From Experience to Knowledge in ELT. Julian Edge
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practice is central
• practice can always be improved
• the most likely way for teachers to improve practice is to understand their experience of it
• to understand this experience, teachers need to be able to talk about it
• to talk about practice, they need to learn relevant concepts and terminology
• as they talk about their practice in new terms, teachers build their practical knowledge out of their experience
• this process of expressing and extending their understanding enables them to develop their theories of what is happening
• on the basis of this expanding knowledge, teachers can improve their practice.
So, this book does not ask teachers to apply theory. What it does propose is that it can be personally and professionally liberating to theorize one’s practice, in the sense of understanding and questioning the whys and wherefores of experience. The book aims to involve its readers in that process of developing in tandem what we know and what we do.
Good practice, but no best way
When we say that there is no single ‘best way’ of teaching English, that does not mean that each teacher has to start from scratch, as though there were no agreement on what counts as good teaching. This book, therefore, gives examples of a variety of reliable teaching methods related to sound principles. It makes suggestions, gives advice, and recommends titles for further reading.
On a daily basis, however, each teacher has to make appropriate decisions for his or her own particular classrooms. Good practice is an interaction among people in a situation, guided by teachers who use their intelligence, experience, knowledge, skills, sensitivity, creativity, and awareness to help other people learn.
In order to do that, you need to understand why this book makes the suggestions that it does, and on what basis you might want to move away from them. So, having offered reliable methods that you can depend on and alternatives for you to try out, we also introduce ways of thinking about the work that will help you develop your own style. You can make the book even more useful by doing the review activities at the end of each chapter.
About terminology, tests, and materials
The book is not tied down to any specific course or exam, but there is advice on classroom observation and on how to write about teaching, as well as explicit HIGHLIGHTING in the index of key concepts, as tested by the Cambridge ESOL Teacher Knowledge Test.
The expression, English Language Teaching, and its abbreviation, ELT, is used throughout the book to cover what is also referred to as Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL), Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL), and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).
The examples used have been taken from genuine classroom interaction and actual published materials wherever possible, but some examples have been made up where either brevity or clarity seemed the more important considerations. The convention of using * to indicate non-standard English usage has been used throughout. Words in small capitals in the text are listed in the Glossary at the end of the book.
An open invitation
Teaching English to speakers of other languages in the twenty-first century is a global activity that requires local sensitivity in order to be at its best. In a similar spirit, this book is offered as a common basis for particular individual and collegial growth. The authors hope that it will help you establish the teaching identity you wish for, both in your own professional context and as a member of the international ELT community.
PART ONE
Familiarization
The first part of this book explores the English Language Teaching (ELT) classroom in order to examine what is to be found there. The main elements of ELT in any situation are:
• the people
• the processes of language learning and teaching
• aspects of the language itself
• the language learning materials usually available
• the classroom environment and kinds of equipment you might use.
At the same time, the way in which these elements are involved in practical teaching techniques will also be considered.
In one sense, you know all this already from your experience of such classrooms, either as a language learner, or as a language teacher, or both. But if you investigate that experience more carefully, what more might you learn?
While you work on the ideas in this book, think about the actual details of your own situation, or of situations you have known. Do the ideas in the book match up with your experience? Can you be specific?
The activities at the end of each chapter also summarize the chapter. They are meant to help you enrich your reading with your experience and enrich your experience with your reading. They will be of most use if you have a friend or colleague to discuss them with. In that way, you can develop your ideas as you talk and listen.
1
PEOPLE
This chapter looks at the people most obviously involved in ELT: learners and teachers. We start by looking at similarities and differences among learners wherever they are in the world and what this means for teachers. We then go on to look at teachers and the roles they take on in the ELT classroom.
Learners
All learners are the same: outside the classroom, they have a family, friends, work, study or play, responsibilities, a place to live, and all the joys and sorrows that come with those things. They bring into the classroom their names, their knowledge, experience, intelligence, skills, emotions, imagination, awareness, creativity, sense of humour, problems, purposes, dreams, hopes, aspirations, fears, memories, interests, blind spots, prejudices, habits, expectations, likes, dislikes, preferences, and everything else that goes with being a human being, including the ability to speak at least one language.
In all these ways, however, each learner is also individual and different. No two learners have the same knowledge, skills, or expectations, or any of the other things listed in the last paragraph. Learners are also influenced by their age, by their educational, social, and cultural backgrounds, and by their preferred LEARNING STYLES, which they may or may not share with their fellow students and teacher.
Age
It is often thought that children are more successful at learning languages than adults. According to the critical age hypothesis, for example, there is a period up to around 12–13 years of age when children learn a language most easily. After that period, it is said, success in language learning will be limited. However, that is not necessarily true if we are talking about learning a language formally, in a classroom. It also depends on what is meant by ‘successful’. While children may ACQUIRE a ‘native-like’ accent whereas older learners usually do not, that is obviously not the only measure of success. Success can also be measured in terms of how well a learner can communicate or make him or herself understood. If learners have very specific activities they need to carry out in English, such as giving a business presentation, success can also be measured in terms of how well they can do those specific things. (See Brown 2007 for a detailed discussion of these issues.)
Of course teachers have to take the age of their learners into account. Younger learners have shorter attention spans and need to be given more and shorter activities to hold their interest. Teenagers, on the other hand, may be more likely to feel embarrassed if they think they are not very proficient in the language. They may feel inadequate and frustrated when they cannot say what they want to. So they may need activities which have a clear outcome and which give them a sense of achievement.
Younger learners are unlikely to learn through explanations of grammar rules and doing grammar exercises, but they will learn through stories and play. Older learners and adults especially may