Focus on Meaning or Form?

In my 15 years in Japan, I have asked countless Japanese adults why, after 6-10 years of studying English, they are unable to have even a simple conversation. The majority tell me that when they start to think of English, endless rules and grammar lessons enter their heads and the resulting confusion makes speaking impossible.
And a few years ago, when I was doing some research on Error Correction in the EFL classroom, one comment especially stood out for me. One researcher said: “Error correction done wrong turns a student’s attention to form, not meaning.”
From these two anecdotes it would be easy to conclude that there is an over-emphasis on form in many Japanese English classrooms. Knowing there is also a tremendous focus on training-for-the-test, this simple conclusion finds more and more support the more I look at the English education system in Japan.
Form (that is, speaking correctly) is certainly important and cannot be overlooked. But when attention to form, or anything else for that matter, becomes an obstacle to developing speaking ability, however, can there be any disagreement that we need to be very careful how we correct, or interact with, our students?

Teaching Students How to Remember

A student told me today that English was difficult for her because there were ‘so many words to remember.’ I have heard that our number 1 job as EFL teachers is teaching vocabulary. As the daily speaker of a foreign language myself, knowing the right word to say works better than trying to say something another way every time.
So this girl’s comment really struck home to me. One of my goals in the classroom is to give my students the skills they need to be successful learners after they leave my class. So I wondered how I could help this girl succeed in what is perhaps the most important task in her English education.
This is the lead-in to more entries to follow. If you have some of your own ideas, write them as a comment below. And click here to see what other posts I’ve added on this all-important topic.