Development of language learning skill

“[L]anguage learning involves much more than teachers and learners simply interacting with one another and then sitting back and observing how well the learners have soaked it all up”. The teacher’s input does not automatically lead to the learner’s output (Macaro 2001: 1; 2.2.2; 3.8.4.2;). Therefore the learners need to devise ways in which they can better acquire the target language and

teachers have to “offer learners the opportunity to develop independent language learning skills” while they are learning the language (Macaro 2001: 20).

These language learning strategies relate to the concepts of control, goal-directedness, autonomy and self-efficacy (Oxford 2001: 166). Learners often use more than one strategy at a time. These strategies include cognitive strategies, in which the learner creates new information and makes associations with known information. Examples are contextual guessing, analysing, reasoning inductively and deductively, note-taking and reorganising information. This involves searching for clues, hypothesising and trying to determine if it makes meaning. Mnemonic strategies are used when learners try to link the familiar with the unfamiliar by memorising information, such as acronyms, or the specific location of information (Oxford 2001: 167). Metacognitive strategies involve using a learner’s learning styles which work for that learner, establishing goals and deciding which approaches will help to deal with a language task (Oxford 2001: 167, 168). Compensatory strategies help a learner to compensate for gaps in information. These include the use of synonyms, circumlocution and gesturing. Affective strategies include a learner identifying his/her feelings. There is often the fear within the learner that (s)he cannot accomplish the task, and negative beliefs and attitudes can negatively influence motivation and the rate of language learning. Social strategies help when working with others and understanding the culture of the target language. These include asking questions, asking for help and studying together after class (Oxford 2001: 168, 169). There are indications that language learning is facilitated by an increased strategy use and teachers should be aware of these strategies and actively teach and foster them (Oxford 2001: 169, 172) as learners acquire increasing proficiency in what are commonly regarded as the four fundamental skills in language learning.

2.5.3.2.1 Speaking

Being able to speak a second language is a “complex task” when one considers that speaking is done for many purposes and different skills are associated with each purpose (Richards and Renandya 2002a: 201). Thus a person may need to give instructions in one situation and entertain people with jokes in another, for instance. Each of these contexts assumes that the speaker is aware of how the language should be tailored to the situation (Richards and Renandya 2002a: 201). It is clear, then, that “[s]ociocultural rules of appropriacy” are part and parcel of communicative competence” (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000: 170). The clear implication is that classroom activities need to provide for real communication and promote fluency. Choices should be made on the basis of a needs analysis which could include learners providing input on the communicative

skills they feel they need. It is likely that activities which allow learners to simulate using the target language for real purposes outside the classroom (such as getting information from an office) would be useful activities (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000: 176, 177). There are a variety of other activities that could be used such as communication games, problem solving activities and activities designed to elicit personal communication (McDonough and Shaw 2003: 144, 145, 147). Sufficient feedback also needs to be given, but in such a way that it is supportive and not embarrassing (Celce- Murcia and Olshtain 2000: 176, 177; Brown 2002: 12). In developing the speaking skills of learners, there is always an element of a ‘trade-off’ between fluency and accuracy, depending on the focus of the task. Some tasks could target fluency to a greater extent and others could target accuracy specifically. Bygate (2001: 17, 19) suggests the expedience of concentrating on fluency first and then moving on to accuracy as learners gain confidence. Possibly from there the teacher could move to an emphasis on more complex language and also explore the role of routine in developing discourse skills. In addition, there seems to be some value in repeating a speaking task previously done (Bygate 2001: 17), with the implication that context setting and “content recycling” should be incorporated in classroom materials (Bygate 2001: 17).

2.5.3.2.2 Listening

As with other skills, there are two forms of processing in listening: bottom-up and top-down (Rost 2001: 7). In bottom-up processing, involving knowledge of the language system such as phonology or grammar (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000: 103), the contention is that “listening is a linear, data-driven process” and comprehension takes place when the learner has decoded the spoken text (Nunan 2002: 239). In top-down processing the learner is “actively constructing meaning based on expectations, inferences, intentions, and other relevant prior knowledge” (Nunan 2002: 239). Top- down processing thus “involves activation of schematic and contextual knowledge”. Schematic knowledge involves content schemata (background information) and formal schemata (how the text is organised for different purposes or genres) (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000: 102). If some prior knowledge is lacking, listening activities “can be preceded by schema-building activities in order to prepare the learner” (Nunan 2002: 239). These should not be too long, but should include enough context and create motivation (Field 2002: 243).

Until recently, not much time was spent on developing listening skills (Richards and Renandya 2002b: 235). Now language curricula acknowledge the importance of this “complex process that allows us to understand spoken language” (Rost: 2001: 7). The ideal listening activities are those which require the learner to engage interactively with the text and involve both top-down and

bottom-up skills (Nunan 2002: 239). Materials set real-life activities such as responding to pre-set questions and doing tasks (Field 2002: 243, 244). They also focus on listening strategies, which are plans the listener makes consciously while trying to deal with speech (Rost 2001: 8) such as “selective listening, listening for different purposes, predicting, … inferencing and personalising” (Nunan 2002: 240, 241). The teacher needs to create opportunities for learners to improve their listening skills (Richards and Reynanda 2002b: 23) in “[a]wareness-raising and skills-enabling exercises” (Lam 2002: 250). There should be a clear focus on content and meaning and the learners should then use the information gained in a follow-up activity (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000: 103) so the development of listening is integrated with the other language skills (Rost 2001: 11). These learning-centred development activities should emphasise the process (Rost 2001: 12) so that the emphasis is on allowing development rather than on testing listening skills (product) (Field 2002: 246).

2.5.3.2.3 Reading

It has become even more important to develop each learner’s reading skill in the light of the increased demands made on learners by CLT (McDonough and Shaw 2003: 21) and Curriculum 2005, the South African variant of OBE, with its emphasis on discovery learning, greater learner involvement in learning, as well as cooperative learning (Chapter 3).

In trying to make meaning (3.8.2) and interpret written texts, learners seem to use a combination of top-down processing, which entails using the context of the text and linking that with what the learner knows, as well as bottom-up processing, which entails analysing individual words and phrases for meaning and syntactic clues (Macaro 2001: 37).

In reading the emphasis may be either on the product, in which case the focus is on the text, or the process, in which case the focus is on the reader. When the text is the focus, the “text-based features” of words and sentences emphasise the acquisition of a “sight vocabulary” (Wallace 2001: 21, 22). The learner will then progress from known to new words.

In the top-down approach, the emphasis is on the reader and the “background knowledge and values which the reader brings to reading” (Wallace 2001: 22). “All readers bring with them information that is not given in the text” and it is largely when this prior knowledge is activated that reading becomes possible (Grow 1996). In this view the reader brings a schema, or “high order compression activities” in the brain to the text (Day and Bamford 1998: 14), “allowing a reader to relate new,

text-based knowledge to existing world knowledge” (Wallace 2001: 22). This enables the learner to make sense of the text before him (see Day and Bamford 1998: 14; Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000: 119 and Carrell 1983 for a comprehensive discussion). A schema is “used to organize memory, to focus attention, to interpret experience, and to codify actions” (Grow 1996) and can be seen as the “organized background knowledge”, which leads us to “expect or predict” (Ajideh 2003: 4).

For those who lack the pre-knowledge or experience necessary to (re)construct the text, helping the learners to construct the necessary schemas is essential for comprehension and should form part of pre-reading activities in class (Day and Bamford 1998: 14, 15) so that, while reading, all learners will “activate schemata”. There is also a need to recognise that activation of knowledge before reading, unless carefully scaffolded, could mean that learners could activate only “partially useful” information, while some will call up irrelevant or misleading information (Grabe 2002: 282).

‘Priming’ or ‘prompting’ the learner beforehand must be supplemented with the use of strategies that enable the reader to make maximum use of cognitive and linguistic resources during text processing, i.e. while reading (Wallace 2001:26).

The genre approach offers useful insights into and emphasises the text as a whole, and concentrates on the “value for readers of an awareness of the distinctive features of the range of text type characteristics of social settings” (Wallace 2001: 22). In this way, the genre approach acts as a kind of schema which the reader draws on “to guide reading” (Montgomery et al. 2007). As such, it provides “an important frame of reference which helps readers to identify, select and interpret texts” because there would appear to be a triangular relationship between the text, the producers of the text and the readers (Chandler 2000: 5). Genre theory might find much in common with schema theory because “genre is a framework within which to make sense of related texts” and “a schema is a kind of mental template” with which the reader makes sense “of related experiences in everyday life. From the point of view of schema theory, genres are textual schemata” (Chandler: 2000: 7).

The basic tenet of a process-orientated approach is that meaning is only partial: during the reading process, readers bring meaning to the text. The implication is that there is a dynamic interaction “negotiat[ing] meaning” between both the writer and the reader (Wallace 2001: 22). In addition, no text is entirely neutral (Traves 1994: 93) and so readers should be encouraged to share the different meanings texts have for them (Short 1994: 171). For second language readers, reading is seen as both a reading and a language problem because much depends on the reader’s stage of language

development (Wallace 2001: 22). It is clear that “the coherence of the text lies within the reader” (Grabe 2002: 279). However, “a significant portion of textual coherence resides in the text” (Grabe 2002: 279). Form and meaning are both important and “the specific, judicious teaching of formal aspects of written English texts scaffold a broadly process-favoured teaching approach” (Wallace 2001: 27; see also 3.7.2).

A problem associated with reading is that a learner’s home environment strongly influences that learner’s reading development. One possible way to enhance the reading development of those learners who did not have home environments conducive to the development of reading is to emphasise extended reading (Grabe 2002: 280). In extended reading the emphasis is on reading longer texts to emphasise meaning (Renandya and Jacobs 2002: 295) as opposed to intensive reading in which learners read short texts with much teacher guidance in order to extract “detailed meaning from the text” (Renandya and Jacobs 2002: 296).

2.5.3.2.4 Writing

Writing would appear to be the most difficult of the language skills to acquire in a second language (Richards and Reynanda 2002c: 303; Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000: 161). When learners have to write something themselves, most appear to either limit themselves to the target language and use that as the language of thought, or they “take risks with creating new sentences” by using the primary language to think in and then translate their thoughts. More advanced learners seem to use these strategies in combination (Macaro 2001: 37).When it comes to learning new vocabulary, successful learners seem to use a variety of strategies and rely far less on the teaching process (Macaro 2001: 38). However, effective vocabulary building requires attention, with a variation of emphasis depending on the needs of the learners (Beglar and Hunt 2002: 264), as part of the general language learning programme (Nation 2001: 272).

Berlin (1988) describes writing in simple terms as having four components: the writer, the reader, the context and the language of the text. An expressivist approach to writing emphasises self- discovery and would include personal journals. A cognitivist approach would emphasise thinking and process. Using this approach, the writer plans, chooses, argues and arrives at a conclusion (Celce-Muria and Olshtain 2000: 146). Some argue strongly for a process approach to writing, using five basic stages: planning, drafting, revising, editing and publication. Planning activities involve pre-writing activities such as brainstorming (McDonough and Shaw 2003: 165), free writing and asking wh-questions. After the initial drafting activity, the teacher or other learners

provide “quick initial reaction” as well as some text-specific responses (Seow 2002: 316, 317. Similar opportunities for teacher or learner response follow the revision process. Finally, learners edit their own or their peers’ writing (McDonough and Shaw 2003: 165, 166). Publication could take the form of reading aloud, staging, displaying or even sending off the work to an appropriate recipient (Seow: 2002: 318, 319; McDonough and Shaw 2003: 168). A criticism of this approach is that it is only feasible in small classes. More recently Johns (2003) has questioned the process approach on the grounds of its lack of effectiveness in teaching learners to write appropriately. She argues for a text-based or genre approach in which learners become conscious of the ways in which certain texts are written and are then able to use these patterns to construct appropriate writing. As Seow (2002: 315, 316) argues, the emphasis should be on systematically teaching learners those writing strategies which will guide them to write better. In order to achieve this, the learner will be subjected to “planned learning experiences”. Reppen cautions that within a genre approach learners should “learn to respond to the informational and organizational demands of various settings” and not just be taught to “manipulate certain features” (Reppen 2002: 323, 326).

“The ultimate aim” is to encourage “students to develop techniques and self-evaluation strategies that will enable them to write according to their personal needs” (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000: 161), with a clear focus on the “writer’s decision-making processes and on the ongoing evaluation process, both of which are integral parts of the composing act” (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000: 161). In trying to achieve this aim, there is scope for co-operative writing, while using “relevant, authentic materials and tasks” in a “variety of approaches” (Reid 2001: 32). A portfolio containing all a learner’s writing has become an important way of providing teachers with a more balanced view of a particular learner’s writing (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000: 158).