A new language is a new language
At times it seems that many well meaning language teachers seem determined to push their learners back into their native language. Here are two paragraphs from well meaning teachers on how to help their learners. I am opposed to these ideas since I believe that to learn a language you want to distance yourself from your own language as completely as possible. The only exception is the occasional dictionary or text translation into your own language. For the rest you need to let the brain get used to the new language naturally. The following two paragraphs do not represent natural language learning at least in my view. I welcome comments
>>>>>>>>>>>
........the quickest route to understanding students' language problems and solving these problems is active error analysis. At this time I have speakers of four unrelated languages in my adult class. I ask them questions about their languages such as "What is the closest sound to this one in your language?" "How do you say this in your language?" etc. and we do quick comparisons. Putting the structures of English and L1 next to each other on the marker board is productive. This seems to help a lot and students generally find it interesting to see how different languages work. At the same time, I learn a lot about how different languages function to better help the students.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
What a fabulous idea! I never thought of having my adult learners write a
children's book based on their cultures. That is such a wonderful way to
show that you respect and honor their culture and heritage, and yet all the
while have them working on their target language skills.
Steve
Hi. I haven't commented here before. I may try to split this into what I see a couple issues. Let me know if I can clarify anything.
Re: age & classrooms in general: As an ESL teacher at a university, I am of the impression that students are mainly going to be successful if they have a strong interest in learning the language. I have many student who seem to have no desire to learn English at all. They spend all their time speaking their native language outside (and even inside class despite English only policy). There are large differences between students with motivation and those without. In my opinion, students with motivation will learn much more outside my class than inside. My responsibilities include working with both kinds of students, so capturing students interests can be a big problem.
Some of the things at work in students' seeming lack of motivation are affective filters (I don't remember if you ascribe much to Krashen). Activities to lower these filters can be good, including ones that include the first language. However, I, like you, also don't think first language activities are so great for adult learners. On the other hand, these can be especially helpful to children in ESL classrooms, and in this case more than any, I think it is appropriate for this "repect and honor" for their culture. I would suggest reading Igoa's The Inner World of an Immigrant Child if you want to explore the topic.
Re: error analysis: I do think that meaningful error analysis for teachers is a good thing. Notice the kinds of errors that a student makes can tell a teacher the types of grammar areas in which the student needs to improve. Solely marking up a students' output (as in giving a recast) can be vague as whether a teacher is correcting content or form.
Re: second quote: What is your issue with writing a children's book about their culture? It seems to be in the target language, which is what you promote.
