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Written by: Elhassan ROUIJEL

In this paper I will try to react to a chapter from Penny Ur's A Course in Language Teaching(1996), entitled "Younger and older learners". This chapter, or module, is divided into four units.The first one is devoted to dealing with the question: what difference does age make to languagelearning. The author proceeds by selecting some widely held assumptions about age and languagelearning and by analyzing these assumptions. Hence, the author, commenting on the ideas thatyoung children learn better, sees that "foreign languages in school should start early" with anapparent reservation. Although she agrees that early exposure to a foreign language is "likely tolead to better long-term results", she still maintains that age helps in efficient learning.In unit two; "teaching children", Penny Ur focuses the light on motivation. She takespictures, stories, and games as three important sources of interest for children. However, she showsapparent hostility to games as a means of education because, she thinks, they vulgarize learning,which is a serious aim, and make "just fun" (1996:289). Instead, she suggests thinking of "game-like" language learning activities.In unit three, "teaching adolescents: student preferences", Penny Ur emphasizes theimportance of the teacher's finding out of how adolescents like to be taught. To achieve this aim,she suggests a model questionnaire that the teacher can submit either to experienced teachers or tostudents themselves to fill. She suggests that the teacher can afterwards compare the answers to hisor her expectations. Afterwards, the teacher can amend his or her style in the light of thequestionnaire.In the last and fourth unit, "teaching adults: a different relationship", the author moves on toanalyze different kinds of relationship between the teacher and students. She presents a set of typesof relationship which differ according to authority, and to which part of the duality teacher vs.student the relationship is vested.In short these are the main points that came in this chapter. Now I shall move to the critiqueof this chapter.

Critique of the article

In the first unit Penny Ur undertakes to analyze the effect of age on language learning. Andto achieve this aim, she opts for putting a set of pre-assumptions about age and language underscrutiny. Thus, she starts by refuting the idea that young children learn better, backing up herattitude by different studies. Her point is that the older the child is, the more effectively he or shelearns. In fact this attitude finds support in what Rod Ellis said in this respect: "If learners atdifferent ages are matched according to the amount of time they have been exposed to L2, it is theolder learners who reach higher levels of proficiency." (Rod Ellis 1994:105). This is because theolder the child is, the more he or she is able to process complicated types of information, and to dealwith abstract ideas. Furthermore, older children are normally more able to concentrate for a longertime than younger ones.Therefore, Penny Ur doesn't totally agree with the idea that foreign language learning shouldstart early in schools. She argues that "the investment of lesson time at an early age may be cost-effective". This point brings into light the critical age hypothesis, i.e. "if you get to old and pass thisperiod you will have significantly more difficulty learning" (Penny Ur: 287). The author takes thisidea with apparent doubt, because, she says, it is "not conclusively supported by research evidence."(Penny Ur: 287). The critical age hypothesis, however, has its fans just as it has its opponents: "EricLennherg (1967) and others have suggested that literalization is a slow process that begins aroundthe age of 2 and is completed around puberty." (H. Douglas Brown 1987: 43). This means that,according to this tendency, learning a language becomes difficult after puberty. Anyway, Penny Urhas managed to strike a balance between these different attitudes by concluding that "it is also truethat an early start to language learning is likely to lead to better long-term results if early learning is

maintained and reinforced as the child gets older." Thus, she manages to find a safe way out of thedilemma.In unit two, "Teaching children", Penny Ur focuses the light on the role of motivation inenhancing the children's language learning. She points out that "children have a greater immediateneed to be motivated by the teacher or the materials in order to learn effectively" (p.288). However,Ur doesn't define motivation (perhaps because she has already dealt with it in a previous chapter).Anyway, H. Douglas Brown defines motivation as " an inner drive, impulse, emotion, or desire thatmoves one to a particular action. More specifically, human beings universally have needs or drivesthat are more or less innate, yet their intensity is environmentally conditioned" (1987: 114). Thisdefinition strikes a balance between intrinsic motivation, which is an inner energy that dictates ouractions, and extrinsic motivation, which is the environment that conditions this energy. And it is inthe light of this distinction that Penny Ur deals with this issue of motivation. In this respect, shegives the priority to children on the basis that children will quickly get bored if they lack motivation, while adults, who are usually responsible for their learning are usually self motivating.Hence, to make learning more and more interesting for children in the classroom, Penny Ursuggests using pictures, stories and games as "three very important sources of interest" for them.(p.288). Concerning pictures, Ur thinks that they are of a paramount importance. She says that thevisual "is a very dominant channel of input" (p. 289). Indeed, the importance of visuals in languageteaching has remained undebatable as they are normally the teacher's best resort "for teachingmeaning, for cueing responses in intensive practice work, for indicating some of the meaning of atense form, for providing cultural background and setting for dialogues etc" (Andrew Wright1981:117). Pictures' importance in children's classroom, however, exceeds satisfying the needssuggested by Andrew Wright to exert an emotional effect on children. Colored pictures can be usedto attract the child's attention and arouse his or her interest in the lesson.Penny Ur also suggests stories as a means for motivating children. She regards telling astory in a foreign language as "one of the simplest and riches sources of foreign language input foryounger learners" (p.289). Pictures and stories, she suggests, could be more effective if they aresuccessfully combined.However, Penny Ur shows an apparent hostility to games as classroom activities. She says:"Once you call a language learning activity a 'game' you convey the message that it is just fun, notto be taken seriously: a message I consider anti-educational and potentially demoralizing." (p289)By saying so, Ur raises a controversial issue, and a series of questions float on the surface:Are games always an obstacle of serious learning? Can't games serve educational purposes? What isPenny Ur's concept of 'educational' and 'anti-educational'? Does education always demand a solemnatmosphere void of any fun? Penny Ur herself admits that "monotonous, apparently pointlessactivities quickly bore and demotivate young learners" (p. 288). And this is usually the case withgrammar; it is very likely to turn into a monotonous activity and young learners usually fail to seeits point. So, if a teacher devises a game to make grammatical lessons more appealing to children,will he or she be causing any harm to education?In a study about "games and problem solving", Alan Maley suggests games and game-likeactivities in order to "foster 'natural', 'creative', 'authentic' language behaviour on the part of learners" (Alan Maley 1981: 137). He goes on to discuss the emotional impact of games and game-like activities on the learner, pointing out that "in game-like activities the learner is free to behimself. He can engage his real personality with those of fellow-learners without the additionalburden of trying to be someone else." (p.137)However, Penny Ur is moderate enough to tolerate some games in the classroom "as abreak", but not in the process of learning and teaching, because, she says, "to call something a gamewhen our goal is serious learning may harm the learning" (!!) (p. 289).Then Penny Ur moves to the following unit, "Teaching adolescents: student preferences". Inthis unit she suggests consulting adolescents as a source of guidance to how to teach them. Shesuggests a questionnaire as a means of survey of students' opinions about how "the good teacher"should be, leaving a margin for teacher to add further items or delete what they think irrelevant.