The Role of the Textbook in the EFL Classroom (4)

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

Almost ten years ago, Scott Thornbury (2000) pointed out that “learning [..] takes place in the here-and-now. What is learned is what matters. Teaching – like talk – should centre on the local and relevant concerns of the people in the room, not on the remote world of coursebook characters, nor the contrived world of grammatical structures. [...] A Dogme school of teaching would take a dim view of imported methods, whether the Silent Way, the Natural Approach, the Direct Method, or hard line CLT. No methodological structures should interfere with, nor inhibit, the free flow of participant-driven input, output and feedback.” (click here to read more).

In the late 1980s, Adrian Underhill had already taken a similar stance. He observed that “[…] materials, especially coursebooks, can come between me and my students, preventing me from directly experiencing and responding to the moment by moment energy and vitality of their own learning experience. If I’m not careful I reduce myself to a ‘materials operator’, separated from my learners by a screen of ‘things to do’.” (click here for further details).

My personal interest in the Dogme movement, in ‘teaching unplugged’ (i.e. teaching without a coursebook and without most of the usual supplementary materials) was sparked by Engelbert Thaler who published a very interesting and in many ways thought-provoking paper in the German journal ENGLISCH five years ago (2004: 56-63). Dogme and improvisation seem to go together quite naturally (see the TEFLSPEAK-G posts on this blog); in fact, I can’t really imagine ‘unplugged’ classroom discourse without any kind of spontaneous improvisation (improvised speaking) involved.

If you are interested in getting to know more about all this (i.e. dogme as a pedagogy of bare essentials), see Sue Swift’s audio-supported introductory presentation. To join the dogme ELT discussion group, please click here.

Thaler, Engelbert (2004). „Dogme – eine alte methodische Innovation?“ Englisch , 56 – 63.

New:

Meddings, Luke & Thornbury, Scott (2009). Teaching Unplugged. Dogme in English Language Teaching. Peaslake: Delta Publishing.

In Defense of Grammar

posted by Wolfgang Butzkamm, Aachen University (RWTH), Germany

“All you need is communication? No, because all you get is fossilisation.” (see Butzkamm (2009: 83-91): “The Language Acquisition Mystique: Tried and Found Wanting.”)

In the best known methodology handbooks, foreign language teaching is viewed through the lens of a few closely related European languages. Their grammars are often transparent for each other. This explains to some extent the severe doubts cast upon grammar teaching in general, rather than only against its misuse.

But a focus on grammar is not only indispensable for remote languages. It can really help the learner by making “odd” constructions meaningful and transparent, for instance through idiomatic and literal translation (“mirroring”) combined. That is why grammar should not be dealt with in a cavalier fashion. However, at all times the teacher must discipline himself to be brief, to confine the focus on form – in whatever way it is done – to matters of immediate practical relevance, and above all, to be clear. That is no easy matter for any language. On the other hand, for many foreign languages taught in schools excellent grammars have been made available, which represent a great advance on the grammars of earlier centuries.

Learning and Teaching English in German All-day Schools

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

The 2009 National GGT Conference took place at Karlsruhe University of Education between Wednesday, November 11 and Friday, November 13.  Focused on the further development of all-day schooling in Germany (“Ganztagsschulen – Motor der Schulreform”), it provided a great opportunity for researchers, headmasters and teachers, education policy makers and administrators to share concepts, strategies and personal experiences, and to discuss future directions (background information: the majority of schools in Germany are half-day schools). On Thursday, November 12 all of the several hundred participants were given the chance to visit various types of all-day schools in Karlsruhe and in the surrounding area and see them in action (including free public transport). In my view, the organizers accomplished a (logistic, etc.) masterpiece that day.

As a researcher interested in how theory and practice can be brought together more closely, this was definitely one of the highlights, something that should be taken into consideration for all future conferences focusing on school development and on the quality of education (including the teaching of English as a foreign or second language).

I was generously invited to conduct a 2 1/2 hour workshop on learning and teaching English as a foreign language in all-day schools in Germany (“Englischunterricht an Ganztagsschulen: Herausforderungen, Erfahrungen und Konzepte, Praxisbeispiele”). The central questions raised in this workshop were:  Does it make any difference to teach English as a foreign language in all-day schools (as compared to half-day schools)? What are the advantages and disadvantages, potentials and limits? Do we, perhaps, need specific approaches to learning in afternoon lessons, including specific designs of instruction? And, more specifically related to current SLA / EFL research: How is discovery, inductive, increasingly self-regulated grammar, vocabulary, culture etc. learning possible, if students are tired, disinterested, no longer capable or willing to learn between 1.30 and 4 pm?

A lively discussion arose. Whereas some participants argued that successful foreign language education and learning in all-day schools largely (but of course not only) depended on the organization of the school day, i.e. on ‘pedagogically’ convincing timetables (an optimal balance of lessons and breaks), others felt that more emphasis needed to be placed on learners and learning processes in afternoon lessons, especially on the development and implementation of specific, less linear instructional designs geared toward maintaining learners’ interest and motivation and toward keeping them on task and focused. For anyone interested in this topic, here is the presentation I came up with last Friday.

Since schooling is naturally understood in other countries as all-day schooling, it would be very interesting to hear your thoughts on this.

Teaching Grammar in Today’s Classroom

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

TESOL 2008: Betty Azar, Keith Folse & Michael Swan on teaching grammar.

Google Video 1: Why teach grammar?

Google Video 2: Questions and answers about grammar teaching

General TEFL Reading List for Students in Karlsruhe

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

At present, more than 800 students study English as a Foreign Language at Karlsruhe University of Education. TEFL is a central part of their final oral and written (state) exams. Our exam candidates usually focus on one particular TEFL topic, for instance CLT, TBI, CBI, CLIL or, more specifically, on skills development in primary or secondary EFL classrooms, teaching grammar and / or vocabulary, textbook analysis and textbook use, current curricular developments and the history of English language teaching in German schools, developing intercultural communicative competence, assessment and testing, the role of the (new) media, to mention just a few.

Prior to the final exams, all students are required to hand in a reading list (consisting of about 3-5 books plus 4-6 papers published in academic journals; no introductory literature). Since our students’ choice of exam topics is often based on the TEFL classes they attended (e.g. teaching grammar in secondary schools), most of them need relatively little further support or guidance. 

However, according to current exam rules and regulations, the final oral (state) exam has to cover more aspects of TEFL than just the specific one students wish to focus on. This is why we provide all of our students (not only our exam candidates) with a general TEFL reading list. Here is the current version of the document that I would like to share with you. Please click here. This is, of course, a context- and culture-sensitive topic. Nevertheless, any comments or suggestions?

Improvisation and Creativity in EFL Classroom Discourse

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

Today I finished reading From Corpus to Classroom. Language Use and Language Teaching (O’Keefe, McCarthy & Carter 2007). In my view, this is a well-written and in many ways thought-provoking book that provides a wide-ranging (largely introductory) overview of corpus-based research and its implications for foreign language learning and teaching. Since I am particularly interested in the role of improvisation and creativity in EFL classroom discourse (see Kurtz (2001) as well as the TEFLSPEAK-G series of posts on this blog), I found the following passage most interesting:

“There is a long way to go in understanding creativity in the spoken language and in exploring the applications to the classroom of such understandings, but the first steps have been taken in recognising that it has been generally underplayed within the language teaching classroom. It is something that we need to work on to bring the best out of us as learners, teachers and collaborators in the language classroom. It is a fundamental aspect of a more humanistic approach to language teaching. And it is the kind of evidence supplied by corpora of spoken language that enable these first steps to be taken.” (O’Keefe, McCarthy & Carter 2007: 197).

However, I did not find any references to research findings not published in English in this book. The more I read, the more I  became aware (once again) of the dominance of the English language in academic communication – which raises a number of fundamental questions (see, for instance, Gnutzmann 2006).

References

Gnutzmann, Claus (2006). Fighting or fostering the dominance of English in academic communication?” Fachsprache, 2006 (28), 195-207.

Kurtz, Jürgen (2001). Improvisierendes Sprechen im Fremdsprachenunterricht. Eine Untersuchung zur Entwicklung spontansprachlicher Handlungskompetenz in der Zielsprache. Tübingen: Narr.

O’Keefe, Anne; McCarthy, Michael & Carter, Ronald (2007). From Corpus to Classroom. Language Use and Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The Cognitive-Social Debate in International SLA Research

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

As an accumulating body of scholarship shows, traditional input-interaction-output theories of foreign language instruction and learning have come under critique for being too narrow over the past ten years, in particular for portraying the foreign language learner primarily as a mental being and a largely independent self, thus failing to adequately account for the social and cultural nature of language acquisition and/or learning and, ultimately, for the learner as a social being and a fundamentally interdependent self.

As Markee & Seo (2009: 40) point out in this context, “cognitive metaphors of SLA have obviously been productive during the last 30 years. However, […], their intellectual scope is unnecessarily narrow. […] Cognition and learning are constructs that go beyond the individual. […] Individuals are members of larger ecosystems of contributing agents and technologies. This position contrasts sharply with the individualistic version of cognitive science that is still the norm in cognitive SLA. […] This individualistic perspective is excessively restrictive or, worse still, simply out of date.”

A similar argument can be found in Young (2007: 263):

“The view of learning as changing participation is radically different from theories of second language acquisition that frame language learning as a cognitive process residing in the mind-brain of an individual learner […]. The view […] I wish to argue here for is, instead, of second language acquisition as a situated, co-constructed process, distributed among participants. This is a learning theory that takes social and ecological interaction as its starting point and develops detailed analyses of patterns of interaction in context. In this perspective, language learning is manifested as participants’ progress along trajectories of changing engagement in discursive practices, changes which lead from peripheral to fuller participation and growth of self-identity.”

I couldn’t agree more, but in my view, all this is neither new nor controversial. Theoretically, it reminds me of what John Dewey wrote in My Pedagogic Creed (published in 1897):

“I believe that the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself […]. I believe that this educational process has two sides – one psychological and one sociological; and that neither can be subordinated to the other or neglected without evil results following […]. I believe that the psychological and social sides are organically related and that education cannot be regarded as a compromise between the two, or a superimposition of one upon the other […]. In sum, I believe that the individual who is to be educated is a social individual and that society is an organic union of individuals. If we eliminate the social from the child we are left only with an abstraction; if we eliminate the individual factor from society, we are left only with an inert and lifeless mass.”

In terms of classroom practice, the current cognitive-social debate is very difficult to relate to some of the fundamental questions my students (future EFL teachers in Germany) are particularly interested in, for instance:

Is PPP (presentation, practice, production) less effective or efficient than, for instance, TBI (task-based instruction)? What role do teacher-led imitation and reproduction play, especially in primary EFL classrooms? Since learning and teaching a foreign language at school is a highly complex endeavor which is influenced by a large spectrum of factors, should I, perhaps, try to find a mix that works best under the given circumstances?

Any comments / suggestions?

References

Dewey, John (1897). “My pedagogic creed.” School Journal, 54 (3), 77-80.

Markee, Numa & Seo, Mi-Suk (2009). Learning Talk Analysis. IRAL 47 (1), 37-63.

Young, Richard F. (2007). Language learning and teaching as discursive practice. In: Hua, Zhu; Seedhouse, Paul; Wei, Li & Cook, Vivian (eds.) (2007). Language Learning and Teaching as Social Inter-Action. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 251-271.

Children’s Literature in Language Education

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Karlsruhe

An international conference on “Children’s Literature in Language Education – from Picture Books to Young Adult Fiction” will be held at Hildesheim University, Germany from February 25-27, 2010.

Plenary speakers:
Stephen Krashen, Eva Burwitz-Melzer, Alan Maley & Andrew Wright

Strand 1: EFL extensive reading – reading for pleasure; teacher training with
non-canonical literature;
Strand 2: Pre-teens and teens: young adult novels, graded readers, non-fiction,
poems and graphic novels;
Strand 3: Young learners: picture books, poems and nursery rhymes; language acquisition with literary texts;
Strand 4: Storytelling and workshops

For further information, see the conference website (click here).

International CLIL Conference 2010

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

The International CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) Conference 2010 “In Pursuit of Excellence: Uncovering CLIL Quality by CLIL Practitioners – Evidencing CLIL Quality by CLIL Researchers” will be held September 30 to October 2 at the University of Eichstätt in Germany. For more information, including the call for contributions, see the webpages of the CLIL Consortium.

The Role of the Textbook in the EFL Classroom (3)

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

What do we really know about how textbooks are actually used in secondary school EFL classrooms around the globe today? Research indicates that EFL textbooks are used in many different ways, depending on a wide spectrum of factors. The teacher seems to be the most important factor. In a number of scholarly publications, including some introductory books to teaching English as a foreign language, different preferences or styles of textbook use are identified and described in more or less detail (see, for instance, Haß 2006), ranging from complete textbook-reliance to more selective approaches, from the eclectic use of many different instructional resources to the employment of self-made materials, especially in project-oriented or project-based sequences of instruction. In this context, textbook-bound teaching (i.e. progressing through the book page by page over the course of the school year) is often set in opposition to more flexible approaches to textbook use. The latter is often seen as the most adequate, convincing and appropriate.

The empirical basis is weak, however. This is regrettable, not only because it leaves us with a vague picture of actual textbook use (around the world, in different educational contexts). More fundamentally, identifying different styles of textbook use does not really tell us anything about how to use EFL materials and media most effectively and efficiently.

I am very interested in hearing what you think about this personally, and, more specifically, in how you make use of EFL materials and media in everyday classroom practice. On this blog, I have already referred to the many images and metaphors used by scholars to describe how textbooks and related materials and media should or should not be used in the EFL classroom (see: the role of the textbook in the EFL classroom, parts one und two).

Here are some very interesting and thought-provoking learner images for EFL textbooks documented in McGrath (2006):

“A coursebook is a pair of glasses (which help me to see what the teacher is talking about).“

“A textbook is a beggar (no one likes to approach it).“

“A textbook is an angry barking dog that frightens me in a language I don‘t understand.“

You can also find a lot of teacher images and metaphors for textbooks in McGrath (2006) as well, for instance:

„A textbook is like oil in cooking – a useful base ingredient.“

„Textbooks are like ladies‘ handbags because we can take what we need from them and ladies tend to take handbags wherever they go.“

„A textbook is the stone from which a sculpture will be made (needing bits chopped off, added on and occasionally a little crushing.“

Food for thought…

Haß, F. (Hrsg.) (2006). Fachdidaktik Englisch. Tradition, Innovation, Praxis. Stuttgart: Klett.

McGrath, I. (2006). Teachers‘ and learners‘ images for coursebooks. ELT Journal, 60 (2), 171-180.