Myths and Truths about “Discovery Learning” versus Direct Teaching in the Second Language Classroom

Several lifetimes ago I took a course called “Methods for the Elementary Science Class.” I had already taught second grade for a year, and I chose that course precisely because I’d realized that my own science education had been deficient. One deficiency was brought home to me by a bright child who asked this question: “You say heat rises; then why is it cold on the tops of mountains?”

I was forced to answer that I did not know. That summer I was scheduled to take some education courses, so I eagerly signed up for the science methods course.

At the beginning of the first class, the professor went around the room asking us our reasons for choosing that particular course. I told him about the child’s question that I had been unable to answer, and I asked him if he could enlighten me.

In response, he boomed, “Inquiry! Figure it out!!” He then proceeded to tell us that he was a devoted disciple of the inquiry approach to science education, which did indeed turn out to be a pet concept/philosophy of his, alluded to frequently throughout the course.

Naturally, he defined it for us. A close paraphrase of his definition is this one: “Inquiry-based approaches to science education focus on student-constructed learning as opposed to teacher-transmitted information."

But to return to the professor and my question, he never answered it.

Periodically, I tried to figure it out, or at least look it up. Climbing up to cool hilltops answered my question no more than it had for my eight-year-old pupil. Looking up, in encyclopedias, “Heat,” “cold,” “air,” “mountain”, “mountain air,” and I know not what else, told me nothing. Well into my middle age, the internet was born! Finally I was able to type the child’s exact question into one of those “Ask any question” websites, and lo and behold, an answer:

Question:  “If hot air rises, why is it generally colder at higher elevations?”

Answer:  “[I]f you have a warm bubble of air , it will rise, but as it does, it will expand in the lower pressure environment, which causes it to cool.… Compression heats, expanding cools.” Plus a bit more, which can be found at this site. On the whole a clear, succinct explanation that neither I nor the eight-year-old had been in a position to “figure out” through “inquiry.”

Oh – but what does cool air on mountaintops have to do with teaching ESL, or with teaching any other second language? Ah, yes, the question of student-constructed learning versus teacher-transmitted information. Actually, within the halls of second-language education, the air is alive with these and other related admonitions: “Don’t teach grammar. Have the students discover grammar.” “Students will only remember something if they discover it, not if it is taught to them.” “Language ‘acquisition’ is far superior to language ‘learning.’” “Student talk, not teacher talk.” (Useful background information on the trend toward facilitating or requiring “discovery” and shying away from direct teaching will pop up with a little googling of “Stephen Krashen’s acquisition-learning hypothesis”). But the question is, are these statements true? Are the admonitions wise?

They are, and they are not, in different ways.

The short answer is that the notion of having students — especially adults in a fast-paced, time- constrained, intensive English program —“discover” the grammar of English, is a utopian and impractical one. Thus, in this sense, the "inquiry-based" model is unwise.

At the same time, it is axiomatic that in good teaching there is an ebb and flow, a yin and yang, of teacher-supplied information on the one hand and student-generated insights on the other. Students will, as well they should, "discover" some things about the language, some being correct insights and some erroneous overgeneralizations. As they generate utterances, the students will also generate errors, which their teachers should not fear to correct, but about which they need to develop a sixth sense concerning when, how, and when not to correct.

Teachers also need to develop a rhythm of teaching new concepts; then encouraging student speech;  helping students to self-correct; at other times, permitting highly imperfect speech to flow; this being followed by the imparting of more information, skills, patterns, and – dare I say the word? – rules, which a skillful teacher then directs the students to apply and practice, in meaningful contexts — until they are ultimately able to use the target language with greater and greater success and with fewer and fewer of the errors which are impediments to successful communication. 

But is there a legitimate place for “discovery” in language teaching and learning? Yes, there is. We educators must cultivate a fine-tuned balance: We must balance efficient teaching of what our students don’t know and can scarcely be expected to figure out, with a Socratic eliciting of that which their previously-acquired knowledge has enabled  them to understand, to intuit, and to produce.

It is also axiomatic that a skillful second-language teacher orchestrates the class so that the students use the language, i.e., speak it, as much as is humanly possible. But it should never be forgotten that we teachers must first teach them what what they do not yet know.

Important note on the teaching and learning of grammatical rules: even as I contend that students need to be taught the building blocks of language as an aid to learning and acquiring still more language, I am not saying that they should subject every sentence to an internal grammar-book chart before opening their mouths. Quite the contrary, their use of learned principles of grammar must go hand in hand with  fearless, risky, “jumping into the deep end” efforts to communicate — errors and all.

It is a part of our job to create a classroom in which our students daily, hourly, engage in the risky yet invigorating business of jumping into the river of English, armed with the life-preservers and swimming lessons that we, their teachers have given them. A strong grounding in the “why” of grammar will empower our students to make fewer and fewer mistakes, their formal learning alternating with and strengthening their intuitive acquisition of the target language.

In summary, a great impediment to clarity, as well as a source of poor advice to teachers that often results in deficient teaching, is the false dichotomy of “student-constructed learning as opposed to teacher-transmitted information.” It is pernicious to thus depict language instruction as  an either-or affair – either “discovery” or “traditional,” with the usual straw-man caricaturing of the latter approach as, invariably, a deadly dull situation of teacher-droning-on-and-on-to-passive-students-who-must-regurgitate-what-is-taught: an enui-filled torture of  being taught interminably “about” English rather than helped to use English. The reality is that yes, teaching is necessary, and yes, effective teaching should be a brisk succession of direct teaching that is quickly followed by much student application of the concepts taught. A good teacher engages in a sort of dance: now teaching, now asking questions, now answering questions, now stimulating students to speak, now correcting, now encouraging — in short, an effective teacher gives students the tools to keep on learning and also empowers them by providing the knowledge, skills, and frequent practice which work together to give them the confidence and the ability to use what they learn.