I never met any “trained” English teachers until I had been doing the job for about three years. In Thailand in 1995, most of the teachers were English whoremongers, many of whom hadn’t had any sort of higher education at all. In Korea in 1996, most of the teachers were Canadian university graduates from other fields who couldn’t get jobs in Canada. In New York, most of the teachers I worked with had received training from the state of New York, which had apparently taught them to do the same things that completely untrained teachers did : go through the book with your students and ask them questions often.
Ah, but then around 1999 or so I went back to Thailand and the watchword had become “communicative approach.” Even middle-aged whoremongers were talking about “learner-based activities.” There was a skeptical element in me – why would the students want to pay to talk to each other? But the more I heard about it the more I tried doing it in class.
By god, it is a life saver.
It is the best fucking thing since sliced bread. Give me communicative activities, or give me death. Looking back on it, I can’t understand how I survived my first three years without them.
My personality has never exactly been what one might call gregarious. After a few drinks I can babble like anybody else, but in my daily life, I’m generally happy to talk as little as possible, especially to people I don’t know.
Many teachers love to be the center of attention; these are usually the popular teachers, if not the good teachers. And a tremendous number of students still expect it – if their teacher doesn’t put on a good show, and does something boring like making them read, write, or do grammar exercises, they are likely to go complain to the management. This is especially true in Asia.
I can recall coming out of classes in Thailand and Korea feeling like I’d run a marathon. When I managed to entertain the class, I always felt good, but if it went badly I felt like murdering somebody. Always there I was, in the center of the class, talking, being stared at, desperately thinking of something entertaining to do or say.
I never liked it.
So imagine when I found that modern ESL theory tells me that my job is to talk as little as possible in class! Holy shit! Dreams come true!
Let me illustrate: THE TRADITIONAL APPROACH
- Teacher enters, greets students, asks them some questions such as “how was your weekend?” “Did you watch ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK last night on Tv? Too bad, it’s great. It’s about this guy who. . .”
- Teacher tells students to open their books and read whatever the book presents about the grammar subject of the day.
- Teacher asks if the students understood, then begins to explain, probably in a confused and painful way, what the difference is between the present perfect and the present perfect continuous, or between “boring” and “bored” or whatever. He answers the students’ questions through evasive references to “things we’ll study in the future” or “well, many variations are possible in English.”
- Teacher asks students questions individually illustrating this grammar form, then has some students ask the question to the teacher, and maybe to other students.
- Teacher asks the students to read the text in the book. He desperately enjoys those few minutes of peace. Over all too soon, he is then called on to ask a number of comprehension questions and explain a lot of phrasal verbs and vocabulary. “We don’t use that in America, it must be a British expresssion,” he says when he doesn’t know the meaning of a big word.
- Teacher plays the listening activity for the class. He enjoys this moment of peace but is again soon asking questions, rewinding the tape, explaining difficult words, repeating what the tape said, etc. He wonders why the Headway series seems to have such a fondness for using the voices of old British women.
- Teacher has the students write something, finally, too exhausted to continue. When some students finish quickly, teacher tells them to write something else.
- Teacher decides to finish class ten minutes early, then goes out and gets falling down drunk and goes to a strip bar.
All too typical, and repeated many times, painful indeed.
But now we have the COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH!
- Teacher enters class cheerfully, asks a couple of questions of his students. “Okay, now get into pairs! Ask your partner at least ten questions about their weekend!” They do it. Teacher circulates and pretends like he’s monitoring, perhaps making mental notes about where some of his better-looking female students go to hang out. After fifteen minutes or so, he has a few students ask him questions about his weekend. He carefully edits out the cocaine orgy.
- Teacher has students read the presentation section of the book. “Okay,” says the teacher. “Who can explain to me the difference between the present perfect continuous and present perfect tenses?” Almost inevitably there are some bright young things ready to speak at length on the subject. Listen carefully – you might learn something. “Okay, good, now maybe you can explain when the present perfect is used in other cases? And how we make it?” Don’t worry, they know that stuff already, they studied it in school. ESL theorists call this elicitation.
- Teacher demonstrates a question based on the grammar form of the day, then says, “Okay, students, get into pairs and ask your partner at least fifteen questions like this.” Of course there are different approaches for different grammar points – if the past tense is being discussed, you could say “Okay, ask your partner fifteen questions about their last holiday.” Then you can sit down and pretend like you’re listening to them. After they’re finished you can say something like, “Now, who can tell me a few mistakes they heard? What’s wrong with them?”
- Teacher moves smoothly into the reading section. If someone asks him to explain a word he says, “Okay, who can explain what that means?” If no one answers he says, “Okay, your homework is to find out the meaning of that word.” When the students are finished reading he says, “Okay, now, get in groups of three and discuss, in English, the answers to the comprehension questions on the next page.” He walks around the class, smiling and nodding, offering encouragement, looking down female student’s blouses.
- Still fresh and full of energy, the teacher moves into the listening activity and does pretty much the same thing. “Okay, discuss the answers to the question with your partner.” He plays the tape again, checks the answers himself if he feels like it, and then says, “Okay, now, ask your partner three more questions about what you heard.”
- Moving into the writing, if indeed there is time and he doesn’t just set it for homework, the teacher lets the students check each other’s papers after they are finished writing, and discuss what’s good and bad about the efforts. He sits and doodles some naked women on the back of his register, then with a few careful artistic additions turns them into mountain ranges.
- The class ends, perhaps with a rousing game of “vocabulary tennis” or some other game in which the teacher doesn’t need to do anything.
- Teacher goes out and gets drunk and goes to a strip bar, and still has plenty of energy to get a hooker later.
So . . . save your life force. Elcit, baby. Elicit. Pair ‘em up. Always answer questions with questions. And remember what the Tao Te Ching says : He who does nothing leaves nothing undone.
Back and choose one mo time