Listening & Reading Comprehension, YES - Comprehension Questions, NO

I really don't understand why teachers put so much emphasis

on testing our comprehension.

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here and today I wanna talk about comprehension questions,

how they relate to language learning.

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So comprehension questions are kind of a staple for the language teaching

community, uh, they wanna ask you, the teachers, did you understand who, what

did this person do to that person?

And I'm, I'm reminded of this sort of, and I must say, I've talked about this before.

I I'm very sort of allergic to comprehension questions.

I don't like them.

I think they're, they destroy the pleasure of, uh, of reading or of listening.

uh, and I, the reason I raised this is because I decided to sort of investigate

this, uh, language learning system that the Canadian government has

spent money on, uh, working together with the, uh, Canadian Broadcasting

Corporation and Radio Canada.

Uh, to use sort of, uh, radio program or television programs as a means

of helping Canadians learn the other official language, or some people

maybe need to learn them both.

I don't know.

Uh, but a key element in this program is comprehension questions.

So I signed up, and, uh, they sort of ask you what your level is.

And I said, this is for French, I said, I'm advanced.

And then they, uh, give you a four minute TV program and ask you questions

on it to sort of confirm that you are the level that you said you

were, which I think is kind of silly.

If I say I'm advanced, it's good enough if I'm not, uh, it doesn't really matter.

Uh, however, so comprehension question is not really about

language, it's about trying to remember what was in that program.

And when you listen to a four minute television program, you're

not concentrating the whole time so it's very possible that you will

miss whatever detail it is that they choose to ask you a question on.

So it's actually kind of meaningless.

And it also destroys the fun of listening and reading.

So I wanna quote to you, um, a, a Brazilian educator, and when I was

learning Brazilian or Portuguese, I listened to a lot of his content.

I bought, uh, CDs and he has a wonderful voice and he has a wonderful, uh, attitude

towards learning and, uh, quote to you in English, what he said about questions.

He said "There is a total incompatibility between the joy of reading, a vagabond

experience, and the experience of reading in order to answer questions

and explain what you understood."

Now, this applies both the reading and listening.

We read and listen for pleasure.

We read and listen in order to allow our brains to get used

to the language we're learning.

Uh, the more we listen and read the better we learn, but of course we're

not concentrating the whole time.

Uh, there are parts that we missed because we weren't concentrating.

There are parts that we don't simply understand, which is also okay.

We understand 50, 60, 70 percent.

I'm never interested in answering questions on what it is I understood.

Now again, in this, uh, it's called Mauril M A U R I L is the name of this app.

You can find it in the, in the App Store.

Uh, and the whole thing is built around comprehension questions.

So you can select a television program to listen to that's either two or five

or 10 minutes long and then you answer questions, and if you answer the questions

correctly, then you gradually can move to the next stage, and the next stage.

So answering comprehension questions is also means of controlling you.

So you can't just wander around and, and, you know, study whatever

text you wanna study or whatever TV program you wanna watch and listen to

and read, you have to kind of follow their progression and they control you

with these comprehension questions.

And very often, you know, two or three potential answers are correct.

Or maybe none of them really strikes you as being correct, but you have

to fit into the answer that they're looking for, which also bothers me.

Uh, and of course, teachers have to prepare these comprehension questions.

So it's not just a matter, like I can go on YouTube and find content,

uh, you know, whatever I want, uh, TV program or a movie or, uh, documentary.

And if there are, um, subtitles, I can import it into LingQ and study it.

Whatever I'm interested in, nobody has to prepare comprehension questions for me.

We don't need an army of, of teachers, you know, preparing all the stuff

everything is available to learn from.

And sometimes I understand it better sometimes I understand it not so well.

I listen to um, Persian, uh, podcasts, uh, read through it gradually

understand a little bit more.

And it's part of this vagabond experience as Rubem Alvez

says of enjoying the language.

And if I had to answer comprehension questions, um, I wouldn't, it

simply destroys the fun of it.

So I, and, and, you know, it was funny.

I, I remember when I was learning Russian, there was a wonderful book,

uh, on Russian history and they also had audio with it but the audio didn't

correspond to the text because somehow it was felt that it was better.

That reading is one activity and listening is another activity

and the two don't connect.

But to me, if I'm listening to something, I then wanna be able to read it.

And if I read it and look at words, I will eventually understand more and more of it.

Without having to answer comprehension questions.

Uh, so I, you know, I raised this because I I've, it's a kind of

a theme that I've worked before.

I really don't understand why teachers put so much emphasis

on testing our comprehension.

Now I do understand that, uh, in school curricula, uh, schools are, are obliged

to test the students in order to prove to the parents and to the school

administrators that the kids learn something, which is very unfortunate,

because as I've said before, uh, in Canada, the majority of kids who are in

the regular French program after eight, 10 years, they can't speak French.

So it really doesn't matter how well they did on comprehension questions.

In fact, they can't use the language.

if on the other hand, the emphasis were more on making the language important or

interesting or fun, maybe more of them would fall in love with the language.

More of them would learn the language than is the case right now.

So nothing really new here.

It's just that I happen to be, you know, uh, uh, I wanted to

test out this, this, uh, program called, uh, Mauril, M A U R I L.

And I was immediately confronted with all these comprehension questions.

And so I thought I would do a video.

Um, remember though, the most important thing in language learning is enjoyment.

And if comprehension questions increase your enjoyment of language learning

and in your enjoyment of listening to and reading in the language, good.

For me, it doesn't.

So again, thank you for listening.

And, uh, I have a couple of videos that are somewhat related.

So if you wanna follow up, you can go there and have a look.

Thank you.

Bye-bye for now.