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Something wrong in this approach | ||
Tags: Language Teaching | Textbooks | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5211 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 1 of 9 18 July 2010 at 11:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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An adult friend of mine asked me to give her a hand with some exercises for a French class given by the Ministry of Immigration here in Montreal, Canada. She has been study French basically for over a year. Right now she is in the midst of a full-time 7-week program at level 2b of a 6 level curriculum. I have to say that I was astounded and rather discouraged by what I saw in her workbook.
First of all, the two exercises that we worked on concerned rather complex questions of grammar that native speakers would have difficulty understanding. These are grammatical points that concern only written language and require considerable thought unless one knows the answers by heart. The exercises consist of the fill-in-the-blank type where a model phrase is given, followed by a series of phrases with blank spaces. A few times, I found myself scratching my head trying to interpret the phrase before arriving at the right answer. And I wasn't even sure I had the right answer all the time. I question the utility of this type of exercise. But the other thing that really struck me was that the student was making very basic mistakes that should not have been occurring at this stage. It seemed to me that if the fundamentals are not mastered, then the study of rather fine grammatical pointers is a waste in time. The whole thing seemed so inefficient, And frustrating for the student. After all this study, this person could hardly speak the language in an environment where the language is everywhere. The tendency is to blame the student because, if the results are poor, it must be because the student is stupid. I totally disagree, of course. I don't want to tell these language teachers how to do their job, but I am not impressed by the results. Doesn't anybody have any similar experiences? Edited by s_allard on 19 July 2010 at 1:12pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ilanbg Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6191 days ago 166 posts - 189 votes Speaks: French, English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (classical), Persian | Message 2 of 9 19 July 2010 at 7:34am | IP Logged | ||
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On one hand, I agree with you. Certainly focusing on "practical" areas of a language is more desirable than focusing on minute points that even native
speakers are unfamiliar with. On the other hand, I see this as one application of the 80-20 rule (a.k.a. Pareto principle, the idea that 80% of results occurs from the first 20% of effort invested in it). Does it make sense to spend a large amount of time perfecting basic grammar before moving onto more complex concepts? Or should a student be exposed to it long enough to be familiar with it, then move on—and then, once all concepts have been covered, spend time refining one's utility of the language and fixing those common mistakes? I don't have an answer to that. I think perhaps focusing on the minute points is more effective for long-term study, because in the long-run one is almost certain to fix simple mistakes, but it may be more difficult to learn complex grammar concepts without being introduced to them early on. In the short run (e.g. a short crash course to prepare for an upcoming job/vacation in a foreign country), focusing on the bare essentials would naturally be preferable. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5228 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek | Message 3 of 9 19 July 2010 at 7:40am | IP Logged | ||
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I imagine many people have a similar experience. The problem is that schools don't teach for students. They teach for the organizations that fund them and accredit them. And if you're on an accrediting board, are you going to be more impressed by the school with a thorough syllabus that covers all the major structures in two semesters at as fast a pace as the teacher can teach them, or the school whose teachers say, "Well, I figured we'd fuss about with some greetings, phrases and irregular present tense verbs, and then we'd try some passé composé once they've got the knack of that..."? The problem is that it's much easier to learn enough about a language to pass a written exam than it is to get the hang of it. And it's easier to administer a written exam with maybe a short, perfunctory oral exam than it is to really find out if the students actually speak the language at the end of the term. So the bottom line is that your friend's school probably has more incentive to say they teach the advanced structures than to actually be sure that your friend can, say, tell a short story using the passé composé and imparfait properly after two years of study. It's a perverse situation, but I think it applies to education across the board, at least in the United States: A pretty good share of people who pass their high school math and English courses can't write a decent letter or work out what mathematical formula they'll need to solve to work out the answer to a real world problem either.
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| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5115 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 4 of 9 19 July 2010 at 10:03am | IP Logged | ||
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Sadly, this seem to be the approach in so many countries. I once sat in on a French lesson in Spain, where they went through any possible aspect of the adjectives in French, with exceptions I had not even heard of, and yet when the class was over none of them had uttered a single sentence in French. So much hard work, so little results...
Sad. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5792 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 5 of 9 19 July 2010 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | ||
I am not agree with you. I speaking often with many peoples who no have fix the simple mistake but are use many complicate structures. (The English in the previous sentences are specifically modelled on the English spoken by many Spanish speakers I know, including one who has lived in Scotland for 3 years.) The way I see it, every complicated structure is made of several simple elements. If you know the simple elements first and the complicated structure is presented as simply "assembling" the component elements in a particular way, the complicated structure comes easily. But if the students don't know the basic elements, the complicated structure has to be presented as a single monolithic "thing". The problem now arises that language is "fault tolerant" because it contains a lot of redundant information. English speakers understand "I am not agree" because it couldn't possible mean anything else, so there is no problem. The person who says "I am not agree" will similarly understand "I don't agree", because there is no ambiguity, but he will understand it so easily that he probably won't notice that it's not what he says. Another example is the typical Spanish handling of the present progressive. We hear "I doing something" and we understand it. We notice it's wrong, but we understand it. If you say "I'm doing something", the Spanish speaker understands it, but he doesn't hear 'm. Yes, his ears react to the noise, but his brain doesn't perceive it -- it kicks it out because it has no meaning to him. This is one of the failings of the communicative approach -- there is no communicative need for late correction of old errors, so early focus on accuracy is the only way to guarantee accuracy in the long-term. The pedagogical benefit of an early focus on accuracy is (as I said) that it makes it easier to teach the larger structures quickly and correctly as a combination and interaction of the smaller grammatical units. This is what Michel Thomas did (in the Romance languages at least -- I keep meaning to go back and finish the German) -- having taught all the main verb tenses, throwing together "if I... then I would..." type sentences was a matter of just asking. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5211 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 6 of 9 19 July 2010 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Part of the problem in all this mess is that the teaching is geared ultimately to testing. I tend to agree with BartoG in that there is a whole logic of some teaching systems that are geared to passing tests that do not really attempt to measure the ability to speak. Testing is very important here in Québec because many jobs, particularly government jobs and professional organizations ask candidates to pass tests. Since these test are heavily biased toward the written language and formal grammar, I can see to some extent why the teaching systems work this way. This, I have to say, is a far cry from some language schools that do emphasize learning how to speak.
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| MixedUpCody Senior Member United States Joined 5037 days ago 144 posts - 280 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 7 of 9 19 July 2010 at 10:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think the main problem with the way languages are taught in schools, (by which I mean U.S. colleges) is twofold. Problem number one is that textbooks are made to make money. Educating students isn't even an afterthought. My 2008 edition Spanish textbook was clearly made in the early to mid 90s, and it teaches words like tape recorder. Why an American college student living in the 21st century would need to know how to say tape recorder before CD player or MP3 player I can't even imagine.
Not to say that commercial language learning products aren't about making money. They clearly are. But when was the last time you were interested in learning a language and hoped on Amazon to buy a $274 textbook with no audio component. I also realize that other products have dubious vocabulary, however I believe the problem is much worse in modern textbooks. The second problem is that college professors have advanced degrees in their language of choice, not in education. I've lucked out with my Spanish professor but the quality of language teachers is a mixed bag. These are just my opinions of course but I think learning through a reputable learning program is far superior to taking classes at a university. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5792 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 8 of 9 19 July 2010 at 10:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd definitely agree that the biggest enemy of education is "teach to test".
One of my pet peeves is the Cambridge English exams and the disastrous consequences they have for students of English. I saw demonstration videos of the various spoken exams. In the First Certificate, it was noticeable that the examiners were using "will" where in normal English conversation we would use "going to". "Going to" was deemed "difficult" and left for later. I have two problems with this: 1) "Going to" may be difficult to explain to speakers of some languages, but other languages have a very similar construction. The standardised test discourages us from choosing what to teach based on what the student already knows. 2) "Will" and "going to" do not mean the same thing. Using "will" instead of "going to" means teaching bad English, but even the teacher who realises this is stuck with a dilemma: if I teach my students proper English, am I going to have enough time afterwards to teach them to pass the exam? I only did a brief stint teaching, and I felt such a fraud in the exam preparation class I had. I knew the kids in the class could do so much better, but I had to churn through stupid exercises which wouldn't do them any good in the long term because my boss had promised they would be ready for a particular exam the next summer. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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