As you plan for your English learning this year, ask yourself these seven questions.
Showing posts with label learning styles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label learning styles. Show all posts
8.10.2013
Efficient Learning: The seven questions you should ask yourself
I'm taking a course on teaching with Coursera, and I just saw something I'd like to share with you (I will admit here that I actually didn't secure permission to share this, but I imagine it's not proprietary).
As you plan for your English learning this year, ask yourself these seven questions.
As you plan for your English learning this year, ask yourself these seven questions.
7.29.2013
It's not easy for us, either!
So last night, I was looking around Twitter (as you do, when it's Sunday night and there's nothing good on TV), and I found this blog....
http://30daysofspanish.wordpress.com
It's the story of a guy named James, who shares an apartment in Seattle with a guy named Luis. James has decided that he's going to try learning Spanish. For thirty days, there's no English allowed in their apartment: it's all Spanish.
I think that most of you will be able to relate to what James is going through. I know that when I moved to Spain, I was at about this level...
Don't miss the video where they watch the soap opera together - it's classic.
http://30daysofspanish.wordpress.com
It's the story of a guy named James, who shares an apartment in Seattle with a guy named Luis. James has decided that he's going to try learning Spanish. For thirty days, there's no English allowed in their apartment: it's all Spanish.
I think that most of you will be able to relate to what James is going through. I know that when I moved to Spain, I was at about this level...
Don't miss the video where they watch the soap opera together - it's classic.
7.25.2011
Why write?
Good question. Why do students hate writing?
- It takes time to learn how to do well.
- It's not something that comes easily to most people. We grow up learning how to talk, but we have to learn how to write. We can make sounds as soon as we're born, but we can't write anything until we have an idea of how language works, and we can make our hands and eyes work together.
- There's the idea that you can't take the mistake back. If you make a mistake when you speak, the mistakes only exist as long as other people remember it. When there's a mistake on paper, it's there, and feels more permanent.
- Anthropologists think that humans have been using spoken communication for over 100,000 years, but we've only had writing for something like 6,000 years. It's not something that we just automatically DO. (Thank you, David Crystal.)
- Writing is hard for everyone. It's hard for native speakers of English, too.
- Avoiding things you hate doesn't make them easier to do. If you avoid writing, you're just making the problem worse.
- No amount of excuses will ever make writing go away. Even if you hate writing with a passion, complaining and moaning and whining and belly-aching and bitching and crying and sulking will never, ever make writing disappear.
- It's all right if you don't write as well as a native speaker does. You just need to know how to write to get what you need. (Remember the key: Language is a tool to get what you want.)
- Writing may not be spontaneous, but that's good, because it means that you have more time and opportunity to say exactly what you want.
- If you make a mistake when you're speaking, you can't take it back and make it perfect. When you write, you DO have a chance to fix what you created.
7.07.2011
5.16.2011
Some more thoughts about students who don't speak in class....
The Atlantic has an interesting article about silent classrooms - classes where students don't speak, either out of fear or boredom.
The piece focuses on American college and university classrooms, but I suspect that this problem also exists in English-language classes. Teachers are taught that the ideal ratio of communication is about 80/20: students talk eighty per cent of the time, teachers 20%.
Is this true in your language classroom? Who does more talking in your class - the teacher or the students?
If you don't participate in your classes.....why?
4.29.2011
Practice, not study: Mar's ideas
Mar and I were having class yesterday in the Parque del Oeste, and the topic came up about study versus practice. Here's what she does when she wants to work on her English, but doesn't have time to get study in....
- Washing dishes: What are these things called? What adjectives can you use to describe utensils, pots and pans?
- Cleaning around the house: What prepositions and adverbs do you need to describe location and movement? What are the machines called? How do you spell the names of the machines?
- Grocery shopping: What are the English words that describe the groceries that you usually buy every week? Which ones are countable, and which ones are uncountable?
Remember: Study is fine as long as you're disciplined enough to do it. Most of us benefit from regular, steady consistent practice. Five minutes, twice a day, every day will help you more than one hour of staring at a grammar book!
4.11.2011
What makes a successful learner of English?
I put that question to a group of Advanced level students two weeks ago. Here are the ideas that they came up with:
DO:
Watch movies, tv programs
Love English
Memorize grammatical structures
Submit themselves to the pressure
Connect with people
Take risks
Put themselves into English speaking environment
Tolerate ambiguity
Realize that not everyone learns the same way
Read!
ARE:
Motivated and know why
More concerned with correct English, not perfect English
(Thanks to Víctor, Paco, Miriam, Rosa and José Ignacio!)
3.28.2011
Attitude check
If you've ever thought that you're not smart enough to learn English well, read this.
2.17.2011
How bad is it if you DON'T learn English....really?
It's not a disaster if you don't learn.
Spaniards put themselves under a lot of pressure to master English. Why this is, I don't know. It's not like they speak a language that is useless beyond its borders. It's not like there's so much trade between Spain and English-speaking countries – companies from English-speaking countries do not dominate employment in this country.
There is a lot of embarrassment and fear about being left behind.
There's a lot of jealousy directed towards people who have mastered English. Worse, there's a lot of resentment towards people who make an effort to improve their English. Why this is, I don't know. But it's sad to see it happen.
I don't want anyone to think that they're totally incapable of learning English. (Spanish students of English say this a lot, but I have yet to meet someone who shows it's true.) But being able to do something, and having the time, the determination and the interest in doing something well are different things.
If you decide to learn something, and you say that you're doing it to improve your future, remember that you basically enter into a contract with two people: yourself, and the teacher. The teacher's responsibility is to create a positive, educational environment that helps you get you where you want to go, literally and/or figuratively.
It's YOUR responsibility to do what you can to make sure that happens.
And if it doesn't happen, and you don't learn to speak English perfectly...ask yourself this: What, exactly, have you lost? You can probably still communicate fairly well. If you had to go to London tomorrow, you'd probably do all right in the airport and at the hotel and in a restaurant. So what if you'll never be able to negotiate a multi-million dollar deal, or act in an Oscar-winning movie, or any of that stuff? Do you want to commit to the amount of work and study and practice that a person needs to be able to do that effectively?
Trust me...there's no shame in answering "no." Unless you're marrying someone who speaks English, unless you're going to work for an American company or you're moving to an English-speaking country, "good" is good enough.
2.16.2011
The teacher still has a lot to learn.
I try not to say that I know everything. A lot of times, I don't. And there are a lot of times when I really, honestly feel that I will never, ever, know everything.
I have a student who hates grammar. I don't think that "hate" is too strong a word, here. This is a problem in classes, obviously, because grammar forms a big part of commmunication: if you don't have the structure, it's very difficult to communicate well.
I just found out why this person hates grammar. As a kid, this person was taught by priests who would physically abuse the students when the students made mistakes. From what the student told me, humiliation made up a big part of classroom time; students were not given any kind of positive feedback or encouragement while they were in class. They just tried NOT to get beaten up while they were learning. Thirty years later, grammar still means humiliation, still means revealing how stupid you are....
How can you fix something like that?
How much is the teacher RESPONSIBLE for fixing things like that?
We have come to an agreement that we will focus on vocabulary and expressions for the next little while. Vocabulary is safe, it's not risky or dangerous. I know that this is not effective teaching, but there are times when being a teacher is less important than being a facilitator and coach.
Part of me thinks: This is not my problem. But it is my problem. I have an unspoken contract to help this person as much as I can, and if grammar is not helping, well, it'll just have to wait for now.
Oh, Spain...if only you guys had gone through the 1960s and had the benefit of educational psychology...we wouldn't be dealing with the scars, forty years on...
In the meantime: vocabulary, and lots of it. Let's see if that helps.
I have a student who hates grammar. I don't think that "hate" is too strong a word, here. This is a problem in classes, obviously, because grammar forms a big part of commmunication: if you don't have the structure, it's very difficult to communicate well.
I just found out why this person hates grammar. As a kid, this person was taught by priests who would physically abuse the students when the students made mistakes. From what the student told me, humiliation made up a big part of classroom time; students were not given any kind of positive feedback or encouragement while they were in class. They just tried NOT to get beaten up while they were learning. Thirty years later, grammar still means humiliation, still means revealing how stupid you are....
How can you fix something like that?
How much is the teacher RESPONSIBLE for fixing things like that?
We have come to an agreement that we will focus on vocabulary and expressions for the next little while. Vocabulary is safe, it's not risky or dangerous. I know that this is not effective teaching, but there are times when being a teacher is less important than being a facilitator and coach.
Part of me thinks: This is not my problem. But it is my problem. I have an unspoken contract to help this person as much as I can, and if grammar is not helping, well, it'll just have to wait for now.
Oh, Spain...if only you guys had gone through the 1960s and had the benefit of educational psychology...we wouldn't be dealing with the scars, forty years on...
In the meantime: vocabulary, and lots of it. Let's see if that helps.
1.25.2011
It's not you, it's me. Uhh....No. Wait. It really IS you, after all.
Teachers are normal people, most of the time. We laugh, we cry, we have good days, we have horrid days. Generally speaking, if you're working with human beings, you have to be able to accept that people are going to behave like people. And sometimes, being humans, they have human ways of dealing with problems. Or not dealing with them.
I just had class with a student who I'll call Oxford. Oxford is a very successful lawyer who's had senior positions in the Spanish government. Oxford has a hell of a time with English, however - it takes forever to get sentences out, there are a lot of problems with vocabulary, and I do wonder about Oxford's ability to handle information. For the past two years, Oxford has had conversation classes, but it never occurred to me to ask Oxford why the classes had to focus on conversation and nothing else.
I think I learned the reason why today.
Since Oxford is setting up a lot of meetings, I thought, OK, maybe a lesson on taking notes and manipulating written information would be a good idea. No way. At first, Oxford didn't resist directly; Oxford asked a lot of questions and didn't quite get the idea behind reading a text and condensing information into notes. It was as if my questions were bouncing off Oxford at every angle, like a basketball that has too much air in it - you could get close to the net, but not in it.
It turns out that Oxford doesn't read. I don't really know the reason why. When reading the newspaper, for example, Oxford claims to scan for the most important words, but once Oxford more or less understands the article, that's it. The newspaper goes in the garbage.
Okaaaay...what about law school? Or laws? Or legal briefs?
Same thing.
(Pause.)
Okaaaaayyyyy....
So we have fifty minutes left of class, and the class has just hit the wall. Oxford cannot or does not want to do the exercise - I'm still not sure why. But then it occurs to me: Maybe Oxford has some kind of reading disability or dyslexia or something. The best thing would be to ask Oxford what's going on, but that's not a good idea: Oxford keeps getting more and more agitated.
Boom. The exercise goes in the garbage.
Next plan: Listening. I decide to improvise a listening exercise from something we did the other day, but there's a problem: the academy has lost the CDs for that textbook. All right. Oxford wants conversation? That's what we'll do, then. This would be a good plan, except that Oxford is now in such a bad mood, conversation becomes a one-sided, somewhat understandable monologue about steel, Chinese manufacturing, how evil Coca-Cola is...you get the idea.
So what do you do in those situations? The same thing, I imagine, that parents do when their kids have tantrums. I just sat there, nodded, tried not to look at the watch too often, asked questions slowly, and tried to understand Oxford as best I could. At the same time, however, I kept thinking, Where is this coming from? Why is this student behaving like this?
The reason why is probably irrelevant. But when you first start teaching, it's really, really, really hard to realize that, just like us, students are going to have horrible days. Students are going to react badly if they feel they're being attacked. Students will get frustrated if they don't see why an exercise is important, and when a student explodes, sometimes the best thing to do is to try to be sympathetic and not pass judgment.
I don't know if Oxford will ever make progress; in some ways, that doesn't matter. Oxford still attends classes, and that's the most important thing. The second most important thing is that we, as teachers, do not think that you are crazy or weird or unstable or nuts because you have days like that. We all have days like that.
"Some days, you're the windscreen; some days, you're the bug." -- Mark Knopfler
I just had class with a student who I'll call Oxford. Oxford is a very successful lawyer who's had senior positions in the Spanish government. Oxford has a hell of a time with English, however - it takes forever to get sentences out, there are a lot of problems with vocabulary, and I do wonder about Oxford's ability to handle information. For the past two years, Oxford has had conversation classes, but it never occurred to me to ask Oxford why the classes had to focus on conversation and nothing else.
I think I learned the reason why today.
Since Oxford is setting up a lot of meetings, I thought, OK, maybe a lesson on taking notes and manipulating written information would be a good idea. No way. At first, Oxford didn't resist directly; Oxford asked a lot of questions and didn't quite get the idea behind reading a text and condensing information into notes. It was as if my questions were bouncing off Oxford at every angle, like a basketball that has too much air in it - you could get close to the net, but not in it.
It turns out that Oxford doesn't read. I don't really know the reason why. When reading the newspaper, for example, Oxford claims to scan for the most important words, but once Oxford more or less understands the article, that's it. The newspaper goes in the garbage.
Okaaaay...what about law school? Or laws? Or legal briefs?
Same thing.
(Pause.)
Okaaaaayyyyy....
So we have fifty minutes left of class, and the class has just hit the wall. Oxford cannot or does not want to do the exercise - I'm still not sure why. But then it occurs to me: Maybe Oxford has some kind of reading disability or dyslexia or something. The best thing would be to ask Oxford what's going on, but that's not a good idea: Oxford keeps getting more and more agitated.
Boom. The exercise goes in the garbage.
Next plan: Listening. I decide to improvise a listening exercise from something we did the other day, but there's a problem: the academy has lost the CDs for that textbook. All right. Oxford wants conversation? That's what we'll do, then. This would be a good plan, except that Oxford is now in such a bad mood, conversation becomes a one-sided, somewhat understandable monologue about steel, Chinese manufacturing, how evil Coca-Cola is...you get the idea.
So what do you do in those situations? The same thing, I imagine, that parents do when their kids have tantrums. I just sat there, nodded, tried not to look at the watch too often, asked questions slowly, and tried to understand Oxford as best I could. At the same time, however, I kept thinking, Where is this coming from? Why is this student behaving like this?
The reason why is probably irrelevant. But when you first start teaching, it's really, really, really hard to realize that, just like us, students are going to have horrible days. Students are going to react badly if they feel they're being attacked. Students will get frustrated if they don't see why an exercise is important, and when a student explodes, sometimes the best thing to do is to try to be sympathetic and not pass judgment.
I don't know if Oxford will ever make progress; in some ways, that doesn't matter. Oxford still attends classes, and that's the most important thing. The second most important thing is that we, as teachers, do not think that you are crazy or weird or unstable or nuts because you have days like that. We all have days like that.
"Some days, you're the windscreen; some days, you're the bug." -- Mark Knopfler
1.21.2011
Some thoughts about being afraid....
Lourdes and I went to see "The King's Speech" last night. If you've got any doubts about seeing it, please, do - it's wonderful. One of the best parts of the film is watching Bertie (Colin Firth) struggle against his conviction that he will never, ever, stop stammering. There he is, the man who was about to become the King of England, and he's absolutely paralyzed by the fear that his throat and mouth will stop working and he won't be able to express himself.
As the movie progresses, however, you see that isn't the case. When he's relaxed and isn't focused on his fear, he communicates quite well. But the minute fear starts taking over his brain, he's a disaster. He remains completely convinced that he's going to mess things up, and, sure enough, he does!
Sports people call this "choking". You're playing well, you're doing a really good job - but then something happens that brings in that moment of doubt, that feeling that maybe you're not good enough, and BLAM! Everything comes apart. I'm not going to name any names, but we've all seen it: in tennis matches, in football matches, in (ummm, ehem...) under-23 international ice hockey championships playing against the Russians...you're winning, you're doing well, but ten or twenty minutes later, those doubts have started to control your brain, and you're dead.
How do you fight it? Don't allow yourself to be fixated on failure.
Imagine yourself in a moment where you're speaking English fluently and without being self-aware. You're relaxed, you're doing well. If you can visualize it, you can do it.
Kill your inner editor. Everyone has a voice from the past that tells them, "You're no good. You don't know anything. You're a failure." Now, imagine yourself telling that person to shut up. Imagine yourself asking that person, "How do you know? Why should YOUR failure influence me?" Inner editors are very powerful. They're also irrelevant and totally useless. Keeping your inner editor will never help you, but getting rid of that person is extremely satisfying.
Be fair to yourself. It's easy to focus on what you didn't do well or mistakes that you made. How many times do you congratulate yourself on doing things well? How many times have you focused on your successes, rather than your failures? Replace your inner editor with your inner grandmother:
The teacher said you did a great job with the role play on Monday's class!
You got an 80% on the last test - that's 10% better than you did last time!
You used those new phrasal verbs properly!
The guy from London said that your English sounded a lot better on the phone!
It doesn't matter if these things would sound stupid to someone else. They're not for someone else - they're for you and for you only.
It's just like the sports coaches say: Attitude gives you altitude. The most important muscle you have is the muscle that is located between your ears.
"Really, the greatest fear is fear itself." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
"Our greatest fear is not that we are powerless. Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." - Marianne Williamson
As the movie progresses, however, you see that isn't the case. When he's relaxed and isn't focused on his fear, he communicates quite well. But the minute fear starts taking over his brain, he's a disaster. He remains completely convinced that he's going to mess things up, and, sure enough, he does!
Sports people call this "choking". You're playing well, you're doing a really good job - but then something happens that brings in that moment of doubt, that feeling that maybe you're not good enough, and BLAM! Everything comes apart. I'm not going to name any names, but we've all seen it: in tennis matches, in football matches, in (ummm, ehem...) under-23 international ice hockey championships playing against the Russians...you're winning, you're doing well, but ten or twenty minutes later, those doubts have started to control your brain, and you're dead.
How do you fight it? Don't allow yourself to be fixated on failure.
Imagine yourself in a moment where you're speaking English fluently and without being self-aware. You're relaxed, you're doing well. If you can visualize it, you can do it.
Kill your inner editor. Everyone has a voice from the past that tells them, "You're no good. You don't know anything. You're a failure." Now, imagine yourself telling that person to shut up. Imagine yourself asking that person, "How do you know? Why should YOUR failure influence me?" Inner editors are very powerful. They're also irrelevant and totally useless. Keeping your inner editor will never help you, but getting rid of that person is extremely satisfying.
Be fair to yourself. It's easy to focus on what you didn't do well or mistakes that you made. How many times do you congratulate yourself on doing things well? How many times have you focused on your successes, rather than your failures? Replace your inner editor with your inner grandmother:
The teacher said you did a great job with the role play on Monday's class!
You got an 80% on the last test - that's 10% better than you did last time!
You used those new phrasal verbs properly!
The guy from London said that your English sounded a lot better on the phone!
It doesn't matter if these things would sound stupid to someone else. They're not for someone else - they're for you and for you only.
It's just like the sports coaches say: Attitude gives you altitude. The most important muscle you have is the muscle that is located between your ears.
"Really, the greatest fear is fear itself." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
"Our greatest fear is not that we are powerless. Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." - Marianne Williamson
1.20.2011
Don't be THIS student.
Whose fault is it if you don't learn English?
Do you feel that your lack of progress is due to a bad teacher, a stupid teacher, a lazy teacher or an inefficient teacher?
Classroom interaction goes both ways. You can have the best teacher in the world, but if you're not responsible for your own learning, you're going to have problems. People always talk about different kinds of bad teachers...now it's my turn to talk about "bad" students.
After twelve years in the classroom, it's fairly easy to identify the students who won't make progress. Or, worse, the students who won't make progress, and say that it's TOTALLY the teacher's fault.
#1: THE LUMP. Maybe it's not fair to start with The Lump, but I will anyway, because I think that if all The Lumps were taken out of classes, life would be a lot easier for everyone. Somehow, The Lump always manages to be someone with a lot of money. The Lump never talks. Never. "You're the teacher; you is the one who is paid to talk. English class was not my idea; the Human Resources department needs to use up its budget this year and I was the only one who didn't participate in the regular classes. Besides, I don't need English. I have done the Proficiency exam since ten years ago and my English is good." And that's all you hear from The Lump: The Lump then sits with her arms crossed over her chest, staring at you like you came from Mars. The Lump will happily sit there for forty hours in that position! (Don't laugh. It's happened.)
#2: MR./MRS. PANIC. "Yes? Hello? I'm calling to find out about English classes for my son/daughter. My son/daughter is writing the TOEFL/IELTS/PTE/First/Advanced/Proficiency/BULATS the day after tomorrow and needs help with the exam. [Pause.] No, this is the first time s/he has written the exam. [Pause.] No, s/he doesn't have a textbook to help him/her study. [Pause.] No, s/he doesn't attend an English school. [Pause.] No, s/he doesn't have English classes outside of class. [Pause.] Eighty Euros an hour? Can't bring the price down a little bit?"
I always have this conversation with mothers, not with fathers. I think fathers would probably kill their kids for leaving exam preparation until the last minute, which kids almost always do. And no mother has ever paid €80 an hour for English classes...because mothers are smart! Mothers realize that English teachers are teachers...they're not miracle workers!!
#3: THE PATIENT. "Ohhh, my head hurts so much. I think I have the flu. Now, don't forget that you have to correct me on everything that I say wrong. You never correct me when I say thinks wrong. That's what I said, thinks! This cold is just so awful. I just got a cold and now I'm getting another cold. And I'm so tired! I don't know how you English teachers work so hard! Everyone is very so sick these days...no, that's what I said, so very sick...oh, I think I need an aspirin. And it's so cold in here!"
#4. THE NAG: "What do you mean, you don't have extra photocopies from that class we did six months ago? Why aren't you listening to my problems? Why are you so tired? It's not my fault that you've already taught for nine hours today! Sorry, excuse me? Where's my homework? What do you mean, homework? I'm an important person! I have no time for homework! I have an important job and I have children and it takes me an hour to drive here every morning, and I don't have time for anything silly like homework! Homework is for idiots! I pay you to put English in my head, not to give me homework! Now pay attention to ME!"
#5. THE LEGO LANGUAGE EXPERT. "For me, learning English is very ok, but, oh! Why no is more like Spanish? Why not can I take my Spanish words and only translate them directly into English and put them where always I put Spanish words. Is not fair!!" (This person has probably been trying to learn English for, oh, twenty years or so.)
To be fair, we all have days like this. But if you find that your inner dialogue starts sounding like this all the time, you will find that you'll make more progress if you change the way you think about learning.
Do you feel that your lack of progress is due to a bad teacher, a stupid teacher, a lazy teacher or an inefficient teacher?
Classroom interaction goes both ways. You can have the best teacher in the world, but if you're not responsible for your own learning, you're going to have problems. People always talk about different kinds of bad teachers...now it's my turn to talk about "bad" students.
After twelve years in the classroom, it's fairly easy to identify the students who won't make progress. Or, worse, the students who won't make progress, and say that it's TOTALLY the teacher's fault.
#1: THE LUMP. Maybe it's not fair to start with The Lump, but I will anyway, because I think that if all The Lumps were taken out of classes, life would be a lot easier for everyone. Somehow, The Lump always manages to be someone with a lot of money. The Lump never talks. Never. "You're the teacher; you is the one who is paid to talk. English class was not my idea; the Human Resources department needs to use up its budget this year and I was the only one who didn't participate in the regular classes. Besides, I don't need English. I have done the Proficiency exam since ten years ago and my English is good." And that's all you hear from The Lump: The Lump then sits with her arms crossed over her chest, staring at you like you came from Mars. The Lump will happily sit there for forty hours in that position! (Don't laugh. It's happened.)
#2: MR./MRS. PANIC. "Yes? Hello? I'm calling to find out about English classes for my son/daughter. My son/daughter is writing the TOEFL/IELTS/PTE/First/Advanced/Proficiency/BULATS the day after tomorrow and needs help with the exam. [Pause.] No, this is the first time s/he has written the exam. [Pause.] No, s/he doesn't have a textbook to help him/her study. [Pause.] No, s/he doesn't attend an English school. [Pause.] No, s/he doesn't have English classes outside of class. [Pause.] Eighty Euros an hour? Can't bring the price down a little bit?"
I always have this conversation with mothers, not with fathers. I think fathers would probably kill their kids for leaving exam preparation until the last minute, which kids almost always do. And no mother has ever paid €80 an hour for English classes...because mothers are smart! Mothers realize that English teachers are teachers...they're not miracle workers!!
#3: THE PATIENT. "Ohhh, my head hurts so much. I think I have the flu. Now, don't forget that you have to correct me on everything that I say wrong. You never correct me when I say thinks wrong. That's what I said, thinks! This cold is just so awful. I just got a cold and now I'm getting another cold. And I'm so tired! I don't know how you English teachers work so hard! Everyone is very so sick these days...no, that's what I said, so very sick...oh, I think I need an aspirin. And it's so cold in here!"
#4. THE NAG: "What do you mean, you don't have extra photocopies from that class we did six months ago? Why aren't you listening to my problems? Why are you so tired? It's not my fault that you've already taught for nine hours today! Sorry, excuse me? Where's my homework? What do you mean, homework? I'm an important person! I have no time for homework! I have an important job and I have children and it takes me an hour to drive here every morning, and I don't have time for anything silly like homework! Homework is for idiots! I pay you to put English in my head, not to give me homework! Now pay attention to ME!"
#5. THE LEGO LANGUAGE EXPERT. "For me, learning English is very ok, but, oh! Why no is more like Spanish? Why not can I take my Spanish words and only translate them directly into English and put them where always I put Spanish words. Is not fair!!" (This person has probably been trying to learn English for, oh, twenty years or so.)
To be fair, we all have days like this. But if you find that your inner dialogue starts sounding like this all the time, you will find that you'll make more progress if you change the way you think about learning.
1.08.2011
Some (more) thoughts on translation
One thing I really like about Twitter is the ability to follow what other English teachers, experts, gurus and mavens are doing. This morning, Jeremy Harmer, who definitely falls into the "guru" category, was Tweeting live from the Directors of Study conference. Reporting live from the presentation of one Guy Cook (who argues for using translation in the classroom), he sent a tweet through that...well, I shouldn't re-type it word for word, but it basically said that students don't want to pretend that they're native speakers when they're in a monolingual situation.
If I can provide another point of view...
I grew up speaking English and French, but it wasn't until I went to Prague in 1999 that I was forced to live in a situation where I didn't speak the language. To be honest, I think that it is something that all teachers of English should do. That way, a teacher can better understand the sense of humility, the frustration, the curiosity and the confusion that a person feels when trying to learn English.
I should mention that, in 1999, the Czech Republic had changed a lot, compared to its Warsaw Pact years. There were only five public universities in the whole country, and to be able to attend one, you had to have the First Certificate of English. As a result, there was a lot of demand for English classes. (There was also a lot of demand because boys who attended more than 20 hours a week of English classes were exempt from military service; and some of the boys were quite eager to learn English.) After all, if you attend university and you want to have a decent career, Czech will only get you so far. The chances of working as a Czech-speaking lawyer in London or Los Angeles...or anywhere outside of eastern Europe...are pretty small.
So most people under the age of thirty could manage to speak some English. A lot of educated people over the age of thirty could, too. But if you had to get your hair cut, obtain a visa, read a store receipt, deal with the banks, have lunch in a non-touristy area, visit the pharmacy, not get cheated by fake public transit police, buy a train ticket and not get charged double for being foreign, or try to communicate with a bus driver...good luck! It was Czech or nothing. I clearly remember one co-worker, a vegetarian from Toronto, had a really difficult time trying to have something to eat because he couldn't communicate his dietary needs to anyone. A group of us went out for lunch, and our coworker ordered a fried cheese dish called smazeny sýr. And I'll never forget the look of disgust on his face as he poked at it and muttered, "I'm SO f***ing sick of smazeny sýr that I could vomit." (He eventually got a Czech girlfriend who translated food sayings for him.)
What I'm trying to say is this: No language learner ever wants to forget how to use his or her first language, but there are times when you have to behave like a native speaker, even if you don't particularly want to, and even if you know that THEY know you're not native. Does it suck? Of course it does. I'm not going to say that it's easy, that it's fun, or that it saves you from embarrassment 100% of the time.
There's another problem: translation only works if everyone in the classroom speaks the same mother tongue. Even in Spain, that's not automatically true any more, unless you're in a one-on-one situation. What happens if you have students from Morocco or Brazil or Romania in your class? Do you automatically assume that their Spanish is as good as the Spanish of the rest of the students? What do you do if it isn't?
Three months after I arrived in Prague, I started Czech classes. Our teacher, Petra, spoke wonderful English, but she did NOT speak it in class. In the first class, we were given a page with common expressions. If we couldn't say what we wanted to say, we had to wait until the end of class, or try to put together sentences to tell her what we wanted. (And if you've ever tried to learn a Slavic language, you know that it's not as easy as putting words in a set order.) Was it comfortable? No. Was it easy? No. Was it effective? You bet: the minute we stepped out of the school and had to do anything in our lives, we were prepared for it. I only took one semester of Czech, but I'm proud to say that I still remember how to count to ten, how to order 100 grams of ham and how to ask for aspirin in the pharmacy (lekárna!). I admit that in the nine months I was there, I was never brave enough to get a haircut in Czech, but I learned how to stare down a corrupt police officer and paid 50% less for my train tickets than other foreigners.
Translation may be helpful, but it isn't always effective.
If I can provide another point of view...
I grew up speaking English and French, but it wasn't until I went to Prague in 1999 that I was forced to live in a situation where I didn't speak the language. To be honest, I think that it is something that all teachers of English should do. That way, a teacher can better understand the sense of humility, the frustration, the curiosity and the confusion that a person feels when trying to learn English.
I should mention that, in 1999, the Czech Republic had changed a lot, compared to its Warsaw Pact years. There were only five public universities in the whole country, and to be able to attend one, you had to have the First Certificate of English. As a result, there was a lot of demand for English classes. (There was also a lot of demand because boys who attended more than 20 hours a week of English classes were exempt from military service; and some of the boys were quite eager to learn English.) After all, if you attend university and you want to have a decent career, Czech will only get you so far. The chances of working as a Czech-speaking lawyer in London or Los Angeles...or anywhere outside of eastern Europe...are pretty small.
So most people under the age of thirty could manage to speak some English. A lot of educated people over the age of thirty could, too. But if you had to get your hair cut, obtain a visa, read a store receipt, deal with the banks, have lunch in a non-touristy area, visit the pharmacy, not get cheated by fake public transit police, buy a train ticket and not get charged double for being foreign, or try to communicate with a bus driver...good luck! It was Czech or nothing. I clearly remember one co-worker, a vegetarian from Toronto, had a really difficult time trying to have something to eat because he couldn't communicate his dietary needs to anyone. A group of us went out for lunch, and our coworker ordered a fried cheese dish called smazeny sýr. And I'll never forget the look of disgust on his face as he poked at it and muttered, "I'm SO f***ing sick of smazeny sýr that I could vomit." (He eventually got a Czech girlfriend who translated food sayings for him.)
What I'm trying to say is this: No language learner ever wants to forget how to use his or her first language, but there are times when you have to behave like a native speaker, even if you don't particularly want to, and even if you know that THEY know you're not native. Does it suck? Of course it does. I'm not going to say that it's easy, that it's fun, or that it saves you from embarrassment 100% of the time.
There's another problem: translation only works if everyone in the classroom speaks the same mother tongue. Even in Spain, that's not automatically true any more, unless you're in a one-on-one situation. What happens if you have students from Morocco or Brazil or Romania in your class? Do you automatically assume that their Spanish is as good as the Spanish of the rest of the students? What do you do if it isn't?
Three months after I arrived in Prague, I started Czech classes. Our teacher, Petra, spoke wonderful English, but she did NOT speak it in class. In the first class, we were given a page with common expressions. If we couldn't say what we wanted to say, we had to wait until the end of class, or try to put together sentences to tell her what we wanted. (And if you've ever tried to learn a Slavic language, you know that it's not as easy as putting words in a set order.) Was it comfortable? No. Was it easy? No. Was it effective? You bet: the minute we stepped out of the school and had to do anything in our lives, we were prepared for it. I only took one semester of Czech, but I'm proud to say that I still remember how to count to ten, how to order 100 grams of ham and how to ask for aspirin in the pharmacy (lekárna!). I admit that in the nine months I was there, I was never brave enough to get a haircut in Czech, but I learned how to stare down a corrupt police officer and paid 50% less for my train tickets than other foreigners.
Translation may be helpful, but it isn't always effective.
9.14.2010
Sticky vocabulary!!
"You know what I mean... it's a... you know... it's kind of a thingy that...."
b) Write it out..again and again and again and again.... We described this technique back in August, when we were talking about motivation, but it's worth repeating over and over: the more times you use it, the easier it'll be to remember it. This is something they do in English-speaking public schools (at least they do in Canada!) when students have problems remembering how to spell: if you get a word wrong on a spelling test, you have to write the correct spelling twenty-five to fifty times. Why? Because it WORKS!
c) Break longer words into smaller pieces. Think about the base form of a word (REG-ju-lar), then add the suffixes and prefixes on individually. (Don't forget that suffixes and prefixes can change the meaning of a word, but only certain suffixes change the stress in a word: for example, 'REG-ju-lar but reg ju 'LA tion.)
d) Work with the sound, not the spelling. Irregular past simple words like thought, bought and taught are tough for Spanish speakers of English because, to the eyes of Spanish speakers, there's little connection between the spelling and the pronunciation of the word. Some students find it useful to make a list of words with similar sounds, because they know that there's a limited number of
combinations of sounds in English. So a student who wants to remember those three irregular verbs might make a list that looks like this: caught, taught, not, slot, ought, bought, daughter, flop, knot, because the /au/ sound is more common than the spelling.
e) Think in pictures. If you're not a big American football fan, the idea of to tackle something probably isn't an idea or a saying you use a lot. But if I give you a picture like this, and ask you how to tackle your vocabulary, you get the sense: to attack, to confront; not to hide or to avoid. Students who like to think in images find that this is a useful method.
True story: When I started learning Spanish years ago, I could not remember the difference between techo (ceiling) and suelo (floor). No word of a lie. Now, if you're an English speaker living in Canada, those words are probably not very important to your daily life, but just knowing that you're having problems can make you feel frustrated (and make you wonder if you're suffering some kind of mental problems!)
Have you got vocabulary that won't stay in your brain? Try these four tricks:
a) Use sticky notes. They don't have to be fancy, really colourful or cut into unusual shapes (though it's a nice touch...). If you want, you can recycle old pieces of office paper and adhesive tape. Then, put the note on the article in question (see photo) or somewhere where you're going to see it quite frequently. Repeat the word. Use it in a sentence. Once you know that you know the word - what it means, how to pronounce it, how to describe it - throw the note away or store it in your notebook (to test yourself later.)
b) Write it out..again and again and again and again.... We described this technique back in August, when we were talking about motivation, but it's worth repeating over and over: the more times you use it, the easier it'll be to remember it. This is something they do in English-speaking public schools (at least they do in Canada!) when students have problems remembering how to spell: if you get a word wrong on a spelling test, you have to write the correct spelling twenty-five to fifty times. Why? Because it WORKS!
c) Break longer words into smaller pieces. Think about the base form of a word (REG-ju-lar), then add the suffixes and prefixes on individually. (Don't forget that suffixes and prefixes can change the meaning of a word, but only certain suffixes change the stress in a word: for example, 'REG-ju-lar but reg ju 'LA tion.)
d) Work with the sound, not the spelling. Irregular past simple words like thought, bought and taught are tough for Spanish speakers of English because, to the eyes of Spanish speakers, there's little connection between the spelling and the pronunciation of the word. Some students find it useful to make a list of words with similar sounds, because they know that there's a limited number of
combinations of sounds in English. So a student who wants to remember those three irregular verbs might make a list that looks like this: caught, taught, not, slot, ought, bought, daughter, flop, knot, because the /au/ sound is more common than the spelling.e) Think in pictures. If you're not a big American football fan, the idea of to tackle something probably isn't an idea or a saying you use a lot. But if I give you a picture like this, and ask you how to tackle your vocabulary, you get the sense: to attack, to confront; not to hide or to avoid. Students who like to think in images find that this is a useful method.
9.11.2010
How do YOU learn?
Don't panic - that's not an existential question, I promise!
When you become a teacher, one of the most difficult things to learn is that everybody learns a different way. Activities, games and ideas that worked in one class may fail spectacularly in another class. Or maybe you'll find a way to make them more relevant and interesting.
This is especially true if students are aware of their learning styles. Not everyone learns the same way; not every trick and every piece of advice works equally well for everyone! I'm not an expert on the topic, so I won't talk in detail about the theory, but if you'd like to learn more - or even if you'd just like to get an idea of what your strengths are - take a look at the link below. The language is a little advanced, but it's worth the trouble.
http://www.businessballs.com/kolblearningstyles.htm
When you become a teacher, one of the most difficult things to learn is that everybody learns a different way. Activities, games and ideas that worked in one class may fail spectacularly in another class. Or maybe you'll find a way to make them more relevant and interesting.
This is especially true if students are aware of their learning styles. Not everyone learns the same way; not every trick and every piece of advice works equally well for everyone! I'm not an expert on the topic, so I won't talk in detail about the theory, but if you'd like to learn more - or even if you'd just like to get an idea of what your strengths are - take a look at the link below. The language is a little advanced, but it's worth the trouble.
http://www.businessballs.com/kolblearningstyles.htm
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