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In looking at the problem of the weaker language learner, a number of questions have to be posed before we can begin to try and help. First of all, is there is such a thing as a monolithic weak language learner? In other words, is there something inherently similar in the language processes of learners who fail to learn a second language well ("well" meaning as well as others whom we consider to be "good" or "satisfactory" language learners)? It seems a fair assumption that weaker language learners do have something in common, otherwise we would have to treat each learner as an individual case requiring his/her own teaching plan geared to his/her own psychological needs. In the same way that human beings have similar processes for learning language (even if we don’t yet fully understand what those processes are), we can assume that bad language learners have something in common, even if we don’t yet know what that is.
Secondly, we have to ask whether weaker language learners are weaker learners only of language or whether they are weaker learners in other fields as well. Very often we find the latter to be the case, so that the concern is with educational systems as much as with language methodology. Yet this is by no means universal; often a student has a "language block" while having no particular problems with other subjects.
The most interesting question - and one that has a direct bearing on any possible solutions - is why weaker learners actually exist. If this seems a strange question, it is posed in the light of "learner-centered" methodology in which the individual learner supposedly learns according to the system that best suits him/her. Yet, not only do weak learners still exist despite all the work done in the field, but we would find it difficult to point to any rising of standards as far as language learning is concerned.
What is being done nowadays and why does an "enlightened" approach that is geared to helping ALL learners not, in fact, help weaker learners?
The buzzword today is "cooperative learning", the contention being that pair work and group work will bring out the best in each individual who will gain from what he/she receives from the others. Work in the field has shown that this does not happen. Students contribute what they know and listen to what is being said by their peers. It would be ingenious to claim that there is any increase of knowledge (i + l ) within that framework and at that level. And, of course, the larger the class the harder it is to control what is happening within the group. Even in ideal situations, doubt has been cast as to whether these activities, rather than teacher-fronted lessons, lead to increased language learning (Long and Porter 1985, Pica and Doughty 1985).
Yet it is not merely the problem of "cooperative learning" having no effect on the weaker learner. My contention is that pair/group work is actually harmful to immediate language learning and with long-term effects. There is real danger of fossilization through the acquisition of deviant forms, which is what the weaker learners hear from their peers. In fact, the more pair/group work is done the more of this input the students will receive. Krashen (1985) calls this "interlanguage talk", with the students considering it be "real language" and thus acquiring it in the technical sense. Not only are we not improving their English, but we are also denying them a base for future improvement.
The other major problem with current methodology as applied to the weaker learner is the insistence on an inductive way of learning. Not all students learn best that way; in fact, it has been shown (and to which many teachers will testify) that many students - especially the weaker ones - need a deductive way of learning. They want to be told the rule rather than "discover" it for themselves. Incidentally, not only weaker students, but adults as well prefer a deductive method of learning. Yet, despite the lip-service to "learner-centerdness", students who need deductive learning are not given it. A task-based syllabus with its attendant avoidance of grammar instruction does a grave disservice to weaker learners, who may need something else.
As a material’s writer and teacher, I have been working for some time on how to redress the balance. Being aware that weaker language learners (and not, incidentally, only those) do not learn language efficiently from task-based "authentic activities" found in most ELT books today, my concern is how to give weaker students a "peg" on which to hang their language input so that they can put order to the information that they are receiving. EFL learners, with few exceptions, need support, encouragement and constant reinforcement.
The system that I have developed (and still developing) is called LASS (Language Awareness Support System). Basically, LASS is a deductive language learning approach that gives students the support they need and the basis on which to improve in the future.
Accepting the equality of accuracy and fluency and the fact that grammar will not take care of itself in some sort of osmosis through task-based work, GRAMMAR is recognised as a crucial component of language. Metaphorically, grammar is the cement that holds the bricks (the VOCABULARY) in place.
LASS gives students the means to understand what the language should look like through language consciousness-raising activities and allows them the possibility of hypothesis testing through LAM (Language Awareness Monitor).
Reading, writing, listening and speaking are integrated, not necessarily to a topic but as LASS facilitators.
The ELT books that I have written have been designed to give expression to LASS, which has been integrated into, and dispersed among, task-based activities. Especially important are the grammar exercises, which are not an end in themselves but are a means of learning language, to facilitate LASS. They are cumulative, generative, contrastive and in context, designed to allow the students to constantly test their internal hypotheses. An important point of theory is that due to the constraints of an EFL classroom, LAM is an internal monitor. As students are faced with a dearth of input, they will have to use an internal monitor, i.e. hypothesis testing with what is accurate. This is a radical departure from Krashen’s monitor and input hypothesis and very different from the theory underlying the communicative approach. The contrastive nature of the exercises allows continual monitoring and reinforcement of knowledge being internalised.
Lack of space does not allow more than a cursory description or examples. One facet - that of generative exercises - illustrates how LASS uses grammar to facilitate meaning and vice versa. To give but one, simple example:
1a. Match the sentences in column A with those in column B.
A B I have just come back from work. He was looking for you. We went to the cinema last night. She had a great time. I saw George half an hour ago. I can’t find her anywhere. Mira has been in Europe for a month. I’m very tired. I’ve lost my pen. She’s having a great time. Ayala stayed in Paris for a week. It was a great movie. 1b. Now add the appropriate sentence from below to the ones that you have matched. The first one has been done for you.
I have just come back from work.I’m very tired. It was a long, hard day. She told us all about it. I put it down only a moment ago. It was better than the one we saw last week. He said that you should phone him at home. It was a long, hard day. She wants to stay for another week. (from Riding the Wave, UPP, 1996)
It is not enough, therefore, for students to successfully complete the first exercise. What is needed in order to do the following exercise - the one that is "generated" from the previous one - is to look back and to understand the sentences that they have matched. Grammar is, then, not an end in itself, but is a facilitator of meaning, reflecting the function of grammar in language.
The weak language learner must be continually "reminded" of what he/she has come across previously. An important component of LASS, therefore, is the cumulative nature of the exercises. Unlike most ELT books which treat a grammar rule as a discrete unit and then move to the next one, my materials use the "rules" as stepping stones on which to build language in wider and concentric circles. Language learners constantly come across and work with previously-learned rules.
The following is an example:
2 . Complete the following sentences, using one word only in each space.
1 . ________ you eaten when you came home last night?
2 . ________ you eat when you came home last night?
3 . ________ Jill coming with us tomorrow?
4 . ________ you seen the new film at the Rav Chen? I hear it’s great.
5 . ________ you on the way out when I phoned you yesterday?
6 . When ________ you going to visit Ran? I’d like to go with you.
7 . What ________ she say when you told her that you ________ seen her?(from Green Lights to English Workbook, UPP, 1994)
As learners do not "do" the grammar exercises, but use them in conjunction with meaning, I do not label exercises (e.g. "complete the following sentences in the past simple"). In addition, they must be in context (and by this I mean grammatical context) so that the exercises are designed to allow one possibility only. In other words, learners are forced to use the item (be it grammatical or lexical) according to the surrounding context.
The concept of context in LASS is different from the nebulous meaning associated with that term in a communicative approach. Context is an important component in the support system for the weaker learner. It gives the learner the possibility to create meaning within a grammatical framework. In other words, for the learner to produce, he/she has to understand the text.
Here are examples of contextualised sentences:
· Internal contextualisation (within the sentence)
Sonia (make) ________dinner for everybody when the stove caught fire.
Sonia (make) ________dinner for everybody and then the stove caught fire.· External contextualisation (outside the sentence)
If you (practise) ________more you (be) ________a much better guitar player. It’s a pity you don’t.
When I phoned your house, they told me that (you had left / you were leaving). That’s the second time this week you were out when I phoned.
It has been found that context is an important component in a support system for the weaker learner.
The work I have been doing with LASS has been very encouraging. Students who were lost in a task-based syllabus (and, in fact, were not learning anything) improved dramatically when taught through LASS. Figures from my class-based research bears this out.
I am continually refining LASS, especially regarding vocabulary and an integration of the four skills and my ELT materials will reflect this in a practical way.
REFERENCES
Krashen, S. 1985. The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications: Longman.
Long, M.H., & Porter, P. 1985. Group work, interlanguage talk, and second language acquisition. TESOL Quarterly, 19(2), 207-228.
Pica, T., & Doughty C. Input and interaction in the communicative language classroom. A comparison of teacher-fronted and group activities. In S. Gass & C. Madden (Eds.) Input and Second Language Acquisition. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
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