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What's the Point of Language Study?

Speaker: Jeremy Harmer
Moderator: Jenny Johnson
Date: Saturday 3 June 2000

"Language learning will take care of itself, some say; there's little value in knowledge gained through instruction, others have suggested; controlled practice doesn't work, experts have pronounced: all that is needed is exposure, motivation and opportunities for use.

If, like me, you believe firmly that language study is one of the key elements of any language class then such views are extremely challenging. I end up saying that there are many different (and useful) ways of studying language, and even controlled practice has its uses alongside noticing, researching, practising and discovering - and that we need to help teacher trainees to become 'polystudy practitioners' rather than rigid adherents to any one model."

MODERATOR> Hello everyone. We have Jeremy Harmer with us today. His books have been part of the process of training teachers for many years. Hi Jeremy!

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> Hello. Good afternoon from a muggy UK.

MODERATOR> Is it raining?

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> No, just hot and stuffy.

MODERATOR> Funny how we English always start with the weather!

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> Yes, and what should we say to students about that?

MODERATOR> Er.. you tell me!!

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> Well - and this is the 'topic' for this afternoon really - what interests me is how we help students to study language in a number of ways without relying too heavily on one model of teaching because it is convenient for the teacher, rather than answering the needs of the students.

MODERATOR> We have some questions to be answered from Bob, Eva Maria, Julie, Simon, and Montse. Hi everybody.

Julie> What model of teaching do you mean, Jeremy?

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> Hi Julie. It gets a bit complicated because I'm thinking (of course) of the basic transmission model with all the teacher-fronting and drilling. Yet other teachers almost ban that model and substitute one that they feel is 'right' so students often get only one style.

Julie> Thanks, Jeremy. I'm not sure if I only have one style.

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> I'm really pleased to hear that!! And I think that experienced teachers who care and learn do, of course, offer a varied study 'diet'. However, my experience in a number of different countries shows good old PPP alive and kicking, and though I have nothing against it in its place, it still seems to predominate in many contexts.

Bob> I try to adapt what I'm doing to my students. But it's still hard to find just the right thing for a particular group.

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> Hello Bob. I think it's really difficult to adapt - to the students, the particular type of language or language point whether you're focussing on pronunciation, grammar, lexis or whatever but if (when?) as teachers we are aware of a number of different styles and possibilities we have a chance to try different things out and observe how well they work.

Bob> I work in a very small school. There's not a lot of chance to learn new ways and developments, and I don't have time or money to go to conferences,

EvaMaria> Which other models are there of studying a language? How can the teacher make the students think it is interesting so that they are leaning more without being drilled.

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> Hello Eva Maria. Well, take a lesson in which the teacher wants to focus on, say, the 3rd conditional (sorry, but it's the first thing that came into my head!). Well of course you can tell them/show them a story about coincidences and then elicit and drill sentences such as 'If she hadn't gone to the coffee bar she wouldn't have met her old friend' but you could do it completely differently by finding a text which had some conditionals in it and get students to find them and discuss them. Or you could get them to go straight to a grammar book or give them a puzzle to solve, or, or... There are just many many ways of doing it.

MODERATOR> Yes I agree that PPP is very much alive and well, Jeremy. But it seems to be difficult to get teachers to accept anything else in its place, don't you think?

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> Yes, PPP is popular, I think, for two main reasons. Firstly because it's 'easy' to train teachers to use it and it's got concrete bits to the procedure, and secondly because learners feel good about it. Nor am I sure they are wrong some of the time - there 's a lovely article by Guy Cook in the ELT Journal 1994, I think, vol 48/2 which points out how popular (and maybe successful) repetition can be in some educational cultures. That's what we're 'fighting against' The only way to put PPP in its place is to show other equally appropriate and enjoyable routines to students and teachers - the latter especially - when they first train!

Julie> I teach businessmen and all they want to do is talk. They don't like the idea of studying and they don't have time.

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> OK, but your businessmen may not like the idea of studying but the teacher can use all sorts of techniques to draw both their conscious and subconscious attention to language through reformulation of what they say, by pointing out things they say or she says by giving them some written feedback, by getting them to watch listen and read things with a high concentration of 'desired' language etc.. I would argue that all these things involve a form of studying.

MODERATOR> Thanks Jeremy. That's useful for everyone.

KD> Where I work we 're training teachers and PPP is probably the last model we show them - if at all.

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> Hello KD. That's interesting. I'd be interested to know if teachers then ever go on to use transmission teaching despite this and if so why!!

MODERATOR> I think we're beginning to talk about a different idea of "studying" to the traditional one.

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> For me 'study' means any stage at which students and their teachers focus in on the construction of something. It could be a piece of grammar, of course, or the way a text is constructed. It could be the way different intonation tunes effect meaning, or how we use linkers. It could be anything, and it's a vital ingredient of class-based learning. But, and this is the point, there are many different ways of focussing on construction!

Bob> For me the idea of study is students at home trying to learn their verbs! Or studying for an exam. But I see what you mean, Jeremy

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> I wanted to say earlier that despite not getting to conferences and things, and apart from Park Life etc, there are such wonderful journals now (I rely on ELTJ, MET and now English Teaching Professional) and websites that it is possible to keep in constant touch with the flow of ideas.

Bob> Yes. I'll have to read more or find the time to. But sometimes it's either practical ideas or it seems too complex.

KD> The way you describe studying is the kind of thing we're trying to get our trainees to focus on. It's fairly recently that we stopped starting with PPP so it would be interesting to follow-up some of our trainees later.

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> KD, I went to a wonderful presentation at a conference in Melbourne where the trainer was doing in-service work with visiting Indonesians, showing the communicative ideas, new ways of doing things, and they bought right into alternatives to their old style of teaching. They went back home and a few months later she went to visit them and (I'm sure you guessed it) they had reverted straight back to what they always did with just the odd warmer for her (observing) benefit.

KD> Yeh I guessed it but we're forever hopeful!!

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> Does that mean (I wonder) that the system you teach in (and the teaching you experienced as a child) is more powerful than any T training you receive?

MODERATOR> So does that mean then that the old transmission model is what works best?

julie> Surely it's what works with your students that's the most important thing

Bob> So what order is it best to teach in? I mean focus on language then practice, or practice then improve the language students come up with?

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> It's the model that still for many people feels most comfortable but when you've seen a class absorb language through text with the teacher getting them to 'notice' relevant features, and then see them trying it out and it really works, that's great. On the other hand (Bob) some language at some levels is good fun to 'present' and then have the student repeat, mumble, and try out in a more controlled setting. It's a darned awkward fact but it depends on the language, the students, the time of day, what's been happening in the lesson up to now and the teacher makes a judgment and making that judgment and seeing if you got it 'right' is what makes teaching fun, sometimes a mess, sometimes 'more or less', and sometimes a great big fantastic triumph!

KD> Yes, our trainees have seen that using texts really does work with students.

Bob> And what about drilling with high levels? My students get really fed up, yawning, embarrassed..

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> If you can engage students with text, real-looking language and then say 'look, this is the living language, this is how it works' that can be really powerful, I think.

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> Bob, I have seen teachers drilling advanced students who have reacted in exactly the way you describe. But there are some things, perhaps - some little snatches of pronunciation, the odd intonation or something. But it doesn't usually seem appropriate, I agree.

makana> I agree about "living Language" because I have seen it work even with the most unmotivated classes

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> Hello makana. Poor students (I mean really). They want to be engaged, they want someone to just 'teach' them, but they want real language too! Or at least some of them want some or all of these things. That's why varying the study style is so important.

makana> And so exhausting I must add :-)

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> Yeah, sure. But teaching is never an easy option. When it's bad it can really drag you down, but (luckily) we all have our share of the highs too!

MODERATOR> This has been a really interesting chat, Jeremy. Thanks!

SPEAKER_Jeremy Harmer> Well can I just say thanks to all the people who joined in - and apologise as my typing gradually disintegrated! Bye.