I forgot. I said I would post the web address for the OWL at Purdue.
Lots of great things for would-be writers.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
Enjoy!!!
Also a little anecdote for those of you who are interested...
Yesterday I went to my night job teaching English to ESL kids from Korea. I hit the elevator button and leaned against the wall for a brief moment of peace. The lobby attendant saw me happy in contemplation and found it necessary to come and disturb... er converse with me. I suppose it's in his job description.
He sauntered up and said, "So, you work up on there with the Korean kids?"
"Um, yeah." I eloquently replied.
"So, what do you do?"
"I teach them English." Says I.
He looked puzzled, "So you speak Korean? That's cool."
"No actually," I reply, "I don't speak any Korean."
"How you teach them then?"
"Well, they know some English, but even if they didn't, I could teach them."
"No
"Yeah, no
“How you do that?” He looked completely and totally confused.
“Well, there are pictures, acting things out, materials that are useful. I taught English to kids in Japan for 2 years without saying a word in Japanese.”
“And it worked? No
Thankfully at this point the elevator arrived and I bid farewell.
What’s the lesson of this story? I really don’t know, but I thought it was funny and just a bit interesting.
6 comments:
You have the funny bone, Ben! :)
Ben,
That is interesting.
Yeah, some people who grew up in the grammar translation method often think in that way (I wonder how old he was.) The former educational experience could shape his thinking. However, it is kind of interesting to hear although the direct method has been getting so popular, there are few people still think the translation method as the only way of learning the language.
Very interesting (and nicely narrated) :-) Even without having experienced grammar translation, some people may not be able to envision a language class in any other way but imagining that the teacher sits down and begins "explaining" how things shoud be said in the other language and what things are called in the other language. Maybe for some people, communication is all about using "YOUR" language. And learning another language is all about someone communicating with you (in YOUR language) to tell you and taech you things about the other language (just like teaching history or math)... I would be curious to know how the lobby attendant would react if he were put in a classroom to learn Korean without a word of English. Would he be able to do it? Would he block and close up, because he is expecting something else?
Thanks for sharing the story, Ben!
Thanks Ben for sharing your story.
As Dr. Ortega says, many people seem to believe that they cannot learn a S/FL without having a bilingual teacher (who speaks their L1 and L2).
But I can understand that, if they don't have sufficient knowledge on SLA.
Talking about myself, I preferred to have different types of teachers, especially when I learned French (it was a requirement to take one foreign language other than English) in college. I have a horrible memory that I understood nothing my French (she was a French)teacher was saying. I suppose that she knew some Japanese, but used only French, not even English, although it was the beginning level class.
Well, if I had two different classes (one with using French only teacher, and the other with using French and some Japanese), maybe it was helpful..., since we had to learn a lot of grammatical rules...
It depends on the context, but in cases like mine, maybe using both students' L1 and L2 can be helpful for the students?
I once taught English Kids with a native speaker in Korea. After having classes with the native teacher, the kids spent some time with me focusing on grammars or words. It is not that difficult to see those team teaching classes in Korea. It seems good to have both teachers, especially some kids who are afraid of only contacting with foreigners. At the same time, it could be good for learners to have a native teacher who does not know their language at all. The learners probably put more efforts to communicate with the teacher. In doing so, they will see their outstanding improvement later on.
Anyway, interesting story.
Thanks, Ben:)
Yep, very interesting, Ben. Thanks for the anecdote. It reminds me of my past teaching experience, during more than 10 years of which I would fight till the end for the belief that teaching a new language to beginners is almost impossible without knowing at least some of their language. Of course I've changed my mind now, but to be honest, deep down inside I'm still quite skeptical... But why? - you guys may ask. Well, because I was educated to think that way,and I was trained to teach that way :) That explains why I'm always afraid of working with beginners :) I’d strongly agree with Hatsumi in saying that being taught by a teacher who speaks both the L2 and a language the learner already knows is a big advantage! Or am I wrong again?
If I were Ben, though, I would respond nicely to that lobby attendant: “How did you learn your mother tongue when you were a child? Were you taught by somebody who could speak your babbling language?” lol :)
I guess I should try teaching a beginning level class at HELP soon to see what happens :)
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