3 JUST LISTEN AND READ

Example 8

Children in the class (primary school), English lesson. They go to shelves containing books and audio-cassettes and select the material they want to read and listen. Teacher does not interact with the students. The classroom is almost silent.

`Just listen and read' is contoversial because it says that learners don't need to practice language (and speak at all) to learn it. One way to do this is providing students with listening and reading comprehension (no opportunity to interact with teacher or other students).

The topic familiar to learners, clear illustrations and sentences are important,not linguistic simplicity.

Comprehensible input is essential for the second language acquisition (Krashen)

Study 10: Comprehension-based instruction for children

It is description of a real program developed in experimental classes in Canada (French speaking) with students began ESL at grade 3 and ended at grade 5. Their skills were compared with learners in regular program (aur-oral ESL program). There was no difference. However in grade 8 students (without speaking components, teacher's feedback, classroom interaction) were not doing so well.

Study 11: Total Phtsical Response(TPR)

In TPR classes students hear series of commands in the target language (Sit down!). They are not required to say anything,but must show their comprehension by actions. Vocabulary and structures are graded ,material gradually increases in complexity,lessons are connected.

TPR-developed by Asher- good start for beginners (without engaging oral practice).

Study 12: French immersion programs in Canada

Is a research described by Krashen as communicative language teaching. Studies shown that learners developed fluency, confidence in using second language but fail to achieve high level in French grammar. Explanations for this. ( - comprehensible input is not enough,students speak too little -students need mor form-focuse instruction -learners attention must be foccused on language forms in different ways.)

Study 13: Input flood

There was a study carried out with francophone learners(aged 10-12) .Learners read a short texts in which they were exposed on hundreds of adverbs in English sentences. Students just completed a comprehension activities. There was no error correction given.

The result showed that knowledge of the students was incomplete because they based on a french grammar.

Study 14: Enhanced input

Study carried out by Joanna White. Almost the same as input flood but designed to draw the learner's attention to the possesive determines (f.ex. his/her) which were embedded in the text,by typographical enhancement. Learners would then notice possesive determiners among all the other language input. There was a little difference in knowledge of the students.

Study15: Input processing

Bill VanPatten investigated if more directed exposure to language forms in the input can lead learners to higher levels. He found that English learners treat object pronouns which precede the verb in Spanich as if they were subject pronouns. One group of learners received explanations and comprehension practice (variety of listening and reading activities).Students had to chose pictures which were apropriate for the sentence they'd just heard. VanP calls this “processing instruction”. The second group did not receive processing instruction but only exercises to practice the forms.

First group achieved higher levels of performance on the comprehension tasks

Summary

Comprehension-based programs are beneficial in the early stages of learning (in situations where learners don't have contact with the target language apart from classroom. They may not be sufficient to develop learners knowledge at the advanced levels.

4 TEACH WHAT IS TEACHABLE

Manfred Pienemann explains why some things can be taught while others not. Research shows that some linguistic structures developes along a particular developmental. They are called `developmental features. Learners have to pass through stage 1 ,2 and 3 before they are ready to acquire what is on the stage 4 (chodizi mi o to ,że muszą przejść kolejno przez wszystkie etapy by przyswoić to do czego dążą :P nie mogą przeskoczyć z 1 ,np. do 3)

Researchers supporting this view claim that learners must be motivated , inteligent and well instucted (in ordet to teach him or her at any time(for example vocabulary)).

For example: teacher try to help students with question formation. Students seem to know what he means but the level is too hihg .Students react by simply answering the questions or accepting the teacher's formulation.

Research findings

Although learners may be able to produce more advanced form on tests or complicated exercises ,instruction can not change the natural developmental course .Therecomendation is to teach what would naturally come next. Some studies have tested this hypotesis:

Study 16: Ready to learn

(German as a second language) Pienemann checked if instruction permitted learners to skip a stage in the natural sequence. The results shoved that learners moved from the stage 2 to 3 but not to the stage 4 (from 2). Pieneman interprets: for some linguistic structures ,learners cannot be taught what they are not ready to learn.

Study 17: Teaching when the time is right

Caterine Doughty checked if the relative clauses would benefit from instruction when learners were developementally ready to learn them and she concluded that instructions on relative clauses made a difference (provided at that time)

Study 18: Can question forms be taught?

Rod Ellis. Learners (aged 11-15) were being asked for three hours about the poster on the wall and answered the questions. In the first hour the teacher asked a series of wh-questions and children were asked to respond ,in the second hour students asked questions and the teacher corrected them. In the trird hour teacher `fired questions at the pupils'about the wall poster . The group results showed little effect.

Study 19: Developmental stage and the influence of the firs language

Instruction which is timed to match learners developmental `readingness' may move them into more advanced stages but their performance may still be affected by other factors. In this study first language influence seems to be responsible for the learners inability to generalize their knowledge of inversion to all questions.

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