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BRAZ-TESOLjun’2006newsletter

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ISSN 1516-182X

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BRAZ-TESOLnewsletter 3

contents editorial

Articles

4 Questioning the lexical approach - part 2

> Ron Martinez

8 Generating student motivation

> Michael Rost

14 Seven ways of making classroom language

learning difficult - part 2

> Dick Allwright

18 Speaking: just do it?

> Christiane Khatchadourian

The 10th National Braz-Tesol Convention

12 Register now!

Dear BRAZ-TESOL colleague,

When we announced on the March cover that

you should “get ready for an exciting new year”,

we really meant it! As you know, BRAZ-TESOL is

celebrating its 20th anniversary, which makes the

2006 National Convention all the more special.

If you haven’t registered, there’s still time. Access

www.braztesol.org.br and sign up now! Some

of the most renowned speakers in our field will

be there.

One of these speakers has actually contributed

a piece to the June issue of the newsletter.

I’m talking about Ron

Martinez and the

second part of the

Questioning the Lexical

Approach FAQ, in

which he discusses

what it really means

to teach lexically.

Drawing on some of

the issues raised by

Ron, Christiane

Khatchadourian, in

Speaking: Just Do It?, considers the role of spoken

discourse in the classroom and argues that it’s

time we treated speaking as a skill its own right.

This issue also features the second installment of

Dick Allwright’s Seven Ways of Making Language

Learning Difficult and Michael Rost’s ideas for

Generating Student Motivation, both of which

underscore the importance of the affective aspects

of language learning.

I hope you enjoy the articles and the new layout

of our 20th anniversary edition. Feel free to drop

us a line at [email protected]

with your comments, questions and suggestions.

Thank you for your support over the years.

See you in Brasilia!

Luiz Otávio Barros

Newsletter Editor

BRAZ-TESOL NEWSLETTER, ISSN 1516-182X, is a quarterly publication of BRAZ-TESOL, the professional organization of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages in Brazil. It is distributed free of charge to individual and institutional members of BRAZ-TESOL.

BRAZ-TESOL GENERAL COUNCIL

Executive Board President Bob Carrington

1st Vice-president Marcelo Barros

2nd Vice-president Luiz Otávio de Barros Souza

Secretary Maria do Socorro Guimarães

Treasurer Albina Escobar

Advisory Council Albina Escobar, Ana Falcão, Anna Szabo, Bob Lewis, Carmen Lucas, Daniel Martins, Donald Occhiuzzo, Maria Nilce Pontes, Nadia Sarkis, Piri Szabo, Sara Walker, Vera Bradford, Vilma Sampaio de Oliveira

Academic Committee: Isabela Villas Boas, Inez Woortmann and Paulo Kol

Organizing Committee: Sara Walker, Mariza Troncoso, Marcelo Eliasand Shaun Dowling

Graphic Design and Desktop Publishing

Claudia Ranzini | Prata Design Gráfico

BRAZ-TESOL represents over 3,000 teachers of English in Brazil.

For membership information, please contact BRAZ-TESOL Membership Committee:

Av. 9 de Julho, 3166 - Jardins - São Paulo - SP CEP 01406-900

Phone/Fax: +55 (11) 3559-8782 / E-mail: [email protected]

Web site: www.braztesol.org.br


I would like to teach using a Lexical Approach,

but the schedule and book I use don’t allow for

any “variation” from the syllabus/schedule.

I think one of the main Lexical Approach preceptsis getting students to start noticing lexis, particularlychunks of language, or at least to see vocabulary asmore than individual words. I think this can take upjust a few extra seconds per lesson, therefore makingyour situation an adaptable one. For example, let’ssay you’re teaching a lesson on food items (probablywithin the context of “countable vs. uncountablenouns”!) Instead of just teaching “milk,” “cheese,”

“water” and “eggs” on their own, howabout eliciting a few collocates (“____went sour,” “grated ____,” “a glass of_____,” etc.) Such lexical explorationtakes just seconds, in fact. However, thetricky part might be the homework/recycling/quizzing etc. part of thosechunks which were noticed and evenrecorded. In other words, the re-focus-

ing of the input might be trickier with a highlyrestrictive and institutionalized lesson planning/revision/testing system. So there may be a dilemmathere. One solution is to actually incorporate thatrevision into subsequent activities, input and output-oriented alike. It takes a little more planning,but the payoff is worth it, I think. For more ideas on how you can take “baby steps” to incorporate the Lexical Approach into even the tightest of syllabuses, have a look at Teaching Collocation andImplementing the Lexical Approach (both published byThomson).

article

Questioning the Lexical ApproachIn this article, Ron Martinez continues

his discussion of the tenets of the

Lexical Approach, based on some of

the queries and comments made in

his Orkut community.

by Ron Martinez

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CONVEN

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SPEAKER


What is the role of teacher’s spoken output in the

Lexical Approach?

As Lewis writes, “Teachers tend to accept, and evenpraise, well-formed sentences which are possible, butimplausible or unnatural.” This is one of the most difficult areas to prepare teachers for, and, unfortu-nately for non-native speakers of English (and evennative speakers who have lived outside their nativelands for extended time periods), it’s somethingnative speakers are generally better at monitoring.Inevitably, and I include myself in this statement,over-exposure to the learners’ L1 and its patterns ofinterference in the L2 will lead to a kind of desensi-tization of what the teacher hears as “strange.” Thisproblem arises especially in monolingual classrooms.If it’s hard for me to still notice it when students saythings like “I don’t like industrialized foods” or“There’s a good self-service in this shopping” imaginefor a non-native. Not that such “mistakes” are so badfor Brazilians talking to otherBrazilians, or even Brazilians talkingto other South Americans, but theproblem arises when it’s a Braziliantalking to a Japanese, or a Braziliantalking to an Arab. That little mentalred flag that pops up in a teacher’shead and reads “That doesn’t soundright” is paramount to teacher out-put awareness. That said, I also thinkthat natives (especially) can go to theextreme, overcorrecting perfectlynatural English just because it does-n’t sound like London English orNew York English. The implicationsfor all this are profound. For theLexical Approach to be effective,schools truly need to hire teachers who are very wellinformed speakers of English, even expert users ofthe language. I realize that this is not entirely realis-tic in Brazil, but I’m talking about the ideal here.

The same holds true for the teacher’s output inclass. In the book “The Lexical Approach,” Lewisquotes Stephen Krashen:

When we just talk to our students, if they understand,we are not only giving a language lesson, we may be giving the best possible language lesson since wewill be supplying input for acquisition.

So, to further complicate matters, students willpotentially learn more from the teacher’s comprehen-sible input than even the coursebook! That meansthat the quality of the teacher’s output in class (i.e.lexical range, lexical selection, conscious recycling,

cognizance of metalanguage, methodic anecdotes,etc.) must be at least as important as the quality ofthe textbook. This is an area that – unlike the pointabove regarding the teacher’s level of tolerance ofwhat is “acceptable” learner output – is actuallyworkable and trainable, as long as the teacher’s levelof fluency is of a high level of proficiency. In otherwords, the highest level of quality input should theoretically come from a teacher that will notspeak unnaturally slowly, not unnaturally grade hislanguage, and not be afraid to use all the useful fea-tures of discourse that he uses in everyday English,and at the same time know how to separate useful,natural language from “idiolect.” To do otherwise isnothing less than a disservice to the students.

How far should a teacher take learner autonomy

with students under the Lexical Approach? How

do we measure it?

Not too long ago, teachertrainers and MA languageteaching methodology pro-fessors around the worldwould confidently recite theaxiom that the teacher musthave a kind of "hands-off"approach to teaching. Thisplatitude sounds nice enough,but is ultimately flawed withoutfurther analysis.

First of all, I do agree thatthe teacher's ultimate goal isto make himself redundant.There is not one successfullanguage learner I know thatlearned only inside the class-

room, only with teacher-fronted input. However, I donot think that this means teachers should simplyrevert to The Silent Way!

I think that learner autonomy for practical teachingpurposes means that we strive to train students toindependently fish out useful lexis whether they'rewatching a movie, reading a book, surfing the Net,listening to the radio or admiring someone's graffition the back of the bathroom door of a public restroom. It is this kind of autonomy that theLexical Approach advocates, not the kind where wejust "give the students stuff to do in pairs and smallgroups." As is mentioned again and again in thebook The Lexical Approach, lexical lessons involve alot of noticing and note-taking. It's all about aware-ness-raising and learner training aimed at gettingstudents to be lexically ligados. And though this

The Lexical Approach,

lexical lessons involve

a lot of noticing and

note-taking. It’s all

about awareness-

raising and learner

training aimed at

getting students to be

lexically ligados.


training is perhaps best carried out Socratically,there will inevitably be some dependence from thestudent in order to get this process going: dependenceon the teacher to help orient their attention,dependence on the syllabus to some kind of scopeand sequence (and sense of progress), dependenceon the teacher to validate correct assertions andhypotheses testing, dependence on the teacher toat least assist in choosing input – wherever thatinput may come from.

So I guess the best way I can answer your ques-tion is this: The limit for the teacher in terms oftransferring the onus of learning to students lieswithin the fine line between that which is helpfulto the student and that which is just plain stupid.

There's that old Chinese proverb:

“Give a man a fish and he will eat for one day.Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime."

OK, yes, I agree that in the classroom it's ratherpointless just to hand out "fish." But the Chineseadage doesn't reveal what involves teaching a manto fish. I think it means you must at least choosethe proper tools and equipment and be familiarwith their use and know good places to go fishing.Continuing with the metaphor, if the fishinginstructor simply took the student out to the lakeand said, "Now fish," that's not autonomy, because

the student will not be able to do it by himself (ormight be able to, but mostly by accident). If theteacher says, "Now fish," and then watches the student try, and intervenes where helpful, the student will probably learn and eventually becomeautonomous, but it may take a long time. Not onlythat, without a model, the student will only learnthat which arises from his own trial and error.Likewise, if the fishing instructor says, "Now, watchme fish," the student might never learn anything.But the student would probably benefit from thefishing instructor saying, "Notice how I bait thishook, notice how I cast this line." Then he shouldhand over the rod and say, "Now you try." There'swhere autonomy begins. But the fishing instructor'srole will not end there. At least initially, he'll needto help guide the student to know where to catchthe best fish, to help him to identify a good catch,and what to do with it after it's caught.

And in terms of "how do we measure," I think wecan't and we don't, at least quantitatively. One ofthe most sobering realizations I've had as a teacheris that, after I say goodbye to a student at the end ofa semester or course, I may never know if she willcarry on and eventually reach her fluency goals. Notonly that, even if I did see that person again twentyyears later and she is speaking better than me, I willnever know if I had anything at all to do with thatsuccess. Teaching, then, I believe, is a truly altruisticendeavor if one embraces that reality. The rewardscome from the means, and not the end. Perhaps thisis why there is often not enough autonomy in theclassroom and too much emphasis on seeing evi-dence of learning. Teachers want to taste the fruitsof their labor, but that fruit doesn't belong to theteacher any more than the apple on a tree belongsto the air, rain, sunshine and soil. That fruit, Ibelieve, is for the student to enjoy all by herself.

I think there’s a culture-clash between what

students expect in traditional classrooms and the

kind of autonomy the Lexical Approach advocates.

Try to think of getting them to "ownership" of learning rather than autonomy. As I mentionedearlier, autonomy can even be counterproductive if not led to in a helpful way. What I suggest isthat, through you and what you do inside the class-room, you do little things to demonstrate howthey, your students, can also design their ownlearning programs.

For example, students invariably directly orindirectly, during class time, want to know how tosay certain things in English. This is a magic


moment. Sometimes the focus of the lesson is"food" or "the weather", and suddenly Marcelowants to know how to say "saia justa" in English.You are then in a saia justa yourself because youknow you have to continue your lesson and thatthis query has nothing at all to do with the syl-labus. On the other hand, it is a genuine question,something that student really wanted to know. Hismind is ready for it at that moment. For whateverreason, his schema has been switched on to thatchannel, and is ready to be fed. Not only that, it'svery likely everyone else in the classroom will be onthe edge of their seats wanting to know. So do youignore that opportunity? NO! You run with it. Yousay "Well, do you think it's literal? How do you say'saia' in English? OK, and what about 'justa'?Alright, so do you think it's 'tight skirt' in English?That's right, it's not. But the concept, what's called'the metaphor' also applies. How do you say 'justo'again, with that meaning? Correct: 'tight'. So, inEnglish, people say 'He's in a tight spot.' You canalso say, 'He's in a bind..." etc. etc.

And you write all of that on the board. Not onlythat, you take that and at the end of the day youwrite it down, and even review it at the beginningof the next class with the other stuff you review.(You do review, right?) If you do that every class,consciously or unconsciously, the students willbegin to realize, “Hey, what we say matters. We caninfluence our course, our learning. We can shapewhat we want to learn.” Ownership then begins.

But then the best part comes, the real payoff,when you integrate those "incidental" items into atest, quiz or midterm. They see that all that lexisthey've built up over the semester has amounted tohundreds of items, and that the sum of these lexi-cal items has contributed greatly to their overallfluency. So, without ever mentioning autonomy oreven giving them an out-of-class assignment,you've shown them the rewards of taking charge ofone's own learning. That hunger, that habit, justmight linger on till after the course is over, andthen you've created autonomy.

References

LEWIS, M. (1993) The Lexical Approach: The State of

ELT and a Way Forward. Thomson Learning

LEWIS, M. (1997) Implementing The Lexical Approach:

Putting Theory into Practice. Thomson Learning

LEWIS, M. (2000) Teaching Collocation: Further

Developments in the Lexical Approach.

Thomson Learning

NATTINGER, J. and DECARRICO, J. (1992) Lexical Phrases

and Language Teaching. Oxford University Press

SCHMITT, N. (2004) Formulaic Sequences. John

Benjamins Publishing Company

MCCARTHY, M. (1998) Spoken Language & Applied

Linguistics. Cambridge University Press

Ron Martinez is the author of several books, including

Conversation Lessons (Thomson), Taboos and Issues(Thomson), Como Dizer Tudo em Inglês (Campus) and

Como Dizer Tudo em Inglês Avançado (Campus), published

this year. In the 1990s, he worked closely with Michael Lewis

in developing some of the earliest teaching materials based

on Lexical Approach principles.

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OBTAIN AN SIT TESOL CERTIFICATE, AN INTERNATIONALLYRECOGNIZED PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATION

The SIT TESOL Certificate Course is a 140-hour program for both beginning and experienced ESOL teachers interested

in developing their abilities through the School for International Training's approach to reflective practice.

Intensive 1-month model: January 2007Extensive model: August - November 2006

For information, please contact theWorld Learning-Brazil office in São Paulo.If you enjoyed this article, don’t miss

Ron Martinez’s BRAZ-TESOL workshops:

“Words and More Words, from Beginner to

Advanced” and “Well, so, anyway, this

workshop is about, like, discourse markers”.

See you in Brasilia!

That's just one example of what you can do thatwon't break with the cultural problems you men-tion (which in fact are not exclusive to Brazil, butcharacteristic of learning the world over, basically).

*

article

by Michael Rost


Generating Student Motivation

input in the environment, there proba-bly aren’t enough opportunities forinteraction with English speakers, thereusually aren’t enough strong role mod-els promoting the learning of English,and there may not be widespread

enough social acceptance for the idea of becomingproficient in English. Because of these adverse con-ditions, a learner has to extraordinary motivation inorder to succeed at learning English!

What does the research on motivation tell us?

The research on motivation defines motivation is anorientation toward a goal. (This orientation may bepositive, negative, or ambivalent.) Motivation pro-vides a source of energy that is responsible for whylearners decide to make an effort, how long they arewilling to sustain an activity, how hard they aregoing to pursue it, and how connected they feel tothe activity.

Because igniting and sustaining a source of positiveenergy is so vital to ultimate success, everything theteacher does in the language classroom has two goals.One is, of course, to further language development,and the other is to generate motivation for continuedlearning. Much of the research on motivation has

Motivation has been called the “neglected heart” oflanguage teaching. As teachers we often forget thatall of our learning activities are filtered through ourstudents’ motivation. In this sense, students controlthe flow of the classroom. Without student motiva-tion, there is no pulse, there is no life in the class.When we learn to incorporate direct approaches togenerating student motivation in our teaching, wewill become happier and more successful teachers.

Why is motivation so important in EFL?

The issue of motivation, particularly in EFL settings,is so important that other considerations aboutteaching methodology seem to pale in comparison.It is important to think about motivation as theessence of language teaching because of the starkrealities of learning English for most of our students.All of the conditions that we know contribute to suc-cessful second language acquisition are lacking inmost EFL contexts: there just isn’t enough English

In this article, Michael Rost addresses

the ubiquitowus – and yet elusive – issue

of motivation.


confirmed the fundamental principle of causality:motivation affects effort, effort affects results, positiveresults lead to an increase in ability. What this suggests, of course, is that by improving students’motivation we are actually amplifying their abilityin the language and fueling their ability to learn.

What specific approaches can teachers take to

generate motivation?

A number of initiatives in SLA research over thepast decade have helped clarify our understandingof motivation and the specific psychological andbehavioral components of motivation that we asteachers can influence. In preparing for teachingclasses on TESOL methodology, I have read thework of researchers such as Gardner and Lambert,Deci and Ryan, Crookes and Schmidt, Williams andBurdon, Dornyei and Skehan, and Czikzenmiyahliin order to synthesize an approach to generatinglearner motivation in EFL settings. We can identifythree levels or layers of motivation in languagelearning that are “operational”, or accessible todirect influence by the teacher. To the extent that ateacher can tap into any or all of these layers, he orshe is more likely to become a “motivating” teacher.

The first layer of motivation: finding your passion

The first layer, the most central core of motivation,is what might be called “finding your passion”. Iwould argue that all successful learning – not onlylanguage learning – is somehow connected to alearner’s passion. Passion, in this sense, means a person’s central goals in life, the things the learnercares about most, the things that move him or heremotionally. I don’t mean that a learner needs to become passionate about learning English inorder to succeed. Rather, the learner needs to find away to connect English learning to his or her realpassion in life.

The teacher can help learners to bring their passioninto the classroom in several ways. One is by intro-ducing “hot elements” in the classroom – music,movies, fads, current topics, personalities, games andso on – in order to trigger learners’ real interests. Theteacher can then use these triggers to build a classculture. If we introduce, or if we allow the learnersthemselves to bring in, samples of current songs,clippings of famous people, photos or video clips,we invite greater engagement in the classroom.

Another way of helping learners “find their pas-sion” is by organizing class activities around thetheme of self expression. There are a number ofapproaches here: personalized tasks, idea journals,

Applications are now being accepted for the

Earn a Master of Arts in Teaching (ESOL)

at SIT in the United States.

Programs begin late June and late August

For complete information, please consult:

www.worldlearning/brazil

Inquire: [email protected]

[email protected]

BRAZ-TESOL / SIT ScholarshipBRAZ-TESOL / SIT Scholarship

Visit us at the

BRAZ-TESOL Convention in July - stand #48

21


speaking circles, interactive questionnaires. Whenlearners realize that the content of the class is theirpersonal lives, and that the teacher responds to themas people, not just as language learners, we invite adeeper level of commitment, and motivation, fromthe learners.

A third way of generating passion is through thepsychological principle of “immediacy” – usingyourself as a model of enthusiasm and motivationfor learning!

The second layer of motivation:

changing your reality

The second layer of motivation is what I called“changing your reality.” In virtually every languagelearning setting, but particularly in EFL settings,learners cannot make and sustain sufficientprogress in the L2 because they do not receiveenough instruction, not nearly enough attention inclass, not nearly enough input or meaningful inter-action or opportunities for serious output. Somestudies in language immersion have estimated thata typical learner needs a minimum of 4 hours aweek of quality contact with a language in order tomake progress. Even if this estimate is not true forall learners, it is clear to most EFL teachers thatlearners need more language instruction than wecan provide in our classrooms. Learners need morequality instruction – input, interaction, and oppor-tunities for meaningful output – not only to makeprogress, but in order to maintain a sufficientlystrong connection to the language and to buildtheir own motivation for learning.

In my own language teaching and in my materi-als development, I now consider it a major part ofmy job to help students find opportunities forengaging learning tasks outside the classroom.Helping learners find quality “homework” is essen-tial in order to maintain quality learning in the

classroom. The ideas are endless: direct students toquality language learning websites (or build yourown, as many teachers have done), make availablequality audio, video, and multimedia learningsources, develop a small library of accessible readersand supplementary materials and self-accessquizzes, worksheets and games. Spending class-room time to help students select, share, and eval-uate their out of class work with English is just asimportant as covering a lesson in the textbook.

Helping students “change their reality” meansmoving them toward seeing language learning in adifferent way. It means helping them take simple,self-directed steps to make choices about learning.The first step is the most important, because it’s theone that can ignite this layer of motivation.

The third layer of motivation: connecting to

learning activities

The third layer of motivation is what I call “connecting to learning activities.” Connectingrefers to the engagement of intention, attention,and memory in the activity itself. All teachers wanttheir students to connect with the learning activi-ties we prepare, yet we often fail to take concretesteps that will lead to better connection. Here are afew “connecting principles” that I try to employ inmy own teaching materials, such as WorldView:• Use personalized warm ups to lead into an activity.

This creates relevance – an essential condition formemory to work effectively. Aim to get all studentsinvolved in the warm up.

• Make each learning activity as vivid and tangibleas possible. Use provocative topics. Include visualaids (pictures, charts) and tangible references(game boards, index cards) to engage studentsattention. Provide variety in your learning activi-ties so that students can try out different learningstyles (interpersonal, kinesthetic, musical, etc.).

• Make sure that each learner is involved, so thateveryone has an intention in every activity.Assign roles in pair and group activities. Monitoras closely as you can to be sure that each student,especially the shyer and weaker ones, remainactive. It’s important to have everyone on board.

• Include inductive learning in your lesson. Be surethat students have an opportunity to discoverthings on their own – grammar points, pragmaticpatterns, new vocabulary. Give students a chanceto reflect. It’s always easier to teach deductivelythrough direct presentations, but discovery learningis more meaningful and more permanent.

• Provide feedback on all levels of language progress.


References

BURDON, R. and WILLIAMS, M. 1998. Language learners’

perceptions of supportive classroom environments.

Language Learning Journal, 17, 29-32.

CROOKES, G. and SCHMIDT, R. 1991. Motivation: reopening

the research agenda. Language Learning, 41, 469-512.

CSIKSZENTMIHALYI, M. 1997. Finding Flow: The Psychology

of Engagement with Everyday Life. New York: Basic

Books http://www.harpercollins.com

DORNYEI, Z. and SKEHAN, P. 2003. Individual differences

in second language learning. In: DOUGHTY, C. and

LONG, M. (Eds.) The handbook of second language

acquisition. Oxford: Blackwell.

GARDNER, R. TREMBLAY, P., and MASGORET, A-M. 1997.

Toward a full model of second language learning:

An empirical investigation. Modern Language

Journal, 81, 344-62.

RYAN, R. and DECI, E. 2000. Self-determination theory

and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation,

social development, and well-being. American

Psychologist, 55, 68-78.

Dr. Michael Rost has been active in teaching and teacher

training for over 20 years. He has taught in West Africa,

Japan, Southeast Asia, England and the U.S. He specializes in

oral language development and learner strategies, and has a

particular interest in links between self-access learning and the

classroom. He has written several articles and books on teacher

training, including Teaching and Researching Listening(Longman, 2002). Michael Rost is Series Editor of WorldView,

the new 4-level adult series from Longman. He is also principal

author of the multimedia course Longman English.

ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL PROGRAMSFOR TEACHERS AND MANAGERS

• SIT TESOL Certificate (July; August - November 2006; January 2007)

• IDLTM - International Diploma in Language Teaching Management

• Master of Arts in Teaching

For information about these and other SIT programs offered in the U.S. or in Brazil, contact the World Learning — Brazil office

in Sao Paulo.

Progress in language involves more than justgradual mastery of grammar and vocabulary.Give feedback on elements of performance thataffect students’ motivation: their success in anactivity and their level of engagement.

Conclusion: Becoming a “motivating teacher”

A great deal of research has been done in the areaof motivation, and why it is so fundamental to second language learning. The underlyingissues related to motivation are complex, but it isclear that every person’s motivation to learn isflexible rather than fixed. As teachers, we candirectly influence our students’ motivation aboutlearning English.

The “three layers of motivation” is one way ofconceptualizing how a teacher can influence eachstudent. If we can make progress with our stu-dents in each of these layers, we can becomemore motivating teachers and bring “the heart oflanguage teaching” into our classrooms.

The 10th National BRAZ-TESOLConventionThe President and National Board havegreat pleasure in inviting you to attend theBRAZ-TESOL 20th Anniversary Conventionin Brasília from July 8th to 11th.

The 20% discount price of R$240 hasbeen extended to June 30th.Register now!

>

Ulysses Guimarães

Convention Center >

Seven ways of making

classroom language

learning difficult

article

by Dick Allwright

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Time-wasting

Time-wasting is difficult to discuss, because it is soubiquitous. The main problem is to know whetheror not there is anything to say about it other thanthe obvious point that all the other ways of makingclassroom language learning difficult, in practice,constitute wastes of time, time that could be betterspent some other way. There are some examples oftime-wasting, however, that stand apart as simplecases, and which we should work hard to avoid. Forexample, if I plan to play a CD in class but fail to setit up so that I can quickly locate the portion I wishto use, then I am liable to waste some of my learners'time although they may not feel frustrated, confused,or spoonfed by the delay. Such simple wastes oftime, though often understandable, are for the mostpart inexcusable simply because they represent lack ofcare in preparation. Of course, when I do eventuallyfind the right place on the CD I may still waste mylearners' time because I have chosen something thatis inappropriate (and which probably frustrates,confuses and/or spoonfeeds different members of theclass). Another pure case of time-wasting might arise,when, as sometimes happens (in university settingsin particular, probably), learners are used as guinea-pigs for extensive new proficiency tests, for example.Such activities may not represent a total waste oftime, but they can come close to it, and they maywell provide excellent circumstances for the nexttwo problems to be examined here: demoralizationand anxiety-breeding

Demoralising learners

It is easy to make classroom language learning diffi-cult by demoralising learners. Classroom languagerisks being a demoralising experience for some classmembers simply because, in the nature of things,they are likely to compare themselves unfavourablywith other people in the class. This is an inevitablerisk of grouping people in classes. Some people willbecome demoralised, not on account of unfavourablecomparisons with others, but on account of theirown private feelings that they are unable to matchtheir aspirations, that they are not learning as quickly,

or retaining things as permanently as they hadexpected. A third possibility, and one often occur-ring, is that some learners will become demoralisedon account of the treatment they receive in class,both from the teacher and from fellow-learners. Forexample, it is common for some class members to getleft out during any period of oral practice. This mayhappen by choice, or it may happen because theteacher is trying to save a shy person say, from publicembarrassment. Shy people, however, may interpretthe thoughtfulness as wilful neglect, and basically asevidence that they cannot be trusted to produce anacceptable answer. This thought alone is potentiallydemoralising to them, and is likely to lead to suchlearners lowering their expectations of success. Thisin turn will itself make future success less likely (givenwhat we know about the effect of aspiration levels onperformance) and thus contribute to increasingdemoralisation. Classrooms provide many otheropportunities for demoralising experiences, as only afew moments of classroom observation will show.The difficulty is to know how to approach the problem of minimising the risk.

One possibility is to work for a classroom at-mosphere that replaces competition with collabora-tion, since it is in a competitive atmosphere thatinvidious person-to-person comparisons are likely tobe most evident. If the collaborative atmosphereinvolves small group work, then this can give theshy person an opportunity to participate withouttoo much risk of public embarrassment. Anotherpossibility is to look for ways learners can set theirown goals (and their own aspiration levels) in thelight of their own reasons for language learning.Where this can be done, comparisons with otherlearners may become largely irrelevant, and, inaddition, the amount of thought required of learn-ers to set their own goals is likely to mean more real-istic aspiration levels, and, therefore, less risk ofdemoralisation from that source as well.

Again, worries about which teaching method touse seem less relevant than worries about peoplemanagement and about course structure – the diffe-rent formats for learning that we offer our learners.

In the March issue, Dick Allwright discussed three ways in which

we unintentionally hinder, rather than help, language learning:

frustrating, confusing and spoonfeeding learners. In the second

part of his thought-provoking article, he examines another four

capital sins of language teaching.


The management of language learning seems a bet-ter term for what we are talking about than "lan-guage teaching".

Anxiety-breeding

We can and do make classroom learning difficult bybreeding anxiety in our learners. We breed anxiety ina number of ways, but anxiety-breeding is probablymost closely and most frequently related to ourwork as unintentional demoralisers. Some degree ofanxiety may- of course be useful if by that we meanthe sort of anxiety that is virtually synonymouswith alertness, with paying close attention to whatis going on, perhaps out a fear of missing some-thing important. Greater degrees of anxiety will bedebilitating, making effective concentration morerather than less difficult. The mere fear of demora-lising experiences such as those illustrated abovemay itself be debilitating, to the extent that it seriously interferes with learning. Even undramaticinstances may have significant effects. Consider, forexample, the learners who are willing to speak inclass (unlike the shy learners referred to previously),but for whom public performance is sufficiently

worrying so that when they ask the teacher a ques-tion the answer gets lost somehow. Other morerelaxed people in the class can listen to both ques-tion and answer and learn from them, but for thequestioner the relief that follows the successful pos-ing of the question gets in the way of paying atten-tion to the answer. If this happens often enough thepreviously willing enquirer may eventually prefer tolive in the hope that other people will ask the rightquestion. That is not very likely to happen, however,and the net result will most likely be even less effec-tive learning in general (since there is one personless to ask questions that the others might learnfrom listening to). To combat the causes of anxietywe need to work to establish mutual trust betweenus and our learners, and among our learners. Againwe are led to the notion of collaboration rather thancompetition as the key, and so to learning structureand management techniques that are likely to fostera collaborative atmosphere. Once again methods (astraditionally conceived-for example, in terms ofAudio-Lingualism and cognitive Codism) seem tobe of very limited relevance to our problems.

Dependence-breeding

The seventh way we have of making classroom lan-guage learning difficult is to breed dependence inour learners.Dependence-breeding is in many waysthe most interesting and yet perhaps the most elu-sive of the risks facing language learners. The basicissue is the contention that learners deserve to begiven a chance to learn to be independent learners,so that they can continue to learn effectively evenafter we have stopped teaching them. By indepen-dent learner I do not mean the sort of learner whowill learn without any outside assistance, but thesort of learner who will know how best to exploitall the learning possibilities and learning resourcesthat are available (and even perhaps begin to createthem where they do not yet exist). It may seem oddto suggest that we teachers should do anything thateven begins to risk jeopardising our security ofemployment, but pedagogically, at least, it wouldbe even more odd, surely, to suggest that it is agood idea for teachers to teach in a way that per-petuates (perhaps even strengthens) their learners'dependence on them. From this point of view inde-pendence-breeding is an indispensible part ofresponsible teaching (see Allwright, 1978) andclearly not just in language teaching. It is arguable,though probably not provable, that the muchlamented failure of learners to perform in real-lifeas well as they do in the classroom is to be attri-


buted less to insufficient overlearning (as theaudio-linguists interpreted the problem) than toinsufficient independence-breeding. It is difficultenough to do anyway, out in the "real" world, thethings that we have learned to do in the relative (inspite of its anxiety-breeding potential) security ofthe classroom. It will be even more difficult if, as alearner, you have been led to believe that you natu-rally need teacher to "hold your hand".

The obvious problem is that any measures to promote a healthy independence run the risk ofallowing learners to go astray, both linguisticallyand pedagogically. They also run the risk of makingit look as if the teacher is abdicating major respon-sibilities (for a fuller discussion see Allwright, 1978,again). In essence this is no different from the parent-child relationship, where we hope we will be strongenough as parents to allow our children enoughroom to develop as independent people by makingtheir own mistakes and learning from them in acontext that is generally supportive. It is perhaps asirresponsible to breed dependence in one's childrenas it is to leave them to fend for themselves entirely.As teachers we need to find an approach that willhelp our learners develop linguistic and pedagogicindependence from us, and at the same time,assuming our linguistic and pedagogic expertisedoes remain greater than theirs, allows us to keepthe role of experts, first of all because it is we whoare training them to be independent (not justallowing them to be), and secondly because health-ily independent people need experts to consult.This gives us a picture of the ideal teacher as bothan independence trainer and as a linguistic andpedagogic consultant or expert. To train for inde-pendence without expertise is at least as harmful (ifit develops the wilfully independent person who isincapable of seeing the value of another's expertise)as it is to do what we more often do, train forexpertise without independence.

General Conclusion

It should be clear by now that I believe such issues tobe considerably more important than the usual con-troversies between rival methods of language teach-ing. They are issues that ignore the traditional pro-blem of the selection, sequencing and grading ofcourse content, and yet at the same time seem muchmore directly related to the profitable achievementof our learners. They are issues that prompt thought

about the management of interpersonal relation-ships in the classroom, and about the provision oflearning structures to facilitate both interpersonalrelationships and individual learning.

The contention of this article is that we canderive a basic set of such global principles bythinking about the seven ways in which we typically make classroom language learning moredifficult than it need be. Thinking about suchthings may be more productive than putting ourenergies into thinking about the questions thathave traditionally concerned language teachingmethodologists. By focusing on such issues we areat last beginning to ask some of the right questions, and that by experimenting we arebeginning to find some promising local answers.

References

ALLWRIGHT, R.L., 1978, "Abdication and Responsibility in

Language Teaching", Studies in Second Language

Acquisition, 11/1:105-121.

ALLWRIGHT, R.L., 1982, "Perceiving and Pursuing

Learners' Needs". In GEDDES and STURTRIDGE (eds.),

Individualisation, Modern English Publications:24-31.

CATHCART, R.L., & OLSEN, J.W.B., 1976, "Teachers' and

Students' Preferences for Correction of Classroom

Conversation Errors". In FANSELOW and CRYMES (eds.),

On TESOL 1976, TESOL, Washington:41-53.

CURRAN, C.A., 1976, Counselling-Learning in Second

Languages, Illinois: Apple River Press.

GATTEGNO, C., 1976, The Common Sense of Teaching

Foreign Languages, New York: Educational Solutions.

KRASHEN, S.D., 1982, Principles and Practice in Second

Language Acquisition, Oxford: Pergamon Press.

PRABHU, N.S., 1980, "Theoretical Background to the

Bangalore Project". In New Approaches to Teaching

English, Regional Institute of English Bulletin,

Bangalore, no 4(1):19-26.

STEVICK, E.W., 1976, Memory, Meaning and Method,

Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.

Dick Allwright teaches applied linguistics at Lancaster

University, England. An enthusiast for observational classroom

research in the 1970s and early 1980s, he has shifted in recent

years to develop, under the heading of “Exploratory Practice”,

the notion of participant research in the language classroom.

He has published widely, including two books: Observation in the Language Classroom, Longman, 1988 and (with Kathi Bailey)

Focus on the Language Classroom, CUP, 1991.

Email: [email protected]

Comments on the article? Drop us a line at [email protected]

In this article, Christiane Khatchadourian

argues that we should approach the skill of

speaking more systematically.

Speaking: just do it?

article

by ChristianeKhatchadourian


After long, well-deserved summer holidays, you goback to the classroom to meet the students you'regoing to spend the next term with. After a round ofthose needs analysis questionnaires, you find outonce again that most of them are worried aboutimproving their speaking skills. Regardless of ageor level, they ask for more “conversation” in theclassroom, and however hard you try to maximiselearners’ opportunities to speak, they never seem toperceive them as effective in helping them reachtheir ultimate goal, which is, after all, to speakEnglish. So what is it that is missing to bridge thegap between their expectations and regular class-room procedures?

In an attempt to answer this question, I tried tolook at my own practice in a critical way and analysehow I had been tackling speakingskills with my groups. The outcomewas not very uplifting, I have toadmit. My tendency was to treatspeaking mostly as a by-product ofwork on other skills, when brain-storming ideas for writing, practisinggrammar, doing pre-listening activi-ties, post-reading discussions and soon. Coursebooks could also be mis-leading, as many of them label asspeaking any kind of activity inwhich students need to open theirmouths. Therefore, oral drills, pro-nunciation work, repeating dialogues, you name it,become “speaking activities”. As a result, rarely isspeaking approached as a skill in its own right andstudents are more often than not left to their owndevices to cope with it. No wonder they becomefrustrated.

And come to think of it, speaking is an extremelycomplex skill. Brown, in Teaching by Principle,breaks it up in no fewer than fourteen microskills,grouped under four umbrella terms, as follows:

1. Grammatical competence, which includes lan-guage structures, vocabulary and pronunciation

2. Discourse competence, which encompassesapplying the rules of coherence, cohesion andreferencing

3. Sociolinguistic competence, which meansknowing what is socially and culturally expected,including a sense of appropriacy, interactionrules and non-verbal responses

4. Strategic Competence, which entails an abilityto compensate for imperfect knowledge.

Thornbury, in his article Awareness, appropriationand autonomy, enumerates as many as eleven items in

his checklist of the knowledge-base that is requiredfor day-to-day speaking, most of which are men-tioned by Brown. However, Thorbury emphasises theelements that help the speaker convey the impres-sion of fluent speech, which include the use of:• simple linkers: and, but, so• formulaic chunks, including time and place

adverbials: the end of the day, that particular shop• discourse markers: I mean, anyway• fillers: um, uh• vagueness expressions: something like that, that stuff• standard backchannel devices: Really? You’re kidding!• Intonation to break up the flow of speech into

meaningful unitsThis quick overview is certainly enough to

demonstrate how much is going on while we arespeaking. Consequently,simply providing opportu-nities for learners to speak inthe classroom may not beenough to help them masterthis skill. It is probably nec-essary to go a step furtherand explicitly work on theelements mentioned above.Although it is not possibleto work on each and everyone of them every time stu-dents are required to talk, Iam convinced it is impor-

tant to address those issues consistently throughoutthe course so that some skills work can be doneregarding speaking.

How have these considerations affected myteaching? Well, in the old days, I would probablyuse a debate as a means to brainstorm ideas for anargumentative writing piece students would pro-duce later on, so not much attention would begiven to how students would perform, as the maingoal was to get ideas for a composition. Now Imight still use the debate for the same purpose, butI tend to take the opportunity to explicitly work onsome features of the spoken language.

Here are some suggestions on how to go about it:

Raising awareness

It aims at helping students notice what speakingEnglish fluently entails.

It is important for them to perceive that fluency isnot synonymous with speed and, rather than tryingto speak fast, it is crucial to learn to buy planningtime and deal with hesitation in order to soundboth fluent and natural.

Simply providing

opportunities for

learners to speak in

the classroom may

not be enough to help

them master this skill


Ideally a listening passage of the same genre of theproposed speaking task would be analysed, but if thisis difficult to get, any authentic discussion you canget hold of will do, provided it features elements thatwould be useful for the learners in their final speak-ing task. You might start with a regular pre-listeningactivity, followed by comprehension questions. Then,to help students notice how the speakers manage tokeep the conversation going, you can:

1. Divide the learners in small groups and assigneach group one of these headings: agreeing, dis-agreeing, interrupting, hesitating, buying plan-ning time, introducing a new topic, givingexamples, etc. Needless to say, the headings willbe chosen according to the final task and theelements each listening passage contains. Theylisten to the passage again, and write down anychunks of language used to perform the func-tion in their heading. After checking with thewhole group, you might want to elicit fromstudents other ways of expressing each idea.

2. Use the transcript to erase the chunks you wantto pinpoint, and give out the gapped copies.First students try to come up with possible waysof completing the text, then listen again to

compare their ideas to the original passage,which can generate very fruitful discussion onwhat is natural to say.

Brainstorming ideas

Many times it is difficult for learners to speakbecause they have to struggle with both the contentand the form of what they want to say. Brain-storming ideas in advance can provide some scaf-folding and allow more room for the learners tofocus on the language needed to express them.

Whichever kind of group dynamics you choosefor this stage, it is helpful to:

1. Have a debriefing session at the end to shareand clarify ideas.

2. Discuss the possible connections between theideas that have come up. For instance, if stu-dents have produced a “for and against” list ofarguments, which of the pros could be a counterargument for any of the cons? If they brain-stormed questions for an interview, what is thebest order for them to be asked?

Practising useful chunks

The content here may vary greatly, depending onthe proposed speaking task, but the central idea isto equip learners with formulaic language that canbe readily used in a variety of situations.

In order to provide more controlled practicebefore asking learners to try these chunks out in thefinal speaking task you can:

1. Divide the class in groups of three or four, andgive each group two sets of slips of paper – onewith the chunks to be practised, the other withtopics for discussion. They take one slip with atopic for the group and each student picks oneslip with a chunk. They can only stop talkingabout this topic when everybody has managedto use the chunk on their slip of paper.

2. Give out prompts of a short dialogue in whichthe chunks to be practised are missing. Givelearners some time to think about how theycould use the chunks, but don’t let them writeanything. When students feel ready, they per-form the dialogue using the prompts and addingthe chunks where appropriate. At the end, havea debriefing session to discuss how the chunkswere used and how natural they sounded.

Often neglected in course books, intonation isextremely important to make yourself understoodand its wrong use can lead to communicationbreakdown. Helping students notice the effect ofintonation on meaning, and providing them with


opportunities to practise this feature can bring con-siderable improvement to their performance.

1. Shadow Reading Best done with a short part of the listening pas-sage, it is a good way to help learners pick uprhythm and intonation. At the first stage, theycan just listen and mark the pauses. When theteacher plays it again, they speak along, tryingto imitate the speakers on the recording. Thiscan be done as many times as necessary for thelearners to gain confidence. You can slowlyturn down the volume until only the studentscan be heard.

2. Rising X Falling IntonationEspecially useful when the final task involvesasking questions, this kind of work can alsoprovide an opportunity for learners to noticehow intonation can change the meaning ofwhat is being said.

Allowing time for planning

Although one might argue that under real operatingconditions there is no time to plan what you aregoing to say, I believe that in the classroom time forplanning should be allowed - especially whenlearners are to perform challenging speaking tasks,and would like to experiment with language that isnew to them.

Providing feedback

Without feedback on their oral production, it ishard for learners to perceive their progress, but thismight be quite a challenge for the teacher, particu-larly when dealing with bigger groups. One possibleway out is to concentrate on a few students at atime, but this can also be done from peer to peer.Instead of pairs, you can group in trios and havethem take turns in monitoring the others’ per-formance. If you choose to do so, remember it isessential to guide them, providing questions forthem to answer or points for them to focus on toensure their feedback goes beyond superficial com-ments. Here is a sample set of questions:

1. Have the speakers managed to express theiropinions clearly?

2. Were their arguments illustrated by examples,their own experience, etc.?

3. Have they used some of the… (lexical items/linkers/ fillers/ backchannel devices) previouslypractised?

4. What was their interaction like?One aspect to consider when designing these ques-

tions are the features previously worked on in class.

I always find it more productive to concentrate feed-back on issues that have been recently pointed out,so that the lesson “comes full circle”, as it were.

The procedures mentioned above are just some ofthe ways in which speaking can be dealt with in theclassroom. I have felt, however, that they do makeall the difference, for they seem to improve thelearners’ perception that they are actually beingtaught how to speak, which is, after all, one of theirmain expectations.

Christiane Khatchadourian holds a BA from USP and a RSA/

Cambridge Certificate. She’s an experienced teacher, teacher

educator, Cambridge examiner and materials writer. She

worked for the Cultura Inglesa São Paulo from 1990 to 2005,

where she taught students of all levels, ran training sessions

and helped in the e-learning department. She’s currently

based in Maringá, Paraná. Email: [email protected]

References:

BROWN, H. DOUGLAS Teaching by Principle: an interactive

approach to language pedagogy. Prentice Hall

Regents, 1994

THORNBURY, SCOTT Awareness, appropriation and

autonomy. English Teaching Professional Issue 40,

2005


ELT

Ca

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da

rDateJune

9

19

23

30

30

July

4 - 7

8 - 11

13 - 15

14 – 15

18 - 21

20

24 - 26

EVENT AND SPEAKER

Teaching children and the

internet? A perfect combination,

with Cristina Cesar (OUP).

Relationship and rapport – the

key to effective teaching and

learning, with Jack Scholes.

Workshop with Jack Scholes, title

TBA.

Criatividade no ensino de

idiomas, with Maria de Fátima

Pereira de Almeida.

June Teaching Sparkles

(for members and new members

of BRAZ-TESOL)

31st Alumni TEFL conference

BRAZ-TESOL

10th National Convention

“Teaching, Learning, Leading”

(for members and new members

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world (for members and new

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III ACINE Convention

Inspiration, Innovation,

Collaboration (for teachers &

staff of North Eastern Culturas

Ingelesas)

US Studies Seminar

The Role Languages Play in US

History and Literature

(For University teachers of

American studies/literature)

Workshop with Gracia Cuoco

Title TBA

IBEU’s 62nd Seminar

CITY AND VENUE

São Paulo: Livraria Martins FontesAlameda Jaú 1742, Jardins

São Paulo: Centro BrasileiroBritânicoRua Ferreira de Araújo 741, Pinheiros



Recife (Pernambuco RegionalChapter)Venue TBA

São Paulo: Centro Cultural Alumni Rua Brasiliense 65

Brasília: Centro de ConvençõesUlysses Guimarães

Porto Alegre: PUCRS

Maceió

Campinas, SP

São Paulo: Centro BrasileiroBritânicoRua Ferreira de Araújo 741, Pinheiros

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