A Teacher’s Priorities
March 13th, 2006 by MarkA few posts back, Clyde expressed interest in what I think makes the biggest difference in the progress of foreign language students. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to respond, but it’s taken a bit of thought. I’ve done quite a bit of linguistics study and reading, and have worked hard to improve the curriculum at each school I’ve worked. Most haven’t had much interest in what my opinions are, but my current one has listened and implemented quite a few of my ideas. Still, I’ve been accused by some ESL educators of using methods that “have no theoretical support”.
How can this be? Have I decided that I just don’t really want my kids to make efficient progress? Of course, not. All of my teaching decisions (which I have control of) are based on results. Do I think the linguistics community is wrong? No. I’m firmly convinced that mainstream linguists are right; massive comprehensible input is the most important factor in language learning. I wouldn’t go so far as some and say that it’s the only factor, but I do agree that it’s crucial. Extemporaneous speech and cultural study are also very important.
Why do I go on offering explicit pronunciation and grammar corrections in class and assigning 罰寫, then? Isn’t that kind of ignoring my own beliefs about language learning? Well, this is how I see it: too much of the language learning research out there has been on immigrants and on self-motivated learners. I’ve read some of Mason’s extensive reading studies conducted on English majors at Japanese universities, but I’ve seen nothing on unmotivated grade school children studying in buxibans because their parents force them to. If anybody knows of any L2 acquisition research that does fit my current situation, then please fill me in!
It’s only common sense that no amount of communicative attempts and no volume of input will do much for a student who’s busy drawing pictures of cartoon characters on his desk. Similarly, with no punishments assigned for errors, students don’t really have much motivation to listen to me when I’m telling them how to make “r sounds” vs. “l sounds”. Some innovations in our curriculum are for the purpose of making language input more comprehensible, and others are for motivational purposes.
Here are what I feel are a teacher’s most important priorities:
- Classroom discipline- make all kids responsive, make sure that at least 90% of them raise their hands when I ask a question, and make sure they do the homework I tell them to.
- Motivation- give them quick 30 second motivational speeches almost every week. Reason with them, convince them, and condition them through sheer advertising repetition that it’s important to work hard.
- Input- the more questions, sentences, and classroom commands that they hear and comprehend, the better. Getting students into extensive reading is crucial at the intermediate and higher levels.
- Cultural studies- ultimately, this makes a huge difference in their ability to understand new materials.
- Clarity- explaining a difficult sentence structure well once each class for the first couple of times they use it works far better than explaining it quickly and sloppily again and again. Obviously, they have to be paying attention, though.
- Output- speaking practice and, to a lesser degree, writing practice are important, but I haven’t found students to need it in anywhere near the same quantities as they need listening and reading.
March 13th, 2006 at 9:09 am
Mark, this topic is what almost all my language research publishing centers on. For me, the key is not to say that some students do not fit the assumptions of massive comprehensible input (which of course no one would argue aginst–of course it works well, but even in my own kids’ case this is very hard to achieve in places like Taiwan), but rather, the assumptions of almost all EFL research includes that the norm is the motivated student who by coincidence has motivation orientations very similar to those in the West, which of course are a mixture of cultural assumptions of what motivation means and the presence of a total environment of the language.
I prefer to examine the reality of EFL in Taiwan by measuring not students in a college English major program, but the other people who are forced to participate in the English paradigm or if not forced at least encouraged for reasons that have little to do with the assumptions from researchers sitting in the UK or US and dealing with students who are already self-selected and motivated in ways that fit well with the place they have moved to.
Because I’m a university professor, I’ve been supported with research funds to investigate these issues through much more scientific approaches than what we often see with people making huge sweeping statements about social structures and politics. Good examples of this research include publications in top language journals, such as Language Learning, TESOL Q, Foreign Language Annals, and others you can find downloads at my website (http://warden.idv.tw/warden/personalPage/index.html). Those papers, especially the TESOL Q paper, cite many studies that address the issues you raise. Rather than saying unmotivated, the issue is one of motivation orientation. Cutting edge work like this appears in journals, rather than books.
Attempting to apply, as you point out, research from very motivated teachers, in small classes teaching very motivated students, and by surprise everyone is conveniently motivated in the Western sense of “I like to do this,” ends up frustrating everyone in real Taiwan classrooms. Most common is the criticism that Taiwan teachers simply are doing things wrong, if they would only use communicative approaches everything would be solved. This simply ends up making everyone feel guilty, and in the end throwing up their arms in frustration, reverting to the most basic forms of teaching through straight lecture of translation examples. The damage done by the generalizations of researchers who base conclusions on small samples and case studies, of course with very biased POV’s, is huge. What we need is more scientific approaches with well established experimental and survey designs that include rigorous statistical validity confirmation. This issues is totally overlooked by many, if not all, local researchers specifically, and many EFL/ESL researchers in general. A good example of the direction I’m talking about is Greta J. Gorsugh’s paper in TESOL Q, which addresses the communicative approach falling on its face in Japan. A very scientific survey and good statistical analysis, though SEM, give very clear and specific insights, and those insights are very similar to what you point out from your front line contact with local reality. We must work within the context of what we have, not what we wish we had. That is the basic conclusion. Good research can give very specifics insights to these issues, while poor research makes sweeping statements about how everything would be solved if only . . . I’m so sick of that, not to mention it smacks of colonialism!