Handbook of Classroom English. Glynn S. Hughes

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      Glyn S. Hughes

      A Handbook of Classroom English

      Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

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      Typography, adaptation and additions © Oxford University Press 1981

      Material reprinted from Teacher Talk © Glyn S. Hughes and Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava, Helsinki 1978

      The moral rights of the author have been asserted

      Database right Oxford University Press (maker)

      First published 1981

      2013 2012

      30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23

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      ISBN: 978 0 19 4316330

      Printed in China

      Not for sale in Finland

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      Illustrations on pages 88, 89, and 172 are from Cartoons for Students of English 2 by Hill and Mallet, published by Oxford University Press

      All other cartoons are produced by kind permission of Punch

      INTRODUCTION

Overall objectives

      The aim of this book is to present and practise the language required by the teacher of English in the practical day-to-day management of classes. It is intended for two main groups of readers:

      1 Trainee teachers. By working systematically through the materials in the book and applying them directly in the preparation of lesson plans, in micro-teaching sessions and actual demonstration lessons, students will acquire a wide range of accurate, authentic and idiomatic classroom phrases that will be of value throughout their teaching careers.

      2 Teachers in the field. It is assumed that this group will already have attained a certain level of classroom competence, although experience suggests that there may be recurrent inaccuracies, or even an unwillingness to use English for classroom management purposes. It is hoped that this book will encourage experienced teachers to make more use of English and help them to extend the area of operation of their classroom English; for example, in running a language laboratory session in English.

      The rather different needs of these two groups have meant that the format of the book is a compromise between a textbook and a work of reference.

Rationale

      Teaching is considered primarily in terms of methodological problems and practical solutions to these problems. As a result teachers in training spend considerable time acquiring the basis of sound methodological habits for the presentation, practice and testing of learning items. It is, however, often forgotten that the classroom procedures derived from a particular method almost invariably have to be verbalized. In other words, instructions have to be given, groups formed, time limits set, questions asked, answers confirmed, discipline maintained, and so on. The role of this linguistic interaction is perhaps one of the least understood aspects of teaching, but it is clearly crucial to the success of the teaching/learning event.

      Whatever the subject taught, all teachers require this specialized classroom competence and should be trained in it. Foreign language teachers in particular require linguistic training aimed at the classroom situation since, if they believe in the maximum use of the L2, that is, the language being taught, they are obliged to use it both as the goal of their teaching and as the prime medium of instruction and classroom management. Despite the linguistic demands of the L2 teaching situation, foreign language graduates are seldom adequately prepared for the seemingly simple task of running a class in the L2. The nature of the first-degree study programme may have meant that there was no opportunity to practise the key classroom functions of organization and interrogation, or teacher training units may be unwilling to interfere in what appears to be an aspect of ‘knowledge of subject’. The result is generally that the trainee teacher acquires a very limited repertoire of classroom phrases, or makes as little use of the L2 as possible. In both cases there is likely to be a detrimental effect on learning:

      ‘Our data indicate that teacher competence in the foreign language – however acquired – makes a significant difference in student outcomes. … The data appear to indicate that neither the sheer amount of teachers’ university training in the foreign language, nor the amount of travel and residence in a foreign country, makes any particular difference in student outcomes. From the standpoint of teacher selection and training, this means that any measures taken that would increase teacher competence would have positive effects…’

      John B. Carroll,

      The Teaching of French as a Foreign Language in Eight Countries.

      (1975) pp. 277–8.

      An extremely important element of overall teaching success is careful advance planning, but equally important is the teacher’s flexibility in the actual classroom situation, i.e., the teacher’s willingness and ability to deviate from a lesson plan, for example in order to make use of the pupils’ own interests and suggestions, or to devote more time to individual learning difficulties. In the case of L2 teaching, such flexibility makes heavy demands on the teacher’s foreign language skills, although the result may provide a learning bonus for the pupils:

      ‘For the teaching of listening comprehension and spoken skills, more informal methods of language teaching are advisable – involving massive exposure of the student to the meaningful situational use of the language. One way of accomplishing this, our data strongly suggest, is to emphasize the use of the foreign language in the classroom, allowing the use of the mother tongue only where necessary to explain meanings of words and grammatical features of the language.’

      The theoretical starting point of this book is that the classroom situation is a genuine social environment which allows ‘the meaningful situational use of the language’, and that its communicative potential is closer to real interaction than is often assumed. This view probably requires some further explanation:

      1 Language is a tool and not a museum exhibit. As such one of its primary functions is to communicate information. In the classroom information gaps occur repeatedly, that is, the teacher has new information which the pupils require in order to continue participating in the lesson, or the pupils have answers which the teacher needs in order to know whether to proceed to the next stage of the lesson. These information gaps provide opportunities for language to be used communicatively.