Jack C. Richards Video Cast #8. How to learn English outside the classroom. I is for Imitation. Listen! Repeat! Understand! The sequence below comes from an advert for a self-study language course – an advert that I have used countless times on training sessions to (gently) mock the folk theory that language acquisition (both first and second) is primarily a process of imitation – and imitation in advance of understanding, no less.
The text of the advert spells it out: ‘You probably can’t remember, but at that time [i.e. when you were a child] you first reproduced sounds, then words, and then entire phrases without really understanding anything. It’s amazing how this notion has resisted the hatchet-job that Chomsky and his followers inflicted upon it so long ago. So, if, in Chomsky’s terms, language use is rule-based creativity, and if performance is contingent upon competence, then it follows that we should teach (or have learners figure out) the rules of the language, so that they can generate their own meanings, rather than have them simply imitate a model. References: Noticing and language learning | Luiz Otávio's English Language Teaching Page.
Using English outside of class – Vladimira Michalkova. Encouraging learners to use English outside of class is like getting students to do the sort of good homework that I described in my previous post: homework that grows naturally out of the lesson, doesn’t feel like homework, and often isn’t even called homework. The idea is to get students using English on their own in their own way and as this needs to be encouraged, the teacher should not correct or evaluate such effort — unless students ask for it.
Instead, such individual effort needs to be nurtured, encouraged, and praised. Encouraging students to begin doing this kind of good homework starts with a positive, open and friendly class atmosphere where the teacher has true and authentic conversations with students, really listens to what they’re saying, and is not afraid to go beyond “the teaching purpose” of an activity or lesson. During lessons we often get into topics they really enjoy talking about and want to know more about.