In Greece most courses are certificate oriented and listening and speaking skills have been neglected.
I happen to know teachers who asked their students to memorize whole paragraphs (about themselves, about the area they live in, sports, smoking, environment, etc) in order to help them pass the speaking test for FCE or CPE. In some occasions I asked my students during a speaking test: “Hello, what’s your name?” and they started telling me a whole paragraph they had memorized: “Hello, my name is Mary. I come from Sitia, Crete. Sitia is a seaside town on the east coast of Crete with kind and generous people…” Then the next student came in : “My name is Helen I am from Sitia….” When I asked them, they said that their teacher had written some paragraphs, one for every occasion so that they would manage to pass their speaking test. I told them that I could not give the pass grade since they couldn’t actually communicate. Instead of devoting time and effort trying to learn by heart whole paragraphs, they could have practised the language.
Things are now improving and I hope we'll manage to change the teachers' the students' and their parents attitude towards English languafe lwarning.
Angela, I'm not surprised that some teachers get their students to memorize paragraphs, teachers used the same method in Georgia in the past, not any more. Our modern program standards pay equal attention to developing all the four skills, but it's not enough. We also need(I mean in all countries) motivated teachers to try all the possible ways for teaching especially listening which is the weakest point. I know very soon there will be more teachers using computers in teaching, Students are getting more and more qualified and we have to be ready .
ReplyDeleteAngela~ Nice post about teaching to the test. This can unfortunately take away any or all of the fun or adventure in learning, in my opinion. About the colors on your blog, my old eyes find the need to have contrasting colors. In your last post it looks like gray letters on black background and is hard for me to read. Could you use high contrasts, please, such as white on black (like you did earlier). Thanks!
ReplyDelete~Robert
Hello Angela,
ReplyDeleteHow familiar it is for me the things you mention in your blog where students do not practise their speaking skills but learn the information by heart.
I remember myself back to my university life where we had teachers who were taught themselves in the way they taught us. With all respect to them, I could not agree with them with the methods they used. They asked us to learn the stories by heart, paragraphs and poems. To be frank, I learned them and retold them for the grades I had to receive because otherwise I could be expelled from the university for not following the rules.
Today when I have a great chance to teach my students and share my own expertise with them, I never use the same strategy but look for innovative methods to help them better.
Regards,
Yuriy