Community Language

Learning
CLL

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• Community Language Learning

– Characteristics
– Teacher has passive role
– Cooperative learning community
– Low anxiety/free expression
– Five learning stages

– Interactive or content-based applicability

– Independent stage marked by active
engagement w/ real-life language
– Teacher can direct conversations towards
content

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 Background

• Consider Ss as ‘whole-person ’- not only their

intellect, but Ss’ feelings, physical reaction,
instinctive protective reactions.

• A Counseling-Learning approach.

• Developed by Charles A. Curran

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 Teaching Theory-cont.
• Student-centered- T is counselor,
assistant. S is inquirer.
• Code-switching- Ss use native lang.
and then transit to target lang.
• No planned lessons or teaching
procedures. Learning is through the
interaction between T and Ss.

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 Background-cont.
• He found that adults often feel threatened
and foolish by a new learning situation.

• T becomes ‘language counselor- a skillful

understander of the struggle students.

• T is understanding, sensitive, helpful and

overcome Ss’ negative feelings into positive
energy in learning.

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 Emphasizes the learners’ responsibility for
their own learning.
The founder figure was Charles Curran
Conversation classes where the teacher-
counsellor would be able to speak the learners'
L1.
T becomes ‘language counselor- a skillful
understander of the struggle students.
T is understanding, sensitive, helpful and
overcome Ss’ negative feelings into positive
energy in learning.

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How it works in the
classroom

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 Teaching Activities
• Translation: Ss ask in native lang.
T translates to target lang.

• Small/pair group: discuss a topic,

a dialogue or a story.

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 Teaching Activities
• Recording: Ss record the
dialogue in target lang.

• Transcribing: Ss transcribe the

dialogue in target language in
written form.

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 Teaching Activities

• Analyzing: Ss analyze the written

dialogue in target lang.

• Reflection and observation:

• Ss reflect what have learned in the
classroom and make an oral report,
including express their feelings.

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 Teaching Activities

Free conversation: Ss and T or

other Ss can free talk or exchange
experience.

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 Stage 1- Reflection
Students sit in a circle around a
tape recorder to create a community
atmosphere.
The students think in silence about
what they'd like to talk about, while I
remain outside the circle.
To avoid a lack of ideas students can
brainstorm their ideas on the board
before recording.

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Stage 2 - Recorded conversation
Once they have chosen a subject, the students say in
their L1 what they'd like to talk about and the teacher
discreetly come up behind them and translate the
language chunks into L2.

With higher levels if the students feel comfortable

enough they can say some of it directly in English and I
give the full English sentence. When they feel ready to
speak the students take the microphone and record
their sentence.

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Stage 2 - Recorded conversation
It's best if you can use a microphone as the sound
quality is better and it's easier to pick up and put
down.

Here they're working on pace and fluency. They

immediately stop recording and then wait until another
student wants to respond. This continues until a whole
conversation has been recorded.

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 Stage 3 - Discussion
• Next the students discuss how they
think the conversation went. They
can discuss how they felt about
talking to a microphone and whether
they felt more comfortable speaking
aloud than they might do normally.

• This part is not recorded.

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 Stage 4 - Transcription
• Next they listen to the tape and
transcribe their conversation. The
teacher only intervene when they ask for
help.
• The first few times you try this with
a class they might try and rely on you a
lot but aim to distance yourself from the
whole process in terms of leading and
push them to do it themselves.

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 Stage 5 - Language analysis
• Get students to analyze the language the same
lesson or sometimes in the next lesson. This involves
looking at the form of tenses and vocabulary used and
why certain ones were chosen, but it will depend on the
language produced by the students.
• In this way they are totally involved in the analysis
process. The language is completely personalized and
with higher levels they can themselves decide what
parts of their conversation they would like to analyze,
whether it be tenses, lexis or discourse.
• With lower levels you can guide the analysis by
choosing the most common problems you noted in the
recording stages or by using the final transcription.

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 Pros
• Learners appreciate the autonomy CLL offers
them and thrive on analyzing their own
conversations.
• CLL works especially well with lower levels
who are struggling to produce spoken English.
• The class often becomes a real community,
not just when using CLL but all of the time.
Students become much more aware of their
peers, their strengths and weaknesses and want
to work as a team.

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 Cons
• In the beginning some learners find it
difficult to speak on tape while others
might find that the conversation lacks
spontaneity.
• We as teachers can find it strange to
give our students so much freedom and
tend to intervene too much.
• In your efforts to let your students
become independent learners you can
neglect their need for guidance.

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 Teaching Theory
• A whole-person model for education.

• 5 stages of learning process as a whole person:

-Embryonic Stage : looking for security and

sense of belonging.

-Self-assertion Stage: gradually obtain

competence of being independent.

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 Teaching Theory-cont.
-Reversal Stage : being able to speak
independently, refuse unnecessary suggestions.

-Adolescence Stage : fully prepared with

cognitive competence and be able to accept
critics.

-Independent : capable to have free conversation

with others.

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