Diego's Quintos

Behind the Class On the appointed day, at the appointed time, you walk into class, chat with your classmates, one or two jokes, the teacher arrives, roll call and the class begins. You are told to open the book on page number so and so, and to discuss over the three questions which start the lesson, and then to read the text that follows, and answer the questions on it. You read in pairs, you comment with your partner, you even disagree sometimes.... But, have you ever wondered what lies behind all this activity? What makes the teacher tell you to get together in pairs or trios? Why you start every unit with a pair-work “speaking” and then go on into a reading comprehension exercise? Why then you yourselves, in pairs again, work on gapped examples to deduce a grammar rule? All this activity is determined neither by the official programme nor by the book in your hands, and even less by your teacher; till certain extent it is determi...

ON SPEAKING When it comes to dealing with  speaking , independently of approaches, and even methods, I have observed that we must always bear in mind not only the principle that the student should be led from the easiest to the most difficult aspects of the language ( Situational  and  notional-functional  don’t, for instance) but also that of taking him from the most controlled to the least controlled or freest speaking activities. Evidently, methods based on a behaviourist approach will favour the former, whereas those that follow cognitivism will prefer the latter. Thus, to be effective, a syllabus should go through different phases: controlled, semi-controlled and free speaking activities, but also making sure that they do co-exist at the same level, although control may be reduced (oral drills) as the learner goes up the scale and eventually reaches, let me call it “the debate stage”. Considering this coexistence, I have got to the conclusion that ev...

        ON LISTENING From hearing to comprehension After being on the road as an English teacher since the early seventies, which implies more than 40 years of changes, not only of books, authors, methods, but also of approaches, I have learnt that, since skills (listening, reading, writing, speaking) began to be considered separately, “listening comprehension exams” have become the most feared of all four.  It must be remembered here that the student/examinee is to answer questions on an aural [1] text that, as it flies past his ears, he cannot control at all. The speed, the accent, the quality of the sound, and sometimes even physical obstacles (background noises, echoes, etc), add to the difficulty of the theoretically well conceived distracters [2] .   At this point the obvious question is where does the difficulty of a listening task lie? At first sight it seems to come from the type of exer...

what to read Many times I’ve been asked what to read. The question is much more difficult to answer than it may seem, for if one suggests a book the inquirer enjoys , it’s great, but if one suggests a book the inquirer does not enjoy , the result will be a reader lost for life. Fortunately for him/her, the inquirer will go on living happily believing that books were not made for him/her, and that’s all. The main point to take into account is that reading must be a pleasure. If you drag through the pages of a book, if you struggle forward along each line of letters (who the hell has invented them, letters?), and if finally you sigh in relief when you close the torturing covers and put it away, as away as possible, it will mean not that you do not like reading, it will simply mean that you were reading the wrong book for you. And it is you, and only you, who can find the right book. Secondly, whatever the type of book we are considering (geography, ...