"Oral Oral , I want to talk English, teach me how to talk, I don't want to write"
Inspector at school : Bonjour Madame, ça va?
Teacher: Bonjour,
Inspector : continue avec votre travail
Teacher : ok madame
Inspector: teach the students how to speak, talk English.
According to the French national curriculum - subject English what is the most important thing to do when you teach English
Teacher : According to me, grammar, verbs, punctuation are the root elements, to construct a clear and coherent sentence in English, however I know that the curriculum says that it is "oral". (Well, when inspector says oral oral, I think she wants to say interaction skills)
Inspector : stop, oh no, no, no you are wrong, ok ok, parlons en français (lets talk in French).
Teacher : I wanted to say ....that oral interaction is important too but they need to know how to construct a correct sentence...
Inspector: Tu dois enseigner au élèves comment parler l'anglais, le plus important c'est communiquer, il ne faut pas faire les verbes et la grammaire, tu peux donner qu'un exemple ou deux mais pas d'exercices écrits. Montre leur comment parler, parler l'anglais.
(You need to teach the students how to talk English, the most important is to communicate, don't do verbs and grammar, you can give only one or two examples. Teach them how to talk, talk English.)
Il faut que vous notiez que c'est l'oral qui compte. d'accord madame.
(You need to note that it is oral that counts. ok madam.)
Vous mettez une video, les élèves regardent une fois et vous les faites parler en anglais d'accord, laissez les élèves s'exprimer.
(You make them watch a video, in English, let the students watch one time, and then, let them talk and express themselves in English.)
Teacher: d'accord madame, je ferai l'oral, parler, discuter de la vie de tous les jours en anglais.
(Ok madam, I will do oral, talking, interacting about everyday life)
Teach the students how to speak English, don't do too many written exercises. It's not in our curriculum.
Ok, then, please react steemits, tell me, how will students, make a right sentence/correct sentence without knowing the present tense properly or the futur tense? I think that grammar is of utmost importance when learning a language, be it French, English, Hindi, Urdu or any other language. If there is oral oral oral, by the end of college most students, know how to say only
"hello"
"he is playing"
"I like playing volleyball"
"I do not like potatoes"
Oh great! Now inspector is happy, French students are talking English. These are few sentences that they learn by heart.
Arriving in lycées, when it comes to essay writing, "it's unbelievable" So many mistakes, and as a teacher, I try to catch up, teach the present perfect, past perfect, the pronouns, the reflexive pronouns, the different types of essays... so that by the end of the term I get a good essay.
Even at this stage,
Inspector: "teach oral oral, make them talk"
No grammar, no punctuation, no verbs, wrong construction of sentences... etc. just imagine!
Truly speaking, many people believe that grammar matters only to those who is teaching in front of the class. Grammar is crucial when we want to communicate in a way that people find easy to understand.
I quote from Wits Language School in South Africa:
"Writing that is poorly punctuated and contains grammatical errors is difficult to read and sometimes impossible to understand. If the reader has to go back and re-read a sentence several times because they are not quite sure what it means, it spoils their reading experience and they are quite likely to misunderstand the point or even give up and not read any further.
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules which influences the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given language. It is the systematic study and description of a language, and it helps us to understand how words and their component parts combine to form sentences."
In a well reputed lycée in France, where most of the students achieve very good marks in English, it was mostly because
- their parents speak English at home,
- one parent is teacher/scientist/engineer, so he/she teaches verbs/grammar/vocabulary at home
3)private tuition - learning English vocabulary, grammar, and communicating skills. - Gifted students
- Parents are British
- They go on business trip with their parents in English speaking countries (quite good but not excellent)
According to me, speaking, oral interaction is a good way to learn a foreign language, but at least one should know how to construct a sentence.
Some private schools follow the English National Curriculum, it is very good, by the end of school, the student is able to communicate fluently and easily in English. However, it is really expensive for many people to send their children to these schools.
By the end of lycées or secondary education, (normal public schools with French national curriculum) about 90% people in France need to go to private institutions to learn English. Why is it so? After having spent so many years learning English at school, they still don't know English?
- Is it because of the "oral, oral, talk about everyday life, leaving aside the "foundation for communication" which is grammatical exercises, verbs, adjectives and so on?
- Is there some lacking in the curriculum?
- Or, is the teacher to be blamed?
- Is it the schooling system of teaching English that is somewhat incorrect?
- Are the students not interested in learning English?
