I have decided due to a varity of concepts which have revealed themselves in the course of creating this site and the discussion between Ken and myself, it would be a great idea to add a contribution to the perennial debate on teaching techniques which will also provide an insight into my own EFL research and knowledge. It is the result of a survey I carried out at the University of Westminster and which I sent to Ken in the course of our discussion which he made reference to in one of his emails. I would like to pay tribute to Jack Lonergan, who has sadly passed away and who helped in the design of the survey which I present here. I have every reason to believe it is just as relevant today as it was way back in 2002. However I do not present it as the be-all and end-all of teaching because different ages, different levels of subject knowledge and personal preference and knowledge desire vary enormously and we ought never to assume there is a single process to learning.
As you will have seen I have included the thanks I have recieved from students over the years, with photos of the cards to provide proof. This is not just about me, it is about all teachers, since it is what happens in any individual classroom between a teacher and their students, and nothing to do with what other arrogant people who believe they know better than the students themselves who are more than happy with whatever techniques any individual teacher uses to impart the knowledge of any language to a student who is eager to learn. Hence the survey is important because it is about what students think and not about all the academic linguistics used to argue about how best to impart linguistic knowledge. I have over the many years I have been retired kept in touch with the acdemic world of teaching and have been astounded how academic debate has overtaken the practical side of instilling information. I even read in a journal that the problem is not memory. Seaking solely fpor myself, I can catagorically state yes it is a at times a memory problem since I suffer from a physical problem of memory retention as I believe do many others. Repetition does not guarantee memory for me, no matter how many times I see or hear something, it can still fade. although having said that, most Emotional experiences, particularly negative ones are forever seared into my mind.
In the EFL community little or no debate takes place as to the different abilities of humans to absorb knowledge and the memory system which can vary so much between one human and another. An area of knowledge which is never mentioned in all the EFL courses which are sold to potential or existing teachers or covered in the exams for teachers.
Stimulating memory is the art of teaching, and the more interesting a teacher can make the necessary repetition process or create emotional moments to stimulate memory the more successful they will be. Which brings me back to the survey and a study of classroom techniques which a group of adult learners find the most stimulating for memory acquisition.
I am also adding this to show my knowledge of EFL teaching to adults, is at a highly professional level of knowledge and background research developed over many years from experiences in a number of countries and as a Director of Studies.
The Westminster University Survey.
NOTE THE RESULT ON LANGUAGE LABORATORY USE.
STUDENT SURVEY ON TEACHING TECHNIQUES
Reasons for the survey. One of the major themes of teacher training courses, as I perceive it, has been the idea that teaching of languages should move more from teacher oriented learning to student oriented learning. This is also reflected in the new format of the exams being produced today. Teaching courses have been promoting this idea for many years. I experienced this on a Cambridge Diploma Course in 1996, where the concept of the Communicative Method was very much in evidence, being promoted as the sub-script of the course. Whilst I have no argument about using student orientated learning techniques I have been very sceptical about is the concept of task based lessons being promoted as the Holy Grail of teaching to the exclusion of all other techniques.
Robert O'Neill wrote a long article on his experience in an English Language School, which he was asked to visit abroad. He described how the teacher literally left the students to their own devices and the director was full of praise and convinced this was the ultimate teaching method. O'Neill's article was highly sceptical and critical. I have since this time been looking for research carried out on adult students to see what they feel about this form of teaching and have found nothing of relevance.
I know from my own experience of learning different subjects as well as languages, I require a teacher to assist and provide short cuts and anecdotes to enable me to more fully understand and remember the subject I am learning, that no amount of reading or self study can provide. This is reflected in conversation with other people.
One major aspect of adult learning, which I feel is not recognised for its' importance, is that millions of adults vote with their money in favour of the services of a teacher. It would seem to me that if students come to an institution because it provides teachers, it seems incongruous to then say 'do it yourself you do not need a teacher', unless perhaps one is providing a self-study technique that needs to be revised or even taught.
So what do adult students think about the variety of teaching techniques we use in the classroom? This is what I wanted to know first hand for whilst I use task based lessons I do not use them to the exclusion of all other techniques, however if on asking students for their opinion they should say otherwise, I would be quite happy to change my teaching.
Design of Questionnaire
In designing the questionnaire I felt the type of material introduced into the classroom is easily classified and is not subject to the same controversy as techniques. The main dilemma is in the presentation of material. Given the same material to present and any number of teachers could present that material in a multitude of ways. So the main questions are all designed to provide answers to teaching techniques.
I also feel that there is also a distinction to be made between REMEMBERING language and LEARNING.
Reasons; Remembering is a physical ability which places information in the brain, learning is a mental ability to process this information and use it correctly. It goes without saying that the learning process cannot take place without first having the physical process. 'Nothing to work with, produces nothing'. Consequently I made the decision to concentrate the questionnaire on REMEMBERING since this seems to me, after many years of teaching both English and other subjects, to be the vital ingredient for teaching, particularly adults. Adults are already trained mentally trained in the art of processing and analysing information, and it is not the role of language teachers of adults to educate students, this is both patronising and unnecessary. Our role is to help students remember new style language and also rules that might apply to that language which is different from rules in another style of language. [Just out of interest, all the above could equally apply to the learning of a computer programming language
I also added a question designed to be a check question for the first 29. I was slightly unsure about this question since it meant going back through all 29 questions again which would be time consuming and laborious and therefore could be de-motivating in producing accurate answers. Furthermore it might be difficult for people to choose their main six. However I felt it important to include it in the hope of getting a correlation between this question and the overall questions.
There are also three questions, which are not specifically on teaching techniques. One is relevant to teaching techniques, it could be argued that the personality of a teacher is part of their technique. The other two are on contentious areas of teaching, which I thought would be useful to receive feedback on and are connected with techniques of presentation.
Presentation of questionnaire
In order to get a good response based not only on language learning in their own country, I needed to wait until the students had settled down into the teaching here. In the event the questionnaire was presented in the sixth week of a course.
Background of students
The majority of our students are from Asia, some 75% the other 25% are from European language areas of the world. The educational level is in the main, University, with a number of business backgrounds. The age level varies from late teens to forty.
I personally teach five general english morning classes and therefore have a knowledge of a wide range of the students and would therefore be able to say that the students are well educated and intelligent people. The fact that they have left their own country and come to this country also implies that they are independent, confident and open-minded human beings. I make this comment to counter any criticism there might be about the intellectual quality of the sample students.
Interpreting the results
As a result of not getting all fifteen classes participation ( 11 in total) I found that I had a little over a hundred responses. This gave me the idea that an ideal number would be 100, statistically for all my calculations and would save a vast amount of calculating time. Some of these responses came from students who had taken them home to do, I took the first three of these to make up the hundred.
I initially separated the results into Asian and European to see if there was any big difference between the two theoretically culturally different groups. I chose a similar amount of Asian results to European and compared them. The results from both groups were similar enough not to be significant. I therefore treated everyone as one group in my analysis of the results. I also looked at advanced classes as opposed to intermediate levels and found no discernible difference except in the use of modern technology where more advanced students had a higher proportion of no experience than the lower levels.
My dilemma then came as to how to interpret the figures. At first I thought I could assess the results by looking at the difference between the top two results and the bottom two using the middle result as the average. I started by doing this giving alphabetic results. Average, above average, below average etc.
I then realised I needed to collate the first 29 questions with the final question, which had produced a numerical result. As a result of this I devised a system which would enable me to grade the results numerically and which would give me a very clear picture of the difference between each question.
Using 'WELL' as the average, which I feel is a perfectly reasonable decision statistically, I then added 'VERY WELL' to 'EXTREMELY WELL' and did the same to the two negative answers. I then subtracted one from the other and gave each answer a plus or minus sign. This then enabled me to list each question in order of preference and then link this to the order of preference in the final question. Where there were large percentages of students who had not experienced the technique I did a percentage of the total of those that had experienced it, this I only did with over 15% since this does not make a significant difference.
The Results
The results in relation to the teacher and the students are extremely revealing.
Anything connected with a student to student inter-action receives a minus score. The largest minus score of the whole survey being -32%, which is reserved for 'students working as one group without a teacher'. The second largest minus score for the survey -25% goes to 'student explaining language to student'. 'Pair-work' and 'students working in small groups' are also minus -1% and -10% respectively.
On the other side 'teacher explaining language to all the class' and 'teacher explaining language to individual student' score +48% and +47% respectively with 'teacher and students working together as one group' +28%. These results are all numbers above or below the average, which I feel is the important point of the survey since I am attempting to find techniques that either work better than average or worst than average.
So what can be deduced from these results? One obvious result, is that there is a very large percentage of students who feel that the teachers input into a lesson is the most productive for them. Working alone without the teacher, particularly in large groups, is, according to this survey, very definitely not going to help students as well as teacher participation. Bring back PPP, Presentation, Practise and Production!!!!
What is also interesting is that these minus scores are solely in these areas alone, there are no other minus scores in any other part of the survey. The closest we get to a minus score is 'grammar analysed by yourself', which just manages to get a +1%. This is, yet again, the student working alone. However in relation to student working alone, 'homework' received a very respectable +35%. So does 'homework, relate to exercises given by the teacher since there is a contradiction with 'grammar analysis by yourself'. An area for further research.
'Grammar explained by teacher' received the third highest plus mark +58% with 'vocabulary explained by teacher' receiving the highest plus result +69%. Again we see very positive results with teacher participation in the learning process. The British Council Bascelt inspectors would be interested in the result for 'teacher using whiteboard' as opposed to 'overhead projector'. A massive +61% in favour of the whiteboard, with only +8% liking the overhead projector. A fairly high percentage had not experienced the overhead projector. Maybe it is the mystic of what is going to be written next and the word by word development that stimulates the memory. Further research needed.
Two areas which scored low were quite surprising since I had expected higher levels, 'playing language games' and 'role play 'which only just managed to scrape over the average with +9% and 3% respectively although fairly high percentages of students had not experienced these.
The two questions which related to materials used in the classroom, 'using a course-book' and 'using material provided by teacher ' were separated by quite high scores. 'Teacher provided material ' +43% contrasted strongly with the +3% for course-books. This is quite interesting because in many cases of material used by teachers it is in fact photocopies of course-books. It would be interesting to get some feedback on what type of teacher materials work best. The word teacher definitely seems to stimulate a positive response.
In the area of technology a high proportion of students had not experienced it, however of those that had there was a positive response. By far the most effective in this area was the older technology, the 'language laboratory' which received the fourth highest plus score of +53%. This even surprised me since this is my own field of expertise. 'Using computer programs' +21%, 'using the internet' +18% and 'using the self access centre' +16% were dwarfed by the percentage of people who had not used them 58%, 52% and 36%.
In the 'use of tape recorders' in the classroom, the magic word 'teacher' once again produced high percentages, +53% as opposed to 'student operated' of +30%, although this is very respectable. No doubt if I had put 'teacher operated video tapes' the score would have been greater that +25%. 'Free lessons' and 'teacher talking' were on a par with videotapes, +30% and 27%.
Finally two contentious areas over the years, firstly reading aloud and being corrected. I remember at Hammersmith College when doing my Cambridge Diploma, we were asked to do a lesson using all the skills, reading, writing speaking and listening. I devised a lesson where one student wrote a letter and another student had to read it aloud to a third student who would then relay the contents to another student.
When I suggested this I was told that you should not do reading aloud in the classroom it was not communicative. After being sat in on by another of the tutors on the course, I had a forty minute argument, trying to explain to her that we did actually read aloud to each other in real life, she refused to accept this, so I feel great joy in seeing the result of this question +41%
Secondly to 'teacher correcting your mistakes'. This received the second highest score equal with 'teacher using whiteboard' +61%. This also gives me great pleasure since on the same course the correcting of mistakes and the method of doing so was the subject of much debate and disagreement.
Which is another reason why I put in a second question on this point and was more specific. This second question received the highest percentage of plus points of all the questions +86%. This is an overwhelming percentage in favour of instant correction by the teacher in the classroom.
The question asking the students to list their top six proved to be a bit problematic as predicted with almost 25% of students failing to answer it and many of those that did, only put 3 or 4. So I am not sure that the results are entirely reliable. Consequently I have extended this, after collating the numbers, to the top ten for comparison purposes.
Top six choices to top ten Top ten from the 29 questions.
Question for top six 8 1 Individual question 16
Question for top six 16 2 Individual question 8
Question for top six 14 3 Individual question 14
Question for top six 6 4 Individual question 10
Question for top six 20 5 Individual question 11
Question for top six 19/27/5 6 Individual question 5
Question for top six 9 7 Individual question 6
Question for top six 24 8 Individual question 19
Question for top six 29 9 Individual question 20
Question for top six 10 10 Individual question 17/19
The top three compare and confirm their position, so we can conclude beyond all doubt that the core role of a teacher in a language classroom, as far as adult students learning English are concerned, is to;
Correct student's mistakes at the time they make them. Explain grammar and vocabulary to students.
After the top three there is not a definite correlation so I think that due to my original worry about the reliability of asking for a top six placement I feel that it is probably better to give greater emphasis to the results from the individual questions.
It should provide a lot of food for thought to those people who think Language Laboratories have no role to play in the teaching of languages. Maybe this explains why private language schools promote the use of Language Laboratories in their advertising. It is even more important when one realises that the main message of this survey is that students place great emphasis on the role of the teacher and yet a machine takes fourth place as a means to remembering language.
The main point from the rest of the top ten is yet again confirmation of the teacher's role and how the survey shows that the best results for this group of students are achieved when there is active teacher participation. Can it be assumed therefore that this would apply to all adult students?
19 students mentioned other techniques that helped them.
Listening to native speakers 1
Talking to English people 4
Giving presentation in class 1
Visiting somewhere together 1
Reading and underlining words 1
Recording long story by myself 1
Conversation 1
Translating from own language 1
Talking with friends after class 2
Seeing films 1
Reading books and magazines 2
Watching TV/with sub-titles 3
There was a contradiction on the last one where one student had said that watching videotapes did not help.
Summary
This survey seems to me, in many ways, to completely contradict the present so-called good teaching practises. I have to say that it has confirmed my own beliefs in what the role of the teacher is, based on my own experiences in the classroom and the relationship I have with the students I teach. It is a question now of whether the profession accepts these results or sets out to prove them to be wrong. Simple questions have produced simple results. I intend also to ask another institution to give the survey to their students to see what correlation there will be. Russell Crew-Gee
Apologies for some formatting problems. Website and Word playing games. :-)
STUDENT SURVEY
Name: Nationality: Level: Total time learning English:
We are interested in trying to find out which techniques used by teachers in the classroom help you the most to REMEMBER English so that you can understand, speak and write and so learn the language. PLEASE DO NOT READ THROUGH, RESPOND INSTANTLY TO EACH QUESTION AND TICK THE ANSWER WHICH IS BEST FOR YOU. (PERCENTAGES HAVE BEEN ADJUSTED, WHEN OVER 15%, WHERE STUDENTS HAVE NOT EXPERIENCED THE TECHNIQUE, TO THE TOTAL HAVING EXPERIENCE. )
What helps you best to REMEMBER English :-
1 Pairwork -- one student working with one student.
Have never experienced this. 1%
Works Very badly 2%
Fairly well 27%
Well 42% Percentage difference on average -1%
Very well 22%
Extremely well 6%
2 Groupwork -- students working in small groups.
Have never experienced this. 3%
Works Very badly 4%
Fairly well 29%
Well 41% Percentage difference on average-10%
Very well 20%
Extremely well 3%
3 Groupwork --- teacher and students working together as one group.
Have never experienced this. 14%
Works Very badly 0
Fairly well 12%
Well 34% Percentage difference on average +28%
Very well 33%
Extremely well 7%
4 Groupwork --- students working as one group without the teacher.
Have never experienced this. 16%
Works Very badly 11%
Fairly well 29%
Well 35% Percentage difference on average -31%
Very well 7%
Extremely well 2% 5
5 Teacher to class --- teacher explaining language to all the class.
Have never experienced this. 0
Works Very badly 0%
Fairly well 10%
Well 32% Percentage difference on average +48%
Very well 40%
Extremely well 18%
6 Teacher to student --- teacher explaining language to individual student.
Have never experienced this. 9%
Works Very badly 1%
Fairly well 6%
Well 30% Percentage difference on average +47%
Very well 29%
Extremely well 25%
7 Student to student ---- student explaining language to student.
Have never experienced this. 4%
Works Very badly 10%
Fairly well 33%
Well 36% Percentage difference on average -27%
Very well 12%
Extremely well 5%
8 Teacher correcting your mistakes.
Have never experienced this. 2%
Works Very badly 0%
Fairly well 9%
Well 19% Percentage difference on average +61%
Very well 36%
Extremely well 34%
9 Homework, working alone at home.
Have never experienced this. 0
Works Very badly 2%
Fairly well 9%
Well 43% Percentage difference on average +35%
Very well 33%
Extremely well 13%
10 Language Laboratory ---recording and listening to your speaking.
Have never experienced this 29%
Works Very badly 2%
Fairly well 7% Adjusted figure
Well 16% Percentage difference on average +53%
Very well 28%
Extremely well 17%
11 Teacher using tape recorder for listening comprehension.
Have never experienced this. 3%
Works Very badly 2%
Fairly well 5%
Well 32% Percentage difference on average +21%
Very well 19%
Extremely well 9%
12 Students using tape recorder for listening for comprehension.
Have never experienced this. 35%
Works Very badly 0
Fairly well 9% Adjusted figure
Well 28% Percentage difference on average +30%
Very well 17%
Extremely well 11%
13 Watching video tapes for comprehension.
Have never experienced this. 30%
Works Very badly 1%
Fairly well 12% Adjusted figure
Well 27% Percentage difference on average +25%
Very well 21%
Extremely well 9%
14 Grammar explanation from teacher.
Have never experienced this. 0
Works Very badly 0
Fairly well 5%
Well 28% Percentage difference on average +58%
Very well 41%
Extremely well 22%
15 Grammar analysed by yourself.
Have never experienced this. 11%
Works Very badly 4%
Fairly well 23%
Well 34% Percentage difference on average +1%
Very well 21%
Extremely well 7%
16 Vocabulary explained by teacher.
Have never experienced this. 0
Works Very badly 0
Fairly well 3%
Well 25% Percentage difference on average +69%
Very well 39%
Extremely well 33%
17 Vocabulary explained by dictionary.
Have never experienced this. 0
Works Very badly 2%
Fairly well ` 13%
Well 35% Percentage difference on average +35%
Very well 44%
Extremely well 6%
18 Using a course-book.
Have never experienced this. 0
Works Very badly 6%
Fairly well 20%
Well 45% Percentage difference on average +3%
Very well 23%
Extremely well 6%
19 Using material provided by teacher.
Have never experienced this. 0
Works Very badly 2%
Fairly well 10%
Well 33% Percentage difference on average +43%
Very well 34%
Extremely well 21%
20 Reading aloud and being corrected by the teacher.
Have never experienced this. 12%
Works Very badly 0
Fairly well 14%
Well 25% Percentage difference on average +36%
Very well 32%
Extremely well 18%
21 Using a computer program.
Have never experienced this. 58%
Works Very badly 4%
Fairly well 4% Adjusted figure
Well 18% Percentage difference on average +21%
Very well 11%
Extremely well 6%
22 Using the internet.
Have never experienced this. 52%
Works Very badly 2%
Fairly well 7% Adjusted figure
Well 21% Percentage difference on average +18%
Very well 13%
Extremely well 5%
23 Using a Self Access Centre.
Have never experienced this. 36%
Works Very badly 5%
Fairly well 12% Adjusted figure
Well 21% Percentage difference on average +16%
Very well 18%
Extremely well 9%
24 Free lessons. ---Teaching, talks, lectures etc.
Have never experienced this. 15%
Works Very badly 3%
Fairly well 12%
Well 22% Percentage difference on average +33%
Very well 32%
Extremely well 16%
25 Teacher using whiteboard
Have never experienced this. 3%
Works Very badly 0
Fairly well 7%
Well 22% Percentage difference on average +61%
Very well 49%
Extremely well 19%
26 Teacher using overhead projector.
Have never experienced this. 23%
Works Very badly 6%
Fairly well 12% Adjusted figure
Well 35% Percentage difference on average +8%
Very well 18%
Extremely well 6%
27 Playing language games.
Have never experienced this. 17%
Works Very badly 5%
Fairly well 15%
Well 34% Percentage difference on average +11%
Very well 16%
Extremely well 13%
28 Role play.
Have never experienced this. 26%
Works Very badly 3%
Fairly well 19%
Well 27% Percentage difference on average +3%
Very well 15%
Extremely well 10%
29 Teacher talking ----conversations with different students, telling stories, etc.
Have never experienced this. 11%
Works Very badly 0
Fairly well 17%
Well 28% Percentage difference on average+27
Very well 31%
Extremely well 13%
Any other technique that has helped you:-
19 students mentioned other techniques that helped them.
Listening to native speakers 1
Talking to English people 4
Giving presentation in class 1
Visiting somewhere together 1
Reading and underlining words 1
Recording long story by myself 1
Translating from own language 1
Talking with friends after class 2
Seeing films 1
Reading books and magazines 2
Watching TV/with sub-titles 3
There was a contradiction on the last one where one student had said that watching videotapes did not help.
How important do you think a teacher's personality is in helping you to remember English?
How important do you think a teacher's personality is in helping you to remember English?
Not important 0%
Fairly important 2%
Important 16% Percentage above average +80%
Very important 41%
Extremely important 41%
How important do you think grammar explanation is?
Not important 2%
Fairly important 3%
Important 26% Percentage above average +64% Very important 40%
Extremely important 29%
Do you think it is important for teachers to correct your speaking mistakes when you make them.
Not important 0
Fairly important 1%
Important 11% Percentage above average +86%
Very important 25%
Extremely important 62%
TO THE TEACHER.
As mentioned at the staff meeting I am carrying out a survey of teaching techniques used by teachers to present material to students. The emphasis is on REMEMBERING new language. I would be grateful if you could read the instructions before handing out the questionnaire and help with any explanation of any question that your students do not understand. However it is important that you do not lead students in answering the question when giving an explanation. You could if you want, do each question individually with them, this would control the time they take to do it and ensure that each question is answered without them reading ahead.
Please emphasis the REMEMBERING aspect of the survey, as opposed to LEARNING.
Could you also give any apologies to any students who are not happy about doing the survey and explain that it will be very helpful to us in the future, so we would be very grateful for their help.
If you should think of any technique we have not mentioned which you think is very important you could perhaps suggest it to the students and they could add it to the section on any other techniques.
Thank you VERY much for your help.
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An aspect I did not comment on at the time is that the results are also showing that it shows there are many different styles of learning at play since there is a range of answers. which makes perfect sense because we humans come in many different physical abilities.
It is also worth mentioning that it is only 100 people since I am sure this is an aspect would be picked up in any criticism. However there is no reason why the same results would probably apply in any one particular cohort who had experienced the same learning experience at the University at the time.
It would be interesting to follow up with exploring how the results could be used to enhance and create learning environments which stimulate memory.
I BELIEVE IF THE INTERNET AND SMARTPHONES HAD BEEN AROUND TO THE EXTENT THEY ARE AVAILABLE TODAY THE 52% OF STUDENTS WHO HAD NEVER USED THE INTERNET WOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT AND THE QUESTION WOULD HAVE BEEN MORE SPECIFIC AS TO WHICH FORMS OF INTERNET USAGE, THE BERLITZERS OF TODAY, DUOLINGO AND THE MULTITUDE OF ADVERTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA. NOT FORGETTING OF COURSE THE ADVENT OF AI, WOULD HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN THE SURVEY.
WHO KNOWS WHERE SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING WILL BE IN THE FUTURE, LET ALONE OTHER SUBJECTS, FOR I HAVE RECENTLY DISCOVERED APPLICATIONS LIKE "ANTON" WHICH PROVIDES SELF-LEARNING LESSONS FOR MANY DIFFERENT LEVELS AND AGES.