In this lecture, the speaker, also
recognized as the founder English Bridge School, proposed that by teaching phonetics
as she always does, students never need to memorize ways to articulate sounds, spell
letters into words, and take several tests to make sure students do learn. To
be honest, I was quite surprised when I heard she saying that because it is quite
hard for students, nowadays, to learn effortlessly. She also stated that there
are several rules of phonetics to be taught, but the most important thing is
that which one goes first. In other words, with right orders of laying rules,
students never forget them. And I was somehow motivated by that saying to see
what she would to do in the following steps. Before starting, she confessed
that she usually applies a lot of games in her classes, which she believes that
students learn better than taking tests, and which I think I might have some
inspirations.
During the
presentation, as she demonstrated rules teaching steps by steps, I deeply felt
that she was really an experienced teacher. Besides, following up activities
and games were so many that I seldom got bored during the presentation. After
two hours lecturing, the speaker still had a lot to share with, but the time
was not enough. Then, for Q & A
section, she serenely answered questions from other teachers, blending with her
experiences. Especially when she said she would sometimes answer students’ questions
by using “English is crazy, and I am sorry.” for things she cannot really
explain, all of us laughed.
Wonderful as
the presentation was, it has two major flaws which I felt quite disappointed somehow.
Two flaws are the inconsistency of presented topic and the content and the
ignorance of different teaching environment.
First of all, the needlessness of
memorizing ways of articulation, spelling letters into words, or taking exams
to facilitate learning should be the focus of the whole lecturing. However, all
I could see and feel was the perfect display of Audiolingualism. Mountains of drills
and repetition of rules presented by the speaker were also viewed as the key
spirits of that teaching method. Besides, the speaker mentioned orders of teaching
rules, which can be seen as a contradictory because there should not be any
rule in terms of leaning naturally. Therefore, I do not think those techniques
are equal to learning naturally, and the inconsistency of the topic and the content
surfaces.
Second, the speaker
has run the cram school for many years, so she may know how to teach students
that go to her place, but students in the school are totally another stories
due to several factors, such as parents’ pressure, learners’ intrinsic motivation
…etc. Besides, playing games throughout the whole class hours may face a big
problem of being approvable. When it comes to understanding whether there are
matches or mismatches between students’ and teachers’ realization of learning
effects, it is usually hard to tell.To sum up, in the perspective of her teaching beliefs, teaching phonetics rules with the right orders, repeating rules and drilling by playing are betters ways to build up students' phonetic knowledge. It is indeed a good experience for me to know how other teacher teaching phonetics. Even though the lecture highlighted learning phonetics naturally, this is not the case actually.
