Viv's EFLT course 05

 

by Viv Quarry (www.vivquarry.com)

 

Native language, metalanguage and "Viv's Angry Pages"

 

Which language do I use?

If you're teaching a multi-lingual class (students from different countries), there's only one answer to this question - English is the only language you can use in the classroom. However, for most EFL teachers, their students will share the same native language as the teacher, so a choice is available.

Before Viv did his one-month intensive training course (the RSA Preparatory Certificate) to become an EFL teacher at International House in Hastings, he had no idea how someone would go about teaching English to a class of foreign students, none of whom spoke English.

In one memorable session during this training course, this was demonstrated. The group of around 15 trainee teachers was sat waiting for the class to begin, when in walked the teacher trainer carrying a plastic cup with some water in it and a small piece of bread in a plastic bag. He stood at the front of the classroom, looked around at everyone to get our attention, then he walked up to one of the trainees, put his hand out to shake hands and said " Jambo!", with a smile on his face. He indicated that the student (while shaking hands) was to repeat this word, then moved on to another student and repeated the process.  pointed at himself and said " Jina langu ni, John" (what we didn't realise until after the class was that he was speaking Swahili). He repeated the structure several times, each time making it clear that he was saying "My name's John." in a foreign language. Next he just said " Jina langu ni" and drilled  it both everyone as a group and individually, then got us all to say " Jina langu ni ***", with '***' as our own names.

After this, he repeated the process of shaking hands, but this time said " Jambo. Jina langu ni, John. Jina lako nani?". The answer, of course was " Jambo! Jina langu ni ***". We practiced the questions and answers in both open pairs and then closed pairs, until we could all say "Hello! My name's ***. What's your name?" in Swahili.

Now it was time to give us some basic survival language. The teacher trainer picked up the cup of water, pointed to it and said "Maji". We were all now used to repeating the words he said together as a group when he gestured for us to do this. He then handed the cup of water to one of the trainees, used a facial expression to show he was thirsty, then said " Tafadhali, naomba maji", again, only the first two words were drilled and practiced, then the trainees asked for water, and the one holding the cup passed to the trainee who had asked for it. The same process was used for the bread, and finally, the teacher trainer waved and said "Kwaheri" moving towards the door. This word was practiced with everyone standing up and waving 'goodbye' while saying the new word. When the session ended and the trainees retired to the nearest pub, we were all able to greet someone, introduce ourselves and ask for bread and water in Swahili; we also had an insight into how to teach English without using one word of the students' native language.

 

TTT (teacher talking time)

 

For teachers working with a multi-lingual class, or in a country where they don't dominate the local language, every word spoken by the teacher must be in English, so it's even more important that every lesson be planned efficiently, and the teacher should be armed with flashcards  and use mime and drawings on the board when necessary.

 

For teachers who share or dominate their students' language, it's essential to remember that, unless you are quickly defining an item of vocabulary which would be too difficult to demonstrate, every word you speak that isn't in English is wasting your students' time - they already speak their native tongue and are there to experience a new language, not hear words they already know!

 

Greetings & casual conversation

 

If you are teaching low level students, the course book will probably include greetings (structures used when meeting people) in the first unit. As soon as you have taught these structures, USE THEM every time you meet students in or outside the classroom, and encourage them to initiate greetings. With higher level students, spend a few minutes every so often asking them about their weekends, talking about their day or discussing current events. Every word you speak in English will help your students gain confidence and realise that they can speak English! Correction should be selective in this activity as the aim is to encourage confidence and fluency.

 

Metalanguage

 

Just as it's important to reduce to a minimum the amount that the teacher speaks in the students' native tongue in the classroom, it is also essential to make a concerted attempt to get your students to use English as much as possible. Of course, beginners will have virtually no language resources at the beginning of a course, so they should be given the means of communicating, at least as far as asking for clarification, early on in a course. The first page at the back of the student's notebooks (and the only section out of alphabetical order) is called 'Metalanguage'. This is the language necessary to help someone learn a language. Viv has two lists of metalanguage, one for beginners and elementary students, and the other for students at the pre-intermediate level and above. Early on in a course, I give my students the list of metalanguage appropriate for their level and ask them to memorize it for homework (I explain that this will be the most difficult homework I will ever give them). In the following class, I test how many of the expressions they can remember, and any that they get wrong, or can't remember are added to their BON Databases and tested. The photocopy with metalanguage that I give my students includes, on the reverse page, a list of my marking scheme symbols, which we will return to in a future worksheet.

Whenever students use their native language in class to communicate with me, if it's feasible, I ask them to write down the structure on their 'metalangauge' notebook page e.g. "I can't come to next class". If students speak Portuguese when they already have the appropriate structure on their 'metalanguage' page, I make them go to 'Viv's Angry Page' and write phonetically what the said to me (using similar sounding words in English e.g. "Espera ai" ("Just a moment" in Portuguese) becomes "Spare eye 'E'").

 

"Viv's Angry Page"

 

All my students have a "Viv's Angry Page" in the grammar section of their notebooks. On this page, I ask them to write down in a numbered list, mistakes which break grammatical or lexical rules they have already learnt in class. Then every three months, I go through this list with them. If they can't remember the correct form, we put a notebook page reference where they can find the correct answer, if they can correct the expressions, they are 'destroyed' with a single line through them. For homework, the students have to write all the expressions out correctly, if possible using a word processor. They must write out both the expressions they were able to correct in class and those they weren't. I've only used this system of "Viv's Angry Pages" teaching individual students, so I don't know if it would work when teaching groups.

 

Back