The students opened their notebooks and began writing. The teacher also began writing more on the board- in Japanese. Long sentences in Japanese. Then she pointed to the word “John” again.
I couldn’t understand Japanese and I wondered, “What is she talking about? How can she talk so much about just one word-- its just a name.”
Finally, the teacher circled the word “Mary”. Then she started talking again, in Japanese. She pointed to the word. She wrote long notes in Japanese. The students wrote, and wrote, and wrote in their notebooks. They looked serious and a little confused. The teacher continued talking—always in Japanese.
Finally, after almost 10 minutes, she finished explaining the word “Mary” (in Japanese). The students were now looking stressed and tired.
The teacher underlined the word “is” next, using white chalk. Then she did it again--- talking, talking, talking, talking, talking, and talking in Japanese. Writing, writing, writing, and writing... in Japanese. This continued for the entire class. She eventually circled “taller” and “than” with green chalk, and talked for over 20 minutes about these two words. By the end of the class, the young students were tired, stressed, and totally confused.
In 50 minutes, they had heard only one sentence in English, repeated only one time. In that same time, they had heard the teacher speak Japanese for nearly 49 minutes.
I couldn’t believe it. However, the sad truth is that this was a typical English class. Everyday, the students listened to their teacher explain sentences in Japanese.
After three years of English classes, none of the students could speak even simple English. All of the students hated English. The classes were stressful. The tests were complicated.
Every day they analyzed very complex grammar rules. Every day they memorized long lists of English words. Unfortunately, many English students, in many different countries, have had similar experiences. Because they learned English this way, they believe English is difficult and complicated. They have no confidence with English speaking. They feel stress every time they hear or try to speak English.
One student called this feeling “English Trauma”.
These methods confuse students and create stress. These methods damage students’ ability to speak well. These methods are ineffective-- they are failures.
Trauma Cause 1: Analyze & Memorize
Traditional English teaching focuses on analyzing English grammar and memorizing English words. In the typical class, students spend most of their time listening to explanations in their own language (not in English). During almost every class, the teacher focuses on “grammar points”—complicated rules about the structure of English.
These “rules” are very difficult to use and remember. In fact, during a normal conversation, at normal speed, these rules are IMPOSSIBLE to remember and use correctly. It simply takes too much time to remember all of these rules while listening and speaking at full speed.
Thus, students learn to pass grammar tests. They sometimes learn to read and write well. But they rarely learn to speak easily and quickly. Likewise, a lot of time is spent memorizing English words. Typically, students must memorize long lists of vocabulary-- and translations. Students learn to efficiently memorize many words for a test. After the test, they forget most of them.
The result-- students who do very well on grammar and vocabulary tests-- but cannot understand normal English speech, and cannot speak easily and quickly. Because of this, most English students feel very nervous about speaking. They have no confidence.
They feel more comfortable taking a test than having a real conversation.
Trauma Cause 2: Speak Dammit!
Traditional teaching methods focus on output. What does this mean? It means that most schools want students to immediately produce English. In other words, they force students to write, to take tests, and sometimes to speak.
For example, in that Japanese class, the teacher sometimes put the students in small groups. She then told them (in Japanese), “Practice using comparatives. Each student say a sentence in English, comparing two other students”. The students always looked confused and nervous during these activities.
This kind of speaking is unnatural. It is stressful.
Of course, we all want to speak English. The problem-- traditional classes force students to speak too soon, before they are ready. Also, they force students to speak in totally unnatural ways. Language research shows that understandable input is the key to speaking well. In other words, you need to listen to a lot of natural English BEFORE you can speak easily and quickly. The more you listen, the better you eventually speak.
There is also an emotional problem. When teachers force students to speak when they are not ready, students become very nervous. This feeling is repeated and strengthened again and again. Eventually, the student feels stress every time they try to speak English! In other words: they get English Trauma.
Trauma Cause 3: You’re Stupid!
Traditional English teachers love to correct errors. You take a test, and the teacher identifies your errors. You try to speak, and immediately your errors are identified and corrected.
In many classes, students are forced to speak while the whole class listens. Of course, this makes the student feel very nervous. However, it gets even worse. As the student speaks, the teacher will sometimes identify their errors and correct them-- while the whole class listens.
Of course, this feels terrible. Its embarrassing. Its super stressful. It makes the student feel stupid.
And its doesn’t work. Research shows that error correction has NO EFFECT on accuracy. That’s right-- absolutely no effect. For example, we divide a class into two groups.
In group 1, the teacher constantly corrects every error the students make. In group 2, the teacher never corrects errors. At the end of one year, we test both groups of students. The result (every time): there is NO difference in accuracy... NO difference in the number of errors that students in each group make.
Error correction seems logical, but the truth is-- it is totally ineffective.
In fact, error correction is worse than ineffective-- it actually damages the students.
There is another result we find when we compare Group 1 and Group 2: They both still make the same number of errors, BUT Group 1 speaks more slowly.
In other words, error correction kills fast speech. Error correction causes students to think ABOUT English. Error correction causes students to always analyze and translate before they speak.
These students cannot speak English easily and quickly.
Bored, Stressed, and Confused
Here is the result of traditional English teaching:
A student who is stressed, who feels nervous every time they try to speak English.
A student who is confused, who thinks that English is very difficult and complicated.
A student who has good tests scores, but cannot understand or speak well.
And usually:
A student who quits, who believes they cannot and will not ever speak English well.
A student who thinks, “I’m not good at English”.
In other words, a student with English Trauma.
