TESOL COURSE AIMS

To enable the teacher/trainer to teach English to speakers of other languages and/or teach English
as a foreign language using a specific and structured methodology as well as implement
scientifically tested language learning approaches.

PHASE 1 – INTRODUCTION TO TESOL

Objectives:
• To become familiar with the terms and phrases associated with English Language
learning in relation to TESOL.
• To develop an understanding of how a second or foreign language is learned or
acquired.
• To recognize the various approaches and methodologies applied in teaching English.
• To evaluate the methods and apply them appropriately.
• To identify language learning levels of learners.
• To distinguish specific characteristics of young learners, adolescents and adults.

The Current Phase:

This Phase contains an overview of what TESOL is; the approaches and methodologies

that have shaped TESOL; what every English language teacher should be aware of; and,

who we are going to teach.

Language teaching as a profession involves challenges, growth, joy and fulfillment to

teachers who enjoy their job. The joy of teaching language lies in the pleasure of seeing

students grow in linguistic proficiency and in successfully meeting their

communication needs and interests.

Some familiar terms that are in-play in the world of language teaching includes “ESL”

(English as a Second Language) and “ESOL” (English for Speakers of Other Languages)

- most commonly used in relation to teaching and learning English. “TESL” (Teaching

English as a Second Language), “TEFL” (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and

1
“TESOL” (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) are also used in the same

context of teaching-learning.

TESOL is an acronym that stands for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.

Within the purview of TESOL comes the teaching of English as a second language as

well as a foreign language.

ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages), the integral component of TESOL is

extensively used worldwide, especially in the United States.

The terms ESL (English as a Second Language) and EFL (English as a Foreign

Language) play significant roles in teaching and learning of the English language

worldwide. Despite sharing the same origin, EFL and ESL differ on the basis of context.

This variation in context requires different materials, syllabi and pedagogy.

The term ESL is used to refer to situations in which English is being taught and learned

in countries, contexts and cultures in which English is the predominant language of

communication. The concept of teaching English to immigrants in countries such as

Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States typify

ESL. In these countries, individuals from non-English-speaking backgrounds may speak

their first or native language (L1) at home, but will be required to use English for

communicating at work, in school and in the community. The term is also prevalent in

countries where English is widely used as lingua franca. These include the Special

Administrative Region of Hong Kong (where its usage reflects the Region's recent past

as a colony of the United Kingdom); Singapore (a multilingual society with English as a

bridge language) and India (where the population speaks a range of other languages

and where English as well as Hindi enables communication between these diverse

linguistic groups).

2
EFL is used in contexts where English is neither widely used for communication nor

used as the medium of instruction. Brazil, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Mexico are

countries where English is taught as a foreign language, either as part of the elementary

and high school curriculum, or in private schools and other educational settings. In

most EFL settings there is limited exposure to the language outside of the classroom

and often limited opportunity to use it. The syllabus, therefore, needs to be carefully

structured with extensive recycling of key target-language items. In addition, the

burden for providing the cultural dimension to the curriculum very much rests with the

teacher. Teaching is also complicated by the fact that teachers are usually non-native

speakers of English who may lack opportunities to use the language, or lack confidence

in using it. In such situations it is important for the materials to provide the sort of rich

and diverse linguistic input that ESL learners encounter in the world beyond the

classroom.

With globalization and the rapid expansion of information technologies, there has been

an explosion in the demand for English worldwide. This has led to greater

diversification in the contexts and situations in which it is learned and used, as well as

in the nature of the language itself. The English language no longer belongs to the

United Kingdom or to the United States. It is an increasingly diverse and diversified

resource for global communication.

There are many teaching aspects to look at before the actual teaching that will make you

well prepared, such as, a solid awareness of language. There are also ideas and methods

to learn that will help make you a good teacher. A comprehensive teacher training

course driven with a well-defined approach has the potential to lead a teacher to this

joy of teaching. A proper program, such as TESOL, will equip you with the skills,

knowledge and methods to produce your own successful classes.

3
In order to develop into a successful TESOL professional, you will want to develop

your own teaching style. You may feel that the real training starts in the classroom and

in front of your students. But this TESOL program endeavors to help you emerge ready,

prepared and confident before making your way into the classroom. This TESOL

program takes a principled approach towards language teaching. But no amount of

theory can prepare you for what you are going to face when you are standing in front of

your students.

Our endeavor on the TESOL course is to make you go through that experience before

you take up a teaching assignment; to help you to be ready, prepared and confident

before you step into the classroom.

This course involves behaviors, scenarios and choreographies that can be employed in

classrooms to facilitate learning. Learned behavior for effective teaching when linked

with your planned lesson frameworks, will form the choreographies to facilitate your

students’ learning. To be precise, this TESOL program blends proven with the ability to

provide interplay between the students, teacher and texts that constitute real teaching

and learning situations. The goal of our program is to get you into the classroom with

these methods. Then the rest is up to you to use them, at your disposal, to build a

successful personal teaching style that will bring you a memorable lifelong learning

experience and joy in your new chosen profession.

What about methodology, techniques, and approaches to language learning? It is

evident that talking about language and grammar rules is not a sufficient or even

necessary condition for learning language. Equally, talking about language teaching

ideas and methods seems an unlikely condition for learning to teach. Put another way,

good teachers know what to do. It is not necessarily true that they know why they do

4
certain things, or what makes them effective. TESOL will present “what to do” based

upon things that work most of the time with most classes for most teachers. These

methods are based upon principles of language learning and teaching that are found in

“communicative language learning” classrooms.

Language Acquisition

Second Language Acquisition

Language acquisition is one of the most impressive and fascinating aspects of human

development. Language learning is an amazing feat that has attracted attention of

educators, linguists and psychologists for generations. Both first and second language

acquisition share important similarities that explain the development of the target

language in a learner’s psyche. Several theories have also been used in explaining how

language is learned.

The term second language acquisition (SLA) refers to the process through which someone

acquires one or more second or foreign language(s). Acquisition operates informally in

natural context as well as within the confines of the classroom where both products

(language produced by the learners at different stages) and process (the mental process

and environmental factors that influence the acquisition process) are at play.

While tracing the stages of first language acquisition, we discuss that the earliest

vocalization of a child is involuntary crying that manifest emotion or biological needs

like hunger or discomfort. However, they can clearly perceive the subtle difference

between two dissimilar sounds of human language. But the vocal expression of such

differences comes several months later. ‘Telegraphic’ sentences begin to form as they

5
combine words into sentences that are devoid of function words and grammatical

morphemes. Generally, by the age of four, the language acquires a basic structure which

gradually strengthens with application of formats and rules. Metalinguistic (thinking

about language) awareness develops during the pre-school years when language is

treated as an object as the child embarks on learning and reading.

Exposure to more than one language since birth is referred to as ‘simultaneous

bilinguals’. Slightly different is ‘sequential bilinguals’ where learning of second

language begins at a later stage. Prolonged distance from family language and intense

proximity to a second language on the other hand lead to ‘subtractive bilingualism’

during early school days.

Discovery of language progresses through predictable patterns that chart the emergence

and development of many features of the language learnt. The developmental

sequences or stages are related to children’s cognitive development.

However, it is discernible that a child or adult learning a second language is different

from a child acquiring a first language in terms of both personal characteristics and

conditions for learning. Characteristically, all learners of second language acquire at

least one language, irrespective of age. This prior knowledge can turn out to be a

negative or a positive aspect of second language learning. It is expected to be a

combination of contrasting possibilities. To elucidate further, young language learners

begin the task of language learning without the benefit of some of the skills and

knowledge which adolescent and adult learners have. The first language learner doesn’t

have the same cognitive maturity, Metalinguistic maturity or world knowledge as older

than second language learners. Although young second language learners have begun

to develop cognitive maturity and Metalinguistic awareness, they will still have far to

6
go in these areas, as well as in the area of world knowledge, before they reached the

levels already attained by adults and adolescents.

Child learners mostly are far less inhibited in using the language – even in cases of

limited proficiency. However, a similar act proves to be very stressful for adults and

adolescents when they are unable to express themselves clearly and correctly.

Nevertheless, even pre-school children can also differ in their nervousness when faced

with speaking a language they do not know well. Some engage in happy conversation

in the new language; others chose to listen and participate silently in social interaction

with their peers. Fortunately, for these children, the learning environment rarely puts

pressure on them to speak when they are not ready.

Learning conditions tend to differ with age level. Young learners in an informal second

language learning scenario are usually allowed to be silent until they are ready to

speak. For older learners, it is the factor of compulsion to speak works in order to meet

the requirements of a classroom or for social interactions while shopping, medical visits

or job interviews. Young children in informal settings are usually exposed to the second

language for many hours every day. Older learners, especially students in language

classroom are more likely to receive only limited exposure to the second language.

However, a condition common to learners of all ages in varying quantities is access to

modify input. This adjusted speech style which is called child-direct speech for first

language is sometimes called foreigner talk or teacher talk for second languages. Many

people who interact regularly with language learners seem to have an intuitive sense of

what adjustments are needed to help learners understand. Of course, some people are

better at it than others.

7
Unlike error correction in first language acquisition, which tends to be limited to

corrections of meaning – including errors in vocabulary choice, informal second

language acquisition usually overlooks errors which do not interfere with meaning.

Thus, errors of grammar and pronunciation are rarely remarked on, but wrong word

choices are susceptible to comments. The only place where feedback on error is

typically present with high frequency is the language classroom.

Coming to theories, some have been developed for second language acquisition (SLA)

giving primary importance to learners’ innate characteristics; some emphasize the

essential role of the environment in shaping language learning; others seek to integrate

learner characteristics and environmental factors in an explanation for how second

language acquisition takes place.

The Theory of Behaviorism identifies language learning as a result of imitation, practice,

feedback on success and habit formation. According to the behaviorists, all learning,

whether verbal or non-verbal, takes place through the same underlying process.

Learners receive linguistic input from speakers in their environment and they form

‘associations’ between words, and objects or events. These associations become stronger

as experiences are repeated. By imitating sounds and patterns around them, children

invite positive reinforcement in the form of praise or accomplished communication as

well as corrective feedback on their errors. Behaviorism is also related to Contrastive

Analysis Hypothesis (CAH) that explains the easy adaptation of second/target language

structures if there are similarities with the first; differences naturally make learning

difficult.

The theoretical derivation of Noam Chomsky stresses upon the innate language

programming within the learner that develops like any other biological functions –

8
Innatism. The environment makes a basic contribution by making available to the

learner, reciprocating speakers. Chomsky has referred to the special ability within the

learner to perceive the ground rules of any new language system. This inherent

language acquisition device (LAD) or endowment, which has later been termed as

Universal Grammar (UG) simply needs language samples to get activated. The UG is

considered to be a set of principles that are common to all languages and that permits

all learners to acquire the language of their environment during a ‘critical period’ in

their development. This critical period does not stretch indefinitely and refers to a

concept of right time. A few contrasting arguments that generate from this theory are:

• The unavailability of UG to guide the acquisition beyond the critical period.

• Beyond the critical period of acquisition, the learners might not attain complete

mastery of the target language, but would eventually have more knowledge of the

language if compared to sole dependence on external inputs.

The ‘Monitor Model’ proposed by Stephen Krashen constitutes five hypotheses based on

the Innatist theory of second language acquisition.

• The acquisition-learning hypothesis concludes that nominating acquired

language as the foremost tool of natural and fluent communication, compared to

the conscious process of learning where attention and conformation to form and

rule prevails. Fluency here isn’t necessarily controlled and decided by the rules.

• In the monitor hypothesis, Krashen designates the learned system as an editor or

monitor responsible for fine tuning the language that has been acquired. This

acquisition alone can ensure fluency and intuitive judgment about correctness.

Monitor model is used when the focus is on correctness like in the case of written

communication. Krashen maintains that since knowing the rules only helps the

9
 speaker supplement what has been acquired, the focus of language teaching

should be on creating conditions for acquisition rather than learning.

• The natural order hypothesis is independent of the order of rules that are taught

in the classroom. Acquisition of the second language here attains a predictable,

natural sequence where the easy rules are not necessarily learned at the

beginning.

• Exposure to comprehensible input is a significant factor in acquisition. Krashen

claims that if the input contains forms and structures above the learner’s existing

level of language competence, it is bound to initiate comprehension and

acquisition. Undirected pleasure reading can be such a source of comprehensible

input that underlines the theory of the input hypothesis.

• The affective filter hypothesis has features that are linked to classroom practice

and is able to diagnose the reason behind the discrepancy in the level of learning

among various students under the same learning condition. The term ‘affect’ in

‘affective filter’ refers to motivation, needs, attitudes and emotional states that

has potential to filter out input, creating a virtual barrier that prevents learning

and acquisition. The filter operates at the disposal of the learner’s state of mind,

limiting or encouraging acquisition.

The more recent psychological theories include the model of information processing

where acquisition is viewed as the construction of a knowledge system that is accessed

automatically for speaking and understanding. This principle of automaticity involves a

timely movement of the control of a few language forms into the automatic processing

of a relatively unlimited number of language forms. Over analyzing language, thinking

10
too much about its forms and consciously lingering on rules of language, all tend to

impede this graduation to automaticity.

In addition to the development of automaticity through practice, skill and knowledge

also undergo change due to ‘restructuring’. Beside the concept of gradual build-up,

skills and knowledge seems to be based on the interaction of existing knowledge or the

acquired new knowledge that fits into an existing system and causes it to be

transformed or restructured. This set of action can have both positive and negative

impacts on the learner.

Connectionism is a cognitive approach that attributes greater importance to the role of

the environment as compared to the existence of innate knowledge in the learner. The

knowledge bank here is developed with the help of exposure to linguistic features

through innumerable instances. The connectionists consider external inputs as the

principal source of linguistic knowledge.

Theories have also been based on acquisition that takes place through conversational

interaction. Interactions between learners and native speakers produce acquirable

inputs that are comprehensive in nature. The interactionist position as discussed by

Evelyn Hatch, Teresa Pica, and Michael Long states that the learners need opportunities

to interact with other speakers in a way that is conducive to adaptation until the learner

shows signs of understanding. Yet another perspective on this role of interaction is the

socio-cultural theory of human mental processing. Social interactions between

individuals are at the centre stage here. Further collaboration and interaction with more

knowledgeable speakers elevate the learners to an advanced level of knowledge.

11
Acquisition Vs Learning

The distinction between “language learning” and “language acquisition” has been

brought to us by researchers in linguistics, psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology

– notably by Steve Krashen, Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker and others and also

through studies of both first and second language learning. More significantly, the

majority of people who learn another language do so without teachers, books or

classroom study. They do it by being exposed to comprehensible input that is for some

reason important to their lives – trading, traveling, studying or working. They do it not

by thinking about learning language, but by using new sounds and systems to

communicate something of importance to them. We might do well to look at this

phenomenon since these “non-students” are relatively more successful in their task

than the majority of formal language students. The critical difference is the focus on the

“message” rather than the form of the language used to transmit the message. To

summarize: as illustrated by Dave Hopkins in his book ‘Smooth Moves’:

12
 Acquisition Learning

1. The learning process is similar to the 1. The learning process is not like

process of learning L1 (first or native learning L1.

language).

2. An intuitive process. 2. A conscious process.

3. Implicit knowledge. 3. Explicit knowledge.
4. Speaking without thinking about it. 4. Thinking before speaking.
5. Formal teaching does not help much. 5. Formal teaching helps.

6. Strongly influenced by affective 6. Not as dependent upon affective

factors. factors.
7. Peers have a more important 7. Teachers or parental figures are more
influence than teachers or parental important than peers.
figures. 8. Language is often de-contextualized
8. Language is acquired in a “context” for drills and exercises.
that is understandable to the learner. 9. There is no attention to what is
9. There is a discernible, but as yet, known about the sequence of learning
incomplete ordering of the sequence of different linguistic features.

acquisition of linguistic features.

Another way of looking at this distinction may be the following. Native speakers have a

built in “feel” for what is right or wrong in language.

13
 I love to swim.

I enjoy to swim.

While the second sentence is a logical extension of the first, native English speakers

know it isn’t right.

In order to bring language teaching closer to the ‘natural acquisition’ of language

characterized by first language learning (L1) certain areas and consideration need to be

strongly emphasized. This also helps in reducing the type of ‘learning’ practiced in

many second-language classrooms. The areas are as followed:

1. Language context and modeling of language.

2. Natural language as it occurs in real life.

3. Encouraging learners to participate initiate and make choices about their

learning.

4. Learning grammar and vocabulary in context.

5. Repeated and varied language models for accuracy, rather than correction.

6. Maximizing peer interaction to allow students to observe, hypothesize,

experiment with language. – i.e. Scaffolding as output processing for language

development.

7. Focus on the “message” rather than the “language”.

8. Emphasizing the emotional engagement of the learner.

9. Giving the student time to digest input before requiring production.

14
EFL Teaching – Methodologies and Approaches

Learners of English who have the opportunity to live in an English-speaking

environment while studying have a huge advantage. They are surrounded by the

language continuously and are able to put acquired language into practice in everyday,

real situations. However, the majority of English learners are living in their native

countries, where English is not the first language and as a result do not have these

benefits. Many of these students may have the opportunity to use English at work, with

their friends or in any other practical way where they are able to use their English on a

fairly regular basis. Many other learners of English are not so fortunate and their only

contact with the language may be twice a week at a language institute. Even if they

have daily exposure to English, they get to use it only in English classes at school or at a

private language institute. As a result, these students do not get sufficient exposure to

the language or the opportunity to put into practice what they have acquired in class.

As children, we all learned our native language without the aid of language teachers

and textbooks. We simply absorbed the language around us, processed it and through

trial and error formulated internal ideas and rules to allow us to be able to use the

language fluently and accurately. This ‘natural language acquisition’ is impossible to

replicate in the classroom, but many of the most popular methodologies in EFL teaching

today try to imitate it as far as practical.

The concept of methodology evolved with the search for an ideal single method that

would successfully teach a foreign language in the classroom. This search found new

ideologies in a row that replaced the previous one and eventually gave way to the next.

In the process, language teaching was deduced to be composed of three hierarchical

components – Approach, Method and Technique.

15
Approach deals with assumptions, beliefs and theories that underline the nature of

language, learning and teaching. It is fed by theories about the applicability of language

and its nature of learning in pedagogical settings.

Method or design systematically presents the language, following a selected approach.

We can also designate it as an umbrella term that marks the specification and

interrelation of theory and practice. A strict definition goes as pedagogical practices that

include theory and research as the basis, trying to formulate ‘how to teach’.

Techniques are classroom activities and practices specific to any method and also in

accordance with the basic approach. Techniques generally involve a wide variety of

exercises, activities, tasks; everything that turns theory into practice.

To describe it in a single line, we can state that ‘teaching methods are approached in

action’ or ‘practical application of theoretical findings and positions’. History of

language teaching has seen new methods emerging every quarter of a century.

The individual methods are based on a set of beliefs about the nature of language and

learning. For as long as people have been learning and teaching language, there has

been continual, and often heated, debate as to which method and technique produce the

best results. The shifting focus over the years has been distinguished under the major

methodological findings.

(i) Grammar Translation

This was probably the mainstay of language teaching and learning for hundreds of

years, and indeed is still practiced in many classrooms. Many of us have been exposed

to this system of learning in the state or the public-school sector.

16
The basic principle of this system is, as its name suggests, is about learning a language

through the students’ own language or mother tongue. It is in effect, a system of

translation.

The major characteristics of the Grammar Translation method are:

• Classes are taught in mother tongue, with little active use of the target language

• Much vocabulary is taught in the form of lists of isolated words

• Long elaborate explanations of the intricacies of grammar are given

• Grammar provides the rules for putting words together, and instruction often

focuses on the form and inflection of words

• Reading of difficult classical texts is begun early

• Little attention is paid to context of texts, which are treated as exercises in

grammatical analysis.

• Often the only drills are exercises in translating disconnected sentences from the

target language into the mother tongue

• Little or no attention is given to pronunciation

The major drawback with the grammar – translation method is that it prevents the

students from getting the kind of natural language input that will really help them

acquire the language. The danger, therefore, is that students will learn about the

language rather than learning the language itself. This methodology also requires the

teachers to be proficient in the students’ native language.

17
(ii) Audio Lingualism

This is the name given to a language teaching/learning methodology based upon

behaviorist theories of learning. This theory basically suggests that much learning is as

a result of habit formation through conditioning. Audio - lingualism concentrates

therefore, to a large degree, on long repetition-drills, in which the students would be

conditioned into using the language correctly.

Audio – lingualism largely went out of fashion because most linguists believe that

language learning consisted of more than merely forming habits and that speakers of a

language are able to process language more effectively from the knowledge they have

acquired. However, it is useful to the extent that the language drills are still popular

(though in a much more limited way) especially for lower level students.

The characteristics of ALM may be summed up in the following list:

• New material is presented in a dialogue form.

• There is a dependence on mimicry, memorization of set phrases and over learning.

Structures are sequenced by means of contrastive analysis and taught one at a time.

• Structural patterns are taught using repetitive drills.

• There is little or no grammatical explanations. Grammar is taught by inductive

analogy rather than by deductive explanation.

• Vocabulary is strictly limited and learned in context.

• There is much use of tapes, language labs and visual aids.

• Great importance is attached to pronunciation.

• Very little use of the mother tongue by teachers is permitted.

18
• Successful responses are immediately reinforced

• There is a great effort to get students to produce error-free pronunciation.

• There is a tendency to manipulate language and disregard content.

(iii) Presentation, Practice and Production

In this method the teacher first presents the context and situation for the language, as

well as explaining and demonstrating the meaning and form of the new language. The

students then practice making sentences with the language in a controlled way

(including drilling) before going on to the production stage where they are able to be

more creative with the language.

PPP has proved to be extremely effective in teaching simple language at lower levels. It

is less effective with higher level students who already know a lot of language, and

therefore do not need such a marked production stage.

Many teacher training centers (and teachers) still use PPP today. The system does,

however, lack flexibility and it is easy for the lessons to become too ‘teacher-centered’.

(iv) Task – Based Learning

In this method the focus is more on a task than the language. Students are given a task

to complete (while using the English language). When they have completed the task,

the teacher can, if necessary – and only if necessary- provide some language study to

help clear up some of the problems they had while doing the task. The language lessons

are based on learning experiences that have non-linguistic outcomes, and in which there

is a clear connection between the things learners do in class and the things they will

ultimately need to do outside of the classroom.

19
Communicative Language Teaching

The communicative approach stresses the importance of language functions (such as

agreeing, inviting, suggesting, etc.) as opposed to relying only on grammar and

vocabulary. This approach also suggests that if students have enough exposure to the

language and the opportunity to use it, then language learning would in effect take care

of itself. Activities in CLT typically require students to use the language in real life

situations, so role-play and simulation have become popular with this method. CLT

places far more emphasis on completion of the task than the accuracy of the language.

(v) Community Language Learning

In CLL students will typically sit in a circle and it is up to them to decide what they

want to talk about. The teacher (standing outside of the circle) will help, when

necessary, with language problems that arise during the course of the discussion. This

methodology has helped teachers focus on the need to make the lessons as ‘student-

centered’ as possible by allowing the students to choose the topic and language.

The important characteristics are:

• Learners are not regarded as a class, but as a group that is in need of certain

therapy and counseling.

• Interaction in interpersonal relationship forms the basis of learning for the group.

• Students and teachers join together to facilitate learning in a context of valuing

each individual in the group.

• Personal defenses are replaced by supportive community feeling.

• The teacher is treated as a true counselor.

• The counselor teacher could become too non directive.

• It is based on an inductive strategy of learning.

20
(vi) The Silent Way

The most notable feature of the silent way is the behavior of the teacher- who says as

little as possible. This is because it is believed that if the students had to ‘discover’ the

language for themselves, learning will be better facilitated rather than just remembering

and repeating what had been taught. Many teachers have found this method to be a

little unnatural in application. The theory of the silent way can be summarized as:

• Discovery and creation of language induces learning more than memorizing and

repetition of the subject.

• Mediating physical objects facilitate learning.

• Solving problems that belong to the context of the subject facilitates learning.

(vii) Suggestopaedia

This method was developed largely on the need for the students to be comfortable,

confident and relaxed in order for learning to be more effective. Another feature is that

the teacher and students exist in a parent-children relationship; students are given new

names and traumatic themes are avoided. A Suggestopedia lesson has three main parts,

firstly there is an oral review of the previous lesson. This is followed by the presentation

and discussion of the new language. Finally, students listen to relaxing music while the

teacher reads the new dialogue.

• Music is central to the method.

• Practicality of using the method is an issue in the absence of music and

comfortable chairs.

21
The Lexical Approach

This approach argues that words and phrases are far better building blocks for

language acquisition than grammatical structure.

The central idea of the lexical approach focuses on teaching real English and shift away

from the language found in ELT textbook. In fact, the approach contends that what the

language course books teach is “not what people really say.” According to this

approach emphasis is on successful communication and not grammatical mastery.

The Natural Approach

Stephen Krashen’s theories of second language acquisition have been widely discussed

and debated. Both Krashen and his colleague Tracy Terrell felt that learners would

benefit from delaying the output of language until the learner starts to speak. “Learners

should be relaxed in the classroom and that a great deal of communication and

acquisition should take place, as opposed to analysis”, H. Douglas Brown, Teaching by

Principles. In fact, this approach recommends the TPR (Total Physical Response)

activities at the starter level when “comprehensible input” is a key element in the

process of acquisition.

The Natural Approach was aimed at basic personal communication in everyday life

situation. The teacher needed to provide oral inputs that the learner is able to

understand while the learner was expected to remain silent and take everything in and

respond only when he or she was ready. So, the teacher through different interesting

activities would be the source for all language input.

Krashen and Terrell defined three main stages in this process: (i) Pre-production stage

wherein listening comprehension skills are developed. (ii) Early production stage where

22
the learner struggles with the language and naturally makes errors. (iii) The last stage

demands production of more complex and longer “discourses” through role-play,

games, open-ended dialogues in groups. The aim is developing fluency rather than

accuracy, so error correction should be minimal.

This approach was criticized due to the delay in oral production (silent periods) and its

dependence on the teacher to give “comprehensible input”. How does the teacher

decide which structures are to be provided to the learner? Some teachers may not be

able to do so, on their own. The positive of this approach was to allow students to

remain silent till the time they are comfortable to speak. Therefore, they do not feel

threatened or embarrassed to experiment with the new language. The resulting self-

confidence helps in language learning.

The teacher needs to choose the best of what others have experimented with and adapt

those insights to the situation he or she is in.

Which methodology is the best?

With so many different approaches and methods it can be rather difficult to decide

which methodology is the best. Unfortunately, there is no clear answer, as much will

depend upon your individual circumstances. Your personality, the culture for students,

and their needs will all play a part in your decision. In reality each method has its

pluses and minuses, but certain conclusion can be drawn:

• Students need as much exposure to language as possible.

• Students need a certain amount of input from the teacher.

• Communicative tasks offer real learning possibilities, but are not enough on their

own.

23
• Anxiety and stress need to be low for effective language learning.

• Whenever possible, students should be encouraged to discover a language for

themselves.

• Vocabulary is as important as grammar. Both need each other.

The methodology that the teacher prefers may not be the preferred or correct option for

students from different cultures. Compromise may be necessary.

Over the years, a blind search for the perfect method gave way to integration of

approach to language teaching practices. The demand was for a unifying approach to

language teaching and designing effective tasks and techniques, informed by that

approach. The eclectic blend of tasks and activities now are beyond any methodology;

they only focus on the dynamics of the classroom.

The enlightened, eclectic approach incorporates a number of basic principles of learning

and teaching, inspired by the interconnection of reading and observation, discussion

and teaching. It is a dynamic composition of perception and experience, where

approach and classroom practice are in constant interaction. Feedback on innovation

yields new insight and more creative possibilities which run in a cycle. When the

eclectic approach is at work, designing of a lesson depends upon the selection of focus.

The approach chosen is also guided by factors like the teacher’s experience as a learner,

a teacher, observer, reader, and specialized orientation in the same field, if any.

Approaches are necessarily controlled by varying contexts and are subject to

interpretation.

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is a more generally accepted approach today

owing to a wide variety of interpretations and classroom applications. The approach

24
highlights distinct communicative traits and incorporates authentic, real-world

simulations and meaningful tasks. The CLT can be defined as a unified yet broadly

based, theoretically well-informed set of doctrines about the nature of language and of

language learning and teaching. CLT highlights the social, cultural and pragmatic

features of languages. CLT uses authentic language to a great extent in an attempt to

build fluency. The basic characteristics of the communicative mode of teaching feature

distinct digression from the previous approaches.

In Communicative Language Teaching, the grammatical, functional, socio-linguistic, and

strategic discourse components are at their best possible interplay. The techniques are

utilitarian and driven towards fulfillment of individual purposes. Fluency and accuracy

are complementary principles that alternatively acquire a high degree of importance.

Productive and contextualized communication is necessarily the goal and the students

need to work towards this goal through the development of appropriate strategies for

autonomous learning. The teacher here is the facilitator who is supposed to facilitate

authentic linguistic interaction and encourage meaningful construction of language.

The functional aspects like fluency and spontaneity displace overt presentation and

discussion of grammatical rules and concentrate on the learner’s initiative, in CLT.

The concepts that are derivatives from the Communicative Approach of language

teaching are as follows:

>> Learner-Centered Instruction involves techniques that are based on the

learner’s needs, styles and goals. The teaching is an interactive session here with

students’ input, space for creativity, enhancing individual competence.

25
>> Cooperative and Collaborative Learning emphasizes on students’ team spirit,

promoting intrinsic motivation; enhancing self-esteem; bonding of relationship

amidst cultural variation and individualities. It is a collaborative pursuance of

goals and objectives.

>> Interactive Learning promotes interactive communications and creates more

opportunities for genuine interaction through pair and group activities;

spontaneous reception and production of authentic language; catering to real

audiences and not forced situation.

>> Whole Language Education initially referred to the ‘wholeness’ of language,

encompasses the various significant components and the blending of oral with

written form of communication. Currently it is analogous to cooperative,

participatory and student-centered learning; it focuses on the community of

learners, the social nature of language; exploits meaningful and authentic

language with integration of the four-skills.

>> Content-Based Instruction (CBI) is viewed as the integration of content

learning with a language teaching aim. Content dictates the form and sequence

of language presentation.

>> Task-Based Instruction puts the task at the centre of one’s methodological

focus and views the learning process as a set of communicative tasks that are

directly linked to the curricular goals they serve. The purpose extends beyond

the practice of language for its own sake.

26
Language Learners and their Levels

ESL learners are socio-cultural products, necessarily conditioned by their surrounding,

family orientation, exposure to the greater society and several such factors. Therefore,

while assessing the learner(s) the factors like age, culture, language level and

motivation for learning are always taken into consideration. Any of these factors could

have a bearing on what we perceive to be a ‘good learner’. However, there are a number

of general characteristics that successful students appear to possess. These can include:

• A willingness to listen to the language.

• A desire to experiment with the language.

• A willingness to ask questions.

• An ability to think about their own learning process and methods.

• An acceptance of error correction.

• A desire to learn.

These are all qualities that successful learners usually have and it is the teacher’s

responsibility to encourage and foster these attributes in the classroom.

Age

The broad categorization would be under the subheads - young learners and adults.

Generally, adults are taken to mean those who are 18 years of age or more, and the term

is self-explanatory.

However, there are at least three categories of young learners.

• First is the post puberty or early teenage learner, i.e. 13-plus.

27
 • Second is the pre-puberty learner, corresponding to primary school or 8 to 12

years old.

• Finally, the very young learners, who are often preschoolers, aged 7 years and

less. These are becoming an increasingly bigger market in the world over.

They have shorter attention spans, and in the case of very young ones they have

not even completely mastered the grammar of their mother tongue, but all are

generally amenable to fun games, singing, drawing etc.

Culture and Language

Approaches to learning vary with the change in the cultural backgrounds of the

students.

Students from some Asian Countries, for example, are noted as being very serious

about their learning and respectful to their teachers but sometimes lacking in

willingness to communicate. The problem possibly stems from the fact in these areas,

the teacher is often still expected to do all the talking and the students are encouraged

not to speak in class unless addressed directly by the teacher. In some schools, TEFL

teachers are sometimes frowned upon and some classes considered unruly because of

the noise (Inevitable and necessary when there is choral work or pair and group work!).

A good teacher should be aware of their student’s customs and differences that could

affect the success of the classes.

Language Level

Distinctions between the different levels of ability in English language learning have to

be clearly demarcated. The most common breakdown is as follows:

28
Beginners - From zero knowledge of English to very basic knowledge of English that

cannot be quickly or easily activated.

Elementary – Students at this level are likely to be able to form basic sentence

structures and communicate on simple topics.

Low or pre-intermediate - Students are able to communicate and understand a greater

variety of topics, but lacking general fluency and depth of language awareness, but are

still likely to make many errors even with basic structures.

Intermediate – Able to understand and communicate on a wide range of issues using

limited stored vocabulary but still lacking in accuracy and fluency.

Upper Intermediate – Should be able to actively communicate on almost all topics

using a greater range of language but still lacking in accuracy.

Advanced – Students should have a very good knowledge of English language and

now will be studying more subtle language items.

It should be noted that while the above terms are the most commonly used, their actual

meaning can differ considerably depending on where you work and which text book

you may be using, an elementary student in one country could be viewed as

intermediate in a different country!

The common European framework recently established by the Council of Europe States

has the following six levels:

• Breakthrough Basic User A1

• Way stage, Basic User, A2

• Threshold, Independent User, B1

29
 • Vantage, Independent User, B2

• Effective Operational Policy, Proficient User, C1

• Mastery, Proficient User, C2

The complex variables introduced by sociopolitical contexts of teaching (country,

societal expectations, cultural factors, political constraints, the status of English), the

ethics and views of the institution one is teaching in (school, university, language

school, adult education, vocational/workplace courses), and the implied purposes for

learning English (academic, technical, social, immersion, enrichment, survival) heavily

conditions the teacher-student relationship and the final output in the classroom. Each

of these considerations is essential to incorporate into your choices of techniques, lesson

organization, and supporting materials.

Teaching Children

Children exercise a good deal of both cognitive and affective efforts in order to

internalize both native and second languages. The difference between children and

adults (that is, persons beyond the age of puberty) lies primarily in the contrast between

the child's spontaneous, peripheral attention to language forms and the adult's overt,

focal awareness of and attention to those forms.

Children are blessed with a fluency and naturalness that help them to score over the

superior intellect of the adults. The context of classroom instruction may introduce

some difficulties to children learning a second language.

Many fails to differentiate between very young children (4-6 years old) and pre-

pubescent children (12-13 years) and the whole range of ages in between. There are

actually many instances of six- to twelve-year-old children manifesting significant

30
difficulty in acquiring a second language for a multitude of reasons. Ranking high on

that list of reasons are a number of complex personal, cultural, and political factors at

play in elementary education. Teaching ESL to school-age children, therefore, is not

merely a matter of setting them loose on a plethora of authentic language tasks in the

classroom. To successfully teach children a second language, it requires specific skills

and intuitions that differ from those appropriate for adult teaching.

Teaching Teens

The job of teaching ‘Young Adults’, ‘Teens’ and ‘high school-age children’ should

preferably be a mix of variables that can appropriately cater to an age of physical,

psychological transition between twelve and eighteen. Students at this stage of

evolution from childhood to adulthood need to be handled with special consideration.

Some thoughts worth verbalizing is:

Intellectual capacity adds abstract operational thought around the age of twelve.

Therefore, some sophisticated intellectual processing is increasingly possible. Complex

problems can be solved by logical thinking. This means that linguistic meta-language

can now, theoretically, have some impact. But for any intellectual endeavor to be

successful the learner must pay full attention to the task at hand. If a learner is

simultaneously trying to attend to other things like her/his appearance, or to sexual

thoughts, or planning a weekend party, or whatever, the intellectual task at hand may

suffer.

• Attention span extends with intellectual maturity. However, with potential

diversions present all around, the same attention span tends to get shortened.

• Varieties of sensory input are still important, but, again, increasing capacities for

abstraction lessen the essential nature of appealing to all five senses.

31
 • Teaching process dedicated to teenagers should have elements to bolster their

ultra-sensitive sense of self-image, ego and self-esteem. The secondary school

teacher should aim at that by:

• avoiding embarrassment of students.

• affirming their personal talents and strength.

• making room for acceptance of mistakes and errors.

• de-emphasizing competition between peers.

• encouraging group work and activities.

Teaching Adults

Compared to children, adults have superior, cognitive abilities that spell success for

them in varied classroom endeavors. Their need for sensory input can largely be

generated from their imagination (“imagine touching a leaf” vs. actually touching it).

Adults also score an advantage over children for having acquired self-confidence that

helps them to handle shyness to a certain extent. The cognitive faculty also enables

them to deal with languages that are not currently contextualized. Therefore, besides

considering the thumb-rules specified for teaching children, special suggestions can be:

Adults are better at handling abstract rules and concepts. But beware! As an adult you

may get carried away by too much abstract generalization about usage and never get

around to practicing the language in real life situations. In other words, too much focus

on language learning concepts and rules may hinder the actual language learning

process.

32
 • Adults have longer attention spans and can concentrate on material that may not

be intrinsically interesting to them. But again, the rule of keeping your activities

short and interesting applies also to adult teaching.

• Sensory input need not always be quite as varied with adults, but one of the

secrets of lively adult classes is to make the activities multiple-sense based.

• Adults often bring a modicum of general self-confidence (global self-esteem) into

a classroom. The fragility of egos may therefore not be quite as critical as of

children. Yet we should never underestimate the emotional factors that may be

attendant to adult second language learning.

Adults, with their more developed abstract thinking ability are better able to

understand a context-reduced segment of language. Authenticity and meaningfulness

are of course still highly important, but in adult language teaching, a teacher can take

temporary digressions to dissect and examine isolated linguistic properties, as long as

students return to the original context.

33