The Nature of Language Teaching

TOPIC : The Nature of Language Teaching

PAPER 12 : English Language Teaching

STUDENT'S NAME : Gohil Yashpalsinh Baldevsinh

CLASS : M.A., Sem-3

ROLL NO. : 15

                                                          YEAR : 2013

The nature of language

           Language is a vast subject and it is beyond the scope of this book to do anything more than to introduce very briefly some of the most important points.

The nature of language teaching

           In recent years there has been a shift to seeing language teaching as being most effective when it is subordinated to learning. In other words, the teacher’s job is to help learners to learn effectively, or to facilitate learning. For example, and as discussed above, a teacher can make a choice between ‘telling’ learners what the teacher knows, or setting up ways of helping learners see patterns for themselves. Another way in which learning takes precedence over teaching is in the choices of what is taught and how it is taught, because these decisions should be made with the learners’ needs in mind. The best teachers have a range of techniques available to them, although of course, no teacher can possibly be aware of all the potential alternative methods available. From the range that the teacher has s/he makes a decision on those that are best suited to a particular context, based on such questions as: Who are the learners? What are their needs? What are their expectations? What material and resources are available? The list of potential factors that could influence the choice of approach is huge.

Approaches to learning and teaching

           Any book on language teaching methodology should avoid giving the impression that there is only one way to teach a language. The fact is that many people have learned languages extremely successfully over many years while being exposed to a variety of methodologies. Teachers should be wary of following dogmas blindly. Instead they can develop their skills by being prepared to reflect on their teaching and learn from their experiences. It should be remembered that different teaching contexts give rise to different problems, which inevitably call for

different solutions. However, as a starting point for their reflection and development, teachers can learn from what others have done before them and what is often considered to constitute best practice today.

Communicative approaches

            What has developed as the prevailing methodology used in teaching English in many parts of the world today can be loosely termed the ‘communicative approach’. However, it is in itself something of an umbrella term, covering a variety of teaching strategies which are bound together by placing an emphasis on developing communicative competence. In other words, ‘knowing’ a language involves being able to use that language effectively in real life situations. Many people make a broad distinction between what Thornbury calls a ‘shallow end’ approach and a ‘deep end approach’. In the deep end, or strong form, communication is dominant and language systems (grammar, vocabulary and so on) are focused on in so far as they affect a particular piece of communication. So, learners may talk about television programmes, and the language taught will spring from the discussion and what learners appear to need in order to take part effectively. In the shallow end, or weak form, a piece of language may be preselected and taught, but the teacher ensures that there will be opportunities to practise that piece of language in communicative contexts as the lesson progresses. So, the teacher may decide that the lesson will focus on the present perfect simple and will then choose practice activities that allow this pattern to be reinforced throughout the lesson. It is this weaker form which dominates the vast majority of EFL text books, and it also informs the majority of teacher training courses, at least at pre-service level. New teachers should be able to select an appropriate piece of new language to teach their learners, and provide a variety of practice activities to reinforce learning. The approach tends to highlight the need for the explicit teaching of vocabulary, grammar and functional language (ways of making suggestions, agreeing, disagreeing and so on) as well as the need to give direct practice in speaking, listening, reading and writing. In both the strong and weak form of the approach there is a great emphasis on learners working in pairs and groups. Part of the rationale for this is to maximize the amount of speaking practice that can be provided for learners in a single lesson. These approaches, and particularly the skills needed by a teacher using the dominant weak form of the communicative approach, will be the main focus of the following chapters.

Different roles of the teacher

            ‘What does a teacher do?’ The obvious and simple response is ‘a teacher teaches’, but what do we mean by this? What does teaching involve? The answer to this is bound up with the idea of how people learn. As we saw in the previous chapter, there is not a one to one relationship between teaching and learning. Although

teachers can tell learners about language – tell them what words mean, give grammar rules and so on – this does not seem to lead automatically to learners being able to use the language that they are ‘given’. Learners may learn things from the teacher, or from each other, or from watching a film, or hearing a song, reading something, or perhaps by reflecting on things that they have been ‘taught’ in previous lessons. Sometimes learners will seem to make quite rapid progress, and at other times progress will be slow. Sometimes learners will need a significant amount of time (days, weeks, or months) before something they have been ‘taught’ really makes sense to them and they feel able to use it. Although teachers try to make teaching an orderly and organized business, learning remains apparently chaotic. Teachers of languages have to accept this and set about helping people to learn at their own pace and in their own ways. We will look at some of the roles teachers adopt to try to facilitate learning. Although teaching strategies may vary according to the subject matter, the group being taught and so on, we can see certain patterns emerging in all  teaching, and quite clear patterns when we look at language teaching. Try to picture a lesson that you have experienced, if possible as a language learner (or teacher) but if that is not possible, think of any lesson. Think in as much detail as possible.Write down as many actions that the teacher performed as you can. For example, the teacher gave instructions to the class. Are there any other actions you associate with teaching?

Different roles of learners

            The learners' task in the teaching and learning equation is to construct the system of the target language. They have to find out and remember how words are joined together and what they mean, how grammar patterns fit together, as well as how phonological features such as stress and intonation are used. The system the learner constructs can only emerge gradually – parts may come from direct, conscious learning of new bits of language, and other parts may be subconsciously picked up from exposure to the target language. The ways in which learners undertake this daunting task will vary according to the learning styles each individual prefers, their previous learning experience, their own perceived needs and so on. However, just as we were able to analyze roles of the teacher, so we can analyze certain roles that learners will fulfill. Again as with the roles of the teacher, the list is not exhaustive and there is some overlap between them.

Helping learners to fulfill those roles

           The responsibility of fulfilling these roles is shared between the teacher and student. In this section we will look at what teachers can do to help students fulfill their roles successfully. To help learners to fulfill the role of participant the

Teacher could,

·        invite students to respond (see role of prompter)

·        provide group and pair work (see role of provider of input)

·        value contributions made by praising and responding appropriately (see role of listener)

·        respect when students do/do not want to speak and reflect on why this may be the case

Teachers have various roles. All are important and need to be understood by the teacher. Analyzing these roles helps reflection on professional performance and therefore professional development. Learners perform various roles. By consciously helping learners to fulfill these roles, teachers can help them to learn more efficiently.