Teaching English without Teaching English | Roberto Guzman | TEDxUPRM

Transcriber: Nydia Bejarano Reviewer: Mirjana Čutura I started

teaching

undergraduate English courses at the University of Puerto Rico, Aguadilla Campus, about 20-odd years ago, and quickly became frustrated. I love my job, but I was frustrated with myself and my students. And it was nothing that my students were doing wrong. On paper, they were learning English. I would test them and they would know everything about pronouns, adjectives, syntax, grammar. You name it, they knew it. And they could prove it by passing written tests. However, when I tried to have a conversation with my students, when I tried to have a casual conversation, I seemed like a deer in the headlights... (Laughter) And then they talked about what I called "Porky Pig Syndrome." They said: (Imitates Porky Pig's stuttering) (Laughs) It just wasn't working.

And I was frustrated because I said, "I can't do this." These young men and women, when they graduate, will enter a work environment where they will be expected to think at higher levels of cognition. They are expected to analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and they have to do it in a language that is not their native language, English. And I wanted them to be there. And what happened was I started experimenting with this and that, and after a while, I developed a system that I think worked. I call it "Teaching English without

teaching

English." What I did was I moved away from grammar and developed a system where I divided the class into three stages.

In the first stage, I give my students a BS detector, and this BS detector (Laughter) is a fully functional, portable but high-maintenance mental device that they install in the neurons. And every time they detect BS, which is very often, (Laughter) the alarm should ring. "BS, BS, BS, BS." (Laughs) How do I do that? Well, the BS detector has three parts. Part number one is critical thinking skills. I make my students learn that every time they read something, every time they listen to a TED talk, every time they listen to a debate, a conversation, they should ask a series of specific questions.

For example, is the speaker being specific? People who know what they are talking about tend to be very specific. They can say who, what, where, when, how many and how often. Now, people who are... how do I put it? - BS artists will flee from specificity. They will not be specific because specificity implies responsibility. And when people aren't specific, I point out to my students that it's usually for one of two reasons. Or they don't know what they are talking about and there is nothing wrong with that - we are all ignorant in different fields. And if you don't know, you can't be specific.

That's a human trait. But sometimes people aren't specific because they don't want you to know what they're talking about. And now there is an ethical element of betrayal, of concealment. So the first thing they should learn is to ask specific questions: Is the speaker sympathetic? Is he looking at all the available evidence? Is the speaker considering the burden of proof? When you say something, you are responsible for providing evidence for that statement. If they are talking about a scientific topic, is there replicability? Is there experimental data to support that claim? And once I have that part of the BS detector firmly installed, where they will ask specific questions about anything they read, see or hear, I move on to the second part.

They should detect logical fallacies. And logical fallacies are errors that people make in the reasoning process. And we all do it. For example, (Spanish) Every time I forget my umbrella, it rains. Do you really think there is a relationship between the weather and forgetting your umbrella? Wouldn't that be fantastic? Because then this four-year drought they have in California... (Laughter) all we have to do is get the Californians to forget about their damn umbrellas, and then it will rain, okay? That is an inconsistency. That's the name of that fallacy of false cause and effect. A happens, then B happens.

And then you assume A caused B. Maybe, maybe not. You have to check it. Another very common logical fallacy is ad hominems. And ad hominems are nasty little things because that's when the person gets personal. Instead of attacking your arguments, the person attacks you. They attack your integrity. And, unfortunately, political debate is often contaminated by that. When someone loses an argument, instead of sticking to the merits of the arguments, he backs down and then starts getting nasty and offensive. Ad hominems are terrible, but very useful in the hands of people who have no scruples. And another logical fallacy that is very popular is the argument from authority.

This must be true because someone who knows more than me says it is true. And I have my students learn to identify at least five or six of those logical fallacies. The third part of the BS detector is taken from Benjamin Bloom. This was a wonderful scientist who started thinking about thinking. And this guy said, "What do we do with our brain when we think?" And he identified five or six skills, depending on the taxonomy used. And for example, the basis of all learning is memory, memorization. And you need that for everything. You need that for everything.

However, if you stay at that level where you just memorize and repeat, that is not deep thinking, it is not deep thinking at all. And now you have the situation where you have to find out if the speaker is really a deep thinker. Does he know what he does in detail or is he just repeating some talking points that someone gave him? Again, the questions will help you identify whether you are dealing with a deep thinker or not. And here you analyze, synthesize, evaluate. That's where I wanted to take my students, but first I had to get an obstacle out of the way.

Most people feel that it is wrong to change your mind, to be hesitant. And no, that is not true. If we want to grow as a person and as a society, we must be open to changing our minds and constantly changing our minds because as the world changes, we must change with the world. And here I'm going to quote George Bernard Shaw. He made the following observation. He says: "Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." So I had to destroy that paradigm that you have to know all the answers.

No, you should know all the questions and not be afraid to ask them. Once they have the BS detector firmly installed, we move on to the fun part of the class. Here we watch TED talks, go on YouTube, read essays from the Internet or local newspapers. And we don't use textbooks. We use whatever is happening in the world. For example, this semester we are talking about Syrian refugees. Four million people fleeing for their lives. Why are they running? Where are they? More than 1,000 people have drowned trying to reach Europe from North Africa. These are current events and I want my students to be aware that this is happening.

And we also talked about the economic crisis in Puerto Rico. And here we have a wonderful resource: Joseph Stiglitz. Joseph Stiglitz is a world-class economist who even has a Nobel Prize in Economics. And this guy wrote some articles about the situation we're in and made specific suggestions. So we take it to class, we read it, we discuss it. We compare with what local politicians say and do. And that fosters an atmosphere of conversation. And most students are so involved in what's going on in terms of content that they're not really aware that they're acquiring the language, because the bottom line is, "Let's talk.

Let's look at what So-and-So wrote. Let's see." Find out what So-and-So said. Let's compare notes. Now I have two basic rules for this noisy, semi-otic or chaotic classroom. Number one: ad hominems are not allowed. Under no circumstances will you personally offend or attack the integrity of another person. You must respect everyone's freedom to differ from you. Rule number one. Rule number two is that ideas are not people. Ideas have no rights. So if someone says something silly, something questionable, including me, the teacher, they should feel free to question that idea. And that's not just a right we have - to question ideas that don't make sense to us - it's perhaps an ethical responsibility because a bad idea, if left unchecked, can cause a lot of harm.

We forget, for example, that Adolf Hitler was in power for 12 years. How did this brutal and evil man manage to control one of the most civilized nations in Europe? Well, easy. His crazy ideas were not questioned in time. So when German intellectuals and people who had values ​​realized that this guy was leading them into a world war, he already controlled the narrative of the nation, he controlled basically everything: the army, the police, the media . And he simply had too much power. It took a world war to remove Adolf Hitler from power. So when you see a bad idea, especially a bad idea that can harm people physically or emotionally, you may be morally obligated to speak up and say, "Mnh-hnhmmm.

That's not a good idea." Well. So in this classroom interaction component, once we get that out of the way, we move on to the third area. And the third area is reading and writing. And again, I have to disabuse my students of the notion that making mistakes is a bad thing. No, it's not. It even has a name; It's called development errors. So if you want to learn a language, you have to be willing to make mistakes, a lot of mistakes, because that's how you know the limits of linguistic rules. So, I try to create an atmosphere where my students feel completely comfortable to say whatever they want to say, however they want to say it.

And it's interesting because at the beginning of the semester, I normally have two or three students who say: "Professor, I don't understand English." "I mean, I just can't deal with English." And these same students, when we are in the heat of the debate, of the conversation, want to participate in the conversation. And then they start leaning left and right, and ask the magic word, (Spanish) "How do you say...?" (Laughter) But then when they say, (Spanish) "How do you say?" the other student says, (Spanish) “Asi,” and then there is peer tutoring, and it happens spontaneously. I don't even have to wait for these kids to raise their hands, because I saw what happened.

They stare at me. Once we make eye contact, I say, "Julio, what do you think?" And then Julio starts speaking in English. And then sometimes he suffers from a bit of Porky Pig Syndrome. (Laughter) He starts talking (Imitates Porky Pig's stuttering). (Laughs) When he goes there, when he has Porky Pig Syndrome, sometimes he gets a little embarrassed and I say, "No, no, no. Go on." And then he says, (Spanish) "Can I say something in Spanish?" "Of course. Do you want to use Spanglish? Use Spanglish. Tell us what you think." And they realize that they can make mistakes.

And no one is going to judge them. Nobody is going to rate them worse. This is part of the language acquisition process. Now there is something interesting. Before adopting this method, I felt a little uncomfortable. It was like, for example, trying to make someone understand what a special dish, a special food, tastes like. And describe the food. You're like, "Oh my God. It tastes like that, it smells like that, and the texture is like that." And can you really share the experience of a good meal like that? Somehow it doesn't work. So now you say, "Okay.

I want you to get a good cookbook and memorize the recipe." And will that work? No, no, it won't be. The only way to experience what good food is like, how it smells, the texture, the flavor is another way. And I want to bring my students to the point where they understand that language is wonderful, it is a living being. And there is no way to learn a language by simply memorizing rules, concentrating only on grammar. And once these students become comfortable making mistakes, the classroom exchange becomes much more dynamic. Finally, when we get to the writing process, we move to the part where we say, "Okay, let's write." But again, form is secondary to content.

I want them to get their ideas, to get evidence, to put their feelings in writing. And once they do that, they move on to stage number two, which is, "Let's fix the work." So at first you focus on the content, not the form, and then you focus on the form, not the content. This is where you correct all the grammatical errors and look at the mechanics of the language, so to speak. And they write summary reaction articles where they focus on one thing at first and then worry about the form of the language. And I always emphasize that the content is more important than the form.

And I will prove it. Let's take Stephen King or take Isabel Allende. These are world class writers. Well, these people, when they write their manuscripts, they send them to publishers. In the case of Stephen King, Viking Press. And at Viking Press they have a professional nerd. (Laughs) And this professional nerd will review Stephen King's manuscript and make any necessary corrections. Now, who has the fame and fortune? It's Stephen King. He is not the grammar expert. So, you can learn grammar from a machine. He can ask someone to review his article, but he cannot falsify content. He can't fake the passion and suspense that comes with a good story or a fantastic novel.

And my goal is for my students to understandA set of things. Learning is a painful process. You have all these narratives that society gives you. Everyone around the world has narratives. And these narratives dictate how we feel about things. But sometimes these narratives can be wrong. And that's where we have the cognitive dissonance. And cognitive dissonance basically says, "Oh my God. I can't believe that... what you just said." But now you have to decide. Why do you reject this new idea? Because it is wrong or because you are predisposed to it? So you have to explore your narratives, look at whatever is causing the cognitive dissonance, and then form an opinion, an opinion based on reason, on critical thinking, not on prejudice.

So, hopefully, at the end of the semester, my students will take away some things. I want you to understand that there is nothing wrong with asking questions. They should be intense question askers. They should resuscitate the boy or girl who was three years old and was driving mom or dad crazy, (Spanish) "But why? Why? Why?" And, "Shut up. Don't ask so many questions. (Spanish) You have to see the children and..." You know the rest. (Laughter) So, we overcame our students' curiosity and, in sixth grade, they won't ask a question if their life depended on it. And I think my job is to resurrect that boy, that girl, and say, "You know something?

Ask questions constantly, even stupid questions. Ask them." And you should not be afraid of people who ask questions. You should be afraid of people who are afraid of questions. Because growth and maturity, and all things in life, come from our ability to say: (Spanish) "Why? Why should I believe that?" Intelligent, competent and ethical people are not afraid of questions. Sometimes you just can't get them to shut up because they are so passionate about what you are talking about or what they believe that they will just flood you with information. That's what I think we should focus on.

I want to close this talk with this thought: "I believe my job as an educator is to open as many doors as I can for my students while allowing them the freedom to decide if and when they want to cross the threshold of any of these." doors." I want my students to learn to cook, not to learn to read a book. And that's how I teach English without teaching English. Thank you. (Applause) (Greetings)