Applying selected principles of effective teaching and learning to each of the four macroskills of listening and speaking, reading and writing.
Several authors have tried to extract some fundamental principles of language teaching and learning, intended as fundamental factors that have a positive impact on the effectiveness of teaching and learning languages, supported by research and observation in second language teaching and acquisition. This essay will examine two of these principles - meaningful learning and motivation - and how they apply to each of the language learning macro-skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Brown (2000) proposed twelve learning principles divided in three categories (cognitive, affective and linguistic); Savignon (2002) and Brandl (2007) each extracted eight principles from research in Communicative Language Teaching (CLT); Ellis (2008) - also based on CLT research - extended the number of general principles to ten. Aside from the specific linguistics domain, identifying generally applicable principles of learning and teaching has also been an important concern in general education. The OECD, for example, extracted five general teaching principles from a number of case studies on education systems across several countries (2008), while various departments of education at national, state and local level identify and use very similar core principles in their published pedagogical frameworks (Education Queensland, 2011; Education Victoria, 2004).
Even though the above research has been developed in different areas, there seem to be some significant similarities across the principles listed by different authors and organisations, and sometimes the same principles are identified under different labels in different publications. For example, Brandl’s principle of recognising affective factors has a strong connection (although more general in scope) with Brown’s principle of intrinsic motivation.
There also appears to be a significant amount of interdependency between various principles, so that their effects on the learning process cannot be examined entirely in isolation from one another. For example, experience suggests that using rich and realistic material for learning (the principle of authenticity) makes it easier to design and carry out meaningful learning activities (the principle of meaningful input), building students’ comfort and familiarity with real-life situations in the second language (the principle of self-confidence), engaging the students’ interest and providing students with a positive stimulus for effective learning (the principle of purpose or motivation).
There are two important aspects that should be differentiated with regards to meaningful learning. The first aspect is the intrinsic meaning of the exchanged information (whether it is comprehensible or not). The second is the internalised meaning of such information (whether participants can personally and situationally relate to it or not), and evidence suggests that it is this second aspect that has a stronger, positive impact on language learning.
According to Brown (2000), communication acquires meaning when the participants find an association between the information being exchanged and their internal representation of the world as manipulated by activities that are commonly carried out. In other words, there should be a connection between the elements of communication and familiar situations. From a pedagogical perspective based on theoretical principles, it follows that meaningful learning can be addressed by designing and carrying out content-based activities that are purposeful, functional, and relevant to the learning objectives (Raimes, in Richards & Renandya, 2002).
Modern constructionist and communicative approaches place substantial emphasis on constructing and exchanging meaning (Canale & Swain, 1980; Krashen, 1982; Savignon, 2002; Richards, 2006; Ellis, 2008), so even though different authors may use different words and labels, they still refer to the same core ideas: that language teaching and learning should be focused on real goals (Brown, 2000), immediately recognisable references (Savignon, 2002), active construction of meaning, relevant content (Ellis, 2008), purposeful exchanges on information, and engaging activities with content that is relevant to the learners’ experiences (Richards, 2006).
With regards to motivation, both research and experience support the concept that motivation stems from the anticipation of rewards, which act as a constructive drive in the learning process. Achievement-based (extrinsic) rewards provide positive feedback for correct behavior and answers, but the most powerful rewards are those generated from within the learner (intrinsic) according to his or her needs and desires (Brown, 2000; Ghuman, 2013).
There is evidence of a positive relationship between motivation and effective language learning (Brown, 2000; Richards & Renandya, 2002). However, it is difficult to see how intrinsic motivation could be taught, because it is by definition an internal state of mind. Nevertheless, research suggests that it is possible to facilitate the emergence and growth of intrinsic motivation by means of various tasks and activities that empower the learner, build up learner autonomy and responsibility for his or her own learning journey (OECD, 2008; Richards & Renandya, 2002), fostering individual accountability (Richards & Rodgers, 2001), providing sufficient opportunities to interact (Ellis, 2008), and engaging learners’ interest (Savignon, 2002).
Researchers seem to agree that both the listening process and the reading process are carried out along two related but very different tracks: bottom-up and top-down processing (Richards & Renandya, 2006). During bottom-up processing, the listener/reader first decodes the language input starting from its basic building blocks (e.g. spoken sounds or written words), using contextual information, inference and prior knowledge to construct meaning. During top-down processing, the listener independently constructs meaning in his or her mind based on prior knowledge and expectations, using and interpreting the language input to track and actively adjust the meaning. Bottom-up and top-down processing are both believed to happen recursively.
In any case, if we embrace the view that language is an expression of thought and society (Fromkin et al., 2011), then the listener’s ability to construct meaning is greatly influenced by the degree in which the language input matches the listener’s internal representation of the world, which is what makes communication meaningful. Research suggests that the use of schemata and scripts is therefore of great importance in the construction of meaning (Richards & Renandya, 2006).
Applying the principle of meaningful learning to listening involves designing and carrying out activities in which learners can relate prior knowledge to information processing in the form of language input, not only by recalling and activating existing schemata and scripts, but also by facilitating the construction and refinement of new ones (Nunan, in Richards & Renandya, 2006). In order to provide a meaningful listening activity, teachers should also focus on the development of listening strategies like predicting the continuation of sentences ahead of the speaker, or raising awareness of suprasegmental features like stress, tone or word junctures (Van Duzer, 1997).
With regards to motivation, activities can be designed around songs or games for younger learners at a basic level, for example using a command-action model (Asher, 1977), whereas more mature learners at intermediate level might be more successfully engaged in activities that relate to their day-to-day activities, like a dialog at the family doctor’s office, or the local news.
Listening skills are of paramount importance in the development of speaking skills (Richards & Renandya, 2006), and there seem to be various similarities in the development of speaking skills between first language acquisition and second language learning. In theories of first language acquisition, children learn to speak only after spending sufficient time listening. Through listening, children learn to recognise language patterns and real world associations, which they will try to reproduce through speech at a later stage using various strategies like babbling and imitation (Fromkin & al., 2011). Second language learners also tend to develop listening skills first, going through a silent period before they start to develop their speaking skills (Krashen, 1982).
Brown and Nation (1997) recommend carrying out three types of speaking activities: form-focused (centred on pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary), meaning-focused (centred on communication), and fluency-focused. In particular, they suggest using form-focused activities with learners at basic level, moving on to meaning-focused activities as the learners’ language proficiency increases.
The principle of meaningful learning can be applied to teaching speaking skills by carrying out activities that are authentic and purposeful (Shumin, in Richards & Renandya, 2006), while also addressing the development of more specific linguistic competences: grammar, discourse, sociolinguistic, and strategic (Canale & Swain, 1980; Savignon, 2002).
In order to foster motivation, speaking activities can be modelled around the students’ real interests. For example, young learners might enjoy singing or telling simple mime stories, in which the students try to recite a story according to actions mimed by the teacher, whereas more mature learners might be more interested in role playing activities.
In the context of listening and speaking, meaningful communication is constructed by all participants using an interactive exchange of information by using various discourse strategies. In the context of reading and writing, meaningful communication is instead built into the text by the writer, and is extracted by the reader in completely independently, so that the text becomes a communication proxy or filter between the reader and the writer.
Grabe (2004) points out that functional discourse structures in a text are interpreted by the reader according to conventions and patterns, and familiarity with those helps the construction of meaning. This might be driven - for example - by similarities between the culture of the writer and that of the reader, or by the reader’s prior knowledge of the subject. In cases where the reader has little or no familiarity with the text, pre-reading activities can be carried out in order to build up awareness in and basic knowledge of the cultural, sociolinguistic, historical, and technical/factual aspects of the text. Pre-reading activities are also useful to build up relevant schemata and scripts that are so beneficial for top-down and bottom-up processing (Van Duzer, 1997).
Since non-verbal elements can make up as much as two thirds of a verbal conversation (Hogan & Stubbs, 2003), one of the biggest challenges in teaching and learning writing skills lies in developing the writer’s ability to produce text that is meaningful to the reader (Byrne, 1988), especially considering the practical impossibility for the reader to interactively and recursively negotiate meaning with the writer to clarify or disambiguate the language being used, which would be a natural discourse strategy in the spoken language.
One way to help writers in producing meaningful text is to try to develop the ability to visualise an audience and to identify a clear central idea that writers will then wish to convey to that audience (Seow, in Richards & Renandya, 2006). With an audience in mind, the process of writing can also be enriched by the writer taking the role of the reader in order to extend and refine the produced text, iteratively switching between the two roles until the text is complete.
Reppen (in Richards & Renandya, 2006) proposes creating opportunities for free expression as well as carrying out realistic situational writing activities in order to define the potential audience and engage the students’ interest, for example writing letters to relatives in junior classes, or writing cover letters to potential employers in more mature classes. In all cases, focusing on the text instead of its constituent parts (sentences or paragraphs) makes the learning process more meaningful and motivating (Byrne, 1988).
Seow (in Richards & Renandya, 2006) recommends building motivation by encouraging students to evaluate their own and each other’s texts, and potentially presenting their final work to others in the form of interactive post-writing activities like presentations, enactments, or reading aloud and discussing, thereby complementing writing activities with reading acitivities. Ferris (in Richards & Renandya, 2006) points out that the process of editing a text is often neglected when teaching writing skills, and this can lead to poor results. Therefore, building up students’ motivation to engage in the editing process can be beneficial, and Ferris suggests to do so by raising the students’ awareness of the positive effects that editing has on the final writing product, for example by marking the students’ unedited work and compare it against the mark that the students could have received for the edited work.
Marco Scata
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