|
Читайте также: |
We will now consider why it is that students achieve success in language learning. It should be said that if we knew the answer to this question the job of teaching and learning language would be extremely easy. We don’t, of course, but we can point to a number of factors which seem to have a strong effect on a student’s success or failure in language learning.
Motivation
It has often been said by people involved in language teaching that a student who really wants to learn will succeed whatever the circumstances in which he studies. All teachers can think of situations in which certain ‘motivated’ students do significantly better than their peers. Students frequently succeed in what appear to be unfavourable conditions. They succeed despite using methods which experts consider unsatisfactory. In the face of such phenomena it seems reasonable to suggest that the motivation of the student is the single most important factor affecting his success.
Motivation is some kind of internal drive that encourages somebody to pursue a course of action. If we perceive a goal (that is, something we wish to achieve) and if that goal is sufficiently attractive we will be strongly motivated to do whatever is necessary to reach that goal. Thus, an internal drive is the result of the need to pursue a course of action. This need evokes a wish that is a desire to do something caused by interest and/or present or future usefulness of the action pursued and the result achieved.
Goals can be of different types. E.g., if we are determined to own a new compact disk player, a bike or a horse we may work overtime in order to earn the necessary money. If we want to win a TV general knowledge quiz we may put in incredibly long hours of fact-learning activity.
Language learners who are motivated perceive goals of various kinds. We can make a useful distinction between short-term goals and long-term goals. Long-term goals might have something to do with a wish to get a better job at some future date, or a desire to be able to communicate with members of a TLC. Short-term goals include such things as wanting to pass an end-of-semester test or wanting to finish a unit in a book.
In general, strongly motivated students with long-term goals are probably easier to teach than those who have no such goals and therefore have no real drive. For such students short-term goals will often provide the only motivation they feel.
At this point we start wondering what kind of motivation our students have and if it is always the same. For the sake of analysis we will separate it into two main categories: extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation.
Extrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation is concerned with factors outside the classroom. There are 2 main types of such motivation: integrative motivation and instrumental motivation.
a) Integrative motivation
For this kind of motivation students need to be attracted by the culture of the TLC. In the strong form of integrative motivation they wish to integrate themselves into that culture. A weaker form of such motivation would be the desire to know as much as possible about the culture of the TLC.
b) Instrumental motivation
This term describes a situation in which students believe that mastery of the target language will be instrumental in getting them a better job, position or status. The language is an instrument in their attainment of such a goal.
Two researchers, Gardnerand Lambert, suggested than the most successful students were integratively motivated. But this conclusion has not really been adequately substantiated. Indeed, it seems that it is not so much the type of motivation that counts as its strength. Certainly, a student who has strong integrative motivation will be likely to succeed. But the same is also true of the student who has strong instrumental motivation.
There are a number of other factors that have an affect on extrinsic motivation. Most of these have to do with a student’s attitude to the language. These, in turn, will be affected by the attitude of those who have influence with that student. If the parents are very much against the culture of the language, this will probably affect his motivation in a negative way. If they are very much in favour of the language this might have the opposite effect. The student’s peers will also be in a powerful position to affect his attitude, as will other members of the student’s community.
Another factor affecting the attitude of students is their previous experiences as language learners. If the student remembers being humiliated by a lack of success as a learner he will find his extrinsic motivation negatively affected. Previous success will have the opposite effect.
It is clear that we cannot create extrinsic motivation since it comes into the classroom from outside. It is clear, too, that students have to be prepared to take some responsibility for their own learning. But with that in mind, we can still create the student’s positive attitude towards the culture of the language. We can still do our best to ensure that students view the language and the learning experience in a positive light. We can do this by creating a positive attitude to the language and its speakers. We can try to be certain that we are supportive and encouraging to our students rather than critical and destructive.
Intrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation is concerned with what takes place inside the classroom. There can be no doubt that intrinsic motivation plays a vital part in most students’ success or failure as language learners. This is especially true of those students who bring no extrinsic motivation to the classroom. It would seem specifically be the case with schoolchildren who have neutral or even negative feelings about language learning. For them what happens in the classroom will be of vital importance in determining their attitude to the language. It will also be the case in supplying motivation, which we have suggested, is a vital component in successive language learning. As we have also suggested above, what happens in the classroom will have an important effect on students who are already in some way extrinsically motivated. We can consider factors affecting intrinsic motivation under the headings of physical conditions, method, the teacher and success.
a) Physical conditions
Physical conditions have a great effect on learning. They can alter a student’s motivation either positively or negatively. Classrooms that are badly lit and overcrowded can be excessively de-motivating, but unfortunately, may of them exist in schools. Vitally important will be the board. If it is easily visible or if the surface is in good condition is certainly essential. In general, teachers should presumably try to make their classrooms as pleasant as possible. Even where conditions are bad it may be possible to improve the atmosphere with posters, with students’ work, etc. on the walls.
We can say that the atmosphere in which a language is learnt is vitally important. The cold greyness of much institutionalised education must be compensated for in some way if it is not to have a negative effect on motivation.
b) Method
The method by which students are taught must have some effect on their motivation. If they find it deadly boring they will probably become de-motivated. If they have confidence in the method they will find it motivating. A method is a sum total of teaching techniques subject to a definite scientifically based methodological concept. The method realised in teaching practice is referred to as a teaching technology. Any method comprises complex and simple techniques. A complex technique as a teaching procedure is a set of simple techniques aimed at achieving a certain methodological objective within a given teaching technology. A simple technique is an elementary methodological action aimed at achieving a separate methodological task. Perhaps, this is the most difficult area of all to be certain of. We said earlier that a really motivated student would probably succeed whatever method (within reason) is used. It is also true that different students are more sympathetic to any particular method depending upon their expectations. Teachers can easily recall students who felt that there was not enough grammar or not enough conversation depending on the students’ taste at the time. Despite various attempts there is unfortunately no research, which clearly shows the success of one method over another. However, what we do know is that if the student loses confidence in the method he will become de-motivated. The students’ confidence in the method is largely in the hand of the most important factor affecting intrinsic motivation. This factor, of course, is the teacher.
c) The teacher
Whether the student likes the teacher or not may be very significant. What can be said is that two teachers using the same method can have vastly different results. The question is how to assess the qualities a teacher needs to help in providing intrinsic motivation.
In 1970 a study done by Denis Girardattempted to answer this question. A thousand children between the ages of 12 and 17 were asked to put a list of teacher ‘qualities’ in order of preference. These qualities were put in the following order to show their learning priorities:
1. He makes his course interesting. V
2. He teaches good pronunciation.
3. He explains clearly.
4. He speaks good English.
5. He shows the same interest in all his students. V
6. He makes all the students participate. V
7. He shows great patience. V
8. He insists on the spoken language.
9. He makes his pupils work.
10. He uses an audio-lingual method.
Interestingly, the main point of the study – to see if the audio-lingual method was popular – only comes tenth. Students were more concerned that classes should be interesting and three of the top ten qualities (5, 6 and 7) are concerned with the relationship between the teacher and student. We can speculate that these qualities would emerge whatever subject was being taught.
The students were also asked to list any additional qualities they thought were important. The most popular were:
· He shows sympathy for his pupils. V
· He is fair to all his students (whether good or bad at English) V
· He inspires confidence. V
In a less formal study by J. Harmerboth teachers and students were asked what they thought ‘makes a good teacher’. The two areas that most of the people mentioned were the teacher’s rapport (mutual understanding, accord) with the students and the teacher’s personality. People wanted a teacher who was ‘fun’ or one who ‘understands children’. But many people also mentioned the need for teachers to motivate students through enjoyable and interesting classes; and quite a few wanted their teachers to be ‘well prepared’ and to be teachers they could have confidence in.
Neither Girard’s students nor the small survey by Harmermentioned above prove anything about good teachers; other methodologists have failed to provide us with a definite answer either. But we can make some generalisations with confidence:
1) In the first place the teacher’s personality matters a lot (and yet this is the most difficult area to quantify or to train for). But beyond that it is clear that:
2) Teachers need to do everything possible to create a good rapport with their students. Partly this happens a) by providing interesting and motivating classes. b) Partly this comes from such things as treating all the students the same (one of the secondary school students questioned said ‘a good teacher is …someone who asks the people who don’t always put their hands up’) and acting upon their hopes and aspirations. Most of all it depends on paying more attention to the students than to the teacher!
3) Lastly teachers clearly need to be able to show that they know their subject – or in the words of an experienced teacher of English as a foreign language (EFL), ‘If you don’t know what you’re talking about they soon see through you!’ They should be able to give clear instructions and as far as possible have answers to the students’ questions.
d) Success
Success or lack of it plays a vital part in the motivational drive of a student. Both complete failure and complete success could be de-motivating. It will be the teacher’s job to set goals and tasks at which most of his students can be successful – or rather tasks, which he could realistically expect his students to be able to achieve. To give students very high challenge activities (high, because the level of difficulty for the students is extreme) where this is not appropriate may have a negative effect on motivation. It will also be the case that low challenge activities are equally de-motivating. If the students can achieve all the tasks with no difficulty at all they may lose the motivation that they have when faced with the right level of challenge.
NB: Much of the teacher’s work in the classroom concerns getting the level of challenge right: this involves the type of tasks set, the speed expected from the student, etc.
Ultimately the students’ success or failure is in their own hands, but the teacher can influence the course of events in the students’ favour.
Motivational differences
To know exactly how or why your students are motivated will mean finding out how they feel about learning English. It is unlikely that everyone in class will have the same motivation, and we have already said that motivation is a mixture of different factors. Nevertheless it is possible to make some general statements about motivational factors for different age groups and different levels. We will look at children, adolescents, adult beginners, adult intermediate students and adult advanced students.
Children
More than anything else, children are curious, and this in itself is motivating. At the same time their span of attention or concentration is less than that of an adult. Children will often seek teacher approval: the fact that the teacher notices them and shows appreciation for what they are doing is of vital importance.
Children need frequent changes of activity: they need activities that are exciting and stimulate their curiosity: they need to be involved in something active (they will not usually sit and listen!), and they need to be appreciated by the teacher, an important figure for them. It is unlikely that they will have any motivation outside these considerations, and so almost everything for them will depend on the attitude and behaviour of the teacher.
Adolescents
Adolescents are perhaps the most interesting students to teach, but they can also present the teacher with more problems than any other age group.
We can certainly not expect any extrinsic motivation from the majority of our students – particularly the younger ones. However, we may hope that the students’ attitude has been positively influenced by those around them. We have to remember that adolescents are often brittle. They will probably not be inspired by mere curiosity. Teacher approval is no longer of vital importance. Indeed, the teacher may not be the leader, but rather the potential enemy. Peer approval will be important.
The teacher should never forget that adolescents need to be seen in a good light by their peers. The teacher should also remember that with the changes taking place at that age they are easily prone to humiliation if the teacher is careless with criticism. But adolescents also can be highly intelligent if stimulated, and dedicated if involved. At this age, getting the level of challengeright is vital. Where this level is too low the students may simply ‘switch off’; where it is too high they may become discouraged and de-motivated. It is the teacher’s task, too, to put language teaching into an interesting context for thestudents. More than anything else they have to be involved in the task and eager to accomplish it.
Adult beginners
Adult beginners are in some ways the easiest people to teach. Firstly, they may well come to the classroom with a high degree of extrinsic motivation. Secondly, they will often succeed very quickly. Goals within the class, such as learning a certain piece of language or finishing a unit are easy to perceive and relatively easy to achieve.
But it is still difficult to start a foreign language at this age. Unrealistic challenge coupled with a negative teacher attitude can have disastrous effects on students’ motivation.
Adult intermediate students
Adult intermediate students may well be motivated extrinsically. They may well have very positive feelings about the way they are treated in the classroom. Success may be motivating, and the perception of having ‘more advanced English’ may be a primary goal. It is for this latter reason that the problems often arise. The beginner, as we have said, easily perceives success; since everything is new, anything learned is a success. But intermediate students already know a lot and may not perceive any progress. Conversely, they may find the complexity of the language too much.
Our job would seem to be that of showing the students that there is still a lot to learn without making this fact totally demoralising. Then comes the task of setting realistic goals for them to achieve. Once again, a major fact seems to be getting the level of challenge right.
Adult advanced students
These students are often highly motivated. If they were not, they would not see the need to continue with the language study when they have already achieved so much. Like some intermediate students, or probably even more so, they will find progress more difficult to perceive. Much of the time they may not be learning anything new but learning better how to use what they already know.
The teacher has a responsibility to point this fact out and to show the students what it is they will achieve at this level: it is a different kind of achievement. Many advanced teachers expect too much from their students, feeling that the setting of tasks and goals is in some way demeaning. But just because advanced students have difficulty in perceiving progress and success they may well need the clarity that the setting of short-term goals, tasks, etc. can give them.
Conclusions
We have seen, then, that there are many different reasons for learning a language, and we have said that we are mainly concerned with a classroom situation in which ‘general’ or mainstream English is being studied. We have included both those students who have themselves made the decision to study and also those for whom the study of a language is a compulsory part of their education.
We have suggested many different factors that may affect a student’s motivation, stressing that a strongly motivated student is in a far better position as a learner than a student who is not motivated.
Most importantly we have said that both positively motivated students and those who do not have this motivation can be strongly affected by what happens in the classroom. Thus, for example, the student with no long-term goals (such as a strong instrumental motivation) may nevertheless be highly motivated by realistic short-term goals within the learning process.
We have seen that the teacher’s personality and the rapport he is able to establish with the students are of vital importance. So, too, is the ability to provide motivating and interesting classes that are based both on the knowledge of techniques and activities and upon our ability to inspire confidence in our students and have answers to their questions.
Teachers, too, must realise the important effect success has on motivation. They must be able to assess the students’ ability so that the latter are faced with the right degree of challenge: success, in other words, should not be too easy or too difficult.
Discussion
1. Can you think of any other reasons why people learn languages apart from those mentioned above? Why are you trying to learn the languages?
2. What is motivation? How does intrinsic motivation affect learning L2?
3. What is a ‘good method’? What does a teaching technology consist of?
4. What are the main motivational differences of different age groups?
5. Decide on your own what major motivational peculiarities are characteristic for senior school students (10 – 12 grades). Make a list of these characteristics and explain how they affect learning English.
AREAS OF A NATIVE SPEAKER KNOWLEDGE
|
2.1.1. Sounds
2.1.2. Stress
2.1.3. Intonation
2.2. Grammar
2.3. Vocabulary
2.4. Discourse
2.4.1. Appropriateness
2.4.1.1. Communicative
competence
2.4.1.2. Interaction with context
2.4.1.3. Structuring discourse
2.4.2. Global communicative competence
2.5. Language skills
2.5.1. Skills and sub-skills
2.6. Conclusions
Pronunciation
Native speakers or competent users of the language know how to say a word. This knowledge is made up of three main areas: sounds, stress and intonation.
Sounds
If we consider the spoken language, it will be obvious that it is made up of sounds. On their own the sounds of a language may well be meaningless. If we say [t] a few times, e.g., ‘tu, tu, tu’ it will not mean very much in English. Neither will the sounds [k], [æ] or [s]. But if we put all these sounds together in a certain order we end up with the word ‘cats’ and that does mean something.
All words are made up of sounds like this. Speakers of a language need to know these sounds if they are to understand what is said to them and be understood in their turn. Some of the problems that speakers of English as a foreign language have are precisely because they have difficulty with individual sounds. They cannot reproduce the correct sounds. E.g.: the Spanish speaker who says ‘ bery’ instead of ‘very’ or the Japanese speaker who says a word which sounds like ‘light’ instead of the intended ‘right’, or the Russian speaker who says ‘sanks’ meaning ‘thanks’. The native speaker of English, however, will not make these mistakes for he knows what the sounds of English are and he knows how they are put together. There are two other sides of the spoken language that the native speaker knows about. They are stress and intonation.
Stress
When they use a word, native speakers know which part of that word should receive the heaviest emphasis. For example, in the word ‘photograph’ not all the parts are of equal importance. We can divide he word into three parts: pho-to-graph. Competent speakers of the language will say the word stressing the first syllable. The situation changes with the word ‘pho to grapher’ where the stress shifts to the second syllable. Stress in words also changes depending on the word’s grammatical function: per mit is a verb, but per mit is a noun. And the same is true of the words im port and im port.
The changing use of stress in sentences is also one of the areas of knowledge that competent language speakers have. For example, if I say ‘ I can run ’ I am probably only talking about my ability to run. But if I say ‘ I can run’ I am probably stressing the word ‘can’ because somebody is suggesting that I am not able to run and I am strongly denying it. In the same way if someone said to you ‘Is this your pen cil?’ it might well be a simple question with no hidden meaning. But if the same person said ‘Is this your pencil?’ this might suggest that there was something very surprising about your ownership of the pencil.
Native speakers of the language unconsciously know about stress and how it works. They know which syllables of words are stressed and they know how to use stress to change the meaning of phrases.
Intonation
Closely connected with stress is intonation which means the tune you use when you are speaking, the melody of speech. Intonation means the pitch you use and the music you use to change that pitch. E.g., if I say ‘ You are from Australia, aren’t you?’ starting my question at the medium pitch of my voice range and dropping the pitch at the end of the sentence on ‘aren’t you’, this will indicate to other competent speakers of English that I am merely seeking confirmation of a fact about which I am almost completely certain. If, on the other hand, I say the same question with my voice rising at the end, e.g., ‘You are from Australia, aren’t you?’ this might well indicate that the question is a genuine one and I am asking the listener to satisfy my doubts about his nationality.
Intonation is a big indicator of involvement as well. If I tell what I think is a fascinating story and my listener says ‘ How interesting’, starting at low pitch and dropping his voice on the ‘ int ’ of ‘interesting’ I will be fairly despondent since by his use of pitch and intonation he will have plainly told me that he didn’t think much of my story. High pitch and a small fall, on the other hand, would be much nicer, since that would indicate that my audience was fascinated by what I had to say.
Intonation is clearly important then, and competent users of the language recognise what meaning it has and can change the meaning of what they say through using it in different ways.
Grammar
If you ask the average speaker of a language what they know about grammar they may remember the odd lesson from school, but beyond that they will say that they have forgotten what grammar they once knew. The same speaker, however, can say a sentence like ‘ If I had known, I’d have come earlier’ without thinking, even though it is grammatically complex.
Linguists have been investigating the native speaker’s knowledge for years, just as they have been trying to think of the best way of describing that knowledge and the grammatical system. What they have found is that the grammatical system is rule-based and that competent users of the language ‘know’ these rules in some way. An example from the most famous work in this respect by Noam Chomskywill show both a method of description and how grammar rules allow us to generate language. If we take a simple sentence ‘ The boy kicked the dog’ we can give it the following formulation. This formulation tells us that the sentence (S) contains a noun phrase (NP) and a verb phrase (VP). The noun phrase contains a determiner (D) and a noun (N). The verb phrase contains a verb (V) and another noun phrase.
We may represent this sentence with a tree-diagram like this:
S
NP VP
V NP
D N D N
The boy kicked the dog
What is important here is that this diagram does demonstrate the grammar of one sentence. The realisation of this grammar is not important for our purposes. But what is interesting is that if we slot bits of vocabulary into this tree, or frame, we get a sentence. By changing the bits of vocabulary we get completely different sentences. E.g., ‘ The girl loved the man’, ‘The artist painted the nude’, ‘The American ate the cheeseburger’, etc. In other words, the sentence has changed but the rule has stayed the same.
We can go further than this. Competent English speakers also know that these active sentences can easily be transformed into passive ones to give us ‘ The dog was kicked by the boy’.
What seems to be the case is that all competent language users know these rules. This largely subconscious knowledge consists of a finite number of rules with which it is possible to create an infinite number of sentences. Our one example alone could generate literally thousands of sentences. A moment’s reflection will convince us that we will never be able to say all the possible sentences of the language. We will not even approach that number, for, with the huge range of vocabulary at our disposal, it would just not be possible. And yet we all subconsciously know the grammar of our language otherwise we wouldn’t be able to string any sentences together at all.
A distinction has to be drawn between what we know and how that knowledge is used to construct sentences. Chomskycalled these concepts competence (knowledge) and performance (the realisation of this knowledge as sentences). So, our average native speakers who say they do not know grammar are both right and wrong. They do not consciously know any grammar and could not produce any rules of grammar without study and thought. But they do have a language competence which is subconscious and which allows them to generate grammatically correct sentences.
Vocabulary
Of course competent speakers of the language also know the lexis (or vocabulary) of a language – although that knowledge will vary depending, for example, on their education and occupation. They know what words mean and they also know the subtleties of some of those meanings. Competent speakers of English know what ‘a heart’ is but they do not get confused by sentences like ‘ He wears his heart on his sleeve’ (He shows his feelings quite openly).
Competent speakers of a language also know the connotations of a word: e.g., would you tell your best friend that they were ‘thin’, ‘slim’ ‘skinny’ or ‘emaciated’? They also know how to change words – how to make ‘possible’ ‘ im possible’, how to make ‘interesting’ ‘ un interesting’ and so on.
Competent speakers of a language follow what is happening to their language and how words change their meaning – and sometimes cross grammatical borders. For example, the word ‘awesome’ used to mean something that filled people with the mixture of respect and fear (Wizard of Oz the Awesome). Now it means simply ‘good’ or ‘great’, especially in American English (What an awesome blouse you are wearing! I wish it were mine). Some nouns are now used frequently as verbs, e.g., ‘ to input’ or ‘to access data’. Some verbs acquire additional modal meaning. Thus, the verb ‘ manage’ in modern English means not only ‘manipulate’, ‘handle’ but also ‘can’, ‘have the chance of’. E.g., ‘At last we managed to find him’ or ‘He can manage by himself’. Native speakers may be unaware of a word’s etymology but he certainly knows that the adjective ‘posh ’ means ‘great’, ‘splendid’: ‘They opened a new posh bar in our street yesterday’. (Posh = p ort o ut, s tar(board) h ome).
Competent language users, in other words, know what words mean both literally and metaphorically. They know how words operate grammatically and they are sensitive to changes in word value. Without this lexical knowledge they would not be able to use the grammar to generate sentences with meaning.
Discourse
Even armed with language competence and lexical knowledge, however, language users may not be able to operate efficiently unless they appreciate how language is used. Grammatical competence is not enough: native speakers also have a subconscious knowledge of language use and of language as discourse.
Discourse is a relatively completed fragment of speech of any length expressing an idea or a thought of the speaker or writer. Discourse may vary from a single syntagm up to a phrase or a sentence, a super-phrasal unit or even a text. It comprises all characteristics of stress, intonation, lexical-grammatical organisation and stylistic colouring.
Дата добавления: 2015-10-23; просмотров: 192 | Нарушение авторских прав
| <== предыдущая страница | | | следующая страница ==> |
| Reasons for learning languages | | | Global communicative competence |