Page 26 - ELG1711 Nov Issue 452

COMMENT . FEATURES & COMMENT

had more in common with miasma theory Dylan Wiliam’s work on formative assessment OUT
and should really have been consigned to the was often implemented in a way that had very OF THE
Point pedagogical dustbin of history long ago, but yet little impact on student achievement and a
huge impact on teacher workload.
they still persist. Why is this?
In their book Inside Outside: Teacher Research
Of course, teachers should be aware that
of View and Knowledge, Marilyn Cochran-Smith and research can only tell you what has worked in BOX
the past and not necessarily what will work in
Susan L. Lytle outline a fundamental problem
Carl with our profession. They explain that there the future. Trying to implement research in the
classroom is a bit like looking in the rear-view
has been an outside-in model of knowledge
Hendrick creation about what effective teaching is, and mirror while trying to drive the car forward. Don’t stay
a top-down model of school improvement. Just because a particular intervention proved
Teachers, they claim, have effectively been to be effective with a group of undergraduate consonantally
Beware the pong constitutes good practice, and in research Many beliefs about challenged
passive participants in the process of what
psychology students in California, that doesn’t
terms have traditionally been mere ‘objects of
study’.
learning should really
of debunked improving practice has been conducted ‘almost the pedagogical dustbin Many varieties of English lack some of the
The research used as the foundation for
have been consigned to
exclusively by university-based researchers
who are outside of the day-to-day practice of
theories schooling’, they say. of history long ago consonantal sounds of RP, but it’s crucial
In a very real sense, teachers have been
to teach them all, says Peter Trudgill
given answers to questions they didn’t ask
and solutions to problems that never existed.
For example, take the problem of how to mean the same approach will work with a
plan lesson content to match the individual group of thirteen-year-old Korean students on Non-native learners using if native-speaker mutual
Much education research can be inaccessible from ‘learning style’ of students. It is an undertaking a cold November morning in Seoul. English as a model are normally intelligibility is assured with
taught Received Pronunciation
However, what we are finding out is that
now proved to have been a waste of time
nineteen consonants, the same
the classroom, but used effectively the good stuff trying to solve and a sad indictment of how children are often more similar than they are (RP), and encouraged to master will be true of non-natives, and
reduce the number we teach
much time and energy has been expended
RP phonological contrasts.
different in how they learn, retain and use
can set you free, writes Carl Hendrick on approaches with little to no evidence to knowledge. What we are now beginning to Modern RP has twenty-four accordingly?
support them. gather is a series of ‘best bets’ about effective consonants, but several other In fact, this would not be a
Much research in education is often practice in the classroom. These ‘best bets’ accents have many fewer. good idea at all. It’s true that
he gap between education research In trying to do this in the classroom, published in obscure journals, inaccessible should be part of the arsenal of every teacher For example, accents in the non-natives are learner-speakers
and classroom practice is well teachers need the best resources to hand that to classroom teachers using obtuse and in how they plan effective teaching so they north-west of England lack who might prefer simpler
documented and has led to calls have been tried and tested. Yet erroneous unnecessarily complex language. One is can adapt and refine their practice according contrastive / / as in bang and pronunciation goals.
Tfor teachers to actively become beliefs about how students learn still abound reminded of George Orwell’s assertion that to the needs of their students. Many labour bank. ᵑ But they’re also learner-
researchers. and continue to have a profoundly detrimental there are some ideas so wrong that only a very under the misconception that education Many accents in England listeners.
But there is, of course, a world of difference effect on what happens in the classroom. intelligent person could believe in them. For research is merely the latest set of stone and Wales lack /h/, as do many And while listening in one’s
between doing research and using research. Before the middle of the nineteenth century, education research to have an impact where it tablets telling teachers how to teach. But forms of Caribbean English. native language is effortless,
A champion Formula 1 driver doesn’t need doctors believed that cholera was caused by matters most, it should be accessible, relevant when used judiciously, effective research is a The fricatives / / and / / listening in a second language
ᶞ
ᶿ
to know the intimate workings of an engine various unseen agents, including a mysterious and, above all, practicable. form of liberation that gives teachers a richer are absent from many varieties, can be frustratingly difficult.
in order to be a winner, any more than an miasma or ‘night air’ that could cause a whole Even where there has been good evidence, a vocabulary with which to navigate the complex corresponding to /t/ and /d/ Also, because of their lack
engineer needs to know how to drive the car. range of things, such as obesity, simply from key problem has been implementation of that language of the classroom. in some Caribbean and Irish of background knowledge
As the US psychologist Dan Willingham inhaling the smell of certain foods. In 1854 evidence. This usually manifests itself in a kind accents, and, increasingly, to /f/ and information about word-
said, there is a fundamental difference between John Snow posited a link between cholera and of ‘Chinese whispers’ effect, where researchers n Carl Hendrick is head of research at Wellington and /v/ in the speech of millions frequency and collocations,
what researchers do and what teachers do. contaminated water, a discovery that would produce high-quality research but by the College in Berkshire, UK and tweets @C_Hendrick. in England. non-natives are more dependent
Scientists are occupied with describing the save millions of lives and paved the way for a time it filters down to the classroom it’s a pale This article is adapted from the forthcoming book Some accents, like those of on phonological information
world, while educators, on the other hand, more evidence-based approach to health care. imitation of its original form, devoid of any ‘What Does This Look Like in the Classroom? the Bahamas, lack a contrast than native-speakers.
look to make something happen. Many beliefs about how learning happens have practical use. A good example of this is how Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice’ between /w/ and /v/. And the Ironically, however, they’re
English in Tristan da Cunha in often less able to make use of
the South Atlantic lacks this information because of the
/z, ʒ /, having /s/ in has, and /ʃ/ phenomenon of the ‘perceptual
in vision. foreign accent’.
So in different native-speaker If speakers can’t produce a
Englishes around the world, phonemic contrast, this reduces
seven of the RP consonants are their chances of hearing it.
missing, leaving a common core Work on teaching non-native
of seventeen. learners to produce vowel
A question therefore presents and consonant contrasts will
itself for EFL teachers: if native therefore also have benefits for
English speakers cope with, their comprehension.
say, nineteen consonants, how
justified are we in spending time
teaching all non-native learners, n Peter Trudgill is emeritus
regardless of their needs, all professor of English linguistics
twenty-four RP consonants? at the University of Fribourg,
Couldn’t we decide that, Switzerland.

26 November 2017 editorial@elgazette.com 27