Comments on: Six language teaching trends of the 00s

By: Eric Roth

Eric Roth — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:22:28 +0000

Balance and context, as ever, remain critical.

Starting with student needs and desires for English in concrete circumstances, rather than abstract ideals of how English should be spoken, seems reasonable. A new immigrant to an English-speaking country (Canada, the United States, Australia) driving a taxi has different language needs than a cook in Hanoi, Vietnam or a maid in Baja, Mexico. Can English language learners communicate what their thoughts in English enough to be understood?

Of course, graduate students studying abroad in English speaking countries need to master subject-verb agreement, article usage, and countable and uncountable nouns. But the vast majority of English language learners today do not need to reach grammatical perfection. They just need to clearly communicate in English. Fluency and functional competence, not absolute accuracy, matters most for the vast majority of EFL students and international workers.

By: jean

jean — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:08:59 +0000

Maybe Multiple Intelligences could be added to your list too. We seem to have heard a lot about them in the past 10 years. Merely a title to confirm the importance of varied activities, a blanket term for more inclusive education, or ??

By: Leslie

Leslie — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:09:09 +0000

I’m in complete agreement with you. There are too many important aspects to focus on in teaching pronunciation to get stuck on perfection. I teach English as a Second Language in Ontario so I do tell students that I have a Southern Ontario accent but since we live in an increasingly multicultural world I don’t think that nailing regional pronunciation is the goal over intelligibility as you have pointed out. Thanks to the availability of a vast number of listening resources available via the internet I make an effort to include English from different first and second language resources. CBC radio in Canada has always been a wonderful resource for me. It is a good source of second language speakers communicating well in English with a variety of accents and without perfect pronunciation. I hadn’t really thought about the stubborn inclusion of auxillary verbs instead of the more natural sounding contractions until I read your comment but I believe you make a very valid point and I will definitely relax my expectation in the future. Thanks

By: Glennie

Glennie — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:32:46 +0000

I’m not an expert on the subject of ELF, but I can identify with the idea that you may be wasting students time if you insist on native speaker pronunciation, for example. Effective communication between, say, an Indian and a Russian, does not depend on the ability to pronounce the schwa. Intelligibility surely has to be what we are looking for.

I’m also becoming far easier about my students not using contracted forms for auxiliaries: there is nothing ambiguous whatsoever about the meaning of ‘I have finished writing the report’, if ‘have’ is not pronounced with extra stress.

I’m not especially interested in being politically correct or entering into debates about
‘Whose English?’, but I don’t want to demand of my students that they be competent in areas which will have little or no effect on their ability to use English as they wish or need to.

By: Glennie

Glennie — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:16:36 +0000

Sounds like heaven, Suzanne.

By: Sandy M

Sandy M — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 08:27:03 +0000

I couldn’t disagree more about Jennifer Jenkins’ ELF movement – it’s heading for the rocks, and the sooner the better. It patronises learners by assuming that some things are ‘too difficult’ and ‘unnecessary’ (prescriptive!) for them, and seems to think that just because non-native speakers are in the majority, they should rewrite the rules. Never heard of elites, Jenny? Or is that all too un-PC for the likes of you? Anyway, it’s all complete tosh in my view.

Oh, but maybe we’ll see an ELF coursebook soon, full of bad English for those poor foreign dearies who can’t master the 3rd person ‘-s’. And perhaps we’ll get to drop the use of articles to suit them too, eh? I’m sure JJ would love to write one – ‘Hedwey Internashnl’, eh…

As for Eric’s remark above: “English language instruction should be, ironically, entering a golden age of authentic communication.” … please, don’t make me cringe! But it is a good candidate for Private Eye’s ‘Pseuds’ Corner’.

By: Eric Roth

Eric Roth — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:47:09 +0000

Excellent list and engaging comments.

May I also suggest that the growing acceptance of Global Englishes and growth of more learner centered technology will lead to a generation of genuine autotelic (self-directed) students? After all, as the leading authorities conclude that that there are many ways to speak English, English language learners will feel more empowered to follow their own interests – and instincts – in and out of the classrooms. English language instruction should be, ironically, entering a golden age of authentic communication.

By: lclandfield

lclandfield — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:28:59 +0000

Sounds good to me Suzanne – some good students you have there!

By: susie sullivan

susie sullivan — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:26:22 +0000

Hello Experts. I am not an expert but I’m a very effective teacher of both English and French. I give tests only for fun, I make my students write up their own tests for their fellow students, we decide on our own corpus, we always ask, “why do i need this?” and answer it together, and tho they may not know paul mccartney, they’ve taught me how to wiki a blog. in short, it’s all good. p.s. my students are corporate execs and scientists of all ages and cultures at a french cosmetic company in new jersey. FUN!!!

By: Andy Hockley

Andy Hockley — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 10:57:59 +0000

I got the impression that Bilingual Ed (and attendant theories) has been around for ages, and CLiL was just the ELT community’s belated leap onto the bandwagon.