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A balanced activities approach






We can now sum up a methodological approach to the learning of languages, which takes account of categories of input and output. Because of the focus on communicative activities and the concentration on language as a means of communication such an approach has been called the communicative approach. This is because its aims are overtly communicative and great emphasis is placed on training students to use language for communication. At various stages writers have also included the teaching of language functions, task-based learning and humanistic approaches under this umbrella term, making them – apparently – integral parts of the approach.

Certainly the aim of all our teaching is to train students for communicative efficiency. But we have already seen the components of the approach we are advocating here which are not in themselves communicative – for example finely-tuned input when presentation takes place, and practice activities. And we have also suggested that concentration on communication only may not be in the best interests of the students. The importance of stages where there is an emphasis on (problem-solving) tasks and the students’ own personalities and responsibility for their own learning has to go together with more formal language work. That is where the status of a communicative approach is called into question. An approach that includes controlled language work cannot really be given such a misleading name. And after all, most language teaching is designed to teach students to communicate, however the learning is organised. Rather than worry about these apparent contradictions, it is perhaps better to see the methodology in terms of the activities that we involve students in and to assemble a balanced programme of such activities.

A balanced activities approach sees the job of a teacher as that of ensuring that students get a variety of activities which foster acquisition and which foster learning. The programme will be planned on the basis of achieving the balance between the different categories of input and output where roughly-tuned input and communicative activities will tend to predominate over (but by no means exclude) controlled language presentation and practice output. It is on this basis that we will effect part of our balance.

A balanced activities approach has a more human aspect, however, which is bound up with the concerns of intrinsic motivation. By presenting students with a variety of activities we can ensure their continuous interest and involvement in the language programme. Classes, which continually have the same activities, are not likely to sustain interest, particularly where the students have no extrinsic motivation and do not perceive any clear long-term goal. A programme that presents a variety of activities, on the other hand, is more likely to continually engage the students’ interest.

A final, but important, component of the balanced activities approach is the teacher’s willingness to be both adaptable and flexible. Adaptability refers to the teacher’s ability to adapt the programme (and the balance) on the basis of different groups that are being taught. We have talked at length about motivation differences, and these should have a powerful influence on the teacher’s use and choice of activities and materials. Flexibility, on the other hand, refers to the behaviour of teachers in class and their ability to be sensitive to the changing needs of the group as the lesson progresses. In simple terms it means that decisions taken before the lesson about what is going to happen are not in some way sacred. Good teachers must be prepared to adapt and alter their plans if this proves necessary.

The balanced activities approach, then, sees the methodology as being a balance between the components we wish to include in that approach and it is an approach that sees the students’ continuing interest and involvement in the learning process as being the necessary dominant factor in language teaching.






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