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I started teaching
undergraduate English courses

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in the University of Puerto Rico,
Aguadilla Campus, about 20 odd years ago,

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and I quickly became frustrated.

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I love my job,

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but I was frustrated with myself,
and I was frustrated with my students.

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And it wasn't anything
my students were doing wrong.

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On paper, they were learning English.

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I would give them tests,

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and they'd know everything about pronouns,
adjectives, syntax, grammar.

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You name it, they knew it.

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And they could prove it
by passing the tests in writing.

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However, when I tried to have
a conversation with my students,

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when I tried to have
just a casual conversation,

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I would get this
deer-in-the-headlights look

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like ...

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(Laughter)

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And then they would go into what I call
"Porky Pig Syndrome."

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They would go,

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(Imitates Porky Pig's stutter)

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(Laughter)

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It just wasn't working.

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And I was frustrated
because I said, "I can't do this."

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These young men and women,
when they graduate,

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they're going to go
into a work environment

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in which they are expected
to think at higher levels of cognition.

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They're expected to analyze,
to synthesize, to evaluate,

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and they have to do it in a language
that is not their first language,

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in English.

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And I wanted them to be there.

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And what happened was that I started
experimenting with this and that,

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and after a while, I developed
a system which I think worked.

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I call it "Teaching English
without teaching English."

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What I did was I moved away
from the grammar,

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and I developed a system

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in which I divided the class
into three stages.

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The first stage, I give
my students a BS detector,

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and this BS detector

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(Laughter)

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is a fully functional, portable
but high-maintenance mental device

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that they install into neurons.

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And whenever they detect BS,

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which is very frequently,

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(Laughter)

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the alarm should go off.

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"BS, BS, BS, BS."

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(Laughter)

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How do I do that?

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Well, the BS detector has three parts.

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Part number one
is critical thinking skills.

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I have my students learn
that whenever they read anything,

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whenever they listen to a TED talk,

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whenever they listen
to a debate, a conversation,

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they should ask
a number of specific questions.

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For example, Is the speaker
being specific?

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People who know what they're talking about
usually are very specific.

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They can say who, what, where,
when, how many, how often.

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Now, people who are -
how shall I say it? - BS artists

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will run away from specificity.

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They will not be specific because
specificity entails responsibility.

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And when people are not specific,

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I point out to my students
that usually it's one of two reasons.

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Either they do not know
what they're talking about,

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and there's nothing wrong there -
we're all ignorant in different fields.

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And if you don't know,
you cannot be specific.

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That's a human trait.

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But sometimes people are not specific

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because they don't want you to know
what they're talking about.

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And now there's an ethical element
of betrayal there, of concealment.

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So, the first thing that they
need to learn is ask specific questions:

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Is the speaker comprehensive?

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Is she looking at
all the available evidence?

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Is the speaker looking at
the burden of proof?

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When you say something,

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you are responsible
for providing evidence for that claim.

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If they're talking
about a scientific topic,

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is there replicability,

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is there experimental data
to support that claim?

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And once I get that part
of the BS detector firmly installed,

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where they will ask specific questions
on whatever they read, see or hear,

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I go to the second part.

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They should detect logical fallacies.

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And logical fallacies are mistakes
people make in the reasoning process.

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And we all do it.

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For example,

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(Spanish)

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Every time I forget my umbrella, it rains.

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Do you really think there's a relationship

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between the weather
and you forgetting your umbrella?

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Wouldn't that be fantastic?

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Because then this four-year drought
they have in California -

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(Laughter)

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all we have to do is get Californians
to forget their freaking umbrellas,

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and then it'll rain, okay?

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That's a non sequitur.

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That's the name of that fallacy 
of false cause and effect.

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A happens, then B happens.

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And then you assume that A caused B.

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Maybe, maybe not.

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You have to check.

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Another logical fallacy
which is very common is ad hominems.

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And ad hominems are nasty little things

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because this is when
the person gets personal.

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Instead of attacking your arguments,
the person attacks your person.

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They attack your integrity.

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And unfortunately, political debate
is usually polluted by that.

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When somebody is loosing an argument,

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instead of sticking to the merits
of the arguments,

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they back off,

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and then they start
getting nasty and offensive.

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Ad hominems are terrible,

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but they're very useful in the hands
of people who have no scruples.

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And another logical fallacy
that's very popular

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is argument from authority.

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This must be true

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because somebody who knows
more than me says it's true.

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And I have my students learn

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how to identify at least five or six
of those logical fallacies.

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The third part of the BS detector
I take from Benjamin Bloom.

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This was a wonderful scientist
who started thinking about thinking.

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And this guy said, "What do we do
with our brains when we're thinking?"

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And he identified five or six skills,
depending on which taxonomy you use.

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And for example, the basis of all learning
is remembering, memorization.

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And you need that for everything.

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You need that for everything.

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However, if you stay at that level
in which you only memorize and you repeat,

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that's not deep thinking,

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that's not deep thinking at all.

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And now, you have the situation

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where you must find out
if the speaker is really a deep thinker.

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Does he know his stuff in detail,

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or is he merely repeating
some talking points

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that somebody gave him?

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Again, questions will help you identify

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whether you're dealing
with a deep thinker or not.

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And here you analyze,
you synthesize, you evaluate.

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That's where I wanted to take my students,

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but first I had to get
an obstacle out of the way.

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Most people feel that it's wrong
to change your opinions, to be tentative.

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And no, that is not true.

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If we want to grow as a person
and as a society,

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we need to be open to change our minds
and change our minds constantly

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because as the world changes,
we must change with the world.

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And I'm going to quote
George Bernard Shaw here.

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He made the following observation.

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He says, "Progress
is impossible without change,

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and those who cannot change their minds
cannot change anything."

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So, I had to destroy that paradigm
that you must know all the answers.

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No, you should know all the questions

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and not be afraid to ask them.

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Once they have the BS detector
firmly installed,

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we move to the fun part of the class.

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Here we watch TED talks,
we go into YouTube,

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we read essays form the Internet
or from the local newspapers.

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And we don't use textbooks.

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We use whatever is happening in the world.

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For example, this semester,
we're talking about the Syrian refugees.

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Four million people
running for their lives.

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Why are they running? Where are they?

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More than 1,000 have drowned
trying to get from North Africa to Europe.

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That's current events,

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and I want to make my students aware
that this is happening.

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And we also speak about
Puerto Rico's economic crisis.

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And here we have a wonderful
resource: Joseph Stiglitz.

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Joseph Stiglitz is a world-class economist
who even has a Nobel Prize for economics.

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And this guy wrote a few articles
about the situation we're in

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and made specific suggestions.

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So, we bring that to class,
we read it, we discuss it.

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We compare with what local politicians
are saying and doing.

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And that fosters
an atmosphere of conversation.

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And most of the students are so involved
on what's going on in terms of content

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that they're not really aware
that they're acquiring the language,

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because the central thing is, "Let's talk.

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Let's check out what fulana wrote.

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Let's check out what fulano said.

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Let's compare notes."

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Now, I have two ground rules

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for this noisy, semichaotic
or chaotic classroom.

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Number one: ad hominems are not allowed.

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Under no circumstances
are you to offend personally

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or attack another person's integrity.

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You must respect everybody's freedom
to differ from you.

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Rule number one.

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Rule number two is ideas are not people.

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Ideas do not have rights.

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So, if somebody says something dumb,
something that's questionable,

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including me, the professor,

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you should feel free
to question that idea.

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And that's not only a right that we have -

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to question ideas
that don't make sense to us -

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it's maybe an ethical responsibility

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because a bad idea, if left unchecked,
can do a lot of damage.

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We forget, for example, that Adolf Hitler
was in power for 12 years.

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How did this man
who was so brutal and so evil

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get control of one of the most
civilized nations of Europe?

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Well, easy.

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His crazy ideas were not
questioned early enough.

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So, by the time German intellectuals
and people who had values were aware

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that this guy was taking them
to a world war,

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he already controlled
the nation's narrative,

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he controlled basically everything:
the military, the police, the media.

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And he just had too much power.

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It took a world war
to remove Adolf Hitler from power.

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So, when you see a bad idea,

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especially a bad idea that can hurt people
physically or emotionally,

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you may be morally obligated
to raise your voice and say,

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"Mnh-hnhmmm. That's not a good idea."

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Okay.

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So, in this component
of interaction in the classroom,

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once we have that out of the way,
we go into the third area.

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And the third area is reading and writing.

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And again, I have to remove
from my students the notion

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that making mistakes is somehow bad.

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No, it is not.

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It even has a name; 
it's called developmental errors.

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So, if you want to learn a language,

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you must be willing
to make mistakes, lots of mistakes

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because that's how you know
the boundaries of linguistic rules.

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So, I try to create an atmosphere

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where my students
feel completely comfortable

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to say whatever they want to say,
however they want to say it.

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And it's interesting

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because at the beginning of the semester,

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I usually get two
or three students that'll say,

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"Profe, a mí el inglés no me entra."

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"I mean, I just can't deal with English."

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And these same students -

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when we're in the heat of the debate,
of the conversation,

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they want to take part
in the conversation.

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And then they start leaning to the left
and leaning to the right,

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and they ask the magic word,
(Spanish) "How do you say ...?"

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(Laughter)

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But then when they say,
(Spanish) "How do you say?"

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the other student says,
(Spanish) "Like this,"

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and then there's peer tutoring,
and it's happening spontaneously.

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I don't even have to wait
for these kids to raise their hands,

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because I saw what happened.

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They look at me.

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Once we have eye contact,
I say, "Julio, what do you think?"

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And then Julio starts speaking in English.

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And then he goes into a little bit
of Porky Pig Syndrome sometimes.

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(Laughter)

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He starts going,
(Imitates Porky Pig's stutter).

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(Laughter)

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When he goes there,
when he gets the Porky Pig Syndrome,

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sometimes he feels a little embarrassed,

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00:12:45,375 --> 00:12:47,956
and I say, "No, no, no. Go on."

247
00:12:47,956 --> 00:12:50,815
And then he says, (Spanish)
"Can I say something in Spanish?"

248
00:12:50,815 --> 00:12:52,792
"Of course. You want to use Spanglish?

249
00:12:52,792 --> 00:12:56,096
Use Spanglish. Tell us what you think."

250
00:12:56,096 --> 00:12:59,707
And they realize
that they can make mistakes.

251
00:13:00,179 --> 00:13:02,137
And nobody is going to judge them.

252
00:13:02,202 --> 00:13:04,176
Nobody is going to grade them worse.

253
00:13:04,223 --> 00:13:09,303
This is part of the language
acquisition process.

254
00:13:09,674 --> 00:13:11,594
Now, there's something interesting.

255
00:13:11,674 --> 00:13:16,117
Before I adopted this method,
I felt a little awkward.

256
00:13:16,117 --> 00:13:19,521
It was like, for example, trying
to have somebody understand

257
00:13:19,531 --> 00:13:23,547
what a special plate,
a special food tastes like.

258
00:13:23,547 --> 00:13:25,227
And you describe the food.

259
00:13:25,227 --> 00:13:26,258
You say, "Oh, my God.

260
00:13:26,258 --> 00:13:28,728
It tastes like this,
and it smells like that,

261
00:13:28,728 --> 00:13:30,535
and the texture is like this."

262
00:13:30,554 --> 00:13:36,787
And can you really share the experience
of good food like that?

263
00:13:37,200 --> 00:13:39,458
Somehow it doesn't work.

264
00:13:39,458 --> 00:13:43,002
So, now you say, "OK. I want you
to get a good cookbook

265
00:13:43,002 --> 00:13:45,065
and memorize the recipe."

266
00:13:45,662 --> 00:13:48,060
And will that do the trick?

267
00:13:48,828 --> 00:13:50,104
No, no, it won't.

268
00:13:50,104 --> 00:13:56,728
The only way of experiencing
what good food is like, how it smells,

269
00:13:56,728 --> 00:13:59,156
the texture, the taste

270
00:13:59,156 --> 00:14:01,176
is another way.

271
00:14:01,176 --> 00:14:05,346
And I want to take my students
to the point where they understand

272
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that language is a wonderful -
it's a living thing.

273
00:14:08,488 --> 00:14:10,658
And there's no way
you can learn a language

274
00:14:10,658 --> 00:14:12,768
by simply memorizing rules,

275
00:14:12,768 --> 00:14:14,746
by concentrating only on grammar.

276
00:14:14,746 --> 00:14:18,665
And once these students are comfortable
with making mistakes,

277
00:14:18,665 --> 00:14:22,106
the exchange in the classroom
becomes so much more dynamic.

278
00:14:22,118 --> 00:14:24,389
Finally, when we get
to the writing process,

279
00:14:24,426 --> 00:14:28,609
we go to the part
where we say, "OK, let's write."

280
00:14:28,629 --> 00:14:32,934
But again, form is secondary to content.

281
00:14:32,967 --> 00:14:35,406
I want them to get their ideas,
to get the evidence,

282
00:14:35,406 --> 00:14:37,596
to get their feelings on paper.

283
00:14:37,596 --> 00:14:39,224
And once they do that,

284
00:14:39,224 --> 00:14:45,647
then they go into stage number two
which is, "Let's correct the paper."

285
00:14:45,663 --> 00:14:50,319
So at first, you focus
on content, not form,

286
00:14:50,319 --> 00:14:54,649
and then you focus on form, not content.

287
00:14:54,649 --> 00:14:58,055
This is where you correct
all the grammatical mistakes

288
00:14:58,055 --> 00:15:01,872
and you look at the mechanics
of the language, so to speak.

289
00:15:01,872 --> 00:15:04,520
And they write summary-reaction papers

290
00:15:04,520 --> 00:15:08,214
in which they concentrate
on one thing at first,

291
00:15:08,214 --> 00:15:12,091
and then they worry about the form
of the language later.

292
00:15:12,131 --> 00:15:19,045
And I always stress
content is more important than form.

293
00:15:19,099 --> 00:15:20,511
And I'll prove it.

294
00:15:20,598 --> 00:15:23,903
You take Stephen King,
or you take Isabel Allende.

295
00:15:24,195 --> 00:15:26,145
These are world-class writers.

296
00:15:26,175 --> 00:15:28,727
Well, these people,
when they write their manuscripts,

297
00:15:28,727 --> 00:15:30,307
they send them to the editorials.

298
00:15:30,307 --> 00:15:32,827
In the case of Stephen King, Viking Press.

299
00:15:32,844 --> 00:15:35,643
And in Viking Press,
they have a professional nerd.

300
00:15:36,026 --> 00:15:37,159
(Laughter)

301
00:15:37,159 --> 00:15:40,767
And this professional nerd is going
to go through Stephen King's manuscript,

302
00:15:40,767 --> 00:15:43,718
and he is going to make
all the corrections that are needed.

303
00:15:43,723 --> 00:15:46,009
Now, who has the fame and fortune?

304
00:15:47,379 --> 00:15:48,613
It's Stephen King.

305
00:15:48,634 --> 00:15:51,367
It's not the expert on grammar.

306
00:15:51,660 --> 00:15:54,064
So, you can learn grammar from a machine.

307
00:15:54,064 --> 00:15:56,093
You can have somebody
proofread your paper,

308
00:15:56,093 --> 00:15:58,380
but you cannot fake content.

309
00:15:58,460 --> 00:16:01,218
You cannot fake the passion
and the suspense

310
00:16:01,219 --> 00:16:05,266
that goes into a good short story
or a fantastic novel.

311
00:16:05,602 --> 00:16:10,284
And my goal is for my students
to understand a number of things.

312
00:16:10,797 --> 00:16:13,335
Learning is a painful process.

313
00:16:13,365 --> 00:16:17,163
You have all these narratives
that society gives you.

314
00:16:17,163 --> 00:16:19,305
Everybody around the world
has narratives.

315
00:16:19,334 --> 00:16:22,779
And these narratives dictate
how we feel about things.

316
00:16:22,809 --> 00:16:25,666
But sometimes, these
narratives can be wrong.

317
00:16:25,696 --> 00:16:27,952
And that's where we get
cognitive dissonance.

318
00:16:27,982 --> 00:16:30,203
And cognitive dissonance basically says,

319
00:16:30,203 --> 00:16:33,203
"Oh, my God. I can't believe that -
what you just said."

320
00:16:33,203 --> 00:16:35,514
But now you have to make up your mind.

321
00:16:35,524 --> 00:16:37,728
Why are you rejecting that new idea?

322
00:16:37,758 --> 00:16:42,799
Because it's wrong or because you have
a predisposition against that?

323
00:16:43,159 --> 00:16:45,252
So, you have to explore your narratives,

324
00:16:45,272 --> 00:16:47,893
look at whatever is causing
the cognitive dissonance

325
00:16:47,953 --> 00:16:49,882
and then form your opinion,

326
00:16:49,882 --> 00:16:55,066
an opinion based on reason,
on critical thinking, not on prejudice.

327
00:16:55,297 --> 00:16:57,517
So, hopefully at the end of the semester,

328
00:16:57,517 --> 00:16:59,997
my students will take
a few things with them.

329
00:17:00,377 --> 00:17:03,944
I want them to understand

330
00:17:03,944 --> 00:17:08,354
that there's nothing wrong
with asking questions.

331
00:17:08,354 --> 00:17:10,932
They should be intense question-askers.

332
00:17:10,932 --> 00:17:13,502
They should resurrect
the little boy or the little girl

333
00:17:13,502 --> 00:17:14,692
that was a three-year-old

334
00:17:14,692 --> 00:17:19,947
and was driving mommy crazy or daddy,
(Spanish) "But why? Why? Why?"

335
00:17:19,947 --> 00:17:22,710
And, "Shut up. Don't ask
so many questions.

336
00:17:22,710 --> 00:17:24,772
(Spanish) Children should be seen and ..."

337
00:17:24,772 --> 00:17:26,042
You know the rest.

338
00:17:26,042 --> 00:17:27,702
(Laughter)

339
00:17:28,884 --> 00:17:32,102
So, we beat the curiosity
out of our students,

340
00:17:32,102 --> 00:17:33,143
and by sixth grade,

341
00:17:33,143 --> 00:17:36,192
they will not ask a question
if their life depended on it.

342
00:17:36,213 --> 00:17:40,268
And my job, I believe, is to resurrect
that little kid, that little girl

343
00:17:40,268 --> 00:17:42,048
and say, "You know something?

344
00:17:42,048 --> 00:17:45,808
Ask questions constantly,
even dumb questions.

345
00:17:45,808 --> 00:17:46,948
Ask them."

346
00:17:46,948 --> 00:17:50,815
And you should fear
not the people who ask questions.

347
00:17:50,855 --> 00:17:54,185
You should fear the people
who fear questions.

348
00:17:54,615 --> 00:17:58,686
Because growth and maturity,
and all things in life

349
00:17:58,686 --> 00:18:01,670
come from our ability to say,
(Spanish) "Why?

350
00:18:01,673 --> 00:18:03,532
Why should I believe that?"

351
00:18:03,602 --> 00:18:06,374
People that are smart,
that are competent, that are ethical

352
00:18:06,374 --> 00:18:08,024
are not afraid of questions.

353
00:18:08,024 --> 00:18:10,478
Sometimes you just
can't get them to shut up

354
00:18:10,478 --> 00:18:13,411
because they're so passionate
about what you're talking about

355
00:18:13,411 --> 00:18:14,604
or what they believe

356
00:18:14,604 --> 00:18:17,197
that they will just flood you
with information.

357
00:18:17,237 --> 00:18:20,830
That's what I think
we should concentrate on.

358
00:18:23,952 --> 00:18:27,448
I want to close this talk
with this thought:

359
00:18:27,753 --> 00:18:29,821
"I believe my job as an educator

360
00:18:29,821 --> 00:18:32,724
is to open as many doors
as I can for my students

361
00:18:32,724 --> 00:18:35,752
while allowing them the freedom to decide

362
00:18:35,752 --> 00:18:41,364
if and when they want to cross
the threshold of any of these doors."

363
00:18:41,714 --> 00:18:46,633
I want my students to learn how to cook,
not to learn how to read a book.

364
00:18:47,183 --> 00:18:52,162
And that's how I teach English
without teaching English.

365
00:18:52,662 --> 00:18:53,694
Thank you.

366
00:18:53,694 --> 00:18:57,062
(Applause) (Cheers)