At language teaching workshops and conferences a very common complaint I hear from teachers goes something like this: "That presenter told us to do X, but I remember another workshop where a (possibly more authoritative) presenter told us to do Z. Well, which is it?"
I'll give a metaphor to illustrate how I understand this statement: "I was recently at a woodworking workshop where the presenter said if we want to secure nails down, we need to use a hammer. Now this new presenter says if we want to secure screws down, we need to use a screwdriver. Well, which is it?" The difference clearly is in the purpose of each tool. What I think needs to be made clear in presentations is the particular purpose for each teaching practice--that is, what it does to help learners do during the lesson, and what outcomes are achieved in terms of acquisition, skills, and explicit knowledge? A large part of a teacher's choice over what practice to teach with will depend on their own understanding or beliefs about what each practice does. I'll give some examples according to research and my own observations and conversations with teachers. I of course welcome disagreement over the accuracy of my descriptions: 1) Input: If you are a teacher who believes input is simply a model for practicing speaking, then you probably want to use input briefly to model the language needed, and then have your students go and practice speaking with each other according to that model. And if you are a teacher who believes input allows learners' minds/brains to repeatedly process information so that sounds and meaning become automatically associated and sorted into mental categories (and possibly that a Universal Grammar acts on that input to further represent sentences in the mind), then you probably want to spend much more time providing input through whole-class discussion (where the students and teacher negotiate what to talk about, but the speaking is mostly coming from the teacher in the form of open questions to the students). 2) Output: If you are a teacher who believes output is any form of speaking and writing (in meaningful situations, of course), then you probably want to help your students save time and effort by having them read from scripts to each other. And if you are a teacher who believes that output is only language that comes out of a person's mental representation, then you probably want to ask students to talk (about pictures, their opinions, etc.) without any textual sources to read from. 3) Authenticity: If you are a teacher who believes that only talk and writing that is created by and for monolingual native speakers counts as authentic, then you probably want to have your students watch lots of movie clips and read lots of menus and newspaper clippings, and you will also probably want to suspend that definition when you have students role-play as waiters, bankers, customers, etc. And if you are a teacher who believes that a classroom is itself a real place with real people who bring with them their real experiences and real opinions, then you may want to use a lot of class time to use the target language to talk about each other and the people you are familiar with. My comments here are directed at both presenters and teachers. Presenters should be clear about their claims regarding what each "tool" (teaching practice) is intended to do. What we should not say is this: "REMEMBER! [Person/Organization] says we should always do X, and never do Y." What exactly is missing from this advice? Well a purpose of course. Teachers as well should be looking for that purpose in addition to quick solutions. As a teacher it's always easiest to hop around sessions and say, "Oh that looks fun! My students are going to love this one!" My response to that is this: "Great! So I'm hearing that engagement and motivation are your purposes for that activity. Additionally, is that activity also meant to achieve acquisition, skills, and/or knowledge? I'm guessing it is, but you should be clear on these purposes before you add it to your teaching toolbox. Update on July 11, 2018: Reid Wyatt and I developed “IMASK” as an initialism to capture the five goals/objectives that teachers should consider for any new practices: Institution: secures a teacher in their department, makes colleagues, administrators, and other stakeholders outside her classroom happy, including articulation with courses students will go in to; Motivation: increases student engagement and participation; Acquisition: effectively puts language into the learners heads; Skill: develops acquired language into socially useful purposes, e.g. making compelling speeches to audiences; Knowledge: explicit awareness and memory for cultural products, practices, perspectives, and people.
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Reed Riggs (Author)
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