LearnerCentered South Asian Language Instruction

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Learner-Centered South Asian Language Instruction

• SALRC Pedagogy Workshop
• June 6, 2005
• J. Scott Payne
• Penn State University
• jspayne_at_psu.edu

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Why Use Technology to Promote SLA?

• Not for the sake of using it!
• Provides access to rich, authentic, multimedia
  learning material.
• Technology can transform tasks from a cognitive
  perspective.
• Enhances communication inside and outside of the
  classroom.
• Promotes collaboration
• Provides additional practice
• Brings together learners separated by geography.

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Not Additive - Transformative!
I dont have time to do technology, my
curriculum is already packed!
Dont add technology to your curriculum, use
technology to transform how you teach!
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Fundamental Questions About Language Teaching

• What should we teach?
• How should we teach it?
• When should we teach it?
• How do we measure language development?
• What should the basis be for such decisions?

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What should we teach?

• lexical items
• Listening, speaking, reading, and writing
• grammar structures
• cultural understanding
• not to mention non-linguistic skills, domains, or
  perspectives

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How should we teach it?

• Language teaching methodologies
• role of the instructor
• responsibilities of learners
• linguistic authority

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When should we teach it?

• Order of acquisition (e.g. Piennemann, 1998)
• Focus on vocabulary first and worry about grammar
  later?
• Silent period
• Receptive to productive (Nunan, 1999)
• Language first, culture later?

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How do we measure language development?

• course exams (grammar, listening comprehension,
  vocabulary, etc)
• written work
• oral exams
• standardized tests
• recording and analyzing the naturally-occurring
  language use of our students.

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What should the basis be for such decisions?

• teacher intuition
• formal grammars
• the needs of teachers (prepare students for
  reading belletristic texts).
• the needs of students
• how native-speakers actually use the language in
  authentic contexts
• the language learners' L1

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What is the best method for teaching language?

• Grammar translation
• Audio-lingual method (behaviorist)
• Communicative approach
• Natural approach
• Proficiency-oriented
• Methods that emphasize cognitive processing (e.g.
  Van Pattens input processing)
• Constructivist methodologies

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Learner-Centered Language Instruction

• What is meant by learner-centered instruction?
• Strong view
• Learners have the right to help decide what they
  should learn
• How they should learn
• How they are evaluated
• Weak view
• Learners taught about learning processes.
• Encouraged to take greater responsibility for
  their own learning.
• Choices about what is taught, how it is taught,
  when it is taught, and how learning is assessed
  revolve around the learner.
• Learners must often learn how to learn.

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Negotiated Curricula

• Arguments for involving learners in content
  choices
• Adults learn best when content is personally
  relevant.
• Learners react to experience as they perceive
  them, not as presented by the teacher.
• Actively involving learners in the learning
  process - they do all the work.

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Preparing learners for learner-centered
instruction

• Step 1 Make instructional goals clear to
  learners.
• Step 2 Allow learners to create their own goals.
• Action meetings
• Step 3 Encourage learners to use their L2
  outside the classroom.
• Listen to authentic materials
• Participate in forums
• Step 4 Raise awareness of learning processes.
• Discuss learning strategies with students
• Design tasks that train the use of good
  strategies (e.g. semantic-mapping listening
  activity)

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Preparing Learners for Learner-Centered
Instruction

• Step 5 Help learners identify their preferred
  styles and strategies.
• Discuss how task design impact cognitive
  processing and can either enhance or encumber
  learning.
• Step 6 Encourage learner choice.
• Different options/formats of an activity
• Step 7 Allow learners to generate their own
  tasks.
• Provide them with the objectives and let them
  design the task.

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Preparing Learners for Learner-Centered
Instruction

• Step 8 Encourage learners to become teachers.
• Develop video materials used for teaching in
  subsequent courses.
• Write quizzes for each other
• Grammar workshops
• Rotating small-group discussion leader
• Step 9 Encourage learners to become researchers.
• Learners record the hypotheses they formulate
  about the L2, investigate them, discuss them with
  classmates.
• Data-driven learning (Wednesday)
• Document and analyze their own language over time
  - speech portfolio (Thursday).

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Task-Based Language Teaching

• What is a task?
• Real world task - things people need to do to
  function in the target culture.
• Pedagogical task - promote language proficiency
  development.
• Task versus Exercise a task has a non-linguistic
  outcome, and exercise has a linguistic outcome.

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Principles of Task Design

• Authenticity language data which have not been
  created for teaching language, but are
  naturally-occurring.
• Form-Function teaching language in ways that
  make form-function relationships transparent and
  use inductive and deductive reasoning.
• Task dependency sequencing tasks in a logical
  way so that a series of task create a
  pedagogical ladder.
• Thematic units
• Multi-stage activities
• Project-based learning

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Project-Based Learning

• Goal is the creation of an artifact, not language
  learning per se.
• Language is the vehicle, not the goal.
• Examples
• Cultural website (e.g. city tour, theme or topic)
• Video projects (more on Thurs.-Fri.)
• If you are doing a lot of work, you are doing
  something wrong!

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Repurposing eCommerce Websites for Language
Instruction

• Migros online supermarket - http//www.le-shop.ch/
  
• Household furnishings - http//www.ikea.com/
• Clothing - http//www1.landsend.de/
• Jobs
• http//www.yahoo.jobpilot.de/gateway/yahoo/index.p
  html
• http//jobdumping.de/
• Restaurants, Hotels, Tourist information

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Exercise in Pedagogical Website Deconstruction

• See worksheet
• Four Questions
• Who designed this website?
• What were the objectives for this design its
  intended pedagogical use?
• How could this website be integrated into a
  learner-centered classroom?
• Which of Nunans Nine steps does this website
  support?

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Learner-Centered Unit Design

• Begin preparing a learner-centered instructional
  unit that either repurposes websites for
  pedagogical purposes or integrates existing
  pedagogical websites.