Focus on content

If there is one thing that terrifies a teacher more than anything, I believe, it´s the feeling of losing control. It could be because a lesson gets out of hand, or because you don´t know the answer to a question. It could be because you have time left over at the end of class and don´t know what to do, or because you thought your students were going to like a lesson you planned and instead small protests and questions like "Why are we doing this?" erupt into full-scale mutiny. Or sometimes loss of control comes when the class decides to chat while they should be doing something else. Loss of control comes in many forms. The question is, why is it such a bad thing?

You know you like to be in control at all times. It´s what separates you from them. You´re the knower, the guru, the one person in the class who can correctly use the present perfect every time. But control, like power, is addictive, one taste of it and you´re hooked, am I right?

Don´t misunderstand me, it does have its practical purposes as well--especially if you teach young learners, oh boy! Control--a.k.a, the upper hand--once you have it, it´s your one weapon against chaos. I get it, believe me. But I´m not referring to that type of control (a.k.a, discipline). I´m speaking of the control over what happens in class from moment to moment.

For example, ever accidentally stumble over an activity or a discussion which was so interesting it "got out of hand"? Pretty soon, students broke into bad English mixed with accidentally good English mixed with their beloved mother-tongue mixed with actual laughter? You either tried to or wanted to start shushing them, trying to get some control back and after a minute (or five) you actually got back to that kind of English where the same phrase is repeated over and over again, though with a different object and thus, control was maintained.

Believe it or not, you actually had stumbled over the Holy Grail of a communicative classroom but you didn´t know it--to you it was chaotic--but to them, to them it was communication--it was real and meaningful. What could be better than that? Certainly not a grammar drill disguised as a "communication activity".

But, you say, they weren´t "on task". They were off on a tangent. They were using their native language. They were laughing. True, you did lose control then, didn´t you? And really, if the entire class was that way, it´d be time to look for a new job. But let´s imagine for a second that it was possible to inject some control into this situation while still maintaining the element of real communication a.k.a. conversation. How do students benefit from this?

Well, fun is one important part of it because regardless of learning being a lot of work, it can and should be fun. Fun is what´s going to motivate your learners. But you know that already, which is why you bribe them with grammar and vocabulary "games" like "hangman", right? Well, imagine not having to do that--I mean, not having to use games as the only way to have fun in class. Imagine real learning and the real achievment of goals as being a kind of game in itself. Sounds too good to be true, doesn´t it? Well it´s not. It´s so true it´s good.

Another important reason why the what is so important is that, again, it mimics real life. This is what we´re going for here, remember. In order to mimic real life situations you orchestrate "role-play", and that´s fine; in the movies they call it "suspension of disbelief". Of course if you give them something to do or say, there is that element of artificiality but it makes a big difference if you put substance over style. Partly because learners will find it easier to find things to say if they´re not worried about how they are saying them so that it makes practicing English so much more fluid (or is it fluent?). Partly also because undoubtedly your students (especially if they´re adults) have seen it all. You wouldn´t be the first and you won´t be the last to do that "Have you ever..." speaking activity to practice the present perfect which they subsequently will never use in spontaneous conversation. So why not wow them with good content instead? If your syllabus is comprehensive enough, they will (don´t worry) use "Have you ever..?" but this time, when they do, it will be because they wanted to use it and if they got it wrong and you caught them or they were misunderstood or whatever, they will want to remember it the next time. I could go into how information is stored in the brain and bore you with that or I could just say that there´s nothing like trying to get your point across to make you "remember", not always but often, and at least in a more meaningful way than any other.

So what will lead to how if you trust it to.

Meanwhile, you have to give up a bit of control, bite your lip a bit as you hear the mistakes fly through the air and let that warm-fuzzy feeling wash over you as you realize that your students are really having fun.

For those of you reading who are still sceptical, let me put all this in a different way. The "Communicative Approach" has been generally accepted and put into use in textbooks for years now. Despite the fact that you probably use it everyday in class and don´t even know it and that it seems as natural as breathing to talk to learners, it wasn´t always this way. The problem is, that what textbooks are doing really is disguising an audio-lingual method as communicative. What this means is that they converted the practice of specific grammar into a communication activity rather than a drill. Sometimes, perhaps accidentally, they hit it on the head with an activity which is purely communicative. But this is the exception, not the rule. What is the difference? Take a look at this example and decide for yourself. The activities both would appear after a gap-fill text about two friends in a lower-intermediate textbook.

Speaking activity 1: Think about a friend. Ask and answer these questions with a partner.

How long have you known him/her?

Where did you meet?

How often do you see each other?

Do you ever argue?

Example: "What´s your friend´s name?"

"Her name is Anne."

"How long have you know her?"

"I´ve known her for five years."

Speaking activity 2: Think about a close friend. Ask and answer questions with a partner to see how many similarities you have with the girls in the text above.

Example: "Her close friend is called Sam. What´s your friend´s name?" "Anne."

"They´re both girls names, right?"

"Yes."

"That´s one thing you have in common."

See anything other than the most superficial differences? Let´s see. Both activities follow-up on a text about two friends. You can´t see it but in the first activity, the questions provided follow exactly the information given in the text. However, this is not mentioned so the teacher might do so--perhaps even asking students to match the questions to the text. In any case, the questions are provided so all students have to do is read the questions aloud and answer. What´s the purpose? I guess the answer would be to pratice question-answer forms using various basic grammar forms as well as to simply complete the activity. Another point to add is that, in my experience, when students do these types of activities, there is a feeling that something is missing. 


One is that they don´t generally listen very closely to their partner. Very mechanically, they go through each question and answer. There is no need to listen or respond. In fact, in the directions, there is no explicit requirement to do so. 


The second thing that is missing is that feeling of accomplishment when it´s finished. Instead, we´re (the teacher and the students, I believe) left with a feeling of emptiness. What have we learned? Why are we asking such stupid questions? And why should I care about my partner´s friend? I don´t even like this person. 


The third thing missing is a focus on what is being said, rather than how it´s being said. This translates to no real communication. Real communication is communication with a purpose--be it interest in the other person or just a necessity for information. It requires one or the other person to listen and respond. Now, one might argue that it doesn´t matter. The point is to practice forms and to get them right; if they don´t, they won´t practice the forms they need to know, or worse, errors will "fossilize". Again, there´s that obession with control. They have to get it right. Errors mustn´t fossilize. The reality is that all you´re doing is storing information (if at all) in a part of the brain that will never be found when it comes time to use these forms or this vocabulary for real. In fact, why wait for students to meet someone in the "real world" to practice English "for real"? Why not do it in class? This leads me to look at the second speaking activity.

How is the second different? Well, first of all, we explicitly relate the speaking activity to the reading gap-fill (which, by the way, could be made even more communicative by turning it instead into a jig-saw reading). Secondly, it does not provide the questions. Why? Well, in real-life students have to make do with the tools they have. If they know perfectly the questions, great. If they don´t, then to complete the activity, they have to get creative. By not providing the questions, we are teaching them speaking strategies. In other words, we teach them to make do with what they have. So maybe instead of asking questions, learners will read one part of the text and ask "And you and your friend?" or they may make the sentence a yes/no question like "Do you and your friend work together too?" Perhaps they ask the questions, but not very well. Okay. But do they complete the activity? That´s the real question, because in the real world, we have to accomplish things, achieve things. Does it matter if we do it perfectly? It depends. But we can´t expect perfection in class. Instead, what we must do is take what they know now, and add to it--be it in the form of improved accuracy or in the form of new knowledge (i.e. new language).

The problem, I think, is that we tend to think of language abilities the same way we would other skills, such as scripted acting. We take a piece of language (i.e. would v.s. used to), like we take a piece of a script, and we rehearse it, over and over. Then when students have that down, we give them another, and another. Then we expect them-- based on these the various pieces--not to act out a play but to actually improvise one. What I mean by "improvise"? Well, think about it. Ever tried using a phrasebook while traveling abroad? You practice and rehearse the phrases of asking for directions, as well as the possible responses. Then when you actually speak to someone, you don´t understand a word of what they´re saying, because it´s not in the book. Communication requires improvisation. So why don´t we teach improvisation from the beginning? Why don´t we teach them strategies for communication rather than rehearsing them with "scripted parts"? It can be done. But first it requires you, the teacher, to loosen your grip on the amount of control you have.