TESOL Essay TWO

Essay Two

The Community Language Learning Method

By Syrbastyian Vzampfyier

In many cases, the EFL/ESL instructor tends to dominate the class. Usually this is not a conscious decision but something that naturally occurs with teachers. Teachers have a desire to teach and help their students learn, no matter what the subject being taught may be. Due to this natural desire and wanting to help the students, the teacher may subconsciously dominate the class without realising it.

What can a teacher do to guard against this overly teacher-centred direction, given the fact that it is extremely difficult to be always consciously aware of what one is doing? Specifically for EFL/ESL teachers (but also for all teachers regardless of the subject they teach. I shall explain about this in further detail later in this essay), this is where the Community Language Learning method assists the teacher to be almost 100% student focused and counters the teachers subconscious tendency to dominate the class.

How does the Community Language Learning method do this? Before I go into the detail of how the method assists the teacher to be almost completely student directed, lets’ review what the Community Language Learning method is and the main steps involved in the method.

Community Language Learning method is where the students select all the language (vocabulary) needed for the lesson. They use this self selected language to create a story or describe a situation/event. Furthermore, the students teach each other, explain the definitions and uses of all the vocabulary provided in the lesson. The teacher is mainly there to guide and offer assistance if needed.

THE STEPS:

Firstly, Students close their eyes and listen to a short dialogue, place/event description, a story, etc. The students imagine the scene(s). Next the students open their eyes and take turns describing what they imagined. After this, the students write down all the special words they used to describe what they imagined. When this is done and teacher asks the students to call out they words and the teacher writes the words on the board. The students check the words listed and if they discover a new word, the teacher has the other students to explain the new word to them.

Each student possesses a large amount of information and knowledge in their minds, be it English or any other subject. At best we only use about 5% to 10% of what we know to think and to communicate (Active use/knowledge). The rest of our knowledge is either comprehend and, or understand information we read or hear (Semi-passive), or it is stored knowledge that remains dormant until it gets prompted to some external factor(s) (Passive knowledge). Collectively the students possess a vast amount and array of information and an extensive wealth of knowledge, which no EFL/ESL text book and many text books in general could ever rival.

Each student response to and acts upon the information provided by their fellow students and this sets up feedback loops where students become each other’s teacher and student. This communal approach to learning furthermore builds connections and bonds between the students not only on individual levels but also a group hence a class of students in many ways becomes a community. The process is natural and organic, it harkens back to when people lived in small communal groups such as tribes and clans. This co-operation in the class conforms to what we as people have been doing for most of human existence, which is that each member of a group supports each other to provide a successful environment for the whole group but in turn benefits each individual. We as human beings almost always function best as a group of individuals working together to benefit all.

In conclusion, while we as EFL/ESL teachers wish to help our students as much as we can, when we dominate the class and make teacher-centred, due to our wanting to help our students, we in many cases disadvantage our students. Therefore by relinquishing control and making the lesson(s) mostly student-centred we are benefiting the students. One: we are helping our students to teach themselves and each other. Two: we are building confidence and belief in our students that they can and do have the ability to communicate in the language they are learning, much like a parent who builds the same in their child. And three: we are tapping into and utilising the deep cognitive psychology of communal learning and support that we as human beings have been using for most of our existence and continue to use today