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Teachers with no linguistics training | ||
Tags: Native Speakers | Language Teaching | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| lingvisten Tetraglot Newbie Hong Kong Joined 5200 days ago 16 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English, Cantonese*, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 1 of 11 26 April 2011 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My friend and I are learning Punjabi with a private tutor, who is a native speaker with
no training in linguistics or language teaching. I have always been learning new languages on my own, with textbooks, youtube, etc, so I have no idea how it should be like in such settings. We have had several sessions already but we did not learn much except for some basic phrases. I am thinking of learning words and grammar ourselves, so that we could try out what we have learnt over the week. (This will be like learning without a tutor though). Does anyone here have the experience of learning a new language from less experienced native speakers? How do you make the best use of a 1.5 hour session? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| clang Groupie United States Joined 5340 days ago 54 posts - 82 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 2 of 11 26 April 2011 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have a few suggestions, but first, do you have any languages in common with her or is it all in the target language?
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 3 of 11 26 April 2011 at 8:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There does come a point where, if you are the least bit experienced in learning languages, no teacher will match your experience. Then it becomes a game of pretending to believe the teacher, or ignoring the weird ill-advised comments that pertain to language. Then again, if my teacher had studied a dozen languages and had a degree in linguistics, I suspect he or she would cost a lot more per hour.
I think the most effective way is to try to take control over your learning and over the class. Be very clear and very specific about what you want from the class, and reiterate your requests when the teacher seems to disagree or forget. Even when the teacher does prepare stuff, it's not very hard to hijack a class and take it to another tangent by asking a lot of questions or talking a lot. It's just like going to Future Shop. If you bother to learn a little bit about the product you're buying, you can see right away that 3/4 of what the salespeople tell you is wrong. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| lingvisten Tetraglot Newbie Hong Kong Joined 5200 days ago 16 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English, Cantonese*, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 11 26 April 2011 at 9:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'd say 90%+ of our conversations is in English. I really think we should focus on the target language and refrain from speaking English but we haven't reached that level yet.
Thanks for your advice. I really should find a way to make a fortune with my linguistics degree :) Now I understand that having a tutor is not like they'll get everything done for you, and the actual learning has to be done by myself. We are actually thinking of 'hijacking' the lesson so that my classmate and I will benefit more. I am sure the teacher doesn't mind having us decide what to learn. The question is, how we should structure the lesson so that we learn the most in the 90 minute session. Any suggestions? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Keilan Senior Member Canada Joined 5087 days ago 125 posts - 241 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 5 of 11 26 April 2011 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I would suggest speaking the target language as much as possible, asking your teacher to correct your errors. The greatest benefits from a native speaker come from questions like "In what cases would you use this word?" and things regarding the feel of certain words. The teacher will be able to tell you things like "That word is far too formal for that situation" or "That is grammatical, but I would say it like this". Try to get that kind of experience. Save the memorizing of words/phrases and even the learning of grammar concepts for a time when you're not paying by the hour.
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 6 of 11 26 April 2011 at 10:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The image people have of a language class can differ across cultures. Also, I strongly suggest you find a way to turn this 90% English ratio around; it's a hard pattern to get out of.
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| etracher Triglot Groupie Italy Joined 5335 days ago 92 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Modern Hebrew, Russian, Latvian | Message 7 of 11 27 April 2011 at 8:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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I would generally say that I agree with the suggestions that the other posters have put forth. I would add that when I have been in this sort of situation I have also tried to prepare as much as I could myself (you and your friend could prepare some materials together). So, for example, earlier this year I was working on Hebrew with an Israeli girl who had never actually taught Hebrew, but she was a native speaker. One thing I would do is find a Hebrew text online, read it before our meeting, try to understand everything, look up any vocabulary of course. Then I would prepare a sort of summary in Hebrew, trying to think of any other words that might be useful and looking them up (so that I could try them out on her and see if I was using them correctly). I could thus test my understanding of the text and use my summary as a pretext for a discussion about the topic presented. Sometimes I would do a similar thing with some listening.
First of all, I would ask you: does this person have experience teaching? Even if he or she has no training, experience can make a big difference. Unfortunately that difference could be positive or negative. Does the tutor usually plan the session or are you planning the session? If you feel that the tutor might get offended by your trying to introduce materials that you have prepared, then I would suggest that you introduce the idea in a completely non-threatening way that could not reflect negatively on his or her teaching ability. I would say something like, "I was trying to read/listen to this and I think that I don't understand many things. Would you mind if I read it aloud to you and then explained in Punjabi what I think it means?" This sort of approach should help you to introduce anything you have planned outside of class. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| clang Groupie United States Joined 5340 days ago 54 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 8 of 11 27 April 2011 at 9:26am | IP Logged | |||||
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My current Russian tutor speaks no English and we have no other language in common. At the level I am at now, it
is perfect, because she can explain things in Russian and I can understand. In the beginning, having someone who can answer your questions in a language you understand and give you translations of idioms and things is wonderful, so I wouldn't get too upset by that. (Trying to explain the meaning of "to start slowly" is not fun.) 1. It's very important to talk about the direction of lessons before your tutor has spent a lot of time preparing for them. If she cares about you or the money, she will put a lot of time into preparation. Also, developing a positive relationship with a speaker of your target language is always a good idea. 2. While you are studying on your own, make a list of questions and problems that you are having. If you let your tutor know that 30 minutes of every lesson will be about addressing these questions and problems, it will give you motivation to study. These questions will also give her an idea of problems that face nonnative speakers. When you run into a particularly tricky or recurring problem, she can then make a note to prepare a lesson on it in the future. My tutor, for example, is just now realizing that I don't have the same problems as her native speaker high school students do (critical thinking skills, reading for meaning, etc.), but that I do have problems no native speaker ever would, particularly dealing with word choice, like Keilan mentioned above. 3. Ideas for increasing speaking in target language, maybe a bit later: write essays and edit them together, discussing the edits; read short stories or newspaper articles, discuss, listen to your tutor's opinions and explanations, this is especially interesting when discussing opinions of political issues you are unfamiliar happening in a country that speaks your target language, 4. Find a good textbook and work through it together. И так далее. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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