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TEA ching O ral En glish

TEA ching O ral En glish
TeacherKim Sep 11, 2014 20:49
Comments(4)
Comments(4)
I feel like I've come to the end of a quest without even knowing I was on one. The quest of HOW TO speak English.
 
When I arrived in China I was packing the normal foreign teachers tool kit. Years and years of schooling in English and a TESOL certificate. I believed I had both what and how to teach. I was ready.
 
Unfortunately what I was ready for wasn't to teach oral English. In fact what they wanted from me I also didn't know how I did it. Just exactly why is it that it sounds different when a native vs non-native speaker uses English? That was what they wanted to know and that was one thing I was never taught, in school.
 
By the time I reached school I had speaking and listening down. There's no real reason to teach us that, but reading and writing I was taught and so that I can explain. It's a quagmire! They need us to help them to naturalize grammar and systemize pronunication. Simple, right?
 
It should be simple because after all think of who taught us how...mom. It's this foundation we need to look to for the answers. The mother's way. Before you skoff here's an example: English words are stressed not phonetic and therefore we must learn three things about how to say and listen to each word 1. how many sylllables, 2. which is stressed, 3. what is the vowel sound in that stressed syllable. So there's mom saying .. A ppl (apple), A ppl, A A A pl apple. Have you ever hear a child ask for a banana by say NAna.
 
This simple process is one that we all use. We all know that you must ask 'how to' say a word. It's very natural for an English speaker to ask another "How to you say this..." And when we ask what we are looking for is : syllables/stessed syllable/stressed sylable's vowel sound.
 
This, I believe is what I am here to help with. How we say it; how we hear it, not what we say. They can teach themselves what (grammar etc..) so I feel that we foreign teachers should know about embedded grammer, word stress and sentence stress.
 
This is what I teach now. My students decide what they want to say and I help them figure out how to.... I actually sleep better with this 'Mother's way' in my tool box.
 
I encourage you to add this material to your's. In fact if you're in my city I'll meet you for a coffee and explain what I've come to understand. After all what are quests for....

 

Tags:Teaching & Learning Language & Culture Expat Rants & Advice Expat Tales

4 Comments

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coineineagh
(3) (0)

what you describe is word stress, and this should have been discussed in your TEFL/TESOL training. sentence stress adds a whole extra dimension. a sentence like "I didn't do that." can carry lots of added meaning and implications depending on which of those four words you stress. a chinese teacher who had been to the USA kept answering me with "oh yeah" in an *ascending* tone, causing me to wait for his anecdote, which never came. i admit i have added insights into english learning, since i spoke only dutch when i was four, and had to learn english myself. english stresses content words, which carry the information in a sentence. "some of the WORDS should have TAKEN the STRESS." from the three content words you can guess what the sentence is about. the other words are grammatical, carry no info other than situational detail. we hastily speed through grammar words, and learn to pay attention to stressed words. the problem with chinese, who speak a syllable-timed language rather than stress-timed, is that they will do the opposite because of facesaving: they'll speak the easy grammar words clearly and confidently, but hastily mumble the difficult content words (of which they are unsure of the correct pronunciation). the solution? exposure to more english interaction. this kind of language skill is intuitive, acquired. not learned. chinese need time to develop a "feel" for the language. my tip: comtinue even when chinese complain that your speech is too fast or difficult. it's still exposure to stress-timed speaking. if you do what students want, it often leads to distorted english learning, as if it was a syllable-timed language like chinese.

Sep 22, 2014 12:49 Report Abuse

rasklnik
(5) (1)

You don't seem to realize that the way you learned English, (your Mom) isn't the way you learn a second language. Trying to teach L2 as if it was L1 is not going to work too well for obvious and less than obvious reasons...

Sep 17, 2014 10:14 Report Abuse

dongbeiren
(4) (3)

Gee sounds GREAAT! Or is it Gr A tte? Come on man, do your students and yourself a favor and find something better to do in class than have your students tell you the words they like and practice saying them over and over. The fact is that Chinese teachers generally can't teach children "what to say" as you put it. Hence the Chinese who go through ten years of English class and can't hold a two minute conversation. It's not that they're incapable, it's the teaching style that values rote memorization over natural methods of acquisition. Please get a clue for the sake of your sanity.

Sep 13, 2014 17:52 Report Abuse

TeacherKim
(2) (3)

Thanks for your feedback. Your comment has helped me and I agree with, what I believe to be, your point. Speaking English should not feel like drudgery. I am not suggesting that. What I am suggesting is that much like knowing grammar benefits creative writing. The mechanics of pronunciation benefit creative speech. I think it’s difficult to argue that the drudgery of memorizing verb conjugations isn’t useful or important. We don’t have to learn verb conjugations before we write but it certainly makes written communication easier. Grammar puts us all on the same channel and so does learning the mechanics of speech. While I support you and agree that when we are teaching content, imagination and curiosity, are cornerstones I would ask you consider that the mechanics, even if there is drudgery, has a place and that we should know more about it. When our students want to express the wonderful content they have to share they should know which frequency (if you will) we native English speakers use.

Sep 15, 2014 11:45 Report Abuse

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