CREATING AWARENESS OF VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
By Stefanie S. Pillai
Introduction
Language Enrichment, one of the
subjects taught in the
Diploma in English as a Second Language program at the University of Malaya,
introduces students to the theories and techniques of teaching English as a
Second Language (ESL).
One of its aims is to make students aware of the different
varieties of English. As
non-native speakers of English, these students tend to be exposed only to the
English they have learnt in Malaysia, and which they themselves use in the
Malaysian context and has, as in many second language environments, developed
its own characteristics (Platt and Weber 1980). Many of the trainees may not even be aware that some of the
expressions, pronunciations and grammatical structures they use may not be
acceptable or appropriate in other varieties of English.
As future teachers of English,
it is important for the
trainees to be aware of the different varieties of English. Such an awareness would
mean that they
could incorporate the different varieties of English into their classroom
practices. For example, when
teaching vocabulary, different ways of referring to the same thing could be
examined.
Teachers who have been exposed to varieties of English will
be better able to advise their students on whether different expressions are
understood all over the English-speaking world. This will give students a better understanding of how to use
English more effectively, especially in international communication.
Also, the trainees
will be able to maintain a balance
between the local variety of English, which is generally used for everyday
communication, and a more standard variety of English. Awareness that all varieties
of English
are acceptable according to the contexts in which they are used would prevent
the student teachers from having negative attitudes about the local variety. This
would also prevent them from
teaching a type of English which is not grounded in current reality, i.e. one
which does not take into account current norms and attitudes (e.g. politically
correct or gender sensitive language) or the cultural values that different
Englishes may incorporate.
Background
Information about the Activity
The following hour-long activity was used as an introductory
exercise to expose trainees to different varieties of written and spoken
English. The objectives were: 1) To make students aware that there are different varieties of
English; 2) To get students
thinking about features which distinguish the different varieties. A handout with
examples of different
varieties of English, including the students' own variety of English, was the
only material needed. (If you would
like a copy of the handout used, please email me at the address below.)
Procedure
Students worked in pairs. They had to discuss: whether the extracts were written or
spoken forms of English; whether the extracts were informal or formal English;
the contexts in which they thought the extracts could have occurred; the
features that made them decide on the form and formality of the language;
whether the extracts were the kind of English they would use and if not, why.
They then
reported their findings to the class. The features that distinguished the
different varieties were noted on the board. As a follow-up activity, the students had to find examples
of at least ten different varieties of English from oral and written sources.
Results
The activity allowed the students to articulate their
thoughts about the characteristics of formal, informal, spoken, and written as
well as different varieties of English.
Among the features mentioned were the use of hesitation in speech; the
use of jargon, colloquialism and slang; the length of sentences; and
differences in pronunciation, vocabulary and syntax among the varieties.
The students were
also very interested in comparing the
features of different varieties of English (Australian English, Malaysian English,
British English, etc). That they
could not understand some of the expressions made them realize the same problem
could occur when they use Malaysian English with non-Malaysian speakers of
English.
This activity led to other lessons, which involved listening
to and understanding different varieties of English and exploring the notion of
Standard English (Strevens, 1982:2) and Intelligibility (Kachru, 1982:75) in
teaching English as a second language (TESL).
Conclusion
To be more effective, this lesson should be used as a
springboard for other activities that look at pedagogical issues related to
different varieties of English, such as whether Standard English exists; how it
can be defined (grammar, pronunciation etc); who determines what Standard English
is; how a language teacher can resolve problems related to using the local
variety and the need to adhere to some norm or standard (Tan, 1999:12); and the
emergence of English as a Global Language (Crystal, 1977).
This lesson was a useful starting
point in comparing the
students' own variety of English to the variety that they were supposed to be
teaching, something that is sometimes overlooked when training non-native ESL
teachers.
References
1) Crystal,
D. (1997). _English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2) Kachru,
B.
B. (1982). "Models for Non-Native
Englishes." In B.B. Kachru
(Ed.). The Other Tongue: English
Across Cultures. Illinois: University of Illinois
Press.
3) Lee Su
Kim. (1995, October 3). "Speaking English
Our
Way." In "The
Star," Section Two Supplement, 3.
4) Platt, J.
T.
and Weber, H. (1980). English in Singapore
and
Malaysia--Status: Features: Functions.
Kuala Lumpur: Oxford
University Press.
5) Strevens,
P. (1982). "What is Standard
English?" In "Occasional
Papers No 23".
Singapore: SEAMEO Regional
Language Center.
6) Tan, S.
B. (1999, February 2). "The Case for Manglish." In "The Star", Section 2, 12.
Stefanie
S. Pillai has a B. Ed. in TESL (Hons.) degree from
Kent (U.K.) and a Masters in ESL from the University of Malaya. She currently teaches
English language
and The Role of Language in Society
to undergraduate students at the University of Malaya. <stefanie@um.edu.my>
=======================================================
SOFTWARE REVIEW: "Teachers Understanding Teaching: A Multimedia
Hypertext Tool"
Reviewed by Brad Baurain
"Teachers Understanding Teaching" is a resource
CD-ROM intended to assist second language teachers in their professional
development. Built around the
experiences of three teachers, the software addresses a holistic range of
pedagogical issues in a variety of settings.
The CD-ROM is arranged into three main sections:
(1) "Teachers' Voices" explores beliefs about
teaching. Users can watch video
interviews with the three teachers in segments organized by topic, including
memories of their teachers and their language learning experiences.
(2) "Frameworks" contains
quotes about teaching
from recent theoretical publications ( and all references are annotated). Users reflect
on and interact with
these quotes, hopefully spurring productive thoughts and actions. Some quotes have
audio responses from
one or more of the three teachers to get you started.
(3) "Investigations" explores everyday
classroom
practice. This section contains
video clips of classroom events, plus audio of later teacher reflection on what
was happening there. Again, these
are organized by category, such as classroom management or student affective
needs.
Additionally, thirty-five teacher/user tasks can be
referenced from any screen--these are practical exercises to guide and
encourage fruitful interaction with the software. The user's manual provides further suggestions for integrating
the CD-ROM materials and tasks with professional development activities such as
internships, coursework, in-service workshops, dialogue journals, classroom
observations, mentoring, and more.
Both novice and experienced teachers could benefit from
this
software, working either individually or in formal or informal groups. A teacher trainer
might also use this
CD-ROM to provide resources for a seminar or to lead a group through a specific
topic. There is a lot of content
here, and a lot of ways to go at it.
In general, the software is flexible and intuitive. The graphics are attractive without
being intrusive. The most
outstanding element is perhaps the indexing, which is clear and excellent
throughout the program. Key terms
are indexed, cross-referenced, and clickable for every bit of information--video,
audio, or text--and this makes it easy and rewarding to pursue different
threads of inquiry.
The software is not without its weaknesses. All video clips appear in a rather
small box; in the first section, these clips are merely "talking
heads." Their sound and
lighting often seem amateur, though at least one then knows that the situations
are authentic. For example, one
can often hear office and hallway echoes, and students' voices are sometimes
lost. But, to balance this, a
helpful onscreen transcript is provided for all video and audio segments.
Technically,
the CD-ROM is compatible with both Windows and
Macintosh platforms, and is quite reasonably priced (about the same as a
textbook). A personal notepad and
progress tracker are built into the program. All in all, "Teachers Understanding Teaching" is a
very useful and flexible resource.
Publication information:
"Teachers Understanding Teaching: A Multimedia Hypertext Tool." (CD-ROM)
Authors: Karen
E. Johnson and Glenn Johnson
Publisher:
Heinle & Heinle
Date of publication:
1998
ISBN:
0-8384-6356-8 for CD-ROM; 0-8384-7953-7 for user's manual
Cost: From DK Books in
Bangkok = US$28; from
Amazon.com (USA) = $63.95, listed under "Books," ISBN 0838446841*
From
Blackwell's Online Bookshop (UK) at <blackwells.co.uk> = 32.95 pounds sterling; not
currently available from Barnes and Noble's online bookstore
(* Editor's Note:
When purchased at the online bookstores listed above, the ISBN number
changes and the product includes both the CD-ROM and the user's manual.)
Brad Baurain (M.A., English, University of Illinois at
Chicago) has taught in Vietnam, China, and the United States. He is the editor of
"Teacher's
Edition," a journal for university EFL teachers in Vietnam. <bbaurain@elic.org>
An earlier version of this article was published in the
September 2000 issue of "ELI Teaching," a journal for EFL teachers in
China.
=======================================================
WEBSITE REVIEW: "The Nicenet Internet Classroom Assistant"
Reviewed by
Nicholas S Peachey
The Nicenet Internet Classroom
Assistant (ICA), URL
<www.nicenet.org>, is a free web-based communication tool that requires
no downloads and allows anyone with access to the Internet and a browser to set
up, within 2-3 minutes, their own online learning environment. The ICA is something
like having your
own website but with some advantages in that you also have a lot of very useful
features that both you and your students can easily exploit, which allow your
students to actually contribute to the content of the site. Using the ICA does not
require a high
degree of specialised technical knowledge.
The main features included on the site are:
1. Document
sharing, which allows either you or you students to enter completed
assignments, interesting articles, teaching ideas or materials to the site.
2. The
Conferencing feature, which allows for asynchronous communication (i.e., not in
real time) between members of the class.
You can use this to feed in topics for threaded discussion or students
can use it to comment on any articles or ideas that have been entered into the documents
section.
3. Scheduling,
which allows you to post assignment rubrics with due dates, and the times and
subjects of forthcoming classes.
4. The Personal
Messaging feature, which enables you and you students to contact each other by
leaving messages on the site.
5. And, lastly,
the Link Sharing feature, which allows you to build up a list of categorised
links to useful sites, which your students only need to click on to take them
to the relevant site. They can
then comment on the usefulness of these sites using the Conferencing feature.
To set up
your own Internet classroom, go to
<www.nicenet.org> and click on "Create a Class". After entering your own user
name and
password, you name your
classroom. You are then asked for
some basic contact information.
That will enable the Nicenet organisation to e-mail you a unique nine
digit pass-key, which allows people to access your particular site.
That brings you to
your site's homepage, from which you can
access the ICA’s main features.
Again this is very easy and quick to do. A couple of mouse clicks bring you to a stencil in which you
can enter all the relevant information.
I’ve been using the ICA on the one month
intensive teacher
training courses (UCLES RSA CELTA) on which I teach. A specific example of how I've used the ICA may be helpful.
As part of the
course on which I work, we try to develop
trainees' abilities to use available resources to analyse grammar. Traditionally,
this has consisted of
groups of trainees being given a grammar point that they research using grammar
reference books, which is then followed by a group presentation of their
research to their peers in class.
More recently, I’ve adapted this session using
the ICA. I post the assignment, the grammar
point that they need to research for their teaching practice, on the Documents
page of the site. The trainees
then go to the Links page where I’ve put a number of grammar reference websites
and links to online concordancers, and use one or more of these sites to
research their grammar point. The
results of the grammar research are then posted on the Documents page for their
peers to see.
As an extension of the activity, the trainees also evaluate
the effectiveness of the site(s) used in providing them with the information
they needed. Any comments about
the site are then posted on the Conferencing page so that future trainees can
use not only the grammar information provided by previous trainees but also
benefit from the accumulation of information about the sites they are using. One of
the best spin-offs that doing
this has had is that the amount of pressure on the trainees is reduced because
they no longer feel that their abilities to analyse grammar are being evaluated
but, rather, that they are evaluating the sites' potential to provide them with
information.
The feature that I’ve initially found most useful with my
trainee teachers is the Links page.
I’ve been using it to set small research assignments so that trainee
teachers can familiarise themselves with some sites that provide them with
information on grammar, methodology and resources. This page has also proved to be popular with the trainees
because of the job-related links on it.
The site has also proved useful in cutting down
on the
enormous amount of photocopy handouts that I was producing for each course
since a large amount of information (articles, worksheets, methodology
handouts) can be stored on the site for future groups of trainees on subsequent
courses.
One unexpected benefit of the site is that I’ve continued to
use my original ICA with further groups and I’ve found that past trainees who
are now teachers are starting to add links that they’ve discovered. It has also
allowed teachers in
training to make contact with those teachers new to the profession so that they
can start to share information and build up a network of contacts and so assist
me in the training process.
The limitations that I’ve experienced with the ICA have
been
mainly due to the short and very intensive nature of the courses on which I
work. I feel the ICA has much greater
potential for trainers working on more extensive courses or distance learning
programs that run over a greater time span. This would allow students more time to contribute to the
content, to build up longer threads of discussion in the Conferencing feature
and would make the site much more valuable as a communication aid for keeping
in touch with their peers during a course.
Finally, though, I feel that one of the best
reasons for
including the ICA in teacher training courses is as a form of loop input, in
that by including the ICA as part of their pre-service training new teachers
become familiar with its capabilities and many of the other features that the
WWW has to offer. This can help to
break down the fears of the less computer-literate trainees and act as a means
to help them unlock the enormous potential that the WWW undoubtedly has to
offer them and their future students.
Production information:
The Nicenet Internet Classroom Assistant is a 501(c)(3)
non-profit organisation based in Silicon Valley, CA, USA. Server space for Nicenet
is provided by
The Searle Center for Teaching Excellence at Northwestern University, Chicago,
USA. Nicenet's fiscal agent is
Macalester College in the USA.
Nicholas Peachey is
a freelance teacher and trainer. He has worked in Egypt, Ukraine,
Singapore, Tunisia and Spain for the British Council and International House
and is now based in Madrid.
<npeachey@encomix.es>
=======================================================
BOOK REVIEW: Techniques and Principles of Language Teaching, 2nd
edition, by Diane Larsen-Freeman
Reviewed by Ruth Wajnryb
A few weeks ago my 13 year old daughter came home from
school with a particularly difficult chunk of French text that had to be
memorised. It turned out to be a
section of a song and trying to get her mouth around the sounds gave her a
serious ache in the head. She came
to me for help. My first idea
(thinking in terms of 'authenticity') was to have her memorise it in its
original context, that is, as a song.
I hoped that the authenticity would reduce the very alien quality of the
text, and that the rhythm of the song would `carry her through'. Students, after all,
learn to sing
lyrics that they would otherwise probably not mouth. I figured too that it was written to be sung--therefore, sing
it! But the music was not
available so that idea had to be scrapped. The second approach I had, this time thinking in terms of
communicative meaning, was to help her understand what the words were trying to
achieve. So I did a very loose,
free translation of this love song on the grounds that if she grasped the
meaning she’d be better able to cope with the sound. Yes, she grasped the meaning without any problem (a 13
year-old girl has no trouble with romantic lyrics), but there wasn't the
hoped-for flow-on effect and her comprehension of the words left unchanged her
capacity to produce the sounds.
They still got stuck in her throat and she sounded precisely like what
she was: an English-speaking school-girl struggling to speak French. Finally, in despair,
I called on an old
audio-lingual technique: I
arranged for a fluent, albeit non-native, French-speaker to record the chunk of
text onto a tape: first as a full text and then with sound gaps left on the
tape where my daughter was to imitate and repeat. Then, fed up with the burden of being a teacher-parent or
parent-teacher, I left her with the tape recorder and went for a walk in the
park. When I got back, a few hours
later, she knew it off by heart and … she sounded French!
Now I am not suggesting
that audio-lingualism ought to be
exhumed, dusted off and frog-marched back into the classroom. But I am suggesting
that having a
diverse repertoire of language teaching techniques and understanding the principles
that underpin them gives us a flexibility and adaptability that can only
enhance our teaching and our learners’ learning.
And that is author Diane Larsen-Freeman's
point, and the
point of Techniques and Principles.
She argues a cogent case for 'principled eclecticism' (p.183), an
approach that, firstly, requires one undertake to appreciate the craft of a
range of different 'methods' (the inverted commas are used because they are not
all strictly methods), and that, secondly, one understand the theory that
steers the practice. This then allows
teachers to create their own method (or better, their own teaching) 'by
blending aspects of others in a principled manner' (p.183).
Thus, it comes as no surprise
to me that the widespread
success of Techniques and Principles in its first edition has led to its
recent reprint. The second edition
maintains all the clarity and comprehensiveness of the first, with some added
extras appropriate to the age.
Larsen-Freeman may have felt compelled, in what has been
dubbed 'the post-method era', to explain herself: why is a book covering the
methods for which English Language Teaching is known, considered relevant in an
era that many would say has moved on.
Indeed, the sense is in the last decade that adherence to a method is
the mark of an unthinking teacher, one who abdicates decision-making to an
outside prescription. Methods seem
to come from the outside. And
right now, it’s the inside that is fashionable. A climate of teacher reflectiveness and teacher
decision-making have encouraged action research and teacher self-observation as
a means of renewal. So why, we may
ask, this book, in a second edition?
In the 'Introduction to the Teacher Educator', at
the start
of the second edition, Larsen-Freeman contextualises her book within the last
decade of developments in TESOL, outlining and reinforcing some very basic
reasons for being aware of methods.
She is aware of the anti-method critique: the potential for
over-standardisation and the accompanying misfit between method and teaching
context; the element of linguistic imperialism; the fact that methods per se
furnish a very blunt instrument for talking about what goes on in classrooms;
the danger of methods leading to teacher de-skilling.
Larsen-Freeman counters these with
'It is not methods but
how they are used that is at issue'.
(This rather reminds me of the anti-structures movement, when in fact it
was not structures themselves that were at issue, but the way they were used,
or abused, in the classroom.)
Throwing methods out, in a typical bout of TESOL fashion fury, (my
words, not Larsen-Freeman’s – she’s much more polite than me), we have thrown
the baby out with the bath water.
The key is to move beyond ideology to inquiry. Understanding the history of methods and what they have to
offer enriches the teacher and provides options, not a prescription for action.
The second
edition offers some new elements: an expanded
introduction and conclusion, and the addition of two new chapters. As well as Grammar-Translation,
Direct
Method, Audio-Lingualism, The Silent Way, Community Language Learning (CLL),
Total Physical Response (TPR), and Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), there
are now two new units. One
includes content-based, task-based, and participatory approaches, grouped
together because what they all have in common is 'teaching through
communication rather than for it' (p.137). The second additional chapter is dedicated to recent innovations that
place the
learner at the centre of the equation: learner strategy training, co-operative
learning, and multiple intelligences.
A map on p. 178 lays out the development of language teaching from the
perspectives of the culture, the process of learning and the process of
teaching. Very nice.
There’s something seductive
about technique for teachers
that can at times blind them to the principles that steer a method. I recall that
I used CLL for a number
of years before realising that despite its avant-garde image, it actually
shares a number of features with the very traditional and largely outdated (at
least in ELT) grammar translation method.
A sweeping survey of teaching methods, like Larsen-Freeman's, one which
compels the reader to make the connection between 'technique' and 'principle'
is an antidote to unthinking teaching.
And the fact that many of the methods surveyed are more fringe than
mainstream does not detract at all from what the analysis of them has to offer.
The approach
Larsen-Freeman takes to describing all the
methods in the book is both graphically clear and attractive. In turn, she takes the
reader into
classrooms where particular methods are being practised. She then guides the reader
into making
intelligent inferences from the observations to the rationale or principles
underpinning behaviour. There’s a
warning: before we reject anything
perfunctorily (she refers to a process called 'the doubting game'), we should
subject it to inquiry ('the believing game'). I imagine this is the source of the title: know the
technique and know what drives it.
Each chapter also has synoptic notes in question/answer format that
summarises the key features of the method in question. It lends itself very nicely,
and I’d
warrant not accidentally, to being a course textbook.
This book is intended for people
entering the field of
language teaching. It therefore,
rightly, makes few assumptions about background knowledge. At the same time, experienced
teachers
will find much here that they can learn from. What Larsen-Freeman is particularly expert at is teasing out
and exploring the incongruities that pervade a teacher’s view of teaching and
the reality of the practitioner’s practice. Or in the exact technical terms (which Larsen-Freeman
eschews): espoused theory vs. theory-in-action.
In Australia, at least, from where I presently
write, many
pre-service courses skip (or skim over) the historical dimension of ELT. Pre-service
training seems largely to
be devoted to the craft dimension of teaching. As a result, it seems to be the case that people trained in
the '80s and '90s have little idea of how it is we got to where we did, often
appearing to think that CLT is the way it’s always been. Larsen-Freeman's volume
will swiftly
put paid to that.
I recommend this book to everyone--pre-service trainee,
beginning teacher, experienced
teacher alike--aware that it will taste different to different people.
(As a postscriptum,
let me add that 'Suggestopedia' has
changed its name to 'De-suggestopedia'.
Curious as to why? Find out
in Chapter 6!)
Publication information:
Techniques and Principles of Language Teaching, 2nd
edition
Author: Diane
Larsen-Freeman
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Year of publication:
2000
ISBN:
0194355748
Cost: From
Amazon.com (USA) = $14.95; from
Barnes and Noble (USA), at <bn.com> = $13.50; from Blackwell's Online Bookshop (UK) at <blackwells.co.uk> = 12
pounds sterling
Ruth Wajnryb has been in the field
of TESOL for some 30
years, first as a teacher, then as a trainer and materials writer. She has published widely
and now conducts her own consultancy firm in matters
relating to education and language. <rwajnryb@nsw.bigpond.net.au>
