6.1 Introduction
6.1.1 Reviewing Chronological Keyword Data for LEARNER
LEARNER is ranked second in the Rossner<>Old Lee keyword list. While the log- likelihood score of 1126.2 is significantly lower than the figure for COMMUNICATIVE (1,458.7), it is almost double the value of the next word, ACTIVITY (679.93) in the table. COMMUNICATIVE and LEARNER can, therefore, be seen to occupy together a special place in the list.
The data calculated to identify the term’s keyness at each stage in the Old Lee/New Lee/Rossner progression evidences a somewhat different longitudinal profile to that of COMMUNICATIVE. LEARNER appears in third place in the New Lee <>Old Lee keyword list, with a log-likelihood score of 359.68. In the Rossner<>New Lee list it occupies fourth place, with a log-likelihood score of 310.32. LEARNER, this suggests, is just as significant, and perhaps more so, in the New Lee as in the Rossner phase of investigation. The only other lexical item to occupy a more important position in the New Lee <>Old Lee table is STUDENT, a synonym of sorts, which might serve as an indicator of similar preoccupations. LEARNER appears to represent the most important preoccupation of New Lee contributors, achieving a prominence in the period’s discourse that appears similar to COMMUNICATIVE in the Rossner period.
However, as we have seen in Chapter Four, closer investigation of the keyword tables urges some caution in this assessment. One of the principle findings of the Old Lee<>Rossner (negative) keyword analysis (see 4.2.2) was that important stylistic changes occurred over the period of investigation. The male pronouns HE (p.KW 1), HIS (p.KW 3), HIM (p.KW 12) were, in particular, indicators of this shift, during which default male references were increasingly abandoned in favour of inclusive terms, including ‘learner’ and ‘student’, to describe important agents in the journal’s
discourse. If LEARNER is present, at least partly, because of changes in style, then it follows that its thematic impact might be less significant than the figures alone indicate.
6.1.2 Issues of Meaning and Polysemy
Scott (2007), as we have seen, draws a distinction between keywords that are indicative of ‘style’, and those that are indicative of ‘theme’, in texts. He
demonstrates this effectively in his list of keywords for Romeo and Juliet, in which , for example ‘death’, ‘love’ and ‘Juliet’ might be considered to be of thematic significance, but ‘O’ and ‘Thou’, of stylistic importance (p. 60). Applying Scott’s categories, in the lists for these corpora LEARNER is present for thematic reasons in some cases, and for‘stylistic’ reasons in others. As an example of the former, in some incidences writers use LEARNER, intentionally and explicitly, to draw attention to an individual who is an agent in the teaching/person process. When Saitz
(‘Remember the Pupils’(1974 28/3 220—221)) refers to theories of behaviourism which considered ‘the learner in a way that banished ‘unscientific terms like mind and spirit’ (p. 190), the word might be interpreted as having ‘thematic’ significance. In other cases, clearly, it has simply been used as the new default subject, used where in the past HE was more common. In this section we are obviously interested in incidences where LEARNER does have thematic significance. It is not always an easy distinction to draw, or one that can be made on any principled basis.
Nevertheless, in the articles discussed below, attention has been directed towards texts in which LEARNER is expounded as a central theme.
One unfortunate implication of this phenomenon is that the collocation and cluster data assembled for LEARNER are less effective in reflecting changes in theme9. Whereas the collocate and cluster data for COMMUNICATIVE , discussed in the last chapter, were often helpful in suggesting themes in the discussions surrounding the keyword, this is much less obviously the case for LEARNER. Incidences of
9
LEARNER used for stylistic reasons “dilute” these data, so that their value is perhaps brought into question (this matter will be discussed further in the project’s
discussion chapter (10.5.7)). There are however, two important exceptions (‘need/needs’ and ‘motivation’ as we shall see) whose collocation and clustering with LEARNER will be discussed in greater detail below.
6.2 LEARNER in New Lee Texts
6.2.1 The Return of the Learner
Looking at texts from the early part of the New Lee corpus it is clear that the morale and participation of learners in lessons is a perennial, frequently discussed issue. In ‘Let them Speak!’ (28/1 1973 23—29), for example, published at the very beginning of the New Lee period, Nancy Salama describes how she gives pupils a chance to speak in front of the class every day (p.23). Salama’s depiction of classroom roles is still “traditional”, and she suggests for example that since ‘[s]ome pupils may be exceptionally inhibited, or even lazy’ (p.24) teachers should use a marking system to evaluate pupils’ performance. Nevertheless, the idea that students should be given opportunities to speak, uninhibited by teacher activity, is expressed confidently here as a self-evidently ‘good thing’.
However, quite early on in the New Lee period, articles appear which appear to foreground the importance of the learner in the language learning process in a more explicit, principled way. Making reference to recent historical conditions which have impacted on the profession, these writers describe a revival of concern for the aims, needs and motivation of learners. This revival, it is explained, has come about as recent approaches which neglect the perspective of the learner have become discredited. Two such articles, published early on in the New Lee period, are A.V.P. Elliott’s ‘Aims and Aids in Learning and Teaching’ (28/ 3 1974 189—197) and Robert L. Saitz’s ‘Remember the Pupils’(1974 28/3 220—221). Elliott explains that language teaching has recently emerged from a period in which the perspective of the
period of neglect and of the circumstances under which a revival of concern for the learner has taken place. Since WWII, he explains:
[F]oreign language teaching, and more particularly the teaching of English, has been strongly influenced by the work of American linguists. The effect of this work, and the psychological theory of behaviourism that became associated with it, was to consider the learner in a way that banished ‘unscientific terms like mind and spirit (p.190).
The negative influence of these approaches, Elliot suggests, has held sway until very recently. ‘Only in the last fifteen years’, Elliot asserts, ‘with the writings of Chomsky and others and with much distinguished work on language acquisition, has thinking begun to change’ (p.190).
Saitz confirms this interpretation of developments, suggesting that concern for ‘student variables’, essential to teaching, disappeared during a period when
practitioners were pre-occupied with the ‘latest language-learning theories’ (p.220). This near obsession with theory, he explains, ‘led us to focus more upon the
language than upon the learner’ (p.220). Both Elliott and Saitz suggest that it is now time to re-evaluate pedagogic practice and place the learner, so long neglected, at the heart of the learning enterprise.
Elliott advocates, as a response to the disappearance of these negative
methodological strictures, the need to consider affective and psychological factors that may determine learners’ failure or success in learning a language. It is
important, Elliott explains, to consider the history of each learner, and how this affects their current behaviour as students. In his conclusion, Elliott suggests that ‘a little more understanding of the learner’s problems, whether linguistic, emotional or cultural, may help us to help him to a little more success in his task’ (p.197).
In Elliot’s article, a separate, important theme is the need to identify and specify learners’ needs and aims. As mentioned above, ‘Need(s)’ (‘needs’ ranked 9th, ‘need’
19th) is one of the few collocates of LEARNER in the New Lee corpus which assists in identifying writers’ preoccupations when using the term. Without a clear
understanding of learner needs, Elliot explains, teaching can become aimless. There are cases where learner aims are clear: to gain a job, for example or travel overseas. But in many other cases, and particularly that of the ‘captive’ school learner, there ‘may be no aims at all ’(p.193). The solution here lies in ‘supplying aims’ which are more immediate to the learner than those suggested by national educational institutions.
6.2.2 Increased Complexity: A Growing Theoretical Base
Organisers of the 1974 IAFEFL conference seem to have selected “learner motivation” as its main theme. In those articles published in the period after the conference, the topic of learner motivation, along with its implications for teaching and learning, comes to be discussed in increasingly theoretically confident and nuanced terms. This is a process that resembles, it might be said, the increasingly sophisticated discussion of ‘communicative’ ideas in early issues of the Rossner period. I.S.P. Nation’s ‘Motivation, Repetition and Language-Teaching Techniques’ (1975 29/2 115—120) is the earliest effort in the journal to provide some actual theoretical basis for the notion of motivation. Nation explains that there are two kinds of motivation; that which comes ‘from the learner himself’, called primary motivation, and that from ‘outside the learner’ (p.115) called secondary motivation. Having primary motivation means that the learner ‘feels that he wants to learn, that he is interested, that the subject he is studying is exciting’ (ibid). This kind of
motivation is stronger, Nation suggests, and he therefore encourages teachers to make use of procedures that encourage its growth.
In ‘The Urge to Communicate Versus Resistance to Learning in English as a Second Language’ (1976 30/4 265 —282), James E. Alatis extends this theoretical base considerably. Alatis’s discussion is wide-ranging, citing a number of theoretical sources. These include the work of ‘humanist’ writers such as Gattengo (p.268) and Stevick (p.265), but also a group of Canadian psycho-linguists which included W.E. Lambert and R.D Gardner (p.268). Alatis explains the hypothesis, proposed by this
last group, which predicts ‘the degree of success which students are likely to exhibit in second-language learning ‘(p.268). He expounds their now famous bifurcation of motivation into instrumental and integrative types. Alatis, like Elliot and Saitz, lays historical blame for the profession’s failure to consider the needs and motivation of learners on audio-lingualists’ obsession with methods and materials (p.265). He explains that those methods which were considered ‘best’ during that period were those considered to be ‘linguistically sophisticated and pedagogically sound ‘(ibid). Alatis proposes that a new and better approach to the problems of language teaching can be formulated by considering the position of the learner.
Further evidence of the growing acceptance and sophistication of theories
concerning motivation can be found in R.L. Allwright’s ‘Motivation—the Teacher’s Responsibility?’ (1977 31/4 267—274). Allwright cites work recently undertaken by Corder, and agrees with that writer’s proposition that motivation poses ‘the key problem for the language teacher’ (p.267). He presents a table which allows practitioners to assess the impact of such factors as school, society and family on learners, and to cross-reference these against individual components of learner motivation so as to arrive at a detailed analysis of the motivational forces at work (p.270). The model that Allwright uses here conceptualises motivation as a complex entity, and integrates all of the theoretical components discussed by earlier
contributors; ‘intrinsic’ and ‘extrinsic’ categories appear, for example, and the latter is further subdivided into ‘instrumental’ and ‘integrative’ types (p.270).
6.2.3 Motivation as ‘the be-all and end-all of successful language learning’
Perhaps the article that best illustrates the ascendancy of motivation as the centrally important idea of this period is Egon Foldberg’s passionate ‘Why? When? What? How? A Plea to Think More of the Language Learner’s Situation’ (1977 32/1 15 —23). Foldberg expresses his belief in ‘true, inner motivation as the be-all and end-all of successful language learning’ (p.15). To support this statement, Foldberg describes the situation of young learners in Denmark. He notes with alarm that students in that country who set off motivated and keen to learn tend to lose their initial enthusiasm within two years of exposure to classroom learning (p.18). The aims and
procedures of the course that these students experience, do not, he explains, take sufficient account of their aims or motivation (pp.20—21).
Equally as revealing, perhaps, of the increasing dominance of motivation as a topic, are articles warning against practitioners’ over-valuing of, and over-dependence on, the concept. Maurice Antier, in ‘Language Teaching as a Form of Witchcraft’ (1976 31/1 1—10), criticises what he sees as a recent over-emphasis on the notion of learner motivation. Teachers have turned, he explains, to psychology to provide solutions to their teaching dilemmas; ‘hence the emphasis placed on motivation’ (p.1). Antier is clearly sceptical about the historical ‘reversal’ (p.1) that has occurred in recent years, in which learner motivation, once ignored, now occupies centre stage. He even suggests that ‘psychology does not yet seem well enough equipped to help us much’ (p.1). Similar caution is shown by Patricia Mugglestone in ‘The Primary Curiosity Motive’ (1977 31/2 11—16). Although Mugglestone’s overall attitude to the renewed emphasis on learner motivation is generally positive she warns that since ‘there is no psychological motive theory to account completely for human motivation’ teachers have begun to refer to motivation as a vague concept, and ‘to use the lack of it to explain away their pupils’ failure to learn’ (p.111).
6.2.4 Role of Learners and Teachers
A sense of a new, or renewed emphasis on the importance of the learner also appears in articles which discuss the roles that learners and teachers adopt in the classroom. Those articles which propose the most radical re-assessment of learner and teacher roles often appear to deploy terms suffixed by ‘–centred’; ‘learner- centred’, ‘pupil-centred’, ‘teacher-centred ‘are the most common. This fact is not suggested strongly, it might be noted, by the collocation or cluster data. This is partly due to the general “noisiness” of these figures, already described, but also because the number of occurrences in each case is quite small. ‘Pupil-centred’ only appears 4 times in the New Lee corpus, ‘learner-centred’ and ‘student-centred’ both 5 times.
Significantly, terms of this type which relate to LEARNER generally carry a positive sense, and are often used approvingly to describe practices advocated by the author.
For example, in ‘In-Service Training by Radio and Television’ (1975 29/3 221—229), Leena Pasanen describes an English language training programme designed to be closely integrated with other subjects. Pasanen states that ‘[a]s the modern teacher aims at pupil-centred methods he remembers that his pupils should have a say when themes and passages for such a programme are being selected’ (p.225). The term ‘teacher-centred’, on the other hand (which appears 12 times in the New Lee texts) clearly carries quite negative associations. It generally describes ‘teacher-fronted’ practice, which is, it seems, increasingly considered by contributors as a discredited mode of teaching. In ‘Stimulating Motivation Through Audio-Visual Aids Based on ‘English by Radiovision’’ (p. 32/1 1977 43—49) Raymond Janssens provides a list of potential ‘cons’ for the technique (using audio-visual slides to enhance learning during lessons) that his article advocates. This includes the criticism that ‘audiovisual aids tend to be even more teacher-centred than the much maligned ‘frontal’
teaching or lecturing.’ (p.49). In ‘An Attempt to Individualise the Reading Skill at Kuwait University’ (1981 35/4 398—404) by Nayef N. Kharma, the author explains that many attempts to introduce individualised approaches within the traditional classroom have failed since they ‘do not satisfy the very first principle underlying the concept, namely that instruction should be child-centred, not teacher-centred’ (emphasis his; p. 400).
Use of terms such as ‘learner-’ or ‘pupil-centred’ quickly takes root in the discourse of the journal. By 1976, in ‘Language-Teaching as a Form of Witchcraft’ (1976 31/1 1—10 cited above), Maurice Antier (who as we have seen is sceptical about some of the recent changes that have occurred) refers to ‘pupil-oriented teaching’ as one of the ‘fashionable’ new concepts about which he expresses concerned scepticism. Given its present emphasis, he states ‘it may sound unfashionable to concentrate on the teacher’ (p.1). By the end of the New Lee period the sense that classroom practice ought to be centred on the learner seems to have become well established. Gerry Abbott’s article ‘Encouraging Communication in English: A Paradox’ (1981 35 /3 228—230), which appears in the penultimate New Lee issue of the journal, provides an interesting assessment of the changes in learner and student roles that have taken place. Abbott mentions that the traditional role of the teacher, ‘who had
the dominant role in the classroom’ (p.228), has been radically altered. In place of ‘highly controlled chorus-work’ (p.228) for example, ‘group interaction, simultaneous self-paced pair-work’ are now recommended (p.228).
6.2.5 Individualised Learning
Another consistent strand in the discussion surrounding the term LEARNER is that concerned with adaptation of practice to provide “individualised” opportunities for learning. Contributors demonstrate an interest in this area throughout the New Lee period. In 1973 , Mark Clarke, in ‘Individualising Instruction in The Composition Class’ 28/1 1973 43—46) , proposes a simple form of “differentiation by task”, in which teachers can assign more or less complex tasks to learners, depending on their confidence, but using the same materials. In ‘Teaching Vocabulary in Difficult Circumstances’(1975 30/1 21—24), I. S. P. Nation explains that in many parts of the world, financial and other restrictions prevent students from having access to textbooks and other materials. In such circumstances, particularly where large class sizes exist, ‘teacher-centred ‘(p.21) materials are inadequate. One of Nation’s suggestions is that vocabulary exercises might be developed which learners can choose, complete, and mark; by themselves, and at their own speed.
The concept of individualised learning is discussed with some sophistication by Nayef N. Kharma in ‘An Attempt to Individualise the Reading Skill at Kuwait University’ (1981 35/4 398—404). Kharma describes a recent experiment carried out at Kuwait University, in which Commerce students were exposed to a ‘course/credit hour system’ (p.403) working individually on reading tasks (p.400) , as well as a more ‘traditional’ course, in which learners were able to exercise a degree of choice. Kharma explains that the real test of individualisation is choice. Learners’ choices, regarding such matters as the content of the syllabus and methodology of lessons, need to be real. It is the learner, he explains ‘who should have choice in one or more of the following areas: objectives, learning rates, learning method, and content of programme’ (p. 400). Interestingly, Kharma offers an account of the origins of the concept of ‘individualised instruction’ (ibid), explaining that it ‘started in the late 1960s’ and was recognised in a US ACTFL publication in 1970.
6.3 LEARNER in the Rossner Period
6.3.1 Overview: Continuing Themes
LEARNER was the third most important keyword item in the New Lee texts (with a