Bookshop Heaven & TEFL Gripes

Got to Cascaishopping early (for Dulce on a Sunday morning). I'd already been for a walk and a coffee down in the village, as Linda-a-Pastora still is, despite its proximity to Lisbon and being hemmed in by piles of expensive housing with rare signs of habitation, except the lines of new, or brand new, cars outside them all. All the owners being potential English learners I'm sure. On arrival, a couple of old guys discussing Sporting vs Porto drinking their single beers and a hearty and genuine  hello from the owner. I hadn't been there in some time. So back up the hill smiling, past the blue tiled houses and the grubby looking new ones. People  hanging washing out of their windows to dry in the weak winter sun while they can. Rain is forecast. And rain means business here.  Feeling the chill a bit while looking down on the mouth of the wide old Tejo and the Atlantic beyond. 

I checked out my Twitter account back in the warm and that got me going for the day. Scott Thornbury had left an enticing thread on 'the most influential coursebooks' which I followed to Peter Viney's blog. (http://peterviney.wordpress.com/about/elt-articles/influential-elt-books/#comments). I couldn't find the right words to say on this, as I have so much to say, composed a short paragraph-unsent. This conversation says a lot though. Thornbury voted Headway the number one and I'd have to agree that it's 'malign influence', and that of its many immitators, has been influential in helping stall progress in our world considerably-but not fatally. 

But there's a lot more to it than this. Sentence level grammar reigns supreme on the ground and it's far from being coursebooks that are entirely responsible for this. The industry, if considered as a profession, has the unique property of  its practitioners virtually ignoring all relevant research into their work area and of, deeply and very, very sadly of being, on the whole, almost entirely ignorant of the alternatives to the prevailing wind. Imagine biology without evolution, astronomy before the Hubble telescope, modern literature without the novel. 

That's where we are at when I lead training sessions wherein practising teachers have no idea what is meant by the term 'collocation', have never heard of Chomsky-really, systematically skip all pronunciation work, ignore texts not directly related to the grammar point being taught in that lesson, wander in the dark  blissfully unaware that their such a thing as a 'spoken grammar', think 'discourse' is a fancy word for 'conversation' and harbouring beliefs about 'correctness' that went out with the ark-or did they? 

As well as the appeal to tradition championed, as Scott put it,  by the likes of Headway and followers, there must be a deep set of causes for the fact, and surely it is a fact, that sentence level grammar both rules the understanding of what language is, in that all else must be subsumed beneath its dominion in the heads of many, if not most, practioners and dictates how classes are organised, delivered and judged. It has become an irritation to many to have this belief questioned. My mission, like any good sceptic and as an avowed innovator - is to challenge view and in all its manifestations. 

A cursory read of the contents of any general book on English language teaching and learning or applied linguistics, or a two minute tour of the appropriate section of a university library ought to sufficient to do quick  justice to this pervading myth. But not a cat's chance in hell of that happening without major upheavals from the evidence I've seen-which is considerable. Major changes are needed in this industry if it is ever to gain the credility it deserves and to serve its clients in the way they deserve. We ought to be the experts on our field and this ought to shine through, every day-only then can we dispense with the, as Russell put it 'uncommon  sense of common sense' which repesents the opinions of the general populace regarding language and its acquisition. This is really why the blow that Headway and co. dealt the profession  is so very counterproductive. It pandered to the erroneous views that pervade this key element of  being human- if in any doubt  read 'Language Myths' (eds. Bauer & Trudgill, Penguin 1998). There are a whole cluster of myths associated with this continuing narrow focus on sentence grammar at the expense of all else and people do have strong opinions about language. However, like it or not,  very often they are simply mistaken. Should language teaching professionals have a duty to inform them so? I think they do. But before they can, they need to inform themselves.

Witness- the hundreds of observations I have carried out over the past four years as EAC Area Academic Manager wherein somewhere over 80% of them have  lesson plans attached that detail how they are going to practice 'the use of the present perfect' or 'comparative adjectives etc. (with no reference to why and to what useful purpose for the teenage learners we serve, assuming this approach is effective, a very large assumption if we are to take relevant findings in SLA seriously). And these were produced by a wide sample of teachers working, in their day jobs, all over the world who are asked, begged, gently shown alternatives etc. to repect the fact that these courses are meant to be informed by 'a communicative approach' to language learning and teaching. It's in your manuals for goodness sake! It's like walking in sludge at times.

As well as selecting material from the allocated coursebook on the tired old basis of 'we are going to do (sic.) the '1st Conditional' today', the situation I've observed in many, many teacher rooms is one of teachers cobbling together lessons with added material from the nearest convenient 'resource' book tacked onto the grammatical 'point' chosen for that day. It's insidious and extremely frustrating to those of use who are teacher educators and continues to be the norm. 

And yes, I headed straight for the 'métodos de línguas' section on arrival at FNAC. It didn't help. A micrcosm of the world of language learning. The most populated little section of the shop, it really was. Young 'n' old like bees around a hive. The need is there. What was on offer-awful! And that's just the books  addressing the patent and well-motivated and wonderful desire to learn languages-to communicate! At even best LTOs, the market leaders, and I've worked at them all in this country, I've overheard comments to make the blood boil-at least mine! 

'I don't like Cutting Edge... there isn't enough focus on grammar'. Teacher at the British Council, Porto

'I don't bother writing worksheets anymore....these new resource books are great'. Teacher in Lisbon

'I'm not doing any pron work...there's no need.' Teacher working in Lyon, teaching A2  level French business people

'We are doing 'model' (!) verbs in my next lesson...this session should be useful'. Pre-session chat in France

What's gone wrong? How did the profession get into this state? Is it, except in the eyes of a few blessed souls, a profession at all? I'm not blaming teachers for this state of affairs and do my best daily to inform, guide and challenge them at every available turn . There are deep rooted causes for at work here. They need to be brought to the surface. But that's why god created sceptics. More on this later.

In the end I shelled out on a book on marketing small businesses, a history of the migration of people in Europe at the beginning of the christian era and a book on Keynes!! Great reading-but I'll have to squeeze them in somehow. Courses to edit and teachers to find... I always hope for the best. You really have to in this field of work, and they'll get the guidance they need...and that is sure to be considerable. But that's fundamentally a good thing-we are in the business of education after all.