This is a difficult question to answer. As teachers we like to think that we know, but do we actually know?
Personally, I have my doubts. I mean sure, we know how we are supposed to teach and what we are supposed to teach, but each student is an individual and pleasing everybody all of the time is near impossible.
All too often we get stuck in our routine and do things in ways that please us or make life easy for us. This isn’t the answer to professional development. As professionals, we need to be kept on our toes and be in constant discussion with our students… These people are our audience and we need to perform for them… perform to their needs.
I just had an interesting discussion with a Persian student. He his preparing for entrance to university in Australia where he wishes to undertake his PhD. His English is advanced and flawless and he’s obviously a smart cookie. But what are his gripes?
His pet-peeve is that teachers in Australia all-too-often just distribute handouts and get the students to analyse them. They don’t teach the text. He is of the mentality that English (and language learning in general) should be taught like mathematics; that is to says, taught in “formulas”.
The formula for written structure, the formula for consistent idiom usage, the formula for reading and listening strategies.
In my eyes, we have the teacher giving out texts in a grammar translation fashion but not presenting the material in that style. And we have the student wanting a grammar translation presentation but not the self-analysis of text involved with it.
Where can we find some common ground here?
Point two, and perhaps his biggest issue with language teaching. Teachers don’t teach students how to think in the language. By that he means that he wants to be taught how to present his argument in a typical English style, whether it be verbal or written.
I find this such a difficult notion to present. When I think of how I learn to think in a language, it is something that comes naturally. It comes to me after many hours of comprehensible input (see Input Hypotheses), and not something that I believe can be taught in a systematic way.
So is this where the problems lie? Students that are from a more classical country (such as Iran) are used to being instructed in the more classical methods (such as Grammar Translation) and by default, that has become their preferred learning style. But when it comes to the more abstract notions such as mental cognition, there’s a gap that needs filling. Being taught through a more formal means seems to hinder the development in certain areas – the idea of thinking being one of them.
But how can this be rectified? Just suggesting the idea that the more you read and listen to your target language, the more natural your thinking will become is likely to fall on deaf ears. After a lifetime of formal instruction where you are told to translate from L2 into your L1, there is possibly some irrepairable damage.
So what can we do? Personally, I feel that pushing the student out of their comfort zone in this situation is a possible solution. It seems that their needs to be some formal presentation of materials in a formulaic fashion, but there also needs to be the opportunity to actually think. Whether this is with an initial presentation in a formal way and then a focus on the introduced concepts and how to implement them naturally, or some other way ….I’m open to suggestions!
At the end of the day, neither teacher nor student can be truly content in the classroom. Their wants for each lesson or course often rival one another and we both need to be able to step out of our comfort zone from time-to-time to get the bigger picture… it just happens that the teacher should be the one more willing to accept these changes along a harsh curve, whereas the student should only experience a gradual change… keeping them comfortable and on-task is more conducive to a superior learning environment than just one day deciding to turn everything upside down.
