by Lynch AKA The Regulator on April 23, 2010
Lynch deals with student’s flaggin enthusiasm for the vocab strategy in his ESL classroom…
As an English teacher you have to deal with a lot of nonsense. The funniest thing I’ve ever heard, though, was a student who said he was giving up the course because there was too much vocabulary. To give up a language course because there’s too much vocab is like giving up a Maths course because there’s too many numbers.
Language consists of words, and if you don’t know those words then you don’t know the language. Despite this, however, students simply don’t realise that their problem with English is intimately related with their limited vocabulary. This lack of realisation is because contemporary education has over complicated the learning process and become obsessed with the experience learners have while they’re learning. This erroneous trend means that everyone believes they must following method x or y, or playing, or being interactive or whatever. No one wants to believe that it is simply a question of lack of data – in this case, vocabulary – and that all they need to do is to memorise words to input that data.
• Listening exercises are good – but the biggest problem caused with listening is that you simply don’t know a percentage of the words you’re listening to.
• Speaking exercises are good – but if you simply don’t know the words for what you want to say then you will never speak well.
• Telephoning in another language is always difficult but no amount of telephone classes will help you if you don’t understand a certain percentage of the words you hear or know the words for what you want to say.
There are many important aspects to learning a language – fluency, reading, listening etc… but you will find again and again that these seemingly complex problems are simply caused by a lack of vocabulary.
When arriving at a new company or school, we make vocabulary our absolute top priority. It is both an academic issue and a matter of conscience. I am passionate about the career and future of my students and that’s why I can not let them (students who need English for their career) lead their professional lives without the minimum vocabulary requirement for operational efficiency in English. That minimum is 2000 words, and if I know you don’t have that vocabulary level but I start introducing games and random activities into the classes to make them ‘fun’, then I am not doing my job properly. My job is to advance your career and assist you in functioning more efficiently in linguistic situations. If you want fun – then go to the fuc*ing zoo! Work hard – play hard: fun is a privilege for those that reach the required level.
I’m not obsessed with vocab and I’m not a ball breaker. And that is the irony. I love fun. Once I know my students have reached the 2000 word level (and have mastered the tenses) then the nature of the classes fundamentally changes. We can do multi-media classes, we can do role-play, we can do anything the students want. Therefore, I humbly ask you – if you are bored or frustrated – to stick with the program, reach the required level and then you can direct the course.
Big hug,
Tagged as:
vocab ESL,
vocab importantce,
vocabulary level,
vocabulary strategy
by Lynch AKA The Regulator on April 4, 2010
Most of my blog posts these days are inspired by my battles with my difficult (but much loved) pupils in my day job. This week, the ongoing debate has been about translation as I’ve been making them translate sheets of sentences.
Their objections to these exercises vary, but the fundamental academic objection derives from one of those many EDIs (erroneous disruptive ideas) floating around the world’s ESL classrooms and study programs. In this case, the idea that you should never get into the whole translation thing because when you can truly speak a language you don’t need to translate, and therefore anything to do with translating means you can’t truly speak the lamguage and any attempt to translate will hamper with that speaking etc etc
In my first post on this issue I want to deal with one fundamental truth. That it is entirely unrealistic to expect students not to translate if they are following a classic ESL program. A classic ESL program means that they only study three or four hours a week (or less.)
If a student is in some kind of mega intensive, hardcore immersion program then we could begin to think of drowning them in English and endlessly prompting them in English, and never giving them a chance to translate. However, if they’re studying in regular classes, a couple of hours a week, then you can just forget about them ‘not’ translating. They’ll be translating – therefore it’s better they learn to do it properly and deal with all the false friends and peculiarities of their own language which cause problems when translated into English.
Like I said, we’ll return to this topic. However, take on board my fundamental – in programs with minmum amounts of contact time you’re students will continue with translating. Therefore, help them to do it correctly instead of living in a fantasy world where you think you can get them to stop it.
Tagged as:
ESL translation,
to translate or not,
translation questions
by Lynch AKA The Regulator on February 28, 2010
I’m hoping that you’ll all be hearing from Tom the Traveller soon as he writes us a description of his latest audio product. In the meantime, though, I would like to tell you about something very interesting he said the other day (well, interesting if you’re a TEFL nerd like me)
Tom and I have frequent clashes over various pedagogical issues (and many other issues, God bless him). In particular, though, we have vastly different views over the usefullness of our friends incredibly succsesful website – notes from Spain. My argument is that while the transcripts of ‘real’ conversations are all well and good they are a far lower priority than a well designed program of study. Tom,for his part, would like to elevate them above all else and insists that these podcasts and transcripts are what really helped him learn Spanish.
The thing that Tom always mentions though is that he listened to them ‘while travelling around South America’. This for me represents a classic example of ESL student perception about what works and what doesn’t. You see, if we examine this from a scientific perspective we have to understand that for Tom the two events are linked – he was listening to the podcasts… and his Spanish improved.
For me, however, it’s the other event that is linked to the improvement in Spanish; the rather obvious one: travelling around South America. His listening to the podcasts and improving is what we call in the philosophy business – an illusory co-relation.
Now, Tom, will say that this isn’t the case and will tell me that he was at a school in Guatemala and he didn’t improve as much as he did when listening to the podcasts (in other words he’d already been in South America and wasn’t improving.) However, we all know that a badly run school can hinder your progress and I’d like to say to Tom it was when he was out in the field that it all came together.
Like all arguments, this could go on forever, and at the end of the day maybe Tom’s right, maybe I am, or maybe we’re both a bit right. The point is, though, that sweeping statements about what works best for the language student must always be subjected to scrutiny. What you are making is an assertion and like all assertions they must be verified. This is important to me because I’m geting bloody sick of students and teachers who base all their ideas about the best way to learn a language on their own experience. As well as the obvious pitfalls of subjectivity it’s annoying because half the time they’ve never questioned or reflected on their own assertions.
Tom is the producer of this - soon to be released - series.
Anyway, this isn’t just a rant. It has serious implications for the ESL environment because we constantly have to deal with student’s perceptions of what really works and how that affects the way they judge your class. It’s a key part of ESL learner psycology and it affects you because so much of their feeling about you and your classes – the student feedback – (which could lead to promotion or a sacking) is based on that.
What’s the soloution? Tell your students about this example and tell them that life – and learning a language – is complicated, and they should not make black and white comments.
Tagged as:
effectiveness materials,
ESL student perception,
learner psycology,
student feedback ESL
by Candy A.K.A 'Happy Girl' on February 28, 2010
Hi, guys, I just wanted to share this incredible ESL insight I had in my last class.
As you know, I refuse to have students sitting around doing grammar exercises from Murphy because it’s so booooooooring! That means everything we do is oral – with long lists of cool conversation questions that force them to use specific constructions. I’ve always had the illusion that this was a very useful exercise until one class I couldn’t make copies and I had to read the questions out – drill style.
Get rid of the crutches - ditch the paper, dude!!!!!!!!
This is when i realised, that the tense that seemed so rock solid was actually pebble loose. Both their ability to listen to and reproduce the tense was severely impaired.
What does this mean in ESL terms? it means that they had been heavily dependent on the sheet: reading it instead of listening, and using what they saw in the sheet to base their answer on (their visual skills rather than their linguistic skills.)
What was clear, though – when we did it without the sheet – was that it was amuch more stimulating and rewarding exercise as it forced them to use the above mentioned skills. Therefore, given that it increases the value of the exercise and the students find it stimulating, I’d like to recommend to all I-Ling teachers that they do part of such drills without letting students see the questions.
okay, thanks guys…love ya.
Tagged as:
drills esl,
ESL insights,
handout dependency ESL,
sheets ESL
