COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING (CLL)

Background developed by Charles Curran in the 1970s primary insights from Rogerian counseling theory counselor client (knower) teacher (learner) student

self actualization and self-esteem help to foster a caring climate Maskowitz’s Humanistic Techniques which engages the whole person: blend what students feel, think, and know with what they are learning in target language self actualization and self-esteem help to foster a caring climate emotions and feelings as well as linguistic knowledge and behavioral skills

Language Alternation; (another language teaching tradition which CLL is linked ) - Mackey: A message, lesson or class is presented first in the native language and then, in the target language before overhears.

Approach; Theory of Language; the social-process view of language + the Interactional view of language

La Forge’s Alternative Theory; beyond the structuralist view of language which means Language as a Social Process. Communication; Not just a message, Not just the uniderectional transfer, Speaker = listener = subject and object of the message.

Verbal Sender  Message Receiver <the information-transmission model> Verbal Sender  Message Receiver < the social-process model>

“Language is persons in contact”. “Language is persons in response” “Language is persons in contact”. “Language is persons in response”. La Forge

- interactions between learners unpredictable The interactional view; - interactions between learners unpredictable - interactions between learner and learned dependent and independent

Stages; in stage 1; dependent in stage 2; self-assertive in stage 3; resentful & indignant in stage 4; tolerant in stage 5; independent

Theory of Language Learning Whole-person Learning ( cognitive and affective ) -a holistic one -analyzed into five stages

Whole person learning stages; 1- feelings of security and belonging 2- independence 3- speaking independently 4- mature enough to take criticism 5- improving the knowledge of linguistic

Convalidation or Consensual Validation S stands for security A stands for attention and aggression R stands for retention and reflection D stands for discrimination “SARD” By Curran

Design - Objectives learning how to learn from one another encouraging the students to take more responsibility learning how to learn from one another using the target language communicatively

The Syllabus the teaching of oral proficiency a topic based course progression emerging from the interaction between learners and teachers detailed and specific grammar and lexical points isolated by the teacher

Learning Activities Analysis Translation Reflection and observation Listening Free conversation Translation Group work Tape-recording Transcription

Roles of Learners Being a member of the community, Listening carefully Telling messages independently Repeating messages without any hesitation Expreesing feelings, frustration Being counselor of other learners

Roles of Teachers Encourager Supporter Monitoring relationship Politely criticiser advicer

Instructional Materials a textbook isn’t necessary developed by the teachers as the course develops projector, tape recorder scripts for conversations developed by the students.

Procedure informal greeting statement of the goals and guidelines sitting in a circle conversations and messages given by the student in the L1 Translation of it into the target language by the teacher repetition for the tape recorder

Replaying the tape recorder for refreshing what have learned by repeating Reflection Elements of Spelling, Grammar, Capitalization Asking questions about the lesson Copying sentences from the board with notes on meaning/usage.

Enhancing the security What is the role of the native language in CLL? Enhancing the security Providing a bridge from the familiar to the unfamiliar Making the meaning clear

Weaknesses a lack of grammatical syllabus unclear objectives focus on fluency rather than accuracy difficulty in evaluation

What areas of language skills are emphasized What areas of language skills are emphasized? - Culture is the integral part of language learning, and language is for creative and critical thinking. - The most important skills are understanding and speaking the language and then, reading and writing with reinforcement.

How it works in the classroom

Stage 1- Reflection Students sit in a circle around a tape recorder to create a community atmosphere. The students think in silence about what they'd like to talk about, while the Teacher remains outside the circle. 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 say in their L1 what they'd like to talk about and the teacher discreetly come up behind them and translate the language chunks into L2. 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. 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. 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. This part is not recorded.

Stage 4 - Transcription Next they listen to the tape and transcribe their conversation. The teacher only intervene when they ask for help. 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 Get students to analyze 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. In this way they are totally involved in the analysis process. The language is completely personalized and with higher levels they can themselves decide what parts of their conversation they would like to analyze, whether it be tenses, lexis or discourse. 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.

Thank You