T.R.
Mersin University
Education Faculty
Foreign Language Teaching Department
English Language Teaching
HOW LANGUAGES ARE LEARNED
Mid-term Project
From:
Melike GAZİOĞLU
07271011
To:
Yaşam UMUT BILDIRCIN
Mersin
Oct, 2010
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING IN THE CLASSROOM 3
Six Proposals for Classroom Teaching 3
1) Get it right from the beginning 3
2) Just listen … and read 4
3) Let’s talk 5
4) Two for one 7
5) Teach what is teachable 9
6) Get it right in the end 10
The implications of classroom research for teaching 12
Summary 13
POPULAR IDEAS ABOUT LANGUAGE LEARNING REVISITED 14
Popular Ideas about Language Learning 14
Conclusion 18
HOW LANGUAGES ARE LEARNED
SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING IN THE CLASSROOM
Six Proposals for Classroom Teaching
The question we are trying to answer in this section is “what is the best way to promote language learning in classrooms?” Researchers try to find the relationship between teaching and learning.
There are six proposals that we will examine about teaching language in classrooms. These are:
1) Get it right from the beginning
2) Just listen… and read
3) Let’s talk
4) Two for one
5) Teach what is teachable
6) Get it right in the end
1) Get it right from the beginning
“Get it right from the beginning” is a proposal which emphasizes the importance of accuracy in second language learning. This proposal mostly makes the use of structure-based and/or form-based instructions.
Most traditional approaches (grammar translation & audio-lingual approaches) uses this proposal in classroom teaching environment. In this proposal, teachers don’t let learners speak freely because this may cause them to make errors. And as the learning is viewed as habit formation, making errors is believed to cause early fossilization in learners.
Grammar-Translation Method: Students are given explicit instruction of grammar rules and vocabulary lists with translation equivalents. The purpose of this approach is to help students develop in reading literature rather than develop in fluency in spoken language. The aim is to translate both from and to target language accurately. It often ignores the communicative aspect of language use.
Audiolingual Approach: Audiolingualism is behaviorist in its language learning theory. According to this, learning is habit formation through practice, repetition, and memorization. It tries to prevent errors as much as possible to avoid early fossilization of errors. Instead of early speaking, there is controlled practice in this approach. The emphasis is on oral language but students just use language through repetition of oral items not through communicative use.
In fact, learners beliefs about the best kind of instruction which is best for them influence learners satisfaction, motivation and success. Grammar translation and audiolingual methods fail to produce accuracy and fluency in second language learners on communicative terms.
Get it right from the beginning proposal favors accuracy before fluency in language learning. Grammar-focused instructions don’t favor the comprehension skills, communication abilities and fluency.
“Get it right from the beginning” proposal has some limitations.
* Learners given grammar translation and/ or audiolingual instructions are mostly unable to use language in communicative purposes.
* Language is not learned by the gradual accumulation of one item after another.
* Errors are not seen as a natural and valuable part of the language learning process.
* As the emphasis is on accuracy in the classroom, this leads learners feel inhibited, uncomfortable and reluctant to take chances in using their language for communication.
* Structure-based and form-based instructions do not guarantee that second language learners will develop high levels of accuracy and linguistic knowledge
MY OPINIONS
I don’t agree with the idea of get it right from the beginning proposal that it sees language learning as a habit formation. Partly, language learning may be seen as habit formation because some words are taken and repeated while learning language. However, learning a language is more complex than just habit formation.
Also, I don’t agree this proposal advocates that errors should be avoided at all costs. Students are not allowed and expected to make errors especially in the beginning. However, errors are a part of natural process in language learning. Avoiding errors at the beginning cause not only learner to use language less, but also students feeling in a stressful environment while learning language.
Get it right from the beginning may be useful for teaching the exact use of language, pronunciation improvement etc. for the advanced learners of language. However, for the beginning learners, it may have no help.
2) Just listen … and read
“Just listen… and read” proposal says that language acquisition takes place when learners are exposed to comprehensible input through listening and reading. Stephen Krashen is closely associated with this proposal. Krashen says that the availability of comprehensible input is essential in instructional setting.
This proposal is controversial in language teaching because it says that L2 learners don’t need drill and practice language, but also that they do not need to speak at all in their learning process.
The material that students read and listen to is not graded in a rigid way; rather, the material is graded on the basis of what teachers consider to be comprehensible for their students.
Comprehension-based instruction
In the early stages, Students in the comprehension-based program may learn English as much as learners in the regular program. This may be true both for their comprehension skills and for their speaking skills. However, in the long run, students in regular programme may make greater progress in some skills especially in writing. Those students are ones which have teacher feedback, classroom interaction and audiolingual instruction with speaking and writing components.
Reading for words
While interacting in ordinary conversations, we use mainly 1000 or 2000 most frequent words. Thus, reading is a good source for vocabulary learning. Students who reach an intermediate level may have very little opportunity to learn new words. However, in reading, they have more opportunity to learn new vocabulary.
Simplified readers are reading materials which are graded parallel to the learners’ levels. Students can encounter a number of new words and they can also figure out their meaning from the reading texts through the use of simplified readers.
Total Physical Response
Students participate in activities in which they hear a series of commands in the target language. They listen and show their comprehension through actions. They are not required to say anything. TPR differs from Krashen’s hypothesis in that vocabulary and grammar are carefully graded and organized so that students deal with material which gradually increases in complexity. When students begin to speak, they take over the role of the teacher, give commands and fallows them.
Input Flood
Giving high-frequency input to a particular form is called input flood. Students are given high-frequency input to a particular form. They read series of texts including this form. But they are given no explicit teaching of this form. Also, no error correction is given.
Input flood may help learners to add something new to their interlanguage. However, they cannot get rid of the errors coming from their first language. Exposure to language input may provide learners with information about what is grammatical in second language. However, it fails to give them information about what is not grammatical. So, more explicit information about what is not grammatical may be necessary.
Enhanced Input
Students are given reading passages to draw their attention to a particular form. The particular form is written in the text in bold type, underlined, italicized, or capital letters. This is called enhanced input.
However, in study, it is shown that there is not much difference between the learners who are given enhanced input and who are not given, in terms of their knowledge and use of these forms.
Processing Instruction
It is another approach to comprehension based learning. In processing instruction, learners are put into situations where they cannot comprehend a sentence by depending solely on context, prior knowledge or other clues. Rather, they must focus on the language itself.
Students who received processing instruction may achieve higher levels of performance on both the comprehension tasks and the production tasks than students who engaged in production practice doing exercises to practice the form.
MY OPINIONS
I agree that language learning should start with listening and reading and students should be waited for language production. the Access to comprehensible input would lead students to learn the language.
Comprehension-based instruction is a good way to teach language. Learners will be motivated to learn the language. Classroom interaction, peer and teacher feedbacks are certain to improve the language skills of learners.
Reading is a very good way of one’s improving his/her vocabulary knowledge. Readers would learn vocabulary knowledge related to the context of the reading passage. There are also staged books for all levels. Therefore, reading is useful from beginning to advanced. In my opinion, for advanced learners, however, watching movies, listening to English music, online podcasts videos etc. are also good way of learning vocabulary.
Total physical response can have advantage especially in young learners at the beginning level. This approach is also parallel to natural language acquisition stage. Students can learn language through physical actions and comments in the beginning level just as the way young children do while acquiring a language. However, I don’t believe this will help advanced level learners as the linguistic content would be too complex to teach just with the help of TPR. Also, as older learners are not as energetic as young learners, they may not get enjoyment from TPR.
Enhanced input seems as a better way of teaching a specific form than input flood. For the reason that through input flood, there is the possibility of students not realizing the target form. Also input flood may cause some errors of interlanguage to remain.
3) Let’s talk
Let’s talk emphasizes the importance of access to both comprehensible input and conversational interactions with teachers and other students. If students are given opportunity to engage in interaction, they negotiate for meaning (expressing and classifying their intentions, thoughts, opinions etc...)
Negotiation for meaning can be achieved in communicative language teaching (CLT) and task- based instruction. Students work together to accomplish a particular goal by using the target language. Through negotiation, Students can acquire the language forms naturally (words and the grammatical structures).
The oral interaction hypothesis, proposed by Long in second language acquisition is critiqued. The interaction hypothesis advances two major claims about the role of interaction in second language acquisition: (1) comprehensible input is necessary for L2 acquisition; and (2) modifications to the interactional structure of conversations that take place in the process of negotiating a communication problem help make input comprehensible to an L2 learner.
Corrective feedback helps learners make connections between form and meaning.
Learners talking to learners
In the study by Patricia Porter, language produced by adult learners performing a task in pairs is evaluated. The learners are matched as native speaker –advanced level; advanced level – intermediate level; intermediate – intermediate level etc. It is found that the number of grammar and vocabulary errors and false starts may show no difference across context. Intermediate level learners may not make any more errors with another intermediate level learner than they do with native speaker. This is interesting because it calls for the argument that learners need to be exposed to a native speaking model.
Learner language and proficiency level
When different proficiency-level students interact with each other, the result showed that when low-proficiency learners were in the ‘sender’ role, the interactions were longer and more varied than when high-proficiency learners were the ‘senders’. Based on this, it can be suggested that teachers should sometimes place more advanced students in less dominant roles in paired activities with lower-level learners.
The Dynamics of pair work
Collaborative instruction consists of two learners fully engaged with each others ideas. Collaborative interaction types are dominant – dominant (unwillingness on the part of either learner to engage or agree with other’s contributions); dominant – passive (one learner is authoritarian and other is willing to yield to other speaker ) ; expert – novice (one learner is stronger than the other, actively supported the other in carrying out the task) .
Collaborative and expert – novice pairs maintains more of their second language knowledge over time. Learners in dominant – dominant and dominant – passive pairs maintain less.
It shows that when pair work functions collaboratively and learners are in an expert – novice relationship, they can successfully engage in the co-construction of knowledge.
Interaction and second language development
Alison Mackey gets learners do different communicative tasks with native speakers of the target language. Students engaged in conversational interactions with native speakers produces more advanced question forms than Students who received pre-modified input (language which had been simplified & scripted) . However, students engaged in conversational interactions with native speakers have no opportunity for negotiation of meaning with native speakers. Who are engaged in conversational interactions produce more advanced question forms than the other two.
Learner – learner interaction
Kim McDonough investigates the use of pair and small group activities in English as a foreign language class in Thailand. He tries to see the extent which students use interactional features as negative feedback and modified input.
Learners who use more negative feedback and modified output in interactions significantly improve more. However, none of the students consider pair and group activities useful for learning English.
Interpreting the Research
This research contributes to a better understanding of how to organize group and pair work more effectively in classrooms.
Several studies have shown that implicit corrective feedback in pair-work situations is beneficial. Recasts are more silent in pair work, particularly if one one form is recast consistently.
Through this research, it is difficult to draw a conclusion about the long term benefits of conversational instructions in classrooms.
MY OPINION
This proposal emphasizes the importance of both comprehensible input and classroom interaction. I agree with the importance of these in language learning. Students are given access to speak from the beginning both with teacher and with each other. By this way, I believe especially older learners will feel themselves more secure while interacting with learners of the same proficiency level. They will be in a stress-free environment. However, these students can’t correct the mistakes of each other. For this, teacher can watch over the students and can give feedback at the end of their speech. For more important mistakes, using recasts through the interaction of students may be necessary.