Friday, June 28, 2013
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Communicative language teaching
Communicative language teaching
Communicative
language teaching (CLT), or
the communicative approach, is
an approach to language teaching
that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate
goal of study.
Societal influences
Communicative language teaching rose to
prominence in the 1970s and early 1980s as a result of many disparate
developments in both Europe and the United States.[1]
First, there was an increased demand for language learning, particularly in
Europe. The advent of the European Common Market led to widespread
European migration, and consequently there was a large population of people who
needed to learn a foreign language for work or for personal reasons.[2]
At the same time, children were increasingly able to learn foreign languages in
school. The number of secondary schools offering languages rose worldwide in
the 1960s and 1970s as part of a general trend of curriculum-broadening and
modernization, and foreign-language study ceased to be confined to the elite
academies. In Britain, the introduction of comprehensive schools meant that almost all
children had the opportunity to study foreign languages.[3]
This increased demand put pressure on
educators to change their teaching methods. Traditional methods such as grammar translation assumed that students were
aiming for mastery of the target language, and that students were willing to
study for years before expecting to use the language in real life. However,
these assumptions were challenged by adult learners who were busy with work,
and by schoolchildren who were less academically able. Educators realized that to
motivate these students an approach with a more immediate payoff was necessary.
The trend of progressivism in education
provided a further pressure for educators to change their methods.[3]
Progressivism holds that active learning is more effective than passive
learning,[4]
and as this idea gained traction in schools there was a general shift towards
using techniques where students were more actively involved, such as group
work. Foreign-language education was no exception to this trend, and teachers
sought to find new methods that could better embody this shift in thinking.[3]
Academic influences
The development of communicative language
teaching was also helped by new academic ideas. In Britain, applied linguists
began to doubt the efficacy of situational language
teaching, the dominant method in that country at the time. This was
partly in response to Chomsky’s insights into the nature of language. Chomsky
had shown that the structural theories of language prevalent at the time could
not explain the creativity and variety evident in real communication.[2]
In addition, British applied linguists such as Christopher Candlin and Henry Widdowson
began to see that a focus on structure was also not helping language students.
They saw a need for students to develop communicative skill and functional
competence in addition to mastering language structures.[2]
In the United States, the linguist and
anthropologist Dell Hymes developed the concept of communicative competence. This was a reaction
to Chomsky’s concept of the linguistic competence of an ideal native
speaker.[1]
Communicative competence redefined what it meant to “know” a language; in
addition to speakers having mastery over the structural elements of language,
according to communicative competence they must also be able to use those
structural elements appropriately in different social situations.[1]
This is neatly summed up by Hymes’s statement, “There are rules of use without
which the rules of grammar would be useless.”[3]
Hymes did not make a concrete formulation of communicative competence, but
subsequent authors have tied the concept to language teaching, notably Michael Canale
Community language learning
Community
language learning
Community language learning
(CLL) is an approach in which students work together to develop what aspects of
a language they would like to learn. The teacher acts as a counsellor and a paraphraser,
while the learner acts as a collaborator, although sometimes this role can be
changed.
Examples of these types of
communities have recently arisen with the explosion of educational resources for
language learning on the
The CLL method was developed by
Charles A. Curran, a professor of psychology
at Loyola University in
Chicago.[1]
This method refers to two roles: that of the know-er (teacher) and student
(learner). Also the method draws on the counseling metaphor and refers to these
respective roles as a counselor and a client. According to Curran, a counselor
helps a client understand his or her own problems better by 'capturing the
essence of the clients concern ...[and] relating [the client's] affect to
cognition...;' in effect, understanding the client and responding in a detached
yet considerate manner.
To restate, the counselor blends
what the client feels and what he is learning in order to make the experience a
meaningful one. Often, this supportive role requires greater energy expenditure
than an 'average' teacher.
Multiple intelligences
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Multiple intelligences
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USING MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES IN THE CLASSROOM
Accepting
Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences has several implications for
teachers in terms of classroom instruction. The theory states that all seven
intelligences are needed to productively function in society. Teachers,
therefore, should think of all intelligences as equally important. This is in
great contrast to traditional education systems which typically place a strong
emphasis on the development and use of verbal and mathematical intelligences.
Thus, the Theory of Multiple Intelligences implies that educators should
recognize and teach to a broader range of talents and skills.
Another
implication is that teachers should structure the presentation of material in a
style which engages most or all of the intelligences. For example, when
teaching about the revolutionary war, a teacher can show students battle maps,
play revolutionary war songs, organize a role play of the signing of the
Declaration of Independence, and have the students read a novel about life
during that period. This kind of presentation not only excites students about
learning, but it also allows a teacher to reinforce the same material in a
variety of ways. By activating a wide assortment of intelligences, teaching in
this manner can facilitate a deeper understanding of the subject material.
Everyone is
born possessing the seven intelligences. Nevertheless, all students will come
into the classroom with different sets of developed intelligences. This means
that each child will have his own unique set of intellectual strengths and
weaknesses. These sets determine how easy (or difficult) it is for a student to
learn information when it is presented in a particular manner. This is commonly
referred to as a learning style. Many learning styles can be found within one
classroom. Therefore, it is impossible, as well as impractical, for a teacher
to accommodate every lesson to all of the learning styles found within the
classroom. Nevertheless the teacher can show students how to use their more
developed intelligences to assist in the understanding of a subject which
normally employs their weaker intelligences (Lazear, 1992). For example, the
teacher can suggest that an especially musically intelligent child learn about
the revolutionary war by making up a song about what happened.
Natural Approach
Natural Approach
Natural Approach
The foreign
language learner's tasks, according to CLL are (1) to apprehend the sound
system of the language (2) assign fundamental meanings to individual lexical
units and (3) construct a basic grammar.
In these
three steps, the CLL resembles the Natural
Approach to language teaching in which a learner is not expected to
speak until he has achieved some basic level of comprehension.
There are 5 stages of
development in this method.
- “Birth” stage: feeling of security and belonging are established.
- As the learners' ability improve, they achieve a measure of independence from the parent.
- Learners can speak independently.
- The learners are secure enough to take criticism and being corrected.
- The child becomes an adult and becomes the know-er.
Community Language Learning
Community Language Learning
History Community Language Learning
Community Language Learning
(CLL) is the name of a method developed by Charles A. Curran and his
associates. Curran was a specialist in counseling and a professor of psychology
at Loyola University, Chicago. His application of psychological counseling
techniques to learning is known as Counseling-Learning. Community Language
Learning represents the use of Counseling-Learning theory to teach languages.
Within the language teaching
tradition Community Language Learning is sometimes cited as an example of a
"humanistic approach." Links can also be made between CLL procedures
and those of bilingual education, particularly the set of bilingual procedures
referred to as "language alternation" or "code switching”. Let
us discuss briefly the debt of Community Language Learning to these traditions.
Community Language
Learning
Community language
learning (CLL) was primarily designed for monolingual conversation classes
where the teacher-counsellor would be able to speak the learners' L1. The
intention was that it would integrate translation so that the students would
disassociate language learning with risk taking. It's a method that is based on
English for communication and is extremely learner-focused. Although each
course is unique and student-dictated, there are certain criteria that should
be applied to all CLL classrooms, namely a focus on fluency in the early
stages, an undercurrent of accuracy throughout the course and learner
empowerment as the main focus
Pros
- Learners appreciate the autonomy CLL offers them and thrive on analysing their own conversations.
- CLL works especially well with lower levels who are struggling to produce spoken English.
- The class often becomes a real community, not just when using CLL but all of the time. Students become much more aware of their peers, their strengths and weaknesses and want to work as a team.
Cons
- In the beginning some learners find it difficult to speak on tape while others might find that the conversation lacks spontaneity.
- We as teachers can find it strange to give our students so much freedom and tend to intervene too much.
- In your efforts to let your students become independent learners you can neglect their need for guidance.
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