Indirectly Speaking / Reexamining primary school English
Mike Guest Special to The Daily Yomiuri
OK--this is going to be very hard for me to write, but here goes. Through gritted teeth I reluctantly punch the keyboard: It is necessary for the children of Japan to be taught English conversation as a part of becoming internationalized. Learning English at a young age is a wonderful, beneficial experience--especially when it is taught communicatively, by using games, which also helps to promote an understanding of culture. But the government isn't doing enough to promote the learning of English in primary schools...
Ouch, that was hard! It was hard to write because it is so insipid and facile. It is what processed cheese is to gourmet cooking, it is what Kenny G. is to jazz. on one level, no one can find the content disagreeable, but that's precisely the problem--it's mumbled everywhere but ultimately says very little at all. Moreover, the implications and practicalities of status quo pablum like this are often left unexamined (although interestingly, some people feel threatened when it is questioned--either that or the temerity of questioning "conventional wisdom" is simply too unsettling).
Such was the tone of some responses to my article last month, wherein I questioned the purpose (not denied the utility, but questioned the purpose) of teaching English in Japanese primary schools. In fact, some interpretations of my position seemed to have it that I was against English education in Japan, said that kids can't communicate, and apparently, that I was in favor of returning Japan to the Edo period. So, I think a little reexamination is in order.
First let's look more deeply at my notion that children don't really have "conversations." Have you ever watched a movie or read a novel where a child speaks but somehow they don't seem to speak like real children? Don't you feel like there's something in the discourse patterns that children don't normally use? Doesn't it seem that an adult writer is here projecting his or her own adult notions of how kids talk onto the characters?
If one looks at the field of conversation analysis, one can find myriad features that adults regularly apply in L1 (first language) conversations. Among these are turn-taking units, complex sequencing, pragmatics, topic-selection and change, repair, features of face and politeness, the appropriate choice of gambits, elaboration and extrapolation, those key features of extension and development. Most of these demand higher-order cognitive and social interaction skills. Even where kids utilize one or two of these features (and they do!) in L1 it tends to be in a very limited, unsophisticated form--which shouldn't surprise anyone--they're kids after all! Therefore, we should always be vigilant about teaching L2 (second language) discourse patterns that learners don't even carry out in their L1.
Of course some older children will gradually utilize these skills and thereby become able to hold what we normally call "conversations." But, as I noted previously, instrumental exchanges are not "conversations." If a child asks a friend where the ball went and the friend answers, "Over there"--it is not a conversation. Simple adjacency pairs like, "Do you want to eat some ice cream?" "Sounds good!" are not conversations. An interview--with unequal power relations dominating the discourse--is not a conversation. You aren't having a "conversation" with the policeman when he asks you about your broken turn signal. Service encounters are not "conversations." You wouldn't say that giving your order at Starbucks constitutes a conversation.
OK--so this might look like a terminology problem. Let's call them exchanges, interviews, service encounters, adjacency pairs and teach these in primary school, the argument might go. But I see a problem here, too. Last month I wrote that it seems that teaching English in primary schools in Japan is futile from the get-go. The two key words here are "seems" and "teaching." Why?
We live in an EFL (English as a foreign language), not ESL (English as a second language) setting. In an ESL setting, children can take items taught or practiced in the classroom and immediately test them in their everyday environment. Often, unconsciously, ESL kids are testing language hypotheses and are either rejecting or reinforcing them in real-time situations such that deeper processing occurs. In an ESL context, the active notion of teaching specific language items makes more sense because it can subsequently be slotted into an extra-classroom supported language system. This is unlikely to happen in an EFL system in a primary school where there will be virtually no hypothesis-testing or reinforcement with a larger holistic language system outside the classroom. As a result, that which is taught to EFL children is more likely to be retained only at the level of recognition, often in a static, formulaic manner. In such cases it would seem that the focus is on knowledge rather than skill development.
Adults are different. Although there are exceptions, your standard EFL post-high school false beginner is more likely to consciously try to adapt taught items, and discourse hypotheses by slotting the new data into their existing (albeit imperfect) L2 systems. So teaching such targets to EFL adults can bear fruit.
However, might the active notion of teaching L2 target items EFL kids get in the way of learning, of developing holistic communicative skills? It is possible that kids who are taught and practice a certain two-part exchange may remember it as a static item forever, but will they be able to retrieve and reproduce those same forms flexibly within dynamic, real-time interaction? They will probably remember the English names of animals or months, but how will that develop into discourse? Is this type of "naming" really "communicative" teaching? Of course, children can learn something from such approaches (children can and will learn, in spite of teachers), but is this the most efficient use of time and resources? And if our goal is to simply raise awareness of English in young children--a noble idea--wouldn't simply "doing things in English," as I suggested last month, be more suited to that end than teaching conversational target items? After all, discrete items that we try to teach as targets are often not the things which are actually learned. So, is this approach likely to produce the best outcome?
Obviously, I have my doubts, which is why I proposed the development of reading skills as a priority in primary school EFL pedagogy. Reading offers several advantages over the foggy notion of "teaching conversation."
First, receptive skills, like reading, should generally be dealt with before productive skills (although I do think some overlap is useful) since the latter demands higher-order cognitive skills. Second, reading is much more likely to later contribute to the development of writing and speaking skills than vice versa. Third, reading can be done outside the classroom--without an interlocutor--allowing for some degree of autonomous and independent learning. Fourth, conversation is already the domain of various Eikaiwa schools--let's keep them in business. Fifth, Japanese teachers will generally feel more comfortable and competent dealing with reading. Sixth, reading skills can be supplemented and reinforced by videos and other English input sources. Seventh, developing reading skills in primary school will better allow middle school English pedagogy to focus more upon content. Eighth, reading provides the widest and most readily available source of input in EFL, a platform from which the most import!ant fundamental vocabulary items and their basic relations into communicative units can be realized.
So, doesn't fostering the development of skills that will facilitate greater L2 acquisition in the input-barren EFL environment seem like a better educational strategy?
There may well be holes in what I can say in a 1,000 word article, but EFL pedagogy does need questions like these. I'm not satisfied staying at the rhetorical level of "Japanese should learn to communicate in English," "Games will help us learn conversation" and "Teaching English will help kids become internationalized," and neither are a lot of EFL teachers--primary or otherwise--who I know.
@: Guest is an associate professor of English at Miyazaki University. He can be reached at mikeguest59@yahoo.ca.
(Jul. 20, 2007)
Mike Guest Special to The Daily Yomiuri
OK--this is going to be very hard for me to write, but here goes. Through gritted teeth I reluctantly punch the keyboard: It is necessary for the children of Japan to be taught English conversation as a part of becoming internationalized. Learning English at a young age is a wonderful, beneficial experience--especially when it is taught communicatively, by using games, which also helps to promote an understanding of culture. But the government isn't doing enough to promote the learning of English in primary schools...
Ouch, that was hard! It was hard to write because it is so insipid and facile. It is what processed cheese is to gourmet cooking, it is what Kenny G. is to jazz. on one level, no one can find the content disagreeable, but that's precisely the problem--it's mumbled everywhere but ultimately says very little at all. Moreover, the implications and practicalities of status quo pablum like this are often left unexamined (although interestingly, some people feel threatened when it is questioned--either that or the temerity of questioning "conventional wisdom" is simply too unsettling).
Such was the tone of some responses to my article last month, wherein I questioned the purpose (not denied the utility, but questioned the purpose) of teaching English in Japanese primary schools. In fact, some interpretations of my position seemed to have it that I was against English education in Japan, said that kids can't communicate, and apparently, that I was in favor of returning Japan to the Edo period. So, I think a little reexamination is in order.
First let's look more deeply at my notion that children don't really have "conversations." Have you ever watched a movie or read a novel where a child speaks but somehow they don't seem to speak like real children? Don't you feel like there's something in the discourse patterns that children don't normally use? Doesn't it seem that an adult writer is here projecting his or her own adult notions of how kids talk onto the characters?
If one looks at the field of conversation analysis, one can find myriad features that adults regularly apply in L1 (first language) conversations. Among these are turn-taking units, complex sequencing, pragmatics, topic-selection and change, repair, features of face and politeness, the appropriate choice of gambits, elaboration and extrapolation, those key features of extension and development. Most of these demand higher-order cognitive and social interaction skills. Even where kids utilize one or two of these features (and they do!) in L1 it tends to be in a very limited, unsophisticated form--which shouldn't surprise anyone--they're kids after all! Therefore, we should always be vigilant about teaching L2 (second language) discourse patterns that learners don't even carry out in their L1.
Of course some older children will gradually utilize these skills and thereby become able to hold what we normally call "conversations." But, as I noted previously, instrumental exchanges are not "conversations." If a child asks a friend where the ball went and the friend answers, "Over there"--it is not a conversation. Simple adjacency pairs like, "Do you want to eat some ice cream?" "Sounds good!" are not conversations. An interview--with unequal power relations dominating the discourse--is not a conversation. You aren't having a "conversation" with the policeman when he asks you about your broken turn signal. Service encounters are not "conversations." You wouldn't say that giving your order at Starbucks constitutes a conversation.
OK--so this might look like a terminology problem. Let's call them exchanges, interviews, service encounters, adjacency pairs and teach these in primary school, the argument might go. But I see a problem here, too. Last month I wrote that it seems that teaching English in primary schools in Japan is futile from the get-go. The two key words here are "seems" and "teaching." Why?
We live in an EFL (English as a foreign language), not ESL (English as a second language) setting. In an ESL setting, children can take items taught or practiced in the classroom and immediately test them in their everyday environment. Often, unconsciously, ESL kids are testing language hypotheses and are either rejecting or reinforcing them in real-time situations such that deeper processing occurs. In an ESL context, the active notion of teaching specific language items makes more sense because it can subsequently be slotted into an extra-classroom supported language system. This is unlikely to happen in an EFL system in a primary school where there will be virtually no hypothesis-testing or reinforcement with a larger holistic language system outside the classroom. As a result, that which is taught to EFL children is more likely to be retained only at the level of recognition, often in a static, formulaic manner. In such cases it would seem that the focus is on knowledge rather than skill development.
Adults are different. Although there are exceptions, your standard EFL post-high school false beginner is more likely to consciously try to adapt taught items, and discourse hypotheses by slotting the new data into their existing (albeit imperfect) L2 systems. So teaching such targets to EFL adults can bear fruit.
However, might the active notion of teaching L2 target items EFL kids get in the way of learning, of developing holistic communicative skills? It is possible that kids who are taught and practice a certain two-part exchange may remember it as a static item forever, but will they be able to retrieve and reproduce those same forms flexibly within dynamic, real-time interaction? They will probably remember the English names of animals or months, but how will that develop into discourse? Is this type of "naming" really "communicative" teaching? Of course, children can learn something from such approaches (children can and will learn, in spite of teachers), but is this the most efficient use of time and resources? And if our goal is to simply raise awareness of English in young children--a noble idea--wouldn't simply "doing things in English," as I suggested last month, be more suited to that end than teaching conversational target items? After all, discrete items that we try to teach as targets are often not the things which are actually learned. So, is this approach likely to produce the best outcome?
Obviously, I have my doubts, which is why I proposed the development of reading skills as a priority in primary school EFL pedagogy. Reading offers several advantages over the foggy notion of "teaching conversation."
First, receptive skills, like reading, should generally be dealt with before productive skills (although I do think some overlap is useful) since the latter demands higher-order cognitive skills. Second, reading is much more likely to later contribute to the development of writing and speaking skills than vice versa. Third, reading can be done outside the classroom--without an interlocutor--allowing for some degree of autonomous and independent learning. Fourth, conversation is already the domain of various Eikaiwa schools--let's keep them in business. Fifth, Japanese teachers will generally feel more comfortable and competent dealing with reading. Sixth, reading skills can be supplemented and reinforced by videos and other English input sources. Seventh, developing reading skills in primary school will better allow middle school English pedagogy to focus more upon content. Eighth, reading provides the widest and most readily available source of input in EFL, a platform from which the most import!ant fundamental vocabulary items and their basic relations into communicative units can be realized.
So, doesn't fostering the development of skills that will facilitate greater L2 acquisition in the input-barren EFL environment seem like a better educational strategy?
There may well be holes in what I can say in a 1,000 word article, but EFL pedagogy does need questions like these. I'm not satisfied staying at the rhetorical level of "Japanese should learn to communicate in English," "Games will help us learn conversation" and "Teaching English will help kids become internationalized," and neither are a lot of EFL teachers--primary or otherwise--who I know.
@: Guest is an associate professor of English at Miyazaki University. He can be reached at mikeguest59@yahoo.ca.
(Jul. 20, 2007)