I was recently pleased to get an email reply from Michael Swan
(he of learner English and practical English usage fame). He is something of EFL hero, and
while I don't agree with everything he says, he makes a lot of good
points and no one writes as well as he does. He is particularly adept at
cutting though the bullshit prevalent in our profession. If you find yourself overwhelmed with "autonomous
communicative negotiated schemata skills" or the like, then have a look at
some of his articles, many of which are available free on his website. Even if you don't agree with what he says, as
far as articles go, they make quite entertaining reading. I've included a few snippets at the bottom
here.
"Meanwhile the students – or at least, the conscientious ones – write down hundreds of pieces of new information in those overfilled notebooks that someone once memorably called ‘word cemeteries’."
"We need to face the sobering fact that language teaching
won’t usually get very good results. Languages are hard to learn, and there is
never enough time to teach them properly."
Two out of three ain't enough: the essential
ingredients of a language course(IATEFL 2006 Harrogate Conference Selections, pp. 45–54)
(talking about if he were a student)
"I do not want to be taught reading skills. I have reading skills. What I want is some Hungarian to deploy them on."
contemporary applied linguistics volume 1
"Teachers usually feel guilty about something: translating, or explaining grammar, or standing up in front of the class and behaving like teachers, or engaging in some other activity that is temporarily out of favour"
A critical
look at the Communicative Approach 2
p.s. A friend sent me this. Very funny.
I suppose these are meant as jokes, but I actually think quite a few of
them are true.
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