Opinions on English Teaching and Learning

霍鑫红++陈露

【Abstract】Language teaching has traditionally been a task for teachers to teach vocabulary items and grammatical rules and to explain to students how a foreign language works in reference to their mother tongue. For a long time language teaching was a means to the end of understanding a written culture. This had two practical corollaries： to grade the students on the acquisition of discrete segments of learning and to sort them according to their marks， with a view to preparing them for the world of work in that it helped employers select candidates on their school or university grades. The result of this approach is plain to see： less than a third of the college students use a foreign language successfully. Findings from research and academic thinking have hinted at different ways to ensure that students learn successfully what is on offer in the world around them. However， for a long time， there was no way of facilitating this concept， until we focus on the spirit of collaboration and meaningful communicative English environment. I believe that， with deepening of the realizing， English learning will exceed our expectations. However， we shall have first to review all our “common sense” on teaching and learning.

【Key words】English teaching and learning； spirit of collaboration； meaningful communicative English environment

1. Problems met in teaching and learning

1.1 As a searching the material and preparing for the papers， I was quite surprised that “for students， the biggest obstacle to speaking in a foreign language class is their teacher！”

I have been teaching college English， focusing on English communication， and I was hoping to find the above criticism of teachers. Then I discussed with a group of college English teacher. However， I was not prepared for the tacit agreement which greeted what I hoped to be a controversial view. This preamble gave rise to a lively discussion of whether， how and to what extent students should be “corrected” during a conversation class. Needless to say， no consensus was reached and this may be a satisfactory conclusion in itself， since each teacher， like every one of his or her students.

After ten years of observations， I believe that correcting most students mistakes yields very little improvement， despite the fact that most students will beg their tutors to correct their mistakes.

1.2 Students of Dalian University of Finance and Economy spend a week mainly practicing their oral skills in a collaborative environment and in a mixed-ability setting. They take part in a simulation which requires the setting up of a block of flats， an apartment building， inventing some characters who will inhabit the flat and creating some interactions between them. The weeks experience culminates in simulating a municipal event where the inhabitants of each of block of flats， eg. Each group of students-show the others a program of activities designed so as to foster a better life for everyone where they live. These activities range from the creation of parks， cultural festival. In order to achieve their objectives students draw from their own experience of life and their own very personal store of linguistic expressions when on an ad-hoc basis. There is constantly called upon to contribute to the collective reaching of an objective. All activities are backed up by posters displayed on the walls which constitute a written record of the completed work. This allows staff and students to constantly remind themselves how much work has been accomplished. The posters are closely scrutinized and corrected by the tutors to ensure that no mistake is left on display. And the facilitators possibly believe that the students， having seen their individual mistakes corrected， will never make them again！

There must be some reasons why my students continue making the same mistake after my explanation：

a. They are not listening.

b. They cant easily remember syntactical rules.

c. They dont care whether there should be a mistake or not.

In order to make sure that I have covered points（a） and （b）， I use a litter ‘off-the-wall scenario to make sure that I have the students undivided attention and their memorization ability firing on all synapses during my lecturette. I draw a large picture of a rooster on the board with a big cockscomb. I declare that it is a rooster and the top part on its head is called cockscomb. And then I tell a story about a rooster with its cockscomb， which help students remember the word “cockscomb.”

This seemingly right way of teaching guarantees that the students：

a. Listen to me.

b. Think that I need them to remember this word.

But unfortunately， during the week， the number of remembering the word continues to dwindle dramatically.

The answer to why students make the same mistakes over and over again could be that， instead of giving a surreal explanation for the use of the expression， I should provide students with one or more exercises， drills， which will make sure that they internalize the spelling and meaning of “cockscomb”. Unfortunately， some of the students already spend a large amount of time mostly practicing their reading， writing and listening skills and， therefore， they desperately need to maximize practicing their speaking skills at school. Moreover， if they already spend all this time reading， writing， listening and doing grammar exercises， why do they still make mistakes when they speak， given all their investment in memorizing grammatical and syntactical rules？ And let us not forget that students produce a number of assignments which are marked by first-class teachers. Finally， my own experience as a grammatically abused throughout my childhood by well-meaning teachers， who make me do hundreds and hundreds of exercises， has clearly empirically demonstrated to me that one can take the student to the grammar but one cannot force him or her to internalize it. Of course， some of us managed to have some of these rules rub off us in the end， but the problem is that most of us who proved to be permeable is that most of us who proved to be permeable to grammatical rules ended up being teachers who cannot see further than our collective bubble since， with time， we tended to drift socially away from our school friends who had to make a quick exit from the educational system. Would compulsory viewing of match of the day turn the football-photos among us into the ‘game of two halves experts？ The football -challenged ones among us might strongly disagree while the games fans may accept this assumption quite enthusiastically.

2. It appears that learning English in order to communicate effectively， if need be， may be quite different from being on the receiving end of the teaching of providing grades for an educational system designed to separate the wheat from the ‘chavs among the students. If the purpose of English teaching is dictated by society as a means to separate students who have retained a finite knowledge of grammatical rules and vocabulary items from those who have not， then the process achieves these objectives fairly well. If， however， the aim of English learning is to provide every member of society with a useful personal tool， the vast numbers of mono-linguists populating in our school that foreign modern language learning， as it exists at present， does not work for most people.

Some educationists justify the failure to teach everyone a foreign by stating that some can and others cannot acquire another language. However， paradoxically， most teachers will argue that， since everyone can learn their own language， everyone should have a ‘taste of a foreign language in case they might develop a liking for it. What happens to those who have not developed such a liking？ Are they left with a useless corpus of foreign words which clogs up their memories？ Are they left with a feeling of failure which could eventually make them xenophobic？ Advocates of the ‘give them a taste philosophy should be forced to take two lessons of sky diving as a taste of their own medicine or have their teeth drilled by a student on work experience at a dental practice of their choice！ In addition， foreign language teaching was seen as a useful means to teach students about the grammar of their own language. Since Chinese is used as the language reference for the English teaching， it does not take students long to realize how irrational English is in comparison with their own... What about the thousands who decide each year that they have little liking for telling their classmates in Chinese that they belong to the schools soccer team， something everyone knows anyway？ Why are they not allowed， they ask， to turn their attention to ‘more useful educational pursuit instead of spending two or three years being taught a ‘boring subject like English？

Would the small number of students who study a language to level two and beyond indicate that not everyone can do so？ Or is the present shortage of able linguists a result of the way language learning and teaching are perceived by both students and teachers？

3. Research and findings.

3.1 To illustrate this last point， I read some papers， and I remember in one of the papers， the author studied the relationship which existed between students attitude towards learning， the students prior knowledge and assumptions about learning， and finally the learning process itself. He gave a questionnaire twice to two different types student： a group of students reading art history， who took English as a minor option， and a group of students who studied English as a major subject. The objectives of the first group were utilitarian in that the students needed to read and write on art history in English. The linguists， on the other hand put the emphasis of their learning on communication. And these objectives were reflected in their perception of language learning. Some felt that studying English would provide them with a necessary tool for their particular field of studies in so far as it would allow them to access a different set of cultural values， while the others-the linguists-believed that learning English was a means to communicate with a larger number of people.

3.2 The students initial assumptions translated themselves into two different attitudes towards learning English. The art historians insisted on being corrected， as the credibility of their future publications could be undermined by their mistakes， or their understanding of articles could be hampered by poor reading comprehension. The ‘linguists behaved exactly like my students in that they were not too concerned about the correctness of their production， provided they got their messages across to other English speakers.

3.3 One student found learning English rather boring . When presented with the dame questionnaire a year later， he was able to articulate his initial impression more explicitly and stated that learning English was hard when one did not see an immediate use for it.

The student in question felt that there was a chasm between what he learnt with difficulty and what he could do with it at a practical level. The learning difficulty was part of a vicious circle as it was caused by the mismatch between his expectations and the concrete application of his efforts. This may be the issue which affects the learning of a foreign language from the start for the overwhelming majority of learners.

3.4 The answer to the poor take-up of languages and later on in universities could be a collective and communicative approach which would demonstrate unequivocally to the students that the memorization of grammatical rules and of vocabulary items if not an end in itself but a series of tools one uses， when to perform a meaningful linguistic task. No two children born on the same day and living in the same street will possess exactly the same vocabulary in their mother tongue. Why then expect a whole year group to acquire a finite set of vocabulary items and grammatical structures nation-wide simple to invent a level playing field for the sole purpose of examining the students in the end？

With the advent of the Internet， students can now acquire grammatical and syntactical rules on a just in time basis without having to wait fir the teacher to give them a formal lecture and two practice exercises on a particular topic at a particular time during the school year. Another way to use information and communication technology could be to set up an exchange with a school in another country by means of emails. Small groups of students could practice a particular skill in class and apply it in the real world to perform a meaningful collaborative task. This way， they would get instant feedback on their language learning-in that their correspondents would， or would not， understand them and would respond accordingly- and thus the students would acquire a positive attitude towards learning English as a means to an enjoyable and useful end.

3.5 But what about correcting their inevitable mistakes？ Can one let students loose on a foreign language without checking their work？ You definitely cannot do so if you belong to a behaviorist educational system where students progress is marked negatively by penalizing their grammatical and syntactical mistakes.

3.6 How then can we ensure that our students learn English？ One answer is to make sure that the work in a spirit of collaboration which engages everyone in meaningful communicative languages tasks. But can this ever be possible in an educational environment where each persons grade matters？ How about facilitation each students personal curriculum， however painful it can be for us teacher， repositories of an infinitesimal fraction of the knowledge available on the web？ That would be a different matter all together as it would involve the student-consumers taking pride of place in the classroom.

Finally， since I contend that in English learning， one does not learn from ones mistakes， but rather from ones personal achievements， I would be interested to know what the ‘language police have to say about their contribution to modern language learning.

Reference：

[1]Huo Xinhong.Effect on Collaborative Assessment on Language Development and Learning 海外英語 2015（12月）.

[2]Self Directed Learning http：//home.twenty.rr.com/hiemstra/sdlbbib.html.

[3]Huo Xinhong.Teaching Language and Cross-Cultural Skills Through Drama English on Campus 2016，12.