Show Don't Tell

It is a well known in fiction writing circles that showing is better than telling. Tell the reader that Harry is a magician and the reader will raise his eyebrows and move onto the next book. Show Harry turning water into wine and let the reader say, "Is he a magician or the new Messiah?" I want to read on, I want to know more! In short, let the reader figure out for themselves and they have more invested in the story. The same applies in the EFL classroom. Tell the students that you use "going to" to talk about future plans and their eyes might glaze over. Show the students the meaning of "going to" by pretending to be a palm reader who can see their future and the'll no doubt be hooked.

I was recently asked to give a self introduction lesson at a junior high school. Junior high students in Japan can be very unforgiving of a lesson burdened with dry facts about a country that was half way around the world and to which they would very likely never visit. I could not imagine standing in front of 40 kids for 50 minutes saying "I'm from England. In England we drink tea. This is a picture of the Queen…yada, yada, yada…" The students would be asleep within minutes. I had to show them something interesting to draw their attention and then make it interactive to give them something to do.


What do junior high school kids like? What did I like at the age of thirteen? TV. Music. TV. TV, TV, TV and more TV.


"That's it!" I thought. "I'll show the kids some classic British TV and then ask them to show me some classic Japanese TV. Cultural exchange at its very best.

Here was my lesson plan:

And here was the worksheet:

The lesson was generally student centered and focused on fluency rather than accuracy. I taught the natural responses in the box first to make sure the communicative aspect was a two way street from the outset, since it is often a problem in mini speeches like this for the listener to be passive.

For students who had "no idea " about a topic to discuss I added some pictures of famous people on the reverse of the worksheet to give them a helping hand, but students were encouraged to offer their own ideas.

It was a success and I had a large number of students wanting to present their own ideas to the class. I will be using this idea as a model for future lessons.

To be taught and confused: the prescriptive approach to teaching grammar

English is for everyone. Or so I thought.

I have just read yet another article in one of the mainstream Japanese newspapers, which made the hair on the back of my neck bristle. The article is supposedly written to enlighten Japanese speakers of English on the subtlties of the English Language.

The writer, who didn’t have the nerve to put her name to the column, claimed that in English you cannot describe a face as “scary”. The words “scary” and “face” do not naturally collocate; they have been forced together by Japanese English learners. She (or he) went on to claim that the sentence “Frankenstein has a scary face” is unnatural and therefore incorrect.

My first reaction was to throw up my arms in horror! As a native speaker of English, and as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language in Japan, I can think of numerous times when I have described someone’s face as a scary and I see no problem with this particular collocation of words. I wondered what made the writer of this deluded article come to the conclusion that I, and possibly thousands upon thousands of other speakers of English (google "scary face and you'll see how many use it), were wrong in saying that Frankenstein, Dracula, and even my mother-in-law have scary faces.

The writer went on to say that she had searched a corpus database of American newspapers and the collocation “scary face” did not appear once, whereas “grim face” made a number of appearances. From this she reasoned out a reckless rule that “scary face” is wrong and “grim face” is right.

Okay, this only tells me one thing; that in a certain number of newspapers “scary face” did not appear. It is not logical to make the jump and say that because “scary face” does not appear in this newspaper, it is therefore incorrect usage. I only need to listen in on any Halloween party in any suburban household on October 31st to falsify this outlandish proposition. I can only conclude that it is the writer’s inexperience with language that forced her to make up such an outrageous universal rule.

This is not about the collocation "scary face." What I take offence to is this kind of teaching; Prescriptive teaching. The kind of teaching that sets out a list of rules about what should be said and how it should be said and woe betide the person who does it any different. prescriptive approaches to teaching not only confuses English language learners, it mystifies language to such an extent that the prescribed language takes on the appearance of inaccessibility. Prescriptive approaches focus on persnickety, and might I say non-existent rules that are created by idiotic pedagogues and wannabe grammarians who misuse corpuses and misunderstand the function of the English language in the world today.

And what is the function?

To communicate. To communicate thoughts, feelings, truths, ideas and ideals, and even to communicate falsehoods and lies, because language should be flexible and therefore free. Free for everyone to use as she sees fit, whether it be to make friends, for international business, or just getting your meaning across to a person from another culture.

English is no longer owned by the universities--in fact it never was. It is the language of the people of the world. It is a world language that ought to be free from prescriptive judgements. Free to allow the creative exchange of  ideas between people. Free from the chains that have bound generations of young Japanese people go through school unable to grasp the truth of what language is really about and believing that the Emperor is wearing clothes.

Curse-ye-ha-me-ha: the Prescriptive Grammarians who claim that you own the English language and that some things can be done with it, but that other things cannot

Curse-ye-ha-me-ha; the pedants who spend your lives inventing rules and adding to the illusion that there is something wrong with the way we say things?

Curse-ye-ha-me-ha; the men and women of words who claim that if it is not said as a rule it should not be said at all?

There has to be something terribly wrong when millions of children come out of school disenchanted and confused by the sheer volume of rules that govern the language that the Prescriptive Grammarians teach. No wonder the children of Japan grow up to either despise English or despise themselves for being no good at English!

Let's take a chance, leave the rules in the shoebox at the door and run barefoot in the fields of fluency. Let's not waste any more classroom time on the finer points of prescriptive grammar that attempts to stifle the character of a nation. Revel in past mistakes no longer and leave it to the linguists to describe how we did it in the future.

If we don't it will be like saying that I own all the water in the world and that it should only be used for making tea.

It will be like saying that I own all the air in the world and that it must not by any means be breathed in countries that are not members of the European Union.

It will be like saying that I own all the fire in the world and it must not be used for anything other than burning books.

It will be like saying that I own the earth and it must not be walked upon by people of a different race from me.

Prescriptionist Grammarians are Nazis, who want to take control of language, throw it in a gas chamber and force it to die of asphyxiation before it has a chance to go out into the world and live a little, develop a lot, and be used by people of all races, cultures and creeds to do with what they wish. Whether the person communicating would create bonds and friendships; or whether they would sever ties and cause wars. English is for everyone. Make it so.