My Issue as a Linguist
Turning something I know into something students know
No matter how many times I teach the same academic, professional, or marketing writing content, there is always excitement in teaching it. There are always language features that interest me and make me want to share with students from a linguistic perspective.
For instance, in an academic writing or professional communication course, I love explaining the significance of noun groups as the building blocks underlying sophisticatedly written scientific texts.
In an advertising writing class, I often highlight the types of "value" words that are used to promote a product, such as describing the emotional impact it has on consumers, its quality, aesthetic value, and so on.
These are all part of the training of my analytical lens with a particular linguistic school of thought over the years.
I share my observations with my students because I want them to "see" the features I can see, and because I find them useful for writing and understanding English in general. However, whenever I see them frown as I explain and exemplify grammatical concepts enthusiastically, I know that perhaps something is wrong.
One main issue is time - the time I have been trained as a linguist versus how they have been trained as learners. There is no way I can expect them to acquire the "gaze" accumulated over the years within 13 weeks!
Issue #2 has to do with intention. What do my students intend to take away with them after the class - a text exemplar, formulaic expressions, tips to score higher in assignments, or alternative ways to study English that can be transferred to other contexts?
Meanwhile, I also understand that it's (almost) impossible to make sure everybody understands what I say at every single moment. So what do I really want from them?
I don't have a concrete answer now. Two thoughts remain, and I am looking for your advice and comments:
I thought sharing knowledge about language would be "empowering," as they need such knowledge to understand and produce texts in different contexts. But when students choose listening (being silent) over doing (writing and talking), I don't find this process very democratizing.
The catch-22 situation here becomes a vicious cycle: they don't use the language, they don't learn the language well; they don't have the language to share what they have to (assessments, in-class activities, etc.), they won't want to use the language (loss of motivation), not to mention that the nature of EAP/ESP knowledge is not particularly exciting, unless there's a very strong drive for students to study.
Thanks for reading, and feel free to share your thoughts with me!