Le Beaumont English program helps deepening knowledge of given forms in English

By Professor Richard Day, Chair and Co-founder of the Extensive Reading Foundation
SEPT 25, 2012

Our course books concentrate on introducing new language items each appearing in new chapters, with new topics all the time. For example learners may been copula be and jobs in Unit 1, and in Unit2 the present simple tense and simple actions, in Unit 3 frequency adverbs and hobbies and are taught and so on. Each chapter has something new – new grammar, new vocabulary, new reading skills, new pronunciation points, and so on. Thus the structure of course books shows us that they are not concerned with deepening knowledge of a given form, only introducing it or giving minimal practice in it beyond a token review unit, or test. They do not concentrate on the amount of revisiting and revising necessary for acquisition. The assumption underlying most courses and course books is that our learners have ‘met’ or ‘done that now’ and we don’t need to go back to it, so we can move on. Adopting this view of language teaching (that ‘teaching equals learning’ implicit in these materials) is a massive mistake if that is all we do. We have seen we need to meet the language features a lot in order to learn them. We also must meet them under the right conditions.

Very often in language programs I see teachers using native materials with the intention of exposing the learner to ‘authentic’ texts. This is fine if, and this is a huge if, if the learner can deal with it. If not, then the text is noise and frustrational (for the teacher and learner) and not instructional but interfering with instruction.

Learners also must meet these items in real contexts to see how they work together, to see how they fit together. In other words learners must get a ‘sense’ or ‘feeling’ for how the language works. This can only be done by meeting the language items very often and by seeing them work together in actual language use (i.e. from their reading or listening). This depth of knowledge gives learners the depth of language awareness and confidence to feel comfortable with the language that will enable them to speak or write. Thus any program that does not allow learners to develop their comfort zone of language is denying them the chance to progress to productive language use.

This depth of knowledge of language must, and can only, be acquired through constant massive exposure. 

[For older children, this massive task requires massive amounts of reading and listening. For younger children, or for slow starters, the best way is to join Le Beaumont's English program once or twice a week. We build up this depth of knowledge through focus use around topics of interest to children.]

Even after several years of English education, Japanese learners cannot make even simple sentences. Simply put, they did not meet enough language to make sense of what they were been taught in school. The endless drudgery emphasizing only abstract knowledge for tests, at the expense of language use, compounds this problem.
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