Topic – What we teach when we teach English
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When I studied a foreign language at school, I studied mostly grammar, reading, writing and speaking. Less attention was paid to listening. We did listening tests once or twice a month.
It’s a pity that there were not enough opportunities for you to develop listening skills.
It s a good thing the way of teaching foreign languages has changed and improved over the years. Nowadays grammar, speaking and listening all share the same importance.
It seems that I had the same problem in my learning adventure with English in my country; I really thing that speaking a language is a basic. Most of the time people ask “Do you speak this language?” and no “do you write it?”
I studied grammar, reading and speaking.There wasn’t any attention to pronounciation.
We had the same situation, I suppose.
I find pronunciation is a difficult area, as teachers need to be careful in correcting without demotivating the student. Now I realise that if I had more listening opportunities it would have been much easier!
When I studied English, we mostly paid attention to grammar. We didn’t do much listening and didn’t focus on pronunciation either.
Yes, it is also rather surprising because listening and speaking skills are typically considered together as the communicative skills. it is rather hard to improve speaking without having opportunities to develop listening skills. would you agree with me?
Gabi, I like your point about listening and speaking skills being connected!
I think language learning methodology has changed over the last decades but is still dependent on cultural determinates.
Studying Latin as a child there was a clear focus on grammar, vocabulary and reading. Of course studying a modern language speaking and listening are equally important.Anja, what you are saying is so very true! it is a funny thing about teaching methodologies- they come and go, they then return only to be phased out by something that has also already been ;=) the question is- is it the methodology used in the classroom that gives shape to our students’ learning expectations; or, perhaps it is exactly the other way round- it is the students and their expectations that enforce methodological changes? could never really answer this question;=)
There was little emphasis on grammar in general at my school. In later life I realised that had I had the opportunity to learn Latin and had the teaching been more robust I would have been much better equipped to learn languages. These days, I try and incorporate a gentle reinforcement of basic concepts into any one to one lesson where I suspect the student has a similar knowledge gap.
When I studied my first foreign language at school, we mostly practised reproducing whatever we read or heard by parotting or memorizing. Fluent speaking was far from the lesson objective….
My lower secondary school French lessons were based on a lot of reading and writing exercises, with little attention being given to speaking or listening. Later on, during my linguistics studies, I realised my French teacher was definitely a supporter of the Grammar Translation Method! I still remember there was no difference between my Latin and French lessons.
I agree with Elisabetta, the speaking activities we did in school involved more memorizing than actual fluent speech.
Hello, everyone! I’ve just started this course that I find very useful.
When I was a pupil, we mostly learnt to reproduce learnt by heart texts, grammar and vocabulary. Less attention was paid to developing listening and speaking skills.
Hi Oksana. The focus on accuracy and grammar seems to be a pattern in the way we were educated in foreign languages in the past- all other teachers mentioned this. On our TEFL course, we hope to be able to communicate how to integrate skills in your teaching and focus on fluency as well as accuracy.
Thank you, I’ll enjoy learning more about it:)
I learned foreign languages in the last century and at that time, we hardly spoke at all. And the first time we did listening tests was in the exam! I hope things are a little better now!
At school we learned a lot of basic items that were not particularly interesting for us. Where is the museum? I like playing football. Etc.
I strongly agree with Katrina’s point! Lesson contents should be appealing and meaningful to learners, otherwise, interest is lost and motivation drops.
Thank you for sharing, Katrina- this is a very good point demonstrating how important it is that what we teach in the EFL classroom is relevant to students.
I agree. There is nothing more difficult than trudging through a proscribed lesson which is of no interest or beyond the range of experience of the student (for example a young teen being asked to comment on experiences within the world of work).
I agree, if the student doesn’t feel the content is relevant and can be used, it will be difficult for him/her to focus on something not familiar and the student won’t see the point in making the effort. That’s why I think students exchanges are a great way to show students they can put to use their language skills and it will be useful for their future.
My learning English in school is similar to what others have already mentioned. The main focus was on grammar and use of English exercises, whereas the other skills remained rather overlooked. We did write compositions, but no writing strategies were provided, and regarding listening, we did listening comprehension exercises from the textbook, and every now and then, we would listen to a song, but again, no strategies were provided on how to approach such exercises.
As for speaking, we did practice dialogues from the textbook, and sometimes we did role-play activities, but I don’t believe any of those actually contributed to our becoming more fluent.I don’t recall phonology being part of the lessons. Although the teachers did demonstrate how new words are pronounced, there wasn’t much emphasis on it on a daily basis. The only feedback we got was after doing some speaking activity in class (if it was assessed), such as oral presentations.
Thank you Noemi and welcome to the course! I’m particularly happy that you identify learning strategies as the missing element in your experience as a language learner! One of our roles as a teacher is to help students become independent as language learners, so that they can take their learning outside the classroom.
Language teaching in my school was very poor. Repetitive tasks were intermittently presented by an unenthusiastic often absent teacher. There was no emphasis on spoken activities or pronunciation and a distinct lack of fun!
Thank you for this Terry! You seem to be the first person on this forum to mention fun and variety in the classroom;=) Repetition has an important place in the EFL classroom, but only as a means of language reinforcement; to ensure spaced repetition of language already learned, the teacher should design a variety of tasks- nothing kills student motivation more effectively than a boring lesson!
I mainly studied grammar, reading and literature, then some listening and speaking. We had a lector once a week and that was the main opportunity to speak and get an idea of the current language spoken.
We were taught mainly grammar. There were a lot of reading comprehensions. Not much else.
This was my story too. I really didn’t see how to connect so I lost interest.
I was taught grammar from a textbook. Homework would be exercises on the recently studied topic. There was no opportunity for listening except there was one lesson a week of Conversation with a native English teacher. Lessons were knowledge based and not much fun.
I am currently learning German, I noticed there is less attention on listening. We focus more on Grammar and vocabulary.
This is probably because listening skills are often difficult to teach, in particular for new teachers. If you would like to find out more about why listening skills are often neglected in the classroom and how this could be changed, please watch ‘Teaching Listening- the Cinderella Skill’ Masterclass which you can find in the Gallery Teachers Masterclass library.
https://galleryteachers.com/course/teaching-listening-the-cinderella-skill/
Yess I agree because there was not much practice
I studied both French and Spanish at school. We were taught basic greetings and vocabulary first. Then we built on this with simple tenses, more vocab and then harder tenses. We used reading, writing, speaking and listening. However one thing I would say is that the French teacher used far more interesting and engaging material, whereas the Spanish was very dry and boring….verbs learnt by rote and an ancient textbook with all writing no pictures! I got an A in French and only a C in Spanish!
It looks like you experienced exactly what I did in learning French, just that yours was with Spanish. Learning French was by rote, and we were compelled to master our textbooks just for the external exams. There were no strategic plans to elicit student information, practice test was the order of the day.
We only had Listening and Speaking Lessons once a month. The focus was always on Reading and Drafting. As the years went by, even grammar took a backseat.
You were probably fortunate to have listening activities. I guess there were videos and recordings in those lessons? Those, would at least deal with boredom.
But what was the reason for studying that language?
The last time I learnt a foreign language in school was at Junior high school, the focus areas were on Speaking, writing and functions. The course materials were developed to prepare us for our external exams. Teacher Talk Time was dominant and there wasn’t much done to motivate and increase learners interest.
as there weren’t many interesting materials for us to learn English, our teacher mainly followed the textbook to have the classes, including vocabulary, collocations, grammars, translation and so on. We are convinced that the more we remember, the higher grades we will receive. In the past,even though we might not be interested in English, we pushed ourselves to work hard on it. But now the students are different, especially for those who have lost their confidence in learning English, it’s very important to boost their interests and provide them with suitable tasks which can let them fully participate in it, otherwise they may just ignore you and the class will turn to be a disaster.
Back in High school and even University, the English course was emphasized on Grammar, reading and comprehension and vocabulary.But I needed to improve my speaking skills,so i decided to go to an anglophone country.And it really helped me.Grammar and vocabulary are important but speaking and listening are very important too.
When I was at school, the focus was on learning vocabulary by rote. I knew lots of words and their meanings but had now knowledge of how to apply them to a conversation.
This is so true for me too. We were forced to memorize words but had only the exams at the end of the term as the time to fit those words into sentences. Little or nothing was done with practically speaking or constructing sentences with those words.
I remember the lesson would focus on learning vocabulary at home and lots and lots of grammar in the classroom. Understanding verb tenses and how to build a sentence. We had language labs at school where you would put on huge white ear phones and listen to a native speaker and then practise speaking. The language labs were fun. On reflection it would have been more beneficial if we could have recorded our speech and then listened to our own voices afterwards. We worked from exercise books and there was little opportunity to bring the ‘language to life’. Use what we know in real life situations that we found interesting or relevant. I once remember we had to translate a passage and the phrase written was ‘to moor a boat’, not something a teenager would necessarily need to know. Oral exams were the most stressful as I had to think about what was asked, translate it and then think about how you would reply and then say that in the foreign language. I think if we had equal emphasis on all aspects of learning a language, tailored to our interests and needs the whole experience would have been much more enjoyable.
Hi everybody. I’m just joining this program; actually, this is my first attempt to connect with the class. The first time I studied English was some 30 years ago and I can say it was centered on grammar and vocabulary. After that, when the teacher saw we could form a sentence, we started to write short paragraphs. I had really good teachers, considering that at that time teaching was teacher-centered. My name is Carlos and I really hope we can share and learn together.
I remember when I studied German, French, and Latin in Secondary school, our teachers did not teach with enthusiasm nor did they use interactive games. Lessons were focused solely on learning grammar roles with an emphasis on reading and writing. The only listening we heard was during the 1hour lessons as they explained mostly in English. We did little or nothing in speaking so I practically forgot German and Latin. However, on a personal serious basis, I took upon the French language because it was a requirement at my university. I struggle now with writing it because I did not invest time in that section but I am able to understand the other sections like a native. All sections of every language are relevant and should be primary for teachers.
I have studied German at High School, First year of University and after University and they were all very similar courses. Mostly focused on the basics of introducing yourself, hobbies, jobs, food, places, directions whilst learning the grammar – cases, sentence structure etc. I found the vocabulary easier than the grammar. The grammar in German is different to English and was hard to understand, it often felt insurmountable.
I studied Spanish throughout secondary school. I remember memorizing words, short phrases and generic responses to questions, however, I didn’t understand how to apply any of this in a conversation.
I studied English, German and Spanish throughout my entire school life. In all of these courses, grammar and vocabulary of that language were taught along with writing different types of texts.
In school we learned through textbook activities focusing on grammar and vocabulary. Sometimes we’d work in pairs asking questions.
We learned lots of grammar and vocab, but also a little bit of sentence structure. We had speaking and listening practice sessions every week, but not so much work on reading unless you were chosen to read something in class.
We are teaching people to communicate effectively. That means being able to understand what is said and to formulate responses without effort.
We studied verbs (which I forgot quite quickly) and we studied what you would call ‘tourist vocabulary’. I missed the lesson on the alphabet in one language so never learned it and I really struggled with the language. I would have benefited from having regular conversations about anything so that I could expand my vocabulary and learn the correct grammar in sentence structure through sentence structure rather than repeating a list of verbs in declension without using them in sentences. I was politely removed from language lessons once I stopped being really good at them.
Sadly the English level at my school was not the best. I remember we had to memorize some grammar and the verbs but few vocabulary. Listening exercises? I did not know it could exist by that time. Speaking activities were very limited. Also considering the amoung of English classes that we had in a week, there were just around 4 hours per a week.
I am from a generation when grammar was the main focus. Unfortunately we put little attention on the speaking skill, let alone the pronunciation! What I have experienced through my daughter is that today grammar has been put aside to leave more space to speaking. And that is wrong too. Indeed the acquisition of a language shall be a combination of skills and tools
I agree with you. In my opinion, learning a language requires practicing rules as well as skills, practically.
I am from Pakistan. I remember we had been taught English since day one of school. Besides English as a subject, all other subjects were taught in the English language as well. However, the problem remained the same as faced by other fellows in this group. We were taught English through textbooks. The focus was more on memorization than the concepts. The students had to read and memorize answers as well as grammar rules. Consequently, learning grammar became a nightmare. There was no tradition of developing the four skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking). Gradually, the trend of teaching English has changed, and now to some extent strategies are taught to develop language skills in a creative way.
I agree with you. Learning a new language requires the practice of both rules and skills, practically.
When I first studied English as a language emphasis was on grammar and spelling.
I suppose it is frustrating when the main focus in grammar only.
When I started learning English in secondary school, I remember that we had lots of grammar exercises. We had little chance to talk and practice we learnt.
At school we mostly learnt grammar and vocab. Very little emphasis was on speaking or pronunciation.
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