ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING
English
language teaching (ELT) is a widely used teacher-centered term, as in the
English language teaching divisions of large publishing houses, ELT training,
etc. Teaching English as a second language (TESL), teaching English to speakers
of other languages (TESOL) and
teaching
English
as a foreign language (TEFL) are also used. The related expansion of
its use and learning, have generated intense interest in how and whether it is
possible to improve the result of English teaching, and consequently in the
study of language pedagogy and of second-language acquisition (SLA). In
English
language learning and teaching,
which explains
methodology and context, and explains
abbreviations (e.g., the difference between
ESL and EFL, or TESOL as a
subject and an organization). For information
on
foreign language teaching in general
, see
language education and
second language acquisition. And it is the differences of them,
English
as a
second language (ESL), English for speakers of
other languages (ESOL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) all refer to the
use or study of English by speakers with different
native
languages. The precise usage, including the different use of the
terms ESL and ESOL in different countries, is described below. These terms are
most commonly used in relation to teaching and learning English, but they may
also be used in relation to
demographic information.
Indeed, in
the early days of the discipline, applied linguistics and the study of the
teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) were considered to be one and the
same. Teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) refers to teaching
English
to students whose
first language is not English. TEFL usually
occurs in the student's own country, either within the
state school
system, or privately, e.g., in an after-hours
language
school or with a
tutor. TEFL teachers may be native or non-native speakers of
English. TEFL that uses
literature aimed at children and teenagers is rising in
popularity. Youth-oriented literature offers simpler material ("simplified
readers" are produced by major publishers), and often provides a more
conversational style than literature for adults.
Children's literature in particular
sometimes provides subtle cues to pronunciation, through
rhyming
and other
word play.
One method for using these books is the multiple-pass technique. The instructor
reads the book, pausing often to explain certain words and concepts. On the
second pass, the instructor reads the book completely through without stopping.
The Master of
Arts in Teaching English Language Arts is designed to enhance the professional
knowledge and teaching skills of practicing teachers from elementary through
community college who are interested in supporting their students’ achievement
in literacy. The broad-based program may combine work from several
university resources, including courses in English, Literacy Education, and the
Boise State Writing Project. The program works within the teacher’s
current instructional context to connect research and theory in literacy
learning with effective classroom teaching practices.
A.
Grammar Translation Language Teaching
In the
schoolroom of Europe at the close of the nineteenth century, the teaching of
modern foreign languages was heavily influenced by the more established and
prestigious academic study of the dead classical language, Latin and Ancient
Greek. Modern language learning, it was assumed, brought students into contact
with the great national civilization and their literatures. It trained minds in
logical thought, developed elegant expression, and perpetuated the study of the
language as an academic discipline.
Grammar-translation
language teaching is a number of methods and techniques have evolved for the
teaching of English and also other foreign languages in the recent past, yet
this method is still in use in many parts of India. It maintains the mother
tongue of the learner as the reference particularly in the process of learning
the second/foreign languages. And the definition of the grammar-translation
language teaching is the oldest method of teaching English. The main principles
on which the Grammar Translation Method is based are the following:
- Translation interprets the words and phrases of the
foreign languages in the best possible manner.
- The phraseology and the idiom of the target language
can best be assimilated in the process of interpretation.
3. The
structures of the foreign languages are best learned when compared and contrast
with those of mother tongue.
B.
The Direct Method
The direct approach learners
need to learn inductively by using only the target language in the classroom
and learning the oral skills (listening and speaking) before the written ones
(reading and writing). New type of student immigrant, business people, and
tourist created a new kind of classroom population. In the language schools and
evening classes which catered for them, the student did not necessary share the
same first language, making it simply impossible for instruction to proceed
through first language explanation and translation. In addition, the new type
of student needed spoken as well as written language, and they needed it fast.
Language
learning experts (they were not then called applied linguists) responded to
this challenge with radical new ideas about how languages should be taught.
They advocated a direct method in which the students own languages were
banished and everything was to be done through the language under instruction.
In many ways the direct method classroom, by insisting on one language and
outlawing bilingualism, emulated the most repressive of monolingual nations.
The direct
method established a concept of language learning very different from that
implicit in grammar translation. Knowledge of a language was no longer an object
of scholarship attainable simply by hard work. Success was to be measured
instead by the degree to which the learner’s language proficiency approximated
to that of the native speaker, a goal which was not at that time seen as
problematic. This led the way to further changes in both popular and applied
linguistics ideas about how a language might be learned.
- Natural Language Learning
The
early direct method had been a revolution, but not a complete one. Many of the
characteristics of grammar-translation
had survived. There was still explanation and grading of grammar rules, and
that language was devided into discrete areas such as vocabulary or
pronunciation practice. Teachers than had to do much as they had done before,
but without recourse to either first language explanation or translation. This
meant that, in practice, grammar rules had to be worked out by students from
examples, because an explanations would demand language beyond the level of the
rule being explained, while the meaning of new vocabulary had to be either
guessable from the context, or perhaps illustrated of mimed. This last resort
is possible, if often ridiculous, for a word denoting something specific and
physical, like ‘butterfly’ but imagine the plight of teachers trying to mime more
general words such as ‘creature’ or abstract ones such as ‘specification’.
In
the 1970s and 1980s, these academic problem of the direct method were bypassed
by radical ‘new’ ideas. The so called natural
approach revived the notion previously promulgated under exactly the same
in the nineteenth century, that an adult learner can repeat the route to
proficiency of the native speaking child. The idea was that learning would take
place without explanation or grading, and without correction of errors, but simply by exposure
to ‘meaningful input’. This approach was based upon theorizing and research in
SLA which purported to show that learners, whatever their first language, would
follow an internally determined neither explicit instruction nor conscious learning
had any effect.
The
natural approach is an object lesson in what applied linguistics should not be.
For it sought to impose upon teacher, without consultation and without
consideration for their existing practices and beliefs, ideas based upon
academic research and theorizing. Its view of SLA, moreover, was derived
directly from mainstream linguistics research into child first language
acquisition, where the early stages are largely internally driven and
impervious to instruction. This research was then assumed to be directly
relevant, indeed imperative to changes in the way languages were taught. In
addition, the approach was culturally intensive, it was developed in the USA
and then exported as globally relevant without regard to differing educational traditions
or language-learning contexts. It paid no heed, for example, to variations in
class size or to concepts of teacher role. Most damning of all, however, is the
fact that the research on which it was based is seriously flawed in that
instruction does effect learning and there are variations depending on the
language being learned.
The
natural approach, with its suggestion that learning need not involve hard work,
was superficially seductive and there is no doubt that it attracted many
followers in its day. While now seldom followed in its extreme form, it
continues to exert a considerable influence. Conscious learning, correction of
errors, practice activities, and attention to form all kept at arm’s length,
only readmitted with some reluctance and disdain, while what are perceived as
their opposites natural and meaningful and real activities retain something of a sacred aura.
- The communicative approach
A
roughly the same time as the development as the natural approach, there emerged
a far more durable new movement known as the communicative approach or communicative
language teaching (CLT), which rapidly became, and still remains, the
dominant orthodoxy in progressive language teaching. The theories behind it
have had a profound and far-reaching effect, not only in language teaching but
in many other applied linguistic areas
too.
In
practice, both CLT and the natural approach can lead to similar meaning focused
activities and for this reason they have often been confused. The resemblance,
however, is superficial for, their underlying rationales are deeply opposed.
The focus of CLT was primarily and necessarily
social, concerned as it was with the gold of successful communication.
In contrast, the natural approach was essentially psychological, based upon the
idea, derived from first language acquisition studies, the attention to meaning
would somehow trigger the natural cognitive development of the language system.
The essence of CLT is a shift of
attention from the language system as end in it self to the successful use of
the t system in context; that is to say from an emphasis on form to an emphasis
on communication. Language learning success to be assessed neither in terms of
accurate grammar and pronunciation for their own sake, nor in terms of explicit
knowledge of the rules, but the ability to the think with the language,
appropriately, fluently and effectively.
The
richer strands of the CLT movement were nor therefore advocating the
abandonment of attention to form as advocates of the natural approach were, but
rather to changes of emphasis. The first was that, in addition to mastery of
form, learners need other kinds of ability and knowledge if they are to
communicate successfully. The second was that form should be approached in the
context of there usefulness rather than as an end in them self. In other word,
the traditional sequence of language learning was reversed. Whereas in the
past, whether in grammar translation or in direct method teaching, the emphasis
had been upon mastery of form first and their use letter, CLT student
considered first what hey needed to do
It the language and then learn the form which would fulfil those need. Teacher
and material designers were urged to identify things learners to do it the
language (i. e conduct a need analysis) and simulate these in the classroom.
This shift of emphasis from the means to the ends of language learning has had
far-reaching consequences at both the macro level of syllabus and curriculum
design and at the micro level of classroom activity. At the macro level, there
was been the development of language for specific purposes (in the case of
English, English for Specific Purposes (ESP)) which tries to develop the
language and discourse skills which will be needed for particular jobs (English
for Occupational purposes (EOP)) or for particular fields of study (English for Academic Purposes(EAP) ).
At the micro level there has been the
development of task-based Instruction (TBI), in which learning is organize
around tasks related to real world activities, focusing the student attention
upon meaning and upon meaning successful task completion. While the rationale
for ESP is entirely social, working back from student objectives in the outside
words to syllabus content, TBI attempts to unite the perspective with one which
is also psycholinguistic. Its argument, based on SLA a research finding is that
the case to acquisition are attention to meaning rather than form, negotiation
with another speaker, and the motivation
created by real world relevance. In this respect TBI is indirect line of
descent from both the natural and the communicative approach.
All
of f these developments of the communicative approach differ markedly from the
various kind of teaching which presented them. While, traditional approaches,
the emphasis was on formal practice, and element of the language systems where
is selected and taught step by step, in CLT the emphasis became quite
different. Language, it was argued, is best handled all at once, as it would be
in the real world, as this is the learner’s ultimate goal. Consequently there
is little point in breaking things down artificially better to get started
straight away.
This,
at least, was the ideal. In practice, as has often since been pointed out,
communicative activities could lead to limited proficiency and a constraining
and conformist model of language use. Thus, at its worst, emphasis on functions
rather than forms could degenerate into learning phrase-book-like lists of
thing to say in particular situation. Concentration upon communicating meaning
from the outset could lead to inaccurate if temporarily successful language use
which, uncorrected, could than fossilize, preventing the learner from further development for more
complex use. The focus upon ends was, in practice interpreted in a utilitarian
way, seeing work and the transaction of mundane information as the limit of the
learner’s need, thus denying attention to the aesthetic, playful, and creative
aspects of language use, and its role and creating and maintaining
relationship. Above all, the belief that communication would be aided by
situationally and culturally appropriate use of language was often rather
thoughtlessly interpreted to mean that the foreign learner of English should
conform to the norms and conventions of an English speaking community. The sum
of all of these limitation was the denial to learners of the resources needed
to develop a creative command of the language which would enable them to
express their own individual and social meanings. Ironically, the communicative
approach could often stifle rather than promote the richest kind of
communication.
This
well-documented slippage between theory and practice illustrates a particular
kind of applied linguistic problem. It also emphasizes the importance of
considering more closely and issue which is at the heart of all applied
linguistic enquiry; what it means to learn, to know, and to use a language. To
examine this problem and to extend our discussion of areas other than language
teaching, we will benefit from closer assessment of the theory from which CLT
derives.
There
are a number of reasons. It is clear that changes in approaches to teaching
have no single cause. They came about partly in response to changing
perceptions of ‘good’ language use, partly in response to developments in
linguistics, and partly in response to changing political and demographic
circumstances. Success in language learning, moreover, is not an absolute
category. It varies with the values of the age and with many other factors
beside, for example, what the language is to be used for, by home, and in what
circumstances. Answers to applied linguistics problems, in other words, if this
one is anything to go by, are not likely to be settable, final, or value-free.
The
error comes, though, when those approaching such problem do so with dogmatic
certainty, taking a perspectives and values of their own time and place as the
only ones which can ever apply. To combat such dogmatism, and to counter
unthinking fads and fashion, a great deal is to be gained, in ELT as in other
areas of activity, by placing problems in
wider historical and cultural perspective. By doing this, applied
linguistic can make a crucially contribution to debate.
Conclusion
Teaching one to one is something most English teachers will do
sooner or later. Teaching one to one can help improve your teaching salary, and
give you some flexibility in scheduling. Of course, teaching one to one has its
drawbacks as well. Here's a quick rundown on the art of teaching English one to
one, as well as some strategies and tips to help you get started or improve
your one to one teaching skills.
English language teaching (ELT) is a widely used teacher-centered
term, as in the English language teaching divisions of large publishing houses,
ELT training, etc. Teaching English as a second language (TESL), teaching
English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) and teaching English as a foreign
language (TEFL) are also used. The related expansion of
its use and learning, have generated intense interest in how and whether it is
possible to improve the result of English teaching, and consequently in the
study of language pedagogy and of second-language acquisition (SLA).
In applied linguistics, the grammar translation method is a foreign language
teaching method derived from the classical (sometimes called traditional)
method of teaching Greek and Latin. The method requires students to
translate whole texts word for word and memorize numerous grammatical rules and
exceptions as well as enormous vocabulary lists. The goal of this method is to
be able to read and translate literary masterpieces and classics.
References
Cook, Guy. Applied Linguistics.
2003. Oxford University Press. New York.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar_translation
