Eric Herman has recently taken part in a discussion on the ACTFL listserve. Eric made the point against thematic unit grouping of vocabulary to teach languages. To avoid an overly lengthy article here I will publish both of those posts after this one as “Thematic Units – 2” and “Thematic Units – 3”.
After making his points, which are always heavily based in research and always specific, never (in my own experience) based only on his opinion, Eric has received neither research-based nor specific responses that I can find from among the 18.1K members of the ACTFL group who read there. Perhaps responses based in research are there, but I cannot find any of them – my eyes glaze over too fast.
Here is an example of one response that makes my eyes glaze over. I even sense a dismissive tone in it. I will save the reader time by citing only the first and last few sentences of this response made on October 10th:
…in my 32 years as a very successful high school German teacher I focused heavily on word frequency as a design concept for the materials that I developed to supplement the basic course materials…. In my career from 1970 to 2000 several approved methods of instruction came and went. I believe a dynamic and creative teacher will take the good elements from many sources and create a successful program, thus it is more important to have highly trained and effective teachers in the classroom than to require any particular teaching method….
Robert A Morrey
PhD Foreign Language Education
Stanford University – 1970
USDE Christa McAuliffe Fellow – 1991
German teacher – Cupertino High School 1971-2001
This is not an answer to Eric’s questions about thematic units, about wanting to know where the research is that supports using thematic units, which, I might add, always seem to show up in textbooks. Hmmm.
Morrey’s point again:
…I believe a dynamic and creative teacher will take the good elements from many sources and create a successful program, thus it is more important to have highly trained and effective teachers in the classroom than to require any particular teaching method….
By Morrey’s line of reasoning, a teacher of mathematics, as long as she was highly trained and highly effective, could teach math in any way she wanted. Sounds like it makes good sense, but it doesn’t. I would rather see a math teacher teaching math in ways that reflect how the brain actually learns math. I think that this is what Eric wants to investigate, as well, but he just doesn’t get any meaty responses from any of the ACTFL teachers. One would think that among the more than 18,000 teachers in that group, at least one would provide Eric with something.
At the end of one of his two posts, the one written after the nebulous statement above by Robert Morrey, Eric asks a specific question:
…I really hope someone can answer my questions. Please, show me the research….
Eric even adds on a thank you to his request. To date, however, there are no responses. The ACTFL group has provided no response citing hard research to Eric.
Here is another Morrey-like response, this one by Catherine Fortin, given on the same day as Morrey’s:
I will be brief regarding the necessity of using thematic units and some authentic materials. [ed. note: And I think I know why!]
Teaching with Thematic Units: The best resource with research backing its premises up is Learning Language- Making the Match – by Helena Curtain and Carol Ann Dahlberg for several years. Both the language acquisition and brain research supporting the use of thematic units is included.
I have used and written thematic units for ages 4-18, grades PreK- 12, that are created for each specific age group, cognitive development stage and language proficiency level. Those customized aspects are vital. Basically, all learners acquire, learn, and use L2 best in an understandable, relevant, and clear context. [ed. note: Yes, but how does that support the use of thematic units?]
Hmmm. In the first paragraph, Catherine says that Curtain and Dahlberg have published research that supports the use of thematic units, but she doesn’t actually provide the research, or even throw a bone to Eric on this point. It’s not a good thing to not at least throw a bone to an attack dog.
…I really hope someone can answer my questions. Please, show me the research….
I searched Catherine’s name. She is an associate professor of linguistics at Carleton College. A professor of linguistics. Hmmm. She’s not a language teacher:
Associate Professor of Linguistics
cfortin@carleton.edu
Catherine Fortin received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Michigan in 2007. Her research, guided by the tenets of generative syntactic inquiry, falls into two main areas: ellipsis and other empirical phenomena situated at the interface of syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse, including nonsententials (a.k.a. sentence ‘fragments’), and the syntax and morphosyntax of Indonesian and closely related Austronesian languages, including Minangkabau. Her current research involves Indonesian verb phrase ellipsis and the cartography of the Indonesian IP. In Fall 2014, she is teaching Topics in Syntax (LING 315) and Senior Thesis (LING 399).
OK. Maybe she’s right. Maybe Curtain and Dahlberg are right. But couldn’t she at least have provided something? The ACTFL listserve is a highly professional group, right? About as highly professional as one can get, right? And they are so big! They are an army!
My feeling is that Morrey and Fortin were dismissing what Eric wrote. The problem is, and you will see this when you read the next two posts, his points can’t be easily dismissed.
Those two posts are so well written that they gave me an idea. What if some of the members of this tiny group – those who are as perplexed as I am about the lack of a real academic response to Eric – were to go to the page where this discussion is happening:
http://community.actfl.org/communities/viewdiscussions/viewthread/?GroupId=439&MID=6604#bm5
and consider pressing the ACTFL list with a bunch of emails. When you finish reading what Eric wrote to them, you may feel, as I do, that it may be time to ask these people, who for so long have gotten away with so much rhetoric (Curtain, Met, etc. – the list is long), the same question that Eric asks:
…I really hope someone can answer my questions. Please, show me the research….
Why not do this? Are we afraid of offending? Us? We offend every day just by doing what we believe in. Do we not owe Eric on this? He is the one who did all the heavy lifting by making the big points he made. He is the one who has taken the time to read all that research and then write about it for our edification. All I think we should do is re-ask the question in his support. Lots of people asking the same question are not as easy to dismiss as one person asking them.
If you are not a member of ACTFL you have to create an account (free) to be able to comment. Do that. It takes about three minutes and you will be given a password and then you can make a comment.
Now, if some really good answers appear in the next few days, disregard this request for an email barrage to the ACTFL list. But we must consider that Eric is not playing around here. We must respect what Eric is doing and we must imitate his professional courage here, to support him. His request for answers is not rhetorical. He really wants to know where that research is. Surely ACTFL can do better than a few vague people giving vague answer in responses to Eric’s very specific (and in my opinion really hard to argue with) points!
So get over your fears and go write an email to Catherine Fortin, requesting the research that she dodged providing to Eric. You could just cut and paste this one below, if you are lazy:
…I really hope someone can answer Eric’s questions. Please, show the research….