This Business of Teaching English

First published in The Island in two parts on 21st Wednesday, and 22nd Thursday, May 2008



Those associated with the business of teaching English in the state education system – teachers, teacher advisors, applied linguists, educational administrators, etc. – would consider five factors, which are necessarily interrelated, as central to that activity: learners, teachers, language teaching methods, instructional materials, and evaluation.



Broadly speaking, English language teaching (ELT) , in common with instruction in other subjects, is better described as a teaching-learning process in which teachers and learners play interactive roles. The idea that learning is the responsibility of the learner, and that it predominantly depends on his/her own initiative, and his/her willing participation in teacher-directed activities aimed at using the target language for meaningful communication, with the teacher playing only a supportive role, is at least half a century old. This notion is embodied in such concepts as discovery learning, learner-centred instruction, etc. and is something widely recognized.



Constraints on the perfect practical realization of this principle in education in a developing country like ours are indeed formidable. But that is a different matter, and is outside the scope of this essay. For the time being at least let’s assume that such a goal, though probably not within our reach yet, would provide an important beacon for us to be guided by.



Ideally the whole teaching-learning process can be seen as a form of creative interaction between learners, teachers, methods and materials, whose synergetic (i.e. combined/coordinated) effectiveness is constantly monitored, and improved through evaluation.



What I am trying to suggest in the above sentence by ‘interaction’ (using it in a non-technical sense) may need some explaining, though the general meaning of the word is quite plain: it means ‘to work together with someone or something to make some effect on one another or on others’. The word can be applied to the relationships between the five elements (teachers, learners, methods, materials, and evaluation) mentioned above, because these relationships are actually two-way exchanges in the sense that each affects all the others: teachers’ assumptions, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours shape student responses, and vice versa; methods prescribe the selection and sequencing of linguistic and experiential content of a course of language instruction, and the latter in turn may influence the way those methods are adopted or adapted; evaluation can lead to the reinforcement or modification of the nature and contributions of all the other factors to the achievement of the ultimate goal envisaged, just as they determine the shape, the objectives, and the level of difficulty, etc. of evaluation. (An important qualification of what is meant by methods here will be added later in the course of this essay.)



A simple contrast of modern with traditional attitudes to teaching and learning will suffice to clarify this point further. In the past teaching was generally considered a one-way communication of information or skills from an all-knowing teacher to a totally ignorant disciple, whereas today the assumption that in a true teaching-learning context the teacher’s responsibility, as a more knowledgeable and more experienced partner, is to engage his/her students (essentially junior colleagues in the relevant context) in an autonomous quest for knowledge and wisdom is a self-evidently valid pedagogical principle; nowadays, a teacher is required to play a variety of roles, the least of which is as a purveyor of information, while the more important roles include those of needs analyst, guide, teammate, colleague, group process manager, coach, therapist, counselor, and so on. Correspondingly, learners are expected to assume more central roles in the teaching-learning situation such as initiator, explorer, researcher, collaborator, etc., all of which may be subsumed under the term ‘negotiator’. According to Breen and Candlin quoted in Richards and Rodgers (2001):



The role of learner as negotiator – between the self, the learning process, and the object of learning – emerges from and interacts with the role of joint negotiator within the group and within the classroom procedures and activities which the group undertakes. The implication for the learner is that he should contribute as much as he gains and thereby learn in an interdependent way. (1980:110)



But the teacher is still a leader. The teaching profession is infinitely more demanding today than it ever was. The independence accorded to the learner does not in any way diminish the teacher’s importance; rather it enhances it, but s/he ‘leads from behind’. This concept of teaching accords well with what Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), Lebanese American philosophical essayist, novelist, poet and artist, says in his book The Prophet (1923): ‘If he (i.e. the teacher) is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind’.



Of course, all this is hackneyed stuff for the initiate in the educational field. Its relevance to us here is that our embracing of those ideas or attitudes goes with our implicit or explicit acceptance or approval of the sort of methodology that we happen to adopt, which is the third of the five elements that I mentioned above as vital to the English language teaching activity.



Roughly the whole of the last century witnessed one continuous contest among language teaching professionals striving to formulate ‘the single best method’ of teaching languages, in the course of which a plethora of methods emerged in opposition to the classic Grammar Translation technique (Direct, Audiolingual, Total Physical Response, Silent Way, Community Language Learning, Suggestopedia/Desuggestopedia, and so on). The movement could be described as a succession of methods or techniques, each of which was superseded or outmoded or sidetracked or eclipsed by newer alternatives that their authors claimed to be more effective and more scientific in keeping with contemporary advances in linguistics, sociolinguistics, philosophy, language pedagogy, psychology of learning, educational theory, and other allied fields. Yet the search for ‘the method’ led to no definitive result; its goal remained as elusive as ever. But by the mid-1980’s there was almost a revolutionary change from the search for a ‘method’ to the working-out of an ‘approach’, a change of direction which was seen as ‘a paradigm shift’ (to repeat a phrase that sounds clichéd today), that is, a totally different way of formulating and addressing an issue.



The difference involved more than a change of the ultimate goal of the search. More importantly it involved a shift of focus from the structure of a language to its potential for meaning communication. All language teaching methods which had been developed over the first six decades of the twentieth century were based on the principle that mastering the grammar/structure of any language was the key to learning that language. The American teaching methodology known as Audiolingualism, which claimed to have revolutionized language teaching by turning it into a science, was a structural method. But in the 1960’s the theoretical basis of this so-called ‘scientific’ method was severely undermined when both its linguistics (a structural view of language) and its psychology of learning (behaviourism) were shown to be seriously defective. On the other side of the Atlantic, Britain, the then current Situational Language Teaching approach advocated the teaching of foreign languages through the practice of basic structures in meaningful situation-based activities. This was challenged by British applied linguists who criticized the untenability of predicting language on the basis of situational-events instead of following the traditional idea that speakers and writers used utterances to express meanings and intentions peculiar to themselves in unprecedented situations, not previously rehearsed stock sentences.



Language teaching approaches and methods began to be introduced in keeping with these new trends in methodological thinking that emphasized the primacy of meaning over form, marking the beginnings of the Communicative Language Teaching Approach.

Some examples of approaches based on CLT principles which were proposed in the next forty years are Communicative Language Teaching, Competency-based Language Teaching, Content-based Instruction, Cooperative Learning, Lexical Approaches, the Natural Approach, Task-based Language Teaching, and Whole Language.



Richards and Rodgers already alluded to (from whom I have derived these examples of methods and approaches, and much else as will be evident to the informed reader) succinctly describe the difference between the two concepts thus:



Each of these approaches… has in common a core set of theories and beliefs about the nature of language, of language learning, and a derived set of principles for teaching a language. None of them, however, leads to a specific set of prescriptions and techniques to be used in teaching a language…They allow for individual interpretation and application. They can be revised and updated over time as new practices emerge.



A method, on the other hand, refers to a specific instructional design or system based on a particular theory of language and language learning. It contains detailed specifications of content, roles of teachers and learners, and teaching procedures and techniques. It is relatively fixed in time and there is generally little scope for individual interpretation. …The teacher’s role is to follow the method and apply it precisely according to the rules.(2001:245)



The broad new ‘approach’ was actually a heterogeneous selection of elements from a variety of methods, catering for varying motives for learning English (such as academic, professional, business purposes), different types of teachers (e.g. novices, experts, native, nonnative) and, disparate social and individual needs of students, etc. This all-embracing pragmatic approach is widely identified as the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) Approach.



The evolution of the CLT Approach embodying a shift away from an emphasis on structure for its own sake to an emphasis on meaning with structure being only a device for the expression of meaning is described by Brown in the following words:



Beyond grammatical discourse elements in communication, we are probing the nature of social, cultural, and pragmatic features of language. We are exploring pedagogical means for 'real-life' communication in the classroom. We are trying to get our learners to develop linguistic fluency, not just the accuracy that has so consumed our historical journey. We are equipping our students with tools for generating unrehearsed language performance 'out there' when they leave the womb of our classrooms. We are concerned with how to facilitate lifelong language learning among our students, not just with the immediate classroom task. We are looking at learners as partners in a cooperative venture. And our classroom practices seek to draw on whatever intrinsically sparks learners to reach their fullest potential (1994:77).



In the choice of an approach or a method a key consideration is practicality, especially in a situation like ours where the teaching is, in most cases, entrusted to teachers who, predictably, for no fault of theirs, neither possess an adequate level of general proficiency in English, nor enjoy the advantage of having had a sound enough training in the job. In such a context a method has a number of clear advantages over an approach. An approach, because of its flexibility, relies on the individual teacher’s initiative, interpretation, skill, and expertise. Where the teacher is not equal to meeting these expectations it can easily frustrate and demoralize him or her. A method, on the other hand, would offer the teachers, whatever be their professional preparedness, cut-and-dried procedures for dealing with problems about what to teach and how to teach it, so that even untrained teachers with a limited knowledge of the language can perform their task with a sense of confidence. Another advantage of adopting a method is that it encourages cooperation among teachers who share compatible ideas and experiences. A method can also generate a wealth of language practice activities which can be adopted or adapted even by teachers whose ideologies differ.



Closely connected with methodological considerations are instructional materials. The role assigned to instructional materials is determined by the objectives, syllabus, learning and teaching activities, and roles of learners and teachers pertaining to a language course. The syllabus specifies its linguistic content in terms of structures, topics, notions, functions, etc, and also the goals for language learning in terms of the four major skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. The instructional materials further define subject-matter content and suggest the intensity of coverage, the amount of time allocated, and the degree of attention and detail required for the syllabus items. They also specify the routine learning objectives, which together form the goals of the syllabus.



Richards and Rodgers specify the role of instructional materials in a functional/communicative methodology in the following terms:



1) Materials will focus on the communicative abilities of interpretation, expression, and negotiation.

2) Materials will focus on understandable, relevant, and interesting exchanges of information, rather than on the presentation of grammatical form.

3) Materials will involve different kinds of texts and different media, which the learners can use to develop their competence through a variety of different activities and tasks. (2001:30)





In the prevailing Communicative Language Teaching context materials are expected to be so designed as to maximize classroom interaction and meaningful language use. Among instructional materials used in CLT today there are three types: text-based, task-based, and realia. In Sri Lanka text-based materials consist of the government textbooks. Task-based materials may be exemplified by language games, simulations, role plays, etc. ‘Authentic’ (i.e. not specially prepared for classroom use, but ‘from-life’) language-based materials such as advertisements, signs, and newspapers, form the realia that are or could be often used in the language class.



Of the five factors we have isolated as crucial for the business of English language teaching evaluation is the last. It represents the feedback phase of the whole gamut of activity involving the dynamic interaction among the five vital elements which feature in that process. Its main purpose is to assess the success of their performance in order to make decisions about changes which should be made for remedying shortcomings, and bringing about further improvement. Evaluation serves to maintain standards, while driving the whole language teaching programme towards excellence.



(It seems that the school-based assessment programme introduced in 1999 with such enthusiasm has been abandoned?)



According to Worthen and Sanders (1973) evaluation is ‘the process of deciding on the worth of something’. Very simple though this definition is, it draws attention to its two most important functions: value-judgement and decision-making. Weir and Roberts (1994) offer a little more elaborate definition: Evaluation is the process of collecting ‘information systematically in order to indicate the worth or merit of a programme or project (from certain aspects or as a whole) and to inform decision-making’.



Like most vitally important things in life, evaluation is a common everyday experience. All sorts of mundane decisions that we are required to make in order to forge ahead in our day-to-day life – whether they relate to our domestic or professional, personal or social, formal or casual situations – are based on evaluation. If, for example, we decide to replenish our food stock with some extra provisions fearing an imminent break in supply due to a threatened strike or natural disaster, that decision would be usually based on our assessment of our past experiences in a similar situation, of our present circumstances and likely developments in the future, and also of the relative value of the courses of action we have taken to date; if we are required to vote at an election, we resort to the same process of evaluation. In both these cases our aim is to enhance the efficacy of our responses in a problematic situation.



On the macro level, however, evaluation involves an infinitely more systematic approach, which consists of scrupulous data collection, strict determination of value or worth, and informed decision-making and in that order.



This is relevant to the language teaching situation. When the subject of evaluation is broached in this connection, the popular tendency is for most people to focus on the performance of students at various tests and examinations, and either praise or blame, as the case may be, the students, their teachers, the language teaching programme, the authorities, or the government. Nothing can be more mistaken! The actual performances of teachers, methods, and materials must be subjected to regular evaluation as well. And it must be a routine thing, a constant feature of the instruction process. The teachers must be under regular supportive supervision; methods or approaches must be constantly reviewed, and improvements proposed and implemented; instructional materials must be appropriately scrutinized, revised and brought up to date.



In addition to this developmental purpose of introducing informed changes to a programme of study, evaluation serves an ‘accountability’ aim. Since Sri Lanka is a democracy that is also a welfare state, decision-making in respect of the implementation of welfare policies necessarily involves the general public as stakeholders. They are stakeholders because they both influence and are influenced by decision-making. The system of free education is free for its beneficiaries, but not free for the country as a whole. It is run on public money, and the public have a right to demand ‘value for their money’.



The task before all those engaged in this business of teaching English at the present time is to ensure that the five elements learners, teachers, methods, materials, and evaluation coalesce into a powerful engine for achieving enhanced educational productivity. This, no doubt, is a tall order. But it will take nothing less to resuscitate the miserably failing state English language teaching programme that is being currently run.





REFERENCES

Brown, H.D. 1994. Teaching by Principles. Prentice Hall/Regents

Richards, C. and T.S.Rodgers. 2001. Approaches and Methods in

In Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press

Weir, C. and J.Roberts. 1994. Evaluation in ELT. Oxford. Blackwell.

Worthen, B.R. and J.R.Sanders. 1973. Theory and Practice of Educational

Evaluation. Belmont CA: Wadsworth



Rohana R. Wasala