Hello again!

Hello again!
One of the finest lectures so far, thank you Penny for pointing some things out!
I am personally struggling with no-L1 system because of the reputation all-English teachers have in Serbia. In my previous school, you were considered uneducated or methodologically weak if you couldn't/didn't explain everything in English only, regardless of the level.
I once had a group of seniors and there was no way that they could listen to English only from the start. The reason for this is rooted in our traditional educational system which encouraged grammar-translation method, extensive use of Serbian, and people who couldn't converse in English after years of classes but could successfully make a difference between Present Perfect and Past Simple on paper. For them, English-only system was difficult and unnecessary.
For younger generations, the situation is different, but there are still those who dislike things like eliciting ('Why should we guess, you tell us and don't waste our time'') or prefer ex-catedra sort of teaching. I do feel the situation is changing for the better (slowly, but surely), but now I feel much more comfortable when it comes to using Serbian when necessary. I had doubts, pangs of guilt and felt inadequate because of this, so - thanks once again!

Comments

  1. Marwa TalbiNovember 23, 2017 at 7:15 AM

    this is really hard especially when the level of students' is low. I was using L1 and sometimes L2 and I felt guilty for not using English all the time. But, it 's helpful to know that it's ok to use L1. I think it depends of the level of students.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Walton BurnsNovember 25, 2017 at 6:00 AM

    I lived in Kazakhstan for a while. I met a professor of Kazakh language at Indiana University who was visiting and he noted that his American students start speaking Kazakh on day one. He begins his lessons with a typical TPR-like lesson, repeat after the teacher, hello how are you, and so on. But in Kazakhstan, no one speaks a word of Kazakh for weeks because the first lessons are on spelling rules, writing the alphabet, morphology, and memorizing vocabulary and grammar endings!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Julia BlinovaNovember 26, 2017 at 8:50 AM

    Walton Burns I am afraid that the reality of post-Soviet pedagogy that is still very much present in textbooks and classrooms in Russia, for instance. And it is one more reason why the usage of L1 is frowned upon if you claim to teach communicatively.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thanks Penny for sharing an interesting topic: error correction.

Image
Thanks Penny for sharing an interesting topic: error correction. Allow me to share with you what my students and I have done with the error correction practices in our essay writing class. 1. I have encouraged my students to do peer-review as a part of writing cycle before submitting their final drafts. We did that using Google doc. I see this peer-review activities worth doing at least based on the following considerations: a. Learn how to read carefully, with attention to the details of a piece of writing (whether their own or another writer’s); b. Learn how to strengthen their writing by taking into account the responses of actual and anticipated readers; c.Learn how to formulate and communicate constructive feedback on a peer’s work; d. Learn how to gather and respond to feedback on their own work. 2. Before the peer-review session, I taught some techniques of correcting their peer's to them: make the errors explicit so that the writers knew about what and how to improve the e...
Read more

Title

Konnichiwa, everyone! My name is Anne, and I'm waving to you from rural Japan, where I have lived for alllllllmost one year teaching very young learners (ages 2 and up). I have been teaching since 2002, mainly in South Korea and recently in Japan. I am here because I want to teach better, get new ideas and learn new ways to use old ones, and help my littles be more comfortable with their English-speaking selves. I’m also interested in creating non-competitive activities and other strategies to help learners who need a different class structure. In my non-teaching time, I do freelance writing and proofreading and study Japanese. One of these days I’ll have free time, and then I’m going to read the piles of books that keep stacking up, do some baking, and take long bike rides. It’s a pleasure to meet you all, and I look forward to learning together!
Read more

Hi Everyone.

Hi Everyone. I've been incredibly busy this week, so this is the first chance I've had to read everyone's comments and add my own reflections. I enjoyed last week's session and I'm looking forward to the next one! Last weekend (on Saturday) I went to a conference in Taipei. Stephen Krashen was speaking, and he highlighted a lot of rules and guidelines that are commonly used by language teachers but which, in his view, need to be reconsidered. They are: 1. If you don't understand, signal (often an agreed-upon signal is used) 2. If I am speaking too quickly, slow me down (with a signal or short utterance) 3. Don't repeat what I say. 4. Don't worry, I won't call on you. 5. When you speak in class, you won't have to use full sentences. 6. Don't worry if you can't easily retrieve words you think you know. 7. Don't worry about making mistakes 8. Look at my facial expressions and body language 9. You don't have to understand ev...
Read more