COMPULSORY TASK #3: Investigate and reflect upon widespread beliefs

MYTHS IN THE STREETS

There have been many myths around teaching ESL. Parents, educators and students might have very different points of view on how English should be learned. Here are some of the most commonly spread believes among society and a brief reflection.

1)    Translating word by word :

Some parents and educators might argue that when a student faces a text in English we should not have them translating every single word of the reading. Instead we should teach them how to get the general idea, and by doing so they will gain more vocabulary and greater reading skills and/or strategies. However, educators face the students’ desire of knowing everything that appears in a text. It should be noticed that every student will eventually end up translating lots of words into their own L1 regardless of dealing with the new vocabulary through a text (reading), or a conversation (speaking) or any other area of learning.

Bilingualism has a great role in this aspect of learning. According to Jessner and Cenoz “a bilingual speaker develops a common underlying proficiency that represents a kind of linguistic reservoir enabling transfer of concepts and strategies across languages and results in potentially enhanced metalinguistic abilities” (2007:159). These crosslinguistic relationships are undoubtedly beneficial for the learning process.

2)    They are really young to start speaking English:

It is widely thought that kids are unable to talk in English until they have assimilated a great load of knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. This is not true. Let’s consider the case of learning a L1. Do we learn grammar and vocabulary at first and then we speak it? No. Children are the perfect auditory type of learner; they assimilate what they hear and see of the L1 and then imitate and/or articulate it. That is how they learn their first language and surely the second, too. Grammatical structures and the like come way after that. Hence, there is neither excuse nor limitation for young learners to speak English. This myth is highly connected with the following one.

    3)    Speaking more than 2 languages is too much for the kids: parents seem to have a certain feeling of mistrust when they say that kids might get confused if they learn more than 2 languages. They argue children can suffer from a “cognitive overload”. Nevertheless, it is in fact all the opposite. Childrens’ brains are prepared to operate “multilingually” if necessary, and it is at younger stages when they are ready to assimilate better pronunciation and to associate the new language to particular and natural contexts of their lives. As mentioned before, bilingualism has a positive influence on acquiring new language and has more advantages than drawbacks: creativity, cognitive flexibility, and metalinguistic awareness among others.

4)    The younger the better: there has been no proof that can confirm this widespread belief in schooling contexts. Great part of society thinks that an early start to learning a language is 100% beneficial and effective. It is said that younger learners’ brains are more flexible, therefore they perform better in the learning process. It is false because adults have acquired language learning strategies while young children seem to acquire social language more easily. However, age has made no miracles yet.

It is true though, that an early start would be effective and would make a difference -in comparison with those students who had a later start- as long as the context was an immersion and natural context. Therefore, exposure and quality of the teaching is essential.  In schooling contexts where kids only receive a couple of hours of English, starting earlier would not make of the young learners more proficient than those who started later. It is important to stress that children need comprehensible input so no matter how much amount of time the learner spends surrounded by a foreign language if that input he is receiving is incomprehensible.

    5)    Speaking English at home is better for their proficiency: Second language learners will acquire academic English faster if their parents speak English at home. That is what most people think. Nonetheless, it is much better for parents to speak in their mother tongue to their children. This language will be richer and more complex. As mentioned in 1), children will eventually translate that learning to English. We should encourage parents to read in both languages if they can, but we should never instruct a parent to speak only English at home.

*References: Jessner, Ulrike., & Cenoz, Jasone. 2007. “Teaching English as a Third Language”. International Handbook of English Language Teaching. Vol. 15: 155-167.

OPTIONAL TASK #1: Reflection on "30 MINUTS" documentary

Decades ago, English had no essential function in our society. Studying a foreign language was a synonym of having a few notions or knowing basic words/expressions. However, in the last 10 years, society and educational contexts have undergone a great change when focusing on English as a foreign language. And it is something unavoidable that is changing the world over.

The great impact that globalisation has made around the globe is making of this particular language an essential professional value to add to one’s curriculum- especially in Spain where exportation plays a very crucial role these days due to the financial crisis-. Hence, English has become a professional need whose ability is to open doors to success and whose roots to change the “rules of the game” remain in education.

Spain has very low rates in listening, reading, and writing skills in English proficiency in students ranging from 14 to17 years old. There is this belief that our lower results are caused by the amount of hours dedicated to English grammar and vocabulary in schools. These findings reflect the reality that governments are not doing it so well. Nowadays, learning English should not consist of memorising and repeating every year’s grammar. Instead, we should focus on teaching students to develop their communicative skills and making them able to produce English in every stage. Obviously books are much easier to work with and less demanding for teachers; still, we as teachers should create real situations of communicative need while using the target language as the vehicle language. These way students would learn a second or third language unconsciously.

This is precisely what schools are trying to adapt to their linguistic projects: introducing new methodologies more up to date, such as CLIL, or including the use of technologies as part of their classroom materials. Another resource that could be very useful would be having peer-contacts with native speakers (video calls or e-mails, for instance), since the real the contact through English language, the better their competences will be.

Nevertheless, it is not only the duty for education but also for the Catalan society. All the content in TV and media in general appears in Catalan or Spanish. Had we more exposure to this content in English population would be more aware and receptive to develop better competences in English. We need to intensify our daily contact with this foreign language, and TV shows and cinemas in original version are the only free and practical tool that society has at its disposal.