04.1 A RADICAL ALTERNATIVE

04.2 A new systemising of teaching material

04.3 Grammar, bad and good

04.4 Description of our "Make Grammar Talk"

04.5 Some brief discussion points about language learning

04.6 Some examples of grammar "plays" for acting

plays 2 presents and exceptions

plays Im going out tonight Dad Q A (with two presents and exceptions)

playlets Qestion Answer Q A (with 2 pasts)

something in the cellar. Depression (with some any)

04.7 Some examples of "Grammared" newspaper articles

Amazon facts plus my sample essay

Jose, hero

A modern witch and "Dave"

pacifism discussion TV version

04.8 Some examples of my "Express grammar"

New 2 pasts

some, any something anything etc + a play using this grammar

3 futures + plays

04.9 What is CLIL (language integrated learning: ie.Vehicular English in subject teaching)

04.10 What would be the base for "interdisciplinary studies"?

The fundamental problem is "How does learning languages in school differ or resemble natural learning of mother tongue". Now I think that in the last 20 odd years, a fundamental simplification has been made. This is the point that I am quite unable to convince experts about. They are totally set in their premise or hopeful belief. It is this uncertain premise that has caused doubts about the substance of "vehicular English" (use of English to teach traditional school "subjects") What remains unresolved is how to make sure the pupils speak fluently as well as hear English. (Incidentally I think this is a great problem for German teachers. They need our activities to stimulate autonomous verbal fluency perhaps more than do the English teachers! It is possible to teach a person German for 100 years and get nowhere!)

In my opinion, language teaching has for many years based itself on a naïve transference of observations of mother tongue learning to the classroom.

The best thing about "vehicular" language learning is that the material is more interesting than usual dull text books. However, let's keep our attention on language. My chief scepticism about "vehicular English " is that it is NOT new in its concept of learning! It is still based on an "acquire" "immersion" concept of language learning. In the 2-3 hours available this is FATAL. The other linked problem is GRAMMAR. I believe grammar is a central help to teaching and learning, BUT it should not be the traditional sort. However, I have experienced from "experts",ostracism for such a belief and practice!! Think of this heresy, I even "teach grammar" at elementary school!! It's just that they don't know it! It's a fundamental question of FOCUS . Only with such artificial focus is there any hope of pupils building up an intuitive understanding ("acquiring"?), IN 2-3 HOURS A WEEK! "When are you .....ing" "I'm ....ing at 6.00". It's precisely the inability to do such basic modifications that I met in 18 year olds in Bolzano (thus the comments such as, "more learnt in 5 days with you than 7 at school".) Whatever it was that formed the general basis of past teaching, it failed. Middlesmoor and our Bolzano visits showed that. Now the rational question to ask is, "what in previous practice and principles was wrong". You must identify them or you can end, as I believe is happening now, in just dressing old principles in new, expensive clothes. And anyone who criticises me for "being so negative" should remember that we went to 10 schools to SHOW creative, enjoyable alternatives that teach "more in 5 days than in 7 years"!!   To concentrate the mind, consider the following points, especially the first two.

I've just met 2 English girls of 6 and 8 who have "picked up" (yes, genuinely acquired) Italian in 8 months! Miraculous. But wait! They really ARE immersed (not 2 hours a week). They WANT to understand and play -participate with their friends. THEIR situation is immersion. They DO SPEAK what they are learning. They do COMMUNICATE in Italian. None of this happens in class! The elder girl already "hates" German "lessons" at school!! So, in my opinion you cannot do real "veiculare inglese" in 2 hours. IT IS A LOGICAL IMPOSSIBILITY! A contradiction in terms. Now I would suppose that any "man in the street" would understand this Having these ideas, I feel rather lonely (!).So I was very pleased, even relieved, to discover some research findings by Amsterdam University . Quoted in "On the mortality of language learning methods" given as the James L. Barker lecture on November 8 th 2001 at Brigham Young University by Wilfried Decoo.

"Some post-communicative methods like to oppose "lower-order thinking", which they equate to rote memorization, to "higher-order" skills. The former are to be avoided, the latter are the core objective. Recent experimental research by Hulstijn and his team at the Kohnstamm Institute ( University of Amsterdam ) indicates that higher-order skills cannot function properly in the foreign language without well developed levels of lower-order automatization (Hulstijn 1999)". The original of the Decoo paper can also be found on www.didascalia.be where people can also find another interesting article on "The Induction-Deduction Opposition", in which he clarifies and relativizes some other traditional concepts.

The above quote exactly describes my worry. What I have consistently seen is this lack of "low order automisation", (and of course vocabulary knowledge) and I know that the conceptual picture of those people who are directing vehicular English does not include this awareness. But nobody listens to me! The Professor of Linguistics at Antwerp University found my attack on European Portfolio and European framework on the internet and wrote an email asking: "who is the remarkable and courageous person who wrote this"? "Courageous" because I suppose everyone else has climbed on the band wagon. I know people in the educational bureaucracy who are sceptical like me but say yes, just for "professional reasons" - CLIL, vehicular English is now the only game to play! The question that has to be answered is this: "what will actually change in the classroom, as a result of vehicular English"? I think little. The devil is in the packaging!! I sounds SO GOOD! Just the thing to tempt politicans to "support", without further thought as to realities. The trouble is that "vehicular English" promises so much. It hits the headlines. "all the parents want it". Well, obviously, since so much is promised. Politicians will find it too tempting and so they will become "very much in favour". It seems so "forward looking". So ambitious. My sympathy is with teachers having to jump through hoops. No wonder they go to the trade unions. However they should speak up too. If I saw better signs of addressing the real basic problems ("low order automisation" such as I was doing with elementary kids today at Volano elementary school), I might find some room for such a vehicular English project at Liceo . At least vehicular teaching has a more interesting content. However, I am not convinced, because I think that the "acquire" "immersion" idea lies behind it and therefore in 2 hours a week it will be a failure . It's the very same "acquire" hope that was guilty for the past failure. Our project last year in Bolzano had very consistent anonymous comments from students who all expressed the same pleasure-surprise at how much they had learnt while having "divertimento". REVOLUTIONARY!!!! Is vehicular English going to do the same? How is it going to do it' Is it just " bound to improve learning and fluency" as some people believe ? How? By "exposure" and "immersion" 2 hours a week? It is absolutely not sufficient to just talk English at the children: That is submerging them, not immersion.

Much is talked of "experiment" in langauge teaching but I don't like the way the word "experiment" is used for what is not an experiment but a directive liberally watered with funds.

This year, my wife Valentina took part in 9 formazione lessons for "teaching music in English". Well that was what she and others have been doing for years, (using songs in the English class!!) No problem I think, though music is a bit of a soft option: it's hardly a difficult subject with which to "prove the case" for this puffed up "vehicular" learning.

Last year I refused to take part in vehicular English "art" because of serious doubts about the project. I have real worries that it is all a mystification, just a case of a "lovely idea". It is also a big fish. Despite all the teachers' enthusiasm for our very practical visits to 10 schools and teaching by example , now, the only form of "experiment" is vehicular English. Real "experiment" needs a control sample. I would like to be allowed a year to do something quite different with 2 or 3 schools and prove by comparison how much better my results are at teaching a language, how much more fun and how much cheaper!

By the way, all this "monitorraggio continuo" of CLIL type projects to prove how scientifically validated they are, should not be done by those who have sunk their reputation in this expensive vehicular English. If it really is "experimental", external people should test it. THAT IS SCIENTIFIC!

Final thought on my situation of "John the Baptist, crying in the wilderness". What "expert" now directing all this stuff has taught 1500 kids in the last 2 years, (each for 12-20 hours, and asked for anonymous comments, or taught for 35 years? But no one will listen to me - other than teachers, and their hands are tied!

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