Language Teacher Toolkit: Steve Smith's blog

In this post I'd like to explore a range of ways in which input language can be presented and modelled with students. I'm starting from the assumption that when we want students to learn and eventually internalise (some would say 'acquire') new vocabulary and grammatical patterns, it makes sense to give meaningful samples of language at the start of a learning sequence. So, I shall offer some examples of how we can model input and comment on possible merits (and maybe disadvantages) of each. I'm also working on the assumption that the input language needs to be largely or wholly comprehensible. This is a slightly problematic issue, since input can be made instantly comprehensible by providing glossaries, translations and even whole parallel text translations. This means that input may contain many new words and chunks. In addition, students vary, so what is comprehensible to some, won't be for others.  Written texts For near-beginners and intermediates the writt...

 As we work on the second edition of The Language Teacher Toolkit , I've returned to the issue of using visual images in the classroom. Why do we do it? Are pictures overrated? Is there research to support the use of pictures?  Historically, in MFL/WL teaching pictures have been used for decades, but became a strong feature of text books in the 1960s, alongside the audio-visual method and oral approaches which eschewed the use of L1. A classic early example for French was Marc Gilbert's Cours Illustré de Français , and its easier successor book  Le Français par l'Image . Remember that the driving force behind using pictures was the desire to avoid using English (L1). This went back to the Reform Movement of the late 19th century and even before. The wish to avoid L1 was even stronger in EFL classrooms where students did share the same first language. There was a (misguided) idea that avoiding using L1 would stop students 'thinking in English' - the truth is that the...