Sine nomine
I go to leave a comment on the most recent open thread, and it’s closed…
"This is the Voice of Moderation. I wouldn't go so far as to say we've actually SEIZED the radio station . . . "
"This is the Voice of Moderation. I wouldn't go so far as to say we've actually SEIZED the radio station . . . "
Sine nomine
I go to leave a comment on the most recent open thread, and it’s closed…
every prompt or set of instructions is going to cause confusion
I’m teaching MFL and there’s been a lot of pressure to teach in the target language. Initially I tried to toe the line and sometimes issued instructions in the TL. I was disabused of this notion when I found out that around 50% of the pupils had issues following instructions on English.
To be fair, I’m not very good at setting up and explaining games and stuff like that.
What it comes down to is this: the ways that people learn best differ.
Some people absorb information best by reading. (We tend to do well academically as a result.) Other people learn best by listening. Could be identical words to reading something themselves; the channel still makes a significant difference.
For learning to do something physical, the same applies. You still have that dichotomy. But you now also have people who learn best by seeing someone else go thru the motions. And other people who do best by going thru the motions themselves, even if the teacher has hold of their hands, arms, etc. and is guiding those motions.
It is probably unfortunate that the people who design our school curriculums, and who create directions for stuff (whether for filling out government forms or for running stuff you bought for your own use) are almost universally from the “learn by reading” segment of the population. (And yes, that does include the authors of nearly incomprehensible directions for software.) They frequently aren’t even aware of the phenomena. And, as a result, exclaim “RTFM!” regularly as a result. (Guilty as charged.)
Fortunately that doesn’t apply to MFL teaching in the UK but the subject is unique because of its performative aspect. Sometimes, howver, I envy English teachers with their quiet classrooms, when I’m doing my all singing, all dancing MFL skit..
Oooo, teaching in the target language. It’s one of those things that seems like such a good idea but is focussing on the teacher rather than on what the student does and is therefore destined to fail.
Here in Japan, you get students who just wait the teacher out for a Japanese explanation and if you have enough of them, it can be agonizing.. It also reinforces that native/non-native divide, and I’ve had folks (both Japanese and non-Japanese) argue with a straight face that the native (i.e. native English speaking teacher) should NOT learn any Japanese, so as to be this rock of immovable language that the students run into over and over. Sigh…
I’ve just discovered that the video/song I linked, Remember Obama by Hounds, is actually written by someone called Seth Abramson, and the music (performance, at any rate) and voice are generated by AI. I don’t care, particularly since a person (apparently he’s a poet among other things) wrote the lyrics. Anybody else’s MMV. Particularly if they have something against Seth Abramson, of whom I had never previously heard!