Image: Jeff Kubina
It's been a while since I added to my ongoing exploration of teaching unplugged, but this particular post is both a reaction to some things I saw mentioned in yesterday's ELTChat about Dogme (unplugged) language teaching and the culmination of almost six months of pondering two issues in particular. One at either end of the unplugged teaching continuum, if I could put it that way (and because I wanted to avoid mentioning things like fences).
At one end of the continuum, or debate, there is Jeremy Harmer's frequent (and often passionate) assertion something along these lines: Students have been using coursebooks to effectively learn the language for years! Evidence!
And at the other end has been Luke Meddings' frequent assertion that unplugged teaching works so well because it makes the students' own (real) lives the central focus of the lessons and the language that flows out of them.
I won't go so far as to say that both of these esteemed ELT experts are wrong. But I do think, in both cases, that these are generalisations that stretch a little too thinly, and given the audience(s) these gentlemen have, these generalisations could even be a little unhelpful (if left as they are). I've been thinking about both assertions for quite some time now (probably because I see Jeremy and Luke saying the same things again and again!).
Beginning with Mr. Harmer and the notion that millions of students have been effectively learning languages thanks to coursebooks for a very long time now, I just don't think that argument holds much water. I've been thinking over all the classroom experiences I've had, the conversations with successful learners, the conversations with teachers, and even my own language learning experiences. When it comes to the 'elixir' or just basic foundation of what appears to have made language learning effective, coursebooks are one of the last things that are mentioned, if they are mentioned at all. Rather like classroom wallpaper or furniture, come to think of it...
People recall great teachers, great friends/co-learners, cozy environments, pinpointed moments where motivation seemed to sort of catch fire, lucky experiences or friendships with proficient target language users, songs and movies... and a variety of other things. But I can't actually ever recall any teacher or learner reporting that great progress was made on account of a particular coursebook, or even coursebooks in general.
In fact, in the environments where so many of the above factors were noticeably absent, and the learners were primarily dependent on the 'safety net' of good 'aggregations of principled learning material written by experts' (read: coursebooks), not only have so many learners emerged from it with a depressingly and even tragically low ability to really use the language, they actually intensely dislike learning the language and are all too aware that they have used up a rather large portion of their life coming to these painful realisations.
I totally understand that Jeremy hasn't been stating for a moment that just coursebooks on their own guarantee effective learning. But to combat the idea of unplugged teaching with the notions that most students are learning (more or less effectively), that coursebooks have always been there (and have thus been effective to more or less extent), and that coursebooks represent a safety mechanism against teachers who don't know what they are about... It's at once too convenient and based on (at best) rather circumstantial evidence.
I personally think a rather huge portion of the English language learners out there are learning bugger all, over a long period of time, and while coursebooks aren't necessarily the cause of ineffective teaching and learning, they've done a pretty good job of both encouraging a lot of people to think (and try) a lot less and covering up 'progress' that ranges from substandard to downright mediocre.
Feel free to disagree, by all means. :-)
But now let's move on to Mr. Meddings and the other bubble of potential trouble. The idea that unplugged teaching is all about (and works so well on account of) making students' own lives the central focus of the language learning experience.
Not long after I really got into the swing of teaching unplugged and making so much of the content and conversation about learners' own lives and situations, I recalled English Raven the language learner (in high school learning Japanese and later in university learning Swedish, Icelandic and German; and still later learning Korean with a 1:1 tutor).
Sitting in foreign language classrooms, about the last thing that particular raven wanted to do was talk in depth about himself, his own life and personal inclinations. Some of the other students did, of course, and the raven made a mental note to try and avoid running into those students at random outside the classroom. Unless it was the pub, of course...
Admittedly, in some classes with the right teacher, right topical focus, right amount of confident proficiency with the language and right mix of familiar people around me, I might be happy to contribute some of 'my own life' to the lesson mix. But this was an exception, I guess, and not the norm.
As a teacher, teaching unplugged, I saw that many of my students were similar to that shy, rather private raven. It occurred to me that unplugged lessons could focus on the personal and the 'real life', so long as the shy or private students were happy to play the part of happy and cooperative audience or bystander.
Later I came to the conclusion that unplugged teaching can be about the learners' own lives, if they so choose, but the most important thing is to make it about what they are interested in talking about and learning and bringing to the classroom environment. And for a lot of students out there, their own lives and happenings in their own lives don't often meet that criteria.
Again, feel free to disagree. :-)
To be fair, I'm sure Jeremy and Luke would be inclined to say I've deliberately misinterpreted or glossed their statements. I guess I have, at least to some extent.
But in both cases, at either end of the unplugged teaching discussion, I think there are some generalisations being used on a regular basis, and they're a bit too bubbly.
:-)
