood.
The majority of my classes are based on authentic materials - as a necessity. I teach business English and work with language-in-use in that area. I try to stay away from most EFL coursebooks, but have a couple of favourites, such as Natural English (Oxford University Press 2002). I constantly negotiate the study program with the student. I discuss how language is used in the L1 and compare it with that found in EFL coursebooks. I ask how alien some of the language found in EFL coursebooks sounds to me, a native speaker.What are you doing in your classes at present to address this problem?
Probably not. My feeling is that "What is the meaning of" is normally followed by "this interruption". I don't think I've regulary heard a native speaker use it to ask for the meaning of a word or expression. The BNC gives "what is the meaning of this word" as appearing in the Academic register, and even then there is only 1 example in 1 million words.[/quote]I mention in another post that I don’t let my students use “What is the meaning of….” (textbook language) but instead insist on “What does xxx mean?” when asking for definitions. That comment belongs here as well. Am I teaching them my own form of not-quaint English?
Ah, but that is a different matter. That is related to competence, to attempts a mastering language forms. I'm talking about the use of forms which would sound "quaint" even when used by a native speaker.To a native speaker, they will indeed sound “quaint” at times as they try to use the modal auxiliaries correctly or the past perfect continuous.
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In no Spanish book did I find the expression, used thousands of times each day, “¿Me cobras?”, used in a bar or cafeteria to get the waiter to tell you how much you have to pay for your coffee or fermented grain beverage, instead of “¿Cuánto es?”, One solution, but it doesn't always work. Many of my Spanish and Basque friends here in Bilbao use colloquial language when speaking among themselves, but change to "correct" Spanish, as they call it, when they know I'm listening. They say things such as "don't speak as we do. Just use what you learn in your language classes". !!!Had to pick that one up on the road, and maybe one answer for “quaint” is “get thee to an English speaking land and mingle with the natives!”
"Like my screen-saver at work says: "Study! Practice!
Natural English is a syllabus strand which enables students to integrate frequent, natural language into their language framework.
Students learn to use real language naturally, through thinking and rehearsal time, confidence-building practice, and task-centred speaking.
http://www.eflbooks.co.uk/book.php?isbn=0194388581
I'm not on commission.
"Natural English does not attempt to present a highly idiomatic “no-holds-barred” syllabus, for learners who might try to use expressions which are above their level of competence would sound, at best, completely unnatural, and sometimes even absurd. The course aims to help learners sound more natural at each stage as they gradually build up fluency, focussing on language which native speakers and high-level learners use naturally but which would also sound natural used by intermediate learners.·Considering what you meant by "quaint" language, I guess it is in the hands of each teacher to evaluate just how far their students can go in using expressions and slang in their speech. I think it was lorikeet who pointed out that when non-natives use such they just sound like they're using such.
Same link.
More on "quaint" forms:
1. A Thin and Flat Repertoire with No Range
As the term "communicative competence" has snowballed in popularity in Taiwan's English teaching circle, a proliferation of imported EFL/ELT textbooks have introduced this island to conversational expressions. Jaded with memorization of rules, learners embrace oral training as the sole purpose for English learning. The variety of English styles, i.e. the range between formal and informal usages, is seldom brought to the attention of students. As a result, their English repertoire is thin and flat. Fossilization in the form of "phrase book English" (Nunan 1999:154), stilted and superficial language used in phatic communication, is prevalent.
http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/march_05_ch.php
Re: Get thee to....
Again, success may depend on where you spend your time while in the native-speaking country:revel wrote:... Had to pick that one up on the road, and maybe one answer for “quaint” is “get thee to an English speaking land and mingle with the natives!”
peace,
revel.
"2. Pompous Sounding Gibberish
Pursuing advanced academic degrees in an English-speaking country, especially in the U.S., has been a popular trend for students in Taiwan. However, with the deficiency in knowledge of English stylistic variations as well as how/when/where to use the different styles, those who come back to Taiwan with higher degrees from English-speaking countries tend to produce a mixture of slangy and academic English. The mild cases would be awkward pairings/groupings of words and the worst ones could be pompous sounding gibberish. It is because of staying mostly in the classroom and the library while studying in an English-speaking country, that they still lack exposure to the realistic use of English in the main-stream society."
http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/march_05_ch.php
The ideal approach would be to have all students learn to speak before they ever see the written word, much like NESs learn from childhood.
Perhaps I misinterpreted you, Metal. I assumed from your original post,How would that prevent/sway the teacher from introducing "quaint" language?
that you were asking about how to prevent students from sounding like a book when they spoke. If their teacher talks like a book, then I guess they have no hope of ever not sounding quaint. However, I'm sure you don't talk like a book, so I don't see why your students would, if they modeled their speech on what they hear from you in class.Intermediate learners sometimes sound rather quaint as they struggle to obey the rules of written grammar even in the most casual of conversational exchanges. What can teachers do about that unfortunate situation? Are we to blame for creating masses of "quaint" speakers?
Many academies have a policy that teachers should spend less time speaking in class and allow the students to do the speaking. Apart from that, the classroom environment, if based mostly on listening to the teacher's use, may not automatically give access to the many natural English forms that many students, even at intermediate levels, seem to lack.However, I'm sure you don't talk like a book, so I don't see why your students would, if they modeled their speech on what they hear from you in class.
I'd say that, in general, the situation described below is the way things are for most ESL/EFL teachers, native and nonnative:
Teaching natural English
Reza Sa'ee Dehghan, Iran
"I have been teaching English for more than 5 years and love it. I have found your site very useful and thought-provoking. I'd like to ask a question which must be typical problem of any given ESL class; the question is how can we make our students speak purely and spontaneously English; because as far as I know, at least in the institutes I have been teaching, English being taught is not in a way a native person utters words. How can we non-native teachers teach our students to speak in a native context?"
That article had some really great points. One that I, an editor, was always concerned about was the unnaturalness of the English in the exercises. Many textbook writers, who really aren't writers, just try to teach grammar patterns without worrying much about how natural or conversational the sentences are, which skills pertain to the expertise of editors and "true" writers. I was always correcting awkward sentences and making remarks like "This is grammatically correct — but when would anyone ever say this? I'd have to twist myself into a pretzel to creatively think of any appropriate situation."
And some of these "educators" tried to downplay my profession and corrections (of their often awkward sentences or lessons) because I hadn't enjoyed as much of the "superior" classroom experience they were privy to.
And some of these "educators" tried to downplay my profession and corrections (of their often awkward sentences or lessons) because I hadn't enjoyed as much of the "superior" classroom experience they were privy to.
English textbooks, authored by educators rather than professional writers, tend to carry a preaching and patronizing tone. The authors and their readers are inherently not on the equal footing. The textbook English, written from the perspective of talking to a "foreign" (namely, "outsider") audience, can hardly avoid contrivance.
This problem with EFL textbooks is further evidenced by research in the recently thriving field of Corpus Linguistics. For example, both Mindt (1992) and Kennedy (1998) have stated:
A comparative study of authentic language data and textbooks for teaching English as a foreign language has revealed that the used of grammatical structures in textbooks differs considerably from the use of these structures in authentic English. (Mindt, p. 186)