ESL articles: Teaching Your ESL Students to Understand Real English

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Teaching Your ESL Students to Understand Real English

Should we make an effort to slow down our speech so that our students can understand? Or should we speak at normal speed to give then exposure to what they will experience in the "real world"? Jon Lewis tells us why he thinks "real English" is the right approach.

In class, do you slow down your speech and try to articulate a little more precisely than you do when talking to other native speakers? I do, because I know that otherwise my students will have trouble following me. After all, I reason, if they don't understand anything, they will have accomplished nothing as far as learning is concerned.

By doing this, your students are going to have a big shock if eventually they get to try out their English in real-world situations, that is, outside the classroom. For English speakers who are not EFL professionals are not so considerate toward non-native speakers. They will continue at their normal pace and expect everyone to keep up. So if your students are used to y o u ...s p e a k i n g ...s l o w l y... a n d ... d e l i b e r a t e l y ... l i k e ... t h i s...they won't have a cat-in-hell's chance of understanding the New York taxi driver or the Scottish barman they meet on their travels.

So is it better to babble on in your normal voice? I thought about this when a student of mine had a fairly typical grammar problem with the "to" infinitive. She would regularly say, "I want go", forgetting the particle. I decided that since corrections didn't seem to work, I would show her what it sounds like in "real" English: "I wanna go". In the real world, native speakers don't pay any attention to the fact that the little word "to" belongs to the following verb, and routinely attach it to "want" so it becomes "wanna". If you taught your students "wanna" first, they would simply add the verb they want and forget about the grammar rules. The advantage of this is that they will at the same time be practising spoken English the way natives use it.

I have the advantage as a language teacher to have two small children who are learning my language, English, and their mother's, French. It is nothing short of miraculous that my daughter can understand, at the age of three, when I say "what are you going to do?"; because what actually comes out of my mouth is more like "watcha gonna do?" Only when she learns to read will she realise that there are actually six words in the question and not three. But that's of little importance to her while she's mastering the spoken word, and it should be the same for your students.



Only rarely do adults say that they need writing skills more than speaking, and yet we still put too much emphasis on the written word. It’s time for language teachers to teach English in a way that is best going to serve their students in life, and not treat language as a purely academic exercise.

Jonathan Lewis teaches English in Provence, France and has written teaching materials for the French ministry of Education. His site, learning languages, gives tips and advice on language learning; and you will find more ideas on his blog, learning English

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comments

"Mr. Lewis - Please scream this at all those affected teachers! I am so tired of having to unteach that language to teach 'real' English. More than half of my time is correcting PC grammar English so the students can 'talk'. Thanks!"
Mike

"Oh dear! How on earth are we going to survive if we do not have a benchmark? Imagine my Upper Intermediate and Advanced classes being exposed to Cockney London and then having to speak at a job interview! Imagine a foreign speaker paying good money to learn to speak English when all they are taught are hybrid versions. No! Teach English as it should be taught and then let students compare with the wannabee versions! Why on earth must we continue to drop the ideal to accommodate the easiest route forward? We had fun with two lessons of Cockney English and then reverted to that which has made the English language a major part of the global village's communication network."
Bruce

"I find that many adults have already learnt some English from grammar lessons in school. What I tend to do is separate my words initially to instigate some conversation and then as they warm up I speed up."
Anonymous

"I can put myself in Mr Lewis' shoes and understand where he is coming from, as I have learned Italian and German also as a child. From my own experience, students do benefit more when we separate the words initially and then speed up."
Angelo

"This is a good discussion point and in principle I agree with the main point - spoken language is rarely correct grammatically!! From a different perspective, however, I am a student of Thai as well as a teacher of English. As a student I need to know the foundations of the language I am learning if I am going to master it in all forms - written and spoken. Once I know the basics I am happy to explore the idiomatic and dialectical differences... I think a balance is needed and not dogmatics on either side of the discussion!"
Barry

"Here's the scenario: a student walks into to an interview for a job which requires he deal directly with other customers/clients in a professional and business like manner. That same student then goes onto "gonna" and "wanna" his way through the interview, much to the annoyance of the interviewing board, who would in turn thank the student for effectively wasting everyone's time with their "affected" - YES, "AFFECTED" - fake speech patterns and "yankified" intonations. This type of experience would do nothing more than shatter a student's self-confidence.

Students more often than not travel to different countries to learn and or practice their English. Who are we then to clutter their minds with Americanised or rather, bastardised versions of the language, handicapping them as they try to crawl! What good is "wanna" in the U.K.? What good is "gonna" in Dublin? What good is an American accent in Scotland, and indeed what good is a Scottish accent in America. The trick is to encourage students to train their ears, not to damage their skills with foolish word contractions. You cannot spoon feed an accent to a student, because, by "Real English", you are in fact just saying "Regional English".

Very poor advice indeed, Jon."
Steve

"Mr. Lewis, please give us the lesson plan of teaching real English, such as the topic is present progressive, much better if you add the time and give the situation."
Nasrum

"I certainly don't say, 'watch ya gonna do,' or, 'I wanna go.' I wouldn't encourage students to speak like this. I am learning Mandarin and I find native speakers speak too fast - that is too fast for me. I would like them to slow down, so that I can understand and respond. Over time I will be able to keep up with the speed at which the language is spoken. I certainly don't want my teachers to become slipshod - as this article suggests English teachers should. The English being suggested here is more like American English: OK if you want to teach American English. I don't!"
Russell

"I am appalled that somebody who has been contracted to write teaching materials for the French Ministry of Education can come up with rubbish like this."
Anonymous

"Well, I may be in the minority by the looks of things, but I agree with Mr Lewis. Very rarely does a student tell me that he needs to know how to write in English - students need to be able to speak and listen. I have a number of "advanced" students whose grammar is almost perfect, and who can hold a conversation effortlessly about any topic... IF the person they are conversing with is using standard, textbook English. Put them in front of a listening exercise with a real-world conversation, (or in front of my American friend who visited the class one day), and they're lost! Well done Mr Lewis for putting into writing what many teachers are thinking but do not dare to say!"
Peter

"To those of you who who feel this article is rubbish think again. There are some teachers, like myself who EXPOSE students to real life native language, that is, your so-called 'bastardized' English. What's the point in that? It happens to be how the vast majority speak, in the media, pop-culture, schools, and yes, even the corporate office. To even call American English a bastardized English is classist and elitest. What planet are you from? and just who are you serving, your students or your own narrow-minded views?"
A non-classist teacher!

"I am a British woman and have lived in the USA for 46 years. I now teach English to immigrants. I do find the American way of speaking quite appalling, How can immigrants, some of them not able to speak correctly in their own language, expect to speak English in this rough shod manner. If they are to be accepted as qualified citizens they must speak correctly spoken English. That is what I teach my students."
Anonymous

"Surely the answer is found somewhere between the two and also from thinking somewhere other than with your head stuck up your academic behind. Clearly, initially to establish a good rapport with the students and to make sure that all is clearly understood the teacher should speak clearly and then as time goes on, a teacher naturally speeds up his or her speaking speed and incorporates as much widely spoken natural language. Clearly realia and naturally spoken english should be used and utilised as much as possible in class, however if you are in a small school with limited resources this can be difficult but not impossible.

Teachers can also utilise anyone they know to come in to the class room and for the students to talk to and strictly tell your friend not to alter their speed or accent and the students have to utilise their language skills to ask for repetition or explanation or ask someone to speak slower. You can use this idea in many, many ways with all levels. That is the real answer because that is what you do in real life and in class you should always let the students practice and use their language skills as much as possible in the most realistic way possible. The student has to learn to think and react in the language. This is the real way to fluency. None of us know all the words in the English language but we all speak it fluently just as no French person knows every French word but speaks it fluently. The reason is because we think in the language. The students have to learn to use what they know in the best way they can and in the most realistic, natural setting possible whether that is in class or, here's a a simple idea, outside the classroom. Take them out into the real world. Ok with kids this is difficult but 14 year olds upwards it is an obvious and easy to do idea. If you are teaching in the UK or Australia or the US then you have so many opportunities to do this that to not do so is basically stupid.

I'm not surprised by any of the comments here on this site. This is old and boring just like most people's thinking when it comes to teaching. You are all talking about you and not the students or your percieved, learned, academic ways of how people learn language. You all talk about what you do not what the students do or how people learn language. If you learnt a different language yourself, watched your students and babies and how they learn language you would learn far more about learning a language and how to help and guide a lot more than any article or book or course. Ok rant over. I won't be back."
Anonymous

"I knew this article would wind people up! But folks, get off your high horses for a while and re-read the article. Nowhere did I advocate speaking rapidly to beginners, nor did I recommend using contractions like "watchagonnado?". I merely highlighted the fact that this is how young learners pick up language without having a formal study environment.

I believe that sometimes we should step out of our English teacher shoes and look at the way children acquire language to see if there are lessons to be learned.

The comment from the British lady living in America is hilarious. If 300 million Americans speak in a particular way, then a few Brits living over there don't have the right to call it "appalling". Students have to learn the language the way it spoken wherever they are - be it the Queen's English or not.

This kind of snobbery is appalling. It's a scandal that there are so few teaching materials for American English - the most common English on the planet and probably the one that most of our students need to understand. Oh, by the way, I'm British, and like most British people do not speak with an RP accent that you get on a lot of recorded materials."
Jon Lewis (author)

"I really enjoy it when a non-American teacher comments on the status of the "everyday" speech of Americans - the reactions are all-too priceless! The British lady is correct - it is appalling how far-removed from, dare I say 'normal' English, colloquial American English has become. The Irish and Scottish accents, as novel as they may seem to other speakers of the English language, prove to be nearly impossible for students to understand, Australian regional dialects can often lead students to speak in an almost comical manner and so on and so on...

But wait: this forum ought not to be a platform for mud-slinging, rather each teacher ought to be aware that we are all coming from different regions where the English language is spoken in a different manner. So, while it seems to be more of a "hip", new-age TEFL teacher thing to slag off anything academic, let's not forget that students 100% require fundamentals.

Regional dialects only offer a temporary solution. "Real" English is that which a student develops using his/her own ability to build on what the instructor provides.

But hey, most TEFL teachers are full of crap anyway. Ours unfortunately is a profession sullied by a huge majority of awful instructors whose pride and ego serve only to further damage the already lowly reputation of TEFL teaching in the education industry."
Steve

"Actually, Mr. Lewis is right to make these suggestions. I do, however, strongly recommend teaching reduction, linking, elision (very important), and other features of connected speech, because whether teachers realize it or not, that's exactly what is coming out of their mouths more often than they realize. And that's how almost all English speakers speak.

It is irresponsible and cruel NOT to expose our EFL learners to all the features of connected speech. Learners tend to be taught full forms first, but in fact, we speak in reduced form (watch the BBC, BBC Entertainment, CNN, ABC (Australia), and American Entertainment Broadcast, for many examples). If we actually care about our students, here should be no question about this.

A teacher's opinion about what "correct" speech is or isn't is fine, but imposing them on learners isn't professional at all. Our job is to prepare our learners for as much "real" or "natural" English speech as we can.

Normal (fast) speech rates must be gradually introduced, of course. Beginners must perceive and produce on the phonemic level. As Mr. Lewis points out, depending on the level of the learners, the teacher should be careful not to overly moderate their speech rate. It can, unfortunately, become a habit that is damaging to EFL learners.

A teacher isn't a mind reader and should insist that students should either ask the teacher to slow down or to repeat. That's their job as learners."
Eric

"I learned English as a Foreign Language and I understand exactly what you are all trying to say. I am glad I have learned the correct Queen's English first. It is very difficult to understand native speakers but only at the beginning. Later, when the ears are tuned into intonation and rhythm of spoken English, listening skills really progress. I am sure learners must know grammar (with contractions) before being exposed to "wachagonnado". I prefer to know what is behind this word before I can actually hear it. This way I will feel more confident to use it. At the elementary level teaching English has to be descriptive. Later, when students know the basics they can cope with the idea of many Englishes. It is easier to learn spoken English without the strict grammatical rules, you can do it by yourself based on the correct English learned in the classroom."
EFL student

"I agree with the author on this one, and so does the English book that the school has me teach the students with. I work in Vietnam and there are several lessons on "blending" words, so as to not sound like a cyborg, or idiot, or asshole. By the way, there is nothing appalling about American English. If American English is appalling, then so is British English. The butchering of English does not follow any country, it follows the idiots that do the butchering. These people exist all over the world, not just America.

I should add that if a student goes in for a job interview and speaks English at 10 words a minute, with all the words being stretched out, they'll probably think he's got down syndrome. I believe in teaching students proper English; grammatically correct and not spoken at 10 words a minute. If they can't understand, maybe they should go to another school that actually cares about their education, not their money. Either that or go back to learning the basics... "Cat, dog, boy, girl, hello"

Face it, a lot of these schools are money making schemes. They don't give a shit if they learn English. They'll keep putting them through all of the levels as long as they keep paying the money to attend the school."
EFL teacher

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