Roy's Blog

I think it is difficult for teachers to develop students' interest in vocabulary learning because there are simply tons of words that students need to learn. Some schools require students to learn new words from a word list and the list usually contains around 60 words per chapter. Students instantly think that they cannot do it, especially when your students are not motivated. I try to revise the words with students using as many ways of possible, including running dictations, Kahoot games, etc. Students especially enjoy games as they didn't know that they are doing revision through playing these games I think I should also try to break the word lists into smaller parts as well so that students may think that it is more manageable for them to do revision.

My students are too afraid of making mistakes. The atmosphere is very tense when I ask them to speak. However, I think teachers are entirely responsible for this because students are afraid of making mistakes because of the constant corrections from teachers. I think it is important for students to get a chance to speak freely in class. If the goal of such a task is not accuracy, teachers don't need to correct the students' mistakes. What teachers can do instead is to ask them to clarify their meanings so that students know how to express their opinions/ minds clearly. Communicative activities are useful to encourage students to speak and use the language in a fun way. The goal is to improve fluency. We can drill the students for accuracy in other forms of tasks, such as grammar exercises.

I believe the focus of grammar teaching in HK is mainly on accuracy. Therefore, teachers spend a lot of time on drilling. However, not as much focus was put on the meaning and communicative functions of the form. Students don’t really have an idea of when to use certain grammatical items. That’s why they continue to make grammatical mistakes in their speaking and writing as they are no aware of the context. In primary school, language meaning and communicative functions are often ignored. It may be difficult for students to move on to secondary school as language functions and meaning are becoming important as they may need to use the grammatical items in writing and speaking in different contexts.

I believe students don't need to memorise the grammar rules but they should have a rough idea on when to use a particular grammar items. By that I mean they should know it but they don't need to be able to tell me with the exact words as in the grammar book. I think just because you are able to recite the rules doesn't mean you can use the grammatical items coorectly. I think that drills are useful in teaching grammar in a sense that it can help with the accuracy of students using that grammar items. It may not be useful for improving the fluency of students using that grammar items though. Therefore, I think it depends on what your goal is when it comes to drilling. For instance, I think the most common "gap-filling" exercises are not very effective in improving the fluency of students but may be helpful in helping with their accuracy - to help them focus on the form of the grammar item. I think whether or not to use deductive or inductive approach depends on...

When I was a student in secondary school, my teacher always used the PPP method. They presented the form and the usage of the target grammar item and then we would do lots of drilling, finishing all the exercises in the grammar book, and also had some quizzes. They always told us some vague grammar rules like the difference between using present continuous tense, simple future tense, and be going to. Therefore, I didn't really enjoy the process. I think this way of teaching makes students (at least it is boring for me) lose interest in learning grammar. However, when I am a teacher now, I found it difficult to strike a balance between getting the correct form and conveying the meaning.

I think L2 teaching methodologies are not entirely science. First, I do agree that the researches of L2 teaching methodologies adopt a rather scientific approach. the selection of participants, a controlled group, and even the analysis of data are very much like a science experiment. Moreover, the design of the research methodology and the analysis require meticulous mind. For this reason, I think L2 teaching methodologies are the results of "scientific" research. However, I believe science is indisputable truth, at least not yet refuted until now. If we are looking at whether or not L2 teaching methodologies are science or not, i think we ought to be looking at whether or not it is indisputable. Of course, we cannot say the methodology doesn't exist. Yet, I don't think there is any way to prove the methodology wrong. I believe there's no one methodology that is better than the other. Thus, I don't think L2 methodologies are science.