TEFL-Textbook-Camargo

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Ohana TEFL

Foundations of EnglishLanguage Teaching

Strategies for Successin the EFL Classroom

Carlos F. Camargo, Ph. D.Ohana Foundation

Cupertino, CA 2006

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD .................................................................................. 5

Synopsis: ........................................................................................................6

Chapter 1: Principles of Teaching ........................................................................71.1 Cognitive Principles ..................................................................................7

Automaticity of Acquisition ..........................................................................8Meaningful Learning ...................................................................................8Metaphors We Live By: Structure, Orientation, & Ontology...............................9Teaching and Learning Through Metaphors ..................................................14

I. On the diachronic level .......................................................................14II. On the synchronic level .....................................................................16

1.2. Social Principles....................................................................................17(1) The Self and Self-awareness.................................................................17(2) The Language-Culture Connection.........................................................18

1.3. Socio-linguistic Principles .......................................................................21(1) The Native Language Effect ..................................................................22(2) Language Universals ...........................................................................23(3) Socio-linguistics in Structuring the Syllabus............................................24

(a) The syntactic syllabus ......................................................................25(b) The morphological syllabus ...............................................................25(c) The lexical syllabus ..........................................................................25

Chapter 2: Exploring Language Teaching Methods ...............................................282.1. Period I: Direct Language Teaching .........................................................282.2. Period II: Audio-lingual Teaching and the Innovative Methods of the 1970s...292.3. Period III: Communicative Language Teaching ..........................................31

Chapter 3: Paradigm Shift in Education..............................................................363.1. Changing the Focus of Education.............................................................36

Contemporary Learning Environments: Process v. Product .............................363.2. A Teaching Paradigm to Meet Psychosocial Needs ......................................38

Ourselves Among Others: Groups, Individuals & Learning .............................383.3. Factors of Cooperative Learning ..............................................................403.4. Cooperative Language Learning ..............................................................42

Chapter 4: The Language Curriculum.................................................................454.1. Constructivist: Dialogic & Symbolic Interaction.........................................464.2. The General versus Specific Courses Conjecture ........................................484.3. Random Access Instruction in Complex & Ill-Structured Knowledge Domains .494.4. Language Curriculum as a “Knowledge Strategic Hypertext”—The Ohana ELTMethod ......................................................................................................504.5. Instead of a Conclusion..........................................................................53

Chapter 5: MULTIMEDIA LITERACY IN EFL TEACHER TRAINING.............................545.1. What do we mean by Multimedia Literacy.................................................545.2. In search of a comprehensive definition ...................................................545.3. Objectives of multimedia literacy as a means of teacher training..................575.4. Multimedia as a basic principle of literacy for teachers & students ................58

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5.5. Chapter References:..............................................................................60

Chapter 6: OHANA LEARNING SOLUTIONS--DEVELOPING BEGINNER EFL LANGUAGESKILLS THROUGH MULTIMEDIA ........................................................................61

6.1. Role of visual and verbal information in language learning ..........................616.2. Helping EFL beginners learn with video ....................................................626.3. Some considerations for selecting videos for EFL beginners.........................626.4. Some techniques for teaching with Ohana multimedia ................................63

6.4.1. Silent viewing.................................................................................636.4.2. Sound only ....................................................................................636.4.3. Jigsaw viewing/listening...................................................................636.4.4. Freeze frame..................................................................................64

6.5. Summary ............................................................................................646.6. Chapter References...............................................................................64

Chapter 7: AN INTRODUCTION TO OHANA PHONICS FOR K-3 ...............................657.1. Why Phonics Matter..............................................................................65

7.1.1. Language Development in Children ...................................................657.1.2. Definition of Terms .........................................................................667.1.3. Speech Sounds: Vowels...................................................................677.1.4. Consonant Sounds ..........................................................................687.1.5. Voiced and Unvoiced Speech Sounds .................................................70

7.2. The Phonics System ..............................................................................717.2.1. Reading and Writing........................................................................727.2.2. A Guide for Teaching Phonics to Children............................................747.2.3. Steps for Teaching Phonics...............................................................74

Chapter 8: Classroom management overview ....................................................83What is classroom management?...................................................................84Classroom management models ....................................................................84Goals of classroom management ...................................................................86Instructor responsibilities .............................................................................87Keeping discussions on track.........................................................................88Time spent on learning (course) outcomes......................................................88Student versus class issues ..........................................................................88Addressing problems ...................................................................................88Professional standards .................................................................................89Positive learning environment .......................................................................90Planning.....................................................................................................91Course planning ..........................................................................................91Session planning .........................................................................................92Lesson outlines ...........................................................................................93Student accountability .................................................................................94Classroom challenges...................................................................................96Academic challenges....................................................................................97Non-academic challenges .............................................................................98Physical challenges......................................................................................99Common factors affecting learning............................................................... 101Instructional style ..................................................................................... 101Personality conflicts ................................................................................... 102Student understanding............................................................................... 102Attendance............................................................................................... 102Classroom control tips................................................................................ 103

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Setting expectations .................................................................................. 103Accountability ........................................................................................... 104Consistency.............................................................................................. 104Student involvement.................................................................................. 104Developing strong relationships................................................................... 105Praise ...................................................................................................... 105Trust in the classroom................................................................................ 106Disruptions............................................................................................... 107Student names ......................................................................................... 107Motivating students ................................................................................... 107Choice ..................................................................................................... 108Improvements .......................................................................................... 108When things go wrong ............................................................................... 109Suggestions for dealing with problem students .............................................. 110Things to avoid when dealing with problem students ...................................... 111

Conclusion................................................................................................... 112

Chapter 8: References................................................................................... 113

Appendix A: Dealing with difficult students ....................................................... 115

BOOK REFERENCES ............................................................................... 116

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Foreword

The title indicates our holistic approach to the analysis and synthesis of the conceptsof language, personality, ELT methodology, communication and inter-comprehension, etc. This approach emphasizes the priority of the whole over itsparts. We hold that language teaching and learning is a complex knowledge domain,characterized by network of relationships in a social and cultural context. In addition,we believe that ELT methodology is an interdisciplinary field, which cannot beunderstood in isolation. Our perspective sees it in terms of its relations to otherknowledge domains.

We shall look into a range of issues, which are not only interesting themselves, butalso relevant to the objectives of the Ohana Foundation and, hopefully, to theReader. The nature and extent of the relevance is difficult, if not impossible, todetermine a priori. However, the book supplements Ohana Learning solutions andserves as a concise reference guide on the theory of the teaching and learning ofmodern languages. Linguistics & EFL teaching literature is of course extensive, so weshall be pointing out some of the good books on the topics presented.

We have just mentioned the term “EFL”; throughout the book we shall use itinterchangeably with the term “second language”. Here, we shall consider themsynonymous albeit we realize that they can be easily distinguished. In the literature,“second language” usually refers to a target language that is being taught in thecountry where it is the dominant language, whereas “EFL” usually refers to a targetlanguage that is being taught in the country where it is not the dominant language.However, we do not find this distinction quite relevant for the focus of thismonograph.

A decade ago, N. S. Prabhu, the famous Indian instructional methodologist, pointedout that language teaching faced three major problems, “(1) the measurement oflanguage competence involves elicitation (in some form) of specific languagebehavior but the relationship between such elicited behavior and languagecompetence which manifests itself in natural use is unclear, (2) given the view thatthe development of socio-linguistic competence is a holistic process, there is notenough knowledge available either to identify and assess different intermediatestages of that development or to relate those stages to some table of norms whichcan be said to represent expectations, and (3) there is, ultimately, no way ofattributing with any certainty any specific piece of learning to any specific teaching:language learning can take place independently of teaching intentions and it isimpossible to tell what has been learnt because of some teaching, and what in spiteof it” (Prabhu 1987, 8). Many things have happened in the field of language teachingELT methodology since then. For example, the Common European Framework ofReference (Council of Europe 1996 and 1998) was published, European LanguageCouncil (http://www.fu-berlin.de/elc) was founded, European Language Portfolio(Scharer 1999) was launched and so on. Nonetheless, Prabhu’s claims are still valid.We shall focus on a range of questions in the light of modern methodologicaldevelopments trying to state the scientific facts. Our own opinion emerges in thediscussion now and then, though. We hope our fortuitous academic bias will beunderstood.

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Synopsis:

Chapter 1 offers a theoretical orientation into the philosophical foundations of ELTmethodology. Cognitive and other principles of language teaching and learning arediscussed. It is claimed that the Picture of the World, which we all keep in our minds,determines the way we speak. This relativistic perspective and other ideas havefound different applications in teaching. They are explored in Chapter 2. It is a briefhistorical overview of teaching methods. The three major periods of the developmentof ELT methodology in the twentieth century are presented. Chapter 3 discusses themore specific theme of the approach level of teaching methods. The authors arguethat educational paradigm shift has had a pronounced impact on language ELTmethodology. Particular plans for a language curriculum, which constitutes therelatively concrete design level of teaching methods, are made in Chapter 4. Thequestion of modern and contemporary EFL curriculum design and development isexamined in it. The book functions as a whole text. We recommend that the readerspeed-read the book first. Then, the appropriate readings can be selected easily.

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Chapter 1: Principles of Teaching

In his Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, H. Douglas Brown notes thatthere are “…best of times and worst of times” in the language teaching profession(Brown 1994a). We can safely say that this is the best of times for the EFL teacher.Today, we know much about language acquisition, about childhood acquisition oflanguage, about cognitive processes, etc. It is also very important that we havecome to an appreciation of the extreme complexity of this field. This gives uscautious optimism to plunge even deeper into the problems.

EFL teachers and educators are often confronted with the question "What method orwhat system do you use in teaching EFL?" Most often the answer does not comeeasily or if one gives a straightforward answer, he risks being subjected to criticism.Teachers always have to make choices. These choices are motivated by the fact thatthey rest on certain principles of language learning and teaching. Now that we knowmuch more about human language and its various aspects, we can take the nextstep and formulate at least some of these principles, which are based on what weknow about language itself. Often, swept by fashionable theories or a desire to sound“scholarly”, we forget a simple truth – we, as human beings, teach a humanlanguage to human beings. “Students and teachers of language”, says Osgood, “willdiscover the principles of their science in the universalities of humanness” (Osgoodet al. 1957, 301). A concise but true definition of man will probably include threemajor characteristics: (i) one who can reflect and interpret the world around him; (ii)one who can express feelings; and (iii) one who can use language. Thesecharacteristics underlie three major principles of language teaching and learning.Well known and novice teaching techniques can be subsumed under these threeheadings. The bewildering multiplicity of instructional techniques can be broughtdown to a number of methods and the methods reduced to a number of principles.Ohana ELT curriculum and programs are designed to incorporate these distilledprinciples of effective ELA instruction. Mastering a great number of teachingtechniques will not save you in new situations, “not predicted” by the theory butpredictable. It will not give you the all-important ability to rationalize what you aredoing and why are you doing it. To do that one must be aware of deeper principles oflanguage acquisition and use, stemming from the foundations of human language assuch.

1.1 Cognitive Principles

We shall call the first set of principles “cognitive” because they relate to mental,intellectual and psychological faculties in operating with language. It should be madeclear, however, that the three types of principles described in this chapter, cognitive,social and socio-linguistic principles, do not exist as if in three watertightcompartments but rather spill across each other to make up the most remarkableability of man – the socio-linguistic ability.

It is no wonder that the achievements of modern cognitive science have found sucha warm and fast response in socio-linguistics. Some of the postulates of cognitivescience today are crucial to our understanding of how language operates and how weacquire this ability, respectively. Because one of the most difficult questions in EFLacquisition and child acquisition of language is, How is it possible that children at anearly age and adults, late in their life, can master a system of such immense

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complexity? Is it only a matter of memory capacity and automatic reproduction or isthere something else that helps us acquire a language?

Let us begin with some long established postulates of EFL acquisition and see whatcognitive theory has to say about them.

Automaticity of Acquisition No one can dispute the fact that children acquire a foreign language, or anylanguage, quickly and successfully. This ease is commonly attributed to children’sability to acquire language structures automatically and subconsciously, that is,without actually analyzing the forms of language themselves. They appear to learnlanguages without “thinking” about them. This has been called by B. McLaughlin“automatic processing” (McLaughlin 1990). In order to operate with the incrediblecomplexity of language both children and adult learners do not process language“unit by unit” but employ operations in which language structures and forms (words,affixes, endings, word order, grammatical rules, etc.) are peripheral. The Principle ofAutomaticity, as stated above, aims at an “automatic processing of a relativelyunlimited number of language forms”. Overanalyzing language, thinking toomuch about its forms tends to impede the acquisition process. This leads tothe recommendation to teachers to focus on the use of language and itsfunctional aspects. But focus on use and functionality presupposes meaningfullearning, which is in strong contradiction with automaticity. What is more, one majorcharacteristic both of child acquisition and adult learning of a language is thephenomenon called hypercorrection. Again hypercorrection cannot exist withoutmeaningful analysis of language structures and their “classification” into “regularpatterns” and “exceptions” with respect to a language function. Meaningful Learning

Meaningful learning “subsumes” new information into existing structures andmemory systems. The resulting associative links create stronger retention. “Childrenare good meaningful acquirers of language because they associate…words, structuresand discourse elements with that which is relevant and important in their daily questfor knowledge and survival” (Brown 1994b, 18). We must pay special attention tothis sentence of H. D. Brown, especially the last words, underlined here. It will berelevant in our argument in favor of the cognitive principles of language acquisition.One of the recommendations for classroom application of Meaningful Learning is alsoof relevance to our further argument in this direction. It states “Whenever a newtopic or concept is introduced, attempt to anchor it in students’ existingknowledge and background so that it gets associated with something theyalready know”.

Some forty years ago, a new science was born. Now called “Cognitive Science”, itcombines tools from psychology, computer science, socio-linguistics, philosophy,child psychology, and neurobiology to explain the workings of human intelligence.Socio-linguistics, in particular, has seen spectacular advances in the years since.There are many phenomena of language that we are coming to understand.

Language is not a cultural artifact that we learn the way we learn to tell the time.Instead, it is a distinct characteristic of our brains. Language is a complex,specialized skill, which develops in the child. For that reason cognitive scientists havedescribed language as a psychological and mental faculty. The idea that thought is

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the same thing as language is an example of what can be called a conventionalabsurdity. Now that cognitive scientists know how to think about thinking, there isless of a temptation to equate it with language and we are in a better position tounderstand how language works.

In essence, to reason is to deduce new pieces of knowledge from old ones. But“knowledge” is something complex, the product of social and cultural experiencefrom living in a particular “world”. In his Philosophy of Language, Wilhelm vonHumboldt claims that speaking a language means living in a specific conceptualdomain. Acquiring a foreign language means entering a new conceptual domain. Thisstatement poses a major problem or perhaps the major problem of acquiring aforeign language – are these conceptual domains so different that they areincompatible? Or are there certain mechanisms by which we can maketransitions from the one into the other?

We shall present arguments in support of the second stance. The pivotal question ishow we interpret Humboldt’s conceptual domains. We will refer to them by the termPicture of the World, initially used in analyzing mythology and today employed bycognitive science. The word “picture”, though usually used metaphorically, expressestruly the essence of the phenomenon – it is a picture, not a mirror reflection, but asnapshot of the world around us. Like any other picture, it presupposes a definitepoint of view or the attitude of its creator. It involves interpretation, representationsof the world from various angles (the so- called “facet viewing”). This of courseimplies the possibility of having a number of different pictures of one object. What isimportant here is that our conceptualization of the world is not “an objectivereflection of reality”, but a subjective picture, which reflects our views, beliefs, andattitudes. “Subjective” in the sense of the collective interpretation or point of view ofa society or cultural and socio-linguistic community. This picture explicates therelativity of human cognition. In semiotics it goes under the name of “passive”cultural memory. Cognitive science, however, rejects the qualification “passive” andclaims that common cognitive models actively and currently structure Pictures of theWorld. In connection with Humboldt’s statement, it is possible to pass from onepicture of the world into another by means of a set of universal cognitivemechanisms. This is crucial for explaining EFL acquisition. But what are thosemechanisms? And what is the nature of the evidence?

Metaphors We Live By: Structure, Orientation, & Ontology

Our conceptual system or Picture of the World is not something that we arenormally aware of. But human language is an important source of evidence for whata picture of the world is like. On the basis of socio-linguistic evidence we can saythat most of our everyday conceptual system is metaphorical in nature. Cognitivescience explains the essence of metaphor as understanding and experiencing onething in terms of another. The first thing is called a Target Domain (what we want toexpress) and the second one is called a Source Domain (by means of which weexpress the first). We can use, as an example, the way we conceive of time in oureveryday life. Let us review the following socio-linguistic expressions:

• You are wasting my time.• This gadget will save you hours.• How do you spend your time?• That flat tire will cost me an hour.

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• I’m running out of time.

The central postulate of cognitive science is that metaphorical transfer is not just amatter of language, of mere words. Human thought processes are largelymetaphorical. Metaphor means metaphorical concepts. And these are specificallystructured. If we generalize the examples above, we come up with the metaphor/TIME IS MONEY/. This metaphor entails the treatment of time as a limitedresource and a valuable commodity. The examples demonstrate one type ofmetaphorical transfer – structural metaphor.

On the more socio-linguistic side of the problem, when metaphorical conceptsbecome lexicalized, they help a variety of people understand what the conceptsmean. In other words, they have a certain didactic role. Metaphors in computerterminology, for example, aid users speaking different languages but using English tounderstand and remember new concepts. At the same time they allow users toassociate unfamiliar concepts with old ones, thereby helping to palliate techno-stress. The “user friendliness” of computer metaphorical terms can be illustrated bythe numerous examples found in the vocabulary of user interfaces – e.g. desktop,wallpaper, and menu, to mention just a few. It appears that conceptual domains areshaped by several themes. The domain of the Internet features several conceptualthemes. Most of these are based on the functions that the Internet is perceived tohave: (1) helping people “move” across vast distances; (2) facilitatingcommunication; and (3) sending and storing data. The following metaphoricaldomains can present these themes:

1. TransportationThe theme of transportation dominates Internet terminology, specified sometimes asmarine navigation, highway transportation:

• to navigate/cruise/surf the Internet (or the Web)• internaut• cybersurfer• anchor• information highway, data highway• to ride/get on the Internet• router• ramp/on-ramp, access ramp• infobahn• cyberspace

2. Mail and Postal Services• e-mail• snailmail• mailbox• virtual postcard• envelope

3. Architecture• site• gateway• bridge• frame

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4. The Printed Medium• Web page• bookmark• White pages• to browse• e-magazine• carbon copy

Some metaphorical terms have spawned numerous conceptually related ones bymetaphorical extension. Gopher, for example, has given rise to Gopherspace, Gopherhole. The famous desktop metaphor has given rise to files, folders, and trashcans.The mouse metaphor has generated mouse trails and so on.

A different type of metaphorical model is a second one, which organizes a wholesystem of concepts with respect to one another – the so-called orientationmetaphor. They rely on bodily experience: up-down, in-out, front-back, deep-shallow, center-periphery, etc. Such orientation metaphors are grounded in physicalperception and hence universal. For example:

Up vs. Down

happy sadI’m feeling up. I’m down today.I’m in high spirits. My spirits sank.Thinking about her gives me a lift. I’m depressed.

good health sicknessHe is in top shape. He fell ill.He is at the peak of health. He came down with a flue.

have control over be subject to controlHe is in a superior position. He is my social inferior.I have control over the situation. He is under my control.

high status low statusHe’s climbing the social ladder fast. He is at the bottom of the

social hierarchy.

virtue depravityHe is an upstanding citizen. I wouldn’t stoop to that.She is high-minded. That’s beneath me.

rational emotionalHis arguments rose above emotions. Discussion fell to the

emotional level.

The third type of metaphor is called ontological. Cognitive science has it that weunderstand our experience in terms of objects and substances. This allows us to pickfragments of our experience and treat them as discrete entities or substances. Thus,we interpret the human mind as a material object with specific properties – i.e. the/MIND IS A MACHINE/ metaphor:

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• My mind just isn’t working today.• I’m a little rusty today.• The experience shattered her.• He is easily crushed.• He broke under cross-examination.

The conception of /MIND IS A MACHINE/ also enables us to view mind as havingan off-state, a level of efficiency, productive capacity, internal mechanisms, etc.What is more, and it is very important, we view both conceptual domains (The Mindand The Machine) as internally structured, so that we can make transfers not onlybetween the domains as a whole but also between parts of these domains. Thisprocess is known as “metaphorical mapping”. In this way, when we use ametaphorical model, we can also use elements of that model with the same effect.Let’s illustrate this with an example:

/LIFE IS A JOURNEY/.

The mapping between the two domains is not simple. The structure of Journeyincludes, for example, point of departure, path to destination, means oftransportation, co-travelers, obstacles along the way to destination, crossroads, etc.It is amazing how our concept of life repeats all the details of our concept ofjourneys. What is much more amazing, however, is not that we have manymetaphors for life, but that we have just a few. They are among the basic metaphorswe live by.

Basic metaphors are limited in number. Among them are:

/STATES ARE LOCATIONS//EVENTS ARE ACTIONS//PEOPLE ARE PLANTS//PEOPLE ARE CONTAINERS//LIFE IS A JOURNEY/

By means of them we can interpret all existing metaphorical models:

/LIFE IS A JOURNEY//LIFE IS A PLAY/

< /EVENTS ARE ACTIONS/

/LIFE IS A PRECIOUS POSSESSION//LIFE IS A SUBSTANCE//LIFE IS A FLUID/

< /PEOPLE ARE CONTAINERS/

/LIFE IS LIGHT//DEATH IS DARKNESS/

< /PEOPLE ARE PLANTS/

/DEATH IS DEPARTURE/ < /LIFE IS A JOURNEY//DEATH IS SLEEP/REST/ < /STATES ARE LOCATIONS/.

We understand the Source Domains of basic metaphors relying on our everydayexperience – bodily experience and social experience. This means that they are notindependent of thinking and cognition.

What motivates our ability to create and understand metaphorical structures?According to cognitive science, these are cognitive and psychological characteristics,which are elements of our species being, specific to us as human beings. They are:

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• Our ability to create structures in concepts that do not exist independent ofthe metaphor, i.e. our ability for modeling,

• Our ability to choose and explicate optional elements from conceptualstructures,

• Our ability to make conclusions and inferences,• Our ability to evaluate and transfer evaluations of elements of the Source

Domain onto the Target Domain.

Our mental ability for modeling enables us to operate easily with extremely complexconceptual structures. A very good example is the notion of ‘mother’. It comprisessix sub-models:

(i) BirthMother is the one who gives birth to a child.

(ii) GeneticMother is the one who carries the embryo.

(iii) BreedingMother is the one who feeds and cares for the baby.

(iv) MarriageMother is the one who is married to the child’s father.

(v) GenealogicalMother is the closest female relative.

(vi) HousewifeMothers stay at home and care for the family.

Sub-models (i), (iii), and (iv) form the core of the concept. They build the stereotypeimage of a mother. Sub-models (i), (ii), and (v) describe what a mother is“objectively” (biologically). And (i), (ii), (iii), and (iv) describe what a mothernormally is, i.e. the prototypical mother. This prototype remains stable cross-culturally. All six sub-models describe the ideal mother. This ideal changeshistorically and across cultures.

Thus, we operate with several images. The most important are the stereotype andthe ideal. Very often they have separate socio-linguistic expressions. Thus in Englishwe distinguish between the biological and the ideal father. We can normally ask

Who is the child’s father?but not

*Who is the child’s daddy?

because the ideal implies caring for the family and being married to the child’smother. In the ‘mother’ concept the biological and the social are inseparable. Alldeviations from the model are interpreted as highly marked, i.e. exceptions from theideal. For that reason they are consistently marked socio-linguistically:

• stepmother• surrogate mother

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• foster mother• adoptive mother• donor mother• biological mother

Teaching and Learning Through Metaphors

We can summarize all metaphorical models into a small number of Basic Models:

/GENERAL IS SPECIFIC//ABSTRACT IS CONCRETE//TIME IS SPACE//SOCIAL IS NATURAL//MENTAL IS PHYSICAL/

How can we apply these principles, mechanisms and models in teaching a languageand teaching about language? We can do that in a number of ways:

I. On the diachronic level

There is a marked parallelism between current English metaphors and models ofsemantic change. Living metaphors and semantic change are related and mutuallyreinforcing. This explains the commonality of such metaphors in the Indo-Europeanlanguages through time. By using cognitive models we can explain but alsoteach the established one-way directions of semantic change. For example,Indo-European languages consistently follow certain metaphorical transfers:

1. /MENTAL ACTIVITY IS MOTION IN PHYSICAL SPACE/,e.g. report

< Latin ‘carry back’refer

This direction of semantic change is paralleled by the existence of synchronicmetaphorical schemes in which physical motion is used as the Source Domain formore abstract notions like ‘time’ or ‘mental activity’. Shifts in the opposite directionare unknown.

2. /MENTAL STATES ARE PHYSICAL PERCEPTION/,e.g. know < ‘see’

remark < observe, < ‘look closely at’

3. /MENTAL STATES ARE PHYSICAL MOTION/,e.g. suppose ‘understand’ < Latin sub + ponere ‘put under’

4. /MENTAL STATES ARE MANIPULATION OF OBJECTS IN SPACE/,e.g. comprehend < Latin ‘seize’

grasp2 ‘understand’ < grasp1 ‘ seize in the hand’get2 ‘understand’ < get1 ‘acquire a physical entity’decide < Latin de + caedo ‘cut off from’confuse < Latin con + fundere ‘pour together, mix’

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prefer < Latin prae + ferre ‘carry before’deduce < Latin de + ducere ‘lead out from’infer < Latin in + fere ‘carry in’presume < Latin prae + sumere ‘take before’

This is the most productive metaphor with ‘Mental state’ verbs in English. Themanipulation with ideas is seen as holding, touching, moving, uniting, separating,arranging, and re-ordering them, like physical objects.

5. /SPEECH COMMUNICATION IS SPATIAL RELATION/,e.g. propose < Latin pro + ponere ‘put forward’

Data demonstrate a stable d i rect ion in meaning change:

• verbs of ‘Physical motion/location’ > verbs of ‘Mental state’/’Speech acts’;• verbs of ‘Mental state’ > verbs of ‘Speech acts’, but never in the opposite

direction. Therefore semantic change tends to move towards morepersonal meanings, meanings closer to the Self.

6. /SPEECH ACTS ARE MANIPULATION OF OBJECTS IN SPACE/,e.g. admit < Latin ad + mittere ‘send to’

assert < Latin ad + serere ‘connect to’ad- expressing ‘direction from speaker to hearer’reply < Latin re + plicare ‘feed back’refuse < Latin re + futare ‘beat back’re- expressing ‘direction from hearer to speaker’

7. /MENTAL ACTIVITY/SPEECH ACT IS TRAVEL IN SPACE/,e.g. We haven’t got anywhere in this conversation.

Now we must go back to the main issue.

Notice also the use of spatial prepositions both with ‘Speech act’ and ‘Mental activity’verbs:

e.g. talk thinkabout overwalk go

This shows that we conceive of a speech act as a distance between the twocommunicating parties, a route along which ideas=objects can travel or beexchanged. This is a replica of the model of ‘Physical action’ verbs, with their regularcontrast between to and at prepositions:

e.g. throw to talk to shout to at at at

to, expressing active participation on the part of the receiver=hearer, a successfulcompletion of the trajectory of the action, and at, expressing an inactivereceiver=hearer.

Since ‘Speech act’ verbs involve exchange between two parties, i.e. action, they canalso have a metaphorical variant like /SPEECH ACTS ARE WARFARE/,

e.g. concede < Latin con + cedere ‘give up’

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insist < Latin in + sistere ‘stand in’convince < Latin con + vincere ‘conquer together’.

II. On the synchronic level

Synchronically, we can employ metaphorical transfer models to teach semantic fieldsand explain semantic extension. Thus, ‘Human emotions’ can be explained through‘Temperature’, ‘Cooking activities’, or ‘Colors’,

e.g. hot temper cold personwarm friendship our friendship has cooledboil with indignation keeping coolburn with emotionsimmer with angerstew over something.

Other spheres of language teaching or socio-linguistic analysis where we can applythe same mechanism of explanation are synonymy, diction, development ofgrammatical categories and forms of their expression, predominant word order, etc.We shall demonstrate the validity of this approach in teaching grammar, usingauxiliary verbs as an example.

There is a stable tendency for a limited set of notional verbs, with specific meaning,to turn, over time, into auxiliary verbs of analytical constructions (the perfect tenses,the progressive tenses, and the future tense). The lexical sources for auxiliaries insuch constructions usually include notions like:

• PHYSICAL LOCATION: be + on/at/in + nominal form• MOVEMENT TO A GOAL: go(to)/come(to) + nominal form• DEVELOPMENT OF ACTION IN TIME: begin/become/finish + nominal form• VOLITION: want/will + nominal form• OBLIGATION: must + verbal form• PERMISSION: let + verbal form.

In other words, there is ”selectivity” with respect to the initial lexical meaning ofverbs that are likely to evolve into auxiliaries of analytical constructions acrosslanguages. Thus the initial meaning of 117 auxiliary verbs forms from 15 languagesinvolve 20 lexical sources:

• be at/on• be + adjective/participle• have• come• go(to)• walk• sit• stand• lie• begin• become• remain

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• finish• do• want• must• permit• take care, put• give.

There are a number of immediate questions that arise. Is this “rule of auxiliation”due to pure coincidence; does it result from geographic or genetic closeness oflanguages; or could this be the reflection of some fundamental cognitive principlethat gets actualized in socio-linguistic structures? We can postulate that this processof auxiliation is the reflection of a basic principle in human conceptualization, namelythat abstract notions are conceptualized by means of a limited number of concretebasic concepts. We can make an even stronger claim that lexical sources forgrammatization in general involve notions basic to human experience(bodily and social) that provide central reference points.

1.2. Social Principles

We now turn our attention to those principles of language acquisition that are centralto human beings as social entities. We shall look at the concept of self and self-awareness, at relationships in a community (of speakers and learners), and at therelationships between language and culture.

In speaking, learning and teaching a language we are taking part in one of thewonders of the world. For we all belong to a species with a remarkable ability: wecan shape events and ideas in each other’s brains. The ability is language. Languageis not just any cultural invention but the product of society and culture, and theability of man to cope with them and to create them. But it is much more than that.There must be something, then, that makes language accessible to all, manageableand flexible enough to accommodate various cultures and societies, and to be themost widely used instrument in interpersonal relations.

(1) The Self and Self-awareness

One of the products of social development is the formation of the concept of self andawareness of the ego, which model a specific pattern of socio-linguistic behavior andthe structure of socio-linguistic categories. In the context of the problems discussedhere, this touches onto the old and widely disputed idea of language relativity, i.e.the idea that the structure of our mother tongue and its categories, which are areflection of our way of life and the environment, give particular shape to our way ofthinking. That is, speaking a particular language, you are also a particular socio-linguistic self. As human beings learn a foreign language, they also develop a newmode of thinking and acting – they enter a new identity. But this new “languageego,” intertwined with the new language itself, can create a sense of uncertainty,defensiveness, even humiliation, and raise inhibitions. Learners can feel this becausethe arsenals of their native-language egos may be suddenly useless in developing a“second self”.

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The EFL teacher is the major factor in the formation of this “second self”. His or herchoice of techniques needs to be cognitively challenging to achieve theaccommodation of the learner to his “new world”. If the student is learning theforeign language in the milieu of the country where it is spoken, then he is likely toexperience an “identity crisis.” To avoid this the teacher must “create” appropriate“natural” situations for the learner so that he can practice his new identity.

Let us take one ordinary example – learning to write compositions or essays inEnglish. Students whose teachers urge them to reduce the number of times they usethe pronoun “I” in their essays (or, conversely, encourage the use of “I”) may besurprised to discover that in some cultures this grammatical choice has profoundcultural and even political connotations. A Chinese student is taught to use always“we” instead of “I” lest he give the impression of being selfish and individualistic.Starting to study English he is required to “imagine looking at the world with hishead upside down” and to invent a new “English self” that could use the pronoun “I”.Learning to write an essay in English is not an isolated classroom activity, but asocial and cultural experience. Learning the rules of English essay writing is, to acertain extent, learning the values of Anglo-American society. Writing essays inEnglish, a Chinese student has to “reprogram” his mind, to redefine some of thebasic concepts and values that he had about himself, and about society.

Rule number one in English composition writing is: “Be yourself”. But writing many“I’s” is only the beginning of the process of redefining oneself. By such a redefinitionis meant not only the change of how one envisions oneself, but also a change in howone perceives the world. The Chinese student gradually creates his new “EnglishSelf”.

(2) The Language-Culture Connection

Everyone “knows” what is supposed to happen when two Englishmen who havenever met before come face to face in a railway compartment – they start talkingabout the weather. By talking to the other person about some neutral topic like theweather, it is possible to strike up a relationship with him without actually having tosay very much. Conversations of this kind are a good example of the sort ofimportant social function that is often fulfilled by language. By trying to master thisfunction of language, the learner is building part of his new language identity.

It is well known, and often humorously exaggerated, that the British always talkabout the weather. In his famous book, How To Be an Alien, George Mikes (1970)discusses the weather as the first and most important topic for a person who wantsto learn English. Here is his comment:

“This is the most important topic in the land. Do not be misled by memoriesof your youth when, on the Continent, wanting to describe someone asexceptionally dull, you remarked: ‘He is the type who would discuss theweather with you.’ In England, this is an ever-interesting, even thrilling topic,and you must be good at discussing the weather.

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EXAMPLES FOR CONVERSATION

For Good Weather

• ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’• ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’• ‘The sun…’• ‘Isn’t it gorgeous?’• ‘Wonderful, isn’t it?’• ‘It’s so nice and hot…’• ‘Personally, I think it’s so nice when it’s hot – isn’t it?’• ‘I adore it – don’t you?’

For Bad Weather

• ‘Nasty day, isn’t it?’• ‘Isn’t it dreadful?’• ‘The rain…I hate rain…’• ‘I don’t like it at all. Do you?’• ‘Fancy such a day in July. Rain in the morning, then a bit of sunshine, and

then rain, rain, rain, all day long.’• ‘I remember exactly the same July in 1996.’• ‘Yes, I remember too.’• ‘Or was it in 1998?’• ‘Yes, it was.’• ‘Or in 1999?’• ‘Yes, that’s right.’

Now, observe the last few sentences of this conversation. A very important ruleemerges from it. You must never contradict anybody when discussing the weather inEngland. Should it hail and snow, should hurricanes uproot trees, and shouldsomeone remark to you: ‘Nice day, isn’t it?’ – answer without hesitation: ‘Isn’t itlovely?’”

And here is Mikes’ advice to the learner of English:

“Learn the above conversations by heart. If you are a bit slow in pickingthings up, learn at least one conversation, it would do wonderfully for anyoccasion.”

All this is of course a very good joke but it says much about the British and theirsocial behavior. Whenever you teach a language, you also teach a complex system ofcultural customs, values, and ways of thinking, feeling and acting. A teacher mustnecessarily attract his students’ attention to the cultural connotations, especially ofsocio-linguistic aspects of language. An easy way to do this is to discuss cross-cultural differences with the students, emphasising that no culture is “better” thanany another. What is important in such a discussion is to make them aware that theywill never master the foreign language without “entering a new world” or “acquiringa new self”. A second aspect of the language – culture connection is the extent towhich the students will be affected by the process of acculturation, which will varywith the context and the goals of learning. In many language-learning contexts suchas ESL, students are faced with the full-blown realities of adapting to life in a foreigncountry, complete with varying stages of acculturation. Then, cultural adaptation,

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social distance, and psychological adjustment are also factors to deal with. Thesuccess with which learners adapt to a new cultural milieu will affect their languageacquisition success, and vice versa, in some significant ways.

We cannot be certain that all the functions of language described in socio-linguisticliterature are to be found in all cultures. The relative importance of these differentfunctions may vary from culture to culture; their distribution may vary. For anyoneto participate in the life of a community he has to be able to communicate and becommunicated to. That is why the learner is learning a language. This does not meanthat the range of functions aimed at by an EFL learner will be that at the commandof the native speaker. A language learner may know exactly what he wants theforeign language for, or he may have no clear idea at all. But for many teachingoperations we need to specify the aims.

Our ability to participate as members of social and language communities dependsupon our control of socio-linguistic and other behavior considered appropriate. Thelearner of EFL is preparing to use that language for certain purposes, in certain rolesand in certain situations. Many writers speak of the socio-linguistic needs of thelearner in terms of roles he may assume. The primary role ascribed to him will bethat of foreigner, in which his communicative needs are normally going to be morerestricted than those of the native speaker. In preparing a teaching program orchoosing a teaching strategy, we have to take into account what thelearner’s needs may be and we must do so in terms of the social situationsshe is going to have to participate in, perhaps not as a “full member” but asa “foreign associate”. In this connection, it is appropriate to rehearse again thewonderful book of George Mikes advising to foreigners not to pretend to be nativespeakers. Here is what Mikes says about foreigners, trying to acquire “perfect”English to sound like native speakers.

“In the first week after my coming to England I picked up a tolerableworking knowledge of the language and the next seven years convinced megradually but thoroughly that I would never know it really well, let aloneperfectly. This is sad. My only consolation being that nobody speaks Englishperfectly.

If you live here long enough you will find out to your greatestamazement that the adjective nice is not the only adjective the languagepossesses, in spite of the fact that in the first three years you do not need tolearn or use any other adjective.

Then you have to decide on your accent. You will have your foreignaccent all right, but many people like to mix it with something else. Theeasiest way to give the impression of having a good accent or no foreignaccent at all is to hold an unlit pipe in your mouth, to mutter between yourteeth and finish your sentences with the question: ‘isn’t it?’ People will notunderstand much, but they are accustomed to that and they will get the mostexcellent impression.

The most successful attempts to put on a highly cultured air have beenon the polysyllabic line. Many foreigners, who have learned Latin and Greek inschool, discover with amazement and satisfaction that the English languagehas absorbed a huge amount of ancient Greek and Latin expressions, andthey realize that (a) it is much easier to learn these expressions than themuch simpler English words; (b) that these words are as a rule interminablylong and make a simply superb impression when talking to the greengrocer…”

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1.3. Socio-linguistic Principles

The last category of principles of language learning and teaching centers on languageitself and on how learners deal with this complex and ill-formed system (see Chapter4).

Earlier in the last century, anthropologist Edward Sapir wrote: “When it comes tosocio-linguistic form, Plato walks with the Macedonian swineherd, Confucius with thehead-hunting savage of Assam.” There is a considerable body of knowledgeavailable about the nature of human language. Socio-linguistics provides a growingbody of scientific knowledge about language, which can guide the activity of thelanguage teacher.

Language is such a complex phenomenon that it cannot be fully accounted for withinone consistent and comprehensive theory. For this reason, when asked the question"What is language?" the linguist is likely to reply by asking another question "Why doyou want to know?" If we teach language, the way we approach the task willbe influenced, or even determined, by what we believe language to be. Thereis generally a close connection between the way we talk about something and theway we regard it. Linguists, especially, often talk about how language “works”. Thesocio-linguistic approach to language is the most “objectivizing” approach: it isconcerned with language as a system; it aims to elucidate the structure of language.To do this it has set up various “levels of description”. These levels bear such familiarnames as syntax, morphology, phonology and phonetics, lexis and semantics,pragmatics, etc.

The study of language is beset by the difficulty that it deals with something utterlyfamiliar. Everybody “knows” about language, because they use it all the time. Theproblem with studying phenomena like language is to separate it from ourselves, toachieve a “psychic distance” (Chomsky 1968).

Perhaps the most cogent criticism of traditional language teaching with its insistenceon correctness, the rules of grammar, and its limited objectives, is that it lacks thesocio-cultural dimension. Little thought seems to have been given to the notion ofappropriateness, to the way that language behavior is responsive to differing socialsituations. It is one of the great values of contemporary language teaching that itadopts a more social approach to language, and it is concerned with the problems ofits communicative function.

The relevance of the socio-linguistic approach to language teaching is too obvious toneed much discussion here. One point must be mentioned, however. Modernteachers of language are actually teaching their students not only the language butalso about language. Modern socio-linguistics requires that a grammar should accordwith a native speaker’s intuitions about language. This formulates a new goal forsocio-linguistic theory. Now linguists describe what native speakers conceive to bethe nature of their language. The emphasis has shifted from the nature of languagedata to the nature of the human capacity, which makes it possible to produce thelanguage data. Some linguists, Chomsky among them, would claim that theobjectives of the socio-linguistic study of language have always implicitly been thecharacterization of the internalized set of rules by a speaker-hearer (and learner)when he uses language. Such linguists do not study what people do when they speakand understand language, but seek to discover the rules underlying this

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performance. This is what Chomsky calls competence (1966a, 9): "A distinction mustbe made between what the speaker of a language knows implicitly (what we may callhis competence) and what he does (his performance). A grammar, in the traditionalview, is an account of competence".

The speaker’s competence, then, can be characterized as a set of rules for producingand understanding sentences in a language. The grammar of a language, thus, inits socio-linguistic sense, is a characterization of the native speaker’scompetence. All speakers of a language vary slightly in the rules they follow, aswell, of course, as in their performance. When we are teaching EFL, we are trying todevelop in the learner not just grammatical competence, in the Chomskyan sense,but communicative competence. We are teaching him or her not only what we call“the formation rules” of the language, but also in addition, what Hymes has called“the speaking rules”. The learner must develop the ability to distinguish grammaticalfrom ungrammatical sequences, but he must also know when to select a particulargrammatical sequence, appropriate to the context, both socio-linguistic andsituational.

Different functions of language can be associated with the factors involved in aspeech act – the speaker, the hearer, contact between them, the socio-linguisticcode used, the topic and the form of the message. If the orientation is towards thespeaker, then we have the personal function of language. It is through this functionthat the speaker reveals his attitude towards what he is speaking about. It is not justthat he expresses his thoughts and emotions through language, but also hisemotions and attitudes about what he is discussing.

Hearer-oriented speech acts involve the directive function of language. It is thefunction of controlling the behavior of a participant. This can be done by command,request or warning, or by some general admonitory statement, by invoking legal,moral or customary rules of society.

Where the focus is on the contact between the participants, speech functions toestablish relations, maintain them, or promote social solidarity. These are typicallyritual, or formulaic speech acts: leave-taking, greetings, remarks about the weather,inquiries about health, etc. This function, sometimes called phatic, is also performedor supported by gestures and facial expression.

The topic-oriented function of speech, often called the referential function, is thatwhich usually stands first in people’s minds. It is the function that gave rise to thetraditional notion that language was created solely for the communication of thought,for making statements about how the speaker perceives the way things in the worldare.

There are two more functions, associated with the code used and the message. Theyare the most difficult to formulate. We usually test them by asking the questions "Doyou hear me?" and "Do you follow?"

(1) The Native Language Effect

S. Pit Corder claims that when people learn a second language they are not acquiringlanguage: they already possess it. The learning of a second language is rathera question of increasing a repertoire, or learning a set of alternatives forsomething they already know. The assumption then is that some of the rules they

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already know are also used in the production and understanding of the secondlanguage. This is what is meant by “transfer”. Learners transfer what they alreadyknow. Making errors in the second language can, in part, be explained by the notionof transfer. It is also called “negative transfer” or interference. But this tendency oftransfer can be also positive (facilitation). It is just as well that different languagesdo, in fact, have resemblances to each other. On this account, it has to beestablished what is different between the mother tongue and English as a ForeignLanguage.

Describing language, or part of language, is part of the process of developing socio-linguistic theory itself. But we must now outline the hierarchy of applications ofsocio-linguistics to language teaching. There are a number of stages in theapplication of socio-linguistics to language teaching. The first has already beenidentified as that of socio-linguistic description. The second is concerned withoperations performed on the descriptions of language. Each stage has the function ofanswering some questions or solving some problems relevant to language teaching.Thus, the application of first order answers the very general question: what is thenature of the language, which is to be taught? The next stage answers the question:what is to be taught and how is it to be taught? The criteria for selecting material forlanguage teaching are various: utility to the learner, that is, selecting what he needsto know, his proposed repertoire – those varieties of the language which will beuseful to him, those speech functions which he will need to command. Or we caninvoke the criterion of difference. In a sense, all parts of EFL are different from themother tongue. But difference is relative. Some parts will be more different thanothers. For example, if the learner’s mother tongue has no grammatical system ofaspect, the learning of such a system presents a serious learning task. Where thelearner’s mother tongue, however, has such a system, the size of the learningproblem will depend on the nature and degree of difference. A third criterion mightbe difficulty. What is different in EFL does not necessarily in all cases represent adifficulty. For example, at the phonological level, what is so totally different fromanything encountered in the mother tongue does not seem to be so difficult to learnas something, which is liable to cause confusion with some similar feature in themother tongue.

The procedures and techniques involved in all these cases of the application of socio-linguistics to EFL teaching are comparative. This is called interlingual comparison, or“contrastive” comparison (Contrastive Analysis). The other type of comparison isoften called Error Analysis. The errors performed by the learners may be animportant part of the data on which the comparison is made. But what is beingcompared in this case is not two existing and already known languages, but thelanguage of the learner at some particular point in the process of learning, with thetarget language. A learner’s so called errors are systematic, and it is preciselythis regularity which shows that the learner is following a set of rules. Theserules are not those of the target language but a “transitional” form of language,similar to the target language, but also similar to the learner’s mother tongue (whatLarry Selinker calls “interlanguage”).

(2) Language Universals

In the context of discussing similarities and differences between languages, we musttouch upon the theme of language universals and their place in EFL teaching. The4,000 to 6,000 languages of the world do look impressively different from Englishand from one another. On the other hand, one can also find striking uniformities. In

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1963 the linguist Joseph Greenberg examined a sample of 30 far-flung languagesfrom five continents. Greenberg wanted to see if any properties of grammar could befound in all these languages. In the first investigation, which focused on the order ofwords and morphemes, he found no fewer than forty-five universal features.

Since then, many other surveys have been conducted, involving scores of languagesfrom every part of the world, and literally hundreds of universal patterns have beendocumented. Some hold absolutely. For example, no language forms questions byreversing the order within a sentence, like *Built Jack that house the this is? Someuniversals are statistical: subjects normally precede objects in almost all languages,and verbs and their objects tend to be adjacent. Thus most languages have SVO orSOV word order; fewer have VSO; VOS and OVS are rare (less than 1%); and OSVmay be non-existent. The largest number of universals involve implications: if alanguage has X, it will also have Y. Universal implications are found in all aspects oflanguage, from phonology (if a language has nasal vowels, it will have non-nasalvowels) to word meanings (if a language has a word for ‘purple’, it will also have aword for ‘red’; if a language has a word for ‘leg’, it will also have a word for ‘arm’).

The knowledge of the existence of language universals may save some procedures ofcomparison between the mother tongue and the EFL taught. In the second place, itcan be part of the teaching material (mostly implicitly) and the methods ofexplanation.

(3) Socio-linguistics in Structuring the Syllabus

A finished syllabus (cf. Chapter 4) is the overall plan for the learning process. It mustspecify what components must be available, or learned by a certain timeframe; whatis the most efficient sequence in which they are learned; what items can be learned“simultaneously”; what items are already known.

The structure of language is a “system of systems”, or a “network” of interrelatedcategories, no part of which is wholly independent or wholly dependent uponanother. In language, nothing is learned completely until everything islearned. If this is so, then no simple linear sequence for a syllabus is appropriate. Alogical solution to this problem seems to be a cyclic, or spiral, structure, whichrequires the learner to return time and again to some aspects of language structure,language process, or domain of language use. This is the approach taken in theinstructional design of Ohana EFL content. Language learning is not just cumulative;it is an integrative process. In Chapter 4, we shall offer a new “Ohana” approach tosyllabus/curriculum design.

The major problem that faces us in syllabus organization is whether to take theformal criteria as dominant, leaving alternative ways of expressing the same idea tosome other part of the syllabus, or to base our grouping on semantic criteria. Theteaching of modal verbs is a perfect example of the dilemma. Should we bring allalternative ways of expressing necessity, obligation, possibility and probability, etc.together into separate single units? In other words, are we going to regard ‘modalverbs’, or alternatively ‘the expression of obligation’, as a syllabus item?

There is no simple answer to this problem. The more we take account of semanticconsiderations, the more evident it becomes that the relationship between meaningand surface form is a complex and indirect one. At the time when less attention waspaid to the whole problem of meaning, and language learning was thought of as a

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matter of acquiring the ability to produce automatically ‘sentence patterns’, it waslogical (or was it?) to group materials in a syllabus on the basis of superficial formalcriteria. But with the increasing emphasis on language learning as training thelearner in communication, the relevance of semantic criteria in organizing the socio-linguistic material increases. We are now trying to classify the socio-linguisticmaterial in terms of more abstract semantic categories as time, deixis, modality,aspectuality, futurity, possession, quantification, causation, etc.

We have seen that the systematic interconnectedness of language makes itunrealistic to think of any item as teachable or learnable in isolation. Weshould consider an item in a more general way, i.e. as a process, or as somegrammatical category, such as tense or number.

(a) The syntactic syllabus

Nowadays, descriptions of language give us a relatively satisfactory account of thestructure of the system to be learned, which is a characterization of the ‘formationrules’ of the language. But we are concerned with more than this in languageteaching – we are concerned with performance ability. There are some general typesof syntactic processes, such as nominalization, relativization or thematization,passivization, interrogativization, negation, which could be regarded as ‘items’ ofperformance ability in a syllabus. Socio-linguistically speaking, all these involveperforming certain operations.

(b) The morphological syllabus

The most frequent claim for the appropriate application of sequencing, otherwisedenied in principle, is made at the level of morphology. For example, the verb "tohave" and "to be" are used as auxiliaries in the formation of perfect or progressiveaspect. Most logically, we must present and teach these verbs before introducing theformation of these aspectual forms. This seems a good argument until we specifywhat we mean by '‘teaching'’ the verbs to have and to be. Learning a verb involvesnot only discovering the relations in enters into with nominals, whether it is transitiveor copulative, but also learning the morphological system together with theirassociated meanings: time, duration, completion, frequency, etc. The learning ofsomething must surely involve the ability to use it acceptably, i.e. discover itsfunctions. The function of the auxiliary to be in the progressive aspect, or passivevoice, is different from that of the verb to be in copulative structures. To say that inteaching copulative sentences one is teaching the verb "to be" so that it can beavailable for later auxiliary use is a categorical error.

(c) The lexical syllabus

In order to present and exemplify grammatical categories and syntactic structures,we have to use lexical words. This does not mean that the teaching of vocabulary islogically dependent on the teaching of grammar.

The teaching of vocabulary provides us with another concept of syllabus grouping –lexico-semantic. An example of this could be the co-occurrence of adverbs of pasttime, yesterday, last week, three years ago, etc., with tense verbs; or co-occurrenceof verbs of speaking and believing, say, tell, cry, believe, hope, expect, etc., withnominalized sentences of different types.

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We must outline ‘the network of relations’ which binds the vocabulary of a languageinto a structure. It is possible to isolate ‘sub-fields’ within the lexical structure of alanguage. Such groupings of lexical items bearing more or less close semanticrelations to each other are usually called ‘semantic fields’. Semantic fields providegroupings of the vocabulary, which could serve as ‘items in a syllabus’. The field ofcooking will be used as an example. Cooking words provide a good source ofexamples because there are clear reference relations that one can appeal to; thewords do not normally carry strong connotations, so we can concentrate on thecognitive meaning.

The basic words in the culinary field in English are cook, bake, boil, roast, fry, andbroil (or grill for British English). The set also includes steam, simmer, stew, poach,braise, sauté, French-fry, deep-fry, barbecue, grill and charcoal. There are, inaddition, a number of peripheral words: parboil, plank, shirr, scallop, flambere,rissoler and several compounds: steam-bake, pot-roast, oven-poach, pan-broil, pan-fry, oven-fry.

It is more than obvious that not all of the words are widely used and need to beincluded in the syllabus. Some are even unknown to ordinary native speakers ofEnglish. Cook can be used in two ways – once as the superordinate term of the field,naming the activity expressed (‘preparing food’), and second, as a more specificword opposed to bake. Cook and bake are the most general terms, they appearfreely intransitively with human subjects. Boil and its subordinate terms (simmer,poach, stew, braise) differ from the others in the field in that water or liquid must beused, whereas the absence of liquid is necessary for fry, broil, roast and bake.

It is easy to demonstrate the set of words of this kind as they pattern in semanticfields. But we must also add, and it is very important for language teaching, that thisapproach has a strong explanatory value – it enables us to predict and explain somesemantic and cognitive processes in language. First, it enables us to explain how is itthat words come to have new meanings in certain contexts. Secondly, we can predictwhat semantic and syntactic features a totally new word will have when added to alexical field. And thirdly, we can offer an explanation as to how we are able tounderstand and even offer explanations of our understanding of the meanings oftotally unknown words and expressions.

The first question – the semantic extension of words – can be illustrated by lookingat the items hot-warm-cool-cold. These exhibit more or less the same relationshipsto one another: Hot and cold are gradable antonyms at end points of a scale, andwarm and cool are antonyms which are closer to some center point that separateshot and cold. All four words are used and have standard meanings when talkingabout the weather, psycho-physical features (I feel cold; This water feels cold tome), emotions (John has a hot temper; My brother is a cold person; Our formerwarm friendship has cooled), guessing games like ‘I spy’, colors (You should paintthis room a warm color, like orange), etc. Other fields of discourse use only one ortwo words from the field: We speak of hot news items but not of a *cold or a *coolnews item, a cold war or a hot war, but not a *cool war or a *warm war. There is hotjazz and cool jazz but not *warm jazz. One can get a hot tip on a horse, but not a*cool tip.

Since hot, warm, cool, and cold bear a certain relationship to one another, evenwhen a word does not possess a certain meaning, it can acquire a new one in a

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context by virtue of that relationship. Hence, these new coinages are more easilyunderstood.

Such extensions of meaning related to semantic fields are usually performed bymeans of metaphorical transfer. Cognitive psychologists claim that metaphors arestrongly memorable. This is due to the fact that they furnish conceptually rich,image-evoking conceptualizations. Metaphorical vehicles facilitate memory tothe extent that they evoke vivid mental images. One question that is central tolanguage learning is whether the occurrence of imagery with metaphor is simplyepiphenomenal to its comprehension or a key element in understanding andmemorizing the meaning. Various empirical studies on the communicative function ofmetaphor suggest a number of possibilities about the positive influence of metaphoron learning.

In the next chapter, we will look at the development of language teaching methodsin the twentieth century and into the 21st.

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Chapter 2: Exploring Language Teaching Methods

In the twentieth century and early 21st century, the teaching of modern languageshas progressed through three major periods. In this chapter, we shall briefly sketchthe facts and indicate the salient features of the teaching methods, which have beendesigned and implemented by several generations of instructional methodologistsand teachers. Our historical perspective is limited although we realize that therehave been many interesting theories and practices through the ages. For example,this is what Joseph Aickin wrote in the year 1693: “for no Tongue can be acquiredwithout Grammatical rules; since then all other Tongues, and Languages are taughtby Grammar, why ought not the English Tongue to be taught so too. Imitation willnever do it, under twenty years; I have known some Foreigners who have beenlonger in learning to speak English and yet are far from it: the not learning byGrammar, is the true cause” (quoted in Yule 1985, 150). Louis Kelly (1969) in hisbook 25 Centuries of Language Teaching provides an extensive historical analysis ofthe development of language teaching methodology from the time of Ancient Greeceto the present.

Many scholars have explored the development of language teaching over the pastcenturies. Here, we shall mention but a few, whose work we have been usingsuccessfully with our students, William Francis Mackey (1965), H. H. Stern (1983),Anthony Howatt (1984), Jack T. Richards and Theodore S. Rogers (1986), DianeLarsen-Freeman (1986), H. Douglas Brown (1987, 1994). They, and many othercolleagues, have inspired the discussion in this chapter.

2.1. Period I: Direct Language Teaching

The first half of the century was dominated by a teaching method, which is known asDirect Language Teaching or Direct Method (DM). It emerged as a result of thelanguage education reform movement at the end of the nineteenth century and wasprominent until the middle of the twentieth century.

At the beginning of the century, the DM became the only officially approved methodfor the teaching of modern foreign languages in France through a decree of theFrench Minister of Public Instruction (1902). The term, which was used in the decree,was "methode directe". The method was soon established in many Europeancountries and was used with enthusiasm by its proponents on both sides of theAtlantic. Some of the commercial ventures in the area were very successful andbecame quite popular. For example, in 1878, the German born Maximilian DelphinusBerlitz opened his first language school in Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A. Today,Berlitz Languages Inc. (www.berlitz.com/free) is still thriving.

Direct Method is of course only a general term, which covers a range of differentteaching methods. We shall mention two of them, which have been influencinglanguage teaching methodology to the present. In 1923, Harold Palmer developedhis Oral Method to be adapted some fifty years later in the innovative approaches ofthe 1970s as the Total Physical Response Method (Asher 1977, 1982). The secondone, Michael West’s Reading Method, was designed in 1926. And only recently,Stephen Krashen revived it in the method, which he named the Easy Way (1997).

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The basic premise of the DM is that a second language should be taught by making adirect connection in the mind of the learner between what he thinks and what hesays. In other words, no use is made of the learner's own language. Thus, the targetlanguage becomes both the aim and the means of the teaching and learning process.The following list sums up eight salient features of direct language teaching, or DM:

• Teaching is executed orally through the medium of the target language.• Teachers should be either native speakers or extremely fluent in the target

language.• Grammar is taught inductively by situation.• Concrete vocabulary is taught in context through ostensive definition and

pictures.• Abstract vocabulary is taught through association of ideas.• Language skills are ordered in a “natural way”: listening, speaking, reading and

writing.• Pronunciation is emphasized; the first few weeks are devoted to pronunciation.• All reading matter is first presented orally.

However, in the second quarter of the 20th century, the method began to decline.The era of the Direct Method had ended. Its principles were questioned. A group ofprominent American experts opined that "the ability to converse should not beregarded as a thing of primary importance for its own sake but as an auxiliary to thehigher ends of linguistic scholarship and literary culture" (Report of the Committee ofTwelve, Modern Language Association of America 1892). Moreover, the DMdemanded highly competent teachers who have always been difficult to recruit. Soby the middle of the twentieth century modern languages were being taught by “themethod,” most of which had been developed before the turn of the century.

2.2. Period II: Audio-lingual Teaching and the Innovative Methods of the1970s

The next stage of development started with the decade of 1940 to 1950 andcontinued until the mid-seventies. Language teachers and the general public weredissatisfied with the methodological theory and practice of the previous era. Forexample, Leonard Bloomfield (1942) stated, “Often enough the student, after two,three, or four years of instruction, cannot really use the language he has beenstudying.” In 1943, The American Army initiated the Army Specialized TrainingProgram (hence, "Army Method") to teach intensive language courses that focusedon aural/oral skills. The “revolution” in language teaching of that period created anew methodological ideology, which came to be known in the late fifties as theAudio-lingual Method (ALM). According to the U.S. Army Language School inMonterey, California, 1300 hours are sufficient for an adult to attain near-nativecompetence in Vietnamese (Burke, quoted in Reich 1986).

Two major scientific theories were applied as methodological principles: linguisticstructuralism (e.g. Bloomfield 1933) and psychological neo-behaviorism (e.g.Skinner 1957). The proponents of the ALM believed that language learning was aprocess of habit formation in which the student over-learned carefully sequencedlists of set phrases or "base sentences". The method was extremely successful andenjoyed considerable popularity. Courses like English 901 (Strevens 1964), theBritish edition of the original textbook in American English, English 900, and Realistic

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English (Abbs, Cook & Underwood 1968) became widely accepted in Europe andLatin American in the 1960s for EFL instruction.

In 1961, the American linguist William Moulton proclaimed the linguistic principles ofALM: “language is speech, not writing… a language is a set of habits… teach thelanguage, not about the language… a language is what native speakers say, not whatsomeone thinks they ought to say… languages are different” (quoted in Richards &Rogers 1986). The following list sums up eight salient features of audio-lingualteaching:

• Language input is provided in dialog form.• Learning activities are based on mimicry and memorization and pattern practice.• Successful responses are immediately rewarded.• Mistakes are not tolerated.• Language structure is taught using pattern drills.• Vocabulary is strictly controlled and learnt in context.• Pronunciation is emphasized.• Audio-visual technology is used extensively, e.g. slide projectors, tape recorders,

and language laboratories.

Robert Ian Scott invented a “sentence generator” (1969, quoted in Roberts 1973,99) as an aid to be used in the teaching of reading. The machine could beprogrammed to generate 4-word sentences of the simple, active declarative type.Words of each syntactic function could be entered on a separate wheel, the machineconsisting of 4 wheels mounted side by side on a cranking device. The wheels couldbe turned independently of each other to make a new sentence at each spin. With 60words on each wheel, it would be possible to generate 12,960,000 sentences, which,assuming that it were possible to speak one sentence per second, would take abouthalf a year of talking to get through. The machine did not gain popularity though.

The comparative merits of the ALM and traditional grammar-translation instructionwere evaluated in a two-year study of beginning students of German in America(Scherer & Wertheimer 1964, quoted in Reich 1986). At the end of the two years,the results were that ALM and traditional instruction were equal on listening, readingand English-to-German translation; ALM was far superior to traditional instruction inspeaking but traditional instruction was superior to ALM in writing and far superior toALM in German-to-English translation. Thus neither method is clearly superior. Whichyou prefer depends on what you deem most important.

In the late sixties, the ALM was subjected to criticism and its popularity waned.Controlled studies of the effectiveness of the language laboratories as actually usedin schools in the 1960s found that they were either a not particularly effectiveteaching aid or they were actually detrimental to language learning (Keating 1963,quoted in Reich 1986). Noam Chomsky openly criticized audio-lingual theory andpractice in his address to language teachers at the Northeast Conference, U.S.A., in1966, “I am, frankly, rather skeptical about the significance, for the teaching oflanguages, of such insights and understanding as have been attained in socio-linguistics and psychology”. The pattern practice procedure was rejected togetherwith the disillusionment over neo-behaviorism as a psychological theory. Structurallinguistics was also denounced and with it the ALM gave way to fresher teachingmethods.

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The innovative approaches of the seventies were an attempt to bring ELTmethodology in line with modern scientific developments in the related areas and todiscover the new orientations in the teaching of modern foreign languages.

The theoretical basis of Caleb Gattegno’s method (1972), The Silent Way, is the ideathat teaching must be subordinated to learning and thus students must develop theirown inner criteria for correctness. Learning is facilitated if the learner discovers andcreates in a problem-solving process involving the material to be learnt. All four skillsare taught from the beginning. Students’ errors are expected as a normal part oflearning. The teacher’s silence helps foster students’ self-reliance and initiative. Theteacher is active in setting up situations using special teaching aids, Fidel charts andCuisenaire rods, while the students do most of the talking and interacting.

Georgi Lozanov’s Suggestopedia (1972) seeks to help learners eliminatepsychological barriers to learning. The learning environment is comfortable andsubdued, with low lighting and soft slow music in the background. Students choose aname and character in the target language and culture and imagine being thatperson. Dialogues are presented to the accompaniment of Baroque concertos.Students are in a relaxed but focused state of “pseudo-passiveness”. They listen tothe dialogues being read aloud with varying intonations and a coordination of soundand printed word or illustration. The students are expected to read the texts at home“cursorily once before going to bed and again before getting up in the morning”(Lozanov 1972).

In Charles Curran’s method (1976), Community Language Learning, learners becomemembers of a community - their fellow learners and the teacher - and learn throughinteracting with the members of that community. The teacher considers learners as“whole persons” with intellect, feelings, instincts and a desire to learn. The teacheralso recognizes that learning can be threatening. By understanding and acceptingstudents’ fears, the teacher helps students feel secure and overcome their fears. Thesyllabus used is learner-generated, in that students choose what they want to learnto say in the target language. Learning is linked to a set of practices granting“consensual validation” in which mutual warmth and a positive evaluation of theother person’s worth develops between the teacher and the learner (Curran 1976).

James Asher’s Total Physical Response (1977) places primary importance onlistening comprehension, emulating the early stages of native language acquisition,and then moving to speaking, reading and writing. Asher (1977) claims that “thebrain and nervous system are biologically programmed to acquire language… in aparticular sequence and in a particular mode. The sequence is listening beforespeaking and the mode is to synchronize language with the individual’s body”.Students practice their comprehension by acting out commands issued by theteacher. Activities, including games and skits, are designed to be fun and to allowstudents to assume active learning roles.

2.3. Period III: Communicative Language Teaching

The year 1975 constitutes a “watershed” between the second and the third period ofdevelopment of language teaching over the last century. That year saw thepublication of The Threshold Level document of the Council for Cultural Cooperationof the Council of Europe (Van Ek 1975). The document is "a specification of anelementary level in a unit/credit system for individuals who, from time to time, have

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(personal or professional) contacts in the target countries" (Trim 1980, 5). It marksthe appearance of a new approach, the so-called Communicative Language Teachingor the Communicative Approach (CA). John Trim (1980, 5), Director of the ModernLanguages Project, writes, "the Threshold Level is remarkable for the systematic wayin which the language behavior appropriate to the defined target audience isspecified in its various interrelated parameters".

Since then, the Threshold Level documents for many European languages have beenpublished, e.g., in alphabetical order, the threshold levels for French, Un NiveauSeuil (1976), for German, Kontaktschwelle. Deutsch als Fremdsprache (1981), forSpanish, Un nivel umbral (1981), for Portuguese, Nivel Limiar (1988), etc.Information on those documents is available on the web-site:(http://book.coe.fr/lang). On the European level, the most recent work in this area isthe document of the Council of Europe entitled A Common European Framework ofReference for Language Learning and Teaching (publicly accessible on the web-site:http://culture.coe.fr/lang). We shall return to it in Section 4.4.

Many scholars have contributed to the development of the Communicative Approach(CA). For example, Dell Hymes introduced the construct of “communicativecompetence” in his famous paper, On Communicative Competence (1971). Heexplores the influence of the social context in which a language is learnt on thelinguistic competence, which the individual attains. Hymes claims that “a normalchild acquires knowledge of sentences, not only as grammatical, but also asappropriate. He or she acquires competence as to when to speak, when not, and asto what to talk about with whom, when, where, in what manner. In short, a childbecomes able to accomplish a repertoire of speech acts, to take part in speechevents, and to evaluate their accomplishment by others” (1971, 269). In the citedpaper, he asks his famous four questions of “communication culture”:

“1. Whether (and to what degree) something is formally possible;2. Whether (and to what degree something is feasible in virtue of the meansof implementation available;3.Whether (and to what degree) something is appropriate (adequate, happy,successful) in relation to a context in which it is used and evaluated;4. Whether (and to what degree) something is in fact done, actuallyperformed, and what it’s doing entails.” (Hymes 1971, 281)

The “four questions” prompt a new way of judging utterances in context. In thatsense, Hymes’ paper was programmatic, suggesting a new line of research.

In the 1960s, Roger Brown studied early development of the mother tongue ofAmerican children. The acquisition of English grammatical morphemes was tackledthrough the speech samples of three children, the now famous Adam, Eve and SarahBrown. He found that they developed their language at different chronological agesand at different rates. However, he also found that they each went through roughlythe same sequence of stages. Brown tried to find the principles underlying the orderhe discovered and concluded that a combination of linguistic and semanticcomplexity must cause it. Research extended to other language structures. CourtneyCazden and Roger Brown describe “three major progressions in first languageacquisition: evolution of the basic operations of reference and semantic relations intwo-word utterances of very young children; the acquisition of 14 grammaticalmorphemes and the modulations of meaning they express; and, still later, theacquisition of English tag questions like doesn’t it or can’t it” (Cazden & Brown 1975,

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299). The order of acquisition of 14 English grammatical morphemes and themeanings they express is the following (Cazden & Brown 1975, 301):

(1) Present Progressive: riding (temporary duration; process, state),(2-3) in, on (containment, support),(4) Plural: two dogs (number),(5) Past, irregular: saw; went (earlierness),(6) Possessive: Mommy’s hat (possession)(7) Uncontractible copula: Here I am in response to Where are you? (number;earlierness),(8) Articles: a, the (specific-non-specific),(9) Past, regular: walked, wanted (earlierness),(10) Third person, regular: goes (number, earlierness),(11) Third person irregular: has, does (number, earlierness),(12) Uncontractible auxiliary: I am in response to Who’s coming? (temporaryduration, number, earlierness),(13) Contractible copula: He’s sick. (number, earlierness),(14) Contractible auxiliary: He’s running. (temporary duration, number, earlierness).

In the seventies, several investigators of instructional accuracy orders replicated andextended Brown’s experiments for English as a second language. In their “morphemestudies”, Heidi Dulay and Marina Burt (1974) examined the natural sequences insecond language acquisition applying the Bilingual Syntax Measure. They used 151Spanish-speaking children learning English. The acquisition sequences obtained fromtheir subjects were strikingly similar. Other language structures were alsoinvestigated. For example, Fred Eckman, Lawrence Bell and Diane Nelson (1986, 12)tested the generalization of relative clause instruction in the development of Englishas a second language. They found that “maximal generalization of learning will resultfrom acquisition of relatively more marked structures. Such generalization will beunidirectional and will be in the direction of those structures, which are relatively lessmarked” (Eckman, Bell & Nelson 1986, 12). And they concluded that “if only a singlestructure of a set of implicationally related structures is to be taught, maximalgeneralization will result from teaching that which is most marked” (op. cit., 12). Thefirst published adult study of acquisition order (Bailey, Madden & Krashen 1974)investigated 73 adult students of English at Queens College, New York. The BilingualSyntax Measure was applied. The study showed that the contours for the acquisitionsequences of children and adults are very similar. Several other investigators havelooked at acquisition sequences for adults from different language backgrounds andhave found remarkable and persistent similarities between adult and child languageacquisition across cultures (Krashen et al. 1976, Perkins and Larsen-Freeman 1975,Makino 1979, Lee 1981, Pica 1983, etc.).

The general result of the acquisition order research was that a “natural order” ofacquisition of the structure of English as a second language characteristic of bothchildren and adults and similar for both speaking and writing was discovered. Somescholars consider this conclusion one of the most significant outcomes of secondlanguage research (Dulay & Burt 1980, Cook 1989).

Meanwhile, in sociology and education, the Futures Movement evolved. Futuresresearch “concerns itself with conceptualizing and inventing the future by examiningthe consequences of various plans of action before they become tomorrow’s reality”(Pulliam 1987, 261). Educators and politicians agree on the fact that “the changescurrently in progress have improved everyone’s access to information and

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knowledge, but have at the same time made considerable adjustments necessary inthe skills required and in working patterns” (White Paper on Education and Training,European Commission, 1996, 6). They use different terms to refer to the period oftransformation through which we are passing, “post-industrial”, “post-modern”“information age”, “learning society” and the like. But they all believe in thechallenges of the new reality. We shall look at the educational paradigm shift inChapter 3.

Futurologist John Naisbitt (1982) describes the most important trends that shape theworld at the end of the century. His megatrends include shifting from:

• an industrial society to an information based society,• a forced technology to a high tech/high touch mode,• a national economy to a truly global economy,• short range planning to long-term planning,• centralization to decentralization,• institutional help to self-help in various fields,• representative democracy to participatory democracy,• authority dominated hierarchies to networking,• single option choices to multiple option choices.

All that facilitated the development of the theory and practice of language teachinggiving it a strong impetus.

Today, numerous ELT methodology textbooks expound on the nature ofcommunicative language teaching. All the work that has been done on the CA hasled to the evolution of two quite distinct orientations: a “weak” version and a“strong” version of the CA method. Anthony Howatt (1984, 279) holds that if theformer could be described as ‘learning to use’ the target language, the latter entails‘using [the target language] to learn it’. The weak version advances the claim thatcommunicative syllabi and teaching materials should provide the learner withopportunities to acquire communicative competence necessary and sufficient to beused in actual communication. This idea is the basis for the unfolding of a whole newfield of study in language teaching and ELT methodology, referred to ascommunicative syllabus design, which we shall discuss separately in Chapter 4.Howatt (1984, 280) writes that language teaching requires “a closer study of thelanguage itself and a return to the traditional concept that utterances carriedmeaning in themselves and expressed the meanings and the intentions of thespeakers and writers who created them”.

The strong version of the CA, on the other hand, has given rise to the planning andimplementation of realistic communicative tasks, which give the learner a chance toacquire the target language itself while using it. The proponents of the strong versiondid not go to the radical solution of “deschooling” language learning altogether butthey advocated real communication within the language classroom. If the teachershows genuine interest in the concerns and activities of the students, and if thestudents can talk to each other and share their thoughts and feelings, realcommunication is likely to occur.

The CA stresses the need to teach communicative competence, i.e. the ability to usethe target language effectively and appropriately, as opposed to linguisticcompetence. Thus, language functions are emphasized over language forms.Students usually work in small groups on communicative activities, during which

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they receive practice in negotiating meaning. Authentic teaching materials are used.Opportunities are provided for the students to deal with unrehearsed situationsunder the guidance, not control, of the teacher. The teacher’s role changes frombeing “the sage on the stage” to becoming “a guide on the side” (Mowrer 1996). KenGoodman (Goodman et al. 1991) expands on this idea, suggesting four roles forteachers: (1) kid-watchers, who observe the students, watching for signs of growth,need and potential, (2) mediators, who offer guidance, support and resources forlearning, (3) liberators, who help students take ownership of their own learning, andfinally, (4) initiators, who rely on their professional knowledge and creativity tocreate exciting learning environments.

The following list sums up eight salient features of communicative languageteaching:

• Communicative competence is the desired goal (“learning to use”).• Minimum general intelligibility is sought in the teaching of pronunciation.• Use of the native language and translation is accepted where feasible.• Fluency is emphasized over accuracy.• Students cooperate in the classroom, using the language in unrehearsed contexts

(“using to learn”).• Systematic attention is paid to functional as well as structural aspects of

language.• Drilling occurs peripherally.• Discourse is at the center of attention.

In summary, the Communicative Approach and the other language teaching methodscan be seen as specific teaching proposals in which learning content is critical for theachievement of the educational aims. We believe that the aims and content oflanguage courses are determined by the overall educational philosophy prominent inthe community. That constitutes the relatively abstract approach level of teachingmethods, which refers to the theories about the nature of language education andother related theories. Chapter 3 presents a discussion on this theme.

Concrete plans for a language curriculum, which constitutes the relatively concretedesign level of teaching methods, are made in Chapter 4. In it, we shall examine thequestion of language curriculum design and development.

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Chapter 3: Paradigm Shift in Education

That language teaching should be democratic has long become a fact of life. That itis democratic has yet to become a reality. Our claim is that, at the end of thebeginning of the 21st century, we are experiencing an educational paradigm shift, inwhich language teaching has its share of transitioning to do. First, we will look intothe change in the overall concept of the complex process of education.

3.1. Changing the Focus of Education

The mission of educational institutions is to educate people. As John Dewey (1933)noted, “A primary responsibility of educators is that they not only be aware of thegeneral principles of the shaping of actual experience by environing conditions butthat they also recognize in the concrete what surroundings are conductive to havingexperiences that lead to growth. Above all, they should know how to utilize thesurroundings, physical and social, that exist so as to extract from them all that theyhave to contribute to building up experiences that are worthwhile”. But whatconstitutes an educated person? To the business world, a well-educated person isone who has the skills required to succeed on the job. The lay public’s view of aneducated person is one who has accumulated a large body of information. None ofthese views seems really acceptable though. A saying is circulating in the universitiesthese days:

Georgie Porgie, Puddin’ and pie,Kissed the girls and made them cry,When the boys came out to play,Georgie Porgie ran away,Guess what, Georgie Porgie,We have a sexual harassment subpoena for you, Georgie Porgie.The times, they are a-changing.

Contemporary Learning Environments: Process v. Product

Indeed, the times are changing rapidly. In the age of the learning society, educationis seen as a process, not a product. During the teaching and learning process, thestudent should learn how to think and to listen, how to participate in dialogue, howto analyze issues and how to read critically. Students should learn how to write sothat others can follow their thinking. Fifteen years ago, A. McLeod pointed out that“Being literate in the 1980s means having the power to use language – writing andreading, speaking and listening – for our own purposes, as well as those that theinstitutions of society require of us. The classroom processes by which that power isachieved include the first exercise of that power” (1986, 37). In our opinion, that istrue about both first and second language development circumstances. Studentsshould learn to take responsibility for their own learning, to find joy inlearning and to open their minds to new ideas. They should learn the skills andattitudes necessary to achieve lasting success during the remainder of their lives nomatter what their goals are. The learning process should continue throughout theirlifetime, not just while attending formal schooling. Educators emphasize that one ofthe most important things students should learn is how to think for themselves.Students must learn how to choose consciously what direction their lives should takeprofessionally as well as personally. They need to be able to solve problems in a

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rational manner, to experience compassion toward others and to be willing and ableto acknowledge conflict and contradiction and resolve differences satisfactorily.

John Pulliam (1987) suggests several specific characteristics of the educationalparadigm shift. We shall present them below and return to the most important issuesin the following section.

Replacing linear with synergetic processes is the first one. Linear organizations canonly make linear decisions. Thus, the school can only receive information that it isdesigned to receive. It tends to repress unfavorable information. The teacherscannot make decisions from the perspective of the students. Alternatively, asynergetic system is perceived as an “ad-hocracy” (Toffler 1985). It is based on thecooperation of individuals to complete temporary tasks.

Education is more than training. This is the second feature of the new focus ofeducation. Education is process-oriented; if students are asked questions for whichthe answers are known, the system is training.

Thirdly, students need education for the unknown. In the past, students attendedschools to learn what they did not know from teachers who were presumed to know.Now, focus should be on cooperative problem analysis and sharing of sources ofinformation. The school should move away from the exclusive treatment of what iswell understood towards helping students cope with the unknown.

The fourth characteristic is the structural versus sapiential authority controversy.Structural authority, which is he dominant pattern in schools, is derived from one’stitle or rank in the institution. Position rather than competence establishes theauthority of the teacher. Sapiential authority, on the other hand, is based on thepossession of wisdom and knowledge, which finds support among others. Bothteachers and students have the opportunity for critical analysis of any given piece ofinformation. Sapiential authority is considered a necessary part of education forfuture survival.

Fifth, lifelong learning is an important characteristic of the new educationalparadigm. Preparation for a life of learning should replace the idea of terminalschooling.

Sixth, there should be an end to zero sum games in education. Competitive teachingmodes promote the “I win – you lose” structure. The winners, the good learners, arealso losers because they will perpetuate competition in their lives. This is a zero sumgame in which everyone eventually loses. Therefore, an educational mode ofcooperation should substitute competition among students.

Seventh, students in the twenty-first century will need a well-developed skill inevaluation and critical thinking.

Eighth, the future school must become a resource distribution center for creating andspreading unbiased information. Modern information and communication technologyhas changed the focus of education from the input of information to the applicationof data to problem situations in a cooperative and action-oriented environment.

In a word, what schools should help students acquire is a wisdom that they willcontinue to develop for the rest of their lives (see Section 3.5). To reduce all the

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experiences that lead to it to mastering skills for satisfactorily answering long seriesof test questions to obtain a certificate stating that a required curriculum has beenmet is a shallow and inaccurate representation of education.

3.2. A Teaching Paradigm to Meet Psychosocial Needs

The overused traditional frontal teaching paradigm places responsibility for studentlearning solely upon the shoulders of the teacher: the instructor writes thecurriculum and the syllabus, selects the readings, delivers the information vialectures and prepares evaluative instruments. She or he presents the sameinformation, lectures to and tests all students regardless of individual differencesamong them. Little or no concern is given to the individual psychosocial needs of theindividual.

We know, however, that students are social individuals each with vastly differentneeds, learning styles, goals and abilities. Some students have inadequate readingskills. Some have computer phobia or “keyboard fright”. Some have difficultyconstructing simple sentences. Many have “library anxiety” or have not the slightestclue of how to find information. A few continue to experience difficulty withcomputational skills. Is it any wonder that the “sacred” bell-shaped curve of thenormal distribution of achievement predominates in the teacher’s grade book if thestudents receive the same information via lectures and all read the same textbooks?

Most students play a passive role in the classroom. Action flows from the teacher tothe students and seldom vice versa. Some students, especially minority students,are isolated from positive social contacts with their classmates or their instructor.Others are shy and seldom if ever speak in class. For example, Karp and Yoels(1987) found that in classes of less than 40 members, four to five studentsaccounted for 75 percent of all interactions and in classes of over 40, two to threestudents accounted for over 50 percent of all interactions.

Rather than continue the traditional teaching strategy that selects the best studentsand weeds out the poorer ones, we can use a system that cultivates and developsthe talents of every student. We cannot permit students to leave our classes with aninferior grasp of the subject matter. Every student, not just the elite few, must reachthe competency levels set by the teacher. This is not to suggest that educatorsshould produce student robots. The point is that we cannot be content with inferiorteaching and inferior learning. We cannot be content with a teaching approach that isonly partly effective.

If we wish to help students learn how to think critically, to work constructively withmembers of their community, to enjoy scholarly activities and how to enrich theirlearning experiences when they leave the school, we must focus our attention on theindividual needs of the student. This shift from simply providing decomposedlanguage and inert course content to meeting psychosocial needs of the individualstudent is what the new teaching paradigm is about.

Ourselves Among Others: Groups, Individuals & Learning

David Johnson (Johnson et al. 1991) lists five principal activities that should beincorporated in a new teaching paradigm structured to increase student achievementand, at the same time, meet psychosocial needs of students.

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Firstly, teachers must structure the learning environment to help students construct,transform and extend knowledge. Knowledge is not a static entity. It is an ever-changing variable. This is not to infer that “anything goes”, that there is no “right” or“wrong”. Relativism in this context refers to helping students to keep an open mind,to be willing to listen and to learn, to discuss and argue and to counteract thedogmatism of the moment.

Students must construct their own knowledge and understanding through activesocial interaction with their peers and teachers. Learning occurs when the studentactivates her or his existing cognitive schemata by applying new knowledge topractical situations. Students gather information from their courses so they canutilize it in their professional careers as well a their life as citizens. Unfortunately,possession of knowledge and skills alone does not guarantee comprehension.Without understanding, rote knowledge and routine skills serves students poorly.David Perkins and his colleagues at the Harvard Graduate School of Education haveadopted a “performance perspective” on understanding that involves generativeperformances, where learners “go beyond the information given”, which “demandsomewhat different kinds of thinking” and which are organized in an incrementalfashion. “Understanding is not a matter of ‘either you get it or you don’t’. It is openended and a matter of degree. You can understand a little about something (you candisplay a few understanding performances) or a lot more about something (you candisplay many varied understanding performances), but you cannot understandeverything about something because there are always more extrapolations that youmight not have explored and might not be able to make” (Perkins 1992, 78).

Understanding a concept involves being able to execute a number of “performances”that demonstrate the concept in new and novel ways. These performances mustconsist of applications that take the students far beyond what they already know.Traditional measures of comprehension such as multiple-choice questions, true/falsequizzes and conventional short essay questions, while easy to mark and assess, donot even begin to tap into a student’s understanding of a topic or concept. Onedemonstrates one’s ability to swim not by answering questions about swimming butby performing the act. The teacher must closely monitor student learning to ensurethat each competency level is met.

Education is a social process that involves frequent student-to-student and teacher-to-student interaction. Learning is increased when individuals work with one anotherin a caring and supportive environment that helps each student gain understandingof the course material. Interactional peer support is needed to encourageachievement and proper orientation to learning tasks. Shopov and Fedotoff (2004)conclude, after examining students’ course evaluation reports, that group dynamicstructuring interaction between learners can provide the conditions, which have beenthought to facilitate learning. Thomas and Stock (1988) in their study of what makespeople happy observe that young adults associate the word “friendship” with heirconcept of happiness. Bonding friendships promote student achievement whileisolation, competition, and individualistic classroom activities demote achievementand lower self-esteem.

Lastly, the use of a variety of small-group cooperative activities is the most effectiveprocedure to encourage students to think creatively in divergent ways that fosternew and novel solutions to problems. Bligh (1972), in his review of about 100studies of college teaching methods, found that students who participate actively in

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discussions with classmates spend more time synthesizing and integrating conceptsthan do students who simply listen to lectures. In almost every study, thecooperative learning format was far superior to competitive and individualisticlearning models (Johnson, Johnson and Smith 1991).

Implementing cooperative learning is not an easy task nor is it without problems.The authors caution that simply assigning students to small groups with theinstruction to begin discussing a topic or work on a project may result in little or nostudent learning. Left unsupervised within a loosely structured environment, somestudents may choose to be uncooperative forcing other group members to completethe work. More conscientious students may feel compelled to complete the work ontheir own and act independently of the group. Insecure students may assume a“back bench” attitude. Often, in-group struggles for power develop. Feichtner andDavis (1985) concluded, after interviewing students who reported negativeexperiences with cooperative learning, that an instructor’s misuse of and lack ofknowledge about structuring effective cooperative learning activities is responsiblefor student dissatisfaction.

3.3. Factors of Cooperative Learning

A number of factors or essential elements of cooperative learning, according toDonna Johnson and her colleagues at the University of Arizona, Tucson (1991), whohave conducted extensive research concerning effective group management, arenecessary to make cooperative learning successful.

The first factor, positive interdependence, means that each group member dependsupon every other group member to achieve a goal. If other members have little ornothing to contribute, then there is no reason for the group to exist. For example, toscore points in a basketball game, each member depends upon the skills and abilitiesof the other players. One or two players alone cannot win games. The team sinks orswims together as a group. If one member can accomplish a task satisfactorilywithout the aid of others, then there is no reason to form a group.

One way to structure an assignment to foster a positive interdependent relationshipis to give the students more work to do than any single individual could completewithin the time limits allotted. Another way to encourage interdependence is toprovide specific information to two of the group members and different informationto other two members. This way, two of the members will depend upon theinformation possessed by the other two members.

A valuable technique to promote interdependence is to assign each member a role toperform within the group (see Section 3.4). A group leader is appointed to organize,manage and direct activities. A recorder takes accurate notes and records data forgroup activities. A checker assures that each member understands the tasks orconcepts. An encourager is appointed to make sure that each member has ampleopportunity to contribute to the group. Finally, part of the final grade is derived fromthe group’s performance on the task. Thus, if one member of the group does notunderstand the concepts to be learnt, the assessment scores of the other groupmembers will suffer.

The second factor needed to make cooperative learning successful is face-to-facepromotive interaction. Promotive interaction occurs as students encourage each

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other, reward one another, provide assistance to help each other learn, exchangeinformation and ideas and challenge ideas of other group members. This may beaccomplished through trusting and caring relationships formed within each group asstudents interact. If one student attempts to impress other students with his or herknowledge to increase his or her self-esteem, positive interaction does not occur.There must be a caring attitude of concern for the learning of their peers and agenuine willingness to share information through a helping relationship beforepositive interactions can occur.

Individual students must learn that they are responsible for understanding thecourse content. This third factor, referred to as individual accountability, must beassessed frequently. The teacher may call at random upon individual students toanswer questions. Also, individual tests are given periodically to evaluate students’achievement. Inevitably, some students exploit the group structure to avoid workingand let the others do the bulk of the work. This behavior is called “social loafing".Group members can monitor individual accountability by constructing quizzes to eachother. Records can be kept of the frequency and quality of each group member’scontribution during a cooperative learning assignment. The important point is thatthere must be a system to continually assess each student’s knowledge andcontribution to insure that learning is occurring.

Building social collaborative skills is the fourth important factor. We cannot assumethat each student possesses well-developed interpersonal and group communicationskills. A large proportion of students has not had the experience of working withother students in small group activities. Some students distrust others; some feeluncomfortable working with minority students. Others, to avoid verbal interactionwith peers, prefer to listen rather than participate, especially when they are amongaggressive peers.

The cooperative learning environment, if well organized, provides an opportunity forstudents to grow socially and learn effective group communication skills. Theimportance of mastering these skills is undeniable. If one of the most importantmissions of the school is to help students develop wisdom, then certainly helpingthem to acquire effective interactive social skills is an important activity. Teachersshould encourage students to develop these skills by identifying, explaining andrewarding students for engaging in effective social interaction activities. Skills suchas active listening, turn-taking, offering constructive and encouraging criticism,showing concern for the feelings of others and actively participating in groupdiscussions are but a few important skills students must learn by participating in apromotive interactive framework. David Johnson and Roger Johnson (1989) reportresearch findings showing that the combination of positive interdependence and theuse of effective social skills promotes highest achievement among students within acooperative learning environment.

The last factor, group processing, describes the group’s self-evaluation of eachmember’s contribution. Individual contributions either help or hinder achievement ofthe desired goals. Group processing also includes an analysis of improvements thatcould be made to help the group function more effectively in the future. Acombination of teacher and student processing results in significant improvementand success within a cooperative learning format. Student interactive evaluationsprovide a way to maintain good working relationships among group members andensure that individual members receive feedback about the quality of theirparticipation. Group processing also occurs when the instructor provides feedback to

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the class based on observations of individual student contributions. This processingserves as a model for students who are learning how to critique peers effectively.Positive feedback for work well done creates a feeling of enthusiasm, of beingsuccessful and of increased elf-esteem among students.

It is not possible to incorporate all these factors within each group encounter but thegreater the number of features used, the greater the learning. Cooperative learningfosters growth in many areas: learning to use interpersonal skills effectively,understanding and applying the course content to life situations, developing self-esteem and ability to explain concepts to others. These are only a few of theoutcomes resulting from well-structured small group cooperative activities. However,they are sufficient to distinguish positively the cooperative learning paradigm fromthe traditional individualistic and competitive “lecture only” teaching. Johnson andJohnson (1989) report that in almost every study conducted during over the lastcentury that compares the effectiveness of cooperative and competitive learningformats, the cooperative model results in higher achievement and greaterproductivity, more caring committed interpersonal relationships, greaterpsychological health and social competence.

3.4. Cooperative Language Learning

In her book Second Language Learning through Cooperative Learning, Julie High(1993) reports her discovery that effective language learning depends on structuringsocial interaction to maximize the need to communicate in the target language. Wehave always accepted this principle; for example, it is behind the theory and practiceof the immersion programs in North America, the “EFL medium schools” in CentralEurope, and the “cognitive academic language learning approach” (Chamot &O’Malley 1994), etc. We have always believed that memorizing conjugations,grammar structures and vocabulary produces at best some knowledge about alanguage. Knowledge about a language, however, is very different fromacquiring the language.

Julie High describes a number of classroom activities, which structure socialinteraction in the classroom. They are based on a simple formula:

Structure + Content = Activity

In fact, Julie High adapts Spencer Kagan’s original ideas about cooperative learningstructures which he calls “co-op structures” in his book, Cooperative Learning (1992)published by his California company, Kagan Cooperative Learning Co. Over theyears, our own teaching practice has incorporated many such participationstructures. Our students love them, confiding that achievement should not bedivorced from enjoyment.

4-S Brainstorming. This structure is based on speed, synergy, silliness and support.The class is divided into teams of four students. Each team member has a specialrole to facilitate the creative potential of brainstorming and has a phrase to say inthe target language that encourages her or his partners:

• Speed: “Let’s hurry!”• Synergy: “Let’s build on that!”• Silly: “Let’s get crazy!”

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• Support: “All ideas help!”

Students brainstorm an idea for a while and then all teams pair up and intervieweach other.

Pairs Check. Teams break into two sets of pairs each of which works on a worksheet.One student is the problem solver and the other one is the coach. The coach helpsand checks his or her partner’s work. After a while, the teams reunite and the pairson the team compare answers. If the team disagrees, they ask the teacher to helpthem. If the team agrees on the answer, they do a team handshake. Pairs Check is aparticularly good structure for practicing new skills.

Numbered Heads Together. This is a four-step cooperative structure, which can beused with any language teaching content and at various places in a lesson:

(1) Students number off,(2) Teacher asks a question,(3) Heads together,(4) Teacher calls a number.

Each student on a team has a different number. He or she will answer to thatnumber when it is called. The teacher formulates a question as a directive, e.g.“Make sure everyone on your team can…” The students put their heads together anddiscuss the question until everyone knows the answer. After a while, the teacher willcall a number at random and the students with that number raise their hands to becalled upon, as in the traditional classroom.

Co-op Co-op. The emphasis in this structure is on bringing out and nourishing thenatural intelligence, creativeness and expressiveness of students. In Co-op Co-op,the structure indicates that we value the interests and abilities of the students. Thiscooperative language learning structure has ten steps:

(1) Student-centered class discussion. This discussion leads to an understandingbetween the teacher and the class about what the students want to learn andexperience in relation to the topic or unit to be covered.

(2) Selection of student learning teams.(3) Teambuilding and cooperative skill development. This is an important phase in

which the members of each team feel they are a “we” and have developed trustand communication skills.

(4) Team topic selection. The team members settle on the topic of most interest tothemselves as a group.

(5) Mini-topic selection. The team members divide the topic of the team into mini-topics for each member to work on.

(6) Mini-topic preparation. Individual students work on their own topics.(7) Mini-topic presentations. Individual students present their own topics to their

teammates.(8) Preparation of team presentations. The team discusses and integrates the

material presented in the previous step in order to prepare their teampresentations.

(9) Team presentations.(10) Reflection and evaluation. Students reflect on their work and their

achievements. The whole class evaluates team presentations. Individualpresentations are evaluated by teammates.

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Research on teaching has shown that whole-class discussion, individual seatwork andlecture prevail as the favorite organizational structures in the traditional classroom.In relation to participation structures that promote meaningful interaction, SpencerKagan maintains that by participating in planned formats “students becomeresponsible for learning and sharing what they have learnt. The structure preparesstudents for participation in a democratic society” (Kagan 1992). And he goes on,“How we structure a classroom is an important, perhaps the most important, form ofcommunication we make to students. If we structure the classroom so that the goalof learning is a good team score, we communicate that the most important value is acompetitive victory. If we structure so that the teacher is in full control of what andhow students study, we communicate that students are empty or that theirintelligence and curiosity are not valued. If we choose an autocratic authoritystructure, we communicate a lack of faith in the potential of students to choosepositive directions for development. By taking full responsibility for students’learning, we leave them none. We do not leave students room to come out andbecome fully engaged in the learning process”. Thus, planning participationstructures at the micro-level of language teaching is seen as an aspect of “precisionteaching”.

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Chapter 4: The Language Curriculum

The term curriculum has been in English usage for a long time (see Josef Dolch1959, quoted in Kansanen 1995, 101). In German, it was substituted for the termPlan and later in the eighteenth century, for the term Lehrplan (see Kansanen 1995for a detailed study of the development of this construct). “Curriculum” comes fromLatin and means “a running, course, race”. The noun is related to the verb “currere”which means, “to run”. A Modern English dictionary defines “curriculum” in thefollowing way: “all of the courses, collectively, offered in a school, college, etc. or ina particular subject” (Webster’s New World Dictionary 2005). As is seen from thedefinition, the term is commonly used in two related senses. It refers to (a) aprogram of study at an educational institution or system and (b) content in aparticular subject or course of studies. In the latter sense, “curriculum” issynonymous with the British term “syllabus”. In fact, the use of the two terms inEurope and North America has caused a great deal of confusion in second languageteaching. Within the framework of the Tempus Scheme of the Commission of theEuropean Communities, DG XXII – Education, Training and Youth, the followingdefinitions for the terms, curriculum, course and syllabus are used. Curriculum is thetotality of an organized learning experience; it provides the conceptual structure anda set time frame to acquire a recognizable degree, and describes its overall content,e.g. the curriculum of a five-year degree program in “Mechanical Engineering” at acertain higher education institution. Course is the totality of an organized learningexperience in a precisely defined area, e.g. the course on “Fluid Dynamics” within thecurriculum “Mechanical Engineering”. Syllabus is the prescription of details on aspecific course, such as what will be learnt (and when) the texts to be read, theareas in which expertise is expected to be demonstrated.

We need to establish a clear distinction between the terms. Here is a definition by J.P. B. Allen, which is adequate to our purposes: “curriculum is a very general conceptwhich involves considerations of the whole complex of philosophical, social andadministrative factors which contribute to the planning of an educational program;syllabus, on the other hand, refers to that subpart of curriculum which is concernedwith a specification of what units will be taught”.

Here, we are interested in the educational aspects of curriculum design anddevelopment. But let us consider an example from recent history of education in theUnited States first.

Here is an excerpt from the so-called Siman Act, Nebraska Legislature, U.S.A., April1919, “No person shall … teach any subject to any person in any language other thanthe English language. Languages other than the English language may be taught aslanguage only after a pupil shall have … passed the eighth grade”. The case of Meyerversus State of Nebraska was based on the Siman Act. Robert T. Meyer was arrestedfor teaching German to a ten-year-old boy in Nebraska on 25 May 1920. His casereached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled on 4 June 1923 that anti-foreign-language laws were in violation of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Themajority decision stated, “No emergency has arisen which renders knowledge by achild of some language other than English so clearly harmful as to justify itsinhibition”.

This and many other examples indicate that modern foreign languages, and all otherdisciplines for that matter, as a school subject should not be taken for granted. Inrelation to that, John Clark (1987) asks several important questions: “whether to

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include languages other than the mother tongue in the school curriculum; whichlanguages to include; to whom to teach them and for how long; what objectives toseek to achieve”. The answers, according to him, should be sought in the particulareducational value system of society at a particular moment in time. Bednar et al.(1992, 19) propose that “Instructional design and development must be based uponsome theory of learning and/or cognition; effective design is possible only if thedeveloper has developed reflexive awareness of the theoretical basis underlying thedesign”.

4.1. Constructivist: Dialogic & Symbolic Interaction

Constructivism is a theory of leaning and instruction that “emphasizes the real-worldcomplexity and ill-structuredness of many knowledge domains” (Spiro et al. 1992,57). The Constructivist view of cognition contends that learning is a process ofpersonal interpretation of the experience and the construction of knowledge.Constructivists adopt the notion of Wittgenstein that context is an integral part ofmeaning. “Learning is an active process in which meaning is developed on the basisof experience” (Bednar et al. 1992, 21). Constructivism is an alternativeepistemological perspective to objectivism (see Lakoff 1987).

Seppo Tella and his colleagues at the Media Education Center, University of Helsinki,have explored constructivism in language education extensively. They relateconstructivism to the concept of dialogism: “dialogue is a crucial element in thecreation of any language organization and especially in establishing an openmultimedia-based collaborative and networked learning environment. It suggeststhat the learning environment in the framework of dialogism cannot be a physicalspace, a classroom, nor any particular media education tool. The learningenvironment is – dialogue” (Tella & Mononen-Aaltonen 1998, 103). Tella (1998, 117)cites seven ingredients needed to promote dialogic education: (a) presence, (b)unanticipated consequences, (c) otherness, (d) vulnerability, (e) mutual implication,(f) temporal flow, (g) authenticity.

The theory of constructivism has been developing and new versions have beenemerging. Neo-constructivists of the cognitive school believe that “(a)understandings are constructed by using prior knowledge to go beyond theinformation given; and (b) the prior knowledge that is brought to bear is itselfconstructed, rather than retrieved from memory, on a case-by-case basis” (Spiro etal. 1992, 64). Social constructivists focus on social interaction in the community as asource of knowledge. Social constructivism has been described by Burton, Moore andMagliaro (1996, 48).

Jim Cummins (1994, 48) describes the pedagogical and social assumptionsunderlying educator role definitions in language teaching (Figure 1 and Figure 2). Hedistinguishes the objectivist from the constructivist positions in ELT methodology(the transmission versus critical orientation) and in sociology (the social controlversus social transformation orientation).

Cummins concludes, “Educators’ role definitions reflect their vision of society, andimplicated in that societal vision are their own identities and those of the studentswith whom they interact. The outcome of this process for both educator and studentcan be described in terms of empowerment. Empowerment can thus be regarded asthe collaborative creation of power insofar as it constitutes the process whereby

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students and educators collaboratively create knowledge and identity through actionfocused on personal and social transformation” (Cummins 1994, 55).

Transmission Orientation:Language – Decomposed,Knowledge – Inert,Learning – Hierarchical internalization from simple to complex.

Critical Orientation:Language – Meaningful,Knowledge – Catalytic,Learning – Joint interactive construction through critical inquiry within the zone ofproximal development.

Figure 1: Educator Pedagogical Assumptions (Cummins 1994, 48)

Social Control Orientation:Curricular Topics – Neutralized with respect to societal power relations,Student Outcomes – Compliant and uncritical.

Social Transformation Orientation:Curricular Topics – Focused on issues relevant to societal power relations,Student Outcomes – Empowered, critical.

Figure 2: Educator Social Assumptions (Cummins 1994, 48)

Nicholas Burbules (1997, 8) maintains that teaching “is not a process of conversion,but of translation: of making sufficient associations between the familiar and theforeign to allow the learner to make further associations, to find other paths, andeventually to become a translator, a path-maker, on their own. Learning how to aska good question is in one sense the central task, yet one that is almost never taughtexplicitly, and rarely taught at all.”

In conclusion, we claim that the implications for language curriculum design arequite straightforward. One is that content cannot be predetermined. Perhaps learningobjectives cannot be pre-specified either. The curriculum developer cannot define theboundaries of what may be relevant. All he or she can do is plan authentic, real-world tasks, which will provide the necessary and sufficient contexts for thelearners to realize their objectives and construct their knowledge. This canbe achieved by providing a collaborative learning environment based oncommunicative interaction containing sufficient comprehensible language input andoutput.

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4.2. The General versus Specific Courses Conjecture

In the early seventies, Anthony Howatt argued that, “Special courses have fairlyspecific objectives and are rather simpler to discuss. General courses tend to bediffuse in their aims and take their overall shape more from tradition, contemporaryfashion and the vague but powerful influences exerted by the social attitudes andeconomic needs of the community” (1974). In fact, the distinction is embedded inthe objectivist tradition of language teaching. It is best expressed by William Mackey(1965) in his famous claim that there is no language teaching without “selection,gradation, presentation and repetition” of the content. In that period, techniques likefrequency, coverage and availability were applied in the process of choosing commoneveryday language for “communicative syllabi”. In addition, the notion of“appropriate language” was used as a criterion of usefulness. The organization of thecourse was based on a priori decisions on the order in which “new teaching pointsshould come” and on “how much to teach”. The method of needs identification wasdeveloped by a Swiss scholar, Rene Richterich (Richterich & Chancerel 1977). ABritish linguist, John Munby (1978), elaborated the theory and methodology oflanguage needs analysis and curriculum design. Language courses for specificpurposes (e.g. English for Specific Purposes or “ESP”) were represented by theirproponents as an alternative to general courses.

The English in Focus series of “specialist English materials for students who useEnglish as the medium of instruction for the subject they are studying” waspublished in England in the seventies (e.g. Allen & Widdowson 1994). The authorswrote, “The series assumes that students have already completed a basic course inEnglish and that they have some knowledge of their specialist subject. This course istherefore intended for students […] who already know how to handle the commonEnglish sentence patterns and who need to learn how these sentences are used inscientific writing to convey information…” (op. cit.). The course had a great successbecause the approach adopted was new.

Peter Strevens outlined the “new orientations in the teaching of English” and of anylanguage for that matter in the mid-seventies. Some ten years before, he hadpublished one of the most successful audio-lingual textbooks, English 901 (seeSection 1.2.). The times had changed though. Strevens argued, “Broadly defined,ESP courses are those in which the aims and the content are determined, principallyor wholly, not by criteria of general education (as when ‘English’ is a foreignlanguage subject in school) but by functional and practical English languagerequirements of the learner” (Strevens 1977, 90). This was certainly new a quarterof a century ago but today we find the conjecture rather misleading.

It seems to us, at this junction, that the methodological opposition of “generalpurposes” to “specific purposes” in language teaching is inadequate andinappropriate. We do not think that “the aims and the content are determined” apriori by any criteria. They cannot be precompiled or prepackaged. We can discerntwo arguments in the literature to support this strong claim. One refers to the factthat language teaching is a complex process characterized by network ofrelationships in a social and cultural context and the other to the idea that languageteaching is an ill-structured knowledge domain. We claim that a holisticapproach, which emphasizes the priority of the whole over its parts, cansolve the problem of curriculum design.

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In that respect, an improvement on the theory of curriculum design has been offeredby Rand Spiro and his colleagues at the University of Illinois in their theory ofRandom Access Instruction (Spiro et al. 1992). We shall discuss this theory in thenext section.

4.3. Random Access Instruction in Complex & Ill-Structured KnowledgeDomains

Random Access Instruction is a theory, which accounts for the complexity of theprocess of language learning and the ill-structuredness of the domain of languageknowledge and/or proficiency.

Eve Sweetser and Gilles Fauconnier (1996) maintain that “The initially overwhelmingcomplexity of socio-linguistic usages is, then, not an independent and autonomouscomplexity. It is a reflection of the complex – and economically interrelated –structure of cognition”.

Eric Lenneberg sees language proficiency as a process of “(a) extracting relationsfrom (or computing relations in) the physical environment, and (b) of relating theserelationships” (Lenneberg 1975, 17). Continuous, not discrete, cognitive andphysiological processes produce those relationships. Lenneberg argues persuasivelythat “These deeper continuities [the continuous cognitive and physiologicalprocesses] are reflected in the “fuzzy” nature of semantic, syntactic and phonologicalcategories, making sharp, formal distinctions and decisions difficult” (op. cit., 17). Heconcludes that “everything in language is of relational nature and what has to belearnt in language acquisition is how to relate, or how to compute a relationship upongiven physical data” (op. cit., 32).

Constructivists hold that “Characteristics of ill-structuredness found in mostknowledge domains (especially when knowledge application is considered) lead toserious obstacles to the attainment of advanced learning goals (such as the masteryof conceptual complexity and the ability to independently use instructed knowledgein new situations that differ from the conditions of initial instruction). These obstaclescan be overcome by shifting from a constructive orientation that emphasizes theretrieval from memory of intact preexisting knowledge to an alternativeconstructivist stance which stresses the flexible reassembling of preexistingknowledge to adaptively fit the needs of a new situation. Instruction based on thisnew constructivist orientation can promote the development of cognitive flexibilityusing theory-based hypertext systems that themselves possess characteristics offlexibility that mirror those desired for the learner” (Spiro et al. 1992, 59).

Complex and ill-structured domains have two properties: “(a) each case or exampleof knowledge application typically involves the simultaneous interactive involvementof multiple, wide-application conceptual structures (multiple schemas, perspectives,organizational principles and so on), each of which is individually complex (i.e. thedomain involves concept- and case-complexity); and (b) the pattern of conceptualincidence and interaction varies substantially across cases nominally of the sametype (i.e. the domain involves across-case irregularity)” (Spiro et al. 1992, 60). Forexample, basic grammar is well structured, while the process of applying grammarrules in real-world communication is ill structured.

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Random Access Instruction can be represented by the metaphor of a rhizome,spreading in all directions. It was first used by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari inthe book On the Line as a method of organizing information (quoted in Burbules1997). Seppo Tella uses it to describe open learning environments based on acommunal educational value system. He maintains that “it [rhizome] transmits theidea of something growing, something developing, yet it gives ample scope forindividual action and decision-making” and suggests that “a rhizome is a rhizome is arhizome…” (Tella et al. 1998, 132). Nicholas Burbules (1997, 3) holds that “Eachparticular step or link within a rhizomatic whole can be conceived as a line betweentwo points, but the overall pattern is not linear, because there is no beginning andend, no center and periphery, to be traced”.

Random Access Instruction is a rhizomatic system. It can be applied in the design ofnonlinear learning environments, which we shall present in the next section.

4.4. Language Curriculum as a “Knowledge Strategic Hypertext”—The OhanaELT Method

What is “knowledge” and what does “knowledge strategy” mean? Tella (Tella et al.1998, 26) maintains that knowledge is to be “understood as mental informationstructures modified by the individual on the basis of thinking and earlier knowledge”.Clearly, knowledge is not simply data and information. Tella defines knowledgestrategy as the “long-term methodical reflection […], which finds concrete expressionas operational procedures or tactical measures, slogans, goals, forms of operation,working methods arising from discussion about values, and evaluation measuresconnected with them”. He emphasizes the view that “instead of simply reformingtheir curriculum, we think schools and municipalities should progress towardsdeveloping their knowledge strategy thinking” (Tella et al. 1998, 25).

We define the Knowledge Strategic Hypertext (KSH) as a nonlinear and non-sequential language curriculum model based on constructivist epistemology and theidea of knowledge strategy (Figure 3). The term model is employed here somewhatloosely. It is a way to make clear how our hypothesis hangs together to make acoherent explanation. As far as the components of the KSH are concerned, theirnumber is unlimited. That reflects the complexity and ill-structuredness of thelanguage proficiency domain. In such a nonlinear and non-sequential learningenvironment, each element is related to all other elements. The KSH is a networkmodel, which allows the user to move from node to node following the links betweenthem. Nodes store socio-linguistic, etc., information and links represent semanticassociations between the nodes. Learning is seen as a process that modifies theinformation structures in specified ways under specified conditions.

The semantic nature of the links in the KSH forms the basis of the model. This issupported by scientific research, which has shown that the mind holds memoriessemantically, according to meaning (Fauconnier & Sweetser).

The model accommodates two conditions for learning, which are necessary andsufficient. The first is the automatic processing passively invoked by the incomingdata. And the second is the active control of the incoming data. Thus, the KSH canpredict what parts of the input would be accepted and what would be tuned out. The

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constructive process leads the user “beyond the information given” (Perkins 1992)by reconstructing information itself.

In Figure 3, we present our KSH language curriculum model including communicativelanguage competence, language activities, domains, etc. The model containscomponents derived from the definition of language behavior in Modern Languages:Learning, Teaching, and Assessment: A Common European Framework of Reference(CEF). It is publicly accessible on the web site http://culture.coe.fr/lang.

The CEF provides:

“(a) A descriptive scheme, presenting and exemplifying the parameters andcategories needed to describe, first, what a language user has to do in order tocommunicate in its situational context, then the role of the texts, which carry themessage from producer to receiver, then the underlying competences, whichenable a language user to perform acts of communication, and finally thestrategies, which enable the language user to bring those competences to bear inaction;

(b) A survey of the approaches to language learning and teaching, providingoptions for users to consider in relation to their existing practice;

(c) A set of scales for describing proficiency in language use, both globally and inrelation to the categories of the descriptive scheme at a series of levels;

(d) A discussion of the issues raised for curricular design in different educationalcontexts, with particular reference to the development of plurilingualism in thelearner” (Trim 1999, 9).

In the CEF, the general competences of the individual are defined by “the knowledge,skills and existential competence (savoir-etre) he or she possesses, and the ability tolearn”.

Three components constitute communicative language competence. They are thelinguistic component, the socio-linguistic component and the pragmatic component.

Language activities are the actual behaviors in which language is used. They arereception, production, interaction or mediation (in particular interpreting ortranslating) in oral or written form, or both.

The domains, in which activities are contextualized, are the public domain, thepersonal domain, the educational domain and the occupational domain.

Tasks, strategies and texts complete this model of language use and learning. Allthese constructs are defined in Chapter 3 of the CEF.

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~~~~~~ Starting level of L2 proficiency~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~ Starting level of L2 proficiency~~~~~~~~~~~

Figure 3: The KSH curriculum model, including the nodes and links of communicativelanguage competence, language activities, domains, etc.This is obviously a comprehensive and exhaustive model. However, with its 18elements in 7 categories, it is a complex one. Stochastic theory estimates thepossible combinations of the elements at 163 (18 times 17, divided by 1 times 2).These 163 combinations produce an infinite number of concrete instances oflanguage use. Therefore, in our opinion, only a KSH approach to curriculum designcan guarantee quality in second language development.

The model proposed is based on the idea of whole language development. The KSHincludes language styles and registers incorporating them into “a form of meta-linguistic, inter-linguistic or so to speak ‘hyper-linguistic’ awareness” (CEF, 97). This

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leads to a better perception of what is general and what is specific concerning thelinguistic organization of the target language. So each component of the model maybecome the starting point for the use of the KSH.

4.5. Instead of a Conclusion

“Whatever the style, there are ample opportunities to orient instruction towardhigher levels of understanding, introduce and exercise languages of thinking,cultivate intellectual passions, seek out integrative mental images, foster learning tolearn and teach for transfer. The smart school makes the most of theseopportunities. It informs and energizes teaching by giving teachers time and supportto learn about the opportunities and by arranging curriculum, assessment andscheduling to encourage tapping them.” (Perkins 1992, 130)

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Chapter 5: MULTIMEDIA LITERACY IN EFL TEACHER TRAINING

The convergence of telematics, mass media and computer technology is increasingthe amount of information distributed and the speed and reach of distribution andinformation processing; it is also increasing the capacity for discriminatingdistribution, interactive and individualized reception, and accelerating ideologicalexchange, resulting in advantages for the biggest information providers. Among theirprimary objectives educational systems list the development of the individual’s abilityfor self-expression and communication through writing, music, sculpture, etc., butevidently comprehension skills carry more weight in formal education. For students,success in school is based on understanding teachers’ messages, and teachers’professional success, as well as the success of the educational system itself, is basedon their interpretation of policy.

5.1. What do we mean by Multimedia Literacy

The concept of literacy, initially centred exclusively on alphabetic language and onthe mechanical procedures of encoding and decoding texts, has evolved substantiallyin recent decades. Surpassing the merely utilitarian nature of reading and writing,more attention is being paid to literacy’s implications both for the individual and forsociety, such as the ultimate finality of literacy and its influence on thetransformation of social models. According to UNESCO’s definition, the functionallyilliterate person is one who cannot undertake those activities in which literacy(knowing how to read and write) is necessary to function effectively within the groupor community.

With the appearance of new and sophisticated techniques for the creation ofmultimedia texts, combined with diverse symbolic systems, we run the risk of onceagain focussing our attention on the study of ‘form’ to the detriment of ‘content’. Werun the risk of dwelling on the study of the ‘means’ without reaching the ‘ends’.

Our proposal for multimedia literacy hopes to overcome the purely mechanical skillof encoding and decoding texts in different languages in favor of concentrating onthe personal and social implications of its creation, distribution, interpretation, use,etc.

Functional literacy at the least entails having at one’s disposal the faculty ofcommunication, and, to the extent that predominant forms of communicationcontinue to change (from oral to print, from print to audiovisual, and fromaudiovisual to multimedia), the concept of literacy must change with them. In themultimedia society in which we coexist with an infinite number of audiovisualdocuments, interactive or not, it is logical to think that literacy in this environmentinvolves the ability to confront various texts in relation to their encoding and theirmedium.During this millennium multimedia literacy will be that which prepares people toutilize appropriate procedures when critically viewing different kinds of texts(different in function or system of symbolic representation), and to assess whathappens in the world and improve it to the extent that they can.

5.2. In search of a comprehensive definition

Within the overall concept of multimedia literacy we incorporate various literacies,

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the diverse (conceptual, procedural and attitudinal) contents of which have beendeemed basic and essential for the communication and representation of messagesusing different languages and media. Tyner (1998: 92-97) accounts for six differentmultiliteracies that cover what for us constitute the ingredients of a basic multimediaeducation. She lists three tool literacies and three other literacies of representation.The first three are related to basic knowledge about computers (computer literacy),networks (network literacy) and technology (technology literacy). The remainingthree deal more with the analysis of messages and how meaning is produced, andfocuses on information (information literacy), visual images (visual literacy) and themedia (media literacy). There are clear interrelationships between these literacies,and the characteristics they share prevent us from discussing any one in isolation.We consider it necessary to bring together the objectives and fundamentals of all theabove-mentioned literacies under the umbrella of what we call multimedia literacy.

If for strictly formal reasons we were to distinguish between previous literacies (likealphabetic, audiovisual, computer, telematic, musical, artistic, etc.) and multimedialiteracy, perhaps the latter would not be defined first and foremost by the fact that itis ‘multimedia’ in the strictest sense of the word: the integration of text, sound andimage. Actually, as Lemke (1997) points out, all literacy is multimedia literacy: youcan never make meaning with language alone, there must always be a visual orvocal realization of linguistic signs that also carries non-linguistic meaning (e.g. toneof voice, or style of orthography). According to him, therefore, for signs to functionas such they have to have some kind of material reality or medium, a ‘way of beingreal’ that opens the way to meanings encoded with more than a code. All semiotics-he says-is multimedia semiotics, and all literacy is multimedia literacy. Paradoxically,then, the most defining characteristic of new multimedia documents is not the factthat they are multimedia, but rather their hypermedia structure and theirinteractivity, which determine a modality of presenting information that differs fromthe traditional. Where alphabetic and audiovisual discourses are linear, new productspresent information in a networked structure; while alphabetically and audiovisuallyencoded documents offer only one trajectory to negotiate, multimedia documentspresent different alternatives for the navigation of information, all of them equallyvalid.

Although brought into such relief in multimedia environments, the combination ofmedia and languages in order to produce and transmit messages is not new.Throughout history different modes of representation (text, sound, image, gesture)have been used together. Good orators convey more, and in a different way, thantheir written discourses would convey when read. The speaker’s intonation, gesture,expression, posture, attitude, etc. combine with verbal language to producemeaning. As previously mentioned, various historical periods have witnessedtechnological developments that allowed us to record texts, sounds and images(writing, print, phonograph, photography, film, etc.) for later reproduction. In recentdecades different media (slides, books, transparencies, audio and video cassettes)have frequently been combined in the preparation of materials destined foreducational environments called multimedia packages, and available usually in DVDformats. Each medium possessed its own particular mode of producing, storing,transporting, structuring and reproducing contents-and they all combined after thefact to form a whole, a multimedia package, in which the parts are interdependentand work together with a common goal, to represent and communicate.

Digitalization could be considered as another fundamental characteristic ofmultimedia documents and environments. Digitalization overcomes the difficulties of

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mixed media and to a large degree facilitates the integration of languages. Text,graphics, sounds and images (still and moving), once digitized, can be modified,edited and easily intermixed. There are infinite possible combinations of languagesthat can arrange themselves in different ways, make exact copies of the original,create indices that help locate information, etc. Digitizing information alsoimmensely facilitates its transmission via communication networks, such as thepractically immediate access to a document from any part of the world (theconnected world, of course), and the navigation through cyberspace from oneinformation source to another.

The ability to navigate and the hyperlinked structure of information allow us to movebeyond the idea of a document as a finite object that exists in one time and place.Paraphrasing the Spanish poet Antonio Machado, we could say that, in the same waya path is created by walking, a document in a network is constructed by movingthrough information-jumping from one space to another linked to it, and leavingbehind the many other options that another user might have chosen, thereby‘constructing’ a different document. In an immense information network, where eachfragment is linked to others, which in turn connect with many others, we could alsospeak of a single document, impossible to experience in its entirety, of which eachuser only processes the parts of interest or those within reach of their navigationskills. This single, fragmented document has multiple locations, distributedthroughout computers all over the world. It can be found in cyberspace and isaccessed from any point of connection. Each one of the fragments could follow thelinear logic of traditional alphabetic and audiovisual texts; while at the same timeserves as a point of entry or exit for various hyper-documents.

The first level of multimedia literacy gives the individual the ability to constructmeaning from new modes of presenting and representing the world that emerge withthe development of new technologies, new communication networks and diversesymbolic systems. It naturally follows that, even considering multimedia literacy inits most limited sense of knowing how to read and write these new hyper-documents, it encompasses other literacies (alphabetic, audiovisual and computer)needed to both process and meaningfully utilize the components of multimedia: text,sound and image.

Multimedia literacy is not an addition to alphabetic or audiovisual literacy; rather itintegrates them while contributing characteristics of its own derived frominteractivity, namely those of interpretation and association. On one hand it producesthe convergence of languages and media, and on the other it substantially changesthe context and conditions of reception/absorption. This multimedia literacy shouldnot be taken as the de-contextualized acquisition of the aforementioned skills andknowledge that, once acquired, can be used to interpret reality. Instead we mightunderstand multimedia literacy as a process that is an integral part of the socialinteraction by which individuals develop their personality.

When we interpret a code or message, our interpretation is partly individual, but alsopartly a reflection of the place we hold in a particular society: our age group, gender,purchasing power, interests, traditions, family, etc. Multimedia literacy, like anyother, will always be a social process with repercussions for the transformation ofsociety itself. It is a literacy that Gimeno Sacristán (1999: 38) labels enlightened:Effective literacy-he tells us-will place the subject at the gates of power, symbol ofthe possession of knowledge attained through a command of the language.Enlightened literacy (which thanks to Paulo Freire we would now call critical literacy)

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is above all the ability to participate in the reconstruction of society and culture. Itsdegree of development in different parts of the world will increase or diminish thedifferences between the info-rich and info-poor. The inability to critically facedifferent types of texts in different situations will determine who is illiterate in thethird millennium-those incapable of participating in the reconstruction of culture andsociety in their environment.

5.3. Objectives of multimedia literacy as a means of teacher training

Both the integration of alphabetic language in multimedia contexts and theappearance of new technologies for processing information oblige us to modify theminimum competency requirements for functional literacy. The complexity ofcurrent communications systems could reduce those minimum requirements to thoseof information management and its corresponding technology skills without fosteringknowledge or interpersonal communication. To this effect, Gutiérrez Martín (1997:12) refers to multimedia education as that which, making use of prevailingtechnologies of the day, allows students to achieve those skills, knowledge andattitudes needed to:

• communicate (interpret and produce messages) utilizing differentlanguages and media;

• develop personal autonomy and a critical spirit, which gives them theability to

• form a just and multicultural society in which to live side by side with thetechnological innovations of the day.

This goal prescribed to multimedia education (which could just as easily be the goalof any kind of education) of forming a just and multicultural society of critical peoplecan only be achieved if we consider as literacy the ability to transform informationinto knowledge and use that knowledge as a tool to contribute to and transformsociety.

More immediate objectives of multimedia literacy include:• To provide knowledge of the languages that shape interactive multimedia

documents and the way they are constructed.• To provide knowledge and use of the most prevalent devices and

techniques for processing information.• To provide knowledge and facilitate the assessment of the social and

cultural implications of new multimedia technologies.• To foster an attitude of critical media reception and responsible behavior

in the public sphere.

Although they may be too general and broad, with these objectives we hope to avoidthe risk of falling into an approach to multimedia literacy that reduces its purpose tothe acquisition of a purely utilitarian skill set for wielding multimedia devices anddocuments. We find it interesting to note that when multimedia literacy ismentioned, the creation of applications and documents tends to be considered apriority objective-unlike the case in audiovisual and media literacy, which usuallycenter on critical media reception. If this creation paved the way for something morethan learning to operate computer-based tools, we would be in a position to say thatthere is a large qualitative jump from reception to emission, from alleged passivity,typical of large-scale mass media, to the active creation made possible byinterpersonal media.

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The huge gap between the number of messages we receive and the number we sendvia communication networks will probably increase in the future. Even if focussed onthe creation of messages and documents, multimedia literacy should not leave outteaching critical reception, while at the same time enabling creation and expression,active participation in the processes of communication, and the appropriation ofmedia by the user. Nevertheless, anyone capable of handling text, sounds andgraphics in order to create a presentation-enough to be considered multimedialiterate according to some publications-exhibits nothing more than the equivalent ofmechanical reading and writing in traditional literacy.

5.4. Multimedia as a basic principle of literacy for teachers & students

Multimedia literacy can better meet its objectives if both teacher training and studentlearning are formulated around the creation of documents, authoring and distributingmessages. Multimedia literacy will contribute to cultivating free citizens if studentsovercome the bounds of simple reception and move on to creation, if we teach themcritical reception by way of authoring their own multimedia documents. Our proposalfor a multimedia literacy that gives the ability to participate freely in the society ofthe third millennium, and ultimately to transform it, stems from students andteachers authoring multimedia.

The predominance of alphabetic literacy will supposedly last for some time, and itspredominance in formal education is unquestionable. It occupies an irrefutable andprivileged place in formal education. Nevertheless, the systematic learning of readingand writing does not take into account the relation between alphabetic language(oral and written) with other types of representations and/or symbologies, anomission by which alphabetic language is still studied in the contexts and accordingto the presentation modes predominant in the time of Gutenberg, which arechanging day by day. In school environments the medium of the printed page andbook continues to be the most customary, and its linearity and structuring intosuccessive paragraphs and pages is still clearly predominant. When text isaccompanied by images, they usually function to provide secondary and merelyillustrative meaning.

What we would consider computer literacy, for its part, usually consists of acollection of knowledge and skills for using the most common general-purposeprograms. It is necessary to point out how curricula for this purely tool-basedcomputer literacy are dictated by commercial interests. It is evident, for example,that Microsoft has imposed the Windows environment as an essential requirement ofcomputer training and is following the same policy with programs like Word, Access,Power Point, Excel and all the components of the Office suite, just as with its webbrowser Internet Explorer, all of which it intends to establish as standards while atthe same time suppressing competition.

Regarding the objectives of computer literacy, we can safely confirm that they are inline with the curriculum we outlined for this literacy, and center on training teachersand students to critically use new technologies. Training is viewed as purely practicaland essential for competing professionally in the job market. We propose amultimedia technology education approach based on students and teachers asmultimedia authors and consumers as an alternative to the norm, which is to think oflearners as users of general-purpose programs. Our approach relates computers to

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alphabetic and audiovisual languages and is more congruent with the world ofmultimedia communication in which the modern day individual will have to perform.The basic teacher training we propose logically includes learning the operation ofequipment and general-purpose software, such as word processors, graphics editors,databases, etc., however these subjects must be approached with predeterminedobjectives, with the intent of using them as tools, and with an idea of what we wantto do with those tools. In this way will we prevent the means becoming the ends.

It is unnecessary to warn that teacher training in ICTs goes beyond what we considerbasic knowledge in multimedia literacy. This basic knowledge is part of teachers’scientific training, in which they learn about technological developments, theircharacteristics and influence (especially in education). In addition to this scientifictraining common to other professionals, the educator needs educational trainingabout ICTs, to analyse their potential as educational resources, and the advantagesand disadvantages of new media in teaching. In Gutiérrez Martín (1998), we sawhow teachers in the third millennium will need training not only in the educationalpotential of ICTs, but also in their educative influence (the ability of new media toinfluence how citizens learn), and in school and social contexts as spheres ofinfluence of ICTs.

A critical approach to the educative influence and social context of new multimediatechnologies and communication networks becomes that much more necessary asthe technological discourse offered by new media as a panacea becomes increasinglymore oppressive. This dominant technological discourse, which influences us all asindividuals and education professionals, implicitly assumes an educational modelcentred on the operation and use of equipment as the main concern, a model wereject in our proposal for multimedia literacy and teacher training.

Although literacy is usually considered as part of the first years of life and withinformal educational contexts, when social groups began to recognize the basicknowledge to which we all have a right and achieved its inclusion in curriculathroughout organized education, its usefulness was already under question asobsolete. This is more evident in an information society, whose rapid evolutionprecludes the notion that education occupies the first stage of life and prepares youfor all the rest. Instead, the only realistic option is to think of education in apluralistic society as an ongoing process that helps the individual develop fullythroughout every stage of life. Out of necessity, we need to be life-long learners.

When reading and writing began to spread and as it was understood as bothnecessary and useful, plans were developed to deal with adult literacy. The samething is happening now with multimedia literacy, which leads us to the currentdiscussion of teacher literacy. Multimedia education, therefore, cannot be limited toformal education, of which it is a primary objective throughout. We must equipinformal educational environments to give meaning and structure, analyse, assignvalue and broaden the knowledge acquired by living in constant contact withcontinually evolving multimedia messages and systems.

Despite the currently dominant neo-liberal trend against government intervention,we would like to conclude by emphasizing that those responsible for the social orderhave an obligation to guarantee critical literacy for all, literacy that will allow us tolive with dignity in the Information Age as free and responsible citizens.___________________________

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5.5. Chapter References:

GIMENO, J. (1999) La educación que tenemos, la educación que queremos, inImbernón, F. (coord.) (1999) La educación en el siglo XXI. Los retos del futuroinmediato. Barcelona. Graó. Biblioteca de Aula.

GUTIÉRREZ, A. (1997) Educación multimedia y nuevas tecnologías. Madrid. Edicionesde la Torre.

GUTIÉRREZ, A. (coord.) (1998) Formación del profesorado en la sociedad de laInformación. Segovia. E.U. Magisterio de Segovia (UVA).

LEMKE, J.L. (1997) Metamedia literacy: transforming meanings and media, in D.Reinking et al. (Eds.) Literacy for the 21st Century: Technological Transformation ina Post-typographic World. New York. Erlbaum.

TYNER, Kathleen (1998): Literacy in a digital world. Teaching and learning in the ageof information. New Jersey / London. LEA. Mahwah.

___________________________

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Chapter 6: OHANA LEARNING SOLUTIONS--DEVELOPING BEGINNER EFLLANGUAGE SKILLS THROUGH MULTIMEDIA

6.1. Role of visual and verbal information in language learning

The integrated dual-code hypothesis (Mayer and Anderson 1991: 486) suggested“learners can build both visual and verbal modes of mental representation as we wellas connections between them”. Mayer (1997) drew on

Figure 1 adapted from Mayer, R.E. and Anderson, R. B. (1991). Animations Need Narrations: Anexperimental test of a dual-coding hypothesis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83(4), 486.

Figure 2 adapted from Mayer, R.E. (1997). Multimedia Learning: Are we asking the right questions?Educational Psychologist, 32(1), 5.

this in developing a generative theory of multimedia learning, that has influencedOhana product design since their inception. And, given this natural and learnedcapacity to decipher multimodal communications, Ohana Foundation EFL and ESLproducts incorporate interactive multimedia to help foster the accelerated acquisitionof the English language. Plass et. Al. (1998) reported that results of their study onthe role of visual and verbal information in learning were “consistent with agenerative theory of multimedia learning that assumes that learners actively selectrelevant verbal and visual information, organize the information into coherent mentalrepresentations, and integrate these newly constructed visual and verbalrepresentations with one another.” Therefore, for beginners who lack verballanguage skills, the availability of visual and auditory (or multimedia) input may havea contributory influence on their second language development. Burt (1999)concurred that multimedia, and, in particular video, “is accessible to those who havenot yet learned to read and write well, and provides context for learning.” Harben(1999) pointed out that visual context provided by elements such as setting, bodylanguage and facial expressions can aid comprehension as well as activate learners’prior knowledge of the social and cultural aspects of language. Further to this, thesimultaneous availability of different modes of information is believed to contributeto improved comprehension of the language input. Based on the results of his study,Brett (1997) suggested that the greater efficiency and focus of using one interfacemakes it more likely for learners to have greater success rates with comprehensiontasks while using multimedia.

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Multimedia video is the most appropriate medium for beginners because they candraw on both the auditory and visual support in their learning. It is particularlyhelpful for them to observe the situations of authentic everyday language use ascomplete communication events in context. As Canning-Wilson (2000) pointed out,video segments should be short enough for the visual stimuli not to detract from theauditory component. Teachers can fully exploit the audio component to develop bothmacro and micro listening skills by using video segments of not more than oneminute long. In the same vein, Balatova (1994) reported that distraction sets in afterthe first minute of watching. As the target learners are beginners, teachers may findit more helpful to further break down each scenario into shorter segments.

The use of Ohana multimedia solutions can make language learning more accessibleto EFL beginners by:

• making it easier to integrate and contextualize listening, speaking andpronunciation, reading and writing activities

• motivating learners and helping them in their efforts to use the languagenaturally in their own lives by seeing how the characters succeed incommunicating with native speakers and getting things done in theireveryday activities

• bringing native speakers into the classroom (using multimedia assets),providing additional models for pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm besidesthat of the teacher

• raising learners’ awareness of non-verbal aspects of communication• increasing listening comprehension: paralinguistic features (facial expression,

body language, context, setting…) help learners comprehend more than fromlistening to audio tape only

• stimulating learner interaction and communication with co-learners as theydiscuss the video itself or ways in which it relates to their lives andexperiences

• raising cross-cultural awareness: learners enjoy observing similarities anddifferences between the behavior of the characters in a video clip and that oftheir own families and friends

6.2. Helping EFL beginners learn with video

Watching television and video can motivate learning because most learners find itentertaining. However, it is important to ensure that learners are actively engagedin their learning rather than just sitting back and passively relaxing. Viewingactivities should give learners a purpose in watching a sequence and help them focuson aspects of the video that can benefit their language-learning capabilities. This isthe strategy of active viewing described by Lonergan (1984). As a lot of informationon videos is non-linguistic, it is also important to assure learners that they need notunderstand ALL the information. The activities aim to encourage viewing andparticipation to increase understanding, not to test it. Learners can also beencouraged to predict/discuss in their first language group and collaborativelygenerate answers in English. On the other hand, transfer activities such as usingscenarios as models for role-plays can prepare learners for real-life English use. Aswell, teachers can create excellent practice opportunities in authentic language useby organizing class excursions and visits where learners can draw on peer support.

6.3. Some considerations for selecting videos for EFL beginners

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• length – maximum of around 3-5 minute per segment• contexts – authentic everyday language use• actions/visual cues – not just talking heads• option of subtitles – English subtitle for pronunciation practice and reading

skill development• number of characters – not so many in one segment that learners are

confused about who’s who

6.4. Some techniques for teaching with Ohana multimedia

As Allan (1985:66) pointed out that there is no single ‘right way’ to use video ormultimedia, only “as many right ways as there are effective uses”, the following arejust suggestions for teachers in their exploration of using video and multimedia DVDsin language teaching.

6.4.1. Silent viewingFor silent viewing, teachers can set the volume control to its lowest so that thesoundtrack is inaudible. Watching a video sequence without the soundtrack doesmore than activating learners’ schema and prior experience in interpreting what theysee. Without the ‘distraction’ of the spoken word, learners can focus on the essenceof communication among people: body language, gestures, facial expressions andthe setting. Learners are more motivated to use English by visualizing this commonneed to communicate irrespective of the language spoken. By only taking in thecontent and context visually, learners are not as anxious as when they have to dealwith the language at the same time. In their second viewing with the sound on,they are better able to fit the language they hear into the context they have built intheir silent viewing.

6.4.2. Sound onlyFor sound only activities, teachers can either adjust the brightness control to yield acompletely darkened screen or use the audio of the video. Learners can listen tobackground noises and the accompanying dialogues to predict what is happening:where the characters are and what they are doing. This is most effective whensound effects directly indicate particular locations or activities, e.g. the sound of anapproaching train and the ringing of a telephone. Learners can confirm their guessesby viewing the video straight after listening.

6.4.3. Jigsaw viewing/listeningJigsaw viewing/listening aims to create a situation in which learners have tocollaborate in working out what is actually happening on the video. Besidesgenerating a lot interaction among learners, this can also help learners appreciatethe value of peer support in the learning process. Jigsaw viewing/listening can beset up by making half of the class do silent viewing while the other half only listen tothe soundtrack of the same segment in another room. Teachers can provide viewingand listening task sheets to help learners record information. When the classreunites, viewers and listeners then work in pairs to arrive at the original ‘story’ bysharing the information they have each got.

A variation to the above technique is sitting half of the class with their backs to thetelevision screen. These learners can only listen while those facing the television canwatch the video with the sound on. When the sequence is finished, the viewers haveto describe what is happening in response to the listeners’ questions.

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6.4.4. Freeze frameTeachers can press the Pause or Still button that “freezes” the picture on the screen.This is useful for introducing new vocabulary, e.g. naming unfamiliar items inEnglish. Teachers can also set up prediction exercises by freezing the frame at thepoint when a character is about to respond to an utterance and inviting learners toguess the response. Learners can compare their answers immediately by releasingthe Pause button. This can also be used for pronunciation practice where repeatedspeaking and listening of an utterance is necessary.

6.5. SummaryAs noted above, video is a particularly effective learning medium for beginners,especially in developing listening, speaking and pronunciation skills. Rather thanbeing too difficult for beginners, as often claimed by some teachers, multimedia canmake language more accessible to beginners when segments are selectedappropriately, the strategy of active viewing is adopted and mutual support amonglearners is generated.___________________________

6.6. Chapter References

ALLAN, M. (1985). Teaching English with video. Harlow: Longman.

BALTOVA, I. (1994). Impact of video on the comprehension skills of core Frenchstudents. Canadian Modern Language Review, 50(3), 506-531.

BRETT, P. (1997). A comparative study of the effects of the use of multimedia onlistening comprehension. System, 25(1), 39-53.

BURT, M. (1999). Using Video with adult English Language Learners. ERIC Digest.National Center for ESL Literacy Education. August 1999.Available: http://www.cal.org/ncle/DIGESTS/Video.htm Accessed: 26 August 2005

CANNING-WILSON, C. (2000). Practical aspects of using video in the foreignlanguage classroom. The Internet TESL Journal. Vol. VI, No. 11, November 2000.

HARBEN, P. (1999). An exercise in applying pedagogical principles to multimediaCALL materials design. ReCALL, 11(3), 25-33.

LONERGAN, J. (1984). Video language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

MAYER, R.E. and Anderson, R. B. (1991). Animations Need Narrations: Anexperimental test of a dual-coding hypothesis. Journal of Educational Psychology,83(4), 484-490.

MAYER, R.E. (1997). Multimedia Learning: Are we asking the right questions?Educational Psychologist, 32(1), 1-19.

PLASS, J.L., Chun, D.M., Mayer, R.E. and Leutner, D. (1998). Supporting visual andverbal learning preferences in a second language multimedia learning environment.Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(1), 25-36.

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Chapter 7: AN INTRODUCTION TO OHANA PHONICS FOR K-3

7.1. Why Phonics Matter

Far back in prehistoric times primitive man probably used his voice to communicatewith those about him much as other creatures did, but with his evolutionary potentialand his developing cerebral functions, he gradually learned to combine vocal soundsinto patterns of meaningful speech through which he conveyed ideas to others of hiskind. Different groups of people developed many different oral language patterns, ofwhich some five thousand are in use today. Very much later, in comparatively recenttimes, written systems of language were invented which broadened communicationdistance in time as well as in space, and provided a medium for conserving andtransmitting social cultures. Some of these graphic languages made use of drawingsto represent objects and ideas. Later, various types of alphabet codes weredeveloped with letters to represent the sounds of the spoken words. TheGreek-Roman alphabet is one, which is still in use today in many modern languages,including English.

Phonics is the guide to an alphabet system of transcription. Knowing the alphabetsymbols for the sounds in a language makes it fairly easy to translate the spokenword into its written form, and vice versa, as long as there is a one-to-onecorrespondence between the sounds and the letter symbols. No alphabet is perfect inthis respect, however, and the English language has far outgrown its originalalphabetic representation. Its pronunciation and spelling have gradually changedover the centuries and a great many new words have been added from otherlanguages with different phonics structures. A language is never static and changesare constantly taking place. Such words as laboratory, secretary, and schedule arepronounced quite differently in America than in England, and changes in the spellingof certain British words can be seen in such examples as favour and theatre thatare becoming favor and theater in the United States. Different pronunciations anddialects have developed in different regions in America, and one has only to examinethe telephone directory to see many different ways the same name may be spelled.

It is generally recognized that the English alphabet of twenty-six letters is animperfect sound-symbol code for our present-day written language. We use soundsin speaking which have no letter symbols of their own, such as /ch/ in chin and /th/in that. We use various letters to represent the same sound: x or cks (box or socks),for example, and we assign a number of sounds to the same letter symbols (theletter a represents eight different sounds according to Webster's dictionary). Achange in the position of a letter in a word may indicate a change in its sound, andso we have various patterns of letter sequences as an elaboration of our alphabetcode. In some instances the spelling of a word has so little relation to the way it ispronounced that it is best to teach it as a "sight" word, but in general there is a closeenough conformity between our spoken words and our graphic language symbols sothat we can, and should, make good use of our heritage of an alphabet system inteaching our children to read and write.

7.1.1. Language Development in Children

Children are born without any memories of specific language symbols, spoken orwritten, but they normally have the capacity to acquire any language to which theyare exposed, according to their own innate developmental timetables. During theirfirst five or six years, usually spent in the home, children learn to understand to

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reproduce many hundreds of words in the language, which they hear. Theintroduction of the written form of language-reading, writing, and spelling-generallybegins with the child's entrance into school at the age of about six years; at thatage, children of all races in all countries have been found ready, by and large, forinstruction in the art of written communication, although there are many individualvariations.

From an early age, almost all children enjoy listening to stories and looking at picturebooks, and some are interested in the shapes and names of letters, and even inprinted words, long before they enter school. Kindergartens find that some of theirpupils are eager and able to learn the names and sounds of letters, while almostevery child can print his first name before entering school. It is in the first grade,however, that most children will be introduced to reading and writing, and it is therethat they need to become thoroughly acquainted with one of our most usefuleducational tools-our alphabet code and the phonics approach to reading andspelling. Since all teachers can read and spell with considerable proficiency, it mightseem a simple matter for them to impart these skills to their pupils. Few adults,however, can remember their own first steps in learning to read or can putthemselves in the beginner's place. They are apt to expect the child to read a theyread, deriving meaning directly from printed word forms which adults recognizeautomatically as a result of many years of practice. It is sometimes helpful for adultsto review the various steps traversed in their more recent learning of some newlanguage skill, like mastering the keyboard chart of the typewriter or beginning aforeign language with a different alphabet. They undoubtedly found it necessary tolearn the individual letters before attempting to combine them into patterns.Similarly, it seems expedient for most children to learn to read, write and spell bystarting with the letters of the alphabet and their sounds and then to proceedstep-by-step to the recognition and reproduction of letter combinations in words, andof words in sentences.

In the following pages we will outline the order and method of presenting the phonicsunits, which we have found most useful in many years of practical teachingexperience. First, however, we would like to discuss the background of phonics alittle further.

7.1.2. Definition of Terms

PHONICS is the system of associating letter symbols with speech sounds. But whatletters with what speech sounds? After we have learned to read, we becomeaccustomed to thinking of all words as groups of printed letters rather than primarilyas sequences of sounds. When we hear a familiar word, we see it clearly in itsprinted form, but we might have difficulty in analyzing it in terms of units of speechsounds. It is here that an acquaintance with PHONETICS, the science of speech, maybe of some assistance. Some forty significant speech sounds, called phonemes, havebeen identified. They can be differentiated by their acoustical properties, the waythey are produced by the vocal organs, and their function in making speech soundsinto intelligible words. (Speech sounds are indicated in this text by letter symbolsenclosed in diagonal lines.)

Adults cannot remember the early stages of their own speech development and theydo not hear their own speech as others do. They are unconscious of the manymechanical adjustments of the speech organs that are taking place constantly asthey talk, and they do not realize the difficulties children may have in learning to

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reproduce the speech sounds, which they hear. In some children, speechdevelopment comes rapidly-in others, more slowly. Some are talking at the age ofone year, others not until after two. Many first-graders still cannot produce a good/r/ or /th/; some still confuse pronouns, the forms of irregular verbs, and even theorder of words in sentences. Others, who can make all of the speech soundsseparately or in short words, omit or distort them in longer sequences and cannot beeasily understood when trying to tell a story. Even college students (andunfortunately some teachers) sometimes retain a slight lisp or defective /r/, of whichthey usually are unaware. Some of these students may need the help of a speechtherapist with a through training in phonetics and its application to the correction ofspeech defects. The study of phonetics is of great value to the teacher of phonics,although the approach and the objectives in teaching oral language and writtenlanguage are quite different.

7.1.3. Speech Sounds: Vowels

Speech sounds may be classified as vowel sounds and consonant sounds. VOWELSOUNDS are voice sounds unobstructed by lips, teeth, tongue, or other organs.When a doctor wants a clear view of your throat, he asks you to say "ah", a vowelsound. The vowel sounds are "open" sounds; they carry the voice; they are thesounds on which we speak. Every syllable we utter is formed around a vowel sound;we could not pronounce a word without the sounds we call vowel sounds. The mouthcavity serves as a resonance chamber for these sounds, and their quality isdetermined by slight changes in the position of the tongue, the tenseness of the lips,etc. The vowel sounds differ in different languages and in different dialects and theyvary among different speakers. Two closely blended vowel sounds are called adiphthong.

The terms "long" and "short" are used to designate the two principal soundsrepresented by the vowel letters a, e, i, o, u. The long sounds, indicated in thedictionary by a bar over the letter (called a ma’cron), are the same as the names ofthe letters except in the case of u. Long u is pronounced like a long double o in manywords, and in some of the newer dictionaries, its name-sound is indicated by asymbol for long oo, preceded by the consonant y. As a vowel symbol, y usuallyrepresents the same sounds as i; the letter w sometimes replaces u in combinationsof vowels (au - aw, ou - ow).

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The vowel sounds in at, ed, it, ox, and up are designated as the short sounds of thevowels and are usually indicated by a curved mark called a breve, but are leftunmarked in certain dictionaries. The terms "long" and "short", however, arecomplete misnomers. There is no consistent difference in the duration or "length" ofthese pairs of vowel sounds. Moreover, the long and short sounds of the same vowelare not related to one another by any family resemblance in present-day English.The short sound of the letter i is actually related to the long e sound (i as in police),and short e to the long a sound (e as in cafe) as these long vowels are pronounced inEuropean languages today. In general, the lips and tongue are more relaxed and lesstense in producing the so-called short-vowel sounds.

Then there are many in-between vowel sounds that are indicated by specialdiacritical marks in the dictionary as "half-long", "half-short", etc. Again, any of thevowels may be given the neutral sound, "uh", in certain unaccented syllables, and insome dictionaries this sound is represented by the symbol for it found in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet, an inverted reversed e, called a SCHWA ( ). It isvery important for teachers and students to study the pronunciation keys inwhatever dictionaries they may be using, for many changes in marking have beenintroduced in recent years. The pages explaining the guides to pronunciation alsocontain much useful material about spelling and language usage.

7.1.4. Consonant Sounds

The sounds produced by interruptions of the voice stream producing the vowelsounds are called the CONSONANT SOUNDS. Sometimes the vowel sound is blockedcompletely and then released suddenly with a little explosion, as in saying "be", or"go", or the air stream may be only partially blocked and released gradually with alittle friction, as in the /sh/ sound. Again, the soft palate may be lowered to divertthe passage of air out through the nose as in the /ng/ in "sing". Plosives, fricatives,nasals--so these sounds may be designated. Other descriptions are anatomical,referring to the place of the obstruction: labial (lips), dental (teeth), alveolar (ridge

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behind the upper teeth), palatal (hard palate, bony roof of the mouth), velar (softpalate), lingual (tongue), glottal (space between the vocal cords). In some cases, thevisual aid of watching the teacher's face closely and the tactile aid of feeling thevocal cords as they move and the breath as it is expelled, will aid a pupil indifferentiating the sounds that are to be associated with particular letter symbols.

Consonant sounds differ slightly according to their accompanying vowels and somehave a vowel component in their sound. In fact, consonant sounds are so closelyblended with the vowel sounds in any syllable or word that it is doubtful whetherthey can actually be pronounced in isolation as separate speech units. However,consonant sounds are essential in differentiating one spoken word from another and,therefore, they must be represented by identifying symbols in our linguistic code forwritten words. In practice, a consonant sound is demonstrated by starting to say aword beginning with a single consonant followed by a vowel and then cutting it offjust before the vowel sound. Even the neutral vowel sound "uh" should be eliminatedas far as possible so that the pupil will be able to blend the consonant sound withany vowel sound occurring after it. (Phoneticians teach w not as a sound but asindicating "a position of the vocal tract, which influences the sound of the vowelfollowing it.")

It helps most pupils to learn a key word for each letter sound, especially theshort-vowel sounds, but it is essential that the individual sound be correctlyassociated with its individual letter or letters so that it will be readily available for usein reading and spelling other words. Pupils who have learned only key words forletter sounds often cannot make this transfer; the letter stimulus brings the wholeword response and its sound cannot be applied in a new situation. Fortunately, ouralphabet code provides fairly consistent letter symbols for most of the consonant and

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the short-vowel sounds, and they together form the basic language pattern of manyhundreds of our most common words.

The letter symbols that stand for the different speech sounds are calledPHONOGRAMS. A phonogram of two letters that represent a single speech sound iscalled a DIGRAPH. In this text, we will use the term "digraph" only for the two-lettercombinations that stand for the six consonant sounds which are not represented byany one single letter in our alphabet: IshI, /th/ voiced, /th/ unvoiced, IchI, IwhI,and IngI. A CONSONANT BLEND is a true blending of two, sometimes three,consonant sounds in a syllable or word, with no vowel sound between them. A blendmay occur in initial, medial, or final position in a word.

A CLOSED SYLLABLE ends with a consonant sound. The typical consonant-shortvowel-consonant syllable is a closed syllable. An OPEN SYLLABLE ends with a vowelsound, which is usually long or half-long, not closed by a consonant block of thevoice stream.

7.1.5. Voiced and Unvoiced Speech Sounds

Speech sounds are also classified as VOICED and UNVOICED, according to whetheror not the vocal cords are vibrated as the sounds are produced. When the sound isvoiced, the movement in the larynx can be felt by placing a finger on the throat. Thevowel sounds and certain of the consonant sounds are voiced.

The unvoiced consonant sounds, sometimes called the "breath" sounds are formedwith the lips and tongue in the same positions as for their voiced counterparts, butthey are produced without vibration of the vocal bands. The breath used in producingthem can be felt against the hand when it is held before the mouth. The pairedsounds are so similar that they are often confused, both in speech and in spelling.

The following chart shows the voiced and unvoiced pairs of consonant sounds asrepresented by their most common letter symbols.

Voiced Unvoiced

b p

g (go) k (cat)

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d t

v f

j ch

z s

w wh (hw)

th (the) th (thin)

“zh” (azure) sh

-- h

The sound of the consonant h is pure breath; it is aspirated and has no voicedcounterpart in English. It is often silent.

7.2. The Phonics System

The study of phonics involves learning not only the letter symbols representing thevowel sounds, the consonants, the consonant blends, the digraphs, and thediphthongs used in our language, but also their variations in sound according to theirposition in relation to one another in a word--or even, if they are at the end of aword, in relation to the initial sound of the word which follows. The system includesthe specific conventions that we employ in placing letters in a certain order in writtenwords to indicate particular sounds which we use in speech but for which we have nodifferentiating symbols. Consider the differences in the sounds of each of the samefirst three letters in race and care, or the sounds of the same vowel letters in mateand meat. The sounds in these words are determined by the position of the letters,the pattern of letter sequences.

Certain children seem to have special difficulty in remembering the order of lettersprescribed by our alphabet system. These pupils can be recognized in their earliestattempts at reading and spelling by their propensity for turning letters and syllablesaround. (STREPHOSYMBOLIA is the technical term, meaning "twisted symbols.")They flounder hopelessly under purely "sight" methods of teaching, but most of themcan be taught to read with the aid of a well-rounded, systematic phonics approach.

The experience of schools which start all of their pupils with alphabet phonicsstrongly suggests that most word recognition problems will be prevented by thisapproach and that the level of achievement in reading and spelling will be higher, asa whole, in the primary grades. The value of phonics for all children is nowrecognized in almost all systems of teaching reading, as well as in remedial andpreventive programs. What is taught as "phonics" and how it is taught will make adifference, however, and even the best methods will not prevent or "cure" allindividual problems that may arise.

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7.2.1. Reading and Writing

Communication is always a two-way process: sending and receiving. The speakermust have a listener, the TV screen must have a watcher, a written message mustbe read.

Reading and writing are the two ways of using a graphic language code. In reading,combinations of letter symbols are translated into spoken words, either orally or ininner speech (thought). In writing, the sounds of the spoken word are translated intoconventional patterns of letter symbols. In both processes, the meaning of the wordshas been learned originally from hearing them, and comparatively few words areadded to children's vocabularies directly from the written forms of language in theirfirst few years in school. In reading, the printed word is a visual stimulus whicharouses the auditory memory of the sound pattern of the spoken word withrecognition of its meaning. It is primarily a language-receptive process.

In writing, the physical circuit may start with the spoken or remembered sound ofthe word--an auditory stimulus--which arouses the associated visual memory of aparticular group of letter symbols and the kinesthetic memory of their writingpatterns, and leads to the motor act of writing. It is a language-expressive process.

A direct association between the printed letter patterns and their sounds in a spokenword (letters-to-sounds) is the basis for reading. A direct association of the patternof language sounds in a spoken word with their letter symbols (sounds-to-letters) isthe basis for writing and spelling. Most people read much more than they write todayand learning to read is probably more important for the student than learning towrite--and easier in most cases--but the latter skill is also a necessity in educationand in adult life and certainly should not be neglected, as it sometimes seems to be.

Writing patterns should be developed as early as possible in conjunction withlearning the alphabet code. Some believe that writing is the natural way for childrento learn to read but usually the linkages must be taught in both ways:letters-to-sounds for word recognition (reading, decoding); sounds-to-letters forwriting and spelling (encoding). Many bright first-grade pupils become frustratedbecause they do not yet have the control of small muscles necessary for handling apencil easily. Others may show a special difficulty in learning to write because of adevelopmental lag in the motor language areas, sometimes also involving speech.Kinesthetic (motor) training often proves a most effective pathway for implanting thememory of the shapes of the different letters and their order in words, together withtheir associated sounds. The use of the master hand has a neurological relationshipto learning in the language areas and the movements in writing are an importantelement in building the phonics structure.

A spoken word is a sequence of sounds blended together in an established order. Toreproduce this order, the printed letter symbols must also be arranged in sequences,and the English language, unlike many others, has adopted the horizontalleft-to-right direction for placing letters in written words and written words insentences. Since English is a "word order" language, in contrast to inflectedlanguages like Latin, the order of words in sentences is most important in conveyingmeaning, in both its oral and written form. Movement of the hand in writing, orfollowing with the finger in reading, will often facilitate the blending of sounds intomeaningful words and the reading of words in groups as they occur in our speakingpatterns. This emphasis upon sequence-building and order in the phonics approach

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leads into a functional understanding of grammar and to the study of the sequencesof ideas in various paragraph and chapter patterns as a basis for comprehension andexpression of meaning.

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7.2.2. A Guide for Teaching Phonics to Children

You can use this Phonics Primer developed by the Ohana Foundation to beginteaching your child to read today. This primer lists the 44 sounds in the Englishlanguage and then gives steps for teaching those 44 sounds and their most commonspelling patterns. In addition to learning sounds and spellings, each day the childmust read lists of phonetically related words and spell these words from dictation.Phonics instruction must be reinforced by having the child read decodable text.

The 44 Sounds in the English Language

7.2.3. Steps for Teaching Phonics

Step 1. Gather the materials listed below and store them together in a box.

5 Short-Vowel Sounds 18 Consonant Sounds 7 Digraphs

short /_/ in apple

short /_/ in elephant

short /_/ in igloo

short /_/ in octopus

short /_/ in umbrella

/b/ in bat

/k/ in cat and kite

/d/ in dog

/f/ in fan

/g/ in goat

/h/ in hat

/j/ in jam

/l/ in lip

/m/ in map

/n/ in nest

/p/ in pig

/r/ in rat

/s/ in sun

/t/ in top

/v/ in van

/w/ in wig

/y/ in yell

/z/ in zip

/ch/ in chin

/sh/ in ship

unvoiced /th/ in thin

voiced /th/ in this

/hw/ in whip *

/ng/ in sing

/nk/ in sink

* (wh is pronounced /w/in some areas)

6 Long-Vowel Sounds 3 r-Controlled VowelSounds

Diphthongs and OtherSpecial Sounds

long /_/ in cake

long /_/ in feet

long /_/ in pie

long /_/ in boat

long /_/ (yoo) in mule

long /__/ in flew

/ur/ in fern, bird, andhurt

/ar/ in park

/or/ in fork

/oi/ in oil and boy

/ow/ in owl and ouch

short /__/ in cook andpull

/aw/ in jaw and haul

/zh/ in television

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Materials for Teaching Phonics

What You Need Product Recommendations

systematic phonicsprogram

Ohana Phonics Series: 12 workbooks, coveringphonemic awareness.

phonics dictionaryOhana Phonics Picture Dictionary: 1,000-word visualdictionary.

decodable stories(preferably 100%

decodable)

If your phonics program does not contain 100%decodable stories, consider Ohana StorytellingSeries. 24 storybooks based on the characters fromYoko, Toto & Jakamoko! Animation series seen onEBS.

writing supplies: indexcards, index card file, blackwide-tip permanent marker,

beginner’s wide-ruledwriting tablet, 2 pencils with

erasers

Purchase writing supplies at any office supply store.

Step 2. Teach the 5 short-vowel sounds and consonant sounds. Drill untilmemorized. During the first week, use the Ohana Phonics Workbooks to drill theshort-vowel sounds. Add several consonant sounds each day until you are drilling allshort-vowel sounds and consonant sounds with your child daily. Do not rush thisstep. Keep drilling until all sounds are memorized, which usually takes 2-4 weeks.

Tip: Work on phonics for at least 15 minutes a day, 5 days a weekwith your child. Frequency and consistency are more important than

the length of time spent on each lesson.

Short-Vowel Sounds

short /_/ in apple

short /_/ in elephant

short /_/ in igloo

short /_/ in octopus

short /_/ in umbrella

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Consonant Sounds

/b/ in bat /k/ in kite /s/ in sun

/k/ in cat /l/ in lip /t/ in top

/d/ in dog /m/ in map /v/ in van

/f/ in fan /n/ in nest /w/ in wig

/g/ in goat /p/ in pig /ks/ in fox

/h/ in hat /kw/ in queen /y/ in yell

/j/ in jam /r/ in rat /z/ in zip

Step 3. Practice two-letter blends. Drill until blending is automatic. After your childknows the short-vowel sounds and consonant sounds, next teach him how to orallyblend two letters (b-a, ba) and read two-letter blends such as: ba, be, bi, bo, bu.

Two-Letter Blends

b + a = ba s + a = sa j + a = ja

b + e = be s + e = se j + e = je

b + i = bi s + i = si j + i = ji

b + o = bo s + o = so j + o = jo

b + u = bu s + u = su j + u = ju

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Step 4. Practice three-letter blends. Drill until blending is automatic. After your childcan read two-letter blends, progress to three-letter blends, that is, words. Each day,have your child read a set of short-vowel words, then dictate these same words tohim. (Show him how to form each letter and correct him gently, if necessary). Thisnot only helps him remember the phonics lesson just learned, but it greatly improvesspelling.

Golden Rule of Phonics: Never allow your child to skip, guess, orsubstitute words. Accuracy is more important than speed.

Three-Letter Blends

fa + t = fat ki + t = kit ro + d = rod

de + n = den ma + d = mad se + t = set

bo + x = box ye + s = yes tu + g = tug

hi + d = hid no + t = not wi + n = win

ju + g = jug pu + n = pun la + p = lap

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Step 5. Teach the twin-consonant endings, plurals, and two-consonant blends. Drilluntil blending is automatic.

Step 6. Teach the digraphs (ch, sh, th, wh, ng, nk). A digraph consists of twoconsonants that form a new sound when combined. Also teach three-consonantblends.

Digraphs Three-ConsonantBlends

chin, such, patch (silent t) scruff

ship, wish split

thin, with (unvoiced /th/) strap

this (voiced /th/) thrill

whip

sing, sang, song, sung

Twin-ConsonantEndings

Two-Consonant Blends Two-Consonant Blends

puff blab stun, fist

sell brag swam

kiss club trot

fuzz crop twin

lock drag fact

fled raft

Plurals: frog bulb

cats (sounds like /s/) glum held

beds (sounds like /z/) grip elf

plug sulk

prim film

scat help

skip, mask silt

sled jump

smug hand

snip mint

spot, gasp kept

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Digraphs Three-ConsonantBlends

sink, sank, sunk

Step 7. Introduce a few irregular words necessary to read most sentences.After your child can read three-letter and four-letter words easily, it’s time to add afew irregular words (“wacky words”) that are necessary to read most sentences. TheBasic Wacky Words table lists the most important irregular words – teach these first.Write each word on an index card. Introduce two or three new words a week. Drillyour child on these “wacky words” everyday, encouraging him to sound out asmuch of the word as possible (usually the vowel sound is the only irregularpart). As your child masters each word, file the card in the card file under “Words IKnow.” File new words under “Words To Learn.”

Basic Wacky Words

Introduce after childcan read short-vowel

words

Introduce after childhas learned /th/ and

/sh/

Introduce after childhas learned long-vowel

sounds

a, Ito, intoor, forof, put

the, she, he, me, be, weno, go, so

do, doing, doeswas, were, are

said, says, have, heryou, your, yoursthey, their, there

where, what, why, whoonce, one, come, some

done, nonetwo, too

Tip: What distinguishes these “wacky words” from so-called sightwords? Most of these wacky words cannot be sounded out, usuallybecause they contain a vowel sound that doesn’t “follow the rules.”In contrast, the typical “sight word” list consists of mostlyphonetically regular words (such as “and” and “when”) that the childis forced to memorize simply because he has never been taught tosound them out.

Step 8. Teach the long-vowel sounds and their spellings. Note that there are fivecommon spellings for each long-vowel sound. Also teach the “Silent-e Rule”: When aone-syllable word ends in “e” and has the pattern vce (vowel-consonant-e), the firstvowel says its name and the “e” is silent.

Long-VowelSounds

Common Spellings Less Common Spellings

long /_/ cake, rain, pay, eight,baby

steak, they, vein

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long /_/ Pete, me, feet, sea,bunny

key, field, cookie, receive,pizza

long /_/ bike, hi, fly, pie, night rye, type

long /_/ hope, go, boat, toe, snow soul, though

long /_/ & /__/ mule, blue, boot, tuna,flew

fruit, soup, through, feud

Step 9. Teach the r-controlled vowel sounds and their spellings.

r-ControlledVowel Sounds

Common Spellings Less Common Spellings

/ur/ fern, bird, hurt pure, dollar, worm, earth

/ar/ farm orange, forest

/or/ fork door, pour, roar, more, war

Step 10. Teach the diphthongs /oi/ and /ow/ and their spellings. A diphthongconsists of two vowels that form a new sound when combined. Also teach otherspecial sounds.

Sound Common Spellings

/oi/ oil, boy

/ow/ owl, ouch

short /__/ cook, pull

/sh/ vacation, session, facial

/zh/ vision

Step 11. Teach /aw/, /awl/, /awk/ and their spellings.

Sound Common Spellings

/aw/ jaw, haul, wash, squash

/awl/ bald, wall

/awk/ talk

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Step 12. Teach these sounds and spelling patterns.

Sound Common Spellings

/s/ spelled c

Rule: c followed by e, i, or y sounds like/s/.

cent, face, cinder, cycle

/j/ spelled g, ge, dge

Rule: g followed by e, i, or y usually soundslike /j/.

frigid, age, fudge, gym

/f/ spelled ph

Rule: ph sounds like /f/ in words of Greekorigin.

phone, phonics

/k/ spelled ch

Rule: ch sounds like /k/ in words of Greekorigin.

chorus, Christmas

/sh/ spelled ch

Rule: ch sounds like /sh/ in words ofFrench origin.

chef, champagne

Step 13. After 3 to 4 months of daily phonics instruction, begin introducingdecodable stories.

Important: All sounds and spellings in Steps 2 - 12 should beintroduced within the first 4 months of phonics instruction.

After 3 to 4 months of reading lists of words and sentences, your child should beready to read decodable stories such as those from the Yoko Storytelling Series.. Thechild should read all stories aloud, carefully and accurately. Help him sound outdifficult words, as needed. Explain the meaning of all new words. Encourage him toread each story several times to gain fluency, but don’t let him memorize the story(reciting a story from memory is not reading). Model fluent reading by listening tothe audiocassette and/or reading a sentence aloud with expression, then asking himto repeat what you read with the same tone of voice. Explain and demonstrate themeaning of basic punctuation (period = stop, comma = pause, exclamation point =speak with excitement, question mark = raise the pitch of your voice on the lastword to ask a question.)

Step 14. Begin introducing “easy-to-read” books. After the child masters decodablestories, let him move on to easy books such as those by Dr. Seuss (Hop on Pop; OneFish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish; Ten Apples Up on Top; Green Eggs and Ham;and so on) and P. D. Eastman (Are You My Mother?; Go Dog, Go!; A Fish Out ofWater). As your child reads each book, add new irregular words to the Wacky Wordfile and review daily.

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Continue teaching the lessons in the Ohana Phonics Program – don’t stop justbecause your child can read. Most children need 1 to 2 years of reinforcement beforetheir phonics knowledge becomes permanent.

Step 15. Continue to give phonetically based spelling lists. Even after your child hasfinished the Ohana Phonics Program, make sure to reinforce his phonics knowledgeby giving phonetically based spelling lists each week throughout elementary school.

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Chapter 8: Classroom management overview

This module provides participants with techniques and tips for managing classroomdynamics. Topics addressed include dealing with problem students and situationsand creating lesson plans and activities to minimize classroom control problemsbetween young adult and adult English Language Learners. This session providesinstructors with the tools to both reduce and prevent instructor stress in theclassroom.

Course outcomes:

• Create lesson plans for the entire class session• Apply tips for staying on schedule and using instructional time efficiently• Handle problem students and dealing with class disruptions• Prevent problems from arising and staying in control in difficult situations• Hold students accountable for preparing for class• Develop strategies for dealing with students who leave at break, do not

attend class, or turn in assignments

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What is classroom management?

Ask any ten instructors across the country about classroom management and youwill get ten different responses. Classroom management can be many differentthings to different people, with all of them correct in one form or another. MacDonaldand Healy (1999) note that classroom management is “your ability to keep studentsconstructively involved in learning” (p. 205). Kindsvatter, Wilen, and Ishler (1996)go on to state that “management behaviors of the teacher are generally those thingsa teacher does in addition to instructional behaviors and are intended to keepstudents on task” (p. 91), an important distinction to note. Classroom managementdoes not take the place of good instructional behavior; it supports it when necessary.However, if you have sound instructional practices, it is less likely that you will needto revert to disciplinary management practices.

This document seeks to help you understand different ways of managing a youngadult & adult classroom environment to the benefit of everyone involved. MacDonaldand Healy (1999) sum it up nicely in saying that “class management is the essentialcomplement to your capacity to teach interesting material in ways that engage theinterest and effort of your students” (p. 206).

A study conducted by Evertson and Emmer in 1982 (as cited in Kindsvatter et al.,1996, p. 78) described the following methods of effective classroom managers:

1. Provided explicit instructions about desirable behavior.

2. Monitored student compliance with classroom standards and reactedaccordingly to deviations.

3. Developed a strong and more detailed system for student accountability.

4. Communicated information effectively, in presenting information, givingdirections, and stating objectives.

5. Had more on-task time with learning activities, wasting less classroom time.

Classroom management models

Classroom management has often been linked with disciplinary measures. In the1970s, research began on how to better manage a classroom using behaviormanagement techniques rather than strict discipline. These techniques and researchwere mostly devoted to the K-12 environment and advocated the use of “assertivediscipline” which is a term first coined by Lee and Marlene Canter. Tom McIntyre(2004) sums up the Canter’s approach by saying that the instructor makes all of thedecisions about what is to be expected in the classroom. The instructor is responsiblefor enforcing the rules to keep other students from disrupting the learningenvironment. This method of discipline works for many teachers because it is easy toimplement and enforce.

The Cantors had detractors to their method. Many said that the AssertiveDiscipline method was too teacher-centered and did not take the students and theirindividual needs into account. Another major issue with Assertive Discipline is thefact that it is a reactive technique, rather than a proactive one. It does not allow theinstructor to work in collaboration with the student to prevent student misbehavior.

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Instead, pre-determined consequences are given, with little flexibility in determiningthe severity.

Another common classroom management method is the Discipline with Dignitymethod created by Richard Curwin and Allen Mendler. This method is much moreproactive in nature and deals with prevention of misbehavior rather than attemptingto determine the causes behind it. This model is more student-centered and focuseson larger issues, not the smaller ones. At its core, this method allows instructors theflexibility to make choices when it comes to consequences for the students or evento let students make those choices. It supports the use of humor and studentaccountability for problems.

Opponents of the Discipline with Dignity model argue that it might be too permissiveand that it leans too far towards a student-controlled management. It requires moreplanning and consideration on the part of the instructor than the Assertive Disciplinemodel. The Discipline with Dignity model can sometimes be seen as shifting theblame for student behavior to the institution rather than on the students themselves.

What’s important to remember is that every instructor has their own method ofclassroom management and you need to define what your method is before you gointo the classroom. Your policies and their consequences should also be clearlystated in the syllabus. Gerald Amada (1999) suggests that each instructor identify“which classroom behaviors could reasonably be deemed unacceptable andpenalizable” (p. 23) before the class begins. It is acceptable not to have a clearlydefined policy on every potential item that could occur, but you should have policiesfor basic items like missing classes and tests, student behavior, and late work. Youwill find that writing these policies down will help you define exactly what kind ofbehavior you require from your students. It is also common for your basic ideas ofclassroom management to change over time. You will find that some issues naturallycome to the forefront while other issues drop in importance to you as you gain moreexperience in the classroom.

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Goals of classroom management

Managing a young adult & adult classroom effectively is a highly individualizedactivity. What works for one instructor does not necessarily work for others.However, the basic goals of classroom management for almost all instructors,articulated by Eggen and Kauchak (as cited in Campbell, 1999, p. 34) are to:

• Create the best learning environment possible

• Develop student responsibility and self-regulation

It is not possible to have a positive learning environment if student behavior goesunchecked and if students have not developed the sense of responsibility that goesalong with being a young adult & adult student. By the same token, it is difficult tohelp the students become self-regulating and responsible if the learning environmentin the classroom does not support this goal. Students need to understand theirresponsibilities as a learner and to develop the ability to regulate their own behaviorin order to participate and fulfill their role in creating and maintaining a positivelearning environment.

Student responsibility is often an area where instructors feel that they have nocontrol. We are all looking for those self-motivated students who come to classprepared and awake, who are respectful and willing to think. “Most of us expect ourstudents to have learned how to be students by the time they reach the young-adult& adult stages of their lifelong learning. Yet many of my charges need help inlearning how to study or write papers, as well as how a young adult & adultclassroom is supposed to operate” (Perlmutter, 2004, p. B15). That is most likelytrue of many of your students as well. For many young adult & adult students, thereturn to the classroom is a frightening prospect, considering that many of them maynot have attended class recently or previously or have been out of school for anumber of years.

Some of the most important features of classroom management are the things thatstudents do not necessarily see and instructors find difficult to describe. Goodclassroom management involves equal parts planning and spontaneity. It ispossible to plan well, but not be able to react to the classroom dynamics or studentneeds. It’s also possible to spend all of your time reacting to these things and nothave done the proper planning that needs to go into a course as a whole or aparticular session.

Gail Godwin once said “good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater” and to a certain extent, that is true. You must not only beprepared for what you want to teach in a semester, you also somehow have toprepare yourself for the unexpected as well. ”Without a carefully constructedclassroom management plan, teachers may develop defensive reactions to disruptivestudents and this will most certainly seriously compromise their effectiveness asteachers” (Campbell, 1999, p. 46).

It is also true that you need to review your classroom management strategiesperiodically to ensure that they are still effective. Some instructors tend to use whatworked for them at one time over and over and do not make adjustments fordifferent courses or different students. As Campbell (1999) states, “it is not enoughto simply create a complete set of rules or to have contingencies specified for these

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rules. Continual review of the rules and the consequences of violating them mustoccur” (p. 48).

You should also pay attention to how you state your rules. A list of “Do nots” tendsto set a negative tone from the beginning; something you want to avoid. “Studentsshould be helped to understand that the rules are expectations of positive behaviorand not prohibitions or negative behavior” (Campbell, 1999, p. 48).

Instructor responsibilities

All young adult & adult instructors have two essential professionalprerogatives. First, they have the prerogative to set academic standards fortheir students and to grade or evaluate the quality of students’ performanceaccording to those standards. Second, they have the prerogative to setbehavioral standards for their classes (Amada, 1999, p. 21).

In an effort to assist you with this process, we have composed the list below, whichcan be viewed as a fairly broad interpretation of your duties. As an instructor ofOhana EFL, you are expected to:

• Ensure an appropriate pace and effective use of classroom time throughcourse/session planning

• Keep the discussion and activities focused on the learning objectives (courseoutcomes)

• Create and maintain a positive learning environment

• Prevent, detect, and address disruptive or dysfunctional student behavior

One recurring theme through this session is the importance of proper planning inavoiding classroom management issues. A good plan, with plenty of diversity inactivities and opportunities for students to experience learning for themselves, goesmuch of the way toward preventing some of the problems that arise from studentsbecoming bored, leaving early or talking in class at inappropriate times. However, aplan is just that, a plan of what you think you want to accomplish during a classsession. Do not get so tied to your lesson plan that you lose the “teachablemoments” that you might not have scripted in advance. Be flexible enough to let goof the plan if necessary to seize the moments as they come.

Keeping your course focused on the learning or course outcomes will also helpreduce some of the tension and resistance students may have about why a particularitem or concept is important. If you can point to its relevance on the courseoutcomes and stay focused on what the students need to know to complete thecourse and program successfully, your classes should run more smoothly. Someways to ensure that you maintain your focus are:

• Keep the discussion on topic

• Balance the time on activities to the learning outcomes

• Separate individual student issues from class issues

• Address problems or disruptions immediately to keep them from snowballing

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Keeping discussions on track

Maintaining discussion focus is a common problem for many instructors, both newand experienced. There are some students who just like to monopolize a discussionor who go off on tangents, either during a class discussion or when asking aquestion. Many instructors struggle with how to deal with this issue without beingrude or making the rest of the students in the class feel like they won’t be able totalk without being cut off. As difficult as it is, you must stop those students whorefuse to keep their comments on the topic at hand. “Instructors can do this bysimply and politely telling the students that they have used up their allotted time andnow it is someone else’s turn to speak.” (Amada, 1999, p. 81). You can also seeAppendix A at the end of this manual for more strategies to deal with this issue.

Time spent on learning (course) outcomes

Balancing instructional time is always a delicate act. There always seems to be morematerial to cover than time to cover it. One of the ways that you can help bothyourself and your students is to do the long-range course planning discussed indetail on page 14. If you find that you are spending a lot of time on items that donot relate directly to the course outcomes, you can often eliminate some of that timeand gain more time for covering items that are tied to the course outcomes.

Student versus class issues

Sometimes it is difficult to determine what is an individual student issue and what isa class issue, but it is an important distinction. For instance, if you have a fewstudents who are consistently late returning from break, lecturing the class abouttardiness is ineffective, particularly if the offending students are not in the room. Itcan actually create barriers between you and the other students who were in theroom on time. Additionally, the students whose behavior you object to aren’t evenpresent for the “punishment”, so it does not affect them at all. Some issues can bedealt with at a class level, but many issues are actually individual student issues thatare best dealt with in a private manner.

Do not be afraid to take students into the hall for private discussions during activitytime. Some instructors tell students that if approached with an issue, theconversation will immediately be moved to the hall, regardless of its nature. Thisallows you to have confidential talks with students about both behavioral and non-behavioral issues without raising the curiosity of other students. Neverunderestimate the power of a personal, one-on-one conversation with a student.Regardless of what you may think, it is possible to “teach” from the hall. You are justdoing it a different way than when you teach in the classroom and it often producesa more immediate change in behavior from the student.

Addressing problems

Dysfunctional student behavior can occur in many forms. Some forms are moredisruptive than others, but even the most minor infraction can affect not only thatstudent, but others as well. It is your responsibility, and not an easy one, to do asmuch as you can to prevent these behaviors and then deal with them if they dooccur. “Although it can’t absolutely guard against disruptions, prevention does makethem less likely to occur” (“Minimizing Disruptive Behavior,” 2004, p. 6).

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Not addressing disruptive behavior immediately can have repercussions for the entireclass. If you come down on the offending student at a later date, he/she may wonderwhy you let the behavior continue for so long. Silence on the part of the instructor isoften interpreted by the students as acquiescence, so by not saying anythingimmediately, you are giving an implicit nod to the behavior. Failure to resolvestudent misbehavior in a timely manner can also cause the other members of theclass to question your policies, possibly leading to further disruption and behaviorissues.

Professional standards

There are many ways that you, as an instructor, can maintain a positive learningenvironment. One of those ways is to follow the code of professional conduct. Ohanaexpects that all EFL instructors will adhere to certain professional behavioralstandards, which are listed below:

• Dress – the dress code is business casual-neat and professional. Ohana feelsthat instructors should model the highest standard of professional behavior atall times, including dress. Proper attire is a seen as a sign of respect in manycultures.

• Speech – in class, as well as via phone and email. Students are oftenhesitant to ask questions or to question an instructor when they should beencouraged to do so. A good portion of teaching is helping students find theirvoice and instructors must be particularly careful to speak in a professionalmanner to students. Humor is generally appropriate, but be cautious becausenot all students will take your comments in the same manner. Sarcasm is adangerous area. Try to avoid even the appearance of belittling or beingcondescending to students.

• Student confidentiality – students have the right to expect that theirprivate issues remain private; so all grade or performance issues should behandled on an individual basis. This includes course grades and attendance.In the United States, many of these issues fall under the Family EducationalRights and Privacy Act (FERPA), but each country has its own set of rules andregulations with respect to the administration of student records andinformation. So if you have any questions about what is consideredconfidential or to whom you can show information, please check with a localeducation official before releasing that information.

• Behavior toward students – students have a right to expect that theirinstructors behave in a professional and courteous manner. Students have theright to have their opinions heard and should be treated with respect at alltimes. “Teachers should model respect for students by virtue of the way theyinteract with them” (Campbell, 1999, p. 58). Instructors have those samerights and it is often easier to enforce the instructor’s point of view ratherthan respect the student’s. Remember that a large portion of our students areworking and have valuable contributions to make in the classroom. “We needto approach teaching with humility. Only when we do so will ourstudents treat us with respect. Only then will we deserve it” (Benton,2004, p. C1). However, respect is not always something that is automaticallygranted to you by your students. As Campbell (1999) states, “every teachermust earn the respect of the students. Earning respect requires a consciouseffort; it does not just happen” (p. 58).

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• Attitude – something attracted you to teaching at some point, try andremember what that was and use it in your class. Each instructor hasdifferent strengths. Find yours and use them as a basis to conduct your class.Students will be able to tell the difference between a genuine love of teachingand enthusiasm for the craft and someone who is in it for other reasons. It’snot reasonable to expect that you will love teaching every single day, but tryto ensure that your good days outnumber your bad ones. “Without realizingit, some instructors induce inattentiveness and disruptiveness in theirstudents by teaching without the verve and joy for learning that is soessential to inspiring students in their quest for greater knowledge” (Amada,1999, p. 50-51).

Positive learning environment

Once you have decided how you will present yourself to the class, it’s time to beginconsidering how you can make your class a positive learning environment.“Classroom conditions that provide students with academic and socialsuccess experiences tend to reduce discipline-related problems” (Kindsvatteret al, 1996, p. 78).

Much of the recent research in education has been on the importance of learningcommunities and the numerous benefits they provide to both students andinstructors. “Students disrupt classes less when they know and care about otherstudents in the class. Teachers regularly underestimate the power of peer pressure.It can be used to create classroom environments where students act appropriatelybecause of commitments they feel to others in the class.” (“Minimizing DisruptiveBehavior,” 2004, p. 6). Use the learning communities ideas presented to enhance thelearning experience, not only for your students, but for yourself.

Some of the things that you can do to foster a positive learning environment include:

• Respect for diverse student backgrounds, not only culturally but also socio-economically and professionally as well.

• Teach using a variety of methods, in an effort to reach the maximum numberof students possible. Amada (1999) notes that, “it is ironic and unfair forsome instructors to discipline students for such inattentive forms of behavioras sleeping, chattering, and woolgathering in class when those sameinstructors are teaching in a boring, tedious, and soporific manner” (p. 50)and “perhaps the best antidote to all forms of disruptive behavior is forinstructors to teach interestingly” (p. 51).

• Provide consistent and fair treatment of all students when applying classpolicies (such as attendance and late assignments). “Whenever an instructorimposes two very different penalties upon two or more students who havecommitted very similar infractions, there is an increased likelihood that theinstructor can legitimately be accused of engaging in discriminatory conduct”(Amada, 1999. p. 24).

• Maintain confidentiality and privacy in student records and issues.

• Ensure that the classroom is a safe, welcoming environment for students,where they feel comfortable asking questions and seeking assistance.“Learning new concepts, ideas, and modes of thinking can be a very slow and

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painfully difficult intellectual and emotional process” (Amada, 1999, p. 82). Byencouraging questions and discussions among your students, you can helpmake this process more palatable for them and you.

• Model appropriate classroom behavior for your students. Be enthusiasticabout your subject, about your class, and about the institution where youteach. “If instructors teach with a certain passion and zeal for their subjectand can impart their intellectual excitement and idealism to students, it islikely to make an important difference in fostering a positive, non-disruptiveclassroom environment” (Amada, 1999, p. 51).

You probably already do many of the items listed above implicitly. Making themexplicit in your planning will help the students see them more clearly. One of themost important of these is to work to establish a positive relationship with yourstudents, but do not take it too far. “Far too many new teachers are overly andunnecessarily concerned about being liked by the students” (Campbell, 1999, p. 58).

Planning

Proper planning is perhaps the most essential of all course management functions.Good course and lesson plans allow you to see where you will go over the course ofthe semester and detail how you plan to get there. There are two types of planningyou should engage in every semester:

• Course planning

• Individual session planning

Course planning

Course planning occurs before you begin planning for your individual sessionmeetings and is performed with an eye towards the “big picture” you have for thecourse. During course planning, you should have the syllabus, the course outcomesand the syllabus guide at hand. While planning, you will probably want to:

• Identify major and minor topic areas you plan to cover. Use your courseoutcomes as a guide for this process.

• Target “milestone” time-intervals throughout the course to measure yourprogress against a timeline. This step can be especially important when youare preparing to teach the same class again, so you can make adjustments tothe overall course or session plan, if necessary.

• Determine any necessary supporting resources and make arrangements toobtain them. You could put a resource on hold at your campus library forstudents to review or identify websites that could be helpful.

• Identify summative assessment and/or evaluation methods you will use todetermine if students met the course outcomes. Assessment is a crucial pieceof the learning puzzle that tells us, as instructors, whether or not we aresuccessful in facilitating learning. Evaluation involves making a judgmentabout how well the student performed on a given task or in the class (think ofit as a grade on a paper or a final grade in the course

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• Develop generalized learning activities to support course outcomes. These donot have to be in final form, but sometimes as you are preparing, activitiesbegin to take shape in your mind, so take a few moments to write them downfor your later session planning.

• Review the syllabus guide to determine if there are any strategies, methods,or other information you would like to use. Remember that this guide is justthat, a guide for how one person thinks the course could be taught. You arefree to use what you want from the guide or not to use anything at all, if thati s y o u r p r e f e r e n c e .

When you have completed the list of activities above, you should have a fairly goodidea how you plan to achieve the course outcomes. These outcomes are not to bechanged or modified in any way and you must ensure that each outcome isadequately covered in the time available. How you choose to achieve that outcome isentirely up to you and will most likely be determined when you are completing yoursession planning.

Session planning

Session planning is the detail step in planning. This is when you stop thinking ingeneral terms and begin to identify specific activities and teaching strategies thatyou will employ to help students learn the required course outcomes. Sessionplanning allows you to create a detailed plan about how you plan to accomplish theoverall plan you developed in the course planning stage.

One note of importance is that the first session is often the “make or break” session.Kindsvatter et al (1996) refer to the first day as “the most important day of class interms of its potential impact” (p. 92) and go on to note that “students acquire theirfirst impressions at this meeting, the tenor of the class is established and momentumis initiated” (p. 92), so you do not want to underestimate the importance of thisparticular session in your planning.

During the session planning phase, you will want to:

• Identify appropriate areas for lecture versus other learning activities. Lecture,though it is the most passive form of learning, does have a place in yourrepertoire. Research now shows that most students can attend to a lecture forabout 15-20 minutes. Anything after that tends to be ineffective, so try toincorporate the concept of the “mini-lecture” into your sessions: “the averagecapacity to give focused attention is about 15 minutes. Depending on otherenvironmental factors (temperature of the room, time of day, etc, after 15minutes students’ ability to attend reduces and they take fewer and lessaccurate notes.”

• Select appropriate, targeted instructional activities to accompany yourlectures. “Effective classroom managers plan to vary instruction to achievelearning objectives in different ways and for the purpose of stimulatingstudents’ interest and involvement” (Kindsvatter et al., 1999, p. 92). Not allcontent must be covered by the instructor. There are many differentlearning activities where students can teach themselves and each other thecontent, with the instructor acting more as a facilitator. These activities also

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tend to be more student-centered and active, which means that students willbecome more engaged than they would if you were to cover the material.

• Develop formative classroom assessments, which are different than thesummative assessments you identified in the course planning stage. This typeof assessment gauges how well your students have grasped a particularconcept and should be completed several times a session. “Assessmentsbecome formative when the information is used to adapt teaching andlearning to meet student needs” (Boston, 2002).

• Gather any required instructional or supporting materials. Remember toreview the supporting materials on the Ohana EFL Learning Portal located athttp://www.ohanalearning.org/lp.html to see if there is anything you can usefor your class.

• Create your media files, if appropriate. And, plan on using what ICT tools youhave available in the classroom. In fact, many classrooms today are beingconverted into multimedia classrooms, meaning that they have a fullyfunctioning computer connected to the Internet. You can create presentationsin PowerPoint or documents in Word, or gather a list of websites you mightwant to display for the class either in advance or during the class session.

Lesson outlines

After you have determined what you think you will need, you can then begin theprocess of planning the actual lesson. Most lessons are devoted to a single topic andtypically involve the following as outlined by Deborah Mynster (1997):

1. Activation task – this allows students to explore their pre-existing knowledgeon a particular topic before you begin. This process is also known asactivation. (5-10 minutes)

2. Correction, evaluation, and re-teaching of entry task – you might need tocorrect student misperceptions before continuing. (5-10 minutes)

3. Teach new material – which can be accomplished in a variety of ways. Lectureis certainly one, but there are also student activities that can facilitate thisprocess. (15 minutes)

4. Assess student understanding – through the use of the formative assessmentdiscussed earlier. If your assessment shows that students are not graspingthe concept, you will probably need to cover that topic using a differentmethod or terminology. (10 minutes)

5. Provide closure – allow students to process the learning or activity bydirecting them to write in a journal, compose a reflection paper, or to simplyjot down a few notes about important parts or concepts for later review. Oneparticularly successful technique is to have the student identify how thisconcept has changed their thinking about something else. (5-10 minutes)

This outline is just a suggestion for a “typical” 55 minute lesson. Of course, all of ourclass sessions last more than 55 minutes, so you can do 2-4 of these units in thetime allotted to you. What is important to note from this outline is the constantmovement of activity for students. They are active in every stage of this plan, whichcan help increase student motivation to learn, which, in turn, can increase studentsuccess. “When successful, students will perform better academically and will tend

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not to cause or contribute to discipline problems in the classroom” (Campbell, 1999,p. 24).

Obviously you have more to teach than 4 items in an evening or 2 topics per day, soyou need to refer back to your course plan for help in grouping these items in alogical manner. Some topics fit naturally well together while others, even thoughthey may be covered in the same chapter in the textbook, just do not flow naturally.It is your job to identify when these mismatches are present and work around themto the benefit of your student.

It is always important to over plan for a class session rather than under plan. Just assome lessons will take you longer to cover than you originally estimated, somelessons will move more quickly than you planned, so rather than letting the studentsout early or giving them busy work, you can always move to the next activity orlesson you have planned. You can also use reinforcement activities if you don’t wantto move to the next topic or group the students for deeper reflection on the material.

Another benefit of using the lesson plan identified above is that it can, in and ofitself, help motivate students to come to class. Obviously you are not to blame forany attendance issues in your class, but students are more likely to want to come toclass where they are actively involved in constructing their own learning, rather thansitting back and passively taking it all in. Many of adult students are kinestheticlearners, meaning that they have to physically become involved with the subject tomaster it and allowing them the opportunity to engage in active learning will helpthem be more successful and encourage better attendance.

Another useful suggestion is to keep a “teaching journal” where you document yoursuccesses and your weaknesses for the course, identifying any areas where you canimprove and what worked well for you. As you teach a particular course more often,this journal can become a valuable resource for you to see how far you have come inyour personal teaching journey. Brophy and Rohrkemper conducted an interestingstudy about classrooms in 1981; and, they found that “of the many factors thataffect students’ behavior, teachers’ reluctance to recognize their own culpabilitydiminishes the likelihood that they will make useful adjustments in their classroompractices.” (qtd in (Kindsvatter et al., 1996. p. 78). By keeping this journal foryourself, you can identify where you can make these adjustments for the bettermentof your students.

Student accountability

Instructors report that one of the most frustrating experiences they can have in aclassroom is when students come to class completely unprepared for the classsession. The student(s) may not have completed the required homeworkassignments or read the materials in the book. At this point, many instructors saythat in order to proceed with the course, they (the instructor) will cover the materialthat the students were supposed to have covered before coming to class. In essence,students are learning that they do not necessarily have to come to class preparedbecause the instructor will cover the important material for them.

One common excuse for lack of preparation is that the instructor gives too muchhomework. Students do not understand that “homework completion is a worthy goal--achievement goes up when students spend more time on homework” (Cummings,2000, p. 61). However, you want to ensure that the assignments you give students

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are both challenging and developmentally appropriate for that level of the course. Itis important to remember that “providing both the appropriate quantity and qualityof work is the teacher’s responsibility” (Cummings, 2000, p. 61). She further goes onto state that “quality can be measured by relevancy and meaning” (61). So if you’vetaken the time to ensure that your assignments are both meaningful to the courseand relevant to the material, you should be able to expect that students willcomplete the work assigned to them.

Alternatively, students report that when they do come to class prepared, theinstructor goes over all of the material anyway, to ensure that students have theproper understanding of the material. In this case, students are shown that theirpreparation is unnecessary and that the instructor has to go over the material tomake sure the students have the “correct interpretation” of the material. A formativeassessment technique would be appropriate in this case because the instructor canuse this activity to check student understanding in a subtler way and then move on ifstudents demonstrate an adequate grasp of the material.

Neither of the above scenarios fosters student responsibility or accountability. Whyshould the student spend their free time preparing for class when the instructorcovers all of the material they were supposed to prepare, regardless of whether theyreport they completed it or not? Students learn very quickly which instructorsenforce student responsibility and which instructors do not and, as is human nature,will take advantage of those who do not.

Instructors need to tell their students that they must come to class prepared andthen involve the students in various activities that allow them to prove theirunderstanding of the materials or work through any problems they have. Studentswill often perform up to an instructor’s expectations but can also perform down tothem. You should always set and maintain high expectations for accountability inclass and then not lower those expectations if students fail to perform. If you arefinding that students are regularly failing to come to class prepared, you haveseveral strategies to deal with this problem including:

• Required reading journals, detailing their thoughts about the readings orother materials that are due when they walk in the door. You can give thestudents an activity to work on while you skim the journals to determinewhere the students are with their understanding of the materials before youbegin the session.

• Graded/ungraded or credit/no credit homework assignments. Not everyassignment needs to receive a letter grade, but students should feel as if theirassignments count for something. Most adult learners resent busy work, socollecting and reviewing assignments can actually help enforce accountabilityif they know someone will be reviewing them. This review person does notalways have to be the instructor. Peer reviews can also be used veryeffectively in this situation.

• Quizzes at any time during the class. These quizzes shouldn’t be punitiveactions; rather they are another method for obtaining formative assessmentabout the students and their grasp of the materials. Strive to make tests andquizzes “learning aids instead of simply the basis for grades” (Kindsvatter etal., 1996, p. 89).

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• 1-Minute papers to summarize the readings or lessons learned from theassignments. You can do a minute paper any time during the class. Someinstructors also require a minute paper as an “entrance ticket” to the class,meaning that the student has to have a paper to enter class that day. You canuse the three question method, with one question asking for information fromthe previous class and the other two ask questions about the reading orhomework.

All of the methods serve the dual purpose of giving the students a tangible reason tocome to class prepared and can serve as formative assessments for you to help youdetermine if the class truly understands the material or not. If students are in needof assistance on a particular topic, you will be able to determine that by reviewingtheir journals or quiz results. You can then take steps to address the problemimmediately so that you can confidently move to the next area. What often occursinstead is that instructors do not realize that students are having problems until thetest, which can sometimes be a couple of weeks after the topic was introduced. Theabove method has the benefit of an almost immediate action (at the next classsession) while the information is still fresh in the minds of the students.

The key is to not do anything for students that they can do for themselves.Do not do the reading for the students or work through all of their homeworkassignments with them because this sends the exact opposite message than the oneyou want to send. If you want students to come to class ready to learn, then youshould prepare your lessons assuming that is the case. Students will quickly learnthat you will not spend your valuable class time doing things they were assignedoutside of class and that there are consequences for that lack of preparation. Theconsequences are that they are less prepared to work on the activities and will notbe able to contribute much to the group or discussion. For many instructors, thistranslates directly into participation points for the day, a concept that most studentseasily understand. You aren’t punishing them so much as you are dangling a carrotfor them to work toward.

One of the most important things you can do for your students is to help them makeconnections between what they are learning and their life experience, career or evenother classes. Sometimes you need to make that connection for them in thebeginning, while training them to do it for themselves as the semester progresses.It’s not unreasonable for students to ask the “why” questions or for you to "providestudents with a credible rationale for learning activities and convince students of therelevance of a topic” (Kindsvatter et al., 1996, p. 88). Many students have a difficulttime understanding why they might need to know something so if you are able tohelp them understand how information in your course relates to something they willdo professionally, you can reduce the friction that comes from the student perceptionthat they are learning unnecessary information. “Students may not become involvedin their learning if there is no perceived benefit or relevance to what they arelearning” (Kelly, 2004).

Classroom challenges

Instructors face many challenges in the classroom; some that are within the realm oftheir control as well as some that are not. One of the most important things you canremember is that you can’t solve every problem for every student. Some studentshave academic or affect issues that are well beyond the scope of things you can or

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want to deal with in a classroom. Below is a breakdown of some of the types ofthings you can expect to see in a typical EFL classroom:

• Academic challenges

o Can be controlled or addressed by you

• Non-academic challenges

o Commonly referred to as affect issues

o Often beyond your control as an instructor

• Physical

o Can sometimes be addressed by the student and/or instructor

Academic challenges

Adult learners face the same academic challenges that you faced as anundergraduate during your college days. Some of these issues include:

• Fear of speaking in front of others

• Distaste for working in groups

• Failure to understand how to complete an assignment accurately

• Anxiety when taking quizzes or test or writing papers

• Missing assignment deadlines

• Feeling like they “have to get an A” to be successful

• Failing in a course or program

The responsibility for each of the above items belongs to the student. Youcannot make the student understand something they do not or make them turnassignments in on time. However, you can act as a coach or facilitator to offerassistance. One method of doing this is to require students who come to you with aproblem also come prepared with a couple of potential solutions for the problem.This is a skill that will serve them well in the workplace and this presents a goodopportunity for students to begin practicing that skill for the future.

Problems related to the course content are almost always the easiest to identify andcorrect. If a student does not understand something about a particular concept andcomes to talk with you about it; it isn’t a problem to go over that material again or ina different way until the student understands. The main issue with this method isthat it places the responsibility on the student to know what he/she does not knowand to be confident enough to seek out the instructor for extra assistance. This maynot always be the case, which is why the formative classroom assessmenttechniques (CATs) discussed earlier will help you diagnose and address this issue.

Other ways that you can address some of these academic challenges are to havestudents paraphrase, in writing, their understanding of assignments, particularlylarge assignments, so that you can do a quick check of their understanding before

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they get too far along in the process. This helps you as well, since you can interveneat an earlier stage rather than later. Often students will insist that they know whatthe assignment is and what it entails only to be proven wrong when you correct theassignment, so this step can often save both you and the students some potentialproblems later in the course.

Other students will come to you with problems that are not necessarily related toyour course content but related to a type of assignment you selected. Many studentshave great fears of speaking in public or of taking tests. Other students do not likegroup work because they do not want to depend on others for their grade. Of course,you can’t eliminate those requirements for the students who are fearful, so you needto work with the student to come to a satisfactory resolution for everyone involved.Often just the act of listening to the student’s concerns and asking for their input canhelp the situation. If you’ve taken the time to build the positive classroomenvironment referred to earlier, students will generally be more comfortable in tryingsomething new. When all else fails, you can remind them that you are preparingthem for a workplace environment where they will need to be able to speak in frontof others and work as a member of a team and that it is a course requirement.

Perhaps one of the most common and frustrating of student complaints is when thestudent comes to you to complain about their grade and reminds you that they (thestudent) “pay your salary” or that they have paid for the class and they deserve abetter grade than the one you have given them. While it is true that all institutions ofhigher learning depend on student tuition, it is ludicrous for a student to believe thatjust because they have paid tuition, they are automatically entitled to a gradedifferent than the one they earned. Gerald Amada (1999) has a wonderful analogyabout this phenomenon that you can modify for your students.

“Most of us pay taxes, some of which are used to underwrite thesalaries of the police officers who patrol our states’ highways. If wespeed, drive recklessly or under the influence of alcohol, we aresubject to citations, fines, or possibly even arrest. If we are pulledover by a police officer for speeding, it might be credible to debate thepoint of whether we were indeed exceeding the speed limit. However,if we instead argue that the police officer has no right to cite usbecause we pay his or her salary, we are asking for trouble. The policyofficer is authorized to carry out the law and the act that we help topay his or her salary does not abrogate that authority” (p. 67).

You can remind students that their tuition money does not go directly towardspaying your salary and that “students who pay tuition fees are ipso facto subsidizinga wide range of educational services. Among those services are the salaries ofinstructors. One of the official and essential duties of these instructors is to maintaina reasonable degree of order in the classroom, conducive to a good teaching andlearning environment” (Amada, 1999, p. 68). From there, you can expand upon thelogic to say that if you do not grade consistently and fairly, you are not performingthe duties for which the students have paid.

Non-academic challenges

In addition to the academic challenges our students face, many of them arechallenged with non-academic issues as well. Non-academic issues are more difficultfor an instructor to deal with because they are generally removed from the

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classroom environment where you have direct influence. Issues such as fear ofreturning to school after being out for an extended period of time or of not feeling upto the standards of other students are issues where you, as the instructor, have littlecontrol. You can be encouraging and helpful, but ultimately it is up to the students tomake that leap on their own. Certainly the way you structure your classroom canhelp build esteem in students, allowing them to start with smaller successes andbuild up to larger ones. “Academic challenges and achievements in school arelegitimate ways to enhance self-worth, self-confidence, and acceptance by one’speers (i.e., self-esteem)” (Campbell, 1999, p. 13).

Childcare and conflicts with a full or part-time job can often interfere with school.Many young adult & adult students are employed while attending school and manyhave families as well. While you do not need to make exceptions for these situations,you do need to be aware that they could occur during the semester and have a planin mind for how you intend to deal with them when they do occur.

There are many methods for dealing with these issues and the method you select willdepend on your personality and comfort with discussing these issues in class. Manyinstructors spend some time the first day of class asking students what problemsthey anticipate occurring during the semester and have students spend a shortamount of time brainstorming some ways to deal with them so that they have someideas in place if the problem were to occur. Other instructors are not comfortablewith this method and prefer to let the student resolve issues by themselves.

Either method is fine as long as you remember that if a student comes to you withan issue you are uncomfortable dealing with; you can refer that student to a schooladministrator or a counselor if your campus has one. You are not expected to resolveevery problem a student faces and there are many times where a referral to anoutside source is the appropriate method for handling the problem. What isimportant is that you take the time to listen to the problem and then help thestudent understand where they can go for assistance.

Physical challenges

Physical challenges can occasionally be both the easiest and most difficult type ofchallenge to overcome. Many of our classrooms have typical tables and chairs, whichmay be uncomfortable for students sitting for long period of time. Occasionally wearen’t able to regulate the temperature as well as we would like and school policymay prohibit eating and drinking in the classroom. Many adult EFL students come toevening classes directly from work and have not had a chance to eat dinner or evenmentally prepare for the upcoming class session. You have no control over theseitems, but you can do several things that will help your students deal with them in aconstructive manner.

Consider Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Gwynne, 1997), pictured below, whenattempting to deal with physical issues presented to you by the student. Studentscannot get to the social level where you need them for group activities until theyhave resolved issues on the first two levels. You can deal with these issues in avariety of ways, all designed to minimize the disruption on your classroom activities.

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The first level is sometimes tricky as it is disruptive to have students wandering inand out of class, getting a drink or something to eat when you are attempting toconduct your lesson. Some instructors have solved this by beginning each class withan activity designed to stimulate thought on the previous session or activate thinkingon the current session and tell their students that they need to complete the activitywithin a particular time frame, which will allow the student a few moments to get adrink or something to eat. Other instructors have resolved the problem of studentssitting for long periods of time by making them move around when they do activities,either to a different table for group work or to the front or back of the room. This canhelp energize your students as well, as the simple act of moving often helpsreinvigorate them.

The safety issue can be considered in several ways, but is most often seen as the actof creating the positive classroom environment, where students feel safe and areencouraged to ask questions and to share their thoughts. Creating this type ofwelcoming environment is sometimes difficult but worth the effort when theclassroom discussions prove fruitful and engaging because students know that theyare free to share their thoughts without judgment from others.

The social aspect of any classroom is where both the instructor and the otherstudents can have a positive or negative impact. Making the classroom safe fordiscussion is one aspect, but also making sure that people are comfortable workingin groups, that they know what it means to be a productive group member ordiscussion participant can sometimes make a big difference in the quality of theactivity or project your students produce.

Building esteem is always a tricky subject in any classroom, and can be much moredifficult in the diverse environment that adult EFL classrooms often become.Instructors need to work to match the assignment with the class, ensuring that it hasthe proper amount of challenge to make it stimulating, but not too much challenge tomake it overwhelming. Students “will develop appropriate self-esteem as theyexperience success in the school-related activities teachers provide for them”(Campbell, 1999, p. 13). Small successes can help jump-start larger successes, inschool and elsewhere, so by appropriately increasing the difficulty of assignments

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after students have mastered a previous level, you can help students of all agesbuild their self-esteem, which can in turn help motivate them to take on futurechallenges

The last level, self-actualization, is really left up to the student. You can assistanother in becoming self actualized by providing the proper environment, coaching,feedback, and enabling success, but this is the step students have to break throughon their own. However, as instructors, “we want students to recognize that if theytry, it will pay off. When effort leads to success, students begin to expect success onfuture projects” (Cummings, 2000, p. 73). This is the goal we as instructors strivetoward. If students start to have the confidence that they can be successful, you willspend less time arguing with your students and more time working with them to besuccessful. Most students simply require that an instructor “help them feel confidentthat they will be able to cope sufficiently with the task and challenges of schooling”(Kindsvatter et al., 1996, p. 89). Sometimes a verbal or written compliment will dowhile other students may require a little more help in this area. As long as youmaintain a positive attitude toward the student and demonstrate confidence in theirabilities, you are meeting their needs in this regard.

Finally, a quick word about student breaks because this can have an impact on alllevels of student functionality in a class. Students need breaks, particularly in longerclasses. The typical adult can be expected to attend to an activity for 90 to 120minutes without a break, but can not go too much longer than that without steppingaway for a few moments. It is ironic that instructors complain frequently aboutstudents coming to class late or returning from break late when that same instructorwill often teach right through the students’ scheduled break. If you expect thestudents to honor your time by being prompt in returning from breaks, then youneed to honor their time by stopping class at the scheduled time, regardless of whatyou are doing at the time; you can always pick up after break where you stopped.

Common factors affecting learning

There are many factors that can affect a student’s learning in a course. It isimportant to realize which type of issue you are dealing with to be able to respondappropriately in the situation. Several examples of factors that affect learning arebelow:

• Instructional style and methods

• Personality conflicts

• Student understanding

• Attendance

Instructional style

Students are greatly affected by the manner in which their instructor chooses toteach. “Instructors who teach with a jubilant willingness to share in the excitingjourney of learning are likely to have respectful allies rather than obdurate foes forstudents” (Amada, 1999, p. 52). Research has identified several learning styles andstudies have shown that a mismatch can affect the student’s learning. The resolutionfor this is to present your materials and conduct your class to appeal to a variety oflearning styles (auditory, visual, and kinesthetic). “A relationship between learning

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styles and teaching styles is a factor in the success of post-secondary students”(Sarasin, 1999, p. 2). “Students regularly identify some aspects of instruction thatget in the way of learning” (“Annoying Classroom Behaviors”, 2004, p. 5). Thinkabout how you teach on a regular basis. Reflect, after each class session orsemester, about what went well and how you might change it for next time. We liketo think that students do not learn because of student issues, but in reality, ourbehavior could have something to do with it as well. Consider your teaching as askill that needs refinement to stay sharp, not as something that, oncemastered, can never be improved upon again.

Personality conflicts

Occasionally you will have a student that you just do not get along with for somereason. “Students, especially those 18-22 years old, respond to their teachers aspeople” (“Annoying Behavior”, 2004, p. 5). You, as an instructor, have to work evenharder to reach that student as often they can sense the conflict that you do.Personality conflicts between students and instructors can make thingsuncomfortable for not only you and the student, but for the rest of the class as well.Sometimes students are even blatantly rude or disrespectful toward you. “More oftenthan not, when a student is disrespectful, it is because the student feels disrespectedby the teacher” (Benton, 2004, p. C1). Sometimes it is a case of miscommunicationin terms of expectations or feedback, but “even the most progressive teachers aredisrespectful in a thousand subtle and not-so-subtle ways” (Benton, 2004, p. C1), soin this case, it is generally a matter of reviewing your behavior and ensuring that it isappropriate. Sometimes a discussion with the student can help, but as long as youare behaving in a professional and respectful manner, there is little else you can do.

Student understanding

Many things work together to increase or decrease student understanding. Again,you, as an instructor, do have some influence over the level of studentunderstanding in your course. If you talk above your students’ heads or constantlyuse terminology with which they are unfamiliar, their understanding decreases. Asstudent understanding goes down, disruptive behavior, in the form of talking withothers, doing work for other courses, or lack of participation goes up. At that pointyou have to work twice as hard to bring the students back to where you want tofocus.

Often instructors do not give students enough credit for the understanding about asubject that they do have. “What counts as intelligence depends almost entirely uponcontext” (Benton, 2004, p. C1). It is possible that what worked for you in terms ofan analogy several years ago is no longer relevant or helpful to explain the topic orconcept you want them to understand. Again, this is another time where a periodicreview of your materials and methods will help ensure that you are using the mostup-to-date references and sources available.

Attendance

Attendance is a never-ending issue that you will face in all of your courses,regardless of where you teach. As mentioned previously, many adult EFL studentsare working and have families in addition to attending classes, so attendance isinvariably an issue at some point. How you choose to structure your class is up to

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you: you do set the attendance policy for your class and are responsible forpublicizing it in your syllabus each semester.

Many instructors include participation points in their grading scheme and distributethose points each class session. Often these points are for in-class activities andcannot be made up, so if a student is unable to attend, they will not be able to earnthose points. Many students feel that this is a punishment and many have legitimatereasons for missing class. One of the most important things that you can do is tohave a discussion with your students in the beginning of class to explain how you useparticipation and why it can or cannot be made up if they miss class. When you helpthem to understand that this is not a randomly applied rule and that you areconsistent with all of your students in this manner, you can reduce the number ofarguments or challenges to your policy.

Classroom control tips

Classroom control is a highly sensitive topic among instructors. What works for oneperson may or may not work for another person; what one instructor findsacceptable may be unacceptable to others. One of the main points of this documentand this training is to let you know that you, as the instructor, have the ultimatedetermination about what is acceptable or unacceptable in your class: ultimately theresponsibility for the class is yours.

That being said, there are many ways for you to manage your classroom in aneffective manner. Generally a proactive attitude is best, where you determine whatyou will and will not accept before you begin the class begins for the semester. Itseems to be less confusing, both for yourself and your students, if you have clearideas about how you will handle common classroom situations.

Setting expectations

One of the easiest things to do as instructors is set our expectations for studentbehavior and work. We expect a certain level of behavior from our young adult &adult students and tend to react when students do not perform the way we thinkthey should. However a crucial step is missing from that process and that is the partwhere you tell students what your expectations are. Do not be afraid to set highexpectations for both yourself and your students, but do not keep them a secreteither. Tell your students not only what you expect, but also why you expect it andhow they can meet and exceed those expectations. Reinforce your expectationswhen you give feedback to the students, either in assignments or in conversation.Communication is the key.

A somewhat scarier prospect is to ask the students what to expect from you as aninstructor. Sometimes students have unrealistic expectations or beliefs about how aninstructor could or should act and by asking these questions and talking aboutexpectations at the beginning of the course, you can correct any misperceptionsabout you or your role. Some instructors go so far as to have students make a list ofexpectations for both students and instructors and proceed with a discussion fromthere. You can take this process a step farther and draw up a learning or behaviorcontract that both you and your students agree to abide to during the course. Onceexpectations are out in the open, students will often begin to police themselves andeach other, removing you from that role entirely. This helps foster that sense ofstudent self-regulation, one of the goals of a positive learning environment.

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Accountability

Accountability is one of the most important traits you can teach your students and byholding them accountable as discussed earlier, you help prepare them for theprofessional world in a somewhat intangible way. This works both ways though and ifyou tell your students that you plan to hold them accountable for their work, thenyou need to remember that they can hold you accountable as well. This can beanother good place to discuss student and instructor expectations and behaviors.You can tell students that you will plan to return work the following week, but thatwould mean that they will be accountable for turning it in on time so you can meetyour deadline. The more you can reinforce the concept that you are all accountableto each other, the more your students will want to perform to your expectations.

Consistency

Perhaps the most important trait you need to have as an instructor is consistency.You must make your policy and then be consistent about applying it throughout theentire course. “It would be a disaster if a teacher were seen by students as beingunfair or showing partiality to some students over others” (Campbell, 1999, p. 48).After the course is over, if the policy did not work out the way you intended, you canchange it, but during the course, you must be consistent above all else. If you beginthe course with a no late homework policy, then you cannot accept late homeworkfrom anyone, under any circumstances. “A violation of the rule in one case must be aviolation of the rule in another case” (Campbell, 1999, p. 48). This can be a toughpolicy to enforce, particularly if a student experiences some kind of legitimatetrauma during the semester and you want to be flexible, but your policy prohibits it.If you find yourself wanting to change for just one student, you may want toreconsider the policy completely, as there will always be that one student who justdoes not fit the circumstances for which you designed the policy.

Some things to be aware of in this arena include your policies on extra credit,making up participation points or class activities, and tests. You need to rememberthat if you “cut a deal” for one student, you’ve effectively just done the same for allof the other students in your class because they will talk to one another. Consistencyis one of the most important habits you can acquire as an instructor because it willprotect you from some of the highly subjective areas where it can be difficult toseparate the person from the issue. “All students, both the academically strong andthe academically weak must be treated in exactly the same manner” (Campbell,1999, p. 48). If all late homework, regardless of reason, gets a 10% deduction perday that it is late, then you do not have to worry about being the one to judge if onestudent’s reason for turning their homework in late is better or more acceptable thananother student’s. It removes you from the middle of that process and allows you toconcentrate more fully on other aspects of the course.

Student involvement

As noted earlier, student involvement in the course is imperative. If you wantstudents to be involved in the classroom discussion and the work, it can often behelpful to also let them be involved in some of the decisions regarding that work.Students need to feel that the classroom is a “participatory democracy, but with thenecessary limitations imposed by the school organization” (Kindsvatter et al., 1996,p. 89), or in this case, you.

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This can be accomplished in several ways, all with somewhat minimal effort on yourpart. Is it important that you choose the lesson topic, or can the student make theselection? Does it matter to you if the paper is due in Week 8 or Week 9? Canstudents form their own groups for projects or will you do that? How should studentsbehave in a group discussion? You can present your class with several alternativesand allow them to choose between them or you can allow the class to brainstorm forsolutions before selecting one.

Central to this process is the idea that you have the final say to veto a bad decisionby the class (no tests for example) but giving the students some voice in how theclass will be run can have multiple benefits for everyone. First, your students will feelthat their opinion is valued and respected from the beginning of class, an idea that issometimes difficult for students to grasp. Second, the group decision-making processoften leads to a shared experience that is difficult to replicate in other assignmentsor activities. The students, by virtue of their involvement in the decisions, will havesome sort of automatic “buy-in” to the assignment or course that they may not haveotherwise experienced. Lastly, the students can then begin holding one anotheraccountable. For example, in a group discussion, if the group agreed that one personshould speak at a time and a couple of students forget this rule, it is often anotherstudent who reminds them of the rule.

Developing strong relationships

One of the keys to any healthy, positive classroom environment is the strongrelationships that exist between the instructor and the students and between thestudents themselves. Develop an easy rapport between you and your students andyour job becomes much easier. “Rapport can be thought of as the ability to interacteffectively both in formal instruction and in informal interaction with the students”(Campbell, 1999, p. 58). You can do much of the groundwork by fostering a positivelearning climate referred to earlier, but there are other ways to develop these goodrelationships between class members as well including:

• Praise students whenever possible

• Establish trust within the classroom

• Handle discipline issues individually

• Use discipline sparingly to support classroom needs

• Manage and attend to the needs of all of the students in the class

• Reinforce positive behaviors

• Learn and use student names

Praise

Praise works just as well for adults as it does for children, however the type of praisemust be appropriate and targeted. Generally effusive praise tends to be ineffectiveand will often have a negative effect on students if they perceive that you are justsaying something because you have to, not because you really mean it. “Genericself-esteem boosting is not valuable, nor is it the way to effectively develop self-esteem in students” (Campbell, 1999, p. 13). Praise should be given when

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appropriate and it should always be clearly focused on something that the studentdid that you want to bring out for the student or the class. It does not always haveto be something the student did right, because often we learn more from ourmistakes than if we did it correctly the first time. In some cases, making an effort orvoicing an opinion, even an unpopular one, is cause for a positive comment from theinstructor. “Teachers must build student self-esteem on the real success experiences[students] have in school” (Campbell, 1999, p. 13).

You can use several formats when grading and giving feedback to students, alldesigned to give positive comments whenever possible. Some instructors use the S-W-I (strength, weakness, area for improvement) model while others strive totemper their negative comments with something positive. Other instructors who usea peer review process will direct their students to find two positive things to say forevery negative comment. It does not matter how you choose to provide theinformation to the students, but it is important that you balance the positive and thenegative whenever possible. Occasionally silence can also have a negative effect onstudents, when just the opposite is true. If you give grades on an assignment and nofeedback, you are not helping the student to improve. Almost every assignment hasgood points and points that can be improved. It is not as though you have to makelengthy comments on every single assignment, but consider doing so on significantassignments such as papers or tests where a positive comment or even a note forthe student to consider helps that student to grow and improve.

Another benefit of effective praise is to reinforce the behavior for the student,encouraging them to repeat that behavior. Positive attention is better than negativeattention at all times. Even if students do not have the correct answer, praise the actof speaking up during a discussion while correcting the student in a positive way. Youwant to reinforce the discussion and student participation, even when the studentdoes not know all of the answers. “If a student has a history of being reinforcedproperly for effort and performance on a wide range of school tasks, it is likely thathe/she will develop general motivation” (Campbell, 1999, p. 24). You want to letthe students know that it is acceptable not to know the answers becausethat is what the rest of the class can help do, determine the right answer,but that the key is to ask the question in the first place. Reinforcing thebehaviors you want to see, either individually or for the class as a whole, can have apositive effect on everyone.

Trust in the classroom

Another method for developing strong relationships with students lies in your abilityto establish trust within the classroom. Several factors can contribute to this feelingof trust between you and the students and between the students themselves. If youestablish a classroom culture that is respectful and courteous from the beginning,where all student ideas and opinions can be freely expressed, you can help studentslearn to direct their own learning. However learning is sometimes a scaryundertaking for students. This is when the trust that you have built up can help you.Students need to know that you will be there for them when they have problems orissues, that you will not be judgmental of their confusion or lack of understanding,and that you will work with them to arrive at a solution instead of abandoning themto their own devices.

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Disruptions

One of the most important management tools in your toolbox is the ability to handlea classroom disruption or issue smoothly and without disruption to the entire class.You need to be able to separate the individual from the rest of the class and resolvethe issue quickly, without letting it interfere with the learning of the other students.Occasionally you might need to use disciplinary methods such as removing thestudent from the room or contacting your departmental dean, school administratoror security, but those methods should be used only when you’ve exhausted yourother resources for resolving the problem with the student individually. You cannotlet the other students suffer through a disruption that has the potential for a pooroutcome or can even put other students in danger.

Student names

One of the most obvious ways to develop strong relationships with your students isto learn their names as early in the semester as you can and use them continually tohelp students recognize each other. One of the first concepts involved in forming alearning community is for people to know the other members of that learningcommunity. By making an effort to learn the names of your students and using themregularly in class, your students begin to make those connections to you and to theother members of the class. When you call on students by name, “students often feelappreciated and encouraged by the individualized recognition” (Amada, 1999, p. 51)and you should have “at least moderate success in gaining their attention andcooperation” (Amada, 1999, p. 51).

Several methods exist for learning student names. Make a habit of frequently goingover your class enrollment list to learn the names of your students, and don’t beafraid to ask for help in pronouncing difficult names. You can also use icebreakermethods where the students introduce themselves or one another while you focus onlearning their name. Whatever your method, it is important that you at least try tolearn the names of most of your students. You expect them to remember yours andit is only fair that you make an effort to learn theirs.

Motivating students

It is impossible to tell at the beginning of a class session or semester what willmotivate your students to learn. Students will be motivated by different things atdifferent times and it will be impossible to target each person’s personal motivationevery time. However, some general factors that can have an affect on studentmotivation include:

• Giving students choices when you can

• Personalizing the curriculum when possible

• Creating opportunities for student success

• Focusing on improvement, not just the end result

• Using varied methods to teach

• Expressing confidence in the abilities of the students

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Often you have more control of these areas than you may have previously thought,although “developing student motivation is a difficult task for most teachers”(Campbell, 1999, p. 24). Students are motivated by a variety of things, someintrinsic and others are extrinsic. You generally cannot have an effect on the internalmotivation of anyone other than yourself. Some students are motivated by a desireto succeed, to be the first in their family to go or graduate from college or highschool, to achieve a better career. You can help this student by providing interesting,relevant assignments that help link their coursework with their future career. Youcan eliminate busy work from the course and ensure that students are spending timeon things that count for their grade or enhance learning.

Choice

Other students are differently motivated, and here you can exert a great deal ofcontrol. Some students are motivated by being able to make their own decisions in acourse, so if it is possible, give students a choice of assignments or let them choosebetween one of two due dates for an assignment. By allowing the students somevoice in the decision making process, you achieve a group decision that is sharedand supported by most, if not all. The opposite is also true, that when students aredenied choice, their motivation goes down and they are likely to engage in disruptivebehavior. “Students who perceived the most constraints on their autonomy were theones who showed the greatest decline in intrinsic motivation toward school andconsequently the greatest amount of misbehavior” (Campbell, 1999, p. 36).

So how do you go about giving students choices in their learning without turningcontrol of the classroom over to them? Start small and work up to a level that youare comfortable with. Jack Campbell (1999) suggests that you should “attempt to beflexible enough to find a level of control that fosters positive growth withoutundermining intrinsic motivation to learn” (p. 36). Your goal is to encourage thestudent to learn and nourish their motivation while accomplishing your goals ofensuring that the students are learning the course outcomes at the same time. Youcan ask the students their opinions regarding assignments or topics and factor theminto your course as appropriate. Do not ask, however, if you do not intend to includeany of their suggestions. You do not have to include all of them, but if you do notuse any, then you risk losing their trust that you value them as people as well asstudents.

Remember that “change forced upon students is debilitating; change chosen bystudents is exhilarating. The exhilaration or inspiration produced by making a choicecan sustain students through their tasks” (Cummings, 2000, p. 43). Use this powerwisely to obtain student agreement and cooperation. When students make thesmaller choices, you can focus your energy on more difficult items.

Improvements

One of the most important things you can do as an instructor is to focus on how farthe student has come since the beginning of the semester, course, program, ratherthan focusing on the end result, or their grade. Formative praise is essential inlanguage teaching and learning. Students of all ages have an all-consuming focus ongrades and many will tell you that they “have to get an A in this class” at the verybeginning of the semester. Some will feel that they are entitled to an A because theypaid for the course. You will probably even get some that threaten to go over yourhead.

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All of this focus on grades has led to the current epidemic at almost every institutionof grade inflation. Instructors complain about it and say that they do not know whatto do about it. One way to combat this problem is to remove the focus on the gradeand focus instead on the learning. Have the students complete a minute paper or apre-test when they enter class for the first time and do the same thing before theyleave for the last time. Try to focus on how far the student has come during thecourse, not on the final grade they will receive.

Another method for combating this focus on grades is to clearly define what work isexpected for each grade. Remember, an A should be given only for truly excellentwork, for something that goes above and beyond the average assignment. Many ofour students believe that they should receive an A for meeting the minimumrequirements of the class. If a student meets the minimum requirements laid out inthe syllabus, their grade should be an average one. Students do not earn As bycompleting the minimum required of them. Students have a very difficult timeaccepting this, particularly if they do not hear about your grading policies orphilosophy until late in the semester. You may want to take some time early in theclass to discuss what kind of work you require for an A, B, C, etc. Define theseclearly for your students and let them know that your focus will not be on the grade,but on their learning in the course.

When things go wrong

Much of this training module and document has been geared towards preventingclassroom disruptions through planning and good facilitation. There are, however,instances when all of the planning and facilitation skills in the world cannot prevent aproblem, so managing that problem to the best of your ability becomes your nextfocus. “The objective is to manage the consequences of a student’s behavior to bringabout a more appropriate behavioral repertoire” (Campbell, 1999, p. 100).

There is a process you may want to take your students through when they aredisruptive or having problems. This should be done in private, with plenty of time foryou and the student to discuss each item listed below.

1. Give the student the opportunity to identify the issue or problem. Sometimes,students truly may not know that their behavior was inappropriate ordisruptive, and this then becomes a teachable moment for you to help themunderstand why you have a problem with their behavior.

2. Work through some of the other choices he/she could have made in thatinstance. It is important that the student has a voice in this process andidentifies some of the other potential options. Discuss pros and cons of eachchoice so the student has a good idea of the many different ways they haveof dealing with a problem.

3. Help the student understand the consequence for inappropriate or disruptivebehavior. For the first instance, unless it is truly heinous, a warning ordiscussion like the one you are having may work. However, the studentneeds to know that there will be escalating consequences for subsequentproblems.

4. Link the consequence to the behavior and the desired change in the behavior.For instance, if the student is not completing homework because he/she does

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not understand the material, perhaps a discussion about obtaining a tutor ora trip to a local learning center may help. Perhaps the consequence could bethat the student will not be able to take the test until the homework iscompleted and failure to take the test could result in failing the class. Theimportant point is that you link the behavior to a logical consequence, so thatthe student has a clear understanding of the decision they are about tomake.

The most important part of this process is that it is collaborative rather thandictatorial. As you and the student work through the problem together, you obtainthe student’s implicit agreement to attempt to correct the problem. You also modelappropriate problem-solving skills and classroom behavior. By working through thisin private, you demonstrate your respect for the student as an adult and fellowhuman being.

Suggestions for dealing with problem students

It is possible that despite your best efforts, some students will continue to havebehavior issues in your class. Again, you are solely responsible for handling behaviorissues in your class and your decision about how to handle it is entirely up to you.However, it is normally suggested that you begin dealing with behavior issues withsmaller interventions and work up to more drastic resolutions such as removing thestudent from class entirely. Your dean or school administrator is always available tohelp you work through your options, so please do not hesitate to contact the supportsystem you already have in place.

Below is a list of smaller interventions you may want to implement. This list is by nomeans exhaustive or exclusive of techniques for addressing disruptive behavior, butit will give you a place to begin. Some instructors keep a record of how the studentreacted to these interventions, which might be helpful when speaking withadministrators about the situation.

• Use proximity control if possible. “Teach on your feet, not on your seat” (Ito,2002). Often if you place yourself next to the student, minor issues such astalking while others are talking or doing work unrelated to the class willdisappear.

• Consider the use of a learning contract to hold students accountable forcoursework or their behavior. A learning contract spells out exactly what isexpected from the student, with deadlines if possible. You can give contractsto the entire class, along with one for yourself as part of the expectationsexercise referred to above. (See example of learning contract in Appendices)

• Move the class to another activity to refocus attention on the material and notthe disruption. If students are not paying attention during the classdiscussion, then move to another learning activity such as a minute paper oranother type of written assignment to help them focus on the material athand.

• Pair or group students in threes for small group activities. Ensure that there issome tangible outcome from the activity that they will need to present at theend of the session.

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• Use lighthearted humor, if appropriate, to get the class back on track.”Instructors who intersperse their lectures with clever witticisms andhumorous allusions tend to raise the interest of students, reduce thepotential for an adversarial classroom environment, and promote a goodworking alliance between themselves and their students” (Amada, 1999, p.50). Sometimes the use of humor can prevent problems before they begin.Students sometimes need to hear that learning does not have to be such aserious undertaking all of the time. “Encourage your students to develop agroup identity by letting them have fun together. Their attention will bediverted from the heavy task of “learning” and they will focus on enjoyingthemselves while supporting each other. They will associate the curriculumwith the fun and quickly become committed to paying attention” (Abbott andLewis, 2004). A little laughter in the classroom promotes positive energy thatstudents need throughout the day. “Humor has many attributes that facilitateboth learning and receptiveness to authority” (Amada, 1999, p. 50).

Things to avoid when dealing with problem students

Just as there are things you definitely want to do when you have a student with abehavior issue, there are also things that you definitely do not want to do as well.Below is a partial list of these behaviors you will want to avoid.

• Ignore the problem and hope it will go away. Behavior issues, particularly ina young adult & adult setting, rarely go away. Not addressing the problemrarely has the effect of eliminating it; rather, it has almost the opposite effectof empowering the student to be disruptive. Not taking action could alsoencourage other students to be disruptive as well. Addressing the issueimmediately, in a private conversation with the offending student will bemuch more effective for both that student and for the class as a whole.

• Punish the entire class for the infraction of a single student or small group. Apop quiz is not an appropriate disciplinary method for one or two studentswho did not prepare for the class session. This punishes the students who didtake the time to prepare as well as reduce their trust in you to be fair in yourdealings with all students. Follow through with the logical consequences forthe students who are unprepared, that is, they are unable to participateeffectively in the session’s activities and lose participation points.

• Act inconsistently. Despite what we think, students do talk to one another. Ifyou’ve ever found yourself saying “I’ll do this for you but do not tell anyone,”it is a sure sign that you are about to act in a manner that is inconsistentwith what you’ve previously stated. Remember what you do for one studentyou must make available to all students; so be wary of deviating from yourstandards.

• Over-explain or debate your decision. It is perfectly acceptable to listen to astudent’s point of view, consider it, and reach a different decision. As long asyou share with that student your rationale for the decision, that should bethe end of the discussion. Continuing to discuss the issue when you havealready made a decision could make the student feel as if the decision isopen for debate if they just talk long enough. Stating the decision, listeningto any final comments the student may have and then ending theconversation will reduce the likelihood that you will change your mind. Ifchanging your mind is warranted, by all means do so, but do not give the

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student the impression that he/she talked you into it or you are settingyourself up for a semester’s worth of arguments.

• Have vague rules or consequences. Be open and honest about your policies.If there is a 10% penalty for late homework, apply it consistently and withoutapology. Do not, however, state that there is a penalty without being able totell your students exactly what that penalty is. Do not say that they will losepoints if things aren’t done or they will be sorry if they do not complete theirhomework. Instead, tie it to a logical consequence and reinforce the positivebehavior that results.

One of the most important concepts in dealing with student misbehavior is the ideaof a proportional response. You want to discipline students in a way that is “fair,humane, and proportionate” (Amada, 1999, p. 24). Do not go overboard with yourdiscipline, but do not under-discipline either. It can sometimes be a difficult task todetermine how much of a penalty to impose, but you always have the option tospeak with your dean or program administrators if you have questions.

Conclusion

As stated in the beginning of this document, classroom management is a difficulttopic to nail down. Your fellow teachers and educational institution have placed anenormous amount of faith and trust in your ability to resolve difficult situations andto deal effectively with adult EFL students. We support your decisions and yourability to make those decisions and stand ready to support you whenever andwherever we can. We ask that you use your best judgment and that you be fair andreasonable in your dealings with students. Remember too that the best defenseagainst student complaints and disruptions is to keep students actively involved andengaged.

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Chapter 8: References

Abbott, K. and Lewis, M. (2004). Humor in the Classroom. Retrieved 24 March 2004 from theWorld Wide Web: http://www.abbottcom.com/Humor_in_the_classroom.htm.

Amada, G. (1999). Coping with Misconduct in the Young adult & adult Classroom: A PracticalModel. Asheville: Young adult & adult Administration Publications, Inc.

Annoying Behavior Can Impede Learning. (2004, April). The Teaching Professor, 18.4, 5.

Belvel, P., and Jordan, M. (2003). Rethinking Classroom Management: Strategies forPrevention, Intervention, and Problem Solving. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press.

Benton, T. (2004).No Respect. The Chronicle of Higher Education 50.18 C1.

Boston, C. (2002). The concept of formative assessment. Practical Assessment, Research &Evaluation, 8(9). 21 June 2004. Retrieved from the World Wide Web:http://PAREonline.net/getvn.asp?v=8&n=9.

Campbell, J. (1999). Student Discipline and Classroom Management: Preventing andManaging Discipline Problems in the Classroom. Emmitsburg: Charles Thomas Publisher.

Cotton, K. (2001). Schoolwide and Classroom Discipline. Retrieved 9 Dec 2003 from theWorld Wide Web: http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/5/cu9.html.

Cummings, C. (2000). Winning Strategies for Classroom Management. Alexandria:Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Dillon, J. and Maguire, M. (1997). Becoming a Teacher: Issues in Secondary Teaching.Buckingham: Open University Press.

Fields, M. and Boesser, C. (1998). Constructive Guidance and Discipline: Preschool andPrimary Education. Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Fitzer, Kim. Curwin & Mendler. Retrieved on 3 May 2004 from the World Wide Web:http://students.ed.uiuc.edu/fitzer/EdPsy399OL/curwinandmendler.htm.

Gore, M.C. and Dowd, J. (1999). Tricks of the Trade for Organized Teachers. ThousandOaks: Corwin Press.

Gwynne, R. (1997) Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Retrieved 8 July 2004 from the World WildWeb: http://web.utk.edu/~gwynne/maslow.HTM.

Ito, C. (2002). Behavior Influence Techniques. Retrieved 9 Dec 2003 from the World WideWeb: http://www.wm.edu/ttac/articles/challenging/influence.html.

Jacobsen, D., Eggen, P., and Kauchak, D. (1999). Methods for Teaching: Promoting StudentLearning. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, Inc.

Jones, V. and Jones, L. (1998). Comprehensive Classroom Management: CreatingCommunities of Support and Solving Problems. Needham Heights: Allyn and Bacon.

Kelly, D. Adult Learners: Characteristics, Theories, Motivations, Learning Environment.Retrieved 3 March 2004 from the World Wide Web:http://www.dit.ie/DIT/lifelong/adult/adlearn_chars.doc.

Kindsvatter, R., Wilen, W., and Ishler, M. (1996). Dynamics of Effective Teaching. WhitePlains: Longman Publishers.

MacDonald, R. and Healy, S. (1999), A Handbook for Beginning Teachers. New York: AddisonWesley Longman, Inc.

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Mamchak, S. and Mamchak, S. (1993). Teacher’s Time Management Survival Kit. WestNyack: Parker Publishing Company.

McIntyre, Tom. (2001). Assertive Discipline. Retrieved 3 May 2004 from the World WideWeb:http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/pub/eres/EDSPC715_MCINTYRE/AssertiveDiscipline.html.

Minimizing Disruptive Behavior in the Classroom. (2004, March). The Teaching Professor,18.3, 6.

Mynster, D. (1997). Lesson Planning Retrieved 9 Dec 2003 from the World Wide Web:http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/4127/less.html.

Nelsen, J., Lott, L., and Glenn, H. (1997). Positive Discipline in the Classroom. Rocklin:Prima Publishing.

Partnow, E. (Ed.). (1992). The New Quotable Woman. New York: Fact on File.

Perlmutter, D. (2004). Thwarting Misbehavior in the Classroom. The Chronicle of HigherEducation 50.30, B14-15.

Planning Effective Lectures (2001). Retrieved 5 Sept 2003 from the World Wide Web:http://www.flinders.edu/au/teach/teach/lecturing/planstrat.htm.

Sarasin, L. (1999). Learning Style Perspectives, Impact in the Classroom. Madison: AtwoodPublishing.

Stronge, J. (2002). Qualities of Effective Teachers. Alexandria: Association for Supervisionand Curriculum Development.

Van Tassell, G. (2003). Classroom Management. Retrieved 9 Dec 2003 from the World WideWeb: http://www.brains.org/classroom_management.htm.

Weinstein, C. (1996). Secondary Classroom Management: Lessons from Research andPractice. Boston: McGraw Hill.

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Appendix A: Dealing with difficult students

Carlos F. Camargo, a master teacher and EFL Research Fellow with the OhanaFoundation, has observed, “that out of every 100 people, there’s at least one nut.”Dr. Camargo has the following tips for dealing with troublemakers in class:

Type ofTroublemaker

DistinguishingCharacteristic

Solution

HostileTroublemaker

(Devil’s Advocate)

Interrupts with “I do notagree.” “It will never

work.”

• Answer question withquestion: ‘What should bedone instead?’

• Deferral: ‘Let’s talk aboutthis later one-on-one.’

Know-it-allTroublemaker

Say things like “I have aPhD and 5 years

experience…”

• Meet with them individuallyto recognize their expertiseand seek their buy-in

• State both sides andexplain why your position isbetter

LoudmouthTroublemaker

Talks too much,dominates, and won’t

shut up

• Move physically closer andcloser

• Say: ‘I appreciate yourcomments, but we wouldlike to hear from others.’

• Say: ‘That’s a goodquestion, but in the shorttime we have I would liketo stick to the subject of…”

Interrupter andInterpreter

Interrupts others and/orexplains what othershave said or asked

• Jump in to make sure firstperson is done and/or askfirst person to confirmsecond person’sinterpretation

GossipTroublemakers

Introduces gossip andrumors into discussion

• If it cannot be verified,‘Let’s not take the time ofthe audience until we canverify the accuracy of thatinformation.’

WhispererWhispering between two

people• Stop talking; establish

silence.Silent

TroubleshooterReading newspaper, not

participating• Use a directed question

LatecomerTroublemaker

Arrives late• Stop talking and establish

silence when they come in

Early LeaverTroublemaker

Leaves early

• Schedule quiz for end ofclass

• Handout gradedassignments or othermaterials at the end.

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