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One of the problems of using a coursebook to teach adults is the undeniable fact that a lot of them are, in effect, false beginners… in my experience, at least. More often than not, they have had lessons of English as a second language during their school days. So, they come to you with vague memories of the rudiments of grammar and, more often than not, deeply-embedded habits of translation.
It’s not fun nor is it encouraging to be told, when one’s trying to express an idea which one could do perfectly in one’s own language, “No, that structure is too advanced for you” or “We’ll do that structure much later, but for now…”.
Don’t you think so?
This is where the idea of dogme becomes attractive. There is no such restriction.
Today’s lesson started with a conversation about a meeting my student was going to have later that day, so, I took the opportunity, especially since, during the last lesson, I mentioned that English hasn’t got a pure future tense, to explain that the present continuous can be used for future use.
I’m having a meeting with the mayor of Telde later today.
If I had gone by the book, I’d have stayed on the present continuous for “actions and events happening around the time of action”.
The other important grammatical point that crept up was the typical mistake of saying “the past year” as in:
I already gave the report to them the past last year.
The Dogme Diaries 
And who says that Dogme teachers don’t focus on grammar? Bah, piffle! We just provide personalised context for grammar before focusing on it. Would you in this case add some structure to ‘guide’ students towards the structure you want to elicit or would you work with whatever emerges, e.g. half the class come out with ‘used to’ and the other half present continuous?
I remember being told as a student in language school, owh you’re going to study that grammar next month, so I can’t tell you anything about it now, which I found really patronising. On the other hand, a teacher once reformulated something I said using a very advanced structure and I didn’t find it at all confusing; I understood it instantly because I knew what I wanted to say. There must be a case here for teaching the grammar that students need to express what they want to in that moment… the question is though, where do we draw the line and what influences our decision to draw it?
Great post
Dale
I’d normally work with whatever emerges. Mind you, sometimes what emerges comes from me, and that’s valid, too, isn’t it? Conversation is never a one-way street. And I don’t normally think of grammar much when I speak. Take the example of the arranged meeting. I may notice that the student is having difficulty expressing it so I’ll help him:
I’m having a meeting with the mayor of Telde later today.
Perhaps I may say:
I’ll be having a meeting with the mayor of Telde later today.
Then I’ll think, “Oh, s..t!” and then I may decide to cover future continuous as well! 😉
As regards the line, well, maybe the line should be drawn at the limit of the student’s ability? Like it or not, unless we’re talking about very young learners, if a student can’t express what they think, they’ll translate from L1. So, surely, if he can express a thought in L1, he should be taught how to do it in L2?
Thanks for commenting, Dale!
I’d take the same stance as you then in this case. If someone has created a concept in L1 and wish to express it in L2 then it’s bound to stick much more than if someone decided on the concept for them.
Likewise, there’s always a limit to what can be taught to students so as not go too far beyond their ability.
Thanks for some inspiration Chiew.
Dale
Good post Chiew. I’ve fallen in the ‘just do it because it’s the next exercise’ trap many times. I definitely agree that books tend to do just one grammar point and sometimes rather briefly. The best coursebooks I ever used to inhouse produced 1st editions because there were so my errors we had great fun correcting and explaining the improving them. The writers also welcomed FB.
In theory, bookings follow the developmental steps of the average student and cover all the skills in each chapter. This is quite a lot but perhaps not enough of any. 1 great thing I ended up doing with some classes was letting them skim through the book and choose what we’d cover. For one option course the 2 students even suggested the whole syllabus using what resources we had, sadly we never got more onboard so it never happened.
Perhaps it’s not a change in coursebooks we need but a different approach to designing teacher’s books???
Thanks for the comment, Phil.
The problem of coursebooks lies in precisely what you say “… follow the developmental steps of the average student”. Who is the average student in any one class? Each class is different, and so is each student. Therefore, it is impossible to design a coursebook to satisfy everyone.
OK, so we re-design teacher’s books? Perhaps, that might make an improvement. So we’ll say, “If the student says, ‘I’m having a meeting…’, turn to Page xx, present continuous for future; you may also decide it’s worth covering Pg zz, future continuous”…? Something like that?
I don’t think there’s an easy way. I personally see the death of coursebooks in the near future. It’s got to be on-line, and ‘maintenance engineers’ have to be employed to change the material as needed.
The PLN trend can only be a good thing; webinars and the whole shebang of PD is the only way. Teachers have to be made aware that they have to dedicate more time to their chosen profession. The days of opening the teacher’s book and following it to the letter are over. Employers will need to ask, “So, do you belong to any PLN? Which was the last conference you attended?”
The problem in Spain is their “oposición” phenomenon (you take an exam to be a civil servant, and if you pass, you are guaranteed a job for life); the head of government who dares to remove this will be a real brave person indeed!
We have the same in France where even secretaries need to pass a test. People who want to become a teacher take one which just assesses their subject knowledge and they criticise the English way of doing ‘teaching degrees’. Just because you know Chemistry doesn’t make you a Chemistry teacher.
I agree on the vanishing books. I had a DOS about 6 years ago who said the same mainly because the needs of students was getting too diverse to satisfy with individual courses. He invested a lot of time into online courses which students could pick and choose from, thus creating their own. The problem was when we actual physical lessons nobody really knew what to do as the materials were just the same as the online stuff or everyone was doing different online stuff so it was hard to organise the right class. The best solution, in hindsight, was probably to do something Dogme which could have incorporated all these differences.
I used to have an anti-TD boss who tried to stop any conference attendance our outside activities. Unless we were working 7 to 7 in the office and following what he said he wasn’t happy. This kind of mentality needs to change.
Great post Chiew.
My current context varies from yours as we have lots of B1/B2 level students who haven’t done any English since school, but have managed to keep a fairly good level because there’s quite a lot of English around them. Still, this means that they have forgotten a lot from school, and so need to go over “elementary” points like question formation, but they are able to pick up and use the modal perfect pretty well with not much fuss. If following a book, the teacher is likely to say something like “You should know this, it’s in the elementary book!”, rather than the more useful “Let’s look at that, shall we?”. And the modal perfect would get left until the end of the B2 level book and these poor students will never be able to express that they should’ve brought a coat today!! (It is actually raining lots here in Hamburg!).
I like Phil’s point about a change in teacher’s books. Yes, I agree. And like Dave Willis and more recently Scott Thornbury have spoken about, having a range of ways of accessing and exploiting texts in a book is more likely, in my opinion, to produce motivated learners that retain information than the current mainstream system with coursebooks.
Jem
Great to see you here, Jem!
Modal perfect? Wow! What’s that? Hehe. That’s great, isn’t it? It’s not about grammar; it’s about communication; but if the grammar helps you to communicate…
See my reply to Phil regarding teacher’s books. Certainly, it’ll be a step forward, but the only way to produce motivated learners is to have motivated teachers, and motivated teachers shouldn’t need much encouragement to go beyond the realm of school books, or do they?
I have been ‘doing’ dogme or unplugged teaching for a while without realising I was doing it. In October I decided to go the whole ‘dog’ and unplug a complete beginners course. 4 lessons in, and they’ve already done the present perfect and can ask each other “How long have you been…?” based on the simple fact that it came up in class as a natural consequence of language flow…
This makes me smile.
dogmelter
Thanks for that comment, dogmelter! Things like that make us all smile, I think. Before you know it, they’ll be using the modal perfect like Jemma’s students! LOL
Yes, Dale, I agree there’s always a limit to what can be taught at any one time, but you’re the one who knows your students best. It doesn’t to have be done in one lesson. Recalling a previous conversation to cover some grammatical or lexical point is perfectly acceptable, in my humble opinion, and is far more relevant than, say, inventing an interview with Madonna. 😉
Perhaps some linguists will come and shoot me…
Hey, Phil, that anti-TD boss, perhaps we should just shoot him? 😉