Re: aaleks's log
Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2020 5:10 pm
del.
We talk languages
http://forum.language-learners.org/
http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=6724
(I didn't want to post a too long quote, but the whole post was very informative)aaleks wrote: ...The story I'm going to tell happened about a year and a half later. At that time I wasn't so scared of writing in English anymore. I didn't feel really confident but I was moving in that direction, so to speak. That was probably why I got myself in a potentially harmful situation. Language-learning-wise harmful, of course. I won't tell the whole story, I'm not sure if it really matters or not. (It happened two years ago). Anyway, at some point of some discussion on efl.ru another user wrote this to me:
"alanta, try to avoid starting your sentences with Because and And.
Your writing is ok in general. There are some minor mistakes and slips but it’s not the issue. The main trouble is that it has totally Russian syntax and rather big problems with composition. I could say that those are the aspects you should pay more attention."
(alanta is me )
IMO, this text is a great example of a mean remark, among other things, because it was disguised as advice. Unsolicited advice. I wasn't asking how I could improve my writing or anything like that. I was asking a quite specific question about a quite particular phrase. But this text not only didn't answer my question, it didn't provide any helpful information at all.
...
Thus, "your writing has totally Russian syntax" is just a fancy way to say that I write in Runglish. And this is the worst possible insult for a native Russian speaker learning English. And then she says that I should pay more attention to this and that's it. No examples, no practical advice. The person who wrote that mean post is a teacher/tutor of English (but she's a native speaker of Russian, not English), so she's kind of supposed to know how to deal with this, how I could improve my English, etc. If I really had "totally Russian syntax", trying to improve that with paying more attention would be like putting a plaster on gangrene.
Basically, that person said that I'd achieved nothing. This was the point, especially in the context of the whole story that started when I disagreed that C2 was a native-like level, and then tried to prove that one could learn a language without teachers.
...But sometimes I recall those words about "totally Russian syntax" and that makes me self-conscious about my writing. Recently I left efl.ru, maybe it'll help (?) . ...
Caromarlyse wrote:Interesting discussion! In my opinion, both getting corrections and finding good teaching gets harder at the higher levels.
For corrections, it's no longer a question of the easy fixes, that is, where a grammar point hasn't been fully understood or internalised, you can easily point to the offending text, say it's wrong and why, and what you should write instead. Instead the "mistakes" are more along the lines either of something not sounding quite right, or of you formulating something in a way that works in your nature language/culture but doesn't translate well so needs to be completely rethought/rewritten.
Asking a group of people online to help there often doesn't help, either because they "correct" so it sounds right but doesn't make the right point, or because you're in the realm of native speakers from different countries/regions preferring different formulations, or you're at such a high level that not all native speakers have sufficient education (or knowledge of the particular field in question) to keep up . Even teachers are often not great in my experience. Where I've seen corrections work really well at a high level is within a work context - I think this shows that you really need someone prepared to engage with the content of what you are producing.
How you replicate this when you're not working in your TL country, I don't know! For what it's worth, I don't see any issues with your syntax either and saw problems in and with the comments you received. (I'm sure I've got loads of work in front of me trying to make my Russian sound more Russian - I think I saw on that forum some comment about the stupidity of using an English word order in Russian, which is definitely something I do at the moment...)
For teaching at the higher levels, I agree with what Cavesa says (here and on the subreddit): you need some explicit instruction and correction in order to make improvements, and if you're not getting that, you may as well focus on getting massive input and output on your own. The study linked to containing the "four strands of an ideal language course" seemed quite targeted to the early stages of language learning.
Yes, the teachers still haven't understood that the best of their students are the best exactly because of lots of extra work, not superior intelligence or a better connection between the teacher and student. The better results of the English learners overall are due to superior motivation and superior amount and quality of extraclass resources, not to the quality of teaching (the person even glorified the CELTA far too much. Really,this is a huge attitude problem. Assuming a successful learner knows less than someone with a short teaching course, that is delusional).Even accepting the study's recommendations (effectively that you should have intensive input, intensive output, some explicit study of grammar/vocab/pronunciation, and work on developing fluency) as accurate, it doesn't give a great deal of guidance of how that should ideally translate into language instruction. It doesn't cover how much, if any, of this should be done outside teaching time. It doesn't cover how/if the teacher is to provide input.
The commentator seemed to dislike the idea of teacher instruction, but to me instruction includes, for example, the teacher introducing new vocab/collocations/synonyms/natural ways of expressing ideas in the TL and allowing for practice/reinforcement of that material. I don't think the study recommendations would preclude that (it could fall within 1, 3 and probably 4 also), but I haven't yet found a teacher at the C levels who is willing and/or able to do this in a structured way. The study also stressed how much of the teacher's role is planning, including finding/suggesting suitable materials. Again, I wouldn't disagree, but I don't see it happening - I've had teachers I've approached either preparing nothing at all and effectively winging it, or giving me low intermediate level material as a starting point for conversation (which, yes, I can talk about and it does stimulate conversation to an extent, but pushing me, allowing me to grow? Not so much). Even the institut français in an C1 course gave out vocab lists from a UK A level list (which equates to a B1 level in my view, early B2 at a push). I get that as a teacher you have to have a bit of a formula to follow, but there is scope for improvement on what elements make up that formula.