Well, things are getting interesting…!

This week we are discussing about grammar involving words and word classes. It’s quite to note on how opinions and views have changed about teaching grammar in the classroom. Of course – grammar can mean different things depending on how people view this. There is a subconscious system of rules that govern our speech or ‘Universal Grammar’ as Chomsky puts it. Grammar was once viewed as the science of language but that is strictly not true. The science of language is referred as ‘Philology’ [or 'Linguistics' as its now called].  It is the branch that deals with accidence, phonology, morphology, syntax, etc.

I must design an instrument that I will use when observing a series of lessons. My initial thought was based on ‘Lesson Staging and Linking’ but this required a lot of research into methodologies used by current teachers and how each stages of a lesson are linked. Unfortunately I had to change this first instrument due to lack of time available – I work over twenty hours a week plus I do over ten hours of studying!

So, I had to change to my mind! My thoughts are now turned to Error Correction – this seems like a broad subject but it is interesting to note how (and when) teachers correct their student’s errors. I propose the following questions when before analyzing error correction:

Which errors should be corrected? Which should be ignored?

Who should be correcting the errors? The teacher? The student themselves?

How do teachers correct students?  How do teachers encourage self-correction?

When should correction should take place during the lesson? After each activity? Towards the end of the lesson? Is it O.K. for teachers to do on-the-spot correction?

How much time should teachers do error correction in the lesson?

The list is not exhaustive but it does provide an interesting study into how much error correction teachers do in a given time frame.

Error correction is one of the most important aspects of teaching. The students need to know when they mistakes and WHY they make them. If students can learn and understand how errors are produced in the first place then they are likely not to repeat the same mistakes. I think self awareness for students is very important for them to succeed in language learning.

The Diploma is going well for me and I have got used to being a student again! I now manage to do about fifteen hours of study every week for this demanding course. I have got my first lesson observation this Friday in which I must get my observation task sheet completed! I have decided [at the last minute] that my instrument would be based on Error Correction. My initial idea was going to be focused on lesson staging and linking but this would have required a lot more research into methodologies and the approaches taken by teachers during a lesson!

Why do people learn languages? Why are some successful than others? The first question is easier to answer than the second; if we knew the answer to the latter question then our jobs as teachers would be much easier!

Here are some of the reasons why students learn a foreign language:

1. Obligation – Languages are compulsory on many school syllabuses in many countries such as Austria, Poland, Japan, etc. Learners may feel positive, neutral, or negative about this.

2. Advancement – Some people will see an additional language as the means to advance in their chosen career.

3. Tourism and Travel – Tourists and travellers may want to learn the English language since it is the most widely spoken language in the world.

4. Fun! – Many people learn English for fun and excitement. This is partly the reason why English language has become a big business in Japan.

There are many other reasons to why people learn English language.

Motivation

There are many reasons why some students succeed in learning a language and others do not. Some students exceed despite poor teaching, materials and inadequate environment. Motivation depends on many factors such as why do students want to learn English. Some students have a long term goal e.g. new job, university entrance, moving to an English-speaking country etc. These students generally study a great deal, participate actively, and show their interests. Others have short term goals e.g. passing a test, writing a letter, finishing a unit in the book etc. For my personal experience I found students with long term goals easier to teach than those with short term goals.

There are two kinds of motivation:

Extrinsic motivation – this is what students bring to the classroom.

This kind of motivation may be put in two ways. The first is that the student wishes to integrate into the target language community. The second is that the mastery of the language is seen as instrumental in long term goals [e.g. university entrance test and getting a new job] and in short term goals [e.g. understanding movies and passing a short test]. Usually, students choose the former to learn the target language and hence have a good attitude towards learning a new language. On the other hand, negative attitudes can stem from peers and parents. There is little that the teacher can do to change extrinsic motivation as it is not created in the class.

Intrinsic motivation – this is what is created within the classroom.

Many students will come to the class with no extrinsic motivation and hence it is important for the teacher to create motivation in the classroom. A poor physical environment such as overcrowded and badly lit classrooms can often de-motivate the students and make learning difficult. Other causes include uncomfortable seating and poor board visibility. The teacher can solve this problem can display posters or examples of student’s work; also the teacher can rearrange the seats so that everyone has more space and encourage the students to keep the classroom tidy at the end of each lesson. Other factors that contribute to intrinsic motivation are making the learning atmosphere supportive and non-threatening; making the content of the lesson enjoyable and interesting; and making the learning goals challenging so that students would not feel bored or find it too difficult.

There are numerous other means of creating and maintaining motivation in the classroom. Students may be interested in teachers talking about forthcoming activities in the lesson; this can create excitement for the learners as it is something to look forward to. It is important for the teachers to change the activities and pacing during the lesson otherwise the same routine, patterns, and formats can lead to boredom. All students differ in their attitudes to learning and what motivates them. Some learners prefer co-operative games where they must work together and hence increasing self confidence. In this respect everyone has an important role to play. A number of students may like competitive games to boast their motivation.

Social dynamics and power relationships between languages have influences on student’s motivation towards learning a new language. For an example the situation in Japan: Japanese students learning English as a foreign language may have different attitudes and motivation from non-native people learning Japanese; this affects both adults and children. Most children and teenagers have poor extrinsic motivation due to demands from their parents (external pressure). This creates minimum motivation and negative attitude to learning.

The Lexical Approach

What exactly is the Lexical Approach? Well, after reading one chapter of the book mentioned I am still not a hundred percent what exactly it is!

But this is what I can understand about The Lexical Approach: it does not use the standard Present-Practice-Production [PPP] model that most teachers use on the CELTA and Trinity Cert.TESOL courses. This methodology is replaced by Observe-Hypothesis-Experiment approach. Using this methodology increases role for word grammar [collocations and cognates]; decreases role for sentence grammar until intermediate level; and the usage of text grammar [supra-sentential features]. And that’s it! I need to do more research on The Lexical Approach!

Well, I have just completed my task on phonology and believe me it wasn’t easy! Phonology is one area of English language teaching that I have always had a problem with – there is so much involved in this one section: phonetic alphabet, intonation, stress, syllables, phonemic script, the list is endless!

‘Goal’ and ‘Model’ are two terms that I couldn’t find on the world wide web. They are words associated with pronunciation; unfortunately I don’t have the book ‘Sound Foundations’ by A.Underhill. This book could have been useful and I need this material!! But unfortunately, I can’t find this book in www.amazon.co.jp website and I am not going to purchase this book from England where shipping costs exceeds the purchase price – that’s crazy!

Phonology is an important area of English language teaching especially in Japan. Japanese speakers of English [JSE] have immense problems with the English phonetics and intonation. The most famous example is the difference between /l/ and /r/. There is no /l/ equivalent in the Japanese alphabets- there are two alphabets in Japan, Hiragana is used for local and Japanese originated words and Katakana is for anything that is foreign [e.g. hamburger, microwave, etc]. Anyone teaching in Japan would know this.

I am into my fourth week of doing the Trinity Dip.TESOL course. I have enjoyed it so far but I didn’t realise that the course was very demanding! There is an awful lot of reading to do and little time to do it!