Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of TESOL

Approaches to English Grammar

Fall 2006

Week 14; Answers

Lewis (1997) Chapter 10: Teachers and teacher training, pp. 192-207.

1. What are some of Lewis` main views in relation to language?

Lewis is questioning, although he seems tremendously reluctant to state it directly, the very nature of language and the way this has been interpreted and implemented in the teaching of second languages. This may not be surprising as he is a not a theorist but a teacher and his main concern is clearly pedagogy. All the same there are some clear points in how he sees language working which all teachers need to take notice of. The first and most foremost of these is the idea that language is not atomistic in its very nature. This means that language is not really composed on different atoms or small components which need to be combined in a series of separate processes which are different from each other. It seems apparent to and from Lewis that language is composed not of atoms of fixed, ever increasing sizes but of chunks of various sizes which incorporate all different kinds of `atoms`.

Based on this we then need to abandon, or at least severely question, the conduit metaphor of language learning and teaching. What this conduit metaphor basically states is that there is a path or pipe which represents how language can and should be learned. Teachers need to give students knowledge of certain atoms of language structure so that they can move along the pipe (conduit). If language is based on chunks and not atoms then the order of what teachers do will have less significance. This correlates with separate learning studies which show that students do not learn what we teach them w hen we do so. In short they do not follow the teacher`s plan, but their own internal conditions, which vary from student to student. The last thing that needs to be mentioned in relation to Lewis and his view of language is the idea of arbitrariness. Subsequent language teachers often ignore, forget, or simply don`t seem to be aware that language, by its very definition, is arbitrary. There are no simple answers for many of the questions students may have about their new language. One of the things we need to remind students is that language IS arbitrary; all languages. This arbitrariness is a part of their L1 but it never bothers them, so why should it do so in their L2? We don`t need to understand all aspects of a language to use it. We need to understand primarily how it is used not why.

2. How does he think teachers should relate to the language they teach?

First of all teachers need to have a realistic assessment of their own role in relation to language Knowledge (and specifically the target language), language teaching, and the language learning process. Specifically, he criticizes the idea that students will be able to pick up the particular points we want them to in our teaching plans. As teachers we make plans based on the mistaken belief that our students will manage to learn everything that we introduce them to. Based on this incredibly naive assumption we forever move forward leaving a trail of lost and broken students in the wake of our blind march along the conduit.

One way we can avoid this is to raise the level of the input we give our students because input, in congruence with teaching (overt), and output of course, is the most important thing. Our role is not to drive the process but arrange it and guide the students through it. This is due not only to learning as discussed above but also the nature of language. We need to get students to notice the meaning in the forms of the language they are exposed to and not just the structures. This might seem like a huge challenge to those of us who believe in structure-based approaches, but it is not really that different. We are shifting our and our students` focus to larger chunks and their uses rather than memorizing various atoms that can be combined.

3. Of all the specific teaching tips he gives which one do you think is the most useful to you and why?

Memory load

I think this is a valid point that we often forget about. The amount of new structures, atoms, chunks, what have you, that students can learn is limited. As reported in first language acquisition studies memory limitation seem to play an important role in the process of first language acquisition. Of course this is even more so in second language learning because the learners have so much more going on and much less time to learn these things. SLL taxes memory even more because of time and input restrictions. Thus we need to try to limit what we really expect our students to learn. Memory is even a greater concern in the process if you follow the lexical approach because the mental lexicon in this view contains a huge amount of redundancies. There is simply much more to memorize than in traditional atomistic accounts.

Texts

The basic idea here is one that has been widely employed in first language teaching but has seen scant uses in subsequent language teaching except for what are perceived as advanced learners, that of genre studies. Simply put, different types of texts, both spoken or written, require and do in fact employ not only different chunks but also different structures. This needs to be used from the very first. This brings us back to an idea we discussed recently, namely that there is no such thing as General English.

4. In points 14-16 he lays out some very specific points about what we should and should not do in the classroom. What is the most interesting point he makes here?

Basically this is a review of all the things that Lewis has propounded throughout the book and we have already discussed many of them. I will then, as Lewis does, reiterate the points I think are most important just in case you missed the point. First of all, we need to let students understand that words and grammar are not separate and that the former are not solitary in their existence. Students need to be turned on to the idea of chunks and multi-word units as the basic units of language. Everything else follows from this simple revelation and a revelation it truly is. This realization should be a revelation to both teachers and also to students. Like all revelations it should be liberating. Based on this we are free to explore language how it actually is, an arbitrary, semi-chaotic mess or mass, rather, of units both large and small. We are free from trying to get students to memorize specific smaller units which only find usefulness in combination with larger units. This, I say, grants us freedom because really none of us honestly have a clue as to how we can teach our students to combine these units into real meaning.

While the attention we can get our students to focus on units does not necessarily demystify the process of creating meaningful units it does serve to substantially reduce the process of creating by getting the students to learn and deal with larger already meaningful units.