by daronloo » 25 Sep 2017 06:44
Hi All, it’s been a while since I contributed. Stuart has taught me how to subscribe to the threads to receive alerts. Hopefully I will be more active!
I read through the issues pointed out, and brought it to my class for a discussion (do note though that my students are not studying applied/linguistics). The module I am teaching this semester is the basic level graduate research writing course. In this course, graduate students (master’s and doctoral degrees) are taught several rhetoric moves, on top of improving students’ grasp of the English language, specifically, English pertinent to the world of scholarship and publication.
I explained to them the concept of “language acquisition device”, and asked them what they thought about it. I also pointed out that they have been exposed to English usage in different domains (formal and informal). Nonetheless, with a great amount of input of supposedly correct or acceptable English, these graduate students are still making errors which I think is unacceptable (given that they know the rules so well). In the discussion, the students pointed out that they are able to follow the different grammatical concepts of English (e.g., they know what a noun is, they know what a verb is, etc.). However, it is when they are expected to produce, things get messy. There are several explanations given by my students. Some said it is because they’re essentially not English speakers. Another issue is that they are not really motivated. Some also said that the heavy focus on grammar rules in their past experience makes communicating really difficult, because they are constantly monitoring themselves. There were also those who weren’t too concerned, because they know they could solicit help through language editing services. Some of the students’ supervisors helped them revise language comprehensively (and students have no part in this process).
Looking at how my students view the English language, it appears to me that while some of them may be good at grammar rules, what is more important to them is to get their meaning across. For some, this does not require complete accuracy. Also, people around them offer some sort of accommodation. In other words, my students' status as a second or third or fourth… language speaker of English is accepted, and justifies their incapability of communicating at a high level of accuracy or proficiency.
Having said this, I think (response numbers correspond with Raymund’s questions):
1. Like what Richard said, I think it really goes back to a person’s belief about how language is structured. My students have a hard time accepting this, especially when we do simple data-driven exercises in class to analyze writing (particularly texts which have been published in their field). Writing manuals/books would recommend that writers do not begin sentences with “And” or “But”; students, however, are seeing this type of usage in published research work. This is too ‘fuzzy’ for them to accept.
2. I think we are accommodating the type of production our students make. Let me throw in another anecdote, while some think that Singlish is not ‘standard’, many think that Singlish is a crucial social identifier. Singlish is very prevalent and it crosses through different domains of language use. I think, at least in my context, we are so used to listening to people produce English (in certain settings) that does not necessarily match that of what is considered a standard, that we disregard this type of production even in a setting where it is expected that language use is done accurately.
3. Over the past few years, I have become interested in written corrective feedback. Like what Stuart had mentioned, Truscott has some interesting ideas, and it was his 1996 paper that ‘rocked’ my view on written corrective feedback. There are some ways that I use to teach ‘correct usage’. The first is to take a data-driven approach, where students do simple analyses (can be corpus) of how a phrase or a word is used. In this particular module this semester, I am trying to get students to use metalanguage to understand why they did something wrong, and how it can be corrected. This type of reflective practice has been quite difficult to implement because students are so used to looking at grammar as black and white, as a set of ‘rules’. To address your question of how beginners should be taught. There are several considerations that need to be made. For example, the age of these beginners, e.g., though my current students may be considered beginners since they are at the basic level, they are capable of analytical thinking. This informs my teaching methods. Another issue is the purpose of language learning. My students are pressed for time to publish so they can graduate; hence, they are concerned with practical and efficient feedback (because of this, analytical processes are deemed a waste of time). Another issue the socialization of students into ways to deal with feedback. I have noticed that many teachers assume that students know how to respond to feedback. For example, I cross or underline a word in a student’s essay because the word is wrong. Does student know what to do with the crossed or underlined word? It is almost always the case where teachers do not teach students how to deal with feedback.
To add to the discussion, perhaps another issue worth considering is the level of difficulty for a particular grammar form. I am trying this out this semester. I began with the easiest, which are forms that are pretty universal across languages. We spent about a week on this. At the moment, though, we are looking at articles. English language learning books have typically talked about articles as being definite or indefinite. Nevertheless, students are oblivious when it comes to generic and non-generic uses of the article.
Another issue we have at the moment is meaning through grammar. One aspect that we are looking at is the use of both present tense and past tense within a (complex) sentence. Writing manuals typically advice students to maintain the tense throughout the essay. However, in the research writing genre, it is quite common to find long complex sentences which contain different clauses with different tenses. All these tenses actually have a meaning (e.g. indicating previous studies, stating a generalization, etc.).
