Thursday, February 9, 2012

Language Learning as Language Teacher Training


Me, learning language and learning teaching at the same time




  1. I would say to read your students' mood and current confidence level. There is a time for immediate correction, and a time to allow them to speak for a bit even if they are making errors. If you get corrected so often and quickly that you forgot what you were trying to say in the first place, frustration usually ensues.

    1. So true. Whenever I'm speaking and someone constantly corrects my articles and declinations I just feel like stopping altogether! Where do you think the line is between making sure that they/we don't fossilize mistakes and just letting them/us communicate?

    2. I am learning a case language, and so I constantly correct myself during speech. I have one teacher who sometimes jumps in so fast with a correction that I don't have the time to correct my own speech even if I were just about to. I don't think the line on this is the same for all students. It probably depends on their level of confidence in speaking already and their tolerance for interruption without discouraging.

    3. Yeah, that's true. I have a hard time sometimes negotiating the personal and cultural aspects of the correction tolerance. For example, when I correct my German students the way/amount I would like to be corrected, they get upset that I didn't correct them enough! When I apply the German correction principles to other students who are Italian or Turkish, I can see them getting very very discouraged. On top of that, I'm sure the personalities vary significantly within those groups.

  2. I would add "Be very clear in your physical explanations of vocabulary". I have a group of elementary students and I know that whilst sometimes my mimes and bounds around the classroom explain the word quite satisfactorily, other times I really fail. And I've noticed the same when I'm in my German class - often a simple stickman puts the point across much more quickly and effectively.
    Actually, thinking about it, I might change the idea to "Know when to draw and when to mime"...

    1. Good one! I would have to alter that to be "Know when to mime, when to draw, and when to stop drawing and look in the dictionary!" because my charades and drawings are very obscure sometimes!

  3. Great thoughts and how helpful it would be if teachers were always learning alongside their students. It would change the profession quite a bit, but I think it is worth considering. I think teachers moving to more of a coaching role could be an affective way to engage students. I wrote about some ideas for this here:
    Would love to hear what you and your readers think.



What do you think?