Language Learning and Teaching (стр. 23 из 46)

2. Engage in frequent spontaneous hints about successful learning and communication strategies. In spite of the fact that a good deal of what we know about second language acquisition is not unequivocally proven, we nevertheless know quite a lot about what generally applies to most learners most of the time. Most learners, for example, come to language classes with raised inhibitions and fears that prevent them taking the necessary risks that learners must take in order to try out language and receive constructive feedback. Such principles may be stated for learners in the form of ten "commandments" (or, you might want to simply call them "suggestions") for learners. A teacher's version (in somewhat more technical jargon) and a learner's version of these ten rules for successful classroom learning are given in Table 5.4. These rules might simply take on the form of little reminders sprinkled into your classroom routines. You will note that each rule corresponds to the numbered items in the checklist above. Caution should be taken in both cases, of course, in assuming that all learners will benefit from the directionality of the advice in these suggestions; a few learners, for example, may be too confident or too right-brain oriented.

Figure 5.2. Check one box in each item that best describes you. Boxes A and E would indicate that the sentence is very much like you. Boxes Band D would indicate that the sentence is somewhat descriptive of you. Box С would indicate that you have no inclination one way or another.

Table 5.4. "Ten Commandments" for good language learning

Teacher's Version	Learner's Version
1. Lower inhibitions	Fear not!
2. Encourage risk-taking	Dive in.
3. Build self-confidence	Believe in yourself.
4. Develop intrinsic motivation	Seize the day.
5. Engage in cooperative learning	Love thy neighbor.
6. Use right-brain processes	Get the BIG picture.
7. Promote ambiguity tolerance	Cope with the chaos.
8. Practice intuition	Go with your hunches.
9. Process error feedback	Make mistakes work FOR you.
10. Set personal goals	Set your own goals.

3. Build strategic techniques. Perhaps a more subtle but no less effective way to manifest learner strategy training in a classroom is to make sure that techniques are directed as much as possible toward good language learning behaviors. Overt admonition or calling students' conscious attention to principles need not be the major approach; instead, teachers can encourage successful subconscious strategy employment through their choice of classroom techniques that enhance strategy building. By extending the "ten commandments" into classroom activities, suggestions for building strategic competence emerge, as shown in Table 5.5.

Table 5.5. Building strategic techniques

1. To lower inhibitions: play guessing games and communication games; do role-plays and skits; sing songs; use plenty of group work; laugh with your students; have them share their fears in small groups.2. To encourage risk taking: praise students for making sincere efforts to try out language; use fluency exercises where errors are not corrected at that time; give outside-of-class assignments to speak or write or otherwise try out the language.3. To build students' self-confidence: tell students explicity (verbally and nonverbally) that you do indeed believe in them; have them make lists of their strengths, of what they know or have accomplished so far in the course.4. To help them to develop intrinsic motivation: remind them explicitly about the rewards for learning English; describe (or have students look up) jobs that require English; play down the final examination in favor of helping students to see rewards for them selves beyond the final exam.5. To promote cooperative learning: direct students to share their knowledge; play down competition among students; get your class to think of themselves as a team; do a considerable amount of small-group work.6. To encourage them to use right-brain processing: use movies and tapes in class; have them read passages rapidly; do skimming exercises; do rapid "free writes"; do oral fluency exercises where the object is to get students to talk (or write) a lot without being corrected.7. To promote ambiguity tolerance: encourage students to ask each other, questions when they don’t understand something; keep your theoretical explanations very simple and brief; deal with just a few rules at a time; occasionally resort to translation into a native language to clarify a word or meaning.8. To help them use their intuition: praise students for good guesses; do not always give explanations of errors—let a correction suffice; correct only selected errors, preferably just those that interfere with learning.9. To get students to make their mistakes work FOR them: tape record students' oral production and get them to identify errors; let students catch and correct each other's errors—do not always give them the correct form; encourage students to make lists of their common errors and to work on them on their own.10. To get students to set their own goals: explicitly encourage or direct students to go beyond the classroom goals; have them make lists of what they will accomplish on their own in a particular week; get students to make specific time commitments at home to study the language; give "extra credit" work.

These three suggestions for bringing strategies-based instruction into the classroom of course only begin to provide an idea of what can be done to sensitize learners to the importance of taking charge of their own learning—of taking some responsibility for their eventual success and not just leaving it all up to the teacher to "deliver" everything to them. If teachers everywhere would do no more than simply follow the above suggestions, significant steps could be made toward encouraging students to make a strategic investment in their own language learning success.

TOPICS AND QUESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION

[Note: (I) individual work; (G) group or pair work; (C) whole-class discussion.]

1.(I) In order to make sure you understand the continuum of process, style, and strategy, make a list of some of the universal processes you have read in previous chapters, then a list of styles and strategies from this chapter. How do they differ?

2.(G) In a small group, share what each of you perceives to be your more dominant cognitive style along the continua presented here: FI/D, right/left brain, ambiguity tolerance, reflective/impulsive, and visual/auditory. Talk about examples of how you manifest those styles both in your approach in general to problems and in your approach to SLA.

3.(I) Look at the list of differences between right- and left-brain processing in Table 5.1 on page 119. Check or circle the side that corresponds to your own preference, and total the items on each side. Are you right- or left-brain dominant? Does this result match your general perception of yourself?

4.(G) Form five groups, with one of the five cognitive styles assigned to each group. Each group will list the types of activities or techniques in foreign language classes that illustrate its style. Then, decide which list of activities is better for what kinds of purposes. Share the results with the rest of the class.

5.(I) Someone once claimed that FD is related to farsightedness. That is, farsighted people tend to be more FD, and vice versa. If that is true, how would you theoretically justify such a finding?

6.(C) Look at the list of "good language learner" characteristics on page 123 as enumerated by Rubin and Thompson. Which ones seem the most important? Which the least? Would you be able to add some items to this list, from your own or others' experiences?

7.(C) Discuss any instances in which you have used any of the thirteen communication strategies listed in Table 5.3 on page 128. Are there some other strategies that you could add?

8.(I/G/C) First, individually take the Learning Styles Checklist on page 136. Then, in pairs look at a partner's responses and find one item on which you differ greatly (e.g., A vs. E, A vs. D, or В vs. E). Next, talk about
experiences in your own language learning that illustrate your choice, Finally, decide which side of the continuum (the "A-B" side or the' 1) F side) gives you more of an advantage. Share the results with the rest of the class.

9.(C) When you were learning a foreign language, what advice would you like to have had that you did not have at the time? Which of the suggestions at the end of the chapter for SBI appeal to you, and why?

LANGUAGE LEARNING EXPERIENCE: JOURNAL ENTRY 5

[Note: See pages 18 and 19 of Chapter 1 for general guidelines for writing a journal on a previous or concurrent language learning experience.]

•List each of the five learning styles discussed in the chapter (FI/D, right/left brain, ambiguity tolerance, reflectivity/impulsivity, visual/auditory). Write a few sentences about which side you think is dominant for you, and list some examples to illustrate.

•Which of your tendencies, if any, do you think might be working against you? Make a short list of specific things you could do to help push yourself to a more favorable position.

•Take the Learning Styles Checklist on page 136. Do you think you should try to change some of your styles, as they are described on the checklist? How would you do that?

•Using the list of learning strategies (Table 5.2), describe examples of two or three of them that you have already used. Pick one or two that you don't use very much and list them as your challenge for the near future.

•Write about communication strategies that you have used. Does the list of communication strategies in Table 5.3 give you some ideas about what you could be doing to advance your communicative success? Try to write down one or two specific things you will try out in the near future in a foreign language.

•How does your teacher (either now or in the past) measure up as a strategies-based instructor? What does this tell you about how your own teaching might help students to be more successful learners?

CHAPTER 6

PERSONALITY FACTORS

The previous two chapters dealt with two facets of the cognitive domain of language learning: human learning processes in general, and cognitive variations in learning—styles and strategies. Similarly, this chapter and Chapter 7 deal with two facets of the affective domain of second language acquisition. The first of these is the intrinsic side of affectivity: personality factors within a person that contribute in some way to the success of language learning. The second facet, treated in Chapter 7, encompasses extrinsic factors—sociocultural variables that emerge as the second language learner brings not just two languages into contact but two cultures, and in some sense must learn a second culture along with a second language.

If we were to devise theories of second language acquisition teaching methodologies that were based only on cognitive considerations, we would be omitting the most fundamental side of human behavior. Ernest Hilgard, well known for his study of human learning and cognition, once noted that "purely cognitive theories of learning will be rejected unless a role is assigned to affectivity" (1963: 267). In recent thinking (Arnold 1999), there is no doubt at all about the importance of examining personality factors in building a theory of second language acquisition.

The affective domain is difficult to describe scientifically. A large number of variables are implied in considering the emotional side ofhuman behavior in the second language learning process. One problem in striving for affective explanations of language success is presented by the task of subdividing and categorizing the factors of the affective domain. We are often tempted to use rather sweeping terms as if they were carefully defined.

For example, it is easy enough to say that "culture conflict" accounts for many language learning problems, or that "motivation" is the key to success in a foreign language; but it is quite another matter to define such terms with precision. Psychologists also experience a difficulty in defining terms. Abstract concepts such as empathy, aggression, extroversion, and other common labels are difficult to define empirically. Standardized psychological tests often form an operational definition of such concepts, but constant revisions are evidence of an ongoing struggle for validity. Nevertheless, the elusive nature of affective and cognitive concepts need not deter us from seeking answers to questions. Careful, systematic study of the role of personality in second language acquisition has already led to a greater understanding of the language learning process and to improved language teaching designs.

THE AFFECTIVE DOMAIN

Affect refers to emotion or feeling. The affective domain is the emotional side of human behavior, and it may be juxtaposed to the cognitive side. The development of affective states or feelings involves a variety of personality factors, feelings both about ourselves and about others with whom we come into contact.

Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues (Krathwohl, Bloom, & Masia 1964) provided a useful extended definition of the affective domain that is still widely used today.

1. At the first and fundamental level, the development of affectivity begins with receiving. Persons must be aware of the environment surrounding them and be conscious of situations, phenomena, people, objects; be willing to receive—to tolerate a stimulus, not avoid it—and give a stimulus their controlled or selected attention.

2. Next, persons must go beyond receiving to responding, committing themselves in at least some small measure to a phenomenon or a person. Such responding in one dimension may be in acquiescence, but in another, higher, dimension the person is willing to respond voluntarily without coercion, and then to receive satisfaction from that response.

3. The third level of affectivity involves valuing: placing worth on a thing, a behavior, or a person. Valuing takes on the characteristics of beliefs or attitudes as values are internalized. Individuals do not merely accept a value to the point of being willing to be identified with it, but commit themselves to the value to pursue it, seek it out, and want it, finally, to the point of conviction.

4. The fourth level of the affective domain is the organization of values into a system of beliefs, determining interrelationships among them, and establishing a hierarchy of values within the system.

Language Learning and Teaching (стр. 23 из 46)

TOPICS AND QUESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION

SUGGESTED READINGS

LANGUAGE LEARNING EXPERIENCE: JOURNAL ENTRY 5

THE AFFECTIVE DOMAIN