Recently I attended a conference on English-teaching and learning in Taiwan. One would expect high school teachers, bushiban language instructors and experts on language pedagogy as speakers and participants at such conferences, for it is this group of professionals which, one would assume, is most directly involved in the English-teaching business.
Both guesses are wrong. Speakers at such conferences are nearly exclusively English department doctoral candidates, lecturers and professors. This is surprising because one would assume that English-learning and teaching do not represent academic subjects and need not take place at university departments. Teaching languages is simply not a professor’s cup of tea; it is not an academic enterprise. But this is another wrong guess.
It appears that the opposite view prevails; it seems to be taken for granted that this is exactly what they should do at their departments. Many of those expert professors of English teach at applied or practical English departments, where the vast majority of students, according to their own perceptions, sit in classes to learn English. The curriculums there support these expectations. They are designed accordingly, with an emphasis on basic language skills such as listening, writing, reading and speaking.
The idea behind applied language departments is to offer an education that is supposedly better suited to the labor market than, say, that offered by literature departments. Consequently, communicating in English within specific professional contexts has become a key academic objective.
But what expertise are students to acquire at applied language departments? Is speaking good English the goal, as many would say? This would make for a rather poor academic harvest and is usually not accomplished anyway.
There must be something else, and this is often considered to be English for specific purposes (ESP). But what expertise is offered, say, in the case of business English? Such courses do not prepare you for the business world unless you understand business first; business departments do a better job in this aspect.
What about teachers? Most of them are professors and, apart from language teaching, they also research strategies and techniques related to improvements in the learning and teaching of foreign languages.
So why do students at applied English departments have to learn teaching techniques, considering that conducting linguistic research is not part of the job profiles for the positions that they usually seek after graduating?
They usually go into business, and even if they become teachers, they teach languages rather than conduct research.
But applying teaching skills is not enough. Students don’t learn a language just by being exposed to the “right” technique. This approach ignores the individual dimension of learning and teaching. Essay writing, for instance, can only be taught meaningfully if students are exposed to examples of good practice, along with explanations of why they constitute good practice.
Language teachers don’t need to know how to generate research on language teaching; they need to understand how language works and when to apply which teaching skills in accordance with their personal teaching style.
Their teaching strengths must be the interpretation, contextualization and application/rejection of teaching skills from a pool of options to meet ever-changing classrooms conditions.
Most importantly, they need to be able to provide examples of good practice. In writing classes, for example, they must be good writers to inspire students to write well.
This is supported by philosophical insights and the latest findings in the neurosciences. Learning — especially learning a language — is an individual act and only takes place if the learner is inspired actively to integrate new material into his or her knowledge.
This integration does not happen in the form of applying certain techniques but in the form of interpreting new material as good or bad examples, for which the brain finds and creates rules, resulting in a new world view as it integrates the material into its understanding.
Learning means that the person who learns is changing. Bad teaching does not reckon with changing individuals and traditional societies fear change.
But all this is wrong anyway, because academic institutions such as universities should not need language instructors at all. What should be enhanced and challenged there are brains, not tongues.
Students should be exposed to intellectual and academic practices such as logical thinking and arguing, making sound and balanced judgments, understanding alternate views, thinking abstractly and practicing analytical and critical skills necessary to explore any subject. Literature and other disciplines from the humanities would be apt candidates for such goals.
Stanley Fish calls this “academicizing” the content of study. This can and ought to be standard practice when one is involved in the study of a foreign language at an academic institution.
English departments that do not focus on literature could still make vocational and academic sense if they prioritized academic skills as an important educational element. If mastered, these skills could be applied in any professional circumstances — including the “application” of English.
Any higher education should have this as a goal; any successful profession or society needs people with these skills.
If, however, the applied aspect of the subject dominates teaching, then the academic dimension is lost. Academic institutions turn into vocational schools where the idea of higher education is replaced by professional training programs that prepare students for specific jobs, rendering the institutions superfluous.
Herbert Hanreich is an assistant professor in the Applied English Department at I-Shou University in Kaohsiung County.
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