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A class that "works"? | ||
Tags: Class Learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4819 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 9 of 29 12 September 2013 at 10:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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Based on my experience with classes, I think a class could work under these conditions:
1.At most five students and all need to be motivated. Even one keeping the class down and slow is harmful. And the teacher cannot just throw them out because the dumb lazy one paid as well. 2.The teacher, no matter wheather native or not, must be good at teaching. Must give a lot of feedback, let people speak (not shame them or be arrogant), must structure the course well. The feedback part is especially important. Too many teachers let the mistakes pass ("it is still good for a beginner") which leads to students learning each others' mistakes. 3.The teacher must not be afraid to give people homework. There is nothing worse than wasting 50% of the class on grammar exercises that should have been done at home and the class should have been used only for consultation of troubles. Of course many people think the class is all you need. The teacher never suggests otherwise in fear of losing customers. 4.The teacher must actually give good advice on complementary self study, especially reading or listening input. I don't know whether to laugh or cry every time I hear an A1 learner was adviced to listen to the normal news in the radio. There are few things destroying motivation like this. Or the teachers are usually unable to point the learners to easier real books. In their world, you either need to read the complicated classics or you don't need to read at all. A mistake. 5.The teacher must have a good personality for such a job. Even learners in private language schools sometimes have this trouble and even leave for this. A native speaker who is too laid back and lacks confidence to push the students is useless. An arrogant teacher who scares students from speaking is harmful. A teacher who has never learnt a foreign language themselves is too often good for nothing. 6.The teacher must choose good study resources. There are good and bad classroom meant courses. And many teachers choose the bad ones and have hard time rectifying all the course does wrong. 13 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 5915 days ago 707 posts - 1219 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 10 of 29 12 September 2013 at 10:45am | IP Logged | |||||
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Perhaps another consideration is the choice between regular weekly classes and highly intensive week(s)-long courses once a year.
Continual drip-drip or one massive deluge every year or so? With the latter I could justify visiting the country where the language is spoken, with the hope that the intensity would propel my comprehension forward like nothing else. As there are very few local classes in my target language anyway (and most are for absolute beginners), a 10 day residental course in Wrocław looks more attractive. And it may not be that much more expensive, given that I have a 50 mile round trip to the nearest city that offers local classes. Edited by Mooby on 12 September 2013 at 10:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| showtime17 Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Slovakia gainweightjournal.co Joined 5894 days ago 154 posts - 210 votes Speaks: Russian, English*, Czech*, Slovak*, French, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian, Polish, Dutch | Message 11 of 29 12 September 2013 at 11:58am | IP Logged | |||||
I don't think that's very realistic. Most people who take evening classes are not going to do the homework. It would be of course ideal if they did, however in reality they don't. Most people are either too lazy or have other things to do, so they don't do the homework. For me, it's a major chore just to force myself to go to class after work. I always have to force myself. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3954 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 12 of 29 12 September 2013 at 1:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for sharing! Hmmm...you all make some pretty compelling arguments. Maybe I'm being unnecessarily
skeptical - obviously, I believe in language instruction, seeing as how I'm a language teacher. But being a language teacher also makes me very critical of what I see as poor teaching. I suspect that a lot of part-time language classes focus mainly on grammar, but maybe I'm wrong. Either way, I agree with you that the *most* important element is individual motivation. And the social aspect certainly can't hurt! Thanks again! S 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4517 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 13 of 29 12 September 2013 at 2:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
Then don't go there. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| gogglehead Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 5885 days ago 248 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 14 of 29 12 September 2013 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have just returned from Moscow, where I took a 2 week intensive course (4 hours per day) in Russian at МГУ Moscow State University, and found the course to be the most productive period of my Russian learning so far, which had previously consisted of self study and a weekly intercambio with a Ukranian friend.
When compared to an Italian class I did last year the difference was immense. Admittedly, the Russian course was a lot more intensive, but there was also a world of difference in the teaching style of the two classes. At the beginning, every one of my classmates were remarkably surprised at the "old school" approach of our teacher, but we soon realised the effectiveness of the method. Yes, there was a lot of drilling, a lot of repetition of grammar rules and vocabulary, but amazingly, the retention of every student was 100%. After the second day, every one of us completed our homework, after initially taking a relaxed attitude. A morning of icy stares from our beautiful Russian teacher was enough to motivate us all to complete our work in the evenings when we would much rather have been seeing the sights of the city. I am a teacher of English, and the methodology we are "encouraged" (i.e forced) to apply in our classes seems to me to be much less effective than old fashioned drilling. I realise that this type of class is not for everyone, indeed many of my students enjoy wandering around the class pinning photos on the wall and playing games etc, the point is, that for the serious language learner, it just isn´t very effective. I can only dream of the level of Russian I could WITHOUT ANY DOUBT have attained if I had had the golden opportunity to spend a year taking my classes in Russia. My experience there really changed my mind, and led me to believe that maybe modern language classes are becoming too fancy, watered down and "lazy student friendly". Has anyone else found "old school" strictness to be effective for the very serious and dedicated learner? Edited by gogglehead on 12 September 2013 at 5:01pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4819 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 15 of 29 12 September 2013 at 5:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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showtime17, this is related to point 1: motivated students will do homework because they will see the point in doing it (unless the teacher chooses obvious nonsense or is unable to motivate the students during the classes). students who are lazy and not motivated hurt their better classmates more than the teachers.
Mooby, there is no difference between the two in most aspects from my experience. The intensive 4 hours a day course in Berlin suffered from the same things as the extensive courses at school or even in a private school years ago. Not all the teachers are good (or not all of them are good for all levels of students) and most students are lazy and naive despite the price paid for the course. I would have chosen only one or two out of the twelve or so to be my classmates (if I only had had the choice). But most of them would be harmful in the smaller settings (which the school offers as well) too. Stelle, if they focused on grammar properly, it wouldn't be that bad. But they are often trying to be modern and fun at all costs so they either neglect the grammar or, if the teacher isn't that bad and realizes the grammar is needed, they try to do both communication and grammar exercises in class but don't have enough time because the students don't do anything at home. I actually think the language courses should have various intensity based on pace and amount of homework. That way, the better students wouldn't be hold back and demotivated by the worse ones. And those who just want to spend the employers money on language courses and learn a bit as a side effect can continue at their pace. There could even be different prices. I wonder why even the large language schools don't do that. I have a few theories and none is pleasant. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4432 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 16 of 29 12 September 2013 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, many years ago I attended a beginners German course and the teacher was a rather stern-faced older lady who stalked the room, parked herself opposite you and barked questions. Everyone was grilled in this fashion, with the language getting progressively harder each week. No frills, pure speaking drills.....but I got a lot out of it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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