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Started by John Haberstroh
Tue, 20 Apr 1999 00:00
Re: SLA, teaching and the Shaolin paper
Author: John Haberstroh
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 00:00
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 00:00
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--- Charles Nelson wrote: > My own experience in teaching ESL has been to use books (chosen by our > department) that were graded from easy to difficult in a lockstep fashion. > In fact, this is what most (not all) of our teachers wanted and expected. > Many more articles like the Lians' is needed before educators not only > understand that students learn in different, unpredictable ways, but use > that understanding in the classroom. I think every educator I've ever spoken to acknowledges that individualization of instruction is a good thing and that learners learn in different ways, sometimes unpredictable. It is difficult to use that knowledge in the classroom, and I don't believe the Lian's paper addresses use in the classroom. They were focusing on the need, as they saw it, to take the learning out of the classroom, possibly onto the internet. > > Moreover, learning an L2 is not quick or painless. And in the US, quite a > few students take their 2 years of required language study and stop. Why > don't they continue? Because there's not enough intrinsic motivation, or > we might say "need to question and discover." I don't think the intrinsic motivation is the very general 'need to question and discover.' Most learners of an L2 are doing so because they are required to or because they would like to communicate with L2 speakers/writers. I don't exactly understand where you're coming from, actually. Is it a problem when learners give up learning something they find pointless, due to a lack of intrinsic motivation? I don't think so, if that thing really is pointless for them. > Some substantial work has > shown in educational psychology that intrinsic motivation (and continued > learning on one's own after class) is driven by factors like curiosity, > challenge, and learner's control of a situation or autonomy. Curiosity about what? If the learner is interested in the people who speak/write the 2L, they will tend to have a higher intrinsic motivation. But again, who doesn't agree with this? The Lians were proposing, it seemed to me, a completely individualized approach to 2L learning. No one disagrees with individualization, it is complete individualization that needed some logical/theoretical/empirical support. > > Some students, for various reasons, will continue to acquire an L2, despite > teachers' efforts, albeit unintentional, to dampen these students' > intrinsic motivation by practicing "one instructional method fits all". Once again, who are these teachers? Have you spoken to several recently? What did they say when you suggested they were using 'one size fits all' instruction? In fact, I haven't met any teachers in the last ten years that practice 'one size fits all' instruction. Everyone I've met seems, in practice, at least according to what they tell me, to be one kind of eclectic or another. I admit that I basically know only IEP instructors, and when you have 21 hours of instruction time a week, it is impossible to avoid eclecticism. > For many other students, though, classroom instruction/learning needs to be > restructured so as to optimize motivation and, consequently, their > continuing of language study. For these students, as Ania said, > "individualisation is crucial. It is not a luxury, but a necessity." As I said before, this is a truism. Who learns from being told what they already know, what everyone already agrees with? In my review of the Lians article I tried to focus on what seemed to be new, the move away from classrooms, the rejection of 'step-by-step' and levels, and the move toward completely individualized instruction. Besides, of course, the teachers' mind-expanding anecdotes at the beginning of the paper. Anyway, let's move on to another paper. Does anyone have any suggestions? === haberstr@yahoo.com or (above is best) haberstr@nicuc.ac.jp or NIC (Nevada-california International Consortium of colleges and universities, Japan) Shinjuku 5-9-16 Tokyo 160 JAPAN _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: SLA, teaching and the Shaolin paper
Author: Ania Lian
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 00:00
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 00:00
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On Tue, 20 Apr 1999, John Haberstroh wrote: > I think every educator I've ever spoken to acknowledges that > individualization of instruction is a good thing and that learners learn > in different ways, sometimes unpredictable. It is difficult to use that > knowledge in the classroom, and I don't believe the Lian's paper > addresses use in the classroom. They were focusing on the need, as they > saw it, to take the learning out of the classroom, possibly onto the > internet. Did anyone involved in this discussion notice that Shaolin is a paper not a book? As it is, it is pages long, longer than most papers. The characteristic of a good paper is a focus not an opportunity to include in it everything you know. Now, for the opportunity to look at what you can do in practice, you can have a look at the paper Lian and Mestre: 'Goal-Directed Communicative Interaction and Macrosimulation', in Revue de Phonetique Appliquee, Paris, Didier, 1985, nos. 73-75, pp. 185-210. The paper is also on the Internet under: http://education.canberra.edu.au/%7Eandrewl/mlapl/ The Appendix is not inclued but those whilling can find it in the library version of the paper. Maybe if I find some time I will type it in. It is no short. > Curiosity about what? If the learner is interested in the people who > speak/write the 2L, they will tend to have a higher intrinsic motivation. But > again, who doesn't agree with this? The Lians were proposing, it seemed to me, > a completely individualized approach to 2L learning. No one disagrees with > individualization, it is complete individualization that needed some > logical/theoretical/empirical support. In my reply to your first mail on the subject I posed some questions which you probably see as irrelevant. I will change the question and ask: do you believe in facts? What do you do with people who do not believe in your facts? Is a fact what *you* see? Do your facts change? If yes, why? If no, why? Should facts change simultaneously to all? But then again, if your facts have changed, was it because you did not listen to the experts in the first place? Do you see a link between my question and the concern with individualisation as a necessity? Charles Nelson wrote: > > Some students, for various reasons, will continue to acquire an L2, despite > > teachers' efforts, albeit unintentional, to dampen these students' > > intrinsic motivation by practicing "one instructional method fits all". John's reply was: > Once again, who are these teachers? Have you spoken to several recently? What > did they say when you suggested they were using 'one size fits all' > instruction? My mother, when I moved to Australia she came to visit me. With the communism in Poland I saw her only after I spent in Australia almost a decade. On the plane they screened "Mr. Bean". Now, we know that Mr Bean says nothing: this makes things easier for the discussion. Can you though tell me why my mother landed in Australia convinced that the English have, to express it adequately for the Internet, strange sense of humour. Now, poor thing, when I asked her what was it that she saw on the plane, she told me the story-line and to her horror she discovered that I was in stitches, laughing. She came to Australia to find her daughter, to share, and to her horror we lived in two different worlds. Can you tell me how textbook methodology can have a potential to take you out of your world to that of the other? Charles' point is: not every theory will make the plane fly. > > "individualisation is crucial. It is not a luxury, but a necessity." > As I said before, this is a truism. Who learns from being told what they > already know, Is this what individualisation means? We did not think so. Ania Lian
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