I think most teachers would agree that how our students learn most efficiently in their few hours a week of English study is not very close to how someone will learn in a natural immersion situation such as a Korean orphan being adopted by an American family. But what about an English-language-medium kindergarten in which none of the kids use English outside the classroom – which situation is it closer to? And does the distinction disappear with adults, making the best way to study an “academic year” course in an English-speaking country pretty much the same as the best way to study twice a week back home, as long as you are (well) over 18?
With very young learners my approach would change almost completely depending on how many hours a week I saw them. If I was working full time in an English language kindergarten or as a teacher who was employed to spend all day doing stuff with them, I’d expect them to pick the language up through interactions with me and the English language materials (e.g. books, songs, electronic toys and games). That would also mean that I could take a more “natural approach” of concentrating on comprehension while letting production take its own time. As they would be naturally seeing the language in all kinds of ways, I wouldn’t have to worry too much if they didn’t understand the lyrics of the nursery rhyme because sooner or later (sometimes much later) they’d come across the word elsewhere and it would all start to make sense. In other words, recycling of language would sort itself out. I would also expect language to be picked up even if not much attention was paid to it, e.g. from songs that are on in the background during other activities and from a more “traditional” story time that didn’t necessarily need to have lots of elicitation, simplification and checking of comprehension.
With a class of 3 to 6 year olds who only had about an hour a week, however, almost everything would be the opposite. I’d encourage production straight off, expect a response that shows comprehension (or lack of) with every kind of input, simplify most content or rely on EFL materials, and structure the course very carefully to choose and recycle the language until it was known very well.
Most of my very young learner experience has very much been the latter, with 45 minutes a week in the classroom and very little English outside being the norm. I have found myself leaning my approach towards the other extreme with students who are getting a lot more exposure to English outside my classroom, though, and it seems to work. It also ties in with what I’ve read on the topic.
With adult learners I have experienced the whole range, including students studying 16 hours a week in London for a full nine months, usually to later try and get into an English-speaking university. I don’t think that my approach varies that much, though. It could be that I saw the success and failure of both possible extremes in those classes in London. Textbook-based classes did genuinely move most students up a level in 3 months or so, but it also often left them overloaded with new language and things to try and remember as they spoke. It also made English a chore for almost everyone. Content-based courses relieved that boredom for many, but made most students take their foot off the pedal and so didn’t really lead to a lot of progress. Even in students who were motivated by their interest in the courses that were available, that tended to lead to very uneven language development.
The other thing is that it is difficult to know what to deprioritise. Phonemic script, learner training, skills training, and collocations. Equally needed by all students, I would have thought. Then again, maybe I’m just missing some research that really takes the variable of intensive and extensive classes into account, because I really think I should be varying things more than I am.
And you? What do you think, what do you do, and what does it depend on?
