Started (re-reading): December 11, 2017
Finished (re-reading): January 2, 2018
I originally read this book 3 years ago, and reviewed it on May 22, 2014.
I re-read it because of book club. (I've got a book club going at work. We try to read one book a month for professional development.)
I'm going to do the same thing I've done in the past, when posting about a book I've already reviewed. I'm not going to re-review it, but I am going to post here all my Facebook posts.
When I started up this book club, some of the members told me that they would like to have more Facebook posts to help keep them motivated to read. Since then I've tried to do one Facebook post a day on our book club's Facebook page.
Below are all my Facebook posts reproduced. For whatever they may be worth. (Disclaimers--some days I struggled to think of anything intelligent to say, so some of these posts aren't that great. Also, I over-analyzed the first half of the book, so these Facebook posts are only on the first few chapters, and I never got around to commenting on the last few chapters. All proper names of other book club members are replaced by XXXX).
Post 1
A brief introduction to this book:
This will be my second time reading this book. I first read it back in 2014 while studying for the Delta Module 1 exam.
This book is essential reading for the Delta Module 1 exam. (So anyone who is studying for Delta Module 1 now, or plans to study for it in the future, is recommended to join in on this one).
But in spite of being essential reading for the exam, it's not as boring as you would think it is. (If that's any sort of endorsement).
Despite the very dry-sounding title, this is a very readable and very engaging book.
Larsen-Freeman is a writer with a talent for expressing ideas easily and simply, and writes very readable prose.
The readability of the book is also helped by the narrative format it uses. For each language teaching method, Larsen-Freeman describes a sample class of that method. The descriptions are clear enough so that you often feel as if you are right in the classroom.
For example, here’s an excerpt from the chapter on Desuggestopedia:
“The teacher puts on some music. It is Mozart’s Violin Concerto in A. After a couple of minutes, in a quiet voice, she begins to read the text. Her reading appears to be molded by the music as she varies her intonation and keeps rhythm with it. The students follow along with the voice of the teacher, who allows them enough time to silently read the translation of the dialog in their native language. They are encouraged to highlight and take notes during the session. The teacher pauses from time to time to allow the students to listen to the music, and for two or three minutes at a time, the whole group stands and repeats after the teacher, joining their voices to the music.” (p. 75)
The clear narrative description of each teaching method is followed up by an equally clear listing of observations about the method and the underlying principles behind those observations. This is further followed up by a section answering and answering questions about each language method: (In order for easy comparison, the same questions are asked for each method: 1. What are the goals of the teachers who use this method? 2. What is the role of the teacher? Etc.)
Again, it sounds boring, but it’s actually alright. These constant lists of observations and principles certainly have the potential to be boring, but Larsen-Freeman’s clear and readable prose saves the day, and, contrary to all my expectations, I actually found myself engaged by the lists of principles.
I wouldn’t go so far as to recommend this book for pleasure reading (no one who’s not an English teacher need ever pick up this book), but I will say it was one of the few books I’ve read for professional development during which I didn’t find my eyes glazing over. I could read it easily, and I found the ideas engaging.
The purpose of Larsen-Freeman’s book is to examine several different methods of language teaching, and compare them with each other.
The purpose is not, as Larsen-Freeman says clearly in the introduction, to determine which methods are good and which methods are bad. Nor is the purpose to prescribe a method for teachers. Rather, the purpose is to examine what are the underlying principles behind each method in order to encourage teachers to think about what principles underline their own language teaching.
Throughout the book, Larsen-Freeman encourages the reader to keep an open mind about all the methodologies, and try to “put on the eyeglasses of another person—to adopt his or her perspective—to see the method as the originator saw it. Further … [to adopt] a willingness to explore what is new” (Elbow quoted in Larsen-Freeman, p. 6)
At the end of the book, the reader is not forced to choose one exclusive method from the various options, but simply to take what they like from any of them. In other words, a thorough knowledge of this book is not meant to limit your teaching options to one narrow methodology, but to expand your options to all of them.
Of course there may be some limits to how much you can mix and match these methods, because some methods, if taken in their purest forms, are contradictory. (Or perhaps more accurately, the ideologies behind the methods are contradictory.) As Larsen-Freeman writes “For instance, notice that the use of the students’ native language in the Direct Method and Comprehension Approach … is proscribed, whereas in the Grammar-Translation Method and Community Language Learning, it is prescribed. Witness the divergent views regarding the level of input in the Audio-Lingual Method, to less controlled in the Natural Approach, to virtually uncontrolled in task-based, content based, and participatory approaches. Contrast the views regarding what to do with learners’ errors, which range from doing everything to prevent them in the first place (Audio-Lingual Method) to ignoring them when they are made under the assumption that they will work themselves out at some future point (for example, TPR). ” (p. 180-181)
However, even these contradictions need only be a problem for the methodology in its purest, most restrictive forms. As Larsen-Freeman emphasizes in her book, it is still possible to take activities from these methods even if you don’t fully agree with their ideologies.
Post 2
By the way, the version we have on the school drive is the 2nd edition, so it's not the most recent edition.
...which I'm okay with, actually. Beggars can't be Choosers after all, and when you're out in Vietnam, you just go with whatever copy you can get your hands on.
We've done this before anyway. When we read "How Languages Were Learned" we were reading the 3rd edition, instead of the 4th edition.
Plus... What do you think? Usually these updated editions are just a marketing ploy anyways, right?
But, for anyone who's interested, the publishers website says of the newest edition:
"New features of the third edition include: a new discussion on the political dimensions of language teaching, a new digital technology chapter, and extended coverage of content-based and task-based approaches."
https://elt.oup.com/teachers/tplt/?cc=vn&selLanguage=en
XXXX Commented:
I have no problem with using the free copy. As you say, beggars can't do lots of things...
Post 3
p.ix-xv
Everyone who was at the meeting on Friday will perhaps remember that "The Language Teaching Matrix" by Jack Richards was one of the books we considered for this month.
We ended up choosing Diane Larsen-Freeman instead but... interestingly enough the two books are connected.
The 2nd chapter of "The Language Teaching Matrix" is called "Beyond Methods" and argues that the study of different methods is pretty much all nonsense.
("Beyond Methods" has also been published independently as its own essay--you can read it at the link below)
http://www.melta.org.my/index.php/11-melta-articles/127-beyond-methods-alternative-approaches-to-instructional-design-in-language-teaching
Diane Larsen-Freeman is aware of the criticism, and in the introduction to the 2nd edition (p.ix-xv) she cites Jack Richards and "The Language Teaching Matrix" by name as one of the critics of the study of methods and responds by saying that studying methods is still useful because it helps us to think about and make explicit the assumptions that underlie our own teaching.
Still... If you read Jack Richard's essay, he does make some pretty good points. Such as:
"...observations of teachers using specific methods have reported that teachers seldom conform to the methods they are supposed to be following."
...and...
"Swaffar et. al. found that many of the distinctions used to contrast methods, particularly those based on classroom activities, did not exist in actual practice."
If true, this would indicate that all of the different techniques that Diane Larsen-Freeman describes in her book never actually existed in the real world. They only ever existed on paper and in the minds of educational theorists.
In real life, teachers have always just done whatever they felt like, and only paid lip-service to the method.
At least that's the implication I got from Jack Richard's "Beyond Methods". But what do you think? Do these methods actually exist out in the real world?
Post 4
We spent some time in the previous book club talking about Suggestopedia (since Krashen had written about it at length). Now in this book it's all of a sudden known as Desuggestopedia.
In the introduction (p.xi) Larsen-Freeman says that the change from Suggestopedia to Desuggestopedia was one of the main changes in the 2nd edition.
(Apparently, somewhere in the 1980s, the name changed to Desuggestopedia: http://adasdfasfa.blogspot.com/2010/04/desuggestopedia.html )
....and speaking of Krashen, Krashen and Terrell's The Natural Approach is noticeable by it's absence in this book.
Perhaps that's because it's an approach, and not a method?
http://www.sala.org.br/index.php/artigos/615-approach-method-and-technique
Post 5
p.4-6 "Doubting and Believing Game"
As Larsen-Freeman mentions in her introduction, each new method introduced will often evoke a “doubting game and a believing game” in the reader. Part of you immediately doubts everything that is new and unusual. Part of you starts to see the appeal of it.
So it was with me.
With each new method described, I found myself having a lot of doubts (mainly on grounds of practicality—how feasible it would be to implement that particular method in my teaching context).
But with each new method described, I also found myself attracted to it. In the end, I am having a hard time deciding which method I liked the most.
Since one of the goals of Larsen-Freeman’s book is to encourage her readers to try to see what is good in each methodology, I suppose it is a measure of the book’s success that, on some level, I liked them all. Or it could be indicative of my lack of critical thinking. Either way, as I have just now finished the book, I’ll need some time to digest it first before deciding what activities I’ll take from it.
However, practicality is naturally the biggest concern.
All the time I was reading the book, I kept thinking to myself, “Well, that’s good in theory. But my young teenage learners would never do that without a struggle.” Or “That’s all well and good, but I have a pre-set curriculum, and a pre-set textbook from my school that I’m stuck with.”
For example, I might be attracted to some of these methods which de-emphasize grammatical accuracy, were it not for the fact that in my school the students must take a grammar test at the end of every term.
Or I might be attracted to some of the methods which emphasize communicative activities, were it not for the fact that many of my young teenage learners have low motivation to communicate, and many communicative activities I try to set up simply degenerate into the students talking in their native language instead of in English.
I was, therefore, glad to find that at the end of the book Larsen-Freeman acknowledges these difficulties:
“Finally, it is true that many decisions are outside the control of teachers. They must teach for a test, for instance. Or they may have a class where students come with negative attitudes toward the study of language. Fanselow (1987) observes that perhaps as little as two percent of the variance that contributes to learning may be controlled by the teacher. And yet as he says, ‘But so what? If learning equals one hundred percent, and the lack of learning means anything less than one hundred percent, the two percent we are responsible for makes the difference between learning and not learning.’” (p. 184)
In other words, Larson-Freeman encourages the teacher to use their own ideas about language learning and methods to influence the two percent of the situation they have control over, even if they have no control over the other 98%.
And I suppose that’s fair enough—even if, during the middle of the book, I did often feel as if the practical difficulties were being glazed over.
Post 6
p.12 Grammar Translation Method
Obviously are lessons are different because we don't use the L1. But those examples of the types of reading comprehension questions that the textbook uses are totally the same type of questions that pop up in many of our textbooks--I'm thinking particularly of the English World series, but I think this would apply to many of our teen textbooks as well.
Post 7
Grammar Translation Method:
Sorry, I've been AWOL from this page the last several days, but I'd like to try to jump back in and try get the discussion going again.
What did you guys think of the Grammar Translation Method?
My thoughts are as follows:
1) This method seems to occupy a pretty ironic place in the industry. On the one hand it's the most hated method. On the other hand, it's hands down the most widely used. (Around the world right now, there are more classrooms around the world using this method than any other method.)
2) I know it's fashionable to hate on the Grammar Translation Method, but as I read the description of the classroom, I didn't find myself hating it. I thought a lot of these activities could do a lot to build vocabulary and grammar knowledge.
(Actually I was like that with all the methods in this book. I thought they all had useful points. Which I think is the point Diane Larsen-Freeman made in her introduction).
3) The Grammar-Translation method doesn't produce fluent speakers by itself, but I know several people who have became fluent in a second language who claimed that these kind of classes were the first step in their path to fluency. They usually claim that the rules they learned in high school grammar-translation classes did actually nicely supplement and combine with the input and fluency practice they received later in life. ( XXXX, if I'm not mistaken, this is your story as well, isn't it?)
4) I got into an interesting conversation the other day with XXXX about how using the students L1 in the classroom can be a really valuable resource. The Grammar Translation method certainly does a lot of this.
5). Many of the techniques (on page 19-21), particular the different type of reading comprehension questions, sound very much like what we use in our textbooks:
"Often the questions are sequenced so that the first group of questions asks for information contained within the reading passage. In order to answer the second group of questions, students will have to make inferences based on their understanding of the passage. This means they will have to answer questions about the passage even though the answers are not contained in the passage itself. The third group of questions require students to relate the passage to their own experience." (p.19)
Post 8
Chapter 3: The Direct Method
The direct method is (I believe) synonymous with the Berlitz method. (Any Berlitz schools out here in Vietnam? I feel like I've not heard of them).
The TEFLology show did an interesting episode on the history of the Berlitz method. There's a story about how it all started. It's possibly apocryphal, but it's a great origin story anyways.
https://teflology-podcast.com/2014/07/30/episode-4-maximilian-berlitz-the-silent-way-and-tesol-in-the-philippines/
If you don't have time to listen to the podcast, the same story is also at the Berlitz website:
http://berlitz-madridnorte.es/index.php/en/berlitz-company/the-history-of-berlitz
I'll just quote their version rather than retype it.
The organization now known as Berlitz International, Inc. was founded in 1878 by Maximilian D. Berlitz in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. Descended from a long line of teachers and mathematicians, Maximilian Berlitz grew up in the Black Forest region of Germany. He emigrated to the United States in 1870 and arrived prepared to teach Greek, Latin, and six other European languages according to the strict traditionalist grammar-translation approach.
After building a successful career as a private teacher, Berlitz joined the Warner Polytechnic College as a professor of French and German language instruction. The college, however, was less imposing than its name, and Berlitz found himself at once owner, dean, principal, and only faculty member.
Needing an assistant to teach French, Berlitz hired a young Frenchman who appeared to be the most promising candidate, possibly because of the impeccable French in his letter of application. The applicant, Nicholas Joly, arrived in Providence to find his new employer ill and feverish from overwork, a condition that only worsened when Berlitz learned that Joly spoke no English! Desperate to keep the school running with Joly at the helm, Berlitz instructed his new assistant to point at objects and act out verbs as best he could. He then took to his bed.
Berlitz emerged anxiously six weeks later prepared to face the wrath of his neglected students. Instead, he found them engaging in lively question-and-answer exchanges with their teacher, in elegantly accented French! The seriousness of the formal classroom was gone, and most importantly, the students had progressed further than any ever had under six weeks of his own tutelage.
Berlitz quickly concluded that his emergency measure held the seed of an innovative teaching technique. By replacing rote learning with a discovery process that kept students active and interested, it solved many of the problems that had plagued language instruction in the past.
Post 9
The Direct Method
p.23 "The direct method has one very basic rule: No translation is allowed. In fact, the Direct Method receives its name from the fact that meaning is to be conveyed directly in the target language through the use of demonstrations and visual aids, with no recourse to the students' native language."
p.27 "The teacher should demonstrate, not explain or translate. It is desirable that students make a direct association between the target language and meaning."
What do you guys think of this? I've heard both sides of the argument over the years. Some people think that the students L1 is a valuable resource, and that we should make use of it. (XXXX, XXXX)
Other people believe that always translating back to the L1 will prevent the student from ever getting their head around the L2.
Post 10
The Direct Method
So, I'm reading about "The Direct Method", and I'm thinking that about 90% of this is what we do.
One of the big differences is the "Reading Aloud" section.
Quoting from Larsen-Freeman's description on page 30, "Reading Aloud: Students take turns reading sections of a passage, play, or dialogue out loud. At the end of each student's turn, the teacher uses gestures, pictures, realia, examples, or other means to make the mean of the section clear" *ENDQUOTE*
What do you guys think of having the students read aloud? I'm fairly sure we're discouraged from doing this on the CELTA. In fact, in "Learning Teaching" by Jim Scrivener (which was the set text on my CELTA), Jim Scrivener lists all the reasons to avoid this activity on page 189-190. And yet... I think you could make a case for it. What do you guys think?
Post 11
The Direct Method
P.31 Dictation."
To quote Larsen-Freeman's description:
"The teacher reads the passage three times. The first time the teacher reads it at normal speed, while the students just listen. The second time he reads the passage phrase by phrase, pausing long enough to allow students to write down what they have heard. The last time the teacher again reads at a normal speed, and students check their work." *Endquote*
Although this is called "dictation" and not "dictogloss", it does sound more similar to a dictogloss than a dictation, doesn't it? Particularly because the students have to recreate a whole paragraph instead of just individual sentences.
http://carla.umn.edu/cobaltt/modules/strategies/Dictogloss.pdf
Post 12
Deductive versus Inductive grammar learning
As Larsen-Freeman points out, one of the big differences between The Grammar Translation Method and The Direct Method is deductive learning of grammar (the students are told the rule, then must do the exercise) versus inductive learning (the students figure out the rule themselves, through guided discovery).
This ties in to the Guided Discovery Workshop that XXXX gave last week. (If you missed that, ask XXXX for the notes).
What do you think about deductive versus Inductive learning?
Also, this ties into our book from last month, since Krashen had some thoughts on deductive versus inductive learning.
Krashen thought that there wasn't really much difference between the two, since both are examples of conscious learning and not true acquisition. (Although Krashen wrote that some people occasionally confused inductive learning for acquisition). But Krashen also said that there are also some situations when just giving the student the rule is a lot quicker and easier, and that some students may even have their affective filter raised by inductive learning.
More on The Direct Method can be found on Youtube. For example, this video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk6HS8RlD98
Much of what they say descriptively matches Diane Larsen-Freeman. But, they also include an advantage and disadvantage section at the end, which I don't think Diane Larsen-Freeman would approve of. (The impression I got from her introduction was that her purpose was not to make pronouncements on what was good and bad, but up to the teacher to evaluate it.)
That being said, what did you guys think of the advantages and disadvantages section?
My thoughts:
On the advantage section, they mentioned that it taught good pronunciation right from the start. (Although Krashen would argue that just because pronunciation is taught, doesn't mean it is acquired).
On the disadvantage side: they said that the Direct Method didn't teach reading and writing. But is this true? In the example we looked at in Diane Larsen-Freeman's book, it looked like reading and writing were being taught, right?
Also on the disadvantage side--they mentioned that it only catered to auditory learners, and so disadvantaged people with other multiple intelligences. But my impression is that the theory of mutliple intelligences and learning styles are junk pseudo-science, and was disproved a long time ago.
http://digital.elgazette.com/may-2017/debunked-learning-styles-theory-still-part-of-gold-standard-efl-qualifications.html
Post 14
More thoughts on The Direct Method (p.23-33)
1) This sounds very close to what we do, no? I guess the only difference would be of intentionality--i.e. we teach in English because we can't speak the local language, whereas I got the impression that the teacher in Diane Larsen-Freeman's description had the same L1 as his students. (Although, as mentioned before, according to urban legend, old man Berlitz started this method because he got sick and had to hire a Frenchman who couldn't speak English.)
2). On page 28, Larsen-Freeman writes: "Although the teacher directs the class activities, the student role is less passive than in the Grammar-Translation Method. The teacher and the student are more like partners in the teaching/learning process." *Endquote*--But despite Diane Larsen-Freeman stating this, I got the impression from her description that this classroom was heavily teacher centered, and had a high degree of TTT. I suppose in theory, this would also be a difference between the more communicative approach that we emphasize. And yet in practice, perhaps at least some of our lessons look a lot like this?
3). Referring to last month's book, I think Krashen would approve of much of what was described in this chapter, although not for the same reasons. Krashen would think that none of the conscious learning would aid acquisition, but because all of the Teacher Talking Time was in the target language, the students would get plenty of input while they thought they were learning about grammar or vocabulary. So in the end they would acquire. (Or course Krashen would not approve of the pronunciation drilling or the error correction).
XXXX Commented:
A festive book for Christmas day!
Post 15
By the way, it turns out there is a series of videos made to supplement this book.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd7l1XgpLdqUK7-TI5pU8Zx2k1e8vNAe8
No videos on the first two methods--the Grammar Translation and the Direct Method. But there are videos on the audiolingual method, the Silent Way, Suggestopedia, Community Language Learning, Comprehension Appproach, and the Communicative Approach
Post 16
https://youtu.be/Pz0TPDUz3FU
This video demonstrating the Audio-lingual method supplements chapter 4 nicely.
A couple notes:
* In a previous book we read, "How Languages Are Learned" by Spada and Lightbown, I believe they said that the Audio-Lingual Method worked great with highly motivated adult learners, but completely fell apart when they tried to take it into Secondary Schools.
I think I can see that in this video. Despite the teacher doing his best to inject some humor in the lesson, I thought I saw some students looking bored, and one guy even glancing at the door.
* Did anyone else feel frustrated at the lack of a written script for this lesson? I kept feeling like I wanted to jump in there and give the students something concrete so they could just read it instead of having to memorize the whole dialogue by sounds alone.
Krashen in "The Natural Approach" cites this as one of the defects of the Audio-Lingual Method. He says that the frustration caused to the students by not being able to see the written form outweighed any of the benefits.
At one point, the frustration of the students at not having a written form was so evident that some of them were attempting to create their own script, and the teacher had to remind them not to try to write down the words.
...And yet, I have to admit that for me, the moment I see the written form, I latch onto that instead of the actual pronunciation. One of the reasons I've done such a terrible job of learning Vietnamese is because the moment I see a Vietnamese word written down, my brain latches on to the written form. Even when I hear it being pronounced in Vietnamese, I still remember the word based on how I think the written form should be pronounced.
* At least some of this is method is still with us. The backward build-up drill is still used at our school
Post 17
p.35
On page 35, Diane Larsen-Freeman gives a brief one-paragraph history of audio-lingualism.
The actual history is a bit more complicated. See Russ Mayne's blog-post:
http://malingual.blogspot.com.es/2015/03/the-myth-of-neat-histories.html
Post 18
p.41
Writing about the Audio-Lingual Method, Diane Larsen-Freeman writes: "No grammar rule will ever be given to the students. The students will be led to figure out the rules from their work with the examples the teacher provides."
This caused a problem later when the audio-lingual approach got exported to many areas of the world that didn't really want or understand this methodology.
Adrian Holliday talks about this on an episode of TEFLology:
https://teflology-podcast.com/2015/04/22/tefl-interviews-9-adrian-holliday-on-appropriate-methodology-and-social-context/
He was teaching in Africa, and a student asked him about the grammar rule. Because this was during the Hey-day of the audio-lingual method, Adrian Holliday told him that he shouldn't be worried about the grammar rules, and should just focus on memorizing the drills.
In the interview, Adrian Holliday recounts the story as an example of how cultural imperialism can influence language teaching.
Post 19
p.41--Audio-lingual Method:
"On Friday the teacher leads the class in the 'supermarket alphabet game.' The game starts with a student who needs a food item beginning with the letter 'A'. The student says, "I am going to the supermarket. I need a few apples.' The next student says, 'I am going to the supermarket. He needs a few apples. I need a little bread (or 'a few bananas' or any other food item you could find in the supermarket beginning with the letter 'B').' The third student continues, 'I am going to the supermarket. He needs a few apples. She needs a little bread. I need a little cheese.' The game continues with each player adding an item that begins with the next letter of the alphabet. Before adding his own item, however, each player must mention the items of the other students before him."
I've used a similar game in my own classes for certain grammar points--The Around the Room Memory Game:
From Activities That Can Be Used for Any Grammar Point:
Post 20
p.46
When reviewing the principles of audio-lingualism, on question number 5 "How are the feelings of the students dealt with?", Diane Larsen-Freeman writes: "There are no principles of the method that relate to this area."
But... didn't she say a couple times on the previous pages how important positive reinforcement was for audio-lingualism? Did she forget about this? Or is positive reinforcement different from feelings?
Post 21
p.46 When listing the principles of the Audio-Lingual Method, Diane Larsen-Freeman writes:
"Vocabulary is kept to a minimum while the students are mastering the sound system and grammatical patterns."
What do you guys think about this?
Michael Lewis spends essentially a whole book arguing against this approach in "The Lexical Approach". Michael Lewis argues that it should be precisely the opposite--beginning students should study lots of vocabulary, and very little grammar.
To quotations that Michael Lewis uses helped win me over to his side:
"When students travel, they don't carry grammar books, they carry dictionaries" (Krashen quoted in Lewis, p.iii).
"...without grammar little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed" (Wilkins quoted in Lewis, p. 115).
Post 22
p.47--principles of audio-lingualism
"How is evaluation accomplished?
The answer to this question is not obvious because we did not actually observe the students in this class taking a formal test. If we had, we would have seen that it was discrete-point in nature, that is, each question on the test would focus on only one point of the language at a time."
So, this is exactly how our speaking tests function, isn't it? Especially for lower-level junior classes, every question in the speaking test corresponds to a discrete grammar point that the students had studied in that course.
I'm not sure if this is because the test designers were intentionally influenced by the audio-lingual method, or if they just didn't know how to design speaking tests for children.
Post 23
p.51
In the "References and Additional Resources" section, Wilga Rivers is mentioned as a source on Audio-Lingualism.
The TEFLologists did an episode on her--in which they also discuss the question of where did audio-lingualism come from:
https://teflology-podcast.com/2017/01/18/episode-53-wilga-m-rivers-female-dialogue-in-films-and-teaching-organizations/
Post 24
Thoughts on the Audio-Lingual Method (p.35-51)
So, what did you guys think about the Audio-Lingual Method?
We've talked about this before in previous books ("How Languages are Learned" for example, or Krashen's critique of it in our previous bookclub book)
It's pretty much fallen completely out of favor these days. And because our profession tends to throw out the baby with the bathwater, everything that was associated with Audiolingualism, like drilling, is now looked upon as old fashioned. (See Jim Scrivener's quote from "Learning Teaching".)
And yet, it's worth remembering that the US army did have very good luck with audio-lingualism in the 1950s and 60s. It did the job it was supposed to do.
In "How Languages are Learned", Lightbown and Spada say that the problem with audio-lingualism was that it only worked with highly motivated adult learners, and did not work in high school classroom.
In "The Natural Approach", Krashen says that everyone forgets that the US army supplemented audio-lingual drills with daily conversation sessions with a native speaker. (After each lesson, the learner would have a chat with a native speaker of the language), and Krashen claims it was the conversation, not the drills, that caused the language learning.
Reading Diane Larsen-Freeman's description, and watching the video, I found I didn't really hate audio-lingualism. It all seemed like it was very useful practice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz0TPDUz3FU&feature=youtu.be
But I wouldn't want this kind of thing to be the only practice the students got. To me, Audio-Lingualism is fine for working on the nuts and bolts of language, but it also needs to be supplemented by massive amounts of input.
There's too much language (too many grammar structures, and too much vocabulary) for everything to be built up from the ground from scratch, as in the audio-lingual method. If you just do grammar drills hoping that one day it will all come together into some kind of fluency, you'll never get there.
Rather I like Krashen's advice--start immersing yourself in the language now instead of waiting till that magical day when you become fluent (because that day will never come).
But assuming the student is getting lots of input, I don't think audio-lingual drills are a bad way to clean up some of the nuts and bolts of the language.
What do you guys think?
Also, I'm pretty sure we still have a lot of remnants from this in our textbooks. Those "Grammar in Conversation" lessons from English World are pretty much Audio-Lingual lesson templates, aren't they?
Chapter 5--The Silent Way. Once again supplemented with a video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqLzbLCpack&feature=youtu.be
What did you guys think of it?
I was a bit surprised at how much TTT there was. (I thought the silent method would be silenter). But I guess the distinction was--all of the TTT was directed at classroom management, and not modelling the target language.
Post 26
p.53 The Silent Way
Okay, nitpicking time. There is a ton of stuff that I think is wrong in the first paragraph on page 53. (Of course Larsen-Freeman is the expert, so maybe I'm the one who's wrong. Let me know.)
The first paragraph implies that Noam Chomsky's critique of behaviorism was the death of audio-lingualism. To be fair, this is the traditional narrative usually recounted in textbooks.
But as Russ Mayne points out in his blog post, this narrative doesn't match the time-line. Chomsky published his review of Skinner in 1959, and Audiolingualism didn't even really begin to become mainstream until the 1960s, AFTER Chomsky's critique.
http://malingual.blogspot.com.es/2015/03/the-myth-of-neat-histories.html
(Although I guess you could marry these two timelines if you assumed that it took 20 years for general linguistics to make it's way to English Language Teaching).
Secondly, I think Diane Larsen-Freeman is mischaracterizing Chomsky's views. She writes on page 53:
"Chomsky proposed instead that speakers have a knowledge of underlying abstract rules, which allow them to create novel utterances. Thus, Chomsky reasoned, language must not be considered a product of habit formation, but rather of rule formation. Accordingly, language acquisition must be a procedure whereby people use their own thinking processes, or cognition, to discover the rules of the language they are acquiring."
So... this is pretty much the exact opposite of what Chomsky thinks. (XXXX, help me out if I'm getting this wrong.)
It's Chomsky's critics that believe we learn language using thinking processes or cognition. Chomsky believes nothing of the sort. Chomsky believes that language is too complex to be learned by normal thinking processes, which is why Chomsky believes we are born with a grammar already pre-programmed into our brain, and all we need is exposure to our mother's language to map our new language onto the grammar structures we already come pre-programmed with.
Post 27
The Silent Method--cuisenaire rods
So, Jim Scrivener talks a lot about Cuisenaire Rods in "Learning Teaching" (PS--am I the only one who had to read this for their CELTA, or did everyone else read it as well?)
I cut and pasted a small snippet of the book in the photo, but in "Learning Teaching" (available on our drive) he goes on for like 5 pages with all the different things you can do with Cuisenaire Rods.
And yet, I've never worked at a school where anyone used Cuisenaire Rods. Is it just me, or have these things completely gone the way of the dinosaur nowadays?
Post 28
The Silent Way p.53-73
So what did you guys think of "The Silent Way" ?
I suppose people like Krashen or Michael Lewis would probably hate it, because they believe that the students acquire language from input, and that the primary source of input is the teacher.
And yet, reading through the description, a number of the techniques sounded appealing to me.
I wonder how this would work with our students.
One of the most common complaints we get with adult classes is "the teacher talks to fast" or "I don't understand everything the teacher says". This would eliminate that complaint at a stroke. (Although I wonder if our students would feel cheated if the teacher never said anything?)
The Silent Method would also dramatically increase Student Talking Time, which is another thing our students always want.
PS--did anyone else feel that there was a large difference between the lesson as Diane Larsen-Freeman described it, and what we saw in the video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqLzbLCpack&feature=youtu.be
Post 29
p.74 Desuggestopedia
Interesting that part of the Desuggestopedia methodology is choosing a new English name (or whatever the name of the target language is). The Vietnamese government would not approve:
https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/education/20170926/giving-students-english-names-not-good-for-traditional-education-vietnam-official/41751.html
Thoughts? Is giving students English names good for learning English, or is it culturally insensitive?
Post 30
Just a reminder, we're meeting on this Tuesday, January 2nd. To accommodate people's schedules, we've moved the time up to 10 A.M. We'll meet in room 501.
Everyone is welcome to attend regardless of whether you've read the book or not. We'll try to structure the discussion so that we summarize the book as we talk about it.
You can also watch these videos instead of reading the book:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd7l1XgpLdqUK7-TI5pU8Zx2k1e8vNAe8
Slideshow: slides , pub
Video Review
Video review HERE and embedded below:
Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky, Violent Revolution
No comments:
Post a Comment