Essay on "Theory a Critical Discussion of Teaching Approaches"

Essay 15 pages (4698 words) Sources: 10

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Theory

A Critical Discussion of Teaching Approaches in TESOL

Language teaching practice often takes for granted that most of the complexities that learners face in the study of English are a result of the degree to which their native language differs from English. A resident speaker of Chinese often faces many more difficulties than a native speaker of German, because German is more closely related to English, while Chinese is not. This may be true for anyone of any mother tongue which is also known as first language, and usually abbreviated L1, setting out to learn any other language which is called a target language or second language, usually known as L2 (Jin and Cortazzi, 1998).

Language learners often produce errors of syntax and pronunciation thought to result from the influence of their L1, such as mapping its grammatical patterns inappropriately onto the L2, pronouncing certain sounds incorrectly or with difficulty, and confusing items of vocabulary known as false friends. This is recognized as L1 transfer or language intervention. These transfer results are typically stronger for beginners' language construction, and SLA research has highlighted many errors which cannot be credited to the L1, as they are demonstrated in learners of many language backgrounds (Jin and Cortazzi, 1998).

While English is no more difficult than other languages, it has quite a few features which may create complexities for learners. It is important to keep in mind that learning a second language entails much more than learning the words and the sounds of a language. Communication collapses occur not only due to the more usually understood syntax and articulation difficulties but because when we learn a language we also learn a culture. What is often thought to be correct, normal and accurate in one language and culture does not always convert into a second language, even when the vocabulary is understood (Jin and Cortazzi, 1998).

For centuries the sole method for teaching foreign languages has replicated the model set in the Middle Ages for teaching Latin at the university level. The methodology was based on careful study of the grammar of Latin compared to that of the foreign language being studied, rote learning of grammatical paradigms and vocabulary lists, and translation from and into Latin. Throughout the process, students were not faced with contextualized passages but rather with a series of sentences which best exemplified the grammatical point discussed. The ultimate aim was to develop reading skills and a facility in translating texts from one language to another (Maggioli, 1994).

However, by the mid 1800s there was a growing concern for the development of oral skills, mainly due to the need to communicate effectively in trade and commerce, as well as in diplomacy. The Grammar-Translation method, as it was called, failed to provide communicatively competent learners due to its strong emphasis on the written word. Hence people started questioning the effectiveness of what was then the most widespread and what was thought to be the most logical method. Naturally, dissension started to arise. Most American and European organizations started organizing committees and conferences looking for proof that the Grammar-Translation method was a flop (Maggioli, 1994).

Once upon a time, when the TESOL organization first was founded in 1966, the audio-lingual method was the dominant mode of instruction. The view that speech was primary meant that writing served a subservient role: to reinforce oral patterns of the language. So in language instruction, writing took the form of sentence drills like fill-ins, substitutions, transformations, and completions. The content was supplied. The writing reinforced or tested the accurate application of grammatical rules. In the 1970s, the use of sentence combining, while still focusing on the manipulation of given sentences and thus, ignoring the enormous complexity of writing, provided students with the opportunity to explore available syntactic options. In the early 1970s, too, passages of connected discourse began to be used more often as classroom materials in the teaching of writing. Controlled composition tasks, still widely used today, provide the text and ask the student to manipulate linguistic forms within that text. However, the fact that students are using passages of connected discourse does not necessarily guarantee that the students view them as authentic. If the students are concentrating on a grammatical transformation, such as changing verbs from present to past, they need pay no attention whatever to what the sentences mean or the manner in which they relate to each other (Raimes, 1991).

This method is thought to result in quick attainment of speaking and listening skills. The audiolingual method teaches students in the use of grammatical sentence molds. When this method was developed it was thought that the way to obtain the sentence patterns of the second language was through training or helping learners to respond properly to stimuli through shaping and reinforcement. The Audiolingual Method is based on the following beliefs:

Speaking and listening in competence before reading and writing competence.

The development of language skills is a matter of forming habits.

Students should practice specific patterns of language through ordered dialogue and drill until the response is automatic.

Structured patterns in language should be taught by using cyclical drills.

The stress is on having students produce error free statements.

This method of language learning supports kinesthetic learning approaches.

Only everyday vocabulary and sentences should be trained. Tangible vocabulary is taught by displaying objects and pictures. Abstract vocabulary is taught by the association of ideas.

The printed word must be kept away from the second language learner for as long as possible (The Audiolingual Method, n.d.).

The 1970s saw the development of more than sentence combining and controlled composition. Influenced by L1 writing research on composing processes, teachers and researchers reacted against a form-dominated approach by developing an interest in what L2 writers actually do as they write. In place of accuracy and patterns came process, making meaning, invention, and multiple drafts. The concentration to the writer as a language learner and creator of text has brought about a process approach, with a new variety of classroom tasks differentiated by the use of journals, invention, peer collaboration, revision and attention to content before form. In response to theory and research on writers' processes, teachers have begun to allow their students time and opportunity for selecting topics, generating ideas, writing drafts and revisions, and providing feedback. Where linguistic accuracy was formerly emphasized from the start, it is now often downplayed, at least at the beginning of the process, delayed until writers have grappled with ideas and organization. Some practitioners even entirely omit attention to grammar, as in ESL writing textbooks that contain no grammar reference or instructional component (Raimes, 1991).

Some teachers and theorists, alienated by the enthusiasm with which a process approach was often adopted and promulgated, interpreted the focus on the writer's making of personal meaning as an almost total obsession with the cognitive relationship between the writer and the writer's internal world. Those who perceived the new approach as an obsession inappropriate for academic demands and for the expectations of academic readers shifted their focus from the processes of the writer to content and to the demands of the academy. By 1986, a process approach was being included among traditional approaches and in its place was proposed a content-based approach. In content-based instruction, an ESL course might be attached to a content course in the adjunct model or language courses might be grouped with courses in other disciplines. With a content focus, learners are said to get help with the language of the thinking processes and the structure or shape of content (Raimes, 1991).

This content-based approach has more repercussions on the shape of the curriculum than the two approaches previously described, for here the autonomous ESL class is often replaced by team teaching, linked courses, topic-centered modules or mini-courses, sheltered instruction, and composition or multi-skill English for academic purposes (EAP) courses/tutorials as adjuncts to designated university content courses. With an autonomous ESL class, a teacher can and often does move back and forth between approaches. With ESL attached in the curriculum to a content course, such flexibility is less likely. There is always the danger that institutional changes in course structure will lock us into an approach that we want to modify or abandon (Raimes, 1991).

Simultaneously with content-based approaches came another academically oriented approach, English for academic purposes, which focuses on the expectations of academic readers. This approach, in which the ESL teacher runs a theme-based class, not necessarily linked to a content course, is also characterized by its strong opposition to a position within a writer-dominated process approach that favors personal writing. A reader-dominated approach perceives language teaching as socialization into the academic community and not as humanistic therapy (Raimes, 1991).

The audience-dominated approach, focusing on the expectations of readers outside the language classroom, is characterized by the use of terms like academic demands and academic discourse community. Attention to audience was, in fact, first brought to the fore as a feature of the process approach, but the… READ MORE

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