I’ve just started reading Paul Nation’s Learning Vocabulary in Another Language (the TEFL first book I’ve spent my own money on for years!) and he starts off by listing four strands of a language course, which we should be spending an equal amount of time on:
– Learning through graded reading and listening texts during which the main focus is on understanding rather than on the language
– Some focus on the language
– Meaning-focused output, meaning concentrating on expressing your ideas (through speaking or writing) rather than the language you use
– Fluency development
That all seems very up to date, and ties in with other recent thoughts about aiming mainly for meaning but having room for a focus on form too. What it, and most other recent ideas, seem to lack any focus on is controlled speaking practice.
As a fairly self-sufficient language learner (until recently…), I can actually do most of the four things in the list above on my own, and arrange to do the others with a conversation exchange partner or penpal. The thing that I can’t arrange to do anywhere outside the classroom is to set up a (slightly artificial) situation where I get the chance to use a limited range of language over and over until I feel that I have got my tongue and head round it. The aim of that is so that the next time I need to say that thing in real communication I can do so comfortably. I find that much more useful than error correction, and I believe the same is true for most of my students – especially here in Korea where they get the reading and grammar elsewhere, but still claim they can’t produce it. In fact, doing lots of controlled speaking practice is one thing that helps me get away with little error correction- topic of my next post.
“The aim of that is so that the next time I need to say that thing in real communication I can do so comfortably”…
Doesn’t that potentially tie in with Nation’s first (listening and reading to understand), second (focus on the language), third (meaning-focused output/expressing yourself) and fourth (fluency) priorities?
As in:
1. Learning to understand what you hear
2. Learning certain kinds of language
2. Working out which ones suit you for your communication needs
3. Practicing those to facilitate automaticity and fluency?
I’m not sure if you’re looking for a new category altogether, or perhaps missing the potential that what you’re looking for – being very specific – can be facilitated through the (let’s face it, deliberately broad and inclusive) general categories Nation proposes.
Equally possible, perhaps I missed your main point…
I don’t see how doing a communication game could fit in to all four! I’m starting to think that it could be considered a fluency activity, although as the aim is accuracy as much as fluency, I’m not sure. As he says that you should spend 25% of time on each, the system is supposed to be that useful activities or sub-activities fall into one or the other
Anyway, reading that was just an excuse to ask this question, which I’ve been wondering about for a while. Is there any use in these new fangled teaching approaches for a good ole game of Past Continuous Accusations?
Have you seen this site? https://www.englishclub.com/efl/sotm/2010/talkenglish/
I’d tend to just put ‘controlled speaking activities’ under the umbrella of “focus on the language” and leave it at that, right?
Looking forward to your next post on error correction…
I agree – I don’t think it’s possible to have one single activity fit into all four strands. I’d fancy that controlled speaking activities fit into the language-focused development strand. I doubt it fits into the meaning-focused output strand, as there’s no meaningful output. And fluency development is only for language that is already 100% known, and then being put to use in a meaningful way. I think there’s a nice little article on Paul’s website from 2007 which sums up the conditions required for the four strands quite nicely. (FWIW, Paul’s page on the Victoria University of Wellington website is an absolute treasure trove of information. It’s so good to have an expert in the EFL field who can write for everybody – keeping both native and non-native teachers in mind.)