Towards Simplifying the Learning of English for Global Second Language Students

7/1/2011

5 Comments

Simplifying Learning English - 2011 Contemporary Issues Conference USQ

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5 Comments

Jade Hayes

10/1/2011 01:12:49 pm

This presentation is AWESOME!!!

Jade Hayes

10/1/2011 01:34:01 pm

When I was working in the NT I encountered a school where the teachers viewed Aboriginal English as a legitimate language in its own right, I had previously encountered Aboriginal academics who also saw it as valid, language. I noticed having lived in Indonesia as a child and speaking bahasa that many of my Indonesian friends would speak in the manner you described and I would often have to explain to other people the ways in which bahasa was different to English. Both of these language variants I have come into contact with, I found to be perfectly valid and felt no need to correct the speaker when conversing.

Greg Quinlivan

10/1/2011 04:28:58 pm

Thanks for the support, Jade. I hadn't realised that about Aboriginal English, and it sounds like a positive approach to what functions as a living language in a real community. I agree we sometimes get over enthusiastic with correcting communications when they are already clear and those involved have had their needs met regardless of our pontificating.

Bel Boothby

26/1/2011 01:09:54 pm

Greg, you can argue the relevance of simplifying the learning of English for second language students 'til the cows come home,this is a great idea but honestly I believed it will never happen. English is the lingua franca in the world and non-English Speaking students like me will always aim for the ultimate attainment of being able to use Standard English.

TEFL101 link

21/3/2011 03:23:46 pm

Greg,

Where do you draw the line between students' non-standard forms and the standard form of the language? If you don't draw the line at all, you get a pidgin which is inadequate for in-depth and complex communication, and over time becomes mutually unintelligible with the standard form. The are numerous historical examples of this.

What happens when you have an German speaker of English using their own idiolect or interlingua, communicating with a Malaysian doing the same -- both ignoring standard forms? You get confusion and breakdowns (especially over the telephone). Obviously there are also sociolinguistic issues associated with non-standard forms of the language and like it or not, the inability to code-switch to the standard variant causes problems in business and relationship-building contexts.

If you refuse to correct non-standard utterances in class, then you run the danger of having students who fossilize these errors and struggle to make noticeable progress. I'm not saying accuracy is more important than fluency but I am saying that they are both important and good teachers focus on both. Despite your belief in the needs of learners to ignore standard forms, the larger fact is that language has a well-established standard as a default for people to have recourse to, especially when writing. Chinese hanzi characters are a good example of how a long-established written standard transcends massive geographical dialect variation. This shows that the default standard form is especially useful in facilitating communication between speakers from a diverse range of nations. Why actively allow this to corrode?

Standard English makes the world more, not less integrated. Willful ignorance of standard grammar makes the world less, not more globalised. Standard English is both attainable and desirable and I think it is pretty defeatist and even intellectually dishonest to create such big shortcuts in language learning. In reality, there are no shortcuts to mastery.

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Towards Simplifying the Learning of English for Global Second Language Students

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