Experiential Skills for Future Grammar Teachers: Feedback from the ESL Classroom
7. FGTs need to understand and carefully represent the forms of the language in its complexity; for example, the varieties of English, the dialects, the registers, and the evolution of the language through time.
Students need to know what is formal and informal, what they are going to hear on the streets as well as read in their books, what to use when they speak vs. what to use when they write; in other words, there needs to be a more practical approach...(...ESL employer*)
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I have always believed strongly that the community of English teachers needs to be more informed about variations of English itself. We should know something about British English, Indian English, etc. For example, I have seen a new teacher represent the sentence, "My family were sad and worried..." as wrong. Growing up in the U.S., he spoke from his experience, I'm sure, and thought it was wrong. But to call it wrong is a misrepresentation of the English language. We should know our own dialect: what is dialect, what is standard, what is register, what we are using now, and why. We should know the way language is changing. We should know the difference between language change and dialect.
During one of the first semesters I was teaching, in a small college in Kansas (USA), I shared an office with a South African graduate student who was taking classes in business. Her business professor had taken it upon himself to correct the grammar of his business students, most of whom were rural Kansans, and punish them by subtracting points for their errors (a not uncommon practice in US academia, where professors see one of their wider goals as teaching their students to write properly). She, however, was upset because he was taking her "Queen's English" and discounting it as ungrammatical. "And I use the RIGHT version," she would say, in righteous indignance. I learned two things from this experience: first, that "right" depends entirely on perspective, and, second, that if we set ourselves up as judges, we should best know the parameters of what we are judging.
An example of the confusion of language change with dialect and register is the frequent claim that English is losing its subject-verb agreement. I have heard the claim, for example, that because such forms as "we was," "he go," or as for example in this part of Illinois, "I seen," are heard more commonly these days, that this is seen as evidence of a change in the language that we are witnessing as we speak. It is my contention, however, that change in a language is change in the perception of what is right; furthermore, this must encompass the majority of native speakers, not just the ones who control the press or who make up the majority of patrons in a diner at any given time. I don't believe that this situation merits this label at this moment, though, of course, this subject is open to debate. Similar debates are occurring with, for example, the disappearing subjunctive ("I wish I was/were..."), gender and singular/plural confusion ("Everybody brought his/their..."), and other variations that could be argued as either dialectical variations, informal speech, or genuine language change. The point is that the new teacher needs a framework by which to judge such changes, evaluating their source, describing them accurately in such a way that he/she will not be contradicted further down the road.
Is each teacher then responsible for knowing all the nuances of English, as it is spoken by various groups in our community and around the globe? No, but a little more respect and humility is often called for, since different dialects are valid and legitimate parts of the language. As a teacher in a midwestern US university, I may assume my students plan to attend our university upon achieving proficiency in English; thus I teach standard American English, as I perceive it. Bear in mind that SAE is not written in a large volume which I could simply memorize, if I had the time. Rather it is a complex system of agreements that is changing over time. Generally I have found this to be a bigger issue among teachers than students; that is, while students have no problem knowing that language is changing, this fact causes teachers great insecurity, as if the earth is shifting beneath their feet.
This then leads a stampede to the inductive approach, the reasoning being that if no rules are absolute, or even valid beyond the confines of one particular situation, then why should we set ourselves up as wrong by teaching them? (Of course, this is not the only justification for inductive teaching) Here I would make several arguments. My first is that adult students demand reasonable descriptions of the operating systems of a language, and reasonable descriptions can be given to them, without claim, of course, to absolute truth. Second, it is now much easier for an ESL/EFL teacher to have and maintain contact with English speakers in various parts of the globe, and have some familiarity with what passes as grammatical elsewhere. (-TL)
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8. FGTs should be aware of the opportunities to integrate CALL and computer technologies (i.e. concordance technology) into their classrooms.
A recent grad. assistant came to our program expecting that we would be at the cutting edge of technology, that somehow computers, programs, software, etc. would all be better in the States than, for example, in Korea, where he had been previously. In fact our program is pretty well situated in that regard, but no, not only are we not completely computer-integrated, but also, sorry to say, we have no better ways of teaching this than anyone else.
Ironically with grammar, at the moment, CALL has more promise than in most skill areas. This is because 1) people with grammar problems can and do beat their way through some of these problems using CALL; and, 2) listening & reading technology are still poor, though improving. In the end, I had to tell this grad. student that he was more or less on his own- we can help him set up the program, but the book hasn't been written on how to use it, or how to best set up grammar exercises in software to perform some of the functions that students need. For example, some students need to have structures explained to them. Others need to just use them over and over. Others need to have demonstrated where they DON'T fit. A good computer program can do all of this. I definitely feel that it's a field to watch.
In the area of concordance-driven technology, I think there's a lot of potential. A good source of information on this is Gregory Hadley's article at http://sun1.bham.ac.uk/johnstf/winds.htm. Mr. Hadley proposes that we use concordance technology as part of an entire teaching method; some may be unwilling to adopt an entire approach. But his article is a good introduction to the powers of this new resource. Teachers, upon seeing what concordances can do, might be more likely to use them as a resource, at first. In any case, when new technology gives you an instant reference cataloguing the use of word combinations, we as teachers should be aware of how best to use this resource. With the capabilities of technology being what they are, there is no excuse for people not being aware of the ways that computers can be used. (-TL)
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9. FGTs should be aware of, and have tools to deal with, the problems of getting students to incorporate grammar knowledge into their working systems.
...I wish we'd been shown effective ways of presenting grammar and how to increase students' performance (I have found that, although many students have had years of English, they're not clear about what nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs are...I guess a good way of assessing their knowledge would be helpful). (...recent MA grad*)
One of the hardest things to learn, whether through a PG class/class sequence or through experience, is how to make grammar meaningful and how to help students transfer "head knowledge" to productive skills. Even giving grammar explanations is a difficult skill/art to acquire: knowing what happens in terms of syntactic rules and patterns is only PART of the gestalt of "Englishing" (or "Urduing" or "Russianing," etc.). Besides, student often "know" the rules but don't/can't apply them. (...veteran teacher*)********************************************************************************
I (have a) problem with tutors in the writing center--how can I train them to employ strategies so that they are not merely proofreading papers but helping students to understand how to EMPLOY rules of grammar (my students know a lot of them), to understand nuances of grammar points, and to create their OWN editing strategies to end the ESL student's co-dependence on the writing center.(-MW)
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The new grammar teacher at intermediate levels may encounter, as I did, students who feel that they have had certain grammar points explained to them before. In fact they may have had these points explained to them many times before. I soon became aware that my job as a grammar teacher, and a writing teacher, was to do more than explain grammar points. When encountered with this attitude, I began challenging students. "You say you know this and I believe you. But if you were using this successfully, all the time, you would not be here talking to me...what are you doing to incorporate this grammar into your system? How are you working to acquire this?" I soon turned the question inward...in what ways was I encouraging my students to acquire rather than learn? It's not an easy question.
First, I should explain that we have both a traditional grammar syllabus, going straight through grammar points with concurrent testing, and at the same time have a writing program and immersion classes where students are hopefully using grammar in a variety of communicative ways. Our grammar class is thus free to charge through the book; the teacher explains points, and students are tested on their ability to use them. Students are quite comfortable with this part of the curriculum, but it has its shortcomings. For one thing, grammar books organize structures at the convenience of the author, not according to the order at which students acquire structures. Students also acquire structures at their own rates, depending on personal factors and problems associated with L1 and other factors. So it would be impossible to lay out a syllabus at a completely appropriate level for all students.
A more serious shortcoming is that the road to fluency requires more than a few class exercises, and we as grammar teachers are unable to pave that entire road for each of our students.
My reaction to students who were disappointed at their low placement, at what they considered banal explanations they were receiving on the first few days, was ultimately to assign a number of free writing exercises, after which I was able to point out that they had in fact not even managed to acquire grammar taught at the previous level. Having made the challenge, though, I found that I had a responsibility to follow up on it; to teach editing strategies; to teach methods of practicing and acquiring structures; to find ways that students could work these structures into their systems, using software, or traditional writing methods. The most successful students have been those who managed to do these things without being told.
At the higher level it becomes a question of use of writing center, tutors, friends, etc., to edit papers. No one should maintain that our students should be completely independent and self-supporting on leaving our program, but it's reasonable to ask, in what ways are they becoming more independent, and in what ways are they learning either to incorporate new knowledge into their systems, or to simply give up and follow an easier path, getting someone else to do it. (-TL)
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The above page is part of an ongoing project. Contributions are welcome (click here).
*Comments of graduate students, novice and veteran teachers, and ESL employers are collected in full on their own page and are anonymous here.
Major contributors to this page:
TL-Thomas Leverett, CESL, SIU-Carbondale, Carbondale IL 62901-4518 USA.
MW- Margi Wald, Student Learning Center, UC Berkeley, Berkeley CA
Last updated 11-18-98
River Li, by Jim Leverett
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