Interview

Michael McCarthy

Michael McCarthy is a Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham in the UK. His main research interests are applied linguistics, discourse analysis, and spoken corpus linguistics. Among his published works are Language as Discourse: Perspectives for Language Teaching (Longman), English Vocabulary in Use (Cambridge), Issues in Applied Linguistics (Cambridge) and the new coursebook Touchstone (Cambridge).

Michael spoke with ELT News editor Mark McBennett at the JALT national conference in Nara in November 2004, and gave this interview by e-mail in January, 2005. He also took part in the ELT News "Think Tank Live" event at the JALT conference.

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ELT: First of all Michael, I'd like to thank you for your participation in our Think Tank event at the JALT conference in Nara last month. It was a great success, especially for an event put together at the last minute. What did think of it yourself?
MM: I enjoyed it very much. It was an interesting panel of people, each of whom have been in the language pedagogy business for many years ­ we must have combined well in excess of a century of experience. The theme ­ what we wish we'd known then that we know now ­ was a good challenge and one that was designed, quite rightly, to steer us away from tub-thumping on our favourite hobby-horses, if you'll excuse the mixed metaphor. I hope members of the audience enjoyed it as much as we, the panel, did.

I felt particularly stimulated by the more theoretically-oriented questions asked of me directly, especially in relation to the grammar-vocabulary equation. I firmly believe now that language is lexis-driven, not syntax-driven; grammar is a 'trace' after lexical choices have been made. It's not the case that we choose syntax then slot vocabulary into it. And so for me, vocabulary learning is primary in second language learning.

One of the topics you included in your list at the event, but didn't get to talk about, was how you've learned to not always jump on the latest language-learning "bandwagon". What examples have you seen in recent years?
I guess task-based learning (TBL) would be on my list, or should I say the stronger versions of TBL which would relegate learning about the language system to a secondary place, subservient to some real-world task. Tasks are great, but they should not exclude good, old-fashioned grammar and vocabulary learning via systematic syllabuses, since the feeling of progression and systematicity are key psychological concepts for learners.

Another bandwagon I would not jump on to is the view that teachers should just take a back seat, become 'facilitators' and just let learners get on with it. Learners enroll in language programmes because they expect teachers to assist them through attested methods using tried and tested materials. They also expect correction, support, feedback, and the feeling that they are in the hands of a competent professional, and they have the right to all of those elements of service from us. They are not guinea-pigs in some big academic experiment; they are thinking human beings struggling with a huge and difficult task ­ to make sense of a new tongue.

You've said that you believe vocabulary to be the real key to learning a language, more important than getting stressed over grammar. Can you give us some practical tips on how to most effectively get your students to boost their vocabulary?
Practical tips, right. Well, first of all, get to the 2,000-word threshold as quickly as you can, using any method whatsoever, flashcards, translation lists, rote learning, anything, because without those 2,000 most common words you can't do much, and especially you can't use the words you know to guess the meanings of the words you don't know if you haven't got those 2,000.

Good elementary level vocabulary books should be based on the first 2,000 words. Don't buy them if they aren't! Next, always learn words in pairs (collocations): for example, if you learn a verb, learn either a noun or adverb or preposition that goes with it (run quickly, search for, a ship sails from X to Y, etc.).

Next, after the first 2,000 words, personalize! Make a special effort to memorise and use the vocabulary that relates to your personal experience, your history, your dreams and ambitions, your environment, your relationships. You can never learn all 400,000 or so words, so learn the ones that will enable you to communicate about your world.

Next, always keep a small vocabulary notebook in your pocket and jot down new words and collocations. Research shows that transferring a word from the source you encounter it in to another source such as a notebook or a workbook to be one of the best ways of learning.

One last tip: every time you look a word up in the dictionary, make a little coloured mark in the margin next to it. Any word that gets three coloured marks must be a word that's important for you. Make a special effort to learn that one, and transfer it to your vocabulary notebook.

Would you agree that a "think globally, act locally" kind of approach is best for young people starting out to teach English as a second language? By which I mean, to recognize English as a global, multi-faceted language but also to see what the students actually need to learn as a "local" issue.
Absolutely. There is a great deal of attention being paid these days to the idea of 'local knowledge'. We are in a global economy, and language teachers are very mobile, much more than they were when I first started out. My first job was in Spain in 1966, and at that time, British teachers rarely looked beyond Europe for teaching posts.

But now, in this global village of ours, it's more important than ever that we respect local cultures, especially modes of transmission of knowledge, classroom cultures, learning cultures, world-views and philosophies, and do not try to impose linguistic imperialism or pedagogical imperialism of any kind. Even so-called 'primitive' societies have been successfully educating their children and transmitting their culture for millennia, including successfully learning other people's languages. And they didn't have multimedia course books, CD-ROMS and websites!

And also in your question is the notion of 'global English' versus what students need as a local issue. Let me say one thing that does irritate me sometimes. People talk glibly about 'International English' and 'English as a lingua franca', as if they were encoded varieties of English just waiting to be put into course books and other materials. The truth is that there is no one variety of International English ­ there are as many varieties of English as countries and regions where English is spoken. Even within a small area like the islands of Britain and Ireland there are at least four, probably more, major distinctive varieties of English. And the English of Asia is very different from that of Africa, or the Caribbean, and so on.

And as for English as a lingua franca, I see that more as a function of English than a variety ­ it is a way that speakers accommodate to one another when they're using English, just as an Australian user of English might accommodate to a Hong Kong user, and vice-versa. The short answer to your question is: always respect local learning wants and aspirations, rather than some externally imposed idea of 'internationalism' or even 'needs'. People know what they want; we shouldn't tell them what we think they 'need'.

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