I have been pondering the best way to try to combine the use of Mounce’s grammar and workbook along with teaching communicatively as a bit of a hybrid approach
My last session suffered from two issues:
1. I hadn’t done a proper lesson plan and my brain wasn’t functioning due to the early onset of a mini bout of depression so I wasn’t communicating well. Lesson learned from this is that I personally need to have everything mapped out to a lot more detail well ahead of time to help when I start struggling
2. Some of the group are more familiar with language study than others so there was a disparity in how much explanation each member needed and how quickly they picked up the use of the concepts we were discussing
3. Trying to look at the grammar book with them really just a hurried squeezed in session of highlighting key areas / flagging disagreements or clarifications with little time to properly discuss
I think I have stumbled across a better way of running this group
For context, we are using the latest version of Mounce’s text book and workbook with fortnightly meetings. At the moment
1. I have the group turn up, we run through pictures / sequences of pictures to get them verbally working with the grammar as I illustrate / write out the forms on the screen as we go.
2. At the end I squeeze in a review of Mounce’s chapter on the subject at hand and highlight key areas of slight disagreement or just areas that they should take especial note of.
3. Following the session they work through the grammar chapter in their own time and learn the vocab from the chapter and the thematic vocab I give them on top
4. Photos of completed workbook sections sent in via email so I can work through, give feedback and tailor next session with any clarifications needed
Rather than this
1. Before the next session have the group go through the chapter of the grammar book that will be discussed at that session, and learn the vocab (chapter and thematic)
2. I have the group turn up, we run through pictures / sequences of pictures and eventually basic stories to get them using the concepts they have partially learned
3. Following the session they work through the workbook for that previous session’s chapter and send in the following week
4. Read the next chapter of the grammar / learn the vocab required for the next session
5. At the end I would only need to squeeze in areas of clarification / disagreement with Mounce and could cover off the more nuanced stuff I am at risk of losing at the moment during the interactive portion
I am still very new at this all so would appreciate feedback
In general, communicative methods and the use of textbooks are incompatible. Browse some living language forums (or Latin Best Practices forum) about "dumping textbooks" and you'll hear many comments about how the learning zoomed ahead when the teacher was free from the textbook.
Textbooks and explicit lessons can be used to shore up what has already been encountered via communicative methods. That puts a huge burden on the teacher. He/she reacts to the communicative needs of the learners. That requires pretty good mastery of the language.
If a teacher is not at that level, he/she can still employ communicative methods. This becomes a joint learning venture where the teacher is responding to his/her own needs, creating activities that will meet those needs, and sharing the experience with students.
I have to echo Paul's sentiment about mixing communicative approaches and textbooks. The only thing textbooks could possibly be good for would be their reading sections (and Mounce included no reading comprehension sections in his grammar).
I'm currently teaching a Hebrew course one-on-one, and I use a textbook to pull reading and vocabulary, but every lesson we have ignores the textbook completely. I use a dry erase board to write new vocabulary, to draw, to elicit concepts. Everything is driven by communication and messages (comprehensible input, as Krashen says). I use sections from the book that I give him to read alone and then we read them together again and go over questions. I allow him to ask questions in English, which I respond to in Hebrew. Apart from that, he must use Hebrew throughout the lesson (though I do all I can to make the atmosphere fun and inviting - with no pressure to produce).
He answers when he wants to answer, not when I tell him to answer, except for כן (yes) and לא (no).
This is my first course teaching fully with the focus on communication and building language through comprehensible input, and I feel that it's my most successfully conveyed course thus far. I've never had a student who simply grasped the language to the level at which I see him grasping now. He cannot produce well (just simple present-tense sentences and infinitive clauses [such as "I want to go to the store" and "I prefer to eat at home"]), but he has a good understanding of slowed speech.
I'm impressed by what I've seen here on this site, and I think such objectives can be attained only through communicative means, and textbooks should be used by language facilitators only to pull readings and vocab from.
Jason, Great fun to see language building in a learner's head. Kudos on NOT forcing output. One on one works the best.
Aside from a true immersion language learning environment, classroom type language instruction (ISLA - Instructed Second Language Acquisition) will never provide enough exposure (Comprehensible Input) to get beyond a beginner or intermediate-low level. It can be enough to though for a learner to continue on his/her own to become proficient. So, for example, learning Spanish in school for many years will not mean that a learner can land in a Spanish speaking country, walk onto the streets and strike up a conversation with confidence and fluency. But that person has enough language in his/her head to begin communicating and advance. In the case of Hebrew and Ancient Greek, ISLA can bring a learner to a level that he/she can begin "communicating" with a text and advance to higher levels.
Yup, what you both are saying is why I am experiencing. I will need to focus on what I know I can do which will unfortunately be the text book and work to develop materials for the future. It will still be a great learning experience for me doing the text book supplemented by reading exercises and workbook, but far from what I had over-optimistically hoped for
Are you at the point at which you can be a full language model for your student? If not, there's nothing wrong with teaching grammar and using texts for reading aloud and such. It just won't achieve the same results. Grammar teaching was used for generations, so it cannot be entirely useless. The problem is that a lot of us are learning while we're teaching. We're learning to produce Greek while we're trying to instill the language in students. It would be different if we spoke Greek naturally and then wanted to bring that to students, since comprehensible input (to use the phrase again) is natural when you simply speak and exchange messages. Know what I mean? I wish I spoke Greek naturally enough that I could just confer meaning without having to check everything I say in Greek with the Monitor. It's a pain in the rear!
Sorry for the delayed response Jason. I know why you mean - I am learning slowly to be more competent at speaking but not there yet for fluency. I am introducing slowly some basic conversational sentences so we can slowly expand together