Lita Brusick Johnson APPROACH TO LANGUAGE LEARNING AND LANGUAGE TEACHING The limits of my language mean the limits

of my world. Ludwig Wittgenstein

March 2014

Many adult learners of English have either chosen to learn a new language or have experienced personal, political, economic or social circumstances that make learning English a necessity. While most of these learners might not share Ludwig Wittgensteins passion for exploring the philosophical relationship between language and meaning, most do share a common motivation for their language learning: to reduce the limitations that a lack of English places on their ability to engage in their communities, their places of employment, and the wider world. Put positively, these learners are seeking to expand the fields of life in which they can confidently, effectively, and meaningfully engage. Learning vocabulary and understanding the rules of grammar contribute to this goal. But, in most instances, learners are seeking to acquire a broader communicative competence. This includes not only linguistic competence but also sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competencies. Together these interconnected competencies enable learners to communicate and construct meaning in contexts of their own choosing. I believe that a student-centered approach to communicative second-language teaching provides a framework in which teachers and students together create a common learning space for achieving communicative competency. Teachers bring to this space deep knowledge about the English language and how it is used, while adult learners bring their extensive and diverse knowledge and life experience. As architects of this common space, teachers need to understand where and how students hope to use their English and shape the classroom experience accordingly. For example, most students where I student taught (at the Tutorium in Intensive English (TIE) at the University of Illinois at Chicago) entered the program to achieve a level of proficiency in English they needed to study successfully at a U.S. university. TIEs overall curriculum and the curricula of each of its five levels of classes has been shaped with this goal in mind. Similarly, this goal influenced the choices my mentoring teacher and I made as we prepared activities and tasks for our advanced intermediate reading and writing class. Our class writing outcome students being able to produce a well-structured five-paragraph essay was a curricular given. But we had the freedom to tailor what we did in class to our students interests, strengths, and weaknesses as well as their differing learning styles. How we structured each task gave expression to our commitment to provide students as many opportunities as possible to produce meaningful language. We kept teacher-fronted explanations to a minimum; students learning from and teaching each other was the norm. So, for example, with our visual learners in mind, we developed a student resource: a flow chart that used different shapes to explain subordinators and transition words relating to comparison and contrast. Careful pre-class preparation of this resource enabled the students to teach each other, with visual learners in this instance taking the lead. I believe that teachers contribute to a healthy learning space by encouraging, coaching, and creating opportunities for learners first to practice language forms in controlled ways and then, as quickly as possible, to use them repeatedly in authentic ways to communicate meaning, to the point where these elements are automatized and incorporated into learners developing language systems. So, whether in a classroom setting, in group work, or in one-on-one tutoring sessions, I seek to encourage students to engage in meaningful language production in which they apply their life experience and express their opinions, moving intentionally

toward less controlled and more complex use of the language. I believe that this is a critical aspect of language learning that enhances communicative competence. The following are also among the elements that contribute to effective communicative second-language teaching: Use of authentic material to teach language forms. Depending on the students proficiency level and specific teaching outcomes, these materials can be carefully adapted to serve students needs. For our reading and writing assignments at the Tutorium, we tried insofar as possible to utilize real-world materials that related to our learners current contexts and aspirations. Providing learning opportunities that scaffold new learning on what students have mastered, reinforcing learning across the four language skill areas. For example, each two-week unit at the Tutorium was designed to provide building blocks that enabled students to move toward the goal of writing well -structured essays by semesters end. Pair and group brainstorming, peer review, and whole class discussion reinforced sentence and paragraph level learning, even as students began the more complex essay writing task. Both structured and less formal assessment of student progress toward specific learning outcomes. Students benefit from both informal and more structured assessments, including focused feedback on their performance relative to expectations that have been explained clearly to them in carefully developed rubrics. Our practice of providing feedback relating to six reading skills (or six writing skills) helped students to identify and give attention to areas of weakness, which helped them improve their subsequent work. A system of informal and structured assessment also helped us, as teachers, to make mid-course corrections, adjusting our lesson plans and materials to better meet student needs. Enhancing learning, thinking, and study skills that build upon the strengths students bring into the classroom and that enable them to take control of their own learning. For example, critical thinking is a skill that students need to succeed at the university and in other environments. In the TIE context, we approached essay writing as requiring sound grammar and structure, but we also emphasized clear development of ideas and provision of supporting arguments. Our semester goal for students was for them to hone specific skills they needed to continue their learning in the university setting. Paul Nation (2007) suggests that learners benefit from language courses that weave together into an instructional whole four equal strands of opportunities for students: to receive meaning-focused input, to produce meaning-focused speech and writing, to focus on language forms, and to develop their speaking and writing fluency. I believe that this approach is sound and workable in the classroom. It provides a conceptual and practical framework for teachers to deal with the inherent tension between accuracy and fluency, while creating opportunities for learners to produce language, which is at the heart of their language learning. The truism does, in fact, hold for teaching English as a second language: nothing is simple. There is no one clearly marked path that students can follow to become communicatively competent. The complexities of language learning and language teaching mirror the amazing complexities of human cognition and communication, in which there are both fundamental linguistic patterns and individual and cultural differences. Approaching these complexities with a combination of awe-filled amazement and analytical intensity enables teachers to avoid imposing on students a one-size-fits-all language learning plan even as they provide instruction on linguistic forms, vocabulary, culture and patterns of interaction that can help each learner achieve his/her language learning goal.