On teaching

So I'm about to wrap the whole thing up. The school year is almost over and I have the distinct feeling that I may not be returning to this blog for a long, long time, which justifies a glance back at what I've done professionally over the past few years. After some seconds of serious consideration, I find myself facing a bewildering realization, namely, that I don't know what the best teaching method is.

Before I elaborate on that, let me drop some truths on you. Teaching is not as straightforward as some of you might think. Expectations are as wildly varied as the so-called "learning styles" (of whose actual existence I'm not quite convinced). I do know, though, that not everyone learns things in the same way and certainly not because of the same reasons. Does that mean that brains are hardwired in radically different ways? I really don't know.

Whatever the truth of the matter may be, I think I needn't explain why I can't teach in, say, eleven different ways. So, what am I to do? The answer is simple: choose. Indeed, I have no alternative but to choose one method and then try and make the best of it. I am aware of the fact that, to some students, my approach to teaching may seem chaotic and confusing. I'm prone to referencing pop culture, recounting personal experiences and resorting to all kinds of obscure vocabulary (e.g. "regolith" and "coulrophobia"). Admittedly, this can all be slightly disconcerting to students expecting a standard type of by-the-book class. Yet, one thing is glaringly obvious to me: life is a miscellaneous affair. And there's precious little scaffolding to it. Just think about it for a second. You watch the news or listen to a podcast and all kinds of terms, accents and topics are thrown at you in no particular order of grammatical complicacy, which is absolutely normal because, well, because... that's life. The funny thing is that it is precisely that kind of confusing experience (which you get, for instance, by spending some time abroad) that makes you learn better. Ask anyone who's lived in an English-speaking country for a long enough period of time.

Say what you will about general systems and specific strategies, it is my firm belief that a truly sophisticated speaker should be ready to face unexpected situations and understand out-of-context texts. Can you get that from adapted books or watered-down versions of a news reel? Maybe not.

At the advanced level, a perfectly organized, step-by-step lesson plan, one with increasing degrees of complexity can be easy on the students, but fails to live up to reality. Something of that sort can certainly be useful in the early stages of the learning process. However, at the advanced level (C1 and C2) it can be more of a hindrance than a benefit. Don't get me wrong. I'm not making a case for aimless instruction and a rejection of textbooks. In fact, I do pay attention to the textbook... but in my own personal way. That said, I'd rather start conversations and refer to apparently unrelated snippets of information than do exercise 8 right after finishing exercise 7. Shockingly enough, my system appears to work. At least, sometimes. Every once in a while I receive an email from a student who tells me how happy they are about the progress they've made. The whole thing is quite miraculous to me, which is the reason why I never take any credit for my students' learning. They do the learning. I just given them some pointers or, as I usually phrase it in the classroom, I show my students the way but they do the walking.

The unvarnished truth, however, is that, after many years teaching English, I still don't know how to do it. I guess I try and turn my classes into a conversation, probably because that's how I learned to speak English: by experiencing stuff. If you're a student of mine you know full well that in my classes, topics, words and references appear to simply "come up" (even if I often bring them up deliberately). You're also aware of the fact that I like to overexplain things, put them in a context, connect seemingly unrelated ideas, go off on a tangent, whip up a conclusion, etc. and I try to do all that within the boundaries of what "looks like" casual banter. After all, if one learns to swim by swimming, it stands to reason that we should learn to speak a language by speaking it. So, even if it doesn't look that way, "there is a method to my madness". That said, if I had to give you all a piece of advice I would simply ask you to practice. Practice as much as you can as often as you can! Copy expressions, imitate accents, borrow turns of phrase, listen hard, read a lot and speak whenever you find an opportunity. Seek exposure to the target language. Remember that attending classes alone doesn't really cut it anymore. Classes are just a part of your "diet", but you should also find your "nutrients" elsewhere.

But I digress.

What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that I'm never sure if my teaching really helps my students. Quite frankly, I can only hope it does. So, imagine my surprise when I came across the video below and I saw the great Richard Feynman, whom I admire deeply, discussing his experience as a teacher and saying "I really don't know how to do it". Not only did he win the Nobel Prize in Physics (1965), but he also taught at the highest level imaginable. Students were invariably enthralled by his explanations (there is footage of him teaching and lecturing). Yet, he claimed not to know how to do it. Well, that might just be the only thing he and I have in common. I don't know how to teach, either. Anyway, I'm afraid it's time for you to listen to the master himself. My dear students... Mr. Richard Feynman.