Digging a hole in the EFL classroom
As predicted, I decided that Lessons from Good Language Learners was worth dipping into after all and gave it a half decent review. I think I might have reached the limit with how much obvious-stuff-half-backed-up-by-research I can take with Teacher Language Awareness by Stephen Andrews, though, a book whose premise is that what teachers know and feel about grammar affects their ability to teach the language. Well, duh! (As all the best linguists say)
So, as I got a freebie copy and so feel I have to read all through before I give up on writing a review, I’ve had to ignore its main message and get my amusement and enlightenment where I can. Luckily, there are a few little gems like this from page 26:
“For this word will we have two kinds of meaning. Number 1 you can say that it’s about future tense… maybe it’s now 4 am and then “Will you come at 8am?” Future tense… Or another one maybe… Do you know that traditionally if I say “I shall go”/ “I will go”, they are different? Can you remember? “I shall go” is about future, “I shall go” future tense. And then “I will go”- maybe the underlying meaning is like this: “I must go”/ “I have to go”. And then for this one again it’s the same, “Will you come at 8am?” Maybe it’s about the future, and secondly you can say that “Do you have to come?” or “Will you really come?” Because I hope that you can come. And then “Yes, I will come”, “I must come”, “I will come”… something like that.”
Well, that explains that then! I don’t think laughing at this is a sign of arrogance, because most of it is a laugh of recognition and some of the rest of it is the nervous laugh of seeing approaching disaster, like this:
“She then gives her students a Calvin and Hobbes strip cartoon to look at and asks them (in groups) to describe the story in the active and passive voice. Her students perform the task enthusiastically. However, having been given no reason for the selection of one form in preference to the other, they produce some very odd sentences, such as “Hobbes is watched by Calvin”, “The wild sound is made by Hobbes”, “Hobbe’s mouth was put in by Calvin”. Maggie accepts these sentences with no apparent hesitation and concludes the activity by saying ‘So it’s really simple to use the active and passive voice…’” (pg 104-5)
Is it possible to laugh at someone and feel sympathy at the same time? It must be so, because I understand the following teacher’s feelings completely (if with different language points):
“I can foresee when I get into infinitive, that’s where I got a trouble… because two years ago, also Form 4, when we get to infinitive, we’re dragging on for the whole two weeks, and we don’t know what we’re doing… I’ve no idea what, how to teach them, and they’ve no idea what infinitive is. But… when I get into infinitive I get so nervous. They don’t understand it, I don’t understand it, and I don’t know how to teach it…” (pg 77)
There are also some quotes on teaching grammar that make you want to give them a hug and a packet of Hobnobs and tell them to calm down:
“I’ve taught this grammar, so how can the mistake come again? So I blame myself… That lesson is not effective; they make the same mistakes in the composition.”
and others that show a nice sense of realism:
“To be able to use the language is more important than being a hundred percent grammatically correct all the time… but obviously it would be nicer if they were a hundred percent accurate as well” she said ‘wistfully’ according to the author. (both quotes pg 78)