Gattegno Pedagogy Discussion Forum

Hello Roslyn, Glenys and everyone,

Roslyn, thank you for your response and addition to my message.  I can see that Glenys made on-line exercises which help English learners create know-hows. I have been thinking about my students and lessons; how I can help them acquire know-hows. Reporting what my students and I have done may give me chances to get some comments and advice from you. To share my idea, I will pick up one example. So, that I can discuss specific things happened in class.   

I started to teach the most basic level class three weeks ago. My nine students are in their twenties and they are would-be welders, painters, pipe fitters etc. for ship repair. For the first 2 days I closely observed their work to find out where they were in their English learning, and decided to put our textbooks aside and work on something more basic. (We are supposed to use textbooks and I have no control to change or stop using them.)  They know grammar terms such as nouns,verbs, adjectives, even infinitives, but have only vague ideas about what exactly those are and how they work. The students have a lot of printed information such as the table of pronouns (I, my, me, mine etc.), but those things don’t come out of their mouths correctly or automatically. They made sentences like “Is he will come?” “He give the books to their.”  The result of observation reminded me of Roslyn’ s line; “All the knowledge in the world is perfectly useless when it comes to actually using the language spontaneously, when one doesn’t have time to think and recite the rule.” 

   First we started with 4 verb tenses, because most of the students’ problems were related to them; “I study English everyday. I’m studying E now/at this moment. I studied E yesterday. I was studying E yesterday from 8:15 to 11:55 yesterday.” Students practiced each tense through talking about themselves. After one student’s talk, the rest retold what the student said by using ‘he’, ‘they’ etc. That made them aware of verb-subject agreements. They tried negative sentences and simple questions. They started to pay more attention to word orders. Some students started to correct themselves after their utterance with a little pause. Some started to help other students who made mistakes. They became able to handle be-verbs and do/does/did. (That was what I thought.) They tried WH questions and answered each other questions. After spending 3 hours or so, we went back to the textbook and studied ‘because.’ Then I asked them to write some dialogues in the areas we practiced. It meant the combination of ‘because’ and 4 verb tenses, plus ‘will’ and ‘be going to’ if they like because they had practiced them before. One of the students, Hiro wrote the followings.

1.

“What does he study English everyday?”

“Yes, he does study English, because he want to speak English.”

2.

“What will he go restaurant?”

“Yes, he will go restaurant, because he is very hangry.”

3.

“What did he buy a car yesterday?”

“No, he didn’t buy a car, because it’s very expensived.”

4.

“What does she going to job today?”

“No, she does not going to job, because she is getting holidays.”

5.

“What is he climbing to mountain tomorrow?”

“Yes, he is climbing to mountain, because he is very liking to mountain.”

He has multiple problems; One of them drew my attention. 1. “… he does study English.” In our practice, he often said, ‘I did go. / He does know it.’ I was wondering why. In the writing, I found that he may have followed how ‘did’ and ‘will’ are used in negative and question sentences. “… did he buy a car yesterday?” “No, he didn’t buy … .” “ … will he go restaurant?” “Yes, he will go restaurant … .”  He may have used the structure in his affirmative sentences. Among a lot of problems he had, I thought working on the above area would help him develop his sense in the basic structures. Also, as two of the other students made the same type of sentences, it would be good for others.

I started with when we use ‘I did go. / He does know it.’

One of the students said, “Yesterday I went to Hakone.” I asked with a very suspicious look, “Really?! Did you go to Hakone? Is it true?” The student said, “Yes, Yes, Yes!!” I tapped the words at random on the board I had written in advance. “I did go,” hoping that they could sense the situation. We tried several other examples using the students’ stories. In the practice, Hiro was comfortable saying, “I DO play soccer.” “He DOES play soccer.” Then we moved to the use of regular use of ‘–s and –d’ without ‘does and did.’  “He DOES play soccer.” The –ES moves after ‘play’, I showed it using my fingers. He started saying things correctly once in 3 or 4 times. I could see he was exploring the target areas. It took him days. (Our lessons are 4 hours in the morning, Mon. through Fri.) I kept giving him feedback like ‘Problem’ ‘The second word’ etc.  Sometimes Hiro still said like “I was go to …” especially when he panicked, but this type of mistakes was getting fewer.  

 One day we took a field trip to a bank on Base because we studied it in the textbook. After the activity, the students wrote some paragraphs.

Hiro wrote;

[I was fun. We were walking to go to a bank, but we didn’t know the bank. We asked “Where is the bank?” American was talking English. I was thinking in myself, “What are you talking? I did not speak and listen English.” He was very kindly. He was instructing three times. I was saying said (his correction) “Thank you.” But I didn’t understand.

I was learning checkbook, check-card and filled out the form yesterday. Mr. James was instructing. …..]

I underlined the three parts where I could see his progress. I looked back what I did to help him build up his know-hows to get to “I asked. (not “I did ask) / I filled out the form. (not “I did fill out.”)

l         Show him there is a thing he needs to work on.

l         Set the most suitable situations I can think of for him to let him get aware of the problem and practice the target.

l         In his exploring and practice, I constantly give feedback on what he produces, ‘Yes’ ‘No’ and others. It lasts days and days until he can make it.

l         Think of what he needs to work on first, after it is cleared, what is next based on the idea what can make him freer in his study. I mean the very basic thing which can solve his other problem and makes his English use easier.

l         Look at his problems over all and see how they relate each other.

l         In each target that he needs to work on, observe where he is; if is he exploring / if he has he gotten the idea, but cannot produce smoothly / if he is in the practice stage etc.

Those are the things that went through my mind.

Hiro’s progress has not been remarkable but happening little by little. Two days ago, another student, Sho said, “They looks good.” I said, “A problem” by pointing my second finger (= looks). He said “they, many people, -s OK.” He mixed up ‘plural –s’ and ‘third person, singular –s.’ (I was shocked. All the work we had done didn’t seem to work well. However it is a great chance to work on again.)  

So far, we had used rods and real situations to practice the targets. When that happened I decided to do something different and wrote words on the board.

Sho tapped words to make sentences. “They run/runs fast.” “He run/runs fast.” I asked other students give him feedback. I was watching it at the back of the classroom. I let some other students to do the same. Of course, Hiro was included. He did it perfectly. Next, I wrote the next set of the words on the board.

The words had been practiced before. Sho tapped the words to create the sentences. Class did the same as in the previous activity. Students helped each other to check the meaning of ‘a lot of/a few/those/these’ using rods. Sho did well. Some other students tried and it went well. Hiro did well, too.

Next, I wrote ‘do/does’ on the board and we did the practice for questions. Then, I added ‘not’ for negative sentences. It went well. Lastly, I put ‘what’ for WH questions. Students came to the board voluntarily and tapped. I was watching Hiro because his questions that I copied earlier were all mistakes. This time, he still struggled but didn’t make sentences as he used to write; “What does he study English everyday?” Now he knows the function of ‘what.’  He tapped “What do these girls like?” and set four rods close to him and showed what he meant. The other students answered “Pizzas.”

Hiro is in the exploring stage and the practice stage. I will stick to his targets, so as I do for other students. As have time to help them until mid December, I’ll continue to think and experiment how a teacher can help students build know-hows. Let me report if I have another chance.

Here I shared my example for discussion. I’m glad if this example is used as a topic for building up know-hows. I would like to have your ideas/comments/advice.

Thank you for reading this long posting.

Mcihiko