Other than English

[burlives]

Does ESL methodology work for teaching other stuff?

What if the students are Chinese and the teacher uses English with the goal of teaching some science course, or a maths program, or software design, or something?

And if you know stuff, can you teach stuff?

I know that doesn't work for English very well without some careful thought on how to teach, so...

[MK]

Have you heard about Clil (Content and Language Integrated Learning)?

There is a debate going about which is more useful, learning English, or simply learning IN English. Some schools adopt English as the teaching medium as a way of 'automatically' raising students English levels - it seems this is becoming more and more popular.

For myself, I have sometimes taught academic writing around say, a biology or geography themed lesson, but this was just because I enjoy those subjects - worked quite well though, and I guess the students learned something besides the writing process.

[Raoul Duke]

ESL has a methodology?!?

Really?

Depends. It's the same from the standpoint of taking a subject, breaking it down into a set of goals, then taking out one of those goals and creating a game plan for teaching it, and then going in and delivering the class.

However, dialogues and repetitions don't work so well in Biology class, and Accounting Corner is doomed to failure. One would hope, anyway.

I've taught Marketing, Management, and Business Communications classes to Chinese university students, in English. Given the slutty nature of the school drones who place people in classes, the language barrier had the potential to be a serious problem for the students. Fortunately, most of the students didn't give a wet slap about anything that happened in any of their classes anyway, so there was no real language problem. I might as well have been reciting dirty limericks in colloquial Hungarian.

If you know, can you teach? Depends. Some people can teach anything. Some people couldn't deliver an effective class if their lives depended on it, even with a M.Ed in their subject. Some classes, like computer programming, need a pretty formal approach if they're ever going to make any sense. Others, like wood shop, are purely hands-on...and fingers-off. The answer comes down to a combination of the person and the subject.

[burlives]

Hungarian, eh?

There's this neat trick that they do in the ECC CELTA course. Barry teaches an entire lesson in Hungarian. I can now get a beer and a chicken sandwich if I ever find myself at a loose end in Budapest. And I was aware of having learned that before he started speaking English again.

Anyway.

Dang, that Clil stuff is interesting. It seems to count for us because supposedly there's bigger bucks in "Foundation" programs, where the kids get taught pre-university courses in English, and of course too they ultimately have to go and be successful somehow in an English-speaking environment..

Those Hong Kong stats were interesting:

" A questioner from Hong Kong turned to the issue of the effect of Clil on the cognitive development of learners. She cited academic research showing that children in Hong Kong's English-medium schools were falling far behind the academic achievement of their Cantonese-medium counterparts."

[Lotus Eater]

I taught Business subjects at my last university in English - first time they had tried it. They have continued with the program, so maybe they figure it was successful.

One of my post-grad Tech Writing students here is doing her final paper for me on Bi-Lingual Teaching - i.e. Content lessons in English for Chinese students, so clearly it is being discussed.

The problems are class size (content classes are often huge), level of English competency (very mixed with these students because they are often non-English majors), need for technical explanation, and for me - covering about half of what I thought I would cover.

[Raoul Duke]

burlives said:

children in Hong Kong's English-medium schools were falling far behind the academic achievement of their Cantonese-medium counterparts."

This...this is Bertie's fault. No question.

[con's fly is open]

I was in a French immersion elementary school: everything but English and Phys. Ed. were taught in La Belle Langue(sp?). Made it way harder, but being forced to speak and listen for most of each day did speed us up, IMHO.

Then we moved to the States. Guess how often I used my French? And guess how much I'd retained by the time we moved back?

[MK]

It was Greek on my Trinity Cert' course. Pretty amazing, the woman didn't speak a word of English in class, yet we were all confidently telling the time and ordering large beers in Greek after a couple of hours. I wish i could remember how she did it.

[Mr Nobody]

this isn't exactly language, but what I have found is this - teaching anything is like teaching kung fu.

Don't ask me how, but I just teach everything I do like I teach kung fu. Works fine. Only taught one EFL class so far (it worked like a kung fu class), but did private lessons. They are like private lessons in kung fu. Lectured at uni. Just like teaching kung fu at a seminar. Did tutes. Just like small group seminars. On the TEFL course, once I adjusted, just used my teaching in kung fu skills for all the teaching components, and then i didn't have to do any assignments over again.

It was a snap.

Personally, I think that teaching is teaching as long as you know the subject. And have an outgoing personality probably helps. [Also, having studied education while doing my degree (I read all the ed texts of someone I was sharing with). And stuff. I guess.]

My kung fu is strong.

[MK]

So...you are saying, we beat the students into submission? Great! I have class in 5 minutes. I'll get back to you.

[Mr Nobody]

Umm let me know if it works. I might want to try it that way too.

[Newbs]

In my CELTA course in Melbourne, the lesson was done in, wait for it, Latvian. Now I know how to order a brandy in Riga.

[Wolf]

EFL has both approaches and methodology. "Approaches" being basically more vague as no one right way to teach has been discovered and thus is representative of the current state of affairs (Communicative Language Teaching is, I am told, an approach). Methods are a dime a dozen and have been since the '70s. Total Physical Respose, the Silent Way, even Audiolingualism and Grammar Translation, etc. The ironic thing being that athough "methods" are often regarded nowadays as an imperfect representation of the sum of language teaching planning, Asia has only now discovered them and tons of language institutes will insist that teachers use them. For instance, I supposedly have to teach by the Presentation Practice Production model, which is older than I am and probably only used by my company because it is seeminlgy idiot proof. It was discredited as being the be all and end all of language learning sometime around my birth (and some 15 years before my company opened.)

Planning lessons, doing needs analysis, maintaining discipline, making reliable/valid tests, etc are, I'd guess, pretty universal.

Immersion programmes and ESP (English for Specific Purposes) programmes, while they have their advantages, have not been 100% proven effective to the point of being "better" than your "typical" EFL class taken by a motivated student. I read studies about how students' speaking and writing skills in immersion classes don't always develop to the degree that one might expect.

As for kung fu-ing students in class; hey that's one way to maintain discipline.

[Mr Nobody]

Ah only meant that teaching is teaching, the 'methods' are easy to adapt from one thing to another. It is all just communication and then getting the student to emulate it. I don't usually mention kung fu in class. Although it looks like I might be teaching Kung Fu in Nanning.

[burlives]

daoding said:

Ah only meant that teaching is teaching, the 'methods' are easy to adapt from one thing to another. It is all just communication and then getting the student to emulate it.

Just?

ESL has methodology in as much as there are outstanding and if not well-recognised then at least well-known problems facing it, particularly if the practitioner plans on using English itself as the medium of instruction.

Arguably any teaching method exists as a way of addressing the communication problems faced by the teacher and the student, and as such choice of method is a real issue when teaching circumstances change. The classic case is when a teacher native to one culture stands up in front of students native of a different culture.

I just made all that up.

[Ruth]

burlives said:

I just made all that up.

But it sounds good.

[Mr Nobody]

I will find out, I guess, if it is different. The (admittedly low level) cert I just did seemed to lead me to the conclusion that there are very real similarities.

But then I have done lots of reading on education, psych, etc all my life since I shared a flat with an Ed student and read all her texts so we could discuss it all, way back in the early eighties. I even remember some.

[Wolf]

burlives said:

daoding said:

I just made all that up.

Ah, if only more theorists were required to end their statements thusly.

Between the fluffier side of Applied Linguistics and my studies of literary criticism, I am now of a firm belief that every theorist must be required by law to end any unsubstantiated claims thusly. All who do not shall be spanked at halftime during the Superbowl.

The stuff I said earlier was, by the way, made up by other people. (And substantiated to a degree by research.)

Edit: It does indeed sound good.