THE POSTMETOD ERA (TOWARD INFORMED APPROACH)

THE POSTMETOD ERA: TOWARD INFORMED APPROACH

According to Richard (2006) “communicative language teaching can be understood as a set of principles about the goals of language teaching, how learners learn a language, the kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, and the roles of teachers and learners in the classroom”.

Brown (Characteristics of CLT Approach are:

1.      Overall goals: CLT focus on all of the components (grammatical, discourse, functional, sociolinguistics, and strategic) of communicative competence.

2.      Relationship of form and function: Language techniques are designed to engage learners in the pragmatic, authentic, functional use of language for meaningful purposes.

3.      Fluency and accuracy: a focus on students of comprehension and production and a focus on the formal accuracy of production as seen as complementary principles underlying communicative technique.

4.      Focus on real-world context: student should speak using the language, productively and receptively, in rehearsed contexts outside the classroom.

5.      Autonomy and strategic involvement: students are given the opportunity to focus on their own learning process through raising their awareness on their own learning style through development of strategies for production and comprehension.

6.      Teacher roles: to facilitate and guide the students in learning process by interaction.

7.      Student roles: students are active participants in their own learning process.

Richard (2006) mention that Communicative competence includes the following aspects of language knowledge:

1.      Communicative competence includes the following aspects of language knowledge:

2.      Knowing how to use language for a range of different purposes functions

3.      Knowing how to vary our use of language according to the setting and the participants (e.g., knowing when to use formal and informal speech or when to use language appropriately for written as opposed to spoken communication)

4.       Knowing how to produce and understand different types of texts (e.g., narratives, reports, interviews, conversations) Knowing how to maintain communication despite having limitations in one’s language knowledge (e.g., through using different kinds of communication strategies)

A Task Based Approach

Task -based learning offers an alternative for language teachers. In a task-based lesson the teacher doesn't pre-determine what language will be studied, the lesson is based around the completion of a central task and the language studied is determined by what happens as the students complete it. The lesson follows certain stages.Task-based learning focuses on the use of authentic language through meaningful tasks such as visiting the doctor or a telephone call.  This method encourages meaningful communication and is student-centered .

Characteristics:

1.      Students are encouraged to use language creatively and spontaneously through tasks and problem solving.

2.      Students focus on a relationship that is comparable to real world activities

3.      The conveyance of some sort of meaning is central to this method

4.      Assessment is primarily based on task outcome

5.      TBLT is student-centered

Task-based learning has some clear advantages:

1.      The students are free of language control. In all three stages they must use all their language resources rather than just practicing one pre-selected item.

2.      A natural context is developed from the students' experiences with the language that is personalized and relevant to them. With PPP it is necessary to create contexts in which to present the language and sometimes they can be very unnatural.

3.      The students will have a much more varied exposure to language with TBL. They will be exposed to a whole range of lexical phrases, collocations and patterns as well as language forms.

4.      The language explored arises from the students' needs. This need dictates what will be covered in the lesson rather than a decision made by the teacher or the course book.

5.      It is a strong communicative approach where students spend a lot of time communicating. PPP lessons seem very teacher-centred by comparison. Just watch how much time the students spend communicating during a task-based lesson.

6.      It is enjoyable and motivating.

TBLT is also revealing its weaknesses.  Broady (2006) notes that TBLT may not provide sufficient "Interaction Opportunities."  Bruton (2005) identifies other concerns:

1.      There is no acquisition of new grammar or vocabulary features

2.      Everything is left to the teacher

3.      Not all students are or will be motivated by TBLT

4.      Some students need more guidance and will not or cannot `notice´ language forms (grammar) or other elements of accuracy

5.      Students typically translate and use a lot of their L1 rather than the target language in completing the tasks.

Learner-centered Instruction

Weimer (2012) states, “Active learning, student engagement and other strategies that involve students and mention learning are called learner-centered”..

The characteristics are:

1.      1. Learner-centered teaching engages students in the hard, messy work of learning.

2.      Learner-centered teaching includes explicit skill instruction

3.      Learner-centered teaching encourages students to reflect on what they are learning and how they are learning it.

4.      Learner-centered teaching motivates students by giving them some control over learning processes.

5.      Learner-centered teaching encourages collaboration

Cooperative Learning

            Cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Each member of a team is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement.

Interactive Learning

Interactive learning is a more hands-on, real-world process of relaying information in classrooms. Passive learning relies on listening to teachers lecture or rote memorization of information, figures, or equations. But with interactive learning, students are invited to participate in the conversation, through technology (online reading and math programs, for instance) or through role-playing group exercises in class.

How does it help? In addition to engaging students who are raised in a hyper-stimulated environment, interactive learning sharpens critical thinking skills, which are fundamental to the development of analytic reasoning. A child who can explore an open-ended question with imagination and logic is learning how to make decisions, as opposed to just regurgitating memorized information. Also, interactive learning teaches children how to collaborate and work successfully in groups, an indispensible skill as workplaces become more team-based in structure

Whole Language Education

            Two interconnected concepts are brought together into whole language education:

1.      The wholeness of language implies that language is not the sun of its many dissectible and discrete parts.

2.      Whole language is a perspective because we use language to construct meaning and construct reality. Teaching language enables to understand a system of social practices.

The term came from reading research and was used to emphasize:

1.      The wholeness of language as opposed to view that fragmented language into its bits, and piece of phonemes, graphemes, morphemes, and words.

2.      The interaction and interconnection between oral language and written language

3.      The importance, in literate societies, of the written code as natural and developmental, just as the oral code is.

 Content-based Instruction

Stoller (2008) states, “Content-based Instruction refers to the use of nonlanguage subject matter that is closely aligned with traditional school subjects, themes of interest to students, or vocational and occupational areas”. Most content‐based settings have strong academic orientations, emphasizing the linguistic, cognitive, and metacognitive skills as well as subject matter that students need to succeed in future educational endeavors.

REFERENCE

Jack C. Richard. 2006. Communicative Language Teaching. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

H. Douglas Brown. 2001. Teaching by Principles An Interactive Approach Language Pedagogy. San Francisco: Longman

Task Based language Teaching. Accessed on 3 October 2018 from https://sites.educ.ualberta.ca/staff/olenka.bilash/Best%20of%20Bilash/taskbasedlanguageteaching.html

Consumer Guide. (June, 1992). Cooperative Learning. Acceseed on 3 October 2018 from https://www2.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/cooplear.html 1992

Scholastic.Undersanding Interactive Learning.  Accessed on 3 October 2018 from https://www.scholastic.com/parents/family-life/social-emotional learning/technology-and-kids/understanding-interactive-learning.html

Spinger Link. (2008). Content Based Instruction. Accessed on 3 October 2018 from https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-0-387-30424-3_89