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Is proficiency a communicative goal? Should we "teach for proficiency?"

1/6/2019

I will argue that proficiency (here taken to mean functional language ability) is a side effect, not the goal of a communicative classroom. In addition, "teaching for proficiency" can corrupt.

If the purpose of communication is
1) psychosocial (build and maintain relationships) and/or
2) cognitive-informational (learn and exchange some new information) and/or
3) entertainment

then those are also the goals of a communicative classroom. The purpose of communication is not to acquire language knowledge or develop ability to use a language. Those are the byproducts of communication.

For goals and assessments to align, then we don't assess proficiency (not directly, at least). We use the target language to assess information learned, i.e., content-based assessments. That could be questions about cultural and/or personal information learned or what happened in a story. In other words, we don't assess reading, writing, speaking, and listening. We don't assess vocabulary size. We don't assess accuracy. Nor fluency.

A communicative teacher is not a "language teacher." By thinking your goal is to "teach proficiency," you communicate to teach language, rather than communicate to build relationships, teach content, and/or entertain.

Yes, we want to provide input. But do we provide input to communicate or to teach language? Maybe you think: Can't it be for both? My concern is that providing input to teach language can subvert genuine communication.

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Implication of Immersion Programs Kept a Secret

10/11/2018

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For decades, immersion programs have reported students becoming quite fluent, with native-like comprehension, and no loss in subject matter knowledge. The old me used to think “Yeah, but I don’t have the time that an immersion program has.” I wouldn’t see the results of immersion programs as particularly relevant to me, since I have way less time. I was, of course, thinking that I could take shortcuts. I didn’t see the obvious: instructional time does not change how acquisition happens.

What makes immersion programs work? We know immersion students produce relatively little output and error correction is random. Hmm, what could it be? . . . The “shortcut” is for the teacher (and materials) to communicate a lot to students and communicate as comprehensibly as possible.

As noted in the Pedagogical Implications of Memo #23, some SLA researchers walked away with a different implication of immersion programs: grammatical inaccuracy, especially concerning those darn verb endings. Fast forward to the present and instructed SLA research is preoccupied with helping learners make more form-meaning connections (aka process input) amidst communicative events. The rather unfortunate label (thanks, Michael Long) for this is “focus on form” (FonF). This is contrasted with focus on formS (FonFS) which is when form and meaning are treated separately, e.g., traditional present-and-practice procedures.

Numerous FonF interventions and techniques have been proposed, including increasing the frequency of target forms in the input, making target forms stand out, for example, by boldening parts of the text, rephrasing a learner’s ungrammatical utterance, and careful manipulation of input. The technical terms for each of those examples are “input floods,” “input enhancement,” “recasts,” and “processing instruction,” respectively. The only one of those that has consistently shown positive results (when properly designed) is processing instruction.

Unfortunately, FonF is ripe for teachers falling victim to the rearview mirror syndrome (see Memo #13). FonF is not a better way to practice textbook rules. Even if you get the purpose of FonF, using these interventions and techniques is like bringing a squirt gun to a pool party. You’re gonna get soaked if you just jump in the communicative language teaching pool.

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Let's Get Real (Not Authentic)

8/19/2018

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All of the following has been said in memos, but I want to put it in one place. . .

"Authentic" would be one of those words at the top of my list for banning!!!

The term is emotionally loaded (Cook, 1997) and the connotation is that authentic is “good,” when that is not necessarily so. In addition, it is poorly defined and under-theorized.

The term clouds our common sense. In no other discipline do I know of would it be acceptable to give a learner material intended for the highly proficient. Would you have a beginning piano student play music by Mozart?

I bet I could present you with two texts, one I find that was for-natives-by-natives and I would write the other one, and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference!

In addition to the labeling and positive connotations of “authentic,” all of the following also distort our common sense: confusing the ends with the means, a pendulum swing in response to bad texts used in textbooks, and misguided attempts to motivate what is largely a student population unmotivated to learn a second language.

Definitely, texts and discourse are artificial when their purpose is to practice certain grammar points and vocabulary items, what Savignon calls a “pretext” to display grammar (1997, p. 38).

We all need to realize that "authentic" does not have to be defined as "for natives by natives." Do you realize what that implies? . . . All interaction between teacher and students is inauthentic. Gilmore (2007) identified at least 8 different meanings of the word "authentic."

Actually, the for-native-by-native text has been called "ungraded" by renowned extensive reading expert, David Hill. Ungraded is a better term for unsimplified, i.e., not tailored to the level of learners.

If I have to use the word "authentic," then I prefer Keith Morrow's definition (he was the editor of the English Language Teaching journal for 17 years).

“An authentic text is a stretch of real language, produced by a real speaker or writer for a real audience and designed to convey a real message of some sort” (Morrow, 1977, p. 13 cited in Gilmore, 2007, p. 98).

Authentic, real, and communication can all be considered synonymous.

Ungraded texts cannot provide an authentic (real) experience for anyone who cannot comprehend them. Remember, if there is poor comprehension, then there is poor communication. Also remember, the classroom IS part of the real world!!!

Then, if common sense fails you, there are vocabulary profiles of ungraded texts to show you that
• high-frequency words provide less text coverage
• there are many more words outside the high-frequency group
• a lot more of those mid- and low-frequency words occur only once

I think the future will look back at the language teachers of today and wonder what the heck they were doing when they spent hours upon hours searching for the "just right" text that comes from a native speaker for a native speaker.

Actually, maybe we should not get "real," since people often say "real-world" when what they really mean is "outside of the classroom." So, even "real" has been corrupted. What we need is to be communicative in a classroom.

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Is proficiency a communicative goal? Should we "teach for proficiency?"

Implication of Immersion Programs Kept a Secret

Let's Get Real (Not Authentic)

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