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sister_luckI'm again battling cross rhymes and the dreaded lyrical I.
Sometime I question why our sixth form/high school English courses have to be so much about language analysis. I really enjoy doing Shakespeare and analysing public speeches or newspaper editorials, but what my students really need to learn is to use the English language confidently in an every-day context and in the business world. They go metaphor hunting in their German lessons anyway and while I have to make sure that they recognize the form of the Elizabethan sonnet, I'm not convinced that they're prepared for a telephone conversation in English that goes beyond booking a double room.
I make them do presentations in English, force them to speak English during groupwork (not always successfully) and of course, my classroom is mostly an English-only environment. At the end of the school year, they'll also be able to discuss problems of globalisation and genetic engineering, but I still doubt that this will help them in those situations when they're most likely to encounter English after school.
That said, I have absolutely no ambition of teaching Business English and I'm not qualified for that. I love it when my students passionately debate whether it's important to know who these people in the sonnets were or if it is of no consequence at all. I enjoy their discussions about the characters in the books we read and films we watch and when we talk about the American elections or immigrant life in Britain. Most of them are good at stating their opinions, developing their arguments and providing reasons for what they think. In a roundabout way, I hope that in a future business meeting they will be able to fall back on that and close the deal.
Sometime I question why our sixth form/high school English courses have to be so much about language analysis. I really enjoy doing Shakespeare and analysing public speeches or newspaper editorials, but what my students really need to learn is to use the English language confidently in an every-day context and in the business world. They go metaphor hunting in their German lessons anyway and while I have to make sure that they recognize the form of the Elizabethan sonnet, I'm not convinced that they're prepared for a telephone conversation in English that goes beyond booking a double room.
I make them do presentations in English, force them to speak English during groupwork (not always successfully) and of course, my classroom is mostly an English-only environment. At the end of the school year, they'll also be able to discuss problems of globalisation and genetic engineering, but I still doubt that this will help them in those situations when they're most likely to encounter English after school.
That said, I have absolutely no ambition of teaching Business English and I'm not qualified for that. I love it when my students passionately debate whether it's important to know who these people in the sonnets were or if it is of no consequence at all. I enjoy their discussions about the characters in the books we read and films we watch and when we talk about the American elections or immigrant life in Britain. Most of them are good at stating their opinions, developing their arguments and providing reasons for what they think. In a roundabout way, I hope that in a future business meeting they will be able to fall back on that and close the deal.
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-06 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-07 11:23 am (UTC)Well, at least he is one of the pupils who did get instructions in a foreign language, which seems to be becoming unusual in the UK. From what I remember of my time as a language assistant at UK schools, the GCSE courses emphasize practical speaking skills, but later it becomes much more academic.
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Date: 2008-09-07 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-08 03:38 pm (UTC)*giggles*
Is that your attempt at English with German word order? I'm glad that none of my (current) students speak like that, though I had one last year who did stuff like that all the time. *headdesk*