ELL 405 Methodology: COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING

COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING

* It takes its principles from the “Counseling Learning Approach” developed by Charles A. Curran.
* It was created especially for Adult Learners who might fear to appear foolish ; so the teacher becomes a Language Counsellor he understands them and leads them to

overcome their fears .

LEARNING THEORY

According to Curran, there are six elements necessary for non-defensive learning.These are

collected under the acronym SARDAR:

Security

Attention

Retention

Discrimination

Agression

Reflection

SECURITY

Student should feel secure to enter into a ,succesful learning experience. Classroom atmosphere, students’ relations with each other, teacher’s attitude to students all affects students’ feeling of security.

ATTENTION: Attention is the learner’s involment in learning.

RETENTION

If the whole person is involved in the learning process, what is retained is internalised and becomes a part of learner’s ‘new persona’ in foreign language.The material should neither be too old nor be too new or conversely too familiar. Retention will best take place somewhere in between novelty and familiarity.

DISCRIMINATION

Students should disciriminate the similarities and the differnces among target language forms by listening to themselves and the teacher carefully. They should also listen to discriminate if what they say is similar or different from what their teacher says.

E.g Similarity & Differnce

Present continuous : She is studying French.

Past continuos : Tom was cooking

AGGRESSION

Aggression is to show what has been learnt for ‘self-assertion’ like a child who tries to show what he has learnt. The child tries to prove the things he has learnt.

REFLECTION

Students need quiet reflection time in order to learn. The teacher reads the text for three times and students relax and listen for self reflection. Students also listen to their own voice from tape for reflection.

LANGUAGE THEORY

Languge is for communication. Language is what you learn and share with others. Students should trust the learning process, the teacher and the others.

TEACHER’S ROLE

Teacher’s role is that of a counsellor. Teacher tries to remove threatening factors in the classroom. The teacher stands behind the students. This fosters interactions among the sutedents rather than from student to teacher.

INTERACTIONS

Student-student, teacher-student interactions occur in the classroom. In addition, groupp work, and pair work tasks are carried out by students . Usually the teacher physically removes himself/herself from the circle in order to increase student-student interactions.

CULTURE: Knowing the target language is important to be successful. Social lifestyle, literature, customs, habits should be learnt.

Role of L1

Students’ security is initially enhanced by using their native language. The purpose of using native language is to provide a bridge from familiar to unfamiliar. Directions in the class and students’ feelings are conducted in the native language. In later steps more and more L2 is used.

Grammar Teaching: Large chunks are analysaed means of equivalents in L1. It can be explicit when necessary.

Vocabulary Teaching: Literal native language equivalents are given to the target language in order to teach their meanings.

Error Correction: The error is treated in non-threating way. The teacher repeats the correct form without calling further attention to the error and the owner of the error.

Goals and Objectives

Students should learn how to use the target language communicatively. Students should learn about their own learning to take an increasing responsibility about it. Non-defensive learning is the result when the teacher and the students treat each other as a whole person.

Evaluation: There is no particular mode of evaluation. Students are asked to write a paragraph or they can be given an oral interview.

Tecniques

A) transcription

The eacher writes the L1 equivalent of the text in the target language on the board a poster sized paper in order to be able to refer later. Students copy them in their notebooks later.

B)Reflection on experience

Students tell about their feelings about language learning experience.

C) reflective listening

Students relax and listen to their own voices speaking the target language on the tape. The

teacher may also read the transcript while students are listening.

D)Small group task

Students learn from each other. Also small groups can let students to know each other well.

E) Human computer

1- teacher stands behind students
2- teacher repeats , doesn’t correct
3- interaction among students
4- students feel in control / responsible

Materials

A textbook is considered not necessary.Materials may be developed by the teacher as

the course develops. Materials depend on students’ needs.

Syllabus

CLL doesn’t use a conversation of language syllabus, which sets out in advance the grammar, vocabulary and the other language items to be taught and the order in which they will be covered. Syllabus is developed in terms of students’communication needs.

ADVANTAGES

} a warm, sympathetic and trusting relationship between the teacher and learners

} high motivation

} Active participation

} Student freedom with the role of L1

} Removal of the feeling of alienation and inadequacy

DISADVANTAGES

} The counselor-teacher can become too non-directive.

} The complex nature of translation

} Inductive learning in the early stage of language learning is not effective and less successful.

SOURCES

} http://members.fortunecity.com/nadabs/communitylearn.html