How much do you tell students about methodology?

[doriangray]

Do you think its a valid thing to say, for example "Today I'm going to teach you in Presentation, Practice, Production stages". First I'm going to present some language to you, then you can practice it in a controlled way with some exercises and finally you can use the language to communicate with each other". Does anyone do this? Would it be useful to give more elaborate explanations of Language Aquisition theory etc.

[fluffyhamster]

I wouldn't use methodology jargon unless it had currency in the language generally e.g. 'practice' - 'Now let's practice/pronounce/try saying that ten times'. I do however sometimes quickly explain (in the L1 where it is Chinese or, at a pinch, Japanese) why I am doing things a certain way or using certain materials, especially when there is another (usually non-native) teacher around (as is the case in Japanese elementary schools, where I have the most autonomy at present).

For example, earlier today I had to "defend" using somewhat charicatured pictures (that I'd drawn myself based on photos of famous Japanese people or characters, along with a few token foreigners) that wouldn't have been 100% discernible or always 1000% familiar to the students, because the target language was (in addition to the main focus of 'He/She is...') somewhat to do with introducing people (by way of a picture): '(This is (name)). He/She is (a) .....'. If I'd flashed up a picture of somebody they'd've been absolutely CERTAIN to recognize, it would've made the subsequent telling redundant and feel somewhat false. (BTW, my selections and introductions followed on from the students practising at least the 'He/She is...' stem given a prompt from me e.g. 'Ichiro' (='a baseball player')).

I often find that Japanese teachers want to make everything so easy and unchallenging that an air of artificiality can soon enter the classroom and dispel any emerging real communication (laced as it sometimes is with a little doubt), so the consistency one should be always be aiming for in the discourse can get messed up.

The form the above reasoning/explanation/"pleading" takes is plain, ordinary language as far as possible.

The one type of language that I really do think repays careful consideration is the functional labels we attach to phrases (exponents), and more widely, the notions we might be entertaining; the former especially are usually clear enough and would seem helpful for students.

[Stephen Jones]

Do you think its a valid thing to say, for example "Today I'm going to teach you in Presentation, Practice, Production stages". First I'm going to present some language to you, then you can practice it in a controlled way with some exercises and finally you can use the language to communicate with each other". Does anyone do this?

Somebody on week 2 of a Celta might. He would immediately be shot down I hope.

[JuanTwoThree]

I can only see it working when teaching teachers or perhaps when teaching the language of presentations.

Any questions?


Next slide please.

[thethinker]

I think there is evidence that students are more likely to respond positively to an activity if they understand the reason behind doing it. It doesn't necessarily follow that you have to use terms like Presentation, Practice and Production to them, but I think it can be beneficial if they are told the stages that they're going to go through in the lesson and why. When I first started teaching I didn't think this at all, and thought that my Ss would just float along through my seamless lessons, but I soon realised that Ss often need to understand the logic of how you teach.

[JuanTwoThree]

Perhaps PPP was not the best example.

There's obviously no harm in saying that today there will be a bit of text to read, some grammar and then a competition or game , for example. It's not a question of keeping S.s in the dark at all times. But that'a far cry from "then you can practise it in a controlled way".

[thethinker]

I agree that saying "then you can practise it in a controlled way" would not be helpful. But it might not be a bad idea to say "then you can do some exercises to practise it, and once you've done that you'll have a chance to use the language to talk about something with a partner". I'm not saying that I personally would do that, but I think there could be some merit in it if the situation required it. I can remember years ago teaching an elementary class (adults), and one of the Ss said she felt that they weren't doing enough speaking. In fact they were doing lots of speaking, but, because of their level, it tended in the main to be in a through quite controlled activities, and she obviously felt that those kinds of activities weren't actually 'speaking'. Now whether or not that was the right approach is another argument, but I wonder in retrospect whether she would have complained had I made it clear each time how what they were doing fitted into the overall learning scheme - i.e. that it was the final stage in the ppp process (without using ELT jargon of course).

[JuanTwoThree]

Agreed. I wouldn't rule out anything on principle. On principle.

[doriangray]

My question is also about whether the process of learning a language (when you are a learner) is actually a motivating thing to discuss/explore in itself.

Another example might be to give students a listening about Krashen's theory and after the appropriate tasks etc get them to decide if they think they are 'monitor over-users' or 'under-users' and possibly discuss this.

I can see how it is a lesson that seems to disappear up itself but surely language learning theory is at least as interesting as many of the teacher-imposed 'I'm interested in this so so should you be' topics (or listenings imposed by the coursebooks). It also has the advantage of getting them to reflect on the types of learners they are etc etc .... and there's a good chance that they may be interested since they are, after all, involved in this process themselves.