Novitas-ROYAL, 2008, Vol.: 2 (2), 154-161[i].
Metaphorical Conceptualizations
of an Adult EFL Learner: Where Old
Concepts Are Impregnable
Abstract: This
study tries to follow conceptualizations of an adult Persian EFL learner
regarding his language teacher and his experiences of the language class in
which he was attending. The focus of attention is on the metaphors he has been
asked to produce every other session with the assumption that metaphors are not
only essential for communicating abstract and difficult ideas, but also for
talking about aspects of ordinary experience (Ortony, 1975). The results of
this study reveal how this adult learner’s ways of looking at his teacher and
his language learning did not change across time; an inflexibility which might
be attributed to the ways in which his attitudes towards language and language
learning had been shaped by the school system before attending the language class.
Keywords:
Metaphorical
conceptualizations, adult learners, EFL.
Özet: Bu çalışma, yabancı dil olarak İngilizce öğrenen yetişkin
bir İranlı öğrencinin dil öğretmeni ve dil öğrenme sürecine dair deneyimlerine
ilişkin oluşturduğu kavramları belirlemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Metaforlar, soyut ve
zor fikirleri anlatmada yardımcı olmalarına ek olarak sıradan deneyimleri de
aktarmada temel oluştururlar (Ortony, 1975). Bu varsayımdan yola çıkarak,
çalışmanın ana konusunu, katılımcı ile yapılan her oturumda üretmesi istenilen
metaforlar oluşturmaktadır. Çalışmanın sonuçları, katılımcının zaman içerisinde
öğretmenine ve dil öğrenme sürecine olan bakış açısının değişmediğini
göstermiştir. Dile ve dil öğrenmeye karşı geliştirilmiş olan bu değişmez tutum,
katılımcının dil dersine başlamadan önce deneyimlediği okul sisteminden
kaynaklandığı düşünülebilir.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Mecazi kavramlaştırmalar, tetişkin öğrenciler, Yabancı dil olarak
İngilizce.
INTRODUCTION
During
the last forty years, the field of language teaching has been occupied by the
notion of communicative language teaching (henceforward CLT), with its learner-centered
and experience-based views of second language teaching and also with one of its
paramount mottos “language learning is learning to communicate” (see Brandl,
2007; Breen & Candlin, 1980; Canale & Swain, 1980; Richards and Rodgers,
2001). This has given rise to an innumerable number of language institutes, courses,
books, and material claiming that they can actualize the principles of
communicative language teaching and, as a result, lead into more language
success.
But,
in spite of their claim, the results are usually, at least as far as adult
learners are concerned, far from being satisfactory. As a language teacher,
I’ve personally noticed that such learners eagerly register for those classes
and attentively participate in them, but the improvement in their communicative
ability doesn’t seem to be satisfactory. In fact, the number of adult EFL
learners who drop out after one or two terms is too high to turn a blind eye to.
What are the causes of this kind of failure and the high number of dropouts?
Why such adult EFL learners, at least in a society like Iran, cannot
communicate with ease even after being trained according to the principles set
by the proponents of CLT for some consecutive terms? This paper is an attempt
to address such questions.
Theoretically
speaking, this failure might be ascribed to two main sources, namely EFL teachers
and learners. We can blame either language teachers for not fully internalizing
those CLT principles into their language classes or students for not studying
and working hard enough. The first accusation seems not to be plausible, since,
at least, in the language institute in which I have been working as a
supervisor for ages the staff members have been chosen after taking part in
really difficult pen and paper language tests and then interview sessions. They
are, moreover, being supervised every now and then. Their communicative
language ability and their profound belief in the principles of CLT are,
therefore, satisfactory. Most of them are MA graduates of TEFL from the best
universities of the country.
Having
intuitively dismissed the first source of failure, I can now turn my attention
toward adult learners themselves. As I mentioned earlier, it seems that they
come into the language institute with enough motivation. In the interview
sessions which I usually attend before they are placed in different classes according
to their language abilities, expressions such as “I want to speak English with
ease”, “I want to read foreign magazines”, and “I want to watch foreign movies”
are not uncommon. In fact, the source of difficulty doesn’t seem to be
motivation but emotion since such expressions reveal that such learners are, at
least, of high instrumental motivation (see Gardner & Lambert, 1972).
Kövecses
(2003) divides emotion expressions into two categories of descriptive
and expressive. While the former category encompasses words like
“anger”, “angry”, “joy”, and “happy” which describe the emotions they
signify, the latter category encompasses words like “shit!”, “wow!”, and “yuk!”
which can express emotions. As things stand in this categorization, it
seems reasonable to focus on descriptive expressions in order to get a better
idea of language learners’ emotions towards language and language learning.
But, the question is how reliable descriptive expressions can be obtained. The
answer seems to have been provided by Kövecses himself:
Since
figurative terms also describe (and do not primarily express) emotions, this is
a subgroup within descriptive terms. Here unlike the previous group, the words
and expressions do not literally “name” particular kinds of emotions…. The
figurative words and expressions that belong in this group denote various aspects
of emotion concepts, such as intensity, cause, control, and so forth (p. 4,
emphases are original).
And
it goes without saying that metaphors constitute the widest and most important
category within figurative language. They can create social, cultural, and also
psychological realities for people (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). This is perhaps
why Block (1999) considers metaphor production as “an ongoing process by which
we constantly assimilate input by comparing and contrasting it with
representations of previous experiences which we retain in our memories”
(p.135).
Metaphors
are also frequently encountered in learning contexts; and, for this reason,
studying them might reveal different orientations towards communication and
learning. Moreover, metaphors may have useful functions in learning by helping learners
raise their awareness of key concepts and issues. Learner metaphors may also
help teachers develop professionally by revealing students’ experiences of
language learning activities and situations (see for example, Achard &
Niemeier, 2004; Cameron, 2003; Cortazzi
& Jin, 1999; Littlemore, 2005; Ortony, 1975; Scheffler, 1960; Villamil
& de Guerrero, 2000, 2005).
METHODOLOGY
The
data for this study comes from a 19-year-old Persian EFL learner named Reza who
came to the language institute in which I was a supervisor around nine months
ago in order to register for an EFL course. Having taken our placement test and
the follow-up interview, he was decided to be a pre-intermediate language
learner. He had not attended any language institute before and his knowledge of
English was limited to his high-school years.
In
the interview session I asked him why he wanted to learn English and he said “I feel I am [sic] need English manywheres
[sic], in studies, for watching English films and use[ing] internet”, indicating
that he was, at least, instrumentally motivated. When the registration process
was over, I also asked him if he would cooperate with me and fill out a form
every other session after the class and he kindly agreed to do so.
The
form included the sentences “A language teacher is like… because…” and “A
language learner is like…because…” which had to be completed. The class in
which Reza attended was held three times each week and continued for two
months. Having passed the first term in our language institute, Reza also
registered for the next term and therefore the process of completing the form lasted
for another two months. Reza’s teacher remained constant in both terms. The
first class comprised 16 students and the second class comprised 19 ones, 14 of
them were Reza’s first term classmates. It is also worth noting that the form
was written in Persian and Reza was also asked to answer in Persian for his
language ability was not high enough to encourage writing in English.
RESULTS
What
follows is the list of all the metaphors Reza produced:
|
Language Teacher |
Language Learner |
||||
|
Number |
Metaphor |
Reason |
Number |
Metaphor |
Reason |
|
1 |
Tree |
Having a lot of information |
1 |
Fruit picker |
Collecting the information |
|
2 |
Candle |
Giving light to others |
2 |
Darkness |
Being illuminated by teacher’s light |
|
3. |
Sea full of fish |
Having something to offer |
3 |
Fisherman |
Trying to catch something |
|
4. |
Van driver |
Having responsibility for the load |
4. |
Van |
Being controlled by van driver |
|
5. |
Cloud |
Giving something |
5. |
Earth |
Being useless without rain |
|
6. |
Parrot
owner |
Repeating something |
6. |
Parrot |
Imitating what is told |
|
7. |
Mother |
knowing a lot |
7. |
Infant |
Knowing nothing |
|
8. |
Water |
Giving life |
8. |
Seed |
Being worthless without water |
|
9. |
Tree full of fruit |
Being full of information |
9. |
Passerby |
Eating the fruit |
|
10 |
Sea of words |
Being full of information |
10. |
Drop of water |
Wanting to join the sea |
|
11 |
Tour leader |
Guiding |
11. |
Tourist |
Following leader everywhere |
|
12 |
Safety pin |
Attaching something to something |
12. |
The attached thing |
Being attached to the book by the teacher |
|
13 |
God |
Knowing everything |
13. |
Idiot |
Knowing nothing |
|
14 |
Rescuer |
Knowing how to save |
14. |
Rescued |
Being saved by teacher |
|
15 |
Bridge |
Connecting two places |
15. |
Passenger |
Inability to move further without bridge |
|
16 |
Commander |
Having the authority |
16. |
Soldier |
Following the commander |
|
17 |
Coach |
Training |
17. |
Team member |
Following the coach |
|
18 |
Engineer |
Planning |
18. |
Worker |
Working according to the plan |
Following
Cameron and Low (1999), not only were Reza’s metaphors compared with each other
across time, but also his elaborations on them were also taken into
consideration. As the table shows, among the metaphors produced by Reza almost
all of them assign an active, authoritarian role to the teacher while depicting
the learners as nothing but passive. This pattern is, more or less, a static
one. The whole picture does not change as the time passes by.
The
results are inconsistent with what Villamil and de Guerrero (2005) report. The
authors found out that EFL writing teachers conceptualizations of an EFL writing
teacher changed across time, “departing from a view of teacher as dispenser of
knowledge to that of being a guide or leader in a shared activity” (p.83). The
results are also inconsistent with Cortazzi and Jin (1999) who discovered that
in many cultures students’ dominant metaphor for a teacher was a good
teacher is a friend. In this study the sense of friendliness is only found
in teacher as mother although Reza’s notes reveal that by mother he
emphasized having knowledge more than having care.
What
can be the source of such a discrepancy between the findings of this study and
those mentioned above? Can it be argued that Reza’s teacher did not support
cooperation, initiative, and independence in his class, whereas the teachers’
in the previous studies did so? The answer to this question is negative. Reza’s
classes were observed four times; two times in the first term and two times in
the second term with careful attention to what Reza did or was done to him in
the class. Moreover, I also randomly selected four students from the same class
in which Reza attended for two subsequent terms. Special care was exercised to
make sure that these four subjects had attended most of the class sessions. The
interview session was carried out after the students took the second-term final
exam and it was totally in Persian. Each learner was interviewed individually
for about 10 minutes. I first asked them the following three questions and then
wanted them to talk for a minute or two on their experiences of the English
class in which they attended:
a.
Was the relationship between you and your teacher a friendly one?
b.
Did he encourage pair and group work, for example asking you to interview one
of your classmates?
c.
Did he focus on acceptability and comprehensibility of the message you wanted
to convey or on the form of the message? Or both?
The
results of the observations together with those of the interviews revealed that
the teacher was not the one depicted in Reza’s metaphors. He was, on the
contrary, a person who cared about the students, a person who emphasized more on
meaning than on accuracy, a person who emphasized cooperation, pair and group
work, a person whose focus on form was incidental (see Yuqin Zhao & Bitchener,
2007 for an overview of incidental focus on form in teacher-learner and
learner-learner interactions). In this way, the students were far from being
simply passive recipients of information. The following four excerpts which
have been taken from classroom observations might show the friendly atmosphere
of the class and the indirect ways by the help of which the teacher not only
lets the conversation flow not to be hampered but also implies the correct
forms or pronunciations:
(1)
Reza: Another point I think is
Teacher: Yea,
good
Reza: I think about novels…eh…when you
are read a novel…eh……you can
produce the face of its people
Teacher: gooood
Reza: I mean produce the situation in
your brain…and this makes it interesting
Teacher: Yes, that’s a very good point. In
reading we can imagine the characters in our
mind. Good. Very good Reza.
(2)
Reza: For example, if they want to advise
(pronounces it like /'advaiz/) just
one important
thing…eh…they have to make a long movie to transmit it to
their addresses
Teacher: (looking at other students) Yes, Reza is
right. He says that if directors want to
advise (pronounces it
like /əd'vaiz/ ) their addressees to do something, they
will do it with their
movies. (looking at Reza) Excellent.
(3)
Reza. When I read a book, I think about
it
Teacher. Okay
Reza. And I flow the word into my
mind…eee… attaching the words into my mind
Teacher. I agree, yes you are right. It is a
good way. Reza puts the words into his mind
or internalizes the words.
Reza. Yes…..I mean internalize
Hadi: Internalize means put into
(another
student)
Teacher:
Excellent
(4)
Reza: The character is different when
we listening to radio…we make him in our
mind
Teacher: Yes, that’s it
Reza: In a way…eee… we like
Teacher: (looking at Amir, another student) Amir
do you agree with what he says
Farzad: Yes, we imagine the character
Reza: Yes, exactly, imagine
As
the above-mentioned excerpts might have clarified, the teacher most of the time
refrained from being an authoritarian and domineering person. In fact, he put
on a friendly, amiable character supporting classroom discussion and cooperation.
The results of the interviews also supported this finding.
Therefore,
what is the cause of Reza’s inflexible attitude toward his language teacher and
language learning? Why his attitude did not change across time even though the
teacher, at least as far as the interviews and the observations indicated, was
different from the one Reza depicted in his metaphors? Why Reza, like many
other language learners, quit the language institute after two terms? Why, a
teacher metaphor like, for example, friend or a learner metaphor like,
for example, artist were not found among Reza’s metaphors.
One
tentative answer might be the practices through which his attitude toward
language and language learning has been shaped during school years. In some
societies like Iran EFL teachers’ roles have always been nothing but presenting
grammatical points and out-of-context vocabulary items and then test the
students accordingly. For example, in one recent study (Nazari, 2007) it was observed
that Iranian high school EFL teachers stick to narrow and reductionist views of
communicative competence, emphasize sentence making, structure teaching, and
word memorizing, while they ignore broader views of communicative competence
which foreground activities like summarization, comprehension, and production.
In that study the writer summarizes the results of observing several high
school EFL classes and interviews with the teachers involved in those classes
in the following way:
…though
some of the teachers spoke in the L2 for teaching and communication, they spent
most of the class time on sentence-level activities, structural exercises, and
decontextualized activities which demanded that the learners memorize syntactic
structures and vocabulary items (p.208).
Another
important question might be raised at this juncture. And that is why Reza, as
far as his comments are concerned, has adopted a certain or convinced attitude
toward the mechanistic kind of language teaching and learning depicted in his
metaphors. The answer to this question is not, of course, an easy one. Perhaps,
besides the influential power of the school system, another important force is
also involved. In fact, the school system might itself be regarded as the
result of another powerful force, the force of culture. In the view of people
in Iran teachers are mostly associated with pure power, authority and knowledge.
And perhaps this is why Reza confidently continues to create such metaphors. His
views regarding teaching and learning seem to have been motivated by the
dominant views of the society and then entrenched in the school years. This
answer is in line with the view of Quinn (1991) who claims that metaphors
reflect cultural models. She contends that metaphors “far from constituting
understanding, are ordinarily selected to fit a preexisting and culturally
shared model” (pp. 64-65).
CONCLUSION
AND DISCUSSION
It
is usually difficult to generalize the results of case studies; but because of
the three different methods (gathering metaphors, observation, and interview) at
least one generalization might be made. In this way, it can be argued that the views
of those adult EFL learners who have been trained in a society with an
educational system which emphasizes teachers’ authority and students’ passivity
are to a great extent fixed. This might be the reason why such learners drop out
of the language institutes which adopt a different approach after about two
terms. For this reason, it is suggested that such learners either start
language learning in the language institutes prior to high school years or at
least before the influence of the school system becomes fully established or if
this is not possible, be taught in the same way in which they had been taught
at school years.
In
fact, this second suggestion might pave the way for future research in this
direction. Future studies might test this hypothesis, i.e. whether adult EFL
learners are assisted more or remain longer in the language institute if they
continue to be taught in the ways similar to those used in the school system.
Last
but not least, it might be argued that Reza’s dropping out of the language
institute can simply be attributed to his instrumental motivation. In other
words, Reza passed two terms and learned the rudiments of English by which he
might have been able to meet his English needs. This argument seems not to be defensible
since Reza started as a pre-intermediate student and ended up as an
intermediate one, a level at which a person can hardly satisfy the needs like speaking
with ease or watching English movies.
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