EFL in Chile, p. 1
Student Perceptions of Techniques to Teach English as a Foreign Language
(English translation)
Kara McBride, Saint Louis University
Originally published in Spanish in Chile: McBride, K. (2009). La percepción de estudiantes de métodos de enseñanza de inglés como lengua extranjera, Universum, 24(2), 94-112.
Abstract: This article reports on a study of 575 Chilean students of English as a foreign language. Participants were asked what kinds of activities they had experienced in their English classes and which of these they considered effective ways of studying a foreign language. Both qualitative and quantitative responses are reported, giving us insight into reasoning behind the students’ responses. Some variation among institutions is noted, but overall it is found that students prefer a balance between form-focused and meaning-focused activities, perceiving that both are required for building up communicative competence in the adult foreign language learner.
1. Introduction
Perceptions about which techniques are the most appropriate and efficient for classroom teaching vary according to students’ needs and goals. This variation also depends on students’ culture and previous experiences and expectations. The exploratory study described here analyzes the responses of 575 Chilean university and independent learners of English as a foreign language (EFL), who responded to a survey about their experiences with EFL classroom practices. The article is divided into five sections. After this introduction, the second section offers a brief review of the literature about second language (L2) teaching methodology and perceptions of L2 students and instructors. Next, the study is described. The results are presented in the fourth section. Results and discussion are presented at the end.
2. Literature review
2.1 L2 teaching methods
Starting roughly in the 80s, there was a dramatic shift in what were considered the best ways to teach second languages. Pedagogical practices distanced themselves from the explicit presentation of grammatical rules and rote memory tasks of the behaviorist tradition. Replacing these were classes based on communicative activities where the focus was on the expression of ideas and not the analysis of formal aspects of the language (Bell, 2005; Larsen-Freeman, 2003; Richards Rodgers, 2001; Zanón, 2007). The strong version of this communicative approach rejected formal teaching of grammar and avoided error correction (Rao, 2002; Richards & Rodgers, 2001). This change in L2 teaching techniques was a radical reaction against the grammar-translation and audiolingual methods that been dominant before (Bell, 2005; Larsen-Freeman, 2003).
However these extreme methods may also be considered imperfect, because of their total exclusion of the more traditional study of the structure of the target language (Bell, 2005; Larsen-Freeman, 2003). Even in immersion situations, it has been found that students whose L2 experiences do not include negative feedback nor formal grammar instruction come out of these programs with outstanding receptive skills but a substantial level of errors in L2 production (Swain, 2000).
Swain maintains that the meaningful contexts provided by communicative activities done using materials that students can understand are necessary for second language acquisition (SLA), but SLA demands the occasional and well-timed inclusion of explicit information about the structure of the language and the errors of the learner. Swain is not alone in this call, given that there has been a recent shift towards greater emphasis on the formal aspects of language within the field of SLA (Schulz, 2001), specifically in terms of attention (Schmidt, 2001), focus on form (Doughty & Williams, 1998; Lee & Valdman, 2000), and correction (Lyster, Lightbown, & Spada, 1999).
Realizing that neither the extreme method of exclusive grammatical analysis nor the other method based solely on open communicative activities can fully teach a language in all of its aspects, an instructor has to face the problem of how to find a balance among these two opposing tendencies in teaching. The solution that Larsen-Freeman (2003) proposes is something that she calls grammaring. Classroom activities should be communicative, giving students the opportunity to use the language for their own purposes, but these activities should be done in such a manner that the students are aware of the correct use of specific forms and structure, understanding these in terms of form, meaning, and socio-cultural purposes. However, Larsen-Freeman emphasizes that many of the details as to how this style of teaching can be implemented depend on the context within which teaching occurs.
A realization of the fundamental importance of the teaching context and the impossibility that only one method of teaching could be the best method for every teaching situation has brought to an end the rapid appearance of new, trendy teaching methods that characterized the field of L2 teaching during many years. Kumaravadivelu explains it in this way:
Not anchored in any specific learning and teaching context, and caught up in the whirlwind of fashion, methods tend to wildly drift from one theoretical extreme to the other. At one time, grammatical drills were considered the right way to teach; at another; [sic] they were given up in favor of communicative tasks. At one time, explicit error correction was considered necessary; at another, it was frowned upon. These extreme swings create conditions in which certain aspects of learning are utterly ignored, depending on which way the pendulum swings (Kumaravadivelu, 2003, pp. 28-29).
Since the nineties, we are in a period which can be called a post-method era. Now each teacher must select the combination of teaching techniques that work best within his or her teaching context and with the population of students he or she works with, because, as Kumaravadivelu (2003) explains,
...the concept of method... is too inadequate and too limited to satisfactorily explain the complexity of language teaching operations around the world. Concerned primarily and narrowly with classroom instructional strategies, it ignores the fact that the success or failure of classroom instruction depends to a large extent on the unstated and unstable interaction of multiple factors such as teacher cognition, learner perception, societal needs, and institutional constraints, all of which are inextricably interwoven (p. 29).
The present study focuses on the second factor named here: learner perception.
2.2 Teacher and student perceptions
In investigating the success different L2 teaching practices have in different contexts, students are particularly important, because they constitute the principal factor that defines the essence of the difference between teaching contexts. It is therefore essential to know something of the perceptions that students have about the teaching practices that they encounter in their L2 classes. Student beliefs[1] about SLA can affect their motivation, their receptivity to different classroom activities, their learning strategies, and ultimately, their outcomes(Arredando & Rucinski, 1996, Brown, 2009; Horwitz, 1988; Schulz, 2001; Woods, 2003). There is furthermore evidence that frequently there are serious differences of opinions between instructors and students as to which activities promote SLA (Block, 1994; Nunan, 1986).
In the United States it has been found that teachers of foreign languages (French, German, Spanish, etc.)[2] prefer techniques associated with the communicative approach, disfavoring explicit grammar instruction and explicit error correction, while their students often have opposing preferences (Bell, 2005; Brown, 2009; Schulz, 1996). Students in other contexts, however, may have different expectations. Schulz (2001) used a survey from a previous study (Schulz, 1996) to compare the perceptions of students and teachers of English in Colombia with those of students and teachers in the United States. She found that among the Colombians there was a more favorable attitude towards grammar instruction than was found among students of foreign languages in the United States.
Opinions differ in other situations of English as a second language (ESL) study. The Chinese students in Rao’s (2002) study were found to prefer a combination of methods. At the same time, they were uncomfortable with techniques associated with the communicative approach and they disliked activities that were based on music. In contrast, the Puertorican students in Green’s (1993) study prefered communicative activities, and there was a correlation between the perceived effectiveness of an activity and the extent to which the students enjoyed it. The subjects of Loewen et al. (2009) were foreign language students in the United States studying a variety of languages. These students were interested in grammar, but they required that it always be connected with realistic situations and authentic communication; they rejected activities that included a large amount of memorization without a meaningful context. Differences were found among groups of students studying different target languages. This is probably due in part to differences in the students’ expectations about how they would use the languages in the future, as well as differences in the extent to which the students could use the target language in real-life situations while they were studying.
The factors that determine students’ attitudes change over time (Brosh, 1996; Horwitz, 1985). In Chile, for example, policies about the study of EFL have been developed with a background belief that students will have many opportunities to use English and that “English opens doors,” as is the name of the national EFL program ( In her study on EFL instruction in Chile, McKay (2003) describes how the country has found ways to adapt and redefine the communicative approach in the Chilean context more than has been observed in other countries where English is taught as a foreign language.
3. The study
The purpose of the present study was to learn more about the perspectives of adult EFL students in Chile. Three questions guided the investigation:
1. What teaching practices have these students experienced in their English classes, both in their current classes as well as at the primary and secondary levels?
2. Which of these activities do the students consider most and least effective in promoting their acquisition of EFL?
3. To what extent is there variation among students at different institutions?
3.1 Participants
Participants were recruited for a larger study about listening comprehension (McBride 2007, 2008) which was carried out online (except for initial recruiting and some follow-up, face-to-face interviews). Recruiting was done in English classes at six universities in Chile, although it is clear that word about the study got out and many participants learned about the study through means other than in-class recruiting. Some students started the study as an in-class activity, and some received extra credit for participating. The majority, however, did the study entirely on their own.
In the end, the survey that provides the data for the present article was answered by 575 people who could clearly be identified as university students or professionals who were studying English independently. Of them, 229 were students from the University of Talca, 144 from the University of Rancagua, 64 from the University of Concepción, 40 from the Autonomous Southern University in Talca, 29 from the Southern University of Chile, and 20 from the University of Andrés Bello. An additional 49 participants were professionals who were studying English on their own (referred to later as “independent learners”). The majority of the participants from the University of Concepción, the Autonomous Southern University, the Southern University of Chile, and the University of Andrés Bello were majoring in English.
3.2 The survey
The survey (see appendix) had questions about the frequency with which the participants encountered specific activities: “act out pre-written conversations;” “study grammar, look at grammar rules, and practice structures;” “memorize and recite;” and “write and present skits of your own.” Participants chose between “never,” “sometimes,” “often,” and “almost always,” with reference to not only their current classes but classes they had taken in the past.
After this list of five activity types, there was a space for participants to write in other activities that they did in class. This was followed by another two open-ended questions about teaching practices in their English classes: “Which of these seem to you to be good activities?” and “Which of these are in your opinion bad ways to study a language?” Although there were other questions on the survey, it is primarily the answers to these questions that are used to answer the research questions listed above.
4. Results
Table 1 (see appendix) shows the responses to the first group of questions about the five specified types of activities in the questionnaire. Table 2 (See appendix) reports the results where the participants could specify in a text box which other activities they did in their English classes.[3] Only 26% of those surveyed answered this question, while 84% of the participants answered the open questions about their opinions as to which of these activities were good and bad methods for studying a language. Table 3 reports the positive answers, and Table 4 presents the negative answers.
What follows is a summary of the most notable information about the frequency of the various pedagogical practices, accompanied by relevant and representative quotes from the responses to the questions about their opinion about the efficacy of those practices.
4.1 The five pre-established categories
As can be seen in Table 1, the most common activity of the five choices is that of studying and practicing grammar explicitly. Table 3 shows that grammar activities were the most commonly mentioned beneficial activities, although the majority of the comments of this type emphasize the need for grammar as a foundation for primarily communicative activities, as this student from the Autonomous Southern University wrote: “Estudiar la gramática y luegoponer en practicamedianteejerciciosyaseanescritos o oralesesunabuenamanera de aprender; solo escuchar ingles y no practicaresuna mala manera de aprender” (Studying grammar and then putting it into practice either through written or oral activities is a good way to learn; only hearing English and not practicing it is a bad way to learn).[4]
Those few who said something negative about studying grammar indicated that they considered this to be a problematic practice only when it was done in an exclusive manner, as one student from Talca explained, “Las malasmanerasesestudiarestructurasgramaticales y reglas sin poderlaspracticar en diálogos mas complejos” (Bad ways are studying grammatical structures and rules without being able to practice them in more complex dialogs). Another student from the University of Andrés Bello wrote, “No me parecemuybueno solo aprenderreglasgramaticalesporque, por lo menosyo, tengograndesdificultadesparaconversar en inglés” (I don't think it's very good to only learn grammatical rules because at least for me, I find conversing in English to be very difficult).
A number of students classified grammar as “fundamental.” This contrasts with participants’ emphatic rejection of rote memory activities. This type of activity stands out as being by far the most mentioned type of activity in the open question about participants’ opinions on ways of studying and learning English (see Table 4), although the average frequency reported indicates that these activities were relatively uncommon in class (see Table 1). Almost all of the explanations given had to do with a lack of meaning: “Me parecemalasmaneras el hecho de tenerquememorizar y recitaralgoquetalvez no entiendo....” (I think having to memorize and recite something that maybe I don't understand is a bad way) (University of Talca student).
For many, the word “memorize” is in opposition to the concept of acquisition. As one student from Rancagua indicated, “Lo que me parece mal esmemorizar y recitaralgo, porque de verdad no estasaprendiendo nada” (What seems bad to me is to memorize and recite something, because you’re not really learning anything), and another from Southern University of Chile: “Casitodas son buenasactividadesexceptuando lo de ‘Memorizar y recitar’, porquememorizando no se aprende” (Almost all of the activities are good except for ‘memorization and recitation,’ because you don’t learn by memorizing).
Other participants said that memorized items are quickly forgotten, as in the words of one student from the Autonomous Southern University, “...Aprendiendo de memoria, yaque con frecuencia se olvida, a mi juicioesmejoraprenderla formula y luegoaplicarla” (...Memorization, because you often forget it, in my opinion it’s better to learn the formula and then apply it). Memorization appears to be conceived of as something that has no meaning or context or application for the student. One independent learner explained that memorization lacks the ingredient of effort that is necessary to make something memorable:
Heaprendido mucho máscuandotengodudas o problemas con el vocabulario y estructurasgramaticales, buscandorespuesta en diccionarios o con personas quemanejanmásconocimientosqueyo, eso no lo olvidomás, debeser el aprendizajeproducto de la experiencia(I have learned much more when I am confused about or have problems with vocabulary and grammatical structures, looking for an answer in dictionaries or from people who know more than I do, this you don't forget, learning should be the product of experience).
The commentaries of the few (nine) who indicated that memorization can be useful suggested that memorization is necessary in order to do things such as learn verb conjugations. Another commentary, from a student of the University of Andrés Bello, was that memorizing and reciting something serves as good pronunciation practice. This student added that it is good to exercise one’s memory.
The second most frequent activity of the list of five is small group work. When participants explained why they considered small group work to be a good way to study English, they showed that for them small group work means conversation practice. Some mentioned the help and the attention of classmates that is possible through small group work, as one student from the University of Rancagua said, “Me parecemuybuena forma de estudiar ingles creandodialogos y trabajando en pequeñosgruposparafortalecerposiblesdebilidadesjunto a compañeros” (I think it is very good to study English by creating dialogues and working in small groups to work on one’s weaknesses together with one’s classmates). Another student from that University wrote, “Lo buenesquecomotrabajamos en grupopodemosaudarnosmutuamente en lasfalenciasque se presentan” (The good thing is that since we work in groups we can help each other in whatever problems we have).