San Migs
- 2015-11-23
It seems impossible for people to debate issues of teaching and learning without piling on the abuse in the process. Maybe I'm too much of a purist in expecting people, who claim to know about teaching and learning, to focus on those topics only.
Nothing wrong with being a purist IMHO, but who are these people who make claims, that you are referring to, exactly? Thanks in advance.
Laughing
- 2015-11-21
As long as the SB is here this site will be the joke of the ESL/EFL world.
Dude posts nothing but personal invective.
martin hainan
- 2015-11-21
It seems impossible for people to debate issues of teaching and learning without piling on the abuse in the process.
In my opinion, the level of personal invective, racial stereotyping, and misogyny on this board has increased substantially in the past few months.
Although I unequivocably support the individual's right to freedom of speech, the purpose of this forum, providing information to FTs, is perhaps hindered by hateful diatribes. These empty 'dialogs' bury information and perhaps dissuade well-meaning thoughtful contributions.
I choose to ignore personal attacks, not because they are of no consequence, but because to respond just adds to the accumulation of nonsense on this board. I respect the time that individuals invest in both reading and posting.
Let's 'play nice'.
cunning inguist
- 2015-11-20
It seems impossible for people to debate issues of teaching and learning without piling on the abuse in the process. Maybe I'm too much of a purist in expecting people, who claim to know about teaching and learning, to focus on those topics only.
Speaking the language of the country, at whatever level of competence, does not make one an expert on education.
I'm wondering if you could "... explain a point of grammar to students who don't know any English?" How would you do it? But more importantly, why would you want to, with students at this level of competence? This is a genuine question.
You would need a very detailed knowledge of both English and Mandarin grammar to offer a cohesive explanation. Just look at passive markers in Mandarin – and there are three of them. Could you explain to a student who spoke the sentence below, why it sounds odd in English?
“My bike was stolen by him". [Punctuation here is BrE)
I do support the Communicative Approach in foreign language teaching. Students exposed to this method are given classroom activities designed to encourage them to consider and negotiate meaning in everyday conversations. This means we are teaching them, first and foremost, to be communicators. The alternative is what we see far too often in the Chinese classroom: learners who have been drilled in vocabulary and grammar, but are apprehensive about opening their mouth and using the language. And this is before we open another “debate” about ‘correct usage’ and ‘fluency’!
There is a difference between language learning and language acquisition* In the world of theoretical research, linguists, psychologists and teachers are still struggling with the concept of “comprehensible input”. We still don’t know if comprehensible input, however we define it, advances the learner’s acquisition of the target language (TL). What we do know from research is that in practice, teaching early to intermediate students in the TL uses non-verbal cues. These cues can include demonstrations, gestures, intonation cues, pictures and objects so it seems a little unfair in some of your other posts to criticise people for doing it this way. I know why you do it. It's just another broadside to stress your dislike (maybe a stronger word needed here) of training centres and the people who work there.
*See Krashen and others