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• Andrea Paz Vallejos Reyes

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Assignment - MA

ASSIGNMENT: METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES GENERAL INFORMATION: This assignment has to be done in groups of 3 or 4 students and has to fulfil the following conditions: -

Length: between 5 and 6 pages (without including cover, index or appendices –if there are any-). Type of font: Arial or Times New Roman. Size: 11. Line height: 1.5. Alignment: Justified.

The assignment has to be done in this Word document and has to fulfil the rules of presentation and edition, as for quotes and bibliographical references which are detailed in the Study Guide. Also, it has to be submitted following the procedure specified in the “Subject Evaluation” document. Sending it to the tutor’s e-mail is not permitted. In addition to this, it is very important to read the assessment criteria, which can be found in the “Subject Evaluation” document.

Assignment: 1

Assignment - MA

Look at the classroom activity suggested in the Assignment materials section (at the same place where you can find this paper), and answer the following questions: 1. There are various statements in this text which are extremely questionable, depending on your own personal view of language learning. For example, the text says, “...the chart....can serve as a basis for lively questions and discussions....” Why might this be ‘questionable’? 2. Criticise the approach suggested here from the point of view of a ‘strong’ communicative teacher. 3. Say what is good about the approach, from the point of view of a teacher more focused on form and a step-by-step, linear approach.

Important: you have to write your personal details and the subject name on the cover (see the next page). The assignment that does not fulfil these conditions will not be corrected. You have to include the assignment index below the cover.

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Assignment - MA

Assignment: Methodological Approaches Students’ names:

Flores Escalante, Hugo Arturo Lozano Peñuela, Rita Elena Puentes Viera, Florencia Vallejos Reyes, Andrea Paz

Group: 2018-10 Date: December 1st, 2018

Personal charts and tables as input for communication

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Assignment - MA

INDEX QUESTION 1 ………………………………………………………………………………. 5 QUESTION 2 ………………………………………………………………………………. 7 QUESTION 3 ………………………………………………………………………………. 8 REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………………….. 10

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Assignment - MA

The classroom activity suggested in the Assignment materials section allows us to look at the teaching-learning process through different perspectives. First of all, there are some ideas that might be considered questionable for a number of pedagogical reasons. In addition, the approach that the activity follows might be regarded as good or bad depending on whether it is looked at from a strong communicative view or a more linear perspective which focuses on form. The following paragraphs detail our conclusions.

1. There are various statements in this text which are extremely questionable, depending on your own personal view of language learning. For example, the text says, “...the chart....can serve as a basis for lively questions and discussions....” Why might this be ‘questionable’? After analyzing the activity, we have found some statements which, from our language learning point of view, are quite questionable. Firstly, sentences such as “...the chart....can serve as a basis for lively questions and discussions....” and “the constructions of tables of information about the students in a particular class, for example, can serve as a basis for interesting discussions”, from our perspective, take for granted that all the students have the same level of understanding and cognitive capacities. Presentation of information in the form of charts and tables might be well understood by the majority of the students, but it may not be too friendly for those who have different capabilities and intelligences. So, the fact that the chart will indeed serve as a basis for lively questions and discussions depends very much on our group of students and their cognitive and physical capacities to understand the information they’re being presented with. “The level of the discussion depends on the level of the class” is another statement we disagree with. From our experience, we have noticed that sometimes, even having an accurate level to do it, students do not get involved in a particular activity because of motivational or emotional reasons. As a matter of fact, according to Krashen (1982), affective factors play a major role when it comes to the way students respond to the information we provide them with and, consequently, in their learning. Therefore, if students are not highly motivated with the information shown in the charts and tables, it is questionable that they will partake

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Assignment - MA

in the activity in an active way, conducting lively discussions and questioning. In addition to this and following the principles that have been stated in the Natural Approach (Krashen and Terrell, 1983), production can take place whenever the learner feels he or she is able to communicate through the target language, and this process should not be forced. Moreover, if debate is considered, in this case, to promote critical thinking, and students’ interaction occurs after reading the information in the chart only, we should bear in mind that the sentences included in the chart do not foster that kind of higher order activity in higher level classes. Another statement says: “The constructions of tables of information about the students in a particular class, for example, can serve as a basis for interesting discussions.” This statement is also questionable for there are many other factors to consider when planning a meaningful activity. Once an activity is meaningful, students are fully motivated in order to achieve effective communication. In this way, students know the linguistic rules or usage of the language and are able to apply them to their output to communicate, which is the use of the language. This latter concept, according to Widdowson (1978, cited by Arzamendi, Ball, and Gassó), is a characteristic of communicative approaches, as opposed to the former concept, which is merely linguistic. Then, for a discussion to take place, it is not enough to have certain information in a chart for students to ask and answer questions to elicit it; there must be an actual exchange of ideas which trigger agreement, disagreement, negotiations, etc. The text also proposes that “As the students’ ability to produce increases, so does the difficulty of the instructor’s input.” However, despite the fact that the instructor gives some input which seems to be more advanced, it is still narrow and limited in terms of opportunities for real communication and interaction. Some of the questions lead just to short yes/no answers, and actual production in the target language would require learners to elaborate on their answers and utterances, to really use the language, as Swain’s Comprehensible Output Hypothesis (1985, cited by Arzamendi, Ball, and Gassó.) suggests. Swain says that students need not only comprehensible input, but also output that expresses the meaning they intend to convey.

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2. Criticize the approach suggested here from the point of view of a ‘strong’ communicative teacher. The activity is based on a structural approach, which can narrow the students’ opportunities to take risks and use the language to express meaningful ideas. It seems to be that the lesson was planned in order to make the students develop a specific grammatical structure, without taking into account the real purpose of the language during the learning process. Most of the questions lead to limited answers which border the students’ chances to explore and challenge themselves to use more complex language. Since the lesson is controlled by the instructor, it does not allow the students to give their personal opinion, state agreement or disagreement positions, establish correlations with other topics according to their interest, motivations, background, among others. Then, teachers should bear in mind that if the purpose is to elicit discussion among the students, they should be given the chance to enhance their communicative competence, a term coined by Hymes (1972, cited by Richards and Rodgers, 2001), which reflects knowledge and ability for language use in terms of whether and to what degree something is formally possible, feasible, and appropriate. That being said, it is necessary to create a context in which the student can feel free to use the language without feeling forced to follow linear structures, following a communicative approach. This communicative view of language which activities should draw upon has certain characteristics, such as: 1. Language is a system for the expression of meaning. 2. The primary function of language is to allow interaction and communication. 3. The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses. 4. The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural features, but categories of functional and communicative meaning as exemplified in discourse. (Richards and Rodgers, 2001: 161).

Likewise, it is believed that the teaching of the target language is better whenever it encourages direct, spontaneous and active use of the foreign language. In fact, if communication is the main purpose of the teaching of a foreign language, teachers and 7

Assignment - MA

all the material and activities prepared should always provide a safe environment where learners feel free to express themselves (Larsen-Freeman, 2000). However, as it has been stated, the proposed activity is very much controlled by the teacher and it does not allow students to freely express their ideas. In the same way and as previously presented, charts and tables are not always understood by all the students, and consequently, encouraging for them. On the contrary, whenever communication is the focus of our lesson, teachers should do the most in order for the students to be massively exposed to the target language in a friendly and authentic way; this is what would lead them to learn meaningfully. Besides, it is crucial that all activities we present students should be meaningful. According to Richards and Rodgers (2001), students should not try to learn a language in the usual sense. Actually, the more involved they are in meaningful activities, the more amount of acquisition they obtain.

3. Say what is good about the approach, from the point of view of a teacher more focused on form and a step-by-step, linear approach. The proposed activity has been designed considering some important aspects in the language learning process: 

The use of charts with information which the students can use to answer questions allows them to give more assertive answers.



Since the exercises lead the students to give a specific response, their possibilities to make mistakes are narrow and, consequently, the level of accuracy increases.



The lesson permits the students to construct more difficult answers, due to the fact that it has some open questions.



As the students provide similar answers to different questions, it gives them enough opportunities and patterns to practice. This increases the students’ accuracy in grammar and vocabulary.

Moreover, it is very important for students to be presented with short reading activities that would relate to their needs, where there is no need for active reproduction, such as the ones proposed in the activity analyzed. This promotes in the students the

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development of inferring skills and a quick recognition of verb forms, tenses, negotiations, among others. This is consistent with Widdowson’s medium view, which focuses “attention on the syntactic and semantic properties of the language itself and look for ways of manipulating them for the purpose of transmission” (1990: 119), as opposed to the mediation view, which focuses on providing learners with conditions for negotiation and also involves a self-generated process in which the learner is active in his participation. In the medium view, teachers are seen as the center of the learning process, students are mere recipients of the target language, and activities are given in the form of exercises to provide practice. Clearly, by using the charts and tables not only the teacher but also the students are formulating meaning for the transmission of information, instead of achieving meaning in a pragmatic, yet systematic way. Additionally, by practicing the patterns of questions and answers, learners are consciously directing their attention to formal features of the language input. This idea is what has been called focus on form (Thornbury, 2006), a condition that is necessary for language learning. In the context of the use of tables for formulating questions, learners are focusing on a specific feature of the target language, and it can happen “as the result of intervention by the teacher, or because students themselves notice a language feature” (Harmer, 2007: 53). Moreover, if during the activity some learners make mistakes, this can lead to taking some time in order to analyze the language. In this respect, Harmer says that “focus on form is often incidental and opportunistic, growing out of tasks which students are involved in” (2007: 53). All things considered, learners’ participation and involvement in lively discussions and questioning as an important aspect of language learning cannot be considered through only one perspective. Learners’ cognitive and physical capacities, emotional and motivational aspects, as well as opportunities for real communication are essential in the learning environment. It should be the teacher's intention to have that included in the teaching and learning process.

REFERENCES

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Assignment - MA

AICART,

M.

(2015).

The

Communicative

Approach.

Retrieved

from

https://blog.languagejourneys.com/en/communicative-language-teaching/ ARZAMENDI, J., BALL, P., & GASSÓ, E. Methodological approaches. Study material. FUNIBER. DOUGHTY, C. & WILLIAMS, J. (1998). Focus on Form in Classroom Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. HARMER, J. (2007). The Practice of English Language Teaching, Fourth Edition. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited. KETSMAN, O. & KRAMER, A. (2010) Can We Learn a Language Without Rules? Retrieved

from

“https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?

article=1175&context=teachlearnfacpub KRASHEN, S. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon Press Inc. KRASHEN, S., & TERRELL, T. (1983). The Natural Approach: Language Acquisition in the Classroom. London: Prentice Hall Europe. LARSEEN-FREEMAN, D. (2000). Teaching Techniques in English as a Second Language. Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. LONG, M. & ROBINSON, P. (1998). “Focus on form: Theory, research, and practice.” In C. Doughty & J. Williams. Focus on Form in Classroom Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 15-41. MAGUIRE, M. & DELAHUNT, B. (2017). “Doing a Thematic Analysis: A Practical, Stepby-Step Guide for Learning and Teaching Scholars.” AISHE-J, 8 (3). Retrieved from http://ojs.aishe.org/index.php/aishe-j/article/viewFile/335/553 RICHARDS, J. (2013). “Curriculum Approaches in Language Teaching: Forward, Central, and Backward Design.” RELC Journal, 44 (1), pp. 5-33. Retrieved from

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https://www.professorjackrichards.com/wp-content/uploads/CurriculumApproaches-in-Language-Teaching.pdf

RICHARDS, J. & RODGERS, T. (2001). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. THORNBURY, S. (2006). An A-Z of ELT: A dictionary of terms and concepts used in English language teaching. Oxford: Macmillan Education. WIDDOWSON, H.G. (1990). Aspects of Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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