CSS ENGLISH LANGUAGE PRACTICAL TEACHING PART-1

Exploring skills:

    This first section of the book introduces you to language teaching methodology from the perspective of language skills, that is, listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Before looking at the skills in detail, there is an initial chapter on language teaching methodology that provides a framework, not just for the four other chapters in this section, but for the book as a whole.

    Each chapter follows a set format. Firstly, the skill dealt with in the chapter is defined. Next comes a section providing background information on the skill. This section provides a brief history of the teaching of the skill, summarizes important research findings, and elaborates on key concepts. Section Three sets out key principles that should guide you when teaching the skill concerned. The next two sections provide examples from published and unpublished materials as well as from direct classroom experience illustrating the principles in action. The chapters conclude with useful follow-up text and resources, including Web sites, to provide you with further information and ideas.

1. What is methodology?

    The field of curriculum development is large and complex. It includes all of the planned learning experiences in an educational setting. Curriculum has three main sub-components: syllabus design, methodology, and evaluation. Syllabus design has to do with selecting, sequencing, and justifying content. Methodology has to do with selecting, sequencing, and justifying learning tasks and experiences. Evaluation has to do with how well students have mastered the objectives of the course and how effectively the course has met their needs. The following diagram shows how these different elements fit together.

Curriculum component Focus Defining questions

    Syllabus design Content What content should we teach? In what order should we teach this content? What is the justification for selecting this content?

Methodology Classroom techniques and procedures

    What exercises, tasks, and activities should we use in the classroom? How should we sequence and integrate these?

    This book is basically about language teaching methodology. In other words, the focus of the chapters is principally on techniques and procedures for use in the classroom, although most chapters also touch on aspects of content selection and evaluation. 

1. ... the study of the practices and procedures used in teaching, and the principles and beliefs that underlie them.

Methodology includes:

a. study of the nature of language skills (e.g., reading, writing, speaking, listening, and procedures for teaching them) 

b. study of the preparation of lesson plans, materials, and textbooks for teaching language skills

c. the evaluation and comparison of language teaching methods (e.g., the audio-lingual method)

2. such practices, procedures, principles, and beliefs themselves.

    

    From the table of contents you will see that this book addresses most of these areas. Section 1 focuses on the language skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Section 2 looks at aspects of language—discourse, grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Section 3 explores elements that support the learning process, including learning styles and strategies, content- based instruction, using textbooks, using computers, fostering autonomy and independence, and classroom-based assessment and evaluation.

2. Background to language teaching methodology:

The “methods” debate

    A language teaching method is a single set of procedures which teachers are to follow in the classroom. Methods are also usually based on a set of beliefs about the nature of language and learning. For many years, the goal of language pedagogy was to “find the right method”-a methodological magic formula that would work for all learners at all times (Brown, 2002). Methods contrast with approaches, which are more general, philosophical orientations such as communicative language teaching (see page 6) that can encompass a range of different procedures. The dominant method for much of the last century was the grammar- translation method. This was challenged in the 1950s and 1960s by audi- olingualism, a method that is still very popular today, and whose influence can be seen in a variety of drill-based techniques and exercises. Audiolingualism was the first method to be based on a theory of learning— behaviorism, which viewed all learning as a process of forming habits, and on a theory of language-structural linguistics. Behaviorism and structural linguistics provided the following key characteristics of audiolingualism:

• Priority is given to spoken rather than written language.

• Language learning is basically a matter of developing a set of habits through drilling.

• Teach the language, not about the language. (Avoid teaching grammar rules. Get learners to develop their skills through drill and practice— teach through “analogy” not “analysis.”) (Moulton, 1963)

    In the 1960s, behaviorism and structural linguistics were severely criticized as being inadequate representations of both the learning process and the nature of language. In place of behaviorism, psychologists proposed cognitive psychology while the linguist Chomsky developed a new theory called trans- formational-generative grammar. Both approaches emphasized thinking, comprehension, memory, and the uniqueness of language learning to the human species. Methodologists seized on the theories and developed a method known as cognitive code learning. This approach promoted language learning as an active mental process rather than a process of habit formation. Grammar was back in fashion, and classroom activities were designed that encouraged learners to work out grammar rules for themselves through inductive reasoning. (For examples, see Nunan, Chapter 8, this volume.) 

    In addition to methods based on theories of learning and language, there emerged a number of methods that were based on a humanistic approach to education. These methods emphasized the importance of emotional factors in learning, and proponents of these methods believed that linguistic models and psychological theories were less important to successful language acquisition than emotional or affective factors. They believed that successful learning would take place if learners could be encouraged to adopt the right attitudes and interests in relation to the target language and target culture. The best known of these methods were the silent way, suggestopedia and community language learning. The best introduction to humanistic learning within language education is Stevick (1997). Stevick became interested in humanism after he observed both audiolingual and cognitive code learning in action. He found that both methods could either be quite successful or extremely unsuccessful. “How is it,” he asked, “that two methods based on radically different assumptions about the nature of language and learning could be successful or unsuccessful, as the case may be?” He concluded that particular classroom techniques mattered less than establishing the right emotional climate for the learners.

Communicative language teaching (CLT):

        During the 1970s, a major reappraisal of language occurred. Linguists began to look at language, not as interlocking sets of grammatical, lexical, and phonological rules, but as a tool for expressing meaning. This reconceptualization had a profound effect on language teaching methodology. In the earliest versions of CLT, meaning was emphasized over form, fluency over accuracy. It also led to the development of differentiated courses that reflected the different communicative needs of learners. This needs-based approach also reinforced another trend that was emerging at the time-that of learner-centered education (Nunan, 1988). 

    In recent years, the broad approach known as CLT has been realized methodologically by task-based language teaching (TBLT). In TBLT, language lessons are based on learning experiences that have nonlinguistic outcomes, and in which there is a clear connection between the things learners do in class and the things they will ultimately need to do outside of the classroom. Such tasks might include listening to a weather forecast and deciding what to wear, ordering a meal, planning a party, finding one’s way around town and so on. In these tasks, language is used to achieve nonlanguage outcomes. For example, the ultimate aim of ordering a meal is not to use correctly formed wh-questions, but to get food and drink on the table.

Research:

    During the “what’s the best method?” phase of language teaching, several studies were carried out to settle the question empirically. For example, Swaffar, Arens and Morgan (1982) set out to decide which was superior, audi- olingualism or cognitive code learning. The results were inconclusive, and it appeared that, at the level of classroom teaching, few teachers adhered rigidly to one method rather than the other. Instead, they evolved a range of practices that reflected their own personal teaching styles. Among other things, it was studies such as these that gradually led people to abandon the search for the “right method.” 

    In the 1970s, a series of investigations were carried out that had (and continue to have) a great deal of influence on methodology. These came to be known as the morpheme order studies. These investigations set out to examine the order in which certain items of grammar were acquired. (For a more detailed description, see Nunan, Chapter 8, this volume.) The researchers concluded from their investigations three significant points: one, that there was a “natural order” in which grammar was acquired; two, that this order did not reflect the order in which items were taught; and three, that the natural order could not be altered by instruction. According to one of the researchers, the implications for the classroom were clear: it was not necessary to drill grammar (Krashen, 1981, 1982). All that was needed in order to teach another language was to engage learners in “natural” communicative tasks that were roughly pitched at their level of proficiency (Krashen and Terrell, 1983). 

    As you will see in the chapter on grammar, subsequent research has demonstrated that a grammar focus in class does seem to be beneficial for most learners. However, the insights provided by Krashen and others did help to advance the field, and many of his suggestions have found their way into current methodological approaches. 

    Out of the research just cited grew the question: What kinds of communicative tasks seem most beneficial for second language acquisition? A great deal of research has gone into this question in the last fifteen years. (For a review see Nunan, 1999, particularly Chapter 2.) While results from this research are varied, one characteristic that seems particularly beneficial is required information exchange tasks. These are tasks in which two or more learners, working in pairs or small groups, have access to different information. This information needs to be shared in order for the task to be completed successfully. (An example of a required information exchange task is provided below.) It is hypothesized that required information exchange tasks force students to negotiate with each other, and this is healthy for language development because it “pushes” the learners to reformulate and extend their language.