ELTNEWS
How has the ELT (English Language Teaching) scene changed since you started in the profession?
Catherine
[5] Mostly in terms of the materials available, I think. When I began teaching, classroom materials were thin on the ground, and creating materials for classes took up a lot more of teachers’ time than it does now. This gives today’s teachers a great start - they can [10] see lots of examples of good practice and look at how to build on it. In fact, in many cases, good materials have led professional developments. For example, the growth of interest in learner independence would not have taken off as it has without the excellent [15] self-study books, CDs, readers and so on that are available today. […]
Michael
Things have changed enormously. […] Textbooks were pretty unattractive. Applied Linguistics was in [20] its infancy. The buzz-words from the research front were ‘structural syllabus’, ‘audio-visual’ and ‘language laboratory’. Professional associations scarcely existed. All this has changed, mostly for the better. There is excellent professional training. We have a [25] wealth of good textbooks. Applied Linguistics is a long-established and productive field of research. We are supported by several very professional professional associations. Language teaching now has so many components that it’s difficult to list them all.
[30] One thing that worries me, though, is that language itself (especially grammar and pronunciation) has tended to disappear from language teaching, at least in the UK-based orthodoxy of the last twenty years. Learning a foreign language centrally involves learning [35] the key structures, phonology and vocabulary of that language, and no amount of activity-based fluency practice can compensate if that is neglected.
ELTNEWS
How should one respond to a teacher who says [40] that fluency in English is more important than knowing the rules?
Michael
Boots might be more important than socks, but most people find it useful to have both. Fluency and [45] accuracy are not alternatives - students need to be fluent in reasonably good English, not in a highly deviant interlanguage. And knowledge of rules can help with this. We believe that, in ways that are not completely understood, declarative knowledge can [50] often aid the development of procedural knowledge - so that knowing some grammar rules can help some students to learn English. […] Unpopular as it may have been recently, practice of forms is important for the development of fluency in a foreign language. We [55] seem to accept that if musicians are good they must have practiced scales. We also know that learner drivers have to practice coordinating the different pedals, but there is a certain resistance to language learners’ needing to practice forms.
ELTNEWS
[60] Dictionaries are being made available over the Internet and students can now practice their English from a variety of interactive English-learning Web sites. What role can technology play in the teaching [65] and study of foreign languages?
Catherine
Anything that can make practice of forms more attractive will help learners to develop fluency more readily. Some people are more willing to spend [70] time on a game-like activity on a computer than in a classroom; for these people, technology can be a real boom.
As interactive sites get more sophisticated, it should be possible for individual learners to take [75] the path that suits them towards mastery of forms - perhaps not the same path for each form or each learner. […]
ELTNEWS
What has been your greatest satisfaction from [80] working in the ELT industry?
Catherine
Can I have two? One would be the pleasure of putting people in touch with one another: teachers from Russia with teachers from the UK; people [85] teaching refugees from Ethiopia in Israel with people teaching East Asian refugees in Thailand; the Literacy Strategy team of the UK’s Department for Education and Employment with EFL grammar experts.
And the other would be the buzz that I get when a [90] teacher comes up after a presentation and says “I’ve been teaching for a long time. But I really learned how to teach from the teacher’s books to your courses.” We put a lot of time and effort into those teacher’s books, trying to think carefully how to make them [95] useful to teachers in different situations, and I think it has made a small difference to the profession.
Michael
And three for me. Firstly, the fascination of working with language, such a complex cognition [100] that is exclusively human. Secondly, the privilege of being able to work with and for so many different kinds of people, with such multifarious and endlessly engaging ways of thinking and being. And thirdly, the satisfaction that comes from building bridges between [105] people – and from finding ways of helping people to succeed in the most defying of all enterprises: learning to communicate well in a foreign language.
🔗 Texto adaptado de:
Available at: http://www.eltnews com/features/interviews/2001/06/interview_with_michael_swan_an.html. Retrieved on: 27 Oct. 2011.
What does Michael Swan mean by “students need to be fluent in reasonably good English, not in a highly deviant interlanguage.” (lines 45-47)?
If students don’t practice enough with native speakers they will never speak interlanguage.
If students are not fluent, then they might be speaking a kind of interlanguage.
If students are not taught the grammar rules, they may attain fluency in a language that is not really English.
If students are fluent in reasonably good English, then they can also be fluent in interlanguage.
If students are fluent in reasonably good English then they will have a facility in handling a deviant language.
Cesgranrio • SEAD-RN • Professor
Questão 28 • Gabarito: (C)
What does Michael Swan mean by “students need to be fluent in reasonably good English, not in a highly deviant interlanguage.” (lines 45-47)?
(A) If students don’t practice enough with native speakers they will never speak interlanguage.
(B) If students are not fluent, then they might be speaking a kind of interlanguage.
(C) If students are not taught the grammar rules, they may attain fluency in a language that is not really English.
(D) If students are fluent in reasonably good English, then they can also be fluent in interlanguage.
(E) If students are fluent in reasonably good English then they will have a facility in handling a deviant language.
Para chancelar a inferência legítima e validar o gabarito oficial, confronta-se o construto avaliado com a dedução contextual correta:
01. Comando (Command): Explicar o sentido implícito da afirmação de Michael Swan sobre a necessidade de fluência em reasonably good English, e não em uma highly deviant interlanguage.
02. Gatilho (Trigger): A expressão de comando "What does [...] mean by" impõe ao cérebro o dever de caçar a mensagem implícita que justifica a existência lógica da citação.
03. Operação (Operation): Aplicar a micropeça de inferência por pistas para reconstruir os elos perdidos entre gramática, monitoramento da precisão e interlíngua.
04. Evidência (Evidence): Isolar o segmento das linhas 44-48, amarrando a tese de que a fluência isolada gera anomalias estruturais crónicas.
05. Discriminação (Discrimination): Expurgar a inserção de falantes nativos (A), rechaçar a inversão sobre ausência de fluência (B), quebrar a falsa equivalência harmônica (D) e banir a transformação de defeito em virtude (E).
06. Validação (Validation): Confirmar que o perigo de falar uma língua distanciada do inglês mapeia cirurgicamente o conceito linguístico de interlíngua severamente desviante.
07. Decisão (Decision): Cravar a alternativa C na folha de respostas com precisão e controle analítico total sob o rigor protocolar B3GE™.
Tipo B3GE: 01. Fora do Escopo
Insere no debate um elemento completamente alienígena ao depoimento: a necessidade de interagir com falantes nativos ("native speakers"). Para agravar o erro de escopo, o examinador adota o advérbio absoluto e restritivo "never", invalidando a dedução por extremismo semântico.
Tipo B3GE: 07. Inversão de Causa e Efeito (Inversão de Relação Lógica)
Opera uma inversão de foco argumentativo. Desloca a problemática da fluência errática para os alunos que não possuem fluência ("If students are not fluent"). A advertência de Swan mira justamente o perigo do aluno que fala com desenvoltura, mas comete desvios estruturais crónicos.
Tipo B3GE: 33. Inferência por Pistas Contextuais (Item Correto)
Reconstrói com absoluta perfeição as entrelinhas conceituais de Swan. Explicitando a premissa implícita do texto, deduz que a supressão ou negligência das regras formais da gramática permite o desenvolvimento de uma fluência baseada num dialeto idiossincrático que não se configura como o inglês real.
Tipo B3GE: 06. Inversão de Relação Lógica (Contradição Direta)
Derruba a barreira de oposição nítida construída pela autora. Swan estabelece que "reasonably good English" e "highly deviant interlanguage" são polos antagônicos. O distrator comete uma contradição ao prever que ser fluente no padrão correto implica também ser fluente na anomalia.
Tipo B3GE: 33. Inferência por Pistas Contextuais (Inferência Inválida)
Desenha um nexo causal absurdo e sem sustentação textual. Pega o conceito de língua desviante ("deviant language") — tratado por Michael Swan em tom de alerta crítico e negativo — e o transforma bizarramente em objeto de facilidade, domínio ou destreza ("facility in handling") do estudante.
O Filtro da Blindagem contra Adições Temáticas (🚫): Monitore o surgimento de chavões ou debates comuns da área que não foram invocados no texto. Discutir o papel de native speakers é um clássico de metodologias de ELT, o que torna a alternativa A extremamente sedutora para quem estuda o macrotema, mas mortal por ser ruído de fora do escopo.
O Filtro da Manutenção de Sinais de Juízo de Valor (🔎): Mantenha estrito alinhamento com a postura axiológica do autor. Se o escritor condena firmemente um fenômeno linguístico (como rotular a interlíngua de "highly deviant"), descarte sumariamente qualquer alternativa que atribua a esse mesmo fenômeno uma conotação positiva, útil ou de ganho de facilidade técnica.
Taxonomia Core: 33. Inference (Implicit Meaning • Context Clues)
SILO 3 (Macrotema): 11. Education
Subtema Técnico: Relação de interdependência entre a precisão gramatical (accuracy) e o desenvolvimento da fluência no ensino de línguas.