Teacher Discussion Forums

I have contributed to this forum over the past few years and here I am again with a new request. Is there anybody out there similarly enthused about the teaching approach used by Prof.David Rose of Sydney University – in particular his work teaching English with Aboriginal children in remote parts of Australia? His ‘whole of English approach’ - described as ‘Detailed Reading’.

This approach has evolved from work done at Sydney by Profs. Rose and Martin and – put simply – is based heavily on the scaffolding approach to teaching.

‘Detailed Reading’ is described in great detail in the literature and an accompanying DVD that Prof. Rose produced. It has evolved from Systemic Functional Linguistics. My involvement with SFL happily came about by completing a M.Ed(TESOL) last year.

Usually I am not interested in such heavy matters in my teaching as I have all adult students here in Fujisawa, Japan. They are mostly charming middle-aged women who like to practice conversation and to discuss art,music ,films - and prefer grammar to be kept to a minimum. I have been teaching for ten years in Japan.

However, I tried out Detailed Reading with a couple of trial lessons with several 8 year old children and was staggered by how after a couple of hours these children could follow a simple story and even read and write simple sentences – some of these children had had no experience before with English! (I must also add that I am trying out the technique on advanced classes in a limited way that is very successful).

When I first came to Japan I taught for a big English school and taught English by games,songs and phonics. This is a completely different approach. It is of course whole of English v the traditional approach of phonics.

Has anybody had experience in this area. Please, Please I am not inviting a discussion of phonics v whole approach. I simply want to know if anybody has worked on this kind of material - because I am now encouraged to start a children's class.

geordie

I haven't used this approach, but I'm curious how you would implement it in an EFL class without using the students' native language. An online PDF at http://www.maxwell.lambda.ele.puc-rio.b ... dLinPrg=pt indicates that detailed reading is meant to be applied across a wide range of curricula using a "prepare - task - elaborate" learning cycle. It sounds promising, but would an EFL class need texts explicitly designed with this methodology in mind?

Usually reading is associated with intermediate and advanced level English skills. One would expect a sytemic functional approach to focus on basic tasks for beginners to use the language to accomplish something, and that these tasks wouldn't place much emphasis on reading.

With the young children's class the simple stories have to be explained at first in Japanese. With my two trial lessons this was a simple matter, and afterwards almost all of the class proceeded in English.

The literature that you referred to is very similar to that which David Rose sent to me - together with a DVD. David has made it quite simple and practical and suitable for EFL teaching.

I use 'Detailed Reading' everyday with several classes at levels from beginner to advanced - however in only a very limited way; the first couple of paragraphs are discussed in this manner - prepare - identify -affirm- elaborate. The rest of the article ('Mainich Weekly' is a good source) is left to be read at home. As I mentioned I cannot afford to lose my private students over too much grammar.

Where and how do you teach ?

In haste.

John

Where and how do you teach ?

I'm in between teaching jobs now. Several of the scenarios at http://teflchina.org/jobs/intro/Niu_and_Wolff.htm describe the environments in which I've taught English.

I use a communicative grammatical approach when possible. I try to match cooperative activities with my students' skill and interest levels.