It seems to be de rigeur to base all Spanish lessons on grammar. I guess it’s not surprising. Structurally speaking, Spanish has a lot in common with Latin, so I guess it inherited the old fixation on grammar.
I listened to some Spanish instruction podcasts this week and found a good deal of the same fixation. Another issue I found in the podcasts was the focus on things like ‘stuff you’d find in the kitchen’, or ‘drinks’, or ‘clothing’. This makes for horrendously boring and irrelevant lessons. To make lessons engaging you need a predicate/verb, and a situation. Lists of words have none. Situations are inherently interesting, lists aren’t. Nor does the list enable a conversational flow in the target language, a serious no no. And as if this weren’t enough, the need to fill the list leaves the instructor oblivious to frequency of the items, so he piles in with anything you might find in a kitchen. But does the newbie Spanish learner really need to know how to say strainer or cheese grater?
I think there’s room for some fresh ideas in the realms of Spanish instruction.
Ken carroll
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Ken, I’m not so sure that basing every lesson on “predicate/verb situation” makes for interesting lessons either. Surely putting vocabulary within a context and equipping learners with a range of options to enable them to say what they want to say will encourage them to have more ownership of what they’re learning and thereby improve and achieve more?
I’m not sure at the end of the day if you’ve listened to single episodes of the podcasts to which you’re referring, or if you’ve been following the “competition” regularly. If you have been looking at multiple episodes then you may find that there is a bigger picture. Certainly with Coffee Break Spanish we try to introduce elements of grammar on a very gradual basis, and always in context. And this seems to work, according to our listeners’ feedback.
Given that you refer to “drinks” I’m assuming you have listened to this week’s lesson in its entirety, and that you will indeed have heard a (hopefully inherently interesting) situation in which some of the items of vocabulary are rehearsed. It’s not my place to comment on other Spanish podcasts, but I’ll certainly stick up for my own!
Mark,
I didn’t actually have Coffeebreak in mind here! I think you do a very good job over there. I can’t say the same for many of the others, however – just my opinion, of course.
There are some pretty boring podcasts out here but Coffeebreak Spanish is not one of them. I will listen to your show in more detail over the weekend.
The general level of quality material for learning Spanish on the web is very poor. I guess this was my general point.
Ken Carroll
The problem with discussions about grammar in lessons is that grammar can mean so many different things.
Grammar should be delivered when it is wanted (no I didn’t say needed), and should not be presented as a principle to be learned, but rather as an explanation that will demystify what has been encountered.
If you don’t want people to memorise stock phrases and use only them, then you have to facilitate the production of sentences, somehow. A good way to do that is not with grammar lessons to learn, but with helpful insights into the patterns of the language and their scope.
The scope of applicability of a pattern is very important. Without it you’re tied to known phrases. With it you have a little controlled risk zone that you can move into and try something on your own, based on what you know but not quite the same as anything you’ve heard before.
For example, imagine that you’re starting an unknown language and you learn “We like the teacher.” Then, which of these can you do?
We hear the teacher.
We like the hairdresser.
The teacher likes us.
The teacher and I like the hairdresser.
Yesterday I heard the teacher.
The hairdresser likes to hear the teacher.
What is the teacher like?
The teacher and the hairdresser like cats.
Depending on your own language and the studied language, only some of these would be tried, and only some would get you a correct sentence. The student doesn’t need to know how to form each one, and certainly not to be tested on the grammatical principles behind them, but students do need to know ASAP what the scope of that pattern is. When you can’t do something that you could do in your own language, it comes as a shock and requires some debriefing, preferably before the student is shamed by falling into the trap. Giving the scope is enough, point out the no-go zones, then it doesn’t all have to be explained.
Traditional grammar lessons have provided that scoping, but at a pedagogical cost we no longer want to pay. If you can simply let people know how widely they can apply what was learned, while warning which types of sentences use a different (unknown) pattern, you’ve facilitated practice and ownership of the language by providing a clear scope. Some people call that “learning grammar”, and some don’t.
I’m more inclined to reclaim “grammar” as a good word, and be proud of grammar that’s taught and learned the modern way. What I’m referring to includes the grammar that is taught, for example, in every ChinesePod podcast. Yes they all have a bit of it. It’s just taught in a way that makes it a gift instead of a chore. If a student has no idea what a predicate is but will notice when a sentence is constructed strangely, and can readily create novel sentences, to my mind that is grammar, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Aunty,
I think you’ve made a number of compelling points here. I agree that we should reclaim grammar and present it as a gift rather than a chore.
This is a very well written passage, with an almost literary feel to it: ‘Traditional grammar lessons have provided that scoping, but at a pedagogical cost we no longer want to pay.’
I like that sentence for a number of reasons, not least of which is the poetry!
Ken