Song &YK
In the view of affirmative, we talked about the environment to build the atmosphere of English. Being an English teacher speaking only English in the class we can build a good mood to use English. Students can speak English without feeling weird mood in speaking English in the atmosphere.
Also, about the students’ understanding they are getting better to understand what their teacher says in English through the lessons, and if a teacher use proper methods and expressing to teach students the target language, for example saying simple words and using body to explain, students would understand what the teacher says easily.
On the other hand, we talked the negative effect of using English only in the classroom. The most important thing of the negative effect of this is students’ motivation and confidence toward English. Even though the teacher use very proper methods and words in English, if the students can not understand with any reason, the students can feel frustrated and lose their confidence to English.
Moreover, under the atmosphere of using only English they could be overwhelmed by the atmosphere which can make students more hesitate to say something in English.
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E1: Romy, E1: Alicia
We discussed whether using English only works in Korean classroom. The book said there’s no proper answer to this and the effectiveness depends on situation we face. Considering Korean context, we thought the benefits and drawbacks of English only class.
If the students’ English level is below the average, they have difficulties in speaking and understanding English. So they give up the motivation to learn English and make no attempt to speak English any more. The reason to use English only in the classroom is that teachers want students to get familiar to English sooner and become interested in it. However the result turned out to be quite apposite in reality.
Even though there are opposing opinions to use English only in the classroom, we still have the chance to apply this to the classroom. If teachers try to speak simple and short sentences to explain in the classroom, students feel more comfortable in the English classroom. Also, we expected that students understand the importance of practicing English better when teachers negotiate with students on why using English only is important for them at the beginning of the semester. The key to make using English only successful is on the basis of understanding why and how using English is essential in the classroom.
It was nice to read about the issue “Teaching English in
English (TEE)” on the postive and negative side. TEE, I think,
has to be applied to classrooms with caution. In spite of the well-known benefits of TEE based on the Krashen’ Input hypothesis, it has disadventages as well, as the writers on this post “Using English only”.
In sum, the ample input of the target language via TEE is helpful and necessary to our students as far as the students are able to follow and learn what their teachers saying.
I believe that only speaking in English to other traninees is useful to improve English communicative ability. Because interaction is the collaborative exchange of thoughts, feelings, or ideas between two or more people, resulting in reciprocal effect on each other.
Nowadays, English classes are made up of two kinds. One class is taught by native speaker, the other by Korean English teacher. If two manners can be used effectly, those will be very helpful for students to develop their English ability. I happened to find some misspelling like atmosphere, competence and competent.
I totally agree with you. Thinking positively, if we, teachers can teach Engkish in English with proper methods and expressing as you said, students are able to acceptand learn English more naturally and authentically and parents can save much money for any academys. Above all, students can enjoy Engllish class with less stress and that’s the clear direction that we head. Fortunately, our SAT exam or tests for entering company have changed like that and want us change out mind and methods. I think that you, young generation teachers are proofs. Comparing to old generation teachers, you are superior listeners and speakers. Especailly in elementary English class is not focussed on written English or grammers. So you can be pioneers and affect all people(students, parents, public opinions..)positively. The other side, you pointed out that TEE can frustrate the students. I think that it’s true for the low level students. Especially in high school classes, they need more clear and deductive methods in order to get high scores in a short time. It makes the high grade teachers hesitate TEE. But in this course and this methodology book, there is some very useful guides that we, teachers can use Korean in the case of giving us more advantages or usefulness. So I am encouraged that I can use English more and more and also can use Korean effectively without any guilty conscience.
I really enjoyed your writing dealing with the TEE(Teahcing English in English) issue. I’d like to share my own experiences to you. For me, I emphasized that I’m also a foreigner like you at the very beginning of the semester in order to get confidence to speak English and tried to have in common why we learn English. Most students agreed that there are a lot of benefits to study English. At that time, I mentioned we have a rare chance to speak English outside the classroom even though we consider learning English is so important in our life. So I suggested them to practice speaking English together in the classroom as much as we can. Through these steps, students get accustomed to learn English in English gradually.
In conclusion, I thought the key to make TEE successful is to make students understand why TEE is essential in learning English before applying it to the classroom.
In spite of the mentioned negative effect of using only English in classes on would-be frustrated students, continual exposure of students to the English-instigating atmosphere is sure to make the students more immersed in English. Even the students who are likely to be frustrated with any unrecognizable reasons, if they are repeatedly assured by teachers and their peers that making mistakes in using English must be not a shame but only a step toward improving English, will get a door, either voluntarily or unconsciously, to be interested in learning English. So it is essential that students have the endless opportunities to be saturated with English-using circumstances controlled by instructors, I think.
I would think differently on this issue if I had not gained most of my early language teaching experience in Korea where I did not know Korean and had to learn to teach even the lowest levels and youngest children.
That is why I’ve said – half-jokingly/half-seriously – that when SMOE sends trainees to another country, they should have them practice for one week teaching Korean in Korean to English-speaking students. Say – speaking Korean 90% of the time and English only 10% of the time.
When you are forced to do something like that – you learn to adapt quickly, and you find that you can do it, and if you have long enough to teach in that way — one year or more — then you also see the results: especially with beginning level students, they advance rapidly in the foreign language if most of the instruction is done in the target language.
I understand that it is difficult for non-native speaking teachers to have great confidence in teaching English in English, especially if the students are intermediate level and above, but if you can create an atmosphere in which “mistakes are good” and “language learning is a process and skill” not some knowledge that can be “given” by an “expert” – it can help reduce your anxiety and maintain the confidence of the students.
Sometimes at SEEC, I am disappointed when trainees don’t see the full value of group and pair for for advanced and high-intermediate students:
After a person has gained a sizable amount of vocabulary and grammar knowledge, there is not a great amount of “new knowledge” a language teacher can give them: What the language teacher has to do to be most efficient is develop routines and activities where the process involves the students getting as much practice — putting their thoughts into English as possible.
That is why so many of the language teaching books these days include details about having students keep a class journal for free writing and fluency writing.
This is especially important in an EFL situation where students are not exposed much to the foreign language outside of the classroom: The classroom is about the only place (besides a hakwon here in Korea and Japan) where they will be able to practice speaking and writing in English in a communicative way with other people.
That is why I think teaching English in mostly English is important at all levels and in group and pair work mainly.
It should help students gain communicative competence faster. And if they have communicative competence, they should do better on the language tests like the TOIEC, TOEFL, and KSAT.
Lastly, by doing it in group work and pair work, it does help take some of the anxiety off speaking: Lower level students feel much more anxiety and frustration when they are asked a question by a teacher than they are when they are listening to their friends and fellow students talking to them.
All of the language teaching professional development books say these same things – just like our primary textbook, and at least from my experience in having to teach so many students whose native language I did not know, I think it works…
I want to add – the most ideal situation for a high intermediate and advanced student to gain language competence is in 1-to-1 interaction with a native-English speaker. That is the fastest way for a student to improve if they are willing to speak out a lot with the foreigner.
But, after you get into a 4-to-1 or 6-to-1 situation and higher, this idea breaks down fairly quickly. In a class with 9 or 10+ students and a native speaker, the “ideal situation” is totally absent. A native-speaking teacher in that situation cannot divide the speaking opportunities up evenly enough to benefit the class. Such classes end up being dominated (naturally) by one or two braver or more highly skilled students, and the rest of the students spend most of their time just listening, which is not efficient in increasing their skills.
That is what I saw over a 3 year period of teaching Korean adults at the advanced level and teaching Korean and Japanese adults in the US. Each month, I’d see many disappointed faces leave because they expected to get a 1-to-1 effect and improve rapidly in communicative competence but didn’t.
I learned over the years, in my opinion, that even in a 5-to-1 small group class, pair work and group work needs to be used frequently in order to get the most production (output) as you can from each of the students in the class.
And output is what I believe will benefit high intermediate to advanced language knowledge students more efficiently and quickly than having them mostly sit and listen to a native-English speaker speak for a large percentage of the class.
Students need to have faith that their fluency AND accuracy will increase if they speak with other non-native speakers frequently.
“English Only” method has many advantages and also some disadvantages.
Of course, it is not easy for students to speak only English in class. Even some of the advanced students seem to have difficulties in speaking English, because they’ve had little chance to speak only English in class. But it is very important to let all the students know that learning English is not only learning grammatical rules and vocabulary but also express themselves and communicate each other.
I am sure that if we give students more opportunities to speak English, they are able to make them understood more and more.
In my English classroom, I try to make teacher talk simple and short so as to satisfy all of the students who are in the the low level and in the high level. If I speak Enlish much more than it is needed, low leveled students tend to give up even though teacher give them non- verbal hints a lot. So making teacher talk simple and clear is the key to be successful in the English class.
I totally agree that simple and clear teacher talk is necessary in TEE as trainees pointed out in comments. Teachers should keep in mind that the major reason to teach English in English. That is to make students improve their English abilities such as listening and speaking and communicate each other by English freely in the future. I realise that the role of teachers is more important than I thought. It reminds myself to look back on what I said to my students in English classroom.
As for me, when I use English in class, I face two kinds of problem. The first one is in me. Actually, I have difficulty in communicating with students in English. I mean, I always use the same word or expressions. As I feel burden when I talk to them, I can’t express myself quite well. Especially, while I am teaching the text, comprehension part, the delima before me is should I continue using English to the students in the states of not knowing whether it is right or wrong. That can cause me not to enforce students to pay attention to me. The second one is that in case students don’t understand what a teaching are saying, they are easily apt to lose their attention to the teacher. Their attention time is only at best 10 minutes. As they lost their interest, I give up talking them in English. Please help me!!!!
This is another benefit of doing a significant amount of pair and group work with classes:
Group and pair work requires less talking by the teacher:
the students do most of the talking or written or reading work while the teacher moves around the room to monitor their progress, answer questions they might have, and control class discipline.
Through group and pair work, students gain more opportunities to use the language and teachers get the opportunity to speak less and act as a guide or facilitator of language learning.
You can also take comfort in the fact that even native-English speaking teachers make grammatical mistakes when they talk to a class, because when we speak in our native languages, we often don’t speak in complete sentences, and we “jump around” a lot in a conversation as our brains start to think about more than one thing at a time, and we make occasional grammatical mistakes.
That is the nature of oral communication.
Mistakes in speaking by an EFL teacher can cause the students to make the same mistakes. That is an issue to keep in mind when teaching, but that can’t be helped when the teacher is a non-native speaker. You are going to make mistakes: But, if you speak mostly in English, you give the students exposure to English-language use by an advanced user of it (you, the teacher), and by using pair and group work, you will speak less and thus make fewer mistakes in front of them.