I believe there is a balance that needs to be found, in order for teaching of any subject to be effective. Instruction certainly needs to be meaningful, otherwise what's the point? The teacher must be teaching material that can be applicable and understandable for the students. On the other hand, a teacher can't just teach straight out of a textbook; the material needs to be presented in a manner that is, at least part of the time, interesting and fun. I've been in the situation where my eyes have glazed over while the teacher reads directly out of the text book or off of a hand-out. Instruction needs to be stimulating in order for students to really learn and apply the knowledge. Otherwise the information goes in one ear and out the other.
Specifically for foreign language teaching, I feel that having the course be taught in the target language as much as possible is really very important. It's constant exposure to the language and the continuous input that will help students gain more proficiency: that is, after all, the idea behind a study abroad or immersion program. On the other hand, there will be moments when students will not understand a specific grammar point or a word or phrase and to really convey the usage or meaning, the teachers will have to explain it in the native language. And that is perfectly fine! In fact, it is helpful. If the students get stumped on one small point and can't learn the lesson because of it, they might feel as if they failed or are no good at the language and just give up. Part of the 5 Cs of Foreign Language instruction is to create life-long learners and no one will keep learning if they feel they are destined to fail. Again, effective teaching requires a balance or methods, as well as being aware of the students, their levels and their needs.
I agree that it is necessary for a teacher to present new material in a stimulating way. When a teacher is just literally reading work for work a textbook the students get nothing from the lecture. I believe the teacher should be translating the textbook material into a better way to understand the concept as well as showing examples and putting the new concept into practice. This way the material is actually taught rather than read to you.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned how in study abroad settings, the student has no choice but to use the target language. What if there was some confusion about a certain topic while they were abroad? They'd have no choice but to work through the problem in the target language. In fact, the student would probably learn more about the language through that problem than if it was just explained to them in their native language.
ReplyDeleteHaving lessons that are stimulating for students is very important. A teacher should never just read off note cards or a power point, the point of teaching is for the students to learn and be able to apply the knowledge they've learned. You make a good point about not setting students up to fail and depending on the content and the level of the class instruction may be best given in the students' native language. The goal should be to produce life-long learners, who will continue to learn their L2 outside of their academic life. I can see Mary's point about working through a certain problem while abroad in the target language and students will learn from that, but the classroom is about understanding and teachers need to facilitate learning so students can understand better. Students should not have to work through every word a teacher says to understand the content.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that the target language should be spoken but not 100% of the time because students need to have a foundation that comes from speaking English until the students are proficient enough to really understand a conversation and be able to formulate basic sentences.
ReplyDeleteI believe it's okay to use the native language for the exact reason you mentioned: it is so extremely discouraging to not understand the lesson being taught. No matter how many times the teacher repeats or tries to rephrase the sentence, sometimes it is just on a topic that the students genuinely do not know about in the target language. Textbook vocabulary tends to be grouped into themes, and so a class might not have the vocab to be able to follow along if it is a new subject to them. Instead, they just feel inadequate and defeated.
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