In al English speaking countries there is very large demand for adult ESL, in other words teaching adult immigrants who want to learn English. It always amazes me that the effort of helping immigrants learn English is concentrated on the classroom, as the preferred or often the only place where language learning can take place. I do not know what happens in other immigrant-receiving countries.
Governments and other organizations spend a fortune, (many hundreds of mil ions of dol ars in Canada alone) paying for adult ESL for immigrants. This goes overwhelmingly to classrooms where typical y 15 or more other adult ESL learners, and one native speaker, perform a variety of artificial tasks or hear theoretical explanations about English. Adult ESL is a huge industry where the teachers and immigrant service organizations are perceived by government as the principle 'stake-holders,' i.e. not the immigrants themselves.
Immigrants to English speaking countries live surrounded by English. English is on the TV, radio, newspapers, at libraries and bookstores, on buses, at community centres, on the Internet, on blogs, on podcasts, in popular music and at work. Why would we consider that the best place to learn English is in a classroom with mostly other non-native speakers? Why does the society not focus on how to utilize these vast language resources that surround the immigrants in a more efficient and flexible way? Why force the immigrants, after a hard day's work to come to a class?
Every effort to convince government offices here to look at what we are doing at The Linguist has been a failure. We have offered free trials with volunteer tutors. The answer is always no.
I understand the need for classrooms for children in the kindergarten to Grade 12 school system. It is partly a place to look after children while their parents work, and partly a place to teach some basic societal values. And the kids do learn something even if the learning process is very inefficient. They learn because when they are young they are pliable and even as teenagers many of them can be coerced into learning out of a concern for their future. Some, a minority, are genuinely interested in learning. (This also depends, not on the knowledge, nor teaching experience, but on the natural inspirational skil s of the teachers.) I even understand the role of the university, another inefficient place of learning. It is where the grade stamp is put on the output from the school system, making it easier for employers to find the people they want to come and work for them.
But adult ESL learners? They should be motivated to learn. With a little help they can be shown how to learn English very effectively on their own. If they are not motivated to learn English on their own, it is unlikely they wil achieve much in the classroom.
There is no doubt in my mind that much more could be achieved with much less money invested. This is not a prospect that sits wel with the immigration settlement industry. For some reason it also does not appeal to governments.
I was frustrated.
In the words of one immigrant to Canada, Humberto from Venezuela;
'Hi, Steve: I spent over 14 months studying English (ESL program) in a wel recognized Canadian school for adult learners. As I was a new immigrant to Canada, the government paid more than ten thousand dol ars for my whole English training. It was a waste of money for Canadian government and a waste of time for me. Even though I studied hard, it was impossible for me to achieve my main goal: speak English fluently. If this ESL program was supposed to help me become involved in Canadian society, it did not work out. When I finished the ESL program, the language barrier which had natural y erected itself was stil there as I was stil not able to communicate efficiently in English. Truth be told, I was not able to speak English at al . It was the most frustrating experience I have ever had. As you tel in your post, Canadian immigration office never asked me how successful my ESL training had been. It seemed to me that they did not care of anything but getting me in a school room attending an ESL school timetable. They did not care about the results of my ESL program. It was a complete waste of resources'
I have read a survey of outcomes of immigrant ESL learners at government funded schools in BC which was done by an outside consultant hired by the ministry to justify the expenditure of government money. The results were something to the effect that over 50% felt they had improved after six months ful time study.
My questions are:
1. Why is 50% a good result? Al of our surveys at The Linguist show over 90%
improvement and satisfaction.
2. Why waste money on consultants? Why not ask the immigrants during their studies and immediately upon completion of their studies. This was not done in Humberto's case. Just another example of the wastefulness of government-funded ESL.
Money for language learning should go directly to the immigrants. At a system like The Linguist we know right away when the learner has stopped studying. When that happens any third-party subsidy should be suspended.
Here is an exchange of letters between the US Center for Applied Linguistics and yours truly. I had asked them to look at LingQ as a possible free resource. I just wanted some feedback, some 'professional opinion' on what we are doing. First their evaluation and then my response.
Dear Mr. Kaufman:
At the suggestion of our Web site staff, I took a look at your site and its resources to see if and how wel it might fit the needs of our audience.
CAELA's aim is to build the capacity of states to educate literacy-level ESL adults. As with al the work done here, our approach rests solidly on research findings and proven methods. Our materials and resources draw on coherent, wel -researched methods that deal with adult-level learners and adult-level learning; that have comprehensive methodologies informing the entire approach; that use the many years of wel -grounded, real-world experience in teaching and teacher training that our staff bring to their work.
My final point deals with the area between our not-for-profit work and that of the commercial sector. You would not know it, but we field many requests from publishers, consultants, merchandising efforts, advertising concerns, and so forth for the—putting it simply—'CAL stamp of approval.' It has never been CAL's policy in all its nearly 50 years of existence to cross the line into approval of others' work. ...
Al of which brings me to a quick summary of the point of the message. Much though you may value your efforts and your resources, we find there is a lack of any overarching, guiding language-learning psychology or methodology. You may have done a fabulous job of borrowing a pedagogical tool here, combining a good teaching idea from there with some nice computer graphics, but not tying them together. You may think you have adapted these tools to electronic media: flash cards, vocabulary building, comparing bilingual texts side by side, simple compositions. We think these are neither rigorously planned, integrated nor particularly useful to the population we serve that deals with ESL literacy issues. That is our opinion. Feel free to disagree with it.
Dear Dr. ......
I never asked for CAL's stamp of approval for LingQ. I asked CAL to look at LingQ and offer some feedback about it as a possible resource for literacy-level language learners. After three months of inaction I get your long- winded letter. You no doubt spent more time on your letter than you did reviewing LingQ, which you describe as 'flash cards, vocabulary building, comparing bilingual texts side by side, simple compositions.'
What I was hoping for was a practical opinion of whether LingQ could be a useful tool for your learner group. I guess the answer from you is a resounding 'no,' but I suspect this comes more from a professional fit of pique, rather than from an honest look at the system.
You seem to take great pride in being publicly funded and 'not for profit.? Al that means is that you have successful y lobbied government to divert tax-payers' money (i.e. money generated in the private sector) to pay
