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Community Language Learning

(Charles Curran)

Background

In the early seventies, Charles Curran developed a new education model he called "Counseling-Learning". This was essentially an example of an innovative model that primarily considered affective factors as paramount in the learning process. Drawing on Carl Rogers' view that learners were to be considered not as a class, but as a group, Curran's philosophy dictated that students were to be thought of as "clients" - their needs being addressed by a "counselor" in the form of the teacher. Brown (1994:59), in commenting on this approach also notes that "In order for any learning to take place ... what is first needed is for the members to interact in an interpersonal relationship in which students and teacher join together to facilitate learning in a context of valuing and prizing each individual in the group." Curran was best known for his extensive studies on adult learning, and some of the issues he tried to address were the threatening nature of a new learning situation to many adult learners and the anxiety created when students feared making "fools" of themselves. Curran believed that the counseling-learning model would help lower the instinctive defenses adult learners throw up, that the anxiety caused by the educational context could be decreased through the support of an interactive community of fellow learners. Another important goal was for the teacher to be perceived as an empathetic helping agent in the learning process, not a threat.

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.

As the name indicates, CLL derives its primary insights, and indeed its organizing rationale, from Rogerian counseling. Counseling, as Rogerians see it, consists of one individual (the counselor) assuming "insofar as he is able the internal frame of reference [of the client], perceiving the world as that person sees it and communicating something of this empathetic understanding" (Rogers 1951). In lay terms, counseling is one person giving advice, assistance, and support to another who has a problem or is in some way in need. Community Language Learning draws on the counseling metaphor to redefine the roles of the teacher (the counselor) and learners (the client?) in the language classroom. The basic procedures of CLL can thus be seen as derived from the counselor-client relationship.



Consider the following CLL procedures:

· A group of learners sit in a circle with the teacher standing outside the circle;

· a student whispers a message in the native language (LI);

· the teacher translates it into the foreign language (L2);

· the student repeats the message in the foreign language into a cassette;

· students compose further messages in the foreign language with the teacher's help;

· students reflect about their feelings.

We can compare the client—counselor relationship psychological counseling with the learner—knower relationship in Community Language Learning

COMPARISON OF CLIENT-COUNSELOR RELATIONSHIPS IN PSYCHO­LOGICAL COUNSELING AND CLL

Psychological counseling (client-counselor) Community Language Learning (learner-knower)
1. Client and counselor agree [con­tract] to counseling. 1. Learner and knower agree to language learning.
2. Client articulates his or her prob­lem in language of affect. 2. Learner presents to the knower (in LI) a message he or she wishes to deliver to another.
3. Counselor listens carefully. 3. Knower listens and other learners overhear.
4. Counselor restates client message in language of cognition. 4. Knower restates learner's message in L2.
5. Client evaluates the accuracy of counselor's message restatement. 5. Learner repeats the L2 message form to its addressee.
6. Client reflects on the interaction of the counseling session. 6. Learner raptors (fromtape or memory) and reflects upon the messages exchanged during the language class.

 

The Counseling-Learning educational model was also applied to language learning, and in this form it became known as Community Language Learning. Based on most of the principles above, Community Language Learning seeks to encourage teachers to see their students as "whole" persons, where their feelings, intellect, interpersonal relationships, protective reactions, and desire to learn are addressed and balanced. Students typically sit in a circle, with the teacher (as counselor) outside the ring. They use their first language to develop an interpersonal relationship based on trust with the other students. When a student wants to say something, they first say it in their native language, which the teacher then translates back to them using the target language. The student then attempts to repeat the English used by the teacher, and then a student can respond using the same process. This technique is used over a considerable period of time, until students are able to apply words in the new language without translation, gradually moving from a situation of dependence on the teacher-counselor to a state of independence.CLL techniques also belong to a larger set of foreign language teaching practices sometimes described as humanistic techniques (Moskowitz 1978). Moskowitz defines humanistic techniques as those that blend what the student feels, thinks and knows with what he is learning in the target language. Rather than self-denial being the acceptable way of life, self-actualization and self-esteem are the ideals the exercises pursue. [The techniques] help build rapport, cohesiveness, and caring that far transcend what is already there... help students to be themselves, to accept themselves, and be proud of themselves... help foster a climate of caring and sharing in the foreign language class. (Moskowitz 1978: 2)

In sum, humanistic techniques engage the whole person, including the emotions and feelings (the affective realm) as well as linguistic knowledge and behavioral skills.

Another language teaching tradition with which Community Language Learning is linked is a set of practices used in certain kinds of bilingual education programmes and referred to by Mackey (1972) as "language alternation." In language alternation, a message/lesson/class is presented first in the native tongue and then again in the second language. Students know the meaning and flow of an L2 message from their recall of the parallel meaning and flow of an L1 message. They begin to holistically piece together a view of the language out of these message sets. In CLL, a learner presents a message in L1 to the knower. The message is translated into L2 by the knower. The learner then repeats the message in L2, addressing it to another learner with whom he or she wishes to communicate. CLL learners are encouraged to attend to the "overhears" they experience between other learners and their knowers. The result of the "overhear" is that every member of the group can understand what any given learner is trying to communicate (La Forge 1983: 45). In view of the reported success of language alternation pro­cedures in several well-studied bilingual education settings (e.g., Lim 1968; Mackey 1972), it may be that this little-discussed aspect of CLL accounts for more of the informally reported successes of CLL students than is usually acknowledged.

Approach

· Theory of language

Curran himself wrote little about his theory, of language. His .student La Forge (1983) has attempted to be more explicit about this dimension of Community Language Learning theory, and we draw on his account for the language theory underlying the method. La Forge reviews lin­guistic theory as a prelude to presenting the CLL model of language. He seems to accept that language theory must start, though not end, with criteria for sound features, the sentence, and abstract models of language (La Forge 1983: 4). The foreign language learners' tasks are "to apprehend the sound system, assign fundamental meanings, and to construct a basic grammar of the foreign language.'' He cites with pride that "after several months a small group of students was able to learn the basic sound and grammatical patterns of German" (1983: 47).

A theory of language built on "basic sound and grammatical patterns" does not appear to suggest any departures from traditional structuralist positions on the nature of language. However, the recent writings of CLL proponents deal at great length with what they call an alternative theory of language, which is referred to as Language as Social Process.

La Forge (1983) begins by suggesting that language as social process is "different from language as communication." We are led to infer that the concept of communication that La Forge rejects is the classic sender-message-receiver model in information theory. The social-process model is different from earlier information-transmitting models, La Forge sug­gests, because

Communication is more than just a message being transmitted from a speaker it at the same time both subject and object of his own message….communication involves not just the unidirectional transfer of information to the other, but the very constitution of the speaking subject in relation to its other. . . . Communication is an exchange which is incom­plete without a feedback reaction from the destinee of the message. (La Forge 1983: 3)

The social-process view of language is then elaborated in terms of six qualities or subprocesses:

1. The whole-person process

2. The educational process

3. The interpersonal process

4. The developmental process

5. The communicative process

6. The cultural process

La Forge also elaborates on the interactional view of language un­derlying Community Language Learning . "Language is people; language is persons in contact; language is persons in response" (1983: 9), CLL interactions are of two distinct and fundamental kinds: interactions between learners and interactions between learners and knowers. Interactions between learners are unpredictable in content but typically are said to 'involve exchanges of affect. Learner exchanges deepen in intimacy as the class becomes a community of learners.

The desire to be part of this growing intimacy pushes learners to keep pace with the learning of their peers. Tranel (1968) notes that "the students of the experimental group were highly motivated to learn in order to avoid isolation from the group." Intimacy then appears to be defined here as the desire to avoid isolation.

Interaction between learners and knowers is initially dependent. The learner tells the knower what he or she wishes to say in the target language, and the knower tells the learner how to say it. In later stages interactions between learner and knower are characterized as self-as­sertive (stage 2), resentful and indignant (stage 3), tolerant (stage 4), and independent (stage 5). These changes of interactive relationship are paralleled by five stages of language learning and five stages of affective conflicts (La Forge 1983: 50).

These two types of interactions may be said to be microcosmically equivalent to the two major classes of human interaction — interaction between equals (symmetrical) and interaction between unequals (asymetrical) (Munby 1978). They also appear to represent examples of (a) interaction that changes in degree(learner to learner) and (b) interaction that changes in kind (learner to knower). That is, learner-learner interaction is held to change in the direction of increasing intimacy and trust, whereas learner-knower interaction is held to change in its very nature from dependent to resentful to tolerant to independent.

Verbal Sender è Message èReceiver Verbal/Nonverbal Sender è Message èReceiver

Comparison of the information-transmission model (left) and the social-process model (right) of communication

· Theory of learning

Curran's counseling experience led him to conclude that the techniques of counseling could be applied to learning in general (this became Counseling-Learning) and to language teaching in particular (Community Language Learning). The CLL view of learning is contrasted with two other types of learning, which Curran saw as widespread and undesir­able. The first of these describes a putative learning view long popular in Western culture. In this view, "the intellectual and factual process alone are regarded as the-main intent of learning, to the neglect of engagement and involvement of the self" (Curran 1972: 58). The second view of learning is the behavioral view. Curran refers to this kind of learning as "animal learning," in which learners are "passive" and their involvement limited (Curran 1976: 84).

In contrast, CLL advocates a holistic approach to language learning, since "true" human learning is both cognitive and affective. This is termed whole-person learning. Such learning takes place in a commu­nicative situation where teachers and learners are involved in -"an in­teraction ... in which both experience a sense of their own wholeness" (Curran 1972: 90). Within this, the development of the learner's rela­tionship with the teacher is central. The process is divided into five stages and compared to the ontogenetic development of the child.

In the first, "birth" stage, feelings of security and belonging are es­tablished. In the second, as the learner's abilities improve, the learner, as child, begins to achieve a measure of independence from the parent. By the third, the learner "speaks independently" and may need to assert his, or her own identity, often rejecting unasked-for advice. The fourth stage sees the learner as secure enough to take criticism, and by the last stage, the learner merely works upon improving style and knowledge of linguistic appropriateness. By the end of the process, the child has become adult. The learner knows everything the teacher does and can become knower for a new learner. The process of learning a new language, then, is like being reborn and developing a new persona, with all the trials and challenges that are associated with birth and maturation. Insofar as language learning is thought to develop through creating social rela­tionships, success in language learning follows from a successful rela­tionship between learner and teacher, and learner and learner. "Learning is viewed as a unified, personal and social experience." The learner "is no longer seen as learning in isolation and in competition with others" (Curran 1972: 11-12).

Curran in many places discusses what he calls "consensual valida­tion," or "convalidation," in which mutual warmth, understanding, and a positive evaluation of the other person's worth develops be­tween the teacher and the learner. A relationship characterized by con-validation is considered essential to the learning process and is a key element of CLL classroom procedures. A group of ideas concerning the psychological requirements for successful learning are collected under the acronym SARD (Curran 1976: 6), which can be explained/as follows.

S stands for security. Unless learners feel secure, they will find it difficult to enter into a successful learning experience.

A stands for attention and aggression. CLL recognizes that a loss of attention should be taken as an indication of the learner's lack of in­volvement in learning, the implication being that variety in the choice of learner tasks will increase attention and therefore promote learning.

Aggression applies to the way in which a child, having learned something, seeks an opportunity to show his or her strength by taking over and demonstrating what has been learned, using the new knowledge as a tool for self-assertion.

R stands for retention and reflection. If the whole person is involved in the learning process, what is retained is internalized and becomes a part of the learner's new persona in the foreign language. Reflection is a consciously identified period of silence within the framework of the lesson for the student "to focus on the learning forces of the last hour, to assess his present stage of development, and to re-evaluate future goals" (La Forge 1983: 68). .

D denotes discrimination. When learners "have retained a body of material, they are ready to sort it out and see how one thing relates to another" (La Forge 1983: 69). This discrimination process becomes more refined and ultimately "enables the students to use the language for purposes of communication outside the classroom" (La Forge 1983: 69).

These central aspects of Curran's learning philosophy address not the psycholinguistic and cognitive processes involved in second language acquisition, but rather the personal commitments that learners need to make before language acquisition processes can operate. CLL learning theory hence stands in marked contrast to linguistically or psycholinguistically based learned theories, such as those informing Audiolingualism or the Natural Approach.

· Objectives

The Community Language Learning method does not just attempt to teach students how to use another language communicatively, it also tries to encourage the students to take increasingly more responsibility for their own learning, and to "learn about their learning", so to speak. Learning in a nondefensive manner is considered to be very important, with teacher and student regarding each other as a "whole person" where intellect and ability are not separated from feelings. The initial struggles with learning the new language are addressed by creating an environment of mutual support, trust and understanding between both learner-clients and the teacher-councelor.

Key Features

The Community Language Learning method involves some of the following features:

· Students are to be considered as "learner-clients" and the teacher as a "teacher-councelor".

· A relationship of mutual trust and support is considered essential to the learning process.

· Students are permitted to use their native language, and are provided with translations from the teacher which they then attempt to apply.

· Grammar and vocabulary are taught inductively.

· "Chunks" of target language produced by the students are recorded and later listened to - they are also transcribed with native language equivalents to become texts the students work with.

· Students apply the target language independently and without translation when they feel inclined / confident enough to do so.

· Students are encouraged to express not only how they feel about the language, but how they feel about the learning process, to which the teacher expresses empathy and understanding.

· A variety of activities can be included (for example, focusing on a particular grammar or pronunciation point, or creating new sentences based on the recordings/transcripts).

Typical Techniques

Larsen-Freeman, in her book Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching (1986:45-47) provides expanded descriptions of some common/typical techniques closely associated with Community Language Learning. As with most methods, CLL combines innovative learning tasks and activities with conventional ones. They include:

The listing here is in summary form only.

· Tape Recording Student Conversation

(Students choose what they want to say, and their target language production is recorded for later listening/dissemination)

· Transcription

(Teacher produces a transcription of the tape-recorded conversation with translations in the mother language - this is then used for follow up activities or analysis)

· Reflection on Experience

(Teacher takes time during or after various activities to allow students to express how they feel about the language and the learning experience, and the teacher indicates empathy/understanding. Learners reflect and report on their experience of the class, as a class or in groups. This usually consists of expressions of feelings - sense of one another, reactions to silence, concern for something to say, etc.)

· Reflective Listening

(Students listen to their own voices on the tape in a relaxed and reflective environment)

· Human Computer

(Teacher is a "human computer" for the students to control - the teacher stating anything in the target language the student wants to practice, giving them the opportunity to self correct)

· Small Group Tasks

(Students work in small groups to create new sentences using the transcript, afterwards sharing them with the rest of the class. Learners may engage in various group tasks, such as small-group discussion of a topic, preparing a conversation, preparing a sum­mary of a topic for presentation to another group, preparing a story that will be presented to the teacher and the rest of the class.)

· Translation. Learners form a small circle. A learner whispers a message or meaning he or she wants to express, the teacher translates it into (and may interpret it in) the target language, and the learner repeats the teach­er's translation.

· Recording. Students record conversations in the target language.

· Transcription. Students transcribe utterances and conversations they have recorded for practice and analysis of linguistic forms.

· Analysis. Students analyze and study transcriptions of target language sen­tences in order to focus on particular lexical usage or on the application of particular grammar rules.

· Listening. Students listen to a monologue by the teacher involving ele­ments they might have elicited or overheard in class interactions.

· Free conversation. Students engage in ´free conversation with' the teacher or with other learners. This might include discussion of what they learned as well as feelings they had about how they learned.

Design

· Objectives

Since linguistic or communicative competence is specified only in social terms, explicit linguistic or communicative objectives are not defined in the literature on Community Language Learning. Most of what has been written about CLL describes its use in introductory conversation courses in a foreign language. The assumption seems to be that through the method, the teacher can successfully transfer his or her knowledge and proficiency in the target language to the learners, which implies that attaining near-native like mastery of the target language is set as a goal. Specific objectives are not addressed.

· The syllabus

Community Language Learning is most often used in the teaching of oral proficiency, but with some modifications it may be used in the teaching of writing, as Tranel (1968) has demonstrated. CLL does not use a conventional language syllabus, which sets out in advance the grammar, vocabulary, and other language items to be taught and the order in which they will be covered. If a course is based on Curran's recommended procedures, the course progression is topic based, with learners nominating things they wish to talk about and messages they wish to communicate to other learners. The teacher's responsibility is to provide a conveyance for these meanings in a way appropriate to the learners' proficiency level. Although CLL is not explicit about this, skilled CLL teachers seem to sift the learners´ intentions through the teacher's implicit syllabus, providing translations that match what learners can be expected to do and say at that level. In this sense then a CLL syllabus emerges from the interaction between the learner's expressed commu­nicative intentions and the teacher's reformulations of these into suitable target language utterances. Specific grammatical points, lexical patterns, and generalizations will sometimes be isolated by the teacher for more detailed, study and analysis, and subsequent specification of these as a retrospective account of what the course covered could be a way of deriving a CLL language syllabus. Each CLL course would evolve its own syllabus, however, since what develops out of teacher-learner in­teractions in one course will be different from what happens in another.

· Learner roles

In Community Language Learning, learners become members of a community - their fellow learners and the teacher - and learn through in­teracting with members of the community. Learning is not viewed as an individual accomplishment but as something that is achieved collaboratively. Learners are expected to listen attentively to the knower, to freely provide meanings they wish to express, to repeat target utterances without hesitation, to support fellow members of the community, to report deep inner feelings and frustrations as well as joy and pleasure, and to become counselors to other learners. CLL learners are typically grouped in a circle of six to twelve learners, with the number of knowers varying from one per group to one per student. CLL has also been used in larger schools classes where special grouping arrangements are necessary, such as organizing learners in temporary pairs in facing parallel lines.

Learner roles are keyed to the five stages of language learning outlined earlier. The view of the learner is an organic one, with each new role growing developmentally out of the one preceding. These role changes are not easily or automatically achieved. They are in fact seen as out­comes of affective crises.

When faced with a new cognitive task, the learner must solve an affective crisis. With the solution of the five affective crises, one for each CLL stage, the student progresses from a lower to a higher stage of development. (La Forge 1983: 44)

Learning is a "whole person" process, and the learner at each stage is involved not just in the accomplishment of cognitive (language learning) tasks but in the solution of affective conflicts and “the respect for the enactment of values" as well (La Forge 1983: 55).

CLL compares language learning to the stages of human growth.

In stage 1 the learner is like an infant, completely dependent on the knower for linguistic content. "A new self of the learner is generated or born in the target language" (La Forge 1983:45). The learner repeats utterances made by the teacher in the target language and "overhears" the inter­changes between other learners and knowers.

In stage 2 the "child achieves a measure of independence from the parent" (La forge 1983:46), Learners begin to establish their own self-affirmation and independence by using simple expressions and phrases they have previously heard.

In stage 3, "the separate-existence stage," learners begin to understand others directly in the target language. Learners will resent uninvited assistance provided by the knower/parent at this stage.

Stage 4 may be considered "a kind of adolescence." The learner func­tions independently, although his or her knowledge of the foreign lan­guage is still rudimentary. The role of "psychological understanding" shifts from knower to learner. The learner must learn how to elicit from the knower the advanced level of linguistic knowledge the knower possesses.

Stage 5 is called "the independent stage." Learners refine their un­derstanding of register as well as grammatically correct language use. They may become counselors to less advanced students while profiting from contact with their original knower.

Teacher roles

At the deepest level, the teacher’s function derives from the functions of the counselor in Rogerian psychological counseling. A counselor’s clients are people with problems, who in a typical counseling session will often use emotional language to communicate their difficulties to the counselor. The counselor's role is to respond calmly and non-judgmentally, in a supportive manner, and help the client try to understand his or her problems better by applying order and analysis to them. The counselor is not responsible for paraphrasing the client's problem ele­ment for element but rather for capturing the essence of the client's concern, such that the client might say, "Yes, that's exactly what I meant." "One of the functions of the counseling response is to relate affect... to cognition. Understanding the language of 'feeling', the coun­selor replies in the language of cognition" (Curran 1976: 26). It was the model of teacher as counselor that Curran attempted to bring to language learning.

There is also room for actual counseling in Community Language Learning. Explicit recognition is given to the psychological problems that may arise in learning a second language. "Personal learning conflicts ... anger, anxiety and similar psychological disturbance - understood and responded to by the teacher's counseling sensitivity - are indicators of deep personal investment" (J. Rardin, in Curran 1976: 103). In this case, the teacher is expected to play a role very close to that of the "regular" counselor. The teacher's response may be of a different order of detachment, consideration, and understanding from that of the av­erage teacher in the same circumstances.

More specific teacher roles are, like those of the students, keyed to the five developmental stages. In the early stages of learning the teacher operates in a supportive role, providing target language translations and a model for imitation on request of the clients. Later, interaction may be initiated by the students, and the teacher monitors learner utterances, providing assistance when requested. As learning progresses, students become increasingly capable of accepting criticism, and the teacher may intervene directly to correct deviant utterances, supply idioms, and advise on usage and fine points of grammar. The teacher's role is initially likened to that of a nurturing parent. The student gradually "grows"' In ability, and the nature of the relationship changes so that the teacher's position becomes somewhat dependent upon the learner. The knower derives a sense of self-worth through requests for the knower's assistance.

One continuing role of the teacher is particularly notable in Com­munity Language Learning. The teacher is responsible for providing a safe environment in which clients can learn and grow. Learners, feeling secure, are free to direct their energies to the tasks of communication and learning rather than to building and maintaining their defensive positions. Curran describes the importance of a secure atmosphere as follows

As whole persons, we seem to learn best in an atmosphere of personal secu­rity. Feeling secure, we are freed to approach the learning situation with the attitude of willing openness., Both the learner's and the knower's level of se­curity determine the psychological tone of the entire learning experience. (Curran 1976: 6)

Many of the newer nontraditional teaching methods stress teacher responsibility for creating and maintaining a secure environment for learning; probably no method attaches greater importance to this aspect of language learning than does Community Language Learning. Thus, it is interesting to note two "asides" in the discussion of learning security in CLL.

First, security is a culturally relative concept. What provides a sense of security in one cultural context may produce anxiety in another. La Forge gives as an example the different patterns of personal introduction and how these are differentially expressed and experienced in early stages of CLL among students of different backgrounds. "Each culture had unique forms which provide for acquaintance upon forming new groups. These must be carefully adopted so as to provide cultural security for the students of the foreign language" (La Forge 1983: 66).

Second, it may be undesirable to create too secure an environment for learners. "The security of the students is never absolute: otherwise no learning would occur" (La Forge 1983: 65). This is reminiscent of the teacher who says, "My students would never learn anything if the fear of examination failure didn’t drive them to it." How much insecurity is optimal for language learning in Community Language Learning is unfortunately not further discussed in the literature.

· The role of instructional materials

Since a CLL course evolves out of the interactions of the community, a textbook is not considered a necessary component. A textbook would impose a particular body of language content on the learners, thereby impeding their growth and interaction. Materials may be developed by the teacher as the course develops, although these generally consist of little more than summaries on the blackboard or overhead projector of some of the linguistic features of conversations generated by students. Conversations may also be transcribed and distributed for study and analysis, and learners may work in groups to produce their own ma­terials, such as scripts for dialogues and mini-dramas.

In early accounts of CLL the use of teaching machines (the Chromachord Teaching System) is recommended for necessary "rote-drill and practice" in language learning. "The... design and use of machines...now appear[s] to make possible the freeing of the teacher to do what only a human person can do... become a learning counselor" (Curran 976: 6). In more recent CLL descriptions (e.g., La Forge 1983) teaching machines and their accompanying materials are not mentioned, and we assume that contemporary CLL classes do not use teaching machines at all.

Procedure

Since each Community Language Learning course is in a sense a unique experience, description of typical CLL procedures in a class period is problematic. Stevick distinguishes between "classical" CLL (based di­rectly on the model proposed by, Gurran) and personal interpretations of it, such as those discussed by different advocates of CLL (e.g., La Forge 1983). The following description attempts to capture some typical activities in CLL classes.

Generally the observer will see a circle of learners all facing one an­other. The learners are linked in some way to knowers or a single knower as teacher. The first class (and subsequent classes) may begin with a period of silence, in which learners try to determine what is supposed to happen in their language class. In later classes, learners may sit in silence while they decide what to talk about (La Forge 1983:72). The observer may note that the awkwardness of silence becomes sufficiently agonizing for someone to volunteer to break the silence. The knower may use the volunteered comment as a way of introducing discussion of classroom contacts or as a stimulus for language interaction regarding how learners felt about the period of silence. The knower may encourage learners to address questions to one another or to the knower. These may be questions on any subject a learner is curious enough to inquire about. The questions and answers may be tape recorded for later use, as reminder and review of topics discussed and language used.

The teacher might then form the class into facing lines for three-minute pair conversations. These are seen as equivalent to the brief wrestling sessions by which judo students practice. Following this the class might be reformed into small groups in which a single topic, chosen by the class or the group, is discussed. The summary of the group discussion may be presented to another group, who in turn try to repeat or para­phrase the summary back to the original group.

In an intermediate or advanced class a teacher may encourage groups to prepare a paper drama for presentation to the rest of the class. A paper drama group prepares a story that is told or shown to the counselor. The counselor provides or corrects target language statements and suggests improvements to the story sequence. Students are then given materials with which they prepare large picture cards to accompany their story. After practicing the story dialogue and preparing the accom­panying pictures, each group presents its paper drama to the rest of the class. The students accompany their story with music, puppets, and drums as well as with their pictures (La Forge 1983: 81-2).

Finally, the teacher asks learners to reflect on the language class, as a class or in groups. Reflection provides the basis for discussion of contracts (written or oral contracts that learners and teachers have agreed upon and that specify what they agree to accomplish within the course), personal interaction, feelings toward the knower and learner, and the sense of progress and frustration.

Dieter Stroinigg (in Stevick 1980: 185-6) presents a protocol of what a first day's CLL class covered which is outlined here:

1. Informal greetings and self-introductions were made.

2. The teacher made a statement of the goals and guidelines for the course.

3. A conversation session in the foreign language took place.

a. A circle was formed so that everyone had visual contact with each other and all were in easy reach of a tape recorder microphone,

b. One student initiated conversation with another student by giving a message in the L1 (English).

c. The instructor, standing behind the student, whispered a close equivalent of the message in the L2 (German).

d. The student then repeated the L2 message to its addressee and into the tape recorder microphone as well.

e. Each student had a chance to compose and record a few messages

f. The tape recorder was rewound and replayed at intervals.

g. Each student repeated the meaning in English of what he or she had said in the L2 and helped to refresh the memory of others.

4. Students then participated in a reflection period, in which they were asked to express their feelings about the previous experience with total frankness.

5. From the material just recorded the instructor chose sentences to write on the blackboard that highlighted elements of grammar, spelling, and pecul­iarities of capitalization in the L2.

6. Students were encouraged to ask questions about any of the above.

7. Students were encouraged to copy sentences from the board with notes on meaning and usage. This became their "textbook" for home study.

This inventory of activities encompasses the major suggestions for class­room practices appearing in the most recent literature on CLL. Other procedures, however, may emerge fortuitously on the basis of learner—knower interactions in the classroom context.

Conclusion

Community Language Learning is the most responsive of the methods we have reviewed in terms of its sensitivity to learned communicative intent. It should be noted, however, that this communicative intent is constrained by the number and knowledge of fellow learners. A learner's desire to understand or express technical terms used in aeronautical engineering is unlikely to receive adequate response ill the CLL class. Community Language Learning places unusual demands on language teachers. They must be highly proficient and sensitive to nuance in both L1 and L2. They must be familiar with and sympathetic to the role of counselors in psychological counseling. They must resist the pressure "to teach" in the traditional senses. As one CLL teacher notes, "I had to relax completely and to exclude my own will to produce something myself. I had to exclude any function of forming or formulating some­thing within me, not trying to do something"(Curran 1976: 33).

The teacher must also be relatively nondirective and must be prepared to accept and even encourage the "adolescent" aggression of the learner as he or she strives for independence. The teacher must operate without conventional materials, depending on student topics to shape and mo­tivate the class. In addition, the teacher must be prepared to deal with potentially hostile learner reactions to the method. The teacher must also be culturally sensitive and prepared to redesign tile language class into more culturally compatible organizational forms. And the teacher must attempt to learn these new roles and skills without much specific guidance from CLL texts presently available. Special framing in Com­munity Language Learning techniques is usually required.

Critics of Community Language Learning question the appropriate­ness of the counseling metaphor upon which it is predated, asking for evidence that language learning ;in classrooms indeed parallels the proc­esses that characterize psychological counseling. Questions also arise about whether teachers should attempt counseling without special train­ing. CLL procedures were largely developed and tested with groups of college-age Americans. The problems and successes experienced by one or two different client groups may not necessarily represent language learning universals. Other concerns have been expressed regarding the lack of a syllabus, which makes objectives unclear and evaluation difficult to accomplish, and the focus on fluency rather than accuracy, which may lead to inadequate control of the grammatical system of the target language. Supporters of CLL, on the other hand, emphasize the positive benefits of a method that centers on the learner and, stresses the humanistic side of language learning, and not merely its linguistic dimensions.

De-suggestopedia

(G. Lozanov)

Dr.Georgi Lozanov of the Institute of Suggestology in Sofia, Bulgaria is, together with his colleagues, the originator of these techniques. SUGGESTOLOGY is the study of the power of suggestion which can be verbal, non-verbal, conscious or unconscious.

What is De-suggestopedia?

We are constantly, surrounded by suggestive influences. If we study them and become aware of them, then we are in a better position to “choose” which ones we want to influence us. Lozanov maintains that a suggestopedic teacher spends most of the time de-suggesting the students, i.e., freeing them from any nonfacilitating influences from their past. From birth on we are influenced by parents, friends, teachers, society, the media, the weather, the food we eat and the political environment in which we live.

SUGGESTOPEDIA is the study of these suggestive factors in a learning situation.

It is an approach to education whose primary objective is to tap the extraordinary reserve capacities we all possess but rarely if ever use. This method utilises techniques from many sources of research into how best we can learn. The Bulgarian scientist, Dr. Georgi Lozanov, for example, has demonstrated that through a carefully “orchestrated” learning environment including most importantly a specially-trained teacher, the learning process can be accelerated by a factor of three to ten times enjoyably. Such results are possible through the proper use of suggestion. The suggestive-desuggestive processallows students to go beyond previously held beliefs and self-limiting concepts concerning the learning process and learn great quantities of material with ease and enjoyment.


Date: 2016-01-03; view: 1814


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