tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5714045366168902489.post1095912176272897145..comments2024-02-06T07:49:22.830-08:00Comments on Evidence Based EFL: The least worst solutionmallingualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13278408615407649532noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5714045366168902489.post-6039641525239689982013-08-03T10:03:54.794-07:002013-08-03T10:03:54.794-07:00Thanks for the comment, -I only just spotted it! T...Thanks for the comment, -I only just spotted it! There's a great swan article which is kind of related to your point, I think it's called "task based learning -legislation by hypothesis" in Applied linguistics. mallingualhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13278408615407649532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5714045366168902489.post-34114183740538633582013-06-03T11:05:59.048-07:002013-06-03T11:05:59.048-07:00I have long thought that "The Communicative M...I have long thought that "The Communicative Method" - much praised and never defined - was just a way for teachers to justify their ignorance of grammar.<br /><br />The idea seems to be that if students hear enough native-speaker speech, they'll grasp the rules of utterance construction by osmosis.<br /><br />The distinction between grammatical error and usage error isn't made, so students are taught that unidiomatic expressions are, in some mysterious way, ungrammatical.<br /><br />I teach in the middle east, where there's the opposite problem. The traditional way of teaching, in schools and universities, is to present reams of assertions to be memorised. The distinction between skill and knowledge isn't part of the culture - so students tend to think they can study english without practicing it.<br /><br />I've had a hard time explaining to classes that (a) textbooks disagree with each other, (b) often they're just plain wrong and (c) sometimes I don't know why I say something a particular way.Kapitanohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14647896216499813443noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5714045366168902489.post-47848839877597646532013-05-02T09:57:59.236-07:002013-05-02T09:57:59.236-07:00You make a great point, and one of the most import...You make a great point, and one of the most important (and frustrating) parts of good research is the definition of terms. If someone says something 'works', you have to be clear on what they mean by that. mallingualhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13278408615407649532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5714045366168902489.post-30159621345447448792013-05-02T09:55:53.299-07:002013-05-02T09:55:53.299-07:00Qualitative research can be good, if it's done...Qualitative research can be good, if it's done well. Quantitative research can be awful, (crap in crap out) I think it depends.<br /><br />I have no idea what Thornbury meant exactly, but it seemed to be academics. Perhaps he'll read this blog. Scott, -what did you mean?<br /><br />mallingualhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13278408615407649532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5714045366168902489.post-1684813329642284222013-04-30T16:22:01.667-07:002013-04-30T16:22:01.667-07:00Good stuff as always... I come here for sanity che...Good stuff as always... I come here for sanity checks :) For some teachers, at least, the unexamined life is the only defence they have to preserve their unjustified self-importance. Experience tells me that, so no come-backs :P<br /><br />I suspect, though, that many disagreements over whether something is effective or not come down to different definitions of words, and what we are being effective at.<br /><br />For example, if I am considering an activity to help my students "listen", I want to know whether the activity will reliably improve their future ability to extract meaning from the stream of speech. If it doesn't do this, it is probably not an "effective" technique by my lights.<br /><br />But another person may consider this a rather hard-nosed view. These people are likely to believe that Waypoints B and C are places that need to be visited in order to arrive at Ultimate Aim A. For instance, I've heard some teachers justify a listening activity to me on the grounds that it "gives them confidence" or some such thing. They see their students do it and get flushed with success. That seems important. For that reason, they will defend it as effective.<br /><br />As such, they are likely to be perplexed by my infuriation at not knowing whether this exercise is "effective" (at getting to A), when they know it is "effective" (at getting to B, and everybody knows that you can't get to A without going to B).<br /><br />But, I don't know that. So we're not disagreeing about the effectiveness as such, so much as about some hidden assumption.<br /><br />Not sure if that made any sense at all.. lol... but I think that to tackle the question of effectiveness (and I don't enjoy the idea of being ineffective) the first thing to look at are the unexamined assumptions behind all the 'waypoints'....Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10956677628998211499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5714045366168902489.post-13184370662807745402013-04-29T23:38:01.403-07:002013-04-29T23:38:01.403-07:00How do you feel about thorough qualitative researc...How do you feel about thorough qualitative research? Is Thornbury in this case referring to white-coat quantitative research driving textbook production? If not, I'd have said is concern was more apt 15 years ago, before the emergence of Vygostskian, Exploratory Practice, and Narrative Inquiry as mainstream publishable paradigms.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08422783944020271302noreply@blogger.com