Community language learning
brajesh...@yahoo.co.in
monolingual conversation classes where the teacher-counsellor would be
able to speak the learners' L1. The intention was that it would
integrate translation so that the students would disassociate language
learning with risk taking. It's a method that is based on English for
communication and is extremely learner-focused. Although each course is
unique and student-dictated, there are certain criteria that should be
applied to all CLL classrooms, namely a focus on fluency in the early
stages, an undercurrent of accuracy throughout the course and learner
empowerment as the main focus.
* How it works in the classroom
o Stage 1- Reflection
o Stage 2 - Recorded conversation
o Stage 3 - Discussion
o Stage 4 - Transcription
o Stage 5 - Language analysis
o Length of stages
* For and against CLL
* Working with monolingual or multilingual classes
* Working with large classes
* Conclusion
How it works in the classroom
In a typical CLL lesson I have five stages:
* Stage 1- Reflection
I start with students sitting in a circle around a tape recorder
to create a community atmosphere.
o The students think in silence about what they'd like to
talk about, while I remain outside the circle.
o To avoid a lack of ideas students can brainstorm their
ideas on the board before recording.
* Stage 2 - Recorded conversation
Once they have chosen a subject the students tell me in their L1
what they'd like to say and I discreetly come up behind them and
translate the language chunks into English.
o With higher levels if the students feel comfortable enough
they can say some of it directly in English and I give the full English
sentence. When they feel ready to speak the students take the
microphone and record their sentence.
o It's best if you can use a microphone as the sound quality
is better and it's easier to pick up and put down.
o Here they're working on pace and fluency. They immediately
stop recording and then wait until another student wants to respond.
This continues until a whole conversation has been recorded.
* Stage 3 - Discussion
Next the students discuss how they think the conversation went.
They can discuss how they felt about talking to a microphone and
whether they felt more comfortable speaking aloud than they might do
normally.
o This part is not recorded.
* Stage 4 - Transcription
Next they listen to the tape and transcribe their conversation. I only
intervene when they ask * for help.
o The first few times you try this with a class they might
try and rely on you a lot but aim to distance yourself from the whole
process in terms of leading and push them to do it themselves.
* Stage 5 - Language analysis
I sometimes get students to analyse the language the same lesson
or sometimes in the next lesson. This involves looking at the form of
tenses and vocabulary used and why certain ones were chosen, but it
will depend on the language produced by the students.
o In this way they are totally involved in the analysis
process. The language is completely personalised and with higher levels
they can themselves decide what parts of their conversation they would
like to analyse, whether it be tenses, lexis or discourse.
o With lower levels you can guide the analysis by choosing
the most common problems you noted in the recording stages or by using
the final transcription.
* Length of stages
The timing will depend entirely on the class, how quickly they
respond to CLL, how long you or they decide to spend on the language
analysis stage and how long their recorded conversation is. Be careful
however that the conversation isn't too long as this will in turn make
the transcription very long.
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For and against CLL
* Pros
o Learners appreciate the autonomy CLL offers them and thrive
on analysing their own conversations.
o CLL works especially well with lower levels who are
struggling to produce spoken English.
o The class often becomes a real community, not just when
using CLL but all of the time. Students become much more aware of their
peers, their strengths and weaknesses and want to work as a team.
*
Cons
o In the beginning some learners find it difficult to speak
on tape while others might find that the conversation lacks
spontaneity.
o We as teachers can find it strange to give our students so
much freedom and tend to intervene too much.
o In your efforts to let your students become independent
learners you can neglect their need for guidance.
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Working with monolingual or multilingual classes
I have used CLL with both monolingual and multilingual classes and
found that it works well with both. With the multilingual low-level
classes I, as the teacher-counsellor, reformulated their English in the
same way you might do with higher levels. However, the first few
attempts at CLL work better with a monolingual class as the
instructions can be given in L1. It's important that the learners
understand their and your new roles in the language learning process.
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Working with large classes
For the first lesson it's important to record the conversation as a
whole class even though this can limit student-speaking time. It's more
practical in terms of giving instructions before you start and for
moving from one student to another when they need you to translate or
reformulate what they want to say. The next time you use CLL however,
you could split the class into two groups. This gives them more
speaking time.
* Make sure the groups are far enough away from each other for the
recording stage but not so far that you can't move freely from one
group to another.
* A further alternative is that they swap tapes for the
transcription stage. The language is obviously less personalised but
their listening skills are being challenged in a different way and they
still feel part of a whole class community.
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Conclusion
Although CLL is primarily meant as a 'whole' approach to teaching I
have found it equally useful for an occasional lesson, especially with
teenagers. It enables me to refocus on the learner while my students
immediately react positively to working in a community. They take
exceptionally well to peer-correction and by working together they
overcome their fear of speaking. I have also found quieter students
able to offer corrections to their peers and gladly contribute to the
recording stage of the lesson. It's a teaching method which encompasses
all four skills while simultaneously revealing learners' styles which
are more or less analytical in their approach to language learning. All
of which raises our awareness as a teacher and that of our students.
Once you have tried CLL with your class, it's a good idea to evaluate
the method. Here are some possible questions you could ask.
Further Reading
Charles A. Curran is the name most associated with CLL. He was a priest
and psychologist who derived his ideas from 'Counselling Learning', a
humanistic concept introduced by Carl Rogers in the 1950s. CLL has been
categorised alongside The Silent Way and Suggestopedia because of its
humanistic tendencies.
Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching by J Richards and T Rodgers
CUP 2002
CLL: A Way Forward? by Rod Bolitho taken from ELT documents 113 -
Humanistic Approaches: An Empirical View The British Council (1982)
Communicating Naturally in a Second Language by Wilga M. Rivers CUP
1986
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Community language learning is the name of a method developed by
Charles A Curran and
his associates.Curran was a specialist in counselling and a prefessor
of psychology at
Loyola University,Chicago.His application of psychological counselling
techniques to learning is Counselling learnig.Community language
learning represents the use of
Counselling Learning theory to teach English or any other language.As
the name indicates,
CLLderives its primary insights, and indeed its organizing rationale,
from Rogerian counselling(Rogers1951).In lay terms, counselling is one
person giving advice,assistace,
and support to another who has a problem or is in some way in
need.Community Language
Learning draws on the counselling metaphor to redefine the roles of the
teacher(counselor)
and learner(the clients) in the language classroom.The basic
procedures of CLL can be seen as derived from the counselor-client
relationship.
BRAJESH