My Asian students--Thai, Japanese, Chinese, all say they learned by  
rote in school.  Any comments on this?  All of them certainly knew  
how to study,
impressive.   The Japanese student, who became a teacher, bubbled  
over with creativity OUTSIDE the classroom, particularly in American  
Jazz,

Anecdotally, she tells me she found a wonderful teaching mentor in  
Japan and is very happy with herself and with her own students.  She  
and other students who did poorly in school were publicly slapped for  
poor grades.  She learned to get good grades.

Andrea

On Aug 8, 2009, at 8:37 PM, Michael Gyori wrote:


> Hello everyone,

>

> Let's not forget that teachers are a key source of language input  

> for their students.  So input in and of itself is not the issue (it  

> happens all the time), but rather the nature of the input and the  

> learning it may help trigger.  Input, to facilitate language  

> development and critical thinking skills must be co-constructed by  

> teachers if many of their students are to achieve higher levels of  

> ultimate "proficiency" than they otherwise would.  If there is no  

> difference between teacher-guided and self-initiated learning, we  

> might as well not teach at all.

>

>

> I cannot discern anyone having claimed that input equates to rote  

> learning.  Rote learning was prevalent, and still occurs, in  

> language teaching guided by theories derived from behaviorist  

> psychology, long ago superseded by others derived from cognitive  

> psychology. I strongly believe that language development,  

> cognition, and critical thinking are intrinsically interwined.  Any  

> attempt to disentangle them strikes me as an exercise in futility.

>

>

> Even when teachers point out a linguistic pattern, the act of  

> pointing it out does not amount to learning.  Learning occurs when  

> attention is directed at the pattern, and critical thinking skills  

> are applied to actually discern them.

>

>

> Michael

>

>

>

> Michael A. Gyori

>

> www.mauilanguage.com

>

>

>

>

>

> From: Steve Kaufmann <steve at thelinguist.com>

> Date: Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 8:42 AM

> To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List  

> <englishlanguage at nifl.gov>

>

>

> Martin,

>

> In Chinese it is even more common for the parts of speech of words  

> to be context dependent. Yet I found, in my own learning of  

> Chinese, that attempts to explain the language or "the thinking  

> behind the language" were not helpful. On the other hand, noticing  

> patterns; "In Chinese they say this in this way", over and over in  

> different contexts eventually enabled me to learn.  it is getting  

> in tune with another language. For the first months I had to  

> repeatedly listen and read, using a limited amount of content. Soon  

> I was able to move on to interesting authentic content while  

> continuing to notice patterns. Sometimes these patterns had to be  

> pointed out. More often they were inherent in the learning of  

> certain words, like "because, although, even if, etc."

>

> I feel  very strongly that language learning is mostly about  

> learning words, individually and as part of phrases, their meaning  

> (which becomes clearer and better defined with every encounter),  

> how they are used, with which other words etc..

>

> Input based learning is not rote learning.

>

> Steve

>

> ----------------------------------------------------

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>

>

>

> From: Martin Senger <MSenger at gecac.org>

> Date: Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 3:08 AM

> To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List  

> <englishlanguage at nifl.gov>

>

>

> Pax Steve!

>

>

> I strongly believe that English is so fluid in its application of  

> vocabulary (Is this word being used in this sentence as a noun? A  

> verb? An adjective?) that as “English” language teachers we must  

> teach the thinking behind the language. I guess this goes back to  

> my definition of “critical thinking” as being opposed to “rote”  

> learning. You can’t learn most individual “words” in English; you  

> must learn “ideas,” and thus the thinking aspect.

>

>

> Martin E. Senger

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

> ----------------------------------------------------

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> Adult English Language Learners mailing list

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