1. HUMANISTIC APPROACHES IN ELT. SILENT WAY, LOZANOV METHOD, TPR

2. CONTENT Basic principles of humanistic approaches in ELT;
The student’s and teacher’s role;
The scenarios of the lesson;
Evaluation of the Learners’ Performance;
Suggestopedia (Lozanov method);
The Silent Way;
Total Physical Response (TPR).
Conclusion

3. Basic principles of humanistic approaches in ELT
Humanistic Approach in ELT is an attempt to respond to these needs. Its basic principle is in shifting the focus in education from teaching to learning, so that the teacher is no longer the focal point in class but someone who facilitates the process of education.

4. The Student
The new approach implies an entirely new role of the learner. It aims to make the learner more independent, since the responsibility for the learning process is to some extent handed over to him.

5. The main idea is that the content of a lesson or syllabus is taught and learned from the point of view of the learner. This new centrality changes the conventional concept of instruction. It radically changes the roles in the classroom and may be hard to accept.
Yet it seems worth discussing. It may work very well and be very effective, if it is not the only one but one of the approaches used.
The new role of the learner brings about some psychological problems related to his performance in the classroom. It is quite natural that if the burden of what is happening in class is shifted to the learner, while the teacher only facilitates the process creating the appropriate psychological climate, the performance of the learner will most likely involve psychological stress. Or more stress than before.

6. In the new context, being in a group, with the teacher who only coordinates and facilitates the process, the learner, more than before, faces such challenges of psychological nature as: self-assertion, self-determination and self-esteem. He must demonstrate the ability to cooperate with the teacher and compete with his fellow-students, he has to learn to cope with success and failure. The learner has to be very sensitive to how his fellow-students feel in relation to himself and to each other. As was said above, the new approach implies more psychological stress on the learner. But I dare suggest that this stress is stimulating and creative. It stimulates the learner’s intelligence and curiosity which work for his benefit.

7. The Teacher
On the one hand, the teacher must become a facilitator by giving up the dominating role to the learners. On the other hand, and this seems essential, it is the teacher who creates the special atmosphere of the learners’ independence and the new psychological climate in class.

8. What is important for the teacher is tact, empathy, a genuine interest in the learners’ performance and of course, friendliness. The teacher cooperates with the students on equal terms, rather than dominates. This cooperation is special. It calls for finding an appropriate balance in the teacher- learner relationship. This balance is a very sensitive substance: it is individual and different in each particular case. This teacher-learner cooperation should be very skillfully orchestrated by the teacher, who can now be referred to as facilitator.
I also invite you to view Humanistic approach not so much as another technique of language instruction but rather as something that makes the learner less constraint, more relaxed, independent and uninhibited. He/she learns to cooperate with his peers and with the teacher, developing more respect for himself and others, thereby releasing the energy that drives learning.

9. The scenarios of the lesson
All kinds of pair work and group work, as well as role play and games ( with kids ) seem to work best. Very good are the tasks that make the students’ personal experience the topic of the language class, which is natural. It is very important for each little team to have its leader for solving the tasks and for decision-making.

11. Scenario 1. The teacher may start the lesson with the words:
- Here are the things we’re going to do today: first we will read the text and then....
Scenario 2.
In another scenario the teacher may say:
- There’re quite a few things we must do today. But it’s up to you to decide what we should begin with.....
In still another scenario, which is our objective, it is the students who begin the lesson.
Scenario 3.
- Last time we had such fun role playing. Let’s try and do it again....

12. In scenarios 2 and 3 the students are decision-makers
In scenarios 2 and 3 the students are decision-makers. What is important is that though the decisions are made by the learners, the scenarios are orchestrated by the teacher. All the efforts of the learners are supported and encouraged by the teacher. Of all the qualities of the teacher - empathy and unconditional acceptance of the learner are of paramount significance.

13. Evaluation of the Learners’ Performance
There are various suggestions as to how we teachers should feel about the students’ mistakes when this approach is practised.
Many believe that the objective of some lessons (not all ) is to give the learner a chance to communicate something rather than to get him to say every single word formally right. Here much is left to the judgement of the teacher. It is indeed a very controversial issue. Not correcting the students’ mistakes looks to me a disadvantage of Humanistic approach because the teaching element is gone. Yet there are no gains without losses.

14. Suggestopedia (Lozanov method);
Suggestopedia is a teaching method developed by the Bulgarian psychotherapist Georgi Lozanov. It is used in different fields, but mostly in the field of foreign language learning. Lozanov has claimed that by using this method a teacher's students can learn a language approximately three to five times as quickly as through conventional teaching methods.

15. In practice
Physical surroundings and atmosphere in classroom are the vital factors to make sure that "the students feel comfortable and confident", and various techniques, including art and music, are used by the trained teachers. The lesson of Suggestopedia consisted of three phases at first: deciphering, concert session (memorization séance), and elaboration.
Deciphering: The teacher introduces the grammar and lexis of the content.
Concert session (active and passive): In the active session, the teacher reads the text at a normal speed, sometimes intoning some words, and the students follow. In the passive session, the students relax and listen to the teacher reading the text calmly. Music (“Pre-Classical”) is played background.
Elaboration: The students finish off what they have learned with dramas, songs, and games.

16. Then it has developed into four phases as lots of experiments were done: introduction, concert session, elaboration, and production.
Introduction: The teacher teaches the material in “a playful manner” instead of analyzing lexis and grammar of the text in a directive manner.
Concert session (active and passive): In the active session, the teacher reads with intoning as selected music is played. Occasionally, the students read the text together with the teacher, and listen only to the music as the teacher pauses in particular moments. The passive session is done more calmly.
Elaboration: The students sing classical songs and play games while “the teacher acts more like a consultant.
Production: The students spontaneously speak and interact in the target language without interruption or correction.

17. Teachers should not act directive although this method is teacher-controlled but not students- controlled. For example, they should act as a real partner to the students, participating in the activities such as games and songs “naturally” and “genuinely.” In the concert session, they should fully include classical art into their behaviors. Although there are many techniques that the teachers use, the factors such as “communication in the spirit of love, respect for man as a human being, the specific humanitarian way of applying there ‘techniques’” etc. are crucial. The teachers need not only to know the techniques and theoretical information but also to understand the theory and to acquire the practical methodology completely because if they implement those techniques without complete understandings and acquisition, they could not provide learners successful results, or even could give a negative impact on their learning. Therefore the teacher has to be trained in the course that is taught by the certified trainers.

18. Here are the most important factors for teachers to acquire, described by Lozanov.
1. Covering a huge bulk of learning material.
2. Structuring the material in the suggestopaedic way; global-partial – partial-global, and global in the part – part in the global, related to the golden proportion.
3. As a professional, on one hand, and a personality, on the other hand, the teacher should be highly prestigious, reliable and credible.
4. The teacher should have, not play, a hundred percent of expectancy in positive results (because the teacher is already experienced even from the time of teacher training course).
5. The teacher should love his/her students (of course, not sentimentally but as human beings) and teach them with personal participation through games, songs, a classical type of arts and pleasure.

19. Traditional books cannot be used in a Suggestopedic class since they fail to present the content and grammar following the function of the human brain. The way they present information is not according to the real way the human brain processes information. The whole book has to be adapted to be used in a Suggestopedic class. It is hard work but the final results are worth it.
In Brazil, there is a teacher who developed a whole teacher training course to apply and use Suggestopedia using traditional books. He teaches how to adapt and create a new Suggestopedic book to be used in Suggestopedic classes. The training also teaches the teachers how to conduct an intensive course in English or in any other foreign language using the newest development of Suggestopedia - Desuggestopedia.

20. The Silent Way
The Silent Way is a language teaching method created by Caleb Gattegno that makes extensive use of silence as a teaching technique. It is not usually considered a mainstream method in language education. It was first introduced in Gattegno's book Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: The Silent Way in Gattegno was skeptical of the mainstream language education of the time, and conceived of the method as a special case of his general theories of education.

21. The method emphasises the autonomy of the learner; the teacher's role is to monitor the students' efforts, and the students are encouraged to have an active role in learning the language. Pronunciation is seen as fundamental; beginning students start their study with pronunciation, and much time is spent practising it each lesson. The Silent Way uses a structural syllabus, and structures are constantly reviewed and recycled. The choice of vocabulary is important, with functional and versatile words seen as the best. Translation and rote repetition are avoided and the language is usually practiced in meaningful contexts. Evaluation is carried out by observation, and the teacher may never set a formal test.
The teacher uses silence for multiple purposes in the Silent Way. It is used to focus students' attention, to elicit student responses, and to encourage them to correct their own errors. Even though teachers are often silent, they are still active; they will commonly use techniques such as mouthing words and using hand gestures to help the students with their pronunciation. Teachers will also encourage students to help their peers.

22. Рrinciples are:
Teachers should concentrate on how students learn, not on how to teach
Imitation and drill are not the primary means by which students learn
Learning consists of trial and error, deliberate experimentation, suspending judgement, and revising conclusions
In learning, learners draw on everything that they already know, especially their native language
The teacher must not interfere with the learning process.

24. Aims and goals
The general goal of the Silent Way is to help beginning-level students gain basic fluency in the target language, with the ultimate aim being near-native language proficiency and good pronunciation. Students are encouraged to actively explore the language, and to develop their own 'inner criteria' as to what is linguistically acceptable.
The role of the teacher is that of technician or engineer. The teacher's task is to focus the students' attention, and provide exercises to help them develop language facility; however, to ensure their self-reliance, the teacher should only help the students as much as is strictly necessary.

25. In the Silent Way students are seen as bringing a vast amount of experience and knowledge with them to the classroom; namely, their first language. The teacher capitalizes on this knowledge when introducing new material, always building from the known to the unknown. The students begin their study of the language by studying its sound system. The sounds are associated to different colors using a sound-color chart that is specific to the language being learned. The teacher first introduces sounds that are already present in the students' native language, and then progresses to sounds that are new to them. These sound-color associations are later used to help the students with spelling, reading, and pronunciation.

26. The Silent Way uses a structural syllabus
The Silent Way uses a structural syllabus. The teacher will typically introduce one new language structure at a time, and old structures are continuously reviewed and recycled. These structures are chosen for their propositional meaning, not for their communicative value. The teacher will set up learning situations for the students which focus their attention on each new structure. For example, the teacher might ask students to label a floor plan of a house in order to introduce the concepts of inside and outside. Once the language structures have been presented in this way, learners learn the grammar rules through a process of induction

27. Translation and rote repetition are avoided, and instead emphasis is placed on conveying meaning through students' perceptions, and through practicing the language in meaningful contexts.
Just as the name implies, silence is a key tool of the teacher in the Silent Way. From the beginning levels, students do 90 percent or more of the talking. Being silent moves the focus of the classroom from the teacher to the students, and can encourage cooperation among them. It also frees the teacher to observe the class.
A Silent Way classroom also makes extensive use of peer correction. Students are encouraged to help their classmates when they have trouble with any particular feature of the language.

28. The Silent Way makes use of some specialized teaching materials: colored Cuisenaire rods, the sound-color chart, word charts, and Fidel charts. The Cuisenaire rods are wooden, and come in ten different lengths, but identical cross-section; each length has its own assigned color. The rods are used in a wide variety of situations in the classroom.
The word charts contain the functional vocabulary of the target language, and use the same color scheme as the sound-color chart. Each letter is colored in a way that indicates its pronunciation. The teacher can point to the chart to highlight the pronunciation of different words in sentences that the students are learning. There are twelve word charts in English, containing a total of around five hundred words.

30. Total Physical Response (TPR)
Total Physical Response (TPR) is a method developed by Dr. James J. Asher, a professor emeritus of psychology at San José State University, to aid learning second languages. The method relies on the assumption that when learning a second or additional language, language is internalized through a process of codebreaking similar to first language development and that the process allows for a long period of listening and developing comprehension prior to production. Students respond to commands that require physical movement. TPR is primarily used by ESL/EAL teachers, although the method is used in teaching other languages as well. The method became popular in the 1970s and attracted the attention or allegiance of some teachers, but it has not received generalized support from mainstream educators.

31. According to Asher, TPR is based on the premise that the human brain has a biological program for acquiring any natural language on earth - including the sign language of the deaf. The process is visible when we observe how infants internalize their first language. It looks to the way that children learn their native language. Communication between parents and their children combines both verbal and physical aspects. The child responds physically to the speech of their parent. The responses of the child are in turn positively reinforced by the speech of the parent. For many months the child absorbs the language without being able to speak. It is during this period that the internalization and code breaking occurs. After this stage the child is able to reproduce the language spontaneously. With TPR the language teacher tries to mimic this process in class. The method also promises double efficiency in terms of rate of learning, according to several studies in the literature and referenced in the above book.

32. In the classroom the teacher and students take on roles similar to that of the parent and child respectively. Students must respond physically to the words of the teacher. The activity may be a simple game such as Simon Says or may involve more complex grammar and more detailed scenarios.
TPR can be used to practice and teach various things. It is well suited to teaching classroom language and other vocabulary connected with actions. It can be used to teach imperatives and various tenses and aspects. It is also useful for story-telling.

33. TPR may also be a useful alternative teaching strategy for students with dyslexia or related learning disabilities, who typically experience difficulty learning foreign languages with traditional classroom instruction.
According to its proponents, it has a number of advantages: Students will enjoy getting up out of their chairs and moving around. Simple TPR activities do not require a great deal of preparation on the part of the teacher. TPR is aptitude-free, working well with a mixed ability class, and with students having various disabilities. It is good for kinesthetic learners who need to be active in the class. Class size need not be a problem, and it works effectively for children and adults.

34. This method draws on the basic principles of how young children learn their first language. Developed by James Asher, this teaching method involves a wide range of physical activities and a lot of listening and comprehension, as well as an emphasis on learning as fun and stimulating.
Total Physical Response has limitations, especially when teaching abstract language and tasks, but is widely considered to be effective for beginners and is still the standard approach for young learners.

36. Conclusion
1.The idea of Humanistic approach presented here is invitation to think about making English language instruction more learner-oriented, which has a special meaning in this country.
2. In practising this approach we should consider the age of the learner: at the initial stage of language instruction the teacher certainly dominates in the classroom, trying to gradually shift the centrality to the learner as the latter grows and becomes more mature.
3. It is realistic to view Humanistic approach as one of the techniques practiced in class.
4. Any sort of Humanistic approach is doomed to failure if it is imposed on students against their will, if they criticize and reject it. It is only possible when it is welcomed by both the learner and the teacher.
5. It is known that human behavior is culturally determined. With this in mind, we have to admit that humanistic techniques are most successful when they are practised in what we might call "extravert" societies and by the teachers of "extravert" personalities. There is no doubt that many teachers have successfully practiced this approach or its elements. Hopefully, many more may be tempted to give it a try and see what happens.

37. List of sources
Harmer, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language Teaching. 3rd Edition. Person Education Limited, 2001
Humanistic Approach to English Language Teaching - Do We Need it? -Evgenia Vlasova. Russian Academy of Sciences (Web article).
"The Total Physical Response Approach to Second Language Learning" by James J. Asher. The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 53, No. 1
Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. – Diane Larsen-Freeman. Oxford University Press, 2000.