Foreign language learning

From this discussion of various theories and techniques a number of conclusions for foreign language learning can be drawn.

There can be no doubt of the value of comprehensible input. The fact that students are hearing or reading language that they more or less understand must help them to acquire that language. If they are exposed to language enough they will almost certainly be able to use some of it or all of it themselves. It may be that one of the teacher’s main functions when talking informally to the class is to provide just that kind of comprehensible input.

It also seems to make sense that people can acquire languages while doing something else. It also seems unexceptional to suggest that we should try to involve students’ personalities through the use of humanistic exercises and genuine exchange of ideas (although it is worth pointing out that all teachers are in a sense ‘humanistic’ and there may be dangers in taking quasi-psychoanalytic techniques too far). Finally, if we can get students to really concentrate on their own strategies and if we can persuade them to take charge of their own learning as far as possible, so much the better.

If we look more closely at some of the theories and solutions proposed, however, the situation becomes less clear. Krashen, for example, suggests that comprehensible input means that language is acquired and is therefore available for use. In other words, the student can produce the language spontaneously. At the same time consciously studied language (finely-tuned input) is only learnt. Therefore it is much more difficult to be produced spontaneously. Acquired language is somehow ‘better’ than learnt language because you would have to concentrate to produce the latter, thus interrupting the flow of language production.

This kind of division, however, doesn’t seem to make sense. In the first place, it will be almost impossible to say whether someone has learnt or acquired a certain piece of language. V. Bianki(1985) suggested that newly acquired input was lateralised in the right hemisphere of the brain. When it becomes old habitual material there is the transfer of its lateralisation to the left hemisphere of the brain. If two people are exposed to the same roughly-tuned input there’s hardly a possibility to know exactly whether one makes conscious attempts to learn it or not. Neither it is possible to say when this input becomes habitual. It also sounds senseless that learnt language cannot become part of the acquired language store, as Krashenseems to suggest. It is clear that language that has been learnt does ‘sink in’ at some stage. Learnt language that is practised does seem to become part of the acquired store, according to M. Sharford-Smith(1981), even though it may be the case that only certain grammatical features are susceptible to such treatment. It has been suggested by R. Ellis(1982) that freer practice activities (communicative activities) may act as a switch that allows consciously learnt language to transfer to the acquired store.

Another problem about acquisition is that it takes a long time. In fact, time is a crucial issue. The vast majority of students in the world study languages for about two and a half hours a week, for about thirty weeks a year, which is not much time when compared to the time taken by children to acquire their first languages. A key question for us must be whether we use our time well, whether our teaching is ‘cost-effective’. It is almost certainly the case that the conscious learning of certain items does speed the process up, even if its main function is to raise the student’s grammatical awareness. Not only that many of our students want and expect this type of learning: we would need to be very sure we were right before we told them that it was in some way bad for them.

Time is not the only crucial issue here. We must also look at the conditions under which learning takes place and who the students are. Allwright’s students at Essex, for example, were all intermediate before they started the course. Since they were all going to study on at postgraduate level in the UK we can safely assume that they were fairly intelligent and also highly motivated. And on top of these facts we must remember that they were studying in Great Britain where they had regular access to English-speaking people and other resources.

Other methodologies make considerable demands, too, on time, conditions and resources. For example, Suggestopaedia needs small groups and comfortable rooms, but most teachers handle large classes in uncomfortable surroundings. Transcribing the students’ tape-recorded English after a Community Language Learning class is not such a good idea with a class of 30 students. It may be possible to train students to take charge of their own learning over a period of weeks in a well-equipped school in the UK, with small classes (15 students) and with the students attending classes for a minimum 6 hours a day. But it will be more difficult in other less convenient locations and conditions.

It is precisely because of the limitations that many teachers have to face that the Bangalore Project is so impressive. The classes were large and the conditions less than ideal, but despite this the results which have been so far published have been encouraging, according to Berettaand Davies(1985). Maybe here is proof that conscious learning does not have a place in the classroom after all. And yet three worries about this position emerge:

· In the first place, many of Prabhu’s tasks give rise to very concentrated examples of particular grammar patterns and structures even if the students do not have to take part in actual production drills. This often looks very much like the conscious learning the project aims to replace.

· Secondly, Prabhudoesn’t encourage group work, citing the conditions, which his teachers work in, and the size of classes etc., and yet this makes the use of humanistic and cooperative techniques very difficult.

· And thirdly it is by no means certain that the approach adopted in the Bangalore Project is the best and only way of teaching English (as opposed to a good way – one of many). As K. Johnsonwrites in his article on the study, it is important that ultimate evaluation of the project should consider not only whether it works, but also whether it is the most cost-effective solution available (1982).

What should matter for our attitude to conscious learning, then, is that the use of tasks and the provision of a lot of comprehensible input will help our students in a lot of ways. The use of tasks will allow students to activate their knowledge. The provision of comprehensible input will help to provide them with the rich language store. But it is also true that (especially) adults will gain great benefit from clearly explained language work, which they can then use to ‘create’ new sentences. As they find that they are getting the language right they can internalise it correctly so that it gradually becomes part of their acquired store. And the concentration on particular items of language in various practice contexts can help that internalisation process whilst at the same time giving many students a strong feeling of security, especially at beginner and elementary levels.

What is being suggested, then, is that roughly-tuned input and the use of the foreign language in communicative tasks and situations can satisfactorily exist side by side with work which concentrates on conscious learning where new language is being introduced and practiced. At the same time we will be looking to see how we can incorporate the language learning into the performance of motivating tasks and how we can begin to train students to become good learners. And the content of our language classes can be designed in a way that does not exclude the kind of humanistic approach and techniques.

The major difference between what we are suggesting here and less recent approaches to language teaching is that we will place much more importance on roughly-tuned input and communicative tasks and activities than some other methodologists have tended to do. Conscious learning is thus seen as only one part of the methodological approach that also encourages language acquisition through a large amount of input and a significant emphasis of the use of language in communicative tasks and activities.