How to Teach English

Teaching Listening as an English Language Skill

Introduction:

English as a foreign language has the greatest motion in Bangladesh. Status of English as the “library language” and the increased “international inter-dependence” are the two reasons of this which led to a greater focus on face-to-face language usage crossing the margin of pen and paper exercise. As the decline of Grammar-Translation method in 1960s proved that language learning might not be limited to “reading and writing” or ‘literacy’, the provisional continuation of Direct Method confirmed too that ‘listening and speaking’ that is ‘oracy’ is not all that is language. Language must be taught in an integrative way where all four skills are focused.

But most often, even in the modern methods of SL teaching, quite surprisingly, listening skill is ignored in a way or another! David Nunan (1997) commented that listening is the “Cinderella Skill” which is overlooked by its elder sister “speaking” in SL learning. As ‘to expertise the productive skills like speaking and writing’ has become the standard of the knowledge of second language, listening and reading have been turned to be the secondary ones. Besides, in our schools, colleges and even in the higher levels, instructors direct how to read and write, not how to speak or listen. It is believed that these would be mastered by the learners automatically. Although listening had a boost up in 1960s (direct method) and in 1980s (Krashen’s input hypothesis, 1981; James Asher’s Total physical response, 1988 and Gillian Brown, 1988), it turned a fashion in most cases!

In this article, I have tried to show how listening helps EFL learners to develop language skill. Despite the fact that it is not a research article, a small scale survey has been done at Noakhali Science and Technology University, Bangladesh in order to demonstrate that listening practice is insisted by the learners and they find it functional in language learning.

What is listening?

Listening is a skill in a sense that it’s a related but distinct process than hearing which involves merely perceiving sound in a passive way while listening occupies an active and immediate analysis of the streams of sounds. This correlation is like that between seeing and reading. Seeing is a very ordinary and passive state while reading is a focused process requiring reader’s instrumental approach. Listening has a “volitional component”. Tomatis’ (2007) view is, while listening; the desire to listen, as well as the capability to listen (comprehension) must be present with the listener for the successful recognition and analysis of the sound.

What ‘listening’ really means is ‘listening and understanding what we hear at the same time’. So, two concurrent actions are demanded to take place in this process. Besides, according to Mecheal Rost (1991), listening comprises some component skills which are:

• discriminating between sounds,
• recognizing words,
• identifying grammatical groupings of words,
• identifying expressions and sets of utterances that act to create meaning,
• connecting linguistic cues to non-linguistic and paralinguistic cues,
• using background knowledge to predict and later to confirm meaning and recalling important words and ides.

As McDonough and Shaw ( 1993) and Rost (1991) explain that a listener as a processor of language has to go through three processes using three types of skills:

a. Processing sound/ Perception skills:

As the complete perception doesn’t emerge from only the source of sound, listeners segment the stream of sound and detect word boundaries, contracted forms, vocabulary, sentence and clause boundaries, stress on longer words and effect on the rest of the words, the significance of intonation and other language-related features, changes in pitch, tone and speed of delivery, word order pattern, grammatical word classes, key words, basic syntactic patterns, cohesive devices etc.

b. Processing meaning/ Analysis skills:

It’s a very important stage in the sense, as researches show, that syntax is lost to memory within a very short time whereas meaning is retained for much longer. Richards (1985:191) says that, ‘memory works with propositions, not with sentences’. While listening, listeners categorize the received speech into meaningful sections, identify redundant material, keep hold of chunks of the sentences, think ahead and use language data to anticipate what a speaker may be going to say, accumulate information in the memory by organizing them and avoid too much immediate detail.

c. Processing knowledge and context/ Synthesis skills:

Here, ‘context’ refers to physical setting, the number of listener and speakers, their roles and their relationship to each other while ‘linguistic knowledge’ refers to their knowledge of the target language brought to the listening experience. Every context has its individual frame of reference, social attitude and topics. So, members of a particular culture have particular rules of spoken behavior and particular topic which instigate particular understanding. Listening is thought as ‘interplay’ between language and brain which requires the “activation of contextual information and previous knowledge” where listeners guess, organize and confirm meaning from the context.

However, none of these micro-skills is either used or effective in isolation or is called listening. Successful listening refers to ‘the integration of these component skills’ and listening is nothing but the ‘coordination of the component skills’.

Nature of listening as a skill:

Besides the division of the skills as ‘receptive’ and ‘productive’, another subdivision focuses on ‘one-way reception’ and ‘interactive reception’ in this age of active learning. Reading and writing are one-way skills where learners don’t get direct feedback. But in speaking and listening, learners may have their understanding and reproduction checked instantly. Thus active and self-learning takes place.

Moreover, there is a traditional labeling for reading and listening as “passive” skills. But linguists believe that a listener is involved in guessing, anticipating, checking, interpreting, interacting and organizing by associating and accommodating their prior knowledge of meaning and form. Rost (1990) thinks, listeners “co-author” the discourse and they construct it by their responses.

Even as a receptive skill, listening differs greatly with reading as reading materials are printed and permanent enough where the learners are required to interact with the next sentence using the knowledge of the previous one while listening involves continuous material presentation where they have to respond to the immediate expression. From the view point of “product” or “process”, listening is more a process than a product which instantly shapes the understanding and utterances of the learners.

Why listening?

No doubt, listening is the most common communicative activity in daily life. according to Morley (1991, p.82), “We can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read, and five times more than we write.”

So, listening, as a skill, is assuming more and more weight in SL or FL classrooms than ever before. Rost (1994, p. 141-142), points out, “listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin. Listening is thus fundamental to speaking.”

Limited listening input fails to promote face-to-face communication by shaping their social development, confidence and self-image. Adequate listening practice could give the learners essential contact with handy input that might trigger their utterances. Teacher talk or peer- interaction might be the options for this. But according to Rod Ellis (1990), it’s not only the exposure to L2 that is enough, and learners need L2 data suited to the accurate stage of their development. If the learners don’t have “optimal” exposure in the target language, they can’t transmit the “comprehensible input” into “intake” through “production strategies” where learners attempt to use L2 knowledge. Krashen’s (1981) view is that “acquisition” takes place as a result of the learner having understood input that is a little beyond the current level of his competence that is ‘the i+1 level’. We must take into account that the level of listening input must be higher than the level of language production of the target learners. So, language teaching pedagogy must incorporate academic and designed listening practice.
Obviously listening influences other skills. A theory of Tomatis shows that “the quality of an individual’s listening ability will affect the quality of both their spoken and written language development”. He also views that if the sounds of the target language are presented to the learners before presenting them in written form, the ease with which they integrate those sound will be reflected in their understanding and production of the language. However, a pre-exposure or a following-exposure to listening input is a must on the part of a learner.

It is widely known that individual’s ability to process and analyze the sounds influence their ability to translate the sounds of language into their written form. We know, reading is not only a visual process rather involves the rapid analysis of letters and words that represents sounds and it is sound which gives the words meaning. A learner can decode the graphic images or recognize their meaning efficiently if their auditory processing skills are well developed. In a similar way, sounds are translated into graphic form in writing and if the sounds are poorly integrated their graphic representation will be hampered and problems like spelling mistakes may arise. So, we see the foundation on which reading and writing skills are built is spoken language again listening is the fundamental to spoken language as without listening anything we can’t reproduce or reply.

In a learner-centered approach, it is deducted that listening provides the learners with the following features of the target language:

• How the language is organized
• How native speakers use the language
• How to communicate in the language

Strategies for Listening:

Two types of strategies for listening have been in practice. They are defined so according to the ways of processing the text while listening:

a. In Bottom up processing, like reading, learners utilize their linguistic knowledge to identify linguistic elements in an order from the smallest linguistic unit like phonemes (bottom) to the largest one like complete texts (top). They link the smaller units of the language together to form the larger parts and it’s a linear process where meaning is derived automatically at the last stage. It is absolutely “text based” process where learners rely on the sounds, words and grammar in the message in order to create meaning.

b. Top- down interpretation, on the other hand, requires learners to go to the listening with their prior knowledge of topic, context, and type of text as well as knowledge of language to reconstruct the meaning using the sounds as clues. “This back ground knowledge activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next.”

It is assumed that bottom up process is applied while practicing minimal pairs, taking pronunciation tests, listening for specific details, recognizing cognates and word-order pattern but top-down interpretation is used in the activities like listening for the main idea, predicting, drawing inferences, and summarizing where learners relate what they know and what they hear through listening comprehension.

According to the types of situation where the understanding takes place, listening is divided into:

a. Reciprocal or interactive Listening where the listener is required to take part in the interaction and alternately listens and speaks. Interactive listening situations include face-to-face conversations and telephone calls in which listener has a chance to ask for clarification, repetition, or slower speech from conversation partner.

b. Non-reciprocal or non-interactive Listening where the listener is engaged in listening passively to a monologue or speech or even conversation. Some non-interactive listening situations are listening to the radio, CDs, TV, films, lectures etc. and here listener usually doesn’t have the opportunity to ask for clarification, slower speech or repetition.

We believe, this type of listening is not totally non- interactive too. The interaction takes place here is the ‘cognitive’ one where students respond through understanding and creating the meaning. On the other hand, this might be turn to semi- reciprocal if the instructor makes them responding while checking their understanding through question-answer or discussion and clarification in the class or lab.

Methodology:

Methods applied for the survey included questionnaire and group interviews taken with 40 students who attend listening classes in the language lab regularly and it has been observed by the author that they do better in speaking and reading than others. The subjects are the students of 1st year 1st term from the department of Pharmacy and CSTE, ACCT, and FIMS. Although they are really not beginners and have learnt English at their secondary and higher secondary level, they have no exposure to authentic English speaking and listening. Here they have been practicing listening in a language lab using headphone using audio and video for three months. The purpose of the survey was convincingly explained to them and they took 30 minutes to think on the questions and to answer them.

Findings:

30 students claim that listening practice has raised their confidence by throwing away their fear, hesitations, inertia and shyness that they had before to speak in English.

• All of the 40 students have told that watching video clippings and movie while listening enables to identify the right responses, styles, expressions, behaviors, attitudes and emotions in particular situations through concentrating on gesture, body language, non- linguistic cues, planning utterances, adjacency pairs, turn-taking, repairing utterances by asking for repetition, pre-closing and closing.
• 5 students have said that it has quickened their planning to respond as they listen to faster speaking than their own.
• 35 students opine that exposure to naturally spoken input by native speakers gives them practical experience of using language in target situations.
• 20 students who are highly motivated have found a change in their speaking style.
• 36 students think that listening to dialogues and conversation enriches their vocabulary and teaches how to use them appropriately.
• 10 students have found that intensive listening practice helps to remember the syntactic structures, spelling, accent and intonation.
• 19 students mention about learning of the cultures, feelings, reactions, trend and customs of the English speaking people that helps them feel motivated (integrative) to speak English.
• All of the 40 students opine that watching movie or video clippings draws more attention during the class and add to their learning.
• All of the 40 students believe that interaction with teachers for assessment or other purposes while listening help them greatly to remove confusion and use their newly gained knowledge immediately and make it regular in use.

Teaching listening:

Unfortunately, as I find a very diminutive effort in teaching listening in our country, this discussion may appear too much redundant to read to the language teachers! What we find in a traditional EFL classroom? Most of the classes complete their Language course without practice listening even for a day! Very few ELT trained teachers, now-a-days, in line with the flow of CLT; efforts for listening practice consisted of teacher reading aloud a written text slowly, once or more so that it is understood and than asking some comprehension questions. It seems the objective here is ‘to present the written language in an alternative way’ where characteristics of naturally spoken language is totally absent and listening practice is farther beyond. If the materials used for listening class comply with that in speaking class, it will, certainly, give a fully fledged input to the learners.

Teaching listening requires a bit more on the part of the teacher than that of the learners. One of the main principle of teaching listening, as I believe, should be “ Language material intended to used for training listening comprehension should never be presented visually first.” Good listening lessons go beyond the main listening task itself with related activities before and after the listening. The format may be like the following:

a. Pre-listening Stage: Some activities before listening may serve as preparation or warm-up for listening in several ways. These function as ‘reference’ and ‘framework’ by giving prior knowledge of listening activities. Some recommended per-listening activities include:

a. Introducing the topic and assessing their background knowledge of the topic or content of the material through commenting on a picture or photograph.
b. Activating their existing knowledge through discussion. Reading through comprehension questions in advance, working out own opinion on a topic, predicting content from the title etc. can be done.
c. Clarifying any necessary contextual information and vocabulary to comprehend the text. In this regard showing pictures maps or graphs and may be helpful.
d. Informing them of the type of text, their role, purposes of the listening etc. A short reading passage on a similar topic may help them.
b. While-Listening Stage: activities in this stage must follow the learners’ specific needs, instructional goal, listening purposes and learners’ proficiency level. While listening activities directly relate to the text and listeners are asked to do these during or immediately after listening.

. Some specific cares are required in designing while-listening activities. These are:

a. If the students are asked to give written information after listening, they should have chance to listen the text more than once which makes it easier for them to keep concentration while listening with specific purposes.
b. Writing activities should be to a minimum. As comprehension is the prime target, writing would make the listening more demanding. are samples of this.
c. Global activities like getting the main idea, topic, setting, summary that focus on the content and forms of the text should be given more so that listeners are guided through the text. Listening for the gist is such an activity.
d. More questions should be set up in order to focus student’s attention on the crucial elements that might help to comprehend the text. Following the rout on a map or searching for specific clues to meaning, or identify description of the given pictures might be appropriate here.
e. Attaching predicting activities before listening so that students can monitor their comprehension as they listen. Listening with visuals may serve here.
f. Giving immediate feedback to make the students examine their responses and how it was. Checking off items in a list, distinguishing between formal and informal registers conducted by teacher are examples here.

Listening activities here become varied according to their purposes and objectives. Four major distinctions include Attentive listening, Extensive listening, Intensive listening, Selective listening and Interactive listening.

Attentive listening:

Both of the ideas are true that attentiveness is a prior condition for understanding and listener often lapse attention for various reasons. Losing interest, inability to keep up with, losing track of goals, less confident are some of them. Teacher can help the listeners to hold their attention by personalizing the martial, using the target language while talking to them to keep flow, and lessening their stress and motivating by asking oral responses repeatedly. Activities in this stage would be interesting and easy including face to face interaction, using visual and tangible topics, clear description of the listening procedure, minimum use of written language, and immediate and ongoing responses etc so that learners can easily keep pace with the text and activity.
Listening to short chunks, music image, personal stories, teacher- talk, small question- answer, and interview etc may be applied in this stage.

Extensive listening:

This type of listening has also a greater ease than other types as it is concerned to promote overall comprehension of a text and never requires learners to follow every word and understand them. Learners need to comprehend the text as a whole which is called global understanding. Activities in this section must be chosen in terms with the proficiency level of the listeners.
At the lower level they may have problems to organize the information, so some non-verbal forms in responding might be given such as putting pictures in a right sequence, following directions on a map, checking of items in a photograph, completing a grid, chart or timetable etc.
At the developed stage, some language based tasks requiring constructing meaning, inferring decisions, interpreting text and understanding gist are usually recommended. Completing cloze exercises or giving one or two word answers, multiple choices, predicting the next utterances, forming connected sets of notes, inferring opinions, or interpreting parts of the text are some samples.

Intensive listening:

‘Hearing clearly’ is also a prime aspect of listening as it includes accurate perception without which the second phase of processing meaning becomes very difficult. Listening intensively is quite important to understand the language form of the text as we have to understand both the lexical and grammatical units that lead to form meaning. So, intensive listening requires attention to specific items of language, sound or factual detail such as words, phrase, grammatical units, pragmatic units, sound changes (vowel reduction and consonant assimilation), stress, intonation and pauses etc. Feedback on accuracy and repetition on the teacher’s part promote success here.
Paraphrasing, remembering specific words and sequences, filling gaps with missing words, identifying numbers and letters, picking out particular facts, discriminating the pronunciation of same phoneme in different positions, replacing words, finding stress and boundaries are some good intensive listening practice.

Selective listening:

It involves listening to selected part of a text, as it’s name suggests, to predict information and select ‘cues’ surrounding information. Thus, the listeners may have an assessment of their development in listening to authentic language. Here the focus is on the main parts of the discourse and by noticing these parts listener construct their understanding of the meaning of whole of the text through inferring. As the expectation on understanding is focused and has a purpose, in these activities, listeners have the chance of second listening to check understanding and have feedback repeatedly.
Listening to sound sequences, documentary, story maps, incomplete monologues, conversation cues and topic listening are examples of selective listening.

Interactive listening:

This is a very advanced stag of listening practice as it implies social interaction in small groups which is a ‘true test’ of listening. In interactive listening, learners, either in pairs or in groups, receive new information, identify them continuously. Besides, they have to work out the problems of understanding each other and formulate responses immediately as we are required to do in real life. So, in spite of calling ‘practice’, this goes beyond of it. As this phase involves both comprehension and production, it directly promotes speaking skill. Teachers have a central role in this stage. They have to set up specific goals so that learners can asses their own performance, observe learners’ language in order to provide immediate feedback on their interaction strategies.
Group survey, self introductions, short speeches, chatting and discussing, exchanging news and views, interviewing and being interviewed etc. might be appropriate here.

c. After-listening Stage: post listening activities can be used to check comprehension, valuate listening skill, use of listening strategies and use the knowledge gained to other contexts. So, these are called listening exercises at all and defined as ‘follow-up works.’ The features of these activities are:

a. Related to pre-listening activities, such as predicting.
b. May create a real life situation where students might be asked to use knowledge gained through listening.
c. May extend the topic and help the students remember new vocabulary.

Using notes made while listening in order to write a summary, reading a related text, doing a role play, writing on the same theme, studying new grammatical structures, practicing pronunciation, discussion group, craft project etc. are some post-listening activities.

Variables affecting and effecting successful listening:

Noise: Distractions and noise during the listening segment should be reduced and sound-proof language lab is perfect for this purpose.

Equipment: If the cassette player or CD player being used does not produce acceptable sound quality, it may harm developing skill or motivation.

Repetition: playing the text 2-3 times might be required in respect of the types of texts. In case of no chance of repetition, learners may become anxious about catching it all the first time and that will impede their actual performance.

Content: It is a strong variable to be able to make difference in developing skill. The material should be interesting and appropriate for the class level in topic, speed and vocabulary. Some guidelines for judging the relative ease or difficulty of a listening text for a particular purpose or particular group of students might be:

a. The selected material must be relevant to student’s real life; language of the text should be authentic and would vary in terms of learners’ interest and age group.
b. The storyline, narrative, or instruction should confirm common expectation in organization. It may contain main idea, details, and examples. An informative title might also be helpful.
c. Learners have to be familiar with the topic. They might feel major comprehension difficulties because of misapplication of background knowledge due to cultural differences.
d. At the beginner level of proficiency, the language of listening text should discard redundancy while in the higher proficiency level students may benefit from redundant language.
e. If the text involves more than one individual, the differences between them should be marked conspicuously which can make the comprehension easy.
f. Most texts should have visual supports like clippings, maps, diagrams, pictures or images in video that contextualize the listening input and provide clues to meaning in order to aid their interpretation.

Recording own tape: Any way, recording must be of an English speaker. Copying recording two to three times is preferred in order to avoid rewind which may discrete attention of the listeners.

Using video: Using video clippings with sound off and then asking students what dialogue is taking place is a good practice. Next, the teacher may play sound and check their understanding and interpret them about the discrepancy between their predictions and reality. It may also be done with the video first and giving only sound to guess what the context is can obviously effect comprehending.

Homework: In teaching listening, homework is a must. A listening task between two classes prevent them forgetting. Encouraging public listening and having notes on them is a free pave to walk in teaching listening which leads to success. Providing tape recording with questions, dictation, or a worksheet to complete may bring the expected results.

Using internet: If learners have opportunity to use a computer with internet access and headphones or speakers, teacher may direct them toward some listening practice sites and home works can also be assigned from these accesses

Limitations of this article:

This article doesn’t focus on every aspect of teaching or developing listening skill; rather it focuses mainly on the necessity and functions of listening input in learning a foreign or second language. The survey also reflects on the service of listening to the EFL learners who are instrumentally motivated. The context of the assay is this country though it reflects that of some other countries where the features don’t vary much.

Conclusion:

Definitely we have to admit that language learning depends on listening as we respond only after listening something. Listening provides the aural input that serves as the stimuli for language acquisition and make the learners interact in spoken communication. So, effective and ideal language instructors should help the learners to be introduced with native speaking, to be respondent to that both cognitively and orally. In order to do so, first, they should show the students how they can adjust their listening behavior to deal with variety of situations, types of input, and listening purposes.

Questionnaire

Name:
Role:
Department:

Q1: Does practice listening in the language lab help you to develop English skill?
Q2: How does it promote your learning?
Q3: Do watching movies or using video clippings add to your understanding?
Q4: How does interaction with teacher or interference of teacher while listening help you?

References:

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Coakley CG & Wolvin AD. (1986). Listening in the native language. In B. H. Wing (Ed.), Listening, reading, writing: Analysis and application (pp. 11-42). Middlebury, VT: Northeast Conference.

Gass SM.(1988). Integrating research areas: A framework for second language studies. Applied Linguistics. 9:198-217.

Lund RJ. (1990). A taxonomy for teaching second language listening. Foreign Language Annals, 23: 105-115.

Mendelsohn DJ & Rubin J. (1995). A guide for the teaching of second language listening. San Diego, CA: Dominie Press.

Morley J. (1991). Listening comprehension in second/foreign language instruction. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (pp. 81-106). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.

Nunan D & Miller L. (Eds.). (1995). New ways in teaching listening. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Omaggio-Hadley A. (1993). Teaching language in context (2nd Ed.). Boston. MA: Heinle & Heinle.

Peterson PW. (1991). A synthesis of methods for interactive listening. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (pp. 106- 122). Boston. MA: Heinle & Heinle.

Richards JC. (1983). Listening comprehension: Approach, design, procedure. TESOL Quarterly. 17: 219-240.

Rixon S.(1981).The design of materials to foster particular linguistic skills. The teaching of listening comprehension. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 258 465).

Rost M. (1990). Listening in language learning. London: Longman.

Rubin J. (1987). Learner strategies: Theoretical assumptions, research history and typology. In A. Wenden & J. Rubin (Eds.), Learner strategies in language learning (pp. 15-30). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Rubin J. (1995). The contribution of video to the development of competence in listening. In D.J. Mendelsohn & J. Rubin (Eds.), A guide for the teaching of second language listening (pp. 151-165). San Diego, CA: Dominie Press.
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About the authors

Mili Saha & Ali Rezwan Talukdar are lecturers, Dept. of English, Noakhali Science & Technology University, Sonapur, Noakhali, Bangladesh.

The American Concept of EFL and its Invisible Visions in the Middle East Region

In this article, Amjad Owais discusses how the teaching of English is handled in the Middle East region.

Introduction:

In this paper I will discuss the phenomenon of using native English teachers in the Middle East region, precisely in United Arab Emirates in the context of EFL in the public primary schools. In this discussion I will examine the reasons beyond such a phenomenon. I will also examine the attitude of native and non-native speaker teachers who teach English language along with students’ parents’ attitudes. Moreover, I will link “communicative imperialism” (Phillipson, 2006) and the role of the media with the context of EFL in the Middle East region. Due to the natural of my paper, a “self reflective” (Pennycook, 2001: p.1) and previous experiences of other countries are expected to be present.

ELT in United Arab Emirates has witnessed an extraordinary revolution in the last 6 years. My interest of this issue emerged simultaneity with the appearance of a new type of schools which are gradually replacing the ordinary public schools in UAE. This type is called (Al-Ghad schools) which literally means “tomorrow schools” in Arabic. It clearly indicates the main purpose of these schools is to produce more sophisticated, moderated and competitive students. The vision of ministry of Education and Youth in UAE as what they declared is “to have a new generation who is more capable of English language and its vocabulary and grammar skills”, in other words “we need a generation who speaks English as it is his or her first language”, thus to achieve this goal teachers who “have a better command of fluent, idiomatically correct language forms, are more knowledgeable about the cultural connotations of the language” (Braine, 1999: p.xiv) are needed. In order to make this vision alive, a huge number of native English teachers had been brought from areas such as “North America, Britain, New Zealand and Australia which claim ownership over English”( Canagarajah, 1999: p.79). Furthermore, to support this vision, some authorized sources in the government argue that this new methodology of teaching is the best in teaching English which enables the students to acquire the language very easy and smoothly. Schiitz (2007) cites Krashen’s (1987) view that acquisition any language requires meaningful interaction in the target language (natural communication) thus, language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious grammatical rules because learners grow up learning the language as it is something very natural in their life without an effort, especially at the beginning levels of their life. Moreover, Boyle (1997) illustrates that native speaker teachers have a range of advantages over the non-native speaker teachers because (a) English learned from birth and developed through his/her life as primary language which been used in his/her life (b) the intricacies of the grammar of the language are learned instinctively and can be employed with speed and certainty (c) native speaker of English engages with other native speakers of English as something natural in his/her social context, so he/she uses the language all the time as the dominant language, thus it is better to use native speaker teachers of English to teach their first language. Additionally, McNeill (1994) in his study about the characteristics of native and non-native speaker teachers of English argues that native speaker teachers have the advantage when it comes to learners’ vocabulary needs. It is sensible to point here; the government is replacing non-native speaker teachers with native speaker teachers of English gradually in order to provide their students with the opportunity to hold conversations with teachers in English, and only in English.

On the other hand, Al-segair (2007) who works as a teacher in a prestigious university in the Middle East illustrates that in his investigation about native speaker teachers in the Middle East, “I found some of them used to work as dog-trainers back in Chicago” (paragraph, 2). He also pointed out that some teachers were “a bunch of former company employees and some had worked in western embassies” (paragraph, 2) who did not work as teachers before. Al-segair thus explains that not because you are a native speaker of a language qualifies you to teach it! Teaching a language requires “skills, competence, training and knowledge” (paragraph, 3). Going further in this issue, Al-Osaimi (2007) illustrates that some schools do not bother to recruit qualified English teachers, however, parents usually more impressed by where did teachers come from and the fact that their accent sounds more ‘American or British’ considered to be enough to convince them that they are the most suitable teachers to teach their children, regardless what they have of qualifications or experiences. Such criteria forced me to wonder why such thinking is dominant in the region.

America and its Politics play a major part in all of this. The American tenet that “the current educational systems in place in the Muslim world were partly responsible for motivating the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the pentagon. In June 2002” (Karmani, 2005:p.262), thus in order to change their attitude towards the western and the American culture, a new concept should be replaced with what is described as a “combination of intolerance, ignorance, anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-Western views” (Karmani, 2005: p.262) by using native speaker teachers as means to apply this project. By importing native speaker teachers of English from what Kachru calls “inner circle countries” (Kachru & Nelson, 1996: p. 78) with westerns’ beliefs and values, a new Americanized generation would be the total outcome. In simple words, educational or mind colonialism and “linguistics imperialism” (Phillipson, 2006: p.346) are the main goals in such invasion of native speaker teachers at the Middle East region.

Searching for its alleged security:

Handley (2004) mentions that in the late 1700s, America was surrounded by great European superpowers, thus America was “economically and militarily disadvantaged” (Hadley, 2004). Therefore, to build a strong and superpower nation, America must expand its borders by negotiation or war. The American citizens had been convinced that the world and America’s national security always in danger, so in order to protect the world and America, any country that threats us should be attacked. Furthermore, “lack of expansion implies the possibility of defeat” thus, “American insecurity was an important factor in the invasions of Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Philippines” (Hadley, 2004) in the past. Other form of such American fears is the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) which was a proposal by the American president Roland Reagan in March 23, 1983. The main goal of this proposal as what Wikipedia illustrates is “to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles”. This proposal carried the popular name “Star Wars” in 1977 after movie by George Lucas. According to Handley, the Star Wars program is an expansion of America’s continued need searching for its national safety “by now expanding its borders into outer space” (Handley, 2004 cited Mauk and Oakland, 154), moreover, the recent invasions on Iraq and Afghanistan interpreted by a large number of American citizens is they had been convinced that America’s national security was threatened. Thus, in order to assure that no one threats America’s security in the future, a new ways of domination and controlling should take place in areas such as Eastern Asia, Africa and the Middle East not only military, but also as media and academic occupation.

The role of Media in the Middle East:

No one can deny the strong role played by Media in any place in the world. America tries to impose its policies and its ideologies in the Middle East whether by using force or not. In order to dominate the region, the American beliefs should be promoted in the area. Phillipson (2006) argues that the development of communications networks has a basic relationship to the emergence of the new world order. He illustrates that “communication organizes the movement by multiplying and structuring interconnections through networks” (p. 352). Thus, in order to dominate a particular country and its culture, you must control its media and what is being showed to the people inside their homes. A controversially television network channels like MBC group (Middle East Broadcasting Center) and Alhurra (means the ‘free one’ in Arabic) had emerged in the Middle East and dedicate the lion’s share in Middle Easterners’ minds and homes. Such channels can be seen by some people as mediums to spread the American’s plans and principles in the region using another means beside tanks and rockets. Alhurra is a commercial-free Arabic language satellite television network for the Middle East operated and funded by the United States of America. This channel is financed by the American people using their taxes through the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the U.S. Congress. Many Arab political critics argue that this channel lunched to change the views of Arabs and Muslims around the world towards the west and America by showing football games, explaining the acetic dimensions of baseball and airing documentaries about the ‘fence’ in Palestine, along with doses of fashion. Alhurra in its official web site claims that:

“We are devoted primarily to news and information. In addition to reporting on regional and international events, the channel broadcasts discussion programs, current affairs magazines and features on a variety of subjects including health and personal fitness, entertainment, sports, fashion, and science and technology” (Alhurra official web site).

Give me a break! In order to facilitate TESOLers’ jobs who came from inner circle countries, an anesthetization of Middle Easterners’ hearts and minds must be done so people can accept these teachers with a positive attitude and a wide smile on their faces. People in the Middle East must be convinced that they are not proficient enough to teach English, thus teachers their first language is English must take over and teach English for your child’s own benefit. According to Phillipson (2006) media is not only organize production on a new scale and force a new structure sufficient to global space, but also make its justification inherent power, as it “produces, organizes, as it organizes, it speaks and expresses it self as authority” (p. 352). Why I would pay my good money to fund an Arabic channel such as Alhurra when I cannot earn money from it. Alhurra in its web site mentions that “Alhurra is operated by non-profit corporation, The Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. (MBN)” (Alhurra official web site). The Arabic satellite dish contains more than 300 free entertainment channels which can be accessed by Arabs from any place in the Middle East with more than 6 news channels such as Al-jazeera, CNN and BBC. Therefore, the purpose of such channels is that the American government can trade its citizen’s money with its future security by dominating and directing Arab youths’ minds and beliefs toward its own interest, by providing ‘a purely American Arabic speaker’ channel. The other case is MBC group channels which “started in London as the first satellite, free-to-air multi-channel media group of its kind in the Arab world” (MBC official web site). Al-Arabiya (means the ‘Arabian channel’ in Arabic) which is one channel from the MBC 6 free channels specialized with news and press. The reason behind the emergence of such channel has been declared by the people work there is to have a democratic channel which fights Aljazeera’s thoughts (an Arabic news channel) and its anti-democratic trends. Since Al-jazeera has been described by many Westerner politicians as anti-American bias, thus we need a channel against any anti-American thoughts in the Middle East region. According to Ryan (2005) Donald Rumsfeld has accused the station of persuading people that the US is an occupying force in Iraq, which he describes as a lie! On the contrary, the expansion into Iraq was to “brought freedom, economic growth, education and democracy to people who have suffered under years of oppression and mismanagement” (Hadley, 2004 quoted Assistance for Iraq). As a result, America is trying to Americanize the Arabic society the same way as she Americanized the Japanese society after the World War ll. Therefore, the road will be paved for native English teachers when they come to teach the ‘Western values’.

The world of TESOL and the native speaker teacher of English:

To impose the American ideologies in the Middle East, America promoted very well the teaching job for the native speaker teachers of English by promising them with “ good salaries and an exotic overseas adventure” (Hadley, 2004). According to Hadley many scholars such as Troike and Crystal have linked the expansion of TESOL to the expansion of former British and present American empire. Furthermore, native English teachers serve as “part of the educational aid packages exported to countries throughout South America, South East Asia, Africa and the Middle East” (Hadley, 2004) who work as colonial administrators. Handley in his paper cited Edge’s view that EFL teachers have become an academic army that satisfies intellectual conflict and occupies the linguistic dominions of an Anglophonic empire:

“…it is now possible to see us, EFL teachers, as a second wave of imperial troopers. Before the armoured divisions have withdrawn from the city limits, while the solders are still patrolling the streets, English teachers will be facilitating the policies that the tanks were sent to impose. And whether, and to whomsoever, I teach EFL, I am part of that overarching system” (Hadley, 2004 quoted from Edge, 10)

Karmani (2005) argues that an extraordinary pressure has been put on Muslim governments to reform their educational curricula. A very interesting article by Glasser (2003) who works for the Washington Post illustrates that many Arabic Gulf countries reshape their schools and put English over Islam, so in order to make way for more hours of English, classes in Islamic studies and Arabic are being reduced. A new stuff of native English speaker teachers has been brought into the schools of United Arab Emirates to teach the students from early ages. What is interesting is that the native speaker teachers are brought from inner countries as experts who do not need any preparing or training. They are who design the textbooks, monitoring the non-native speaker teachers and deciding who should stay and who should not stay in the school. However, American policies had succeeded in this country. Almost every non-native speaker teacher convinced that the native speaker teachers are better than non-native speaker teachers in English and this system is the best to teach the students this language even if they do not have the required qualifications, because English is their first language. This persuasion created negative outcomes with less positive results. In such schools a world full of racial discrimination in job opportunity, payment and respect has emerged. Non-native speaker teacher is no longer trusted by parents and his or her students. The native speaker teacher’s salary must be double than the non-native speaker teacher as one condition to import these teachers. Moreover, they must be provided with luxury accommodations, free transportations and first class annual flight tickets to their mother land. Of course, these conditions had been set by the American government to ensure that their citizens are treated well. Such conditions are imposed against governments’ wish in the Middle East region. What is ironic is that even if you have an American passport or you are a citizen from inner countries and you were not white or you were originally from Arabic country, you may not have these facilities! In some cases your contract might be cancelled even after you have signed the contract if your original identity has been discovered.

Conclusion:

In order to achieve the maximum domination on the Middle East and to make sure that no anti-American bases are exist in the region. Moreover, to insure that what happened in September 11, 2001 is not going to happen again, an American political equation must be applied, first, using the tank to impose the power. Second, programming youth’s minds and their views on what America ‘believes in’ is right. Third, teach the child what is against America is against you in the classrooms. It is not a coincidence that the emergence of (Al-Ghad) schools was after only one year from the dramatic events of September 11, 2001. It is not a coincidence that the reform of the educational curricula implemented after September 11, 2001. It is not also a coincidence that, channels like Alhurra and Al-Arabiya had been lunched after what happened in September 11 in 2001 which they are now based in Dubai, in United Arab Emirates. However, no one can disagree that Middle East countries need skilled and experienced workers and teachers from developed countries such as America, and Britain, but a direct supervising to those employees must be done by Middle Eastern countries that brought those experts and pay their salaries from their money for a preset goal. According to Fields (2005) who is a native speaker teacher of English works in Abu-Dhabi, UAE, teachers should be hired based on their qualifications to work in an atmosphere of fairness and respect, free from fear of discriminatory treatment or arbitrary dismissal because of their ethnicity, whether they were native or non-native speaker teachers of English.

Reference:

Alhurra, 2005, ‘About us’. Available from: http://www.alhurra.com/sub.aspx?id=266 [Accessed 12 Jun 2008]

Al-Osaimi, N., 2007. English Teachers Not Always Qualified [online]. Arab News. Available from:http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=104142&d=30&m=11&y=2007. [Accessed 17 May 2008]

Al-Segair, K., 2007. Only Native Speakers as English Teachers! [online]. Arab News. Available from: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=13§ion=0&article=101526&d=22&m=9&y=2007. [Accessed 17 May 2008]

Boyle, J., 1997. ‘Native-speaker teachers of English in Hong Kong’. Language and Education vol. 11, No.3

Braine, G., 1999, Introduction, in G. Braine (Ed), Non-Native Educators in English Language Teaching, Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp.xiii-xx

Canagarajah, A. S., 1999, Interrogating the “Native Speaker” Fallacy: Non-Linguistic Roots, Non-Pedagogical Results, in G. Braine (Ed), Non-Native Educators in English Language Teaching, Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp.77-92

Fields, M., 2005. If students can learn who is the better teacher, why can’t employers? [online]. Guardian Weekly. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/If students can learn who is the better teacher, why can’t employers TEFL EducationGuardian_co_uk.mht. [Accessed 16 May 2008]

Glasser, B., 2003. Qatar reshapes its schools, putting English over Islam [online]. Washington Post Foreign Services. Available from: http://www.english.education.gov.qa/files/886_WPOST.pdf. [Accessed 16 May 2008]

Hadley, G., 2004, ‘ELT and the New World Order: Nation Building or New Reconstruction?’, in TESOL Islamia, Niigata University of International and Information Studies. Available from: http:/tesolislamia.org/articles.html [Aaccessed 11 Jun 2008]

Kachru, B., & Nelson, C., 1996, ‘World Englishes’, in S McKay & N Hornberger (eds), Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 71-102

Karmani, S., 2005, English, ‘Terror’, and Islam. Applied linguistics 26(2) 262-267

MBC group, 2008, ‘About MBC group’. Available from: http://www.mbc.net/about-mbc-en/ [Accessed 12 Jun 2008]

McNeill, A., 1994. ‘Some characteristics of Native and non-Native speaker teachers of English’. International language in Education conference.

Pennycook, A., 2001, Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction, Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum

Phillipson, R., 2006, Language Policy and Linguistic Imperialism, in T. Ricento (Ed.), An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method, Oxford: Blackwell, pp.246-361

Ryan, P., 2005, ‘Middle East ‘Media War’, Middle East window. Available from: http://middleeastwindow.com/node/975 [Accessed 12 Jun 2008]

Schiitz. R., 2007. ‘Stephen Krashen’s Theory of Second Language Acquisition’. Available from: http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html. [Accessed 19 May 2008]

Teaching English: FAQ

Teaching Children Grammar Through Games

An article by: Shelley Vernon

If you don’t want your class to glaze over with dictation, writing exercises and “Jimmy, would you please read paragraph 1,” then take heart! You’ll find you can teach everything you want with games, and the children remember it better to boot.

Here is a disarmingly simple game, which can be used for many purposes. Please note this particular game is for small groups of up to 20 children or so, and you need floor space. If you have more than 20 in your classes and no floor space, please see the ‘About the author’ section for free games for all class sizes.

The players stand round in a circle with one player standing in the middle. Each player has a picture of an item, or a word flash card, except for the player in the middle. Call out two of the picture card items or words. The two players holding these cards have to change places without the person in the middle grabbing one of their spots. If the person in the middle manages to slip into the spot in the circle then the one left standing goes in the middle. The new person in the middle hands their flash card to the child taking their place in the circle.

If someone is stuck in the middle for two turns say, “All Change!” When the players hear this they must all change places, which gives the person in the middle a very good chance of joining the circle. Once everyone has had one go ask your class to pass their picture to the right, and take the one handed to them from the left. You can give them another go with the new picture.

Notice that only 2 children move at any one time (aside from when you say “All Change), which makes it easy to keep control.

How could you use this game in your language teaching? Firstly, you can use it to reinforce new vocabulary, secondly, for revision, thirdly to help spelling by playing the game with word flashcards instead of pictures, and fourthly, to practise a grammatical structure.

Let us say you want to teach the conditional tense and you start with “I would like”. Hand out pictures of food that your pupils already know. Call out “I would like bananas and pie”. The pupil with the bananas tries to change places with the pupil holding the pie without the person in the middle taking one of the spots in the circle. Continue until everyone has had a go, repeating the target structure each time. With a class that learns quickly you can also introduce the rest of the declension (he and she would like, etc.). You are now ready to proceed to a speaking game where your pupils use the target structure, as they will have heard it repeatedly by now. You can follow the speaking game up with a writing game, and hey presto your children can understand, say, read and write the new target structure.

Now what better way is there to teach grammar than that? You are teaching grammar by absorption and repetition, which is the way we learn our native tongue, and for children it is by far the best way to go.

About the Author

Shelley Vernon, conscious of the vital role teachers can play in the lives of their pupils, promotes learning through encouragement and games. Sign up for free games and ideas on http://www.teachingenglishgames.com. Make your job easy and fun teaching children English through games.

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As the title suggests, this free to download PDF file offers a brief but informative description of the history of second language acquisition…

PPP for Dummies

Task-Based Learning for Dummies

Task-Based Learning: A Review

Written by Bilgen TOSUN
1. HISTORICAL POSITION OF TASK-BASED LEARNING

As Willis(1996) suggests before eighties the P.P.P. model of language teaching is the traditional way of learning- teaching activity. It is based on presentation before practice and in the end of this activity the outcome is called as performance(Presentation Practice Performance). Here in the pace of presentation a syllabus of structures, considering fluent and accurate performance under control is used. Therefore in the Task Based Learning the order of these activities or techniques has changed.

According to Willis (1996) that change is first suggested by Prabhu in his Communicative Teaching Project in Bangalore including both primary and secondary schools in 1987. On the other hand Richards& Rodgers (1986) adds two more names as Beretta and Davies in 1985 and The Malaysian Communicational Syllabus which dates back to1975.

Using tasks for teaching becomes popular in second language acquisition to develop pedagogical applicants and Long, Crookes 1993 are given as example.

On the other hand the birth of it dates back to 1950’s according to the article of Richards & Rodgers (1986:224). It is stated as;

“It first appeared in the vacational training practice of the 1950’s. Task focused here first derived from training design concerns of the military regarding new military technologies and occurational specialties of the period. Task analysis initially focused on solo psyhometer tasks for which little communication or collaboration was involved”

No matter what is said about it; it is clear that T.B.L. has gained importance in the field of methodology and over a period of time it has been developed step by step. Willis(96) implies that in many teaching environments not only in multi-lingual but also in the mono-lingual classes there happens a work together with the students aged fourteen and upwards in T.B.L.

2. RATIONALE

2.1. DEFINITION OF TASK BASED LEARNING

Before studying theories, defining the term “task” should be better. The answers of : “What does “task” mean in Task Based Learning?” are those according to some of it’s prominents. (Ellis2003: 4)

According to Long (1985)

“A task is ‘ a piece of work undertaken for oneself or for others, freely or for some reward. Thus, examples of tasks include painting a fence, dressing a child, filling out a form, buying a pair of shoes, making an airline reservation, borrowing a library book, taking a driving te, typing a letter, weighing a patient, sorting letters, taking a hotel reservation, writing a cheque, finding a street destination, and helping someone across a road.

In other words, by “task” is meant the hundred an done things people do in everyday life, at work, at play, and in between. “Tasks” are the things people will tell you they do if you ask them and they are not applied linguists’.”

According to Prabhu (1987):

“A task is ‘an activity which required lerners to arrive at an outcome from given information through some process of thought, and which allowed teachers to control and regulate that process’.”

According to Bygate, Skehan, and Swain (2001):

” ‘A task is an activity which requires learners to use language, with emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective.’”

In her book Willis (1996: 54) also states the definition of “task” not only as what is “task” but also what is not “task”. She says: “Tasks do not include activities which involve language used for practice or display, such as ‘Describe the picture using the words and phrases from the list below’ or ‘Ask your partner if he likes the food listed here using the forms Do you like…? Yes,I do/No I don’t’ where there is no outcome or purpose other than practice of pre-specified language.” She also thinks that many role play situations do not have any actual outcome for students to achieve other than to enact their roles.

After reading many definition what I have understood by task is, all these activities (stated in many definitions by the authorities) where the target language is used by the learner for a communicative purpose in order to achieve and outcome.

2.2. STEPS OF A TASK

Although recommendations of each researchers have some little differences between each other in general the steps of task is classified as; pre-task, task and language focus.

2.2.1. Pre-Task: As it is easily understood from its name pre-task is the head of the activity. The topic and task are introduced here. At this step teacher is the guide. She gives the key note and goal of the task. According to Richards& Rodgers (1986), learners are made to think on the topic, bring out the vocabulary; make relationship between language and assumption of the topic.

To make students issue easier teacher gives the words they would use but here what is important that; there is no teaching something new. In order to give an example of the activity, if necessary, students can sometimes be given a reading or listening.

2.2.2. Task: Task cycle can be considered as the time learners getting on the stage because they have chance to perform, produce whatever they know. By Richards& Rodgers (1986) it is explained as a response to the pre-task activity such as reading a text, hearing a recording

Learners work in pairs or group in their target language. They use the target language spontaneously of which is the aim of task cycle. At that moment teacher tries to motivate them to use the target language. More than being a guide teacher is the helper because her aim is to make them produce, for this reason she does not intervene to correct errors of form. As Willis suggests (1996); if mistake blocks the understanding and truth value she takes notes and brings them up without giving the names of the students made mistake. “Never give unasked for advice.”(Finch, 1999: 184)

2.2.3. Language Focus: The outcome of the activity takes place at that moment. Because the real world brought into the classroom becomes some new information about the target language since learners see what they have learnt via some activities. To make learners understand this, teacher gets them sometimes to find a word or a phrase, read, underline, classify the focus which can be a verb tense or an adjective and so on (Willis, 1996: 57). Teacher is the conductor of the classroom because here again she makes learners start and continue on their own. At that time of course she answers all the questions students have. In the end she sums the activity up and helps learners see what they have learnt.

2.3. VARIETIES OF TASK

As far as I read (Richards& Rodgers, 1986) I observe that prominents of the subject have suggested two different kinds of varieties in terms of classroom interaction that occurs in task accomplishment (e.g: Pica, Kanagy, Falodun) and activities (e.g: Willis)

According to Pica, Kanagy and Falodun classification of tasks are like that:(R&R, 1986: 234)

“1. Jigsaw tasks: Learners combine pieces to form up the whole. For example, combining a separated story.

2. Information-gap tasks: two different students or groups having a part that the other does not. They try to find out what they do not have.

3. Problem-solving tasks: Students are given a problem and asked to solve it.

4. Decision making tasks: Students are given a problem and asked to choose an option out of the givens.

5. Opinion exchange tasks: No matter they reach an agreement they are expected to discuss their idea on the topic given.”

The other type of task classification is that (e.g:Willis)

Listing tasks: generates a lot of talk and the process involved are brainstorming (learners draw on their knowledge and experience) and fact finding (learners find things out by asking each other or referring to books. The outcome is going to be a completed list of a draft)

Ordering and sorting: It has four main steps;

a- sequencing items, actions or events

b- ranking items according to personal values or specified criteria

c- categorizing items under given headings

d- classifying items in different ways where the categories are not given

Problem solving: Same as what Pica, Kanagy and Falodun have suggested. It will make learners intellectual powers work.

Sharing personal experience: Learners are encouraged to talk about themselves of which provides real-close conversation.

Creative tasks: It is also considered as a Project by Willis (1996). To sort, order, compare, solve a problem learners come together. It can be an out of classroom activity too.

Closed and open tasks: If the goal is strictly limited and highly structured it is a closed task, considering close tasks open tasks are more loosely structured with less specific goals.

2.4. THEORY OF LEARNING

Since being based on the use of tasks as the core unit of planning and instruction in language teaching it involves real communication, meaningfulness for the sake of learning process.

During learning activity; learners are exposed to produce. For this reason, basic elements become purposeful activities and tasks emphasizing communication and meaning.

When reading about Task Based Learning I observe these key words; “communication, purposeful activities, process” as the theory of learning. Because, as Richards&Rodgers (1986) suggests learners learn by interacting communicatively and purposefully. Here the focus is on process but production should not be ignored. Because production is important for the students communicative competence. Communicative competence includes linguistic, socio-linguistic, discoursal and strategic competence. As Krashen suggests linguistic-sociolinguistic competence can be acquired with comprehensible input. Discoursal competence is acquired through experiencing within a group and strategic competence is understanding during the interaction to achieve task.

What makes T.B.L. different is that, teacher tries not to correct every mistake. If the truth value is blocked without calling the names of the students she corrects the mistake. The more you produce the beter you learn. In order to produce you should not be afraid of mistakes. I think that is preferred to make students feel confident to produce and that makes learners become risk-takers. That makes task activity and achievement motivational.

By taking risks learners are able to develop their both input and output which is necessary for language acquisition. According to his hypothesis Krashen believes input has a very important place in affective learning. In each class learner shoul move a step and gradually develop his input that of idea is called as “input hypothesis”(i+1).

On the other hand, for some others productive output and not merely input is also critical for adequate second language development.

At this point “tasks” are considered to provide full opportunity for both input and output requirements which are believed to be key processes in language learning(Richards&Rodgers,1986: 228).The time learners find task and language focus difficult the teacher can negotiate the difficulty. Because here the aim is to achieve a process and if teacher feels the difficulty for particlar pedagogical purpose then she can make things easier.

2.5. THEORY OF LANGUAGE

The idea of T.B.L. is getting process and it is close to the communicativeness. That of it’s principle makes me believe that, T.B.L. consideres language just as a tool to communicate. What I mean here is, language is primarily a means of making meaning. They focus on the role of meaning in language use. On the other hand as suggested by Richards and Rodgers(1986) to communicate of course we use structure. For this reason, structural,functional and interactional models of language are advocated. This shows that some different roles as “goal” have been given to the “tasks” for example; educational goals with didactic function, social goals just to participate. To Foster and Skehan there are three way functional distinction of tasks which are; personal, narrative and decision making tasks.(Richards&Rodgers,1986:227)

Since most of tasks proposed within T.B.L.. involve conversation Richards&Rodgers(1986) say that the central focus of language and the keystone of language acquisition is the”conversation”. Unconsciously, it draws attention on the vocabulary, because to communicate, to use the structure you need to know vocabulary.

2.6. ROLE OF THE TEACHER

As I have mentioned considering the historical development of teaching a foreign language; there has been a great change in the role of the teacher. Teacher is not considered as an authority in modern teaching philosophy I think. T.B.L. can be taken as a very important step for this change. Because, also in T.B.L. the role of the teacher has changed a lot.

Of course teacher is responsible for the education but he is not considered as the only responsible one. As being suggested by Richards&Rodgers(1986) T.B.L. values process so teacher has a very important responsibility. Because she’s in charge of the process of his learners. For this reason, according to Willis(1996) she should select and order tasks carefully in order to reach his goals.

As we mentioned in our presentation, teacher should be well prepared . Because any task may be necessary at anytime; learner can ask anything during task cycle. Those of the facts give teacher the roles of a guide at pre-task that she warms up and an organizer at task level that necessitates arranging activity. Also for the last cycle; focusing on form teacher should be well prepared.

2.7. ROLE OF THE LEARNER

Teachers’ dominance authority turns into teachers’ guiding; because teacher centered learning (P.P.P.) becomes learner centered(T.B.L.). As Dawson (2002) says T.B.L draws attention on the task and make learner active during his learning process of which makes T.B.L. different from it’s previous, I think. That of difference exchanges the position of the learner. Learner becomes the participant and the member of his group; that makes him to participate class activities. During task cycle learner is responsible for practice. What makes T.B.L. beautiful is the fact that he knows he participates a real communication. Since being motivated by the teacher , he becomes a risk taker. Using language helps him to develop his abilities gradually.

At pre-task cycle more than producing, learners are made to think on the topic in order to be active at task cycle (Richards&Rodgers,1986: 238). They are only expected to understand what is going on for this reason the teacher makes the issue easier. Since they have chance to perform; learners are expected to produce whatever they know. And that makes them use the target language spontaneously to communicate.

2.8. ROLE OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIAL

Especially for the task cycleto instruct properly materials are necessary. Instructional materials play a very important role in T.B.L. For this reason they should not be ignored and they should be chosen quite carefully. According to the activity there may be many different materials. Every teacher can create his materials such as the products of media, things we have in our daily lives. This makes teacher find different tasks and materials for each time.

3. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

Nunan suggests (1991) that T.B.L. gives opportunity to the teacher to promote a student-centered learning environment. That makes teacher respect the learners as individuals and wants them to succeed. On the other hand learners have out of class activities and that makes T.B.L. effective. According to Krahnke (1987) T.B.L. is quite satisfactory for E.S.P. teaching. He points out the value of it for the learners who really need to use the language for well-defined purposes. Not only for the learners studying for a specific purpose T.B.L. is advised for the ones who are not accustomed to traditional types of classroom learning such as P.P.P. model. If learning cognitive, cultural and life skills along with the language is needed than T.B.L. is thought to answer this need. To Richards&Rodgers(1986) none of the age groups and backgrounds would have difficulty in performing T.B.L. Because real tasks are given and that makes learning easier for every learner group.

On the other hand all these positives can become negatives in terms of the classroom interaction and learner, teacher quality. While reading on T.B.L. I always asked “Why do not we use it widespread in Turkey?”

The more I read the easier I understand that some of it’s principles depend on the opportunity the teacher has. So I think we should not forget Krahnke’s (1987) reminder that there is a problem of implementing the instruction.

When I evaluate our countries education identity I could not help feeling sad for us. Because we have a problem of qualified teachers of English, even the number of the teachers is not enough. For this reason the first problem arises with teachers. Moreover that of our problem increases with both the instruction, setting and the student. What I want to say, our students have to take on many tasks such as OSS. The anxiety of their future maket hem mechanical people; memorizing everything.

Evaluation would be an other problem for us. As Krahnke (1987: 69) suggests evaluation in T.B.L. requires students to demonstrate their progress via performing task based instruction. As having traditional way of teaching we have discrete-point achievement tests for evaluation.

4. CONCLUSION

Actually, in Turkey, as teachers of English we have chance to find satisfactory boks even on T.B.L. For example the one -Cutting Edge- we used for our demo in the class. Also Dawson (2002) suggests this book to see how they acquaint some of T.B.L.’s principles with tried and tested communicative approaches. But the question is how efficient classes we have; because T.B.L. needs time, energy and material of which we are lack of in Turkey. As teachers we are obliged to cover the given unit by the Ministry of Education. Unfortunately that of the subjects are too much to study in an eight month period if T.B.L. is to be used. Depending on the social level of the location each institution has their own problems to struggle; such as very crowded classes, cosmopolitan student profile from east to west, illiterate parents but T.B.L. requires time, money, high level of knowledge.

In Turkey we have a traditional education profile; we prefer teacher centered education and for this reason T.B.L. can not be performed efficiently. Because we are not good at working on individual and group responsibility.

If we managed to prevent each of these disadvantages; since aiming to help learner process and being learner centered T.B.L. would be amusing. Otherwise, when I consider my obligation the best time I could use T.B.L. is strictly limited.

REFERENCES

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LARSEN- FREEMAN, Diane. (1986), Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. USA & Australia: Oxford University Press.

NUNAN, David. (1989), Designing Task for the Communicative Classroom. USA , New York& Australia: Cambridge University Press.

NUNAN, David. (1991), Language Teaching Methodology. New York, London , Toronto, Sydney, Tokyo & Singapore: Prentice Hall.

PRABHU, N. S. (1987), Second Language Pedagogy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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RICHARDS, C. Jack & Willy A. Renandya. (2002), Methodology in Language Teaching. USA & Australia: Cambridge University Press.

SKEHAN, Peter. (1998), A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning. Athens, Auckland, Bangogk, Bogota, Bombay, Buenos Aires, Calcuta, Cape Town, Dar es Salaam, Delhi, Florence, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Karachi, Kuala, Madras, Madrid, Melbourne, Mexico City, Nairobi, Paris, Singapore, Taipei, Tokyo & Toronto Warsaw: Oxford University Press.

WILLIS, Jane. (1996), A Framework for Task- Based Learning. London: Longman

ELLIS, Rod. (2003). Task based Language Learning Teaching. New York: Oxford University Press

DAWSON, Nick. (2001). Teaching Tips What is Task-Based Learning? <http://www.longman-elt.com/exams/teachers/tt_tbl.html>

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FINCH, Andrew. (1999). “The Task-Based Classroom in Practice” in The Second Pan Asian Conference, Seul. Korea: Andong National University

This article originally appears at the Yıldız technical University website:

http://www.yde.yildiz.edu.tr/uddo/belgeler/inca-btosun-tbl.htm