Thinking & teaching

Or at least during the 10 years teaching at a boys’ school.

Not in any particular order!

1. Fun is important.
2. Competition is a great motivator – even if the prize is imaginary gold stars!
3. to think about WHY I am teaching what I teach: to focus on the relevant, the useful and the meaningful or interesting and to not just teach something because it is in the book.
4. Almost anything can be made relevant, useful, meaningful and or interesting – if you approach it right.
5. to challenge: myself, my students and those in authority when needed.
6. Computers are important.
7. 15 & 16 year old boys will play games and sing songs quite happily – unless there are girls present, then they need to be “cool.”
8. to find something that each student is good at and to celebrate it.
9. communication does not need to be accurate to be successful
10. 12 – 17 year old boys are mostly boys rather than “youths” – and are not scary.
11. listening is hard.
12. food is a great motivator – especially in a boarding school!
13. boys are quite likely to call a teacher “mum” at some point.
14. consistency is essential.
15. It’s always someone else’s fault. Always.
16. boys are more likely to not do homework assuming that you won’t check than they are to do homework having assumed that you will
17. if it’s not in a test, its not important (was never able to convince them otherwise – so if it is important, put it in a test!)
18. Stand by what you say.
19. any lesson is better if it is outside, especially on a sunny day.
20. following the worst team is always better than not following any team.
21. instructions need to be short, simple and repeated at least 4 times.
22. things on coloured paper are less likely to be lost.
23. It’s true – boys will not ask for directions. Or clarification. Or help.
24. boys will wait patiently for minutes on end to ask a question rather than look at the book in front of them. (I know that contradicts the previous one!)
25. If you let / help students discover the shortcut for themselves, they think it is cheating & will make the most of it.
26. The best mnemonics are silly or not appropriate to share in class.
27. anything can be linked to motorcycles, cars, female singers or bad smells.
28. foreign words like “pisang” or “la piscine” will always be the ones they remember the longest.

Is it right to expect higher levels of grammatical accuracy in foreign language students than is in current usage in countries where the language is spoken?

Firstly, I recognise that it is very difficult to keep up with the way languages change, especially from another country. I know that Australian English & American English are different from UK English as each has progressed differently, and it could be argued that UK English has progressed further than in either the US or in Oz.  I have a friend who is a background speaker of Dutch – his parents migrated to Australia when he was a child, and he is part of a strong Dutch community here, but when he travelled to the Netherlands he was teased because his language was old fashioned & out of date -  in less than a generation.

But if there is something that we (as foreign language teachers) are aware about in terms of language change, shouldn’t we make sure that our students learn the current way?

I am referring here in particular to Indonesian language.  Indonesian has two words for in / at / on: “di” for places and “pada” for time.  However, I am finding it rare to come across Indonesian people who use “pada” consistently for time.  I have had to correct Prac Teachers  who are background speakers on this, as well as Indonesian as a first / background language students.  Most surprising for me though was the last time I did an intensive in-country language course at a University in Yogyakarta, Java.  My grammar instructor in conversations with me would use “di” rather than “pada”, even during grammar lessons.  When I asked him, he admitted that “pada” was more correct, but it wasn’t used so much any more and that “di” was now acceptable.  This was 5 or more years ago, and yet with my Upper School students at the very least I need to teach students to use pada rather than di for time as I know that any external marker will mark this wrong. Moreover, it will be seen as a very basic mistake, and so may highlight other errors to the marker which may not have stood out so much otherwise.

So, despite knowing that the students would be fine in Indonesia, or speaking to someone recently from Indonesia, I need to mark it wrong in my Year 11 & 12s work.  Hmm.

My second point is regarding the use of Object Focus.  Object focus (or the passive voice) is absolutely essential in Indonesian, and I would not suggest otherwise.  The more it is used, the better – it is almost impossible to over use it.  It’s a little more complicated than that: the structure & syntax is different depending on whether the sentence is in 1st or 2nd person, or in 3rd person.  Again, we teach this rigorously and are vigilent about correct usage.  BUT, Indonesian people in general use the same structure (the 3rd person structure) regardless of whether it is 1st, 2nd or 3rd person.  I have had to work through this with BG speaker prac teachers. When I taught background speaker students in Year 11 and 12 at a previous school I would need to teach them this unfamiliar form – don’t get me wrong, it was very helpful to have something that I could show the students that they could learn from me as a non-background speaker myself.  However, it would not only be simpler to teach only one structure, it would be fine in Indonesia.

Changes are happening.  Certain idiomatic phrases (such as “Alangkah bagusnya…) have been dropped from Year 11 & 12 course documents and markers no longer see these as indicators that the students “know their stuff.” These phrases are also being phased out of textbooks etc.  We are introducing slang and more collaquial language – but in some ways this applifies the problem – do I teach students the “correct” usage for very formal writing, but then teach them not to use it in any other type of communication?  It just adds to the confusion that students already have, and I can’t imagine may circumstances where they would need to use absolutely correct, very formal language in a situation where they can’t get someone to double check or help out…Plus, at the moment I’m not confident that markers would recognise something like this as common usage rather than just inaccurate.

So, are we doing the right thing by our students in teaching them “accurate” language, or should we focus on language as it is used – where we know it has changed.  At the moment I fell that I am “teaching to the test?” rather than teaching a language… What are your feelings?