Professor Jack C. Richards

The official website of educator Jack C Richards

Specific Method or Eclectic Approach

Question:

Submitted by Hanene Turqui, Algeria

Should a teacher to implement a specific method or adopt a more eclectic approach?

Professor Richards Responds:

Many different approaches and methods have been adopted at different times in language teaching. Perhaps the quest for more effective methods in language teaching reflects the fact that large-scale language programmes seldom meet the expectations of learners, employers and educational planners. Hence new language teaching proposals typically claim to be more effective than the ones they replace. However the adoption of new curriculum innovations in teaching is dependent upon a number of factors. These include:

  • the extent to which an approach or method is officially adopted by educational authorities and educational organizations,
  • the support it receives by authority figures or experts, such as academics and educational specialists,
  • the extent to which it can provide the basis for educational resources, such as textbooks and educational software,
  • the ease with which it can be understood and used by teachers;
  • and the extent to which it aligns with national curriculum and assessment guidelines.

During their initial teacher training, teachers are often introduced to different teaching methods and approaches. It is sometimes suggested that they should pick and choose, or blend different methods, when they start teaching. In fact, method decisions are often made for them. If they teach in a private institute and are teaching courses in general English, it is likely that they will teach from a commercial textbook series based on the communicative approach. If they are teaching English for specific purposes (ESP) or English for academic purposes (EAP), they may find that the course is organized around skills, text types or project work – in which case, they will need to learn how to teach within the chosen framework. If they are preparing students for content classes taught in English, a content-based approach is likely to be recommended. And if they teach a course in a particular skill area, such as a reading course or a conversation course, they will need to familiarize themselves with the approaches and methods that are typically used in these types of courses.

Despite the differences in how course designers, materials’ writers and teachers approach how they plan and organize their teaching, once lessons begin, plans are transformed through the interactions between teachers and students during the lesson . Through these processes, teachers create lessons that are right for the moment, but which might not be right for the next lesson they teach. Allwright stated this forcefully many years ago when he wrote (1988: 51):

The method probably doesn’t matter very much … but what happens in the classroom still must matter. All the research so far has involved the implicit assumption that what is really happening in the classroom is simply that some particular method or technique is being used, and that more or less efficient learning might be taking place accordingly. It is however clear that much more is happening. People are interacting in a multiplicity of complex ways … We need studies of what actually happens – not of what recognisable teaching methods, strategies or techniques are employed by the teacher, but of what really happens between teacher and class.

In addition, teaching is ‘situated’; that is, it reflects the contexts in which it occurs, and, for this reason, there can be no ‘best method’ of teaching. Dogancay-Aktuna and Hardman (2012: 113) thus conclude:

One cannot identify a ‘best practice’, even for a given context. The situatedness of language teaching involves not just the matching of particular pedagogies with particular settings, but seeing good pedagogy as emergent from those settings.

The next chapter will examine the knowledge and skills teachers need to develop, in order both to match appropriate approaches to their settings and to reflect on and refine their pedagogy as they teach.

  • Allwright, D. (1988) Observation in the Language Classroom, London: Longman.
  • Dogancay, Aktuna, S. and_Hardman, J.(_2012_).‘Teacher_education for EIL:_ Working toward a situated meta-praxis’. In A. Matsuda (ed.) Principles and Practices of Teaching English as an International Language, Bristol: Multilingual Matters, pp. 103–118.
In the classroom, Questions & Answers, Teaching

Interaction in Learning a Second Language

Question:

Submitted by Benmenni Imene, Algeria

What is the effect of interaction in learning a second language?

Professor Richards Responds:

A learning theory that has had considerable influence on language teaching is interactional theory – a social view of language acquisition that focuses on the nature of the interaction that occurs between a language learner and others he or she interacts with, and how such communication facilitates second language acquisition. Communicative language teaching and Task-Based Teaching both reflect this view of learning. Interaction is said to facilitate language learning in a number of ways:

Modification of input
At the core of the theory of language learning as an interactive process is the view that communication can be achieved between a second language learner and a more proficient language user (e.g. a native-speaker) only if the more proficient user modifies the difficulty of the language they use. If the input is too difficult or complex, of course, it may lead to communication breakdown. Therefore, when communicating with learners with limited English proficiency, speakers will typically modify their input by using known vocabulary, speaking more slowly, saying things in different ways, adjusting the topic, avoiding idioms, using a slower rate of speech, using stress on key words, repeating key elements, using simpler grammatical structures, paraphrasing and elaborating. In this way, the input better facilitates both understanding as well as learning.

The following are strategies that can be used to facilitate comprehension:

Negotiation of meaning
This refers to meaning that is arrived at through the collaboration of both people involved. This negotiation may take several forms:

  • The meaning may be realized through several exchanges, or turns, rather than in a single exchange.
  • One speaker may expand on what the other has said.
  • One speaker may provide words or expressions the other needs.
  • One person may ask questions to clarify what the other has said.

Interactions of this kind are believed to facilitate language acquisition, evidence for which may be seen both in short term as well as longer-term improvements in grammatical accuracy.

Repairing misunderstanding
If the learner is to succeed in communicating with others, despite limitations in his or her language proficiency, he or she needs to be able to manage the process of communication in a way that deals with communication difficulties. This can be achieved through the use of communication strategies such as the following:

  • Indicating that he or she has misunderstood something.
  • Repeating something the other person has said, to confirm understanding.
  • Restating something, to clarify meaning.
  • Asking the other person to repeat.
  • Asking the other person for clarification.
  • Repeating a word or phrase that was misunderstood.

In interactional theory, the learner’s ability to pay attention and request feedback is considered an essential feature of successful second language learning.

Modifying input
A feature of interactions between native speakers (or advanced language users) and second language learners is modification of the native-speaker’s language to facilitate comprehension. Modification of “input” is often seen in interactions like these:

  • Clerk to customer: You need to fill in the form. The form. You need to fill it in. Write here, please.
  • Adult to visitor: Which part of Japan are you from? Are you from Tokyo?
  • Supervisor to factory worker: You start this one first. Finish. Then you see me.
  • Advanced-level learner to lower-level learner: You need to review your essay before you hand it in – you know, go through and check the spelling and the organization carefully.

When people communicate with learners who have a very limited level of proficiency in a second language, they often use strategies of this kind, using a form of communication sometimes referred to as ‘foreigner talk’. Other examples of this kind of modified talk are known as teacher talk, and caretaker talk (e.g. the interaction between a parent and a very young child). Similarly, when a learner interacts with a person who is a more advanced language user, the input the advanced user provides often helps the learner expand his or her language resources. For example, the reformulation of the learner’s utterance may draw attention to, or help the learner notice, features of the language, as we see in these exchanges between a student and a teacher:

S: I’m going away for weekend.
T: You’re going away for the weekend?
S: Yes, away for the weekend.

T: What did you buy at the sale?
S: I bought it. This bag.
T: Oh, you bought this bag? It’s nice.
S: Yes, I bought this bag.

S: Last week, I go away.
T: Oh, you went away last week?
S: Yes, I went away.

Negotiation of meaning often occurs spontaneously as well. For example, the following negotiation of meaning was observed between a learner and a native speaker: the learner wished to express that she lived in a shared apartment near the campus with two other students.

S1: So, where are you staying now?
S2: Staying an apartment. Together some friends.
S1: That’s nice. How many of you?
S2: Staying with three friend. Sharing with Nada and Anna. Very near.
S1: It’s near here? Near the campus?
S2: Yes, it’s near the campus. On Forbes street.

Repeated opportunities to communicate in this way are said to provide opportunities for learners to expand their language resources and are often used with communicative approaches to teaching.

Language learning, Questions & Answers

Drills in Language Teaching

Question:

Submitted by Sopich Pin, Cambodia

Do drills still have a place in language teaching today?

Professor Richards Responds:

It is useful to distinguish between three different kinds of practice in teaching – mechanical, meaningful, and communicative.

Mechanical practice refers to a controlled practice activity which students can successfully carry out without necessarily understanding the language they are using. Examples of this kind of activity would be repetition drills and substitution drills designed to practice use of particular grammatical or other items. Activities of this kind are of limited value in developing communicative language use.

Meaningful practice refers to an activity where language control is still provided but where students are required to make meaningful choices when carrying out practice. For example, in order to practice the use of prepositions to describe locations of places, students might be given a street map with various buildings identified in different locations. They are also given a list of prepositions such as across from, on the corner of, near, on, next to. They then have to answer questions such as “Where is the book shop? Where is the café?” Etc. The practice is now meaningful because they have to respond according to the location of places on the map.

Communicative practice refers to activities where practice in using language within a real communicative context is the focus, where real information is exchanged, and where the language used is not totally predictable. For example students might have to draw a map of their neighborhood and answer questions about the location of different places in their neighborhood, such as the nearest bus stop, the nearest café, etc.

Exercise sequences in many communicative course book take students from mechanical, to meaningful to communicative practice but give priority to meaningful and communicative practice.

In the classroom, Questions & Answers, Teaching

What is CBLT?

Question:

Submitted by Luc Danon from Cote D’ivoire

What is CBLT? What are its didactic implications?

Dr Richards responds:

Competency-based instruction is an approach to the planning and delivery of courses that has been in widespread use since the 1970s. What characterizes a competency-based approach is the focus on the outcomes of learning, as the driving force of teaching and the curriculum. The application of its principles to language teaching is called competency-based language teaching. Because this approach seeks to teach the skills needed to perform real-world tasks, it became widely used, from the 1980s, as the basis for many English language programmes for immigrants and refugees, as well as for work-related courses of many different kinds. It is an approach that has been the foundation for the design of work-related and survival-oriented language teaching programmes for adults. It seeks to teach students the basic skills they need in order to prepare them for situations they commonly encounter in everyday life. Recently, competency-based frameworks have become adopted in many countries, particularly for vocational and technical education. They are also increasingly being adopted in national language curriculums.

CBLT is often used in programmes that focus on learners with very specific language needs. In such cases, rather than seeking to teach general English, the specific language skills needed to function in a specific context is the focus. This is similar, then, to an ESP approach. There, too, the starting point in course planning is an identification of the tasks the learner will need to carry out within a specific setting and the language demands of those tasks. (The Common European Framework of Reference also describes learning outcomes in terms of competencies). The competencies needed for successful task performance are then identified, and used as the basis for course planning. Teaching methods used may vary, but typically are skill-based, since the focus is on developing the ability to use language to carry out real-world activities.

In the classroom, Language learning, Questions & Answers, Teaching

Intercultural Communicative Competence

Question:

Submitted by Symbat from Kazakhstan

What do you think is the significance of Intercultural Communicative Competence? And why is it important in ELT?

Dr Richards responds:

From the viewpoint of English as an international language, the goal of English teaching is not merely to develop communicative skills in English. Second language learning provides ‘the opportunity for emancipation from the confines of learners’ native habits and culture, with the development of new perceptions into foreign and native cultures alike. Learning English thus becomes an opportunity to compare cultures, and for learners to validate their own cultural and linguistic heritages.

Language learning, Questions & Answers

How should I manage a discussion class?

Question:

Submitted by Nafas from Iran

How should I manage a discussion class, in an intermediate level?

Dr Richards responds:

Approaches to teaching discussion skills centre on addressing the following issues :

• Choosing topics: Topics may be chosen by students or assigned by the teacher. Both options offer different possibilities for student involvement.
• Forming groups: Small groups of four to five allow for more active participation, and care is needed to establish groups of compatible participants. For some tasks, roles may be assigned (e.g. group leader, note-taker, observer).
• Preparing for discussions: Before groups are assigned a task, it may be necessary to review background knowledge, assign information-gathering tasks (e.g. watching a video) and teach some of the specific ways students can present a viewpoint, interrupt, disagree politely, etc.
• Giving guidelines: The parameters for the discussion should be clear so that students are clear how long the discussion will last, what the expected outcomes are, roles of participants, expectations for student input and acceptable styles of interaction.
• Evaluating discussions: Both the teacher and the students can be involved in reflection on discussions. The teacher may want to focus on the amount and quality of input from participants and give suggestions for improvement. Some review of language used may be useful at this point. Students may comment on their own performance and difficulties they experienced and give suggestions for future discussions.

In the classroom, Questions & Answers, Teaching

How can you define strategy instruction?

Question:

Submitted by Nadjet Khenioui from Algeria

How can you define strategy instruction? And in what ways is it beneficial for university students?

Dr Richards responds:

Language learning strategies can be defined as thoughts and actions, consciously selected by learners, to assist them in learning and using language in general, and in the completion of specific language tasks. However, learning strategies have a broader role in language learning and suggest an active role for learners in managing their own learning – one that may be used in conjunction with, or independently from, the method or approach the teacher is using.

The relevance of strategy theory to teaching is that some strategies are likely to be more effective than others, and by recognizing the differences between the strategies used by expert and novice language learners or between successful and less successful learners, the effectiveness of teaching and learning can be improved. Methods and approaches implicitly or explicitly require the use of specific learning strategies; however, the focus of much strategy research is on self-managed strategies that may be independent of those favored by a particular method. In order to give learners a better understanding of the nature of strategies and to help them develop effective strategy use, four issues need to be addressed:

1. Raising awareness of the strategies learners are already using

2. Presenting and modelling strategies so that learners become increasingly aware of their own thinking and learning processes

3. Providing multiple practice opportunities to help learners move toward autonomous use of the strategies through gradual withdrawal of teacher scaffolding, and

4. Getting learners to evaluate the effectiveness of the strategies used and any efforts that they have made to transfer these strategies to new tasks.

In teaching strategies both direct and indirect strategies are used. With a direct approach, strategy training is a feature of a normal language lesson and a training session includes five stages: preparation, presentation, practice, evaluation, and expansion.

The notion of strategies is relevant to learners at all levels.

In the classroom, Questions & Answers, Teaching

Giving Verbal Feedback

Question:

Submitted by Mehdi Mahdiyan, Iran

I have been teaching English for ten years. In my classes, I often notice while giving the students verbal feedback in guided speaking tasks, they don’t react positively. I think they don’t want to be corrected by me. However, when I use their mother tongue (Persian) for giving feedback, they react less negatively. Can you comment?

Dr Richards responds:

Two issues are relevant here. One is anxiety and the other is willingness to communicate.
Anxiety is a product of many language learning and language using situations and has an obvious impact on learners’ learning/and or production of a second language (Horwitz 2010) and on their response to feedback. For example when a learner tries to use English or makes errors and is corrected, issues of face are involved: How will I appear to others? Will I come across as awkward? What will they think of my English?

In lessons the learner may also be concerned about his or her understanding of how the class functions, how typical classroom tasks such as group work, unfold, what his or her role should be in the class, and whether he or she has correctly understood the teachers’ intentions. And when the learner has to answer a question or perform an activity in front of the class he or she may be worried about how well he or she may respond. Will I do it correctly? Can I give the correct answer? Anxiety can thus influence how willing a learner is to use his or her English, to take risks, or to speak up in class. Anxiety is thus a factor that can affect a learner’s willingness to use English both inside the classroom and outside it and how the learner responds to feedback. Use of the mother tongue may lower the anxiety level.

In teaching English it is therefore important to consider the emotional demands that learning a language involves – both during in class and out of class occasions – and to help students develop the emotional skills needed to use English in both these situation.

Another issue that can affect students’ classroom participation is their willingness to attempt to use English in the classroom (MacIntyre 2007: Peng and Woodrow 2010), a factor that has been linked to variables such as personality, self-confidence, attitudes and motivation and is linked to anxiety as well as learners’ views of their own communicative competence.

“ …learners who have higher perceptions of their communication competence and experience a lower level of communication anxiety tend to be more willing to initiate communication”(Peng and Woodrow 2010, 836). However other situational factors are also involved, such as topic, task, group size, and cultural background. For example in some cultures, students may be more willing to communicate or accept feedback in front of their peers in the classroom than in other cultures. A student may believe that if he or she speaks up in class this may not be valued by other students since it is judged as “showing off” and an attempt to make other students look weak. And if students are very exam oriented and do not see that communicative activities will help them pass an exam they may have little motivation to communicate in a communication-oriented class.
Horwitz, Elaine 2010. Foreign and second language anxiety. Language teaching, 43 (2), 154-167.
MacIntyre,P.D. 2007. Willingness to communicate in the second language: Understanding the decision to speak as a volitional process. Modern Language Journal, 91 (4),564-576.
Peng Jian-E and Lindy Woodrow. 2010. Willingness to communicate in English. Language Learning, 60 (4), 834-876.

In the classroom, Questions & Answers, Teaching

Content of FLteacher Education courses

Question:

Submitted by Nafise, Iran

What would be the content of in-service FLteacher education courses?

Dr Richards responds:

Teacher development seeks to facilitate growth of the teacher’s general understanding of teaching and of himself or herself as a teacher. It often involves examining different dimensions of one’s own practice as a basis for reflective review, and hence can be seen as practitioner-driven. It typically meant mastering the discipline of applied linguistics and developing a more advanced and theory-based body of knowledge not linked to a specific teaching context. Qualifications in teacher development, typically the MA degree, were offered by universities, where the practical skills of language teaching were often undervalued. After teachers have been teaching for some time, however, their knowledge and skills sometimes become outdated or there may be a lack of fit between the skills the teacher possesses and what the school needs. For example, a teacher may have to take on more difficult tasks for which he or she has not received any formal training, such as the preparation of tests, or as a result of staff changes, the teacher may have to take on new assignments that were not previously part of his or her teaching; or a key staff member may leave and his or her teaching may have to be taken over by others, none of whom share the teacher’s specialization. Qualifications too soon become outdated as a result of changes in the field of TESOL.
The most practical response to this situation is for the school to provide the means by which teachers can acquire the knowledge and skills they need. Here, teacher development is primarily conceived in terms of the needs of the institution. Because it refers to developmental activities within a school or institution, it is usually referred to as “staff development” and often takes the form of in-service training. However other forms of development may also be needed that the school cannot provide. Some teachers may be quite competent but lack a professional qualification such as the CELTA – a certificate level qualification. Others may have been teaching for some time and seek to take a more advanced qualification, perhaps the DELTA or an MA in TESOL either part time or by distance, to enable them to take on more senior roles in the school. Enabling teachers to participate in staff development as well as to acquire professional qualifications directly or indirectly enhances the performance of the institution as a whole as well as to contributes to the teacher’s individual development.

Consequently, opportunities for professional development should be provided for all staff. A program coordinator may well need to complete a master’s degree in TESOL, but a newly hired teacher may also need training in how to assess student learning. Both needs are equally important because the success of a school program may well depend on both the strengths of its curriculum and the teaching skills of its junior staff. They are both part of the process of institutional development. The content of an in-service course will depend on the needs of the teachers in the institution, but may include:

  • Disciplinary knowledge: understanding of the disciplinary basis of TESOL, those areas of applied linguistics and that define the professional knowledge base of language teaching.
  • Pedagogical expertise. Mastery of new areas of teaching, adding to one’s repertoire of teaching specializations, improving ability to teach different skill areas to learners of different ages and backgrounds.
  • Understanding of learners. Deepening understanding of learners, learning styles, learners’ problems and difficulties, ways of making content more accessible to learners.
  • Understanding of curriculum and materials. Deepening one’s understanding of curriculum and curriculum initiatives, use and development of instructional materials.
  • Research skills. Knowledge of reach approaches used to investigate one’s own classroom practices and to conduct small-scale classroom research.
  • Career advancement. Acquisition of knowledge and expertise necessary for personal advancement, including mentoring and supervisory skills.
Questions & Answers, Teacher education

Teaching Methodology

Question:

Submitted by Shifera, Ethiopia

Can I Define Teaching Methodology in terms of  teacher role, learner role, teaching materials, teaching objectives?

Dr Richards Responds:

In developing a framework for a course the core principles that serve to support the teaching and learning processes need to be clearly articulated. The goal is to develop a coherent set of principles that reflect how teaching and learning should be approached in the course. This results in a statement of the “teaching philosophy” of the course and serves as the basis for decisions about classroom methodology. The following statements describe the teaching philosophy supporting a secondary school EFL English program:

  • There is a consistent focus throughout on learning English in order to develop practical and functional skills, rather than as an end in itself.
  • Students are engaged in practical tasks that relate to real-world uses of English
  • Realistic and communicative uses of English are given priority.
  • Maximum use is made of pair and group activities in which students complete tasks collaboratively
  • There is an appropriate balance between accuracy-focussed and fluency-focussed activities
  • Teachers serve as facilitators of learning rather than presenters of information
  • Assessment procedures reflect and support a communicative and skill-based orientation to teaching and learning.
  • Students develop an awareness of the learning process and their own learning styles, strengths, and weaknesses
  • Students develop the ability to monitor their own learning progress and ways of setting personal goals for language improvement.

Thus we can see from the above that methodology reflects the philosophy of the course, the goals of the course, the teacher’s principles, the kinds of activities that will be used as well as the role of teachers, learners, and materials in the teaching process.

Questions & Answers, Teaching

Characteristics of a language teaching method

Question:

Submitted by Fer, Eduador

What are the characteristics of a language teaching method?

Dr Richards responds:

All instructional designs for the teaching of a second or foreign language draw on a number of sources for the principles and practices they advocate. For example they generally make explicit or implicit use of:

  • A theory of language: an account of what the essential components of language are and what proficiency or competence in a language entails
  • A theory of learning: an account of the psycholinguistic, cognitive and social processes involved in learning a language and the conditions that need to be present for these processes to be activated Both the theory of language and language learning underlying an instructional design results in the development of principles that can serve to guide the process of teaching and learning. Different instructional designs in language teaching often reflect very different understandings of the nature language and of language learning, as we will see below. The particular theory of language and language learning underlying an instructional design in turn leads to further levels of specification. For example:
  • Learning objectives: what the goals of teaching and learning will be
  • The syllabus: what the primary units of organization for a language course will consist of
  • Teacher and learner roles: what roles teachers and learners are expected to play in the classroom
  • Activities: the kinds of classroom activities and techniques that are recommended.

When an instructional design is quite explicit at the level of theory of language and learning but can be applied in many different ways at the levels of objectives, teacher and learner role and activities it is usually referred to as an approach. Communicative Language Teaching is generally regarded as an approach because the principles underlying it can be applied in many different way. Teachers adopting an approach have considerable flexibility in how they apply the principles to their own contexts. When an instructional design includes a specific level of application in terms of objectives, teacher and learner roles, and classroom activities it is referred to as a method. With a method there are prescribed objectives, roles for teacher and learners, and activities and consequently little flexibility for teachers in how the method is used. The teacher’s role is to implement the method. Audiliolingualism and Situational Language Teaching are examples of methods. The era of methods in this sense is often said to have lasted until the 1990s, by which time researchers and applied linguists shifted the focus to teachers and the process of teaching rather than methods. They suggested that while teachers may draw on principles and practices from approaches and methods they have studied or been trained in, once they enter the classrooms and develop experience in teaching their practice is much more likely to reflect an interaction between training-based knowledge, knowledge and beliefs derived from the practical experience of teaching, and their own teaching philosophy and principles. This is known as the theorization of practice.

Questions & Answers, Teaching

Definition of Grammar

Question:

Submitted by Nur, Indonesia

Would you please tell me your definition of grammar?

Dr Richards Responds:

There are two dimensions to grammatical knowledge (also known as grammatical or linguistic competence) that are central in second language learning and teaching:

  • knowing how to use the grammatical system of a language to create sentences
  • knowing how to use the grammatical resources of a language as part of the processes used in creating spoken and written texts

The system of rules used to create sentences refers to the knowledge of parts of speech, tenses, phrases, clauses and syntactic structures used to create grammatically well-formed sentences in English. The rules for constructing grammatically correct sentences belong to “sentence grammar”. This is the kind of grammar that is the focus of many grammar reference books and grammar practice books for students.

Older approaches to grammar teaching and the design of course books reflected a view of language that saw the sentence and sentence grammar as forming the building blocks of language, language learning, and language use.  The goal of language teaching was to understand how sentences are used to create different kinds of meaning, to master the underlying rules for forming sentences from lower-level grammatical units such as phrases and clauses, and to practice using them as the basis for written and spoken communication. Syllabuses were essentially grammar-based and grammar was a primary focus of teaching techniques. Correct language use was achieved through a drill and practice methodology and through controlled speaking and writing exercises that sought to prevent or minimize opportunities for errors.

However learners also need to know another kind of grammar, and that is the grammar that is used when sentences are connected in longer stretches of discourse to create texts . Knowledge of the grammar that is used to create texts can be called text-grammar. For example here is information about the past tense and other grammatical features that are used in recount texts:

Recounts are either personal recounts, factual recounts or imaginative recounts. Personal recounts usually retell an event that the writer was personal involved in. Factual recounts record an incident, e.g. a science experiment, a police report. Imaginative recounts describe an imaginary role and give details of imaginary events – e.g. a day in the life of a pirate.

Grammatical features of recounts:

  • Written in the past tense
  • Frequent use made of verbs which link events in time, such as when, next, later, after, before, first, at the same time, as soon as
  • Recounts describe events so make frequent use of verbs (action words) and adverbs (which describe and add more detail to verbs)
  • Use of personal pronouns (Personal recount)
  • Passive voice may be used (Factual recount)

Grammar can therefore be understood as a resource people make use of to create discourse that is grammatically appropriate at both the level of the sentence and the text. While vocabulary can be thought of as the units that describe people and places, concepts, topics, states, events, relationships, and actions, grammar can be thought of as the resources we use to package words into sentences and texts according to the  grammatical conventions of our language.  However much of a person’s knowledge of grammar is implicit rather than explicit. When learning a second language, knowing “about” rules of grammar does not necessarily translate into being able to draw on grammatical knowledge in communication, and this is one of the dilemmas that arise in relation to grammar instruction. Traditional approaches to language teaching often assumed that the more students knew about the grammar of English, the better they would be able to use it, but unfortunately this is not the case.

Contemporary approaches to grammar describe grammatical knowledge and grammatical systems in terms of the way people actually use the language, not the way they “should use” it. Describing grammar in terms of how people “should” speak is known as prescriptive grammar. Prescriptive grammar is often based on the features of written language and typically written language as it was described several generations ago. Language teaching courses and published materials today generally seek to present grammar as it is actually used by speakers of English, often based on the study of authentic language use and information from corpus research. But because the grammatical resources of English are often very different from the grammatical resources used in the learner’s native language, mastery of grammar presents a significant challenge for many language learners.

Grammar, Questions & Answers

How can ZPD notion influence language teaching?

Question:

submitted by Trinh le, Vietnam

How can ZPD notion influence language teaching? Can you give me an example?

Dr Richards Responds:

An important aspect of sociocultural theory is the notion of mediated learning. Essentially this suggests that learning relies on the transmitted experiences of others. Initially, learners depend on others with more experience than themselves and gradually take on more responsibility for their own learning in joint activity. This is sometimes described as a process of guided participation as learning is mediated through the guidance of a more knowledgeable other. Through repeated participation in a variety of joint activities the novice gradually develops new knowledge and skills. The process involved is often referred to as scaffolding.

Scaffolding refers to learning that results from two or more people interacting during the process of completing a classroom activity or during any setting where language is being used, and where one person (e.g. the teacher or another learner) has more advanced knowledge than the other (the learner). During the process discourse is jointly created through assisted or mediated performance. For example in a classroom setting the teacher assists the learners in completing learning activities by observing what they are capable of, providing a series of guided stages through the task, and through collaborative dialogue, scaffolding the learning process by initially providing support (the “scaffold”) and gradually removing support as learning develops. Learning is initially mediated and directed by the teacher or other more advanced learners and is gradually appropriated by the individual learner.  Throughout, the teacher provides opportunities for noticing how language is used, experimenting with language use, practicing new modes of discourse and restructuring existing language knowledge – essential aspects of teaching.

Here is an example of how this process takes place in which the interactions between an ESL tutor in a US college program and a student during feedback sessions on the student’s essay writing are described. The strategies the tutor used in responding to grammatical errors in the student’s composition are summarized as follows and arranged according to whether they reflect independent functioning on the part of the learner (0), or different degrees of collaborative interaction between the tutor and the learners (stages 1-12):

0.  Tutor asks the learner to read, find the errors, and correct them independently prior to the tutorial.

1.  Construction of a ‘collaborative frame’ prompted by the presence of the tutor as a potential dialogic partner.

2.  Prompted or focused reading of the sentence that contains the error by the learner or the tutor.

3.  Tutor indicates that something may be wrong in the segment (for example, sentence, clause, line) – ‘Is there anything wrong in this sentence?

4.  Tutor rejects unsuccessful attempts at recognizing the error.

5.  Tutor narrows down the location of the error (for example, tutor repeats or points to the specific segment  which contains the error.)

6.  Tutor indicates the nature of the error, but does not identify the error (for example, ‘There is something wrong with the tense here ’).

7.  Tutor identifies error (‘You can’t use an auxiliary here’).

8.  Tutor rejects learner’s unsuccessful attempts at correcting error.

9.  Tutor provides clues to help the learner arrive at the correct form (for example, ‘It is not really past but something that is still going on’).

10.  Tutor provides the correct form.

11.  Tutor provides some explanation for the use of the correct form.

12.  Tutor provides examples of the correct pattern when other forms of help fail to produce an appropriate responsive action.

(Lantolf and Thorne 2006, 278-80)

Central to learning from this perspective is the zone of proximal development, which focuses on the gap between what the learner can currently do and the next stage in learning – the level of potential development – and how learning occurs through negotiation between the learner and a more advanced language user during which a process of scaffolding occurs. To take part in these processes the learner must develop interactional competence, the ability to manage exchanges despite limited language development. Personality, motivation, cognitive style may all play a role in influencing the learners willingness to take risks, his or her openness to social interaction and attitudes towards the target language and users of the target language.

Language learning is facilitated by interactions like the ones above in which the interaction proceeds as a kind of joint problem-solving between teacher and student. During the process the teacher assists the learner in using more complex language through a type of assisted performance, and this is central to how many aspects of language use can be learned. The kind of discourse or talk that that occurs in language classrooms also reflects both the pedagogical strategies the teacher employs (e.g. in trying to facilitate negotiation of meaning, interaction and feedback, or to provide scaffolding for activities) as well as the kind of learning community that develops in the classroom.

Questions & Answers, Teaching

How important is culture in language teaching?

Question:

submitted by Mut Vitou, Cambodia

How important is culture in language teaching?

Dr Richards Responds:

This really depends on what you understand by “culture”. A number of different conceptions of culture have influenced English language teaching:

  • 1. Culture as aesthetics: information about art, literature, theatre, music, architecture etc. in English-speaking countries
  • 2. Culture as social customs: information about the family, home life, customs, leisure activities, interpersonal relations
  • 3. Culture as culturally-laden words and concepts: bank holiday, middle-class, gay, high-tea, afternoon-tea
  • 4. Culture as appropriate forms of interaction: greetings and leave-taking, norms of politeness, strategies for complaints and apologies

Our view of the role of culture in language teaching has changed considerably in recent years. In the past English was often regarded as the property of “native-speakers of English” and of countries where it has the status of a mother tongue or first language for the majority of the population. It was these varieties of English, particularly their standard varieties, that were considered legitimate models to teach to second or foreign language learners. And it was also assumed that English had to be taught in relation to the culture(s) of English speaking countries. Culture as aesthetics and social customs often received an emphasis. This picture has changed somewhat today. Now that English is the language of globalization, international communication, commerce and trade, the media and pop culture, different motivations for learning it come into play. English is no longer viewed as the property of the English-speaking world but is an international commodity. New goals for the learning of English have emerged which include interest in foreign or international affairs, willingness to go overseas to study or work, readiness to interact with intercultural partners, as well other goals such as friendship, travel, and knowledge orientations. The cultural values of Britain and the US are often seen as irrelevant to language teaching, except in situations where the learner has a pragmatic need for such information as might be the case for an international student living in the US, Britain, Australia etc.  who might need to become familiar with culture 2, 3, and 4 above. For a learner using English as a lingua franca (e.g. a person from Japan interacting in English with a person from China) however, none of the definitions of culture described above would be particularly relevant.

Questions & Answers, Teaching

Learner autonomy in language teaching

Question:

submitted by Aaron Stewart, New Zealand

What is the role of learner autonomy in language teaching?

Dr Richards Responds:

Learner autonomy refers to the principle that learners should take a maximum amount of responsibility for what they learn and how they learn it. They should be involved in decisions concerning setting objectives for learning, determining ways and means of learning, and reflecting on and evaluating what they have learned. Autonomous learning is said to make learning more personal and focused and consequently achieve better learning outcomes since learning is based on learners’ needs and preferences. It contrasts with the traditional teacher-led approach in which most decisions are made by the teacher, The use of self-directed learning in a self-access centre is one application of this approach.

Phillip Benson has written a great deal about learner autonomy and describes five principles for achieving autonomous learning:

  • 1 active involvement in student learning
  • 2 providing options and resources
  • 3 offering choices and decision-making opportunities
  • 4 supporting learners
  • 5 encouraging reflection

Other features of autonomous learning are:

  • the teacher becomes less of an instructor and more of a facilitator
  • students are discouraged from relying on the teacher as the main source of knowledge
  • students’ capacity to learn for themselves is encouraged
  • students are encouraged to make decisions about what they learn
  • students’ awareness of the own learning styles is encouraged
  • students are encouraged to develop their own learning strategies

An example of application of the principles of learner autonomy is the Council of Europe’ European Language Portfolio, which is intended to help support autonomous learning on a wide scale. The ELP has three components: a language passport, which summarises the owners’ linguistic identity; a language biography, which provides for a reflective account of the learners experience’ in learning and using the foreign language, and a dossier, in which the learner collects evidence of his or her developing proficiency in the language. The ELP involves regular goal setting and self-assessment.

Critics of the learner autonomy however point out that not all learners may wish to learn in this way or be capable of doing so, and that it reflects a western conception of learning that may be inappropriate in non-western cultures.

Questions & Answers, Teaching

How do textbooks get developed?

Question:

submitted by Dino Mahoney, London

Could you explain how textbooks get developed?

Dr Richards Responds:

Most textbooks are written by experienced teachers in co-operation with editors and consultants who guide the writers through the process of textbook development. Teachers interested in writing textbooks are sometimes under the impression that they should first write the book and then submit it to a publisher. This may happen with authors of novels but rarely happens with educational materials.  In publishing English language teaching materials, particularly those intended for a large market, the following processes are usually involved:

  • A teacher or group of teachers develop a concept for a book, based on their perception that the book they propose has some advantages or unique features that would make it appealing to both teachers and students. They contact a publisher with their proposal.
  • Alternatively a publisher might identify the need for a new book and identify teachers or writers who might be able to write it.

Once a commitment is made to publish the book, the writers work with editors from the publishing company to develop the concept for the book project in more detail. Questions such as the following will be addressed at this stage:

  • What kind of teachers, learners and institutions is the book intended for?
  • What features are they likely to look for in the book?
  • What approach will the book be based on and what principles of teaching and learning will it reflect?
  • How many levels will be involved and at what level will the book or books start and end?
  • How will the material in the book be organized and what kind of syllabus will it be based on?
  • How many units will the book contain and how many classroom hours will be needed to teach it?
  • What ancillaries will be involved, such as teacher book, workbook, tests, audio component, video component, electronic and on-line component and who will develop these?
  • What will the format of units be and what kinds of exercises and activities will be used throughout the book?

As the answers to these questions are clarified the writer or writers will now be in a position to develop a proposal for the book or book series, a preliminary syllabus and unit format for the book and to develop some sample units. The publisher then arranges to have the sample materials reviewed by a large number of people both internally (i.e. editors) and externally (teaches and consultants). Often teachers will be brought together in focus groups to review the materials and often to try it out with their students. This review process may go on several times as different samples are drafted until the specifications for the book have been finalized. Only at this stage can writing begin in earnest. A writing schedule is developed so that the publisher can plan for the different stages in editing, design, and manufacturing that are involved in publishing a book. Development stages: writing a book involves a number of stages of development. Typical stages include:

  • first draft
  • comments on first draft from editors and consultants
  • second draft
  • further comments and revisions
  • try out of the materials or of samples of the materials
  • further revisions
  • manuscript submitted to the publisher

Once the manuscript is submitted it will be assigned to editors who will work closely with the author(s) in fine tuning the materials. The content of the book will be carefully examined to ensure that issues such as the following are addressed:

  • Are the materials comprehensible and the instructions clear?
  • Is the pacing of the material appropriate?
  • Do the materials do what they are supposed to do?
  • Is there sufficient quantity of practice material?
  • Is the book sufficiently engaging and interesting?

A considerable amount of revision and fine-tuning may happen during this period as the manuscript is further developed to the publisher’s standards and specifications. If the book includes art such as illustrations and photographs, decisions about these will have to be made at this stage and specially commissioned. Design: design issues refer to the overall design and organization of the book from cover to cover and the layout of text and art in each page. An effective design is a major factor in the publication of textbooks and a successful design makes the book both appealing to teachers and students and also makes the book easier to use.

The activities described above can take a considerable amount of time to carry out before the book is published – in some cases as many as five years or longer for a major multi-level textbook series. The book is then promoted to teachers and schools and both authors and publishers hope that it will be well received and justify the investment of time and money that was involved in publishing the book or book series.

Questions & Answers, Textbook writing

Advantages and disadvantages of using instructional materials in teaching ESL

Question:

submitted by Matet Balaguer, San José Community College, Philippines

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using instructional materials in teaching ESL?

Dr Richards Responds:

In deciding on teaching materials there are a number of options:

  • Choosing a suitable published course
  • Adapting a published course to match the needs of the course
  • Using teacher-made materials and authentic materials as the basis for the course.

There are a number of advantages to using institutionally derived or teacher derived materials for a course:

  • Relevance: Materials can be produced that are directly relevant to students’ and institutional needs and that reflect local content, issues, and concerns. Develop expertise: Developing materials can help develop expertise among staff, giving them a greater understanding of the characteristics of effective materials.
  • Reputation: Institutionally prepared materials may enhance the reputation of the institution by demonstrating its commitment to providing materials specifically for its students.
  • Flexibility: Materials produced within the institution can be revised or adapted as needed, giving them greater flexibility than a commercial course book.

However there are also potential disadvantages:

  • Cost: Quality materials take time to produce and adequate staff time as well as resources need to be allocated.
  • Quality: Teacher-made materials will not normally have the same standard of design and production as commercial materials and hence may not present the same image as commercial materials.
  • Training: To prepare teachers for materials writing projects, adequate training is necessary. Materials writing is a specialized skill and not all teachers area capable of writing good materials.

In many situations textbooks form the basis of the curriculum in language programs. Provided there is a good degree of fit between the textbook and the teaching context teachers use textbooks to provide the major source of input and direction to their teaching. Thus does not necessarily mean that the teacher plays a secondary role in the teaching process since teachers normally improvise around their teaching materials, moving back and forth between book-based input and teacher-initiated input. Hence even though a teacher may teach the same lesson from a textbook many times, each time he or she teaches it becomes a different lesson due to the improvisations the teacher initiates during teaching. These may result from on-the-spot decisions relating to timing, affective factors, and responses to learner difficulties. Experienced teachers hence use textbooks flexibly as a teaching resource.

Sometimes however adaptation may be required to reflect the needs of a specific teaching context. Various forms of adaptation are possible:

  • Adding material to address an examination requirement: sometimes supplementary material may need to be added to address the requirements of a specific institutional or other exam. For example the reading component of an institutional text may make use of multiple-choice questions rather than the kinds of comprehension tasks found in a course book, so extra material to practice using multiple-choice questions may be needed.
  • Extending to provide additional practice: a book unit has a limited number of pages and at times the teacher may feel additional practice of grammar, vocabulary or skills is required and sources additional materials to supplement the book.
  • Localizing: an activity in the book may be more effective if it is modified to reflect local issues and content rather than the content that is discussed in the coursebook Localization also involves adapting or supplementing an activity to address the specific needs of a group of learners. For example pronunciation problems might reflect interference form the students’ first language and these might not be covered in the book. Additional activities can be added to address problems specific to the  learners.
  • Modifying content: Content may need to be changed because it does not suit the target learners, perhaps because of the learners’ age, gender, social background, occupation, religion or cultural background.
  • Reorganizing content: A teacher may decide to reorganize the syllabus of the book, and arrange the units in what she or he considers a more suitable order. Or within a unit the teacher may decide not to follow the sequence of activities in the unit but to reorganize them for a particular reason.
  • Modifying tasks: Exercises and activities may need to be changed to give them an additional focus. For example, a listening activity may focus only on listening for information, so it adapted so that students listen a second or third time for a different purpose. An activity may be extended to provide opportunities for more personalized practice. Or some exercises within a sequence may be dropped.

While in many cases a book may work perfectly well without the need for much adaptation, in some cases different levels of adaptation may be needed. Through the process of adaptation the teacher personalize the text, making it a better teaching resource, and individualizes it for a particular group of learners. Normally this process takes place gradually as the teacher becomes more familiar with the book because the dimensions of the text that need adaptation may not be apparent until the book is tried out in the classroom.

Questions & Answers, Teaching

Motivating students

Question:

submitted by Jessy Hernandez, State University, Mexico

I have been working with law students in Mexico who think English is difficult, boring and unnecessary to learn. I haven’t found a good way to  motivate them. Can you give me a tip, please?

Dr Richards Responds:

There are no simple tips to address this kind of situation. If there were you would no doubt have managed to sort it out by yourself. However I recommend an excellent book on motivation in the language classroom:

In the classroom, Questions & Answers, Teaching

Does reading aloud help children to acquire language?

Question:

submitted by Samantha Quintana, Copei-Casa Grande University, Ecuador

Do you consider that using reading aloud would help children to acquire better the language? How important is it?

Dr Richards Responds:

In considering the role of reading aloud we need to consider it in relation to the context in which it is being used. In the case of teaching reading skills per se, reading aloud can lead to inefficient reading strategies. A good reader reads silently without vocalizing the words he or she reads. Reading aloud encourages learners to vocalize words as they read and sends the message that every word is equally important in a text: it discourages skimming, scanning, reading for main ideas and so on.

However when working with other skills (e.g. speaking and listening), reading aloud can help students focus on problematic features of their English (e.g. such as pronouncing final consonants, linking sounds etc.) So sometimes I ask students to look a text, find examples of consonant clusters, linked sounds, final consonants etc, and then to read the text aloud to focus on these sounds. In pairs students also take turns reading a short text aloud, monitoring their partner’s production of certain sounds. This activity has nothing to do with reading per se but is a speaking activity, using a written text as a source of input.

Questions & Answers, Teaching

Gap between ESL & EFL

Question:

submitted by Policarpio Cañari, Colegio Real, Barranquilla Colombia

Since the world is changing really fast and we have more and more access to real resources on the net, such as online captioned videos, interviews,  magazine and newspaper articles, don’t you think the gap between ESL and  EFL should be narrowed, or disappear and think of just English as a global  language?

Dr Richards Responds:

Your question raises a number of issues. First a note on terminology, since the terms ESL and EFL are used differently in different places. In Canada and the US, ESL often refers to English programs for immigrants. These programs focus on the language skills immigrants need to survive in their new English-language based environment. There are many textbooks written just for these kinds of learners and they are not normally used outside of the contexts they were developed for. Traditionally ESL/EFL was also used to describe the difference between English in countries where English is a widely used language (e.g. India, Nigeria, Singapore) and those where it is not and where it has usually been called a “foreign language”, e.g. Columbia, Japan, Germany.

However one of the major functions English fulfils in today’s world is a “link language” or “lingua franca”, that is, as means of communication between people who have no other shared language. This of course is the case for many people when English is used between Americans and Japanese or between Australians and Indonesians. It is also the case of Japanese speakers using English to communicate with speakers of Chinese Language, French or German. It is the case of Germans using English to communicate with Russians or Japanese speakers, of Italians learning English to speak communicate mainly with people who speak another European language, such as Polish or Dutch. Increasingly around the world English is used for communicating in circumstances like these, where it functions as a “lingua franca” or “common language” between people who have no other common language. The terms English as an International Language  (EIL) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) have been used to describe the use of English in these situations.

The concept of English as an international language (or lingua franca) has a number of important implications for English teaching. In the past English was often regarded as the property of “native-speakers of English” and of countries where it has the status of a mother tongue or first language for the majority of the population. It was these varieties of English, particularly their standard varieties, that were considered legitimate models to teach to second or foreign language learners. And it was also assumed that English had to be taught in relation to the culture(s) of English speaking countries. This picture has changed somewhat today. Now that English is the language of globalization, international communication, commerce and trade, the media and pop culture, different motivations for learning it come into play. English is no longer viewed as the property of the English-speaking world but is an international commodity. New goals for the learning of English have emerged which include interest in foreign or international affairs, willingness to go overseas to study or work, readiness to interact with intercultural partners … and a non-ethnocentric attitude toward different cultures as well  other goals such as friendship, travel, and knowledge orientations . The cultural values of Britain and the US are often seen as irrelevant to language teaching, except in situations where the learner has a pragmatic need for such information. English is still promoted as a tool that will assist with educational and economic advancement but is viewed in many parts of the world as one that can be acquired without any of the cultural trappings that go with it.  Proficiency in English is needed for employees to advance in international companies and improve their technical knowledge and skills. It provides a foundation for what has been called “process skills” – those problem-solving and critical-thinking skills that are needed to cope with the rapidly changing environment of the workplace, one where English plays an increasingly important role.

In the past it was taken for granted that the variety of English learners needed to master was a native-speaker variety of English. In Europe, due to its proximity to Britain, British English was usually the model presented in teaching materials. In many other parts of the world American English (or more correctly, north American English since Canadian and US English are similar to most learners) was normally the target. In some places (e.g. Indonesia) learners are more likely to encounter Australian English, and this may be the variety of English they feel most comfortable learning.  However in recent years there has been a growing demand for a north American variety of English, particularly among young people for whom “American English” is “cool” and the variety they associate with popular culture, movies, TV and the internet. It more closely resembles their “idea” of English.

There are two schools of thought concerning how closely learners should try to approximate native-speaker usage when learning English. The traditional view is that mastery of English means mastering a native-speaker variety of English. The presence of a foreign accent, influenced by the learner’s mother tongue, was considered as a sign of incomplete learning. Teaching materials presented exclusively native speaker models –usually speaking with a standard or prestige accent – as learning targets. The second school of thought is that when English is regarded as an international language, speakers may wish to preserve markers of their cultural identity through the way they speak English, as we observed above.  In such cases learners may regard a French, Italian, Russian or Spanish accent in their English as something they do not want to lose. This is a question of personal choice for learners and teachers should therefore not assume that learners always want to master a native-speaker accent when they learn English. As one learner puts it, “I am Korean, so why should I try to sound like an American?”

Questions & Answers