'Pop' and the Art of Language Teaching

[Francis M Hult]

'Pop' and the Art of Language Teaching

Tan Tarn How
The Straits Times (Singapore)
Feb. 28, 2004
Singapore

THINKING ALOUD

CHINESE-LANGUAGE teachers,it seems to me, have a much
harder time of it than their English-language counterparts.

The reason is simple.

For many students, Chinese is a dead language.

To them, it is nothing more than a subject they have to
learn - painfully - at school.

It is not something they use outside the classroom for
conversations with their classmates, with their family and
friends, or with strangers.

They don't read it, unless made to, and they don't write it,
unless under similar forced circumstances.

Learning Chinese is for them like learning Latin, a disused
tongue.

It is extremely hard to pick up a language, not to say
master it, without constant exposure and use.

I am reminded of this as I am now learning, or more
accurately trying to learn, Japanese.

It is a slow plod because, besides the three hours a week
in the class, I have almost no other contact with the
language. It is also a dead language for me.

What we know as common sense has been proven by rigorous
research.

Take for example a mid-1990s study by the United States
Education Department, the counterpart of the Education
Ministry here, which looked at what would work when
teaching a second language through immersion in Canadian
and American schools.

One of its conclusions: 'Language is acquired most
effectively when it is learnt for communication in
meaningful and significant social situations.'

Not being used in meaningful and significant social
situations - its deadness - is the most important stumbling
block to learning that should be studied by the government-
appointed panel now reviewing how Chinese is being taught
in the schools.

What can be done?

One way would be to increase the curriculum time in which
Chinese is used. If a student is already good at English,
why not have him learn chemistry or biology or history in
Chinese, or a combination of both languages?

The same report quoted above says: 'The first lesson to be
learnt from immersion is that when second language
instruction is integrated with instruction in academic
content, it is more effective than teaching the language in
isolation.'

Another solution would be: Make the Chinese lessons
interesting.

A pat answer that then begs the question of what is
'interesting'.

A narrow definition would be to have good teachers that can
bring some fun to the lessons.

All of us who have been lucky to have had our passion for a
subject awakened by a wonderful teacher - like I owe my
love of literature to my Secondary 3 teacher Shirley Lim -
know this is of tremendous help.

The more important and wider definition of 'interesting'
would be to make Chinese a live language.

What needs to be done is for connections to be made between
the subject as taught in class and the things that are
happening in the life of students.

To find out what is interesting to students, we only need
to look at their interests.

What do they like to do?

They watch television and movies, they listen to music,
they spend money shopping, they surf the Net, and they
(hopefully) read, whether Harry Potter, manga (comics) or
entertainment magazines.

(Some of course read Tang poetry or Confucius' Analects in
classical Chinese, but we can safely say that they don't
need help.)

The truth is that for the bulk of students - even for those
who are good in Chinese - these activities are carried out
mostly using the English language.

The challenge for teachers is to get the students to do
these interesting things using Chinese instead.

Lecturing them to do so won't do any good, as most parents
who try realise soon enough.

Instead, the teacher will have to show in the classroom
that it is possible to pursue these hobbies using Chinese.

And he will have to spend curriculum time on talking about,
reading about and writing about Lord Of The Rings (book and
movie, preferably in the Chinese versions), Home In Toa
Payoh television series, 5566 and David Tao, and mobile
phone models and their specifications.

It may mean using the Chinese version of Harry Potter as
textbook.

There will be resistance, of course, from teachers for
instance.

For this group, it will mean extra work, keeping up with
the trends among their young charges. But they can make
their work easier by, say, forming a network, via the
Internet, perhaps, to exchange materials.

Another group are the teachers and non-teachers who won't
want 'pop' to enter the classroom because they see the
Chinese language as the medium for the transmission of
traditional culture.

To these people, I can only say that the baggage they have
foisted on Chinese is the very reason that Chinese is dead
for many students.

Yes, they are right, Tang poetry is beautiful and ought to
be appreciated by every Chinese language student.

But is it not better to let the child come willingly to it
then have it forced down her throat?

I remember the story I heard a few years ago when the Vicki
Zhao television serial My Fair Princess was all the rage.

In one school, some of the students had sneaked in the
cartoon book series of the story, based on the Qiong Yao
book.

Instead of commending the student for reading a Chinese
book, and then going on to introduce her to the Qiong Yao
original, or to use the serial as a starting point for an
interesting lesson, the teacher promptly confiscated the
item.

What a great opportunity lost.

*****
>>From the Language Policy Research Unit News Archive
http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/LPRU/newsarchive/