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Name: I Gusti Agung Hannytiananda

Student Number: 2001541148


Class: G

Book: How Languages are Learned

CHAPTER 5 OBSERVING LEARNING AND TEACHING IN THE SECOND


LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

Natural and Instructional Settings

 In natural acquisition contexts, learner is exposed to the language at work, in social


interaction, if the learner is a child, in a school situation where most of the other children
are native speakers.
 In structure-based instructional environments, language is taught to a group of second or
foreign language learners.
 In instructional setting, the focus is on the language itself, rather than the message carried
by the language. In other words, teacher’s goal is to teach vocabulary and grammatical
rules of the target language.
 Communicative, content-based, and task based instructional environments involve
learners whose goal is learning the language itself, but emphasis on interaction,
conversation, and language use, rather than on learning about the language.
 The topics that are discussed are often of general interest to the learner.

In natural acquisition settings

 The learner is exposed to a wide variety of vocabulary and structures


 Learner’s errors are rarely corrected
 The learner are surrounded by the language for many hours each day
 The learner encounters a number of different people who use the target language
proficienly.
 Learners observe/participate in different types of language events
 Older children/adults may encounter the written language in the use of video and web
based materials
 Learners must often use their limited second language ability to respond to questions, get
information, etc
 Modified input is available in many one-to–one conversation

In stricter-based instructional settings

 Linguistic items are presented and pracrised in isolation


 Errors are frequently corrected
 Learning is limited
 The teacher is the only native/proficient speaker
 Students experience a limited range of language discourse types
 Students feel pressure to speak/write the second language from the very beginning
 Teacher may use the learner’s native language to give instructions/classroom
management

In communicative instructional settings

 Input is simplified rather than through the use of structural grading


 Limited amount of error correction on the part of the teacher
 Learners have only limited time for learning
 Only the teacher who is a proficient speaker; learners have exposure to the inter language
of other learners
 A variety of discourse types
 Little pressure to perform at high levels of accuracy
 Modified input is a defining feature of this approach to instruction

Observation Schemes

 Observation schemes have been developed for use in second language classrooms
 Several aspects of schemes include, number of categories (qualitative/quantitative), used
throughout a lesson or on selected samples of classroom unteraction
 Schemes also differ in relation (observers in real time, or used outside the classroom to
analyse audio/video)
 Example of scheme developed for second language classroom is COLT
 COLT is divided into two parts. Part A describes teaching practices in terms of content,
focus, and organization of activity types. Part B describes specific aspects of the language
produced by teachers and students

Classroom comparisons: Teacher-student interactions

The book showed two transcripts, which highlights differences between two class, A and B.
Both activities are teacher-centered. Classroom A us focused on form (grammar) and in
classroom B is focused on meaning. The purpose of interaction of classroom A is to practice
the present continues, but the teacher doesn’t show real interest in what students are doing. In
classroom B, there are conversational interaction and genuine questions.
Classroom comparisons: student-student interactions

In the first transcript, the communication are focused exclusively on meaning and on trying
to understand each other in order to complete the activity, whereas the second transcript are
focused on both form and meaning where they make statements about whether they are using
the correct form of the reflexive verb and continually questioning the grammatical accuracy.

Corrective feedback in the classroom

Study 1: Roy Lyster and Leila Ranta developed their scheme by observing the different types
of corrective feedback provided during interaction in four French immersion classrooms with
9-11 years old students by using the combination of some categories from part B of the
COLT and other categories.

a. Explicit correction refers to the explicit provision of the correct form


b. Recasts involve teacher’s reformulation of all or part of student’s utterance
c. Clarification requests indicate students either their utterance has been misunderstood
by the teacher or the utterance is incorrect
d. Metalinguistic feedback contains comments, information, or questions related to the
correctness of the student’s utterance without explicitly providing the correct form
e. Elicitatíon refers to at least three techniques that teachers use to directly elicitthe
correct form from the students
f. Repetítion refers to the teacher's repetition of the student's erroneous utterance

Student uptake was least likely to occur after recasts and more likely to occur after clarification
requests, metalinguistic feedback, and repetitions. Furthermore, elicitations and metalinguistic
feedback not only resulted in more uptake, they were also more likely to lead to a corrected form
of the original utterance. Lyster has argued that students receiving content-based language
teaching are less likely to notice recasts than other corrective feedback, because they may
assume that the teacher is responding to the content rather than the form of their speech.

Study 2: In a study with adult foreign language learners of Japanese, Amy Ohta examined the
oral language that learners addressed to themselves during dassroom activities. In this
context, Ohta discovered that learners noticed recasts when they were provided by the
instructor. Furthermore, learners were more likely to react t o a recast with private speech when
it was directed to another learner or to the whole class rather than when the recast was directed to
their own errors.

Study 3: They found that the teachers in both contexts used corrective feedback in similar
ways. However, the effects of recasts on learners' uptake were different. In the Japanese
immersion classes, learners frequently repaired their utterances after receiving recasts where as
learners in the French immersion classes rarely did. Instead, the greatest proportion of repair
carne after prompts, that is, the feedback types that indicated to students that a correction was
needed and that encouraged them to self-correct.

Questions in the classroom

Questions are fundamental in engaging students in interaction and in exploring how much they
understand. Two typesof questions that have been extensively examined are referred to as
'display'questions (to which the teacher already knows the answer) and 'genuine' or'referential'
questions (to which the teacher may not know the answer). Some have conducted observations
regarding to teacher’s questions in ESL classroom, scaffolding and display and referential
questions, open and closed questions, wait time and teacher’s questioning practices, etc.

Ethnography

Ethnography is a way of observing teaching and learning in second or foreign language


classrooms without a set of predetermined categories. Instead, the observer takes extensive notes
of the activities, practices, and interactions and looks for the patterns that emerge. In doing
ethnographic research, the observer can either be a participant in the classroom activities, for
example, as a teacher's aid, or as a non-participant, someone who sits quietly and unobtrusively
in the background, observing and recording.
That is, ethnographies in second or foreign language classrooms do not focus solely on learning
or on teaching but also on social, cultural, and political realities and their impact on learners'
cognitive, linguistic, and social development.

CHAPTER 6 SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING IN CLASSROOM

Proposals for teaching

As we saw in Chapter 5, quantitative research may be essentially descriptive. The emphasis is


not on what is most general but rather on a thorough understanding of what is particular about
what is happening in this classroom. As pointed out by Ann Burns and others, while quantitative
and qualitative research are important in assessing theoretical proposals, action research carried
out by teachers in their own classrooms is also essential to answer specific local
questions. Readers are encouraged to follow up with further reading but also to explore related
questions through research activities within their own teaching and learning environments.

1. Get it right from the beginning


'Get it right from the beginning' is probably the proposal that characterizes more second
and foreign language instruction than any other kind. In a typical grammar translation
activity, students read a text together line by line and are asked to translate it from the
target language into their native language. Students may answer comprehension questions
based on the passage, often in their first language. In which students learned about the
language, audiolingual teaching would lead students to actually speak the language.
2. Just listen… and read
Just listen ... and read' is based on the hypothesis that language acquisition takes place
when learners are exposed to comprehensible input through listening and/or reading. This
is a controversial proposal because it suggests that Second language learning in the
classroom learners do not need to produce language in order to learn it, except perhaps to
get other people to provide input by speaking to them. 
3. Let’s talk
They argue that when learners are given the opportunity to engage in interaction, they are
compelled to negotiate for meaning, that is, to express and clarify their
intentions, thoughts, opinions, etc., in a way that permits them to arrive at mutual
understanding.
4. Get two for one
In content-based language teaching, learners acquire a second or foreign language as they
study subject matter taught in that language. It’s implemented in a great variety of
instructional settings. In many educational situations, however, no other option is
available. In others, educational materials are not available in all local languages, so one
language is chosen as the language of education.
5. Teach what is teachable
Students may produce certain structures after they have been taught them in class, but
cease to use them later because they are not fully integrated into their inter language
systems. The underlying cause of the stages has not been fully explained, but process
ability theory suggests that they may be based at least in part on learners' developing
ability to notice and remember elements in the stream of speech they hear. Learners'
acquisition of these variational features appears to depend on factors such as
motivation, the learners' sense of identity, language aptitude, Second language learning in
the classroom and the quality of instruction, including how learners' identities and
cultures are acknowledged in the classroom.
6. Get it right in the end
This proposal differs from the 'Teach what is teachable' proposal, however, in that it
emphasizes the idea that some aspects of language must be taught and may need to be
taught quite explicitly. There are a number of situations in which guidance-form-focused
instruction or corrective feedback-is expected to be especially important. 

Assessing the proposals

 In the schools of the world, grammar translation is no doubt the most widely applied
method and most of us have met individuals whose advanced proficiency in a foreign
language developed out of their experience in such classes.  However, we also know-
from personal experience and research findings that these methods leave many learners
frustrated and unable to participate in ordinary conversations, even after years of classes. 
 There is increasing evidence that learners continue to have difficulty with basic structures
of the language in programs that offer little or no focused instruction. Comprehension-
based approaches are most successful when they include guided attention to language
features as a component of instruction. 
 The results of research in French immersion, other content-based language teaching, and
communicative ESL are strong indicators that learners develop higher levels of fluency
through primarily meaning-based instruction than through rigidly grammar-based
instruction. 
 Form-focused instruction and corrective feedback provided within the context of
communicative and content-based programs are more effective in promoting second
language learning than programs that are limited to a virtually exclusive emphasis on
comprehension.

BOOK: HOW TO TEACH ENGLISH

CHAPTER 4 DESCRIBING LEARNING AND TEACHING

Children and Language

 Language acquisition is the way people get language with no real conscious effort,
without thinking about grammar or vocabulary, or worrying about which bits of language
go where.
 In order to get acquisition, children need to be exposed to hear a lot of language,
including the nature of the language.
 Childhood is the best time where someone get exposed to language as much as possible,
especially languages we heard from our parents.
 Most of the language we hear is given to us in social and emotional interactions, so that
as we hear language, we also hear the ways in which the language is used.
 Children have a strong motivational urge to communicate in order to be fed and
understood by trying it out and using it.

Acquisition and Learning

 According to Stephen Krashen, we can make a distinction between acquisition and


learning.
 Acquisition is subconscious and anxiety free, while learning is a conscious process
 Teacher should focus more on acquisition rather than learning. The role of language
teacher is to provide the right kind of language exposure, namely comprehensible input.
 Comprehensible input is language that the students understand more or less, even if it is a
bit above their own level of production
 The principal function of learnt language is to monitor what is coming from our acquired
store to check that it is okay. Learn language tends to get in the way of acquired-language
production and may inhibit spontaneous communication
 If we believe that acquisition is superior to learning, we will spend all our time providing
comprehensible input.
 For older children and adults, they should have their attention drawn to aspects of
language so that they can notice these aspects
 A rich classroom environment gives exposure to students about language and also give
them opportunities to activate their language knowledge

Different Times, Different Method

The acquisition-versus-learning debate may seem to be a relatively recent argument, yet for as


long as languages have been taught people have argued about the best way of doing it, and how
to help students to learn more effectively. Current teaching practice is the direct result of such
argument and discussion, and not only on the subject of acquisition and learning. Both abstract
theory and practical techniques have been debated, have gone in and out of fashion, and have
influenced what was and is included in classrooms and teaching materials. These are the various
phrases of two or more words which we use as units of meaning to communicate with .Here are
ways about how languages are learned today.

a. Grammar-translation
Grammar-translation introduced the idea of presenting students with short grammar rules
and word lists, and then translation exercises in which they had to make use of the same
rules and words.
b. Audio-lingaulism
Audio-lingual classes made extensive use of drilling, in which students produced the
same grammatical pattern but were prompted to use different words within the pattern, in
the hope that they would acquire good language habits. By rewarding correct production
during these repetition phases, students could be conditioned into learning the
language. Early language laboratory tapes used this procedure with students spending
hours wearing headphones and responding to prompts or cues in so-called cue-response
drills.
c. PPP
Both Audio-lingualism and its assimilation into structural-situationalism have their
modern equivalent in the procedure which is often referred to as PPP that stands for
Presentation, Practice, and Production.
d. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
CLT has two main guiding principles: the first is that language is not just patterns of
grammar with vocabulary items slotted in, but also involves language functions such as
inviting, agreeing and disagreeing, suggesting, etc. While the second one is that if
students get enough exposure to language, and opportunities for language use.
e. Task-Based Learning (TBL)
TBL is a natural extension of communicative language teaching. In TBL, the emphasis is
on the task rather than the language.

Elements for Successful Language Learning (ESA)

a. Engage (E)
Activities and materials which frequently engage students include: games, music,
discussions, stimulating pictures, dramatic stories, amusing anecdotes, etc.
b. Study (S)
Study activities are those where the students are asked to focus on the construction of
something, whether it is the language itself, the ways in which it is used or how it sounds
and looks.
c. Activate (A)
This element describes exercises and activities which are designed to get students using
language as freely and communicatively as they can.

ESA Lesson Sequences

Here is an example of such a sequence designed for elementary-level students to teach ‘cam’ and
‘can’t’

a. Engage: students and teacher look at a picture, website or DVD of new generation robots.
Perhaps they can watch a brief clip of the movie I, Robot or some other contemporary
film with a similar theme. They say whether they like or don’t like the idea of robots.
b. Study: The teacher tries to make sure the sentences are pronounced correctly and that the
students use accurate grammar
c. Activate: students work in groups to design and describe their dream robot.

Boomerang procedure:

a. Engage
b. Activate
c. Study
d. Activate

Patchwork lesson:

a. Engage – activate
b. Activate
c. Study
d. Activate
e. Study
f. Engage
g. Activate

ESA and Planning

When we think of what to do in our lessons, we have to decide what it is we hope our students
will achieve by the end of a lesson .
In this context, balancing up the three ESA elements reminds us of the need for student
engagement; it prompts us to ensure that there are study events built into the plan; it ensures that
in almost all lessons there are also opportunities for students to have a go at using the language
they are learning. 

BOOK: LEARNING TEACHING

CHAPTER 5 TOOLKIT 1: CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

1. Common classroom management areas:


a. Grouping and seating
b. Activities
c. Authority
d. Critical moments
e. Tools and techniques
f. Working with people

Classroom management involves both decisions and actions. The actions are what is done in the
classroom. The decisions are about whether to do these actions, when to do them, how to do
them, who will do them, etc. The basic skills of classroom management involves: look, options,
and actions

2. Classroom Interaction

Teacher talk and student talk

The language classroom is rich in language for learners. Students learn a lot of their language
from what they hear you say: the instructions, the discussions, the asides, the kokes, chit-chat,
comments, etc.
3. Seating

There are few things that we might want to put to consideration when managing the students
seating in the classroom, including whether they are comfortable or not to work in pairs or work
in small groups. Here are types of seating.

a. Fixed, semi-fixed and large seating


b. Moveable seating

4. Giving instructions

How to give a clear instruction?

a. Become aware of your own instruction


b. Preplan essential instructions
c. In class, separate clearly from the other chit-chat, telling off, joking, etc
d. Demonstrate rather than explain if possible
e. Check that students have understood what to do

5. Participate, monitor, or vanish?


 Decide your role while students do an activity by doing two steps. The first 30 seconds:
are they doing the task set? And step 2: the task itself
a. Monitor discreetly
Discreet monitoring is when you maintain a presence in the room, but do not overtly offer
help
b. Vanish
The teacher presence can actually interfere the usefulness of work being done, the best
option for you is to vanish
c. Monitor actively
You can monitor but be more visible and allow students to be aware of your presence
d. Participate
You may sit down and join a group temporarily and take part as if you were one of the
group

6. Gestures
Try develop a range gestures to save yourself repeating basic instruction and increase
opportunities for learner talk.
7. Using the board well
You can draw a few dividing lines on the board at the start of the lesson, to keep it more
organized.

8. Board drawing
9. Eliciting
10. Students using their own language
11. Intuition
Concludes: Intuition and teaching
12. How to prevent learning-some popular techniques
We can use:
a. TTT (Teacher Talking Time)
b. Helpful sentence completion
c. Complicated and unclear instructions
d. Not checking understanding of instructions
e. Asking ‘Do you understand?’
f. Fear of genuine feedback
g. Insufficient authority/over-politeness
h. The running commentary
i. Lack of confidence in self, learners material, activity/making it too easy
j. Over helping
k. Flying with the fastest
l. Not really listening (hearing language problems but not the message)
m. Weak rapport: creation of a poor working environment

BOOK THE PRACTICE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

PART 4 MANAGING LEARNING

Chapter 8: Mistakes and Feedback

A. Students make mistakes


The two distinct sources for errors made by students are
a. L1 ‘interference’
b. Developmental errors
B. Assessing student performance
Assessment of performance can be explicit or implicit. There are a number of ways in
which we can assess our student’s work.
a. Comments
b. Marks and grades
c. Reports
Students can even assess themselves as well, although teachers are ideally more accurate when
assessing student’s performance. Student usually is very effective in monitoring and judging
their own language production.

C. Feedback during oral work


Here are the type of mistake made and the particular student who is making that mistake.
a. Accuracy and fluency
b. Feedback during accuracy work
We will need to move on to alternative techniques.
-Showing incorrectness (can be done by repeating, echoing, statement, etc)
-getting it right (if students are unable to correct themselves, we need to focus on the
correct version in more detail

Feedback during fluency work

We can do it by:

a. Gentle correction
b. Recording mistakes
c. After the event: after you’ve recording, we will want to give feedback to the class

Feedback on written work


During the writing process we will be responding rather than correcting. When we respond, we
say how the text appears to us and how successful we think it has been. When correcting, many
teachers use correction codes to indicate that students have made mistakes in their written wrong.

D. Training students
If the students are to benefit from our feedback on their writing, they need to know what
we mean and what to do about it. We can also try to involve students by giving feedback
to each other. The feedback given by teacher must be clear enough for the students to
understand. Lee has a number of ways of varying the amount of marking and the way
teachers do it to reduce student’s anxiety when looking at the sight of their work covered
in corrections.
a. Selective marking
b. Different error codes
c. Don’t mark all the papers
d. Involve the students

CHAPTER 9: MANAGING FOR SUCCESS

A. Why problems occur


There are several ways that could negatively influence the students resulting in student’s
personalities that get affected negatively or even affecting their self-esteem.
a. The family
b. Learning expectations
c. Approval
d. What the teacher does
e. Success and failure
f. External factors
B. Creating successful classrooms
We need to ensure that the classroom is a success-oriented environment by looking at
several aspects, including.
a. Behavior norms
There are three things we need to bear in mind in order to achieve this:
-Norms need to be explicitly discussed
-Norms can be jointly negotiated
-Norms need to be reviewed and revisited

How teachers can ensure successful behavior?

It could be done by creating positive atmosphere in the class.

a. Start as we mean to go on
b. Know what we are going to do
c. Plan for engagement
d. Priorities success
e. Equality rules
f. Praise is better than blame

C. Modifying problem behavior


There are many things to bear in mind if we wish to achieve these goals.
a. Act immediately
b. Keep calm
c. Focus on the behavior not the student
d. Take things forward
e. Talk in private
f. Use clearly agreed sanctions
g. Use colleagues and the institution

CHAPTER 10 GROUPING STUDENTS

A. Different groups
Whole-class teaching
There are advantages and disadvantages of whole class teaching. The advantages are.
a. It reinforces a sense of belonging among the group of members
b. It is suitable for activities where the teacher is acting as a controller
c. It allows teachers to gauge the mood of the class in general
d. It is preferred class style in many educational settings where students and teachers
feel secure when the whole class is working in lockstep and under authority of the
teacher

The disadvantages are:

a. It favors the group rather than the individual


b. Individual students do not have much of a chance to say anything on their own
c. Many students are disinclined to participate in front of the whole class
d. It may not encourage students to take responsibility for their own language learning
e. It is not the best way to organize communicative language teaching

Students on their own

Here are the advantages and disadvantages of individualized learning.

Advantages of individualized learning:

a. Allows teachers to respond to individual student


b. Less stressful for students
c. Can develop learner autonomy and promote skills of self-reliance
d. Can be a way of restoring peace and tranquility

Disadvantages of individualized learning

a. It doesn’t help a class develop a sense of belonging


b. When combined with giving individual students different tasks, it means a great deal
more thought and materials preparation than whole-class teaching involves

Pairwork

Here are the advantages and disadvantages or pairwork.

Advantages:

a. Increases the amount of speaking time


b. Allows students to work and interact independently
c. Allows teacher to work with one or two pairs
d. Recognizes the old maxim that ‘two heads are better than one’
e. Relatively quick and easy to organize
Disadvantages

a. Very noisy
b. Students in pairs can often veer away from the point of an exercise
c. Not always popular with students
d. Can be problematic especially if students frequently find themselves working with
someone they are not keen on

Groupwork

Advantages of groupwork:

a. Increase the number of talking opportunities for individual students


b. Personal relationships are less problematic
c. Encourages broader skills of cooperation and negotiation than pairwork
d. Promotes learner autonomy
e. Students can choose their level of participation

Disadvantages:

a. Noisy
b. Not all students enjoy it
c. Individuals may fall into group roles that become fossilized
d. Groups take longer to organize than pairs

Ringing the changes

Deciding when to put students in groups or pairs, when to teach the whole class or when to let
individuals get on with it on their own will depend upon a number of factors:

a. The task
b. Variety in sequence
c. The mood

B. Organizing pairwork and groupwork


Can be done by considering several aspects:
a. Making it work
b. Creating pairs and groups
Must consider the following principles:
-Friendship
-Streaming
-Chance
-The task
-Changing groups
-Gender and status

Procedures for pairwork and groupwork

We have other matters to address, too, not only before the activity starts but also during and after
it.

a. Before: we will want to follow an ‘engage-instruct-initiate’ sequence


b. During: while students are working in pairs or groups, we have a number of options
c. After: when pairs and groups stop working together, we need to organize feedback

Troubleshooting

We can keep our eyes open for problems which we can resolve either on the spot or in future.

a. Finishing first
How to deal with it? We need to have a series of challenging task-related extensions for
early finishers
b. Awkward groups
We may need to change the pairs or groups. We can separate best friends for pairwork;
we can put all the high-status figures in one group so that students in other groups do not
have to defer to them.

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