Post
by Glenski » Sun Aug 01, 2004 7:56 am
Late as it may be in this discussion, I would like to add my thoughts.
I have taught adults in conversation school in Japan, and I am currently teaching high school students in Japan. Big difference. We must learn to separate these right off the bat.
For those free talking classes (not seen in high schools), the object at my conversation school was to give higher level students a chance to talk about anything. It supposedly helped them keep their ears and tongue in tone. Many teachers did absolutely nothing to prepare for such classes. Not me.
I brought in board games with questions for pair work (in those lax moments, or in the early days of a class getting together). Students changed partners every 5 minutes just to keep it interesting and to meet more people.
I brought in snippets from the news if I thought it applied to the class. For example, if I saw something about vet science, and my class had a veterinarian, I'd mention it, let him comment, then let the rest of the class take it from there.
I made myself ready with a few idioms or phrasal verbs just as filler material.
I brought in pictures from vacations I took, or of my friends and family if they had sent any recently. I encouraged students to do the same. Great icebreakers sometimes.
That said, let's get on with the value of free talking. It all depends on the students, as mentioned earlier by someone. You can have a class of complete deadheads, or great chemistry to stir a lively period, or anything in between. The value of the class is in what students make of it, as well as in what the teacher makes of it. In my book, it's a 50-50 proposition. What else would you suggest for high level people? I can only think of 2 things: debating and specialized topics.
On the former, you have people coming once a week to have fun chatting, so unless the class itself is labeled as a debating one, you won't do anything by creating a debate except scare away students (= money). If you have debating, you'd better be prepared to find ways to spend those 45-60 minutes makins sure EVERYONE has an equal chance to talk, and to maximize that talking. [I used to teach a debate class mostly for English teachers in Japan, and the class leader felt it was good enough to do it Japanese style. That is, he just wanted everyone in the room to have a couple of minutes to voice his opinion. Well, when you have 15 students, that means only about 3 minutes of talking time per lesson, and I put my foot down on that silly notion. People pay to speak, to learn from each other and their teacher, to compare notes, etc. in a debate class, not to say a few words, then sit back and listen for the rest of the period.]
On the latter, I have also taught a couple of specialized courses. One was simply News Topics, where everyone brought in an interesting article, summarized it in a sentence, then opened the floor to discussion (moderated by me). The other was Science Topics, for scientists and medical personnel, where I was the one who introduced a topic for discussion (and that class required a LOT of preparation!).
I am fully behind Larry on his comments and opinions. I have taught a speech making class for second year high school students, and it is a total waste of time. For adults, I really don't see the point unless you have people who voluntarily sign up for it (and those would be in the small minority that Larry mentioned who would even slightly benefit from it).
Forget philosophy. Forget that public speaking seems to be a marvelous talent (which not everyone can pick up, even in his own language). Look at the practical side of things (like Larry has mentioned). If you aren't teaching grammar to those who need it (including high school students, elementary school students, university students, returnees, immigrants, some conversation school students, and a few others), you must be teaching a specialized form of free talking class.
In Japan (as I suspect there is in other Asian countries), there is an obstacle for some of us. The dreaded college entrance exams. Those students who need to pass such things are more interested and more inclined to need the grammar explained than to permit free talking. Much more. They certainly don't need any class on making public speeches.
One additional note. Speaking aloud. It doesn't help much if you don't have a native speaker to monitor you. I can speak Japanese until I'm blue in the face and think I'm doing a marvelous job of pronouncing it correctly. However, I've had so many cases where students wrinkle their brows and wonder what I'm saying until I write it down. They exclaim, "OHHHH, THAT'S what you meant!" and they repeat it aloud for me. Problem is, it sounds exactly the way I spoke it.
I agree, then, that in that sense, logic is a universal or "multinational" value.
