Language Learners and Language Teaching Settings
Language Learners and Language Teaching Settings
Introduction
The chapter addresses the differences between learning a language in a classroom versus in a community where it is spoken.
It explores the factors contributing to successful language learning.
Language Teaching Settings
Second Language Setting: Learners are surrounded by the language they are trying to learn.
Foreign Language Setting: The language is spoken by a distant community.
Many teachers are language teachers when some students are still learning English.
Bilingual teachers help students learn English and content subjects while encouraging first language development.
Learner Differences
Teachers are interested in differences among language learners to help all students succeed.
Learners differ in emotions, language aptitude, approaches to language learning, and age.
Teachers can help students develop positive characteristics and become better language learners.
Adjusting language teaching approaches is beneficial.
Helping students become autonomous and extend their learning beyond the classroom is essential.
Types of Language Learning Settings
Second language acquisition (SLA) is the basis for all language teaching practices.
SLA includes learning a language where it is spoken (second language setting) or where it is spoken by a distant community (foreign language setting).
English learners in the United States are generally classified as second language learners because they are surrounded by English in school, media, and community.
Language acquisition is the unconscious development of a language through exposure.
Language learning is conscious learning through study and practice.
Second language acquisition is the general label for the academic field that studies language learning in all its variations: second language acquisition, second language learning, foreign language acquisition, and foreign language learning.
Voices from the Classroom
Language acquisition is often associated with second language settings, while language learning is associated with foreign language settings; however, either process may be used in any learning context.
Example:
Xu is an international student from China studying biochemistry in the United States. He is sitting on a park bench practicing the pronunciation of some chemistry terms he needs to use in a presentation to the freshman chemistry class he is teaching. Second Language Learning.
Marina is an English language learner in the third grade in the United States. She is listening and watching as her English-speaking teacher uses the blackboard to explain multiplication. Second Language Acquisition.
Naciye is an English student in Turkey. She is watching the English version of the American situation comedy, Friends, on television. Foreign Language Acquisition.
Tran is a high school student in the United States. He is studying a list of words for the weekly vocabulary quiz in his English class. Second Language Learning.
Types of Language Classes
Stand-alone classes: Separate classes that students attend for at least part of the school day.
Typical in middle or high schools.
Taught by a teacher specializing in language learners.
Curriculum focuses primarily on language development.
ESL stand-alone classes often include students of several first-language backgrounds and grade levels; teachers often devote class time to helping students with assignments from other classes.
Pull-out programs: Students leave their regular class for special language instruction.
More common at the elementary school level.
Classes tend to be smaller and more homogenous.
Teachers work with a single age group at a time.
Teachers must vary their lesson plans for each age group and work closely with each child’s classroom teacher to devise lessons that will complement the student’s work in the regular classroom and to monitor their students’ progress.
Bilingual education programs: Students receive instruction in both their first and second languages.
Keeps students from falling behind in content learning.
Encourages development of their first language while learning English.
The amount of ESL instruction can vary.
Bilingual teachers know their students’ stage of first language development and how the learners will need to use both languages in their content learning.
Bilingual teachers can develop lesson plans that logically integrate their students’ language and content learning needs.
Many English Language Learners (ELLs) in the United States receive little if any special language instruction.
Some states have mandated English Only instruction for ELLs.
Others have moved to an instructional model where all or most teachers have some ESL training.
Regular classroom teachers are responsible for providing for the needs of ELLs.
ELLs are often left on their own to “sink or swim” in classes designed for native English speakers.
Submersion: Putting ELLs in regular classes with native English-speaking peers and giving them no extra support while they are learning English.
Language immersion: Students are put into a target language environment with the recognition that they are language learners and are given necessary assistance.
Terminology
ESL (English as a Second Language) is often distinguished from EFL (English as a Foreign Language).
TESL and TEFL (Teaching English as a Second/Foreign Language).
TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages).
ESP (English for Specific Purposes), like English for Engineers or Spanish for Health Care Professionals.
EAP (English for Academic Purposes).
ELL (English Language Learner), ELD (English Language Development), and LOTE (Languages Other Than English).
The increasing number of native English speakers in the United States has made the distinction between foreign and second languages unclear.
Educators worry that the use of either second or foreign puts an unnecessarily negative label on the learners.
Learner Characteristics
Language learners differ in important ways that can influence their language learning.
Language teachers are concerned with:
Affective (or emotional) factors
Cognitive factors
Metacognitive factors
Emotional Factors
Students’ feelings about language learning and toward their particular target language and culture.
Cognitive Factors
Ways that people process information, considered less changeable than other learner differences.
Language aptitude: different cognitive abilities that may help people learn languages.
Metacognitive Factors
Ways learners think about and control their language learning.
Language learning strategies, study skills, and beliefs about language learning.
Language Learning Emotions
Attitudes and Motivation
Learners have different goals:
Older learners: earning a living, advanced schooling, helping children.
Younger learners: fitting in with other kids.
Strong relationship between motivation and language learning achievement.
Motivated students expend effort and seek out learning opportunities.
Instrumental motivation: Pragmatic reason for learning a language (e.g., passing an exam).
Integrative motivation: Wanting to learn the language to get to know its people and culture.
It is possible to be both instrumentally and integratively motivated.
Most scholars now think that the amount of motivation is more important than the type of motivation.
Assimilative motivation: A desire to actually join the new culture.
Goes beyond integrative motivation.
Does not require learners to cut ties completely with their first language group, but they must desire to become functioning members of the new group.
A particularly strong type of motivation.
Attitudes toward the new language and culture
People with negative attitudes toward a particular group would be unlikely to learn that language successfully.
Attitudes toward particular groups typically have a sociological basis.
The attitudes and motivation of individual language learners or groups of learners cannot be understood outside of the particular social and political context where the language learning is taking place.
The learning environment has a strong influence on the actual attitudes and motivations that learners hold.
Extreme motivation is required if the learner is going to achieve any ability in the new language in some learning situations.
Encouraging positive attitudes and motivation:
Students will generally have some combination of instrumental, integrative, and possibly assimilative motivation, as well as their own personal motivations for language learning.
English Language Learners in the United States are likely to have a particularly strong mix of motivations.
It is necessary to consider the social and political circumstances surrounding their language learning in order to understand students’ motivations.
Advantages of language learning is not usually effective in changing students’ attitudes and motivations toward language learning.
Help students develop personal goals for language learning.
Discuss students’ ideas about the language and culture.
Help students make connections with members of the new community.
Give learners support before and after cultural contacts.
Anxiety
Learning and using a second language can make some people feel anxious.
Language learners are often unable to display many of the personality traits that are part of their self-image.
Some language learners become anxious when they cannot “be themselves” when speaking in the new language.
In addition, students may think they are supposed to understand everything and feel anxious whenever they miss a word.
Studies have also found that some students feel anxious when they have to read or write the second language.
Students who have to function in the second culture may feel even more anxious.
Second language learners who must speak English in front of peers from their native culture group often feel that they are in a particularly uncomfortable situation.
High levels of anxiety can lead to performing more poorly in language classes.
Some cultural groups seem to have higher numbers of anxious learners than others.
Some students are very clear in expressing language anxiety.
Nonverbal clues of anxiety include avoiding eye contact, fidgeting, and speaking softly.
Culture Shock
Second language learners can be vulnerable to culture shock.
Culture shock refers to anxiety reactions resulting from difficulties people have when they have to function within the norms and requirements of a new culture.
Occurs when people realize that their usual expectations of how things work and how people should act are not the same in the new culture.
Ordinary behaviors are often difficult in the new culture, and simple misunderstandings can quickly lead to frustration and even anger.
School-age children may be the most susceptible to culture shock since they may spend many more hours each day dealing with American culture than adults who have jobs that require little contact with English speakers.
Reducing Anxiety
Teacher support and understanding are important.
Creating a supportive classroom environment may help reduce anxiety.
Approaches to reduce language anxiety:
Acknowledge students’ discomfort.
Acknowledge experiences of culture shock and offer opportunities for students to talk about their experiences.
Use the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale to help identify anxious learners and to start a discussion about anxiety.
Help students develop more realistic expectations for language learning.
Arrange contacts with more advanced students.
Correct errors gently.
Use humor and games to distract attention away from individual speakers.
Use small-group and pair activities rather than whole-class activities.
Have students imagine becoming anxious while speaking and overcoming that anxiety.
Cognitive Factors: Language Aptitude, Learning Styles, and Stages of Cognitive Development
Language Aptitude
Several tests of cognitive abilities have been developed to identify people who are likely to be successful language learners.
One well-known test is the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT), which examines learners in the areas of understanding number, symbol association, grammatical sensitivity, and the ability to memorize new vocabulary.
Aptitude tests have had limited success in identifying successful language learners in typical classroom situations, and today most scholars have concluded that people with normal intelligence are capable of learning a second language.
Language aptitude tests are rarely used today except by second language acquisition researchers.
Researchers are more interested in learning styles, since language teachers must teach all their students and not just those who score well on language aptitude tests.
Learning styles offer teachers the possibility of tailoring instruction to the learning strengths of different types of language learners.
Learning Styles
Learning styles are persistent and instinctive ways that individuals process information when faced with a learning situation.
The simplest example is Sensory mode preference: visual, auditory, tactile, or kinesthetic learners.
An understanding of learning styles helps teachers recognize their students’ learning strengths and difficulties.
Visual learners are likely to have more difficulty listening than auditory learners.
Field dependence-field independence (FD-FI) is a widely studied learning style difference.
Field-independent learners are better able to see the trees within the forest, while field-dependent learners are better able to see the forest but not the individual trees.
FD-FI is a continuum.
Sensitivity is preferred over dependence.
FI learners are analytic and good at focusing on details; engineers tend to be more field independent.
FD individuals are good at holistic tasks and seem particularly suited to “people” professions; they are better at perceiving interpersonal cues.
Studies have found that FI learners are more successful language learners.
It is possible that the grammar focus and traditional language tests in many language classes favor the abilities associated with more FI learners.
Helping Students with Different Learning Styles
Be aware of learning style differences and pay close attention when using an activity that is likely to be difficult for a particular type of learner.
Modify activities to make them more accessible to a wider range of learners.
Include a variety of activity types that are appropriate for a range of learning styles.
Change your teaching approach whenever you re-teach material.
Pay close attention to learning styles when you work with individual students.
Metacognitive Factors: Beliefs about Language Learning and Language Learning Strategies
Beliefs about Language Learning
Teachers are not the only ones with ideas about how languages are learned and how they should be taught.
Language learners also have many beliefs about important issues in second language acquisition, such as how languages should be studied, how difficult it is to learn particular languages, who has language aptitude, and what makes a good language teacher.
Learners’ beliefs about language learning influence their approach to language learning.
Students tend to choose learning strategies that are consistent with their beliefs about language learning.
Learners with unrealistic beliefs about language learning have also been found to be more anxious than other learners.
Misconceptions about language learning become even more important when students are encouraged to become more autonomous and take greater responsibility for their own language learning.
Helping Students Develop a Realistic Understanding of Language Learning
Talk with your students about the process of language learning.
Make discussions about language learning an important part of your classes.
Determine your students beliefs in order to explain the purpose of classroom activities more effectively.
Use a Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory to better understand your own and your students’ beliefs and to encourage discussions about language learning.
Language Learning Strategies
Language learning strategies (LLS) are specific steps that learners take to increase their language learning.
Refers to a wide range of things that learners do to help themselves learn the language.
Some scholars believe that successful and less successful language learners use different strategies, and that less successful learners would benefit from learning the strategies of more successful students.
Strategic learning emphasizes analyzing the task, analyzing yourself as a learner, considering the resources that are available, and analyzing the learning situation; it stresses flexibility and appropriateness in strategy use.
Direct strategies involve actually using the language (memory, cognitive, and compensation strategies).
Indirect strategies support language learning without using the language directly (metacognitive, affective, and social strategies).
Communication strategies are the steps learners take to be as successful as possible when communicating in the new language.
Helping Students Develop Effective Language Learning Strategies
Language teachers should not only teach the language but also teach students how to learn the language.
Students need both indirect and direct strategies.
Encourage students to try learning approaches that are consistent with their individual learning styles, needs, and comfort levels.
Consult with students so that they are not left on their own to choose strategies.
Let students select some of their own learning materials to encourage them to be more autonomous.
Involve families in strategy training.
Younger Learners and Stages of Cognitive Development
Younger learners differ from older learners in terms of their level of cognitive development.
As described by Jean Piaget, cognitive development progresses from babies’ first cognitive efforts to differentiate themselves from their mothers to developing abstract reasoning abilities.
The achievement of formal operations is probably an important milestone in how people approach language learning.
Abstract reasoning ability is required for learners to be able to understand and manipulate grammatical rules.
While there is great controversy over the usefulness of grammatical explanations and exercises with older learners, such practices are inappropriate for younger learners, at least those under the age of 11 or 12, since they will not have achieved the necessary level of cognitive development to be able to think about grammar abstractly.
It is possible, therefore, that older learners who have had irregular school attendance, such as refugees or migrant workers, may be similar to younger learners in their lack of readiness for abstract grammatical explanations.
Several scholars believe that the ability to use abstract grammatical rules accounts for the fact that adult language learners tend to make quicker early progress in learning a second language than children do.
The use of grammatical rules, can also impede language learning.
Grammatical knowledge acts as a kind of filter between the learner and the language itself.
Instead of directly absorbing language through listening or reading, learners analyze and categorize what they hear, looking for rules, and contrasts and similarities with their first language.
While this strategy can be useful at early stages of learning, ultimately, learners have to create and process language from an automatic, internalized system and not from the manipulation of explicit grammatical rules.
Language Teaching Methodologies
Introduction
Explores second language acquisition theories and their application to language teaching.
Discusses the differences in language teaching between second and foreign language settings.
Reflects on personal experiences with language teaching methodologies.
Language Teaching Methodologies
Language teaching methodologies describe specific approaches for teaching second languages.
Methods vary in their relation to formal second language acquisition theories.
Language teaching methods may remain in use even when new research calls their assumptions into question.
Major methods include: Audiolingual Method, Grammar Translation, Total Physical Response, the Natural Approach, Communicative Language Teaching, and Proficiency-Oriented Language Teaching.
Recent approaches: Content-Centered Language Teaching, Sheltered-Immersion, and Task-Based language learning.
Language Teaching Methods
A method is a coherent and comprehensive approach to teaching second languages.
Includes statements about how the language is learned, the type of language emphasized, and descriptions of learning activities.
Suggests a syllabus or teaching sequence based on grammatical complexity or communicative usefulness.
Some methods include their own second language acquisition theory, while others are closely aligned with a separate SLA theory.
Early Methods
Grammar Translation
Complementary SLA Theory: First Language Theories, Attention Theories
Focuses primarily on reading and writing.
Uses authentic texts.
Students have the same native language background.
Encourages students to translate rather than “think” in the target language.
Highlights grammar and vocabulary differences between the native and target languages.
Class is primarily conducted in the students’ native language.
Considered old-fashioned by many, it is still commonly used across the world.
Teachers emphasize understanding the target language and how it is put together.
Translation is used in both directions: target language to native language and native language to target language.
Suited to developing reading ability more than speaking ability.
Most appropriate for learners who require a very precise reading ability in their second language.
Commonly viewed as unsuitable for beginning learners, however, it allows an advanced role learner accurate ability.
What Teachers Do in a Grammar Translation Classroom
Conduct class in the students’ native language.
Select readings that illustrate particular grammatical, historical, or literary concepts.
Preview the cultural, literary, and historical background of the readings.
Ask questions about the readings that draw students’ attention to specific grammar constructions, vocabulary, and literary devices.
Explain the grammar, vocabulary, and cultural contexts of the readings.
Prepare written grammar and vocabulary exercises.
What Students Do in a Grammar Translation Classroom
Read silently and aloud.
Do written exercises.
Prepare written translations.
Listen to teacher explanations.
Read texts aloud and translate.
The Audiolingual Method (ALM)
Complementary SLA Theory: The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis, Behavioral Learning Theories
Emphasizes listening and speaking.
Focuses on oral language as it is used by native speakers.
Sequences grammar according to similarities and differences with the native language (contrastive analysis).
Uses memorized dialogues and pattern drills.
Encourages students to internalize language patterns within little or no grammatical explanation.
Requires well-pronounced, grammatically correct, full-sentence responses from students.
Developed in the 1960s to take advantage of insights from the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis.
Most prominent features were structure drills (pattern drills) and memorized dialogues.
Isolated target language patterns or structures and presented drills so that learners could practice the pattern until they could use it automatically.
Grammar was to move from simple to complex; learners were supposed to be able to understand and produce grammatical structures orally before they saw them in writing.
Seen as a modern teaching method since it emphasized oral language and focused on language as spoken by native speakers.
Criticisms of ALM
Did not prepare learners for the spontaneity required of natural conversations.
De-emphasis of explicit grammar teaching was seen as being inconsistent with cognitive learning theories.
Cognitive-Code approach required grammatical explanations before language drills.
What Teachers Do in an Audiolingual Classroom
Conduct class in the target language.
Lead class through drills focusing on grammatical concepts to avoid first language interference.
Reinforce students for grammatically correct answers.
Maintain a lively atmosphere to keep students’ attention during drills and repetition.
Require students to answer in full sentences.
Lead students through oral practice of dialogues.
Have students learn to pronounce target language forms before they write them.
What Students Do in an Audiolingual Classroom
Repeat after the teacher.
Memorize dialogues and, sometimes, act them out in front of the class.
Practice dialogues with other students.
Do oral and written grammar exercises.
The Direct Method
Complementary SLA Theory: It predates the Input Hypothesis, but its emphasis on listening is consistent with that theory. Its emphasis on teacher questions and student responses has some elements in common with Conversation Theories.
Emphasizes listening and speaking.
Focuses on oral language as it is used by native speakers.
Classes are conducted in the target language.
Uses spontaneous conversations and explanations based on classroom objects and events.
Early (1900s) oral and conversational method that is still in use today.
Concentrated on conversational speech and conducted lessons almost entirely in the target language.
Teachers talk to students in the target language from the first day of class and work very hard to make students understand what they are saying.
Students are also expected to speak only in the new language.
Teachers use their personal talents to act out what they are saying or employing elaborate props and pictures to help students understand.
Criticisms of the Direct Method
Neglected the literary and analytical reading associated with Grammar Translation in favor of mundane, nonacademic conversations.
Had difficulty dealing with abstract topics.
Some teachers were seen as dogmatic in their avoidance of the native language.
The approach was so teacher-centered that it required great effort on the part of the teacher.
What Teachers Do in a Direct Method Classroom
Conduct class in the target language.
Use gestures, pictures, props, and dramatic flair.
Engage students in conversation.
Maintain a lively atmosphere.
Encourage students to answer in full sentences.
What Students Do in a Direct Method Classroom
Watch the teacher act out target language vocabulary and phrases and infer the teacher’s meaning.
Reply to the teacher’s questions.
Listen to the teacher’s replies for feedback on their responses.
Current language teaching methodologies
Are more influenced by the Experience and Social Theories and therefore have put much more emphasis on comprehensible input and participation in authentic conversations.
Recognize the importance of culture in language learning and place a greater focus on cultural appropriateness and authentic materials.
Input Methods: Natural Approach and Total Physical Response
Total Physical Response (TPR)
Compatible SLA Theory: The Input Hypothesis and Asher’s theory that physical actions reinforce language learning.
Emphasizes listening and encourages a silent period.
Teacher gives commands in the target language, and students act out the commands.
In TPR Storytelling, students retell and act out stories they have already listened to.
The teacher gives commands in the target language and models the actions required by the commands; students, in turn, follow the commands.
TPR teachers are very resourceful and have come up with many inventive ways to present structures and vocabulary.Recent TPR variation is called TPR Storytelling has become very popular because it accommodates complex language in a more natural conversational context and is suitable for older language learners.
TPR Storytelling (TPRS) is used after students have begun to speak in the target language, that is, after the silent period is over.
What Teachers Do in a Total Physical Response Classroom
Give commands in the target language.
Use gestures, pictures, props, and dramatic flair.
Carefully prepare commands that illustrate vocabulary and grammatical concepts.
In TPR storytelling, introduce new vocabulary and expressions and read stories for students to act out.
What Students Do in a Total Physical Response Classroom
Act out the commands.
Listen to the TPR stories.
Infer meaning from commands and stories.
Retell and act out the TPR stories.
The Natural Approach (NA)
Complementary SLA Theory: The Input Hypothesis
Emphasizes listening; any type of response (gesture, native language phrase, etc.) is consistent with the Input Hypothesis.
Encourages a silent period.
Uses many means to offer comprehensible input including TPR commands and pair- and group-work activities.
Allows students to respond in any way that shows they have comprehended the input.
Grammar is generally taught incidentally.
It is consistent with the Input Hypothesis, and like Total Physical Response, it emphasizes the development of listening comprehension.
The Natural Approach employs TPR as one of its instructional strategies. NA also makes use of many of the same instructional practices as Direct Method classes.
Classes are oral and emphasize everyday, here-and-now conversation.
What Teachers Do in a Natural Approach Classroom
Conduct class primarily in the target language.
Use gestures, pictures, props, and dramatic flair.
Engage students in conversation.
Maintain a lively atmosphere.
Supply interesting and comprehensible input such as stories and jokes.
Use small-group and role-play activities.
Encourage students to answer in any way they can or want to.
Explain grammar as students have questions.
What Students Do in a Natural Approach Classroom
Listen to and read the input.
Participate in small-group and conversational activities.
Study grammar related to communicative needs.
Communicative Language Teaching
Complementary SLA Theory: Conversation Theories, Input Hypothesis
Encourages the development of listening comprehension.
Encourages target language responses.
Uses pair- and group-work extensively.
Substantial use of negotiation of meaning tasks.
Error correction within conversational contexts.
Emphasizes cultural appropriateness.
Grammar is taught as needed for communication purposes.
Emphasizes authentic communication from the first day of class and associated with Sandra Savignon’s research on the development of second language communicative competence.
Teachers urge students to communicate in the target language and tend to do a lot of scaffolding.
Emphasizes conversation practice.
What Teachers Do in a Communicative Classroom
Conduct class primarily in the target language.
Engage students in conversation.
Teach communication strategies.
Supply interesting and comprehensible input such as stories and jokes.
Use culturally appropriate small-group and role-play activities.
Engage students in scaffolded conversations.
Negotiate meaning. Correct errors that interfere with communication.
What Students Do in a Communicative Classroom
Participate in small-group and conversational activities.
Listen to and read input.
Study grammar related to communicative needs.
Proficiency-Oriented Instruction
Complementary SLA Theory: Conversation Theories, First Language Theories, Attention Theories
Encourages well-formed target language responses.
Uses pair- and group-work extensively.
Uses explicit grammatical consciousness-raising and error correction.
Emphasizes cultural appropriateness.
It is an approach associated with Alice Omaggio Hadley and the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), which emerged in the 1980s in an attempt to maintain the communicative focus of CLT while at the same time fostering greater grammatical accuracy.
Favors communicative teaching with more explicit grammar explanations and error correction.
More focused with error correction.
What Teachers Do in a Proficiency-Oriented Classroom
Conduct class primarily in the target language.
Use gestures, pictures, props, and dramatic flair.
Engage students in conversation.
Supply interesting and comprehensible input such as stories and jokes.
Alert students to grammatical structures that they are about to encounter (consciousness-raising).
Teach grammar.
Use small-group and role-play activities tied to specific grammatical concepts.
Correct errors.
What Students Do in a Proficiency-Oriented Classroom
Participate in small-group and conversational activities.
Listen to grammatical explanations and complete meaningful grammatical exercises.
What Is the Best Language Teaching Method?
Most language educators feel that it is no longer appropriate to talk about language teaching methods with a capital M since studies have not shown any language teaching method to be superior overall to others.
It is clearly unlikely that one language teaching approach would be better in all situations.
Teacher implementation is also an issue, and most language teachers find it impossible to adhere to a single methodology.
As is the case with second language acquisition theories, many teachers are eclectic and use some combination of language teaching methods and approaches.
Content-Based, Learner-Centered, and Task-Based Approaches to Language Teaching
Content-Based Approaches
Content-Based Instruction (CBI)
Complementary SLA Theory: Conversation Theories
Moves beyond a focus on conversational language to emphasize the development of second language literacy.
Uses academic tasks to foster second language learning.
Pairs language learning goals with content learning goals.
Substantial use of negotiation of meaning tasks.
Error correction within conversational contexts.
Emphasizes cultural appropriateness.Teaching methods designed to teach both content and language simultaneously by using a language-based syllabus.
They are based on the premise that people learn new languages in the course of learning other things.
defined by their use of authentic materials or the same materials used by native speakers to learn the same content rather than materials specifically designed for language learners. CBI and SI differ substantially
Both CBI and SI require that the content instruction be tailored to the needs of the language learners, that teachers have both content and language learning goals for their students, and that teachers have the necessary preparation to work with language learners
CBI and SI do not simply throw language learners into content instruction with authentic materials; they organize the content instruction to make it appropriate for language learners.
Instructors typically modify their speech is so that they are more comprehensible to nonnative speakers,
content-based language instruction recognizes that the ultimate academic success of English Language Learners is based on learning the content associated with their grade level as well as developing English language skills
CBI gives ELLs experience using academic varieties of English, while conventional language teaching methods place a greater stress on conversational language.Sheltered immersion is a step further.
Sheltered-Immersion goes one step further than simple content-based approaches because it does not mix language learners and native speakers in the same class. When content is taught to mixed groups of native speakers and language learners
From Teacher-Centered to Learner-Centered Approaches
Some language educators advocate an approach called Language for Specific Purposes, which maintains that language teaching methods and materials should be tailored to the specific needs of a group of students.
Another important concern with traditional language teaching methodologies such as CLT and NA is that they teach listening, speaking, reading, and writing separately. some students. teachers should negotiate the language syllabus with their students
Task-Based Language Instruction
Task-Based Language Instruction is a new approach to language teaching that incorporates several of the advantages of Content-Based Instruction.
Tasks make communication in language classes more realistic, give students access to authentic target language sources, and integrate listening, speaking, reading, and writing in culturally appropriate ways.
Tasks are activities where students must use the target language in a meaningful way to achieve a specific objective.
realistic and appropriate the task for the particular group of students, the better. (write a letter to your “friend” in Buenos Aires) or seem solely designed to get students to use certain grammatical forms (tell your aunt More
Teaching Listening
Introduction
The chapter begins with several second language acquisition theories and language teaching methodologies that are specifically interested in the development of listening comprehension.
Listening and Second Language Acquisition
Several second language acquisition theories and language teaching methodologies are specifically interested in the development of listening comprehension.
The Input Hypothesis and its associated teaching methodologies the Natural Approach and Total Physical Response see listening comprehension as key to acquiring a second language.
The Attention Theories favor using consciousness-raising activities to increase learners’ awareness of grammatical structures when they listen.
The Conversation Theories associated with Communicative Language Teaching also stress the importance of second language listening, since it is not possible to participate in a conversation and take advantage of conversational feedback without understanding what your partner is saying.
Most instructors can do to help students develop and improve their listening comprehension skills.
Listening Comprehension: Some Important Concepts
Background Knowledge
A student’s preexisting knowledge of a particular topic.
Previewing
Helping students anticipate the content they are about to listen to or read.
Advance Organizer
David Ausubel’s term.
Used to help integrate new information into the student’s preexisting knowledge.
The teacher provides an oral or written statement or outline of the new information, which links the content to learners’ background knowledge before teaching new material.
Meaning Support
Refers to the practice of providing pictures, sound effects, and the like to make listening and reading materials more comprehensible to students.
Recall
Students write down all of the ideas that they are able to remember from an oral or written text to determine what they have understood.
This activity is often performed in the students’ native language so that they will not have difficulty expressing their ideas.
Recall Question
A question that calls for the recall of a piece of information from an oral or written text.
Recall questions can often be answered by simply repeating words or phrases from the text.
Inference Question
A question that cannot be answered by simply repeating the words in an oral or written text.
The student must have understood the material in order to answer the question correctly.
Intonation
Refers to the rising and falling of the tone of voice when speaking.
The Importance of Listening Comprehension
From a practical perspective, listening is an essential language skill.
Listening, along with reading, is a receptive language skill that requires a person to take meaning from the oral language produced by another speaker.
Researchers believe that listening comprehension abilities begin to develop before students ever start being able to actually understand sentences or even words in the new language.
listening and reading are by no means passive processes and that both listeners and readers must actively construct the meaning of any language they encounter.The words themselves are not the only source of meaning.
Gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, and the setting and context of the conversation all contribute to our understanding of what another person is saying.
Obstacles to Teaching Listening Comprehension
There are several important obstacles to teaching listening effectively, it is hard to have realistic scenarios.
Classroom Listening and “Real World” Listening
First, it is difficult to simulate authentic speech in the classroom.
It is also difficult to provide language at the right level of difficulty.
Some teachers speak too quickly, use language that is too complicated, or simply anticipate too high a level of listening ability from their students.
Other teachers may speak at an unnaturally slow rate that hardly resembles the speech that learners would hear in the target language community.
Even second language learners can have difficulty making social connections due to subtle barriers that keep them from participating in conversations with native speakers. Students are further from nonEnglish speaking students
Natural speech does not proceed clearly and without interruption from the beginning of a sentence to the end
There are often long digressions as well.
Speakers frequently interrupt other speakers or try to change the topic to one they want to talk about.
What Language instructors can do.
Students can get sanitary responses commercial materials.