ELT News Think Tank

This Month's Think Tank Panel

Marc Helgesen

Peter Viney

Chuck Sandy

Panelists: Marc | Peter | Chuck
Date: December 2001

Topic: "What are some ways to increase language input inside and outside the classroom?"

(The flip side to this article, where our authors and teachers discuss output, is January's article. -ed.)

Peter Viney

The first idea to discard is that there is 'good' input and 'bad' input. Anything that makes students read, think about, consider, look at, sing or do anything else with English input is 'good.' Years ago, I was a purist about listening and when we were piloting our first video course, I did so without letting students have transcripts. They begged for them and so at last I handed them out after the class. The next day the transcripts were covered with translations and highlighter. They'd gone home and interfaced with the material for about an hour. Was it the most useful or most productive use of an hour? I doubt it, but it was learner choice and all input is good input. Since then, I've always included transcripts.

So where do you start? The Internet? CDs? Movies? Videos? Books? Imported magazines? English language newspapers? Radio? Satellite or cable TV? CNN News? All of them have a role. But while one student's Internet habit might lead them into useful English language sites, another's love of Steps or H'earsay could lead them to walking along singing along with their Walkman. But some of us hate computers, others hate pop. A lot of us probably hate Steps or H'earsay. So each solution will be an individual one.

I think that graded readers, read at speed for entertainment are an important common resource which is too often neglected with adults. There are hundreds of graded readers, and I hate it when a class is issued one graded reader 'to study.' (Well, if it's one of my titles and a whole school system adopts it as a set book, I don't hate it too much!) What you should do if your school has a budget, is use a library system with lots of different readers. My interest in graded reading schemes dates back to the late 1970's, when we organized a library system for our own students. We concentrated on getting students to read for pleasure. Initially we used exercises with readers, designed for gist rather than intensive work. Then we stopped checking back. One of the most interesting results of our library was that the less we checked on reading, the more books the students borrowed. Eventually, we found that if a secretary issued books instead of the teacher, the students borrowed more books again. Some of our students on intensive courses were reading five or six graded readers a week. It would be nice to produce graphs and charts showing the effect on their English, but we didn't need to. We knew that reading - and reading strictly for pleasure - had an effect on the student's performance in all the skills. The greatest compliment the system had was when students told us they were beginning to read more in their own language as well.

DVDs often have dual soundtracks and switchable subtitles, and students should be encouraged to play around with them - if only the menus weren't so cumbersome and adhered to a common pattern! With DVDs they can replay a favourite piece of a movie or documentary, and switch back and forward into English, with or without the subtitles. This is being done, but after years of producing videos with guided activity books, I still believe they're better off with a specially-written video with guided exercises, and when we eventually move our ESL / ELT titles onto DVD, we probably won't include a subtitle track.

Marc's innervoice technique is the most interesting contribution to this month's debate. I've been interested in this on a less sophisticated level (because I've been working with true beginners material not false beginners). Good ideas don't need justification, but this one reminds me of the ideas of Moshe Feldenkrais, the author of "Awareness through Movement". Feldenkrais drew on a number of disciplines - martial arts, yoga and the Alexander technique. As well as developing a system of exercise or movement, Feldenkrais worked with severe injuries and handicaps. One example would be a person whose right leg was paralysed, or very painful to move. The person could do the movements with the left leg, then imagine or think through the exercise with the immobile right leg. Feldenkrais believed neural pathways were re-educated in the process. This backs up the point that you needn't vocalise to gain benefit from an exercise, even a pronunciation exercise. At a mundane level, it means that students can use a Workbook in this way. They needn't write answers or fill in gaps, they can simply think their way through exercises on the train or subway. It's almost too obvious to state, but students need reminding that they can benefit without making marks on paper.

Panelists: Marc | Peter | Chuck

Peter Viney, Freelance ELT Author

Co-author of New American Streamline & Grapevine. Peter's Web site

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