COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING

COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING

 

û       The community language learning takes its principles from the more general Counseling-Learning approach developed by Charles A. Curran.

û       This method advises teacher to consider their students as 'whole persons'. Whole-person learning means that teacher consider not only their students' intellect, but also have some understanding of the relationship among students feeling, physical reactions, instinctive protective reactions, and desire to learn.

û       The purpose of this method is enable the students to learn how to use the target language communicatively and to learn about their own learning, to take increaseing responsibility for it and to learn how to learn from one another.

û       The teacher's initial role is primarily that of a counselor. The teacher ' counsels' the students. He/she does not offer advice, but rather shows them that he/she is really listening to them and understands what they are saying. By understanding how students feel, the teacher can help students gain insight into their own learning process as well as transform their native feeling, which might otherwise block their learning.

û       According to Curran, there are six elements necessary for nondefensive learning. First of these is security. Next is aggression. The third element is attention. The fourth is reflection. Retention is the fifth element. And the last element is discrimination.

û       As Rardin and Tranel (1988) ahve observed, the Community Language Learning Method is neither student-centered nor teacher-centered, but rather teacher-student-centered, with both being decision-makers in the class.

û       Building a relationship with and among students is very important. In a trusting relationship, any debilitating anxienty that students feel can be reduced, thereby helping students to stay open the learning process. Students can learn from their interaction with each other as well as their interaction with the teacher. A spirit of cooperation, not competition, can prevail.

û       Language is for communication. Curran writes that 'learning is persons', meaning that both teacher and students work at building trust in one another and the learning process.

û       The teacher might prepare specific materials or work with published textbooks. Particular grammar points, pronounciation patterns, and vocabulary are worked with, based on the language the students have generated. The most important skills are understanding and speaking the language at the beginning, with reinforcement through reading and writing.

û       The students' native language is used to make the meaning clear and to build a bridge from the known to the unknown or from the familiat to the unfamiliar. Students feel more secure when they understand everything.

û       The students take a test at the end of a course. A teacher-made classroom test would likely be more of an integrative test than a discrete-point one. Students would be asked to write a paragraph or be given an oral interview. Teacher also would encourage their students to self-evaluate.

û       The taecher repeat correctly what the student has said incorrectly, without calling further attention to the error. The techniques are consistent with sustaining a respectful, nondefensive relationship between teacher and students.

suggestopedia

SUGGESTOPEDIA

• Suggestopedia, the application of the study of suggestion to pedagogy, has been developed to help students eliminate the feeling that they cannot be successful or the negative association they may have toward studying and, thus, to help them overcome the barriers to learning.

• This method developed out of believe that human brain could process great quantities of material given the right conditions of learning like relaxation.

• Teachers hope to accelerate the process by which students learn to use a foreign language for everyday communication. In order to do this, more of the students' mental powers must be tapped.

• The teacher is the authority in the classroom. In order for the method to be successful, the students must to trust and respect the teacher. Once the students trust the teacher, they acn feel more secure. If they feel secure, they can be more spontaneous and less in inhibited.

• A desuggestopedic course is conducted in a classroom which is bright and cheerful. The texts students work from are handouts containing lenghty dialogs in the target language. Next to the dialog is a translation in the students' native language. There are also some notes on vocabulary and grammar which correspond to bold-faced items in the dialog.

• One of the fundamental principles of the method is that if the sudents are relaxed and confident, they will not need to try hard to learn the language. It will come just naturally and easily. Indirect positive suggestions are made to enhance students' self-confidence and to convince them that success is obtainable.

• Music was the central to this method. Soft music led to increase in alpha brain wave and a decrease in blood pressure and pulse rate resulting in high intake of large quantities of material.

• The communication takes place on 'two planes': on one the linguistic message is encoded; and on the other are factors which influence the linguistic message. On the conscious plane, the learner attends to the language; on the subconscious plane, the music suggest that learning is easy and pleasant. When there is a unity between conscious and subconscious, learning is enhance.

• Teacher should present and explain the grammar and vocabulary, but not dwell on them. The bolds print are allows the students' focus to shift from the whole text to the details before they return to the whole text again. The dynamic interplay between the whole and the parts is important.

• Vocabulary is emphasized. Grammar is dealt with explicitly but minimally. In fact, it is believed that students will learn best if their conscious attentionn is focused not on the language forms, but on using the language. The 'paraconscious' mind will then absorb the linguistic rules. Speaking communicatively is also emphasized. Students read in the target language and write native compositions.

• Native-language translation is used to make the meaning of the dialog clear. The teacher also uses the native langauge in class when necessary. The teacher uses the native language less and less.

• Evaluation usually is conducted on students' normal in-class performance and not through formal tests, which would threaten the relaxed atmosphere considered essential for accelerated learning.

• Errors are correctly gently, with the teacher using a soft voice and not in a direct.

compare

COMPARISSON BETWEEN THE AUDIO-LINGUAL METHOD AND THE SILENT WAY

The Audio-Lingual method	The Silent Way
The material is presented in the form of dialogue.	The material is presented in a set of colored wooden rods.
The goal is to enable the students to communicate.	The goal is to enable the students to use the language for self-expression, to express their thought, perceptions, and feeling.
The teacher is like an orchestra leader and the students are imitator of the teacher's model or the tapes she/he supllies of the model speakers.	The teacher is a technician or engineer and the students are to actively engage in exploring the language.
New vocabulary and structural patterns are presented through dialogs. The dialogs are learned through imitation and repetition. Drills are conducted based upon the patterns present in the dialog.	Students begin their study of the language through its basic building blocks, its sounds. The teacher sets up situations that focus student attention on the structures of the language. The teacher asks the students to describe their reactions to the lesson or what they have learned.
There is student-to-student interaction in chain drills or when students take different roles in dialogs, but this interaction is teacher-directed. Most of the interaction is between teacher and students and is initiated by the teacher.	For much of the student-teacher interaction, the teacher is silent. He is still very active, however – setting up situations to 'force awarness', listening attentively to students' speech, and silently working with thwm on their production through the use of nonverbal gestures and the tools he has available. When the teacher speaks, it is to give clues, not to model the language.
The view of language has been influenced by descriptive linguists. Every language is seen as having its own unique system which is consist of phonological, morphological and syntactic. Culture consist of the everyday behavior and lifestyle of the target language speakers.	Each language has its own unique reality, or spirit, since it is the expression of a particular group of people. Their culture as, reflected in their own unique world view, is inseparable from their language.
The students are mastering the sound system and grammatical patterns. A grammatical pattern is not the same as a sentence. The natural order of skills presentation is adhered to: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The oral skills receive most of the attention.	The teacher works with the students, and the students work on the language. Vocabulary is somewhat restricted at first. The teacher starts with what the students know and builds from one structure to the next. All four skills are worked on from the beginning of the course, although there is asequence in that students learn to read and write what they have already produced orally.
The habits of the students' native language are thought to interfere with the students' attemps to master the target language. Therefore, the target language is used in the class room, not the students' native language.	Maening is made clear by focusing the students' perception, not by translation. The students' native language can, however, be used to give instructions when necessary, to help a student improve his/her pronounciation. Knowledge students already possess of their native language can be exploited by the teacher of the target language.
Teacher did not actually observe the students with a formal test. Students might be asked to distinguish between words in a minimal pair, for example, or to supply an appropriate verb form in a sentence.	Although the teacher may never give a formal test, he assesses student learning all the time. The teacher does not praise or criticize student behavior since this would interfere with students' developing their own inner criteria.
Student errors are to be avoided if at all possible through the teacher's awarness of where the students will have difficulty and restriction of what they are taught to say. The teacher have to face the student difficulties.	Student errors are seen as a natural, indispensable part of the learning process. The teacher use student errors as a basic for deciding where further work in necessary. The teacher works with the students in getting them to self-correct.