Cynthia Desjardins
I have been working as an online ESL teacher for the past six months. I teach students that live mainly in Asia in a one-on-one format with the curriculum developed by the company. As a busy full-time M.A. student, I appreciate not having to develop classes and am happy to teach what they provide. However, as a trained ESL specialist, I find myself questioning the curriculum’s efficacy.
The classes usually have similar formats, especially within the same ‘level’. There is vocabulary introduction, grammar conjugation, sentence structures, reading, drilled phonics and math. I did not include writing, since it is extremely minimal. This morning I found myself teaching a young learner of approximately 6-7 years old at a beginner level, where they cannot read independently yet. Following the curriculum, our class proceeds as usual with the repetition of the vocabulary, conjugating the verb ‘to speak’ and repeating the main sentence structure for this class: “No, I cannot speak in the library.’’ This phrase may not seem daunting to produce by fluent speakers of English, but for a beginner ESL student the yes or no answer+ verb+ adverb structure can be difficult to memorize and requires a lot of repetition.
This led me to question the usefulness of teaching long, pre-established phrases, repeating verb conjugations and drilled phonics. How often will they realistically need to use these in their lives? Will they even remember such a long and complicated phrase after class, never mind in a year from now?
Reflecting upon it, this very structured, formatted approach reminds me of behaviourism, a teaching approach that was very popular in the 1940’s-1960’s. Essentially, this theory states that language learning is the result of imitation, practice, positive feedback and developing habits (Lightbown & Spada, 2013). This simple yet very explicative YouTube video further explains this theory. Watching it helped me realize that a lot of the curriculum is indeed repetition, habit formation and positive reinforcement. We are expected to explicitly correct grammar and pronunciation mistakes.
This theory was replaced over the decades by numerous ones and by the time I completed my B.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language, we were taught that a communicative approach in more suited for ESL classes. The contextualization of classes is expected to naturally elicit the student’s vocabulary. This approach also focuses on learning by doing and fluency over accuracy, as mistakes are seen as an integral part of language learning. This inductive way of learning is learner centered and the teacher seem as a guide and facilitator (Shastri, 2009). Essentially, what I was taught for four years in my B.A. and the drill -focused, repetitive curriculum I am currently teaching differ greatly. This begs the following question: Would a communicative approach to the curriculum be more appropriate?
Is it noteworthy that the vast majority of the students that are currently taking classes are young beginners. This could make it very difficult to elicit language in a communicative manner. I can understand the rationalization behind the more repetitive, drilled structure of the classes, but I still feel doubt over its efficacy. My parting questions are these:
- How can ESL classes be made more communicative with beginner level students who do not necessarily have the vocabulary and grammar to express themselves?
- Are drills and repetitions the only way to give them a basis in English?
References
Lightbown, P., & Spada, N. M. (2013). How languages are learned (Fourth ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Payne, M. & Sitler, S. [Sharon]. (2014, March 22). Behaviorist Theory of Second Language Acquisition [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvOIbDI2fro
Shastri, P. D. (2009). Communicative approach to the teaching of English as a second language. Global Media. Retrieved from https://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=3011323
Wikihow (n.d). Encourage students to speak only English in the classroom. [Image]. Retrieved October 5th, 2020 from https://www.wikihow.com/Teach-English-As-a-Second-Language-to-Beginners#/Image:Teach-English-As-a-Second-Language-to-Beginners-Step-8.jpg
Thank you Cynthia for writing about your teaching online experience, I can picture in my head which company you might be talking about. As a teacher using potentially the same platform as you do, I often wonder how helpful much of this is for their life past school. I know most parents put their children in a program like this to help their kids pass the exams to get into the better/best universities. There are a handful of kiddos I teach who I have found time to work on speaking. I know this is encouraged through the company and something parents want too, but it is all in the context of repetition and sentence frames in the lesson/unit. I have started to ask my regulars more varied questions that use previous and potentially unknown vocabulary. Through these engagements I want them to be able to not only learn the lesson (which is often just rote learning), but also how it applies to real life. You say you teach the little ones, I imagine L1 and L2? Do you teach any of the higher ones?
Hannah S.
Hi Cynthia!
I agree with Hannah, after a while with regular students, who are bit older, it is possible to find time to ask more personalized questions and give them an opportunity to express some of their opinions or talk about themselves. I think it just takes time with younger students. I’ve also noticed that some students become so accustomed to the ‘listen and repeat’ methodology that when I do ask them about what they think they can be really thrown off.
Michelle
Hi Cynthia!
I agree with Hannah, after a while with regular students, who are bit older, it is possible to find time to ask more personalized questions and give them an opportunity to express some of their opinions or talk about themselves. I think it just takes time with younger students. I’ve also noticed that some students become so accustomed to the ‘listen and repeat’ methodology that when I do ask them about what they think they can be really thrown off.
Michelle
Thank you Cynthia for sharing your thoughts on your teaching experience. As a language learner from that background, the procedures you presented in the article resonates so much with the language classes I used to take.
Drills and repetitive practice played a very important role in my second language learning, so I can’t say they were not effective because it had helped so much in acquiring basic language skills and especially in passing certain language tests. However, I can understand your doubt and also can’t deny the fact that drills and repetitive practice can easily become dull and tedious for students if it is only passed on with boring instructions for grammar rules.
One way I can think of making repetition and rote-memory work in second language teaching more acceptable is to make them more natural through meaningful interactions and that’s the role I believe they should play as well.
Therefore, I believe that it is important for us teachers to come up with more engaging and entertaining activities that’s communicative most of the time in order to provide students with opportunities for example to let them figure out certain grammatical rules by themselves. I believe in this way they will even build better memory of the knowledge.
Tong Ye (Angela)