EFL Teaching in Asia

NOVA Taiwan

2006-05-10T22:20:00.001+08:00

Nova is now in Taiwan. This is the first Nova school to be set up in Taiwan but has not actually opened yet. The grand opening is set for May 18. Most likely, the local press will be contacted for the event. If things go well, Nova plans on setting up new schools in Kaoshung, Tainan, the Mainland and other countries within the Asian region. For now, this is the first and only Nova language school to be set up outside of Japan.

The staff are already working in the office. The one and only teacher working at the branch at the moment, who has come from Osaka, Japan, will aslo serve as the Head Teacher. The Head Teacher has been told that all of the new instructors have been hired from overseas.

Each new instructor can expect to make a base salary of around NT$60,000 per month for an 8 lesson work day with 2 days off per week. Nova lessons are normally 40 minutes in length. The branch manager is Japanese and all of the Chinese staff speak Japanese.

In addition to English, the Nova branch is expecting to teach other languages such as Japanese, German and French. The Nova branch anticipates having about 10 to 12 instructors at the branch.

English Villages

2006-04-15T00:18:00.001+08:00

English Villages have become very popular in Korea over the last couple of years. Recently, in March, another English village was completed in Paju. The first English village created in Korea is located in Ansan and can accommodate 200 students. The new Panju English village is large enough to hold 700 students for over night stays. These English villages offer camps to children where they can study science, music, cooking and athletics all while immersed in an English only environment.

When the kids arrive at the English village, they must pass through a customs style check point that is modelled after those that are found in airports or border crossings. Each customs booth is staffed with a native English speaker.

If children are caught using Korean they can be fined a dollar. However, the dollar can be returned to the offending student if s/he shows that they have been making an effort to speak more English than their friends.

The new Paju English village has streets and buildings which look like those found in British towns, "The old style mini train, the "castle" and "Stonehenge" in the camp make you like stay in a "theme park" rather than an English village."

The English villages are paid for by the taxpayers. The province, where the camps are run, has invested 85 billion won of the taxpayers money to construct the camps. They also have 100 native speaking teachers and 50 South Korean teachers with education backgrounds employed at the English villages.

I have not heard of any similar projects in Taiwan or Japan - or anywhere else in Asia. It will be interesting to see how effective they are in improving South Korean students' English proficiency.

website for English Villages

CLA Limits Foreign Teachers' Hours to 32 a Week

2006-03-20T00:50:00.001+08:00

The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) has anounced that beginning in April, 2006, new regulations will come into effect limiting the number of hours foreign EFL teachers can teach.

Foreign EFL teachers will soon be limited to teaching no more than 32 hours a week. Also, if foreign teachers are teaching at a second school, they must at least teach 6 hours at the second buxiban. However, the total number of hours taught between the 2 schools must not exceed 32 hours a week.

Exceptions will be made for those teachers asked by their schools to cover for substitute classes. However, schools found to in violation of the new regulations will face fines.

Interestingly, the CLA has indicated that the minimum hours per week that an EFL teacher may teach is 14.

It is going to be interesting to see how many schools follow the new regulations. However, the industry standard is about 25 - 27 hours per week and many schools and teachers will most likely not be affected by the new laws. There are foreign EFL instructors, on the other hand, who do work many hours and will likely exceed the 32 hour per week limit. It will be interesting to see how the CLA intends to monitor these instructors and buxibans for violations.

NOVA and Australian Teachers

2006-03-18T20:45:00.001+08:00

I recently discussed the largest English language school in Japan, NOVA, in this post which outlined some of the major drawbacks invovled in working for NOVA.

Recently, a newspaper article was published in The Sydney Morning Herald about a NOVA Teacher who described some of the questionable practices used by NOVA and how NOVA treats their students and customers.

Some additional information and statistics further to the article I wrote can be gleaned from the newspaper article in The Sydney Morning Herald.

Into this tangled environment walk hundreds of young Australians every year, convinced they can educate people and make good money. Of the 1000 who travel on working holiday visas to Japan, it is a fair bet most are destined for jobs in language teaching. Together with hundreds more on year-long work visas, they top up the pool of 12,000 instructors in Japan's private language schools.

Nova, the biggest school with the highest profile, says it employed between 5000 and 6000 instructors in 2004. There were 3000 new recruits that year and 30 per cent were Australians, Farley says. Those in the industry say Australians are its backbone.

To restate what I wrote in my earlier article, there are approximately 5,000 - 6,000 EFL teachers employed by NOVA Japan. These figures are consistent to what I had been told nearly ten years ago. NOVA is still the largest employer of foreign labour in Japan. Also, there are roughly 12,000 legally-employed EFL instructors teaching EFL in language schools in Japan. NOVA instructors, it appears then, account for half of those teaching EFL in Japan. In addition, as I have stated in the my post, instructor turn-over rate at NOVA is extremely high. According to the newspaper article, in 2004 NOVA had to hire 3,000 new instructors to replace those who had quit.

Another interesting point mentioned in the article was that approximately 30% of those new recruits were Australians. Based on my personal experience teaching in Japan, I met many young Australians teaching EFL not only at NOVA but at other schools. This led me to believe that there were possibly many more Australians teaching EFL in Japan that those teachers from other countries. In Korea and Taiwan, it seems that there are more Canadians among all EFL instructors teaching. However, I would be interested in knowing how many Australians are working in the Japanese EFL business compared to those of other nationalities.

NOVA in Taiwan

2006-03-13T01:20:00.001+08:00

One of Asia's largest language chain schools, if not the largest, is now ready to begin setting up EFL schools in Taiwan. NOVA is the largest language school in Japan and employs about 6,000 foreign English teachers who mainly come from countries as Canada, America, Australia, the UK and New Zealand. The schools are located across the country from Hokkaido to Okinawa and have a student enrollment of nearly 500,000 mostly Japanese students.

The advertisement for teachers at the link above sates that it will interview teachers in Chicago and Boston. NOVA has offices in Toronto, San Francisco, Boston in addition to offices in Brisbane and London. However, NOVA recruiters travel to major Canadian and American cities where they conduct interviews.

It appears that the contracts for Taiwan will be 30 hours a week for about $55,000 ($53,000 - $56,000 is what the advert states) a month. So, if one were to teach 120 hours per month and earn a salary of $55,000, that would work out to be a little under NT$460 per lesson (I believe the lessons are 40 - 45 minutes each). Keep in mind that the average number of hours a conversation school instructor works is between 25 and 30 hours a week, with 30 hours being on the high side. Further, the average per-lesson wage would be more in the NT$600 - $650 range.

Overall, I think NOVA is a place where a new, inexperienced TEFL teacher could get a start in the EFL scenes in Japan or Taiwan. However, this is not a company most people find themselves wanting to work for beyond a one year contract.

In fact, turn over rate is and has always been very high at NOVA. The Japan Times reports that the teacher turn over rate at NOVA is as high as 70% a year (February 24, 2004). If I remember correctly, the average time a NOVA teacher stayed was a little over 6 months. I understand it is slightly longer than that now.

NOVA is also very aggressive in how it deals with customers and has been sued recently for attempting to withold money for cancelled lessons that they were not legally entitled to hold. The Mainichi Daily News reported that NOVA refused to refund students fees for classes they didn't take (January 31, 2006).

One of the more interesting and controversial policies enforced at NOVA pertains to teacher socialization with students outside of classes. NOVA will terminate any instructor who is found to socialize with students outside of NOVA. Many teachers over the years have been fired for having socialed with students. Interestingly, both an American and Australian instructor recently won a court judgement in Japan over this policy. The Japanese court that heard the case ruled that it is not legal for NOVA to fire teachers for socializing with students. However, it seems that NOVA continues to maintaing and enforce the teacher non-socialization policy.

Furthermore, NOVA attempted to conduct drug testing on instructors. This too has been challenged and NOVA apparantly is not currently pursuing drug testing of teachers.

In addition, it was found that NOVA also owns many travel agencies and sells airline tickets to newly recruited teachers in America, Canada and Australia. Each newly recruited teacher is automatically sold a one-way air fare after signing a contract. These one-way air fares sell for several hundred dollars more than return fares being sold at other non-NOVA travel agencies.
There have been reports that new teachers are often surprised that they have been asked to pay for a ticket that costs much more than air fares from other travel agencies. They are also shocked when they are billed by a NOVA travel agency for a plane ticket they did not ask to be issued.

Teachers are often housed in NOVA apartments and are charged up to 20% -30% for the apartments than what other non-NOVA real estate companies would charge for a similar rental. NOVA has been accused of making big money of their foreign English teachers by renting them over-priced apartments through its real estate agency. Many instructors are unware of the over priced air fare tickets and apartment rents until they have signed agreements and it is too late.

Also, NOVA instructors are required to obtain health insurance through the NOVA medical health plan. Teachers are also over-charged for this travel insurance. NOVA does not advise their instructors that there are other, cheaper plans available. An article in the Japan Times reports on the matter:

The Social Insurance Agency is to investigate Japan's largest English-language teaching companies over a suspected failure to enroll their full-time foreign employees in the employees' pension and health Insurance schemes. Japan's largest "eikaiwa" chain, Nova, is already being probed by the Social Insurance Agency and could see itself slapped with a multibillion-yen bill for missed payments The General Union in Osaka has estimated conservatively that Nova saves itself at least 1 billion yen annually in premium payments by not enrolling its teachers in the health insurance and pension schemes. Nova policy demands that all new teachers have insurance before they arrive in Japan.But foreign teachers who are employed by Nova have not been told in the past that enrollment in the Employees' Insurance System is compulsory and are instead offered private health insurance schemes, one of which -- Japan Medical Assistance -- is a Nova-group company (April 12, 2005)

Again, NOVA has been accused of taking advantage of their instructors by over-charging them for their medical insurance and breaking the law by now enrolling instructors into the national health and pension plans. This also has been recently challenged by a group of senior teachers at NOVA.

In sum, NOVA Group Japan is a type of conglomerate and operates many other businesses. These businesses include insurance agencies, travel agencies, loan collections and lending agencies, translation companies, talent agencies (for movie extras, singers and hosts) as well as real-estate agencies. While there has been much written about NOVA on different internet EFL and ex-pat forums, most of it has been quite negative.

Phuket CELTA Training Centre

2006-03-05T20:09:00.001+08:00

I was in Phuket recently and stopped by the new CELTA training centre to speak to some of the trainers and trainees in the program. The training class sizes are a lot smaller than those in Bangkok, with 9 trainees in the current program. This is quite small compared to the 25 trainees normally enrolled in the Bangkok CELTA programs. I took some photos of the teacher room which I've posted here below.

I asked several trainees why they had chosen to attend the CELTA in Phuket and the overwhelming answer was that they all wanted to be near beach life. However, one trainee explained that during his telephone interview a CELTA trainer told him that the Phuket classes would be much smaller, allowing trainers to have more one-on-one time with trainees. It was this aspect of the Phuket program that he based his decision on. These photos here are of the teachers' room.

Overall, the trainees I spoke to said that they felt challenged by the course and that there was at least one older woman who as having a great deal of difficulty particularly in the post-teaching feedback sessions. As I've mentioned previously, you need to be able to accept criticism well, which at times may require thick skin.

All of the trainees I spoke to told me that they stay up each evening until about 12:00am preparing lessons and studying. Furthermore, all agreed that they were given more than they could really handle within the time they had been there. One trainee said that he thought it would be better as a 2 month program and another thought that it would be a good idea to have a 6 month program for part time trainees to attend. Each of the trainees I spoke with were from the U.K. but there is apparantly a Canadian woman and a French woman on the course. All of the candidates said that they worked well with each other and there were no real problems within the group.

Taiwan Universities: Cut-Off Dates for Final Grades

2006-01-20T10:17:00.001+08:00

Scott Sommers has an interesting post on his site where he discusses the severity of making mistakes with students' grades after the cut-off period for ammending grade submissions (Taiwan University Grade Submissions and Changes Policy).

On a number of occassions, I have also been reminded by department staff and senior instructors to be very careful to make any grade changes before the cut-off date. Specifically, I have been told by a department staff member that I will have "big trouble" and that I will have to attend administrative hearings if I have any mistakes with grades occurring after this final cut-off period. Sommers speculates that this may have something to do with safe-guarding against teacher corruption.

Staff and instructors have described the process to me as being quite serious. The severity of the process apparantly involves the instructor having to appear before a panel of university professors and administratorsr in a series of inquiry-like hearings. Again, this may be designed in such a way so as to deter instructors from changing grades after the cut-off in exchange for money from students who failed or did not get the grades they had hoped for.

At any rate, I have not heard of this happening to anyone during my time as a university teacher in Taiwan; however, I must admit that during final grade submissions, I do keep this in mind as it sounds like it could be a very stressful process for an instructor to go through.

Poor English Skills are Hurting Nation's Competitiveness

2006-01-20T09:48:00.001+08:00

Last August, while doing some research I came across an article in the Taipei Times with the headline, "Poor English Skills Are Hurting Nation's competitiveness" (July 5, 2005, p. 10 ).

The article is based on a government report prepared by National Chengchi University and Education Testing Services (ETS), which describes how Taiwan is losing competitiveness to its Asian neighbors particularly in the banking and techonology industries.

The report argues that with a shortage of English-speaking professionals, Taiwan may be left behind by more it's more English proficient competition. Consequently, in order to maintain Taiwan's competitive edge, the authors of the report strongly recommend that companies offer more in-house foreign language training programs and that the government draft more itnernational langauge policies.

According to ETS, the company which provides TOEIC/TOEFL testing services around the world, Taiwanese students scored an average of 523 on the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication), placing Taiwan 8th on the list of 15 nations in Asia. ETS claims that Taiwan's English proficiency lingers behind such countries as Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Thailand.

However, the report found that many of Tawian's business professionals in the field of marketing exceed the world average of 500 on the TOEIC, with test scores of about 600 out of 990.

The most concerning area for ETS is in the English skills demonstrated by customer service personnel, banking staff, engineers in the electronics industry and government employees.

In addition, the article claims that there are more companies in Taiwan requiring college applicants to have higher levels of English proficiency. Taiwan has around 300,000 new university graduates each year and pressure is increasing for them to have strong foreign language skills as they enter the work force.

In sum, it appears that the people working in the financial and high tech industries aren't meeting the international standards with repsect to English proficiency, which will make it difficult for the industries to be internationally competitive.

Recommendations made to the government by National Chengchi University and ETS include better distribution of English resources to rural areas of Taiwan, smaller class sizes, the abolishment of monthly English exams and more in-house corproate English language training programs for workers.

Is Taiwanese English Proficiency Getting Worse?

2006-01-10T20:05:00.001+08:00

In a letter from the Editor of the China Post on January 1, 2006 titled, Why Our Children's English is Inferior, concern was expressed for the regressing English proficiency levels of Taiwanese children compared with the proficiency levels of other Children in Asian countries.

Every year, the University of Cambridge Examination Syndicate releases the results of it's main suite examinations for English proficiency. Taiwan, in 2004, was ranked 11th place out of sixteen countries, falling three spots from 2003 when it was ranked 9th. In 2002, Taiwan was ranked 4th among nine Asian countries. In sum, the English proficiency of Taiwanese children has been falling yearly.

The only countries to place behind Taiwan were: Vietnam, Sri Lanka, China, Japan and then Thailand.

Nations at the top of the list included: Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, UAE, Burma, South Korea, Iran, Hong Kong and then Saudi Arabia.

The main reasons for this lack of English proficiency among Taiwanese children, according to the Editor, is that most English classes in schools focus primarily on reading and writing skills and that the traditional grammar translation method is still the dominant approach used by Taiwanese EFL teachers.

English classes in our schools still focus on the abilities to read, and the traditional grammar-translation method remains the most common approach used by teachers. That is to say, children are seldom taught to use the language for actual communication.

Consequently, many Taiwanese children are not provided opportunities to use language for genuine communicative purposes which has hurt students in their proficiency scores on communicative tests such as those administered by Cambridge.

While many Taiwanese EFL teachers have not received adequate training in modern language pedagogy, many instructors are aware of recent trends in language methodology. However, on the whole, and for multiplicity of reasons, teachers have failed in successfully implementing communicative language teaching in Taiwanese English classrooms. The Editor further emphasizes this point:

Another is to require elementary and secondary school English teachers to undergo retraining so that they may be better qualified.

Instead of creating situations where children are required to use genuine language for sharing information, solving problems and negotiating meaning, most Taiwanese EFL teachers rely on pedagogy that is no longer useful for providing students with the skills to use language in meaningful ways.

In sum, local EFL instructors (and many foreign TEFL'ers) 'talk the talk' but fail to 'walk the walk' and until Taiwanese EFL teachers let go of the old and embrace the new, students will continue to miss the mark on proficiency exams in light of the vast amounts of time and money that are spent on English education here in Taiwan.

Cash Rewards for Illegal EFL Teachers

2005-12-12T01:08:00.001+08:00

The Korean Government has started paying rewards to people who inform them of EFL teachers working illegally in Korea.

Rewards can earn someone, irregardless of their nationality, up to 2 million won. One Canadian explained how his roommate informed on a co-worker who she was teaching with. The co-worker disappeared within a week and she was given a million won cash reward.

As I've indicated in the previous post, the immigration police realize that there is a problem with illegal EFL teachers in Taiwan and they hope to address it.

Would a similar system work in Tawian? Some people believe that this is the most efficient way to solve the problem.

I wonder how many fellow EFL'ers would report illegal teachers to the immigration police? My guess is that if there were large cash rewards offered like those in Korea, then many people wouldn't hesitate to file such reports.

Language Teachers in Taipei City

2005-12-09T00:14:00.000+08:00

This week, I stopped by the Taipei City Immigration Police and spoke with a police officer there who told me that, as of October 5, 2005, there are 2,071 language teachers working legally in Taipei City.

I asked her if there were any figures on how many language teachers were working legally across Taiwan but she said that she didn't know.

I also asked her what she thought were the numbers for illegal teachers working in Taiwan. She said that they believed that there were a lot of illegal teachers but that they didn´t thinkg it was more people than those who have been hired legally.

However, she did mention that they were currently planning an assault on illegal language schools and language teachers. The campaign is set to take place early in the new year.

Apparantly, based on what she told me, the immigration police are aware of the problem of illegal teachers living and working in Taiwan and the illegal language schools that hire them. The government intends to try to clean it up.

Whether there is any substance to this info remains to be seen. But if you're illegal and teaching in a language school around Taipei, you might want to reconsider.

Morphology

2005-11-01T02:53:00.001+08:00

INTRODUCTION
The sub-discipline of linguistics concerned with the various processes by which small units of grammatical meaning combine to create words is called morphology. Morphology focuses on the structure of words and the ways in which they can be altered or changed. This paper will outline the concept of morpheme, the ways in which words are derived and provide some examples of the various kinds of morphemes. Moreover, this paper will discuss some of the more common challenges facing linguists in the study of morphology.

MORPHEMES
The word Morpheme is derived from the Greek word morph meaning ‘form’. The most elemental unit of grammatical form is called a morph or morpheme. Morphemes are the smallest units of linguistic meaning and are the smallest grammatical unit in language.

Most words in language can be broken up into smaller meaningful units or morphemes. Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and of the rules by which words are formed or the science of word forms such as disestablishmentarianism (Fromkin and Rodman, 1998).

Many morphemes (chair, cat, dog, car, etc.) can occur by themselves. These morphemes are referred to as free morphemes or root morphemes and when we create new words out of these root words or free morphemes, this process is called derivation (Language Files, 2000, p.114). However, many words are composed of several morphemes (Fromkin and Rodman, 1998).

Each word in language has a sound and meaning that are connected. This sound and meaning are stored in our mental dictionaries or what is otherwise referred to as our lexicon (Fromkin and Rodman 1998, p.65). That is, each word has a phonological sound that is associated with a meaning.

It is important to realize that morphemes do not exist concretely; rather, morphemes are purely mental constructs represented by morphs and are abstract units, similar to other categories in linguistics such as phoneme, lexeme and grapheme (Finch, 2000).

Further, the words in our mental dictionaries or lexicon are differentiated in that they are categorized entries in terms of grammatical items such as verbs, nouns, prepositions, etc. These categories are then referred to as syntactic categories (Fromkin and Rodman, 1998).

MORPHOLOGICAL RULES
Every language has morphological rules that allow us to combine morphemes in order to create new words. As a result, we can possibly come up with words like uglify, squishable and Chomskian (Fromkin and Rodman, 1998). Derivational morphemes are morphemes that are also known as bound morphemes.

For example, morphemes like -ify or -ation are derivational morphemes. If you were to ad these to a stem a root word is derived. This illustrates the creativity of language.

Words such as boy, cat, car and man are all morphemes and alone constitute words. However, other morphemes like ish, ness, trans, in and un are not words themselves but only parts of words. An example of this is affixation, the process of adding either a prefix (attached to the beginning of a word) or suffix (attached to the end of a word) to a root word such as im + polite or un + intentional or predict + tion.

Bound morphemes are morphemes which cannot be represented alone or by themselves. Affixes cannot stand alone and, as a result, are classified as bound morphemes (Language Files, 2000). In other words, bound morphemes must occur with a root or free morpheme (Finch, 2000. p.105).

Bound morphemes are often referred to as derivational morphemes because when they are attached to free morphemes or root stems, a new word is created (Fromkin and Rodman, 1998, p.76). When new words that are not found in our lexicon are created, we have applied morphological rules. This is also represented by the fact that the total number of words in a language represents only a fraction of the total number of words that are actually possible in that language.

However, there are unique or ‘accidental gaps’ in the lexicon that we must be aware of. For example, we have the rule un + adjective = not adjective, as in the word unhappy. However, we do not see the word unbrave (Fromkin and Rodman, 1998, p.79). The ‘un rule’ is not as predictable with single morpheme adjectives as it is with verb derived adjectives.

Also, some morphemes carry semantic content. That is, some simple words have an identifiable meaning. As well, many affixes indicate a change in meaning, such as in the word re-play which means to play again. These are called content morphemes (Language Files, 2000, p.116). Monomorphemic words are words which consists of only one morpheme and Polymorphemic words are, on the other hand, words which are made up of more than one morpheme.

The inflection system of modern English has changed greatly over the last several hundred years but can be compared with Old English. For example, past tense for ‘ed’ as in played and present participle ‘ing’ as in playing are both examples of verb inflections that have roots in Old English.

Also, plural and possessive noun-inflections found in modern English have also been inherited from Old English. The process of creating a different grammatical form of a word such as plural or past tense is referred to as inflection in linguistics (Language Files 2000, p.115). Linguists usually refer to these as grammatical morphemes. It is in this way that there is a relationship between morphology and syntax (Fromkin and Rodman, 1998).

Further examples of morphological rules in language include nouns that can be derived from verbs, verbs from adjectives and adjective from nouns. There are morphemes that also act as representations for passive voice, present perfect and prepositions and so on (Fromkin and Rodman, 1998) Grammatical morphemes represent the relationship between words and the grammar of a language (Finch, 2000).

Word Compounding is also a very common derivational process in language and is the source of many new words. Morphological rules allow for two words to be combined producing new items in the lexicon (Fromkin and Rodman 1998). Word Compounding typically involves combining two words such as chairperson, and bookkeeper.

In addition, blends are also like compound words in that they are produced by combining parts from two different words to create one word. For example, motor + hotel gives us motel and smoke + fog results in the word smog (Fromkin and Rodman 1998). A classical example of word blending can be seen in Lewis Caroll’s book Alice in Wonderland.

As well, clipping or shortening of words is a common occurrence in language. Classic examples of clipping include: TV (television), Sub (Subway Train), and CV (Curriculum Vitae). A further example of word creation is referred to as conversion. Conversion involves changing the form class of a word such as table, a noun, and to table, which is a verb (Finch 2000, p. 105).

Other morphemes serve only to provide information about grammatical function by relating certain words of a sentence to each other. Prepositions (at, for and by) articles (a, an and the) and conjunctions (and, at, for and by) all provide information about grammatical function (Language Files 2000, p.116). These are called grammatical morphemes or function morphemes and are merely grammatical markers.

COMMON PROBLEMS IN MORPHOLOGY
Word distinction and morpheme are not without problems. The first contentious issue in morphology is the matter of segmentation. The standard or most common rule followed in segmenting words is to continue until you find the root morpheme or also referred to as the free morpheme. The root or free morphemes are the words to which bound morphemes are connected or attached.

The problem is that while certain words are very predictable and fairly easy to segment, other words seem to be much more difficult to segment. The word receive, for example, is made up of the morphemes re and ceive. The morpheme re means to do again, as in the words restate, remember and repaint. The morpheme ceive has no meaning on its own but occurs with other words such as perceive and conceive. Both re and ceive cannot stand alone or occur by themselves as they are not free or root morphemes (Finch 2000, p. 105). These words, as previously mentioned, are also referred to as bound roots or bound morphemes (Language Files, 2000).

Further examples of bound roots include words like refer, defer, prefer and deceive. As a result, some linguists have posed the question, ‘How should we analyze such words?’

Etymology, or word derivation, may partly account for some of the problems faced in segmenting morphemes. In English, all words are derived from Latin and Greek originals. Many linguists believe that words like conceive and receive should not be segmented into two morphemes. Instead, they should be recognized as a free or root morpheme (Finch 2000).

Finch (2000, p.106) also points out that a more serious problem occurs with segmentation due to the invisibility of some morphemes. For example, the irregular forms such as ate and mice are inflections represented by sound changes to the root morpheme eat and mouse respectively. People, in general, are not commonly aware of the process of inflections such as those illustrated above. English has many irregular forms, creating challenges for linguists who study morphology.

English plurals such as sheep, fish, deer and salmon are examples of words that lack any overt characteristics by which to distinguish morphemes. All of the above words are identical to their singular form (Finch 2000, p. 108). Similarly, free morphemes like cat, dog, book and walk do not have any affixes and, as a result, cannot be reduced to smaller units of morphological meaning (Language Files 2000, p. 116).

The problems occur when linguists studying morphology attempt to classify or describe these irregular forms. A major difficulty in morphology is associating morphs and morphemes in a predictable manner. In addition, this seems to be a major source of frustration for beginners in morphology attempting to identify a particular form with a grammatical category (Finch 2000). Some linguists feel that it is perhaps counterproductive to get into etymological debates when attempting to segment irregular forms.

Another challenge facing linguists in studying morphology is that a morpheme may be realized by more than one morph (Finch 2000). For instance, the plural morpheme ‘s’ has 3 different pronunciation forms: judges /iz/, proofs /s/ and bag /z/ (Finch 2000, p.107).

In linguistics, morphemes that can be realized by a number of different morphs are referred to as allomorphs. Allomorphs are realized by the characteristics of the final segment of the stem, as illustrated by Finch with the following plural English allomorphs (2000, p.107).

/iz/ occurs after stems ending in a voiced or voiceless sibilant.
/s/ occurs after stems ending in a voiceless segment other than a sibilant.
/z/ occurs after stems ending in a voiced segment other than a sibilant.

The phonological characteristics of the stem or root word determine the pronunciation form. For example, the following are 3 rules governing the formation of English past tense (Finch 2000, p.108):

/id/ occurs after stems ending in alveolar plosives (/t/ and /d/)
/t/ occurs after a voiceless segment other than alveolar plosive
/d/ occurs after a voiced segment other than an alveolar plosive

CONCLUSION
In summary, the study of morphology is concerned with studying the processes by which small units of grammatical meaning or morphemes form to create words. Morphemes are purely mental constructs represented by morphs and allomorphs and are abstract units of meaning. Morphs do not actually exist and are similar to other categories in linguistics such as phoneme, lexeme and grapheme.

Morphology focuses on the structure of words and the way in which they can be altered or changed by inflections like the English past tense ‘ed’ and present participle ‘ing’ or by the addition of affixes such as various prefixes and suffixes like un and tion, respectively.

Further, morphological rules indicate word formation and creation is largely predictable and rule governed. Moreover, it is clear that there are some common challenges facing the study of morphology such as the classification and description of free morphemes that do not consist of a root or stem morpheme but, instead, consist of two bound morphemes such as deceive and receive.

Also, Irregular forms like ate and mice pose problems as their inflections are represented by sound. Words like sheep, deer and fish are also irregular forms in that their plural form is identical to their singular form.

Finally, morphemes are also complex in that they may be represented by more than one allomorph such as in the words judges, proofs and bags.

References

Department of Linguistics, Ohio State University (2000) Language Files: Materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics. 8th Edition (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press)

Finch, G. (2000) Linguistic Terms and Concepts (New York: Palgrave).

Finch, G. (1998) How to Study Linguistics (London: Macmillan).

Finegan, E, and Besinger, N. (1989) Language: Its Structure and Use (New York: Harcourt Brace).

Fromkin, V. and Rodoman, R. (1998) An Introduction to Language (New York: Harcourt Brace).

Update on Seoul TEFL Arrests

2005-10-22T20:20:00.001+08:00

A large number of Canadian English teachers were arrested inKorea recently together with a number of expats from other countries such as America and the U.K.

In fact, the Chosun reports that the majority of teachers arreted were indeed Canadian, with 62 of the 70 teachers arrested coming from Canada.

Those teachers arrested have either been deported or held. Those who have been arrested and held are now in the custody of the Seoul Immigration Bureau.

It will be interesting if the Korean Government's initiatives will help clean up the EFL scene in Korea and keep people out of the business who are forging university degrees and TEFL certificates and who do not have proper, legal visa status.

I have not heard of anything like this taking place recently in Taiwan. However, about once a year, the police to come by my house and check to see if I am living where I claim to have been living on my visa renewal application.

So, the police here in Taiwan do try to monitor the movement of expats living here, even if it is once a year.

Canadian TEFL'ers in Korea

2005-10-16T23:43:00.001+08:00

It looks like there were many more young Canadians caught up in legal turmoil in South Korea last week when the Immigration Police conducted a crackdown on EFL'ers with illegal visa status and illegal teaching qualifications. A report was published in the Globe and Mail indicating that Over 50 Canadian TEFL'ers Arrested in Korea on various violations of Korean law.

The report has been extensively written about on several different blogs in both Korea (Gord's Site ) and Taiwan.

Filipinos Teaching English in Taiwan

2005-10-16T23:28:00.001+08:00

The Philippine Ministry of Labour and Employment has suggested that Filipinos be permitted to teach English in Taiwan.

Filipinos to Teach English in Taiwan

The Taiwan Ministry of Education (MOE) has indicated that it will soon start a recruiting drive for qualified English instructors. Admittedly, there is a shortage of qualified and experienced English teachers in Taiwan (and in other countries within the region) and this move would make perfect sense.

However, the MOE has stated that it will only pay Filipino instructors $25,000 NT, almost half of what teachers from Canada, Australia, U.S. and U.K. make under the same program.

My position on this is that qualified Filipino English instructors should receive the same pay and benefits as their colleagues from Canada, Australia, U.S. and the U.K. if they are to be contracted for the same amount of hours and duties as the native speaking instructors.

Furthermore, I agree that there should be more opportunities for qualified Filipino and Indian instructors who have native-like proficiency in English.

Indeed, it seems wrong to allow access to English teaching positions in Taiwan purely on the basis of where individual applicants were born or the kind of passport they hold.

For instance, there are French Canadians in Taiwan teaching English, some at the university level, in fact, who are not native English speakers. However, they hold Canadian passports, thus, making them eligible to teach English in Taiwan.

The current MOE policies are based on race and they must be ammended so as not to exclude other English speaking applicants from non-English-speaking countries.

TEFL'ers in Taiwan and Bad Public Behaviour

2005-09-06T10:51:00.001+08:00

I'm really disappointed. Disappointed in the fellow TEFL'ers I meet and hear about on the street and the things they say and do in public. I'm also disappointed in the Taiwanese government for making it possible for these people to come over and teach English here.

A teacher, or group of teachers from Canada and America, were arrested last week for selling and doing drugs - cocaine, marijuana, pills.

It's really embarrassing for me as a teacher who lives and works here in Taipei and I as someone who has a family back in Canada who may be seeing some of the news reports and TV shows on English teachers here in Taiwan.

I think what people need to remember is that there are EFL'ers here who are basically backpackers, fly-by-nighters, who don't take their jobs seriously or approach their work responsibly.

However, I'd like people to remember that there are also people teaching here who are very dedicated to their students, try to be professional and care about the work they do. They take pride in their work.

In the future, I'd really like to see the Taiwanese government take a more proactive approach in screening for more suitable people to come to Taiwan to teach. I think they are letting almost anyone into the country these days to teach EFL without having the proper mechanisms in place that would weed out the riff raff.

As it stands, unfortunately, Taiwan is still the 'wild, wild west' as far as EFL is concerned.

EFL Teacher Knowledge of Students' L1

2005-08-20T12:24:00.001+08:00

EFL teachers should have sufficient knowledge of their students’ first language (L1) if they hope for their teaching to be effective. More specifically, knowledge of their learners’ L1 will involve both a conscious and an unconscious knowledge.

In terms of conscious knowledge, this may be a conscious awarenessof the aspects of the students’ native language. These aspects of the learners’ L1 would normally involve phonology, morphology, the lexical and grammatical systems and socio-pragmatic awareness of the language. Indeed, this awareness of the students’ L1 is not limited to only the linguistic qualities of the language but should also include familiarity of the students’ culture as well.

EFL teachers must be familiar with their students’ L1 in order to be able to highlight important differences between English and the native language of their students. In addition, it is often more time efficient for both learners and the teacher if the teacher can quickly translate a word or sentence for students.

If instructors possess a good knowledge of similar structures in the students’ L1 as the structures they are teaching, they are then in a better position to quickly identify the source of the students’ errors. For example, teachers who are familiar with the students’ L1 can anticipate specific student problem areas with the use of English such as:

Misuse of words:
A): Whatdid you do this weekend?
B): I played with my boyfriend.

Omission of articles:
He is (a) good player!

Pluralization:
He has many car.

Third person singular verb agreement:
He (go) to China every month.

Replying to negative questions:
A): Don’t you like hamburgers?
B): Yes, I don’t like hamburger.

This will help students in making generalizations and forming hypotheses about the language. Also, students will be able to better integrate any new rules of the language they come across into their own linguistic competence.

With respect to unconscious knowledge, this is what most speakers of a language share. This may be described as the ability to produce and comprehend and to make grammatical judgments and use correct sentence structure in their first language.

Most students have no training in the grammar of their own language and should be made to think about the structures of their L1 and to contrast these L1 structures with English. Teachers who are familiar with their learners’ L1 can then explain and highlight the differences between the two language systems phonologically, syntactically, lexically as well as on a socio-pragmatic level.

Language Capacity for L2 Learning: Part III

2005-08-11T10:34:00.001+08:00

MATURATIONAL CONSTRAINTS &
MATURATION OF LANGUAGE FACULTY
Children and adults may follow similar paths of development in language learning, as suggested by Krashen, et al. (1974). From discussion above, it seems UG is still accessible, at least partially, by adult L2 learners. However, it is also commonly accepted that children are better language learners comparing with adult learners, and there are many differences in the language learning process between children and adults.

Consequently, the following question arises: if UG is accessible by adult learners, why can’t adult learners end up with uniform, native-like linguistic competence? Adult learners show some kind of maturational constraints as discussed above, but it is not appropriate to say that the maturational constraints are all caused by the accessibility to the language faculty, as the existence of or the accessibility to UG in second language learning is still a very complex and controversial issue.

Then, if it is not that the accessibility to the language faculty is solely attributing to the maturational constraints in Adult language learning, what else can attribute to them?

In relation to Ellis’s note on general cognitive development and socio-affective factors above, Moskovsky (2001) notes that any area of general learning involves a large number of interacting social and psychological variables and they have been also found in adult second language acquisition. He also notes that there is an age-related decline in cognitive ability with the general result that as a rule older learners do not achieve as highly as younger learners.

Bialystok and Hakuta (1994) re-analyze Johnson and Newport’ s data obtained in 1989 and claim that the gradual decline of language learning ability is the age-related decline of general cognitive ability, by showing that there was statistically significant evidence for a continued decline in L2 acquisition well into adulthood (Hakuta, 1999: 6). Hakuta further argues that:

failure to find supporting evidence for a critical period simply means that the view of a biologically constrained and specialized language
acquisition device that is turned off at puberty is not correct. The gradual decline over age in the ultimate attainment of a second language most likely means that there are multiple factors at work – physiological, cognitive, and social (1999: 12).

In a more recent study, Hakuta, Bialystok and Wiley (2003) analyze 1990 U. S. Census data and show that the predicted affects of a critical period for second language acquisition is not supported. The results do not show any evidence of a change or a well-defined discontinuity in language learning potential at the end of critical period.

In fact, the degree of success in L2 acquisition shows a steady decline throughout the life span. Consequently the authors argue that this result should be attributed to normal cognitive aging. They also point out that the importance of socioeconomic factors, such as the amount of formal education, may have affected the degree of success in L2 acquisition (2003: 37).

CONCLUSION
From the discussion above, we can see how complex language learning process and the issue of the accessibility to the language faculty are. It is generally true that children are better language learners than adults; many adults cannot learn a second language as successfully as children do regardless of the fact that adults have cognitive abilities that are so much greater than that of a child. It can be at least partially ascribable to adults’ maturational constraints on language learning.

This difficulty that adult L2 learners have can be discussed in terms of the accessibility to UG or cognitive aging; if UG is the key to master a second language, we will have to say adults probably have less accessibility to it comparing to children; and if we see cognitive aging as the key to the ability to learn things generally, it can also explain adults’ difficulty in learning a second language.

We should also be aware of the fact that the process of second language learning involves so many other factors that may affect the attainment of a second language too, such as neurological, psychomotor, affective and linguistic factors, and that these factors may all influence the outcome of language learning at the same time.

REFERENCES
Cook, V. 1996.Second Language Learning and Language Teaching. London: Arnold.

Ellis, R. 1994. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. New York: Oxford University Press.

Galasso, Joseph. 1999. A Working Paper on Second Language Acquisition Research: Some Notes on Theory and Method. Retrieved on March 15, 2005. from http://www.csun.edu/~galasso/wkpap.htm

Hakuta, K. 1999. A Critical Period for Second Language Acquisition? A Status Review. Retrieved on March 15, 2005. from http://www.stanford.edu/~hakuta/mp_papers.htm

Hakuta,K., Bialystok, E. & Wiley, E. 2003. Critical Evidence: A test of the critical period hypothesis for second language acquisition. Psychological Science, Vol. 14. January. pp.31-38

Hardie, A. 2004. Ling 208 Week 5: Universal Grammar in Action. (Handout)
Retrieved on March 15, 2005. from http://bowland-files.lancs.ac.uk/staff/andrewh/my208.htm

Johnson, J.S. and Newport, E.L. 1989. Critical Period Effects on Second Language Learning: The Influence of Maturational State on the Acquisition of English as a Second Language. In Brown, H.D. and Gonzo, S. 1995. Readings on Second Language Acquisition. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall Regents. pp. 75-114.

Lightbown, Patsy M. and Spada, Nina. 1993. How Languages are Learned. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mangubhai, F. 2004. Principles of Second Language Learning. Toowoomba: University of Southern Queensland.

Moskovsky, C. 2001. The Critical Period Hypothesis Revised. Proceedings of the 2001 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. Retrieved on March 10, 2005. from http://linguistics.anu.edu.au/ALS2001/papers/Moskovsky.pdf

Slobin, D. I. 1979. Psycholinguistics. (2nd ed.). Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.

Language Capacity for L2 Learning: Part II

2005-08-11T10:04:00.001+08:00

ACCESSABILITY TO THE LANGUAGE FACULTY
Lack of input during the critical period may result in incapability of learning language fully, as we have seen in Genie’s case. However, such direct evidence in support of the critical period for first language acquisition is thin (Hakuta, 1999: 2), and, as a result, the notion of a critical period remains controversial.

Still, the accessibility to UG, or the language faculty in the human brain, is closely related to the issue of critical period, as it is often debated that this innate capacity to learn language is only available up to a certain age (e.g. puberty) (Moskovsky, 2001).

Although Slobin does not discuss this availability of the language capacity in terms of second language acquisition, Johnson and Newport (1989) in Brown (1995: 79) summarizes that there are two versions of critical period hypothesis in relation to second language acquisition, namely (1) the exercise hypothesis and (2) the maturational state hypothesis.

The former claims that if the capacity for acquiring language is not exercised during a critical period, it will disappear or decline with maturation, but if the capacity is exercised, further language learning abilities will remain intact throughout life. The latter claims that the capacity for acquiring language will disappear or decline with maturation. Ellis (1994: 453-56) also summarizes and distinguishes views relating to the availability of UG in second language acquisition, by dividing them into: (1) the complete access view, (2) the no access view, (3) the partial access view, and (4) the dual access view.

FLYN'S PARAMETER-SETTING MODEL
Ellis refers to Flynn’s Parameter-setting Model as a representative example. Flynn argues that the essential faculty for language evidenced in L1 acquisition is also critically involved in L2 acquisition, assuming that adult L2 learners have access to the same language faculty as L1 learners, rejecting the claim that age is a significant factor in L2 learning.

The no access view claims that adult L2 acquisition is very different from L1 acquisition, and this difference arises because L1 learners make use of their language faculty whereas L2 learners use general learning strategies to acquire their second langauge.

The partial access view takes the position that learners may have access to linguistic principles but not to the full range of parametric variation. That is to say, adult learners are constrained by UG principles so they will not make impossible errors, but they will not be able to acquire L2-specific principles that differ from the L1.

Lastly, the dual access view claims that L2 learners have access to UG but that this is partly blocked by the use of general learning strategies.

CRITICAL PERIOD HYPOTHESIS
According to Johnson and Newport (1989) in Brown (1995: 80), in terms of the exercise hypothesis, second language learning should not only be equivalent in children and adults but most likely even superior in adults due to their greater skills in their L1 as well as superior cognitive strength in general.

On the other hand, with respect to the maturational state hypothesis, the child’s brain is assumed to have unique qualities during its maturational state which makes children particularly good at acquiring languages. Thus, children should be better in second language learning as well as first.

Ellis (1994) also states that the complete access view, which corresponds to the exercise hypothesis, argues that there is no critical period for the acquisition of L2 syntax, and is the most questionable among other positions.

The no access and partial access views assume that there is a critical period beyond which full grammatical competence is unobtainable and that L2 is not the same as L1 acquisition. The dual access view also assumes children’s L1 learning and adults’ L2 learning differ in this regard, and that adults will fail to achieve full linguistic competence in L2.

Although these three positions have different assumptions, they share similar beliefs that L1 and L2 acquisition are different at least partially, and adults fail to achieve full competence in L2 beyond a critical period. Ellis (1994: 456) further states that it is extremely difficult to demonstrate that differences are attributable to the operation of different learning systems, thus no verdict can be reached from this discussion.

Most children acquire their first language successfully and uniformly in spite of considerable environmental variation, and this uniformity leads us to accept the critical period hypothesis commonly in terms of first language acquisition(Hakuta, 1999: 2). It is also commonly accepted that on average children achieve higher levels of second language proficiency than adult learners in terms of second language acquisition (Moskovsky, 2001: 2).

Taking Johnson and Newport’s argument and Ellis’s discussion above into consideration, then, we can see that some kind of maturational constraints apply to second language learning as well. The complete access view, or the exercise hypothesis, seems to be rejected and whether the existence of maturational constraints on second language acquisition is solely attributable to the accessibility of UG, or the language faculty, is the question that remains here.

Ellis (1994: 455) notes that the no access or the partial access view does not follow that differences between L1 and L2 acquisition are the result of lost or diminished access to UG, as they may reflect other variables, such as general cognitive development and socio-affective factors.

ADULT vs CHILD L2 ACQUISITION
According to Hakuta (1999: 8), Bailey, Madden and Krashen (1974) compared the performance of adult and child learners of English as L2 and found that there was a remarkable similarity in the performance between children and adults, and the native language background of students did not seem to have affected the results, suggesting that child and adult learners progress along similar paths of development. As well, White and Genesee conduct a test in 1996 to see whether adult learners can demonstrate knowledge that is presumably accessible only through language-specific learning mechanisms, i.e. UG.

The results show that although children performed better, many adults strikingly showed equivalently high performance to child learners and native speakers, implying that adults are capable of learning highly abstract rules that are said to be accessible only with UG. (Hakuta, 1999: 9-10) Based on this result, it is suggested that UG, or the language faculty, is at least partially or for some adults, accessible in the process of L2 learning. These findings contradict with the above mentioned no access view.

Language Capacity for L2 Learning: Part I

2005-08-05T03:47:00.002+08:00

INTRODUCTION
The study of language acquisition has been deemed important in order for linguists and language teachers to gain a better understanding of both successful language learning and effective teaching methodologies. Research has shown that the most successful language learners tend to be children.

Important questions relating to this topic include the following: Is it possible for people to be as successful in learning a second language as it was for them to learn their first language? What makes the second language learning experience so difficult compared to our first language learning experiences? Why are children able to learn their first language much more easily than a second language later in life? While these questions have been researched and discussed extensively within the literature over the past several decades, conclusions still remain controversial. Slobin, a cognitive psycholinguist, states that:

The capacity to learn language is deeply ingrained in us as a species, just as the capacity to walk, to grasp objects, to recognize faces. We don’t find any serious differences in children growing up in congested urban slums, in isolated mountain villages, or in privileged suburban villas (1994).

The purpose of this paper is to consider Slobin’s statement and discuss whether this capacity to learn language is available for the learning of a second language. The writer attempts to explain his understanding of Slobin’s statement in relation to Chomsky’s Universal Grammar, and then discusses some perspectives on the accessibility or availability of this capacity in second language learning in the following sections.

Slobin’s capacity to learn language and Chomsky’s Universal Grammar Slobin argues that the ability to learn language is innate in humans. Slobin (1979: 118) notes that this ability is a specific neurological capacity that humans are born with, and this capacity is based on a fairly specific, genetically determined propensity to acquire language in human beings, and it is the organization of the brain, which underlies this propensity.

Slobin also discusses this capacity in relation to the critical period hypothesis in that the language hemisphere is predisposed to acquire language at an appropriate maturational stage. Slobin and other cognitive psychologists see this capacity to learn language as a part of general learning mechanism that all humans are born with, which is responsible for all forms of cognitive development, including language (Ellis, 1994: 81-2).

According to Slobin, children have a language making capacityconsisting of universal principles that enable them to perceive and segment items in the input and govern how they organize and store new information (Ellis, 1994: 379).

This notion is similar to Chomsky’s mentalists’ approach to first language acquisition. Chomsky states that children are born with language acquisition device (LAD), or Universal Grammar (UG), which is a mental faculty consisting of a set of principles which are common to all languages that facilitate children’s first language acquisition (Mangubhai, 2004: 1.12; Lightbown & Spada, 1993: 8). UG also includes parameters, i.e., principles that vary from one language to another.

As well, UG is said to enable children to make hypotheses about the structure of language, test them in its use of language and develop its rule system subconsciously, and/or scan input data and store noticed features in the process of discovery of the rules (Ellis, 1994: 81). UG functions as a black box that language input goes into and the learner constructs knowledge of language out of what goes into this black box (Cook, 1996: 154).

INPUT, CRITICAL PERIOD & LANGUAGE CAPACITY
In Chomsky’s UG, what goes into the black box, i.e., input, is essential, as it creates knowledge of language consisting of principles, parameters and lexical items (Cook, 1996: 154). A child’s environment is the paramount source of rich linguistic input to UG, and this input is vital, as UG does not function without it.

Slobin also suggests in the statement above that there is different input available for children to develop language in the environment that children have access to, and it is the primary linguistic data that enables children to learn language.

Children need adequate, interactive and modified input from the environment around them to their language faculty to fully develop their first language. We can see this from such examples of abnormal language development as in the case of Genie, who did not receive any human interaction (input) until her puberty (Mangubhai, 2004: 1.11) as well as in the case of Jim, who had deaf parents and only received impersonal input through TV up to the age of 3 years and 9 months (Lightbown & Spada, 1993: 15). These two examples both show the importance of input, as well as the importance of the timing to receive it.

However, they differ in their age when they began to receive input; Genie was about 13 years old and Jim was 3 years and 9 months. After their conversational sessions with adults began, their language development showed very different results.

Genie managed to learn many words but her syntax and morphology never fully developed; on the contrary, Jim started develop his language normally for his age by the age of 4 years and 2 months. From these cases we can briefly see that input is essential for first language acquisition and it has to be provided at the right time, i.e., as known as the critical period.

The notion of the critical period was originally formulated by Lenneberg in 1967. Lenneberg’s critical period hypothesis proposes that language can only be learned during a critical period in the child’s life and this period begins from age of 2 to start of puberty. If the child does not learn language then, he/she can never learn it properly (Hardie, 2004: 1).

In addition, Lenneberg suggests that this critical period effect is due to brain lateralization, and Slobin seems to stand closely to Lennerberg’s position. He states (1979: 125) that there are specific limitations to how much and what aspects of language the left hemisphere outside of the appropriate maturational state in development can acquire.

Indeed, Chomsky argues it is due to the maturation of UG, suggesting that input is needed at a particular time in UG’s growth and if it is not available then, acquisition will fail (Hardie, 2004: 1).

First and Second Language Acquisition

2005-07-10T16:25:00.001+08:00

INTRODUCTION:
In recent years, there has been an increase in research on both first and second language acquisition. Many linguists and language instructors are studying first and second language acquisition in an attempt to gain a better understanding of both language learning and effective teaching techniques.

Researchers have strived to determine if there exist any differences or similarities between second language learning and first language acquisition. As well, scholars have tried to find out why certain differences exist and to understand what exactly is the causes of these differences.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast first and second language acquisition. However, it should be pointed out that there is no simple or universally accepted answer to the question, ‘Are first and second language acquisition similar?’

There are several issues that need to be taken into consideration when attempting to compare first and second language acquisition. This paper will also try to provide examples when necessary in order to support particular views with regards to the differences in first and second language acquisition.

REASONABLE COMPARISONS:
In order to make fair comparisons of child first language acquisition and adult second language acquisition, it is necessary to observe the differences between children and adults. As Brown (1994, p. 51) indicates, “It is, in one sense, rather illogical to compare the first language acquisition of a child with the second language acquisition of an adult.”

The first language acquisition of a child is difficult to compare with the second language acquisition of an adult as a result of the unbelievable cognitive, affective and physical differences that exist between adults and children (Brown 1994, p. 52). A child acquiring his or her first language is referred to as L1 and an adult learning a second language is referred to as L2.

Making comparisons between first and second language learning is not such an easy task; however, there are generally four ways of comparing first and second language acquisition
(Brown 1994, p.54):

Child L1 vs Adult L1 (Type a)
Child L1 vs Adult L2 (Type b)
Child L2 vs Child L1 (Type c)
Child L2 vs Adult L2 (Type d)

COGNITIVE FACTORS:
It has been found that cognitive developments of the human brain occur quite rapidly over the first 16 years of life (Brown 1994, p. 58) and decrease after adulthood. As well, Jean Piaget found that puberty is the most critical stage for language acquisition, where he described the cognitive processes of language learners using two terms: equilibrium and disequilibrium (Brown 1994).

Piaget saw these two concepts occurring as an ongoing cycle during language acquisition. Disequilibrium related to the state of confusion or uncertainty whereas equilibrium pertained to the state of cognition characterized by certainty and resolution (Brown 1994, p. 59). It has been hypothesized that the lack of tolerance for contradictions in adults acts as barrier to successful second language acquisition.

Rote, mechanistic learning that isn’t related to the second language learner’s existing knowledge-base is often useless. Meaningful learning connects new information to experiences and existing knowledge in both child and adult second language learners.

It is also clear that adults attempting to learn a second language would benefit from grammatical explanations and deductive thinking (Brown 1994, p 59). However, complex grammatical explanations and deductive reasoning would be beyond the cognitive abilities of most children.

Research has shown that children are so successful in learning second languages because they are not “aware that they are even learning a second language” (Brown 1994, p. 59).

Children are not conscious of the fact that they are even acquiring sophisticated rules of language and master their first language and develop their knowledge of syntax subconsciously (O’Neill 1998, L2 Learning. para.2). Unfortunately, adult second language learners do not acquire the rules of syntax unconsciously as easily as children do. In short, L2 syntax is not acquired with the same ease as L1 syntax (O’Neill 1998, L2 Learning. para.2).

Moreover, children are also not as sensitive to the political or social ramifications of learning a given language as adults. Surprisingly, although adults have cognitive abilities that are much greater than that of a child, many adults cannot successful acquire a second language successfully.

THE CRITICAL PERIOD HYPOTHESIS:
Many scholars believe that there is a biological window of opportunity for human beings to acquire a language. The critical period hypothesis, “…states that there is a period during which language acquisition is easy and complete” (Ellis 1997, p. 67). That is, many believe that there is a biologically determined critical period for language acquisition (Brown 1994, p. 52). The critical period hypothesis was generated during research conducted on people who suffered brain injuries and, as a result, lost their language abilities.

Researchers have suggested that the critical point for second language acquisition takes place at around puberty, while other researchers believe that this critical period occurs at an age much earlier than puberty (Mangubhai 2003, p. 1.12). It is after puberty that people often experience more difficulty in acquiring a second language and a natural or native-like accent (Brown 1994, p. 53). However, it is obvious that this does not mean that it is impossible for adult language learners to attempt to learn a second language.

Researchers have also found that neurological factors are responsible in the successful acquisition of both first and second language learning (Brown 1994, p. 54). In 1988, Scovel found “that there is a strong possibility that there is a critical period for not only first language acquisition but also second language acquisition” (Brown 1994, p. 54). Scovel’s research findings indicate that there is a neurologically based critical period for language acquisition.

As well, Walsh and Driller concluded that different aspects of a second language are best learned at specific ages (Brown 1994, p. 55). Their research suggested that foreign accents, for example, are difficult to overcome after childhood (Brown 1994, p. 55). As a result, pronunciation is largely dependent on early maturing of the brain.

Generally speaking, these finding lend support to the view that there seems to be “a neurologically based critical period for authentic, native-like accents but not so for higher order processes such as communicative fluency” (Brown 1994, p. 55).

Second language learners were found to use their right hemisphere more than first language learners. Obler (1981) and Genesee (1982) found that individuals, who acquire their second language late relative to their first language, use their right brain more. Researchers also observed more right hemisphere activity in the brain during the early stages of second language acquisition (Brown 1994, p. 55).

LATERALIZATION:
One of the key concepts used to illustrate the critical period hypothesis is referred to as brain lateralization (Brown 1994, p. 53). Brain lateralization is a term used to describe the neurological functions that take place in each of the brain’s two hemispheres.

In 1973, Stephen Krashen believe that full lateralization of the brain occurred sometime around the age of 5 (Brown 1994, p. 54). The brain, basically, assigns specific functions to each hemisphere. For instance, the left side is responsible for language ability in humans. Plasticity or the capabilities of the brain are though to be at their greatest during childhood (Mangubhai 2003, p. 1.12). Researchers have attempted to find out when lateralization takes place and the impact it has on language learning (Mangubhai 2003, p. 1.12).

Many scholars believe that lateralization takes places between the age of 2 and the age of 12. For example, young patients suffering from left hemisphere brain injuries were studied by Eric Lenneberg in 1967. Lenneberg found that the damage to the left hemisphere in pre-pubescent children did not prevent the children from eventually recovering all of their language abilities.

Interestingly, it was revealed that their brains were able to reassign linguistic functions to the right hemisphere. In other words, children under the age of 12 were able to re-learn their first language without any noticeable handicaps (Brown 1994, p. 54).

However, patients older than 12 were less likely to recover their lost language abilities (Ellis 1997, p. 67; Mangubhai 2003, p. 1.2). Researchers also found that the right hemisphere learned how to do what the left hemisphere was doing prior to the injury in pre-pubescent patients.

The lateralization hypothesis may provide insight with regard to the differences between child and adult second language acquisition (Brown 1994, p. 59). Some researchers have suggested that as the brain matures, the prospect of acquiring a second language becomes much more difficult (Brown 1994, p. 53). Neurological research has in fact supported this assertion.
However, researchers have struggled to answer a couple of very important questions: at what point does lateralization take place and how does the process of lateralization affect language acquisition?

PRONUNCIATION AND ACCENT:
It is widely believed that the earlier children start to develop a physical skill, the better they will be at that skill. This appears to be true for children who start to play sports or study a musical instrument at a very young age. The child learns to develop and control dozens of muscles and speech organs such as the tongue, lips, throat and mouth. This helps them attain native-like or natural pronunciation. Not only are speech muscles developed early in life but so are the child’s neurological pathways which assist in the production of sounds (Mangubhai 2003, p. 1.11).

Conversely, adults have, for their L1, already developed muscles in their throat, mouth, lips, etc. and then must go through this process again for their L2. The adult L2 learner must develop new habits and resist any temptation to use old, unhelpful habits in learning their L2 (Mangubhai 2003, p. 1.11). This may be one reason that adult second language learners have more difficulty achieving a native-like accent, whereas, children learning a second language are more successful in acquiring a native-like accent. However, it is possible for adult L2 learners to still achieve high fluency in their second language without having native-like pronunciation (Mangubhai 2003, p. 1.11).

Also, first language learning often takes place in a meaningful context, whereas second language learning usually occurs in an artificial environment such as a classroom. As mentioned above, classroom lessons are often marked by repetitive pattern practice drills and rote memorization tasks.

INPUT:
The input or samples of language to which a learner is exposed, is very important. Researchers have tried to establish what kind of input facilitates learning. For example, do learners benefit more from input that has been simplified for them or from authentic language of native speaker communication? (Ellis 1997, p. 5).

A child learns its first language while, at the same time, learning about the world they live in and “the input she receives will become comprehensible to her through her contact with the world itself” (Laohasiri 1998, para.2). Cognitive mechanisms of L2 learners possess general knowledge about the world which they can draw on to help them understand L2 input. L2 learners can also use communication strategies to help them make effective use of their L2 knowledge.

For instance, adult second language learners can use mnemonic devices or existing ideas or notions that they may already have about the world in order to memorize new vocabulary (Ellis 1997, p. 5). Some researchers might also argue that L2 learners are well-equipped with pre-existing knowledge of how language in general works, which helps them learn their second language.

Instead of parental input the adult second language learner relies on teacher input. Since input from parents is very important to the first language learner, it is also a good idea for teachers to be as deliberate but meaningful in their communications with students (Brown 1994, p. 69).

L2 LEARNING STRATEGIES:
When an adult learner of a second language uses certain techniques in an attempt to learn a second language, we refer to this as learning strategies (Ellis 1997). Learning strategies may include what is known as social affective strategies, where the learner repeats words out loud in order to memorize new vocabulary or phrases or uses situational context in order to better understand the new language.

As mentioned previously, adult language learners may also use mnemonic devices in order to remember complex vocabulary items and phrases. Adult L2 learners are also able to ask questions, make requests and repeat words and phrases, which are also social affective strategies. On the other hand, cognitive strategies involves analysis of the learning materials (Ellis 1997, p. 77).

Recombination is used as a strategy to recombine known elements of the L2. Metacognitive strategies include the planning and monitoring and evaluating of the learning process (Ellis 1997). As well, good second language learners are proactive in that they are willing to assume responsibility for their own learning and appear to understand both the learning process and their own personal learning styles (Ellis 1997, p. 77). Research has shown that good L2 learners are usually very good at using metacognitive strategies.

AFFECTIVE FACTORS:
Human beings are emotional and, as a result, researchers have been looking into the affective variable of second language acquisition (Brown 1994, p. 61). The affective considerations of language acquisition include: inhibition, imitation, attitude, self-esteem and anxiety.

For example, young children tend to be very egocentric and they perceive events in the World in relation to themselves. However, as children reach the age of puberty they become much more self conscious and insecure with their language ego. It is during this period that the child changes physically, emotionally and cognitively. All of these changes in the child ultimately affect communication.

By the time children reach their teenage years, children see themselves in comparison to other people around them. The notion of self-concept begins to develop and the adolescent is aware of how others see him or her. In a sense, the child becomes more self-conscious (Mangubhai 2003, p. 1.15). Self-concept, comparisons between themselves and the others around them affect the learning of a second language among young people. Adults tend to believe that mistakes should not be made and feel humiliated or foolish when they make a mistake (Mangubhai 2003, p. 1.15).

As a result, many adult second language learners give up. On the other hand, children do not seem to suffer from these problems such as low-self esteem or self-doubt quite as often as adult learners seem to experience them. This fact may be explained for the egocentrism that is characteristic of many young children (Mangubhai 2003, p. 1.5). Children are not worried about what other people will think of them if they make a mistake usually.

In an act of self-preservation, the young language learner attempts to defend the language ego. As a result, the child will attempt to use the native language for defense (Brown 1994, p. 62). Many second language learners feel threatened and are unwilling to put themselves in situations where they may look foolish, such as in attempting to speak a foreign language. As a result, it is important for second language learners to overcome inhibitions in order to acquire a second language successfully.

CASE STUDIES: WES, GENIE and U.S. IMMIGRANTS:
Richard Schmidt, A researcher from the University of Hawaii, conducted a 3 year case study on a Japanese man named Wes. Wes was an artist who had moved to Hawaii. Wes was reported to have very good ability at communicating with others in English, for example, he could initiate conversations, give small presentations on his artwork and assist in mediating personal disputes between friends (Ellis 1997, p. 8).

However, Wes was not able to acquire syntax or the grammatical rules of English. Some scholars described Wes as only concerned with communicating and not interested in the formal rules of English. It appeared that Wes’s development as a L2 learner of English was indeed limited and appeared to have plateaued with respect to the level of grammar that he was able to acquire.

In Wes’s case, he did not fully acquire certain grammatical forms such as the present continuous. Wes would use the present continuous when it was not needed as in, Yesterday, I didn’t painting (Ellis 1997, p. 7). In sum, even though Wes was immersed in the culture of the target language, he did not seem to improve with regard to English grammar.

The critical period hypothesis was also supported by the case of Genie, a young girl, who was tragically kept in isolation by her parents for many years and never taught how to speak (Ellis 1997, p. 68). While Genie was able to eventually communicate quite well using English, she did not ever learn to acquire the various grammatical rules in English. As a result, it is widely supported that adult L2 learners are highly unlikely to ever acquire native-like competence with their second language (Ellis 1997, p. 68).

Similarly, studies of Korean and other Asian immigrants to the United States have shown that children who arrive in America before the age of 12 experience greater success in acquiring native-like competence in English. Age of arrival of Immigrants is the greatest predictor of second language acquisition success as opposed to the number of years the immigrant spends immersed in the target language (Ellis 1997, p. 68).

CONCLUSION:
In sum, making direct comparisons between first and second language acquisition can be a difficult and complex task. Indeed, it is important to observe the incredible cognitive, physical and affective differences between child L1 learners and adult L2 learners (Brown 1994). Moreover, children are not conscious of the fact that they are even acquiring sophisticated rules of language. Children master their first language and develop their knowledge of syntax subconsciously (O’Neill 1998, L2 Learning. para.2).

As mentioned in this discussion, children acquire their first language prior to the onset of puberty. It is during this time period that children are learning about the world they live in and other very important life skills. Adult L2 learning, on the other hand, is not genetically triggered in anyway.

It is also interesting to note that children, in contrast to adult second language learners, never experience the urge to consciously or subconsciously reject their first language (O’Neill 1998, L2 Learning. para.4). It appears that children do not question the learning process and are not overly analytical with the new language like adult L2 learners appear to be (O’Neill 1998, L1 Acquisition. para.4).

Also, children with brain injuries as well as mentally disordered children will acquire all the formal rules and structures of their language. This was evident in Lenneberg’s research, which revealed that the damage to the left hemisphere in pre-pubescent children did not prevent the children from eventually recovering all of their language abilities.

Lastly, it has been found that adult second language learners do not acquire the rules of syntax unconsciously in the way that children do. In short, L2 syntax is not acquired with the same ease as L1 syntax (O’Neill 1998, L2 Learning. para.2). The information generated from the case studies of Wes, the Japanese artist in Hawaii and the tragic story of Genie and the Asian immigrants who moved to America support the assertion that the rules of syntax are not as easily acquired by adult learners as opposed to child L1 learners.

References:

Brown, H. Douglas (1994). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Prentice. Hall: New Jersey 3rd ed.

Ellis, R. (1997). Second Language Acquisition. Oxford University Press: New York

Mangubhai, F. (2003) LIN8001: Principles of Second Language Learning. University of Southern Queensland: Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia

Laohasiri, K. (1998, August 17). Assumption University of Thailand: Language and Learning Awareness. Retrieved July 22, 2003 from http://www.au.ac.th/~u4119986/u1-4.html

EFL, ESL, ESP or EIL?

2005-06-27T02:40:00.001+08:00

There are several acronyms used to describe the context in which we teach English. I would like to point out the difference in meaning of the above labels with the hope of clarifying how they are correctly used.

English as a Second Language (ESL):
When a Chinese, Korean or Japanese come to an English-speaking country such as Canada, American or Australia (as an immigrant, for example) they must learn the language because the environment or setting demands it for getting by in daily life. In the aforementioned countries, English plays a vital role in the daily lives of people with respect to government, business, education and personal relationships. This would also include students who are learning English in countries where English may not be the first official language such as India, Singapore or the Philippines. English learners learning the language in this context are described as ESL students.

English as a Foreign Language (EFL):
When a Chinese, Korean or Japanese person learns English in a formal classroom environment in their own country they are termed appropriately as EFL students. That is, there are no opportunities for students in these countries to use the language outside of the formal classroom environment. Moreover, the language does not play a vital role in the day to day lives of the citizens regarding business, government and personal relationships.

English for Special Purposes (ESP):
This normally includes English for Academic Purposes (EAP), English for Science and Technology (EST) and English for General Purposes (EGP). This term refers to English which is geared towards a specific course or program (Nursing, Flight Attendants, Police Officers, etc). The idea behind ESP programs is that the content of the courses is determined by the specific needs of the unique group of learners taking the course (Doctors, Pilots, Nurses, etc).

English as an International Language (EIL):
English is arguably the world's common language for science, business, tourism and communication. For instance, when a Taiwanese woman and an Italian meet during a vacation in Thailand and use English to communicate with each other. In addition, the native speaker variety of English used (Australian, U.K. Received Pronunciation, American, etc) in such a situation will not matter. English in this instance is simply used as a way of cross-cultural communication.

It may not seem pertinent, however, English is learned within very different contexts. Also, people learn the language for multiplicity of purposes. Generally speaking, we should refer to learners learning English in an English-speaking Evironment as ESL learners and those learning English in a context where English is a foreign language as EFL learners. On that note, many teaching in Korea, China and Taiwan may prefer to refer to their contexts as EIL.

Large Classes

2005-06-26T02:40:00.001+08:00

Over the last few years, I have had some experience working with large groups both when I taught in Japan and Taiwan (around 40 to 60 students per class). Normally, though, I often taught class sizes of about 25 to 30 students.

In the following post, I would like to discuss some of the challenges EFL teachers face in working with large classes.

DIFFICULTIES
There are a number of difficulties in working with large groups. For example:
It is not always easy to use a communicative approach with large groups in that providing one-to-one attention to students can be quite difficult to impossible.

In large classes, there are probably going to be differences in learning styles and preferences as well as students of mixed ability. This can create demands on the way in which material is taught and the overall pace of the lessons.

Moreover, if classes are ‘lively’ with students talking a lot throughout the lesson it may be difficult for teachers to make themselves heard and to generally manage the group.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
In light of these difficulties, there are definitely some strategies we can use to minimize problems associated with teaching large groups. Some examples include:

Breaking down large groups into smaller, manageable groups. In Tokyo, I normally had students work in groups of 4 or 5. I would then ‘float’ or move around the classroom, monitoring student activities/progress, clarify tasks or instructions and answer any questions from the students.
Appoint faster learners or students with stronger skills as group/team leaders. These students can convey any messages, instructions or important points to the others in the group. These group leaders can also work with and help any students who may have difficulty with the material.
Use the white board and write down any main ‘themes’, ideas, instructions or important points for students to refer during the lesson.
Plan a variety of activities so that lessons appeal to learners’ interests, abilities and learning styles and life experiences.
Have students work on group projects. Each student may fulfill a particular role for their ‘team’ or group. When members of small groups share responsibility they assume a sense of ‘ownership’ and can take a personal approach in the work they are doing. Group projects tend to involve students more in the learning experience and promote learner autonomy. Working in small groups can also be enjoyable for many students.
Encourage group members to express their ideas freely.
Work at building a good rapport with students and treat them with respect.

Good Language Learners

2005-06-03T18:49:00.001+08:00

There are a number of tips, tricks or strategies that language students can use that can lead to incsreased enjoyment with the learning experience and help them become better, more autonomous learners.

Many EFL instructors argue that these strategies should be promoted within the EFL classroom and that students should be encouraged to adopt them in order to aid them with the learning process.

Good Language Leaners...

Take charge of their learning. (ie. pre-view materials, record lessons, keep a vocab notebook, etc.)
Are Creative, develop a feel for the language by experimenting with grammar and words.
Make their own opportunities for practice in using the language inside and outside the classroom.
Learn to live with uncertainty by not getting flustered and by continuing to talk or listen without understanding every word.
Use mnemonics and other memory strategies to recall what has been learned.
Organize information about language.
Use contextual clues in order to help their comprehension.
Learn to make intelligent guesses.
Learn chunks of language as wholes.
Learn certain tricks to help keep conversation going.
Learn different styles of speech e.g. polite vs informal language.

The 10 Commandments for Good Language Learning

Don't be afraid of the language you're learning.
Don't hold back - Go For it!
Belive in yourself - You can do it!
Always go with your intuition - Your Gut Feeling.
Take advantage of opportunities to speak and use the language.
Set realistic personal goals.
Don't be afraid to make mistakes - Perfection is impossible!
Make mistakes and learn from them.
Strive to understand the Big Picture - the main ideas.
Cooperate with other learners and learn from each other!

Adapted from Brown, H.D., 2000.

Suggestions for Teaching Asian Students

2005-06-03T01:54:00.001+08:00

During my time teaching EFL here in Asia, I've come to realize that there are some fairly simple things that I can do in order to avoid potential problems in the classroom.

Below, I've listed several of these ideas that can make life in the classroom easier and more pleasant for both the instructor and the students.

Create a good relationship with students. Associate with them outside of the classroom. Talk to them during break time. Try to understand your students.
Tell students that they can ask questions at any time – in class or out of class. Encourage them to ask questions if they don’t understand something. Tell them that it will not be inconvenient for you to answer any and all questions.
Avoid negative reactions to students’ questions. Do not embarrass students. Do not hurt their feelings or let them lose face.
Call students by names so that they are not forced to raise their hands.
Provide confidence building comments for students.
Try to read non-verbal communication. Call on those students who are ready.

CELTA

2005-05-02T02:54:00.002+08:00

CELTA Training Centre
Bangkok, Thailand

I completed the CELTA (Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults) teacher training course in Bangkok last year and this is what the training centre looked like. I have some thoughts on the CELTA and courses like it. Reading the following article may be helpful for those EFL teachers interested in pursuing such a course.

The CELTA is an intensive 4 week teacher training program that some have described as, ‘exhausting.’ There are no more than 6 other trainees in each group and there may up to 4 separate groups. There are 4 or 5 different instructors and each group of teacher trainers rotates from one instructor to another over the course of 4 weeks. The CELTA costs $1,200 in Vancouver, Canada and about B40,000 in Thailand.

Each day on the course begins at 9:00am and finishes sometime around 5:45 - 6:00pm from Monday to Friday. The mornings normally start off with lectures or presentations by the instructors. These lectures involve all of the groups working together either in pairs or small groups and sometimes even as one big class. In the afternoon, the teachers were required to do their observed teaching component for the course.

Then, from about 4:00pm to 6:00pm, we would sit in our groups and do feedback sessions with our group trainer . This is where the trainers would get you to comment on your lessons, they would provide feedback on your lessons and your fellow trainees would also comment on your lessons! This could get stressful sometimes as some of the trainees were quite mean to some people.

I personally found some people on the CELTA to be unecessrily cruel and confrontational during these feedback sessions and would advise candidates to have 'thick skin' when going into their feedback sessions. Don't argue. Nod your head. Listen and don't get defensive. It'll be natural to disagree with someone's observations. In fact, I found some of my fellow trainees to be much more critical and confrontational than any of the trainers. So be on the guard for abrasive trainees.

Candidates work together doing pair work or small-group work. The training is very learner centred, communicative and task-based. Instructors float around the room and monitor candidates as they complete tasks.

The first week is quite intensive and nerve racking. Teaching in front of your peers, the instructors and new students can be unsettling even for experienced teachers.

In the second week, the lessons get a little longer and the trainers are looking at your teaching more closely. They scrutinize your decision making, materials and use of teaching techinues during your lesson. Lesson eventually go from 15 minutes to 30 minutes to 50 minutes by the third week of the course.

Week three is less pressure than the two preceeding weeks, in my opinion. Most of the butterflies of teaching in front of strangers who are evaluating you have almost disappeared. The lesson, at this point, are now up to 40 minutes and the afternoon feedback sessions can be just as intense.

One of the concerns that I have about the CELTA is the disparity between what is considered good teaching practice and not good teaching practice among CELTA teacher trainers. It bothered me, and other teacher trainees, that there was inconsistency among trainers as to what was the best way to teach.

For example, one instructor told us absolutely do not say "No" to students. However, one of the other trainers said "No" several times to students in his lesson that the trainees observed. As well, this trainer used the L1 in his lesson after we were all told to avoid using the L1 during our lessons. In sum, there were many instances where the trainers seemed to contradict each other in terms of what they thought constituted good teaching.

The 5 main units covered on the CELTA course are:

Learners and teachers and the teaching and learning context
Language analysis and awareness
Language skills: reading, listening, speaking and writing
Planning and resources for different teaching contexts
Developing teaching skills and professionalism

There are also 4 written assignments during the CELTA course which receive either a "Pass" or "Fail." These papers are to be no longer than about 750 words. I found this to be the easiest aspect of the CELTA but some trainees had their papers returned to them and were told to re-write the papers. Many of the candidates that I was working with had to re-write their papers at least once in order to receive a "Pass."

On my particular course, no one failed. While I was witness to some pretty stressful moments, everyone got by. People tend to get a little frustrated with their time management and put off by the attitude of some of the more negative candidates on the course and so sometimes people became emotional. I have been told that every group is different and I believe this. So, you never know what kind of group you're going to end up in.

My group, unfortunately, had a poor dynamic. We had a female and male candidte in my group begin a "CELTA Romance" after the first day of the course. They were difficult to work with as a 'team' and often did their own thing. In fact, they were often rude to the other candidates in that they did not help out, pay attention during lessons and laughed and talked to each other when candidates were teaching.

Not surprisingly, one candidate, an older gentleman from the U.K., kicked out a Canadian female trainee who was laughing during his teaching. This is the same girl that was having the 'CELTA Romance.'

This Canadian woman was also difficult with me during the course and accused me of being difficult to work with and 'cheap' because I removed my paper from the printer while she was printing out one of her CELTA assignments.

Each candidate was given a package of computer printing paper. I only wanted to ensure that I had enough paper for my own assignments. As well, one of the other candidates from the U.K. took a huge chunk of my paper and filled the printer tray so that everyone had enough paper. I just about freaked. This is the sort of thing you need to be prepared for during CELTA.

Doing the CELTA before you do your Master of TESOL or Master of Applied Linguistics may be a good idea as some schools have been known to give CELTA holders credit towards their Master degree. CELTA holders may be exempt from taking methodology and introduction to linguistics in their M.A. programs.

There are several things you can do to ensure that your CELTA experience goes as smooth as possible.

Get plenty of sleep
Be organized - buy a big binder with dividers
Have access to a computer and printer
Read the assigned readings the night before a lecture
Have a CELTA buddy that you can work with - help each other
Eat healthy - stay off the booze (or save it for Saturday)
Put off 'hanging out' with friends until the course is done
Drink a lot of water
Do what each particular trainer asks you to do

Below are some comments from previous CELTA trainees which describe some of their feelings regrading their particular courses.

Teacher's Comments:

It's like riding a bike. It doesn't matter how badly you ride it as long as you don't fall off. You don't tell the trainers how you think the bike should be ridden. You ride exactly where you're told. And no wheelies! - Dyak: July 6, 2005 Dave’s ESL Café, “How Difficult is the CELTA?”

They just give you so much to do in the time you've got. - EnglishBrian, Jun 29, 2005 Dave’s ESL Café, “How Difficult is the CELTA?”

Another potential difficulty is favoritism. Because human beings are incapable of objectivity - and naturally that includes CELTA instructors - you will come across others being criticized less harshly than yourself. Everyone has their favorites.

Inevitably at some stage, perhaps many times, you will be very pleased with your lesson and be told that there were several things wrong with it; yet another person will give the most abysmal lesson imaginable (and others will agree with you; it won't be just you that thinks this) and will get nothing but praise. - Spinoza, July 5, 2005 Dave’s ESL Café, “How Difficult is the CELTA?”

My answers were marked as wrong when I used the American pronunciation. I am a Yank, not a Brit, so how can the instructors expect me to know the Queen's English? - Dolma, July 6, 2005, Dave’s ESL Café, “How Difficult is the CELTA?”

Overall, I learned a lot more about EFL methodology, teaching pronunciation and grammar, lesson planning and classroom management. I think the CELTA is a great course for both beginning and seasoned teachers. However, there seems to be disparity among instructors as to what constitutes 'good teaching.'

In sum, I feel that I can recommend this course even though it is a bit pricey at U.S.$2,000 in some cities. This figure may be much lower in countries such as Thailand and China - so it pays to shop around. In the end, I was glad that I took this course and feel much more confident as a language teacher now.

National Taiwan Normal University

2005-04-27T01:16:00.001+08:00

The following photos are of National Taiwan Normal University on Heping Road. One of the main schools for Chinese language learning is located on the NTNU campus.

It looks like a really nice campus and I'd really like to work there one day but it won't happen without a doctoral degree. I could have taken a part time position at NTNU teaching community conversation classes on campus but declined.

NTNU is one of the largest teacher colleges in Taiwan.

National Taiwan Normal University

NTNU Library

The Chinese Language Centre NTNU

Taiwan ELT Publishing

2005-04-27T01:08:00.002+08:00

There is a bookstore near NTNU that I came across a couple of years ago that carries many good teacher training and applied linguistics textbooks.

They have several of the Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press series as well as other teacher reference materials. They also have a huge selection of student textbooks, resources and materials.

This would be a good place to have a look around if you're interested in reading up on EFL or looking for student materials.

Taiwan ELT Publishing Co. Ltd.

Taipei Language Institute

2005-04-27T01:07:00.000+08:00

The Taipei Language Institute located at Section 3 Heping Road in Taipei seems to be a popular place for foreign residents to study Chinese. TLI has schools in Japan, U.S. and China in addition to its branches around Taiwan.

Students can study Japanese, English, Taiwanese as well as Mandarin at TLI. Prices are a moderately expensive and the resources and methodology used by teachers rate from poor to fair.

The teachers at TLI use the audiolingual method and the textbooks have no photographs or pictures to aid in the teaching of new vocab or language. There are, however, lists of endless points of grammar and vocabulary without any attempt to contextualize the new language.

TLI teachers normally use a lot of drills, listen and repeat and read aloud techniques. Teachers do not use any realia, photos and do not make use of tasks or role plays in the language lessons. In sum, the Chinese teachers are not at all communicative in their language teaching.

In my view, I don't really think the quality of TLI instruction warrants the higher prices they charge for their tuition and books. Unfortunately, TLI is a lot like any other Chinese language school in this respect with the exception of their higher tuitions.

Taipei Language Institute

Wall Street Institute School of English

2005-04-27T01:05:00.001+08:00

In the future I will try to occasionally publish some information on particular English schools in Taipei so that folks reading from overseas can get some kind of idea of what to expect from schools in the way of salaries, contract terms and general working conditions.

I was walking past Taipei Station today and came across a big school called Wall Street Institute School of English. There are several branches located around Taipei City - Taipei Main Station, Breeze Centre and Shu-Lin.

In the past, I've spoken with several teachers who had either worked for this school or were working there at the time.

All in all, I've received only negative reports about Wall Street. Apparantly, there are several British teacher supervisors working there who have poor leadership qualities and no formal training in Education or TEFL methodology.

There is also apparantly a lot of in-house fighting among teachers and the British supervisors who are, I've been told, 'lazy' and try to pass their lessons off onto junior teachers so that they can do admin work.

The wages are low. I was told that they average out to about NT$475 per hour after working approximately 27 to 30 hours per week. Split shifts are the norm, where teachers are required to start in the morning until 12:00pm and then return at 4 or 5pm and then teach until 9:00pm. Also, I was told that Wall Street Institute contracts teachers to a 6 day work week.

The facilities look clean and new and there is normally a teachers' room at all branch locations to sit down in between classes and eat lunch or prepare for lessons.

Wall Street also uses its own in-house materials and I am told once you learn these materials it cuts down on class preparation time dramatically. In fact, one Wall Street Institute teacher told me that he had become incredibly bored with the material after a year of working there and that the job was not very challenging or interesting.

As well, like many schools in Taiwan, Wall Street does not provide housing for English teachers. I have also been told that Wall Street does not hire teachers from overseas and that they require applicants to come in and sit an interview in person. This may have changed since I received most of the above information on Wall Street in 2003 and 2004.

Final word on Wall Street Institute is - high turn over rate, grumpy and autocratic British head teachers, boring materials, low hourly wages, split-shifts and 6 day work week.

The presentation at Wall Street is very slick. Many computers and classrooms with glass walls and glass marker boards. The compay is actually a Spanish company and has branches in China and Bangkok, Thailand. I have also heard reports from other teachers that they may have already expanded to Japan as well.

Ranking:

Salary: Poor
Hours: Poor - Fair
Facility: Good
Location: Good (close to MRT Stations)
Mangagement: Very Poor

Wall Street Institute School of English

Concept Checking

2005-04-20T00:15:00.002+08:00

Concept checking is so important as an EFL teacher.

When I first started teaching English, I often assumed that students understood task instructions, the meaning of new language or examples I had given to highlight new forms. I would ask students, "Do you understand?" or "Have you got that?" and other similar expressions.

This was a big mistake. Invariably, students in North East Asian countries will always answer with a choral "Yes!" when asked by a teacher, "Do you understand?" Even though students haven't understood, they will lie and tell you that they have!

I eventually caught on to this aspect of language teaching and began to check students' understanding with a series of non-open-ended questions.

Normally, after I have introduced some new language or skills I ask students closed questions requiring a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer.

For example:

Mary: Bob, you should stay in bed

When teaching the modal auxiliary should for giving advice, I'll usually ask the following concept questions:

Is Bob in bed now?
Is Bob sick?
Does Mary think it is okay for Bob to stay in bed?
Does Mary want Bob to get some rest?

Remember, our concept checks are not really meant to trick or fool students but for them to just demonstrate that they have understood the new language or skill. Hopefully teachers can avoid some potential classroom problems by concept checking.

Avoid asking Do you understand? and have fun concept checking!

1 Month Vacation in Bed

2005-04-19T12:13:00.000+08:00

I just finished adminstering a mid-term exam this morning for a large group of second years students. It dawned on me, after examining my attendance sheets for the class, that one of my students had missed a complete month of classes.

Well, I made note of this student in my class file and then went for lunch. I ran into a group of students in the cafeteria and spoke with them. It turns out that the student with the excessive absences was one of the students in this group.

I asked her about her whereabouts on Tuesday mornings and she got embarassed and just laughed and wouldn't answer me. Her friends were laughing also and a couple said that she was sleeping. I asked her if that was true and she admitted that she ws sleeping.

I reminded her of the 4 class/8 hour attendance policy and she, as expected, reacted in shock that she may fail the course if she misses one more lesson.

I laughed with them and told them to have a nice day but emphasized that they needed to attend class.

It seems that none of the students pay for their own education in Taiwan. In fact, I wasn't able to find any students who were paying for their tuition themselves when I asked.

This lack of motivation or complacency is maybe related to the fact that they aren't responisble for the cost of their education.

Excessive Absences

2005-04-18T19:01:00.000+08:00

I have tried a different strategy this semester with my first and second year non-English majors who have accrued excessive absences. Since the university language lab courses have a shorter semester than regular university classes, it's important that students attend scheduled class.

There seemed to be some confusion last semester by both myself and the students about what the attendance rules were for the course. After consulting the department assistant and a few other senior teachers, I came up with what I think is a fair attendance policy.

I've adopted a 4 class or '8 hour' rule in which if a student misses 4 lab classes or 8 hours, s/he is then put on notice that they run the risk of automatic failure in the course if they miss one more class or 2 hours.

Last week, I had to speak to several students who have already missed 4 classes or 8 hours of the course and told them that they'd fail if they did not attend the rest of the classes.

It's interesting how many of them had no idea of the policy even after I had discussed it in class and posted the policy on my class websites in both English and Mandarin.

Students Come to See Teachers with Friends

2005-04-15T00:36:00.000+08:00

I've noticed that in Taiwan, students come to see you with their friends and then have their friends explain their problems or ask their questions for them.

I find this odd.

I asked my office mate if this is because students feel that there may be problems with language and that maybe they feel their friend can speak English better than them. He wasn't sure, although he admitted that he also noticed a similar pattern.

Just another interesting aspect to working with Chinese students.

Mid Term Exams

2005-04-14T01:38:00.000+08:00

Teachers and students are preparing for mid term exams which start on Friday and finish next Thursday.

All of my exams have been written and photocopied to hand out on Friday afternoon. Mid term and final exams always mean a lot of work marking when you have around 400 students.

I've learned to photocopy on both sides and to keep it to 2 pages maximum to reduce stapling and hours of grading. Some teachers don't even have a mid-term exam! I wonder how they explain that in their evaluations? I also use an answer key for easier marking.

I have lived and learned.