<?page no="0"?> narr studienbücher Wolfgang Butzkamm John A.W. Caldwell The Bilingual Reform A Paradigm Shift in Foreign Language Teaching narr studienbücher Butzkamm / Caldwell The Bilingual Reform With this book, change has come to foreign language teaching. The mother tongue taboo, which has been the perceived didactical correctness for so many years and in so many countries, is swept away. At the same time, this book combines theory with practice, advice and guidance to teachers. Since the mother tongue issue touches upon all the major domains of teaching - vocabulary, grammar, texts, communication, emotional aspects - a new synthesis of theory and practice has been developed. An invaluable resource both for the novelty and diversity of the teaching techniques presented and for the clarity of its writing. The book benefits from the authors’ more than thirty-year-long research and teaching involvement with the role of the mother tongue in foreign language teaching and their involved observation of the functioning of natural bilingualism. ISBN 978-3-8233-6492-4 Wolfgang Butzkamm John A. W. Caldwell 028009 Stud. Butzkamm_Caldwell: 028009 Stud. Butzkamm_Caldwell 07.04.2009 18: 20 Uhr Seite 1 <?page no="1"?> narr studienbücher © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="2"?> © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="3"?> Wolfgang Butzkamm/ John A.W. Caldwell The Bilingual Reform Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen A Paradigm Shift in Foreign Language Teaching Connect. Only connect. (E. M. Forster) © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="4"?> Bibliografische Informationen der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über <http: / / dnb.d-nb.de> abrufbar. © 2009 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Gedruckt auf säurefreiem und alterungsbeständigem Werkdruckpapier. Internet: http: / / narr-studienbuecher.de E-Mail: info@narr.de Satz: Informationsdesign D. Fratzke, Kirchentellinsfurt Druck: Gulde, Tübingen Verarbeitung: Nädele, Nehren Printed in Germany ISSN 0941-8105 ISBN 978-3-8233-6492-4 Wolfgang Butzkamm is Professor emeritus at Aachen University, Germany. John A.W. Caldwell is Adjunct Professor in the School of Continuing and Professional Education, Hong Kong Institute of Education. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="5"?> In memory of C. J. Dodson, an educator ahead of his time © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="6"?> © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="7"?> Contents Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Introduction: A red card for the mother tongue? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 0.1 Method and Madness in Foreign Language Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 0.2 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 0.3 Spoilsports: stubborn teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 0.4 Bilingual methods and language courses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 0.5 Spoilsports: teachers as learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 0.6 Classroom research and the doggedness of dogma. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 0.7 A professional neurosis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 0.8 The alternative: the mother tongue as a base for reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Chapter 1: Teaching English through English - with the help of the mother tongue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 1.1 Message-orientation and mother tongue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 1.2 Immersion, the natural way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 1.3 Between the lexicon and grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 1.4 The critical mass hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 1.5 We cannot start small again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 1.6 Creating a foreign language atmosphere in the classroom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 1.7 The sandwich technique and its bilingual counterpart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 1.8 In praise of discipline and consistency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 1.9 Undesired side effects of stubborn monolingualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 1.10 The foreign language as a working language: a five-point programme . . . . . 38 1.11 Love or loathing at first sight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 1.12 Solidarity and good vibes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 1.13 Language as a sideline: learning other subjects in a foreign language . . . . . . 40 1.14 Between medium-oriented and message-oriented communication . . . . . . . 42 1.15 A dual focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 1.16 Classroom reality: a content vacuum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 1.17 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 1.18 Hints for student teachers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Study questions and tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Chapter 2: How learners break into the speech code: the principle of dual comprehension. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 2.1 Understanding what is meant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 2.2 Understanding what is literally said . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 2.3 Children crack the code: evidence from mother tongue acquisition . . . . . . . 54 © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="8"?> 8 Contents 2.4 Children crack the code: evidence from second language acquisition . . . . . . 56 2.5 Children crack the code: evidence from classrooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 2.6 Taking a fresh look at past solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 2.7 Regular review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 2.8 Dual comprehension and the role of output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Study questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Chapter 3: We only learn language once . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 3.1 Native language skills as a foundation for foreign language learning . . . . . . 66 3.2 Goodbye Berlitz: arguments and counterarguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Study questions and tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Chapter 4: Communicative equivalence and cross-linguistic networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 4.1 Missing equivalence? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 4.2 A pragmatic approach to meaning-conveyance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 4.3 ‘Deforeignising’ the foreign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 4.4 The principle of association: Cross-linguistic networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 4.5 Telling stories about words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Study questions and tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Chapter 5: The mother tongue as the magic key to foreign grammars . . . . 101 5.1 Grammar - the continuation of the lexicon by other means . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 5.2 Grammar - the pride and blight of the foreign language classroom . . . . . . . 101 5.3 Grammar - comparative and crystal clear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 5.3.1 Clarifying functions through idiomatic translations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 5.3.2 Clarifying forms through mother tongue mirroring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 5.3.3 Additional explanations and the technicalities of remote languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 5.3.4 Searching for analogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 5.3.5 Explaining linguistic terms via mother tongue examples . . . . . . . . . . 114 5.3.6 Underuse and overproduction of foreign language constructions . . . 115 5.3.7 Where learners have been more harmed than helped . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 5.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 5.5 Hints for the student teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Study questions and tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Chapter 6: How to teach structures the bilingual way. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 6.1 The generative principle, or: playing on analogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 6.2 Evidence from natural language acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 6.3 To transfer or not to transfer … . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 6.4 An innovation: semi-communicative drills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 6.4.1 Objections overruled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 6.4.2 Regular revision drills: immunization against common errors . . . . . 132 © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="9"?> Contents 9 6.4.3 Evidence from classrooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 6.4.4 For slow learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 6.5 Costs and benefits of bilingual practice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 6.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 6.7 Hints for student teachers: do’s and don’ts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Study questions and tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Chapter 7: Dialogues, drama and declamation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 7.1 Give them a stage: role-taking and role-making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 7.2 Phase 1: Role-taking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 7.2.1 Dialogue presentation and assimilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 7.2.2 The ear is the gateway to language: On pronunciation teaching . . . . 145 7.2.3 The printed text as a support rather than an interference factor . . . . 149 7.2.4 The oral translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 7.2.5 Pictures for support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 7.2.6 Are we there yet? Further steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 7.2.7 Acting out: ‘The grand finale’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 7.2.8 Fast and slow learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 7.3 Phase 2: Manipulation of structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 7.4 Phase 3: Role-making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 7.4.1 Pupils’ dialogues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 7.4.2 Question time and improvisations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 7.5 Review, recycle, reinforce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 7.6 Drama and declamation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 7.7 Hints for student teachers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Study questions and tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 Chapter 8: Language learning as skill learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 8.1 Mastery learning and skill theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 8.2 The rewards of mastery: a sense of competence and control . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 8.3 The rewards of mastery: Release from shyness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 8.4 Applied behaviour analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 8.5 The naturalistic fallacy and task-based instruction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Study questions and tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Chapter 9: Maximising high-quality input via the mother tongue . . . . . . . 178 9.1 Direct instruction vs. acquisition: in search of a compromise . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 9.2 Good news for language teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 9.2.1 Teacher-talk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 9.2.2 Reading to the class and story-telling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 9.2.3 Silent reading, and a reading corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 9.2.4 Bilingual readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 9.2.5 Re-translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 9.2.6 Language mix: outlandish proposals? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="10"?> 10 Contents 9.2.7 Videos and DVDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 9.3 Repeated hearing and reading with a dual focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 9.4 Hints for student teachers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 Study questions and tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 Chapter 10: Translation as a fifth skill - a forgotten art. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 10.1 ‘Racist park’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 10.2 Translation as a multi-purpose tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 10.3 Suggested activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 10.4 Developing the mother tongue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 Study questions and tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 Chapter 11: More bilingual practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 11.1 Brainstorming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 11.2 Word trails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 11.3 Monolingual and bilingual vocabulary lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 11.4 Dictionary work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 11.5 Collocations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 11.6 The importance of memorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 11.7 Practising away lexical interference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 11.8 Topic-related expression repertoires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 11.9 Liaison Interpreting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 11.10 Tandems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 11.11 Foreign language conversation as a culminating activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 Study questions and tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 Chapter 12: The ‘natural’ method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 12.1 Young developing bilinguals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 12.1.1 Learning to talk, talking to learn: five strategies of developing bilinguals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 12.1.2 A parental strategy: pretending not to understand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 12.1.3 Contact time as the most important factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 12.2 A bilingual approach for the deaf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 12.3 The ‘natural’ method re-visited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Study questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Chapter 13: Ideas for multilingual classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 13.1 Sink or swim? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 13.2 Practical suggestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 13.2.1 Multilingual materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 13.2.2 Home-made materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 13.2.3 Time-out for group work. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 13.2.4 Teacher self-development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Study questions and tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="11"?> Contents 11 Chapter 14: Directions for future work. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 14.1 Continuity and change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 14.2 In the doing comes the understanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 14.3 Experimental comparisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 14.4 Lesson analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 14.5 A new generation of textbooks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 14.6 Europe-wide test of English as a foreign language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 14.7 ‘The hungry sheep look up and are not fed’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 14.8 Unheeded lessons of history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Study questions and tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 Epilogue: Capitalising on a priceless legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 Subject Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="12"?> © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="13"?> Foreword Finally, the monolingual principle, the unique contribution of the twentieth century to classroom language teaching, remains the bedrock notion from which the others ultimately derive. If there is another ‘language teaching revolution’ round the corner, it will have to assemble a convincing set of arguments to support some alternative (bilingual? ) principle of equal power. A.P.R. Howatt, 1984. This book has been written to resolve the long-standing debate over the role of the mother tongue (MT) in the foreign language (FL) classroom. In an act of theoretical house-cleaning, the MT taboo, which has been, without justification of any substance, the perceived didactical correctness for so many years and in so many countries, will be swept away. At the same time, this book combines theory with practice, advice and guidance to teachers. Since the MT issue touches upon all the major domains of FL teaching - vocabulary, grammar, texts, communication, emotional aspects of learning, even pronunciation - a new synthesis of theory and practice has necessarily been developed in the process. “Fracas over education” (Korean Herald 3 March 2001) - in many Asian countries pressures are rising on English teachers to teach through English only. In Europe, the issue is still being debated, with peaks in the early 1900s when a group of Parisian radicals officially enforced the direct method for more than a decade, and again in the 1970s, when foreign-language-only audiovisual coursebooks were made available. To this very day, in several countries including France, ministerial guidelines on foreign language teaching impress on teachers the importance of a monolingual L2 approach. Whether the FL should be the sole medium of instruction is thus more than an academic dispute. Millions of learners and their teachers, the ultimate consumers of our work are affected. We will show that official target-language-only policies, though inspired by the best of motives, are irresponsible because they result almost inevitably in the baby being thrown out with the bathwater. However, this book goes far beyond the language of instruction debate. It develops the idea that, in a deep sense, we only learn language once. It is vitally important that we absorb the implications of this fact. Our first language lays the foundation for all other languages we might want to learn. Rather than a liability, it is the most valuable resource, indeed the critical one, that a talking child brings to the classroom. With this acknowledgement, a cardinal error which has crippled foreign language teaching (FLT) all too long, is rectified: the absence of effective bilingual techniques in the FL classroom, which had been banished from the classroom due to the general suspicion surrounding the use of the MT. From this point on “new avenues are opened for language teaching which involve the active, systematic use of the MT” (Cook 2001, 418). It is this systematic positive use of the MT within the framework of a modern communicative approach using the FL which is the basic thread running through all chapters. This book, then, is not another plea for a flexible and less rigid attitude towards the use of the MT. Such a common sense approach would be just one more uneasy and muddled compromise. Being more relaxed about MT use in certain pedagogic situa- © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="14"?> 14 Foreword tions, as is often recommended on pragmatic grounds, is not enough, and can even be counterproductive. It is vital that the fundamental powers of the MT, both explanatory and productive, be fully exposed and exploited. For more than a century, the MT has often been admitted as a last resort only, a kind of fire extinguisher in case of emergency, to clarify tricky meanings and facilitate grammatical explanations. Against such a reduced view, we want to advance a quite rich understanding of the role of the MT. Foreign languages piggyback on L1. Primary school children have accumulated an immense charge and reservoir of pragmatic, semantic and grammatical meanings which must be transferred to the target language. If learners didn’t do this mostly intuitively and, in the main, all by themselves, FLT would be a hopeless undertaking. Bilingual techniques which tease out these skills in order to support the FL are here considered to be central techniques that all teachers should learn to master. This means the prevailing orthodoxy which rides roughshod over learners’ deeply felt needs has to be aggressively torn down and FLT put back on the most solid of foundations. The MT is the bedrock on which any subsequent language learning must be built, not only because it provides ready access to FL meanings, but because it is the magic key that unlocks the door to FL grammars - a fact that has been widely ignored. Our bilingual, non-compartmental approach to FLT naturally extends to the teaching of a third or fourth language. In non-Anglophone countries, the learning of German, French etc - if it comes - will most certainly come after the learning of English as a FL. Chinese learners of German who already know English will not just place German in a new compartment but can use English as a bridge to German, just as we all use our MT to make sense of a FL. Here, our bilingual reform becomes trilingual or even multilingual. The new role of the MT, as we see it, is arguably the best means of bringing methodology and local cultural context closer together. It is embedded in a view of language which has begun to emerge among cognitive-functional linguists and neuroscientists who regard form-meaning pairings, called “constructions”, as the basic units of language (Meyer et al. 2008, 60ff.). In other words, meaning is central to language, and meaning-conveyance comprises both lexicon and grammar. These theorists also insist on the generative power of language as a structured system. In speaking, we easily combine communicatively significant elements to create new meanings which we might never have heard before. Pattern drills, which tried to exploit the productive potential of sentence structures, were too soon put into limbo, partly no doubt because of their unfortunate association with the meaningless parroting involved in some direct method and audio-visual programs. Along with the MT, this book puts the generative principle and the combinatorial power of language, its “quintessential property” (Pinker 1997, 118), at the very centre of language teaching. Pattern-finding, generalisation, restructuring, automatization and entrenchment - notions well-known in first language acquisition theory - describe important facts of language learning without raising the spectre of behaviourism. These facts, in turn, can be well integrated into a view of language as a cognitive skill, which is in line with our best teaching traditions and perfectly compatible with the findings of modern brain research. In this forceful advocacy of MT and the generative principle, we are far from discrediting the crucial role of monolingual communicative activities and tasks, but given normal time constraints of the classroom, we propose that a new balance has to be © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="15"?> Foreword 15 struck. Communicative competence remains an overriding goal, while at the same time “constructions” have to be restored to the core of FL competence. This book shows how to tap the potential of the MT (and previously learned languages), how to harness the existing communicative competence, how to exploit the generative power of language, and how to teach foreign languages as a skill that all children can acquire. In illustrating these ideas with a rich repertoire of novel techniques for the FL teacher, we hope to set the theory and practice of FLT on a productive new course. Making the MT the corner stone in the architecture of FLT is a true paradigm shift. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="16"?> Introduction: A red card for the mother tongue? 0.1 Method and Madness in Foreign Language Teaching With regard to MT use, countless teachers have systematically been misteaching languages. They fall into two categories, but the error is the same: They don’t master the sophisticated and powerful bilingual techniques necessary to harness the linguistic resources of the learners for effective foreign language learning (FLL). The first group does use the MT, but in an unregulated, indiscriminate, and destructive way - the bane of many FL classes. Texts are translated and used as quarries to dig up structures to be explained in the MT, which the teachers share with their pupils. They typically teach a FL mostly through the MT simply because of an insufficient oral command of the target language. The teachers’ behaviour will rub off on the students, who, inescapably, will be given far too much leeway to use their MT at the expense of the FL. Here, MT use is indeed a cheap way out of the teachers’ obligation to create a foreign language atmosphere in their classrooms. Comments like the following from retrospective self-reports by German tertiary students are not uncommon: My last English teacher was really nice but she taught most of the lesson through German, telling us she wanted us to really understand everything. I think we would have learned more if we had used German less. We had Spanish only for one year at this stage but lessons were conducted nearly completely in Spanish, while English was taught in German, after seven years of learning this language! Annika 1 This is madness. In many countries, this group may still be the majority as compared to the second group which tries to banish the MT from its classrooms. There are two sub-groups: (1) Expatriate native speakers of English, French, and German etc comfortably teach through their own language simply because they can’t speak their students’ language. For them, it’s as if they make a virtue out of a necessity. (2) Still others try to impose a monolingual classroom, not through any fault of their own, but because of official policies and a crippling monolingual orthodoxy in teacher training colleges. These teachers feel they are betraying their students when resorting to the MT. Here are some more reflections from German students thinking back to their school days: Our teacher never consented to give a German equivalent, which I really detested because I always longed for clarity. Simone I really hated the fact that the teacher we had in grades 7-9 refused to explain English words we didn’t know in German. She just wrote the word up on the board, but only a few pupils understood her English explanations. Even when we asked her nicely if she could give us the German equivalent she became angry. But I’d better stop talking about her, as it makes me angry. Sonja 1 For a great number of quotes, only first names are given as sources. The quotes are taken from autobiographical self-reports collected over many years from German university students of English who wrote about themselves as pupils and trainee teachers. Observed fact and personal anecdote may give an intriguing glimpse of classroom reality and supplement research findings. Butzkamm (2005) contains a collection of quotes from over 500 reports. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="17"?> 0.2 Background 17 When someone dared to ask for an equivalent, he/ she was reprimanded for not paying attention. He strictly rejected the use of the mother tongue, we were forbidden to use it; if we did anyway, we had to do some extra homework. Nicole I can remember one sentence I hated most in class, spoken by a teacher I had in grade eight. His idea was to banish our mother tongue from the classroom and use English exclusively. When I wanted to contribute something and when I was sure that I had a great idea, I tried to ask for an English word. During my contribution I said something like: “I am sorry, but what does X mean in English? ” The answer was simple: “Ariane, I’ve told you to use the words you already know. There is no need to answer this question with the help of other words.” This was all he had to say. I wasn’t allowed to finish my contribution and he asked somebody else to make a contribution. Usually, my fellow students used sentences which could be found literally in the text. This was very boring, but our teacher liked it and even reinforced it by giving good marks to those who only used structures or words from the very text we were discussing. Instead of discussing new ideas (perhaps with some help from the teacher), we only recited the text and later, I never used my own words or expressed my own thoughts. But ridiculously, I got better marks for my oral contribution than before. I am convinced that some help from the teacher would have improved the whole classroom situation. I think it is one of the biggest mistakes which can be made, not to fulfill the needs of your pupils, especially, when they explicitly utter their needs. Ariane This, again, is madness, yet there’s method in’t: the direct method. Kent (1996) interviewed post Standard Grade pupils in Scotland: Another area which constituted a demotivating factor was, ironically, the use of the foreign language as the medium of instruction. This was quite a controversial issue. One pupil said, “I had a teacher who never spoke a word of English and it nearly drove me nuts. You sat there going ‘What? ’ … I think it’s better to have a balance between the two (foreign language and mother tongue).” The unmitigated use of the target language in a classroom situation was considered demotivating and dangerous in that it could lead to erroneous understandings: “You might think that you have picked up some meanings but they might be the wrong meanings.” How the complaints resemble each other! Neither the misuse nor the non-use of the MT have prevented good learners from being successful despite the methods used to teach them. But many learners have suffered and have fallen by the wayside. 0.2 Background Since the Great Reform at the end of the 19 th century, the role of the MT has been second only to grammar as the most discussed methodological problem. At that time, the “direct method” was developed (though it had its precursors), with its push towards the exclusion of the native language from the learning process. It was a good idea in its own day, in as much as it was a reaction against a rigid grammar-translation approach copied from classical language classes, in which texts were translated back and forth, grammar rules and bilingual word-lists were memorised and the lessons were conducted in the MT. At long last, French was actually to be spoken in French classes, and English in English classes. The foreign language should be accessed directly, without translation, with the mother tongue only to be used as a last resort. This approach was also hailed as the “natural method”. After all, a small child grows into its native language without the help of another one, and without any grammatical instruction. Charles Berlitz launched his career on this approach, proclaiming himself the inventor of the direct method (which was not true) and opening his first language school in 1878. To this day, Berlitz instructors follow a target-language-only credo. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="18"?> 18 Introduction: A red card for the mother tongue? When we talk about the monolingual dogma today, we are not setting up a straw man that is nowhere to be found - although total prohibition of the MT is unlikely ever to have been practised by those who share a native language with their students. At present, the official guidelines in many countries recommend that lessons be planned to be as monolingual as possible, drawing on the MT only when difficulties arise. A consensus has been reached in favour of a kind of monolingualism with small concessions. It is not just what the experts believe, who are asked by governments to write official guidelines for schools - it is also what the majority of teachers believe, including those who have found personal, workable solutions to incorporate the MT in certain contexts. Contemporary versions of communicative approaches to FLT usually recommend that although the MT may occasionally be used as a useful linguistic resource, maximising the use of the target language in the classroom is beneficial in providing linguistic exposure for the learners. Concessions are made, particularly with regard to grammatical explanations, but remain concessions, whether minor or major. MT use is generally regarded as an evasive manœuvre only to be used in emergencies, as little as possible. Maximise the use of the FL, minimise the L1, and use your common sense, is the advice most frequently given. The L1 is more of a hindrance than a help, and sophisticated bilingual teaching techniques are as good as unknown in schools. It looks as though the methodological monolingualism, now operating under the new banner of the communicative approach, has triumphed. The metaphors used are an obvious giveaway. In Britain, teachers of French or German are “gardening in a gale of English”; they must build “dams against the flood” of English: The MT is conceived as a primary cause of errors, a constant threat rather than what it is first of all: the greatest pedagogic resource a child brings to the learning of FLs. 0.3 Spoilsports: stubborn teachers If only it weren’t for a small but constant flow of articles, in which stubborn teachers write in opposition to the prevailing ideology and advocate bilingual techniques: a wealth of telling practical experience, often without any theoretical pretence or indepth understanding of the long history behind the topic. These articles are usually apologetic in tone - “it does not hurt to explain these things briefly in the MT”, “there is no harm in …” etc. Their authors seem afraid of being branded as reactionaries or “heretical” (Schweers 1999, 6) - a clear signal to what degree received opinion has been internalized. Burling (1968), who uses a systematic mixture of native and foreign language, tellingly calls his proposals “outlandish”. The topic ‘mother tongue’ is a wellkept family secret for many, a “skeleton in the cupboard … a taboo subject, a source of embarrassment”, according to Prodromou (2002, 6). Time and again, using the mother tongue is accompanied by feelings of guilt. As a result, most of these contributions are more or less timid attempts at legitimisation, and hence more or less cautious formulations: “So let us stop feeling guilty about student and teacher use of L1 outside or even inside the classroom in very small amounts” (Katchen 1990, 105). Those practitioners who experiment with bilingual techniques consistently report positive results, such as George (1984), who reports from India, and Kukulka (1982, 42), who teaches English in Poland: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="19"?> 0.4 Bilingual methods and language courses 19 After experimenting with various methods and techniques for three years, I decided on a bilingual technique for teaching both grammar and vocabulary. After using the technique for two years, I can say that it is the most efficient of all the techniques I have tried. Bertrand is a retired professor of German at a Paris university, who reports on the free private German lessons he gives to youths in the neighbourhood: Prevailing methodology is not suited to certain students. In my mind my task is to correct the errors of the textbook or of its approach. By error, I mean not so much a point of detail as the systematic refusal to use French apart from grammatical explanations. Victor, like Kemal, didn’t get much from the pictures in the textbook and because of this his understanding of the text, despite additional explanation from the teacher, was worse than vague. So I regularly asked him to translate the passages he was studying, and I quickly realized where he was not understanding and where he was misinterpreting. In the same way, I asked my three charges to give me back the new vocabulary working from German to French and from French to German … For me the interests of the child were far more important than the precepts and taboos of the accepted methodology. My results proved me right (Bertrand 1999, 303). Alternatively, we can look at a case involving a language lecturer at York University, who inspires everybody with her 50 participant strong Italian course: “She’s breaking every rule there is. She translates everything as she goes along, she mixes in a lot of grammar, she has students parroting phrases and answers” (Times Educational Supplement 3/ 10/ 1975). Another example is that of Michel Thomas, proclaimed by Hollywood stars and celebrities for his rapid, effective teaching of languages. His painstaking structuring and hierarchical teaching of skills in a direct instruction approach represent a fascinating contribution to FL practice. His teaching precepts and techniques run strongly counter to prevailing FL orthodoxy, yet many align with those permeating this book: MT support through explanations, literal translation and idiomatic translation into L1 of new vocabulary and phrases, pattern practice and manipulation interleaving the new with old, focusing on vocabulary and structures that are generalisable, making L1-L2 links, similarities and differences explicit, generating sentences of increasing complexity, early focus on accuracy and fluency before application, emphasis on pattern recognition, practising previous skills in new contexts (Solity 2008). He seems to have little truck with fashionable strategies such as discovery learning and group work; the teacher remains the model, leader and guide. 0.4 Bilingual methods and language courses More to the point, perhaps, is the fact that there are carefully crafted bilingual methods such as Suggestopaedia, which has enjoyed some popularity as an “alternative method” for teaching mature-age classes, as well as Curran’s (1976) counselling approach or “Community Language Learning” and Blair’s (1982) really innovative bilingual FL courses for adults. How is this possible? Can both sides be right - the avoidance of, indeed, the ban on the MT and its very opposite, its regular, systematic use in meaning conveyance? Not really, and so the successes of bilingual approaches are either explained away or ignored. People surmise that it is not the bilingual teaching techniques that are of critical importance, but rather the energetic and good-humoured personality of the lecturer in © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="20"?> 20 Introduction: A red card for the mother tongue? York, her meticulous planning; or it is Michel Thomas’s personal magnetism, the reduction of psychological barriers in Curran’s approach and the friendly, pleasant learning atmosphere created by the Suggestopaedia techniques, which are often accompanied by music and other aesthetic elements. Couldn’t it be that the regular translations do play a significant role? Why did the anthropologists and linguists who set up the Army Specialised Training Programme of the US Military during World War 2, with small classes rarely exceeding 10 students, two teachers (a linguist and a native speaker), and many contact hours per week, discard the direct principle and opt for bilingual meaning conveyance of new language material (Angiolillo 1947)? Did the programme fail to achieve its chief aim of developing the “ability to speak the language fluently”? Is it simply outmoded, worth consigning to the dustbin of history? What, then, about modern computer courses which use the MT in similar ways? It is self-evident that phrasebooks for tourists are bilingual. They are not meant to teach the language. However, there is an odd contrast between self-study courses for adults with a world wide success such as the Assimil-books, which make systematic and clever use of the MT in various ways, and the teaching manuals and course books used for schools. The schoolbooks are usually authored by members of the teaching profession and seem to obey a tradition and an official policy from which they are unable to free themselves. Non-schoolbook publishers don’t serve teachers and can only sell what works with the man in the street. 0.5 Spoilsports: teachers as learners Why do so many novice teachers have trouble applying the principles they have learned in their teacher education course and “default” to the MT, often in a haphazard, detrimental way (Pennington & Richards 1997)? Could it be there’s something wrong with the principles? It is even more revealing when accomplished teachers learn a new language and realize that, as learners, they want the very thing they are denying their own pupils. This, among other things, is what an English teacher noted down for herself when she was participating in a course on Modern Greek: “I’m not satisfied with getting the gist, I want to understand every word.” “Translating the text was good, lots of dictionary work.” “I’m going to learn the dialogue by heart, translate it into Greek and then back into English” (McDonough, 2002, 405). She sees the contradiction between what she feels comes naturally to her as a pupil and her own approach as a teacher, she sees it in her colleagues as well, but she does not offer any solution to resolve the dissonance. Rivers, author of several influential books on FLT, notes in “Learning a sixth language: an adult learner’s daily diary” (1979): I do make mental translations and these give me a feeling of security (p. 71). I am very frustrated by the lack of an English-Spanish glossary in my private textbook and other books. I will have to buy a small pocket English-Spanish, Spanish-English dictionary (p. 72). I check everything I want in the Sp/ Eng, Eng/ Sp dictionary which T. lent me (p. 73). I still feel not having an English-Spanish section in my textbook is a distinct disadvantage and hobbles me in trying to create new sentences (p. 74). Here is another FL teacher going through the experience of learning a FL himself: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="21"?> 0.6 Classroom research and the doggedness of dogma 21 Of course, meaning is central. So why did my course book tell me not to worry if I didn’t understand everything? On the contrary, faced with a teacher’s or course book’s refusal to help me understand everything, I was outraged and frustrated (Gower 1999, 12). The teacher stares down at the wide eyes of his new students, ‘Class. We are here to learn English. As of today, you are not to use any Japanese in this room. This is an “English-only” class.’ And it is from that moment, I would argue, that the class is lost … Much of my frustration with direct methods comes from my own experience being taught Japanese in such a way. Countless times I would hear the teacher make a statement, feel I “understood” each individual word, but had no idea what the sentence as a whole meant, reports Weschler (1997), who, as a teacher of Japanese, has changed to a “functionaltranslation method”. Likewise, Rinvolucri was courageous enough openly to admit a 180º turnabout: Thirty years ago I was so much part of the Direct Method orthodoxy of the day that I frowned on bilingual dictionaries and one day found myself miming the word ‘although’ in an elementary class … How had I managed to exclude my real experience as a language learner from my practice as a language teacher for so many years? (Deller & Rinvolucri 2002, 4). To these modern reports may be added past witnesses whose autobiographies bear testimony to the fact that they learned FLs successfully with bilingual texts (see chapter 2). Don’t we all know it in our bones: When we encounter a new piece of language, we want to know straight away and without further ado what it means precisely, so that we can put it to use immediately, work with it and make the most of it? Or are we content with inaccurate guessing and prepared to wait perhaps for weeks until the penny drops? Isn’t it only the “experts” who tell us that the slow struggle for comprehension with a teacher miming and arm-waving and drawing little stick-figures on the board is preferable? - Let us do what comes naturally - it is all so blindingly obvious. 0.6 Classroom research and the doggedness of dogma The imperative to abide by a doctrine of monolingualism cannot reconcile these opposing attitudes. 1967 saw the publication of C.J. Dodson’s groundbreaking work, Language teaching and the bilingual method. In it, Dodson presented a new bilingual method, which was a frontal attack on the ban on the mother tongue, conceived on the basis of a series of controlled experiments on teaching. As is very rarely the case in the field of FLT, Dodson’s work inspired researchers from various countries who tried either to replicate his experiments directly or to carry out similarly structured comparisons of methods. Bilingual techniques were found to be superior to their monolingual counterparts in studies by Sastri (1970) and Walatara (1973). Similar results were reported in a laboratory experiment closely modelled on Dodson by a group of Japanese researchers (Ishii et al., 1979). The most important study was a year long comparison of two classes by Meijer (1974), one bilingual, the other monolingual and audiovisual. Admittedly, this research is limited (when is there ever enough? ), but certainly it is research too weighty to be disregarded. Butzkamm’s doctoral dissertation Aufgeklärte Einsprachigkeit. Zur Entdogmatisierung der Methode im Fremdsprachenunterricht (Enlightened monolingualism. Taking the dogma out of FL methodology) came out in 1973. In the second edition (1978, 184) he argued that moving the © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="22"?> 22 Introduction: A red card for the mother tongue? supportive role of the MT from a marginal position to a central position amounted to a true paradigm shift. In 1978 Alexander published “An introduction to the bilingual method of teaching foreign languages”. Butzkamm (1980) reported on a successful two-year implementation of the bilingal approach in a German grammar school. Alexander & Butzkamm (1983) presented their current organization of bilingual method techniques, using protocols of typical classroom interactions. Dodson’s work was again validated by Kaczmarski (1988) in Poland and Caldwell (1990) in Australia. Kasjan’s (1995, 1996) feasibility studies on German for Japanese university students were also explicitly based on Dodson’s seminal work. The reactions have been, all in all, defiantly incurious. Ironically enough, Krashen (1981, 134f.), an influential writer in the eighties, reinforced the monolingual paradigm, although, for him, ‘comprehensible input’ was in fact the most important single factor in language acquisition. Too few have been willing to take a good look at alternative bilingual techniques and accept the challenge to rethink the old doctrines, which continue to trickle down from training colleges to practising teachers.The Anglo-American mainstream simply moves on undaunted. Many young native speakers from Anglophone countries have spilled out into the world and made a living teaching English. A great number of them teach their own language - at least, at first - without any relation to the culture and language of their pupils. Famous exceptions include the “greats” in our field: Harold Palmer in Japan, Michael West in India or, notably, the novelist and composer Anthony Burgess in Malaya and Brunei. “One cannot but suspect that this theory of rigid avoidance of the mother tongue may be in part motivated by the fact that the teacher of English does perhaps not know the learner’s mother tongue”, argues West (1962, 48). This “English-only” policy has, of late, been classified as “oppressive” (Canagarajah 1999) and “neocolonialistic” (Auerbach 1993, 13). In East Asia, direct method techniques “favoured by the British Council … have led to frustration, failure and financial waste. They have made rural masses shy away from English and reserved English as a preserve for the few” (Walatara 1973, 100). The international dominance of English native speakers, who find absolution in the dogma of monolingualism when they cannot understand the language of their pupils, together with the cheaper mass production of strictly English textbooks in the Anglo- American mother countries, constitutes one of the reasons behind the sanctification of, and the demand for, monolingualism in the classroom. It goes without saying that non-Anglophone speakers who teach their native languages abroad equally find the monolingual doctrine quite comfortable. It would, therefore, be wrong to attribute the whole blame to English colonial policies. Another major colonial power of the time, France, was also involved, perhaps even more so, given its customary attention to education and pedagogy with its very centralised system. Faced with the task of developing within its colonies citizens imbued with French humanism, which could best be attained though the eventual study of French literature, its expatriate largely monolingual teachers, of necessity, resorted to a direct method approach. In this, they were aided by pedagogical research and practice and the government-sponsored production of visual materials designed to allow direct method approaches with diverse language groups in Africa, Indochina, and elsewhere. The perceived success of this enforced approach, which responded to the particular colonial circumstances, was, in the end, not confined to these colonies. A small group of © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="23"?> 0.7 A professional neurosis 23 influential Parisian “activistes” embraced the direct method and made it mandatory in France, in what was called at the time a “coup d’état pédagogique” (Puren 1993, 49), for a brief period from 1908 until 1925, when new directives defused this quite false pedagogy, which had by then become ludicrous (“We all cheat on this direct method all the time except when the inspector comes”, a teacher quoted in Puren 1993, 78). The “méthode directe” was replaced by a “méthode active”, providing at least something of a positive outcome, the importance of active FL use, to a thoroughly nonsensical episode in L2 pedagogy. Nevertheless, the idea survived, and the direct approach was revitalized in the era of audiolingual and audiovisual textbooks of the sixties and seventies (e.g. Voix et images de France; La France en direct; Ecouter et parler, all of them with tapes, picture strips and -slides later to be replaced by videos), promoted and supported pedagogically by government institutions. 0.7 A professional neurosis There is yet another major reason why the monolingual idea has become the prevailing “didactical correctness” to date, and it has nothing to do with expatriate teachers. A great many teachers in Europe towards the end of nineteenth century used the grammar-translation method because they could not teach otherwise. They had not had enough living contacts with the language themselves and lacked the oral flexibility to conduct lessons through the FL. The time was indeed ripe for the Great Reform brought about by those who did have the necessary language skills. Ever since those days there has been a deep concern, and quite rightly so, about teachers’ language proficiency. Even in modern Europe, student observations like the following are not infrequent: The teacher did not structure the course at all. She exclusively used her mother tongue, German, throughout the lessons. I even suspected that she knew no French at all. She panicked nearly every time she had to explain a grammatical problem, saying that it would be too difficult for us. Nicola I actually had two terrible teachers whom we did not respect at all, because they themselves did not really know the language they tried to teach us. In the lower grades it might still be possible for the teacher to hide behind a textbook most of the time, but later when some pupils took part in exchange programs, the situation became unbearable. In the case of my English class almost half of the students spoke better English than the teacher. The result was that the teacher, who was not a strong personality anyway and always had authority problems, was boycotted by most of us, which led to a terrible tension in the class. Jessica Unfortunately, my Spanish teacher was unable to speak Spanish himself so I gave up Spanish after only one year. Yasmin This, of course, is irresponsible teacher behaviour, and governments in various places have in fact reacted to such perceived inadequacies, through changes in the examination structure, to encourage attention to the oral capabilities of teacher-trainees and hence improvement in teachers’ proficiency. In ministerial guidelines teachers were instructed to conduct lessons in the FL, and the use of the MT was given a bad name. Pressures to constrain teachers to a monolingual approach were motivated by a well-intentioned desire to have teachers improve their personal language proficiency and indeed their interactivity through the target language. In Hong Kong, the Government went as far as to force less well-trained teachers to undergo proficiency tests, with their jobs on the © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="24"?> 24 Introduction: A red card for the mother tongue? line. This was the stick to coerce them into making the necessary effort, whether to go abroad for the appropriate language immersion, or to stay at home and apply themselves with the required diligence, discipline and jolly hard work through continuing education. “English-only” became a badge of honour among EFL teachers, and MT free lessons almost a religious principle for those who were capable of teaching in this way. Add to this that the best teachers tend to get the best teaching conditions: selective schools, the best classes in the form, senior classes where monolingual teaching is easiest. These teachers, of course, are largely those with superior outcomes in their own language study, better application to their continuing L2 education, significant, beneficial experiences of immersion and so on. In such circumstances, where they habitually lead their pupils to superior L2 achievement, they are unlikely to see the need for any radical change, in line with the old adage, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. With students of superior ability, high motivation to succeed and the mental agility to handle the challenges of monolingualism, these teachers have little incentive further to analyze and reflect on their teaching or experiment with other approaches. When confronted with other levels of ability and lower attainment in their students, they may attribute the difficulties simply to the quality of the students themselves. We are often so walled in by our past experiences that we are unable to emerge to the challenge of the new. These superior practitioners also are naturally the ones who end up as the profession’s leaders: teacher educators, inspectors, applied linguists, members and chairs of examination boards and curriculum and syllabus committees, leaders of language teachers’ professional organisations, leaders of workshops, speakers at conferences, writers of journal articles and authors. The monolingual approach has become a matter of faith with them, deep faith. It is little wonder that for a long time the main voices heard and heeded have been those that advocate monolingual teaching - with or without the usual concessions. Whenever the MT is mentioned there is a neurotic fear that incompetent teachers, so embarrassing to the profession, are involved, that the dams will break and the MT will pour into the FL classrooms. Since a profession needs to see itself as well-trained and competent, we believe that the profession has fallen victim to a huge historical neurosis. Why else should a self-crippling mistake have held sway for such a long time? What teachers need is a near-native proficiency in the FL, but definitely not a mother tongue phobia. It bears repeating: The baby has been thrown out with the bathwater. 0.8 The alternative: the mother tongue as a base for reference We here present a theory that restores the MT to its rightful place as the most important ally a foreign language can have, one which would, at the same time, redeem some 2000 years of documented foreign-language teaching where MT support was taken for granted. The MT is for all school subjects, including foreign languages, a child’s strongest ally and can be systematically used to great effect. In contrast, methodology throughout the twentieth century has been dominated by a negative metaphor: Foreign language teachers build islands that are in constant danger of being flooded by the sea of the mother tongue. They have to hold back this sea, build dams against it, stem its tide. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="25"?> 0.8 The alternative: the mother tongue as a base for reference 25 This much is true: Every new language is confronted by an already-existing MT. All languages are competitors in the sense that if they are not used, they may be lost, and there is only a limited amount of time that can be shared between them. Precisely because the mother tongue is always available, it is so easy to avoid using the foreign language - a constant temptation for pupils and teachers. Any use of the MT needs justifying, simply because we do not learn any language by mostly using another one. This is trite, but sometimes the trite has to be stated. It is a truth that has nonetheless led to false beliefs. Fortunately, good teaching does not always depend on good theory. In contrast to these false beliefs and the negative view of the MT in the classroom, a coherent theory of positive MT support will be developed. It will be shown that monolingual orthodoxy, with or without concessions, is untenable in every respect. However, by this, we do not mean to throw out a single monolingual technique, simple or sophisticated. The bilingual techniques described here are clearly intended to enrich existing methodologies, and not to impoverish them. “Bringing the L1 back from exile may lead not only to the improvement of existing teaching methods but also to innovations in methodology” (Cook 2001, 419). The most important means of acquiring an FL is certainly the FL itself, because in many respects, a language teaches itself. But the second most important means is the learners’ MT. It should be employed regularly and systematically, and in its fullest form where that is appropriate. Future teachers should have a large variety of complementary well-tried techniques, both monolingual and bilingual, at their disposal, and they will have to decide which of them will serve their purpose best in a particular classroom and its cultural context. Also, teachers who are to produce bilinguals should themselves be bilingual, i.e. be reasonably fluent speakers of both target language and the native language of their pupils. This book not only seeks to redress an imbalance, which in itself would certainly be a step towards resolving the current guilt-embedded methodological muddle, but argues, with Dodson (1967, 16), that drastic re-thinking of FL methodology is called for. This is the essence of our theory: The knowledge and skills acquired through and with the MT provide the foundation for FL learning and teaching. It is at bottom a simple idea, of the kind that evokes the response: “Why haven’t we thought of it before? ” © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="26"?> Chapter 1: Teaching English through English - with the help of the mother tongue 1 1.1 Message-orientation and mother tongue Language is activity, purposeful activity, and we should never lose sight of the speaking individuals and of their purpose in acting in this particular way. Otto Jespersen Language learning is learning how to mean. M.A.K. Halliday With regard to the MT controversy, the number one question asked is: Should we conduct lessons through the FL? Our answer is an unequivocal yes. This answer invites the second question: Does this mean the exclusion of the MT from the classroom? The answer is an equally unequivocal no. This chapter reaffirms the pre-eminent role of FL input and oral interaction in the classroom. However, the mediating role of the MT is the most significant complementary factor in attaining message-oriented discourse and creating a FL atmosphere in the classroom. Rightly used, the MT is the natural ally teachers and students have in moving from a focus on form to a focus on message and establishing the FL as the medium of instruction. 1.2 Immersion, the natural way The MT taboo derives much of its force and appeal from the desire to imitate first language acquisition. Children have no other language to refer to when they start to understand. And when they start talking, they don’t think of the language. They want to communicate, to understand and be understood. Just as their parents want to. Language is a means to an end, never an end in itself. Live the language and love it, because with it and through it, we understand the loved ones around us and become part of their exciting world. Later, as adults, we, too, feel that we have not really mastered a new language until we have lived and worked in it and can get along without falling back on our MT. Total immersion seems the best way, the natural way of acquiring a FL. It is here that we are most likely to encounter the real practicalities of human interaction and to learn our lessons from them, as did Corinna. She remembers the following conversation with her host family on a school exchange in year 9: Couple: “We’re going out tonight.” I: “Okay.” Couple: “We’re going to play cards with friends.” I: “Okay.” 1 Throughout this book, we refer generally to the teaching of English as a FL, since it is undoubtedly the most wide-spread FL taught globally. It should, however, be seen as the prototypical instance of FL teaching. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="27"?> 1.2 Immersion, the natural way 27 Couple: “Do you mind? ” I: “Yes.” Couple (shocked): “What? Do you want us to stay home? ” I: “Uuuuuuhmm … WHAT? ” I did not understand most of the things when they were saying them the first time and therefore only answered with “yes” or “okay”. Usually, it had worked well for me, but that time I really put my foot in it. Ever since I’ve tried to listen more carefully or ask people to repeat things. I never want to be in that kind of embarrassing situation again. The next best thing to living abroad is to create a comprehensive FL environment within one’s own country. In medieval monastery schools the pupils used to learn Latin by speaking it all day long. Nothing but Latin, even when making the beds and cleaning the lavatories. And how seriously it was taken! Sometimes the teachers appointed little spies to sneak on classmates who broke the rule of Latin only. This was also the method favoured with modern languages in the few boarding schools that offered them. In 1573, schoolboys at Southampton Grammar School were compelled to speak French at meal times. “He who spoke English, though only a sentence, was obliged to wear a fool’s cap at meals and stand aside and watch the rest eat”(Hawkins 1981, 100). In other schools, offenders were under the rule of the rod. This was also true for pupils who spoke indigenous minority languages such as Welsh or Breton, or African and Asian languages in English-only colonial schools. In London, Thomas Tryon, the pacifist and early advocate of vegetarianism (†1703), proposed a school where nothing but French and Latin should be spoken in the hearing of the pupils. “The school should stand apart, so that the pupils have no intercourse with ‘wild’ children” (Lambley 1920, 395). Gwen Raverat (1962, 73f.), Darwin’s grand-daughter, reports from more recent times: Every morning, after Prayers, we were asked: Will anyone who spoke English yesterday hold up her hand’. Generally about three people held up their hands and got their bad marks; for our consciences were not too particular about a word here or there … Mademoiselle’s unsleeping ardour could be trusted to make her come pouncing out of the study, if ever anyone in the farthest corner of the house (or so it seemed) spoke English, or said shocking things like: ‘Je vais faire mon cheveu’; or ‘Etes-vous froid? ’ And she really did teach us to speak French without false shame, which is half the battle. Along the same lines, individual schools and language teachers’ organizations have thought of new stimulating venues such as weekend language camps where students are able to engage in extra-curricular activities from which new vocabulary and structures can be derived. In Huangang, China, a separate “English village” was set up associated with the university where only English would be spoken. This is a logical extension of the ubiquitous English corner on the grounds of Chinese universities and local parks, where any innocent westerner on a Sunday sight-seeing stroll risks being ambushed by avid local students of English, bent on extracting the maximum English language contact time from all-comers. More deliberate ventures abound within the university buildings proper, such as English tea-rooms or coffee-shops or Japanese tea ceremonies, where speaking the respective target language is mandatory. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="28"?> 28 Chapter 1: Teaching English through English - with the help of the mother tongue 1.3 Between the lexicon and grammar There are good linguistic reasons why only massive exposure to a full range of the language facts will produce competent speakers. Modern corpus-based linguistics has brought to light that large amounts of language fall between the lexicon and core grammar. They are usually referred to as phraseology. Languages force a competent user to memorize many thousands of arbitrary words and many thousands of more or less idiomatic, ready-made phrases, which fill a vast middle ground between arbitrary words and neat and orderly, law-abiding, predictable constructions of the grammatical core. A major part of human linguistic competence - much more than previously recognised - involves the mastery of all kinds of more or less fixed, semi-fixed and semi-productive expressions, i.e. mixed constructions that are neither purely arbitrary nor purely rulegoverned, apart from “real” idioms, routine formulas and frozen collocations. Consider the variety of form-meaning pairs with “feel like”, as viewed from a German perspective: I feel like you. Ich fühle wie du. I felt like a failure. Ich fühlte mich wie ein Versager. I felt like an idiot. Ich fühlte mich wie ein Idiot. I feel like a cigarette. Ich habe Lust auf eine Zigarette. I feel like another glass of wine. Ich hätte ganz gerne noch ein Glas Wein. I don’t feel like dancing. Ich habe keine Lust zu tanzen. I didn’t feel like talking. Ich hatte keine Lust zu reden. I didn’t feel like sleeping with him. Ich hatte keine Lust, mit ihm zu schlafen. Do you feel like you’re being ignored? Hast du das Gefühl, man übersieht dich? Do you feel like you’re being watched? Hast du das Gefühl, du wirst beobachtet? Do you feel like you’re being treated Hast du das Gefühl, du wirst gerecht fairly? behandelt? I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t feel like I was making a difference. Have you ever felt like you were addicted to tobacco? Mir war, als ob ich nicht mehr atmen könnte. Ich hatte nicht das Gefühl, dass ich in irgendeiner Weise zählte. Hast du je das Gefühl gehabt, du seiest süchtig nach Tabak? The following phrase expressing incredulity, albeit a fully productive construction, is generally not to be found in school grammars: Him be a teacher? Er soll Lehrer sein? Your brother help me? Dein Bruder soll mir helfen? Here is an instance of a mixed construction, i.e. a productive but idiomatic phrase: As luck As chance As conventional wisdom As cynics ⎫⎪⎬⎪⎭ would have it Besides such at least partially productive constructions, native speakers use a great many quirky, idiosyncratic, non-canonical and ungeneralizable phrases that really torment FL learners. Even if different languages basically use the same phrase with the same meaning, there are unpredictable differences: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="29"?> 1.4 The critical mass hypothesis 29 He won’t forget that in a hurry. You don’t get something for nothing. You can’t be too careful. Das wird er so schnell nicht vergessen. Es gibt nichts umsonst. Man kann nie vorsichtig genug sein. Il ne l’oubliera pas de sitôt On n’a rien pour rien. On n’est jamais trop prudent. Many errors in language production arise from such L2 expressions which are quite transparent and yet differ in partial, often subtle ways from one’s MT. How can students within the limited classroom time get contact with one-offs such as “utter nonsense”, “the city proper” or “How ya doing? ” Many a word must not only be stored just once as a separate lexical entry, but several times as part of larger formulaic sequences which function as a cohesive unit and can be retrieved whole from memory - phrasal lexemes, as it were. Over and above that, constructions are continually in flux. Eva Hoffman (1990, 119), whose family emigrated from Poland when she was thirteen, feels that she has lost her sense of humour: Real mastery comes with a trust in your own verbal powers, which alone makes possible a free streaming of speech, quick responses, jokes well told, spontaneous humour … Ah, the humiliation, the misery of failing to amuse … It will take years before I pick and choose, from the Babel of American language, the style of wit that fits. It will take years of practice before its nuances and patterns snap smartly into the synapses of my brain so they can generate verbal electricity. Even in the fundamentally bilingual tertiary education scene in Hong Kong, it is remarkable how apparently lacklustre, reserved, ostensibly timid colleagues suddenly transmogrify into unrestrained leaders, commanders of wit and verbal force, once the linguistic shackles of English are removed. It is equally noticeable how enthusiastically their local audience celebrates their release. Everyone is a fool outside his own language, Anthony Sampson famously said. To sum up: Our active language use (and to a much lesser degree, our understanding) depends on encountering language in a broad range of functional contexts which no classroom can provide. The messy and murky middle ground of spoken language especially has to be experienced live. 1.4 The critical mass hypothesis Amount of exposure is critical to language acquisition. That’s why the efforts to extend contact time with the FL go in the right direction. Only sufficient time in language bath contexts can furnish the multitudinous examples of language expressions for the discernment of recurring grammatical structure and lexical meanings and choices. Total immersion from nursery school on can perhaps provide the necessary amount of comprehensible input, even if 15 children share just one skilled speaker. But it would be hopeless to attempt to mimic naturalistic environments in the normal classroom. Here a “natural method” modelled on first language acquisition and on the immersion idea alone is an illusion - mainly because of the time handicap. Consider the sheer amount of time young children spend on language compared to the time set aside for the FL in schools or language courses. L1 acquisition takes several © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="30"?> 30 Chapter 1: Teaching English through English - with the help of the mother tongue years in which children hear millions of utterances. The preschool children of the Bristol Study (Wells 1985) heard an estimated 5000-7000 utterances per day. These figures were confirmed by Hart and Risley (1995), who for two and a half years studied the spoken interactions between parents and children in 42 families. They spent one hour per month with each family in the home, recording every word spoken between parent and child, so that eventually they had amassed 1,300 transcripts of approximately 20 pages each. Their data clearly revealed that the most important aspect of children’s language experience is its amount. “With few exceptions, the more parents talked to their children, the faster the children’s vocabularies were growing and the higher the children’s IQ test scores at age three and later.” Young children are attentive to what people are saying perhaps 10 hours a day, or 70 hours a week. Contrast that with students who spend a mere 5-6 hours a week in a conventional language class. It seems absurd to count seconds here, as Atkinson does: “Every second spent using the L1 is a second not spent using English - and every second counts” (Atkinson 1993, 12). Even granted the faster learning rate of older children, classrooms can never provide enough exposure for the learners to sort out the many bewildering complexities of a language by themselves. The language acquisition mystique behind the language bath idea is fundamentally flawed. Mere exposure to the FL does not lead to learning, simply because there’s never enough of it. The evidence they get is too slender for them to extract patterns and extrapolate rules. And apart from the time handicap teachers have to cope with, classrooms radically differ from L1 acquisition situations in other aspects: • Fifteen to thirty learners have to share one mature, accomplished speaker, whereas in families communication with the infant is usually one-to-one. • The new language cannot really be lived: it cannot be used while eating, cooking, going shopping or quite generally doing things where the meaning clearly springs from the situation at hand. • There is no urgency behind FL use because there is always another language to fall back on to satisfy immediate communicative needs. • Never can the FL become the medium of intimacy and love to the extent that the MT quite naturally is in child-parent interactions. Parents greet new words with delight and actively encourage their child to go on talking. ‘Had we but world enough and time …’ So no matter what we do, there is a dearth of comprehensible input from, interaction with, and feedback from mature speakers, a dearth for which we have to find some sort of compensation by artful pedagogy. Neglecting the time restraints of the classroom is the fundamental error made by those who derive teaching principles and practices from acquisition theories. 1.5 We cannot start small again In addition to these five handicaps there is still another powerful factor, largely ignored, which makes FL learning completely different from first language learning. It now seems that infants are actually at an advantage when they start out with a limited working memory that only gradually matures to an adultlike state. “Starting small”, as they do, they can attend only to some of the language they hear (Elman 1993). Step by © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="31"?> 1.6 Creating a foreign language atmosphere in the classroom 31 step, they will tackle the more complex things later when they are ready for them and their memory capacity has expanded. They make increasing use of forms and meanings they already have to acquire more language, until they arrive ultimately at an adult grammar. It is what teacher and textbook also do but quite differently when they grade their materials and introduce new words and structures in small packages. Young developing brains thus accomplish their own sequencing of the learning tasks before them - something which cannot be copied by adults. We simply cannot “start small” again. Any FLT approach which claims to be natural and analogous to first language learning turns out to be an impossibility. However, immersion in the FL cannot be wrong as such. After all, we learn to use a language by actually using it, not by doing something else. Can we create opportunities for natural FL use by taking into account the handicaps and constraints of classrooms, instead of ignoring them and enforcing a FL-only approach? There is one obvious compensation for the missing “naturalness”: Foreign language learners already have a language, and can dispose of the skills infants and young children have continually been developing over the years. They have an adult memory capacity and processing span which they can build on. Most of them know how to read and write and are aware of how the printed word segments the sound-stream. Students must use the knowledge and skills they already possess through their mother tongue in order to advance their FL. It is the lifeline learners need when we immerse them in the sea of a new language. The resources, both conceptual and linguistic, which a child brings to the FL classroom can act as a powerful motor which propels the process of learning a FL. Paradoxically, it is by means of MT support that we can maximize FL input. This paradox needs to be clarified. 1.6 Creating a foreign language atmosphere in the classroom The experts agree: Teachers should wrap their pupils in a cocoon of spoken language, so that it is not only an object of study but also an effective medium for conducting the normal business of the classroom. When asking for the whereabouts of absent children, when the photos of a school celebration are viewed and ordered, when money is collected for a school trip etc - it is in such real-life functions that the classroom best resembles automatic, unreflected language use in the world outside where language is firmly embedded in the immediate context and has real consequences. But again and again it is lamented that many teachers do not manage to provide this language bath. What happens is precisely what everyone wants to avoid. Instead of filling students’ ears with the foreign sounds, the teacher just goes on speaking in L1, perhaps apart from a handful of standard formulas. Praise and criticism, handing back tests, organising the lesson plan and a host of other things including the teacher’s favourite anecdotes, everything is conducted in L1. Almost all of our students had at least one such lax teacher who failed to exploit the ideal opportunities to use the foreign language as a genuine means of communication: He only spoke English with his pupils when we worked with our books lying in front of us. Viktor © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="32"?> 32 Chapter 1: Teaching English through English - with the help of the mother tongue I recall four different English teachers of whom the first one never spoke English in the classroom except when it was required in the textbook. Melanie For ‘real’ messages the teacher used German. Guido This is the main tragedy of foreign language lessons. A teacher keeps a diary and complains: Far too often I lapse back into my first language. I am quite aware that the message contained in this is: if it’s business, it’s in the first language … I resolve to try to use English in the classroom more often (Appel 1995, 87). Such deficits are confirmed by systematically conducted studies like the one carried out by Mitchell, who analysed over one hundred French lessons at four Scottish schools. She also found that “extensive FL use for classroom management purposes was feasible, given a higher level of personal commitment (and FL fluency) on the part of individual teachers, and also an ability to sustain a positive working atmosphere; a concerted departmental approach seemed helpful even to the most committed individual teachers” (Mitchell 1988, 164). Classrooms provide rich authentic situations for communication. Examples, on the part of the teacher: It’s nice to see you back / We are one copy short / Could you share your book with Bernd? / No hyphen, write it as one word / A clear case of German English, probably a straight translation / Can you fill me in on what she’s just said? / Let’s try singing it in another key, that was too highpitched for some of us / Let’s pick up from where we were at / I saw your hand shoot up first. On the part of the pupil: Sorry, which question are we on? / Do you happen to have…? / Will these questions come up in the test? Excuse me, I haven’t had my turn yet / Are we supposed to work on this in groups? / Thomas keeps clicking his ballpoint pen, he is driving me crazy / Perhaps I haven’t understood this properly, could you please rephrase it? / I am stuck on the first word in that sentence, I can’t make it out at all. Although typical classroom phrases constitute to some extent a special register, most of them don’t cease to be useful in the world outside school. Apart from the fact that grammar is always on board and can be absorbed from all sorts of phrases, a wide range of functions basic to everyday conversation can be covered. Classroom management in the FL is a way to build bridges between the classroom and the real world. A particularly promising way of using the FL is to accustom the pupils to a kind of classroom courtesy: “That’s an interesting point you’ve just made, and we will have to keep it in mind. But now I wonder what the others think about it.” “I’m pleased to see this group working so well.” “I’m afraid this table didn’t hear what you’ve just said. Could you say it again, please? ” “Can I take it from what you’ve just said that…? ” “If I understand you correctly, you mean that…” Mmm, I’ll have to think about that.” With teachers as good role models pupils will learn how to say no tactfully (“I’d really rather not …”) and will be made familiar with question tags and typical English discourse-structuring gambits such as understaters (“as far as I know”), hedges (“that depends”), uptakers (“yeees”), cajolers (“come on”) etc. Such “modality markers are under-used by learners of English as compared to native speakers” (Trosborg 1987, 166). They will serve them well in new and more challenging environments outside the classroom. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="33"?> 1.7 The sandwich technique and its bilingual counterpart 33 The native speaker is in a better position here as he can think on his feet, and it is advisable for non-native speakers to have a back-up supply of phrases at their disposal. Non-native speakers should be careful to avoid the overuse of simple imperatives (“repeat, please! ”), and, generally, should be sensitive to the fact that they provide a model of the native speaker to pupils, who are not in a position to be critical in this regard. Classroom life thus generates meaning-focused interactions and constitutes a valuable source for language acquisition. It is spoken language which the pupils experience live with paralinguistic support. It can therefore be counterproductive if methodologists, in a desire to be more relaxed about the use of L1, “permit” the use of L1 in the giving of instructions and announcements, in the discussion of classroom methodology, or when “working in pairs studying a reading text” (Harmer 2001, 132). This is the kind of compromise which avoids the resolution of a basic issue. 1.7 The sandwich technique and its bilingual counterpart Let the teacher know the mother-tongue of the boys exactly, so that by means of their vernacular he may make his instruction easier and more pleasant for them. Juan-Luis Vives, 1531 For as long as the lesson lasts, teacher and pupils should live the language. Must then the mother tongue be banished from lessons? On no account. A clear distinction must be made between a functional use of the foreign language and traditional methodological monolingualism. Paradoxically, a targeted yet discreet use of L1 makes it easier to achieve a foreign language atmosphere in the classroom. If it is done properly the foreign language is initially only robbed of a negligible amount of time, but can then become the vehicular language of the lesson much more quickly. Authentic transactions can be carried out, creating a genuine foreign language atmosphere, except perhaps for the first few hours of instruction. So we strongly advise not only explaining monolingually, through objects, pictures, demonstrations, gestures, enactment, when this is unproblematical and would be clearly understood by all students, but also proceeding bilingually, as in the following: French teacher of English: “What’s the matter? Qu’y a-t-il? What’s the matter”? German teacher of English: “You’ve skipped a line. Du hast eine Zeile übersprungen. You’ve skipped a line.” - “I mean the last but one word. Das vorletzte Wort. The last but one word.” This technique of sandwiching the translation of an unknown expression can be carried out very discreetly in the tone of an aside, as a kind of whispered interpreting. It should be a central technique of any foreign language teacher as it is the quickest way to make authentic classroom communication possible: statement in L2, restatement in L1 and again in L2; L2 → L1 → L2. The student should be offered input which is sufficiently rich and varied if you want him to acquire the language. The first step is to use the target language as much as possible for classroom management: “pull the blinds down; so-and-so, come and clean the blackboard; so-and-so, why are you late”, etc. But it is very important to make this input comprehensible, otherwise all our efforts to instil the language are wasted. We can make expressive gestures and mime, but it is not always easy or even possible. That’s why we can’t do without translation. There’s nothing at all wrong with asking a pupil “Why are you late? Pourquoi es-tu en retard? Why are you late? (Cormon 1992, 21). © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="34"?> 34 Chapter 1: Teaching English through English - with the help of the mother tongue It is to be regretted that a competent and experienced practitioner and teacher educator with an intuitive grasp of student needs should have been brought to feel so defensive about the natural supportive use of the MT. The latter is indispensable because of the improvisational nature of much of classroom talk where participants come up with unforeseen problems and teachers are caught unaware and must react in an unrehearsed, yet natural manner. The language required is often more complex and beyond the language taught concurrently in the coursebook. The teacher’s sandwich technique has a bilingual counterpart on the part of the pupils: Whenever words that they had not yet learned came up they slipped in the German equivalent but switched back to English straight away. Mr X would take up the words or phrases at some point and teach the English expressions. In an extra exercise book the pupils wrote down these expressions and built up their vocabulary respectively. Stefanie By contrast, consider the following observation: Teacher: Und jetzt noch schnell die Hausaufgabe. Jeder schreibt auf, wie viel Taschengeld er monatlich bekommt und wie er es für seine Freizeitaktivitäten ausgibt. Pupil: Was heißt “sparen”? T: Du kannst nur Sachen nehmen, die du selber auf Englisch kennst. (T: And now quickly the homework. I want you all to write down how much pocket money you get a month and how you spend it. P: What does “sparen” (save) mean? T: You can only use words you already know in English.) The mistake is not only setting the homework in L1. The refusal to supply the FL word and the instruction to stick to the vocabulary in the coursebook completely destroy any attempt at message-orientation. Pupils should be free to ask how to say things in the FL, or should simply insert the MT expression, rather than stop talking. On no account must the teacher forbid pupils to do this, but rather seize on their remarks and provide them with the missing equivalent: English pupil: Comment dit-on: I don’t care? Or perhaps: It makes no difference to me? French Teacher: Dis: ça m’est égal. German pupil: “Ich wollt das auch sagen.” Teacher: “Oh, I see. In English it is: “I was going to say the same” Try it, please.” German pupil: “Können wir mal was anderes machen? ” Teacher: “You mean: Can’t we do something else? ” German pupil: “Aber ich hab doch nichts getan! “ Teacher: You should say: “But I haven’t done anything! ” The teacher will give “I haven’t done anything” even if the pupils have not yet been introduced to the present perfect tense. In our system linguistic aids like this should not be postponed. Pupils learn these items as a single ‘one-off’ unit, like an idiom, to be used only in the context of a particular situation. The human brain is constantly looking for regularities, without us being aware of it; and so, a great deal of learning “by osmosis” can take place. Accordingly the teacher in the following example is wrong in principle, although he is praised here by the student teacher: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="35"?> 1.8 In praise of discipline and consistency 35 Sometimes a pupil said something in German. The teacher always answered in English. This meant that the pupils heard as much English as possible and most of the time were able to understand what the teacher said. Example: Pupil: “Ich hab das anders.” (I’ve got something different) Teacher: “What have you written? ” Nicole If we want the pupils to intervene in L2, they need the sentence “I’ve got something else / different”, and we have to provide them with it. Rivers, in her language learning diary (1979, 74) confesses: “One feels such an idiot when one cannot express one´s own personality at least from time to time.” 1.8 In praise of discipline and consistency Using the sandwich technique when a new expression crops up has nothing to do with the haphazard and lax behaviour of some teachers who always translate when they are afraid of not being understood, no matter whether the translation had already been given previously. By the same token, the sandwich technique should not be confused with “concurrent translation” as illustrated by Wong-Fillmore in ESL classes in the USA (1985, 34ff.). Here, the MT is used as an all too easy escape, and no special effort is made to express oneself clearly in the FL, with all the necessary adjustments. The consequence is that the pupils tend to ignore the FL instructions coming from the teacher, as they can count on getting the information in their MT. Especially in weak classes teachers feel they are right in translating every single instruction again and again to make sure everyone knows what to do. So the pupils are not challenged at all. Here, indeed, the floodgates have opened and the MT is pouring in. Lasting success is only achieved when both teachers and pupils practise the same discipline: expressions which have been clarified have to be used consistently without resorting to L1. It is important for the pupils to write the new expressions down in an extra exercise book - maybe at the end of the lesson - and learn them so that they do not need to be given again next time round. Modern technology, a laptop computer and wireless LAN, would allow these expressions to be simultaneously recorded and projected in the classroom, perhaps with the help of an official student recorder using the laptop. MT expressions that come from the pupils spontaneously also need to be written up and collected. Only then can the teacher insist on the use of the FL phrases, and indeed must now do so - henceforth the same expressions in the MT are proscribed. If we keep some self-discipline, so will our pupils, and we need not fear a break in the dam. After all, prior learning must always be taken seriously, reckoned with, and made to serve as contexts for interpreting new experiences. Special efforts seemed to be required if pupils were to reciprocate their teachers’ managerial use of French on any regular basis. The explicit teaching of an appropriate repertoire of exponents, plus persistent rejection of pupils’ L1 initiatives, seem to be necessary to bring this about (Mitchell 1988, 163). Teachers have to be assertive enough and exert active pressure for pupils to adopt the FL as their own language of self-expression. Most of the students’ responses were given in German. I think that the teacher should have been more consistent in using the target language. Although I liked her very much, I think it is a serious mistake to be inconsistent here. Ulrike © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="36"?> 36 Chapter 1: Teaching English through English - with the help of the mother tongue FL teachers should take concerted action and use the FL as the normal working language. Using the MT too freely is a difficult habit to break. “Pupils’ reluctance to use target language is a recurring theme in reports from the Office for Standards in Education” (Thomas 1998, 20). Some student teachers even report aggressive reactions on behalf of pupils when faced with higher expectations regarding the use of the target language. But the L1 expression must be made taboo once it has been given, so the MT has made itself redundant. The teacher interrupts the pupil’s MT contribution and asks another pupil to supply the correct expression. If teachers are consistent in rejecting the MT for familiar expressions, fears that the sandwich technique might lead to an excessive dependency on the MT are totally unfounded. In fact, the opposite is the case. In order to prevent pupils from being too easily tempted into using the MT when unnecessary, it has been suggested that students should announce their intention to use the MT, perhaps by holding something, a stone, a dictionary, or a card inscribed “I’m going to use X (their MT)”. There could also be an extra “MT chair” for those who have to say something more substantial in their MT. An English-only puppet has also been used by teachers for phases when the MT should be totally excluded. The gradual process of getting used to and staying in the foreign language is not hindered but furthered if L1 provides an initial understanding. Harold Palmer distinguished between a quick, initial grasp of meaning and the subsequent acquisition of fluency in using the new language items, the latter requiring considerable time and effort. Perhaps the terms “identification” (identifying meaning) and “fusion” - fusing the new language into the already existing language - as used by Palmer / Redman (1969, 96f.) are best. This important distinction was forgotten when the pendulum swung in the 1960s to audio-visual methods … Insecure teachers, anxious to be in the fashion, were to be seen going through every kind of contortion … trying to get precise meanings across to their class without letting slip a word of English (Hawkins 1981, 133). There may be an unhelpful confusion here with the strict immersion dictum of “une personne, une langue” (Ronjat 1913), with its special relevance to pre-school and early years family-based promotion of bilingualism, where this principle has been shown to be quite effective. Lado (1964, 121) typically wants the teacher to get the meaning to the class “without using translation, except possibly as a last resort … This is proposed because if we use the first language every time any real communication is necessary, the target language will remain a useless curiosity rather than the vital communication system that it is.” Lado’s error is not to make the above distinction between identification and fusion. 1.9 Undesired side effects of stubborn monolingualism Anxiously avoiding the mother tongue can impair the communicative quality of a lesson. Vocabulary questions are simply brushed off: Both in English and in French the teachers only wanted us to use known vocabulary in our essays. We had to express ourselves using these words which we had already learned. But I often felt a real urge to say something which I could only express with a new word, which I consequently looked up in a German-English dictionary. I still remember the negative reaction when I included these new words in my essays. I considered this to be rather ridiculous, as it merely widened my vocabulary - so why was it objected to? Sonja © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="37"?> 1.9 Undesired side effects of stubborn monolingualism 37 We were not allowed to come up with words or expressions we had picked up elsewhere. Lots of pupils were frustrated and felt blocked in their acquisition of language. Susanne The students were working at a textbook exercise. It was a story of two young people meeting at a camp ground. One of the students was trying to go beyond the text in some way and was really floundering. The teacher didn’t offer anything in FL but said that they should try to compose sentences for which they already knew the vocabulary and the structures. Candace Related to this is the plight of the only fully bilingual child we have occasionally witnessed in an EFL class. How deadly boring it must be for him to sit through a whole lesson and never be in the least bit intellectually challenged, watching the clock and struggling with agonies of sleepiness! Mindful, sensitive teachers will not neglect them. English at school turned out to be a real flop and I lost interest. I was not allowed to use any vocabulary the children in my class had not learnt, so I did not even say much in class, as I was afraid to use a word I was not allowed to. Alison, who was brought up bilingually by an English mother and German father. The first job of any teacher is to communicate clearly and effectively. The following observations confirm that communicative quality and the generous provision of word and comprehension aids in L1 go hand in hand: The “red vocabulary” book was reserved for words he taught us separately from our textbook. For instance when someone had a cold and sneezed, he taught us to say “God bless you”, or if we were talking about our holidays and needed new words we were given them. Thus we developed extensive word power for everyday life, and in the tests there was always one section that dealt with “red vocabulary”. Nadine The atmosphere was always very relaxed and playful. We were allowed to ask about all kinds of words including colloquial words or idioms. Our teacher was of the opinion that words we asked about were of some special interest to us. Therefore, he asked us to keep a separate vocabulary booklet for such occasions, this way he thought that we would keep the words in mind more effectively. Christina Our teacher was very pleased when we used new vocabulary in our class tests and honoured this effort with good marks. He even introduced these words to the whole class so that everybody could profit from it. I was always flattered when he chose one of my words. Bernadette Our student teachers frequently observe that teachers praise in the foreign language and reprimand in their mother tongue: Teachers used their mother tongue for shouting. e.g.: “Wenn hier jetzt nicht Ruhe ist, dann setze ich euch zwei auseinander. Es reicht! ” (If you don’t settle down I’ll separate you two. That’s enough! ”) Sabine She used German when she was angry. This is all too human. When people lose their temper, the native language takes over. Christian It was a shame that she spoke German when she got really angry because we would have loved to learn to swear in French. Sandra How immediate, how real, if even the conflicts can be sorted out in the foreign language! How much credibility is lost by a teacher who constantly fails to do this! Non-native speakers should make a mental note of suitable phrases to express anger. Alice Kaplan remembers her first French class with a native speaker: As ringleader of our French class, I organized us to put alarm-clocks in our desks, each one set to go off at the exact same moment in the middle of her lesson. “Ah mon Dieu. Qu’est-ce qui se passe? Mais quel est ce bruit? ” (Oh my God, what is happening? But what is that noise? ) I love to hear Madame Holmgren get upset, in French (Kaplan 1994, 34). © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="38"?> 38 Chapter 1: Teaching English through English - with the help of the mother tongue 1.10 The foreign language as a working language: a five-point programme If we encounter classes who are used to immediately reverting to L1, our first concern must be to supply the linguistic means to create a foreign language atmosphere. A “classroom glossary” can be hung on the wall as a tool to enable pupils to express basic needs in the FL. In Hong Kong, for example, when the Language Proficiency Attainment Tests were introduced for English language teachers, the first visible sign of the new language needs was the appearance on the walls of the classroom of glossaries of routine classroom expressions. Work routines and a code of good behaviour are established in the FL - hard work at the beginning, but work which will pay off in the end. By the time the pupils reach the place in the book where “mustn’t” is nominally to be taught, the pupils already know it well: “I mustn’t talk when others present things.” If you keep your head you can even make the most of practical jokes and other disruptions: Once the students had put a chair on the map stand and illuminated the whole thing with the overhead projector. The teacher expressed his amazement and said it reminded him of a piece of modern art, of an installation he had once seen at an exhibition. So before they had to remove the ‘installation’ the pupils had learnt a couple of new English words: modern art, installation, exhibition. Barbara Sometimes misgivings are expressed that if everything is made easy for the pupils and they are always supplied with the foreign language expressions when they need them, they will never learn to do without such assistance, and will never get by in an emergency. There is no empirical evidence for this. In spite of my allowing a role for Spanish in my classroom, [university] students spontaneously use English in class and while working on tasks. They frequently use English with me when they come up with questions or comments after class (Schweers 1999, 9). Aids in L1 don’t in fact make it easy for the pupils, as they serve to allow communication in L2 to continue unabated at a high level instead of breaking off. Speaking freely in L2 is difficult in any case. The pupils soon proceed beyond routine formulas and become more and more competent in the foreign language. For as soon as one becomes strong enough the crutches are automatically laid aside. So all the paraphernalia of lessons should be carried out in L2 as soon as possible: taking the register, dealing with late arrivals, praising and correcting, dealing with complaints, announcing and explaining tests, setting up and explaining games, setting homework etc. In all other school subjects it is a golden rule to shorten the formalities and the time for “any other business” or “matters arising”, and to stretch the time available for textbook work. In FLT however, the communication surrounding the exercises proper and arising from problems external to teaching can often be turned to immediate and good use, rather than interrupt the teaching-learning process. Here, the language is no longer the object of instruction, but is nevertheless replete with constructions that can easily be transferred to other contexts of use. Every movement, every need, every incident can be accompanied by words, commented on in words, and dismissed by words. It’s certainly worth making the effort doing all this through the FL, but in this we succeed best if we let the mother tongue help systematically, and not only as an exception. Grittner (1969, 164) offers this as a rule of thumb: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="39"?> 1.11 Love or loathing at first sight 39 Any use of English (= MT) which leads to more efficient and intensive practice in the foreign language by the student is good use of English; any use of English which leads the student away from the target language or which tends to make him a passive listener is bad use of English. Green (1970) puts it succinctly: The effectiveness of a presentation is to be judged not by the teacher’s ingenuity in by-passing the mother-tongue but by how quickly the pupils can use the item correctly and intelligently in appropriate situations. This is our five-point programme for creating a FL cultural island in a linguistically homogeneous environment, exploiting both L1 and L2 to the full: 1. Teachers use the sandwich technique for most unknown expressions. 2. Students may insert MT expressions when needed; teacher springs in with the appropriate equivalent or tries to reformulate the student’s contribution in the FL. 3. Teacher and students retain and keep track of expressions introduced. 4. Teachers and students alike exercise self-discipline and consistently use the FL expressions that have been made available. 5. All FL teachers agree on functional FL use in all classes, i.e. the FL is and remains the primary vehicle of communication. Creating and sustaining a FL working atmosphere is of paramount importance and remains a key challenge for teachers. The unobtrusive, but regular use of the MT is far from sabotaging this overriding aim, but is in fact needed to achieve it. 1.11 Love or loathing at first sight It is the monolingual dogma that traps some teachers into alienating their students from the beginning. Here are two telling episodes which we could easily multiply: My first French lesson was a complete disaster. Our teacher showed us a picture of a situation in Paris, then said something concerning an item in the picture, with us having to imitate it. I wasn’t able to say a single sentence, as we were not allowed to look into our textbook. I got totally lost. It wasn’t until the end of that lesson - I had meanwhile started to regret having chosen French as a new subject - that at long last we were told to open our books and to read the sentences. I could immediately grasp the sentence both in terms of pronunciation and meaning, and was finally able to feel some relief. Thomas I was really looking forward to my first lesson in French. The teacher wanted to teach French in French and refused to speak a single German word. She had brought a huge card and placed it in front of the class, pointed at the people on it and said: “Voilà Philippe”, “Voilà Christine”. I did not understand what “voilà” meant and therefore asked my neighbour who was not sure either but guessed it meant something like “Here is Philippe”. I do not know why but I was not content with this explanation. I did not believe that one word, “voilà” could mean “here is”. I had the fixed idea that the verb was missing. At the end of the lesson I was still in doubt and asked my friend who had a dictionary and we looked the word up. Only when I saw the German equivalent did I believe it. Why had the teacher not given it to us! Claudia Teachers who were themselves put to the test of learning a new language - usually a language remote from their own, were surprised how vulnerable they felt as beginners and how overwhelming, frustrating, and humiliating the experience was (Probyn 2001; Barnard 2002). It is therefore vital for teachers to know how to ease the learners into the FL, to negotiate continuing student cooperation and to find a balance between using © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="40"?> 40 Chapter 1: Teaching English through English - with the help of the mother tongue the FL for authentic transactions and maintaining a relaxed atmosphere. It would also be a sign of holding their students in unconditional positive regard. The very first lessons could be mostly conducted in the MT. Later, with the help of the sandwich technique, we will end up conducting the normal business of the classroom in the FL. 1.12 Solidarity and good vibes Let us look at a case of English in grade 9 in a German school. For twenty minutes, classroom communication has been all-English. Then there is a knock at the door, and a fifth-grader inquires, very shyly and timidly, whether they could let him take a free chair from their classroom - in German, of course. When he is gone, some girls go, in German: “Aww, isn’t he sweet? ” And the teacher, again in German, responds: “Yeah, you used to be that way, too! ” Laughter around the class. We would sabotage all our efforts if we did not establish a relaxed and joyful working atmosphere in our classrooms. Students’ use of L1 can be a distress signal just before switching off or open rebellion. That’s why it might occasionally be necessary to talk things out with the class in L1 and clear the air, as a gesture of solidarity. If there are serious conflicts and the teacher feels not in touch with his class, even the sandwich technique will not do, and we will have momentarily to forget the daily struggle to learn through the medium of a FL and completely resort to the MT in order to relieve the tension. Sometimes a touch of humour and a few remarks in the students’ language can break the ice, sort out problems and set the class on course again. Occasionally, teachers might ask for an acceptable translation: “Who can say what I just said in our MT? ” just to make sure everybody is following. Occasional use of L1 without the sandwich technique is sensible. It builds good teacher-student rapport, because beginners cannot verbalise their feelings satisfactorily in the FL. Students should reflect on their attitudes, and teachers should get regular feedback on their lessons and know about their students’ feelings and beliefs. While accepting this point, which is all too obvious and has often been made, we should always be reluctant to throw out genuine and valid opportunities for communication in L2. Chatting to students and relaxing them, settling differences, negotiating the amount of homework, and telling jokes may be genuine opportunities for the natural use of the FL that are too good to waste on the MT. 1.13 Language as a sideline: learning other subjects in a foreign language My method forms knowledgeable minds by teaching words, or rather vice versa, teaching words by teaching subjects. Johann Gottfried Herder The most potent, true, and non-deceptive language is the spontaneous one which arises when we are completely involved in something other than language. This holds true for bilingual subject-matter teaching, when other school subjects are taught in the medium of a foreign language. This is a means of widening both the scope and quantity of language input and reflects the drive to break through the restrictive, often unstimulating boundaries of the language classroom. The change of focus - content orientation instead of language orientation - has proved to be successful in the following educational context: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="41"?> 1.13 Language as a sideline: learning other subjects in a foreign language 41 1. There is an increased amount of contact time for the foreign language. That means, teaching content subjects through the FL does not replace conventional language classes and systematic language instruction, but is added on. In Germany, bilingual subject matter teaching usually starts after a two-year special preparatory course in the FL, in grade 7. In Canadian terms, this kind of immersion is “late” and “partial”. 2. In order to be able to teach a subject such as biology or geography in a FL, teachers work hard to improve their language skills. 3. Teachers must find ways and means to transmit the special MT register of content areas taught in the FL. Observing an English geography lesson in year 12, Sonja comments enthusiastically: I was more than astonished. These 18-year-olds spoke about a topic which was quite difficult. They didn’t struggle for words or encounter any language barriers. If there were feelings of insecurity, they arose due to technical difficulties of the subject. It was clear that the bilingual students were linguistically far more developed than the regular students. These students were able to use the foreign language as a means of communication … I also admired the teachers, because they did an excellent job. Sonja From language orientation to content orientation is a manifest shift from mediumoriented communication to message-oriented communication, from a focus on form to a focus on message. Apart from being a specialist for the imparfait or the continuous aspect, the teacher is an expert on agricultural policies or genetics. Content and language integrated learning has been in existence for centuries, if one considers that in the monasteries and convent schools all the lessons used to be conducted in Latin. The evidence is in: The extra time for language learning has its expected effect. “Sections bilingues” in France, “bilinguale Zweige” in Germany, immersion schools in Canada, etc. attest to the effectiveness of this idea. In Hong Kong, 25% of secondary schools teach for the most part through the medium of English (English medium instruction schools, EMI). These schools have immense popularity with parents. However, at its worst, bilingual subject-matter teaching can be inhibitive to both content and language learning, particularly where the teacher lacks the ability to be a simultaneous teacher of language. There is also the danger that immersion schools with a heavy emphasis on fluency at the expense of accuracy produce an error-laden interlanguage (Hammerly 1989, 1991). Conventional language learning classrooms also offer more than just language. Ideally, content and language are linked from the beginning. Pupils listen to fairy tales, recite poems, learn about the cultural background of new expressions, learn to be an actor and to understand themselves better. Beginners can cook following a recipe in a foreign language. Advanced students listen to a debate in the House of Commons, learn to give a speech, to present a product, to lead a discussion and take the chair. In all these activities more than mere language skills are fostered. Modern satellite transmission such as Euro News presented in six languages provide easy access to culture-laden and issue-laden content for more advanced learners. In all these activities more than mere language skills are fostered. Some teachers manage to read and discuss unabridged modern English novels by the end of the 4th year of English, or use BBC television programmes. The maxim can only be to take away the bland soup of indifferent, superficial texts as quickly as possible or not to serve it up in the first place. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="42"?> 42 Chapter 1: Teaching English through English - with the help of the mother tongue We read a lot and enjoyed works such as The Great Gatsby, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Pride and Prejudice. We had finally arrived at a point where we could forget we were sitting in a language class. The English language was the background whereas discussion about literature and various topics was at the centre of attention. Constanze Ideally, the pupils use the foreign language as uninhibitedly as their mother tongue and become completely involved in the topic at hand. Like Constanze, we forget we are operating in a foreign language. If we are completely involved in the topic, we are also completely involved in the language. This comes close to Csikszentmihalyi’s “flow experience”, a state also captured in a poem of W.H. Auden: You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading, wear the same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function. 1.14 Between medium-oriented and message-oriented communication In his autobiography Nabokov (1967, 63f.) recollects: My first English friends were four simple souls in my grammar - Ben, Dan, Sam and Ned. There used to be a great deal of fuss about their identities and whereabouts - ‘Who is Ben’, ‘He is Dan’, ‘Sam is in bed’, and so on. On later pages longer words appeared; and at the very end of the brown, inkstained volume, a real, sensible story unfolded its adult sentences (‘one day Ted said to Ann: Let us -’), the little reader’s ultimate triumph and reward. I was thrilled by the thought that some day I might attain such proficiency. The magic has endured, and whenever a grammar book comes my way, I instantly turn to the last page to enjoy a forbidden glimpse of the laborious student’s future, of that promised land where, at last, words are meant to mean what they mean. What Nabokov describes here is the gradual, even laborious passage from mediumorientation to message-orientation. In a modern approach, however, even the very first lessons can contain some message-orientation. Good foreign language lessons are characterised by skilful shifts between message-oriented and medium-oriented communication, the swing between practice and “real” communication, between a focus on form and a focus on message. The shift is illustrated in Billy Wilder’s comedy Sabrina. Linus is falling in love with his brother’s girlfriend Sabrina, who has just been talking enthusiastically about her stay in Paris: Linus: [slow dancing with Sabrina] How do you say in French my sister has a yellow pencil? Sabrina: Ma sœur a un crayon jaune. Linus: How do you say my brother has a lovely girl? Sabrina: Mon frère a une gentille petite amie. Linus: And how do you say I wish I were my brother? In message-oriented phases the language is the maid-of-all-work, as it were. We use it for giving information, but also for chatting, establishing contact, for self-portrayal, for © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="43"?> 1.14 Between medium-oriented and message-oriented communication 43 telling stories, expressing feelings or beliefs, arguing, joking, comforting and so on. The focus is anywhere but on the language forms themselves. This kind of communication brings its own reward. Conversely, we behave in a medium-oriented way when we - exclusively or predominantly - focus on only one thing: the language and learning the language. So the decisive factor for the distinction is the underlying speech intention. If, in saying something, the content is irrelevant and we only want to improve our language skills, an utterance is medium-oriented. Is the teacher’s real purpose to elicit a grammatical structure, to supply just another occasion for the learner to practise, in sum, to produce linguistic competence rather than communicate? Do I take my utterance to be a warning, a praise or promise, a real request for necessary information or are these functions merely incidental to the utterance? Are teacher and students merely playing school? Or is there a kind of inner compulsion for a FL as we experience it when living in a foreign country? There we live and acquire a foreign language without noticing it, “automatically and while being engaged in other things,” as Erasmus (1524/ 1963, 132), the great humanist and prolific translator of the classics, noted. Britton (1972, 130), a researcher of children’s languages, makes the same distinction in different words: Putting this at its simplest, what children use language for in school must be ‘operations’ and not ‘dummy runs’. They must continue to use it to make sense of the world: they must practise language in the sense in which a doctor ‘practises’ medicine and a lawyer ‘practises’ law, and not in the sense in which a juggler ‘practises’ a new trick before he performs it. It is vital for the learner to be placed into situations where in communicating he is allowed to satisfy immediate needs other than those of language. In activities where the medium is the only message, the FL might not “stick”. The distinction is perhaps clearest when people misunderstand each other because they operate on different levels of communication, which is here exploited: Johnny: Miss, I ain’t got a pencil. Teacher: No Johnny, not ‘ain’t’. I haven’t got a pencil! You haven’t got a pencil! They haven’t got a pencil! Johnny: Gosh, what happened to all the pencils? The teacher does not react to Johnny’s real problem but changes her level of orientation. Johnny either does not notice this or deliberately ignores this change. A little girl kept writing “I gone home” instead of “I went home”. So the teacher told the girl to write “I went home” fifty times after school. When the girl had finished, she left a note for the teacher, “I done my lines and gone home”. What is drilled is not automatically available for communication. Medium-oriented communication cannot always be readily turned into message-oriented communication. Since the same utterance may serve a variety of functions, many speech acts in language lessons are not clearly mediumor message-oriented. Instead there is a mixture of intentions and we have to assess which of the two functions dominates in a given case. Dictation, imitation, pronunciation and grammar-drills as well as error corrections of all sorts are usually unequivocal medium-oriented acts. On the other hand all classroom management is purely message-oriented: Collecting money, distributing books, voting for a class-representative, re-organising the seating arrangement, calling for attention, giving homework, apologising for something, defending oneself etc. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="44"?> 44 Chapter 1: Teaching English through English - with the help of the mother tongue Language-learning games are mostly mixed forms, partly medium-oriented, partly message-oriented. On the one hand, the game may have a clear grammatical objective. On the other hand, however, the idea of competition can dominate. The students get so involved in the game that they forget the drill aspect, a factor that teachers can exploit cleverly. Lesson highlights are conversations where we can be completely open and involve ourselves in topics which concern us deeply and develop our own points of view. But in the classroom a set-up conversation is always language practice as well. Is “conversation exercise” a contradiction in terms? Not only is it necessary to prepare the conversation linguistically, but also during the conversation linguistic help can be given and time-out is taken now and then to focus on the language and feed in expressions: these are moments of practice, however short they may be. So both exist side by side: (very) brief shifts of focus from conversation to practice, and sorties from practice into communication. The knack is to gradually reduce medium-orientation to a necessary minimum. 1.15 A dual focus When learners participate in real life conversations in the FL, a dual focus is helpful. Although as mature speakers we normally listen for content, we might also register the literal wording of what was said. After all, this is what children must do when acquiring a first language, “they monitor what they say and how they say it” (Clarke 2003, 418), often repairing any mismatches between what they intended to say and what they produced. As they communicate, they can turn the spotlight on certain forms they are about to acquire. How else could they make progress if they didn’t pay attention to formal features? How the focus can shift from form to message is nicely illustrated by Johanna Schopenhauer, mother of the great philosopher. At five o’clock teatime approached and as if by a magic spell we schoolgirls were transformed into a real société des jeunes dames. The tea was served as fitting for such a society. Mamsel Ackermann presided on the sofa and under her supervision allowed the eldest of us to perform the role of hostess in turn. The others assembled round the table or stood and walked around the room, laughing and chatting. Everything that was seemly was allowed as if we were really ladies who had been invited to a social function, only speaking German was and remained highly disapproved of (Schopenhauer 1922, 96). The language school taught good manners and the rules of socially appropriate communicative interaction, too. And isn’t that also important for good language lessons today, albeit in a different form? The teacher must be aware of his own attitudes and intentions and know why, when and how to shift between mediumand message-orientation. The pupils notice if he means it seriously or not: Once we had to practise sentences starting with “I like to …” and “I don’t like to …” Our teacher regarded this sort of exercise not as a means of getting to know something about his pupils’ personal interests or hobbies, but as a means to make sure that we all understood the grammatical feature in question. Miriam It is much more effective to ask and answer “real” questions because only then is one able to forget the fact that one is learning a foreign language. This was not the case in class 11 when answering our teacher’s questions was just a compulsory exercise for us. Nicole © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="45"?> 1.15 A dual focus 45 Content-orientation per se is not enough, pupils must be engaged emotionally: Whenever you are part of a community, you feel the need to communicate. In many lessons, though, a question which is to be discussed is given by the teacher instead of coming from the pupils’ own concerns. Thus, most of the content-oriented classroom communication remains artificial to a certain degree. Andrea Sometimes I even forgot I was talking English because it was more important for me to convince the teacher or a fellow student of my opinion. Dagmar Observation and analysis have shown that the children who make most progress are those who move constantly between medium and message. At one point they concentrate on language forms because there is a desire to learn the language, and at the other their attention is distracted away from the form onto the message. The Schools Council Bilingual Programme experience [Wales] has demonstrated that an integration of medium and message, of structure and communication, and of the first and second language is possible, and that there is a middle ground between teaching strategies which emphasize acquisition of linguistic structures divorced from students’ communicative needs on the one hand, and those that emphasize message-orientated communication which is divorced from considerations of linguistic structure, on the other (Cummins & Genesee 1985, 46). According to Hammerly, it was the absence of a focus on form, and hence, the lack of deliberate fluctuations between attention to the form and message-orientated activities that hampered Canadian French immersion schools in the beginning: After nearly seven years of French immersion, students avoided difficult constructions … the common pronoun en was absent from their speech. Most of their errors involved verbs, prepositions, and gender … Although the students managed to communicate nearly all of their ideas, they did so in Frenglish, not in French. Frenglish is not a language, nor a dialect, but an embarrassment (Hammerly 1989, 14). Even during a stay in the target country the dual focus is important. Good language learners divide their attention at times rather than leaving everything to incidental learning. They concentrate on the content but also a little on the language. They may listen to what is being said, yet hear a subjunctive at the same time. They prick up their ears when an interesting expression crops up which they did not know, particularly if it satisfies a felt gap in idiomatic expressivity. Conversely, pupils can read a grammatically overloaded coursebook text as a moderately exciting story and as FL instruction at the same time. Lessons From practice to communication and back Foreign country From communication to practice and back We breathe in the acoustic aroma of the target country, are wide open to everything and allow everything to make an impact on us. At the same time we might set off to track down and snap up interesting morsels of the FL armed with a notebook: The family was very nice and helpful. We got along very well and became friends very quickly. Everyone helped me and I kept a notebook in which I wrote down all the new words I had learned. I read the newspaper and watched TV. I wrote essays about films I had seen which were corrected by the mother who had been a teacher of French and sports. I had long conversations with the grandfather about politics. Maritta © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="46"?> 46 Chapter 1: Teaching English through English - with the help of the mother tongue Paying attention to listening, speaking, and intercultural differences for the whole day is a very exhausting thing. You don’t acquire a language by a mere process of osmosis, you have to listen carefully and be attentive constantly and this is a very demanding thing. I have never been more tired in my life than I was during those four weeks. Norbert It is known that even prolonged immersion, as with the university student’s term abroad, has not always brought results. Research studies have shown that some students, after ten months abroad on their sandwich year, had little to show beyond a superficial fluency in the trivial give-and-take of restaurant, bar, disco or games field. They returned even less well equipped to sustain a difficult discussion of any depth in the FL than when they left their home university. Mere immersion had not worked on them (Hawkins 1988). Our hunch is that these students lacked the dual focus. They did not engage with language for its own sake, nor did they bother to study language in complex academic contexts. If our emphasis is exclusively on getting the meaning with little concern for accuracy, we might never get the gender forms of nouns right, although they occur in every other French or German sentence. Without a dual focus, certain errors will fossilise. This danger has been recognized by some immersion advocates, particularly where government sponsorship requires regular evaluation (Bodycott & Crew 2001). Both communicating and practising also play a role in natural language acquisition. It simply doesn’t strike us that children practise language, as they enjoy practising as a matter of course, like Charlotte here who repeats a word of her own accord just to make sure: My mother tried to translate some of the bedtime stories she always read to me and which I almost knew by heart into German. On one of the tapes I hear myself say: Wat is mier in Duits? (What does ant mean in German? ) and my mother answered: Ameise! Then I repeated the word several times in a very satisfied way. Charlotte Here Japanese children were observed in an English-speaking kindergarten: Children were sometimes heard practising these formulations to themselves. On one occasion, for instance, Kazu recited “Put it away, put it away” to himself as he walked to join the story circle (Saville-Troike 1985, 54). Children do need practice runs. Bilingual children sometimes withdraw from the communicative event and rehearse before making a telephone call to their grandparents in their weaker language. They are equally medium-oriented when they compare Papa’s and Mama’s languages with each other and try to build up a bilingual dictionary (see chapter 12). Talkative parents in particular act like teachers by asking not only real questions but also a great deal of “didactic” questions, “test questions” or “display questions” (Döpke 1992, 83, 150). In classrooms, such questions are as “natural” as “real” or “referential” questions. 1.16 Classroom reality: a content vacuum Classrooms should provide a dual focus, on language as well as on content, ideas, and persons. A Canadian study, which compared conventional French classes and immersion programmes, suggests © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="47"?> 1.16 Classroom reality: a content vacuum 47 important new directions: for core French [= conventional classes] to extend into experiential teaching, and for immersion programs to add ways of combining experiential teaching [= message-orientation] with some degree of necessary and helpful analytic [= medium-orientation] support (Harley et al. 1990, 108). Medium-oriented activities, though insufficient in themselves, are nevertheless needed, and the notion that message-orientation is the one and only thing that matters has aptly been termed the “natural” or the “communicative fallacy”. The learning activities will lie along a cline from formal drills, to teach the basic habits of pronunciation, intonation, structural patterns etc., up to language transactions that are true speech acts, spoken with force and intention to ‘do things with words’ and thus retained effortlessly (Hawkins 1981, 215). Unfortunately, both anecdotal and statistical evidence has been accumulating to show that message-oriented communication is often conspicuously absent in conventional FL classrooms. Here are some observations from students’ retrospective reports: Our English lessons centred completely around the book and there was no apparent need for communication. Bernd He spoke a lot on private matters but he did not communicate real messages in English unfortunately. He was a gourmet and he could have given his recipes in English (fried bananas, for instance). Claudia The lessons were almost always medium-oriented until the eleventh grade. Then we left the textbooks behind us and began to read literature, for example “Huis clos” by Sartre. That was the first time the lessons became message-oriented. Cathrin Once, for instance, he showed us an endless series of slides from numerous summer holidays in France. I mean, that was not really boring, but I will never understand why he decided to give all his explanations and anecdotes concerning the slides in German! Simone Real communication will fall by the wayside if the pupils are not allowed to talk about their real hobbies or their parents’ real jobs: “It was quite funny to hear that most of the pupils’ parents were mechanics and secretaries”, Cornelia reports about her German lessons in England, where teachers tend to adhere rigidly to examination requirements - with disastrous consequences (Plum 2007). Mitchell et al. (1981, 66) found that “a content vacuum was apparent in many lessons”. It is probably this content-vacuum that the philosopher John Searle (1969, 57) addressed when he wrote: “I contrast ‘serious’ utterances with … teaching a language.” It seems that even where communicative methods have energetically been promoted over years, the results are patchy. Nunan (1987, 144) analyzed five lessons of highly qualified teachers “knowledgeable about and committed to communicative language teaching”. The author concludes, after quoting other studies supporting his own findings: “There is increasing evidence that in communicative classes interactions may, in fact, not be very communicative at all.” In our view, this deplorable state of affairs is directly connected with the unresolved MT issue: This teacher taught English in our first two years and I remember a situation in the second year when she was standing in front of the class with the zipper of her trousers open. A boy asked her: “What is ‘Reißverschluß’ in English? ”, and she answered: “It means ‘zip’. And the boy replied: “Mrs T., your zip is open”. This, I think, shows how some of us tried to use English in our every day language, although it did not always work out. Silke © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="48"?> 48 Chapter 1: Teaching English through English - with the help of the mother tongue Mrs C. was our form-teacher, too. Things such as organising outings, collecting money, electing a class representative and - as far as possible - complaining about too much homework in other subjects, trouble with other teachers and how to settle it, were usually mastered in English - but with some MT support. Nicole It certainly amounts to a devaluation of the currency of the FL if teachers consistently switch to the MT when they’ve got to announce the time and place of a special meeting, to introduce a new pupil, to cancel lessons, etc. The research on the characteristics of outstanding teachers offers a succinct summation: • The target language dominates the classroom interaction, whether the teacher or the students are speaking. • The FL is used more than the MT for every type of activity. • Students use the FL to ask questions … • In the classes of ‘outstanding’ teachers, 89% of the student talk was in the foreign language, while for the students of ‘typical’ teachers it was 67%. These figures were similar to those of the teachers themselves: ‘Outstanding’ teachers spoke 87% of the time in the target language, and ‘typical’ teachers 66%” (Moskowitz 1976, 146). We couldn’t agree more that such a scenario should prevail in every instance. The degree to which the students themselves actually use the FL in class and the manner in which they use it - both in mediumand message-oriented ways - is indeed the best measure of the psychological soundness of a course. Yet simply discouraging the use of the MT does little to ensure that both teachers and students can reach the sort of ideal espoused above. After all, good language learners “refer back to their native language judiciously (translate into L1) and make effective cross-lingual comparisons” (Naiman et al. 1978, 14). 1.17 Conclusion In many countries official guidelines create positive pressures for teachers to use the FL as much as possible. However, this chapter argues that the way to increase messageorientation in the FL is to mobilize targeted MT support. We can breathe more communicative life into our classrooms by giving some instructional time over to carefully crafted bilingual techniques. Teachers must be freed from the shackles of misguided restraints that have for far too long been hobbling the pace of communicative language teaching and learning. As they observe their students lapsing into their MT and happily chatting away during group work, many must have sighed, “If only they could ignore their MT for a while …” This book says that learners would use the MT less where it distracts from the FL, if only the teacher knew how to use it better. 1.18 Hints for student teachers Your first job is to mould your class into a vibrant speech community with norms and patterns conducive to learning. This checklist can help you to assess how communicative your lessons are: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="49"?> Study questions and tasks 49 • Where, how and how often is the foreign language used as the medium for “serious utterances”? • Would the discussion or the activity still be interesting and important if it took place in L1? • When is the content merely an excuse for practising form, and when not? • Where do the ideas come from? Do the students take them from the coursebook or do they use their own ideas? • Where do the words and expressions come from? Are they determined by the teacher or textbook or is the student improvising? • Do the students know enough words and phrases to contribute to the lesson? • Is my own repertoire of classroom phrases extensive enough? • Can I seize on real situations which arise spontaneously and deal with problems in L2? • How can I change tasks in order to make them more authentic and message-oriented for the students - perhaps without reducing the pace of the lesson? • When do linguistic correction and practice inserted into the lesson interrupt the flow of speech? Does this cause students to lose the thread? • Conversely: when do such insertions actually serve to ensure continuation of the discussion? • Do students spontaneously initiate utterances in L2? (The bell rings but the teacher continues talking. A pupil says: “The lesson is over”.) • When, where and how often do the students direct utterances to classmates in L2? Or do they all address the teacher directly? • Intonation, facial expressions and gestures: When do the students speak as naturally and intensely in L2 as they do in L1? The more message-oriented the lesson is, the greater the guarantee that students will be able to cope with the requirements of real language use outside lessons, as the degree of transfer is determined by how similar the learning situation and the usage situation are. Study questions and tasks 1. The following terms have been used by various authors to capture the distinction between mediumand message-orientation: drill speech vs. real speech, manipulation vs. communication, skill-getting vs. skill-using activities, focus on form versus focus on message, rehearsal language versus performance language, analytic versus experiential use of the language. Can you explain these terms? Which ones do you prefer? 2. Classroom activities can be located on a continuum from pure medium-orientation to unequivocal message-orientation. Make a list of activities to be classified into four different sections of the communication continuum: Totally mediumoriented Correction of pronunciation … Overwhelmingly medium-oriented Overwhelmingly message-oriented Totally messageoriented Making plans for a class trip … © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="50"?> 50 Chapter 1: Teaching English through English - with the help of the mother tongue 3. When living abroad and communicating in English, was your focus at times on the language used by your partners, and not exclusively on the message? When did you bring the language into focus? 4. A teacher reports: “When explaining how to do pair work, I used English. However, I couldn’t make myself understood clearly enough. Maybe it would have been better if German had been used. I felt a bit unhappy about that.” Give examples of activity instructions (dictation, games, group work …) and suggest under what circumstances they might be better given in one language or the other. 5. Teachers have dual roles as both instructors and conversation partners. Can this affect their use of L1 and account for language alternation in the classroom? 6. Can teachers be overaccomodating to their students in their use of L1? Identify circumstances where this is likely to occur and suggest ways to overcome it. 7. Can you think of situations where the avoidance of L1 could be debilitating to the psychological wellbeing of both students and teachers? 8. The FL teacher who uses the FL in class is always on trial, unlike other teachers. Discuss. 9. Collect expressions for keeping discipline, criticising pupils and blowing off steam as well as for praising them. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="51"?> Chapter 2: How learners break into the speech code: the principle of dual comprehension 2.1 Understanding what is meant Some years ago a formula was doing the rounds, the formula of “comprehensible input” as the main factor in language acquisition. “Humans acquire language in only one way - by understanding messages, or by receiving comprehensible input” (Krashen 1985, 2). So language acquisition begins when people speak to us in a way we can understand. This statement may not seem quite so banal if we consider that understanding an utterance is not only necessary for successful acquisition; it may indeed be sufficient for this process. Comprehended input is all we need: In some extreme cases, children have been able to acquire language in spite of speech paralysis. Take Christopher Nolan, for example, who is locked inside a body not under his control. He cannot speak a word, but he can still raise his eyes and throw his head back. Or take Christie Brown, another child with speech paralysis, who learnt at the age of five to grasp a piece of chalk with his left toes and started drawing words on the floor (Butzkamm & Butzkamm 2008, 163ff.). Hearing the constant flow of correct English is the sine qua non, the essential condition, but hearing with understanding. 2.2 Understanding what is literally said In a very general way, as mature speakers, we don’t hear what people say, we hear what they mean. That is not enough. As learners, we mustn’t confine ourselves to understanding the message. Admittedly, to be able to join in properly, we first have to understand what people are talking about and what they want from us or intend to do. We understand utterances as they emerge naturally from situations. Comprehended input, viewed thus, is indeed the prime requirement, the essential precondition for our participation in dialogue, in which and through which language acquisition takes place. What we do not understand is white noise that cannot be processed. But is understanding messages also sufficient for learning to take place? Is to expose learners to enough comprehended input really all we have to do (the “sunburn model of language teaching”)? Will language acquisition then take care of itself? “In one sense comprehensible input is so blindingly obvious that it has to be true … it is simply an overall requirement within any theory of second language acquisition” (Cook 1993, 60). Cook differentiates between “decoding” and “codebreaking”. Krashen does not make this distinction, his theory “conflates decoding and codebreaking; to Krashen decoding is codebreaking” (Cook 1993, 61). Cook’s distinction is identical with what Butzkamm (1989, 12) called “Doppelverstehen” (‘dual comprehension’) as a basic condition for language acquisition. Learners must understand more than messages. For them it is not enough to understand just what is meant. That might be enough for tourists. They may use their phrasebooks to © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="52"?> 52 Chapter 2: How learners break into the speech code: the principle of dual comprehension state their problems, and if they understand some standard answers, communicative needs are satisfied for the moment. But if we want to really learn a language, we also have to understand not only what is meant, but how things are quite literally expressed. Both of these types of understanding - functional / communicative or situational understanding and formal / structural or operational understanding - are often confused or simply equated in the case of foreign languages closely related to our own. Let us look at the French s’il vous plaît. From an English point of view, real meaning and literal meaning differ. When someone hears s’il vous plaît for the first time, they might think that, like its equivalent “please”, it is a single word, only with three syllables instead of one. Only when they see it in writing does it become clear that the word for ‘please’ consists of four parts: s(i) il vous plaît *if it to-you pleases; or: *if it you (Dative) pleases if it pleases you Do we need to know this? Not if all we want to do is ask for something politely. We understand the expression correctly and we can use it correctly. That suffices. Its structure - its literal meaning - is only of interest if we want to acquire the FL instead of just making ourselves understood for a moment. Knowledge of the structure not only helps us understand why the phrase means what it does (a welcome by-product), it equips us with key language we can draw on in the future. We can risk new, analogous utterances such as ‘si l’hôtel vous plaît’, ‘if you like the hotel’; ‘si le vin vous plaît’, ‘if you like the wine’. And we can understand similar, as yet unfamiliar utterances when we hear them from others. But without understanding its internal constituents, the tourist will be lost when he encounters such new utterances. Or take the common warning ‘Mind the step.’ The German who is accustomed to the sign ‘Achtung Stufe! ’ (‘Caution, (a) step! ’) will not readily identify ‘mind’ as a verb. Only after he has recognised the component parts for what they are, can he analogise on the basis of his structural insight and incorporate ‘mind the …’ as a productive sentence pattern. Likewise, “Enjoy your meal”. We first want to know what it means, i.e. the MT counterparts: French “Bon appétit”, Spanish “Buen aprovecho”, German “Guten Appetit” etc., but this knowledge is rather a linguistic dead-end, unless we can disembed the linguistic elements from the whole. Only then can we improvise a host of sentences such as “enjoy your icecream”, “enjoy the dance”, “enjoy the game”. “Enjoy your meal” is no longer an automated sequence only. Let us consider an example from a less known language. In a bookshop on the island of Malta we recognize the image on a book cover - and the author’s name “Saint-Exupéry” makes it clear: “Il-princep iz-zghir” means “The Little Prince.” With that we can not only understand the title but we have also half analysed its structure. “Il-princep” must be “the prince”. We need a full analysis, though, to move on: “The prince the little” is how the Maltese put it. Now we can also understand structures like “il-bahar il-mejjet”, “the sea the dead”, i.e. “the Dead Sea” and we might try to construct expressions along the same lines: il-princep iz-zghir the prince the little The little prince il bahar il-mejjet the sea the dead The Dead Sea il bahar l-ahmar the sea the red The Red Sea © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="53"?> 2.2 Understanding what is literally said 53 A mere situational understanding does not help the language learner very much. He also needs to understand how the foreign language operates, i.e. identify words and recognise patterns in order to be able to make “infinite use of finite means” (Humboldt 1836 / 1963, 477). Without this analysis, learning a formula such as “s’il vous plaît” would remain mere vocabulary drill. Input, even if comprehended, often remains structurally opaque in parts, and must still be parsed, broken up into its constituent parts, down to the word level. Here is another pattern from the same language, one that a tourist might need: Fejn hu l-katidral Where’s the cathedral? Fejn hi l-knisja? Where’s the church? Fejn hu l-ktieb? Where’s the book? The printed text seems to give away most of the structure, and the tourist may wonder why there are two words “hu” and “hi” for the one word “is”. Without the literal translation the phrase remains a half-opened package, and we are not yet on the way to grammar. But once we are told that the Maltese actually say *Where he the cathedral? *Where she the church? *Where he the book? omitting, like many other languages, the copula “is”, it all makes sense in a satisfying rush of insight, and we feel ready to ask our own where-questions. It is common for learners to have an idea of what is meant, but they are less sure about how it is said. And yet the reverse may also happen. When working on his translation of the Bible, Martin Luther once complained - in a mixture of German and Latin, typical of his table talk: “Wir hatten wohl das Wort, aber wir verstunden nicht sententiam.” (‘We did have the words, but didn’t understand the sentence’). The very same thing happens to children when they come across idiomatic phrases. “Bite” and “dust” are no problem, but “bite the dust” is not readily understood in its figurative sense. Idiomatic phrases, metaphor and irony, where the underlying meaning may alter or contradict the spoken word, are a typical and persistent difficulty for autistic children because they are so alarmingly literal-minded. The story is told of a teacher of French who used to come into class every morning in a great rush, saying: ‘Bonjour, mes élèves, comment allez-vous? ’ and require from them the answer: ‘Bonjour, monsieur.’ After a time he asked them what they thought his opening words meant, and they answered: ‘Good morning, boys, I’m sorry I’m late,’ and their answer: ‘Oh, that’s quite all right, sir.’ Billows (1967, 8), who reports the anecdote, thinks we need not worry and comments: “If the circumstances in which the words are used are perfectly clear it is quite unimportant whether the words are exactly understood or not.” He, too, seems to think that comprehensible input in Krashen’s sense is enough. We beg to differ. To sum up: Simple understanding from the context of the situation does not lead the language learner far enough. We can retain useful formulas, which, however, as structures, are non-existent for us. Comprehension and acquisition cannot be the same. Only to the extent that we understand both meaning and form can we turn input into intake which can be processed syntactically. Only then can we make utterances of our © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="54"?> 54 Chapter 2: How learners break into the speech code: the principle of dual comprehension own which we have never heard before. Structure, in other words, “grammar”, makes languages learnable, otherwise we would face an insurmountable mountain of sheer memorising. 2.3 Children crack the code: evidence from mother tongue acquisition If input comprehended on two levels is indeed the essential mechanism by which language acquisition occurs, we must find evidence for dual comprehension in all successful language learning situations. How are children able to develop rules not only for the MT sentences they’ve actually heard, but also for the infinite sentences they will need to form in the course of a lifetime? “Conversation is the all-important context of language development,” says Wells (1981, 17). Parents want above all to be understood and keep the conversation going. So they show children how communicative interchanges work by giving them “conversational lessons”. They use attention-getters (e.g. the child’s name) to help the child recognize which utterances are addressed to him, and they use attention-holders such as high pitch or whispering to indicate that the utterance is meant for the child alone and that he/ she is expected to take a turn. Follow-up and prompt questions also encourage the child to communicate. But do parents have a role in language acquisition, apart from being suppliers of language and partners in communication? Well, yes. They produce a special type of language called parentese (‘child directed speech’, ‘motherese’, ‘caretaker speech’), which is not only a means to ensure situational understanding. It does more than that. To some extent, it also helps the child to break the utterances down into their constituent parts. Parental strategies here include emphasis on new lexis to raise it from the surrounding flow of speech, repetition and simplification of the following sorts: • Repetitive carrier phrases such as “There’s a …”; “Look at the …” for the introduction of new words • Shorter average length of utterances; less complex sentences, fewer subordinate clauses • Fewer functional words; instead nouns designating concrete, visual content • Lots of questions and statements referring to what is happening at the moment. In “mapping lessons” parents provide the young communicators with clues about how concepts / intentions and language correspond. Sticking to the here-and-now principle, they pick out objects, actions and events that are accessible to the child at that particular moment so that the meaning of new words can easily be figured out (Clark & Clark 1977, 327f.). So it comes as no surprise that 2-year-olds’ conversations with their mothers were two and one-half times longer than those with their 3to 5-year old siblings. “This would indicate that adult conversational skills play a large role in scaffolding the longer and more complex conversations in which young children participate” (Tomasello 2003, 268). Mapping lessons overlap with “grammar” or “segmentation” lessons. Segmenting words from the speech stream as well as identifying the particular aspect of the situation that a new word is intended to indicate is obviously something an infant must learn to do: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="55"?> 2.3 Children crack the code: evidence from mother tongue acquisition 55 Many of the utterances addressed to young children contain segmentation lessons, lessons that suggest how utterances ought to be divided up into words, phrases, and clauses. For example, adults speak very slowly and pause at the end of each utterance. With one-word utterances, this helps the child to identify the boundaries of each word. Adults also help children identify boundaries by placing new words in familiar frames such as Look at … or There’s a …. Finally, when adults repeat themselves, they repeat single words, phrases, and occasionally whole sentences. These repetitions provide further information about the constituents of each utterance (Clark & Clark 1977, 328). In other words, parents seem to be aiming for a dual understanding, albeit intuitively, thus setting the scene for acquisition to take place. Children will understand not only what the conversation is about, but also where the things talked about are located in the utterance. ‘Give me the ball’, a mother might say, and her daughter hands her the ball. There is no doubt that the little girl has understood her mother. But to learn language, she must also discover which components of the speech stream go with which components of the situation. Where in fact does each component belong in the sentence: the act of handing over, what is to be handed over and the person who it is to be handed to? To make this task easier for the child, mothers quite instinctively say ‘Give Mummy the ball.’ ‘Mummy’ is unambiguous, while ‘me’, with its changeable referentiality, is more difficult to grasp. In this way, the child can more easily recognize the equivalences between the arrangement of actions and the linguistic arrangement. Grammatical constructions, in our view, are not an affair of empty rules devoid of semantic content, but carry meaning in their own right. Grammar, as a psychological reality in the minds of speakers, is a way to apprehend in articulated sound the more abstract overt or covert meaning-components of our actions - who is doing something, what is to be done, where and with what and why etc. Take, for example, the switch to “Give Mummy the balls.” Where in the flow of speech is the obvious fact registered that now two balls are involved whereas previously there was only one? The child has to recognize - as ‘ball’ becomes ‘balls’ - how situation and language change in tandem with each other. Ideally, decoding of language patterns goes hand in hand with decoding of the message. It is this double effect which makes parentese a form of implicit teaching. There are close links between the actual way parents use particular words and constructions and the way children learn those same words and constructions. Children don’t, at some point, hook up to something like an inborn universal grammar regardless of the type of input they get. Children learn what they are exposed to, what they hear and can make sense of. Language acquisition is not just triggered by their linguistic environment (Chomsky’s view), be it rich or poor, it is shaped by the way parents talk to them. “A universal didactic competence in human caretakers, as evidenced by the simplified register of babytalk, may have coevolved with language acquisition programs in the child” (Papousek & Hwang 1991). The mother’s input and feedback is so adapted in its temporal and structural relations to filial speech that it exhibits the analytic, pattern-abstracting, word-class-defining, and synthetic features that are needed to help the child analyze the regularities underlying the strings of sounds she hears (Moerk 1985, 265). Once the child has grasped the nature of the relationship between situational and verbal arrangements, it can begin to make comparisons, draw analogies, recognize recurring © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="56"?> 56 Chapter 2: How learners break into the speech code: the principle of dual comprehension structures - and all of this for the most part unconsciously. Utterances become grammatical when the child is able to assign the segments of content one by one to the segments of form, i.e. parse utterances into their components words and thus to crack the code. Incidentally, a young child has to get by without the visible segmentation provided by written language. It is mainly because of the segmentation effect that the printed word should not be withheld from learners when they start with a FL. (See chapter 7) Finally, let us not overexaggerate the parents’ part. Children learn what they are exposed to, but in doing so, they follow their own linguistic agenda. Here it is singularly revealing that parents don’t simplify their grammar in ways FL teachers do. Parents don’t bother about what tense or aspect or case is easiest, and they don’t split up a structural complex such as interrogation or negation in manageable pieces. Paradoxically, it is the immature, developing brain which takes over the grammatical sequencing, ignoring what it cannot yet handle. The child sets her own pace of both cognitive and linguistic development, which the parents are happy to accept. Here, the child is her own teacher. To sum up, infants acquire a first language in dialogue where parents provide a kind of scaffolding to help children to express themselves more explicitly. Parents are a lot more than mere language providers. They “arrange” early speech interactions in routinized and familiar settings and provide what Bruner (1983, 39) called an “Adult Language Acquisition Support System”. They want their children to understand but also give them some assistance in separating out elements of meaning and how they are positioned in the sentence. And so they intuitively provide hints on grammar without teaching grammar explicitly. If they did this, they would fail dismally. The children, for their part, bring their intention-reading and pattern-finding abilities to the task (Tomasello 2003, 6). 2.4 Children crack the code: evidence from second language acquisition Do children first acquire words and then learn how to combine them? “From a more functional point of view, children are learning and producing whole utterances, and their task is to break down an utterance into its constituent parts and so to understand what functional role is being played by each of those parts in the utterance as a whole” (Tomasello 2003, 40). This account of early language development seems better to capture the spirit of early language and is the one espoused here. Utterances constitute the primary reality of language. When children start out in language, they do not produce “words” but concrete utterances that are stored and from which words must be extracted in segmentation and pattern-finding processes. Starting from functional wholes, then, we expect segmentation difficulties for second language learners also. Half-analyzed utterances such as “Whatshisname is Fred”, meaning “His name is Fred” are well-known. One child learning English in kindergarten produced the sentence “I need three napples, please” (Peltzer-Karpf 2003). He must have thought that “an apple” was actually “a napple”. The same kind of error was made centuries earlier when along with the Spanish fruit the Spanish word “naranja” was imported into England and wrongly understood as “an aranja”, which became “an orange”. “Le l’oiseau”, “la vion” and “la senseur” for “l’oiseau”, “l’avion”, l’ascenseur” © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="57"?> 2.4 Children crack the code: evidence from second language acquisition 57 are similar segmentation errors produced by German-French bilinguals. So it is often spelling mistakes which reveal these problems. New linguistic information is often initially stored as whole chunks or routines. These expressions may be linguistically complex but their constituent parts cannot yet be used freely. Bit by bit the child begins to break down the formula and perceives a pattern with open slots in it allowing his language to become productive. This learning process has been graphically demonstrated by Lilly Wong-Fillmore (1976), who observed five Mexican immigrant children in their Californian primary school, in their families and in the playground for a school year. Children first grasp whole chunks which they understand from the context of situation, but not with regard to their structure. Then they begin to analyse and carve up the fixed expressions until all their constituents can be used freely. There are opaque routines as well as half-analysed and fully freed forms used side by side till finally everything is neatly narrowed down. Fillmore mentions several steps. Children begin with formulas, or holophrases: gimme lemme-see stopit I-dunno The children are simply repeating ready-made speech sequences they have previously heard and do not produce creatively, frozen holophrases, as it were. They then break down the expressions into a fixed part and a variable part. The variations, though, are restricted to prefabricated sub-parts. The fixed formulas are underlined: I can say it the story. I can say it cat all right. Lemme see it the tweedle. I wanna read it dese story. I wannit the scissors. In the next stage, the variable part is opened up. Original utterances appear and the pattern becomes productive in some of its slots: I wanna → I wanna three. I wanna dese I wanna here. You wanna here and me here? Gimme → Gimme dese. Gimme dese one. Gimme one for dese. Gimme you telephone (i.e. your telephone number) At this stage ‘give me’ is interpreted as one word ‘gimme’, thus making ‘give me the ball’ structurally equivalent to ‘throw the ball’. The structure eventually becomes variable in all its slots. A number of words is generalized into a class. Thus, the structure behind specific lexical items is discovered, and abstract schemas and sentence frames emerge, such as subject - verb - object or article - adjective - noun. All slots can be filled with words of one class. Eventually, the child can use the frame to compose the new sentences she needs. As in MT acquisition, parents can help. In Döpke’s study of German immigrants to Australia, the parents who best succeeded in raising their children bilingually had not only a child-centred style of interaction but also included “teaching techniques”: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="58"?> 58 Chapter 2: How learners break into the speech code: the principle of dual comprehension Parental utterances were considered teaching techniques when they presented the child with verbal models, rehearsed language information for the child, made pattern structures transparent, or elicited verbalizations from the child (Döpke 1992, 146). Here are two examples which teach both vocabulary and structure: Contrasting provision of label: Parent: Your hands are all dirty. - Now they are clean. Request for insertion: Parent: That is the …? Child: Wolf. Many more parental utterances may be seen as teaching structure, i.e. questions which require a single content element for an answer, such as “What is this? ” or “What are we having for lunch? ” (Döpke 1992, 150). It does not seem to matter whether these are medium-oriented, “didactic” questions or “real” questions. 2.5 Children crack the code: evidence from classrooms To crack the code, therefore, means to segment and identify words, to separate out the word stems, to realize how words combine into a sentence, to free words from their current context and to find patterns in stored utterances. Can these processes be observed in the classroom? Let’s have a look at a psycholinguist’s report on his Japanese course at a Berlitz language school. Here is an expert who knows how to analyse language, yet even he finds it difficult to follow a monolingual teacher: In addition errors of segmentation like those children sometimes make. Hearing again and again the question Kore wa nan desu ka? (What is this? ) but never seeing it printed I conceived of korewa as a single word; it is spoken without pause. Some lessons later I learned that wa is a particle, an unchanging uninflected form, that marks the noun it follows as the topic of the sentence. Interestingly enough I did not, at once, reanalyze my word korewa and such others as sorewa and arewa into noun and particle forms. I did not do that until I started to hear such object forms as kore o and sore o and are o in which o marks the direct object. Then the truth dawned on me, and the words almost audibly cracked into kore, sore, and are, three demonstratives which took wa in the nominative form and o in the objective. How beautifully consistent! Children learning English as their native language also sometimes mistake often repeated forms like What’s this? or it’s or Put it for single words (Brown 1973, Preface). The following are false segmentations, or examples of incomplete analysis, from the classroom: *I’m want some dinner. *It’s looks like a bus. *What’s was that? So a class can have “done” the topic of television and know that j’aime means “I like” while forgetting that j’ means “I”. Thus, to say “Rebecca likes East Enders”, many pupils typically come out with “Rebecca j’aime le Eastenders” … A Year 8 pupil whose class had greeted their German teacher at the start of every lesson for more than a year, arrived at the staffroom one day and asked for Gutenmorgenherrjones please (Elston, TES 1998). He very often demanded silence with the expression: [pikwait]. To me this was one word and I was absolutely proud when some day I learned the word “quiet” and when I discovered its meaning. Although I had sensed what Herr X meant to say I could then correct the pronunciation in my mind because I had identified the isolated words. Vanessa © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="59"?> 2.6 Taking a fresh look at past solutions 59 The problem of analysis is undoubtedly prominent in the classroom as well. With only a few hours of input per week, however, we cannot afford to wait for the natural process to succeed, until the penny finally drops - it simply takes too long. We need to help grammatical induction on its way and support the pupils in their segmentation task. This is what teachers do when they ask beginners questions like the following: Who jumped over the fence? The cow. What did the cow jump over? The fence. The cow jumped over what? The fence. What did the cow do? It jumped (over the fence). What did the cow do with the fence? It jumped over it. Did it jump over the fence or over the moon? Over the fence. Thus, the function of questions on a text is not only to make pupils speak, but to elicit grammatical constituents of sentences, making structures transparent. As we gain productive control over words, they become available to fill slots in patterns different from the construction they originally came from. At the same time we continue to use lexical phrases and frozen formulas of all sorts. Rapid speech is possible because we do not build our sentences from words alone, but also use prefabricated word-groups. “Fission” (breaking the language down into its basic units) and “fusion” (forming building blocks larger than words) are to be seen as complementary strategies (Peters 1983). Words and phrases co-exist in our minds. Here is a diary entry from a FL teacher taking Chinese lessons, again illustrating the learner’s compelling need for dual comprehension: First of all, I needed to know what something meant, and I couldn’t guess. Half the time I didn’t know what its ‘sound-shape’ was. But I couldn’t say, ‘Oh, that word sounds like an English or French word’. So I needed to hear the word many more times, and then I needed to say it just as many times. Thirdly, I could not manage to learn it if I hadn’t seen it written in pinyin (a romanized form of phonetically-based script used as an alternative to Chinese characters). Fourthly, I needed to know that it went in this or that place in a sentence, not technically what part of speech it was necessarily, but where it went. What threw me a lot of the time was that an identical word could go in different parts of the sentence. So I spent the whole twelve weeks cognitively trying to ‘organize’ the language internally before I could start to get hold of it to use it (Lowe 1987, 94). It is these needs, apart from pronunciation, that ancient methods addressed, often in an elegant and exemplary way. To them we will turn now. 2.6 Taking a fresh look at past solutions Tradition is not worshipping the ashes, but carrying on the fire. Gustav Mahler Only when immersed full time in the real world of the target language can we enjoy the space (multiple, differing contexts) and the time (multiple incidents of the structure) to unravel the structural meanings. How did FL teachers in the past make up for the missing multiplicity of space and time in the classroom? After all, each century produced, by various means, the foreign language speakers that it needed. So what did past solutions of the problem look like? Language teachers in the past did recognise the learner’s need for both understanding what is meant and how it is said. Their endeavours for dual comprehen- © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="60"?> 60 Chapter 2: How learners break into the speech code: the principle of dual comprehension sion run like a thread through historical records. Many teaching arrangements seem to be variations on one theme only: dual comprehension. Five types can be distinguished. (Authors and coursebooks will be named, but no examples will be given as they can be found in Butzkamm 2004/ 2007 and in anthologies such as Caravolas 1994.) 1. The most conspicuous means used is giving two translations, a free one and a literal one, as in the Latin grammar of Aelius Donatus from the 4 th century, his Ars minor, which was used in the Carolingian Renaissance and became a standard work in the Middle Ages. Each section exists in three forms: (1) the original Latin text, (2) the same text commentated word for word in German under the title “die uslegung”, i.e. “interpretation”, and (3) a free translation, called “der sin jm tütsch”, i.e. “the meaning in German”. The tradition of two different translations is also adhered to in the famous educational guidelines of the Jesuits, as recorded in their Ratio Studiorum, and, among others, in the Nouveau cours pratique, analytique, théorique et synthétique de la langue anglaise (1842) by T. Robertson, which was frequently reprinted and adapted. Charles Toussaint and Gustav Langenscheidt based their correspondence course for the study of French, a pioneering milestone in distance language teaching (1866), on the principles laid down by Robertson, and others. Dame Marie Rambert (1972, 45), the dancer, found the Robertson method “brilliant”: There would be a short passage of some six or seven lines of English. I remember one that began: “We are told that the Sultan Mahmoud, by his perpetual wars abroad, …” Underneath each word there would be its literal translation into French, thus: “*Nous sommes dits que le sultan Mahmoud, par ses perpétuelles guerres au dehors …” And finally there was the translation into good French: “On nous dit …” Thus you had a clear idea of the relative construction of English phrases and French. It was a simple, but brilliant system. I was interested, and I learnt it all by heart in no time. One can only wonder at the arrogance of modern writers who boldly claim that “traditional” methods have “failed” without even knowing them. 2. Providing a literal and a free translation is certainly the clearest application of our principle, but perhaps also the most long-winded. Some authors achieve dual comprehension by line-by-line parallel translation, which seems both more economical and more elegant. This is true for the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana, Graeco-Latin conversation books of the third century (re-edited in 2005), and for William Caxton’s well-known Dialogues in French and English from the year 1483. The same procedure is also used by Pierre du Ploiche A Treatise in English and Frenche right necessary and profitable for al young children (1553). We’ll make an exception and give just one example, because the line break so clearly indicates the sentence structure. Two merchants leave their inn in the early morning to transact their business: Wil we go Voulons nous aller see if we veoir si nous can bye pourrons acheter some thyng? quelque chose? That shold be wel done, Ce seroit bien faict But it is yet too tymely. Mais il est encore trop tempre. By your licence it is tyme. Pardonnez moy il est tems. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="61"?> 2.6 Taking a fresh look at past solutions 61 Have you any Englyshe cloth? Avez-vous des draps d’Engleterre? Ye, what colour. Ouy, quelle couleur … (quoted by Lambley 1920, 131) Line by line parallel correlation was further used by Mathurin Cordier, whose Principia latine loquendi scribendique (1556) was later adapted for English schoolchildren, by Johann G. Otliker in his Sprachbüchlein in Frantz und Teusch (Nürnberg 1702) and Madame La Roche in her Nouvelle Méthode pour traiter la Grammaire Française (Leipzig (1727). An example from the 20 th century is provided by Belasco, who designed a French reading course for American college students based on a novel by Pierre Boulle which he situates in the right-hand column. Like Robertson, Belasco takes into account the progress his students make. Gradually more and more gaps appear in the English text so that students have to cope with longer and longer pieces of the original on their own. (Another example of line by line correlation is Blair’s version of David and Goliath on p. 181.) Comenius (as illustrated by Hawkins 1981, 106f.) came with up with an original idea. In addition to line by line parallel translation, individual words in the original and in the translation are marked by a number referring to numbered illustrations in the picture above or next to the text. 3. In some “conversation books” with parallel translations, the principle of correlating corresponding parts of the sentence is not adhered to. But the author’s instructions for use make it clear that it is up to the teacher to establish understanding of the structure, as here in Hezel (1799/ 1985, 48): Now he is told the whole sentence in German; then he is shown which German words correspond to the individual French words and how they have this or that meaning, depending on the context. 4. The fourth and most economical solution to ensure dual comprehension consisted of choosing teaching texts which the students already knew in their MT or could get hold of easily. So only a literal translation was needed. Goethe, in order to master Hebrew, read the Old Testament, not in Luther’s translation but “in the literal accompanying version by Sebastian Schmid which my father immediately bought for me.” There is no doubt that Goethe already had Luther’s text in his head and so did not need any further translation. Likewise, Hamilton (1829) used the first three chapters of the Gospel of St. John for his French course in the United States, along with “analytical translations”, i.e. literal translations adapted in such a way that the structure became transparent and equivalences were easily detected. He wasn’t the only one to use the gospels. The pupils could concentrate fully on the language, rather than being distracted by the search for meaning. Schliemann (1880; see Vollmann 2001, 15), the German archaeologist, learnt Russian with a Russian translation of Fénelon’s Aventures de Télémaque, a text he knew well because he had already used it to learn French. Working with familiar texts is economical, he reports in his autobiography, because he didn’t “lose a single minute by being obliged to use a dictionary”. Trotsky (1929, 118) reports: Through my sister, who had come from the country, I managed to get four copies of the Bible in different languages. So I read the Gospels, verse by verse, with the help of the little knowledge of German and French that I had acquired in school, and side by side with this a parallel reading in English and Italian. In a few months, I made excellent progress in this way. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="62"?> 62 Chapter 2: How learners break into the speech code: the principle of dual comprehension Sandra also learns in the spirit of the old language masters: We went to the Methodist church twice every Sunday. As I already knew the meaning of the different prayers, e.g. The Lord’s Prayer, I was able to concentrate on the words themselves. The repetition of the same prayers over and over again enabled me to internalize the underlying grammatical patterns as well. Sandra 5. Fifthly, there is a modern mixed form of free and literal translation which takes into account the progress made by the learners. Literal translation aids (usually in brackets) are only added where the languages deviate structurally and the student does not understand these deviations yet. Take for example the Assimil Method coursebooks for different foreign languages - an extremely successful series created by Alphonse Chérel (L’anglais sans peine, 1929). Not surprisingly, the Japanese book has many more additions of literal translations in brackets plus grammatical references than, say, the Italian book. Yet another device which also achieves dual comprehension is to use bold type to help identify matching components, as used by Michel Thomas (Solity 2008, 137): to see to see it I want to see it I don’t want to see it. Spanish ver verlo Quiero verlo No quiero verlo. To sum up: Different forms of presentation seem to serve only one aim, namely to guarantee the double understanding as defined here. They thus provide the learner with input of the proper sort. The arrangements are as follows: • two translations side by side following the original text: literal translation plus free, i.e. the “good”, translation; • the original text with literal translations, usually word for word, in between the lines (interlinear version), plus a separate free translation; • the original text and a good translation next to it, but broken up in such a way that line by line equals phrase by phrase (lateral or parallel version); • the original text plus a good translation which contains bits of literal translations in brackets; • only a literal translation is given, familiarity with the good translation being taken for granted; • only a good translation is provided along with the original text. The author expects the teacher to provide the missing word-by-word equivalents plus explanations. But in general learners are shown more than a Rosetta stone. 2.7 Regular review The secret of success - most of the books mentioned run through several editions - seems to lie in the thorough assimilation of texts in which the form-meaning pairings have been clarified. The texts didn’t need to be grammatically sequenced and could be structurally random, as long as they were made comprehensible on two levels. Moreover, the authors recommend translating back into the original language, at regular intervals, to revise what has been half forgotten. The ancients knew of course that © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="63"?> 2.7 Regular review 63 regular revision was essential: Repetitio mater est studiorum. Modern memory research tells us that “distributed practice” is more powerful than “massed practice”. For longterm retention, we have to establish regular review strategies - a point we will return to in later chapters. Grammar explanations were held back, most explicitly in Hamilton, where they only have a place at the second course level as an additional systemisation and consolidation of what has already been learnt. Generally speaking, the text and its translation arrangements take the place of grammar and dictionary. The above-mentioned language teaching books are bilingual text methods, with a text as starting point and focus of learning, plus varying supplements of grammar teaching. They have nothing to do with the grammar-translation method, with which a rich tradition is wrongly lumped together. Admittedly, there are also bilingual course books with no arrangement for mapping the foreign structures on the MT (see Howatt 2004, 61; 74 for examples). Nevertheless, the principle of dual understanding has proved its explanatory power. Different teaching arrangements lead to success because they fulfil the basic conditions of language acquisition. Making us conversant with the solutions of past generations, we understand the unifying principle in the diversity of the FLT arrangements offered. Let us conclude our glimpse at history by paying tribute to the memory of a unique teacher of the not so distant past. Countless teachers must have found their own means of ensuring dual comprehension, defying whatever the contemporary pedagogical orthodoxy might be and exploiting the prescribed teaching materials in clever and unexpected ways. This was certainly the case for Charlie Goffett, a highly revered Australian teacher of French, much loved by his charges. Trained in the 1920s, Goffett was clearly a product of the prevailing direct method of the time of his training, taking great pride in using his French (which he honed assiduously at the captains’ tables of French cargo ships visiting the port of Newcastle) as the classroom medium, which was always an inspiration to the highly selected better students and sometimes the bane of the lesser lights. In isolated Australia of the post-war period to the mid-60s, reading and hence access to European literature was seen as virtually the only justification for the learning of a FL, so grammar-translation was the orthodox approach. Goffett, however, was intent on ensuring that his students were actually able to communicate in French. He seized upon an execrable yet exciting set text, Les Aventures de Slim Kerrigan, a veritable potboiler set in the wilds of Canada, as his means to focus on structure. Through literal translation, he systematically provided his students with structures to generate the sentences they needed to communicate through the target language, whether orally (a rarity in those days) or in the more exam-oriented formal writing. His reader rapidly became the class’ grammar book. Whenever in classroom interaction a student baulked at or failed with a particular structure, Goffett would simply quote a modelling line from Slim Kerrigan and the student could immediately put the utterance right. When a student struggled with a structure in written translation into French, Goffett knew the exemplifying structures of the text so well that he could refer the student to “page 36, line 9”. His colleagues stood in awe of him but thought him an oddity. He was too kind to indicate what he thought of their plodding, monolingual (MT! ) classroom efforts. But his students certainly knew and valued the opportunities he afforded them to break into the secrets of the French language. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="64"?> 64 Chapter 2: How learners break into the speech code: the principle of dual comprehension 2.8 Dual comprehension and the role of output At the beginning of this chapter we mentioned children who from birth were not able to control their speech mechanism yet still acquired language. When it became possible to reduce their spasms, they were able to speak and write in a very short time as they must have been absorbing and storing up language for years. Speaking had been placed backstage as it were and only a few impulses were needed to activate it. But this magic only works after years of constant input. For this to be possible, there must be close links between listening and speaking. Speaking always involves listening to oneself, so the listening region is automatically activated at the same time. Conversely, “pure” listening and reading also stimulates the speech mechanism. The more difficult the listening or reading material, the more accentuated this inner speech tends to become - up to the point where it becomes audible as some sort of self-talk. The same bi-directional connection has been established in other skills. When pianists listen to piano music, the region of the brain responsible for finger movement is stimulated as well as the listening region. Motor skills are practised by mere listening and observing. Countless autodidacts such as Schliemann cited above learned languages successfully mainly through texts and with little in the way of communicative activities. Comprehended input is central in language acquisition, provided that both decoding - form-to-function mapping - and code-breaking, i.e. function-to-form mapping, are involved. To paraphrase Corder (as quoted by Howatt 2004, 336): Given motivation, it is inevitable that learners will learn if they receive input comprehended at two levels. However, we are not just vessels into which language is poured. Healthy humans are active problem solvers who take the initiative and take risks. They do not acquire language only by listening; they explore, in dialogue, how far they have managed to make others understand them. Back-and-forth discourse with mature speakers is always included in language learning. The “negotiation” (Bruner 1983, 10f.) of meaning through questions and answers, comprehension checks, requests for clarification etc. contributes substantially to a syntactic analysis of the language material, and thus leads to the necessary formal transparency overlooked by Krashen. Children try out things to see if they work, correct themselves and re-formulate what they want to say. Function is embedded and revealed in action. In Swain’s (1985, 252) words, production may force the learner “to move from a purely semantic analysis of the language to a syntactic analysis of it”. Children will finally be able to partition previously unparsed expressions into their constituent elements. So we understand input through output. Dually comprehended language input is the fuel for our language learning capacities. The young child on its mother’s lap receives it just as substantially as the child going to kindergarten where a different language is spoken: input of the best quality with regard to the phonetic aspect, and of good to satisfactory quality at other speech levels. In comparison, output and the give and take of communication is secondary, but will always play a central role in classrooms. In exchanges with the students, the teacher can provide the verbal guidance they need in order to understand both functions and forms, which to some extent resembles the verbal “scaffolding” that children receive from their parents (Bruner 1983). In FLT, the problem remains to distribute the weightings properly. The crucial point is that the amount of language that can be presented and practised within a production-oriented course is small when considered in relation to © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="65"?> Study questions 65 the total fund of language required to communicate effectively (Courchêne 1992, 97). We need rich material for our “intuitive heuristics” (Chomsky in Lester 1970, 108) and have to ensure that the understanding of large amounts of input is rapidly developed. For this to happen, the mediation of the MT is of critical importance. Texts of a high quality far above the production level of the pupils can then be used quite early in the course (Chapter 9). An Australian teacher courageously attempting to follow a direct method course imperative not to use any printed material for twelve months was forced by the students and parents after three months to provide much more advanced reading material. The students, lost and bored, literally cried out for more and varied input to process. A note on group work. Children learn their first languages from mature speakers who speak them well. Can pupils essentially learn from other pupils if they provide each other with “junky input data”? Wong-Fillmore (1985, 25), who has intensively analysed lessons in 40 classes with a lot of immigrant children, warns: The problem is especially acute in open classrooms, since students generally spend more time interacting with classmates than they do with teachers; under such circumstances, the major source of second language input comes from other language learners, a situation which is hardly conducive to successful language learning. How do we overcome the handicap that in classrooms many learners have to share one speech model? The teachers can duplicate themselves and bring the world outside into the classroom by constantly feeding in new listening and reading texts. Comprehensible input of good texts ranks higher than the stuttering and stammering of learners in a beginners’ group trying to solve problems or tasks, which are often quite time-consuming. Attempts to communicate are necessary but must be prepared well. A mistake-ridden, clumsy classroom pidgin may help the speakers, if at all, but never the listeners. Let us avoid any one-sidedness and choose, with Palmer (1922/ 1964, 108f.), a “multiple line of approach”. A modern communicative approach with its emphasis on everyday language, tasks, dialogue work and speech practice should be balanced out with an input-maximising listening and reading method. Study questions 1. Compare various commercial language guides available in bookshops. What means are employed to help learners achieve dual comprehension? 2. L1 acquisition has been described as the “collaborative construction of meaning” (Wells 1985, 404). Can you reconstruct typical parent-child dialogues to prove this point? 3. Krashen seems to suggest that comprehensible ‘input’ automatically causes ‘outcome’. However, it is claimed here that in order for language to work as processable input, it must be both functionally and syntactically transparent. Discuss this, giving your own examples from various learning situations. 4. In Canada it was found that even after years of studying French in an immersion context many deficits in that second language remained, which was far from native-like. Can you account for this finding? © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="66"?> Chapter 3: We only learn language once All the praise that is heaped on the classical languages as an educational tool is due in double measure to the mother tongue, which should more justly be called the ‘Mother of Languages’; every new language can only be established by comparison with it … Jean Paul, 1806 Le langage comme faculté ne se construit qu’une fois dans une vie humaine. Gilbert Dalgalian 3.1 Native language skills as a foundation for foreign language learning The allergy to the presence of the MT in the FL classroom undoubtedly comes from its all-too-frequent misuse. It has been a barrier to the true understanding of the issues involved. Years of daily encounters with a first language have given the children foundational skills which they need for school. Years of MT input and interactions have altered our brains and shaped our minds in ways that are overwhelmingly helpful for the acquisition of new languages. It has always been good educational practice to build on a learner’s existing skills and competencies. Why should FLT be an exception? Our monolingual methodology seems to assume that children have to learn everything about the foreign language from scratch. But by the time they start with foreign languages at school, children know a lot about language. As they grow into their mother tongue (1) they have learnt to conceptualize their world and have fully grasped the symbolic function of language; (2) they have learnt to communicate; (3) they have learnt to speak and use their voice; (4) they have acquired an intuitive understanding of grammar and have become aware of many of the finer points of language; (5) they have acquired the secondary skills of reading and writing. In acquiring a first language, they have in fact constructed their selves. The MT is therefore the greatest asset any human being brings to the task of FL learning and it provides an indispensable Language Acquisition Support System. In the following, we shall discuss in some detail what this Language Acquisition Support System is made up of. 1. Concepts We are not born speaking, but we are creatures born to learn speaking. Children by one and a half have grasped the essence of language, its symbolic function. They have come to understand their caretakers as well as themselves as intentional, mental agents. Two-year-olds have learnt to use phrases and words as carriers of communicative intent, and can represent their experiences in words. In repetitive, highly structured routine situations that have become transparent to them, they have learnt to map meanings onto phrases and words, and get thoughts from head to head. Speech sounds are not funny noises to them any more, perhaps they never were. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="67"?> 3.1 Native language skills as a foundation for foreign language learning 67 Hence, no child starts a second language with a clean slate. It’s already been written on. By the time they come into our classrooms, they have concepts and words for whole arenas of experience: food, clothing, family and playmates, school and holidays, plants and animals, television, hobbies and pastimes, and, last but not least, number. Languages permeate culture; they are distillations of generations of human experience. Take football. All the FL teacher has to do is give the new words for well-known concepts such as “score a goal”, “take the penalty” or “goal disallowed for offside”. Likewise, we quite naturally assume that our pupils already know what words such as “birthday” and “postman” mean within their own culture before they set about explaining the words “anniversaire / Geburtstag” or “facteur / Postbote”. Consider how often a child will have celebrated birthdays, or seen a postman. Even if we deal with cultures that restrict the concept of birthday to the day of one’s birth, the MT word would still be a suitable starting point for comprehension. Rather than re-conceptualise the world, we need to extend our concepts, with any necessary cultural adjustment or refinement. When a kiss means rubbing your nose against somebody’s cheek, one simply modifies a familiar concept. This is some part of the common ground pupils and teachers share, and which teachers quite naturally use even in the case of monolingual explanations. These wouldn’t work if there weren’t those common ways of perceiving and conceptualizing the world. It is precisely our common sense knowledge that computers cannot yet cope with and which prevents them from “understanding” simple texts and translating them adequately: ropes are for pulling and not for pushing, trees naturally die at the very place they grew up at, winds can blow leaves from trees, etc. Neurologically speaking, there are abstract networks of meanings or semantic systems of co-ordinates fed and tapped by all languages an individual might learn and possess. Conceptually, then, most teaching texts are a well-known landscape, but dressed in the disguise of a new language. This is at least true for all those teaching situations where there are no profound culture clashes or differences in natural environments, the fauna and flora. Wilkins (1978, 19) is in error in attacking the idea that, in learning another language, “part of the task is that of attaching fresh labels to familiar things and ideas. This is as mistaken a notion about vocabulary as it is about syntax, since our classification of the physical and abstract world is itself determined (sic! ) by the lexical structure of the language we speak. If we learn a new language, we have to learn a new way of classifying things.” This is simplistic linguistics and armchair didactics. Clearly, it’s the linguistic relativity hypothesis which is at the back of Wilkins’s mind, and which Whorf (1967, 213) stated in its strongest form: We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages … the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds - and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. Different languages do cut up the colour domain differently, and some languages have more basic colour terms than others, some have more words for snow, varying divisions of seasonal changes etc. But the fact that a language does or doesn’t have a word for a colour or a particular kind of snow means little. Many languages have only a single word to denote both hand and arm, and there are also languages which don’t have one word for hand and another, different word for finger. Yet it would be absurd to claim © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="68"?> 68 Chapter 3: We only learn language once that the speakers couldn’t make those distinctions when needed. We cannot enter here into the debate on the relationship of language and thought, tempting as it would be, but claim that this has no bearing on the question of whether meaning should be clarified in the native language or in the target language. It is when Wilkins tries to explain his concept that the fallacy of his argument emerges: “A simple example will make the point clear”, he goes on to say. “Russian has one verb, hoditj, which means go on foot and another, jezditj, which means to travel by vehicle, but no ‘neutral’ verb like go which can be used for either … Neither of these words can be properly understood without knowledge of the meaning of the other. This is a non sequitur. We believe that children all over the world will have no problems with the concept of going on foot. What’s wrong then with explaining hoditj as “walk” and “go on foot” and wait till the other verb comes along? The language learning process is always cumulative. 2. Communication From birth on, children are learning how to communicate, first non-verbally, and about a year later, verbally. Entry into language is preceded by entry into communication. Parents are first of all partners in communication, trying to make their own intentions clear and interpreting their children’s vocalisations as being intentional and meaningful responses, even before they become so. Infants participate and will become themselves intention-readers. They will come to understand how gesture, gaze, facial expressions, voice quality and actual speech sounds can combine to achieve communicative effects. They will learn how to participate in conversations, how to attend to interlocutors and to whatever is being talked about, how to stay on a topic and how to tailor their utterances for each addressee. They will learn when they are expected to respond, what counts as a turn in conversation, and that there is usually more than one way of making oneself understood. They can eavesdrop on other people’s conversations and join an ongoing conversation so that the conversation continues on topic. They know that one speaks differently to friends and family members from the way one does to teachers and strangers. They have an idea of politeness and rudeness, and they are busy constructing their social role as a boy versus a girl partly through language. No FL learner needs to be told that requests, wishes or warnings can masquerade as statements. They have long since learned that it is not always necessary and sometimes impolite to make one’s intentions explicit. They know how to negotiate meaning, or how to be ironical. They have acquired an L1 along with its attendant discourse skills and pragmatic knowledge, which are directly available for incorporation into the target language system. This is far from saying that as they approach school age, children are skilled conversationalists in their MT. For instance, 10-year-olds use discourse particles such as “in fact, nevertheless, although, on the other hand”, which often serve to take the listener’s knowledge and perspective into account, three times more often than 6-year-olds but still much less often than adults (Tomasello 2003, 269). Relating past events and story telling are complex discourse skills that take long to develop. The development continues into the school years and beyond; story telling can be turned into an art form. There is much left for school to do, but the foundations have been laid, and 6-year-olds evidence practically adult-level linguistic skills in many respects. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="69"?> 3.1 Native language skills as a foundation for foreign language learning 69 It is here in particular that communicative advocates got it all wrong in treating learners as empty receptacles into which the FL along with basic communication skills had to be poured. Do we really need extra training in making intelligent guesses from context? As Swan (1985a, 9) sums it up: “Language learners already know, in general, how to negotiate meaning. They have been doing it all their lives.” 3. Voice Before they come to school, children have practised for years to become vocalizers and speakers. Fluent articulation is probably man’s most complex motor skill. It involves the coordinated use of approximately 100 muscles, such that speech sounds are produced at a rate of about 15 per second” (Levelt 1989, 413). It comes as no surprise that during all of childhood, children are at work on becoming better articulators. When babies lie in their crib and play with sounds as they coo and babble, they are likely to create “a kind of mouth-to-sound map, relating the movements of their speech articulators (their lips, tongue, mouth and jaw) to the sounds they produce” (Gopnik et al. 2001, 124). They also learn something akin to lip-reading, as they watch their mothers bending over them and speaking to them, just at the right distance for the baby’s not fully developed sight. Sometimes they get especially well-formed, exaggerated and lengthened vowels from their parents: When mothers say the word bead to an adult, it’s produced in a fraction of a second and it’s a bit sloppy. But when mothers say that same word to their infants, it becomes beeeed, a wellproduced, clearly articulated word (Gopnik et al. 2001, 130). Of course, parents are not consciously teaching vowels. Extraordinarily good vowels are just part of their high-pitched melodic singsong which is an expression of their love, and which they intuitively think makes them attractive to their baby and would endear them to her. For them, it is simply a way of showing their affection and giving comfort. But for the baby, it could be a great help in identifying the prototypical main vowels. Out of context, motherese simply sounds silly. All this has been clearly demonstrated beyond doubt by a spate of ingenious experiments carried out over the last few decades. So children gradually and continually add more and more information about sound production. They learn how to master the contrasts between high and low, front and back vowels, between stops and fricatives, voiced and voiceless consonants etc. The continuous experimentation and practice with the sounds of words takes time. Late acquired sounds such as the “hushing” and “hissing” sounds - / z/ vs. / s / ; / ∂/ vs. / Q/ are clearly more difficult than those acquired early. At some point there is a characteristic mismatch between what children perceive as correct and what they can produce. This is often referred to as the “fis phenomenon”: One of us, for instance, spoke to a child who called his inflated plastic fish a fis. In imitation of the child’s pronunciation, the observer said: “This is your fis? ” “No”, said the child, “my fis”. He continued to reject the adult’s pronunciation until he was told, “This is your fish.” “Yes,” he said, “my fis” (Berko & Brown 1960, 531). © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="70"?> 70 Chapter 3: We only learn language once So the child is clearly aware of the contrast which it can’t yet produce himself, and rejects his own pronunciation when it comes from someone else. Perception is in advance of articulation. Father: Say “jump”. Child: Dup. Father: No, “jump”. Child: Dup. Father: No, “jummmp”. Child: Only Daddy can say dup! (Smith, quoted by Clark 2003, 72) The fine motor movements required for speech production take a great deal of practice. That’s probably the reason why babbling continues well after the appearance of the first few words. This need not be elaborated further. All parents have observed how much time and effort it takes the children to articulate the speech sounds clearly and correctly, and have often worried about persistent difficulties their children had with individual sounds or sound combinations. They expect their child to master all the MT sounds by the time they go to school. As adults, if we know what we want to say, the sounds are there for us instantly. A fully developed speech organ involving the coordination of so many muscles is an invaluable help when we tackle a new language. There is, however, some language growth which, from a FL perspective, is a loss, and where in fact the MT turns out to be a hindrance instead of a help. As children slowly succeed in articulating one sound sequence after another, one would expect them, in a parallel development, to discriminate more and more sound contrasts. In fact, the opposite is the case. As listeners, infants start out ready for any language, but then reorganize their phonetic perception from “universal” to language-specific. As they tune in to the sounds of their first language, they show a decline in sensitivity to sound distinctions used in languages that are not their own. For instance, Japanese and American seven-month-olds can discriminate / r/ from / l/ equally well. But one-year-old Japanese infants (and adults) have practically lost the ability to distinguish between “ra” and “la” (hence all the dubious jokes about Japanese speakers who seem to say “erection” instead of “election” etc.), whereas the American babies not only continued to hear the changes from / r/ to / l/ , but even got better at making this distinction (Gopnik et al. 2001, 107). On the other hand, one-year old English-speaking infants can no longer discriminate the / u/ and / y/ vowels. We asked Gisa, a 3-year-old German girl, to sing along with “This old man, he played one …” and to join us in “Sur le pont d’Avignon …” and we heard the accent typical of a German native speaker. She substituted German “wann” for “one”, “sur” became / zyr/ instead of / syr/ , etc., as if she transformed the actual sounds she heard into sounds closer to the MT sounds. “By six to twelve months of age, the baby is no longer a citizen of the world but a culture-bound language specialist, like you and me” (Gopnik et al., 2001, 123). It is at the level of sounds that the native language most distinctly intrudes on the learner’s foreign languages. Here, indeed, is a major challenge to the learning of a new language, one which can make life miserable to FL learners. Because of our auditory losses, many language learners have experienced frustration and even desperation, to the point of giving it all up, as Western missionaries in China, confronted with both © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="71"?> 3.1 Native language skills as a foundation for foreign language learning 71 foreign sounds and tonal features, have testified abundantly. Most of us will never get rid of our accents. The mental representations of speech sounds we have established during childhood interfere with the representations required by the FL. It cannot be emphasized too strongly that it is only here that the MT proves to be a burden rather than a blessing for FL learners, who have to re-educate their ears and develop new auditory habits. Nevertheless, for post-infant learners of an FL, the articulatory gains which have been made in and through the MT compensate largely for the perceptual losses. 4. Grammar FL teachers often complain that their pupils have “no grammar”. They find that whenever they mention categories like nouns, adjectives, passives or relative clauses, those terms are a closed book to them. Their criticism is levelled against their colleagues who teach the MT and have obviously not taught those terms. But central categories like nouns, adjectives etc. are only profound mysteries to the pupils in the sense that they cannot define them adequately. Given a few MT examples, perhaps a phrase with a slot for adjectives, they will correctly fill the slot with many more adjectives. They obviously know what to do with adjectives in a sentence and how to put them to good use to understand and express themselves. If you can make intelligent use of your computer, it’s really all you need. Who cares whether you can define and describe its internal mechanisms? Categories such as adjectives live in the minds of school children, whether they can define them properly or not. Similarly, speakers of many native tongues can handle inflections and know that changing endings like -ing or -ed can do different jobs in a sentence. They can easily be made aware of the fact that there are constraints on word order, that there are homophones and that most words have more than one meaning. If both the target language and the MT have adjectives, relative clauses or the pluperfect tense in common, these features need not be taught from scratch. They are directly available for incorporation into the L2 system, and the teaching can focus on the formal coding rather than the function. However, the path breaking power of L1 grammar is not dependent on the fact that both languages share such grammatical features. MT grammars have paved the way to foreign grammars in ways which are often overlooked. Let us be quite basic here, for the sake of clarity. What could you do with learners who didn’t have the concepts of ‘before’ and ‘after’ in space and time? How can one expect students to understand the essence of the continuous aspect if they didn’t have the notion of duration? Consider that complex structural areas such as passives are acquired step by step. In the beginning, children’s strategy of taking the first noun in the sentence to be the agent leads them astray when confronted with passives. In L1 English or German this is gradually sorted out, firstly through cases of semantically irreversible passives such as “The girl was bitten by the spider” which then spreads to semantically reversible passives. Similarly, children have problems with handling time sequences when the second event precedes the one mentioned first in a grammatical structure: “Before he left, he had another beer”. Causative structures such as “Bettina had Walter go and get the milk” cause confusion as to who actually fetches the milk, even among children at school in early years (Peltzer-Karpf 1994, 140; 186). However, by the time the child comes to learn a FL, these difficulties have been overcome and we need not go the same long way to grammar a second time. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="72"?> 72 Chapter 3: We only learn language once There is a definite connection between the understanding of grammar as developed in the native language and the understanding of a foreign language (Politzer 1965b, VI). We may, for instance, take it for granted that we can say “my head” and “my father” as well as “my garden”. But we are also mentally prepared to use a different possessive for “my garden”, as some languages in fact do - because it makes sense to distinguish between ‘alienable’ and ‘inalienable possession’. It is because all languages have evolved means of expressing abstract ideas such as possession, number, agent, instrument, negation, possibility, condition, obligation and a host of others, no matter how they do this, that one natural language is enough to open the door for the grammars of other languages. “The fact that any language can be used to convey any proposition, from theological parables to military directives, suggests that all languages are cut from the same cloth” (Pinker 2002, 37). For instance, modern Greek uses a that-clause where English uses an infinitive: “You must go now” is in Greek *you must that you go now, or “I want to sleep” is *I want that I sleep.” The constructions don’t agree, but our MT provides us with the means of understanding the foreign mode of expression. Even if there is no “if” in a language, that language can express conditions and thus clarify the function of “if” in those languages that do have such a conjunction. Along with a first language, we have acquired the deep structure of language as such. Swan (1985b, 85f.) puts it forcefully: If we did not keep making correspondences between foreign language items and mother tongue items, we would never learn foreign languages at all … Imagine starting to learn German without being able to make any unconscious assumptions about the grammar - for instance, that there are verbs and pronouns with similar meanings to our verbs and pronouns … This kind of ‘equivalence assumption’ puts us ahead of the game; it makes possible for us to learn a new language without at the same time returning to infancy and learning to categorize the world all over again. By the time children encounter a foreign language at school, it will not surprise them that a foreign phrase can have several valid translations, just as in their first language the same intentions may be expressed in several ways. Learners have also come to understand some of the finer points of language use: idiomatic phrases, figurative speech, metaphors and irony. For instance, we can distinguish between core meaning (prototypical meaning) and non-core meanings of words, and, correspondingly, develop intuitions regarding the potential transferability of meanings between languages. Good language learners tend to avoid error-prone transfers of core meanings to non-core meanings (eye vs. eye of the needle). The ability to learn foreign languages easily can, therefore, be predicted by looking at abilities and disabilities in the native language. The psychologists Leonore Ganschow and Richard Sparks (2001, 87) summarise the results of the studies related to this topic, proposing that “Native language skills in the phonological / orthographic, syntactic, and semantic codes form the basic foundation for FL learning.” Students who have difficulties learning an FL are likely to have overt or subtle difficulties in their native language, which would mean that many problems learners have with FLL spring from deficits in the native language. For a century, a large part of the language teaching profession has ignored the very foundations on which FL learning is built. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="73"?> 3.2 Goodbye Berlitz: arguments and counterarguments 73 5. Reading & writing Arabic script moves from right to left, from back page to front. Chinese characters normally follow one another without breaks to indicate individual words. By contrast, young European learners learn early in their schooling that writing flows from left to write, that the flow of speech can be broken into words which are spaced on the page, and that there are punctuation marks to help us structure sentences and paragraphs. In whatever language, however, the concept of linearity is there. Also, learners used to an alphabetic script are aware of complex phoneme-grapheme relationships. It is by now well established that reading for meaning is a skill which is non-language-specific and so is transferred to a FL that is being learned - and vice-versa from FL to MT, for which West provided evidence as early as 1941. Indeed, FL teachers might well consciously exploit this phenomenon. One of us, when supervising an Australian FL student teacher at practicum, was surprised that she spent the first half of a reading lesson with early FL learners reminding them in the MT of the basic reading skills they had learnt as L1 speakers. This seemed to radically violate the L2 monolingualism code of the times. On reflection, he realized that the teacher, whose other method was no doubt English L1, had intuitively grasped that basic reading strategies skills were just as vital to L2 and were relatively easily transferable, if prompted. Last but not least, the motor skills for writing have usually been mastered before a FL is introduced. Native language literacy skills facilitate the acquisition of FL literacy skills. To sum up. It’s all there already. The challenging engineering problems that children have solved as they learn to speak, the strength of the scenarios they bring to the classroom, are coming to light more and more. All these skills and knowledge sources are available at the FL initial state. They are the base camp from which we all set out to conquer new language territories. It has taken children years to obtain the communicative competence which makes instruction possible in the first place, be it maths, geography or another language. It makes excellent biological sense for a new language to piggyback on this open channel of communication. But what children can do with words, how many way stations there are along the road to language, and how this can affect FLL, all this has hardly been dreamt of in the monolingual teaching philosophy. NB. We are far from saying that the L1 is the major “driving force” for FL development. L1 transfer, whether positive or negative, is not everything. To some extent it is the L2 system itself and its underlying organisational principles - regardless of the L1 - which guides the acquisition process. A lot of work still needs to be done to tease out developmental and L1 transfer effects (see Gass & Selinker 2001, 72ff.). 3.2 Goodbye Berlitz: arguments and counterarguments In the following, we present some of our arguments in favour of MT use and probe the soundness and relevance of objections frequently made against its use. Maxim 1. The direct principle is a delusion. The FL learner must build upon existing skills and knowledge acquired in and through the MT. Monolingual lessons without the help of the mother tongue are extrinsically possible; however, monolingual learning is an intrinsic impossibility. Incoming information must be matched up against prior knowledge. We all take what we already know and use © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="74"?> 74 Chapter 3: We only learn language once this as a basis for comprehension and for learning more. No one can simply turn off what they already know. We postulate that the mother tongue is “silently” present in beginners, even when lessons are kept monolingual. Brooks (1964, 142) assumes we could guide the learner along the right linguistic path “by rendering English inactive while the new language is being learned”. As if one could just slam the door in the face of the MT! Any classroom approach based on such a philosophy would be at once impossible, impractical and fundamentally flawed. Just as we build upon our ability to vocalise, read and to write, so we are unable to switch off our knowledge of the world and our understanding of what language does and how it works. There is no choice: We all see the new in terms of the familiar. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t understand. Some have argued that precisely because the MT is so deeply entrenched in our mental lives and inner consciousness, it’s the Enemy No 1 which FL teachers have to combat. The teacher faces “the difficulty of overcoming the barrier of the pupils’ mother tongue. For the mother tongue acts as a block in all the learners’ language reactions, and impedes the learning of the new language because it is so firmly seated as the first language” (Gurrey 1970, 3). Barrier, or block? A misleading metaphor. The proponents of this view have not pondered just how much young children know, and how infants got from knowing nothing to knowing so much. The influence of the MT is much more basic than is postulated in theories of negative linguistic transfer which focus on MT surface features and their incorporation in L2, rather than on overall cognitive structures to which a first language has contributed. Ever since the days of Sweet and Palmer, the irrepressibility of associations in the MT has been regularly confirmed as a sad, but unavoidable, fact of life by teachers observing in their own classrooms. This “inevitability” of the MT, however, has a false ring to it: “You can banish the MT from the classroom, but unfortunately you cannot banish it from the pupils’ heads. Since we can’t do anything about it, let’s accept it”. The MT as an evil, albeit a necessity. However, teachers should do everything to work with this natural tendency rather than against it - not because nothing can be done to prevent it, but because it is a vital stage for the beginner. Without it there would be blank incomprehension. Successful learners capitalise on the vast amount of linguistic skills and world knowledge they have accumulated via the MT - whether the teacher openly supports these processes or not. Learners must make this critically important connection - until the FL has established an ever-more powerful and complex network for itself. We have borrowed the phrase Language Acquisition Support System (LASS) from Bruner (1983) who uses it along with environmental “scaffolding” in the context of L1 acquisition. In FL learning, the LASS is provided by the MT, with learners engaging in their own self-scaffolding. Our job is to assist them in this task instead of ignoring, bypassing or suppressing what goes on in the pupils’ minds. We can conscientiously use this scaffolding technique as a rapid conduit to meaning and conceptual understanding of the FL. Word recognition experiments carried out by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen have provided incontrovertible evidence for the underlying presence of the MT. Competition between candidate words in the mental lexicon is the core assumption of most models of spoken word recognition. Candidate words are those which start with identical sound sequences. Since the number of such possible word © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="75"?> 3.2 Goodbye Berlitz: arguments and counterarguments 75 candidates is much smaller in a FL as yet imperfectly mastered, one would think that word recognition would be faster - provided that the theoretical model were correct. However, it turned out that listeners, unconsciously, of course, and involuntarily, also activated native language words. Dutch listeners apparently could not avoid considering native-language word candidates for recognition of a non-native word, even though they followed instructions in English and expected English words. Native word candidates popped up on their mental screen, as it were, however briefly, before being deactivated (Weber & Cutler 2004). The direct method, then, is a misnomer. Show a picture of a pear, and the German learner will say to himself: “Aha, ‘pear’ is ‘Birne’”. The picture is not more “direct” than the MT word. In bilingual brains a common neural system mediates semantic processes for both languages: These results demonstrate a shared frontal lobe system for semantic analysis of the languages and are consistent with cognitive research on bilingualism indicating that the two languages of a bilingual person access a common semantic system (Illes et al. 1999, 347). It appears that the linguistic systems (L1, L2, L3, etc.) are not independent but rather are based on a common conceptual system (Proverbio et al. 2006). Kim et al. (1997) found that both early and late bilinguals’ L1 and L2 seem to have no separation in Wernicke’s area, the language processing centre for understanding speech. All languages seem to tap a common conceptual system. To put it in a nutshell: It is one mind, several languages. Even shorter: FL via MT. Maxim 2. Limited, incomplete understanding and blank incomprehension are a frequent source of frustration in FL classes because monolingual ersatz-techniques of meaning-conveyance function less well than the MT. Textbook illustrations and blackboard work, along with the careful selection and grading of words and structures, are compensatory aids, vital for monolingual teachers, but often lead to misunderstandings in unpredictable ways. For many phrases, only a clarification in the mother tongue can bring pupils to trust in a foreign-language expression. Brown (1970, preface), a child-language researcher, draws a comparison between his problems with learning Japanese in a Berlitz course and the problems children encounter in learning their MT: After the first lesson in which various things on a desk were named, I realized that I did not know whether “hon”, for instance, meant book or pad or magazine or even cover, since the contrasts that would separate out book as the intended meaning had not been used. And of course children have that problem of isolating the defining (though generally not explicitly known or expressible) properties of referents. He remembers another instance of doubt and incomprehension, although the concepts involved seem to be quite simple: One long morning my teacher tried to put across three verbs, kinasu, yukinasu, and kaerimasu, with the aid of paper and pencil drawings of pathways and persons and loci, and by much moving of herself and of me - uncomprehendingly passive as a patient in a hospital. But I could not grasp the concepts. I feel Mr. Berlitz would have suffered no great dishonor if she had said to me that the concepts in question sometimes go by the names come, go, and return (Brown 1973, preface). © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="76"?> 76 Chapter 3: We only learn language once Informal meaning checks, when used at the end of a monolingual lesson, have repeatedly shown that pupils misunderstand more than their teachers realise. The latter had assumed that the new expressions had been explained so carefully, precisely and clearly that nothing could go wrong: I (W.B.) frequently used the phrase “Go back to your seat”. I had demonstrated the action and the pupils knew what to do. But it was later found that a lot of the pupils thought the phrase meant: “Geh schnell auf deinen Platz”.(= Go quickly to your seat). The adjective “disappointed” was explained monolingually. When the class was later asked the meaning in L1, the pupils came up with the equivalents of “sad”, “cross”, “angry” etc., but no one actually found “enttäuscht”, the best fit. Inaccurate and fuzzy concepts of this kind are formed all too often in monolingual teaching. Pictures are notoriously ambiguous and may leave pupils mystified as to the intended meaning. “Yesterday my uncle fired his lawyer” is an example suggested by Dennet (in a different context) who concludes: “Imagery couldn’t be the key to comprehension because you can’t draw the picture of an uncle, or of yesterday, or firing, or lawyer” (quoted by Pinker 2002, 216). In a monolingual demonstration of Le russe en direct (Direct Method Russian), an astute, highly experienced FL teacher educator asked eight of us FL teachers in the front row to discern the meaning of a specific picture frame with its Russian printed text beneath. Eight responses yielded eight wrong assumptions. There is also experimental evidence reported by Folse (2008, 68) that word retention scores were significantly higher for the students who worked with translations than for those who had pictures. Dodson’s (1967) theory that pictures were to be used principally as an aid to recall rather than supplier of meaning resonates strongly here. Guessing from context is unreliable and understanding the overall meaning is not enough. It is well-known how poorly students guess even at what would seem the easiest vocabulary to infer: loanwords (Jarvis & Jensen 1982, 23). In our incessant search for meaning we often read sense into a given piece of language spontaneously without realizing that we have mistaken important aspects. We are satisfied with the first association that pops up and somehow makes sense: “Look at the sky, it’s going to rain” was a textbook sentence accompanied by a picture. Half of my class (W.B.) understood “sky” to be the foreign-language word for the dark cloud in the picture. This is how a misconception nests itself in the mind, especially as “cloud” would also fit perfectly, if not better, in the original sentence. But as soon as the pupils want to make up their own sentences and use “sky” when they mean “cloud”, their efforts for meaningful communication are thwarted. In that same lesson, most pupils had interpreted the invitation “Tea’s ready”, called out by a character in the dialogue as “Tee trinken! ” (Let’s drink tea). Precision of meaning is important; rough comprehension is simply not good enough. After all, the object of input must be to prepare students to generate accurate, meaningful utterances of their own. No small amount of confusion and frustration could be easily avoided: In the end, I got it wrong to the point where Mrs. X wanted me to give the meaning of the sentence: “Can you see the man? ” I interpreted the sentence as: “Kennst Du diesen Mann? ” [Do you know this man? ] My classmates laughed in a subdued manner. Obviously, they knew better. I was deeply embarrassed and I hated the teacher for that. After all, the sentence “Can you see the man? ” sounded to me perfectly like the English version of “Kennst Du diesen Mann? ” I took the sound of “see the” for “diesen” and “can” for “kennst”. Jochen © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="77"?> 3.2 Goodbye Berlitz: arguments and counterarguments 77 She never gave us the German translation and never wrote the word up on the board. We got very confused and impatient whenever a new word occurred. First, we conferred with our neighbour what the new word could mean. But the uncertainty became nearly unbearable and we got angry because she left us alone with our unconfirmed guesses. We weren’t allowed to open our books, and sometimes we had to wait until the bell rang before we could look up the new word. Gabriela Sociolinguistic quibbles about culturally embedded meaning (snow for the Inuits, bread for the French, seasons for the Thais, colours for many Asians …) are motes compared with such beams of misunderstanding inherent in monolingual FL presentations. Support aids, as well as the resourcefulness of proficient teachers, simply cover up the fact that traditional monolingualism needs to be revised. Even obvious cognates, obvious to the teacher at least, will not be picked up automatically by the students, as one of us, officially constrained by the prevailing monolingual fallacy, experienced in Australia. After introducing the German conditional with wennclauses “wenn er kommen würde” (= if he came), the teacher was surprised at the persistent difficulties encountered by the very bright class until the penny dropped when a more self-assured student finally intervened after two months (! ): “We would like to know what würde means.” Time and effort, for both teacher and students, could have been saved by simply mirroring the German phrase in English: *if he come would. In FL classrooms there is much more confusion about meanings than we ever imagine. Sometimes pupils protest that they cannot keep up in FL-only lessons because the level of conversation is over their heads. The results of a poll of some 1300 Year 9 pupils of both sexes across four English secondary schools revealed the following: One of the biggest frustrations for underperforming boys was not understanding the point of a lesson and what the teacher was trying to get them to do. This was particularly so when the lesson was solely or mainly conducted in the foreign language. “When a lesson is all in the target language, those underperforming hadn’t a clue what was going on. They were vociferous about that,” said Barry Jones, of Homerton College, Cambridge. “The feeling of being lost in language lessons was so clear. It’s sad really. I had never thought of them not quite knowing what is going on. They may vaguely know, but not why they are doing it” (Thornton 1999, 11). English pupils have a particularly hard life. Many do not have textbooks with bilingual vocabulary and grammar sections in the appendix. Pent-up frustration explodes: teacher and pupils alike may end up talking in their MT alone. English experts should have known better. 1974 saw the publication, by the National Foundation of Educational Research, of the final report of a project spanning ten years. A group of researchers had followed three cohorts of primary school children learning French into secondary school, with batteries of tests and questionnaires. After three years in primary school and two years in the secondary school, almost 80% of the pupils who, according to the questionnaire, disliked learning French reported that they didn’t always understand what they were saying when they spoke French. For some, the French lesson was virtually incomprehensible, as the following composite lament reveals: ‘I never have understood French and I hate it. I have been doing it for five years and I still don’t know a thing. It is a real fog to me’; ‘I don’t understand it and I never will. I forget the words. I don’t think I was cut out for French’; ‘I don’t know what the teacher is saying most of the time, because she talks in French. I would like French if I could understand it, but I can’t. I know very few French words although I have been learning for five years. This is my fault, © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="78"?> 78 Chapter 3: We only learn language once as the teachers try to help me’; ‘I cannot understand French. I’ve been doing it for years and I still can’t speak more than a few words’; ‘You can’t always understand what you yourself are saying, and you get all muddled up with your words’ … (Burstall 1972, 138). If that isn’t sad, we don’t know what is. Most of these pupils, Burstall goes on to say, feel that their failure to understand French is due to insufficient explanation being given in English. The students’ comments in the questionnaires are extremely revealing: ‘Not enough teachers explain French thoroughly and the children are afraid to speak up and ask’; ‘The teacher goes on and on without explaining what she means’; ‘French is harder because the teacher doesn’t tell us in English what the word in French means, but does it by actions, and we don’t always understand them. If the word means “jump” and we don’t know, she jumps - like that. In some cases it isn’t an action word. So we speak words in French that we don’t understand’; ‘I cannot understand the teacher. She never tells us what she’s on about’; ‘Our teacher explains in French and when he has finished I still don’t understand a word’; ‘If you ask the teacher what a word means, she always explains it in French, which is no help at all’ … Failure to afford help is an offence. An inconsiderate method has been foisted upon teachers and learners alike. How can pupils learn when they bitterly resent the way they are being taught? What this kind of teaching has achieved amounts to terminal discouragement. Doesn’t so much of our well-being depend on making sense of the world? Maxim 3. Poring over the meaning is likely to be less effective for meaning retention than putting the new expression to use right away. It is often argued that the surest way to make pupils forget the meaning of a FL word is to give them the MT equivalent right away instead of encouraging them to solve the puzzle and to unravel the unknown: It is important to realise that the immediate translation of a new word takes away from the child any need or motivation to think about the meaning of the foreign language word or to hold the new word in mind. As a result, although understanding may be rapid and painless, longer term remembering is less likely. (…) As a general principle, it would seem useful to avoid translation as a regular way of explaining new words, and to try other techniques, both for variety and for promoting learning (Cameron 2001, 85f.). Well, no. This is the familiar idea that you can put a problem aside, letting it incubate in the unsconscious, until, suddenly, the solution leaps into consciousness and triggers a feeling of “Aha”, perhaps in the middle of the night, never to be forgotten. But for this to happen, something must become a real problem that we want to solve. In the middle of a piece of prose, she insisted on explaining the new expression in English. First she asked if one of us could explain the meaning. No one volunteered, and she tried to give an explanation. After a minute, most of us had lost interest. Verena For some, puzzling out the meanings can at times be an exciting intellectual challenge, like the mathematical-logical brainteaser, sudoku. For others, it may constitute a frustrating brick wall obstructing language learning altogether, as Burstall has clearly demonstrated. Above all, when the “Eureka! ” moment does come, doesn’t it mean that, at long last, the MT word has popped up? Advocates of the direct method also hitched themselves to the lazy argument that a lesson conducted all in the FL can’t be bad because when students are immersed in the language they will always pick up something useful. But it is clearly the frequency © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="79"?> 3.2 Goodbye Berlitz: arguments and counterarguments 79 and the intensity of personal use which allow the new expressions to take root, rather than an initial guessing around, picking up bits of language and hoping for the famous “Aha” moment. Maxim 4. MT translations and explanations are more accurate than most monolingual ersatztechniques that can be understood by the learners. Let’s take examples from authentic reading matter provided with English glosses for German secondary students, picked almost at random: Original English English gloss provided German equivalent to gambol to run about Freudensprünge machen to dab to touch lightly antippen, abtupfen surly rude and ill-mannered mürrisch, verdrießlich outlandish strange seltsam, ausgefallen tart sexually immoral woman Flittchen simpleton someone with very little intelligence Einfaltspinsel to draw a blank to be unsuccessful eine Niete ziehen Don’t I know it I certainly know that, too Das brauchst du mir nicht zu sagen In a similar vein, we can take a couple of pages at random of a French literary text of the kind studied by senior secondary French students (in this instance, Lève-toi et marche, by Hervé Bazin). Choosing the eight words most likely to cause problems to such an L2 learner of French, we used the Larousse analogique (Livre de poche edition) for synonyms and the large Robert and Collins French-English dictionary for English equivalents. The results are revealing: Original French Synonym provided English rendering retors sournois sly, underhand, shifty gérant directeur manager crisper contracter tense, clench offusquer déplaire offend (prendre) la barre *levier (take) the helm à sa guise comme il voulait as he liked s’étaler se montrer, s’étendre flaunt, be plain to see, spread out évincer ôter, priver oust, supplant It very quickly becomes evident that it is the English rendering that is most faithful or helpful to the real meaning, not the French synonym. For example, sournois may equally be unknown, directeur is misleading, contracter, ôter, and déplaire don’t have the immediate strength of the English terms, and the sea-faring metaphor could only really be rendered by an equivalent English one. In some 80% of the cases, the English form is the better key to meaning. Admittedly, the context of the passage will give additional hints and associations. But why did the author use “gambol” in the first place, instead of “run about”? Synonyms can be singularly unenlightening, because they usually differ in some aspects of meaning, and the finer shades of meaning aimed at by the author can often be more accurately rendered by a MT equivalent, as shown above. It is more often the translation, which provides le mot juste, not the FL synonym. Accurate marginal L1 glosses cause minimal interruption to reading. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="80"?> 80 Chapter 3: We only learn language once Unsurprisingly, there is hard evidence that marginal gloss translations work very well for advanced students (Hulstijn et al. 1996). Monolingual explanations, even lengthy descriptions, are, of course, all right, if they are successful and the teacher can keep the class’s attention. There are also cases where monolingual explanations do a better job, because there is no vivid target language expression which really hits home. If a paraphrase is needed, a FL phrase is to be preferred: potboiler = poorly written literary work merely intended to make money potluck-dinner = a meal made up of dishes of food brought by many different people In general, however, translations are more accurate. They best bring out tricky differences between, for instance, “lastly” and “at last”, or between sentences such as “When did you last see your father? ” and “When did you see your father for the last time? ” Maxim 5. MT aids make it easier to conduct whole lessons in the foreign language and can promote more authentic, message-oriented communication than might be found in lessons where they are avoided. Pupils gain confidence and, seemingly paradoxically, become less dependent on their MT. When used as suggested in Chapter 1, the MT steals very little time away from the FL, and, in fact, helps to establish it as the general means of communication in the classroom. Paradoxically, then, a ‘foreign language friendly’ atmosphere is best achieved through the specific, albeit discrete use of the mother tongue by means of the sandwich technique. The insertion of short bursts of the MT often helps without interrupting the flow of a conversation or even being noticed. As is evidenced in many lesson transcripts we have collected, pupils are less coy about speaking the FL, they are more likely to respond spontaneously and to take risks, voicing their personal opinions, and relating more about their private lives; at the same time, teachers can establish friendly relations with pupils and better explore both current and unexpected themes - simply because short aids or prompts in the mother tongue can help keep a foreign-language conversation going and open a space for learners. A pupil wants to explain why he watches more TV than usual: some of his friends “sind umgezogen”, i.e. they have moved away. The pupil first hesitates, then uses the MT expression and is promptly helped out by the teacher (see lesson transcript on p. 161). This kind of spontaneity and personal involvement fulfils the fundamental requirement of the modern communicative approach. The non-use of the MT, however, seriously constrains what can be said and read. MT support will save pupils from a feeling of incompetence which will eventually lead them to avoid all topics of personal interest. The simple truth is that the call for “real” communication and the ban on the MT are conflicting demands. Apart from activity instructions, which in themselves can be quite complex, there are innumerable occasions in the life of a class for personal remarks to a pupil, for light banter creating warmth and acceptance. There are also many unforeseen incidents that ought to be dealt with immediately. For instance, a pupil articulates poorly, and the teacher, who notices the reason, says something like: “Oh, I see, you’re wearing braces - eine Zahnspange - braces to help your teeth grow straight - gerade wachsen - grow straight.” The language required here is often far beyond the language taught currently in the course book. Teachers have four options: (1) use the MT; © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="81"?> 3.2 Goodbye Berlitz: arguments and counterarguments 81 (2) ignore the whole business, suppressing remarks or comments they would normally make; (3) simplify as best they can, make all kinds of modifications to enable learners to figure out what is being said, and use the bilingual sandwich technique; (4) swamp pupils with normal FL speech and hope for the best - a strategy adopted by some native speakers. All these options may occasionally have a place in the FL classroom. It is only the third option, however, that can help pupils to participate fully in the communicative life of a class and, at the same time, help sustain a FL atmosphere throughout. A German teaching assistant in an English school was at first surprised to find that all her pupils’ parents held one of three jobs until she realised the teacher wanted the pupils to concentrate on well-memorized words and did not encourage pupils to venture beyond the textbook. The error is widespread and is reported again and again: When we had to write something about ourselves and someone asked for a particular word, she always said we should use the vocabulary we knew. After a while we just invented something because we knew that she was not at all interested in what we wrote but just in grammatical correctness. In my opinion, it was a pity because especially young pupils need to feel that the teacher is not only interested in their learning capacity but also in their personality and their interests. Stephanie Similarly, Weckert (2000), in a doctoral study on third language learning of English among hill tribes in northern Thailand, tested the theory that writing focused solely on the English textbook, with its associated stress on accuracy and fear of error, was actually restricting the range of structures and expression of the students’ real communicative meanings. Having sampled their constrained class-related writings, where they were automatically denied MT support, since only Thai (official language of instruction) and English were available, she asked each student to write to her after her return to Australia to let her know how they were getting on. Released from the hidebound classroom language restraints, the students sent personal, highly communicative, lengthy, structurally rich and, surprisingly perhaps, quite grammatically accurate letters. Where did the new-found communicative competence come from? No doubt, the time and the freedom to mediate their personal ideas and the FL through their MT, together with suitable support, for example Thai-English dictionaries for meaning, opened a new dimension of communicative potential. They trusted themselves to use new expressions and to vary them according to their own needs. This is precisely the key factor for success in learning: what the learners do with what they have correctly comprehended. The native language launches, as it were, the pupils’ canoes out into the foreign-language current, which then grabs hold of them and carries them rapidly downstream. Language learning is certainly not an exercise in fearful error avoidance. Nor is it an exercise in survival level phrases which soon come out of your ears. Ultimately it is in message-oriented activities that communicative competence can flourish. A trainee teacher reports: Now the teaching became more message-oriented. The pupils had to tell their neighbours what they had done during the week. Together with the teacher, I walked from student to student and helped them if they needed a word. The new words were written on the board, and repeated by the whole group afterwards. Both students and teachers enjoyed this very much and I received the honorary title of “walking dictionary”. Ursula © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="82"?> 82 Chapter 3: We only learn language once Many situations and issues that crop up are simply left unexploited, because MT shortcuts to meanings are frowned upon. But when used properly, short MT insertions can function as a “conversational lubricant” (Butzkamm 1998) to keep the wheels of communication moving smoothly. Communication is no longer paid mere lip service. Maxim 6. MT techniques allow teachers to use richer, more authentic texts sooner and to transmit larger vocabularies. The thin language soup served up to modern learners is the price paid for the MT taboo. The measured and well calculated contribution of the MT can allow pupils to tackle more difficult texts sooner. Banal texts without educational value, on the other hand, jeopardise FL lessons, particularly for those students that have started FL learning late. Here is a typical comment from a student who started with Latin in grade 5 and followed it by English as a second foreign language in grade 7: We worked a lot with our course books which contained very simple texts like “My name is John.” - “What’s your name? ” Compared to our Latin class this was no challenge for us. We quickly got bored. Daniela Look at a succession of textbooks over the last four or five decades. There have been remarkable changes. In Europe, it was traditional for a textbook unit to start out with a story with some dialogue in it, or some passage of continuous prose. This was the main body of the unit, followed by exercises, a grammar section and a vocabulary appendix or glossary at the end. The text was designed to demonstrate the new structures and contained the new words as well. Pupils were always looking forward to the lesson when the teacher would move on to the new unit - the reason being that there was a new story to be told. The simultaneous presentation of a story, unknown words and new structure material made demands, and sometimes excessive demands on the teacher. The many explanations could lead his listeners far away from the story rather than carry them into it. In a story, we want to know what comes next. To remedy the situation, he often decided to pre-teach some of the words before starting the story proper. This was frowned upon as evasive, but was a good idea if the words centred round a unifying theme, perhaps a word-field with words such as good and bad weather, rain, umbrella etc., which would finally lead the class into the story. To this day, meaning conveyance is traditionally seen as a matter of vocabulary transmittal. Listen to Billows (1967, 135f.) explaining “railway station” and “time-table” with the help of a picture and a typical detour: We should say perhaps: “Have you seen a railway station? ” “Well, did it look like that? ” “They are looking at something. What are they looking at? ” “They are looking at a piece of paper” - “a notice” we may interpolate - “What sort of notice is it? ” We may ask “Is it the kind of notice you have on the school notice-board? ” “It’s rather like the notice we have there to see the times of the lessons, isn’t it? ” “We call a notice that shows us times of lessons or trains a time-table. Why are that man and woman looking at a time-table? ” “Do you look at it when you know the times of your lessons? ” “No, we don’t. We look at it when we don’t know the times, or have forgotten which lesson comes next, or which classroom it’s in.” “Yes, that’s right, these people want to know two things. They want to know when the next train goes to the place they want to go to, and they want to know which platform it goes from.” © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="83"?> 3.2 Goodbye Berlitz: arguments and counterarguments 83 After all this, we are finally back to the story. “Several advantages are claimed for this method by its adherents. The only incontestable one is that it affords additional practise in the foreign language” (Sweet 1899). If many teachers hadn’t been successful with this type of lesson, the practices wouldn’t have survived long. It is also obvious that only those teachers who were successful could go on to be teacher trainers, and thus helped to continue the tradition. It is a technique which is here to stay, although perhaps more so in multinational classes. It is equally clear, but perhaps worth repeating, that we do not want to banish story telling techniques that use gestures, actions, drama and keep a class spellbound, even if they don’t understand every single word. We argue, however, that the value of this undertaking does not reside in the fact that the teacher has avoided a MT equivalent. Less skilful teachers found it extremely difficult to stay within the confines of a monolingual methodology. As the explanation of words such as “however” could easily turn into a farce, teachers were “allowed” to occasionally give a MT equivalent, although this was considered by some as taking the line of least resistance. It was because of this occasional use of the MT, together with the presence of bilingual word lists in the coursebook, that the approach was called the “eclectic method” or “compromise method”, and not the “direct method”. Felt needs bring forth their own solutions. Textbook authors aware of the difficulties tried to lighten the teacher’s burden, using a variety of means: more pictures and graphs, reduced word density, spreading new words out over more text, careful selection of words and their order of appearance. The guiding principle was to make a monolingual presentation possible. The means - teaching without resort to the MT - had become an end. The stories, stripped of powerful words and colourful expressions, suffered, and tended to become worthless and educationally stultifying. The principle of a connected text was eventually given up, i.e. the stories were finally relegated to a second place where they could be enjoyed after most the words and all the structural material had been introduced and practised. Consider the typical Berlitz diet, still fed to Berlitz clients today: “This is a book. It is big. And it’s red. It is on the table. What’s on the table? And what colour is it? ” There are more exciting things to say than what colour one’s course book is. Berlitz was indeed the most radical of the reformers: “A strict adherence to the Berlitz Method requires an absolute exclusion of the pupil’s mother tongue, as the understanding is to be brought about by object teaching and association of ideas” (Berlitz 1907, 9). The price Berlitz had to pay was to give up the connected text, at least for beginners. And it is a price we are still paying today. Although the Berlitz type of question and answer practice centring around objects in the classroom has been replaced by more realistic dialogues where people greet each other, say where they come from and what their jobs are, the Berlitz legacy is obvious: People, jobs and countries etc. can easily be illustrated in today’s course books. Berlitz and modern course book writers still sing from the same songsheet. A textbook unit usually begins with little scenes where bit by bit new words and constructions are introduced. Great care is taken to introduce new structure in familiar vocabulary, and new vocabulary in well-known structures. No teacher need worry any more about stick figures or family trees: they are all there. The trouble is: The little scenes and their impoverished language have no real content. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="84"?> 84 Chapter 3: We only learn language once Without the L1 taboo, we would have different, richer and more evocative texts. Compare Gower (1999, 10), who reflects on his own language-learning: “We followed a multi-media course of a type that would be familiar to most EFL teachers, but to my dismay it was devoid of anything approaching a substantial text.” Whereas visual aids of all sorts can enrich teaching, the rigorous selection and grading of texts is counterproductive. The “content vacuum” and the topic-neutrality, which have been found to characterize beginners’ classes (Mitchell 1988), are simply due to the fact that textbook authors are forced to select their material and minimize both lexical and grammatical randomness in order to make monolingualism possible. Zero ideas, slender vocabulary. Learners are robbed of texts that match their age and interest levels, whether it be children’s rounds, a Beatles song or “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer”, who “will go down in history.” Direct method teachers have the choice of discarding such texts or turning their students into parrots. “It is not surprising, then, that the vocabulary sizes of learners reported in research studies typically fall well short of the size requirements”, says Schmitt (2008, 332), reviewing the research to date. With good texts, whether adapted or in the original, the cognitive and intellectual demands can be stepped up a cog, the same way that children can grow into slightly oversized clothing. At various levels of mental growth we should be introducing the young to the best of texts which open them to the world of ideas and aesthetic appreciation. Maxim 7. Bilingual techniques allow teachers partially to bypass the grammatical progression of textbooks. No postponement of, let’s say, do-negation or the past tenses. “Yesterday was Sunday” is just as easy for a five-year-old to understand as “Today is Monday”, but not for two-year-olds, given their undeveloped understanding of time. The reluctance to introduce the past tenses early on does not take into consideration the pioneering work that the mother tongue has already done, much to the benefit of the FL. Similarly, English pupils could easily handle a German subjunctive such as “Ich hätte gern eine Cola” [I’d like a Coke] in their first week of lessons. With translations, pupils learn these forms as a single “one-off” unit. Again, this will make it easier to choose authentic texts. The appreciation of this point alone could revolutionize foreignlanguage teaching worldwide. It will be dealt with in chapter 5. In many countries, course books often have bilingual grammar and vocabulary sections. Here, common sense has prevailed, but only part of the problem has been solved since the practice remains without a solid theoretical underpinning. Other countries still favour purely monolingual textbooks. It is here, where purely English-language textbooks are widespread, that pupils truly suffer. Maxim 8. It is not possible to avoid interference, but it can be greatly reduced. Any individual who speaks two or more languages experiences interference due to the contact between them. Interference errors occur at all levels of language, not only for the unwary. It looks as if the MT constantly gets in the way, walks in uninvited and tempts us into unwanted errors. Let us not forget, however, that lexical interferences can in many cases work as a useful strategy when we lack the necessary knowledge to express ourselves properly. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="85"?> 3.2 Goodbye Berlitz: arguments and counterarguments 85 They simply act as a default, stepping in when our memory lets us down and offers us nothing else. “*Can I write a double point? ” (= use a colon) a pupil asks. He does not know the English equivalent for “Doppelpunkt” yet and is helping himself in the most natural way. Such lexical transfers are common in the speech of developing bilinguals (see chapter 12): Thomas: I’m just schraubing this on. (Pause) What do you say for that, Mum? - Mother: Screwing. - Thomas: I’m just screwing this on - see? (Saunders 1988, 182). Pupils often lapse into the MT involuntarily and without noticing it, as in the following classroom excerpts, where German “oder” and “nicht” are inserted instead of “or” and “not” - simple slips of the tongue: Pupil, in a monolingual question-forming exercise: Is this pencil long oder short? Pupil: Bob’s missing. Teacher: Yes. The school bus is late because of the snow. They’ll be coming in a minute or so. Pupil: Mike is nicht missing. John is nicht missing. The Hecht & Green (1991) corpus lists the following L1 based strategies used by German pupils of English. (1) language switching: Can you for our group … a Reservierung annehmen? (make a reservation) (2) a sort of loan translation: Can you reservate for me …? (3) foreignizing: The man … nims another radio. (takes; to take = nehmen) (4) asking for help: Was heißt denn ‘Bahnhof’? (What does ‘Bahnhof’ mean? ) “Foreignizing” is what Taeschner, reporting about her own children raised bilingually, calls “camouflaging”. The speaker inserts the German word “nimmt” for “takes” and, by giving it an s-inflection, adapts it grammatically to the English context - certainly a creative construction. It is not something to throw one’s hands up in the air about. What can the learner do other than use what he already knows to make up for what he does not know? He stretches whatever resources he has as far as he can and uses the most promising neural pathways available. “My dog Pluto is a wind-dog (? )”, a pupil wrote, fishing for the right word. Not knowing the word “greyhound”, he translated German “Windhund” literally and put a question mark behind it. It is a well-known fact that interference errors occur whether lessons are strictly monolingual or not: (During the monolingual presentation of a course book story) T: Is she in the bathroom. S: No, she isn’t. T: Is she in bed? S: Yes, she is. T: Why is she in bed? S: *Because she ill is. T: Because she’s ill. S: Because she’s ill. “The problem of ‘interference’ viewed thus reduces to the problem of ignorance” (Newmark & Reibel 1968, 160). Learners simply have not yet made enough progress. The cure is more contact time, more well-formed, meaningful input, plus, of course, correction, and learners will gradually grow out of these errors. Even the best teaching can © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="86"?> 86 Chapter 3: We only learn language once never fully prevent disruptive interferences. Uncritical carry-overs from the MT can be phased out, not by avoiding the MT in fear, but by using it well. Some faux amis (of the lexical, grammatical and pragmatic sort) stay unrecognised if they are not contrasted with the MT. Instead of skirting around them, we meet them head on. In the Nijverdal experiment (Meijer 1974), it was possible to reject the hypothesis that bilingual techniques as used by Dodson lead to more interference errors related to the mother tongue than are found in strictly monolingual lessons. Maxim 9. The counter-productive, haphazard use of the mother tongue, which may end up in a total breakdown of teaching, could be an unwanted side-effect of the doctrine of monolingualism. The native language must be used systematically, selectively and in judicious doses, and never in the inconsiderate, lazy and time-consuming way it is so often employed today by disaffected teachers. It is shocking how often exactly that which was supposed to be avoided at all costs actually does take place, namely that the prevailing classroom language is in fact the MT. Rather than being used, therefore, the MT is misused. Less skilled and less proficient teachers simply succumb to the ease of conducting the class in the MT. From small daily routines such as determining who should have cleaned the board, who did or did not do the homework, or who was ill that day, up to larger events like planning a school party or organising the next class trip - some teachers do it all in German. Especially at the beginning of the lesson a German “organisation phase” takes place quite frequently in many classes, and is obviously not felt to be part of the teaching unit, and therefore not considered as a topic to be discussed in English. Tanja, speaking of English classes observed in Germany This is a sad story, and well-known, too. But is MT support a dangerous idea to be suppressed because teachers will slip down a slippery slope and end up using it all the time? Give the devil an inch and he’ll take a mile? A more powerful conclusion is that the MT becomes a free for all just because teachers and pupils alike are denied the proper and provably effective bilingual techniques to create a FL atmosphere in their classrooms. The timely, well-directed use of the MT will not end the day-to-day, tough battle that teachers endure in trying to establish an FL atmosphere among their pupils. It will, however, temper it considerably. Maxim 10. All newly-acquired FL items have to sink roots in our minds which are eventually deep enough for the items to function independently of the MT. It is sometimes argued that we need to “break the habit of mental translation.” This is a lopsided argument, since, in principle, we don’t want to sever nor weaken the links between concepts and the MT. All we want is to establish new links of equal strengths between concepts and the FL to be activated in a FL situation. This is only possible through the abundant, meaningful and timely use of the foreign language, and not by avoiding the MT on principle - compare the analogy of the change in Britain to decimal coinage when prices in the old currency continued to be displayed until the value of the new currency had become meaningful to most people. Similarly, with growing proficiency in the foreign language, the use of the MT becomes largely redundant and the FL will stand on its own two feet - contrary to the claim that the initial use of MT will slow the development of thinking in the FL. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="87"?> 3.2 Goodbye Berlitz: arguments and counterarguments 87 We observed during 20 years of FL teaching that any “crutch” or “scaffolding” used as a shortcut to language skills acquisition slowly crumbles away and leads the learner to direct and automatic response, if there is frequent and sustained use of the language, says Logan (1973, 58), who was previously an adherent of the “no English in the FL classroom policy”. So what’s wrong with crutches? Aren’t we all happy to throw them away as soon as we are strong enough to do so? The natural decline in aid from the MT via practice is a phenomenon well-known in the psychology of skills (see chapter 8) and a recurring fact of life for those who switch at intervals from English to European key-boards or even the respective road systems and then back again. Patterson (1933) used the term “mental short-circuiting” for the fact that associations can drop out of the psychological process as new associations become fixed in the mind. The term was picked up by Michael West, who was trained as a psychologist before he taught English as a foreign language in India: “The indirect bond [with the MT] is short-circuited out by practice just as memorial dodges for remembering people’s names are eliminated once the name is established” (West 1962, 48; see chapter 8). There seems to be a neurological principle of economy at work. Thinking in the FL is not an all-or-nothing affair. It begins in the very first lesson of an FL when pupils learn to respond automatically with formulas such as “Good morning”, “thank you”, “yes” or “no”. Both kinds of behaviour occur side by side: “I do make mental translations and these give me a feeling of security, yet I do find myself thinking directly in the language when I read, or go over an assignment, or create utterances in class” (Rivers, 1979, 71). Reliance on the MT declines as proficiency in the FL rises. Thus, bilingual techniques carry the seeds of their own destruction, as Dodson pointed out. Most, but not all of them become superfluous over time. Maxim 11. Direct method lessons can be fun. Monolingual explanations and paraphrases are not outlawed but will become ever more important. Our plea for unproblematic MT explanations should not be mistaken as a wholesale rejection of monolingual meaning conveyance, even for beginners. There are directmethod object lessons which work wonderfully. Here is a snapshot from a German lesson observed in a Scottish school: Mr. McX had brought a huge rubbish bag filled with all sorts of clothes and started the lesson by pulling them out one by one and holding them up to the class. The children had previously learned the names of the clothes, as this was their homework. The first items of clothes were baby clothes and the kids all put their hands up to guess the name of the appropriate piece of clothing. The noise level was high, but the pupils all seemed to be taking part in the exercise. The first item of clothing was a pink woollen hat (all the girls went: ohhh). A boy was selected to say the German word; he said “Pudelmütze” and Mr. McX threw the hat at him and said “well done”. Then he went for the next piece of baby clothing and everyone put their hand up to make a guess. It was a small sweater and this time the teacher wanted to hear the German phrase for “a small sweater”. A girl was selected to give the answer and she said ”eine kleine Pullover”. As she had made a mistake, the girl sitting next to her was selected and she got it right and thus received the sweater. The pace of the lesson was very fast and Mr. McX moved through the class very quickly, trying to involve as many students as possible. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="88"?> 88 Chapter 3: We only learn language once There were about twelve baby items to be distributed and everyone took part with enthusiasm … The next part of the game was a little bit different, because the items of clothes were no longer for babies, but obtained from a charity shop in a plus size. Mr. McX held up huge and awfully coloured items of clothing and if the children got the name right, he would wear the item in question over his clothes. If they got it wrong, they were required to do the same … All in all the class did very well and Mr. McX ended up dressed in various layers of multicoloured and hideous female and male clothes. The funniest moment was when Mr. McX held up the bra and the class fell apart laughing. Then they conspired to get the right answer, so that their teacher would be forced to wear it. I was asked to judge who had won, it was clear Mr. McX hadn’t and so everyone received chocolates. The pupils spent a lot of time choosing which chocolate they would have and then the bell rang. Mr. McX quickly told them their homework: To describe him wearing all the clothes he had on in that lesson. Jennifer, reporting from Scotland. This is quoted in fairness to the monolingual approach. Perhaps it needs repeating: This book is intended to enrich existing methodologies, and not to impoverish them. Study questions and tasks 1. Try to find universal concepts that could be applicable to all languages. Show how these concepts are manifested in different ways in different languages. 2. Examine a variety of course books and find out which arrangements have been chosen in order to service a monolingual presentation. Do these arrangements have undesired side-effects? 3. Do you remember having “Eureka! ” moments concerning unknown words? 4. When abroad, we won’t have every new word translated for us by a bilingual teacher. Discuss. 5. “In observing ESL classes, I have seen teachers stop a student who was in the process of jotting down the L1 translation of a new English word, and say, ‘You need to learn to think in English’” (Folse 2008, 69). Discuss. 6. “Resorting to the mother tongue is not necessary, except for the occasional need to clarify meaning by means of the native language when all visual aids, gestures, and explanation in the second language fail” (Chastain 1971, 34). Discuss. 7. Why could attempts at reducing the vocabulary load to a necessary minimum be counterproductive? 8. Green (1970, 219) says that “given a bright class and an energetic teacher with plenty of time at his disposal almost anything can be presented without resorting to the L1”. Can you find counterexamples? 9. Tomasello (2000, 108) poses this question in the context of first language acquisition: “When an adult holds up a ball and says dax, how does the child know whether the adult is referring to just that entity, or to its color, or to some larger class of entities (such as toys), or to the act of holding things up, or to any of an infinite number of other things? ” Do you remember classroom episodes where English explanations were insufficient in similar ways? © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="89"?> Chapter 4: Communicative equivalence and cross-linguistic networks He who doesn’t know foreign languages doesn’t know his own. Johann Wolfgang Goethe 4.1 Missing equivalence? Translation from the foreign language … is the most obvious and convenient way of explaining its meaning. (Henry Sweet) Languages differ not so much as to what can be said in them, but rather as to what is relatively easy to say in them. (Charles Hockett) As we have seen, an objection often made against mother tongue aids in the classroom is that languages carve up experience along different lines. The words of one language will practically never have exact equivalents in another language. Any attempt, therefore, to approach the meanings of the words in English as a foreign language through a process of tying or relating the new word in English to a ‘word’ in the native language will hinder and may even thwart the effective mastery of the new vocabulary (Fries 1945, 44). Word equations can indeed be misleading. For instance, kinship terms, which are well researched by ethnologists. Unlike English, many languages indicate whether uncle and aunt, grandmother and grandfather are meant paternally or maternally. Among them is Turkish, and so a Turkish child is easily misled: When I learned the words “Oma” (granny) und “Großmutter” (grandmother) I believed that these names did not mean the same person, but that the one meant my mum’s mum and the other my dad’s mum. I believed this for a very long time till my teacher finally realized my misunderstanding one day and told me that these words were synonyms. My disappointment was great. Gülay She simply cannot believe that the German language is so negligent in this case. Many of the world’s languages even lump brothers and sisters together with all sorts of cousins. All layers of language are affected, including pragmatic and cultural aspects. In many languages, men and women may be required to use a different lexicon in some domains; “men talk” differs significantly from “women talk”. Examples of cultural clashes are well documented by the Bible translators, who soon became aware of the many traps one can stumble into: An Eskimo translator finds all reference to agriculture difficult. Bread is a commodity that is not known in many tropical countries. Customs of greeting differ. Terms such as “justification” do not have the background that they had for Paul … Translators must throughout use the closest natural equivalent; but to work that out in practice is always difficult (Moulton 1971, 604). A missionary working with the Dani in New Guinea describes his difficulties: You can imagine how faulty my interpretation must have been, since we have no adequate terms for “God”, “believe”, or “everlasting life”. I talk about “Jesus’ father” because we know © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="90"?> 90 Chapter 4: Communicative equivalence and cross-linguistic networks as yet of no belief of those people that would furnish a good term for “God”. They know of the ghosts of their dead, of noise-making, heart-stealing spirits of the lowland peoples that cause people to lose their minds … I usually use the expression “bad acting”, but that’s quite different from the true concept of sin. One could talk about breaking taboos, but that’s exactly the idea we don’t want to use, since we are so uncertain about the meaning of “wesa”, or taboo, in the thought and culture of these people. Acts that are so obviously sinful to us are items of cultural praise - killing, cruelty to enemies, hatred, pride, jealousy, disdain of the weak and the inferior (Hitt 1962, 112). But even if other cultures recognise, and have a term for, a creator of the world, can this code be used if it is accompanied by a non-biblical legend of creation and a different concept of God? Can the word be stripped from the intense affective and spiritual load it carries? This was one of the greatest theological controversies amongst different missionary orders in South America. While the Jesuits propagated the translatability of the name of God, the Franciscans combated this view as heretical - part of a conflict that finally ended in a papal ban on Jesuits doing missionary work in Latin America. “English as a second language has to be taught on an assumption of alien linguistic habits in the learner”, says Anthony Burgess (1988, 405), the novelist and composer. As a teacher of English and teacher trainer in Malaya he had learned the Malay language, as well as some Chinese, an experience that changed his attitude to communication in general and shaped his teaching. The Malay language “was a revelation”; properties like gender and word inflection were a needless luxury, and the rigid taxonomy of parts of speech meant nothing, he explains. Grammars can diverge more widely than those of us would have thought possible who only share an experience of a handful of closely related European languages. To speak a language, as Steiner (1997, 87, 99) emphasizes, is “to inhabit, to construct, to record a specific world-setting … So many translations kill, literally”. So it is traduttore - traditore? Deep-seated cultural differences remain obscured if a language is not understood within the context of its culture. Without it, no translation will be adequate. For many source - target dyads “meaningful cross-cultural translation may require bi-culturalism” (Givón 1989, 344). How could Kant or Einstein be translated into a tribal language without massive previous restructuring and profound cultural change? 4.2 A pragmatic approach to meaning-conveyance But all that is a different story. Arguments of non-equivalence have always been deployed as if the proponents of MT support were linguistic simpletons. Where’s the treason in translation when learners need to understand something? Missing equivalence is comparatively unproblematical in most teaching contexts. Identity of meaning can be largely provided whereas FL explanations are often quite impossible. Several things have to be kept in mind: 1. MT approximations can always be found and used to gain access to the teaching text and ensure an initial understanding. In FL classrooms, Searle’s (1969, 19) principle of expressibility usually applies: “Whatever can be meant, can be said”; by extension, whatever can be said, can be translated. Is there anything particularly earthshaking about admitting that cross-culture translation is a matter of degree? Consider for a minute the normal process of communication within the © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="91"?> 4.2 A pragmatic approach to meaning-conveyance 91 same culture, the same sub-culture, the same sub-dialect: Is it ever anything but a rough approximation? Have two minds ever shared an identical point of view, the very same context? Hardly (Givón 1989, 364). 2. One-to-one equivalences are not an illusion, but an everyday reality if we locate equivalence at the level of collocations, word groups, sentences or even sentence groups. “Go” ,“get” and “take”, which linguists call “light” verbs, can mean a host of different things, but “go a step further” , “get along with”, “take a shower” etc. have good matches in many languages. This is ignored by Fries in the above quotation. 3. Even single word equivalents can be useful, if these are seen as temporary and provisional, to be complemented at some later stage of learning. Core meanings, which are usually listed first in a dictionary, may function as a springboard. “Eye”, “œil”, “Auge” are useful equivalents, although there is a host of collocations and idioms where “eye” cannot be rendered by “œil” or “Auge”. Because of the usual polysemy of such words, correspondence with the MT counterpart must stop somewhere. But whatever we do to make pupils understand, the wide spectrum of meanings can only be developed gradually. A monolingual demonstration by pointing to your eye and saying “eye” would be just as “wrong” as the translation “Auge”, i.e. incomplete, and could lead to the same mistakes, particularly in more figurative usage: “Unter vier Augen” is not *”under four eyes”, but “in strict confidence”; “vor aller Augen” is “openly” or “publicly”, “aus den Augen verlieren” is “lose sight of” and not *”lose out of the eyes”. 4. Errors are, of course, inevitable. Only with growing competence will learners acquire a feel for the extension and transferability of core meanings. Some students don’t shy away from carrying MT idioms literally over into the FL, making egregious blunders. But experienced learners are likely to develop some sense of the limits of translation equivalence, and are generally cautious to extend an equivalence into more peripheral, irregular or idiomatic uses (Swan 1997, 166ff.). Swan convincingly argues that, on balance, “the equivalence hypothesis puts us ahead of the game”, and says that the learner strategy “Regard everything as the same unless you have a good reason not to” is basically sound. 5. “Translation is a matter of more or less” says Givòn (1989, 364), who gives fascinating examples of structural non-equivalence and partial equivalence from remote languages. The pragmatics of ‘enjoy your meal’ and ‘Guten Appetit’, mentioned in chapter 2, are not 100% equivalent. So what? Armed with this translation, we will fare well abroad. Even in the case of unambiguous word equivalents like Italian “il sole” and German “die Sonne” for “sun” or Spanish “la llave” and German “der Schlüssel” for “key”, there are different connotations, i.e. emotional, evaluative, associative and stylistic factors, which are here connected with the different genders of the words (Motluk 2002, 63). But we are psychologically prepared for different connotations through our own language: everyday words like “father”, “school” or “marriage” can carry semantic freight and personal overtones with us that they may not carry with others. Translations are approximations, which we push as far as possible. 6. Different ways of thinking as they are reflected in the language always need extra explanation, no matter whether the passage was translated or not. One cannot merely offer word equivalents for “snow” to someone who has never experienced a © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="92"?> 92 Chapter 4: Communicative equivalence and cross-linguistic networks winter of frost and snow. Michael West (1926, 50) taught in India and the Far East for almost forty years: English is learned out of its context, away from English scenery, English life, English people. The words of the language can be given only in terms of the apperception of Bengal. In this way, the English language becomes adapted to express Bengali thought … The words are the words of England, but the thoughts are the thoughts of Bengal. Similarly, the typical Anglophone Australian has little concept of elm, ash, poplar, yew, let alone their foreign language equivalents, whereas they may well be familiar with oak, mahogany, walnut, chestnut, cedar and teak as kinds of wood in furniture, unrelated to the form of the trees themselves. Even in European schools where traditionally only European languages were taught, we are dealing with children who first need to have a lot of details explained to them about a neighbouring country, as they are still unfamiliar with many details about their own country and culture and can only gradually broaden their field of vision. The German child learning English in a German school first needs English words to express the thoughts of a German schoolchild: he adapts the language to his own needs. As he continues his education, he learns conversely also to adapt to the language. Languages are not “something lying around ready-made” (Humboldt) but constitute a creative potential. They afford freedom of expression instead of limiting people to one view of life. People create appropriate texts for an infinite number of hitherto unexpressed thoughts. The true essence of languages is their very flexibility and ability to adapt to thoughts and to build bridges, in short: their translatability, however imperfect. 4.3 ‘Deforeignising’ the foreign Direct-method proponents muddle the issue of MT support by a double reduction. First, it is reduced to meaning-conveyance, and this in turn is reduced to a question of singleword translation. This excludes both the structural and pragmatic meaning dimensions which can best be rendered by native language means. Entry into language is always entry into discourse, and it is the meanings of utterances and the intentions of our partners that have to be understood, not just individual words. Understanding takes place simultaneously on a lexical, grammatical and pragmatic level. The pupil first wants to understand not what an individual word is saying, but what the text is saying, as accurately and completely as possible. In order to enter into the situation, an oral utterance equivalent in the mother tongue is the best and fastest way to fulfil this basic need. The following examples come from working with dialogues, as they provide us with language situations in the fullest sense, where language is at its most idiosyncratic. Consider the following questions: Is that what I came for? Who am I to say he is wrong? What good are the humanities? What of the climate change? What is it like to be a bat? What colour eyes has she got? How dare you talk to her like that? © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="93"?> 4.3 ‘Deforeignising’ the foreign 93 It may safely be assumed that there is no other language which expresses all these ideas in exactly the same way. Nevertheless most people could probably come up with a good translation in their own language, true to both intent and content of the original utterance. Consider how the following translations render the specific nuance or flavour of the English utterances in a way that makes further explanations unnecessary: A: I like football. B: Do you? Now of all times he falls ill. You are easily as good as he is. I don’t blame you for it. What makes you think that …? That is all to the good, but … Leave me alone, I’m nervous as it is. A: Was it you, Linus? (Linus is suspected of tearing A’s comic.) A: Ich mag Fußball. B: Wirklich? Gerade jetzt wird er krank. Du bist allemal so gut wie er. Ich mach dir keinen Vorwurf daraus. Wie kommen Sie darauf, dass …? Alles schön und richtig, aber … Lass mich in Ruhe. Ich bin ohnehin schon nervös. A: Warst du das etwa? The more difficult it gets, the more we need the MT: I can’t eat this either. I can’t eat this as well. Das kann ich auch nicht essen. Das kann ich nicht auch noch essen. Je ne peux pas manger ça non plus. Je ne peux pas manger ça en plus. In everyday speech, there are hundreds of phrases like these where nuances of meaning have to be carefully distinguished. So many problems learners have with FL meanings are overlooked when meaning conveyance is discussed in terms of individual words and concrete terms such as umbrella, to smell, or heavy, and not in terms of speech acts and utterances. It is so much more difficult to give convincing monolingual explanations of utterances with the characteristic flavours and undertones of real speech. When single words are explained - whether bilingually or monolingually - the pupils are deprived of the pragmatic dimension. Different ways and styles of speaking can also be rendered, for example a sloppy or pedantic style, dialect, a familiar, matey tone, etc. - things which would be difficult to explain in a FL and impossible to convey visually. Oral utterance equivalents transport speech melody, speech rhythm and voice modulation. Many nuances of meaning can be conveyed by the voice alone, such as the threatening tone and the staccato of the voice in the following example: I’m not going to ask you again. Who - did - that? Ich frag nicht noch mal. Also: Wer - hat das - getan? If we imagine the following parole as a chant, the rhythm becomes important: Power to the children! Alle Macht den Kindern! Les enfants, au pouvoir! We are all born voice virtuosi. Voice and mood fluctuations like excitement and boredom, confidence or despair, ecstasy or depression betray our inner feelings, often unintentionally. Teachers have to practise using their voice deliberately and speak with feeling if the text requires it. The words often don’t convey the exact meaning but the © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="94"?> 94 Chapter 4: Communicative equivalence and cross-linguistic networks voice can (the very word “person” comes from the Latin verb “per-sonare”, to sound through). It is possible to squeeze out every iota of meaning from the text by using the voice. Oral language separates peoples, but body language unites them, as much of it is universal. This had already been Darwin’s conclusions in The Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals, which were largely confirmed by contemporary research. Facial expressions, gestures and body language visually reinforce meaning. So what? English is sooo interesting. (voice and face express irony) Na und? (with shoulders shrugging) Englisch ist ja sooo interessant! (expansive gesture with both arms) The work of Di Pietro (1987) has been particularly revealing here. Aware of the neurological evidence that body language and verbal language are prepared synchronously but separately in the brain, they devised a method, to reduce cognitive overload, of preparing/ miming the body language first, then adding the text in role-taking. The strong associations set up in the synchronous communication hastened FL recall, reduced hesitancy in the verbal presentation through the “drag-on” effect of the body language and hence increased the general fluency and accuracy of performance. Caldwell & Pillar (1998) found similar gains through attention to body language synchrony. Modelling of the appropriate body language skills, in this case through the use of paralinguistically rich videos, had a positive and transferable effect on learners. The modelled input facilitated aural comprehension, and there was also a “transfer of some modelled paralinguistic skills to the less rehearsed, message-driven context of interview or conversationlike activities”, enhancing observer perception of their communicative competence. In other words, paralinguistic features not only support meaning conveyance but also make learners’ productions more authentic. That the form of body language may occasionally differ between languages and cultures, especially with symbolic gesture, is not a significant drawback. Students presented with differing gestures in the moving image or in real-life contexts will quickly recognise and adopt the authentic forms. It is also a good idea to ask the pupils themselves for alternative translations. They will often come up with phrases they are more comfortable with and which are more natural to them than the suggestions made by the teacher. It’s the language they can trust. At the same time they gain an insight into the approximate nature of translating. The first thing that occurs to us is perhaps not good enough, and even the best is often not really satisfactory - an important lesson to be learned. In particular, students’ own translations are apt to deforeignise the language by creating a confident interface with the native language. Their attempts to bring out the essence of what is meant give a fuller reality and significance to the utterances and destroy the linguistically naïve belief that a word always means one thing and that one language just has one set of words for things and ideas and the other language has just a different-sounding set. To sum up. The MT, with its synchronous paralinguistics, proves to be the most supple, flexible instrument for conveying meaning in its full force. True understanding is deeply satisfying. Both languages are drawn closer together. Didactic translations take the text to the listener / reader, the foreign language becomes less foreign, and pupils start to enjoy it. Bilingual meaning - conveyance involves the following: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="95"?> 4.4 The principle of association: Cross-linguistic networks 95 • Utterance equivalents take precedence over word equivalents • Oral equivalents: speech melody, speech rhythm and voice modulation • Use of facial expressions, gestures and body language • Several approximations to the original may be given by teacher or students These factors combine so that the full expressivity of communicative events can be conveyed. The haze that surrounds many explanations in the FL is avoided, and time is saved. By contrast, half understood language needs further analysis and thus uses up cognitive resources. Unambiguous, exact and potent utterance equivalents, however, liberate cognitive resources for language application. There is nothing like the MT to make a FL lose its foreignness and empower learners to build textual homes in the FL. 4.4 The principle of association: Cross-linguistic networks New expressions must not only be explained but also retained. Retention is aided when we link new language material to existing knowledge in a number of ways and integrate it into a developing system of knowledge. In this, we follow the basic principle of the educational psychologist Ausubel (1978, iv): If I had to reduce all of educational psychology to just one principle, I would say this: The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach him accordingly. While it is common practice to associate new items with known items within the FL, or even form associations between two or more foreign languages, the MT, the most powerful instrument and greatest treasure house of words, is often excluded in building networks. Here are two incidents which W.B. witnessed: A teacher correctly explained “to have an argument” as “einen Streit haben, sich streiten”, but failed to mention that there was a well-known German word “Argument” which perfectly matches the English “argument”, albeit in a different meaning than the collocation above, as a line of reasoning in a discussion. At the beginning of a lesson a girl told the teacher in German that her friend had to go home because of her “Allergie”. Instead of acknowledging the information only with a friendly nod, the teacher could have reacted with a brief comment, introducing the cognate “allergy”: ‘I’m sorry for her. She’s got a bad allergy. It’s her nose and her eyes, isn’t it? I wonder what she is allergic to. ‘Allergic to’ means ‘allergisch gegen’. Frankly, these are missed opportunities which deprive us of the richest source for building cross-linguistic networks, and the doctrine of monolingualism is clearly to blame for it. MT cognates can help students to remember the target word without being suitable translation equivalents. Even more important, creating links to MT words can extend the pupils’ knowledge of their own language. When one of us taught a dialogue which started with the line “You’ve got a C in history” he found to his surprise that very few German 12-year-olds knew the word “historisch” and all those who thought they knew the word said it meant something like “famous” or “well known”. So both languages can profit. The study of cognates and family resemblances can be made interesting to many pupils especially if it sheds light on our common history and heritage. Pupils, by themselves, would not see the © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="96"?> 96 Chapter 4: Communicative equivalence and cross-linguistic networks semantic link between “matching exercise” which they find in their course book and a “football match” or “Match” as used in German sports papers. “WC” is used in German too, but only English tells us what the letters stand for. There are literally thousands of related words to be explored. Students should recognize historical sound changes and word affinities which might escape their notice, for instance an initial t in English is often z in German as in ten/ zehn, etc.: / t/ vs. / z/ : two/ zwei, twenty/ zwanzig; tide/ Zeit; town/ Zaun; tongue/ Zunge; tell/ (er)zählen; / ou/ vs. / ai/ : home/ Heim; most/ meist; alone/ allein; ghost/ Geist; etc. Many words have links, overt or covert, with other words so that they can mutually reinforce each other. Consistent exploitation of a common European linguistic and cultural heritage enriches us. The following words and phrases, useful for conducting classroom activities, all contain French and German cognates: (ir)relevant information, the first paragraph, original version, final version, keep a record of, favourite subject, find the equivalent, become autonomous, compare notes, sheets can be anonymous, our priorities and preferences, add any other words, complete or finish the sentences, let’s make a contract between us, to argue, present an argument, find the opposite, give an example, describe a situation … English is increasingly being imported into many other languages. In the case of Japanese, encouraging learners to notice these borrowings is an effective vocabulary expansion technique, according to Daulton (1998): “An astute teacher may wonder how many of the 2,000 high frequency words of English have conveniently made the voyage to the Japanese archipelago.” So, instead of quarantining the MT, as some would suggest who want us to focus on the FL only, we build word bridges both within and between languages and exploit similarities and differences. Often, the right associations come spontaneously. One of us had explained ‘money’ by showing coins and paper money. As soon as the word appeared on the chalkboard, a pupil shouted ‘Moneten’ - a German slang word for money. The spoken word was not sufficiently similar, but with the written word, the sudden “illumination” came. Students naturally look for such connections. All teachers are in some ways teachers of the MT, and foreign language teachers have a special responsibility to expand MT vocabulary if the occasion arises. We should not only tap existing reservoirs of MT knowledge, but also preview foreign words or loan words which young learners do not even know yet in their own native language, and thus break new ground in it. A case in point is special terminology, such as can be found in commercial correspondence. Here, clichés often have to be translated by clichés and there is an abundance of standard phrases with counterparts in other languages. The native language idiomatic expressions can be practised at the same time as the foreign language ones. For instance, pupils have to learn that a list of items to be discussed at a meeting is called an agenda, “ordre du jour”, “Tagesordnung”, and usually finishes with the item “any other business”, “questions diverses”, “Verschiedenes”. Enriching MT vocabulary is not the least of the by-products of a bilingual approach in FLT, and an enduring benefit from FLT can lie in the manifest increase in awareness of one’s MT. After all, deficits in the MT are the cruellest form of language deficit. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="97"?> 4.5 Telling stories about words 97 Needless to say, dense crosslinguistic networks can best be set up with related languages, and the principle of association will be differently useful, depending on the source - target dyad: German Chinese Turkish hotel biology boss brunch city company Hotel Biologie Boss Brunch City Firma lü diàn she¯ng wù xué shàng sı ¯ , la˘ o ba˘ n za˘ o wu˘ ca¯n chéng shì go˘ ng sı ¯ otel bioloji patron brunch s¸ehir firma Using the principle of association consistently means: (1) exploiting foreknowledge in the foreign language itself; (2) capitalizing on foreknowledge in the MT; (3) previewing the MT tongue; (4) exploiting previously learnt foreign languages. 4.5 Telling stories about words Exploiting relations between languages is an old idea, witness Villiers’ Vocabularium Analogicum, or the Englishman speaking French, and the Frenchman speaking English, Plainly shewing the nearness or affinity betwixt the English, French and Latin (London 1680). Mention should also be made of the ars memoriae of the classical world, which recommended appealing to the senses through rhythm and rhyme and creating visual images, e.g. through stories. Words themselves have their stories as they wander through the times and languages. In a second-year English class the new word “dictionary” was woven into a whole network of related English and German words: dictate dictation dictator dictatorial dictatorship of the proletariat diktieren Diktat Diktator diktatorisch Diktatur des Proletariats None of the 12-year-old pupils knew this Marxist expression, so that was a preview. Likewise, none of them suspected that “dichten / write poetry” and “Dichtung / poetry or literature” equally derived from Latin “dictare”. When Roman noblemen composed poetry they apparently had the habit of dictating their lines to a Greek slave. Thus word networking creates opportunities for brief cultural excursions, for example when we associate “learn by heart” with “to record” and French “apprendre par cœur” and point out that it used to be thought that the heart was the seat of memory. “Par cœur” is probably an etymological reinterpretation of “per chorum”, learning in chorus, an error which was later taken over by the English. Words have their history, which can be quite revealing. In this way they become transparent, interesting and memorable. Pupils become curious about words, and want to know why rugby and American football are both called “football”. Pupils imagine it was because the ball was kicked by the feet. So why “American football”, where the ball is handled most of the time? Well, it’s “football” because those who played it could not afford horses and had to play on foot. The posh sports, enjoyed by the aristocrats, were played on horseback. Football was for the ordinary people. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="98"?> 98 Chapter 4: Communicative equivalence and cross-linguistic networks Here is another word story: Before the invention and spread of mechanical clocks, our daily feeling for time was based on noon as the vortex of the day. The English teacher should explain this in order to make the English time calculation with ante meridiem (a.m.) and post meridiem (p.m.) plausible. This time division still proves today that people used to look back from noon to the hours of “forenoon” and look forward to the hours of “afternoon”, as also in German “Vormittag” and “Nachmittag”. The French teacher also has to explain this at some point, as the hour “twelve o’clock noon” is the only hour in French which isn’t indicated by numbers but by a word: midi. When in the late 14 th century the striking clock became a feature of important public buildings we find the emergence of the expression ”o’clock”. The passage of time was recognized aurally, not visually: it was the striking of the clock, not the sight of a finger on a dial. “Clock” comes from French “cloche”, meaning “bell”, and is a classical case of meaningextension. French and German learners can now understand the obvious similarity between “clock”, “cloche” and German “Glocke”. Even when learning remote languages, there is some chance of exploiting borrowed words and clarifying the affinities between them, as Sweet (1964, 90) reminds us: When we consider the great difficulty of the Arabic vocabulary, it is a pity that our elementary textbooks do not make a systematic use of this link of association. Thus, starting from salaam = Arabic salam, originally meaning ‘peace’, we get to the verb salim, ‘be safe and sound’, whence the fourth form aslam by the regular process of dropping the second vowel and prefixing a, the meaning being ‘give oneself up, resign oneself (to the will of God), become a Mohammedan’, whence by equally regular changes the infinitive islam, ‘true faith’, and the present active participle muslim, ‘true believer’, while in the name Muhammad, ‘praised’ or ‘praiseworthy’, we have the corresponding passive participle of the second class of verbs, formed by doubling the middle consonant. In this way a few Arabic loan words can teach us not only a good deal of the vocabulary, but of the grammar as well. It would, of course, be a mistake to regard the etymological meaning as the “real” meaning: “the etymological fallacy”, according to Sweet (1964, 87). At the same time incorrect cross-associations should be averted. “Cross-associations cannot be got rid of by ignoring them: on the contrary, they have an awkward habit of cropping up when we least expect them” (Sweet 1964, 199). Young learners find sound similarities irresistible and don’t shy away from idiotic word plays. When offering to take on a part in a role-play, a German boy said: “Ich bin die Sheila, aber ich schiele nicht” (‘I’m Sheila, but I don’t squint’). Sheila and ‘schielen’ sound alike. In other cases, false cognates lead to serious misunderstandings. For the learner, shared form points to shared meaning. That’s why knowing the right meaning of “sich blamieren” (“make a fool of oneself”) is not enough for Germans. The risk of equating “blamieren” with “blame” is still there, unless the German renderings for “blame” are given as well: Jemanden blamieren Sich blamieren He is to blame Don’t blame me You’re not blaming me, are you? Something is blamed on someone You’ve only got yourself to blame Make someone look like a fool Make a fool of oneself Er hat schuld: Du musst doch mir nicht die Schuld geben. Du willst mir doch nicht etwa die Schuld geben? Man gibt jemand die Schuld Du hast ganz allein selbst schuld © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="99"?> 4.5 Telling stories about words 99 Hammerly (1989, 100) makes the same point, when explaining the phrase “rester de bons amis”: To remain or stay good friends; in another context, rester means ‘to be left’; it does not mean “to rest”. In addition to providing the two common equivalents of this verb, the teacher warns the class about the apparent equation they should not make. What matters is forming associative networks and creating images on one’s own. Sometimes forming idiosyncratic, very personal associations can be helpful: Lessons seldom distressed me, but I remember an evening when I was in despair, attempting to memorise the principal parts of Latin deponent verbs … My mother found me close to tears. She knew no Latin, but she devised mnemonics for me, the more absurd the more easily retained. “Molior, to contrive” she said. Remember the mole contrives to make a hole” I have never forgotten it (Waugh 1983, 86). Blair’s (1982, 233) bilingual Spanish course, which treats college students with a heavy dose of vocabulary via stories, plays around with sound-alike words in the following way: heart corazón (core zone) blind ciego (ciego in San Diego) no one nadie (there’s nadie like Nadia) As always, one can go too far. Telling word histories makes all the more sense if it can be done in the FL. If not, the gains will not always outweigh the expenditure of time and trouble. A great deal has been achieved if, pondering over words, we can arouse a sense of history in our pupils: Now words in themselves had not only a musical effect upon my senses; they lured me to the dictionary, like a cat to the larder, where I feasted my imagination on origins. This was the beginning of the historical approach to all matters, that instinctive and immediate inquiry, when confronted with a new experience or idea, which demands “what started all this”? It is not easy to describe the happiness, a deep content like that of the religious initiate who has found a substantial companionship in his God, which now enriched my days. I felt in myself a distinction, an authority, because the life around me was now seen to be a reflection from a more serene prototype, the matrix, the Word (Church 1953, 167). To sum up. Teachers need to be knowledgeable in the similarities and differences between the learners’ native language and the target language and the cultures surrounding them, so that they can • draw attention to concealed relationships between words; • clarify intrusive, false associations; • if necessary create artificial, personal associations; • whet the appetite for words and their networks; • create an understanding for historical change. The foreign language should not be approached as a chambre séparée or world apart. Connecting reinforces understanding, and understanding begets sympathy, but “reciprocal incomprehension breeds contempt”, as Steiner (1997, 83) reminds us. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="100"?> 100 Chapter 4: Communicative equivalence and cross-linguistic networks Study questions and tasks 1. Have you ever used mnemonic facilitators? Does it make a difference whether you invent them yourself or take them over from others? 2. The following utterances are typically found in everyday speech. Is there something “untranslatable” about them? Can you find apt equivalents in your MT? Hurry up, we’re going to be late as it is. Did you do this yourself? - I certainly did. It’s a funny world, and no mistake. I can’t for the life of me see why. Well, that’s something at least. It’s just one of those things. You can say that again! That’s more like it. Suit yourself. 3. Find similar conversational phrases. 4. “Poetry is what gets lost in translation,” Robert Frost famously said. What can get lost in translation, and why? 5. This chapter says that, in order to convey meaning, didactic translations should take the text to the listener / reader, as do some modern Bible translations. What about taking the readers to the text in its original context? 6. Learning new words is a process of mapping them against existing networks. Explain. 7. Give your own examples of how the shared linguistic heritage of target and source language can be exploited. Make a list of useful L1-L2 cognates and foreign words for eleven-year-olds and another one for adults (English for Germans: cowboys and Indians; nation, association) 8. “Bilingual techniques … allow us to release and transfer the immense charge and reservoir of meaning embedded in the mother tongue to the target language” (Wilberg 1987, 147). Find your own examples of how words can be stepping stones to other words. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="101"?> Chapter 5: The mother tongue as the magic key to foreign grammars Grammatica soll nicht regnare super sententias. (Grammar shall not rule over examples.) Martin Luther in a mixture of Latin and German, typical of his table talk 5.1 Grammar - the continuation of the lexicon by other means Language is our tool for creating and sharing meaning. It enables us to get thoughts, intentions and feelings from one mind to another. That’s why we espouse a view of language which has begun to emerge among cognitive-functional linguists and neuroscientists who regard form-meaning pairings, called “constructions”, as the basic units of language: “The entire language is captured by an extended lexicon, or ‘construction’” (Goldberg 1998, 205). Grammar is nothing but the continuation of the lexicon by other means. If meaning is all-pervasive and all-important and always context-bound, content and language must be linked from the very beginning (which, incidentally, was Comenius’ most influential idea). Hence it is extremely misleading to discuss the problem of meaning-conveyance and the MT in relation to the lexicon only. However this is precisely what methodologists have traditionally done. But if meaning is a central category, straddling both the traditional domains of the lexicon and grammar, the role of the MT will also become more significant and consequential than was traditionally acknowledged. 5.2 Grammar - the pride and blight of the foreign language classroom Reformers of earlier centuries deemed it necessary to warn against “grammar”. Rules can be thorns to the understanding, they claimed, and languages can be taught without grammar becoming the main focus and a torture. Proponents of a modern communicative approach have held similar views. The less reflection there is on language the better. Reflection allows comparison with the MT, and this produces only difficulty (Billows 1967, 140). As for the misuse of English (= MT), millions of Americans can attest to the results achieved by language instruction in which the chief activity is talking about the foreign language in English. Predictably, this system produces students who are able to talk about the foreign language in English (Grittner 1969, 166). Keeping the right balance seems difficult. “Teachers of language, both foreign languages and mother tongue, have allowed themselves to be manoeuvred into apologising for grammar, as a word to be ashamed of” (Hawkins 1987, 139). However, classrooms can only provide a tiny fraction of the comprehensible input from, interaction with, and feedback from accomplished speakers that would allow learners to holistically guess their way to grammar. In classrooms, learners cannot make very deep generalizations on their own, which come only after a fair amount of concrete linguistic material has been absorbed. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="102"?> 102 Chapter 5: The mother tongue as the magic key to foreign grammars Professionals with a long experience as teachers and writers have all shunned extreme views and tried to reach a sensible compromise, such as Miège, who, in his French Grammar, or a new Method to learn French (1698), held that French was best learned by a combination of explicit instruction and real language practice, either being insufficient without the other. Without grammar, “tis properly building in the air. For whatever progress one makes that way, unless he sticks constantly to it, the Language steals away from him, and, like a Building without a foundation, it falls insensibly” (quoted by Lambley 1920, 386). It seems that all in all, modern empirical research has reached the same conclusion. Some explicit instruction, including contrastive metalinguistic information, facilitates learning, especially with cognitively mature students. On balance, the available evidence indicates that an explicit presentation of rules supported by examples is the most effective way of presenting difficult new material (Ellis 1994, 643). Isn’t it the other way round: examples first, to be occasionally supported by rules? It is indeed grammar that seems to make FLs a typical school subject, because it is the welltrained teacher who can raise his pupils’ language consciousness, give the right type of explanation tailored to their understanding and help them move beyond apparently stable interlanguage patterns. After all, we are a species that intrinsically wants to find out and know. There is pleasure in figuring things out and experiencing how things fall into place and order is established. Talking about babies, Gopnik et al., authors of The scientist in the crib (2001, 162), write: Like other human drives, that explanatory drive comes equipped with certain emotions: a deeply disturbing dissatisfaction when you can’t make sense of things and a distinctive joy when you can … The agony of confusion and the ecstasy of explanation may be the mark of the operation of the natural cognitive system that allows us to learn when we are very young. 83% of the pupils questioned by Zimmermann (1984, 76) wanted grammatical explanations in the MT. It is not surprising, then, that although students often complain about boring and useless grammar work (we will spare the reader examples of these all too well-known complaints), there are also statements like the following: Unfortunately our French teacher was a native speaker and didn’t understand our difficulties. When we asked her questions concerning grammar, she used to shout: “Don’t you feel it? Can’t you feel how it is said correctly? ” No, the majority of the class couldn’t because we were not French and we weren’t receiving good French language tuition! Sonja I remember that I always longed to know why things had to be the way they were. “Why do the English make such a complicated distinction between past tense and present perfect? ” was a question I asked myself. I cannot remember that such questions were ever answered sufficiently at this stage of my language learning. Martina It was about that time that I began to hate anything that I suspected to be a modern method. I even preferred the very traditional way of having to cram rules and vocabulary, to those approaches that left you without a foothold, wondering why a sentence ran the way it ran and not another way and asking yourself what was the precise meaning of a word. Susanne In the best known methodology handbooks, FLT is viewed through the lens of a few closely related European languages. This explains to some extent the severe doubts cast upon grammar teaching in general, rather than only against its misuse - which, © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="103"?> 5.3 Grammar - comparative and crystal clear 103 admittedly, is never far away. In England, however, the narrow focus on transactional, situationalised language along with the total exclusion of grammar needlessly crippled modern language teaching for more than a decade - until the Curriculum Reform 2000, at least. Here are two typical comments of A-level pupils: I think we should have had grammar drummed into us in the first three years. When it came to GCSE it would have been natural for me. I was never taught grammar. It was, like, for the first couple of years … you learn how to say a sentence: I am going to the cinema. And you would never learn the verb. It would just be parrot fashion … You could never change them [the phrases] round because you never actually learned the verbs (Fisher 2001, 37). I reminded them (girls in year 10! ) that German nouns required a capital letter. And all I got in reply were blank faces and the question what I meant with the term ‘noun’. First, I wasn’t sure whether they were trying to mock me or I hadn’t expressed myself properly, but it turned out that they truly did not have the slightest clue what I was talking about - not even in their own language. Daniela, German teaching assistant in London How could the erroneous belief that grammar didn’t matter come to dominate the English scene - in spite of a tradition of great methodologists such as Sweet, Palmer, Hornby, Stannard Allen, Eric Hawkins, H.H. Stern, to name but a few? Centuries of experience and discussion were ignored. There are no shortcuts to language. However, where instruction can really help the learner is by making “odd” constructions meaningful and transparent. 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 most foreign languages taught in schools excellent grammars have been made available, which represent a great advance on the grammars of earlier centuries. We may add that creating a deeper understanding of the nature of language is especially vital for those learners who don’t know whether they are in fact studying the language that they will ultimately need in their careers. Exploring the grammar of one FL via their MT can give them a solid foundation that enables them to carry on as lifelong learners. 5.3 Grammar - comparative and crystal clear We already have a language and, by implication, a grammar in our head when we start to learn a FL, although normally it stays in the background. It is from these grammatical intuitions of our learners that we should start, explaining the unknown in terms of the known. With the MT available for idiomatic translations, structural mirroring, parallel constructions and additional explanations, the debate on the place of grammar takes a new turn. Grammar need no longer be the major bugbear for language learners. A lot of it can be made as clear as day to learners of all ages. Clarity is all; confusion equals frustration, but understanding begets empathy. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="104"?> 104 Chapter 5: The mother tongue as the magic key to foreign grammars 5.3.1 Clarifying functions through idiomatic translations Idiomatic translations as exemplified in chapter 4 are a wonderful means of clarifying grammatical functions. Take a rule like: “Together with the perfect infinitive, needn’t assumes past meaning, thus negating, or questioning, the necessity of an already-completed action.” That’s as clear as mud to most learners. The rule starts to make sense with an example. But it makes even more sense if a couple of examples are accompanied by idiomatic translations, in turn making the rule superfluous: You needn’t have said anything You needn’t have come You needn’t have gone to hospital Du hättest nichts sagen brauchen Du hättest nicht kommen brauchen Du hättest nicht ins Krankenhaus gehen brauchen A rule such as the following is equally unneeded: “If there is no question word in the direct question (i.e. if it is a yes/ no question), we use if or whether in the indirect question.” Translation will do the job without further ado: He wanted to know if … Er wollte wissen, ob … Il voulait savoir si … Likewise, learners have perhaps more difficulty with the following rule than with the construction which it is supposed to clarify: “We use the imagined past conditional when we want to talk about something which might have happened but didn’t happen, and the imagined consequences.” If it had rained, we would have stayed at home. Wenn es geregnet hätte, wären wir zuhause geblieben. S’il avait plu, on serait resté à la maison. The difference between question tags with falling and rising intonation becomes clear: You’re not going out without a coat, are you? (with falling intonation) You’re not going out without a coat, are you? (with rising intonation) Du gehst doch wohl nicht ohne Mantel! Du gehst doch wohl nicht ohne Mantel, oder? Do we need to be told that the subject of the second verb changes? He told the boy to go. He promised the boy to go. Er sagte dem Jungen, er solle gehen. Er versprach dem Jungen zu gehen. Or take this special meaning of wouldn’t: He wouldn’t listen. She wouldn’t open the door. The car wouldn’t start this morning. Er wollte nicht hören. Sie wollte die Tür nicht öffnen. Das Auto wollte heute morgen nicht anspringen. When the meaning has been given, it is needless to add that wouldn’t can express a past unwillingness or a refusal to do something. Examples are unwritten silent rules which reflect language behaviour directly. Given plentiful and well-understood examples, the underlying rules will be adhered to. What translations can do varies of course from every source - target dyad to the next. The continuous aspect can be well rendered in German, with the help of modal particles such as da: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="105"?> 5.3 Grammar - comparative and crystal clear 105 Hör mal, da singt einer. Da lacht einer. Da weint einer. Da spricht einer Französisch. Listen. Somebody’s singing. Somebody’s laughing. Somebody’s crying. Somebody’s speaking French. (Preparing a meal in the kitchen. Intonation and facial expression betray you’re being inquisitive.) Was kochst du denn da? Was schneidest du denn da? Was schälst du denn da? Was backst du denn da? What are you cooking? What are you cutting? What are you peeling? What are you baking? Contrastive pairs such as the following further highlight the difference between present simple and present continuous: He’s living in Paris. He lives in Paris. He’s writing a novel. He writes novels. You’re not being honest. You are not honest. The book you’re reading … The books you read … Er lebt zur Zeit in Paris. Er lebt in Paris / hat seinen Wohnsitz in Paris Er schreibt an einem Roman. Er schreibt Romane / ist Schriftsteller. Jetzt bist du nicht ehrlich. Du bist kein ehrlicher Mensch. Das Buch, das du da liest … Die Bücher, die du so liest … It is certainly helpful in this case to try to define the essence of the continuous aspect, using terms like incompletion, or ongoing duration. Such after the fact explanations can work as useful “summaries of behaviour” but certainly don’t make translation superfluous. The connection to the MT must be made because it is the natural bridge to the idea or thought behind it. For instance, the idea of “Do you want me / us to …” should automatically and spontaneously lead Germans to “Soll ich …” or “Sollen wir …? , and vice versa. For the French learner, a simple declarative statement with a question intonation should leap into consciousness: Do you want me to open the window? Soll ich das Fenster aufmachen? J’ouvre la fenêtre? The familiar speech intention behind the MT sentence must be coupled with the FL expression. Just as in conference interpreting, a deverbalisation takes place. What the interpreter hears, i.e. the exact wording, is “deverbalised”, giving rise to the abstract idea behind which in turn triggers the equivalent or near-equivalent in the other language. This is sometimes called linguistic transparency (not to be confused with structural transparency): We divide the meaning of language we encounter from the form and see through the wording to what is meant. If this has been overlooked by so many, it is in no small amount due to the legacy of behaviourism, which denied there was anything scientifically interesting above or beyond directly observable phenomena. It is the abstract, non-verbal concepts behind the MT cue (which Pinker calls “mentalese”) which connect with the FL expression, just as in normal speech. Below we contrast the behaviourist and mentalist models. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="106"?> 106 Chapter 5: The mother tongue as the magic key to foreign grammars Overt behaviour Overt behaviour Teacher Student Hier war mal ein Hotel. Früher war ich ziemlich schüchtern. Er hat damals viel geraucht. There used to be a hotel here. I used to be quite shy. He used to smoke a lot. Overt Covert behaviour Overt L1 Stimulus → concept, mentalese → L2 Response früher, damals, war mal ‘früher’, ‘damals’, ‘war mal’ used to The importance of deliberately linking the appropriate overt L2 response in such cases to the underlying mental concept was clearly demonstrated in a classroom experiment with 47 German University students of English, with the following examples: L1 overt stimulus Ich hatte keine Lust, zu reden. Damit dies funktioniert … Aber sie wollten nicht hören. Sollen wir das aufschreiben? Hier war einmal ein Hotel. Expected L2 overt response (= translation) I didn’t feel like talking For this/ If you want this to work But they wouldn’t listen Are we supposed to write that down? / Do you want us to …? There used to be a hotel here. % providing expected reponse 13% 13% 19% 23% 23% Most students, then, chose another, less suitable translation. Unless students are explicitly led to associate the English forms ‘feel like’, ‘wouldn’t’, ‘be supposed to’ / ‘do you want us to’, ‘used to’ to the underlying mental concepts stimulated by ‘Lust haben’, ‘wollte nicht’, ‘sollen wir …? ’ , ‘war mal’, they will be unlikely to produce the appropriate English expressions when needed. 5.3.2 Clarifying forms through MT mirroring Our teacher used to go through the aisles checking our homework. Sometimes he crossed it out, saying “once more”. I knew I had to do it again, but only much later in the school year I discovered that “once more” consisted of the two parts “once” and “more”, which literally was “einmal mehr”. Martin Martin got the message, but the surface mechanism of the language had remained obscure. However, as we argued earlier (chapter 2), the learner needs an understanding of both function and form. MT mirroring is the term we use for literal translations and adaptations with a view to making the foreign structures salient and transparent to learners. “Mirroring” differs from literal translation in two ways. It can be more than word-for-word translation, for example, morpheme-for-morpheme, such as *language-like-ness or *linguistic-ness for “Sprachlichkeit”. Likewise: Die grünen Äpfel *The greens apples (to illustrate that in German adjectives can have endings) the green apples This resembles morphological borrowing as evidenced in historical linguistics and contact linguistics. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="107"?> 5.3 Grammar - comparative and crystal clear 107 Mirroring can also be less than word for word because it is truly didactical and takes the progress learners have made into account. Said another way, mirroring can be incomplete, as it focuses on the new features of a given structure: Thélo na páo stin Athína (Modern Greek) *I want that I go to Athens I want to go to Athens. By this time, learners know that the ‘I’ is in the ending of ‘thél-o’ and ‘pá-o’, a fact which need not be copied by ‘want-I’ and ‘go-I’. Mirroring is, of course, not needed when structures are identical, nor is it needed when the differences are already salient and clear enough. In pairs such as Paul Temple and the Alex case Paul Temple und der Fall Alex the reverse order of “Alex case” is obvious. Literal translation is a time-honoured technique, as shown in chapter 2, and is something learners try to do by themselves: Structures like ‘I want you to write an essay’ suddenly became transparent when I translated them word by word. Christina I translated these utterances into the corresponding German and the structure became clear and easier to use: No llego tarde = ‘nicht komme-ich spät’; no tengo tiempo = ‘nicht habe-ich Zeit’; no queda nada = ‘nicht bleibt übrig nichts’. Birgit A reason for the rare use of MT mirroring in modern European classrooms could be its overextensive use in a now distant past. Overuse is misuse. Continuous literal translations, especially as interlinear versions of whole texts, were sometimes as difficult to understand as the original. In order to work well as a didactic device, literal translations must become less literal as learners progress, and be restricted to those structures which they are about to learn. Here is one of the few examples we found in German university students’ reports: He gave us a word-for-word mother-tongue translation of the question “Qu’est-ce que c’est? ” which really helped me never to forget this expression: “Was ist es, das es ist? ” “What is it that it is? ” Karin It is a shame that what should be a central technique is so little used in classrooms. Let us emphasize that adapting the native language to the FL is by no means an “unnatural” procedure. It is well known in historical linguistics. Languages in contact have freely borrowed from each other, and this includes syntactic borrowings, a phenomenon otherwise known as loan syntax. Old English as well as Old High German have borrowed syntax from Latin etc. Mirroring, the technique of “frenchifyng” or “germanising” English, “anglicising French” etc., will be illustrated with examples from (1) syntax, (2) word formation and (3) idiomatic phrases. 1. Syntax What about this as a crash course in German grammar? This how the Germans say it: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="108"?> 108 Chapter 5: The mother tongue as the magic key to foreign grammars Wir müssen Deutsch lernen. *We must German learn. We must learn German. Weil / wenn / obwohl wir Deutsch lernen müssen *Because / if / although we German learn must Because / if / although we must learn German Manchmal gingen wir schwimmen. Dort gingen wir schwimmen *Sometimes went we swim. There went we swim. (verb in second position) Sometimes we went swimming. There we went swimming. Wenn er reden würde *If he talk would If he talked Wenn es sein muss *If it be must If it must be Ich verspreche nie etwas. *I promise never something. I never promise anything. Mir wurde eine bessere Stelle angeboten *To-me was a better job offered I was offered a better job Wie lange unterrichten Sie schon Englisch? *How long teach you already English? How long have you been teaching English? Sie sind gelaufen, sie sind gesprungen, sie sind geschwommen *They are run, they are jumped, they are swum They ran, they jumped, they swam With the MT as a bridge spanning the gap between different structures, English-speaking children can solve the mysteries of German, as Anthony Burgess explains: We may note a disconcerting logic about German which, putting the adjective before the noun, like all Germanic languages, puts the whole of an adjective phrase there, too. English has ‘buttered bread’, but ‘bread spread with butter and jam’; German has ‘with butter and strawberry jam spread bread’. In other words, in speaking German, one must have the entire content of one’s adjective phrase ready before the noun which it qualifies makes its appearance (Burgess 1992, 110). Put in technical terms, in German, which is left-branching, nouns are primarily premodified whereas in English, whose overall typology is right-branching, nouns are often post-modified. Idiomatic and literal translations combined illustrate the difference: Ein mit Flüssigkeit gefülltes Röhrchen *a with liquid filled tube a tube filled with liquid Der in wenigen Minuten einlaufende Zug *The in a few minutes arriving train The train due to arrive in a few minutes Wegen Überproduktion entlassene Arbeiter *On account of overproduction dismissed workers Workers dismissed on account of overproduction © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="109"?> 5.3 Grammar - comparative and crystal clear 109 With such specially prepared MT concoctions, learners are inoculated against negative transfer from the MT. Two more examples to show how grafting the MT onto a foreign structure will release the learners’ creative energy: Neununddreißig *Nine-and-thirty Thirty-nine Es gibt für jeden genug. *It gives for everybody enough. There is enough for everybody. Es gab drei Vorträge. *It gave three lectures There were three lectures. Learners can safely assume that many more German numbers are formed in the same way. They can also experiment with the es gibt formula and make a host of sentences where English uses the there is/ are construction, and transfer the pattern into altogether different contexts. Mirroring should of course be used selectively, giving an instant and direct access to a foreign construction only on its first encounter. These most important points will be dealt with in the chapter on the generative principle. Let’s compare how some languages tell the time of the day: It’s three o’clock. Es ist drei Uhr. *It is three clock. Il est trois heures. *It is three hours. Kello on kolme. *Clock is three. (Finnish) xiànzài shì sa¯n dia˘nzho¯ng. *Now is three o’clock. (point-clock). (Mandarin) The languages above either operate with ‘hour’ or ‘clock’, the instrument to measure the time. English ‘o’clock’ is shortened from ‘on the clock’, just as in German ‘drei an der Uhr’ is reduced to ‘drei Uhr’. Neither language uses ‘o’clock’ or ‘Uhr’ for times that include minutes or parts of an hour. Here they are similar to Spanish or Italian: Son las tres / Sono le tre. *Are the three. Telling the time is normally practised monolingually, using old-fashioned alarm clocks or cardboard clocks. But they only work because learners already understand the abstract concept of telling the time, which can be triggered equally well both by non-verbal means and by MT cues. But the actual wording of the time phrase should also be taught, and this is where clocks or pictures can’t help. Only if students see the logic of the FL time phrase will they by themselves change ‘son las tres’ to ‘es la una’, as they go from three o’clock to one o’clock. Understanding the logic is satisfying. With adult learners, nothing is gained through bypassing the MT formula, whereas children certainly enjoy manipulating clocks. She was practising telling the time in French with a toy clock, without resorting to the MT. The pupils used the phrases correctly, but as an observer, one couldn’t help having the impression that some of them had no idea of how the French expressed the phrase “a quarter to three” - “trois heures moins le quart”, i.e. “three o’clock minus a quarter”, meaning a quarter of an hour to go until it is three o’clock. Personal observation W.B. Mirroring has the huge advantage of making the logic of FL constructions clear. Children naturally use this trick. An Australian primary school child proudly explained to me (W.B.): © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="110"?> 110 Chapter 5: The mother tongue as the magic key to foreign grammars In English we say ‘half past twelve’, in German it’s ‘half to one’, but they leave out the ‘to’ and just say ‘halb eins’. Je dis ‘le petit poisson bleu’, mais en allemand on dit ‘le petit bleu poisson” (I say ‘the little fish blue’, but in German it is ‘the little blue fish’ (overheard in Geneva, W.B.). Moreover, mirrored constructions such as *Ich nie gehe allein aus, with an English word order (‘I never go out alone’), sound funny to German speakers , and will probably be retained. As Christoph remembers: She always made us aware of the fact that these mirrored sentences were not good German but were just meant to make the syntactic order plain … they came to my mind sooner than constructions for which I lacked the German translation. Transferring the FL structure into the native language is an excellent way of unravelling the puzzle of foreign expressions, developing a feel for the FL and reducing explanations. It parallels the age-old device writers, playwrights and scriptwriters have used to allow us instantly to identify a semi-competent second language speaker from a major international language. It is doing what comes naturally, using time-tested comparative clichés of how our and other languages work. Misguided theoretical manacles should never prevent the practitioner from exploiting embedded “knowns” to access the new. 2. Word formation Derivatives and compounds can be mirrored in the MT and thus made plain. A German teacher in England explains “Handschuh”: She showed the corresponding flashcard to the class and said “die Handschuhe - ok, they are gloves. Handschuhe, like ‘hand-shoes’; die Handschuhe”. Judith Dutch ‘polshorloge’ is literally *pulse watch, not ‘wrist watch’; Germans say “Faustregel”, i.e. “rule of fist”, instead of “rule of thumb”, and ‘earth-nut’ for ‘pea-nut’. When they heard that Pippi Longstocking had “pig-tails”, German pupils laughed because they had spontaneously made the right association. For a different kind of hairstyle German uses “Pferdeschwanz”, which is literally ‘horse-tail’ rather than ponytail. ‘Gänsefüßchen’ are quotation marks, literally ‘little geese feet’ etc. Although we don’t need this sort of information in order to use the expression correctly, we like getting it. Compare the following list: Kinderarzt Frauenarzt Tierarzt Zahnarzt *children doctor *women doctor *animal doctor *tooth doctor paediatrician gynaecologist veterinary surgeon dentist The German compounds are, in Saussurian terms, “motivated” - unlike the English counterparts above. Morpheme-for-morpheme mirroring lays open the mystery of word formation and sentence building. 3. Idiomatic phrases Dual comprehension is most clearly illustrated by idiomatic phrases; take, for example, the amusing “it’s raining cats and dogs”. Most pupils sense what is meant and easily © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="111"?> 5.3 Grammar - comparative and crystal clear 111 recognise how it is said. In Italy they might say, when it’s raining heavily, “Piove come Dio la manda”. But we are not content until we know how they say it: “It’s raining as God sends it”. Similarly: “At the end of one’s tether” - like a goat straining at the end of his lead for grass out of reach - is equivalent to French “à bout de forces” (at the end of (one’s) strength) and to German “sich nicht mehr zu helfen wissen” (not to know any more how to help oneself). Spanish “agarrarse a un clavo ardiendo” is in good English “a drowning man will clutch at a straw”, but literally “hold on to a burning nail”. A thousand-and-one examples could be picked at random. Everybody loves idioms which help us to express an idea forcefully. But over and above knowing what they actually mean, so as to use them properly, we want to know how they come to mean what they mean and identify their source. It is not claimed that this knowledge significantly enhances language proficiency, but that it is worthwhile in its own right. We all want to go beyond mere rote-learning. ‘Run the gauntlet’, ‘throw down the gauntlet’, ‘pick up the gauntlet’: What do they mean, and why? 5.3.3 Additional explanations and the technicalities of remote languages Since the lexicon of English bears so much resemblance to other European languages taught in European schools, there was less need for literal translation between these languages. In many cases, the easy identification of a word or two could yield at least part of the structure concerned. In “give peace a chance”, for instance, French learners will easily identify the component parts. However, examples from remote languages which don’t fit Western grammatical pigeonholes make the need for structural transparency particularly clear, such as in the constructions mentioned below. For these languages, the lexicon does nothing to help the learner crack the structural code of English or German: German Indonesian Chinese Turkish I ten moon stone man year ich zehn Mond Stein Mann Jahr aku pulu bulan batu laki tahun woˇ shí yuè liàng shí tóu nán rén nián ben on ay tas¸ adam / erkek yıl So-called serial verb constructions of the following kind found in West African languages seem strange to us: iywi awa utsi iku (Yatye) boy took door shut ‘The boy shut the door’ nam utom eemi ni mi (Efik) do work this give me ‘Do this work for me’ (after Givón 1989, 331) In English we can express obligation and permission by using modal verbs. Not so in Korean, which has to operate with preceding conditional clauses - rather long-winded from our point of view: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="112"?> 112 Chapter 5: The mother tongue as the magic key to foreign grammars “You must read this book.” Korean: “If you don’t read this book, it is not OK.” “You needn’t read this book.” Korean: “Even if you don’t read the book, it is OK.” (after Givón 1989, 338) In this way, foreign ways of expressions appear to be nothing more than an eccentric aberration of the native language - an oddity, but one which has been understood and thus become manageable. Mirroring the foreign structure in one’s own language is certainly not a panacea - nothing really is. But take a language where kinship terms are not expressed by nouns but by verbs. Just imagine how long it might take one to solve the puzzle just by communicating. Mirroring is the solution: ‘I’m George’s mother.’ But what is actually said is something like *George sons me. ‘I’m Georgia’s mother.’ But what is actually said is something like *Georgia daughters me. Quite an elegant way of putting it. All constructions, no matter how remote or exotic they may seem at first sight, will in this way find some echo in the linguistic consciousness of speakers of another language. This is because all languages share a common logic though they vary in the details of their expressive mechanisms. There is nothing so complicated in foreign grammars that cannot be made comprehensible in this way. In many cases, competent idiomatic translations combined with literal translations are not enough. Additional grammatical explanations are necessary, if only to develop an initial understanding of baffling phenomena. Skill theory posits that knowledge about a language fact can indeed be a useful first step but must of course be converted into procedural knowledge through meaningful practice. There is sufficient evidence to reject Krashen’s non-interface hypothesis. Both pathways - analogy and analysis - can converge. So “there is a role for initial explanation” (Johnson 1996, 108), but with Johnson we emphasize demonstration, in this case mirroring, over explanation (see chapter 8). Untranslatable particles - which are not manifested in the MT - should simply be repeated in the MT version, with brief explanations of the particles in a special grammar section: Finnish: Onko Teillä huonetta vapaana? *Is ko to-you room free? Have you got a free room? Repeating the question particle -ko, which is attached to the first word in a question, can give one a feel for Finnish yes/ no questions. Birkenbihl gives a Japanese example, repeating the particles wa and o: Nihon-jin-wa nihon-go o hanashimas ka? *Japanese-people wa Japanese-language o speak-do is-that-so? Do the Japanese speak Japanese? Sounds odd, doesn’t it, and that’s precisely why we’ll remember it. But the particles which so often re-occur in other sentences need to be explained: ‘wa’ signifies the topic of the sentence, and ‘o’ signifies the direct object. Comparisons with remote languages clearly reveal the modern Eurocentric bias of both the monolingual and “no grammar” doctrine. It will also be clear that the extent of mirroring and the amount of useful explanations has to be adjusted for each nativetarget language pair. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="113"?> 5.3 Grammar - comparative and crystal clear 113 5.3.4 Searching for analogies FL grammar becomes much less frightening if we find authentic examples of parallel constructions in the native language. It is another means of learning by example instead of by precept. Grammar is no longer “something out there in the foreign language, but is in fact part of their own everyday language.” (Deller & Rinvolucri 2002, 28). Since all natural grammars are not as orderly and tidy as Esperanto, we will often find analogies for FL constructions in the native language where they are considered to be “exceptions”. Here are a few hints for giving learners a leg-up. • When languages use changes within the noun stem as the primary means of forming plurals we simply refer to English irregular plurals such as man / men or goose / geese to illustrate how these languages work. • To get the facts of the Chinese plural straightened out, it is helpful to imitate the Chinese constructions in the MT: In Chinese “one pen” is *“one rod of pen”, “one dog” is *“one pack of dog”, “two rivers” is worded *”two strip river” , “two books” is *”two volume book”. We will, however, also refer to parallel lawful English constructions such as “a sheet of paper”, “a strand of hair”, “two items of furniture”, “two bars of soap”, “twenty head of cattle”. Additionally, the grammatical term “measure word” can be introduced. • In many languages the degree word follows the adjective: instead of ‘very deep’, ‘too deep’ it must be ‘deep very’, ‘deep too’. Again, we can mirror these constructions in English, but also refer to ‘deep enough’ where English has the same word order. • In preparation for counting beyond twenty in German students might be reminded of the nursery rhyme “Four and twenty blackbirds …” • Burgess (1988, 316), who taught German to his fellow soldiers in Gibraltar as part of the Educational Corps, remembered: “Most were bogged down in the basic principle of gender. They just could not see why one word had to be masculine and another feminine and, in German, yet another neuter.” Here it could be pointed out that some people use she for cars, motorbikes etc, and sailors often use she for boats or ships. Likewise, she can be used for countries. It should of course be mentioned that the category of gender stems from an ancient animistic world view where spirits or ghosts live in animals or plants and where all living things were either feminine or masculine. • Some stylistic devices, as in fronting techniques for emphasis, topic maintenance, introduction of new people or places in a narrative and for dramatic effect, have the verb in second position and can thus be used to demonstrate German word order: There goes the train. Here comes Fred. But not: *Here comes he. Rare is the opportunity to buy this so cheaply. With the president came an entourage of journalists. Next door stood a cement factory. Opposite lived my best friend. There but for the grace of God go I. • We might also quote Shakespeare or the Authorized Version of the Bible where many English constructions are still identical with the German ones: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="114"?> 114 Chapter 5: The mother tongue as the magic key to foreign grammars Lady Macbeth: “O! Never shall sun that morrow see! ” Cicero to Casca: ” Why, saw you anything more wonderful? ” (Julius Caesar, 1,3,14) “Woman, why weepest thou? ” (The Gospel according to John 20,13) We should look for correspondence between native and foreign language, even if it is only partial and indirect, to help learners in their intuitions about how the FL works and to deforeignise the foreign as much as possible. 5.3.5 Explaining linguistic terms via mother tongue examples Looking for MT examples is equally useful when linguistic categories need to be explained. The terms can be introduced both in the foreign and the native language, along with examples in the two languages. We thus make pre-existing implicit knowledge explicit: What is a VERB? - T (teacher) gives examples in Swedish and English - T demonstrates (acts out some verbs). - S (students) “load up” with verbs in Swedish. - “Wildfire” (S take turns in rapid succession): give examples of Swedish verbs. - T calls 2-3 “writers” to the blackboard. - S suggest verbs in English. The writers write them on the blackboard in designated spaces. The verbs are read in unison (Ericsson 1986, 85ff.). In principle, we need not avoid definitions. But we are as brief as possible and work from prototypical functions: “A verb is basically an action word which can be preceded by a person, like ‘Billy writes …’”. Then the pupils fire away, giving examples of verbs both in the foreign language and in the mother tongue. Three pupils stand at the blackboard and write down what the others call out, but only the words in the foreign language. If a word is wrong, the teacher simply shakes his head without further explanation. Gradually only suitable examples will be called out, because we can safely assume that pupils have an innate understanding, acquired through their mother tongue, of word classes and other grammatical categories. Carroll (1973, 11) gave the same advice, based on aptitude test data: Concepts such as ‘subject’, ‘predicate’, ‘preposition’, ‘indirect object’ and ‘adjective complement’ must be developed in a concrete way through illustrations in the native language before they are applied to, or contrasted with, phenomena in the foreign language. Other linguistic terms, such as, for instance, “collocations” or “clichés” can be explained in the same way, by giving both MT and FL examples side by side. The English say ‘commit a murder’ just as the Germans say ‘einen Mord begehen’ and not *do a murder. We wish each other “A Happy New Year / ein frohes Neues Jahr”. *A Merry New Year just doesn’t sound right. In this way we raise awareness of our own language while mapping out FLs. He spared no effort to explain the new rules to us and whenever English had things in common with German he pointed it out. Such references to German grammar were very helpful because they made it much easier to understand which function particular grammatical constructions fulfilled in English. Marion © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="115"?> 5.3 Grammar - comparative and crystal clear 115 5.3.6 Underuse and overproduction of foreign language constructions It is often MT influence which causes us to avoid certain constructions and speak unidiomatically. Forms underrepresented in German learners’ spontaneous productions include the notorious question tags, cleft sentences, or the for + (pro)noun + to-infinitive construction. Germans would naturally opt for “it’s important that we understand …” rather than say “it’s important for us to understand …” Naturally pupils will not use the for-construction, question tags and such like if they are not used by their teachers. So the first remedy is for the teacher to make proper use of such constructions himself. A simple “come here, please” could be varied with “Please, come out to the front, will you.” But input of the right sort is not enough to combat linguistic avoidance behaviour and the concomitant overproduction of related forms. Pupils simply overlook certain expressions in the short lesson time available and fail to use them, unless they are pointed out through translations: It’s not very sensible to criticise other people if you can’t take criticism yourself (Kritik vertragen). A good employer should be sympathetic if one of his employees needs a few days off to move house (Verständnis zeigen). I’ve learned that it takes years to build up trust, and it only takes suspicion, not proof, to destroy it (die Erfahrung machen). If students are not made aware of such contrasts and correspondences, they would probably continue saying “I’ve made the experience that …”, which is suggested by their MT, rather than say “I’ve learned that …” Useful phrases for discussion should be given bilingually: What I’m more concerned with is …/ Mir geht es vielmehr darum … What I’m trying to say is …/ Ich will ja nur sagen … So what you’re saying is …/ Du willst also sagen … That’s not what I said at all. / Das hab ich doch überhaupt nicht behauptet. Emphatic contradictions: Don’t give me that! / Kommen Sie mir nur nicht damit! You must be joking! / Sie scherzen wohl. Das meinen Sie doch wohl nicht im Ernst. Phrases from such a list can be practiced in a formal debate: The class is divided into two groups, one of which has to be for, the other against a certain proposition. A point is given for every new argument advanced, and an extra point is given if a specific phrase from a list like the one above is properly used, for instance, to emphatically contradict someone. Although this dual focus is an artificial arrangement, it can be a stimulating and effective learning experience because not only is recycling taking place but new expressions are being used systematically, more systematically than they would ever be used in a more authentic situation. Targeted MT aids can contribute towards a more idiomatic English and help us avoid ‘schoolspeak’ characterized by both avoidance and overcompensation. The cure for underuse and overproduction is fighting fire with fire, as the Chinese say. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="116"?> 116 Chapter 5: The mother tongue as the magic key to foreign grammars 5.3.7 Where learners have been more harmed than helped The teaching of grammar has been a stressful, harrowing experience for some; others were simply bored to death. With bilingual techniques, we can avoid real suffering and turn grammar into something positive. Grammar is good for you. 1. That said, beware of rules. They are usually difficult for most people and require an analytic mind. Young learners might not be ready for grammatical exposition, but mirroring is comparatively easy. It is grammatical explanation by imitation or analogy, not by analysis. “I would have understood a lot, if it hadn’t been explained to me” is a Polish aphorism (S.J. Lec). Byron is reported to have said about Coleridge who loved literary theory: “I wish he would explain his explanation.” In Johanna Spyri’s children’s classic Klara tells Heidi: “The teacher is good and explains everything. If he explains something and you don’t understand anything, just wait and say nothing. Otherwise he’ll explain even more, and you’ll understand even less.” I didn’t really understand the function of a subject and couldn’t recognise a verb and I thought these categories were only applicable to the English language. David She spoke English only and this made her lessons very difficult to follow … She explained the form of the new tenses and their use, and if you did not catch it, you would sit quietly and pray for her not to ask you to do the corresponding exercises … Sometimes the whole class was lost … If you didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of your classmates, you had to prepare the grammar sections in advance. Insa Let us bear in mind that these quotes come from successful language students who later chose to study English at university. No doubt we enjoy intelligent explanations that make good sense to us. But there is always the danger of overexplaining. A lot of rules normally found in coursebooks are heavy baggage that can be dispensed with when we use the techniques illustrated above. Basically, language learning is not insightful problem solving. And rare and far between are the Mary McCarthys who fell in love with Caesar and “recognized the beauty of an ablative absolute.” (Memories of a Catholic Girlhood) 2. The communicative approach as interpreted by many teachers and their trainers leaves the learner to cope with a great many unanalysed chunks of language. “All five teachers were in clear agreement on the central role of prefabricated phrases in early classroom learning. They all viewed the memorization and re-use of unanalysed chunks as the most basic means of developing pupils’ knowledge of French” (Mitchell & Martin 1997, 21). Although chunks are a natural phenomenon in first language acquisition, leaving them unanalysed is detrimental to learning in classrooms (see chapter 2). “They don’t understand that c’est is from être” (Mitchell & Martin 1997, 19). If the phrases the learner hears remain structurally opaque, errors will abound. Learners must unpack or unstick these chunks (almost) as soon as they occur. But they are not helped in this. A teacher is quoted: They tend to have an obsession with what each part of this phrase might mean … We’ve maybe seen it as a chunk and practised … but they still need to understand what every word in that phrase means, they’re not as willing, many of them, to accept this chunk as chunk (Mitchell & Martin 1997, 15). “Obsession”, the dictionary says, is “an extreme unhealthy interest in something” … But this ‘unhealthy interest’ is a real need, and the current ideology rides roughshod © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="117"?> 5.3 Grammar - comparative and crystal clear 117 over it. It is hoped, of course, that pupils might eventually move beyond this pregrammatical phase when components of chunks become available for recombination. However, for many pupils, with three lessons of French per week, that’ll be the day when pigs fly. Chunks will fossilise. 3. Learners want to know why something they say is wrong. Leaving them in the dark is not to be recommended. Mirroring the incorrect phrase can be an eye-opener here. Learners will understand their errors and can thus correct themselves. ‘I didn’t bought the jeans’ is an error heard from learners of English (and also a developmental error made by English children themselves). This error can be literally transferred into German and learners will immediately know what went wrong: *Sie tat nicht arbeitete’ with the past tense marked twice doesn’t sound right. Likewise, *catched for ‘caught’ can be easily imitated in German: “You just said *fangte instead of ‘fing’.” Or take the common mistake *I’m going school, made by Turkish speakers of English. The Turkish equivalent is ‘okula gidiyorum’, where the ending -a in okula expresses direction and thus corresponds to the preposition to. A literal translation of the faulty phrase above will help: “What you just said is *okul gidiyorum.” This sounds as wrong to Turks as *going school to Anglophones. The mistake is made perfectly clear without using grammatical terminology (Rathert 2006). 4. A popular idea which may have done more harm than good when applied wholesale to FLT is discovery learning, an approach no doubt very useful in developing concept formation. But where is the evidence in favour of allowing the learners to discover FL grammar by themselves? Why postpone, in the name of discovery processes, the direct insights translations plus explanations so readily yield? Guided discovery remains an option when the problem can be quickly solved. But take, for instance, Turkish which has two forms for ‘Kemal came’: ‘Kemal geldi’ and ‘Kemal gelmis’. Learners should be told without further ado that Turkish, like many other languages, has grammatical markers to express the evidence a speaker has for his statement. Whereas English uses various lexical means to let the listener know whether he was an eye-witness or knows something from hearsay only, Turkish distinguishes direct and indirect evidence when reporting past events by different verb-endings. How long would it take learners of languages with no such grammatical category to find that out? 5. It has already been said that traditional grammatical grading can be partially bypassed. If we want to, past tense forms can be introduced in the very first language lesson (Chapter 3, maxim 7). Likewise, the traditional arrangement of grammatical facts is open to debate. It makes sense, of course, to present modal auxiliaries as “defective” so that substitute forms with similar meaning are needed in some tenses. But such forms can also be treated like any other lexical item. German learners simply must make the connection between the idea of ‘durfte’ or ‘durfte nicht’ and “was allowed to’ / ‘wasn’t allowed to’. Do they have to be told that ‘must’ has no past tense, so ‘be allowed to’ should be used instead? © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="118"?> 118 Chapter 5: The mother tongue as the magic key to foreign grammars 5.4 Conclusion Idiomatic translations ‘deforeignise’ the foreign; mirroring ‘reforeignises’ a given construction and gives it back its singularity to a point where it can be almost physically felt. Conversely, and perhaps for the first time, we may become aware of oddities and inconsistencies in our MT. Idiomatic and literal translations combined make the FL less daunting, less alienating, less remote, and more easily accessible. They provide the learner with a firm foothold in his own world experience, the concepts already formed, from which he can make his start. MT and FL enter into a powerful alliance. The perspectival flexibility of one language to elucidate the form-meaning constructions of another is without equal. However, constructions clarified are not yet constructions retained and put to use. This is what the next chapters will be concerned with. 5.5 Hints for the student teacher • Can you see the students’ point of view? Are you really answering the question the student had in mind? • Don’t attempt to explain and re-explain a grammatical point (in L1 or in L2). You might well end up in a morass, since there is often more to grammar than we are aware of from our own imperfect understandings. Think about the problem and consult your grammar books at home. Then try again the next lesson. • Ask gifted students if they can explain the point in their own way. • Suggest grammar means glamour (‘glamour’ is indeed derived from ‘grammar’). Avoid negative statements about “difficult” grammar. Instead, respect the enormous capacity your students have to learn with the right techniques. • Don’t plunge the class into an exercise without briefly telling them the purpose of the activity. • Remember: Most rules are caught rather than taught. Study questions and tasks 1. Collect materials for a crash course in English grammar for Germans. Which constructions can be made clear through mirroring? Here is a beginning: This is what the English say: *Ich wurde geraten, zu … (not: ‘mir wurde geraten’) I was advised to … 2. “Grammar is taught as the easy way out. Faced with traditional demands, the indifference of students in learning to speak, the size of classes, and the extra energy which it requires to teach the language rather than to teach about the language, many teachers have succumbed to the habit of concentrating on grammar.” What do you remember about grammar lessons? Did different teachers have different approaches to grammar? 3. Find out what the Turks say for “I’m hungry” and mirror the phrase in English. 4. Can you mirror, in English, the Turkish for ‘Ali’s car’? Can you then easily say similar things such as ‘Ali’s hotel’ or ‘Ali’s school’? © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="119"?> Study questions and tasks 119 5. An English learner of French thought that in the phrase ‘il est sept heures’ ‘il est’ meant ‘seven’, and ‘sept heures’ meant ‘o’clock’. Another mistake frequently heard by learners of French is *voici sont les livres (= voici les livres). How do these errors come about, and how can we prevent learners from making them? 6. “Puzzling out how language works grammatically is not only great fun and cognitively challenging for many pupils, but also provides one of the few real communicative contexts within the modern languages classroom” (Harris et al., 2001, 138). Can you think of situations and classroom episodes for which this is (not) true? 7. “Only when it becomes a substitute for using the language does grammar lose its point” (Harvey 1985). Discuss. 8. “What do they know of English, who only English know? ” Discuss. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="120"?> Chapter 6: How to teach structures the bilingual way 6.1 The generative principle, or: playing on analogies When a primary school girl in her first year of English plied the teacher with “please, please, please”, another child intervened with “Oh, stop pleasing”, a phrase she could not have heard before but which was probably modelled after “Stop talking”. This is an “intelligent error”, according to Schmid-Schönbein (2008, 30), who recorded this episode. We never hear abstract constructions, we only hear real utterances. That is why learners must discover - in one way or another - the patterns in what they hear. Pattern practice was designed to do that. Its theoretical basis is the generative principle, i.e. the human capacity to generate an infinite number of utterances from a finite grammatical competence, not to be confused with the school of Generative Grammar. It reflects the crucial feature of human language sometimes called compositionality. Meanings are built out of parts and from the way these parts are combined. A finite stock of words or word groups can be recombined again and again to produce innumerable novel sentences - and thus, new ideas. Language as a sequential combinatorial system is a powerhouse of potential meaning which ensures that we never run out of ideas. Nothing like this can be found in animal communication. Analogies which congeal into rules are our big chance of getting away from memorizing ever more individual items of language. We discover the organizing principle instead, for instance, how the present perfect progressive is formed. It is the same for all the verbs of English - without exception. Here, grammar can be a real godsend for language learners. This building of new forms according to known forms, captured by the term generative principle, applies to both morphology and syntax. Teachers have intuitively sensed the importance of the generative principle and have tried to teach in ways which will turn sentences into syntactical germ cells, i.e. into models for many more sentences built along the same lines. The techniques in question are substitution drills and pattern practice, which is not an American innovation of the 1940s, as has often been claimed, but much older. (Examples of bilingual pattern practice from the tenth century onwards are given by Butzkamm, 2004/ 2007, 167f.) Ignoring Quintilianus (first century A.D.) and Renaissance linguists of the sixteenth century such as Holyband, we will go directly to Prendergast, a 19 th century English methodologist. He believed that the generative principle was the fundamental feature of grammatical language: Sentences have within them a principle of vitality, an inherent power of expressing many different ideas by giving birth to new sentences. … By transposing and exchanging the words and the clauses, they [= the learners] utilize them all, and thus gradually, but unconsciously, amplify their power of speech (Prendergast 1864, 19, 14). The great Danish linguist Jespersen spoke in a similar vein. According to him, words have the power to generate new expressions from known ones. If one uses a particular kind of word or sentence construction often enough, it will turn into something new and become part of a mental mechanism: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="121"?> 6.2 Evidence from natural language acquisition 121 … just as the English boy who has often heard superlatives like hardest, cleanest, highest, etc., does not need any rule to be able to construct forms like purest, ugliest, dirtiest, of his own accord, and who, at the moment when he says them, would not be able even by means of the most scrupulous analysis to decide if he has heard the form before and is merely reproducing it, or if he himself is creating it without having previously heard it … (Jespersen 1904, 116). Harold Palmer coined the term ‘ergon’ (perhaps taking his cue from Humboldt’s definition of language as energeia). An ergon is a phrase or sentence that presents some sort of syntactic prototype from which pupils can construct further sentences. The learners’ task is to acquire these ergons or ‘primary matter’ as a database which will then serve them to generate an infinite number of sentences - ‘secondary matter’ according to Palmer. Were the number of sentences in a given language limited to a few hundreds, or even a few thousands, a student might reasonably be expected to learn them off by heart, and by so doing become a master of the language. The number of sentences, however, being infinite, recourse must be had to the study of their mechanism in order that from a relatively limited number of lesser ergons an infinite number of sentences may be composed at will (Palmer 1917, 22). He chided Berlitz for this oversight: Berlitz does not appear to have realized the necessity for the pupil to mechanize type-sentences and to derive from these an unlimited number of subsidiary sentences and combinations (Palmer 1925, 7). Wong-Fillmore (1985, 40) observed many lessons in which Californian children with a non-English background, usually described as “limited in English proficiency”, were immersed in an all-English school environment. She found that in “successful” classes, subject matter teachers frequently adopted patterns or routines for their lessons that have the appearance of pattern-substitution drills. Here is an example: T: Who is our mayor? (No response) T: Ooh! You forgot yesterday! Who is our mayor? Cs: Mayor Feinstein! T: Yes. Is our mayor a man or a woman? Cs: Woman! T: Yes, so a woman can be a mayor. A woman can be a governor. A woman can be a president! She comments: What we find in these successful lessons, then, is that repetitions are not necessarily identical, but there are small changes in them which may in fact call the learner’s attention to places within such expressions where forms can be substituted. In this way learners can figure out some the substitution rules in the language. 6.2 Evidence from natural language acquisition In natural acquisition situations learners get enough input of the sort that calls attention to the way in which sentences pattern in the language and help them detect the structural regularities. Parents, as well as teachers, seldom say anything in just one way, but give their children multiple opportunities to hear virtually the same sentences, although with minor modifications. Language structure thus emerges from language use. Specific constructions may serve as path-breakers into grammar, according to Tomasello’s (2003a, 117ff.) “verb © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="122"?> 122 Chapter 6: How to teach structures the bilingual way island hypothesis”. We acquire language by hearing exemplars and then generalize on the basis of a common pattern among those exemplars. First, a phrase is just a phrase, but with frequent use it may turn into an abstract schema: the phrase is grammaticalized or syntacticized. As children move down the road to grammar, the creative possibilities, or productivity, of the construction are discovered. As if input from others wasn’t enough, children give themselves input of the proper sort. They have been observed engaging in verbal play which, again, is reminiscent of pattern drills. I was completely unprepared to encounter a two-year-old boy who - all alone - corrected his own pronunciations, drilled himself on consonant clusters, and practiced substituting his small vocabulary into fixed sentence frames (Weir 1962, 15). Apart from sound variations and phonological play, children are interested in content variations. They seem to ask themselves: How can I explore a structure’s semantic potential? What has become expressible now? Witness the kind of verbal play that Ruth Weir (1962, 109f.) overheard and recorded when her son was left alone in the dark before he went to sleep: What colour What colour blanket What colour mop What colour glass I go up there I go up there I go She go up there Weir recorded a great many pre-sleep monologues of a similar kind, and the phenomenon is by now well-known. Here is an example of a girl of two years eight months, talking to herself (Britton 1972, 83): I’ve been sick every day in the car. That’s why I’ve got cold. But I don’t be sick like this, but I don’t be sick in bed, but I don’t be sick on the beach. This may be sound play, grammatical play, and semantic play all rolled in one, even if what the child produces is nonsense. After all, there is sense in nonsense, as Freud reminds us. So we quite naturally find some sort of sense even in what seems to make no sense. The child certainly enjoys playing with words, by repetitions of similar sounds, by re-arranging familiar meanings. Katherine Nelson (1989, 16) makes this important point in her own data-rich study of crib speech: “The form serves the content and not the reverse.” She qualifies her infant daughter’s private speech as “heuristic - serving the evident purpose of representing and sorting out her experience, using language to make sense.” For Burling (1959, 88), the moment when children begin breaking up structures and permutating them is a milestone in linguistic development: “The most significant single advance in his ability came when he learned to make substitutions.” This applies not only to sentence constructions, but to word-formation as well. Morphological play between two five-year-olds: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="123"?> 6.3 To transfer or not to transfer … 123 A: Cause it’s fishy too. Cause it has fishes. B: And it’s snakey too cause it has snakes and it’s beary too because it has bears. A: And it’s … it’s hatty cause it has hats. (Crystal 1998, 169) To solve a problem with vocabulary, children invent new words that are transparent in meaning. English and German children create innumerable new compound words. They also activate their word-building power in classrooms. When describing a picture, German primary school children spontaneously came up with “sleeproom” for bedroom, “eatroom” for kitchen, and “washroom” for bathroom. For adherents of a communicative approach the most important lesson in this is that communication is not all that matters. Children don’t restrict themselves to communicative interactions in the here and now, but engage also in a sort of private pattern practice, exploring possible word-combinations. Later they can use their variations to suit their communicative needs at that moment. It is structural competence which lightens the burden of memorizing for all learners. 6.3 To transfer or not to transfer … Control of structure will not gradually emerge unconsciously in classrooms which lack the rich linguistic environment of natural acquisition situations. Otherwise how could it be possible that we fail to teach and learn languages “naturally” in this day and age when we have • positively loads of structured video/ CD moving image material intended for the learners of major international languages • TV exposure to the target languages through multi-language channels such as Euronews • Possibilities of immediate one-on-one interaction between L1 and L2 speakers through broadband and webcam? The answer is fairly evident. Even if it does incorporate some of these excellent learning activities and resources into its programmes, the FL classroom cannot provide the amount of exposure and interaction necessary for the children to detect and extract the underlying regularities for themselves. In L1 acquisition “generalizations come only after a fair amount of concrete linguistic material has been learned” (Tomasello 2003, 98). Given the time constraints of classrooms, we have to accelerate this process by providing manageable, transparent patterns and practise them in addition to providing linguistically memorable moments of communicative negotiation for the students to internalise the patterns. We have to re-invent pattern drills - without evoking the spectre of the language lab. Pattern drills were once hailed enthusiastically before they fell into disrepute. They began to be labelled “planned parrothood” because they restricted students to mimicrymemorization and left little or no space for students to create their own sentences. Grittner (1969, 203), however, a school inspector in Chicago who visited hundreds of FL classrooms, takes stock of pattern drills in a different way: Of all the elements which constitute the new American Method, the pattern drill appears to be most widely misunderstood. In the hands of a knowledgeable teacher, such drills are capable of producing an exhilarating classroom atmosphere with students sitting on the edge of their © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="124"?> 124 Chapter 6: How to teach structures the bilingual way chairs listening intently for their cues and responding instantly when called upon. However, when used by a teacher who is not aware of the function and purpose of this type of drill, the results can be as stultifying as the choral chanting of verb conjugations and noun declensions. The misuse of the language lab was in no small way responsible for the stultifying effects of pattern drills. Pattern practice should not occur at the expense of communication, but should be a way of engineering the leap to an autonomous language use. How do we get from here to there, i.e. from a new sentence heard and understood to an abstract schema enabling the learner to produce similar sentences as required by the situation? The error that was made is plain when we look at what Humboldt conceived to be the quintessential property of language: energeia, its productive potential or creativity: ‘For it (language) is confronted with an essentially infinite and truly unbounded territory, the quintessence of everything which can be thought. It must thus make infinite use of finite means, and it achieves this through the identity of the power to generate both thoughts and speech.’ (Humboldt 1836/ 1963, 477) Sentence variations must be experienced as variations on meaning. Since language has the power of producing “both thoughts and speech”, we do not just generate novel sentences, but new ideas at the same time. Combinatorial grammar explains the inexhaustible repertoire of language and thought. The problem seems to be that Humboldt’s energeia is usually only familiar in its abbreviated formulation ‘making infinite use of finite means’ and is thus interpreted in syntactical terms only, and not in semantic terms. This oversight seems to be the reason why pattern drills frequently turned out to be mechanical and monotonous. How could practice on sentences further communicative competence? To transfer or not to transfer - that was the problem. Audiolingual theory was patently wrong in treating words as mere gap-fillers, a convenient device to avoid the monotony of overlearning the all-important sentence patterns. 6.4 An innovation: semi-communicative drills By contrast, our semi-communicative drills have a dual focus, on fluency and on content. Structures are manipulated, but at the same time ideas are played with and the semantic potential of a given structure is explored. Unlike conventional pattern practice, lexical substitutions are not regarded as mere fillers. The bilingual pattern drills which are proposed here meet five different needs: • The need to spot the pattern or regularity of a sentence, to see the slots into which different words may be plugged. • The need to find new, analogous items to fit the perceived pattern, thus learning how far one can ride a given pattern and establish its limits. • The need to entrench and to automatise a given sentence pattern, achieving fluency (these three needs have to some extent been met by traditional pattern practice). • The need to probe the communicative radius of a structure and explore its communicative potential. • The need to integrate the new pattern into the existing language repertoire and to employ it freely in conversation. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="125"?> 6.4 An innovation: semi-communicative drills 125 If sentence variations are seen as sense or thought variations, they can directly lead into communication. Thus pattern drills, currently unpopular in the broadly communicative ethos of FLT, can once again become a central technique. The wholesale, doctrinaire proscription of a teaching practice which has been used widely and apparently with some measure of success (Grittner! ) is certainly not the way to go. We work through a series of steps from easiest to most challenging. Step 1. Presentation and clarification All sentence frames, working as ergons in Palmer’s sense, should be taken from texts, stories, dialogues, postcards etc. They are thus anchored in situations, but must now be freed from their embeddedness in a specific situational and linguistic context. The teacher writes the model sentence up on the board, perhaps with a few typical variations. Take, for instance, the line ‘All I want is a room somewhere’ from Eliza’s song in the musical My Fair Lady. Initially, the teacher’s idea is simply to practise the formal device of a ‘contact clause’ where the relative pronoun is left out. The students will give good, idiomatic translations of the sentences. If there is a structural contrast with the native language which may present problems, the teacher explains the structure by mirroring it in the native language. All *Alles Alles, I ich was ich want will will, is ist ist a ein ein room. Zimmer. Zimmer. The learner is now aware of the anatomy of the phrase, and a dual comprehension has been achieved. An additional explanation: “The German relative pronoun ‘was’ is left out here” is useful, but the teacher may just say “word” instead of “relative pronoun”. A complete rule such as “When the relative pronoun is the object of a defining relative clause, we often leave it out; this is called a contact clause” is not needed here. Guided by the teacher, the students understand, sort out and imitate the construction. Step 2. Easy substitutions The teacher gives short stimulus sentences in the native language. These centre on the grammatical feature being practised, with easy substitutions. Any word will do which is familiar, fits snugly into the sentence pattern and makes sense. The variations provide a clear demonstration of usage, and remain, at this stage, within a familiar vocabulary range so that the students’ attention is not distracted from the grammatical feature. This is “interleaved learning”, since it involves learning a new construction alongside previously learned items: a process of mixing the new with the old information. Words which we want to remember have to keep returning. The exercise is conducted at a brisk pace. The teacher aims for high standards, both in terms of correctness and of speed. Students do not have time to pore over the English equivalents and construct a translation, and the teacher does not call on each student by name. There is no attempt to do anything with the constructions except manipulate them to become “entrenched”. Learners need clear and easy substitutions - and enough of them! - to structure and restructure their language system. Only through repetitions of similar items, can a pattern develop, and an abstract structure begin to emerge. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="126"?> 126 Chapter 6: How to teach structures the bilingual way Because there is an important structural contrast, the teacher may start with two or three literal translation cues: Teacher prompt Student response *Alles ich will ist ein Zimmer. *Alles ich will ist ein Tisch und ein Stuhl. All I want is a room. All I want is a table and a chair. For most teachers, using incorrect language deliberately is an unfamiliar experience from which they recoil. But the few literal sentence cues should not be shunned, “because it is exactly their ungrammaticality, their funny oddity, that will make learners remember the way the corresponding stretches are structured in the FL” (Ridjanovic 1983, 10). The teacher then changes the MT sentence to an idiomatic phrase, sticking to easy substitutions, to achieve fluency: Ich will ja nur eine Tasse Tee. Ich will ja nur eine Tasse Kaffee. Ich will ja nur ein Glas Milch. All I want is a cup of tea. All I want is a cup of coffee. All I want is a glass of milk. Note: Mirroring always takes into account the progress the students have made. Here, it would be cumbersome and counterproductive to literally copy the well-known English phrase ‘cup of tea’ as *Tasse von Tee. The exercise can be increased in difficulty by, for example, substituting several elements from one sentence to the other and extending the sentence: Er will ja nur ein kleines Glas Milch. All he wants is a small glass of milk. But it’s more important to get away from furniture and food items: Er will ja nur einen korrekten Satz. All he wants is a correct sentence. We’ve all learnt to make the little leaps from the concrete domains of our sensory-motor experiences to more abstract domains of our mental life. It’s part of the basic language skills our MT has endowed us with. The flexibility is there for us to use. Apart from substitutions, transformations are also possible. We may change the tense, or even modify the whole structure, e.g. negate a statement or change it into a question, if it’s easy and makes good sense: Er wollte nur ein Glas Wasser. All he wanted was a glass of water. If students hesitate, the teacher simply prompts the sentence and continues with more sentences of the same type until students produce fluent responses. Step 3. Pair work (optional) Pupils work with bilingual lists of sentences of the type they’ve just practised with the teacher. They go over the list, on their own, then test each other on the sentences. One pupil says the MT sentences, and his partner, who has put his sheet aside for the moment, responds with the FL sentence. If he hesitates, he’s immediately prompted with the target response. Thus they help each other rather than correct each other. Later, they swap roles. Pair work is to make sure that learners really get enough language data for their “intuitive heuristics” to work on. It can be postponed to a later lesson (distributed vs. massed practice). An alternative is individual work. Pupils are allowed to © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="127"?> 6.4 An innovation: semi-communicative drills 127 mill around the class while looking into their worksheets and muttering the sentences to themselves: English while walking. Step 4. “Loaded” sentences and contextual diversity: a qualitative shift The students have now developed some familiarity with the feature, and the drill can move on to more contentful sentences, loaded with affective meaning. No more bland sentences of no interest. What kind of ideas can be expressed, and what ideas do we want to express? Because at this stage content has preference over form, the teacher may leave the familiar vocabulary range and introduce new words for new ideas, e.g. “well-behaved”. He then simply offers the translation of the new term himself which will be taken over by the students. Ich will ja nur eine ruhige Klasse. Ich will ja nur wohlerzogene, brave Schüler. Say: well-behaved. Sie will ja nur einen neuen Freund. Ihr wollt ja nur einen Lehrer, der keine Hausaufgaben gibt. Ihr wollt ja nur gute Noten. All I want is a quiet class. All I want is well-behaved pupils. All she wants is a new boy-friend. All you want is a teacher who gives no homework. All you want is good marks. So after comparatively ‘empty’ sentences at the beginning we end up with suggestive sentences powerful enough to conjure up real-life situations in the minds of the pupils. Thus the grammatical permutations turn into variations on the theme of wishes and dreams. Interesting substitution possibilities are meant to show the students that this sentence structure is suitable for diverse contexts including their own needs of expression. The teacher tries to personalize and localise the activity and allude to current events that most of the class would be familiar with. The effect is to add a feeling of purpose, challenge, and authenticity. It’s an activity in which language is produced with meaning, but it’s not the pupil’s meaning yet. Alternatively, we could also make funny sentences. Note. Retarded children (Down syndrome, autism …) find it difficult to generalise across various domains of experience (see Butzkamm & Butzkamm 1999/ 2008, 188ff.). For them, what we think are little leaps - say from food items to good marks - are big mental leaps. So these shifts - from “all I want is a glass of milk” to “all I want is good marks” - might also present some problems for other children. We must be aware of the different arenas of experience which can be addressed with a given construction. The more associations one makes, the better the neural pathways to help one retain the construction. In the course of the exercise, we can move to variations like the following: Ich will ja nur sagen: Ich liebe dich. Ich kann nur sagen: Ich liebe dich Ich wollte ja nur einen Kuss. Alles, was ich bekam, war ein Lächeln Ich bekam nur ein freundliches Lächeln Nichts von dem, was ich tu, ist richtig! Nichts von dem, was ich tat, war je richtig. All I want to say is “I love you” All I can say is “I love you” All I wanted was a kiss. All I got was a smile. All I got was a friendly smile Nothing I do is ever right! (Voice of protest) Nothing I did was ever right. At this point the reader will no doubt have perceived what a wealth of German idiom has been attached to and rendered by the English construction just practised. Learners © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="128"?> 128 Chapter 6: How to teach structures the bilingual way are at once being alerted to the complexity of rendering idiom and accessing structures that open up a plethora of possibilities for communication. Because of this shift of focus, a double analysis is called for when the teacher constructs a semi-communicative drill: a syntactical analysis, showing the range of feasible variations; and a pragmatic analysis, showing the communicative possibilities of a pattern. This duality must always remain the very essence of the teaching of any structure. Teachers certainly need some experience to handle the two languages properly, so that students are led smoothly to ever more interesting sentences. This shift will enable the language learner to combine linguistic elements in new and appropriate ways to meet the demands of the situations in which he wishes to use the language. Step 5. “Over to you” The teacher has to know when to give guidance and when to give up control. Perhaps only two or three ‘loaded’ sentences are enough to set a particular class on the right track. As soon as possible the activity is handed over to the pupils - something that should never be omitted. The pupils are now free to experiment with the new structures, but this kind of “hypothesis-testing” has by this time been well prepared. The pupils are ready to take risks with the FL and produce sentences - and ideas - of their own. Since they now have to make up their own sentences, the exercise automatically becomes monolingual - as all bilingual forms of practice eventually blossom into monolingual activities. Some pupils might just solve a language problem, others might look for meanings that matter to them and might surprise us with original contributions. Those few who have no ideas of their own are free to select any of the sentences that the teacher had cued before. The ulterior reason - practising - is still the main motive, but some element of message-orientation has crept in. Pupils are encouraged to venture beyond what they have seen and heard so far. In order to leave some latitude for their choice and initiative, they should be invited, at this stage, to ask for new words and use them just as the teacher did in the previous step, rather than only drawing on the limited resources they have. No vocab request should be rejected just because the item is a cut above the ordinary. Students should be fed a rich language diet, rather than be restricted to the stripped-down, unnaturally plain language featured in many coursebooks, which is the bane of the monolingual approach (chapter 3, maxim 6). Learners need large vocabularies, and here is an excellent opportunity to provide the new words that the learners want to engage with. Although some students will always be ready to invent sentences on the spur of the moment, the class might be allowed a few minutes’ silence to jot down any idea that comes to mind. The teacher would spend this time making the rounds of his class, listening here, suggesting there, and giving individual attention to those who need it. If there is a large increase in errors, this means that insufficient time was spent on previous steps, and the teacher needs to go back to them. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="129"?> 6.4 An innovation: semi-communicative drills 129 Step 6. Pupil presentation and communicative interludes The teacher calls on pupils to say their sentences. This is where the activity can become semi-communicative. If a sentence seems to be particularly relevant, this will give the teacher the opportunity to ask the pupil or class a few questions and involve them in a brief communicative exchange. We ought to look out for those “fleeting moments of opportunity” to engage in a truly message-orientated interaction before returning to the drill. Teacher and class break out of the safety of structured exercises. It’s also possible for the teacher to ask the pupils what they think the most interesting sentence was, and then draw comments from them why they thought it interesting or ask the student who produced the sentence if he had something special in mind that made him say that. Communicative interludes don’t just make a welcome change: they have now become the main goal, and the teacher should constantly lie in wait for them. Semi-communicative drills don’t only provide the enabling skills for later performance; performance can be here and now, and what is learned linguistically is also used communicatively as it is learned. Being able to cope with these communicative interludes will develop confidence and self-reliance. Here is an example of a brief excursion into a serious exchange of information. As a way of practising the present continuous, the pupils have been asked to imagine what somebody who is not present is doing at the moment, and the teacher picks up and develops a sentence coming from a pupil: Pupil: My sister is doing a test in class 9b. Teacher: Is your sister a pupil of this school? Pupil: Yes, she is. Teacher: What test is she sitting? Pupil: A maths test. Teacher: So she is sitting a maths test right now? Is she good at maths? Silke Any grammar exercise which requires the pupils to produce sentences of their own offers similar opportunities for building communicative islands in a sea of language practice. In the following extract the pupils have just practised the passive: Finally, the pupils were to produce their own sentences which provided potential for some short communicative interludes. A pupil said: “At school, pupils are tortured by teachers.” The teacher grabbed this chance and asked: “Do you feel tortured by your English teacher, too? ” to which the pupil responded, “Eh, … perhaps sometimes I am tortured by you … (laughter). No, you are a nice teacher, and I am tortured by our geography teacher.” Silke This step, and the next one, is rewarding for both teacher and pupils. The teacher gets immediate feedback on his work and the pupils feel they can actually do something with the new phrases. Step 7. Synthesis: Creative writing “Drilling on sentences will not do any good unless one uses them” (Nida 1957, 62). We encourage students to put to use what they’ve been taught, and ask them to compose short texts which include an example of the pattern just practised. One correct and meaningful example is usually enough, otherwise the focus would be too much on form rather than on content, and the paragraph might sound artificial. Here are some uncorrected texts collected in from a class which had just practised the gerund: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="130"?> 130 Chapter 6: How to teach structures the bilingual way I like riding Samira. Samira is Claudia’s horse. Claudia hasn’t got enough time for her, so she asked me: “Would you mind riding Samira? ” And I did it. I like going to the Lipizzaner every day, but she is very strong and so my arms often ache. Playing the flute is my hobby. I play almost every day for half an hour. On Monday I go to the club were we practise 2 hours. When we all there we are 57 people. On Thursday I have one lesson for myself, with my new teacher flute teacher. Practising with her is’nt very funny. Playing in the parade is more better. I like playing the gittar. I practise every day for 20 minutes. I hate practising. But sometimes I like it. I’m in a club. I play there every Thursday. Playing the guitar is not so easy. Yesterday I was swimming. There is a swimming pool in our village. I like swimming in the summer and I hate swimming outside in the winter. Suddenly it began to rain and so I take my inline skates and go home. At home I phone to Benedikt. The gerund has thus been integrated with what the students had already learned and gained a foothold in the learner’s experience. Practice does make perfect. The passage from explicit knowledge and use under controlled-exercise conditions to creative use has been made, although learners need many more opportunities for truly spontaneous use in natural communicative situations. It goes without saying that the procedure can be abridged, depending on the construction. The whole point of the exercise, after all, is to end up creating an autonomous language user. The sooner one gets there, the better. 6.4.1 Objections overruled 1. In student productions after drill practice as described above, little evidence was found for natural acquisition orders. Our drills were carried out when the structures, such as the gerund above, infinitive constructions or if-clauses were required by German coursebooks of English. The structural syllabus of the grammar school coursebooks worked satisfactorily. Learners seemed to be ready for the structures taught. We assume that MT support, and mirroring in particular, can to some extent override developmental constraints where they should exist. It could very well be that for many structural areas that are focused on in English courseboooks such as progressive vs. simple, adverb placement, passive constructions, relative clauses, article use etc. the question of developmental stages is largely irrelevant. Moreover, Sheen (2005) could show that, when a “grammar-free” communicative approach was chosen, incorrect auxiliary-free interrogative forms fossilised in the English of francophone children even over eight years of teaching. We can’t just exercise patience and hope for the putative developmental phases to run their course. It goes without saying that teachers should be able to distinguish between many types of errors, including developmental errors. It is doubtful, however, whether we have to go beyond a rough order of difficulty established by didactic common sense and pedagogic experience over many decades. It is also quite difficult to see how teachers of a class of 20-odd pupils could take account of an individual learner’s stage of development with regard to a specific construction. Also, the terms “developmental stage” or “sequence” falsely suggest to the non-expert that there are clear boundaries. Quite often there are only gradual shifts of frequencies in the forms used. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="131"?> 6.4 An innovation: semi-communicative drills 131 Admittedly, in a very general way all teaching is premature. Long (2007, 121) says that to impose a pre-set, external grammatical syllabus on learners, “riding roughshod over individual differences in readiness to learn … attempts the impossible” and is “psycholinguistically untenable”. Well, no. ‘Whatever is, is possible.’ Countless language teachers all over the world have worked within a grammatical syllabus prescribed by their textbooks, many of them with considerable success and to their pupils’ long-lasting satisfaction, and have thus achieved what Long thinks is impossible. Obviously, further research is needed here. 2. Another common objection is that pattern practice is monotonous and thus causes emotional fatigue and affective distancing. This can be avoided even in monolingual drills, if both teachers and pupils make efforts at speaking the sentences ‘naturally’ instead of chanting them parrot-like, and if the drill is kept reasonably short and rapid. 3. A third objection raised against pattern drills is that they work with isolated sentences, which would be ineffective in principle. But even in the absence of a context of situation, disconnected sentences, if understood, inevitably take on meaning because the listener can immediately imagine fitting communicative contexts. Take the ‘all-I-want’ construction above. Wouldn’t we all know without giving it a moment’s thought when, where and to what intents and purposes we could use these sentences? This is because the sentences express common concepts familiar to us via the MT. All dictionaries operate with illustrative disconnected sentences because we can make those sentences real for ourselves. That’s why our students are not performing language operations in a void. It is high time the myth about ineffective isolated sentences be dispelled. The successful completion of step seven is also evidence for the fact that isolated sentences can lead directly to a context of situation. A bridge is built between pattern practice and creative message delivery. The dynamics of semi-communicative drills are as follows: • Productive patterns of wide applicability, which give the learner a lot to learn from. • Insight into the patterned nature of both the source and target language. Students recognize the common grammatical thread. • Teacher-directed, mother-tongue cues for ignition. Simple, easy sentences in rapid succession. • The MT cues are supposed to trigger abstract concepts which in turn trigger the FL construction. This is the psychological pathway we normally follow when we say anything: from concept to expression. • Students can work in pairs helping each other to enhance participation. • Teacher provides “semantically loaded” sentences and contextual diversity • (optional, written) Short brainstorming to note down ideas. • Pupils produce sentences of their own. Teacher intervenes and asks questions concerning the ideas expressed by the pupils, thus creating space for communicative interludes. • Pupils write small texts of their own, using the new structure just once. Our drills provide plentiful exposure to the relevant linguistic forms in the shortest possible time. They are designed to take the original construction and the idea © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="132"?> 132 Chapter 6: How to teach structures the bilingual way incarnated to other settings and apply them flexibly and appropriately in new and unanticipated situations. The main shift is from a primary attention to form with some attention to meaning to a primary attention to meaning. 6.4.2 Regular revision drills: immunization against common errors Bilingual drills are especially effective when it comes to unlearning persistent, systematic errors, those errors in particular which echo the students’ own idiom. MT cues prove to be the perfect antidote to negative transfer from the MT, because they make students detect the discrepancy between their learner language and the target language. When German pupils ask for the meaning of words, one often gets sentences like *What means ‘Kampfsport’ in English? Interference errors such as these should be tackled by taking the bull by the horns, as it were, and “drilling them out”, as Allen (1948/ 9, 37) proposes: “The clever teacher will trace recurrent mistakes to ingrained habits in the native source, show them boldly to his students, and proceed to drill new habits in the new medium.” At the beginning, the teacher would clarify the English construction by asking for a literal translation of the model sentence: “What does ‘science’ mean? ” *Was tut ‘science’ bedeuten? One may start with these literal translation cues which are gradually transformed into idiomatic translation cues: *Was tut ‘science’ bedeuten? *Was tut dieses Wort bedeuten? Was bedeutet ‘science’ auf Deutsch? Was bedeutet das erste Wort in Zeile 2? Was bedeutet diese Stelle hier? Was bedeuten diese Zeilen? Was bedeutet ‘Elfmeter’ auf Englisch? What does ‘science’ mean? What does this word mean? What does ‘science’ mean in German? What does the first word in line 2 mean? What does this passage mean? What do these lines mean? What does ‘Elfmeter’ mean in English? “Say” and “suggest” would be construed along the same lines and can be practised in the same way: What does the article say? What does this line suggest? It is the constant overt juxtaposition of the MT and FL contrasting structures which both alerts students repetitively to the differences and allows them the confidence of employment that comes from successful practice. Another problem for Germans are verbs like “want” and “expect”, which lure German speakers into using a that-clause: *She wants that Thomas marries her. The following exercise was carried out in a vocational class: *Wir erwarten Sie zu liefern die Waren am Montag. Wir erwarten, dass Sie die Ware am Montag liefern. Wir erwarten, dass Sie die Ware bis Freitag spätestens liefern. Er möchte, dass Sie dieses Dokument hier unterzeichnen. We expect you to deliver the goods on Monday. We expect you to deliver the goods on Monday. We expect you to deliver the goods by Friday at the latest. He wants you to sign this document here. And more sentences along those lines. The German that-construction is in the minds of the pupils. The contrast with the English infinitive brings out the points of conflict, © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="133"?> 6.4 An innovation: semi-communicative drills 133 and the practice will forge new and strong habitual associations from which the learner will not deviate any more. In French, object pronouns precede the verb, whereas in English and German object pronouns follow the verb. After mirroring the French phrase in English *I her love, *I him see, English-speaking children can practise simple French phrases in order to “drill out” stubborn word order mistakes: *I her love *I them love. I love you. I see her. I see him. I believe her. Je l’aime. Je les aime. Je t’aime. Je la vois. Je le vois. Je la crois. Note, however, that differences don’t necessarily predict errors, so the reverse does not occur: French learners of English rarely prepose the object pronoun. A simple equation of difference with difficulty is not tenable. To understand learners’ linguistic behaviour errors as well as non-errors need to be accounted for (See Gass & Selinker 2001, 74ff., for a discussion of this interesting point). The sharp contrasts of bilingual drills are more effective than monolingual pattern drills which do not bring the differences out in the open. “Paradoxically, the new pattern is hammered home by using the old familiar one”, says Allen (1948, 38), who gives Czech-English examples. Politzer (1965a, 31) recommends English-French bilingual drills and concludes: The use of English makes it possible to focus attention on those contrasts and drive them home to the learner … the student in fact goes through a pattern drill exercise which impresses a structural difference between English and French upon his memory. Bilingual exercises are effective in deconditioning students to their internal native language stimuli by forcing them to choose the FL way of saying things in the overt presence of MT stimuli … The bilingual procedure works effectively with all structures subject to strong native language interference (Hammerly 1991, 114). A strategy I had chosen myself to learn a difficult structure was to compare it to Korean and then memorize a very simple sentence for illustration, for instance: “What a good boy you are”, where English word order is quite different from Korean. Hee Shin A handful of English grammar points needs overlearning for Germans because MT interference is likely to occur. “The way to eliminate interference is by swamping it” (Butzkamm 1975, 272). So whenever texts or activities throw up an important new verb or verbal collocation, it could quickly be demonstrated in action in typical interference-prone constructions of high frequency such as past tense vs. present perfect, simple vs. progressive aspect, that-clause vs. infinitive etc.: rehearse a play Gestern haben wir 3 Stunden lang geprobt. Wir proben schon 3 Stunden lang. Wir brauchen nicht mehr proben. Wir haben vor, heute unser Stück zu proben. Er will, daß wir unser Stück proben. Yesterday we rehearsed for 3 hours. We’ve been rehearsing for 3 hours. We needn’t rehearse any more. We are going to rehearse our play today. He wants us to rehearse our play. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="134"?> 134 Chapter 6: How to teach structures the bilingual way do an exercise Ich mach gerade Übung Nr 5. Ich sitze gerade an Übung Nr 5. Ich mach diese Übungen gerne. Ich glaub, ich mach auch noch die nächste Übung. Gestern hab ich Übung Nr. 4 gemacht. Ich hab sie drei mal gemacht. Der Lehrer möchte, dass wir noch Übung Nr. 7 machen. Wir sollen … (Right now) I’m doing exercise 5. I like doing these exercises. I think I’ll also do the next exercise. Yesterday I did exercise 4. I’ve done it three times. The teacher wants us to do exercise 7 as well. bully someone (not ‘mobbing’! ) In der Schule wird er gemobbt / tyrannisiert. Seitdem mobben sie ihn. Mobben ist ein Problem an Schulen. Man hat ihn lange schikaniert. (heute nicht mehr) Sie hatten vor, ihn zu mobben. Ich will nicht, dass man dich drangsaliert. Gib den Schikanen nicht nach, gib nicht klein bei. Lass dich nicht schikanieren. Ich werde ich nicht einschüchtern lassen und das Dokument unterschreiben. He is being bullied at school. They’ve been bullying him ever since. Bullying is a problem in schools. He was bullied a long time. They were going to bully him. I don’t want you to be bullied. Don’t give in to bullying. Don’t let yourself be bullied. I won’t be bullied into signing the document. (Note: We deliberately choose three German synonyms for the one word ‘bully’.) Running through a new expression with a few typical grammatical variations often takes no more than a minute. Together with our semi-communicative structure drills these revision drills demonstrate how practice can be carried out efficiently and effectively. The lexical item stays the same (‘rehearse a play’) and reoccurs in critical constructions, whilst in semi-communicative drills the structure remains the same and the lexical content is varied. In advanced classes dominated by working with texts, these revision drills function as grammatical interludes, brief enough so that the textual work can be quickly resumed. In the same way, an error can be picked up and briefly drilled out. Key teaching points can thus be revised again and again, and the critical constructions will become second nature. There is solid empirical evidence in favour of translations of illustrative sentences along with initial MT explanations (Elek & Oskarsson 1973). In a study carried out by Vaezi & Mirzaei (2007) Iranian students learning English were given grammatical practice on four areas of grammar. The experimentals had to translate selected Persian sentences into English - the kind of thing thrown out of textbooks a few decades ago -, whereas the controls were given monolingual exercises as suggested by the coursebook. The experimentals performed significantly better. The authors conclude: “It can be claimed that translating sentences from L1 to L2, if selected purposefully, can push learners to use specific structures accurately when producing utterances in the second language.” Our informal tests have shown that, with this type of drill, learners will develop a feel for the grammatical makeup of the FL in an amazingly short time. Through comparing and contrasting, they also gain insights into their own language, and learn more about the psychological forces at work in the life of language in general. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="135"?> 6.4 An innovation: semi-communicative drills 135 6.4.3 Evidence from classrooms Semi-communicative drills have stood the test. Rather than discoveries, they are extensions of, and improvements on, older inventions, born of long-term trial and error. They have been developed with the help of insights, past and present, from others who worked independently and found similar solutions, such as Allen (1948), Dodson (1967), Ridjanovic (1983). Butzkamm (2004, 167ff.) found examples of bilingual pattern drills that date from as early as the tenth century. So they must have proved their worth in some situations. Rather than re-inventing the wheel, we try to build upon existing time-tested techniques, weighing the strengths and weaknesses: (1) What made them work well, alive and vibrant? (2)What made others discard them? What made them deadening? More comparative empirical / statistical evidence than the work quoted in the section above is, of course, desirable. Nevertheless, our advocacy of bilingual drills has evidence to back it. It is a far cry from linguistic research with putative “implications” for the classroom attached, yet lacking any positive evidence derived from teaching practice. The following extracts, recorded by Fischer & Franklin (1984), originate from a seventy-minute lesson given once a week to a class of 12 adults in their second semester. They are included here to give evidence of how our drills can form a bridge of sorts, and to demonstrate that the label “semi-communicative” is indeed justified. The point of departure was the following dialogue: + Can you help me, please? - What’s the matter? + There’s something wrong with my car. - Well, let’s see. + Can you see what’s wrong? - No, I’m sorry, I can’t help you, but I can get help for you. + That’s very kind of you. After dialogue presentation and assimilation, the teacher decided to practise the construction “There’s something wrong with …” with its many productive possibilities. Since the construction was transparent for the learners, he started right away by eliciting structural variations of the sentence with MT cues. T: Mit diesem Satz ist was nicht in Ordnung. S1: There’s something wrong with this sentence. T: Very good. Mit diesem Buch stimmt was nicht. S2: There is something wrong that book. T: With this book. There is something wrong with this book. Mit unserer Waschmaschine, eh, mit Christels Waschmaschine ist was nicht in Ordnung. S3: There is something wrong with Christel’s washing machine. T: Very good. Mit der Kaffeemaschine ist was nicht in Ordnung. S4: There is something wrong with the coffee machine. Even during this strictly controlled practice, a certain degree of personalisation is possible. Christel is a member of the group who was absent and was excused by another student who explained she was unable to take part because her washing machine had broken down that morning - something the teacher had remembered to produce his stimulus sentence. Next, the students were requested to make up their own sentences: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="136"?> 136 Chapter 6: How to teach structures the bilingual way S1: There is something wrong with the exhaust system. T: Oh, very good. You remember what that is? S2: Auspuff. T: Ja, das war der Auspuff, die Auspuffanlage, nicht? Very good. Anything else? S3: There is something wrong with my windscreen wipers. T: Hm, hm. S4: There is something wrong with the door of the garage. T: Very good. S5: Today there is something wrong with my nose. T: With your nose, I see. So you’ve got a cold or you’ve got flu. S5: Yes. T: so you can say: I’ve got flu. (…) S6: There’s something wrong with my teeth. T: You should go to your husband. (The teacher knows that S6’s husband is a dentist.) S6: I must go to the dentist. T: You should go to your husband. He can help you. This form of practice allows shifts of emphasis between medium-orientation and message-orientation. The interaction of the first four students is typically medium-oriented. Instead of showing concern the teacher seems delighted that there is something wrong with the door of S4’s garage. However, the interchanges with S5 and S6 are to some extent genuine communicative interludes. The teacher returns to a focus on form and his role of language instructor when he introduces the expression “I’ve got flu.” So far, practice had been easy: Variations had been restricted to substitutions only, and the substitutions always filled the same slot at the end of the phrase. Now the teacher moves on to more variations to exploit the semantic and structural potential of the construction: There seems to be something wrong with …, there’s nothing wrong with …, what’s wrong with …, is there anything wrong with … Again, MT stimuli come first: T: Mit deinem Pass scheint was nicht in Ordnung zu sein. There seems to be something wrong, you see. Can you say it again? There seems to be something wrong. S1: There seems to be something wrong with your … T: Passport. S1: Passport. T: Kann ich ihn mir mal ansehen? S2: Can I look for it. T: Not quite. S3: Can I see it? T: Well, can I see it or can I have a look at it. The teacher could have written the new variations up on the board, but here he simply translates his sentence himself so that all the first student has to do is to imitate it. He follows this up with another sentence which creates a minimal context. After this teacher-controlled practice, the activity is again handed over to the students. The students produce their sentences which the teacher uses as a peg to hang a comment on which develops a short conversation: S1: What’s wrong with German football? SSS: Laughter © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="137"?> 6.4 An innovation: semi-communicative drills 137 T: What’s wrong with German football? Well, they lost. They played against Brazil, as you know and, er, did you see it on television? S2: Yes. S3: It was boring. T: I didn’t like it really. It was a boring football match, wasn’t it. S3: Langweilig. T: Ein langweiliges Fußballspiel. S4: That’s right. T: It wasn’t very good, but it must have been very difficult for the Germans, it must have been very difficult for the Germans there. S3: Very boring. T: It was very boring. S3: I have sleeping. SSS: Laughter T: You fell asleep! You fell asleep. Okay. S4: What’s this name? Friendship play or what do you say, Freundschaftsspiel. (= friendly game) T: I don’t know. I really don’t know. Really I don’t know what … S 3: In English, a friendship play? T: Yes, pardon? S 5: It was a test. T: It was just a test, it was just a test for the, ah, world championship. S5: I think our best football player are ill. T: Yes, Rummenigge is ill. There is something wrong with his? ? S 3: Leg T: There is something wrong with his leg. Yes, eh yes. And there is another German footballer who is ill. Pardon? S6: Magath. aber … S3: Yes, yes, yes, eh, well, he plays for for for S6: Yes, HSV T: Yeah, there is something wrong with the German football team at the moment, perhaps. But I think it was very … S3: They have not geschossen aufs Tor. Wie sagt man das? They have not … T: They didn’t score any goal. They didn’t score any goal. Sie haben kein Tor geschossen. It was very difficult for them. S3: Sie haben’s gar nicht versucht, würd’ ich sagen. T: They didn’t try. They didn’t even try to. Yes they didn’t even try to. Sie haben’s noch nicht mal versucht. S 7: I think they play only with the ball. T: Well, that’s what it is. Well that’s what football is all about. Playing around with the ball. S 7: Only around the ball. T: Ah yes, they were playing around the ball. They were playing around the ball. S8: What’s wrong with my stomach? I’m hungry. SSS: Laughter T: You’re hungry? Well. S 8: Der knurrt schon. Fischer & Franklin comment: Although still largely structural practice, this phase allows a large degree of unplanned message-orientated communication. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the students, in being required to take the initiative for the classroom interaction are given the opportunity to use © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="138"?> 138 Chapter 6: How to teach structures the bilingual way the language to talk about their experiences and interests. Even such (real and false) beginners after only twenty double periods are in a position to make genuinely communicative contributions, stimulated only by the natural flow of the conversation. That some of the contributions are made in German is after all only natural in a monolingual group. Any dissatisfaction the student may feel at his inability to express his thoughts in English is made up for by his satisfaction at having contributed to the conversation. It is the teacher’s task to ensure that after such a comment in German, the interaction is returned to English. The second reason for the occurrence of communicative interaction in this phase is that the teacher is willing and able to take the linguistic risks inherent in spontaneous communication in a foreign language. He has sufficient linguistic proficiency and confidence to deal with the unexpected. He simply has to admit his ignorance. He does not know the term ‘friendly game’, and cannot really answer S3’s question who wants to distinguish between goals and mere shots on goals that were saved. Well, nobody is perfect. S8 has eventually had enough of football, takes the initiative and returns to the exercise with a new sentence. “Show me, and I will understand, involve me, and I will learn.” The above example clearly demonstrates that pattern drill can be taken to the point where learners get personally involved and make use of the newly learned structure in “serious” utterances. Needless to say that drills can be followed by a variety of message-oriented activities which require the learner to put the new forms to use. 6.4.4 For slow learners Semi-communicative drills as illustrated above may be preceded by translation drills from the target language into the native language, perhaps starting with a few literal translations (if they find this easier): Does Judy speak German? Does your friend speak German? Do your friends speak English? *Tut Judy sprechen Deutsch? *Tut dein Freund sprechen Deutsch? *Tun deine Freunde sprechen Englisch? Then, still in the same direction, we elicit idiomatic translations from the students: Does your father speak English? Do your parents speak English? Spricht / kann dein Vater Englisch? Sprechen deine Eltern Englisch? Only then do we reverse the direction and start the exercise proper, with MT stimuli and FL responses as shown, beginning with the same sentences just practised. This procedure will make it easier for slow learners to slip into the FL construction. 6.5 Costs and benefits of bilingual practice Every solution breeds new problems, so one has to offset the costs of a technique against its benefits. If we are clever, we can end up with an extremely positive cost-benefit ratio. The gains will be mainly achieved through the flexibility of bilingual cues, the smooth transitions from various substitutions to extensions, reductions and transformations, and from small to big leaps as you go from one stimulus to the next. Typically, bilingual cues can set the difference between the native language and the target language in sharpest contrast. Most importantly, the psychological process is from idea to expression, just as in normal speech (and explained in the previous chapter) where we see © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="139"?> 6.5 Costs and benefits of bilingual practice 139 the idea beyond the actual wording. As we listen, phonemes disappear into words and words into sentences and sentences disappear into what is meant and intended, i.e. into the ideas expressed. That’s why the “proper” stimulus for the FL response is in fact the idea, not the actual MT words. Many components contribute to this effect. It is intonation in particular, it is the way the voice is used, indicating surprise or indignation, and it is a bit of body language, too. If we put in this extra effort, it will make all the difference. The ideas expressed in the sentences are vividly pictured in the mind. By contrast, some monolingual drills can be performed without even understanding the sentences produced. It makes all the difference. But what about the costs? What about interference from the mother tongue? Well, it cannot be completely avoided. It is always present especially when we are tired and not concentrating properly, even though we haven’t heard a single mother-tongue word for quite a while. Won’t pupils be tempted to fall for interference? For instance, German and French pronouns are typical tripwires: Teacher: Das ist eine wunderbare Idee. Pupil: It’s a wonderful idea. Teacher: Sie (referring to “die Idee”) ist super. Pupil: *She (instead of “it”) is super. The solution is simple. Avoid deceptive MT cues as long as they are error-prone. If you have the impression that some of your pupils cannot yet cope with pronouns when cued by the MT, take care the situation doesn’t arise. Another possibility of avoiding mistakes is to draw attention to them before they are actually made. You could agree on a special hand signal with your class, meaning “careful, mistakes are likely to occur”, or give a direct hint: “Mind the gender.” Or use an anticipatory prompt: “Don’t say ‘she’ now, that’s German.” At some point, all pupils will be able to deal with this problem successfully. Benefits of mother tongue cues: • Thought put into language vs. mere manipulation of a structure • Strictly oral exercise, no written substitution tables • Conveyance of sense through intonation, mime and gesture vs. loss of meaning through mechanical substitutions • Emotional involvement vs. boredom of all-too-mechanical drills • The conflict points can be made explicit • Flexible changes from one stimulus to the next • Communicative dynamics: focus on form changes to a focus on content; initially ‘empty’ sentences; then more ‘suggestive’ sentences. “The defects of traditional translation exercises should not blind us to the value of strictly controlled drill using vernacular cues,” says Green (1970), who gives Hindi - English examples of what he calls “translation pattern practice”. Monolingual drills are also welcome, of course, if only for variety’s sake, and they can be combined with bilingual cue drills. Our programme is to free method of its dogma, and hence the enrichment of language work and not its impoverishment. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="140"?> 140 Chapter 6: How to teach structures the bilingual way 6.6 Conclusion Semi-communicative drills have been invented to exploit the generative power of language and bridge the gap between manipulation and communication. Learners need both, throwing themselves into “real” language use as well as sentence practice. Neither can be neglected. Given enough contact time (which classrooms cannot provide), learners would figure out by themselves what parts could be varied, so as to reassemble them on the fly to suit their needs. In semi-communicative drills we only help the learners to do what they would quite naturally do by themselves. They lay the foundations for activities which involve students in natural communication situations. 6.7 Hints for student teachers: do’s and don’ts In the following, we have included some of the advice given by Rivers (1968): • Be clear about the grammatical point you want to practise. Have you chosen a productive pattern? Is there a structural contrast between L1 and L2? • At the beginning, make absolutely certain that your students fully understand both the meaning of a pattern and its internal structure. • Don’t interrupt the stimulus-response sequence by calling on each student by name. • Anyone has the right to pass if they prefer. • At first, use only easy substitutions. Centre on one grammatical feature and don’t change too many elements when going from one sentence to the next. • Your sentence variations include exchanging elements, adding / leaving out elements, and perhaps structural transformations such as changing tense, negation, interrogation, passivisation. But don’t make your cues too long and too difficult. • Choose your mother tongue cues carefully. Watch out for possible sources of interference from the MT and don’t trap your students into making those mistakes. • Make sure your exercise does not degenerate into a tortuous translation puzzle. • Support your mother tongue cues with body language, the proper intonation and the right voice. • Can your sentences be easily contextualised? • Insist on fluent delivery and natural intonation. Don’t allow students to reflect too long prior to responding. Give a prompt instead, or say the complete sentence yourself and get the student to imitate it. Keep up a lively pace. • As the exercise develops, focus more and more on content. You might also come up with some funny ideas. Do your students take a fancy to bizarre, outlandish ideas? Stimulate positive emotions. • Try to relate your sentences to topical events and to personal communicative needs in your class. • When you are looking for exciting ideas, don’t hesitate to introduce a new word. • Never forget to hand the exercise over to the students so that they can make up their own sentences. • Later in the drill, break away from it whenever possible and initiate a brief communicative exchange before you resume the drill. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="141"?> Study questions and tasks 141 • Don’t worry too much if you lose the drill pattern. If you are getting truly communicative responses, ride the wave so long as it is useful. Message oriented language is the objective in the long run. • Watch out for signs of boredom and fatigue. In general, keep your drills short and rapid. Study questions and tasks 1. Do it yourself! Choose a productive pattern and devise your own structure drill along the lines laid down in the text. Try it out on your group. Can you sensitively adjust your sentences “to the moment”, to the needs and preferences of your fellow students? Will your classmates in step 5 come up with sentences motivated by their own intention to mean? Can you spontaneously involve them in short communicative interludes? 2. Compare bilingual drills with the standard monolingual exercises of schoolbooks. 3. Do you remember phrases serving as a mnemonic for a grammar point? Invent your own memorable example sentences as prototypes of grammatical structures. 4. Rivers notes in her learner’s diary (1979, 77): “It is very important to try out in new sentences what you have just learned, if not to others, at least in private talk to yourself”. Do you agree? Have you observed yourself doing this? 5. “Drill work before free work. This is perhaps the most important of the precepts to be observed” (Palmer 1921, 74). Discuss. 6. Do you have any personal experience of studying in a language lab? Can you explain their decline? Are there good uses and bad uses of the lab? 7. Mother-tongue cues are less prone to becoming mechanical, mainly because the teachers can use their voice, facial expressions and gestures to support meaning. Can you give examples of cues and patterns where this is very obvious? 8. Some people think that pair work is neglected in favour of the far less feasible group work. What are the respective merits of pair work and group work? 9. In step 7 students are required to insert an instance of the new structure into a short composition. Does that prove that the structure practised has been absorbed into the students’ competence? What do you think should count as evidence for a structure learned? 10. The following objections could be raised by adherents of the communicative approach: 1. Producing new sentences on one’s own is still far away from real conversation. 2. One should not practise with isolated, disconnected sentences because they are non-communicative. Discuss. 11. In Clive James’ novel Boom! Boom! Suzuki is an assistant manager of a Japanese bookshop in London, bent on improving his English. The bookshop was the ideal training ground. It even worked both ways. There was the occasional English language student who was learning Japanese. ‘Good day’, he would say, ‘the weather is good’. This when it was raining outside so hard that the side of St Paul’s looked like a chalk cliff lashed by a typhoon. ‘Yes’, Suzuki would say, ‘or perhaps the weather is only so-so.’ They were delighted to hear the word for so-so. Mama Discuss. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="142"?> Chapter 7: Dialogues, drama and declamation Practise everything until it becomes second nature. Leonard Bloomfield 7.1 Give them a stage: role-taking and role-making Dialogues belong to the oldest of all language teaching aids. Nearly two thousand years ago the Romans learned Greek from bilingual dialogues - a tradition revived by Renaissance scholars such as Erasmus. Although scripted dialogues may not be “authentic” material in the strictest sense, they present a total communicative event, with back-and-forth discourse and the expressive tones and rhythms of everyday speech, including pause words, numerous contractions and elisions, rejoinders, interjections etc. Only through dialogue do we learn that the key to meaning often centres around intonation. Moreover, dialogues supply a ready reserve of phrases and constructions of all sorts in real-life contexts, which function as a safety net for teachers and students alike. They should feature new productive sentence patterns and expressions of wide applicability. For our purposes, dialogues must be brief and utterances should not be too long: a language package readily memorized. Within such confines, dialogues can bristle with new words, because with MT explanations we do not need detours to get at the meaning. Interesting characters and emotions can come to life in them, through words as well as actions. Comprehension is both intellectual and physical, so dialogues must be acted out, which requires close cooperation and promotes group identity. It is an ideal opportunity to set a stage on which the students can perform and be noticed. Dialogue work falls into three phases: (1) present / practise / perform - (2) manipulate / analogise / generalise - (3) apply / create / improvise. This resembles the well-known presentation - practice - production (PPP) teaching model, with the final P seen as the culmination. This three-stage model is still useful, notwithstanding its many critics. Hawkins (1981, 174), taking his lead from Palmer, prefers ‘presentation - assimilation - emancipation’. It could also be rephrased as “my turn - together - your turn” (Solity 2008, 166). It is certainly not meant to suit all lesson types. Phase 1: The goal is for the students to end up performing the model dialogue fluently and accurately in a natural manner, not simply reading or reciting. Here students are role-taking. Phase 2: Sentence variations, bilingual structure drills. Phase 3: In groups, pupils write and produce their own dialogues, using the dialogue just practised as a point of departure: role-making. The pupils’ playlets can be followed by “question time”, which is characterised by spontaneous and unpredictable exchanges. Advanced pupils may engage in dialogue improvisations in pairs. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="143"?> 7.2 Phase 1: Role-taking 143 7.2 Phase 1: Role-taking 7.2.1 Dialogue presentation and assimilation As a preliminary step we may clarify the learning objectives. We learn best when we know what we are supposed to do, why we should be doing it, and by what means we are most likely to achieve the desired outcome. Acting the story out is a clearly defined task which will present some challenge, but one which the pupils know they can manage. So the teacher explains what the dialogue is about, where the action takes place and who the acting persons are. Moreover, he may relate the topic of the dialogue to previous work and familiar experiences and involve the students in a short communicative activity. Then he reads out the whole dialogue, telling the students just to listen to the rhythm and melody of the language. Now the imitation work can begin: T: Our new dialogue is about the Parker family, about Peter, Betty and their father. It’s about what is going on in their home. The English say: “My home is my castle.” (T writes it up on the board) Mein Zuhause ist meine Burg. My home is my castle. Because that’s where we are safe. Say it after me: “My home is my castle.” T: The title says: Home, sweet home. Zuhause, schönes Zuhause. Ach, wie ist es zuhause doch so schön. “Sweet” really means “süß”. Sweets are “Süßigkeiten”. Sweet and sour. Sweet or sour (‘sour’ and German ‘sauer’ are cognates). My sweetheart is my darling, mein “süßes Herz”, but “mein Schätzchen” is what we would say. Home, sweet home. (Students repeat) Home, sweet home Father: The doorbell’s ringing. Can you open the door? Peter: No, I can’t. I’m studying the present progressive. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="144"?> 144 Chapter 7: Dialogues, drama and declamation Father: Betty: (shouting) Betty, what about you? (from another room) But I’m filing my nails. Father: And I’m baking a cake. For you clowns! ! ! T: And now look at picture no. 1. You can see a finger, pressing a button (gesture). And a nameplate. What’s the name? What could Mr Parker’s first name be …? Mr Parker says: The bell’s ringing. Da klingelt’s! The bell’s ringing. T pauses, then points to students who are to imitate the sentence in chorus responses and individually. So this is the basic pattern of initiation to a new dialogue: Teacher says a line of the dialogue, uses the sandwich technique (only if there are unknown words or constructions), and gets the students to imitate the line. Before they imitate, he pauses long enough for the students to run through the line in their mind once or even twice. Only then does he give the signal for a group recitation (whole class, table groups, pairs); after which he will point to students to repeat the line singly and perhaps again in chorus. Each line containing unknown elements is treated in this way. Explanations: The teacher should wait for silence and not talk until he has everyone’s attention. He stands up straight, his body language indicates that he is in complete control of the class. “OK, we are starting a new dialogue. Let’s have complete attention now.” The teacher should speak the sentence in a normal tone of voice, as naturally as possible, © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="145"?> 7.2 Phase 1: Role-taking 145 with corresponding gestures and body language, and needs to make a dedicated effort to be properly expressive in the modelling. The hallmark of the presentation is the right degree of emotional intensity with which the utterances are delivered. The same holds for the translation, which must be as idiomatic and suited to the context as possible, so that every student catches on straight away. They experience the exact impact of the utterance because of the accompanying intonation, voice quality, facial expressions and gestures. Through the sandwiching of the translation between the repeated lines of the text, the students are led to repeat the line directly after the foreign language stimulus (and the pause). Thus, there is no interference from the translation. By the same token, the teacher should not invite interference by calling on students by name in the subsequent practising of the FL model. The echo of the foreign sentence in the students’ minds would be disturbed by such calling out. He just points to a student, or designates him by looking at him and nodding slightly. The very first time, the teacher may slow down the model, however without artificially distorting the sounds, but should then repeat the line at normal speed. The pause: the teacher is advised to repeat the sentence silently to himself so that he gets the timing right. Meanwhile the students should also be trying the sentence out silently, getting themselves ready to repeat it out loud. This momentary silence, allowing students to mouth the sentence for themselves, need only be observed when presenting a sentence for the very first time. The delay in overt imitation is well within the span of short term memory. This silent mouthing gives everyone the chance to practise the sentence before being called upon to speak out loud, i.e. to plan out the mouth movements and hear with their inner ear what the syllables sound like. This procedure may seem somewhat drawn out, but it takes only seconds. 7.2.2 The ear is the gateway to language: On pronunciation teaching In Paris they simply stared at me when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language. Mark Twain It wasn’t the grammar, it wasn’t the words. Twain simply didn’t sound French. So our foremost concern is to help learners get the sounds right, something which is often grossly neglected. FLL is, at the very beginning, physical, “shockingly physical”. It is elemental, bare, and teachers “burn out, generating all that excitement about repetition, creating trust, listening, always listening. In literature class you can lean back in the seat and let the book speak for itself. In language class you are constantly moving, chasing after sound” (Kaplan 1994, 134, 139). Simply as a muscular skill, there is probably nothing more complicated than the coordination of lips, tongue, teeth, palate, jaws, cheeks and breath to produce accurate speech sounds. We don’t remember this when, in our MT, thoughts simply turn to words within us, effortlessly. In fact the biggest problem for the novice in a language taught at school is not the meanings, because they can be easily given. It’s the sounds, which can never be given, but must be conquered. Remember how little children struggle to build up articulatory programmes until their productions eventually match those of the speakers around them. They simplify in many ways, omit sounds, systematically substitute and assimilate sounds, avoid certain © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="146"?> 146 Chapter 7: Dialogues, drama and declamation words altogether, and keep their productions as short as possible. They imitate words and phrases spoken to them, and often repeat these words several times to themselves, to make sure they get them right. This occurs both in first and in second language acquisition. The following two episodes from bilingual children are typical: Mother: Das ist ein Spiegel, Lisa, ein Spiegel. Lisa: Biegel (she repeats several times) Giulia: Mami, was ist da? (pointing to a hair clip) Mother: Das ist eine Klammer. Giulia: Klammer (she repeats several times) (Taeschner 1983, 37; 41) This self-imposed practice by bilingual and monolingual children is reinforced by how parents help their children. Döpke (1992, 149), who analysed the communication patterns of bilingual families in Australia, recorded instances of “vocabulary perseveration”, i.e. when parents repeated their own or the child’s utterance fully or in part for no other reason but to repeat vocabulary. This vocabulary acquisition process should not be confused with the acquisition of grammar where, by contrast, the child doesn’t just soak in and imitate what is offered but rather constructs grammar. This confusion by some has led to a devaluing of imitation, which is nonsense. Self-discipline and intense concentration are demanded in this phase where learners must process unfamiliar auditory input into unfamiliar muscular commands. They really must be encouraged, cajoled and habituated to almost literally prick up their ears and make their mouths work. Ears attuned to the MT, as explained in chapter 3, need considerable re-focusing and re-training to perceive the unaccustomed sounds of the FL, as frequency, pitch and quality of sound may vary markedly from MT approximations - “the need for re-education of the ear” (Hawkins 1987, 190). My exchange pupil tried to speak German all the time and I tried to help her with her pronunciation. She couldn’t pronounce the / y/ in ‘Brüder’, even after trying for a long time. Monika Pronunciation is the one incontestable point where the teacher, if needs be with the help of a recording, is the absolute authority and benchmark for the students’ modelling of each sentence, if they are ever to learn to pronounce the FL correctly. Like the audience at the theatre, they must be encouraged to “suspend disbelief” for the moment and trust the available model, no matter how sceptical or off-hand their attitude might otherwise be towards the processes of the classroom. This discipline is even more imperative for Westerners in learning tonal languages like Chinese, where the necessarily strict emphasis on intense, accurate practice to achieve tones and hence discernible morphemes and words can be unnerving for the undisciplined or poorly motivated learner. What then is the nature of the pronunciation tasks that beset the learner? We all hear an unfamiliar language through the filter of the familiar one. So in the early stages, students will hear the phonemes of their own language, or identify the sounds of the FL as variants of their native-language phonemes. We have to practise sounds for which our ears and speech organs have no intuitions. That is why, for the ultimate benefit of the learners, teachers do have to push hard and be seen to be pushing hard, like the sports coach, ballet instructor and piano teacher. We need to instil in our students something of the determination reflected in Hoffman, a Canadian immigrant from Poland: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="147"?> 7.2 Phase 1: Role-taking 147 It’s as important to me to speak well as to play a piece of music without mistakes. Hearing English distorted grates on me like chalk screeching on a blackboard, like all things botched and badly done, like all forms of gracelessness (Hoffman 1990, 122). Props may be given - for the lost / y/ sound, for instance, the anglophone FL learner may be quickly given, after the initial whole sentence imitation, some explanatory support: lips and teeth as for “ee”, the round lips as for “oo”; or a comic approximation may be made to the horn sound of a small car / y/ , / y/ , / y/ . Nevertheless, pronunciation is like a half-decent golf swing or cricket stroke - it really only comes with deliberate and repeated practice and many false trials. Basically, all skilled acts seem to involve similar problems of serial ordering and temporal integration of muscle movements, something which can only be brought about by practice. Practising unfamiliar sounds can be fun at times: Thomas asks whether he is allowed to participate on the board. Mrs S. smiles, winks at me quickly, and says: “Na klar! ” Somewhere at the back of the class some boys go: “Jaaa klaaar! ” - “Alles klaaar! ”, imitating a German accent. They seem to like this expression because of its authenticity and have fun repeating it. Clearly they are kind of mocking the teacher and her German accent here, but I think an example like this only proves the benefit of having a native speaker as a teacher; natives cannot help but use idiomatic phrases and expressions occasionally, which can have an incredibly strong impact on pupils since they are pretty catchy at times. Daniela, reporting from a German class in London Could this be a faint echo from the fun the baby has when it starts vocalising and playing with sounds? So the teacher models the utterance carefully, taking care to elicit a good pronunciation from the students. If an electronically recorded native-speaker version of the dialogue is available, the teacher can alternate between his own living stimuli and the taped version. Students must quickly learn to concentrate and be silent when not actually repeating the sentence, as any pauses are for their own silent internal mouthing of the lines. They must open their ears not only to the individual phonemes and words but to and for the distinctive music of the language. For those learning English, such features might include stress-timing, closed syllables (vowel-consonant), syllable stress within words (differing between UK and US English), general intonation patterns and stress for emphasis. Hand movements for intonation contours might be used by both the teacher and learners to support the learners at this stage. Problems differ for each language pair. For instance, English allows for a cluster of three consonants before the vowel and four consonants after the vowel, which makes it very difficult for Japanese speakers, whose language alternates consonant and vowel sounds. So Japanese tend to force vowels in between the consonants. Germans (whose cacophonous consonant clusters were made fun of by Voltaire) have no difficulty in this area. In counterpoint to the authoritative (not ‘authoritarian’) role of the teacher-model, the teacher must strive to make the students feel at home in speaking the language. The primary goal is to get students to speak with a high degree of self-assurance and control, so that they will in fact feel at ease with language learning as soon as possible. Learners will not find a way into the language if it resists them physically. Nevertheless, traces of our native idiom are most likely to remain when it comes to pronunciation. If a student cannot make an immediate, correct response, the teacher models the sentence again, and the pupil can have a second try. If he still doesn’t succeed, it is better © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="148"?> 148 Chapter 7: Dialogues, drama and declamation to switch to other pupils, so as not to embarrass him and make him nervous. But the teacher must not forget to return to the first pupil - who will try hard in the meantime to subvocalise the sentence because he expects the teacher to return to him. To get the students to that degree of self-aware achievement that breeds confidence, the teacher must not be satisfied with half-measures. Incorrect attempts must not be accepted; students must gently but firmly be led to replace errors with correct imitations, otherwise the language will remain an alien tongue. As with the piano, students should be brought to see the goal of this activity as fundamental technical mastery which ultimately leads to greater and more creative things. Teachers themselves need to be determined not to botch this crucial phase, and be well aware that they are laying the foundations for the whole FL edifice, the progressive communicative competence of the learner. Patience, persistence, repeated correct modelling, vigilance, careful checking of individual performance, ready reinforcement and praise for excellent imitations, all this must be the order of the day. If this means disciplined application on the part of the teacher to drumming in a creditable pronunciation and drumming out faulty performance, then so be it. Learning pronunciation patterns is a whole-to-part operation. Obviously, at certain points, attention will need to be given to recurring problems that can be clinically segmented from the whole. Yet the prime attention must be to the whole: getting the melody and interrelated features such as timing right. Then the focus can shift to salient difficulties that emerge: individual sounds such as nasal vowels and combinations of sounds. Resistant words, sound clusters and sounds may need to be cued or segmented and reassembled. The sentence - word - sound progression was a regular feature of the Army Specialised Training Programme which put great emphasis on near-native intonation and correct pronunciation (Angiolillo 1947, 81). Re-writing phrases such as “How about a cup of coffee? ” as “Howa bouta cuppa coffee? ” or “What’s good about it? ” as “What’s goo dabou tit? ” can demonstrate how sounds are elided and the final consonants of a word hook up with the subsequent word. Because of the limited attention span, the utterances to be repeated should not be very long for beginners. They must be either broken into meaningful parts or shortened without losing the general gist. For longer sentences, backward build up should be used, so that we move in either direction - whole to parts and part to whole: progressive the present progressive studying the present progressive I’m studying the present progressive It takes considerable professional skill and human sensitivity to be both supportive and insistent while coaxing and goading students’ pronunciation towards good standards of imitation. There are rewards for the teacher as well. As his pupils so intensively learn through him, they cannot but identify with him. Said another way, they learn how to pronounce and how to trust at the same time. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="149"?> 7.2 Phase 1: Role-taking 149 7.2.3 The printed text as a support rather than an interference factor From the very beginning of their repetition practice, students will have the picture strip with the written text in front of them. This may surprise some of us, as it is recognised that students will naturally interpret the written text according to their first language script-to-sound correspondences. Many direct method courses advocated that “reading should be delayed for a year” (Gurrey, 1970, 17) or even longer in some cases. The interference factor from early reading is accepted as being high, and reading aloud of texts in the early stages, unless properly prepared, seems certainly not the way to go. Dodson’s (1972, 16ff.) tests, however, have shown that in dialogue presentations written text interference can be largely circumvented if students are alerted to the risks. At this stage, the printed word is not used in the traditional way, because the children are made to rely on the spoken stimulus. They are not to read from the text but must look at the teacher and concentrate for their responses on the oral form that they have just heard. However, they are allowed to look at the written text between repeated responses. This is referred to as peripheral perception: the student focuses on the sounds but can at the same time catch a glimpse of the printed words. If the student loses the thread during a response and tries to read from the text, the teacher can intervene by repeating the sentence. But in many cases he need not do so, because a brief glance at the text to aid recall is not the same thing as reading from the text. It can have the positive effect of reviving the aural trace and encourages error-free response. This was especially noticeable with long sentences (containing more than 9 syllables), where the presence of the printed word facilitated pupils’ imitation responses considerably. Switching back and forth repeatedly between such convergent tasks can be done in milliseconds. 7.2.3.1 How can the graphic symbols assist the learner in the oral mastery of the text? 1. There are obvious cases like homophones (there / their), or the French plural, which is easy to see but often less easy to hear, because the script has retained endings which have been dropped in speech. 2. Auditory discrimination is aided where the graphic symbols provide unambiguous information on difficult phonemes. For instance, Germans find it difficult to distinguish between the vowel sounds in pat and pet, but the printed word gives a clear signal: cat, apple, gas, mat vs. get, red, peg, pen. Likewise, even though the English digraphs [th] and [sh] or the German trigraph [sch] can be misleading initially, they are fairly regular, and learners will soon know that whenever they see [th] they will expect either / ∂/ or / Q/ and not / s/ or / z/ , and whenever they see [sh] or a German [sch] they must have heard / ∫/ . A similar regularity holds true for cases like “not”, “pan”, “rid” vs. “note”, “pane”, “ride”, where the final e is mute, but determines what the vowel in the preceding syllable sounds like. 3. Speech perception is also aided where auditory features are less salient, such as English s-inflection or final t in “isn’t” etc. English weak forms and some morphological features are notoriously difficult to perceive, but cannot be overlooked in print: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="150"?> 150 Chapter 7: Dialogues, drama and declamation I’d like to … This is for you. Have you ever worked in Britain? Here are some mistakes German children made during imitation responses. A quick reference to the printed word helped to eliminate the error: My bag’s heavy. *Mine bag’s heavy. I want to go home. *I’m want to go home. You’re funny, too. *You funny, too. I’m helping my friend. *I helping my friend. 4. Dodson (1972, 20) found that the children used “the initial letters in the words like signposts to urge them on to the end of the sentence.” The fact that we can see the printed words spelt out one after another on the page with spaces in between, helps us to identify and retain the structure of an utterance. Punctuation is helpful, and so are capital letters in German, because they carry grammatical information and are bold and distinctive even when picked up peripherally. Recent research has shown that it is also the final letter which helps a lot: Aoccdring to a rseeerachr at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht order the ltteers in a wrod are, the only iprmoatnt tihng is that the frist and lsat ltteer are at the rghit pclae. Enough said? When we hear speech in our own language, we automatically segment it into the proper phrases, words, stems, and affixes, because we intuitively know the rules that define legal and illegal syllables and consonant clusters in our language, and we know the words and the grammatical constraints. All of this makes speech patterns predictable and adds redundancy to a language. Moreover, in the daily acts of normal life, auditory attention can be very low, because in any given circumstances we know more or less what is going to be said to us, and few words properly understood can be enough to reconstitute the entire sentence in mind. As FL learners, however, we lack this knowledge base, but can use the printed word as a segmentation aid instead. 5. The printed word can support meaning. English-German cognates become clear, as soon as the printed word is given: “post”, “swan”, “theatre”, “orange”, “biscuit” … 6. Perhaps most important of all is the stable character of the printed text. Speech sounds whiz by and vanish as quickly as they appear, but the script remains. The double presence of the words - existing as both inert symbols on a page and fleeting sounds - helps the learner, who can return to the same information more than once and thus refresh it. 7. A pre-reading phase does not take into account those with a “slow ear”, not good at distinguishing oral language sounds, or with a preference for visual learning, such as Anthony Burgess (1988, 107), speaker of many languages, who confesses: “I am all too alphabetic. I have never been able to pick up a language solely by ear.” The teacher talking only in L2 - an unknown - may leave the child with no support at all. It would discourage visual learners, perhaps boys in general, who are often slower with socially interactive spoken language. It has often been reported that adult learners felt the strain of a purely oral approach, openly protested against it and were relieved once the printed word was © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="151"?> 7.2 Phase 1: Role-taking 151 made available. The majority of the primary and secondary pupils questioned by Burstall agreed that once they saw a French word written down, it was easier for them to pronounce it. This is true of 61% of the sample … many children complain that they cannot remember words unless they see them written down and consequently experience considerable difficulty during the oral phase of French learning (Burstall 1970, 53f.). Can we ignore such complaints as simply coming from the linguistically naïve? 7.2.3.2 How then can interference from the printed word be kept to a minimum? 1. The students must be told that their job is first of all to listen to, and look at, the teacher modelling the sentences. The spoken model is the primary stimulus, whilst the printed word remains secondary. Used in this way, the printed word enhances the pupils’ imitation performance rather than interferes with it. This procedure seems more complicated than it actually is when the teacher is in control of the practice session. 2. Students should occasionally be made aware of typical spelling-to-sound correspondences, especially when errors occur. Thus cognate words often show different word stress, but the patterns of correspondence are quite regular: communism, capitalism, feminism etc. vs. German Kommunismus, Kapitalismus, Feminismus; or animal, capital, decimal vs. Spanish animal, capital, decimal. Students will pick up these patterns early and easily. - When a pupil mispronounced knife as [knaif], the teacher immediately interrupted the exercise: “See what happened, Peter just read the word, but he should have listened better. There is no k here.” Conversely, the teacher might praise his pupils for their keen listening, when they don’t let themselves be trapped by the letter k in “knife” or l in “could”, which would always be sounded in other languages. Exceptions like “honour, honest, hour, heir”, where there is no initial / h/ in pronunciation, should be pointed out. However, most of the script-to-sound correspondences will be caught rather than taught. 3. If the student is thus made to focus on the oral stimulus, he will only scan the printed text ever so briefly for clues to help him identify sounds and words. If he needs no help, he can leave it and give full attention to listening. He may choose to glance at the printed sentence a second and third time, whilst others are repeating. Processing dominance can be shifted around rapidly. On balance, then, the positives clearly outweigh the attendant interference risks. For example, the results of Zidan’s (1982) controlled experiment in Egypt indicated that after two months of instruction, on all measures the immediate presentation of the printed FL text was significantly better than the delayed presentation treatment. Further empirical evidence is cited in Butzkamm (1985). Dodson found that the help provided by the printed word was particularly noticeable with long utterances. A quick glance at it would prevent an imitation response from breaking down. The role of the printed word resembles the role of the spoken MT inasmuch as it is an undeniable source of interference. But the students, who quite naturally assume that the letters represent MT sounds, will, gradually and almost incidentally, build new grapheme-phoneme correspondences. For this to happen, the acoustic image must be strong enough for the students not to ignore the rhythm and flow of the © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="152"?> 152 Chapter 7: Dialogues, drama and declamation utterance and to produce the words in a stream rather than one at a time. With the proper techniques suggested, the mutual support of script and sound will outweigh possible interference effects. Both the printed word and the MT can be used as an initial help only, and can be dispensed with later in the lesson cycle when activities are purely oral and monolingual. 7.2.4 The oral translation 1 We model, and translate, not words, but utterances, “the primary reality of language from a communicative point of view” (Tomasello 2003, 326). The certainty of knowing what they are saying engages learners in the situation. They never repeat utterances parrotfashion. The translations provide them with the full semantic and pragmatic meaning of an utterance in the shortest possible time. As with the original sentence, the teacher can modulate his vocal tones to convey the full range of crucial sub-texts - courtesy, irritation, surprise, scepticism, humility, menace, and so on - without which spoken language loses much of its meaning. In our dialogue the pupils should sense the irony of “sweet home”. The teacher can give different translations or get the students to suggest others. In some cases only native or near native speakers will find the proper form and expressivity to convey the full semantic force of the utterance and open the way to all the emotive associations of the utterance. Target language speakers with a shaky grasp of their students’ native language should ask them to turn their renderings into more native-like speech. This actually gives power to the students, which is a step from teacher-centred to student-centred activity. So multiple translations can be used and are seen as approximations. From the beginning, pupils recognize the falseness of a simple, naïve one-to-one hypothesis and the traps of easy word equations. They will often come up with colloquial, with-it versions more relevant to their age group, to their native tongue and background. For you clowns. What’s that in German, what would you say? Für euch verrückte Blagen / Für euch Komiker. For you clowns. (pupils imitate) It is important to ensure that expressive aspects of communication, such as mood and attitude (emphatic, ironic, sceptical, empathetic etc) are conveyed in the translation. As has been pointed out, in German, mood and attitude might be best expressed through modal particles: But I’m filing my nails. Aber ich mach mir doch meine Fingernägel! But I’m filing my nails. (pupils imitate) And I’m baking a cake. Und ich mach hier ’n Kuchen / Ich bin grad dabei, n’ Kuchen zu backen. And I’m baking a cake. (pupils imitate) In the initial step, in between imitation responses, the teacher will mirror structures where necessary: The doorbell’s ringing. The English say: *Die Türglocke läutet. The doorbell’s ringing. (pupils repeat) 1 See also p. 92ff.: ‘Deforeignising’ the foreign. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="153"?> 7.2 Phase 1: Role-taking 153 The principle of association will also be applied: I’m studying the present progressive. Ich lern doch gerade das present progressive. I’m studying the present progressive. (pupils repeat) The teacher chooses “lernen” instead of “studieren” because this is what pupils would normally say in this situation. However, he will also point out the overlap between ‘study’ and ‘studieren’. In addition, he should mention the German terms ‘Präsens’, ‘Präsenz’, and ‘progressiv’ and explain how they are semantically connected to the English terms. The discriminate exploitation of the L1 should dispel all doubts concerning the meaning and form of what the students are repeating and build bridges between the languages. Clarity is all. 7.2.5 Pictures for support If possible, the dialogue should be supported by a picture-strip. Pictures can never convey the finer shades of meaning, but students can recognise the situation more quickly as they will have the whole scenario or story-line displayed immediately. Just as important, they will recall the sentences more easily, following the order presented in the pictures. The teacher points to the particular picture or gives the picture number, indicates the speaker and then says the line. The optimal visual support is a video of the dialogue. Such videos are normally made in the foreign country, with native speakers specially trained to produce expressive natural dialogue. The video is shown before the dialogue practice. While it also provides strong contextual support, it is used primarily to demonstrate and explain typical body language, gesture and facial expression. It also provides the target language model of expressivity which the FL teacher may only be able to approximate or need to guess at. While the FL teacher could and should always present the best possible paralinguistic support at any time a dialogue utterance is spoken, the video furnishes a constantly authentic benchmark for the teacher and students and a reminder of the synchronised forms of verbal and body communication. The teacher might encourage students to imitate or mime some of the more obvious paralinguistic features of the video before speaking the dialogue or ask students to recall what happened paralinguistically when a particular utterance was spoken. 7.2.6 Are we there yet? Further steps It is only through repeated practical trials that novices can fine-tune their own articulatory movements and thereby achieve the fluency of the accomplished practitioner. The drain on both the teacher’s and the pupils’ energy is quite heavy, since the text must be worked through many times before pupils are ready to act it out convincingly. It’s like having to put on several coats of paint before the language sticks. Contrary to the expectations of many, the younger the students, the more practice attempts are needed. Just how much needs to be done before moving on is a matter of judgement which cannot be prescribed in a book. It depends on the dialogue as well as on the class how many run-throughs would be enough. Some children require more trials © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="154"?> 154 Chapter 7: Dialogues, drama and declamation with a sentence than others. However, just repeating the same lines over and over is self-defeating. The words being repeated will lose their meaning, a phenomenon called “verbal or semantic satiation”, perhaps as a biological defence against neural overload. To avoid the mental fatigue resulting from sterile repetition, a number of varied steps to elicit further response practice are recommended after the introductory step, for rapid assimilation of the dialogue. Thus, boredom doesn’t set in. As a rule, pupils can be quite patient during skill-getting steps if they feel they are making progress - knowing where they are going, knowing they will end up knowing their material. 7.2.6.1 Dialogue recognition Recognition steps provide some relief from the strain of articulating and memorising: • Teacher reads out complete dialogue or plays tape. Students listen and follow the printed text simultaneously if they want to. • The same procedure as before, but with the text covered. Students lean back, relax, close their eyes for better concentration. • Teacher presents dialogue lines in random order, with text covered but pictures visible. Students call out corresponding picture number and/ or speaker of the lines. • The teacher asks: “True or false? ” and gives correct sentences or sentences with incorrect content in relation to the dialogue. Students respond accordingly. The teacher never uses ungrammatical English, but makes pupils aware of the possibilities for substitution. The idea is to change the words, while retaining the construction, so sentence patterns begin to be formed in the mind. Here are some “false” sentences focusing on the present progressive: I’m studying the English plural. I’m studying English verbs. I’m writing (to) my pen-friend. I’m programming my computer. But I’m having a shower. I’m washing my hands. I’m brushing my hair. I’m filing my toe-nails (gesture, blackboard). And I’m making sandwiches. And I’m making pizzas. And I’m standing on my head. Thus, this step serves a double purpose: consolidating the dialogue sentences and clarifying structures; it should never be omitted. 7.2.6.2 Active recall of sentences Next we move into active recall of sentences. Here the steps are finely graded so that the students can take it in stride. Remember: “Nothing can take the place of patient memorizing” (Palmer, as quoted by Smith 1999, 190). • The teacher says a sentence, and the students say the sentence over to themselves under their breath as many times as possible, until the teacher signals a stop and models another sentence. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="155"?> 7.2 Phase 1: Role-taking 155 • The teacher shows a picture and / or gives its number and names the speaker, students provide the line. This is the reverse of one the recognition steps above. • The teacher says one speaker’s part (in sequence or at random) and students respond with the utterance immediately following. • The teacher gives a key word from a dialogue sentence and students say the whole sentence. Alternatively, the teacher gives the key word in the mother tongue. • Re-translation. The teacher gives a dialogue sentence in the mother tongue. The students translate back what they heard previously. Ideally, they recall the complete foreign language sentence from memory. They are only repeating phrases that are still ringing in their minds. For security, the students may initially glance at the text visible on the desk. In the next run-through, it should be covered. If some students still prefer the printed text before them, they should be allowed to do so. As still another means of avoiding interference, the teacher can facilitate the task by naming the sentences in order of appearance, instead of selecting them at random. When students hear the MT version, they should not be betrayed into a verbatim translation, but react to the message. This comes naturally since when listening we generally don’t store the actual words heard but their meaning. We quickly purge our memory of verbatim content and only retain the message (Chapter 5: deverbalisation, mentalese). Ideally, then, the teacher’s MT stimulus is processed in such a way that it summons the concepts to mind which will then trigger the FL sentence. After all, the students know full well that, at this stage, they only have to reproduce the dialogue sentence, and not find a new way of saying things. This step should not be omitted as it revives meaning and consolidates the association between meaning and the foreign sounds. • The teacher says the sentence inaudibly but with the appropriate synchronous facial expression and gesture. The students lip-read or just guess and say the correct sentence. This is fun and helps to take the tedium out of rehearsal. In fact, it does not matter whether they guess the right or wrong sentence from the dialogue as the purpose is to consolidate all sentences. This step also reinforces the appropriate forms of paralinguistic signals. It can be taken over by a student. Remember that babies do something akin to lipreading. Experiments have shown that they prefer to look at the face of a person mouthing a vowel that matches the one they are listening to, rather than at a face mouthing a different vowel that doesn’t match. This is a sign that they are linking up the sounds they hear with the mouth movements that make those sounds. • To check progress of the students’ autonomy of recall, the teacher asks individuals to choose and say any sentence which comes to mind, without input from the teacher. Pictures and text should not be visible. This also allows the teacher to identify any sentence which appears to be avoided by the students, and to consolidate that sentence appropriately. All the students should be able to control the situation material fully. For this reason, this uncued or “free” recall should not be omitted. Teacher withdrawal starts from this point on - which is a relief because teaching pronunciation is very demanding on him. • The pairs or groups of students role-play the text, spreading into corners of the room or other appropriate venues such as corridor and courtyard. This, again, is an obligatory step. Before this, apart from any incidence of video mime, the pupils would © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="156"?> 156 Chapter 7: Dialogues, drama and declamation have remained seated in their desks, a position which hinders the fusion of verbal, paralinguistic and non-verbal communicative behaviour. It is therefore vital for the pupils to be given this opportunity to practise linguistic and paralinguistic synchrony. It is this step which gives sense to the whole undertaking. • Some pupils should, as a final step of phase 1, perform the dialogue in front of the class - an opportunity to put their own interpretation of the playlet to the audience. But volunteers only; no pupil should have the feeling of being put on the spot. 7.2.7 Acting out: ‘The grand finale’ Acting out the dialogues is not just sugar-coating on the pill, it’s the best way of getting students actively immersed in the material and a further step on the road to normal communicative situations. Acting while being in full control of the meaning (and in full control of what one is doing) is indeed thinking in the language. It is also a way of feeding the result of one’s work back into the class. Have our efforts been worthwhile? Students see that they can now do something they couldn’t do before. Acting out presents a challenge, and is felt as an immediate reward from having worked hard. Leaving it out would be spoiling the ship for a half-penny worth of tar. Most pupils will find that although they were able to say the sentences of the dialogues fluently and accurately whilst sitting at their desks, they will be less competent now that for the first time they have to combine words with actions. They still have to reach the necessary level of automatic response. Pupils will learn to work collaboratively towards a well-defined goal; in doing so, they will sharpen their perceptions of the others as they try convincingly to embody their roles in performance. Masterly performances provide the pupils with standards to measure themselves against. Obviously, the dialogue lines are not the pupils’ own words, but they can make them their own and express their personalities or their assumed personalities, because it is for them to decide how to perform the play. Their own theatricality is the originality here. The text is not theirs, but the performance is. Novices’ competence can only come from trying things out for themselves and in a way where they can be themselves. Perhaps this is why we’ve never seen students rattling off their dialogues in this phase. Even after a mediocre performance the teacher should not suggest to the group what to do, but ask questions about how an action can be done, and compel them to think about it. How would such a character do this action? Can somebody show us a different way? So the teacher’s role has changed. From ring-master he has moved to become an adviser. He can make himself small, get down beside them, crouch next to a chair, sit in the middle of a group. As he withdraws, he creates space for the learners. Whereas he can be quick to interrupt when errors occur in the previous steps, he should be tactful enough not to interrupt a performance. Roughly speaking, it is in purely medium-oriented activities where immediate correction of errors is often expected, even welcomed by the student, but it is usually resented in activities with an element of message-orientation. 1 1 A video demonstrating some of the presentation steps plus the ‘grand finale’ is contained in Siebold (2004). © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="157"?> 7.2 Phase 1: Role-taking 157 7.2.8 Fast and slow learners Each one of us is unique both in experience and natural endowment. Individual differences are real and matter, and even young children possess powers of mimicry to a greater or lesser degree. We’ve already mentioned learners with a “slow ear”, which certainly makes FLL difficult for them. When French learners were taught non-native speech sounds, some learners acquired the phonemic distinctions three times faster than others (Golestani et al. 2007). Ideally, we must start from where each child is, follow the child’s lead as a parent can do, present the material stepwise precisely at his or her pace, and identify individual stumbling blocks. This, of course, is only possible in a one-on-one situation. It is also the only way we can help severely retarded children, observing them closely and devising small steps for them to be taken gradually. In normal classrooms, we are bound to make compromises. Here are some typical comments from the fast learners in the Primary French programme: ‘The French lesson is too slow. We stick with one episode too long’; ‘What I don’t like about learning French is staying on the same material for a long time so that the others can catch up’ … ‘it gets boring learning the same things over and over again for the sake of those who didn’t learn it in the first place’; ‘If you are in a class with the less brainy ones, you have to do easy things and wait for them to catch up’ … The ‘less brainy ones’, of course, take a very different view of the French lesson: ‘We rush ahead too much and I don’t understand what we are talking about’; ‘Our teacher goes far too quickly and does not explain what the words mean’; I think more people would enjoy French if the teacher went at a slower pace’; ‘They don’t wait for the slow people’ … (Burstall 1974, 137). Pupils of all levels of ability suggest that French should be taught in smaller groups of the same ability: If we worked in separate groups, the good pupils would not be held up by the not-so-good ones’; ‘There should be smaller groups at different levels, learning apart from other groups, so that you could learn at your own speed’; ‘You are expected to keep up with the people who are really good at it. I would rather be in a different group’ … (Burstall 1974, 138). • From the outset, the teacher will elicit more imitation responses from the slower learners. • When the groups rehearse the dialogue, they will also receive more individual assistance from the teacher. • They will also quite automatically opt for the easier parts in dialogues which will still present genuine challenges for them. When a dialogue is performed well, they can thus share in the group’s success and experience the exhilaration at doing something well. After all, each member of a winning team is a champion. Group performances can forge bonds across the divide of unequal abilities. • If slower learners still feel ill at ease after rehearsing in groups, they may use the text while performing the playlet. They are not supposed to read their lines off from the page, but just glance at the text when their memory fails them. • Learners who assimilate the material more quickly may, during group work, begin with meaningful deviations from the original wording of the dialogue, which would normally be phase 3 work. They may also give some assistance to the weaker group members. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="158"?> 158 Chapter 7: Dialogues, drama and declamation It is totally unrealistic to expect only small differences between the learners’ potential and achievements. But with the principle of mastery learning and step-by-step guidance we can certainly prevent language classes from becoming scenes of frustration and constant humiliation which they have been for many pupils. In this way, underachievers can gain confidence, determination and interest in language learning. They will all master the basic dialogue. At this stage, failure must lead straight back to the way the students were taught … The same with success. Either way, the responsibility for the outcomes lies with the teacher. 7.3 Phase 2: Manipulation of structures The performance of teacher-made dialogues is phase 1 work, and two more phases logically follow from here. The pupils must go beyond memorized sentences and have to learn to control a system. Dialogues will provide the learner with an ever-growing stock of sentences, but these sentences must stand for a class of sentences, they must become sentence frames into which other words fit. Knowledge of utterances in fact counts for very little unless the learner can break them down and combine their elements in new and appropriate ways to meet the linguistic demands of new and unforeseeable situations. So the next thing to do is to lift the words and phrases in the dialogue from their specific textual and situational context and to make them available for use in new contexts. We get away from the fixed sentences of the set dialogue by varying them through substitutions, transformations, extensions and novel combinations as the semicommunicative drills of the previous chapter have shown. The play amused us hugely. We were eager to learn our roles in order to give a good performance. I remember well that I acted as a police constable. I had to tell a car driver that he was not allowed to park in front of an exit for lorries: “Vous ne pouvez pas arrêter votre voiture devant la sortie de camions.” I not only learned the sentences that I had to utter as policeman, but I also a range of sentence patterns that were useful later on. The utterance quoted convincingly shows this because “vous ne pouvez pas + infinitive” can generate countless new sentences. Bernd The “true-false” step of phase 1 has already made learners aware of the slots in the structures and the possibilities for substitution, so that occasionally the second phase can be skipped, with pupils ready for the production of their own playlets, i.e. phase 3. 7.4 Phase 3: Role-making 7.4.1 Pupils’ dialogues All the class’s a stage / and all the boys and girls are merely players … The learning goal of natural reproduction of the textbook dialogue - role-taking - is only an intermediate goal. Yet it means a remarkable and reassuring personal success, because, to some extent, every actor has made the piece a part of himself. The ultimate goal of course must be for the students to be able to use the words and structures contained in the dialogue in their own contributions to real conversations. It is important to keep the final goal in sight, as Speight (1973, 45) observes: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="159"?> 7.4 Phase 3: Role-making 159 Each structure in its turn is only half-learnt because of the pressure to push on ahead through the book. The phase where the new structure is added to and integrated with what is already known somehow gets left out. When pupils have properly consolidated the basic situation, have acted it out and have learned to permutate the sentences, the moment has arrived when the class is ready to venture into creative, message-oriented role-making activities and put what they have learned to meaningful use, however limited at first. Groups of two to four are instructed to invent their own situations to be performed later in front of the whole class. Both form and meaning are their own choice. They learn very quickly to get away from the basic dialogue and progress from slight variations to completely new situations. They start by adapting the dialogue so it would be true for them, replacing the textbook names with their own names and making the text conform to the reality surrounding them. They will enjoy being themselves in a new piece of language, in which they have become comfortable. They will extend isolated concepts, but the essential constructions would remain the same. Later, as they distance themselves from the original wording of the dialogue, students will use segments from the new dialogue as well as from previously learned dialogues freely in new combinations; they recombine what is familiar in novel ways. The originality is in the arrangement, and entirely new plots will emerge. Students may stretch their linguistic resources to their limits in an effort to be original and funny. During the preparation of the playlets the classroom gives the appearance of organized chaos, with groups standing or sitting in various parts of the classroom. The noise level is of necessity higher than in normal teaching conditions, but then so is the work intensity. At the start of each preparation, groups will deliberate among themselves in MT, but the total amount of the foreign language spoken rapidly increases as the preparation progresses. They tend to mix languages freely: “I’m Mrs Benson. Ich komme rein und sage: ‘What are you doing in the kitchen? ’ Dann sagt Bill: ‘I’m making a cup of tea.’” Some pupils write down what they have invented whilst others don’t. It was found, however, that hardly any pupil wrote down the lines of his co-players, but only their own lines. In other groups someone acted as a scribe and wrote out the playlet in full. Now, the teacher’s role is that of a coach standing on the side-lines. At times the pupils tend to overreach themselves and he must in such cases dissuade pupils from using new linguistic items. Individual words can be mastered, but when it comes to new structures with no previous imitation practice and not yet under control, failure is imminent. Ultimately a compromise has to be found between the group’s enthusiasm for a particular situation, their unwillingness to give up an original idea or their ambition to blend in an element of humour etc., and their linguistic abilities and limitations. The teacher may put his misgivings aside, because pupils will learn from comparatively unsuccessful performances and stay more within their linguistic reach. They won’t feel all right if overly complex lines come out in a hesitating, faltering diction, making it difficult for the audience to understand. It may be counterproductive to curb the students’ adventurous spirit, and as they make progress, it will be easier for the teacher to suggest the language they need to convey their ideas. Freedom of expression is the order of the day, and should be taken seriously. It is also okay for a student to work on his own and perform a monologue. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="160"?> 160 Chapter 7: Dialogues, drama and declamation The teacher need not be overly concerned about little inaccuracies which might slip in, but should try to monitor every sentence created by the groups during preparation. There is of course still time for correction after a play has been performed. It is important for the teacher to remember that in making their playlets and establishing their own approximative systems, the youngsters use their minds creatively. A misguided concern for immediate perfection and overcorrection at this stage - unlike some previous stages - can inhibit the creative flow. Here is an example of a pupil dialogue where most of the original text has been retained although the focus has shifted dramatically. First, the teacher dialogue: A: Who do you think will win the next elections? B: If you ask me, the Christian Democrats will get in. A: But in my opinion they won’t win easily. B: I don’t agree. Everybody thinks it’s time for a change. A: But don’t you realize that X (Christian Democrat) is not very popular with the workers? B: I don’t see what you are getting at. Student version: A: Who do you think is the best teacher at our school? B: If you ask me, Mr X is our best teacher. A: But in my opinion he isn’t that good. B: I don’t agree. Everybody thinks he’s very friendly and intelligent. A: But don’t you realize that Mr. X is perhaps less popular with the boys? B: I don’t see what you are getting at. The performance was quite effective, with whistles and laughter coming from the audience. The groups with outstanding actors get more rewards in terms of applause and prestige and are egged on to produce more plays and perform more often than other groups. The very success of these groups may deter others who are well aware of the fact that their own playlet is far less interesting and novel to the class. The teacher must then help the weaker groups during preparation, rehearse some sentences with them and make suggestions as to how to make the play more interesting. He has to observe constantly that human relationships can flourish within groups and this will probably entail the re-organization of groups throughout the course. Needless to say, the teacher will always find something to praise in a performance. Appreciation rather than evaluation, this is the motto. 7.4.2 Question time and improvisations Ideally, dialogues constitute stepping stones to free communication. This is our ultimate goal, and all prior activity has been a preparation for this stage. During the playlet, the audience’s curiosity is being naturally aroused, with no group knowing much about the content of the playlets created by any of the other groups. This can lead to spontaneous questioning. It is not a must but can be encouraged by the teacher who may initiate a question or two to set the ball rolling. Arno and Daniel, in their first year of English, have just performed their own playlet relating to television. The ensuing question time nicely illustrates how the native language is used to promote communication in the FL: Teacher: Do you have any questions? Questions for Arno and Daniel? … Daniel, do you like watching TV? Daniel: Hmm, yeah. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="161"?> 7.4 Phase 3: Role-making 161 T: Yes? What do you watch? Daniel: I watch football games/ matches and … hmm Horror/ Horror Filme. T: Horror films? Oh, I don’t like horror films. Do you like horror films? Daniel: Hmm kommt ganz drauf an. T: It depends. Daniel: Yes. T. And how many hours do you watch per day? … Do you watch TV every day? Daniel: No. T: Not really? Only at the weekends? Daniel: At the weekends I play with my friends. T: And when do you watch TV? Daniel: When no friend there is. T: When there are no friends. Daniel: Yes. T: Or when my friends are away. Daniel: Yes. T: And how long do you watch? An hour or two hours, three hours, five hours? Daniel: What’s the meaning of “hours”? T: Ah, Stunde, sorry. Daniel: No, I watch a half hours. T: Half an hour. Oh, that’s not much. Lizzy: Haven’t you not friends in your city? T: Don’t you have friends? Lizzy: Don’t you have friends in your city? Daniel: No, die meisten sind zur Eifel gezogen. T: Most of them, most of them Daniel: Most of them T: Most of them Daniel: Most of them T: have moved to the Eifel Daniel: have moved to the Eifel. Curiosity, and the motivation to enter into a discussion, will vary from play to play and from pupil to pupil. It was found that some students resort to stereotyped questions about how old the characters are etc., perhaps only because they don’t want to be left out of the game. Question time at times develops into a competitive game where the players are bombarded with questions which the audience hopes the players will not be able to answer. Question-times can become heated affairs with frequent contradictions and differences of opinion. This is of course true message-oriented communication in what is usually described as the ‘artificial’ environment of the language classroom. Clearly there is nothing artificial in the way these pupils make use of the second language. Language is here not an end in itself; the message is the important factor, with the second language acting merely as a tool in the pupils’ desire to satisfy their curiosity, make their point or resolve uncertainties (Dodson 1985b, 175). Whereas abortive attempts at free communication can be destructive in so far as they undermine the pupils’ confidence in handling the language, time must be regularly given for unplanned and unpredictable communication. Dialogues are composed with ample time for consideration and revision, which robs them of the spontaneity characteristic of most spoken language. We can catch some of this spontaneity by taking a further step and inviting the pupils to improvise role-plays, thus taking them from the shelter of the cove into the open sea. Learners use their newly developed skills in unpredictable directions and develop the ability to think on © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="162"?> 162 Chapter 7: Dialogues, drama and declamation their feet. Improvised play helps to make minds more flexible and inspire confidence in coping with unanticipated situations. Students work in pairs and are found by drawing lots, so they cannot specially prepare themselves. They can simply be asked to adlib a paraphrase of the situation just practised. Or they get completely away from the original situation and improvise dialogues around any situation of their own choosing. Also, cue-cards can be used. Or pupils or teacher can throw out a title to the two pupils in front of the class who are required to invent and perform an appropriate playlet on the spot without prior preparation. Or perhaps, instead of leaving them completely to their own devices, minimal support can be given. Supplying them with an opening sentence and a closing sentence has been found useful. The latter is especially important as it provides them with a plausible exit. This prevents embarrassment when they find they can’t continue. It could be projected against the back wall of the classroom, so that students can see it as they are improvising in front of the class (Kurtz 2001, 135ff.). 7.5 Review, recycle, reinforce The simple act of frequent recall will help us win the battle against forgetting. Here are some suggestions for further consolidation of basic texts. 1. Well-practised dialogues can be reviewed after rest periods just by acting them out again. Can I improve on my own previous performance? 2. Buzz reading: The students read the texts, murmuring them to themselves, with their hands over their ears for concentration. Everybody reads at their own speed. This technique is an excellent lesson starter. Since all reading is done simultaneously, by all the members of the class, they have more practice than is usual. No reading-time is spent in merely sitting and listening to someone else reading. 3. We strongly recommend the “read-and-look-up technique”, which was used by West (1962, 12f.) in India in classes with up to 100 children. Teacher: “Open your textbooks. Go back to page … We did this text a few weeks / months ago. We are now going to read it together, but in a very special way. We read the text word group by word group. First we look at the text and read a few words silently. Don’t try to take in more words than you can keep in mind. Then we look away from the text and turn the book inwards, in onto the chest, like this (teacher demonstrates). You may also close the book and keep your finger between the pages. Then we speak the word group or sentence. Mutter it. Don’t shout, but I must see your lips moving. Then we look at the text again and start the next few words. Everybody at their own speed.” This is how West in his classic Teaching English in difficult circumstances substantiates his technique: It is of the greatest importance that the teacher should train his class to obey the rule, “Never speak with your eyes on the book: you are not talking to someone.” He should be talking either to another pupil or to the teacher, or even to an imaginary person, but not to the book nor to the corner of the room. The pupil should read some words, then look up and speak them to someone, or as to someone. This procedure has a double importance. In the first place, when the pupil speaks, he speaks in a realistic manner as communication, or even as behaviour. Secondly, he has to carry the words of a whole phrase, or perhaps a whole sentence, in his mind. The connection is not from book to mouth, but from book to brain, and then from brain to mouth. That interval of memory constitutes half the learning process. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="163"?> 7.6 Drama and declamation 163 Of all methods of learning a language, Read-and-Look-up is, in our opinion, the most valuable. It is possible to master a language by this method alone, carrying a book in the pocket. You read a little and then look up and say it as to someone. Gradually you are able to take in larger and larger units, at first only a line, later two or three lines, and you speak them as from yourself, not as from the book. If your actual expressions vary from those of the book, that is all to the good. In fact, as you become more proficient, you deliberately paraphrase more and more, until eventually you are gathering the ideas from the book and expressing them in your own language (West 1962, 12ff.). This procedure is suitable for all kinds of texts. When used with dialogues the pupils can take different parts and act the dialogue looking at each other when they speak, even though they can’t speak the text from memory. Pupils stand up or turn in their seats. The main rule is for pupils to look at each other while one of them is speaking. They are allowed to glance down at their part in between speaking. Speaking is “eye-to-eye”. As they recall their older dialogues, they can experience what progress they have made in the intervening time, an important self-reinforcing aspect. Teachers can both use buzz-reading and read-and-look-up as a regular warm-up activity and systematically review familiar texts at graduated intervals. The first recyclings must come quickly because most forgetting occurs soon after the learning session and eventually slows down. 4. Dictation has proved effective at all levels of instruction, especially when used to reinforce primarily oral activities. Preassigned dictation: Students are told to revise the dialogue for a dictation on the following day. Dictation ensures attentive listening, helps to fix phrases in the mind and assists in self-evaluation. In Hong Kong, English dictation is a ubiquitous feature. Currently it usually involves the rote learning of a set passage of text or dialogue as a summative evaluation of student performance at the end of the week and reported to parents systematically as a (rather dubious) indicator of progress. If it were rather used as suggested above, early in the learning process of the unit, it would provide a most effective and well “policed” consolidation of the basic text for development in phase 2 and 3. 5. Self-dictation: We need to train our pupils to look at a line, then turn over the page or look away; then write the whole line from memory; and then, when they have finished, look back and compare it with the original. Weaker students can’t take in whole lines, but will begin with words. Pupils at their seats correct their own or their neighbour’s paper. 7.6 Drama and declamation The teacher will take care to select dialogues and sketches which are short, often humorous or slightly provocative, and, above all, eminently actable, so that they can become the stepping stones for more ambitious theatre projects: We organised an evening for our parents during which we would act out some sketches in English which we had written ourselves in some afternoon sessions. We were proud to be able to show our parents how much English we had already learned. Wearing costumes and playing with stage props, we really had the feeling of living the language. Christine We performed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth and other plays. Each time I was chosen by her and the pupils to play the leading part and we played in front of an audience of roughly 500 persons. Although we had to practise in our free time it was the happiest time in my school © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="164"?> 164 Chapter 7: Dialogues, drama and declamation career. At that time I discovered my love for the theatre and I’m also an active member of the theatre group at the university. Claudia The most memorable event in my second year of English was the performance of a play. It was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and we had a lot of work to do before we could bring it on stage. Everyone had a role to play and it was all in English. It was a real success and we had to perform it a second time, in front of other teachers and pupils who had heard of the play. I was highly encouraged to do my best and although there were a lot of words and phrases I had never heard of before I learned them and kept them in my mind. Silke Drama in education is nothing contemporary. In earlier centuries acting in Latin had an important place. Through participation in plays pupils learned to understand and speak spoken Latin. If Latin had not been taught well, it could not have been the Standard Language of Western Europe for centuries. In respect of school theatre, modern language teachers have followed suit, and the reader is advised to turn to monographs such as Drama in the languages classroom (Hamilton & McLeod 1993). Apart from the Latin school plays, the famous Boston Latin School adheres to the time-honoured tradition of declamation. Pupils from 7th to 10th grade are required to give an oration in their English class three times during the year. There is also Public Declamation, where pupils from all grades are welcomed to try out for the chance to declaim a memorized piece in front of an assembly. During Public Declamation, declaimers are scored on aspects such as “Memorization” “Presentation”, and “Voice and Delivery”, and those who score well in three of the first four public declamations are given the chance to declaim in front of alumni judges for awards in “Prize Declamation”. (Wikipedia: Boston Latin School). It’s an opportunity for students to do things with a sense of excellence. We could begin with reciting the phrase or proverb of the week. Each phrase remains visible all week at the top corner of the blackboard and should become a reliable model, constantly referred to when other, analogous phrases are met or have to be produced (Hawkins 1981, 253). Take, for instance, One man’s meat is another man’s poison. If we are a race that cannot learn, what will become of us? (Doris Lessing). You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger (Buddha). where each phrase graphically illustrates a grammatical point, which, through repetition, will be remembered along with the message. A growing capital of phrases, both pedagogically appealing as well as illustrative of grammar, can thus be gleaned not only from dialogues, solidly known, but also from memorable quotes which, years after, might still ring in one’s ears. These can then be extended to passages from famous speeches (books, films) to be learned by heart and recited, with no focus on grammatical points. Here are some of growing length: We have left undone those things we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us (Book of Common Prayer). We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender (Churchill, Speech on Dunkirk, House of Commons 1940). Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval forests undefaced by the hand of man. No one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="165"?> 7.7 Hints for student teachers 165 not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body (Charles Darwin, Journal during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle). I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life (Henry David Thoreau, Walden). Jesus took his disciples up the mountain, and gathering them around him, he taught them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when you suffer (The Gospel according to St. Matthew). Declamation can be a way of responding to the beauty of language and ideas. Psychologists tell us that some techniques work better for some people and worse for others. The stable extrovert child flourishes in discovery and exploratory situations, whereas his anxious, introverted peer does much better with supportive strategies and reception learning (Eysenck & Eysenck 1995, 324). Dialogue, drama and declamation combine both teaching styles. This diversity gives pleasure. 7.7 Hints for student teachers The method calls for considerable energy if the teacher is to keep oral practice moving smartly, and imagination and enterprise in using persons and situations in the classroom if foreignlanguage material is to acquire reality and relevance (Rivers 1968, 49f.). • Remember: The art - or the devil - is in the detail. Small things overlooked can cause serious problems in the long run. • Be consistent in your lesson organization. Students should know what to expect because the system of steps has been understood and routines have been well-established. They can then follow the lesson without having to figure out afresh what is happening next. • For each of the steps, you should have worked out clear instructions in the FL and should stick to them in guiding the learners through the steps. They will recognize a familiar format, they will know what they are supposed to do and what they should be getting out of each step. Presenting the tasks and subtasks regularly in the FL will contribute considerably to creating an overall FL atmosphere, even if initially the sandwich technique was used when giving activity instructions. • As the prime target language model you need a near-native articulation and intonation when modelling utterances for your students. • Beginners need bite-size bits to imitate. If they can’t manage a sentence, take them back to the building blocks and release the tension. • In some of the steps, select students irrespective of whether their hands are up. More students will stay alert. In other steps, use a plastic ball rather than pointing. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="166"?> 166 Chapter 7: Dialogues, drama and declamation • Understanding the playlets is easier if the performers introduce themselves to the class by giving the names of the characters they are going to play, together with the place of the action. Without such introductory clues the audience might well find it difficult to follow the action. • Encourage the pupils to find a title for their piece. The tag gives the playlet an identity and aids the pupils in retrieving the play at a later date. • It was found convenient for groups to finish up with “that’s the end” or simply bow theatrically to inform the audience that it was time to applaud. Pupils are not born writers who can wrap up a dialogue with a final line that clearly signals a stopping point in the conversation. • Don’t leave out the last P in the PPP sequence: free production, spontaneous language use and creative work of all kinds. Walk the walk from drill to self-expression. • Further reading: See the excellent chapter “Exploiting dialogues” in Cross (1992, 92ff.). Study questions and tasks 1. Find a short dialogue suitable for advanced learners or write one yourself. Teach it to your fellow-students along the lines laid down in this chapter and get them to the point where they can act it out in groups. 2. If you speak a language which most of your fellow-students don’t know, introduce your classmates to your language by teaching them a dialogue for real beginners (4-6 lines only). 3. Conventional wisdom has it that there is no one method that works for all pupils. Does this apply to the set of techniques described in this chapter? 4. “Repetition and learning by heart, though condemned by pedagogic and acquisition theorists, are two of the most pleasurable, valuable, and efficient of language learning activities” (Cook 1994, 133.). How can you make sure repetition is not tedious? 5. “When the students sense that they are in firm hands, they can relax and turn their full attention to the task before them” (Stevick 1982, 7). Discuss. 6. “My friends in public school who had the Audio-Lingual dialogues could all recite the same scene they didn’t understand - about a tailor, I think” (Kaplan 1994, 136). Discuss. 7. Teacher A: “If I hear a glaring mistake, I gently correct. Otherwise if they’re left to their own devices too much, you end up with a rotten accent, rotten intonation …” Teacher B: “In spoken work I tend to take the view that if you can understand what they’re saying, and they’ve communicated a message, then I don’t think a lot of correction at all helpful.” (from Mitchell & Martin 1997). Discuss. 8. “Very good classes will soon act scenes spontaneously, and will make up dialogue as they go along; but usually previous planning is best, as there is always the problem of incorrectness” (Gurrey 1970, 59). Discuss. 9. Building on previous dialogue and drill work, can you make a list of purely message-oriented and monolingual non-trivial activities which involve students emotionally and offer a genuine cognitive challenge? © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="167"?> Chapter 8: Language learning as skill learning Language is a skill: it is acquired by practice; nobody can do practice for someone else. Michael West. 8.1 Mastery learning and skill theory In the concluding chapter of his masterly History of English language teaching (2004, 349) Howatt diagnoses “the absence of a coherent theory of learning”. The learning theory behind the techniques presented in the previous chapters is the psychology of skills. Speaking is a motor activity, and in that respect it is a skill, perhaps “one of man’s most complex skills” (Levelt 1998, 1). A view of language as skilled behaviour is indeed “persuasive, insightful and useful for language teachers” (Johnson 1996, 38), although we are far from saying that language is “nothing but” a skill. In approaching language as a skill, a number of assumptions are made: 1. Skill learning is about getting good at something which involves practising. Speaking, reading, writing, interpreting, typewriting, using morse code, playing a musical instrument are typical perceptual-motor skills, performed by “athletes of the small muscle” (Leon Fleischer, the pianist). Skill is also what is needed first when you want to save lives and must land a jet on the Hudson. It is never acquired from a single instance, and there are no quick and easy shortcuts to complex skills. Skill-learning is not a eureka-experience, although sudden insights can be involved. It is focused, effortful practice that is crucial - as outlined in the previous two chapters. In L1 acquisition, children might hear the same expressions many dozens of time every day. They swim in a sea of language, perhaps 10 hours a day, or 70 hours a week. Compare that to a mere 5 hours a week in a language class during a school year only. In Anglophone cultures, a child will hear about 7000 utterances daily, among them 2000 simple questions. And it takes many years of daily interaction with mature speakers for them to attain adult-like skills. So children receive massive amounts of data - food for their inborn pattern-finding abilities (Tomasello 2003, 4). Apart from that, they are also learning their first language outside communicative experiences: They repeat what others have said to make sure they got it right, they might rehearse possible utterances before trying them out, and they talk to themselves, practising things they can’t say properly. They engage in private verbal games and just keep saying or chanting words without any communicative intent. When it comes fully to abstract or semi-abstract patterns such as ‘something needs doing’ many different instances are needed before they become firmly established in the mind of an individual language user. “Generalizations come only after a fair amount of concrete linguistic material has been learned”, says Tomasello (2003, 98) with regard to L1 acquisition. The greater the frequency of the language item in the input, the more “entrenched” it is likely to become. “Entrenchment” is the metaphor frequently used by cognitive © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="168"?> 168 Chapter 8: Language learning as skill learning linguists. There is a threshold for learning constructions with some degree of abstractness. In a teaching context, “entrenchment” equals practice. So the first lesson to be learned from skill theory and modern cognitive-functional linguistics is that no matter what method is used, language learning requires a great deal of assiduous practice and perseverance. In other words, it needs time, time, time: “You cannot escape the effects of the total time hypothesis, which states that the amount you learn depends on the amount you practice” (Baddeley 1986, 211). Nothing much can be achieved if FLT is fobbed off with two lessons per week. 2. In teaching a skill, there is always a place for initial explanation. This is as obvious for language teachers as it is for driving instructors, golf coaches or piano teachers. 3. “More is different” (Anderson 1972). The famous dictum of physicist P.W. Anderson equally applies to skill theory. With skills, more isn’t just more. Skill theory states that what novices do differs in crucial ways from what skilled persons do - a finding corroborated by modern brain research. There is more involved than an increase in speed, although performance usually does get faster. Quantitative differences become qualitative ones and entirely new properties emerge. This has always been evident to teachers as they compare the beginner who tries hard to get it right with the fluent productions of the skilled performer. Repetition leads to smoother and less redundant movements in the execution of the skill (Lorenz 1973). Performance changes through repeated practices, because the organism ceases to respond at the same level to a repeated stimulus. In the process called re-structuring (also: chunking, habituation) the organism learns to anticipate and “short-circuit”, or “prune”: Pruning is the elimination of necessary clutter and a clearing of the way for more material to enter the cognitive field … Cognitive pruning is an important consideration in the automatising stage of language learning. In the early stages, certain devices (definitions, paradigms, illustrations or rules) are often used to facilitate subsumption. We can regard these devices as initially meaningful. But in the process of making language automatic, the devices can serve as interim entities … and then be systematically pruned out at later stages of learning (Brown 1972, 220). What is most obviously pruned away in the process of working on dialogues is the printed word, the pictures as well as the translations. As the pupils perform the dialogue, neuronal groups which represent the script and the pictures in different visual centres, as well the MT translations, will not be activated in the same way as they were at the outset. As one gets into the rhythm of the dialogue, utterances become “kinetic melodies”, they just seem to happen. Information on details, for instance on individual sounds, drops away and attention can be re-directed to higher-order events. Grammatical explanations are put aside, as declarative knowledge is compiled into procedural knowledge (“proceduralization”, Johnson 1996). Groups of neurons that initially fire in sequence are merged into one. “Pruning” thus results in neuronal reorganisation and is identical with “short-circuiting” as used by West (1962, 48): “The indirect bond is short-circuited out by practice just as memorial dodges for remembering people’s names are eliminated once the name is established.” Pianists, for instance, can very well afford to forget the fingering they learned. But “eliminated” does not mean that the information is necessarily lost. In fact, it can often be retrieved, for instance when we become aware of an error and take time to reflect © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="169"?> 8.1 Mastery learning and skill theory 169 upon it and correct it. As we attain mastery some neuronal connections just become silent. Speech production thus becomes elegant and economical. The brain reorganizes information into schemata and super-schemata. For instance, when we are taught to read, we first see only the letters. But with practice, letters recede and we see words and groups of words. When we listen, individual sounds and words disappear into whole rhythmic groups associated with meaning, the advantage being that the chunks come at a slower pace and so are easier to perceive. Achieving fluency thus means doing things differently, not only faster. 4. A central problem of skill learning is the combination of whole learning versus parts learning. The mastery of a complex skill implies the progressive and hierarchical integration of a whole repertoire of sub-skills, based on a careful analysis of the skills and sub-skills that take up mental space and can only gradually build up to the desired final outcome. Tasks have to be broken into small, manageable and measurable steps, and presented systematically, with smooth and harmonious progression from simple reactions to increasingly complex ones. The next step must be within the students’ demonstrated capabilities and lead them just a little beyond. Competencies gained in previous steps are activated to deal with the next step. However, ultimately - this is the basic law of learning - we learn what we do. That’s why the learning cycle must not be stopped prematurely, but must be completed and the “real” skill, i.e. the desired terminal behaviour, must not be left out. Teaching skills always includes a focus on both parts and wholes, which is why the “wholistic” assumption that acquisition takes place principally or solely through message-oriented communication must be rejected as the communicative or “naturalistic fallacy” (“der naturmethodische Trugschluß” (Butzkamm 2002, 73); “the naturalistic straitjacket” (Swan 2005, 388)). Notably, proponents of task-based instruction reduce learning to wholistic learning, i.e. to participating in communicative exchanges, and a proper learning theory is conspicuously absent. While it is true that ultimately we speak ourselves free through free speaking, the error here is in confusing the target with the means of achieving it. 5. Although the brain is a parallel processor, our processing capacities are seriously limited. Manageable steps and special attention to lower-order component skills are needed because we can only attend to a limited number of processing demands at one time because of our “narrowness of consciousness”. There is always the danger of information overload. Any attention given to one type of information will diminish the attention available to other factors. The assimilation of dialogues containing new words and structures involves so many elements that we must reduce cognitive load as far as possible. The task includes: • melody, rhythm, accent, sounds for the auditory channel; • mouth movements, facial expressions, gesture and body language plus the printed words and pictures for the visual channel; • at the psychomotor level, articulation and body language; • at a more abstract level, meanings, structures, register and pragmatics. We simply cannot juggle with foreign phonemes, intonation, words, structures and meanings all at the same time. That’s why our approach begins with dialogue reproduction, which avoids the cognitive demands involved in creative message produc- © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="170"?> 170 Chapter 8: Language learning as skill learning tion. In addition, the use of the picture strip helps to retain meaning and relieves the learner from paying attention to sentence sequence during the initial stages of memorizing the sentences. The printed word, if used strictly as indicated, supports the difficult listening process and also relieves students from the search for the constituent components of the sentence. Occasional mirroring, i.e. mapping the mother tongue on to the foreign language sentence, also provides immediate relief from uncertainty about the structure. But perhaps the most important means to overcome processing limitations is the immediate rendering of meaning through the sandwich technique. In language learning, form-meaning links must be established from the outset. The fact that pupils are handed the meaning on a silver tray, as it were, frees them from the distracting search for meaning. Dodson (1967, 10) made the significant observation that “any uncertainty of meaning has a detrimental effect on the pupil’s ability to imitate and mimic spoken FL sentences.” He also observed that the effort expended to imitate fluently and correctly diverts the pupil’s attention from consolidating a strong link between sentence meaning and the sounds he is speaking. This shows how pupils have to manage their mental resources in order to cope with the task. Various steps allow students temporarily to focus on the form and substance of language, gain control of the lower-level skills of articulating and reproducing, while keeping errors to a minimum, and to shift the spotlight of their attention as they progress. In a way, we do one thing at time, and do this well. But learning is also wholistic, since pronunciation teaching is embedded in meaningful dialogue work. Translations, pictures, and the printed text - all this is provided in order to lighten the labour and free up cognitive resources for the task of listening and speaking, i.e. assimilating the language forms. Associating the new words with familiar knowledge as explained in chapter 4 - important for long-term storage - should not be seen as increasing cognitive load, as it is not simultaneous with, and provides a respite from, continuous modelling. The same applies to the students offering their own MT renderings. This allows them to accommodate the new text to their own cognitive world. It resides in the skill of the teacher to provide these shifts in the cognitive levels which bring relief from the stressful concentration on imitation responses and add variety and motivation to this phase. 6. Another point to be made is that learners - beginning speakers, piano or tennis players - need skilled performers as role models to imitate and emulate and against whom they can evaluate their own performance. Elite performers - of whatever skill - have not only acquired regular habits of practice but all have private coaches to monitor their progress. Mastery learning depends on a master who has the skill in both doing it and understanding what he is doing. In MT acquisition, the grown-ups are the masters who can show babies what they ought to be doing. The babies bring their enormous capacity to imitate to the task. Imitation is an innate mechanism for learning from adults, as child researchers point out. It’s a “culture instinct”, our real “motor for culture” (Gopnik et al. 2001, 168). The current philosophy of language education tends to emphasize creativity over imitation, and group work over teacherfronted instruction. But a complex skill is best acquired through deliberate practice under the supervision of professionals (Ericsson & Charness 1994). We mustn’t start from the wrong end. If we do this, learners will never have a chance to be accurate, © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="171"?> 8.2 The rewards of mastery: a sense of competence and control 171 and will at best produce an error-ridden classroom pidgin. We will have built on sand. By the same token, the modern emphasis on group work strikes one as somewhat unbalanced - as if the teacher’s main job were that of a coach standing on the sidelines. Skills psychology puts teachers back into the centre - where they belong when new language material is made available to the students. Stevick’s advice ”teach, then test, then get out of the way” is to the point. 7. A skills learning approach is often equated with an emphasis on “automaticity” and “fluency”. It is indeed vital that students achieve the highest level of automaticity possible within the constraints of time available and the risk of boredom. High levels of automaticity and confidence in the reproduction of the basic dialogue material reduce the cognitive load for the mastery of unknown and unforeseeable situations. Pupils have a linguistic beachhead from which to conquer new territory. But mastery learning need not be associated with an allegedly “discredited” behaviourist psychology. What is often overlooked is that automaticity and fluency release our artistic potential. The liberating power of mastery is unforgettable and an intensely pleasurable experience. With well-chosen dialogues, the thrill of growing mastery can be enjoyed even by beginners. 8.2 The rewards of mastery: a sense of competence and control Giving learners a feeling of mounting successful achievement is the hallmark of teaching a skill. Nothing can be more frustrating than failing after working hard and giving one’s best. When success fails to come, a child’s enthusiasm for a school subject won’t last for long, and we’ll see it lessen almost day by day. What makes L1 learning so pleasurable and enjoyable for all participants? The fact that it is a mounting series of communicative successes. Almost all of a child’s early productions are greeted with delight from a loving person. Communicative successes, and a growing sense of mastery, also seem to us the prime motivator for FLL in schools. Our teacher was so good at his job that I actually found, for the first time, that I was competent at something. I enjoyed German and was good at it. Anon So what counts as success in the beginners’ eyes? What makes them feel proud and rewarded for what they have done? Overcoming obstacles that one wasn’t quite sure one could meet is part of the deal. But saying one’s lines fluently and accurately is not enough; enacting one’s roles believably and authentically is the acid test. I had to speak to them in French. There was no way to get out of it. The first days were really hard. But after a while I understood more and more of what they were talking about. This was a highly motivating experience … When I returned, I was eager to learn more words. Cornelia I think it was very important for us to see we had really learned something which we could use personally. I had an extreme feeling of happiness when I could speak sentences in French which a French person could understand well and which were grammatically correct. Melanie Fortunately we did not merely go on a sightseeing tour but we had a special programme in the club centre every evening. We played pool billiard or did a rally, always in German-English mixed groups … I was in what one might call a kind of “England-fever”, trying to imitate the accent of the region and trying to catch as many idiomatic expressions as possible. Andrea © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="172"?> 172 Chapter 8: Language learning as skill learning Conversely, incompetence equals frustration: With only one and a half years of French I was not able to say one single sentence, eventually getting quite frustrated with regard to that language. Thomas I was really looking forward to spend one week in France with a French family. Unfortunately, that week was one of the most horrible weeks in my life. I soon found out that I was not able to communicate with French native speakers. Also, my host family could not speak a single word of German. It was already the first evening I got terribly homesick. And I was not the only one. I remember that one of my friends was fetched by her parents before the week had finished. The few words of French I knew I was scared to use because it all sounded completely different when the French pronounced them, and I could not even identify those words I knew when the family used them. Judith But what classroom activities present similar challenges? Since children, through their MT, know what language is for and what you can do with it, they will not be satisfied with filling gaps in sentences or turning an active sentence into a passive one - although getting things right is always pleasurable. Here are some snapshots of things that provide satisfaction: It made us feel very proud when we finally sang the whole song and got everything right. Arndt I once found a passage which I interpreted as “Watching the world by the spy”. It made sense, because “spy” could be translated as “kleines Fernrohr”. Later, I realised the line in the song was “Watching the whole world pass us by.” I liked to compare my written version with the real ones … I was happy when I got it right. Christine I enjoyed listening to English pop-songs. the more words I understood, the more I wanted to know. I started to write song-texts down and asked my mother for the words I did not understand. Charlotte One thing that never failed was role-play where language functions are embedded and revealed in action. Whenever it was mentioned in students’ reports, it was seen as positive. When performing, one has the feeling of complete power and control over the language. Once you had a part in a play you proudly gave your best. Katrin They even jumped from their chairs to get the teacher’s attention in order to play the most popular parts: the dogs! Britta One boy had to read the part of ‘Tibby’, the cat, and he ended up being Tibby, not only in English lessons. English was great fun, and learning was easy for me because I was not aware of the fact that I was learning. Iris The things I liked best in our English lessons was acting out the dialogues. I remember a particular performance in the seventh form. It was a comic strip about Robin Hood and his men. Although we acted with books in our hands it was very lively and funny, especially because quite a plump but amiable boy in our class played the part of Friar Tuck in a very droll way. Karin We even rehearsed the dialogues at the bus stop, while waiting for the bus. The climax was an English performance in front of the whole school and our parents, at the end of the fifth class. For us it meant hours and hours of enthusiastic preparatory work. Katrin The fact that work was taking place outside of lessons is a true measure of the pupils’ motivation. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="173"?> 8.3 The rewards of mastery: Release from shyness 173 Skill theory perfectly accommodates a communicative approach as we interpret it, because it combines part practice and whole practice. Whole practice and “real” communication is never left out or put off to a late stage. The competent performer - competent with regard to the range of language practised - is only competent to the extent that he can execute the complete skill, not just any part-skill - like the budding pianist who will not just practise scales or use one hand only, but play short and easy pieces almost from the beginning. Role-making and free conversations are clearly activities worth doing for their own sake. Pupils take ownership of their actions and words. Even beginning pupils can reap the rewards of mastery. The dynamics of the learning process: text reception, relaxed listening → text reproduction lock-step learning → individual pace whole-class → individual, pair and group-work with written text support → without written text support silent concentration → highly active, noisy learners teacher-centred, supportive teaching style → student-centred, self-directed, exploratory learning learners receive instruction → learners construct and create learners are learning to use → learners are using to learn Pupils will feel the joy of a new strength. What was initially a barrier, has become a welcome challenge. Play-acting is an extremely good example of classroom situations where nothing succeeds like success. In addition, it is reinforced by applause from fellow pupils and, occasionally, parents. Applause will arouse positive expectations and curiosity about the next dialogue or play. Positively therapeutic! 8.3 The rewards of mastery: Release from shyness Whatever we do - affective factors are always involved. Emotions and intelligence interact from the very beginning. Emotions organise and orchestrate the mind’s growth. They provide a constant, running commentary on our behaviour. They mobilise the mind and the body. If we find ourselves drawn to things, it is emotions that are at work. The key to first language learning is a warm, close relationship with an adult, one in which communication becomes important enough to provide satisfaction in itself. Eventually the thoughts and images that arise from communication become imbued with pleasure. We learn to enjoy communicating in its own right (Greenspan 1997, 77). Similarly, good teaching is imbued with pleasant, positive emotions. Conversely, fear is the worst enemy of the successful exploration of new learning material. Losing one’s face in front of peers is one of the most horrible things that can happen to a teenager, and pronunciation in particular is a sensitive area which teachers must approach with great care to avoid pupils being made fun of. I remember a girl who couldn’t pronounce the word ‘radiator’ and only when she finally burst into tears after several desperate attempts, did our teacher move on to the next pupil. It was awful. Bernd I was not able to say “sausages”. And indeed, it was a real disaster with my tongue. Diana © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="174"?> 174 Chapter 8: Language learning as skill learning The teacher forced us to say the new words and sounds in front of the class. When we were wrong he corrected us with an intimidating and reproachful glance and we had to repeat the correct version. These pronunciation drills in our first English lessons were really unpleasant. Kerstin As we said earlier in chapter 7, the teacher must not botch this crucial phase. He must put students at their ease and make sure that everybody can say the lines properly. This is his responsibility. With this proviso in mind, acting out well-rehearsed playlets, for most pupils, means a release from shyness. It is a perfect means of getting them to talk without false shame, and a sure way of winning the battle against passivity. In an Australian study it was found that the greatest catalyst of breaking down the barrier of shyness and inhibition was a video of themselves doing a role-play in German (Pillar 1997). Teachers must lure learners into breaking away from traditional attitudes such as reticence, inwardness, propriety, fear of losing face, which keep learners deaf and mute in their seats. If such feelings prevail, students will prefer the safety of the fillin-the-blank exercise. But where is the joy? Probably because Li Yang took the bull by the horns, inviting big audiences to gesticulate and shout out loud English phrases, his “Crazy English” movement became so popular in China (Wu 2009). The worries and fears of making mistakes and of being laughed at lurk in all FL classrooms, but are perhaps a more pressing problem in some Asian classrooms than elsewhere. “Enjoy losing face” has become Li Yang’s most popular slogan. It can be positively therapeutic for a group, after winning a game, to shout in unison: We’ve won! Wir haben gewonnen! On a gagné! Yelling phrases at the top of one’s voice is certainly an exception rather than the rule, but being passionate and totally involved in their FL parts is what we all wish our learners to be. Acting out one’s part the way it makes sense will go a long way to developing confidence and self-reliance. Singing, chanting slogans, shouting or whispering can all have a cathartic effect. Song and physical contact are often emotionally more reassuring than words alone can ever be. It’s the physical nature of doing things with one’s voice and one’s whole body that helps to overcome shyness and feelings of insecurity and awkwardness. It breaks the proverbial ice and loosens the tongue. However, nobody should be forced to act before an audience. It is sufficient if a group role-plays the dialogue in a corner, observed only by the teacher. Watching others perform successfully will soon help to overcome stage fright and an emotional conflict between hiding away and making one’s presence felt. After all, we all want to be seen, recognized and held in regard, and we can’t be more visible than when on stage, in front of an audience. Mastery is guaranteed if pupils are given well-structured and properly sequenced tasks that lie within their current capacities or are only slightly beyond them. Additionally the teacher personally listens in to a weak group and specially rehearses the dialogue with them. If children never take risks, they will never experience real self-esteem, which only grows from the mastery of challenges. We must help learners to overcome doubts about themselves, to dig in and really try. So, in the end, like the toddler who learns to walk, they will go back to their seats with a secret grin on their face, saying to themselves: “Wow, I did it”. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="175"?> 8.5 The naturalistic fallacy and task-based instruction 175 8.4 Applied behaviour analysis Skills psychology also provides the basis for applied behaviour analysis (ABA) which is widely and successfully used in the training and therapy of retarded and disabled children, including children with various language disorders and deficits. Interventions start out with a careful and detailed task analysis, i.e. analysis of what is to be taught and learned. The tasks to be mastered are broken down into small manageable steps that minimise ambiguity and follow a logical progression, i.e. they are as carefully crafted as the dialogue and drill work presented in chapters 6 and 7. A hierarchy of steps is organized where earlier skills facilitate the acquisition of later, more integrative skills, and students always end up with the right answer, no matter how many corrections are made en route. Other technicalities of ABA with parallels to FL learning as skill training include prompting and generalisation. Work with disabled children such as those diagnosed as autistic is often one-to-one where the instructor / therapist can closely follow the individual progress made by the learner. But FLT also includes one-to-one situations adaptive to a learner’s individual characteristics and needs (Wilberg 1987). We would suggest bringing the two strands of FLT and ABA closer together. ABA research with its scientific rigour could make a significant contribution to FLT. 8.5 The naturalistic fallacy and task-based instruction Fallacies don’t cease to be fallacies because they become fashions. G.K. Chesterton The PPP sequence has been criticized for leaving out the last P, i.e. free production (Johnson 1996, 120). With existing methods this (= real-life situations) is the most difficult aspect of language learning in classroom conditions and most learners falter at this final stage … The reason for this collapse at the final hurdle is not that the teacher fails to present to the pupils the complexities of real life in FL terms, but that he presents them too early (in a lesson-cycle) … Most oral methods require the pupil to deal with all the learning processes involved in normal FL conversation at the beginning of the work on any topic, by throwing him into this total real-life situation immediately … Consequently the pupils find that they cannot do anything really well most of the time (Dodson 1967, 126). The error is in conflating aims and ways of learning, which is precisely the mistake made in the following suggestions. Instead of giving the learners the meaning right away, the authors want them to struggle to understand and to converse as the presentation phase is in progress: To ensure greater learner involvement, and to mirror more what happens in real life language learning we are advocating making the class struggle to arrive at meaning. This entails never telling / showing a class anything without their having to interact with the teacher, or indeed with other sources of language input (tape, video, text, fellow pupils, the FL Assistant, etc) in pursuit of meaning. Making the class struggle to arrive at meaning is a device for encouraging the pupils to • begin to develop their independence in using the language for themselves and not simply in response to the teacher’s questions; • hypothesise and speculate about potential meaning; • take risks with language; © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="176"?> 176 Chapter 8: Language learning as skill learning • think in the language; • develop their strategic competence, their ability to cope with the problems of communication that are inevitable when we are trying to learn a new language (Harris et al. 2001, 22). This is the enduring Berlitz legacy, the attempt to make language learning throughout as “natural” as possible: no MT, no printed word, as little “drill” as necessary, and, hopefully, instant participation in ‘real-life’ activities. It is assumed that all you need to do is engage learners in communicative interaction and the natural learning processes will do the rest. This is a recipe for submersion, not immersion. Where is the place of imitation in communicative activities? It is hidden in a question and answer game or some sort of pseudo-conversation with the teacher. What is imitated is mostly new words, but no phrases or utterances. Verbatim repetition gets a raw deal indeed. There was no real imitation phase. The new sentences were only pronounced by those who got a chance to read out loud, which was of no value for the others. Stefan We were neither given a MT equivalent nor did she dwell on a sentence long enough for us to have sufficient language contacts. Birgit The way we worked with dialogues was not really efficient. We only read the text once during a lesson, and when we had to learn it by heart at home, we didn’t have anybody there to correct our pronunciation. Then, during the next lesson, we had to recite it, but remained seated and didn’t act it out. Claudia Rhythm and intonation, the quintessential mimetic skills, are neglected, as most cognitive resources will be mobilised to get the meaning and to get one’s meaning across. But without sufficient imitation and practice contacts, we can never be at home in a language. Instead, there will be feelings of impotence and frustration. By contrast, our philosophy, in keeping with skill theory, is to accept the initial artificiality of the presentation phase where no pretence is made at message-orientation, in order to reach the unthinking spontaneity and automaticity so typical of natural speech. Then, and only then, are we ready fully to focus on meaning and what we want to do with language, ready to tackle the manifold tasks that require language. “There is no profit in throwing pupils into the deep end of communication; this leads to bewilderment identified by Harold Palmer as the chief teaching error to be avoided” (Hawkins 1981, 264). Task-based instruction has no learning theory to support it, and little research: “Concrete evidence of language learning in TBI, in the sense of progressing from not knowing (how to do) something to some degree of knowing, is almost non-existent, to my knowledge”, says Bruton (2003, 6). We completely agree with Widdowson’s (2003, 124ff.) excellent analysis and with Swan’s (2005) criticism of the far-reaching, unsubstantiated claims of the advocates of task-based instruction. The communicative approach along with task-based instruction as understood by many theorists today needs overhauling. Study questions and tasks 1. We need to understand what we are doing. So theory and practice must grow together. Where and when have you experienced a rift between educational theory and practice? How could it have been healed? © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="177"?> Study questions and tasks 177 2. Skill theory casts doubt on the current emphasis on group work.What is your personal experience of group work? In what circumstances can group work become a case of the blind leading the blind? Discuss the place and merits of solo activities, collaborative work, work with and without a teacher. 3. Explain how it is possible to get rid of mental translation by using translations. Give examples of mediators that can be dispensed with after practising a skill. 4. “The beginning piano student does not learn to play pieces just by practising scales and chords. He must attempt to practice real pieces if he is ever going to learn to play them” (Nida 1957, 24). Give examples from different skills and show how explicit knowledge converts into implicit knowledge. 5. Discuss the relations between the affective and the cognitive domains. 6. “During this repeated recitation … the mother tongue steps into the background of its own accord, as it were” (Jespersen 1904). The learner behaves as before, less the translation. Discuss this important aspect of skill acquisition. 7. Discuss what went wrong here an why: I remember my first lesson in Spanish quite well, because it had such a confusing effect on me. I still can see my teacher coming into the classroom. Without saying a single word in German, she started teaching immediately, that means she began to say some incomprehensible gibberish we all presumed was Spanish, accompanied by some dangerous looking gestures. Later it turned out that she had simply intended to introduce herself to the class. Just after a few seconds she began to ask us the following question: “¿Cómo te llamas? ” It simply means “What is your name? ”. But as nobody understood her question, nobody was able to give the right answer. We only knew from her intonation that she had asked a question. After more fruitless attempts at getting a response, she pointed to herself while saying impatiently: “Yo me llamo Marianne”, which was immediately followed by her previous question. Now that we knew what we were asked to do, we could concentrate on imitating the strange sentence “Yo me llamo […]”. But as our teacher only repeated it twice, the sound image of the phrase we were asked to imitate faded away too soon. It was natural that most of our answers only bore a faint resemblance to the teacher’s model, who was getting more and more irritated. It was only at the end of our first lesson that our teacher allowed us to open the books, which produced a typical aha-experience. Only now did we become aware of the sound sequence of the phrases we had not been able to imitate a few seconds before. Tanja © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="178"?> Chapter 9: Maximising high-quality input via the mother tongue All we can suggest is that a teaching program be designed in such a way as to give free play to those creative principles that humans bring to the process of language learning. I think we should probably try to create a rich linguistic environment for the intuitive heuristics that the normal human automatically possesses. Noam Chomsky 9.1 Direct instruction vs. acquisition: in search of a compromise Skills psychology provided the theoretical underpinnings of the techniques presented in the previous chapters. It best explains how we can assimilate the sounds of language and become fluent articulators - in the usual instructional settings. Dialogue assimilation as shown in chapter 7 is the shortest way we know of to get the sounds right and experience the excitement of learning. Chapter 6 showed how a limited number of highly productive patterns can lead to maximum generalisation. But there are other aspects of language learning which are less well captured by skills psychology. Take listening. It looks much less like a typical perceptual-motor skill. When parents take up residence in a foreign country, their children will usually pick up the language that surrounds them. After a period of passive absorption, language seems to emerge by itself, as it were. The sluicegates are opened and language pours forth. Seemingly effortlessly, the brain has been busy all the time extracting the statistical regularities of the language spoken around them (Aslin et al. 1999), i.e. we gradually learn the probabilities of which sounds (and words) are likely to follow each other. J.M. Coetzee (1997, 125), the nobel-prize winning novelist from South Africa, remembers his visits to his uncle’s farm, when he was four or five and could not speak Afrikaans at all: There was no one to play with but the Coloured children. With them he made boats out of seed-pods and floated them down the irrigation furrows. But he was like a mute creature: everything had to be mimed; at times he felt he was going to burst with the things he could not say. Then suddenly one day he opened his mouth and found he could speak, speak easily and fluently and without stopping to think. He still remembers how he burst in on his mother, shouting ‘Listen! I can speak Afrikaans! ’ This is fascinating, almost a miracle, which explains why theorists have been seduced into applying it wholesale to the classroom. However, with adults, this incubation period, as Ronjat (1913) called it, can sometimes last almost as long as a year, and fossilisation is a real danger. This, then, is the long way. It takes plenty of contact hours with different native speakers to provide the necessary input, something which classrooms cannot do. Let us clarify by coming back to Palmer’s distinction between “primary” and “secondary matter”, which he later, and more aptly, termed “memorized” and “constructed matter” (Palmer 1922, 141). In years of exposure acquirers absorb large amounts of primary matter from which they, gradually and creatively, construct more and more secondary matter, i.e. sentences of their own they might never have heard before. Their path en route to mastery reveals typical developmental stages. Ultimately those © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="179"?> 9.2 Good news for language teachers 179 on the acquisition track, as we all know, will overtake classroom learners who must set off faster and must make more out of less. Said another way, there is less primary matter to begin with, which means that we must build more on constructed matter - through artful pedagogy as outlined in previous chapters. Given the time restraints of classrooms, “productive skills learning, at the very least, requires something more than simple environmental saturation” (Caldwell 1990, 472). We have thus a short way and a long way, a direct instruction, as opposed to an acquisition model, which some find theoretically unsatisfying. In terms of theory - but only of theory - eclecticism can only be an interim solution. direct instruction vs. acquisition/ osmotic absorption intentional learning incidental learning meaningful imitation, memorization etc. listening (and reading) for meaning + real communication + real communication Since, ultimately, we learn what we do (chapter 8), both types include message-oriented communication from the beginning, so there is considerable overlap. In the classroom, research has repeatedly shown that neither way is potent enough to do the entire job alone (e.g. Stern 1990). Perhaps, in the future, these two ways, although theoretically radically different, can be synthesised in a unified theory of language learning. Adopting Palmer’s multiple line of approach, practitioners have normally tried to find some sort of balance, according to their local conditions, and combined dialogue and drill work with special listening and reading activities. But with MT support, they can go much farther than is usual and get the learners to digest massive amounts of language materials. In this chapter, we present techniques that resemble the slow type of acquisition, i.e. ways of swamping the learner with comprehended input through listening and reading. 9.2 Good news for language teachers Learners need input of the proper sort, with regard to quality as well as quantity. With plentiful well-formed input tailored to the level of understanding of the learners, the language centres of the brain restructure themselves and, in so doing, stabilize those new structures. Young children provide themselves with input of the right sort by simply ignoring complex structures they cannot yet deal with. The very immaturity of their brain is, in this respect, no disadvantage, but a prerequisite to language acquisition (see p. 30f.: We cannot start small again). It filters out structures which it is not ready for and maps out its own grammatical learning route. Accordingly, parents, unlike textbook authors, don’t have to follow a grammatical syllabus. They use a full range of language structures (interrogation, negation, morphology etc.) from the very beginning, although they do simplify their speech in specific ways. But they would never dream of deliberately falsifying their grammar as they often do when talking to foreigners in order to facilitate understanding. What a developing brain does for young children, the MT can do for older learners of a foreign language: To a large extent, it can make grammatical grading superfluous because MT aids can ensure understanding (chapter 3, maxim 7). This is good news for language © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="180"?> 180 Chapter 9: Maximising high-quality input via the mother tongue teachers who are free to choose from an immense reservoir of texts. There must be time both for dialogue work plus structure drills (typical of form-focused instruction, drawing learners’ attention to specific linguistic properties) and extensive listening and reading (typical of “exposure” and incidental / wholistic learning), as we gain time through the use of the MT and can reduce the amount of unproductive practice work. The following suggestions for maximizing comprehended input all use MT support. 9.2.1 Teacher-talk “There are stages of language-development in which good teacher-talk is probably the single most important kind of input” (O’Neill 1998, 369). The teacher has countless opportunities for communicative digressions, and can immerse the pupils in a comprehensible sea of language, with the pupils participating with fairly monosyllabic contributions at first. He can supply them with what they need: input comprehended in a dual way. He talks with the exact amount of redundancy necessary, and uses the bilingual sandwich technique regularly. Listen to a German teacher of English introducing a new game: I’ve got a new game for you to play. It begins as a game of association. I mention a topic or subject, just one word. Let’s say ‘music’. Then you’ll go on. You’ll find another thing that you associate with music. You know the word ‘associate’ because it’s the same in German: assoziieren. You’ve got to say something that comes to your mind when you think of music. For this, you’ll use a fixed sentence, a set phrase, again and again: ‘Music suggests radio’ - Musik lässt an Radio denken -‘Music suggests radio’ (T writes it up on then board). The next player must now pick up the new word: ‘Radio suggests traffic jam.’ And the next: ‘Traffic jam suggests motorway.’ After a while I’ll say ‘Stop’, and then it will become a memory game. We’ll now do the same in the reverse order - in umgekehrter Richtung - in the reverse order. We’ll link up the ideas just mentioned in the reverse order. For this to work, you’ll now have to use the sentence in the passive voice. Say: ‘Motorway was suggested by traffic jam’ (T writes it up on the board). ‘Traffic jam was suggested by radio’ etc. Until we get to the very first sentence that we started out with. That’s what I want you to do now. Try to concentrate. Are you ready to go? Udo Lessons are arenas of learner interaction, but in FLT a substantial proportion of teacher talking time is not necessarily a bad thing. Teacher talk provides repeated exposure to high-frequency words and constructions, which will consolidate already partially known expressions. It bears repeating: To establish the FL as the working language of the classroom must be one of our foremost concerns. 9.2.2 Reading to the class and story-telling Whereas dialogue work is aimed at production with special emphasis on pronunciation, stories constitute the optimal text for comprehension. In the evenings, my father would come to my bed and read out Roudoudou, stories that my grandmother had already read to my father. Roudoudou was a young goat that walked on its hind legs and had lots of pedagogically useful adventures. I loved it. Being read to, and later, reading became my favourite pastimes. Once I had to go to hospital to have my tonsils removed, and I didn’t stop screaming until my father had the idea of reading Roudoudou. Just as my father was responsible for reading aloud French books, my grandmother would read aloud the German ones. I always looked forward to her coming. Reading out loud is definitely a way of giving affection to a child. Sylvia, with a German mother and French father © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="181"?> 9.2 Good news for language teachers 181 Regular bedtime stories are a good means of developing a weaker language. Can we re-create, in the classroom, the early excitement and fascination children experience when being read to? We can. Teachers should harness the magic of good books. Storyreading periods are moments of composure, quietness and anticipation: “Are you all sitting comfortably? ” If it is a small class they form a semi-circle round the teacher. With younger children the teacher can use big picture books - “big books” - like those found in kindergartens or “lap books” with a spiral binding. Fairy and folk tales, fables, legends, stories from history or stories from the Bible are suitable, the kind of texts which used to be found much more frequently in earlier coursebooks but were abandoned because they could not be presented without resorting to the MT. The idea is to select stories which reach into the students’ hearts and minds. The teacher reads aloud a new story or part of a serialised story without combining it with tiresome follow-up tasks. Learners can develop a sense of anticipation, as unknown words are ignored where the context seems self-explanatory, or are explained in such a way that they do not disrupt the narrative flow, and whenever necessary, MT aids are generously interspersed. There was a time when our English teacher finished the lesson five minutes early and used the time to have a short reading session. There were some stories that we preferred and wanted to hear over and over again - “The Emperor’s New Clothes” or “Little Red Riding Hood”. But I know there were also fairy tales that we didn’t like and didn’t understand. Our teacher stopped immediately if we lost interest. Iris Although Little Red Riding Hood must have been known to all, they enjoyed even a repeated presentation in the FL, finding genuine aesthetic pleasure from hearing the familiar in unfamiliar sounds and rhythms. For the very first (! ) Spanish class Blair (1982, 234) has prepared his version of the biblical story of David and Goliath. Students have the bilingual script as well as a recording of the Spanish part for out-of-class study: He’s a very bad giant. He’s mean. His name is Goliath. Goliath is very tall and very strong. As tall as a giraffe. And as strong as an elephant. His neck and his shoulders are those of a buffalo … He doesn’t like anyone. Not even his mother … Es un gigante muy malo. Es malvado. Su nombre es Goliat. Goliat es muy alto y muy fuerto. Tan alto como una jirafa. Y tan fuerte como un elefante. Su cuello y sus hombros son los de un búfalo … El no quiere a nadie. Ni a su madre … The story is elaborated to make it more predictable and redundant. Dual comprehension is achieved. As they listen to the story and look at the script, the grammatical structure filters through. The idea of grammatical sequencing is still there, but Blair does not shy away from the querer-construction (see chapter 3, maxim 7). He claims that stories constitute a more natural entry point into language than dialogues, and he may well be right. A short pre-speaking phase will train the ears and ease the students into language. So listening can be combined with postponing speaking. This is the cornerstone of the Tan-Gau method (Duplantie 1963), where beginners are free to answer in their native tongue, if they choose. They decide themselves when they feel ready to launch into speaking the FL. It’s an old idea, one which has also been taken up by Blair (1982) © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="182"?> 182 Chapter 9: Maximising high-quality input via the mother tongue and Krashen & Terrell (1983). The first dialogues can then be presented for imitation as digestible bite-size servings. Celik (2003, 363) uses the sandwich technique in a slightly different way in presenting a text: Ok, you know, every day so many people are killed on the roads. There are many reasons for this, of course. One of the reasons may be that the laws are very gev ek. Yes, that’s right. We know that laws are really lax. This laxity is hard to overcome for many reasons. So, this situation is a problem for yetkililer too. What can they do? I mean the authorities. Not much really. Because the authorities can only bring solutions using mevcut laws. But you see the existing laws are very lax … Instead of reading aloud, the teacher can choose a presentation halfway between reading and telling. She simplifies, explains and paraphrases the text, shortens or extends it spontaneously, gesticulates, tells the story with as much clarity and energy as she can muster, while constantly looking away from the text at the class. To tell stories well takes confidence, some talent, and a great deal of linguistic flexibility, but with a written support, the technique of half reading aloud and half telling, should be within anybody’s reach. At times, the reading or reciting may be combined with small tasks to help the pupils listen more attentively, but they should always be so sparingly dosed that a coherent listening and reading experience still takes place. These tasks include (1) repetition: The teacher pauses and asks the class to repeat the last sentence or word group; (2) predicting: The teacher stops in the middle of a sentence and the pupils have to complete the sentence; (3) predicting: the teacher stops reading and asks the learners how the story could go on; (4) listening for specific information: The teacher gives the pupils information-search tasks: “Listen for a verb which expresses some kind of body-language; listen for a sentence in which someone makes a reproach; listen for a present perfect continuous” etc. Listeners must make a mental note of such expressions and be able to reproduce them afterwards. With young children in their first and second year of FLL, one can check comprehension by occasionally allowing them to tell you in the MT how much they remembered of the story. One is often surprised to learn how exactly certain details have been grasped and remembered by the children and how precisely the atmosphere of a story has been perceived. It is also impressive to see with what enjoyment and dedication children give themselves up to the flow of the foreign language and identify with some of the characters in the story - provided that in structure and vocabulary, it is within their grasp, tells an interesting tale or deals with a stimulating topic. Fantasizing for relaxation is another well-known story-telling activity, which again works best with MT support. The pupils seat themselves comfortably and close their eyes. In a warm, calm voice the teacher reads aloud an unknown text containing a lot of beautiful images. The pupils try to conjure up images in their mind’s eye. In a boat You’re in a boat, on the open sea. But not far away from the coast. One can see the coast-line. One can see the palm trees. So you are quite safe. The sky is overcast - bedeckt, wolkenverhangen - the sky is overcast. But the boat is still warm from the sun. You feel the warmth of the planks as you lie in the boat. You can smell - riechen - smell the warm wood. And you can smell the sea. It’s a lovely smell. The boat is gently rocked - sanft geschaukelt - it is gently rocked © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="183"?> 9.2 Good news for language teachers 183 by the waves. The waves rock the boat gently. They hit the boat gently. You can hear the waves hitting the boat gently. They lap against the boat - sie plätschern dagegen - they lap against the boat. You look into the sky. You look at the clouds hiding the sun. You know where it hides. That big cloud over there has a silver lining - einen Silberrand, einen Silberstreif - a silver lining. The English say “Every cloud has a silver lining”. They see difficult times like clouds that pass overhead and block the sun. But then every cloud has a silver lining. The sun is already shining at the edges - an den Rändern - of the cloud. The sun will soon come out. That means: Difficult days will lead to better days. As we lie in the boat, gently rocked by the waves, as we feel the warmth of the wood, as we smell the smell of the wood and the sea, we know: This is a good day, and more good days will be coming. This guided imagery is an excellent way of calming pupils down and concluding a lesson on a quiet and pleasant note. Fantasy stories can be read a second time and combined with an information search: “In this story you will hear three new words/ phrases from the textbook story we’ve just read. Can you find them? ” Or the pupils have to remember a dozen words or phrases which are typical of the atmosphere depicted. It is also an excellent idea for pupils to write and present their own fantasy trips. 9.2.3 Silent reading, and a reading corner How do we get learners to the threshold where they can start learning independently from texts? The battle for the FL is won once we get the learners to read authentic texts on their own. So let’s have classrooms with shelves full of books, audio books, electronic equipment with headphones and an extra reading corner with comfortable chairs. Appropriate materials are all sorts of light reading, comics, simplified readers with carefully graded language bridging the gap between reading age and interest age, and ungraded texts with comprehension aids at the same height in the margin. Comprehensibility increases if at first we offer a great deal of input in a narrow range of subjects to be expanded gradually. As soon as I could I started to read English books for the younger reader, e.g. books written by Enid Blyton in a simplified language. The words which we could not be expected to know were explained at the bottom of each page. Reading has always been one of my favourite hobbies, it was the most appropriate way to flee from reality and enter another world in which I could give scope to my own imagination. Birgit I was about fifteen, and I began reading an English book called At Risk in my normal, careful foreign language way of reading: looking up words, reading very slowly, minding each word, translating to myself many sentences. But it was such an exciting story, and so sad and dramatic, that suddenly I couldn’t stop reading, and it was only when I had finished the whole book that I remembered it had been in English. A real English book. It took me literally about five minutes to get over the shock of seeing I had read the 200 pages in English without ever noticing, but then I hastened to the library to see if it would work again. It did. Anon A real English book! This is the great leap forward. To encourage students to take this leap, we stock the bookshelves with books the learners have already read in their MT. This is perhaps a better way than keeping the input “narrow”. Tertiary students report how the road to authentic texts was paved by books they had first enjoyed reading in their MT: At first, I only read books I had often read in German. Although I nearly knew them by heart, I impatiently stumbled through those passages that I did not remember or that had been cut out by the translator. Anne © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="184"?> 184 Chapter 9: Maximising high-quality input via the mother tongue At about the beginning of grade 7 I started reading everything in English, or at least tried to, since I had discovered the English section of our local library. This way I got to know The little vampire and all those kids’ stories in English. Once I had finished the children’s section I was looking for other books I might be able to read, and my mother tried to help me by buying several novels in both languages, English and German, and I read the English version first, not really getting every word but the overall picture, and then reading the German version to really understand the content of the book. After about three or four books read that way it was simply too time-consuming and I started to read only the English books, still not understanding every single word, but getting used to grasping the meaning through the other words I did know. My favourite books at about 13 were the stories with Winnetou and Old Shatterhand, and I was actually trying to find out whether Karl May had been translated into English, because I wanted to read them again. Martina Yes, why can’t they re-read their favourite Asterix or Tintin story in the original French, and perhaps even report about it briefly in front of the class, recommending their books to their classmates? Many pupils have books that they lived in for a long time and have made a part of themselves, books that they would love to re-read in their foreign guise. German pupils have been known to read the Harry Potter books in English after they had read the German version or seen the films in their MT. Miriam even reached for the MT translation after the FL version: I remember first reading Brave new World entirely in English and afterwards I started reading it in German to make sure I had understood everything. After a couple of chapters however, I realized that I had understood the original text reasonably well - much better than I had thought - and therefore I stopped reading the translation and read the English book a second time. Miriam A great deal of reading will eventually light in them the flame of literature, one of the great devices for heightening our awareness and broadening our lives. This is a huge step forward from a situation all too familiar in FLL: They [English year 12 students] also criticised the emphasis on the mundane: “I found it really repetitive. You’d go into the lesson and hear the same things for five years … [for example] … objects in the house.” The textbooks were considered by most to be “out of date”, with one focus group agreeing that they were patronising and babyish (Fisher 2001, 37). Objects in the house? A typical Berlitz idea. We need classrooms where there are piles of well-thumbed English magazines lying around to read: In grade 8 he started bringing magazines to class which served as an authentic alternative and an addition to our textbook. Sometimes he gave us twenty minutes to read these magazines and we were always free to borrow one and take it home. Sandra 9.2.4 Bilingual readers There is a lexical barrier between reading for pleasure and FL texts. However, a successful breakthrough to independent reading in the FL can be achieved by bilingual texts which overcome this lexical barrier. As we have seen in chapter 2, bilingual readers were quite common in previous centuries. Hughes (1968, 92) suggests: Obtain a book of interesting readings - short stories or novelettes, possibly poetry - with the foreign text on the left-hand page and a translation on the facing page. The student reads paragraph by paragraph: first a paragraph in the foreign language, then the same paragraph in translation, then the foreign language text once more. Each day he reads two pages, and each day the first page is the second page of the day before. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="185"?> 9.2 Good news for language teachers 185 Apart from the books read in school, our teacher encouraged us to read English books at home. Privately, I often read simplified school editions or bilingual editions of short stories, especially detective stories, and novels such as Treasure Island and The Third Man. Berit In China, collections of simplified, bilingual versions of some well-known Western novels and classics have enjoyed great popularity among English beginners and also among English-literate parents who often read bilingual stories to their young children before bed-time. Bilingual readers could progressively reduce the amount of translation, as exemplified by Belasco (1975; see chapter 2), with the translation containing more and more gaps. According to Belasco, most intermediary students would read the English translation of each sentence or sentence group first to grasp the concepts involved. (That’s why it is printed on the left-hand side.) They would then shift back and forth from the English to the French in an effort to match each part of the French sentence with its English equivalent. Belasco advises students to make sure that they account for every French expression in terms of its English equivalent. Not until they understand the French passage perfectly should they go on to the next few lines. This is the principle of dual comprehension: Students read mainly for content, but should also understand the component parts and how they engender the complete sense of the passage. The aim is of course to become a reader who directly tries the French text and refers less and less to the translation. Belasco claims, on the basis of tests, that when bilingual learning techniques are used over a long period of time, the amount of structure and vocabulary acquired by the average student outdistances, by far, the amount of language acquired by any other known method (Parent & Belasco 1970). In another empirical investigation there was a consistent trend for parallel translations to help beginning students more than did the side glosses; moreover, students preferred having a standard translation plus a literal one (Jarvis & Jensen 1982). We find excellent texts all the time that we nonetheless do not use because they contain passages which are too difficult, requiring too much time and effort. Why don’t we clarify these passages by giving translations to the pupils in advance? With difficult texts, the languages share the load. L2 highly motivated pupils in particular have been known to resort to these MT aids. We can proceed faster by alternating between the original only and the original plus the translation. Elena, a German exchange student, has joined a theatre group at her Australian university: Rehearsing the plays and practising my roles I realised that I was not independent from my mother tongue. At first I found myself in a desperate situation when I tried to learn the lines of “Richard II”. The text was quite hard for native speakers as well, and I got the impression I was confronted with a “mission impossible”. Understanding the text was not the main problem, but to memorise it. My idea was then to translate all the lines I had to memorise into German, so that I could fully understand their meaning. First I read through them alternating between the English and the German version, then I read through the German version and tried to translate it without looking at the actual text. After establishing this “bridge” between the foreign language and my mother tongue I was finally able to recite my lines and as we rehearsed in the group I became more and more fluent. In the end my lines sounded natural and I had the feeling that I was not only saying them off by heart, but that they had become a part of myself and that I really meant what I said. Elena In this course we read Orwell’s 1984. When I started the book I was really confused because I did not understand anything. On the first pages of the book I tried to look up every single © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="186"?> 186 Chapter 9: Maximising high-quality input via the mother tongue word, but I quickly gave it up and took a German copy. I found out what the book was about and so I gave the English version a second chance. I found it really interesting and wanted to find out more. Additionally, I was eager to talk about it in class and so tried my best to take part in the discussions. Daniela Shakespeare’s plays, operas and musicals - works with a great intellectual and aesthetic appeal - can enrich our language classes. Instead of bypassing scenes and passages which would be too cumbersome to be dealt with in the original, the class could be presented a MT version. With such support, the following need not happen: In year 13, our Italian teacher decided to read a novel with us. It was Va’ dove ti porta il cuore by Susanna Tamaro. The text was simplified and the vocabulary was reduced. Nevertheless, we were not able to finish this novel, because we were very slow and almost translated the sentences word by word. So Italian lessons came to resemble our Latin lessons more and more. Corinna Here are some more practical suggestions, if parallel versions of the text are available. 1. Testing the teacher. The pupils can collect bilingual collocations, phrases and idioms. They should not focus on single word equivalents which could be too easy. Once the pupils have compiled their lists the fun starts: Pupil: Das wäre doch mal einen Versuch wert. In English, please. Teacher: It would be worth a try, wouldn’t it? Pupil: Kommst du mal kurz hierher. In idiomatic English, please. Teacher: Erm … Pupil: Could you come over (here) for a sec? 2. Simultaneous bilingual reading. The teacher slowly reads out the L1 text while the pupils read the FL text. They are allowed to interrupt: “Stop. Please repeat the last sentence. Go back to …” 3. Writing. After the learners have had some experience with mixed texts, ask them to write a text on a topic of their own choice. The text should primarily be FL, but can be freely mixed with MT expressions which they can’t yet handle in the FL. The teacher collects some of the texts, and gets the class to help him put all the MT parts into the FL. This way students are likely to express themselves more fully than they could do in a FL-only task. The technique somewhat resembles Curran’s CLL approach, which focuses on what the learners need to know for their individual interests. 4. Stories in halves. Tell a story in two halves, the first half in the MT and the second half in the FL. In groups, students share what they remember of the second half and write down words and phrases. Then the story is told again, but this time the first half in the FL and the second half in the MT. Again, students take notes after having listened to the story and try to reconstruct the story from their notes (Deller & Rinvolucri 2002, 57). 9.2.5 Re-translation At an advanced level, selected passages can be translated back into the original language, an exercise which became known in particular through the humanist Roger Ascham, the teacher and secretary of Elisabeth I. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="187"?> 9.2 Good news for language teachers 187 Only great texts by great writers such as Cicero or Demosthenes were used. First of all the teacher translated and explained the passage himself. Then the pupil translated, also orally. Then he had to translate the whole text in writing. The teacher then removed the original and after an interval of at least an hour the pupil translated his own text back into the foreign language. So strictly speaking the text is translated four times: three times into the mother tongue and once back into the original language. Apart from a few declination and conjugation tables, his method rendered the rest of the grammar redundant and made an excellent Latin scholar out of the queen (Kelly 1969, 177ff.; 2002). This is mastery learning at its best: a high-quality text is manipulated back and forth as often as is necessary for the pupil to internalise it completely. As we rarely use such difficult texts as Cicero, the procedure can be reduced to two translations, into the mother tongue and back. The teacher need not translate in advance but provides comprehension aids here and there. Re-translation activities should be reserved for short passages rich in content, for well-written, quotable texts which stand up to repeated treatment so that thoughts and modes of expression can be assimilated. They can be delayed in time so that pupils will not easily remember the complete original text. A text, familiar or unfamiliar, can also be offered to the pupils in the form of various linguistically mixed texts like the following, which the pupils read and (partially) translate back into the original. I wonder how anyone can have the face to condemn others when he reflects upon his own thoughts. A great part of our lives is occupied in reverie, and the more imaginative we are the more varied and vivid this will be. How many of us could face having our reveries automatically registered and set before us? We should be overcome with shame. We should cry that we could not really be as mean, as wicked, as petty, as selfish, as obscene, as snobbish, as vain, as sentimental, as that. Yet surely our reveries are as much part of us as our actions, and if there were a being to whom our inmost thoughts were known we might just as well be held responsible for them as for our deeds. Men forget the horrible thoughts that wander through their own minds, and are indignant when they discover them in others. (from Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up. 1963, 38f.) Worksheet How well do you remember the original text? As you read these linguistically mixed texts, try to replace the German words immediately by the original English expressions. Mixed text 1 (Ich frage mich) how anyone can have the face to condemn others when he reflects upon his own (Gedanken). A great part of our lives is occupied in reverie, (und je phantasievoller wir sind) the more varied and vivid this will be. How many of us could face having our reveries (automatisch registriert) and set before us? Wir würden (von Scham überwältig werden / vor Scham vergehen). We should cry that we could not really be as mean, as wicked, as petty, (so egoistisch, obszön, angeberisch, eitel und so sentimental) as that. Yet surely our reveries are as much part of us as our actions, and if there were a being, (dem unsere geheimsten Gedanken bekannt wären), we might just as well be held responsible for them as for our deeds. (Die Menschen vergessen die schauderhaften Gedanken) that wander through their minds, and are indignant when they discover them in others. Mixed text 2 I wonder how anyone can have the face (andere zu verdammen / verurteilen) when he reflects upon his own thoughts. (Ein großer Teil unseres Lebens) is occupied in reverie, and the more imaginative we are, (desto bunter und lebhafter) this will be. (Wie viele unter uns könnten es ertragen) having our reveries automatically registered and set before us? We should be overcome with shame. (Wir würden ausrufen) we could not really be as mean, (so böse), as © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="188"?> 188 Chapter 9: Maximising high-quality input via the mother tongue petty, as selfish, as obscene, as snobbish, as vain, as sentimental, as that. Yet surely (gehören unsere Tagträume ebenso zu uns wie unsere Handlungen), and if there were a being to whom our inmost thoughts were known, (könnten wir für diese genauso wie für unsere Taten verantwortlich gemacht werden). Men forget the horrible thoughts that wander through their minds, (und sind empört) when they discover them in others. The following procedure would be possible: (1) The text is read aloud / read through with necessary explanations given, to be followed by (2) simple comprehension questions. (3) The mixed text is handed out and the pupils are to read it aloud as if it were the original version, replacing the German words without actually saying them. Individual work: The pupils work on their own, and if they are not sure, they can look at the original version beside them. Pair work: Two pupils sit with their backs to each other, each with a different version of a mixed text, and test each other sentence by sentence. When they read, they will turn their heads slightly towards their partner. The trick with re-translation is to stay with a text for as long as is necessary in order to retain useful expressions contained in it. If the text was completely re-translated it would be destroyed as reading material. The disadvantage is that interference errors can sometimes occur. But if the pupils are immediately referred back to the original the errors do not lodge in their minds but are practised away. The pupils are forced to pay attention to the language when reading, so they are both mediumand messageoriented. Advanced pupils often make hardly any gains in their active language skills by reading if they read too fast and concentrate solely on the content rather than on the language. Instead, a dual focus is needed (chapter 1). 9.2.6 Language mix: outlandish proposals? Werner Lansburgh’s Dear Doosie is a humourous love story written as a series of letters in an interesting mix of German and English, and intended to teach German readers the finer points of English. It plays in a very funny way with the hazards of Germans who want to improve their English and sold almost a million copies. It’s an amusing read, and is also helpful for advanced English learners of German. Here is an excerpt from its sequel, Holidays for Doosie. As I said: der Grund, warum ich eine Liebesgeschichte schreiben will, und zwar eine mit Ihnen als Leser, Doosie - that reason is obvious: Ich liebe Sie. This, too, is obvious: you have given me the sweetest of all homes, a raison d’être, einen Lebenszweck, and at the time plenty of money. Lassen Sie mich das erklären, let me explain: after almost fifty years of miserable exile from Germany, since the days of Hitler, it was you who made it possible for me to return to my home country, at the age of seventy, to work as a writer at last. Yes, Doosie, ja, Du- Sie - als Leserin meiner Bücher haben Sie, hast du, diese späte Rückkehr in meine Heimat ermöglicht. Über eine halbe Million Exemplare, copies, sind nun verkauft … (Lansburgh 1991, 9f.) A series of books by O’Sullivan & Rösler, specially written for teenagers, employs still another kind of language mix, also meant for learners. The stories usually involve encounters between English and German teenagers who sometimes try to speak the partner language but generally stick to their own language and practise a sort of receptive bilingualism. This constellation prevents pupils from just reading the translation, which might happen with parallel versions. The narrator switches between the languages according to the situation: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="189"?> 9.2 Good news for language teachers 189 She marched straight up to him. “Was willst du? ” she demanded. Edzard wurde rot. “Wie meinst du das, was will ich? Ich habe doch gar nichts gesagt.” Fiona was angry. “Gar nichts gesagt, aber … aber …” Shit! This bloody language. To hell with it, she’d just have to try it in English. “You’ve been following me all day long. I mean it’s bad enough you having crashed into me on the bicycle yesterday and then having raced off without saying a word, but if you want to apologize, you don’t really have to follow me around all day to do so.” “Sorry”, entschuldigte sich Edzard. Er zögerte einen Moment. “I didn’t want to make you sick”, fuhr er fort. Fiona had to smile. “Make me sick? What do you mean? ” “Verstehst du mich, wenn ich Deutsch rede? ” fragte er zurück. “Yeah, more or less.” “Ich wollte sagen, daß ich dich nicht kränken wollte.” “You didn’t want to annoy me. O.K., but then why were you following me? ” (O’Sullivan & Rösler, 1986: 12) The setting is Germany, and so Fiona first tries German, but gives up soon. The dialogue is so well constructed that the encapsulated language lessons are quite natural. Here Fiona can easily clarify what Edzard wanted to express. There are other ways in which the authors give equivalents and help the readers through the text without really translating: (1) “Do you think I want to get involved in this? Anyway, it’s not really any of our business, is it? ” She walked on. Edzard sah sie von der Seite an. Vielleicht hatte sie recht. Eigentlich ging es sie ja wirklich nichts an (Perhaps she was right. Strictly speaking, it was none of their business) (p. 20). (2) “Fiona! So ein Zufall. Ich wollte gerade ein Eis essen.” Edzard tat überrascht. (“Fiona! What a coincidence. I was going to have an icecream,” Edzard said, as if he was surprised) “Yes, it’s quite a coincidence all right”, lied Fiona, who had just finished her second milkshake wondering if he would come along (p. 26, translations added). In (1), the expression “it’s not our business” is skilfully picked up by the idiomatic equivalent “es geht sie ja wirklich nichts an”, in (2) the word “Zufall” is explained by “coincidence”. Former pupils rave about these texts. Most of them got to know them in bookshops, not through their teacher: When I was looking for a new book in the shelves of a local bookstore at the age of perhaps thirteen, I stumbled across a book called It could be worse - oder? by O’Sullivan / Rösler … I had never read an authentic English text before, all we did at school was boring textbook work. In retrospect I would say that at this time I first became intrinsically motivated to learn the language. I desperately wanted to read the book and, surprisingly, it worked out fine … From this point onwards, I started to read English books. Britta These books were also welcomed by third semester students of German in the USA: I’ve really enjoyed reading this book. It has given me a lot more confidence in my reading capabilities. It’s funny enough to keep you entertained. I didn’t really ever dread reading the book, like I might have with a different story. I think it is much less intimidating. The character whose sections were in English gave the story a little more depth because the Irish character couldn’t speak perfect German (Dollenmayer & Even 2005, 14f.). Such has been the pervasive prejudice against any MT intrusion on FL pedagogy, that O’Sullivan & Rösler originally had to resort to a non-schoolbook publisher to launch their now so well-received series of bilingual readers. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="190"?> 190 Chapter 9: Maximising high-quality input via the mother tongue Language mixes like the following also deserve more attention: Primary school teachers in immigrant areas in the UK have no fear of mixing mother tongue and target language in their teaching to five-six year olds … A major technique they use with children who come to school with virtually no English is to tell them stories mostly in mothertongue and a bit in English. Imagine your mother-tongue is English and the target language is Greek: “Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll archizo: once upon a time there was a hen, a kota, who used to visit the library quite often. She’d go into the vivliothiki and choose two or three vivlia from the shelves. She’d take the vivlia over to the man at the desk, the vivliothikario. The vivliothikarios would stamp the vivlia and hand them to the kota, saying “Here you are, Kiria Kota, please bring the vivlia back by the end of the next evthomata, by the end of the next week”. And so the kota would leave the vivliothiki with the vivlia under her wing.” In the primary school situation in the UK such bilingual stories are told and retold with more and more of the story in the target language until finally the kids can cope with the whole text in the target language (Rinvolucri 1990, 26). Lexical bridges are provided by gradually weaving the FL into a native language text (Bradley 2003). This is also the basic idea of Blair’s Power-Glide Language Courses. Stories such as The Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears build comprehension because they’re so familiar. Foreign words and phrases are tied to those one already knows. In Chinese primary schools this kind of text work has been tried out successfully for some years. The sandwich stories, as they are called, present a “novel and dynamic approach to teaching English by starting in Chinese” (Ji Yuhua 2002). Used the other way round, i.e. for English-speaking learners of Chinese, “Little Red Riding Hood” would sound like this: Little Red Riding Hood asked, Oh, Nainai, how come your yanjing are so big? ” Lang answered, “My yanjing are very big so that I can see you clearly.” Little Red Riding Hood asked, “Oh, Nainai, how come your erduo are so long? ” Lang answered, “My erduo are very long so that I can hear you clearly.” … The story can be told several times, each time with more Chinese words than before, perhaps until it is all Chinese. Of course, in true primary school tradition, the children put on a small performance after they have learned each story. Ji Yuhua (2002, 42) claims that the embedded FL items are acquired with ease and in large quantities, and that children benefit in their development in both English and Chinese. He goes on to say: Teachers and parents are happy to see the young learners, after class, spend more time listening to their English recordings and reading their English books. And they have noticed a remarkable difference between ‘sandwich class’ pupils and ‘non-sandwich class’ pupils in the degree of willingness to use English in their everyday conversations. Meanwhile, Ji has written or co-authored more than thirty bilingual story books, among them the popular “Uncle Beard” series with tapes in his own voice. More stories were made into cartoons and shown on China’s central TV station. Just as Dodson qualified his bilingual method as “self-destructive”, Ji insists that his technique is transitional, to be abandoned when it has achieved its objectives. “Some of the pupils have happily crossed the sandwich bridge to a new world of storyland where monolingual EFL stories are provided with a beginning vocabulary of 700-1000 words” (Ji Yuhua 2002, 44f.). © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="191"?> 9.2 Good news for language teachers 191 The same trick is convincingly argued and demonstrated by Thomas, who introduces his Spanish course in the following way: First, a few words about the Spanish language. It is not entirely foreign, alien to English but there is a broad, common basis of familiarity between both English and Spanish, so much that there is a large percentage of su vocabulario inglès (of your English vocabulary) that is very similar to Spanish. Thousands of words and, para comenzar, (‘to commence’ or ‘to begin with’), I am going to give you a few keys to show you how you can inmediatamente (immediately) transformar (transform) su vocabulario inglès (your English vocabulary) into Spanish (Solity 2008, 85). This is, of course, a beginning, and the idea is to get students to the point where the activity of reading in a FL is relished just as it is in the MT - because we experience three-dimensional characters, highly charged emotions and the unpredictability and suspense which make us read on to the end. The main problem is here to resolve the conflict between the cognitive maturity of the learners and the childishness of beginners’ texts. Keeping the input “narrow” and various ways of MT support are all intended to overcome this problem. Only those who read alone and are not afraid of reading in a foreign language outside class have emancipated themselves. Sometimes she handed a pile of comic strips round the class at the end of the lesson. Anyone who was interested could take a sheet from the pile and read it at home. There was hardly anyone who did not take a sheet. Petra “Good readers always have homework” (Esquith, 2003, 155). Guided private reading is also the way out for the exceptionally gifted student. The indispensable ‘must’: teachers have to have a large number of books and texts at their disposal. The children can browse through a text, skip pages, not read to the end - just as we do when we are free to do as we like. As far as possible we want to cater for the individual interests and turn our pupils into autonomous readers. It is always easy to pick up on already existing interests, and the more unusual and specialised, the better. Where these interests have developed, they must be met fully. Then those moments of harmony between child and book will become a matter of course. 9.2.7 Videos and DVDs At home, listening repeatedly to a video film as background noise or watching it consciously can extend one’s passive vocabulary over a short period of several weeks, and effortlessly enable one to acquire phrases and idioms in the target language. And when I discovered that Dutch TV showed English, American and Australian movies and other programmes in the original language with subtitles, I exclusively watched the Dutch and Belgian channels. I believe that is how I really learned English; without going abroad. Hermine I was crazy about Oliver Stone’s film The Doors which I had on DVD. After having watched it several times in German I started to watch it in English. Luckily English subtitles were included. So I watched it with the subtitles. Jonas The way to do this is to get hold of two versions of the same film - one in the target language and the other in the mother tongue. Technically, things have become a lot easier with films on DVD which provide several soundtracks and subtitles - the jewel © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="192"?> 192 Chapter 9: Maximising high-quality input via the mother tongue in the crown of FLT at school or at home. Film sequences can be listened to and read so that finally we almost know them by heart, perhaps in the following stages: 1. L1 version, which would usually be the dubbed version Select several scenes and watch them several times until you know them well, including background sounds etc. Pupils can become aware of the non-matching mouth movements and, in the case of culture-specific material, detect clashes of the dubbed text with the gestures and facial expressions of the actors. 2. Foreign language version (usually the original version), with L1 subtitles, if necessary. 3. Foreign language version with foreign language subtitles. Pupils can spot differences between the subtitles and what is actually said. 4. Foreign language version without subtitles. 5. Selected scenes: pictures with the sound volume turned down or muted, with foreign language subtitles. Pupils speak the lines, trying to imitate the actor as best they can, perhaps focusing on one character only. 6. The same as above, without subtitles. A lot of use should be made of the pause button. Pupils can speak along or repeat as they wish, and a phrase can be fast-forwarded if need be. As the subtitles often do not correspond exactly to what is actually said the teacher should not use a DVD without preparation. The mismatch can be turned into the attractive task of finding the exact words that were spoken on the DVD. Sound and picture splitting is equally attractive. Half of the pupils in the class turn their backs to the screen and try to work out what is happening just by listening. The other half watches normally. Then those who have only listened guess what has happened and quiz the others. 9.3 Repeated hearing and reading with a dual focus In our view, comprehended input is central to language acquisition, and one of the main functions of the classroom is to provide the learners with a maximum amount of texts fully comprehended on both levels, functional and formal. The teacher, with some help from the pupils, cracks the texts open like nuts, for the pupils to digest. Digesting needs time, so pupils are encouraged to do some of the work at home. Repeated hearings of texts explained in the lessons can do a lot towards developing the learners’ mental grammar. Also, comprehensibility of texts not yet fully comprehended will increase with repeated hearings. The human brain is built to analyse language while listening with understanding. Listening can be done while attending to other things: tapes can run in the background while working in the kitchen, while doing other routine jobs, in the bathroom or before falling asleep. The important thing is that these concurrent activities should not be so complex or compelling as to divert attention entirely away from the aural input. A walkman can be used while doing the shopping or waiting for the bus, while commuting or jogging. Pupils should therefore be provided with books and corresponding audiobooks spoken by well-trained actors. If we listen to selected passages several times and ruminate over them, i.e. heed the language in some way, the sounds and phrases will be anchored in the subsconscious, and we will soon pick up turns of speech, and even make whole texts a part of ourselves. Hopefully, idioms © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="193"?> 9.3 Repeated hearing and reading with a dual focus 193 and phrases which re-occur regularly will be absorbed in such a way that they will be ready for use in other contexts and different situations, perhaps with minor alterations. It cannot be stressed too much that second language learning takes time and that frequency of target language input is crucial. The efficient use of time involves both better comprehension (through skilful MT support in class) and frequent language contact (through the development of regular extramural listening habits, making use of bits and pieces of free time). Suggestopedia is a case in point. Courses have full stories that contain dialogues within them. Each story is about two pages long or even longer. The target language text is given on the left hand side with the translation given on the right hand side, corresponding line by line with the text in the target language. The tape for each lesson repeats the story four times, but the translation is taken away when students listen to the text a third and fourth time, because at this stage students are expected to be fully aware of the meaning. We surmise that these are the key factors which account for the success of suggestopedic courses - input comprehended on both levels plus consolidation - perhaps more so than the musical element, relaxation, “desuggestion” and related placebo effects which have attracted so much attention. This is not to say that lying on the carpet or leaning back in an armchair, listening to baroque music and letting the language wash over you are just pleasant extras. They can be useful devices to clear a psychological space between concerns, including inhibition, and other forms of distraction that would interfere from previous daily events with the beginning of a very demanding task: listening to long text in the FL with many new words and constructions. Repeated reading also means that we keep half an eye on new, interesting and useful language items which we would like to retain. This is the dual focus explained in our first chapter. For language learning, it is less useful to rush through just another thriller in order to feel the satisfaction of finally understanding the mystery and seeing that the guilty receive what they deserve. We would then only focus on the content and simply overlook language important for learning. But when learners read, some attention should go to how things are expressed, to the lexico-grammar we might wish to retain for personal use. Chen Lei, an influential modern Chinese reformer, uses the MT in the classroom for meaning conveyance in much the same way as proposed here. Learning is accelerated to such an extent that learners can soon be swamped with FL reading matter. The pupils have four English lessons per week, plus one hour of reading as homework per day. So most of the time they learn independently. To provide the pupils with authentic English materials, the school purchases hundreds of original English children’s story books, science books as well as novels from abroad every year. The pupils can read whatever they like and as much as they can. After one month of learning, learners are able to recite a number of children’s nursery rhymes; after six months, they are able to recite some short stories; after one year, they can read some short articles; after three years, they can read original English novels. As stated and demonstrated on the school’s official website, many learners at Chen’s bilingual school have read more than one hundred English books after three or four years of learning. Some of them can read the original version of Harry Potter books and write an introduction to every chapter in English, even before the completion of primary schooling (Wu 2009). © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="194"?> 194 Chapter 9: Maximising high-quality input via the mother tongue The bilingual reform proposed here means that FL lessons fork off in a new direction. With the MT helping out, there will be less need for a grammatical grading and for a predetermined vocabulary dose, and a greater emphasis on authentic materials. Texts are accessible that give learners visions of a larger life rather than restrict them to the bony and bare requirements of ordering a meal or booking a room. Pupils can spend a great deal of time studying by themselves, at home with their books, audiobooks and DVDs, and can develop much more initiative of their own when choosing what to read, watch, and listen to. They can become relaxed and autonomous learners, free from the constraints and irritations of social situations. FLL virtually takes care of itself. 9.4 Hints for student teachers • When you half read, half tell a story, use a music stand for your text in order to free your hands for expressive gestures etc. • For story-telling, you might light a candle or do some brief relaxation techniques first. • Make it something special, celebrate the event. Your listeners should be in a state of relaxed alertness. • You might end your stories with a standard phrase such as: “And that’s the way it really happened - give or take a lie or two.” • Get inspiration from professional story-tellers. • Try to get interested students to learn whole passages of their favourite books by heart. • For this, let them off other homework. • Set demanding targets in order to increase vocabulary size quickly and enhance the comprehensibility of authentic texts. Study questions and tasks 1. Teacher talk: Collect pragmatic idioms / conversational formulas needed by teachers (To get back to what I was saying / Sorry, you’ve lost me / Let’s put it this way …) 2. Invent your own fantasy trips: You ride on a cloud that floats over the place where you live; you walk in a magic wood; you walk on a lonely beach and pick up interesting things that the sea has washed up on the shore. These are some popular ideas for you to work out, but perhaps you can find quite different ideas. 3. Practise half-reading, half-telling at home and do a polished performance in class or on video. 4. Make up your own linguistically mixed texts (modelled on the Maugham-text) and teach them to your fellow students. Choose the proper level of difficulty. 5. Can we expect durable language gains from just listening and reading (= incidental learning)? What can be done to increase the pick-up rate of new words and expressions from just exposure? Which listening and reading conditions are most conducive to vocabulary learning? 6. Think up some post-reading tasks to reinforce learning (written tasks, interactive tasks …). 7. Are special exercises needed to train students in inferencing, i.e. guessing unknown expressions from context? © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="195"?> Study questions and tasks 195 8. When we read foreign texts for pleasure, the goal of learning a language coalesces with the process of learning. Discuss. 9. “You can lead a student to a book but you can’t make him read.” How can this problem be solved? 10. How can you organize extensive out-of-class reading to maximise the amount of exposure? Would you prefer graded readers, which reduce the vocabulary load of authentic texts, over bilingual readers, which leave the original texts intact? 11. What is your personal experience of the conflict between learners’ interests and intellectually unchallenging FL content? © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="196"?> Chapter 10: Translation as a fifth skill - a forgotten art Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light; that breaketh the shell, that we may eat the kernel; that putteth aside the curtaine, that we may looke into the most Holy place. Preface to the King James Bible of 1611 Translation, as a process of conveying messages across linguistic and cultural barriers, is an eminently communicative activity, one whose use could well be considered in a wider range of teaching situations than may currently be the case. Alan Duff 10.1 ‘Racist park’ Translation into the MT as a classroom activity comparable to listening or reading has been confined too long to a wall-flower existence. It should have a place in the FL classroom. 1. Translation is the quintessential cultural activity. The history of the western Christian world begins with the translation of Biblical texts into Greek and Latin. The translation of Roman law into western languages is also of epoch-making significance. Buddhism could never have gained a foothold in China if countless monks and scholars had not translated old Indian texts into their mother tongue and introduced a Buddhist body of thinking into their country through their unremitting work. It is only thanks to them that Buddha became completely and irrevocably Chinese, just like Confucianism which arose there. “Never has history seen a deeper cultural transmission” is how R. Bernstein (2001, 95f.) characterises the translation work in China in the fifth and sixth century which gave a direction and aim to the intellectual and spiritual life of millions of people. Goethe attached more cultural value to the art of translation than to other language skills. And very early on a battle was taken up in the spirit of Goethe against those reformers of the late nineteenth century who overshot the mark and wanted to abolish translation. The art of translation, the journey back and forth between languages and cultures, will remain a first-class scientific, dialectic and aesthetic form of education. 2. Pupils must learn to understand before they start to criticise. Translation is the most rigorous test of understanding. Translations must be accurate, and accuracy demands extremely attentive reading, including reading between the lines. It is perhaps the exercise with the greatest educational value, redeeming us from remaining linguistically naive. More often than not, it is a creative endeavour. It requires refined elaborations in the search for the best rendering of the intentions of the text. Sentences cry out for re-writing, even metaphors have to be altered and new images have to be found, while being faithful to the original. 3. Translating, comparing, reflecting on the various possibilities of translation and the limits of translatability provide deep insights into the nature of languages. What can be translated effortlessly and naturally? What can only be rendered approximately after much searching and deliberation? What can only be paraphrased awkwardly? What defies all translation, and why? © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="197"?> 10.2 Translation as a multi-purpose tool 197 All translation entails thinking about languages, the relationship between language and thought, language and the mind, and about the dialogue held between the languages. Translations can make us experience the alienation of our own ways of speaking and thinking, the goal emphasized by the “language awareness” movement. Comparing and contrasting are language awareness activities par excellence. 4. Last, but not least, translation is beneficial to the real needs of learners because it is direly needed in modern societies where bizarre mistranslations abound. As German tourists in France in love of French food and of old abbeys and castles, we’ve encountered them at every turn despite the fact that these countries have a long tradition of teaching neighbouring languages. In China, a theme park devoted to the customs of ethnic minorities was officially termed ‘racist park’ (Wu 2009). It is obvious that public schools cannot turn out professional translators, but to correct these ludicrous texts professional translators are rarely needed. Pupils, perhaps aware of the instrumental usefulness of translation in real life, want to translate, as ascertained by a survey in England: Translation was another popular activity, with pupils working in pairs on translating short pieces of text. The pupils described this as satisfying. So rarely seen as a part of the communicative MFL classroom, there might well be convincing reasons for introducing aspects of this further down the school (Fisher 2001, 37). For Leman (2000, 24), the skill of translation is a vital aspect of foreign language learning with a high surrender value, but something which has been taboo in this country [= England] for the last 15 years now. Those few students who go on to use their foreign language in their own professional lives (other than teachers) do little else, and my pupils have always found this exercise a rewarding one, because it is a meaningful and realistic exercise. It strikes us as really odd that a modern approach which sets great store by cross-cultural awareness should have given translation the cold shoulder. Harmer’s 370-pagelong methodology handbook (2002) has nothing to say about translation as a skill in its own right, to give but one example. The elimination of translation as a special skill from FL curricula can only be called a scandal. 10.2 Translation as a multi-purpose tool In practical terms, translation brings a number of beneficial aspects to the general process of language learning, including the following: • It allows time for reflection on the elements of a text, as opposed to direct spoken communication, where fluency and interactivity are predominant • It focuses strongly on preciseness and accuracy, particularly in explicating and refining meaning - again the learner has the luxury of time to formulate and reformulate text, including resort to dictionaries or human resource • It can be asynchronous with the classroom activities when appropriate, allowing students to apply themselves to whatever extent their motivation drives them • It can be integrated with communicative tasks. “The questions the translator usually solves are questions worth discussing with others” (Duff 1989, 14) © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="198"?> 198 Chapter 10: Translation as a fifth skill - a forgotten art • It provides the individual, including the socially introverted, with the opportunity to work conscientiously outside the constraints of a large classroom cohort where students compete for the chance to contribute to collective communicative events • In the same vein, it allows students to display the level of receptive knowledge they have attained as individuals, thus presenting an extra and perhaps fairer element to appraise the extent of their individual learning; it is, in fact, a reasonably accessible, durable and recordable attestation of significant aspects of their learning • As an assessment of an individual’s broad language awareness, it is arguably unrivalled and would seem to represent the sort of validity that the cloze test commands in terms of structural and textual understanding. As with MT use more generally, we are all too well aware of the enervating peril that overdosing on translation could lead to. The lazy teacher or language disadvantaged teacher might be attracted to the less teacher-focused, less spontaneously demanding and more management friendly classroom that individual or group translation sessions could entail. We have little empathy with the epoch where French, German or English lessons bore a striking resemblance to Latin translation lessons. On the other hand, we would maintain that the advantages espoused above outweigh the risk of backsliding. The pedagogical dictum is always that any task or activity that suspends communication in the L2 must ultimately pay dividends in increased language productivity. Translation, after all, is a subset of reading comprehension, whether we use it openly as an explicit class activity or individually as an internal device to help us clarify meaning. There will manifestly be occasions when overt translation, particularly of text which is culturally or semantically rich, will be of considerable advantage to learners, where the teacher’s knowledgeable collaborative input will strongly enhance student language understanding, personal conceptualisation and/ or the associated communicative interaction, where the dividends, whether immediate or longer term, are clear and convincing. As students move to more advanced levels in their language development, translation of content-laden text can provide the real grist for immediate communicative activities. There is only so much that can be drawn from students’ immediate interests, topical events and culturally derived opinions to generate a full range of structural and lexical development. Teachers, examiners and even the students often deplore the vacuous, contentless responses that students are prone to produce when overly contrived communicative practice of the medium becomes the message. Reading comprehension and its allied tool, translation, provide much more extensive content for communicative activity. Judicious application of any learning tool remains the nub of the matter. 10.3 Suggested activities The types of texts to be used for translation activities will vary significantly according to the language level of the students, significantly both in terms of their MT and in the target language capacities. Some of the cultural, aesthetic and dialectical benefits of translation mentioned above might seem to be located rather at the top end of the schooling continuum, as students mature in their own conceptualisation of the world and their appreciation of the human condition. However, like most skills, translation is © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="199"?> 10.3 Suggested activities 199 developed progressively with time and application, with its salience for understanding both language and culture emerging as insights gradually form about how the languages differ in the way they present ideas and how the cultures differ in the way they give importance to various aspects of life and hence to the metaphors they use. It is therefore appropriate, as Fisher intimates above, to begin the basic skill development as early as possible. It will be clear in the following activities that some lie at the beginning of the spectrum, where equivalences and approximations at the denotation level of meaning may well predominate, while others contain the stimuli for much more subtle and deep understandings at the connotation and symbolic levels. 1. Oral translations into the MT to practise reading comprehension. One method is to give out a couple of fairly easy newspaper articles, about half a page long. The students should work individually, sight-read the text and translate it straight into the MT, mumbling the translation to themselves. No dictionaries are allowed. Some students will be asked to present their translations to the class. The class will decide if the text is interesting enough for them to hear in the original and perhaps comment on it. Summarising or giving the minimal gist of an article in the MT can also be done. 2. Comparing the FL original and its translation. A wealth of fascinating authentic materials is at our fingertips. What do they tell us about the leeway of interpretation? Will we notice frequently overlooked difficulties, the concealed traps we’ve stumbled into? Can we see translations as a service to the original, or as disloyalty and betrayal? Can translating be an art, a re-creation of the original in another language? Comparing film (or book) titles can be done in the manner of “learning by teaching”. Students (working as individuals or in pairs) can research films on the internet and explain their findings to the class. For instance, translations of German film titles roughly fall into three categories: Identical with the German original: Der blaue Engel Bittere Ernte Alice in den Städten The Blue Angel Angry Harvest Alice in the Cities L’ange bleu Amère récolte Alice dans les villes Slightly different from the original: Massnahmen gegen Fanatiker Jagdszenen aus Niederbayern Precautions against fanatics Hunting scenes from Bavaria Different idea in English: Schachnovelle Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle Brainwashed The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser Le joueur d’échecs L’énigme de Kaspar Hauser Students need not know the films, but can explain and discuss the differences by referring to the plots which can be found on various internet sites. Of course, lively discussions can arise about films pupils have come to know well and like. They might want to suggest their own translations. Another suggestion would be to make a list in class of all time movie greats along with their titles in several languages known to all or some pupils. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="200"?> 200 Chapter 10: Translation as a fifth skill - a forgotten art My Fair Lady High Noon Gone with the wind Jaws My Fair Lady Zwölf Uhr mittags Vom Winde verweht Der weiße Hai My Fair Lady Le train sifflera trois fois Autant en emporte le vent Les dents de la mer Well-known television series could be included (American Idol = Deutschland sucht den Superstar etc.). 3. Comparing several translations. Shakespeare, Melville’s Moby Dick or Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye have been translated into German more than twice, with eminent critics discussing the qualities of new translations coming out. These texts have high aesthetic value and can engage the readers. In Europe, at an advanced level of L2 study in the senior school, comparing translations would offer the opportunity to become familiar with William Shakespeare, the ‘man of the millennium’, by presenting “purple passages” in different versions. Just as fascinating would be a comparison of verses, stories and parables taken from the Bible, something which could also be left to the MT teacher. Another unique and appealing source of materials could be self-translations by bilingual writers. 4. Pupils translate by themselves, preferably individually or with a partner, armed with bilingual dictionaries. In doing so, they are more likely to notice that a kind of “delanguaging” or “déverbalisation” (Seleskovitch 1975) occurs. Translators, in order to make the text theirs, must disregard the original wording in favour of the message, immerse themselves in the meanings expressed and learn to appreciate the “force” of a passage. The pupils can rack their brains over good, content-rich short or very short texts: from Oscar Wilde’s or G.K. Chesterton’s aphorisms through to anything that is worthy of quotation, the openings or endings of novels, dialogues from cult films and commercials. Proverbs, little nuggets of folk wisdom, can provide bridges between the cultures represented in a classroom. And other set expressions: And they lived happily ever after Und sie lebten von nun an glücklich und zufrieden bis an ihr Ende Ils vécurent heureux et eurent beaucoup d’enfants Fueron felices y comieron perdices. The inevitable approximations and imponderables should provoke discussion and speculation in the target language and develop clarity and flexibility of thinking. Could anything be more communicative? All opportunities for L2 discussion must be seen as grist to the communicative mill. Something that can provide both motivation and support for translation at various levels of attainment is short text such as that found in globalised advertisements for Coca Cola, cars, electronic equipment etc. These can be rich sources for “facilitated translation”, often supported by familiar visual contexts (the product image or associated scenes) which can help even early learners of a language. Often such internationalisation provides thematically similar advertisements (sometimes with localised cultural enrichment) for which students have been already prepared in meaning terms through the L1 parallel versions. The translation unit is the sentence and the paragraph, and the context of the whole passage has to be constantly kept in mind. At the “top end” of the language learning spectrum, such as European Sections or university classes, where literature becomes a significant source of both messageand © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="201"?> 10.3 Suggested activities 201 medium-oriented language input, we might expect translation to provide insights into tricky conceptual texts. At this level, the students might try, for example, to translate a conceptually significant passage of text from E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel, which is certainly not for the average student. But in countries where English is the first FL with a considerable part of the curriculum allocated to it, we can aim high: We cannot understand each other, except in a rough and ready way; we cannot reveal ourselves, even when we want to; what we call intimacy is only a makeshift; perfect knowledge is an illusion. But in the novel we can know people perfectly, and, apart from the general pleasure of reading, we can find here a compensation for their dimness in life … They are people whose secret lives are visible or might be visible: we are people whose secret lives are invisible. And that is why novels, even when they are about wicked people, can solace us; they suggest a more comprehensible and thus a more manageable human race, they give us the illusion of perspicacity and of power. Last but not least, and perhaps most to the students’ taste, selected film scenes could be translated and then acted out in both languages. Here is a suggestion as to how to proceed. As an incentive the pupils can be presented with a few excellent translations, for example that of the famous aphorism by the Duke of Wellington, often misunderstood: I am wretched even at the moment of victory, and I always say that next to a battle lost, greatest misery is a battle gained. Ich fühle mich miserabel sogar im Augenblick des Sieges und sage immer, dass eine gewonnene Schlacht ein fast so großes Elend ist wie eine verlorene. Or perhaps: Es gibt kein größeres Elend als eine verlorene Schlacht. Gleich danach aber kommt die gewonnene Schlacht. So the teacher prepares a list of very short texts, the first two of which have been translated. The instructions could be formulated as follows: 1. Study the first two items on the list, along with the translations. 2. Translate the other items from the list which have not yet been translated, everyone by themselves. 3. Come together in pairs to compare and discuss your translations. In the discussion, try using as much English as possible. Produce a final version together. 4. Read out the original and the translation to the class. Briefly comment on your translation and earlier versions. 5. Briefly comment on the idea(s) expressed in the text. 6. Translate your text back into the original. Your aim is to produce a word-perfect reconstruction. 5. Re-translation or double translation needs mentioning again (see chapter 9). Teachers can get groups to work on different texts and translate them into their mother tongue. Translations are then exchanged and translated back into the FL. The groups should treat the translations as original texts (ideally, they should not be aware of the fact that they are translating texts which are themselves translations) Do the reverse translations arrive at the original texts? Have any important meanings - explicit and implicit - been lost? Which words, and which structures, have changed? At what stage, and why, did the changes take place? Was the first, or the second translation © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="202"?> 202 Chapter 10: Translation as a fifth skill - a forgotten art poorly done, or perhaps both? Ultimately, comparing the re-translations with the original texts will reveal a lot about the translation process. This procedure “has been received enthusiastically by both colleagues and students”, reports Edge (1986, 124). It provides superb communicative impulses. The depths of this unrecognised activity with its high communicative potential have not yet been plumbed. 6. Hunting for mistranslations is a worthwhile sport to be taken up with gaiety. Publishing them in internet forums can be an additional incentive. If possible, the translators, authors and publishers concerned should be informed. Pupils learn incidentally how important it can be to know texts in the original. They learn to look carefully, experience something about being true to detail, will not be satisfied with approximate meaning as this could hide a mistake in the translation or perhaps just a printing error. They notice how necessary background knowledge is to clarify small details, how dated texts can be because allusions are no longer understood. Pupils check the translations of up-to-date texts provided on the internet. Here the virtues of the principle of mastery learning are demonstrated: trying to do one’s best, finding the patience for attention to detail, not being satisfied with only the mediocre. 10.4 Developing the mother tongue Translation into the MT is always two things: (1) understanding the original (2) making your own text. It follows that part of the benefit of translation work goes to the developing of MT skills.“Unfortunately when I was young nobody told me that you can learn to write German by translating from another language, otherwise I would have started to do it sooner”, the novelist Hans Erich Nossack notes. So criticism of literary translations should mainly be a matter of MT lessons. As we struggle to come to terms with a text, we are cultivating our minds along with our mother tongue. We can detect euphemisms, calculated ambiguity, polite lying, jargon and mere gobbledygook. In an effort to understand and be accurate, we may find that the “redeployment” of troops really means withdrawal, “collateral damage” means civilian casualties in military action; and the “Endlösung”, i.e. “final solution” actually meant murder. We recognize verbal smog, long-windedness and phrases that are stamped with the flavour of prejudice. We liberate ourselves from word fetishism, because it may take the words of another language to free us from words. The fact that translations into the MT typically develop students’ competence in either language can only be beneficial. In countries with smaller languages where university instruction is all-English, vernacular traditions and languages might be endangered. Educated people must commit themselves to developing the local languages (Canagarajah 1999). But even in mainland Europe it is necessary to safeguard the vitality of major languages, for instance in the domains of science, economics and computer technology. Study questions and tasks 1. Search the Internet for the “most erroneous sentence of the year”, “the worst opening sentence of the year”, “the shortest published sentence of the year”. If it’s difficult to translate, is it worth the effort? What is your best sentence of the year? © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="203"?> Study questions and tasks 203 2. Do you know famous opening paragraphs of novels, e.g. James M. Barrie’s Peter Pan? Translate them and compare them with published translations. 3. Select three texts of different types from among those indicated under Suggested Activities. Explain • The reason for using translation as a teaching tool with this text • What aspects of the text you might focus student attention on • How (that is, the teaching/ learning procedure) and when (e.g. in class, as homework) you would conduct the activity • How much class time, if relevant, the activity would take • How the activity would benefit immediate or longer term communication in the FL. 4. Communication requires a content to communicate about. Do you think that cultural awareness can best be promoted through the study of literature? 5. In what sense can language awareness be a part of cultural awareness? © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="204"?> Chapter 11: More bilingual practice 11.1 Brainstorming Let’s imagine we brainstorm rules for behaviour in class under the headings “It’s OK to …” and “It’s not OK to …”. If pupils are told to suggest things only in the FL, a lot of ideas, possibly the best, go by the board. However, in a bilingual approach high vocabulary targets can be set and pursued, and suggestions put forward in the MT are welcome. They could be preceded by a formula like “May I propose something in German? ” The teacher either immediately finds an appropriate formulation in the FL, or writes the MT expression up on the board. At the end of the brainstorming session the native language expressions will be looked up in a dictionary and replaced by FL terms. In all message-oriented tasks sprinklings of the MT should not only be allowed but welcomed if they provide new ideas and make it possible for a pupil who is at a loss for a word to continue in the FL. Teachers could also issue vocabulary request sheets for such topics as travel or sports, so as to guarantee a full range of ideas from the pupils. With a bilingual approach, learners progress fast to the point where they take the FL seriously. Can anything be more communicative when pupils can say what they really want to? Brainstorming on a set topic could be used as an introduction to “generative writing” in the FL. Students try to pile up as many examples of a suitable pattern as they can find, not in a haphazard fashion, but to achieve a literary effect. The idea is to use repetition of a sentence pattern in the way poets have used it. Students can be encouraged to present their own ideas preferably in the FL but with freedom to use the MT to seek from the teacher essential forms necessary to express their concepts. Here is a famous poem by Erich Fried, which, incidentally, illustrates a major difference in the use and non-use of the definite article between English and German: Es ist Unsinn It is nonsense sagt die Vernunft says Reason Es ist was es ist It is what it is sagt die Liebe says Love Es ist Unglück It is misfortune sagt die Berechnung says Reckoning Es ist nichts als Schmerz It is nothing but pain sagt die Angst Says Fear Es ist aussichtslos It has no perspective sagt die Einsicht says Insight Es ist was es ist It is what it is sagt die Liebe says Love Es ist lächerlich It is ridiculous sagt der Stolz says Pride Es ist leichtsinnig It is frivolous sagt die Vorsicht says Caution Es ist unmöglich It is impossible sagt die Erfahrung says Experience © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="205"?> 11.3 Monolingual and bilingual vocabulary lists 205 Es ist was es ist It is what it is sagt die Liebe. Says Love. Listing things is a well-known poetic device, which, as Kenneth Koch, the New York poet, has shown in his work with children, can well be handled by them, because it is so reminiscent of the verbal games they play. Here are some two-line poems his children produced with sentence variations: I used to be an outlaw But now I’ve hung up my guns. I used to be a hard studier But now I’ve gone mad. I used to be a skeleton But now I am a person. I used to be in love with many boys But now I am in love with one boy. Koch (1974, 343) Once given a model like this, incorporating the focussed structure, students should be able to produce their own versions individually or in small groups, with support from the teacher and dictionaries where necessary. 11.2 Word trails Before a new text passage is read, the teacher writes a list of MT expressions on the board. The English equivalents of these words occur in the same order in the text. The pupils have to find them and circle them while reading the text. When the task has been completed, the MT words on the board are replaced by the FL words. Then the pupils try to retell the passage they have read with the help of the words and phrases on the board. The exercise sets a trail along which the text can be read and understood, says Appel (1990, 5). The search task gives the pupils a reading aim and partially focuses their attention on the language - the dual focus again. This can also be done as a listening activity, with the students raising their hands when they hear the FL equivalents. 11.3 Monolingual and bilingual vocabulary lists “Innumerable dead Vocables (no dead Language, for they themselves knew no Language) they crammed into us and called it fostering the growth of mind”, says Carlyle in Sartor Resartus. It was certainly right to raise doubts about endless lists of bilingual word equivalents such as message - Botschaft, which could be misleading when the context was forgotten (Botschaft is also ‘embassy’), and to brand those little vocabulary note-books kept by pupils as a vocabulary cemetery. For a few years, some German coursebooks had no bilingual vocabulary part: There was the new vocabulary, the phonetic transcription and the explanation in English. I found it easier to learn the words with the help of the German equivalent. So, on the left, I wrote down the German translation. Alexandra But this was soon abandoned: Weighed and found wanting! In the end the problem was resolved when new three-column vocabulary lists were introduced in most English © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="206"?> 206 Chapter 11: More bilingual practice textbooks for Germans. These semi-bilingual (‘bilingualised’) lists have proved their worth and are still standard in German coursebooks. The middle column furnishes target language contexts of the new English vocabulary (in addition to the textbook story where the words occurred). age at once be allowed to do What’s your age? = How old are you? I need your help now. Please come at once. Are you allowed to use dictionaries in English tests? Alter sofort, sogleich, gleich etwas tun dürfen The reformers had obviously gone too far in claiming that vocabulary equivalents always lead to mistakes on account of the polysemy of single words. Do monolingual word-lists really yield better results? Empirical investigations which attempted to determine the relative effectiveness of monolingual and bilingual glossaries consistently favoured the bilingual treatment (Löfgren 1966 & 1968 as reported by Butzkamm 1973, 158f.; Preibusch & Zander 1971; Oskarsson 1974; for more recent work favouring L2- L1 word pairs see Schmitt 2008, 337). The pitfalls of single-word equivalents can be largely avoided by using word groups and phrases as given below. In this way students can be made to use appropriate, recyclable chunks of language, which, without their MT equivalent, are likely to slip by unnoticed: Nehmen Sie alles Take the lot Noch am selben Tag The very same day Ganz wie Sie wollen Have it your way then With the help of such vocab lists, and without compromising coursebook work, a thirdyear grammar school class managed to go through a Harry Potter story outside the normal curriculum as a book, audio version and film. The teacher translated about four to six expressions per page for his pupils, altogether around 400 vocabulary equivalents for The Philosopher’s Stone. When the sequel Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was published, the pupils were only given bilingual reading aids for the first chapter, in the hope that as many as possible would continue to read. The better pupils then had to write out the vocabulary for 10 to 20 pages each for the other pupils. After about 100 pages, vocabulary aids for the remaining 600 pages were more or less unnecessary. What a fantastic result when a whole class in their third year without exception reads English books in the original and enjoys doing it! What a great idea when good pupils help the others by giving them the benefit of their translation work! This is what the future can look like. Word groups as units for mental storage and retrieval - such as the ones given above - are necessary for fast comprehension and fluent speaking. Words are learned in the patterns in which they occur. Many learners need safety before they venture out into free communication. Word groups are “safer” than individual words, which, however, need not be excluded. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="207"?> 11.4 Dictionary work 207 11.4 Dictionary work In days of yore, students would have great fun with puns on “Miss” and “to miss”, inventing linguistic contortions such as conjugations “I Miss you” - *je te mademoiselle etc. Involuntary puns are a different matter. A third-year comprehensive school pupil was supposed to write a few sentences about New York. “I dignity go to …”, the horrified student-teacher read. The pupil had wanted to look up “würde” (‘would’) in the dictionary and confused it with the noun “Würde” (‘dignity’). A French teacher of English reported the sentence: “J’espère que vous êtes fontaine”. The pupil meant “I hope you are well”. He had looked up “well” in the dictionary and found “fontaine”. Egregious blunders like those above as well as the high percentage of lexical errors attributable to L1 influence have confirmed the profession in the belief that they knew better than their learners what was best for them and warned them against using bilingual dictionaries: Dictionaries in use should be entirely in the language being learnt; only for subsidiary reference should translating dictionaries be used (Billows 1967, 95). However, for learners, “there is absolutely no empirical evidence - quantitative or qualitative - to support the familiar notion that monolingual dictionaries are better than bilingual dictionaries” (Folse 2008, 124). When teachers become language learners and experience being on the receiving end of their own type of instruction, they discover, to their surprise, that “the bilingual dictionary was a vital prop” (McDonough 2002, 406). This book is a kind of apology to my students in the 1970’s who had to smuggle their bilingual dictionaries into my classroom and hide them under the table (Deller & Rinvolucri 2002, 4). In common with many other language teachers, I have for a long time felt needlessly guilty about doing what comes naturally. I have tried to pretend that my students do not need a bilingual dictionary and have instead insisted on their using only a monolingual dictionary, when it has been obvious that they feel uneasy or reluctant about this (and when, in learning their languages, I have myself tended to make far more use of bilingual dictionaries). It cannot be denied, of course, that monolingual learners’ dictionaries have a very important role to play at the most advanced levels. Basically, though, for learners below this level the bilingual dictionary can do all the useful things that the monolingual dictionary can do: and it can do several of the things in a more efficient and more motivating way (Thompson 1987, 286). For us, it is obvious that pupils should be able to use a bilingual dictionary properly before they work with a monolingual one. Even a small bilingual dictionary - a treacherous tool, admittedly - can be an effective learning aid - if one has learned how to use it. That’s why a timely introduction to bilingual dictionaries is imperative; monolingual ones come a bit later. Intelligent use of a dictionary (including the use of the phonetic script) cannot be learnt overnight: I am sure that some students never found out what all the abbreviations like “fig.” meant. This became obvious when they had to do translations. They just picked the first word that they found in the dictionary or chose one at random. For example, they would translate the German word “Fall” in the sense of “Umstand”, as “fall” instead of “case”. This created strange word-for-word translations, often full of Germanisms. Christina Understanding the labels used to indicate parts of speech and register and usage are important skills needed for students to develop confidence in the extramural support and © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="208"?> 208 Chapter 11: More bilingual practice independence that dictionaries provide. This aid might include, for example, the provision of a bilingual list of non-cognate labels (with standard abbreviations) for terms such as euphemistic/ verhüllend, obsolete/ ausgestorben, elevated/ gehoben, informal/ umgangssprachlich, pejorative/ abschätzig, figurative/ übertragen, humorous/ scherzhaft, pompous/ gepreizt, derogatory/ abwertend, noun/ Substantiv and so on, which would be particularly useful if printed in a format that could be pasted or inserted easily into the front or back of dictionaries. I felt the need to understand all the lyrics and not just parts of them. So I sat in my room, the dictionary on my knees and translated word for word, which often led to some rather odd translations. I remember searching for words like “wanna”, “gonna” and “gotta” which were not in the dictionary. Dagmar After dictionaries have been introduced by systematically looking up words in class, they should always be at hand. When a pupil needs a word that the teacher does not know either, a pupil looks it up so that the teacher can carry on with the lesson. The dictionary is also used when pupils compose texts individually or in groups, even if they’re bound to make mistakes. It is from these mistakes that the teacher can best learn where the problems lie. Not everything must be spoon-fed. Make dictionaries your language partner - something that motivates students do things of their own accord: I could sit for hours and look up words I found in the songs I liked. The songs meant a lot to me and so did the dictionary since it offered me a way to my music. Barbara I became a huge fan of boy groups like Take That, Backstreet Boys and so on. I bought every record, every video and every magazine I could get my hands on. Since they were English or rather American groups, many articles and of course all their lyrics were written in English. So I sat down with a dictionary to look up all the unknown words; and there must have been hundreds at that time. This did not only cost a fortune, but incredibly much time, too. Still I enjoyed it very much as I was driven by the ambition not to miss a single detail about the Boys. That’s why only days later I would be able to sing along to their songs by heart knowing the meaning and pronunciation of every single word. Luckily, sometimes puberty and juvenile folly add up to something sensible. Daniela Bilingual vocabulary work helps to develop word power in the MT. It is, for example, possible to understand what “mealy-mouthed behaviour” means from the context, but would pupils come up with “Leisetreterei”, which is the perfect German equivalent? There will always be pupils who are not familiar with such MT equivalents. That is why idioms have to be learnt with their MT counterparts, especially when the original and counterpart are only marginally different. Take, for instance, the cliché: Wine, women, and song German: Wein, Weib und Gesang (= wine, woman, and song) Sanskrit / Hindi: Sur, sura, sundari (= music, wine, and woman) Turkish: At, avrat, silah (= horse, women, gun) Since interference can work in both directions, even the MT occasionally needs protecting against contagion. Bilingual lists can highlight the small differences and consolidate both the MT and the FL expression. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="209"?> 11.5 Collocations 209 11.5 Collocations New collocations dictionaries are a godsend for advanced students of English, especially when producing their own texts. What good are single words without the right partner? Here, too, monolingual and bilingual work can be usefully combined. What is life? Mother Teresa (1910-1997) Key Life is an opportunity, … it. Use, benefit from Life is beauty, … it. admire Life is bliss, … it. taste Life is a dream, … it. realize Life is a challenge, … it. meet Life is a duty,… it. complete Life is game, … it. play Life is costly, … it. care for Life is wealth, … it. keep Life is love, … it. enjoy Life is mystery, … it. know Life is promise, … it. fulfill Life is sorrow, … it. overcome Life is a song, … it. sing Life is a struggle, … it. accept Life is a tragedy, … it. face up to, embrace Life is luck, … it. make Life is an adventure, … it. dare Life is life, … it. fight for 1. Teacher: Life is an opportunity. Student (glances at the key, then looks up): Life is an opportunity. Use it. 2. Do the same, but with keys words covered, and with a student to replace the teacher. 3. Teacher tests students on the same collocations with MT stimuli: ‘eine Chance nutzen’, ‘Schönheit bewundern’, ‘ein Versprechen erfüllen’ … The idea is, again, not to bypass or ignore the MT, but to practise it away. On the basis of error analysis, Nesselhauf (2003, 239) advises that collocations be taught with reference to L1. Learners have to be made aware of L1-L2 differences, otherwise, despite having learned the correct collocation, they are still likely to produce the L1 equivalent. It seems pointless, for example, to teach German-speaking learners the collocation have an experience without alerting them to the fact that *make an experience (the equivalent to German eine Erfahrung machen) is not possible in English. Collocation errors persist because listeners and readers immediately go for the meaning and simply don’t notice that it is have, and not make an experience. Unsurprisingly, it was found that in the teaching of collocations, contrastive analysis and translation proved significantly superior to both message-focused instruction and non-contrastive form-focused instruction (Laufer & Girsay 2008). According to Carl James, an authority on contrastive linguistics, ignoring the MT would amount to “burying your head in the sand and hoping that effortless acquisition will take place in time” (as quoted by Laufer & Girsay 2008). Computer vocabulary trainers may also be used, provided that the work is carried out regularly and conscientiously, monolingually and bilingually. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="210"?> 210 Chapter 11: More bilingual practice Without bilingual dictionaries and coursebooks, the teacher tends to become the sole source of instruction - an undesirable side-effect of the monolingual approach. It robs beginning students of the independence that their normal psychological and physical maturation has been leading them towards. They return to a state of total dependence on the teacher for support in the classroom. Students who are keen to get ahead, still others who need more self-study time to keep up with the rest, and those who miss lessons for whatever reason - they all suffer without bilingual materials. The concept of student-centredness seems to have gone out the window. 11.6 The importance of memorization “Intentional vocabulary learning … almost always leads to greater and faster gains, with a better chance of retention and of reaching productive levels of mastery” (Schmitt 2008, 341). So getting students to memorize vocabulary for homework is still an option. I think my English got worse instead of better in the course of the next three years. The first and most serious handicap was that we did not have to learn any new vocabulary at all. The reason she gave was that from the following year onwards we would be allowed to use the monolingual dictionaries in tests. Kathrin I have learnt that it is essential to learn at least the vocabulary and some parts of grammar by heart. In my opinion it is absolutely useless to work exclusively with games and other unconventional methods in order to avoid uncomfortable work for the pupil. Saskia Effective vocabulary learning is possible with the three-column vocabulary lists typical of German FL coursebooks, as illustrated above. The pupils should cover one column and test themselves on the other columns. They should also be familiar with the technique of uncued free recall: they count the expressions they’ve studied, close the book and try to remember as many expressions as possible. Have I already forgotten some? Which ones? This silent communication with oneself is a good exercise in concentration; it’s one of the oldest, tried and tested form of vocabulary development … and it works! Efficient and enthused language learners have exploited it for generations. Time-honoured vocabulary quizzes - monolingual or bilingual - can be quite effective, especially if there is an element of competition thrown in. Here the teacher has the opportunity to change his routine: he can quiz the class from the front, get the students to quiz each other in pairs, or set some time aside for students to quiz themselves. The criticisms raised against L1-L2 word pairs are not supported by research: in fact research shows the opposite, says Nation (2003): “The direct learning of L2 vocabulary using word cards with their translations is a very effective method of learning” and quickly expands vocab knowledge. In communicative lessons new words may be needed and used unpredictably, most of which should be retained. A vocabulary book in A5 size or a loose-leaf book in the same format can be recommended for those words and phrases which crop up in the course of a lesson and are not covered by the textbook. The pages of the vocabulary book are numbered and divided into sections for classroom phrases, collocations, phrasal verbs, idioms, hobbies, proverbs etc. Formal and content-oriented categories are taken into account and there ought to be a section for personal, individual entries. Vocabulary cards in cigarette packet size kept in a box could also be recommended. The English © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="211"?> 11.7 Practising away lexical interference 211 word or phrase is on one side, and the L1 translation on the other. Individual cards can be put in one’s pocket and be looked at now and then at random. “I do it myself occasionally, demonstrate it to the students and always find a few imitators”, a teacher reports. Whenever he has time, the language learner swots up on the individual card by trying to reproduce the MT text in the FL formulation and continues until he only has to look at the MT version and the original FL phrase flashes into his mind. Memorized phrases are laid to one side and the exercise with the remaining cards is continued until the whole contents of the box have been transferred to the brain of the learner, in a file box which is invisible yet always ready to hand. Recycling is necessary, or else all the effort already put into learning will be wasted. Whiling away one’s time on buses and trains with a walkman or ipod may be great for relaxation but if teachers could encourage their pupils to see this time as a learning opportunity, language learning would progress more efficiently and rapidly - and it might well substitute for deskbound homework time. Henry Kisor, a deaf journalist (! ) who has learned to speak, can serve as a role model: Once a week my speech therapist and I meet across a table in a small room for an hour. Our largest difficulty is finding some way for me to monitor the quality of my speech. We try, fail, try again, fail again, suddenly find the right placement, lose it, find it again, try to hang on to it, and sometimes succeed. Each session is a mixture of frustration, satisfaction, and sometimes elation. “Hold that thought”, say my therapists as I leave each session. At the bus stop on the way to work each morning, I peer around to see whether anyone’s in earshot, then run through my drills, warming up for the day. To sharpen my “e”s, the vowel with which I have the most trouble - it often comes out too lax, almost like an “uh” - I’ll concoct sentences full of “e”s (Kisor 1990, 242). There is a manifest parallel with “lone” productive practice activities such as “chuntering” - talking to oneself in the target language about surrounding events, actions, context or indeed internal thoughts. Last, but not least, encourage learners to take responsibility for their own learning: She let us choose which twenty new words we were going to memorize after each lesson. Alexandra 11.7 Practising away lexical interference It is claimed that the setting of fire to two German department stores in 1968 was inspired by a mistranslation of the American slogan “Burn warehouse burn”. ‘Warehouse’ looks and sounds like German ‘Warenhaus’, the word for ‘department store’ and not for a building for storing large quantities of goods, rarely to be found in city centres. L1 and L2 seem to match, but in fact don’t. The MT infiltrates the foreign languages and produces the dreaded “false friends”. The less we have consolidated a foreign language, the more easily it can be infected by the MT, from articulation and spelling through to idiomatic and pragmatic language. Pinpointing the problem can enable the teacher to deal more effectively with it. A simple rule like “place before time” can prevent Germans from making such errors as *Dad comes at eight o’clock home”. Of course, with plenty of language contacts, in the fullness of time, such interference errors will hopefully disappear. But others don’t just clear up of their own accord, even if the teacher has pointed them out to his students. They seem to be distinctly more persistent than other errors and need to be ironed out. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="212"?> 212 Chapter 11: More bilingual practice W. Stannard Allen (1948/ 9, 37) puts it in a nutshell: In the first two years a student’s commonest mistakes are those that echo his own idioms, structures or word-order … they occur with equal frequency in classes taught by all methods and are even a common feature of the linguistic behaviour of a bilingual child, who could not possibly be accused of translating from the mother tongue … It is quite useless to attempt to shut out the native language and imagine that these mistakes cannot occur because you do not allow the student to translate. You might just as well try to stop him thinking altogether. The very opposite procedure will in fact prove the most effective antidote. We propose to deal with lexical interference errors in much the same way as with grammatical interference (chapter 5). The equation of German “kontrollieren” and English “control” is a daily trap for students, especially because there is some overlap in meaning which makes it only a partial false friend. In fact the vast majority of false friends fall in this category: the pairs are sometimes false friends and sometimes true friends. The error can be stamped out by highlighting the contrast and bringing it out in the open: Use ‘control’ when it means having the power over something, in German ‘beherrschen’; don’t use ‘control’ when it means ‘(über)prüfen’, that means to check, or test, or monitor Kontrolle ausüben Außer Kontrolle geraten Hausarbeit, Pässe kontrollieren / überprüfen Exercise control Get out of control Check homework, passports Other exercises targeted at typical German - English “faux amis” serve the same purpose: Bilingual exercise: Replace the German words in brackets by English words. (Eventuell) I’ll come and see you tomorrow, but I don’t know yet if I’ll have the time. (= perhaps, not eventually) The nearest bank is not far away - turn left at the next (Kreuzung) and it’s fifty yards down on the right. (= junction, not crossing) Monolingual: Spot the mistake. It’s not very sensible to criticise other people if you can’t take critic yourself. (= criticism, not critic or critique) Could I lend your book, just for this lesson, please? (= borrow, not lend) The bilingual version could serve as a preliminary stage to the more difficult monolingual exercise where it is not immediately clear which expression is the incorrect one. The monolingual exercise could also be reserved for specific word traps, i.e. intralingual interference errors such as intensive vs. intense. A kind of translation dictation also helps practising away interference errors. These are the steps: (1) The teacher dictates sentences / phrases in L2. (2) The pupils write them down in L1. (3) They compare their translations with a partner. (4) They translate the sentences back into the original. The following sentences to be dictated in this manner aim at contrasting the present perfect continuous with the German counterpart: How long have you been reading War and Peace? How long have you been living in the big city? I’ve been receiving anonymous letters for a month now. We’ve been supporting this party for quite some time. We’ve been attending this school for four years. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="213"?> 11.8 Topic-related expression repertoires 213 Interference errors which the teacher anticipates can be avoided by quickly drawing attention to them beforehand. This procedure is recommended for all types of practice activities where the cues are in the mother tongue. Yet another way of tackling interference errors is to let the pupils have fun with them: “Give memorable examples of the linguistic monstrosities that can result from relying on word-by-word translation”, is suggested by Hammerly (1989, 104). Current jokes serve the purpose best, such as *Equal goes it loose, modelled on ‘gleich geht’s los’ (‘it’s going to start right away’). Students who can enjoy the humour of these expressions have learnt their lesson. 11.8 Topic-related expression repertoires In discussions of demanding texts advanced pupils tend to stick to their customary vocabulary and their familiar speech habits, including only a few new expressions from the text if they are indispensable. They sometimes do not even notice that they lack the language necessary to express relevant topic-related facts. This means they express only just as much as their language competence permits them and do not say what they actually want to say but only what their existing knowledge allows them to say. On sensitive, controversial or heavily personally invested topics, however, their very awareness of vocabulary deficit can lead to considerable frustration. One of us witnessed a quite painful case in point in China. A student, stirred by a text evoking moral values, tried to express her own Taoist religious beliefs. Unprepared for the contrasting line of vocabulary needed, she struggled fitfully until she eventually broke down in tears of frustration, as she realised that that task was linguistically out of her reach. It is sad to think that such an involved particpant should be reduced to trotting out trite or irrelevant statements within her limited repertoire. In such cases where the need for supportive preparation becomes abundantly clear, Tudor (1987), who worked with adults, recommends using texts on the same topic in L1 to be perused at home. This L1 preparatory input helps develop ideas as a precursor to expressing them in L2. As learners move out of the constraints of the FL, they gain a broader and a more profound understanding of the topic, which in turn can heighten their awareness of, and create a need for, specific expressions and turns of speech suitable for that topic. These could be be topic-related words such as environmental protection, oil slick, biodegradable, non-renewable resources, which, hopefully, will be looked up before the discussion in class. The L1 input thus served to ‘stretch’ learners’ L2 productive abilities in a tightly constrained manner, setting goals which, to be achieved, required the active expansion of L2 resources (Tudor 1987, 260). Moreover, the FL text will appear less daunting to them. Tudor reports a marked difference in performance between course participants who had read through the texts in their MT and those who had not had the time: This factor was apparent in comparing the specialized oral presentation of students who used L1 materials as input and those students who, as a result of lack of time or interest, did not. The latter were clearly marked by a lesser degree of precision and clarity. These students were working within their existing L2 competence, which naturally was not always adequate for the expression of more or less complex ideas in a precise way: those students who failed to use L1 materials had thus lost an evident opportunity for the learning of new L2 elements (Tudor 1987, 260f.). © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="214"?> 214 Chapter 11: More bilingual practice Rather than just deploying the language resources which they already possessed, it became possible to expand the topic-related expression repertoire and rise above learning plateaus by means of L1 input. The presence of the L1 input text created in students a ‘perceived resource gap’, i.e. the explicit recognition of the need for L2 input, and therefore a receptive attitude for the acquisition of new elements (Tudor 1987, 261). It’s worth pointing out the L1 reading was done at home and virtually all classwork was given over to L2. Nation (1997; 2003) also reports similar studies where higher quality discussion was reached when learners used their first language during some parts of an activity. Learners came to grips with the ideas and got on top of the content - for the benefit of L2 work. 11.9 Liaison Interpreting Liaison (or dialogue) interpreting or mediated conversation is arguably the most common form of interpreting nowadays, being used in many situations (business, legal, health, cultural contacts) where an interpreter is physically present to work with two (or more) people who do not speak each other’s language. The liaison interpreter (LI) interprets after each speech act (i.e. the consecutive, not simultaneous, mode of interpreting). Liaison interpreting can also be exploited as a language learning, reinforcing and extension activity with more advanced FL learners at senior high school or university level (Keith 1985). The procedure involves two adult speakers, normally two teachers or a teacher and a FL language assistant, playing the roles of monolingual L1 and L2 speakers conversing on a theme. The students take turns at being the LI of the speakers, each student taking on at least one full conversational interchange or speech event of several speech acts. With replacement LIs being selected at random, all students need to follow the ongoing exchanges carefully, at least at the level of oral comprehension and hopefully also that of the processing of content (decoding and analysis) in readiness for their possibly imminent involvement. The mediated conversation presents the LI and the potential LIs with many of the challenges of real conversation: repetitions, repairs, redundancies, partly or poorly formulated utterances and so on. The LI is required not to provide an oral translation but to reformulate the content of the speech acts accurately into more formal language, as succinctly and correctly as possible. The essence of this exercise is that a student should very rarely find himself in a linguistic impasse. This is an exercise in communication, and students are encouraged, if they cannot find the ‘mot juste’, to use other verbal means to express the idea which they are trying to communicate. Thus, flexibility and creative use of their linguistic resources are fostered” (Keith 1985, 5). The activity is decidedly an advanced one, though the level of content and linguistic demand can be moderated by the speakers. It is designed to push students to a higher level of fluency and accuracy under the time constraint of immediate mediation, as it involves the rapid interplay of the following skills: (1) aural comprehension, which is helpfully contextualised but likely to involve at least passive extension of vocabulary © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="215"?> 11.10 Tandems 215 and structure; (2) processing of content, involving decoding and analysis; (3) re-encoding, which requires the use of the LI’s current linguistic resources. The efficacy of the activity can be increased according to the learners’ language competence by preparatory exercises such as thematically related written texts or recordings to preview vocabulary and highlight structure. Post-activity exercises can involve written or oral reports of the conversation and further class discussion of the theme. A recorded version of the conversation, with the LIs’ mediation edited out, would allow the activity to be used more extensively and individually, with all class members attempting the whole LI role orally or in writing. 11.10 Tandems In his novel Boom! Boom! Clive James describes an arrangement between Suzuki, assistant manager of a Japanese bookshop in London, and an English journalist, who come to an agreement whereby Suzuki would visit the journalist in his flat for three two-hour sessions a week, one hour of each session to be spent talking advanced English, and the other hour to be spent on the rudiments of written Japanese. This is learning in tandem, a modern means for learners with different native tongues to work together in pairs to learn their languages from each other and find out about their partner’s culture. It is reciprocal teaching and learning, one-to-one, face-to-face. The pairs provide each other with authentic and personally adapted language input. Both spend the same amount of time and effort on their partner and her language needs, so, ideally, they help each other equally and benefit equally. Together, they come to terms on where they meet and what activities they want to share, i.e. talk in a café, go places etc. Each is at the other’s disposal as a language and culture expert, corrects mistakes and makes suggestions for improvement. Through the mistakes their partner makes, they also learn a great deal about their own language. Participants become aware of their own cultural heritage: nursery rhymes, songs, poems, proverbs, favourite cartoons, political slogans … In school, existing contacts with penfriends could be developed into distance tandems instead of on-the-spot tandems, with the teacher providing relevant aids and tips before the contact peters out. This is even more realistic today, in the era of the internet, webcam and cheap connectivity such as Skype, where such “contracts” can be made, re-negotiated and carried through almost instantaneously, with paralinguistic features available to boot. The day may well come when such internet tandems become the norm in second language learning, when students will begin to set the agenda in language teaching and learning by bringing their queries, whether related to vocabulary or structure, to the teacher, at least for some of the learning time. This would engender a version of Curran’s counselling-learning approach (Curran 1976), a big step forward in terms of motivation, interest and relevance. As with penfriends and school exchanges, tandems will work best if the people concerned succeed in building an easy, personal rapport with each other: I remember that I did not speak any word to our guest because I did not like him, even if I had no reason to do so. Patricia A wonderful friendship developed. We still write each other and soon Cari will visit me again. Annette © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="216"?> 216 Chapter 11: More bilingual practice 11.11 Foreign language conversation as a culminating activity After all the bilingual options described in this and previous chapters, it needs insisting that regular classroom time must be given up to FL conversation. It is time that is never wasted. It is the essential and crowning component of FL work. The class explores the implications of ideas raised by a text. Students think on their feet and freely express themselves on anything that is worthy of thought and discussion. Right from the beginning, classroom procedures can be clarified (chapter 1). Later, students are involved intellectually on provocative issues and current affairs. If students have reasons to speak and do this in the FL, it is a sure sign that things are going well. Study questions and tasks 1. Think about the relative learnability of vocab items. What does it mean to know a word? What is it which makes some words more difficult than others? 2. Collect collocations useful for talking about your own subject area: language pedagogy (trainee teacher, choral repetition, sit an exam …) 3. “While without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed” (Wilkins 1972, 111). Discuss. 4. Make a search in the Oxford Dictionary of Foreign Words & Phrases. Find useful words from your native language imported into English and discuss the reasons for importing them (e.g. German: fingerspitzengefühl, zugzwang …). 5. Make a list of total and partial false friends which can easily lead to confusion. Are there soundalike or lookalike words which are hardly ever confused in practice (e.g. ‘boot’ - German ‘Boot’ …)? 6. A survey among 160 university students of English has revealed a remarkable lack of dictionary using skills (Heath & Herbst 1985). What can be done to promote these skills? 7. A middle school in Beijing: Almost all students had portable electronic dictionaries in their hands. The students were busy looking up the words they wanted to say with their translation machine while the foreign teacher (a guest, not their normal teacher) kept encouraging them to talk. Chinese students are very shy when they speak to foreign teachers. They often dare not speak to foreign teachers, afraid of losing face in front of teachers and students, according to the English teacher of this class (Wu 2009). Would you allow the use of electronic dictionaries in your class? Justify your decision and indicate the context, if allowed. 8. Find a poem or similar piece of short text that might be used to stimulate ‘generative writing’ as illustrated in this chapter. Try to compose your own text. 9. This chapter outlines the use of vocabulary books and cards as support for memorisation of lexicon. Can you suggest and describe the procedures of other forms of vocabulary development, monolingual or bilingual? Make a list of tips advising learners on how to commit verbal information to memory. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="217"?> Chapter 12: The ‘natural’ method 12.1 Young developing bilinguals It has often been argued that since a child learns a first language without reference to any other, we should teach a second language accordingly. However, our obvious “natural” model can only be the child who is raised bilingually. Do natural bilinguals avoid using their stronger language when developing another? Or do they use their skills in one language to help themselves progress in the other? If so, what strategies do they employ? People are considered bilingual if they possess sufficient skills in a second language to be able to carry out at least part of their social and intellectual activities in that language. Thus, bilingualism, as defined in this loose way, is neither unusual nor exceptional. If dialects are included, most people in the world grow up bilingual. Bilingualism can be seen as an obvious expression of the human capacity to handle more than one single code, whether these codes are different dialects or distinct languages. For children acquiring two languages at the same time (concurrent bilingualism), as in linguistically mixed marriages, a mother-tongue competes with a father-tongue. This is the situation which will largely concern us here. Language contact and contrast is in the home itself, rather than home versus everywhere else: street, shops, playgrounds and school. In early bilingualism (around the age of two), children gradually set up separate systems, and it is interesting to see which language becomes dominant and how the languages interact while being kept more and more separate. Language dominance is not a stable phenomenon. There may be frequent shifts between the dominance of one language over another during the life of a bilingual. Some people may not have a dominant language for all aspects of their lives. They may use one language for some things and the other for other things, and may regularly switch to their weaker language to talk about specific areas of experience, sometimes called “domains”. Thus, their weaker language will become dominant when they talk about certain topics. The term “preferred language” was suggested by Dodson (1985a, 326) and defined as “that language in which a bilingual, whether developing or developed, finds it easier to make individual utterances in discrete areas of experience at any given moment”. Thomas, a German university student, has just come back from an extended stay in the USA and gives an example of a particular domain: Having a US driver’s licence, I was - for some time - able to define specific parts of an engine only by using the English expressions. Similarly, almost every time I talk about something that happened to me over there, I tend to answer in English. Thomas Thus, “preferred” relates to ease of use and does not necessarily denote a general preference for, or desire to use one language rather than the other. Let us have a closer look at how two or more languages can support, and compete with, each other at the same time. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="218"?> 218 Chapter 12: The ‘natural’ method 12.1.1 Learning to talk, talking to learn: five strategies of developing bilinguals When developing bilinguals refer to their preferred language in Dodson’s sense, they are clearly employing a natural strategy to successfully extend their linguistic competence. They can do this in the following ways: 1. Out of pure curiosity and for the joy of learning, bilinguals ask for the equivalent expression in the language which is not being used for communication at the time. 2. Bilingual children order their linguistic world by contrasting equivalent expressions. They can thus create clarity of meaning and consciously pratise both languages at the same time. 3. In order to extricate themselves from a vocabulary difficulty, they switch to the other language and ask for an equivalent. This is no longer curiosity, but asking out of necessity. 4. When they don’t understand something, and the person they are talking to cannot give, or refuses to give, them an equivalent in their stronger language, they will try to find an equivalent expression themselves in order to confirm their understanding and clarify the situation. 5. Bilingual children do not always make the effort to ask for an equivalent, but simply insert a phrase from their other language into an utterance. Such mixed-language utterances are more likely to be produced in their nondominant language, the one they feel less confident about. To illustrate theses strategies, we have deliberately drawn on a wide range of sources to show that the bilingual behaviour outlined above is quite common. 1. Asking out of Curiosity At the beginning, children in linguistically mixed marriages will not be aware that they are learning different languages but will soon know intuitively that they speak one way with Mum and another way with Dad. When his English-speaking father explains something new to him, Nico (2½) likes to know how his German-speaking mother (Elfi) would say this - and vice versa. Father (Don) and Nico in conversation: Father: Do you know what this is called? Nico: Messer? Father: Yeah. Nico: Called? Called? Father: It’s called a knife in English. Nico: Messer. Father: In German it’s called ‘Messer’. Nico: Elfi sagt dazu? Father: Elfi says Messer. Nico: Don sagt dazu? Father: I say knife. Nico: Elfi auch knife sag? Father: No, Elfi says Messer. (Porsché 1983, 166) Katrina is the youngest child of a bilingual father (English-German) who uses German when talking to his children, and an English speaking mother. They live in Australia: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="219"?> 12.1 Young developing bilinguals 219 Katrina (2 years; 3 months; 13 days old) (pointing at a picture): Ist das ein Känguruh? Father: Ja, das - oh, ist das ein Känguruh? Katrina: Nein, das ist ein Eichhörnchen. Father: Ein Eichhörnchen, ja. Katrina: Was sagt Mutti? (What does Mama say? ) Father: Was sagt Mutti für Eichhörnchen? Ah, squirrel. (Saunders 1988, 129) Katrina checks her own assumption about what the other parent says: Katrina (2; 1; 10) (out for a walk at night with mother): Look! The moon! Does Daddy say Mond? Mother: Yes. Der Mond. (Saunders 1988, 130) 2. Striving for order (similar to, but more systematic than, the first strategy) Olivier and Jens are growing up bilingually in Berlin as sons of a French mother and a German father. At 2; 4 years the younger brother Jens draws his brother Olivier’s attention to the fact that Mama says something this way and Papa says it another way: “Mama sagt train - Papa Eisenbahn” (Kielhöfer & Jonekeit 1983, 47). Around the age of two children start comparing Papa’s and Mama’s languages with each other and try to build up a bilingual dictionary, like Giulia who lives in Rome and is the daughter of a German-speaking mother and an Italian-speaking father: Giulia (1; 9): Eccolo a mela, anche Apfel. Vuoi a mela, Apfel. (Here is mela, also Apfel. Want mela, Apfel.) Speaking to her mother about herself, Giulia (1; 9) says: Giulia: No no glos, klein klein. (No big, small.) [After a short pause: ] Giulia: Nè glande, piccola piccola. (Not big, small.) (Taeschner 1983, 43) Alison and her brother grew up in Germany with an English mother and a German father. Because it was our mother we were with most of the day, we naturally learnt most of the words in English. Very often, however, we used to ask: ‘What does Papi say? ’ Then our mother would give us the German equivalent. We developed a kind of ritual. For instance, when we learned the word cauliflower and its German equivalent, we folded our little hands above our heads and walked in single file through the house, singing at the top of our voices: ‘Mami says cauliflower, Papi says Blumenkohl! ’ We walked up and down the stairs half a dozen times, entering each room. Alison Here the children are quite deliberately building up a bilingual lexicon. Again the motive behind this behaviour seems to be curiosity and the fun of articulating and gaining mastery over a constantly extending world through language. Children sometimes even practise bilingual word-pairs or doublets all by themselves. A child may echo a new word she learns along with the equivalent which is already available: “Translating words from one language into the other is becoming a habit. When I speak of an object in German, she repeats its name in English” writes Walter F. Leopold (1949, 11), an Austrian linguist who emigrated to America with his American wife and published a four-volume-study, now a classic, on the bilingual upbringing of their two daughters. Saunders agrees with Dodson that parents should not discourage this strategy: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="220"?> 220 Chapter 12: The ‘natural’ method Dodson has observed that many young bilinguals often play with language by saying to themselves a word, phrase or sentence in one language, followed immediately by an equivalent utterance in the other language. He believes that parents should encourage such bilingual language play at other times as well, as it serves as an important mechanism which helps developing bilinguals to separate their languages, reduce cross-language interference, and to switch easily and effectively from one language to the other whenever required. Provided parents do this only when it is within their children’s capabilities and make sure that it is fun, not a chore, for the children, this sort of bilingual game can be very useful (Saunders 1988, 55). Developing bilinguals ask for equivalents, or supply them themselves. They compare, contrast and practise them. There is no immediate communicative need to mention the equivalent, so the children are focussing on the language itself. They do so because they want to learn and find pleasure in learning. Admittedly, the vocabulary game is often initiated by parents. This is the case with our darling two-year-old grand-daughter Olivia who is growing up in France with a German mother, a Spanish-speaking father and a French child minder (‘nounou’). French is her dominant language, as she spends most of her time with her nounou and two other French-speaking children. When looking at a picture book, the conversation often goes like this: Mother: Und das ist eine …? Olivia: Kuh! Mother: Und wie sagt der Papa? Olivia: Vacca. Mother: Und wie sagt die nounou? Olivia: Vache. This is not to say that children who grow up bilingual will make great translators. Translating is a special skill that has to be practised. Many bilinguals simply move in two different worlds where there is no need for them to translate anything. 3. Vocabulary elicitation for communicative needs The enormous task of conceptualizing the world and verbalizing one’s concepts is more important than that of linguistically duplicating the world. Thus, another type of situation occurs frequently as the child develops linguistically. There is a definite communicative need, because the child either does not understand and is seeking clarification, or is searching for words to express herself. Here are more examples from the Saunders family, which show how children try to fill in gaps in their growing bilingual lexicon: Frank (playing in sandpit, to father): Ich habe mein CELLAR nicht fertig. Was ist CELLAR in Deutsch? Father: Keller Frank: Mein Keller ist nicht fertig. Katrina (5; 5; 7): Bert, Franks Ball ist über - wie sagt man Fence? Father (prompting): Z- Katrina: - ist über den Zaun gegangen. (Saunders 1988, 130f.) Taeschner’s daughter Giulia sometimes asks for the word she doesn’t know even before she begins her sentence: Giulia (2; 9) [in bed, opening and shutting her mouth]: Wie sagt man “allora” auf deutsch? Mother: Dann. Giulia: Wenn Giulia den Mund aufmacht, dann … Mother: Dann? Giulia: Dann macht wieder zu. (Taeschner 1983, 171) © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="221"?> 12.1 Young developing bilinguals 221 Children thus anticipate language difficulties, like David in a summer camp: To get food you had to wait in a queue. As I was very young and didn’t like some of the dishes, I didn’t want too much food on my plate and asked my parents to teach me suitable phrases. The very next day I used the phrase “not too much” or “just a little bit, please”. David Likewise, before Hildegard went over to call on her friend Mary, who did not know a word of German, she first asked how to say the English sentence she intended to use and then practised it several times (Leopold 1949b, 124). When Olivier wanted to phone his grandparents in Germany to tell them about something which he had not yet processed in German, he first got help by asking “Comment on dit en allemand ‘J’ai mal au doigt’? ” His mother translated this for him: “Mein Finger tut weh! ” (Kielhöfer & Jonekeit 1983, 41). The children chose the easiest possible way to solve their vocabulary problem - they requested a translation from someone who knew. This process is also recognizable in incipient bilinguals in contact with a language outside the family: David, at 3; 9, decided to take over the shopping role in a Spanish-only long term camp ground. Each time, systematically, he asked for the terms for Spanish items he did not know, as well as, initially any necessary request phrases. This strategy certainly drives forward the development of the weaker language. The other language functions only as a momentary support and is abandoned as soon as it has done its job. It is an efficient strategy which does not disturb the flow of communication. On the contrary, it smoothes its progress. It is part of every bilingual’s repertory (Hatch 1978, 429). 4. Seeking verification; re-affirming The most convincing examples of how languages help rather than hinder each other are those where the children themselves provide the translations which may have been deliberately withheld from them. Leopold described the following situation with his two and a half year old daughter Hildegard: Yesterday I spoke of ‘Unterwäsche’. Thereupon I heard her say to herself: “Unterwäsche means underwear” (Leopold 1949b, 33). When she was eight, he made the following note in his diary: Very often she uses English words in German context … She often supplies, on second thoughts, the right German word, which merely had not occurred to her quickly enough. Not infrequently, however, she must resort to mentioning the English word, which I am to translate for her. When she asks me for the meaning of an unfamiliar word, which she does not do often, I give her as a rule not the English translation, but a simple explanation in German: Often she says then the more familiar English equivalent to show that she has understood (Leopold 1949b, 146). Saunders (1988, 131) also gives instructive examples: Thomas (5; 5; 16): Warum hast du das benutzt? Father: Oh, nur zur Abwechslung. Thomas: For a change? Father: Ja. Döpke (1992, 47), who studied German immigrants in Australia, recorded the following conversation: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="222"?> 222 Chapter 12: The ‘natural’ method Child: I want to piss. Mother: Geh schnell. Child: Yeah. I geh schnell. Quick run, quick run. Mother: Jetzt geh schnell Jacob. Child (softly, to himself): Quick run, quick run. There seems to be a genuine urge to associate the new expression with the one already available in the stronger language in order to ensure full understanding. “The child’s need to know the equivalent at any cost is part of his job of arranging the two languages. The meanings and functions which exist in both languages, thus enabling the child to make comparisons, are reinforced” (Taeschner 1983, 188). We may feel we have understood something properly only when we can also name it in the main language. This is confirmed by Price who observed four to five-year old anglophone children learning Welsh in a reception class: A girl, who readily repeated L2 (Welsh) words, named “alarch” correctly, but looked troubled each time the image appeared in her picture book. Finally she asked, “What is it in English? ”, and when told, seemed satisfied, and continued to call it “alarch”. In spite of the fact that many seemed content to name in L2 things they had not previously seen, others seemed to need a kind of assurance of understanding unfamiliar objects, which they obviously felt was provided by labelling them in the mother-tongue … The strong associations between objects and the L1 word cannot and should not be destroyed, but extended and added on to. It is not the avoidance of the L1 word per se, but familiarity with the material and repeated association of the L2 word with the object in question, which will help to create, and then subsequently strengthen, a link with L2 in that context and with that material. Most children feel the need to establish some kind of link with L1 when confronted with new experiences (Price 1968, 46). “One person, one language” - originally “une personne, une langue” (Ronjat 1913) - is basically a sound principle for parents in linguistically mixed marriages who want to raise their children bilingually. It certainly helps children to develop two independent systems from the start, rather than a single, merged system. However, it is counterproductive for a bilingual parent to actually withhold bilingual information from her children. Saunders’ relaxed attitude contrasts favourably with Leopold’s rigidity - which reminds us of those orthodox direct-method teachers who as a matter of principle refuse to give a MT equivalent. Leopold, being the only German-speaking partner for his children, was afraid that once he gave in to his daughters’ appeals for help and provided them with English equivalents, it would only reinforce their stronger language. Saunders shows that parents can give linguistic help and still be quite consistent in their language use. And the children themselves engage their expertise in one language to promote the other. 5. Code-switching: positive effects Here are some examples of language switching as a communicative strategy: Giulia (2; 5): Mami ich will prendere ja? (Mommy, I want to take, yes? ) (Taeschner 1983, 45) Frank (11; 1; 26): Unsere Lehrerin war gestern nicht da - sie wollte den pope sehen. (The word pope was emphasized.) Father: Den Papst? (The pope? - supplying the forgotten term). Frank: Ja. (Saunders 1988, 130) A foreign element is inserted into the language context and grammatically adjusted (loan blends): © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="223"?> 12.1 Young developing bilinguals 223 Ich habe nicht ge-yawn-t. [I didn’t yawn.] Ich muß es ausfiggern. [I have to figure it out.] (Leopold 1949b) “Camouflaging a foreign word by adapting its morphological features is a strategy that almost all bilinguals use”, says Taeschner (1983,176). Code-switching is helpful if it solves a communication problem, after which the conversation is resumed in the original language. Languages can also be mixed in playful, lighthearted and nonchalant ways, such as Martin Luther freely did in his table talk: Ein Fisch ist nirgends besser quam in aqua (A fish is nowhere better off quam in aqua, i.e. than in water). To sum up: The natural strategies of young developing bilinguals make the exclusion of the MT from the FL classroom seem almost perversely wrong. 12.1.2 A parental strategy: pretending not to understand Code-switching and inserting words from one language in the context of another can also be caused by tiredness, by laziness, by an unwillingness to make an effort, and by a general lack of motivation for the weaker language. Thus, Kielhöfer & Jonekeit (1983, 38) speak of a “Trägheitsprinzip” (‘principle of inertia’) and make a distinction between between “good” and “bad” code-mixing. Code-switching and -mixing is “bad” when it is a transitional stage towards language loss. This language loss has been well documented for German immigrants in Australia (Clyne 1981) and for Norwegian settlers in the USA by Haugen, who noted “the continual flight of the bilinguals themselves from bilingualism” (Haugen 1969, 2). Bilingualism tends to disappear into monolingualism. Eventually speakers reach a stage when more and more English expressions invade conversational situations which were formerly the domains of the immigrants’ mother tongue. This habit can then develop into a regular language mix, a kind of ‘pidgin’, which is dropped altogether when the second language has become powerful enough. Frequent flipping of the switch from the weaker language mode to the dominant mode can thus signal a potential language loss when people take it easy and just don’t care. Direct-methodists are right when they warn against such a careless language mix, but have overlooked “good” codeswitching. Language learning means constant learning and unlearning. There may come a stage where the language of the majority, of the school and the wider environment, and thus, most importantly, of friends and peers outside the family, becomes dominant to an extent where there is only very little input from the weaker language. There may only be one person left who regularly communicates with the child in the weaker language. Then what was formerly active bilingualism may be replaced by passive or receptive bilingualism. i.e. the child still understands what is said to her/ him in the weaker language, but refuses to speak it. This has even happened to parents who were professional linguists, dedicated to raising their children bilingually. Perhaps they should have insisted the way Taeschner (1983, 201) recommends, who pretends not to understand. In the following episode Giulia eventually gives in and says the German word her mother wants to hear: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="224"?> 224 Chapter 12: The ‘natural’ method G (2; 4): Mami aple. (Mommy open.) M: Wie bitte? (What? ) G: Mami aple. (G. pronounces “aple” instead of “apre”) M: Wie bitte? G: Mami aple. M: Wie? G: APLEEEEEEEE! ! ! ! M: (covers her ears) Wie bitte? G: Aufmachen? When Thomas Saunders was 3; 5, only 25% of the utterances addressed to his father were completely in German, which marked a low point in the boy’s use of German. His brother Frank went through a similar period of resistance to German. Saunders believes that if he had given in and spoken English to them, they would have happily abandoned German (Saunders 1988, 124f.). So he turns a deaf ear when Frank talks English to him: Frank (2; 7; 0): I’m driving a little truck, George. Father: Was? Frank: Ich fahr’n Lastkraftwagen, Dad. The father succeeded in asserting his “language policy”, and after some time the danger of his sons becoming passive bilinguals was overcome. Döpke (1992, 191ff.) is another linguist who emphasizes the importance of “insisting strategies”. Only the children of parents who insisted on clarification and translation retained an active command of German. Other families were less successful: Jacob’s and Agnes’ families went to Germany for extensive stays of around six months when the children were three and a half to four years of age. On their return, both children were active bilinguals. During the following years, their German gradually faded, until the beginning of school finally set them back to their former stage of answering their German-speaking mothers only in English (Döpke 1992, 193). Keeping up two languages can sometimes be seen as a burden rather than a blessing, even if one has known them from childhood. 12.1.3 Contact time as the most important factor Not all children who grow up in bilingual families become or stay active bilinguals. Due to the accumulating effects of input from various sources and the demands created by monolingual speakers around the child, one language may become so powerful that it is felt to be the only normal and natural means of communication. Children are dependent on the input they get. They rely on their parents to start conversations and keep them going, and, for a while, will happily talk back in the language people speak to them in. However, for the older learner, the acquisition of two languages also depends on personality and a conscious willingness to learn and readiness to seek out conversation partners. “Don’t give up! Keep talking” is thus the most important advice Hatch (1978, 434) gives as a result of her extensive analyses of conversations of second language learners. What counts is also the wish to belong to more than one group of speakers and acquire a bilingual identity. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="225"?> 12.2 A bilingual approach for the deaf 225 When we were about four years old, the children in our German neighbourhood found out that we could speak English and asked us whether we were English or German. They told us that if we were English we were aliens and they did not want to play with us. In fact, they made up their minds that we were English and just would not play with us, regardless of what we said. Naturally, Allan and I were very upset about this and our mother was equally upset, if not even more. At this stage we refused to communicate in English. We wanted our mother to speak to us in German and we refused to utter a single English word. Our mother, who could not bear to see us unhappy, mostly spoke to us in German from then onwards. Alison The undeniable need to communicate is sufficient motivation to make the child speak one or more languages, but it is also absolutely indispensable. Given this motivation, it is practice which leads to a more or less thorough and perfect knowledge of the two languages. The bilingual needs practice in speaking his two languages, just as an athlete needs to train, and a pianist needs to play. The question of whether a child becomes bilingual or not depends upon the quantity, form, and quality of this practice (Taeschner 1983, 199). To sum up. Children follow fairly independent developmental paths in each language, in ways that resemble what monolinguals do (Clark 2003, 375). However, both languages can influence, supplement and reinforce each other, rather than disrupt each other’s development. Saunders (1988) and Tracy (1996), among others, plausibly argue that languages can promote each other’s development reciprocally. Our language students should be regarded as incipient bilinguals, and our methodology should be adapted accordingly. 12.2 A bilingual approach for the deaf A bilingual approach is gaining ground in the schools for the congenitally deaf. Teachers are beginning to use sign language, the natural L1 of the profoundly deaf, as a bridge to verbal languages (Butzkamm & Butzkamm 1999). Let us observe how a teacher for the congenitally deaf successfully uses American Sign Language (ASL), their first language, to explain English grammar: “Now … what if I say,” and this time she shows the boy approaching the stationary girl for a kiss. “He kissed her,” responds Chris. “Right! And that’s a little different. Or we could do it this way,” says Liz. She reverses the motion so the girl becomes the initiator; the students translate that into English. They catch on and practice more sentences, bilingually manipulating subject and object pronouns, gliding from ASL to English, one after the other. ASL conveys the differences between subject and object as specifically as English does. It simply employs a change of direction rather than a change of pronouns or of sign order. Liz uses the grammar of ASL, which is perfectly clear and reasonable to the students, to teach them English grammar, which they find so unwieldy. The former is nothing they were ever taught; they acquired it naturally through use, just as hearing students understand how to form proper English sentences before they ever receive any formal instruction (Hager Cohen 1995, 151). With a single hand shape, Liz unravels the mystery of possessive pronouns. In ASL, possessives all share one basic sign: a flat hand, flexed at the wrist, fingers closed. By pushing the heel of the hand in different directions, the speaker distinguishes between mine, yours, hers, theirs, and so on. Liz shows the students how to plug this hand shape into sentences when they’re trying to decide whether or not to use a possessive in English. This is easy; this they know. The discovery of a new link between the languages appears to give them a second wind, and Liz takes advantage of the momentum to carry on, guiding them deeper into the labyrinth (Hager Cohen 1995, 155f.). The teacher starts where the students are: The grammar of ASL, which they have mastered intuitively, opens the door to the grammar of English. For centuries, sign © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="226"?> 226 Chapter 12: The ‘natural’ method language was suppressed until it became clear beyond doubt that it was indeed a language with a fully developed grammar. Since signs were considered to be grammarless gesticulations, teachers of the deaf didn’t learn them and couldn’t have used bilingual techniques even if they had wanted to. They received their degrees without knowing even a few rudimentary signs. This reminds us of the many expatriate teachers who teach their own tongue monolingually simply because they are ignorant of the mother tongues of their pupils. Unfortunately, the profession is slow to change and exploiting the first language is still officially frowned upon in many parts of the world, in teaching the deaf as well as in FLT. 12.3 The ‘natural’ method re-visited For centuries, FL teachers have nourished a dream: making FLL as successful and effortless as language learning in crib and nursery. It is from this perspective that a “natural approach” came to be defined as monolingual. On closer inspection, it has turned out that, although monolingual and apparently effortless, first language acquisition is a complicated, multilayered, and long-drawn-out process, one which we can never hope to duplicate in the classroom. Clearly, as this book has tried to demonstrate, all claims that we follow nature’s blueprint when we exclude the MT from FLT are ill-founded. It is highly revealing that, in the introduction of content teaching through French for English speakers in Quebec, the first impulse, no doubt fuelled by the prevailing monolingual obsession, was to employ only monolingual French subject teachers, to avoid teachers and students being side-tracked into using the children’s MT. By a majority decision, they eventually opted for bilingual teachers, with the teachers using exclusively the target language and the students free to respond in English, particularly for the first year, though even in the third year students were still sometimes using English words that the teacher would supply the French fill-in for. While this was no doubt spurred by teachers’ and parents’ concerns about their children’s subject competence, the point is clear. Without access to meaning and the right to seek meaning through questioning through the MT, the learning process risks bogging down and a great deal of time is wasted. The researchers and teachers were also strongly convinced that there was little or no so-called “natural” L2 acquisition going on in the first year but rather determined and sometimes desperate efforts to translate into the MT: We believe that the process may start as a type of translation game in which the youngsters construct personalized glossaries to link the new sounds and expressions they hear with everyday things and events they have already labelled in their home language … Our hunch is that they searched out the English equivalent of each new French concept as it developed (Lambert & Tucker 1972, 207f.). Contrasting and comparing, the authors go on to say, “help them immeasurably to build vocabulary and to comprehend complex linguistic functions”. The same problem of incomprehension emerged clearly in an empirical study undertaken by de Courcy, a pioneer in French medium subject teaching in the Australian state of Queensland. The study followed the progress of her students. After one year, that is, in Year 9, students were interviewed with the following revelatory comments being reported: © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="227"?> Study questions 227 Translation was the first way the students tried to make sense of what was going on in the classroom. For these Year 9 students, the previous year had been a fairly confusing time. John said in May that in Year 8 he could not ‘remember ever, you know, really understanding what [was] going on’. Helena admitted in her May interview that in Year 8 she ‘was basically translating everything’. She went on, ‘so I wasn’t thinking in French … the words were there and I’d translate them, so I was actually thinking in English’. The other three students volunteered similar comments about how they used to make sense of what they read or listened to. John explained in his interview why this method was abandoned because it was so difficult: ‘It’s hard to read in French when you don’t understand what’s going on in the book and you’re just trying to piece together, translating into English every time in your mind and … you’re reading and then you go ‘ah that means this and that means this’ it’s sort of hard to understand’. From the learners’ comments, it seems that translation of whole passages into English is abandoned as a strategy after about a year in immersion (de Courcy 1995, 77). Any methodology which not only ignores these tactics but actively prevents children from using them, would manifestly be counterproductive. Whatever else it may involve, nature’s method is bilingual, as Guido found out for himself: The most effective learning technique was asking my girl-friend in German about what she had said in Spanish directly after I had heard her sentence. Then I tried to repeat the Spanish sentence. If I was not successful she repeated the sentence again and again until I reproduced it correctly. Using this method I learned very fast. Of course we only talked about topics which were of interest to us. We talked about sports, politics, friends, holidays or music. So I never opened a textbook, vocabulary-book, or grammar-book to learn Spanish. You do not need these classical tools to learn a foreign language. You need your mother tongue, someone who can speak the language you want to learn, you need time and, perhaps, some linguistic talent. Guido Let’s call our final witness. Sister Elisabeth Holfert gave herself devotedly and joyously to her work as a deacon in the Arab quarter of Strasbourg. When she was called to this vocation, Elisabeth, who had no linguistic background, immediately went to see the chief of the Berber clans: Immediately I undertook to learn Berber. Every day I came and sat beside the chief and asked him: “How do you say ‘give me your arm’ or ‘I won’t hurt you’, in short, the everyday expressions that I needed to know in my role as a nurse. I jotted down phonetically everything he told me and learnt it by heart in the evening, and the next day I returned to see the chief who corrected as much as needed. In this way I ended up speaking Berber with a good accent, which earned me the nickname, the Arab sister (Goure 1981, 119). Who would argue that this way of using bilingual utterance equivalents isn’t “natural”? Study questions 1. Here is a German insertion in a French sentence, with phonetic and morphological adaptations: C’est toi qui a grabsché (grabschen = to grab) mon stylo? Have you heard or produced a similar language mix? In what circumstances? If you produced it yourself, what were you trying to do? 2. “I once met a man in a pub in Denmark who knew nothing about language teaching; but, discovering I was in the language-teaching business, he asked me what I thought of the way he was teaching his © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="228"?> 228 Chapter 12: The ‘natural’ method young child English. ‘I tell him a story - the same story every night. He likes that. At the beginning the story is entirely in Danish. Then, night after night, I put in more English words. In the end, it’s entirely in English.’ I had to tell him that, as far as I could tell, he was substantially more intelligent about language teaching than the entire body of mainstream applied linguists” (Michael Swan, via e-mail). Discuss. 3. “If you claim to teach “the natural method” and are teaching food-related concepts then you’d better be holding your lessons in a kitchen, dining room, and restaurant - or stop claiming to use the natural method. So called natural methods promise the world but fizzle when used in a stark classroom environment … The instructor is pretending the classroom is a natural environment. It isn’t.” (www.lifeprint.com/ asl101/ pages-layout/ teachingasl/ teachingasl2.htm) To what extent is the label “natural” useful, when applied to language teaching? © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="229"?> Chapter 13: Ideas for multilingual classes 13.1 Sink or swim? What if there are pupils who come from half a dozen different language backgrounds, instead of one common language shared by almost everybody? There is no patent remedy, and the traditional response has been to ignore the native languages. Alfred Kerr, the feared theatre critic of the Weimar Republic, had to flee to London with his family via Switzerland and France. His daughter remembers attending an école communale in Paris: Anna sat and let the sound drone over her. She wondered what they were reciting. It was strange to be having a lesson at school without even knowing what it was about. As she listened she detected some numbers among the droning. Was it a multiplication table? No, there were not nearly enough numbers. She glanced at the book on Colette’s desk. There was a picture of a king with a crown on the cover. Then it came to her, just as Madame Socrate clapped her hands for the recitation to stop. It was history! The numbers were dates and it had been a history lesson! For some reason this discovery made her feel very pleased (Kerr 1983, 123f.). Wouldn’t a few explanations in German have sufficed to help Anna get a lot more out of the lesson? The translation of only one word at the right time can work wonders. Be that as it may, Anna manages to survive linguistically, in Paris as well as in London. Her father speaks excellent French and she is such a bright spark that she later becomes an acknowledged English writer. “Sink or swim” means the school does nothing to help children from minority groups. The children only, not the teachers, have to adjust. It has worked in her case. Should we therefore pass it off as a useful strategy for schools? Immersion can also lead to submersion. Not surprisingly, some children will experience great frustration when communicating with teachers and fellow students who are not familiar with their language of origin. In many cases, they have low self-confidence. The problem is exacerbated if they come from working-class homes where the parents may lack the know-how or resources to help the children adjust. Simply ignoring the home language is one thing, it is another thing to outlaw it, all in the best interests of the children, of course. In some schools, elaborate signals and penalty systems exist to ensure the students do not use their L1, practices which are justified with the claim that use of the L1 will impede progress in the acquisition of English. An EFL teacher, quoted in Auerbach (1993, 10), praises the virtues of fining students for using their L1. She humorously tells her students, “This is an English-only classroom. If you speak Spanish or Cantonese or Mandarin or Vietnamese or Russian or Farsi, you pay me 25 cents. I can be rich.” It is assumed to be self-evident that English and English only should be used in the ESL classroom. This principle is extended to the playgrounds, and we are reminded of the bygone days when, for instance, Welsh children who were heard to use Welsh, were forced to wear the infamous “Welsh no! ” board around their necks, which they could pass © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="230"?> 230 Chapter 13: Ideas for multilingual classes on to another contravening classmate before the end of the day to avoid punishment. Likewise, the French suppressed the Breton language and culture, to the point of incorporating the now risible signs in railway carriages “Défense de cracher et parler Breton” (‘spitting and speaking Breton are forbidden’). Similar historical anecdotes abound throughout the minority language areas of Europe. In the days of early Americanization, all the adjustment was expected to be on the students’ part. The unilingual immersion classroom was the order of the day, and cries for help from immigrant children went unheeded. Leonard Covello describes the methods in use in the New York City schools at the turn of the last century: Every day before receiving our bowl of soup we recited the Lord’s Prayer. I had no inkling of what the words meant. I knew only that I was expected to bow my head … The constant drilling and pressure of memorizing, the homework, and detention after school raised havoc with many students … During this period, the Italian language was completely ignored in the American schools … We soon got the idea that “Italian” meant something inferior, and a barrier was erected between children of Italian origin and their parents. This was the accepted process of Americanization. We were becoming Americans by learning how to be ashamed of our parents (quoted by Silberman 1971, 58). Taken all in all, for social, psychological and educational reasons, there is a strong case for some minority language support for children in multilingual schools. In line with our basic theory, we will now make a few suggestions of how this support might be realized. 13.2 Practical suggestions 13.2.1 Multilingual materials First we seek out already available materials such as comparable textbooks in the native languages and travellers’ phrasebooks. Additional textbooks in their MTs for each of the minority groups, wherever they are available, are a very obvious solution. After all, textbooks - especially in the natural sciences - tend to cover fairly similar material. If only some units correspond closely to the situations and vocabulary of the main course, the teacher can indicate these and they should prove valuable in giving learners some tangible support. The Christmas story and other narrative passages from the Bible, which possess that quality that can only be called beauty, are also ready-made solutions, subject to the school community’s cultural and religious sensibilities. There are some inspiring moral precepts, episodes and parables which could give rise to considerable discussion and sharing of interpretations and points of view, not a bad thing in an age where concern about values and values education has come to the fore. Translations in many tongues of songs that have gone around the world such as “Silent night, holy night” (originally German: ‘Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht’) are easily available on the Internet. For younger children, richly illustrated children’s storybooks which appear in many languages can be exploited in several bilingual ways at the kindergarten level. For example, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, with its versions in other languages (Die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt; La chenille affamée,), can be treated in the parallel translations. Each language becomes transparent in the other, and a strong L1 supports progress © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="231"?> 13.2 Practical suggestions 231 in the weaker L2. Since young children love repetitions, it is easy gradually to switch the focus to the target language in later repetitions once comprehension has been achieved through the MT version. The possibilities implied in the following approach (one among many ideas), suggested by a kindergarten teacher on the author’s website, are virtually endless and can be transposed to similar internationalised children’s stories: I created my own mini version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar for my 4 and 5 year-old students to color, cut and sequence. On each page is written the day of the week and includes a drawing of the food the caterpillar ate that day. Each page is progressively longer, just as in the book. The children draw in the caterpillar on each page and the cocoon and butterfly on blank pages in the back. Then the children punch a hole in each food item using a hole puncher which is great for fine motor development and lots of fun for the kids! I ask the parents to have their child retell the story using the pictures as clues. This helps reinforce days of the week, counting, and sequencing skills, and the kids love being able to “read” it all by themselves (Lisa Carter at www.Eric-Carle.com/ bb-VHC.html). It goes without saying that similar resort to reasonably parallel texts in the MT could be made in other school subjects such as geography or history. Here the teacher could advise parents and students of the programme outline at the beginning of the term and remind students again shortly before engaging upon the new topic. The teacher would urge his students to read up on the specifics of the topic through the L1 as preparation for launching the topic through L2. Such reading might be available in L1 textbooks recommended by the teacher but is more likely to be accessible through internet search. Particularly for less mature students, the teacher would need to do some source referencing himself, if possible in collaboration with parents from the L1 group. A cooperative relationship with the parents of minority language group students is, in any case, a beneficial support. Alternatively, parents of individuals could be prevailed upon to do the reference search for their own children. In a Freiburg grammar school, for example, which maintained a bilingual French-German section, it is official school policy to provide students with German texts with contents similar to their French coursebooks. At the primary level, a modified version of this policy, more expensive in fact, involves the provision of content material from the textbooks translated in the various native languages, as has happened, for instance, in some Dutch Basisschools. For foreign families, translations of the course material are provided in four different languages. Twice a week the students from Turkish and Moroccan families most at risk receive additional lessons in their mother tongue. Catalan schools have traditionally tended to provide parallel content textbooks in Castilian Spanish for their minority group. Interestingly, some schools have extended this practice to support their FL classes, in English, French and German, encouraging students to read for and write assignments in any of the five languages. For individual learners to be able to support their own learning, schools should, at the very minimum, provide bilingual dictionaries on the classroom shelves so that they can be readily consulted at any point. Indeed, minority language children could be encouraged to move quietly to use the dictionaries as the need arises. Similarly, use of electronic bilingual dictionaries should be encouraged wherever the students have such aids. We would also be very remiss if we did not also exploit, on our classroom bookshelves, the most wide-spread and versatile written bilingual resource available, one which sits © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="232"?> 232 Chapter 13: Ideas for multilingual classes invitingly on the shelves of most popular bookshops, news stands and petrol stations. It is, of course, the ubiquitous, cheap, pocket-size bilingual phrasebook which exists for many language pairs. As adults we do not hesitate to resort to it on our travels. At tertiary level, where students will already have reached an academic working ability in the foreign language, it is a reasonably common resort for students to avail themselves of L1 sources. A pharmacy student coming from the German-speaking community in East Belgium who was studying in a French medium Belgian university outlines his approach: “I only managed to survive the first two terms by regularly consulting German textbooks covering the same material as my French lectures.” In this, we only follow Jacotot’s example, a pre-Reform Movement writer of the 19 th century worth remembering. He did not speak Flemish and asked his Flemish students to acquire copies of the French text he used in class along with a Flemish translation (Howatt 2004, 169). Have monolingual blinkers prevented so many others from doing the obvious? 13.2.2 Home-made materials Ready-made materials are not always handily accessible, particularly in the less international languages which are not commonly taught as FLs. There is also an extra cost to be borne by one of the parties concerned, whether government, school or parents. A better cost-benefit approach can be for teachers to ask advanced pupils to translate teaching texts which are so good they can be used again in other classes. The translators, of course, would be those who had become bilingual over the years in the school. In this way a treasure trove of texts would become available with parallel translations in typical immigrants’ languages. During the lesson or even before, a new pupil could be given the text and it would be much easier for him to follow the lesson. If there is a small group in the class with the same MT, they are allowed a short break now and then to confer about the lesson. Or a newcomer who understands hardly anything could be assigned a bilingual pupil as a tutor for a while. Thus we work with “linguistic informants” like the missionaries who did everything they could to find bilingual helpers, and had no trust at all in a monolingual approach which they knew from experience made linguistic survival so much harder. Songs with easy, catchy tunes, both traditional and modern pop, can be turned into excellent teaching material. Many such songs carry strong structural repetition which can back up the necessary medium-focused work on grammatical matters, for example, Where have all the flowers gone (present perfect for past events with continuing implications), When I’m 64 (tenses with future when for French L1 speakers), Winchester Cathedral (conditionals and modals), Que sera, sera (will-future of prediction). These texts can be used from the very beginning, provided that comprehension is supported by idiomatic, and, in some places, literal translation. Repetition and practice are hardly boring, if the song itself is sufficiently engaging. The following evergreen American song with its enchanting melody, can be translated and partially mirrored in the MT to provide the appropriate lexical and structural meanings - something to be provided by advanced pupils or their parents as suggested further above. There are examples further below (chorus only) for Turkish, Arabic and Greek. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="233"?> 13.2 Practical suggestions 233 Turkish Sen benim günesimsin, tek günesimsin Beni sevindiriyorsun, gökyüzü gri oldugu zaman Sen hic bilmeyeceksin, sevgilim, seni ne kadar sevdigimi Lütfen benim günesimi benden alma Standard Arabian Anta shamsi Shamsi alwahid Anta tusirni Limin bikun alsama itme Anta la taraf, habibi, Ad esch bahibak Isa mumken la takus alshams mini Greek Eisai I Iliaktida mou I moni mou Iliaktida Me kaneis eftychismeno Otan oi ouranoi einai grizoi Den xereis (gnorizeis) pote, agapimene, Poso ego se agapo Parakalo min perneis tin Iliaktida mou makria. We have found that when modern coursebooks introduce authentic material such as songs, which contain vocabulary not yet covered in the prior coursework, the tendency is to use MT glosses so that the students can sing along and know what they are singing. If children of minority language backgrounds with limited German are expected to join in as they should be, they will also need translations. Standard phrases for classroom management should also be included in multilingual home-made materials. If children are to be brought to participate fully and promptly in the classroom activities, they need very early to be acquainted with them. A bilingual set of instructions for each minority group would seem to be the most sensible solu- © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="234"?> 234 Chapter 13: Ideas for multilingual classes tion. These should be given as full phrases rather than word equivalents, for example “Tomorrow we are going to do a test on …” “Morgen schreiben wir eine Klassenarbeit über …” 13.2.3 Time-out for group work It is vital for minority language groups to share among themselves and consolidate what they have managed collectively to glean from the instruction through L2. Some schools use a “time-out” precisely to allow for such sharing. In the Düsseldorf International School with a heavy intake of Japanese students, among others, the teachers, after the full-class presentation of, for example, a maths problem, give students some time to clarify the problem among themselves, in their own language groups, thus providing the best of both worlds. A similar practice was followed by Göbel (1986, 112) with adults: “During instruction with Greek workers (I know no Greek myself) the following situations frequently occurred: I would try to explain a grammatical phenomenon. The participants would discuss it animatedly for a few minutes in Greek and then ask me (in German) for a few more examples. After a further short consultation in the MT they would let me know that everything was now resolved.” Similar observations were made in a Geneva private school, where it evolved into a kind of snowball system. The teacher would explain something and students who had understood best would clarify it for their peers in their mother tongue. It is significant that in these cases it was the students who initiated this kind of MT time-out to satisfy their own urgent needs. It puts them briefly in a role of authority normally played by the teacher. Reis (1996, 61f.), who also uses a five-minute break for groups to discuss learning problems in L1, finds that this break has a critical impact on students’ motivation, self-esteem and interest. Providing each other with scaffolded help can lower their affective filter and develop teacher-student rapport. These time-out opportunities give students the chance to think aloud and have their thoughts commented on by their classmates, both checking accuracy of understanding and getting feedback on ideas. These beneficial effects are supported by research. Saville-Troike and her research team (1984, 215) closely followed 19 learners with little or no English and different mother tongues, ranging in age from 6 to 12, over a whole school-year. It turned out that the highest achiever was a girl who avoided speaking English at school for the first three months of the year, took an early interest in writing the language and, on her own initiative, spent over an hour each day translating sentences from Japanese to English with the aid of a bilingual dictionary. She noticed the different syntax and enlisted help from her mother with word order … Most of the children who achieved best in content areas, as measured by tests in English, were those who had the opportunity to discuss the concepts they were learning in their native language with other children or adults. Even in linguistically heterogeneous classrooms such as those in this study, at least some degree of bilingual education is proving to be feasible and clearly provides the best context for conceptual development - and for learning English (Saville-Troike 1984, 215f.). © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="235"?> 13.2 Practical suggestions 235 13.2.4 Teacher self-development Over the years, dedicated teachers may perhaps acquire some knowledge of the broad characteristics of the structure and sound of one or two immigrant languages which tend to reappear in their classrooms. They may record files of salient, recurring errors from speakers of these languages and develop strategies to deal with them. They have become aware of pronunciation difficulties, can anticipate problems with specific words, and so on. Some of this, they would learn from their pupils who will see their teachers as people who show respect and care for their language and culture. Hopefully, these kinds of bilingual strategies will contribute to lessening inequalities in the classroom. Even a little knowledge of students’ languages will go a long way. Many teachers count themselves particularly happy for having reached children with special learning problems. However, it must be recognised that teachers can’t please everyone and be all things to all people. Some newcomers are not even literate in their own language and may even speak a dialect far removed from the standard language forms. Study questions and tasks 1. Have a look at standard course books of English as a FL. Are songs and other authentic materials included? Do the texts contain unknown vocabulary? How is the problem solved? 2. Find popular songs, poems, advertising slogans which can be clearly identified as useful for teaching a particular construction / usage. Search the net for equivalents in a number of those languages likely to be found in EFL classes in your region. 3. Some of the techniques indicated in this chapter can be applied beyond the multilingual classroom. Indicate which ones you believe can be extended generally to the FL classroom and explain how you might use them there. 4. Time-out and group work are suggested here as ways that students from the same L1 might support one another. Indicate the best circumstances for such grouping and how the process might operate (pre-, during and post-lesson). 5. Imagine yourself securing an excellent post-graduate scholarship to study through the local language at a university in, say, Poland or Saudi Arabia. What support, techniques and learning resources would you seek, both in preparation for and during your study period? © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="236"?> Chapter 14: Directions for future work For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. 1 Corinthians 13,9 14.1 Continuity and change Theoretically, it’s all very simple. You don’t learn basketball when all you do is play volleyball. So we can’t learn English by constantly using German. We only learn English to the extent that we actually use it. This is self-evident. But there is another side to the coin. We all must start from where we are. We can only learn a new skill by building upon existing skills. This is true for a first language where parents tease out innate abilities. It is all the more true for second and foreign languages where we can build on both innate as well as acquired talents. This, too, is self-evident. It follows from the first premise that a language has to teach itself. It follows from the second that we must engage the language skills acquired and promoted by the MT. The MT is second only to the target language itself as a means to learn it. If we don’t want just to rely on the learners themselves making the connection intuitively and drawing on the relevant skills, to what extent can we actively assist them? How can we mobilise MT support without reducing FL use in the classroom? To answer this question is to find practical solutions, to solve engineering problems, as it were, to develop and re-develop techniques of using the FL which would at the same time enlist all the necessary support from existing MT skills. After years of careful, steady experimenting in classrooms, Dodson proposed practical solutions which we have taken a step or two further. What remains to be done is to test them in a wide variety of classrooms. Our first proposal entails more replications of Dodson’s experiments, with different language pairs. Demonstrably effective teaching techniques are indispensable. 14.2 In the doing comes the understanding It was found that teachers generally engage in a rather narrow range of classroom activities: One of the most disturbing findings reported in preceding chapters is the narrow range of teaching practices used by the teachers in our sample, particularly at the secondary level. Although the schools varied quite markedly in many characteristics, the school-to-school variation in these practices was modest … The goals set for schools call out for varied pedagogical techniques (Goodlad 1983, 298). Inventories of classroom techniques exist of which only a handful are not intralingual, says Stern (1992, 289). Our foremost concern is, therefore, to spread the use of bilingual techniques and engage teachers in an exchange of information. Teachers must first get the feel of what new techniques are actually like; they must understand both the spirit and the underlying theory. Experience is still too scanty to know precisely which struc- © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="237"?> 14.3 Experimental comparisons 237 tural differences are amenable to mirroring. Is it only the broad architectural features of a language that can be made transparent by the device of mirroring? What are the possibilities of mirroring for a given pair of source and target language? To resolve such questions, we need long-term trialling in normal classrooms. Bilingual work can be subjected to the same scrutiny with which present-day classrooms have been analyzed: through student questionnaires, observations by teacher trainees when they sit in on lessons, and autobiographical reports that tell us how it felt to be a language learner. We can then compare the findings with older studies: Is there still the “content vacuum” that was found by Mitchell in her large-scale study (1988)? Are there still underperforming students complaining vociferously about being lost in language lessons, as was found in Thornton (1999)? What do the good language learners say? These questions have been asked, and can be asked again, with a special focus on the L1-L2 issue. 14.3 Experimental comparisons Giving reasons for the efficacy of bilingual techniques is one thing; establishing their efficacy as an experimental fact is another. All claims authors make in regard of their own inventions should be treated dubiously. Ultimately, the acid test is the direct experimental comparison of differential treatments over some time, monolingual versus bilingual. It is doubtful whether there is much value in a global method comparison (Butzkamm 1973, 165f.). Rather, we need to be reductionist, focusing closely on specific, strictly defined techniques, to determine whether a monolingual or a bilingual technique is more effective in terms of the outcome. Let us take dialogue work as described in chapter 7. For experimental purposes this could be reduced to phase 1 dialogue presentation and memorisation, which take learners to the point where they can act the dialogue out naturally. Both monolingual and bilingual approaches would certainly see this as a valuable intermediate teaching objective. What then, is to be the measure of comparison? The most uncontroversial measure, comparing like with like, would be the time taken to reach a common standard of performance, determined in advance of the trials. Hammerly (1991, 151) estimates that the judicious use of the MT in carefully crafted techniques “can be twice as efficient (i.e. reach the same level of second language proficiency in half the time), without any loss in effectiveness, as instruction that ignores the students’ native language.” But could it be that the expressions whose meanings were given via the MT stick less well than those which involve students in greater effort in understanding monolingual explanations? Of course, even in such a reduced experimental context there would be a number of both controlled and uncontrolled variables. For instance, bilingual dialogue presentation would involve the simultaneous presentation of two controlled variables, MT and printed word (the latter would tend to be delayed in the monolingual approach). In both cases, there are likely to be important teacher characteristics that could represent uncontrolled variables e.g. ability to mimic, model and deliver the lines in a lively way, general interactivity of the teacher, encouraging personal style and so on. It would be difficult to expect the same teacher to teach using both techniques, as their previous teaching experience would be likely to make them more comfortable with one approach or the other. However, if a sufficient number of different teachers were involved, some of these uncontrolled variables would most likely be cancelled out. Also, various lan- © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="238"?> 238 Chapter 14: Directions for future work guage pairings should be taken into consideration, since lexical and syntactical meaning may not be as much an obstacle for say Dutch-German or Spanish-Italian or even English-German and English-French as opposed to English-Turkish or English-Finnish. As Fiks (1966, 242), author of a Vietnamese course in which “analogizing through the student’s native English” was systematically used, warns: One should not conclude that such literal translation is desirable or even possible in other FL short courses. The technique is deemed useful in Vietnamese only by virtue of that language’s syntax and word order vis à vis that of English. Another fruitful area of differentiation to be investigated would be the comparison of semi-communicative bilingual drills with a battery of exercises picked from monolingual coursebooks, such as the traditional fill-in types. Activities and exercises might be selected that focus on the more difficult structural areas of contrast between language pairs. Here, apart from measuring overall learning outcomes, the problem of interference errors could be investigated. While it is claimed that MT use generates interference, proponents of the bilingual approach maintain that it is exactly the opposite that happens: interference errors are “practised away”. Error counts from a variety of studies could resolve the issue. Another interesting measure for drill work is the number of meaningful responses per minute. It was claimed in chapter 6 that bilingual drills provide plentiful exposure to the relevant linguistic forms in the shortest possible time. Do bilingual drills generate more active student responses for the constructions to be automatised than existing coursebook exercises? The above proposal entails, in the current jargon, a comparison of two types of “focus on forms” approaches. One could also test the relative effectiveness of semicommunicative bilingual drills and a “focus on form” option, where the treatment of grammar should arise from difficulties in communicative interaction, without really interrupting it (Sheen 2003b; 2005). However, this distinction strikes us as artificial, since past practice has always included brief grammatical (or lexical) interventions during message-oriented interaction, depending on the type of difficulty students are grappling with. That some problems can be dealt with on the fly is trivial; the idea that all grammatical problems can be dealt with via “time outs” of no more than a minute is, frankly speaking, beyond the pale. 14.4 Lesson analysis The researcher focusing on pedagogical approaches needs live classroom data to investigate what is actually happening in classes rather than what the theorist or practitioner may intend or believe. Once the lesson transcripts, whether video or written, are available, impartial researchers, as well as practitioners, are able to tackle problems thrown up in the context of teaching and form their own conclusions. No matter what their convictions are, they would be able to test and evaluate these techniques in the unpredictable “messiness” of the classroom as the locus of learning. The goal is to illuminate the teaching process and to determine where bilingual and monolingual techniques are fruitful and where they are superfluous or indeed deleterious. A case in point is a history lesson, conducted in English as a foreign language, where the teacher felt that sensible use of the MT could work strongly as a “conversational © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="239"?> 14.4 Lesson analysis 239 lubricant”, preventing the motor of the discussion from seizing up. What counted was not the teacher’s (or the pupils’) cleverness in bypassing the mother tongue when special difficulties arose, but the teacher’s ability to respond quickly to his students’ appeals for help and to supply the missing expressions. German expressions were inserted by the pupils as a way of spontaneously solving a problem of communication. However, German did not replace English as the working language. It only interrupted the current interaction for as long as it was necessary to conclude the repair sequence, without cutting off the thread of serious discussion. Thus, it helped to establish the foreign language communication and prevent it from breaking down. The MT interventions worked like a drop of oil on a rusty machine - without them the pupil’s communication could have come to a grinding halt. All this, we believe, was convincingly demonstrated, but the transcript of the complete lesson would allow any reader to put his own interpretation on the classroom events and draw his own conclusions (Butzkamm 1998). Lesson protocols don’t come affixed with the right kind of smaller questions which can be unequivocally answered and which would ultimately lead up to the big question of whether the inclusion of L1 was beneficial or detrimental or just neutral. We could, for instance, measure the time taken up by all MT interventions, given the common criticism that using the MT reduces the students’ exposure to the FL. But there are lots of other small questions. Who code-switches in classrooms, when and where and for what purposes? Are there uses of the MT which have the desired effect of a quick, unobtrusive learning aid? Conversely, which uses of MT seem to be prompted by laxity and derail the focus on FL communication? There is still more information that might be gleaned from lesson transcripts, both of a quantitative and qualitative nature. Bilingual/ monolingual (B/ M) classes as advocated here could be compared against a set of monolingual (M) lesson protocols, used as a quasi control group. Word or time counts could be used profitably to determine how much of the class time was given to medium and message-orientated communication. The instrument for measurement might need to be divided into categories such as medium, semi-message, message and indeterminate, with criteria for allocation, though the decisions would still depend largely on professional nous and expertise. Provided the same criteria were used for both sets of data, both the overall incidence of interaction and its relative medium versus message orientation could be compared: Is more message-oriented communication taking place in B/ M classes as was claimed in chapter 3? Are there more pupil participation and a wider distribution of talk opportunities? Is there a more “foreign language friendly atmosphere”, even if short bursts in the MT are allowed? Observers and raters would focus on the conversational quality of what was taking place: smoothness and flow of the interaction, level of discussion, “realness” and personalisation of responses, overall complexity of vocabulary and structure used (including teacher fill-ins), number of students becoming spontaneously involved, range of ability among those committing to or being committed to the discourse and so on. Already to date, informal meaning checks have been occasionally employed to measure the real understanding of students. This is obviously more relevant to the monolingual approach but could be used comparatively as well. Competent professionals could observe lessons and ask for MT equivalents, after the lesson, of key words and structures © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="240"?> 240 Chapter 14: Directions for future work used during the lesson. Learners themselves could also rate their level of understanding on a simple scale, perhaps monthly over the first year of taking up the FL. 14.5 A new generation of textbooks Universal textbooks which don’t take the MT of their clients into account do not weight their materials to the real needs of the learner. A careful comparison and analysis of both languages in relation to the bilingual techniques proposed should underpin the production of new textbooks geared to these specific language pairs. Ironically, the modern emphasis on student-centred learning and learner autonomy has not led to more textbooks which support the independence of the learner through the knowledge that he has already stored in the MT. For new techniques to feed through to classrooms, they need to be integrated in coursebooks and made available to teachers. This is crucial. Without bilingual textbooks, there will be no methodological breakthrough. It goes without saying that if we want little Fritz to speak better English, we also need to train better teachers, not only buy newer coursebooks. But that is a different matter altogether. 14.6 Europe-wide test of English as a foreign language European tests of EFL would be a major desideratum. The test would have to be accompanied by a personal questionnaire where the students would indicate to what extent they encounter English outside school. We have a hunch that Dutch and Scandinavian pupils would fare significantly better than students with similar educational backgrounds in say Germany or other European countries. If it is true, we would surmise that it is the Dutch and Scandinavian preference of subtitling over dubbing in TV and films that makes most of the difference. They get massive comprehensible input, though not of the very best sort, because a great deal of the input would at first remain structurally opaque. The sheer volume of input would nevertheless make the learning context closer to that of immersion. 14.7 ‘The hungry sheep look up and are not fed’ How is it that even after several years’ learning many pupils have a poor grasp of key language structures and cannot create even very simple language of their own? In German secondary modern schools, tests results for English in one state-wide test (year 9) were worse than for any other subjects. For four successive years students are taught and re-taught the same elementary constructions without ever assimilating them - as if English, of all languages, wasn’t within easy reach of the average German child. Alarmingly poor results, as observed by German teaching assistants, were also obtained for German in England and Wales (Plum 2007). French is no exception, as reported in Modern Foreign Languages Inspected (quoted by Elston 1999), although inspectors also found evidence of very good practice. FLT in Britain is on the decline, with a big fall in numbers taking languages at 16. This can only partly be due to the fact that Anglophones cannot as easily see the value of learning another language as others can. Disaffection among lower-performing children is rife and leads to discipline problems: a vicious circle. In Hong Kong (Hong Kong Institute of Education 2001), in a © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="241"?> 14.8 Unheeded lessons of history 241 cross-sectoral study over two years, a general tendency was found for younger, less mature or lower ability students to benefit more from local teachers than from monolingual native speakers of English. Why? Why, of all subjects, should foreign languages be comparatively difficult for lower-ability children? Aren’t we all genetically endowed for language, much more so than, say, for maths? Why is it that with reams of articles piling up and new books published every year, all aiming at the spread of excellence and improved FLT, many schools fail to produce good language learning? Why this loathing of languages, including English in Germany, among a substantial minority of children? This is the most profound and probing question the profession must face - but one which is seldom asked openly. So let’s learn from underachievers. Highly motivated, competitive learners, the elite, will always pick up something useful, which even below-average teachers will undoubtedly provide them with. They are likely to find strategies to survive in most learning contexts, as they tend to be resourceful in finding ways to surmount difficulties. The lower performers, usually less independent in their learning strategies, may find the “sink or swim” context of the monolingual approach beyond their capabilities or will-power, as the Burstall evidence seems to suggest. 14.8 Unheeded lessons of history Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around. G.K. Chesterton “One generation’s heresy becomes the orthodoxy of the next” is Kelly’s (1969, 408) conclusion on reviewing 25 centuries of language teaching. This must simply be put an end to. I was told the story of language teaching when I was learning to become a teacher. Once upon a time, the story goes, all languages were taught like Greek and Latin. Learning was based on grammar rules and translation. You talked in your own language about the dead language you saw written down. Then in the late nineteenth century came the Direct Method, the ancestor of Berlitz. You spoke in class in the language you were trying to teach; you worked on pronunciation; you practiced grammar out loud (Kaplan 1994, 130). What an ignorant and thoughtless contortion, one which is repeated over and over again! More than 2000 years of documented history of FLT and a treasure chest of ideas go into the dustbin. Here we have told a different story. The use of the MT in FLT has a long and creditable history, not to be equated with the much maligned grammar translation method of the late nineteenth century. But many writers are, by all accounts, woefully ignorant of even the classics in our field. Even in refereed journals, articles appear by the dozen by people obviously unaware of the lessons of the past. The study of the history of language teaching deserves a central place in teacher education, in order to give teachers the intellectual tools to understand a wide variety of classrooms past and present, to become aware of what the issues are and prevent this from happening again: The Province of Quebec, in 1984, implemented a strong version of the communicative approach based on the most extreme interpretation of Krashen’s Monitor Model, banning all teaching of grammar and devoting all classroom time to communicative activities. In the ensuing 18 years, © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="242"?> 242 Chapter 14: Directions for future work it has become increasingly apparent that the reform is considered a serious mistake, given that during the last decade or so the introduction of various other forms of grammar instruction have been sanctioned by the Ministry of Education (Sheen 2003a, 62). Frankly speaking, this is scandalous. We must not forget what has worked for many and why. Bilingual self-study courses as mentioned by Butzkamm (1973, 100f.), some of which were designed after much experimentation and trial and error, are a case in point. By the same token, highly successful teachers such as Michel Thomas should not be hastily dismissed as Methods gurus with charismatic personalities. Instead, their techniques should be carefully studied and subjected to rational inquiry. Throughout this book, we have strived to provide the “cumulative development” and “intellectual continuity” which, according to Widdowson (2003, X), are so strikingly absent in our field. Think of MT mirroring, so much used in the past and so convincingly deployed in widely known non-schoolbooks and language courses, where it is almost a magic wand to open the door to tricky points of grammar. It is arguably the perfect way of making students notice L1-L2 contrasts, avoiding the use of unfamiliar metalinguistic terminology. Why is it almost completely absent in modern day coursebooks? Why has it not been studied by researchers? Could it be that a great deal of research intended to improve teaching has been undertaken by those who have never been full time teachers in public schools and taught across the ability range for at least a couple of years? Some with an EFL background may never have learnt another language to a high level of competency. Why are there so many who behave as if the history of FLT was a succession of failed methods? Only up to the point, of course, when they themselves entered the scene. Grammar-translation has become a bogey word. But there is evidence enough that it did produce its share of good language learners, certainly too small a share. Why be so arrogantly dismissive of ideas and practices such as pattern drills and the PPP paradigm, which have been used by excellent practitioners quite aware of what they were doing? Let us try to understand not only what made it fail in some classrooms but also what made it tick in other contexts, and we’ll make some progress. So let us not finish this chapter on a pessimistic note. It is refreshing to see how alive and bristling with energy the field is and how teachers write enthusiastically about their classroom ideas that have worked well for them … even if these ideas are not as new as they may have appeared to them. Study questions and tasks 1. In this book, as everywhere else, there is more argument than evidence. However, “When the native language is used, practitioners, researchers, and learners consistently report positive results … evidence from both research and practice suggests that the L1 may be a potential resource rather than an obstacle”, says Auerbach (1993, 18, 20). Consult language teaching journals and the bibliographical quarterly Language Teaching to disprove or confirm Auerbach. 2. Proponents of a monolingual approach seem to believe that the burden of the proof is to be placed entirely on the “dissenters”. To what extent is this justified? 3. No one would deny that we have better cars now that we had 50 years back. Do we also have better FLT? Why can’t this question be answered with some confidence? Must we re-direct our research efforts? © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="243"?> Epilogue: Capitalising on a priceless legacy Der Sprachunterricht muß umkehren. (Language teaching must get back on course.) Wilhelm Viëtor, 1882 The bilingual reform advocated here is not a counterreform. When towards the end of the nineteenth century a significant proportion of modern language teachers turned against a grammar translation method inherited from the dead languages, the great reformers such as Viëtor, Sweet, Jespersen and Palmer continued to use the MT regularly for meaning conveyance. Only when in the second half of the previous century FLT as an international discipline became almost synonymous with ELT and was increasingly dominated by native speakers did English-only policies assert themselves. However, as this book has shown, the exclusion of the MT from the teaching process is a patent absurdity. With the self-crippling MT taboo, the bottom has dropped out from under FLT. Our bilingual reform - rediscoveries with modern reformulations and readjustments - brings the explicit and targeted use of the MT back into the FL classroom while preserving the central ideas of the Great Reform, “the primacy of speech, the centrality of the connected text as the kernel of the teaching learning process, and the absolute priority of an oral classroom methodology” (Howatt 2004, 189), thus making the target language the working language of the classroom. The dividing line between the benefits and drawbacks of using the MT is by no means narrow. What has given MT its unsavoury reputation is its indiscriminate use for ostensibly off-task activities such as class management and non-curricular matters, its use for talking about the language rather than practising it, its overuse by tired and overburdened teachers, or by those with a shaky command of the FL. We know all too well where the MT tongue is out of place in FLT. However, clearly defined and brain compatible bilingual teaching techniques are less known. Until we start using them, we will continue to sell our students short. Yet we are not offering them as a universal panacea, since it will always remain a challenge to survive in the heat of some classrooms. But we do think they can change both teachers’ and students’ lives for the better. The judicious and skilful use of bilingual activities empowers the student and doubles the teacher’s repertoire of techniques. For how much longer are we going to withhold them from teachers and pupils? Does FLL really need to continue to be traumatic, degrading or stultifying for so many students? Believe in the power of teaching. Experience the excitement of teaching. Teach with MT support. Teach with the wind beneath your wings. © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. 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Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. <?page no="257"?> Subject Index Chinese 14, 27, 59, 73, 90, 97, 111, 113, 115, 146, 190, 193, 196, 216 chunking 168 classroom courtesy 32 classroom discourse/ phrases 32, 38, 49, 210 classroom pidgin 64, 171 code-breaking 64 code-mixing 223 code-switching 222f. cognates 77, 95, 96, 98, 100, 143, 150, 151 cognitive linguistics 56, 167 cognitive overload 94 cognitive resources 95, 170, 176 collaborative construction of meaning 65 collocation 28, 91, 95, 114, 133, 186, 209f., 216 communication 36, 41ff., 54, 64, 68f., 73, 76, 80, 82, 90, 94, 120, 123ff., 137, 140, 146, 152, 153, 160, 161, 162, 169, 173, 176, 179, 197, 198, 203, 206, 210, 214, 218, 221f., 239 communication continuum 49 message-oriented vs. medium-oriented 42ff., 47ff., 58, 80, 81, 136, 138, 156, 159, 161, 166, 169, 179, 188, 201, 204, 238, 239 communicative approach 13, 18, 65, 80, 101, 116, 123, 130, 141, 173, 176, 241 communicative competence 15, 73, 81, 94, 124, 148 compositionality 14, 120 comprehensible input 22, 29, 30, 33, 51, 53, 65, 101, 240 comprehension vs. production 63ff. computers 20, 35, 67, 71, 154, 202, 209 concepts 66f., 68, 73, 88, 90, 92, 105, 106, 109, 117, 118, 131, 155, 159, 185, 204, 210, 220, 226, 227, 234 conditionals 77, 104, 111, 232 construction 15, 28, 29, 38, 45, 55, 59f., 72, 83, 103f., 109ff., 118, 120ff., 125, 127, 130ff., 142, 144, 154, 159, 168, 180, 193, 235, 238, 240 content 40ff., 55f., 83, 84, 101, 108, 111, 122ff., 134, 139, 140, 160, 184, 185, 187f., 193, 195, 198, 203, 211, 215, 226, 231 content vacuum 46f., 84, 198, 237 content and language integrated learning (CLIL) 40f., 230 contextual diversity 127, 131 contrastive analysis 209 ability (levels of a.) 24, 72, 122, 138, 157f., 232, 241 accent 70, 71, 147, 166, 171, 227 accuracy 19, 41, 46, 81, 94, 196, 197, 214, 234 affective domain (emotions) 39f., 102, 171ff., 173ff. analogy 55, 112ff., 116, 120ff., 238 analysis (of language) 53, 58f., 64, 75, 95, 112, 116, 121, 128, 134, 214f. analytic vs. experiential teaching 47 applied behaviour analysis (ABA) 175 approximation (translation) 90ff., 95, 152, 199, 200 Arabic 73, 98, 232 Army Specialised Training Programme 20, 148 articulation 69, 70, 165, 169, 211 association 74, 76, 79, 83, 87, 94, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 110, 127, 133, 152, 155, 180, 222 incorrect cross-associations 98 principle of association 95ff., 153 atmosphere (classroom) 16, 20, 26, 31ff., 37ff., 80f., 86, 123, 165, 182, 183, 239 auditory discrimination 69f., 145, 149 autism 53, 127, 175 autobiographical reports 16, 237 autonomy (learner a.) 124, 130, 155, 191, 194, 240 avoidance (of constructions) 115 awareness (language a.) 114, 197f., 203 behaviourism 14, 105, 175 Bible 53, 61, 89, 100, 113, 181, 196, 200, 230 big books 181 bilingual books/ readers 184, 185, 189, 195 bilingualism 36, 75, 188, 217ff., 223 bilingual method (Dodson) 19, 21, 22, 190 self-destructive 87, 190 bilingual text methods 59ff., 63 boredom 93, 139, 141, 154, 171 borrowing 96, 106f. morphological borrowing 106 syntactical (loan syntax) 107 brain research 14, 168 brainstorming 131, 204 caretaker speech 54, 69 causatives 71 channel capacity 169 child directed speech 54, 69 <?page no="258"?> 258 Subject Index core meaning 72, 91 correction (see errors) 43, 49, 85, 156, 160, 166, 175 counselling-learning 19, 215 coursebooks 34, 45, 49, 60, 62, 83, 116, 128, 130, 134, 181, 205, 206, 210, 233, 238, 240, 242 Crazy English 174 creative construction 85 critical mass hypothesis (see also ‘time factor’) 29 cultural issues/ differences 22, 41, 67, 70, 90ff., 192, 196ff., 215 debates (classroom activity) 115 declamation 142, 163, 164, 165 decoding vs. code-breaking (Cook) 51, 55, 64, 214, 215 developmental phases/ stages 130 deverbalisation 105, 155, 200 dialogues 60, 64f., 83, 92, 95, 125, 135, 142ff., 170ff. dictation 43, 50, 97, 163, 212 dictionaries 20, 21, 36, 39, 46, 61, 63, 79, 81, 91, 97, 99, 116, 131, 197, 199, 200, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 216, 219, 231, 234 direct method 13, 14, 17, 21, 22, 23, 63f., 75, 76, 78, 83, 84, 87, 149, 240 discovery learning 19, 117 display questions 46 drama 142ff., 163ff. drills 14, 44, 47, 49, 53, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124ff., 166, 174, 175, 176, 180, 211, 238, 242 bilingual/ semi-communicative 120-141, 158, 167ff., 236ff. dual comprehension 59, 60-65, 110, 125, 181, 185 DVDs 191ff. energeia (Humboldt) 121, 124 English discourse-structuring gambits 32 English for-construction 115 English plural/ gender 113 English fronting techniques 113 entrenchment 14, 167, 168 equivalence 55, 61, 72, 89ff., 199 ergon (Palmer) 121, 125 errors 29, 41, 45f., 72, 81, 84ff., 116, 117, 119, 120, 128, 130, 132ff., 148, 150, 151, 156, 168, 169, 170, 188, 207, 209, 211, 212, 213, 235, 238 classroom pidgin 41, 64, 171 developmental errors 117, 130 error analysis 209 segmentation errors 57f. Eurocentrism 112 experiential vs. analytic teaching 47 fallacy 68, 77, 175 etymological fallacy (Sweet) 98 naturalistic/ communicative fallacy 47, 169, 175 false friends/ faux amis 86, 211, 212, 216 fantasy trips/ guided imagery 183, 194 Finnish 109, 112 fis phenomenon 69 fission vs. fusion (Peters) 36, 59, 156 fluency 19, 32, 36, 41, 46, 94, 124, 126, 153, 169, 171, 197, 214 focus on form/ meaning 26, 41, 42, 45, 49, 103, 136, 139, 176, 238 dual focus 44ff., 115, 124, 188, 192ff., 205 foreigner talk 179 form-function mapping 64 formulas, formulaic speech 28, 31, 38, 51, 53, 57, 59, 87, 109, 194, 204 fossilisation 46, 117, 178 frustration (learners) 21, 22, 39, 70, 75, 76, 77, 103, 158, 172, 176, 211, 213, 229 games 44, 46, 50, 52, 72, 88, 91, 137, 161, 167, 174, 176, 180, 205, 209, 210, 220, 226 generalisation 14, 175, 178 generative principle 14, 109, 120 German gender 46, 91, 113, 139 German modal particles 104, 152 German syntax 107ff., 120, 234, 238 German word formation 110 gestures 33, 40, 49, 68, 83, 88, 94, 95, 139, 141, 144, 145, 153, 154, 155, 169, 192, 194 good language learners 48, 237, 242 grammar 28ff., 51ff., 66ff., 77, 82, 84, 98, 101-118, 120-142, 145f., 164, 179, 187, 192, 206, 210, 216, 225, 231, 238, 241ff. continuation of the lexicon 101 rules 17, 30, 54f., 101f., 104, 114, 116, 118, 120f., 168, 241 grammatical categories/ terms 113, 114, 117 grammatical grading/ sequencing 84, 117, 181, 194 grammatical intuitions 103 grammar-translation method 17, 23, 63, 241f. group work 19, 32, 48, 50, 65, 141, 157, 170, 171, 177, 234, 235 habituation 168 here-and-now principle 54 homework 17, 34, 38, 40, 43, 48, 86, 87, 88, 106, 127, 191, 193, 194, 203, 210, 211, 212, 230 <?page no="259"?> Subject Index 259 identification vs. fusion (Palmer) 36 idioms 28, 34, 37, 91, 111, 127, 132, 147, 186, 191, 192, 194, 208, 210, 212 imitation 43, 116, 145ff., 157, 159, 170, 176, 179, 182 immersion programmes 46 incidental learning 45, 179f., 194, 202 inferencing 194 information overload 169 intake 53, 233 interaction 26, 30, 33, 44, 47, 48, 56, 57, 63, 66, 101, 123, 129, 136, 138, 167, 176, 180, 198, 238, 239 (non) interface hypothesis 112 interference errors 85, 86, 188, 211, 212, 213, 237 intralingual interference 212 interleaved learning 125 interludes communicative 129, 131, 136, 141 grammatical 134 interpreting 33, 105, 167, 214 liaison interpreting 214 intonation 47, 49, 104, 105, 139, 140, 142, 145, 147, 148, 165, 166, 169, 176, 177 Japanese 21, 22, 27, 46, 58, 62, 70, 75, 96, 112, 141, 147, 215, 234 Korean 13, 111, 112, 133 L1 acquisition 29, 30, 57, 65, 74, 123, 167, 170 pre-sleep monologues 122 Language Acquisition Support System (LASS) 56, 66, 74 language bath 29f., 31 language loss 223 language mix (texts) 184, 188, 190, 193, 223, 227 language universals (concepts) 70ff. learner confidence 80, 91, 93, 129, 132, 138, 148, 158, 161, 162, 171, 174, 182, 189, 207, 242 exceptionally gifted student 191 frustration 21, 22, 70, 75, 76, 77, 103, 158, 172, 176, 211, 213, 229 good language learner 48, 237, 242 individual differences 131, 138, 157f. learners as teachers/ learning by teaching 199, 209 motivation 24, 63, 78, 161, 170, 172, 197, 200, 215, 223, 224, 234 slow learner 138, 157 student-centredness 152, 173, 210, 240 lesson analysis 238 lesson transcripts 80, 238, 239 linguistic relativity 67 listening 63ff., 124, 128, 145, 151, 155, 162f., 170, 172f., 178f., 180ff., 190ff., 196, 205 loan syntax 107 mastery learning (see skill theory) 158, 167, 170, 171, 187, 202 meaning-conveyance 14, 33ff., 75, 90ff., 101, 152f. medium-orientation vs. message-orientation 34, 42, 44, 47, 48, 49, 128, 136, 156, 176 shifts 42, 44 memorising 54, 154 mentalese (Pinker) 105, 106, 155 method comparisons 236 mime and gesture 139 mirroring 77, 103, 106ff., 112, 116, 117, 118, 125, 126, 130, 133, 170, 237, 242 misunderstandings 75, 77, 89, 98 mnemonics 99, 100, 141 motherese 54, 69 motivation 24, 64, 78, 161, 170, 172, 197, 200, 215, 223, 224, 234 multilingual classes 229ff. narrowness of consciousness 169 naturalistic fallacy 169, 175 noticing 199, 242 overproduction 108, 115 pair work 50, 126, 141, 188 paralinguistic features 94, 153, 215 facial expressions 49, 68, 95, 105, 141, 145, 153, 155, 169, 192 gesture 33, 40, 49, 68, 83, 88, 94, 95, 139, 141, 144, 145, 153, 154, 155, 169, 192, 194 vocal 152 parallel version 62, 186, 188, 200 passives, reversible vs. irreversible 71, 72 peripheral perception 149 phonemes 139, 146, 147, 149, 169 phraseology 28 possession, alienable vs. inalienable 72 practice, self-imposed 46, 146 pragmatic dimension 93 prefabricated phrases/ routine formulas 28f., 38, 57, 116 pre-reading phase 150 presentation-practice-production sequence (PPP) 142, 166, 175, 241 pre-speaking phase 181 printed word/ FL script 56, 149, 150ff., 168ff., 176, 237 immediate vs. delayed presentation 151 <?page no="260"?> 260 Subject Index proceduralization 168 processing capacities 169f. pronunciation 47, 49, 58, 59, 69, 70, 122, 145, 146, 147, 148, 151, 155, 170, 173, 174, 176, 180, 208, 235, 241 read-and-look-up (West) 162, 163 reading 61, 63-66, 73, 79, 105, 142, 149, 162, 166, 167, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 186, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 198, 199, 201, 205, 206, 212, 214, 226, 231 reading aloud 149, 180, 182 reception 165, 173 remote languages 91, 98, 111, 112 retarded children 127, 157 role-making 142, 158, 159, 173 role-taking 94, 142, 143, 158 sandwich story 190 sandwich technique 33, 34, 35ff., 40, 80f., 144, 165, 170, 180, 182 scaffolding 54, 56, 64, 74, 87 self-study courses 20, 241 Shakespeare 113, 186, 200 shyness/ inhibition 173f., 193 sign language 225 skill theory 112, 167-177 entrenchment 14, 168 restructuring 14, 90 short-circuiting (pruning) 87, 168 whole vs. parts practice 173 story-telling 180, 182, 194 tandem 55, 215 Tan-Gau method 181 task-based instruction (TBI) 169, 175, 176 teacher adviser 156 beliefs 25, 103, 207 coach 146, 159, 171 education 20, 241 outstanding teachers 48, 206 professional neurosis 23 role model 32, 170 self-development 235 self-discipline 39 talking time 180 teacher talk 180, 194 trainers 83, 90, 116, 209 telling the time 109 time factor/ total time hypothesis 29, 123, 167f., 178f., 224 translation 15, 35, 60, 61, 62, 78, 90, 93, 94, 100, 104, 106, 107, 110, 112, 115, 117, 118, 125, 127, 132, 138, 139, 140, 145, 152, 155, 168, 170, 177, 184f., 187ff., 193, 196-203, 204-216, 221, 224, 226ff., 238, 241, 243 interlinear version 62, 107 literal translation (see mirroring) 60, 61, 62, 106, 107, 108, 111, 112, 117, 118, 126, 132, 138, 232, 238 mental translation 20, 86, 87, 177 re-translation 188, 202 Turkish 89, 97, 111, 117f., 208, 231ff. underuse 115 universal grammar 55 vocabulary 19, 27, 34, 36f., 58, 76f., 81ff., 96, 99, 122f., 125ff., 146, 185f., 190f., 194f., 204ff., 213ff., 218, 220f., 226, 230, 233, 235, 239 vocab growth 30 vocab glosses 79f., 185, 233 word cards 210, 216 word histories 97ff. word lists 205 word trails 205 whole-class teaching 173 <?page no="261"?> narr studienbücher Wolfgang Butzkamm John A.W. Caldwell The Bilingual Reform A Paradigm Shift in Foreign Language Teaching narr studienbücher Butzkamm / Caldwell The Bilingual Reform With this book, change has come to foreign language teaching. The mother tongue taboo, which has been the perceived didactical correctness for so many years and in so many countries, is swept away. At the same time, this book combines theory with practice, advice and guidance to teachers. Since the mother tongue issue touches upon all the major domains of teaching - vocabulary, grammar, texts, communication, emotional aspects - a new synthesis of theory and practice has been developed. An invaluable resource both for the novelty and diversity of the teaching techniques presented and for the clarity of its writing. The book benefits from the authors’ more than thirty-year-long research and teaching involvement with the role of the mother tongue in foreign language teaching and their involved observation of the functioning of natural bilingualism. ISBN 978-3-8233-6492-4 Wolfgang Butzkamm John A. W. Caldwell 028009 Stud. Butzkamm_Caldwell: 028009 Stud. Butzkamm_Caldwell 07.04.2009 18: 20 Uhr Seite 1