We have made, we hope, a strong argument throughout this book for the value of teaching languages to adolescents. We, ourselves, learnt at least one foreign language as adolescents, and for us, these experiences contributed to shaping the professional directions that our lives took! Having recounted the stories and expertise of the teachers in this book, we add below brief accounts of our own adolescent experiences of learning languages (we think that it is largely coincidental that we all learnt French!). As you read about our language learning experiences and the reasons we give for our success, see if you can recognise some of the themes that run through this book.
Rosemary highlights how her teachers had high expectations
for her achievement, an example of how a classroom needs to provide environmental challenge,
along with, of course, support (Reference Shernoff, Ruzek and SinhaShernoff et al., 2017). She also refers to the importance of having opportunities to speak French, that is, produce output, and to how motivating the experience of success was for her. She had an image of an ‘ideal L2 self’ (Reference DörnyeiDörnyei, 2005
),
that is, that one day she would speak French in France. This was very motivating for her. Interestingly, in terms of language aptitude, she seems to think that she may have had good ‘language analytic ability’
because she enjoyed seeing the patterns in languages (an example of how adolescents develop metalinguistic awareness).
At the same time, she did not feel so confident in her ability to ‘sound’ French. However, she still made good progress! (Here and below, we italicise some of the main terms and concepts we have written about elsewhere.)
Jenefer recounts two very different experiences, in two different schools with two different teachers. Her first teacher, Beverly, gave her lots of opportunities to hear language input and to produce language output in interaction with classmates. There was less of a focus on form and the approach was inductive,
that is, they had to work grammar
patterns out for themselves. The second school was a shock because the approach was so different. This time, the primary emphasis seemed to be on the teaching of language formS (Reference Long, de Bot, Ginsberg and KramschLong, 1991), that is, on the explicit
teaching of vocabulary
and grammar. Being creative with language and using it communicatively was less important than writing
accurately. Nevertheless, it is very interesting to note that Jenefer’s overall conclusion is that each approach had some merit and contributed to her learning. We will return, below, to the notion of how ideas about successful language teaching have changed and evolved over time.
Diana had a teacher whose approach seems to be the most progressive of the three, in that she realised just how powerful it is to expose learners to large amounts of language input. She literally submerged the learners in the language, at the same time obviously being able to ensure that students could understand what they heard. Notice that Diana mentions how she needed to attend very carefully to this input and work to decipher it. This is a very good example of Reference KrashenKrashen’s (1985) Input + 1, that is, language that is within the learner’s reach but which they have to work at to understand. Diana mentions the insecurity that she initially felt (something that adolescents often struggle with), but this approach also helped her overcome this, not least because she realised how much progress she was making, and she was also able to see the reason for why the teacher taught as she did.
Changes in Approaches to Language Teaching
Our respective language learning experiences (about which we give only brief information here) represent, to some extent, different approaches to language teaching. These approaches are reflective of certain time periods and sets of beliefs about language learning that characterised those time periods. The way that beliefs about what constitutes effective language teaching have changed is highlighted in a conversation Rosemary had with a friend. Lee described the experience of her 12-year-old son, Ben, beginning to learn another language; in this case, it was French again! What was interesting about this conversation was that the boy’s mother, Lee, described, with an element of mistrust, how different the modern methods of teaching seemed to be. Different, that was, to her experience of learning back in the 1970s. She spoke with some enthusiasm of the memories of the series of books she had: one for grammar, one for vocabulary, another for reading, and so on. This conversation with Lee highlights, indeed, just how much language teaching has changed and how potentially confusing and, perhaps, even worrying that can be for parents and for non-experts. The reason for this, of course, is that understanding about learning another language, that is, the field of second language acquisition (SLA) has grown enormously during recent times. With that understanding has come a growing awareness of what effective language teaching should ‘look like’ in terms of classroom practice. This understanding is informed by a huge research literature in the field of second language learning and teaching. In writing this book, we drew, of course, on this research evidence. We were helped enormously by one document, written by an eminent scholar in the field, Distinguished Professor Rod Ellis.
In 2005, the Ministry of Education in New Zealand asked Ellis to write a synthesis from the research literature of theory and factors underlying the effective instruction of foreign languages in the classroom context. This report, entitled, Instructed Second Language Acquisition: A Literature Review, coincided with the development of a new curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007), and informed the professional development of language teachers (Reference ErlamErlam, 2008). Reference EllisEllis (2005) came up with ten principles, which he gleaned from a very extensive research literature investigating what makes for effective language teaching in classroom contexts. We list them in Table 8.1. Ellis was very careful to say that teachers needed to see these principles as provisional and to try them out in their own teaching contexts. We would endorse that. Good teachers are continually trying out and modifying understanding about language teaching in relation to their own learners and classroom contexts. Ellis’s ten principles informed the writing of this book and our view of what successful language teaching would ‘look like’ in the language classroom. As you read them, see if you can make links to themes that you have encountered in other chapters.
If we look at these principles, which represent common understanding from second language acquisition literature about what constitutes effective language teaching/learning, we can see how they might account for some of the differences between the experiences that adolescent language learners may have today, and those their parents and/or their grandparents may have had. We present a number of scenarios below of an activity as it might have played out in a ‘conventional’ classroom and of how it might be taught, as informed by understanding of good principles of language teaching and learning. As you read each scenario, see if you can identify how what we describe in the more progressive classroom may constitute ‘language teaching’ practice which could lead to opportunities for learning. Then you might like to read our comment and see how we establish links with the themes that we have written about in this book (we put key words in italics).
The students are working through a unit on clothing. As part of this they have been learning the vocabulary and language to talk about clothes they might wear.
Our comment: Students in the progressive classroom may have to push their output to be able to use the type of language that the fashion world uses for describing clothes. Their language use will be more meaningful and authentic in that it relates to the way language is used in the real world. This task might be more motivating.
The students are working on a unit that focuses on animals. They are also learning to make comparisons such as X is shorter than Y, and so on.
Our comment: Elizabeth first gave her students lots of aural language input, before she got them to produce language output. She introduced the language focus (comparatives) in a meaningful context, and got students to notice these before giving explicit instruction about them. Then she got students to produce written output. They had to pay attention to the comparative forms to make sure they were correct. Finally, when the riddles were ready to be read out, students had to listen (they got additional input from listening to each other) in order to work out the riddles.
Beginner learners have been learning numbers and months; they are able to say when their birthday is.
Birthdays of the children in the class
Our comment: Students in Eleanor’s class were likely to be motivated to have a real purpose to ask their peers about their birthdays. In completing this task, the students had a lot of opportunity to interact with each other and to develop fluency in Samoan as they practised the same language forms over and over again. Most importantly, they were using the language to communicate with each other and to find out something they didn’t know (when each other’s birthdays were).
The class topic has been ‘parties’ and the teacher would like the students to use the language and vocabulary they have encountered.
Our comment: This task allowed students the autonomy to use their own language and to decide what sort of party they wanted! It also allowed them to push their language output, to ask each other or the teacher for words and expressions they might not know. As they interacted in the target language together, they would have had opportunities to learn (e.g. negotiate meaning together, give each other corrective feedback etc.) that they might not have had in just acting out a scripted role play.
In considering all these scenarios, it is too simple to say that the traditional classroom ‘had it all wrong’ and that the more modern classroom is the only one that will lead to learner success. After all, some of our own language learning experiences typified approaches that were more characteristic of the traditional classroom, and yet we have all been successful in our language learning. Jenefer’s story is particularly interesting because she seems to have had experiences that were very contrasting and the differences between the two classrooms she describes is one that stands out to her years later. In the first classroom, she had opportunities to hear a lot of language input, to use it in interacting with her classmates and to challenge herself to produce language output as she wrote long stories in French. If we look once again at Nation’s four strands, it would seem, from what Jenefer says about what she remembers, that this first classroom learning experience incorporated strands 1, 2, and 4. Jenefer was fortunate to be able to learn this way because research has demonstrated consistently that students need to have extensive exposure to meaningful language input and opportunities to produce language output for communicative purposes. This is especially true of adolescent learners, who wants authentic encounters with the language they are learning, the chance to test their language abilities in the real world. In the second classroom, Jenefer had more opportunity to learn about language form, to gain explicit knowledge of the French language and to use that knowledge to produce language output which was more accurate. Here it would seem that there was a focus on strand 3.
Reference NationNation (2007) argues that a well-balanced language course should consist of four roughly equal strands:
In conventional classrooms, language-focused learning (strand 3), characterised by an explicit focus on the language, tended to dominate, and in some classrooms was the only or main aspect of language learning that the teacher considered important. This was unfortunate as students who learnt with this approach tended to do well at translation and reading in the target language, but often had difficulty using it communicatively. However, as Jenefer concludes, there is need for some emphasis on ‘language-focused’ learning. Her second classroom experience made up for an imbalance in the previous experience, where explicit attention to language form was missing. In this book, we have very much argued for balance in terms of classroom focus. The challenge for the teacher today is to ensure attention to all of Nation’s four strands, and not repeat some of the mistakes that different approaches to language teaching have taken in the past, that is, to overemphasise some and/or ignore others.
In this book, we have not endorsed any one approach to language teaching. However, as Reference EllisEllis (2005) concludes from his literature review, one approach is particularly helpful for teachers who want to embody the ten principles in their classroom practice. This approach is Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT). We refer those who would like to know more about TBLT to an excellent book, Doing Task-Based Teaching, by Reference Willis and WillisWillis & Willis (2007). Many of the lessons that we have referred to, in our book, contain examples of tasks. However, we want our readers to see beyond the notion of task, or a particular approach to teaching, and to understand principles that account for good language teaching. It would be possible for a teacher to teach a task where none or few of the principles were in evidence, and conversely for a teacher to use an activity in a classroom which would not be classified as a task and yet which embodied the principles likely to promote successful acquisition.
In reading this book, you will have noticed that there is a chapter that does not directly ‘speak to’ Ellis’s principles. This is Chapter 7, on digital media. We have included this chapter because we are excited by how this technology may open up opportunities (or affordances, the word we use in the chapter) for language learning. In other words, digital media may be used to help teachers find ways to successfully implement principles of language learning in their classrooms. As you look back over the four scenarios we described above, you might like to think of how this technology might also have been used to enhance the learning experiences for students.
In this conclusion, we have focused on Reference EllisEllis’s (2005) principles and we have referred again, as we do throughout the book, to Reference NationNation’s (2007) strands. Neither of these, however, are enough to account for language learning success. Reference EllisEllis (2005) was the first to say that the principles are not exhaustive. One crucial dimension that is lacking is understanding about the importance of establishing the type of classroom environment where students are willing to put in the effort that they need to make in order to learn. A language teacher might be an expert in implementing an approach which ‘ticks all the boxes’ in terms of the principles characteristic of the effective language classroom. However, if teachers are unable to establish positive relationships with their students and to set up inclusive and supportive learning environments, their efforts will be in vain. We have drawn from the field of education to incorporate a focus on how language teachers might do this. In particular, we have explored those features of the classroom environment that are important for adolescent language learners. Once again, we think that adolescence is a prime time for language learning!
We would like to conclude this book by paying tribute to the teachers to whom we talked, and in particular to those who allowed us inside their classrooms to observe their language teaching practice. We consider that this was a tremendous privilege and we were humbled by their hard work, their dedication, and their professional expertise. In writing this book, we are excited to share with you the wonderful ways in which we saw them implementing the theory and principles of what we, as academics, know, from the literature, account for success in language learning, in particular for the adolescent learner.
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