the land of do as you please
Are all the debates about the best way to teach driven by the needs of individual teachers? For example, if a particular teacher can’t get out of bed in the morning, thinks youtube is an emergency plumbing service, and is fluent in the learners’ L1, what are the odds that the class instructions will be given in Spanish and taught with pencil, paper and whatever the teacher can find in his pockets? For the sake of balance, I should point out that his colleague down the hall can’t speak a word of the local lingo and stayed up till three last night playing “Xylagore IIX – Revenge of the Gigamarths” online, and that’s what his students will be focusing on today (and woe betide anyone who utters a word in “the foreign”).
Both teachers can find research by the bucket load which shows they are pedagogically sound. But perhaps they (and I mean we) ought to admit that they are working backwards. That is, they teach how they LIKE to teach and then select the information that supports them.
But here is the big question*. So what? Doesn’t a happy and enthusiastic teacher beat one who is fighting to teach against type, against her inner beliefs? Is it more important to be comfortable, than “sound”? Do the debates over the use or non-use of certain techniques, methods or tools actually matter?
*I know, there are four questions. But basically it is one question written four times for dramatic effect.
I enjoyed this post that echoed my experience of years trying to find some theoretical support for the experiments I conducted on unsuspecting students; attempting to back-reference all that utter randomness. Boy did Multiple Intelligence Theory come in handy. Boo to the system which allows any Tom, Dick or Paddy to be in this position, untrained and unsupervised. I have gone beyond that now and understand language education to be rather like a pancake with two strawberries, a small dollop of cream and some jam. Don’t quite know why though.
Patrick, that is EXACTLY what teaching is like. If I have to explain it, then there’s little hope for you.
Darren, I’m liking this new blog of yours – much better than the other crap you tried! Shows that persistence pays off, and that you DO have something to say.
I’ll add you to my blog-roll, if you don’t mind – as soon as I’ve thought of a name that is insulting or demeaning enough for you.
Unfortunate you should say that, Sandy. I was just polishing a couple of the old nuggets on my sleeve when your comment dropped through the letterbox. Waste not want not, that’s what I say.
That’s a great title for the blogroll – Waste Not,Want Not. Ta very much, Darren!
BTW, which club did your father play for? You’ve left me very curious there, seeing as my club typically inhabit the lower regions of UK football.
He signed as a pro straight out of school, for Charlton Athletic. He was a lower-league / non-league journeyman winger around the south-west. Good living though, while it lasted.
Great questions, but not sure I have any answers, let alone great ones. Like moral relativism, there is a limit to anyone’s ability to accept every way of teaching, but no clear dividing line where good sense or a majority of research means that you can just say to other teachers (as a fellow teacher, manager, teacher trainer or writer) “You don’t want to do it like that”. What after all is the use of all this research and other kinds of TEFL writing if it doesn’t tell you what not to do but just gives you other options whilst telling you that what you are doing now is just as good? My present position is that I accept that there are many good ways of doing things and that I can’t prove one is better than the other, and yet most language teaching in the world is a bloody disgrace (e.g. all but one of the language lessons I have been a student in, and the majority of lessons in state schools that I have seen or heard about)
I’m going to side with Alex on this one. The school I just finished up with had a “do as you please” mentality when it came to teaching methodology. In effect, this meant that the management couldn’t say anything positive or negative about your teaching and other teachers were incredibly unaccepting of criticism no matter how sugar-coated. It was the worst school I’ve ever worked at. Student learning and motivation were insanely low. You’d have upper-intermediate students that could barely make a sentence, but they were damn good at fill-in-the-blank grammar exercises, which the school promoted heavily in its coursebook. In fact, every single student that came from outside the school always had far better English than those that came from within. My point is that methodology really does matter. In my own students I saw loads of improvement in their English compared to almost none coming from most other teachers’ classes. Some lessons I saw at this school included:
A teacher who spent literally 5 minutes drawing an elaborate temple on the board to teach the word while his students sat there silently.
A teacher who spent an entire hour talking to each student individually about their last vacation while the rest sat and spoke Turkish among themselves.
A teacher who spent an entire hour having students read out loud from a passage one by one.
A teacher who did a speaking lessons where he started with the origin of his name, moved to Norse mythology, then to Hollywood, and then finished with Muhammed’s night journey. In total the students spoke about 10 sentences and no one had a clear idea of what had just happened.
A teacher who gave students a reading, told them to pick any 5 words from the reading, and then write one sentence with each. Lesson finished.
A teacher who had piles of fill-in-the-blank worksheets. If one worksheet didn’t take up the full hour, she would simply hand out another.
As I used to argue with my manager all the time, there are a number of ways to teach a foreign language, but there are core principals that need to be followed regardless of methodology. Things like eliciting, CCQ, low TTT, student participation and engagement, moving away from grammar-centered approaches, etc. So, to answer your question, no. It is much better to be sound than comfortable. I would argue that, once some core elements of teaching are understood, there are a number of possible methodologies that you can choose from, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Here, comfort level can come into play because a motivated teacher creates motivated students. On the other hand, I think there is a danger with being too comfortable. If you ever stop developing or trying new things as a teacher, then I think it’s time for you to leave the profession. We can always improve, we can always learn something new about ourselves, our students, or teaching in general. To say, “Hey, whatever you’re doing is fine.” is very lazy I think.
I’m not sure if you and Alex are saying quite the same thing, Nick. You certainly describe several lessons which sound lousy, and it appears that the results in terms of language attainment bear out your complaints. What do you expect? This is English Language Teaching, the refuge of the lazy, the unstable, the unqualified and the misguided!
Seriously though, what I was trying to say in my piece, which Alex reiterated, was that you will struggle to find any ‘core principles’ based on SLA research. For example, I can certainly think of a substantial chunk of literature which would place grammar (or at least ‘focus on form’) at the very heart of the language lesson. And in such diverse contexts, with so many variables, I am sceptical that there are any techniques or methods which are universally appropriate. So what does that leave us with? Half-digested theory and gut instinct?
No, it leaves us with values and humanity. I think above all else good teaching is about human relations. If the teacher and students can be comfortable with themselves and with each other, then they are travelling in the right direction. Whether they ride a camel, a unicycle or a spacehopper to get where they are going is up to them, rather than the Cambridge ESOL examination board.
I feel you on the lack of research-supported core principles, but I still don’t believe we can say one approach is as good as another.
I think human relationships are integral to a positive learning environment, but combine this with some decent methodology and you’ve got a recipe for a very productive class. I can site teachers that bond with their students amazingly well and their students will learn more than the ones in a class with less positive relationships. However, coming from a lot of observations, the teachers that follow even basic approaches taught in a TEFL course, in addition to good relationships, produce students with better English. Now, this is based only on my limited time as an ESL teacher, but the differences can be quite acute. Research aside, from personal experience as a teacher and a language learner I have seen the results. I have also seen the detrimental effects of certain other approaches. I can name a couple teachers I work with right now whose students absolutely adore them, yet their English ranges from bad to mediocre (level factored in of course).
In part I agree, a lot should be up to the learner as to how to approach their English, but, as we sorta discussed over on my blog, the learner needs direction. I have seen over and over again that teaching the learner appropriate methods of language learning increases their ability. You said yourself that not knowing how to use a dictionary can be very detrimental for the student as is a reliance on one. Can we not pull something from this? Can we not say that some methods of learning are better than others? I think we can, even if it comes more from personal experience and intuition than from proof-positive research research.
I definitely agree there is no universal method that covers everything and that’s why I call for country or culture specific approaches on my blog, but I guess I still feel there are some basics that improve the learning experience.
In the end, I see your point, but I don’t agree that all we have are our values and humanity. I also don’t agree that this alone will make a good teacher although it goes a long long way. As you said, our profession is filled with the unqualified. Can you say from personal experience that new teachers full of enthusiasm do better in the class than experienced teachers full of enthusiasm? If so, what’s different. Obviously the experienced teachers have found some thing or things that help the students more.
Suddenly remembered to come back and see if my comment had got any responses, and thought I’d leave this comment that contains no information apart from the fact that I’m here. How long does that give me before I become a lurker again?
PS, that’s my first ever smiley! Just couldn’t find another way of making sure it was taken as a joke
I’m honoured Alex. Your first smiley!
I guess you have to come back and comment again when I produce the ridiculously long-awaited book review……