EFL Geek 3.0 - ESL & EFL in Korea - Language Teachers Should Learn a Language

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The voodoo priest and all his powders were as nothing compared to espresso, cappuccino, and mocha, which are stronger than all the religions of the world combined, and perhaps stronger than the human soul itself.
---- Mark Helprin, Memoir from Antproof Case, 1995

We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison

As soon as I buy the moose head, I have to go pick up some KY jelly.
---- Mary Roninette Kowal

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.
---- Galileo Galilei

Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)

it's probably not a good idea to underestimate my ability to make an ass out of myself—just when I seem to have it under control, I'll turn around and surprise you.
---- Tenser said the Tensor

Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
---- J. Robert Oppenheimer

Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
---- Fred Allen

Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
---- Arnold Lobel

Technology will not replace teachers...teachers who use technology will
probably replace teachers who do not.
---- Ray Clifford

Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.
---- Leonardo DaVinci (1452-1519)

The important thing is not to stop questioning.
---- Albert Einstein

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
---- George Orwell

I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
---- Mitch Hedberg

"It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.'"
---- Sam Levenson

Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?"
---- Kelvin Throop III

Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
---- Terry Pratchett

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost

Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin

To have another language is to possess a second soul.
---- Charlemagne

A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.
---- anonymous

Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.
---- Jack Lynch

As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
---- M. Cartmill

If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
---- Doug Larson

No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
---- Sheik Abd-al-Kadir

Language Teachers Should Learn a Language

Language teachers should learn a language so that they do not forget what it is like to be a language learner. While re-reading How Languages are Learned by Lightbrown and Spada, I came across a passage that I remember the first time. It is about asking display or genuine questions. Display questions being ones that the asker already knows the answer too (and the interlocutor knows that the asker knows) while genuine questions are ones to which the asker truly does not know the answer.

The point here is that display questions are not communicatively genuine which negatively affects motivation in the learner. The authors also say that Teachers “well known for asking many more display than genuine questions.” I have always made a conscious effort to ask more genuine than display questions. It is unavoidable to ask some display questions in class; the point here is to reduce how many are asked. Today, I decided to self-monitor and I was really quite surprised to see how many display questions I do ask. Time to re-double my efforts.

One other are, that I think is more important is the time given to students to respond to questions.

Researchers have also noted that teachers often give students only a fraction of a second to answer before they move on to another student or answer the question themselves.

I did incredibly well here, I do think that perhaps I give students too much time. The whole point of this message is that if language teachers are also currently learning a language in a formal setting they are less likely to forget these facts. I know that the last time I studied Korean that it was very eye opening to me. I remember being in class and the teacher was talking away, this is what I heard:

areljn a;licl aidlb ae you will do a;licll atr baeredf jkleob and then qrtiud bnut lopr, Understand? Understand?

Some teachers will say that they have already successfully learned a language and they can remember how difficult it was. I don’t think that is the same as when the learning experience is fresh in your mind. To be a better teacher one should study a language regularly. If you have successfully finished one, then if possible start another.

At the end of the section there are some suggested activities for the teacher which I have reproduced below.

Record a teacher-fronted lesson (not-group work)
Listen to the tape to see whether you ask more genuine versus display questions.
How much time do you allow for students to answer? you may need a stopwatch to answer this question!
Are there any differences in the kind of language your students produce when they are asked genuine versus display questions?

Based on your observation do the following:

Design an activity which you think will lead to more genuine questions in class. During the activity, try to give students sufficient time to answer.
Record this activity
Listen to the recording and focus on the kind of language your students produce when asked genuine questions and give more time to respond.

In addition to (or instead of) recording your own teaching, you might consider observing and recording the class of another teacher.

Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Apr 2, 2004 at 10:07 PM
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