As part of a professional development class on language teaching every week I have to reflect on one common idea or belief about the language acquisition process. Here are some of the discussion prompts and my personal take on them:
"WHAT IS TAUGHT IS WHAT IS LEARNED"
“What is taught is what is learned” - so many are the possible interpretations of this statement that if these words written on leaves came out of the Cumaean Sibyl's cave as one of her very cryptic prophecies I would not be surprised.
While an initial reading that focuses on the flow of information from teaching to learning might make us scoff outraged and start to furiously enumerate the possible ways in which the material we try to teach might not be learned (let alone acquired) by our students, a deeper, possibly more philosophical and certainly more interesting interpretation focuses on the opposite flow: from learning to teaching. Here’s how I like to interpret the statement: only that which is learned can be said to have been taught.
We can think of it as a person gifting a precious gift (such is the gift of knowing a new language and culture we give our students ;) to a friend; obviously the first person must offer the gift and the friend has to to accept the gift. If both people are doing their part the gift is exchanged/gifted. Would you ever say that you GIFTED something to someone if that person for any reason didn’t take it? I think not! At the same way would you call “teaching” a misguided attempt to transfer knowledge if said knowledge is not actually transferred?
So whatever the reason impeding the transfer of knowledge, from poor presentation, to wrong choice of material to inattentive students (the responsibility for the success of the exchange falls on both parts equally), if something is not (at least) learned it has not been TAUGHT and all efforts on our part that don’t translate into learning (or even better acquisition) cannot be called teaching but attempts at it. All that leads me to say: “yes, I agree with this statement, or at least one interpretation of it!” ;)
P.S. here’s the fascinating story of the Cumaean Sybil if you’re curious :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumaean_Sibyl
While an initial reading that focuses on the flow of information from teaching to learning might make us scoff outraged and start to furiously enumerate the possible ways in which the material we try to teach might not be learned (let alone acquired) by our students, a deeper, possibly more philosophical and certainly more interesting interpretation focuses on the opposite flow: from learning to teaching. Here’s how I like to interpret the statement: only that which is learned can be said to have been taught.
We can think of it as a person gifting a precious gift (such is the gift of knowing a new language and culture we give our students ;) to a friend; obviously the first person must offer the gift and the friend has to to accept the gift. If both people are doing their part the gift is exchanged/gifted. Would you ever say that you GIFTED something to someone if that person for any reason didn’t take it? I think not! At the same way would you call “teaching” a misguided attempt to transfer knowledge if said knowledge is not actually transferred?
So whatever the reason impeding the transfer of knowledge, from poor presentation, to wrong choice of material to inattentive students (the responsibility for the success of the exchange falls on both parts equally), if something is not (at least) learned it has not been TAUGHT and all efforts on our part that don’t translate into learning (or even better acquisition) cannot be called teaching but attempts at it. All that leads me to say: “yes, I agree with this statement, or at least one interpretation of it!” ;)
P.S. here’s the fascinating story of the Cumaean Sybil if you’re curious :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumaean_Sibyl
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