Many adults who studied at school will probably still have
memories of schoolmasters (and schoolmistresses) in cardigans and jackets
powdered with chalk-dust; a dog-eared copy of a grammar book stuffed with
sleep-inducing tables and lists; and a vague feeling of frustration tinged with
panic at the thought of the looming end-of-term exams – when the full extent of
the struggling learner’s futile attempts to pick up the even the most
rudimentary knowledge of the language would be laid bare.
OK – that’s a bit of an exaggeration (and is probably a lot
truer for British people of a certain age forced to learn mainly French and
perhaps German – not to mention the “dead” languages, Latin and Greek). The
pain of studying English – the language of Shakespeare and Dickens – has always
been tempered for non-native speakers by the fact that it would probably be
useful at some point. English is, after all, the world’s pre-eminent lingua
franca in business and international communication.
However, even the thought
of being able to travel around the United States asking people for directions –
or understanding the words to a pop song – has in many cases proved
insufficient to wholly supress the associations of dread and boredom that
generations of former school pupils and university students still have when
they hear the taboo phrase “English grammar”.
Fast forward now to the modern, well-equipped language
classroom, replete with an interactive whiteboard (IWB), wireless-enabled iPads
and access to a plethora of online tools ranging from Google Drive to digital
resources specially created to support conventional materials (books and CDs).
While the shiny new gadgets and whizzy graphics are a world apart from the
dusty textbooks and tape cassettes of old, there is at least one constant
connecting both past and present: students holding their chin or forehead,
trying to puzzle out just how all the different pieces presented to them
actually fit together.
Learning to speak a language – any language, not just
English – is never easy. There really is no quick fix or magic wand that can be
waved and – hey, presto! – you can suddenly gabble away to your heart’s
content. Even if you do manage to get your head round slippery grammatical
concepts you still face the seemingly-endless task of acquiring the vocabulary
of the language. Add to that the perennial problems of pronunciation – as well
as knowing when it’s appropriate to use all the expressions you have learnt –
and it quickly appears that becoming a relaxed, fluent speaker of English (or
French or German) could be a very long way off (if you ever do actually arrive
at your destination).
Does technology, then, actually make it easier to reach your
goal – learning to speak English – or does it, in fact, simply make it seem
less painful? It is undeniable that clicking buttons on a well-designed web
page is a lot less arduous than doing pencil and paper tests – or that watching
an animated video tends to be far more engaging than reading a dry explanation
of grammar rules in a book. And certainly, a highly-motivated language teacher
armed with all the latest equipment and materials is in a lot better position
than their counterpart stuck in the classroom of the past with only a textbook
and a blackboard.
The truth is that so much of what happens in the class – or between student and teacher, whether face-to-face or meeting via Skype – is more about what’s going on inside the learner’s head than whether or not they are using the latest high-tech gadgetry or the oldest of all communications media: talking.
Teachers spend a lot of time trying to work out what’s going on in
their students’ heads. (Perhaps students do the same with the teacher – but for
slightly different reasons: their main aim is simply to be able to understand
and use something that the teacher obviously has no trouble with. How difficult
can it be if the person you are talking to can already do something?) Perhaps
technology makes it easier to pinpoint those areas where students are
struggling the most (e.g. the ability to give detailed statistical feedback on
student errors) – but for the most part an experienced teacher can readily
identify which areas of the language are causing her students the most
problems: the really difficult bit is – and always has been – working out how
to reach that small, inaccessible switch buried deep inside the student’s
brain, a switch that once flicked suddenly causes a mental lightbulb to sputter
into life, accompanied by the universal sound that indicates learning has taken
place: “Aaaah!”
While digital resources and technology in general can help
organise materials and facilitate instruction, without the teacher’s (or
materials writer’s) insight into how people think, remember and learn, a
student who hasn’t “got it” is in the same position whether they are holding a
book or the most sophisticated tablet. Rather than technology being a solution
to the problem of how people learn a language – or anything else – it is rather
just a different medium for giving and receiving information and ideas. And
since everyone’s mind is configured in a slightly different way – due both to
genetic and social factors – there is never one single method or approach that
is guaranteed to work every time, whether online or on paper.
A student and a teacher are like two people walking through
a forest: one very familiar with all the possible routes and traps, the other
stumbling about trying to figure out where they are going. However good you are
as a teacher – and however carefully you light the way for them and clear the
fallen branches littering their path – once the student is left on their own it
is they who will have to make their way through the undergrowth. The teacher –
equipped with as many electronic devices and interactive tools as possible –
can do virtually anything for the student, except the most important thing: you
can teach someone but you can’t ultimately learn for them.
Robert Dennis
Riverstone Language & Communications
Robert Dennis
Riverstone Language & Communications
Permalink for this article: http://flowideas.blogspot.com/2013/02/learning-to-learn-and-teach-all-over.html
Are you studying or teaching English? How do you use technology to learn or teach English? Share your thoughts with us about the impact new media and resources are having on the learning process.
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Read Robert's review of last year's PSA Symposium on the Milan English blog. He explains how blended learning expert Pete Sharma and other digital media professionals showcased a variety of online resources for learning English:
Pete Sharma rocks Milan (with a little help from his friends): full report from the PSA Symposium, 2012 (Part 1)
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Riverstone Language & Communications helps people learn new skills, including English for business and life. Find out more about our courses and the Riverstone Network of professionals.
