My last post of science and TEFLing was not yet another attempt to finally write a funny spoof (given up- will leave that to Mr McManus), but rather to see what people’s reactions would be if it was true- “it” being all we do in the classroom and the endless doubt it could cause finally being taken out of our hands and being replaced by scientific certainty in all it’s glory.
The reaction I was expecting, and my own, was that it’s main effect would be to suck out whatever joy and interest we get from our jobs. Realising that made me appreciative of being in a profession where we still don’t really know what the hell we are doing and can find experts to support doing virtually anything in the classroom, and thought that feeling might be shared. The main reaction seemed to be, however, that it was impossible and I’d just made it up (possibly, and yes), that whatever science was involved was just going to be pseudoscientific nonsense yet again, or that we were just about to have another piece of obviously pointless technology fostered on us with the support of men in white coats like in infomercials.
Having taken outrageous liberties with reinterpreting people’s comments, I may as well go the whole hog and summarize the probably unrelated thoughts behind them- scientists and science are unlikely to have a positive effect on TEFL, so not welcome here. Being still a scientist at heart but always suspicious of crackpot schemes like carbon capture as exactly something my stoner physicist flatmate (now PhD and loaded) would come up with, I’m entirely and uncomfortably sat on the barbed wire fence on this one. Anyone want to decide it for me before the spikes work their way through the crotch of my jeans?
TEFLtastic 
The science (having been wonky on a number of prior occasions) is probably just about to triumph over good natured endeavour and academic over-specialisation. Google Travis and Proulx on Meaning Threats and Kuhl and Gratxiera (check that spelling doing this on phone) on Neural Substrates of Language Acquisition (brain imaging analysis of 9 month old babies taught Mandarin using all of the various widely applied commercial methods of tuition). Basically, speaking ‘motherese’ in a sustained, contextually relevant, multi-sensory and emotionally memorable fashion should do the trick nicely. What gets in the way is the learned self-consciousness of adulthood, orthodox educational conditioning and repeated failure (or perceived failure) leading to demotivation. It is probably no coincidence that even with technological progress the cache of the native speaker teacher does not appear to have waned. The rise of online language exchange is the evolutionary evidence of the organism seeking what it intuitively knows it needs. We all know it. Why have people everywhere, since second languages were first acquired, always replied ‘rusty, I never get to speak it enough’ when asked how their French is. Teaching language is more about practice, meaning and mimickery than anything else concocted by the pseudo-intelligentsia of the unscientific TEFL throwbacks who would probably pine for a more comfortable time. A time when learners only spoke when they were spoken to and placed huge faith in the mystical skills of their teacher.
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Good point – I think pop music has done more for ESL than anything else. I’ve never had a single student of any level who didn’t know the expression, ‘Don’t worry, be happy’. Earworms are the future…
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Cool! There’s no better start to a debate than to assert your understanding as fact and dismiss anyone who disagrees with you as, “pseudo-intelligentsia of the unscientific TEFL throwbacks who would probably pine for a more comfortable time. A time when learners only spoke when they were spoken to and placed huge faith in the mystical skills of their teacher.”
Now then, I am a busy man. I haven’t got the time to read the articles cited, but I suspect that I am not going to find definitive proof that “what gets in the way” is everything that Jason writes about. I might find a logical conclusion (and this, let us remember, is the kind of science that the expression “No shit, Sherlock!” was coined for). But “is” doesn’t mean “is likely to”. It means “is”.
Similarly, the assertion that, “The rise of online language exchange is the evolutionary evidence of the organism seeking what it intuitively knows it needs,” is almost Marxian in its prophetic claims. W e just need to hear that soon the monolingual classes will throw off their chains and reclaim what is there. Those of us who are a little more sceptical about the role of science in language learning and teaching prefer to think of the rise of online exchange as a socially constructed practice that has arisen, in no small part due to other social practices that restrict our opportunities for other types of exchange (work being the biggest offender). So, the answer to the question about why people always say that their French is rusty, is because they do not live there and do not need their French to be anything other than rusty. Strangely enough, I came to this conclusion without picking up my pom-poms and giving a homecoming welcome to the wirers -up of infants! It is, I would dare to suggest, the conclusion that most people on the 0748 from Hadfield to Manchester would also probably proffer if asked.
All of which I have now said and yet feel that I should confess to the inescapable sensation that I actually agree wholeheartedly with Jason and feel that my crankiness this morning might have been brought about by hearing -e’en before the birdsong- “Christ! How you’ve been snoring!”
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I thought that Jason’s comment was supposed to be a piss take of people throwing around random bits of science to prove their point… I also find that there are some serious points under the bombast, though, which is why I keep nagging him for guest posts, e.g. see latest post above
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It may well have been, Alex. Irony doesn’t even begin to register on the radar before 11am. And bombast is ALWAYS welcome. Life would be awfully dull if we were to mind our manners all the time. It reminds me of the time when I went to a Stop the War! meeting where the local Blarite MP had deigned to appear. In a room full of peaceniks, he resolutely defended his deicision to represent those present by voting for the bombing of Iraq. At the end of the meeting he was thanked for going out of his way to come and meet us and wished a safe return to London. Right when I was thinking we should have tarred and feathered him, tied him to the arse end of a horse and sent him down to London with a note for Tony Blair stapled to his head.
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