Principle of Active Language Learning

Introduction

We still face many challenges in applying communicative language teaching in our context. Many teachers seem lack of confident to accept their roles to be a model for their students in using English as a tool of communication during classroom activities. They are not ready to bring their students into the situation in which students learn actively involving in their own learning process.

Learning activities are dominated by teacher and book centered. The successful of language learning focus on the extent of students are able to accomplish examination and attain learning objective on curriculum. Therefore, teachers plan learning scenario based on curriculum and go to the classroom with lesson plan in which they direct learning on their own decision. Students are accustomed to learn under the overall control of their teacher. It causes students put their strong reliance on teachers.

English teachers have tried to seek the appropriate teaching method by reading books, article, journal, research report etc, and put it into their classroom practices but the fact they find that methods are not based on the realities of their classroom but are “artificially transplanted” into their classrooms (Kumaravadivelu, 2006). The reason for this can be that theorists are rarely language teachers themselves leading to the impression that teachers are less expert than theorists (Clarke, 1994) underestimating their knowledge and experience.

There is no single method which can be claimed as the best method in our context. Teachers are encouraged to develop and create their own methods as they gain experience based on their classroom context and knowledge of other methods and approaches. As a result, the constructed method reflects teachers’ beliefs, values and experiences (Richards & Rodgers, 2001).

To assist teachers to develop a systematic, coherent, and relevant pedagogy, Kumaravadivelu outlines ten macro-strategies or principle of active language teaching for teachers to employ, in order to reconcile the theoretical insights of methods (which are usually generated and promoted at the center of power) with the realities of the disempowered periphery. They are maximize learning opportunities by taking account of the local context and specific needs, interests, and abilities of all the learners, facilitate negotiated interaction by actively involving all learners in classroom discourse, minimize perceptual mismatches by closing the gap between the implemented and the experienced curriculum, activate intuitive heuristics by encouraging learners to make educate guesses in inferring grammatical rules, foster language awareness by raising the learners’ sensitivity to language and its role in human life, contextualize linguistic input in order to provide essential pragmatic clues to meaning, integrate language skills as they are interrelated and mutually reinforcing, promote learner autonomy by helping learners to understand and utilize effective learning strategies, raise cultural consciousness by valuing the contributions of learners as cultural informants, ensure social relevance by making learners aware of the social, political, economic, and educational environment in which language learning takes place.

Theoretical reviews and practices in language classroom

1.    Maximize learning opportunities

Maximize learning opportunities is a process to create and utilize learning opportunities.  In the language classroom, teachers as facilitator creates a classroom climate conducive to language learning and provides opportunities for students to use and practice the language and to reflect on language use and language learning.

Teachers should provide activities in which students are interest and involve actively in learning. They have to know the characteristics of students such students’ motivation, attitude, style, need, interest, belief, etc. Learning activities should draw students’ attention to utilize the challenge that given to them.

Students can create learning opportunities for themselves and for other learners by seeking clarification, raising doubts, making suggestions, and so forth. If teachers wish to utilize learning opportunities created by learners, then, they can no longer see “teachers simply as teachers, and learners simply as learners, because both are, for good or ill, managers of learning” (Allwright, 1984:156)

What kind of learning activities should be provided to cover students’ characteristics in order to provide opportunities or make all of them involved in learning process actively? This is an important question when a teacher plans language learning. For instance, I will provide learning activities for my students about responding to and expressing meaning in short monologue in the form of report text accurately, fluently and acceptably to interact with the nearest environment or in daily life context. There are some possible materials could be adopted and presented in language classroom but I need to choose the appropriate one or I need to adapt or create my own version to meet my students’ need, level, background, etc in  order to give them opportunities expressing their ideas. Should I tell them clearly about report text and its rhetorical then they create example of report text in their own version, or let them to discover it through some examples that I provided? When I let them to explore report text by finding examples of it in different resources, in what way, they will work at this task? Should I groups them or let them work individually. If I group them, how many members should be in a group. Should I determine a group members or students themselves? This consideration will discuss with students to make them involved actively. I think I’m going to monitor how this activity is performed.

2.  Facilitate negotiated interaction

Negotiated interaction in particular is viewed as beneficial for SLA as learners elicit modified input from one another, are pushed to modify their own linguistics output, and receive important feedback on their target language use, thus potentially focusing their attention on their problematic utterances (smith, 2003)

Teachers can facilitate negotiated interaction by actively involving all learners in classroom discourse. They may entitle and encourage initiating topic and talk. Interaction is the use of language and its feature involves linguistic and metalinguistic features of language, sociolinguistic features required to establish roles, relationships and responsibilities to promote communication participants.

According to Kumaravadivelu (2003), there are three kinds of interaction: textual interaction, interpersonal activity, ideational activity that provide opportunities for teachers to create a conducive atmosphere in which learners can stretch their linguistic repertoire, sharpen their conversational capacities, and share their individual experiences”

In the article The Role of Interaction (1997), Gass posits that negotiation is a means for drawing attention to a linguistic form and making it noticeable, thus creating a readiness for learning. Additionally, it is a way for learners to test hypotheses about the target language and receive feedback on their production. Gass, Mackey & Pica (1998) identify this as a key role of interaction in acquisition, and note that the realization of divergence between Non-Native Speaker (NSS)  forms and target forms is what actually a catalyst for learning becomes. Polio and Gass (1998) acknowledge the importance of meaning negotiation by means of hypothesis testing as a way to practice existing knowledge and as a way to elicit additional input. Indeed, such output serves three functions. It enables noticing and hypothesis testing, as well as promotes metalinguistic thinking.

In learning about report text, how should I draw my students’ attention to a linguistic form and making it noticeable? When I group them to work at task, it may involve everyone to make conversation with their group members. They may discuss what report text is and what kind of report text they are going to create. They may discuss the rhetorical, and content of report text. These activities are predicted to create classroom discourse where students are expected to communicate with their friends by using English. I monitor how they work together in group. In the end of activities, they may express their opinion about the activity, task, and even their group members.

3.  Active intuitive heuristics

This strategy highlights the importance of providing rich textual data so that learners can infer and internalize underlying rules governing grammatical usage and communicative use. A method of teaching allowing the students to learn by discovering thing by themselves and learning from their own experiences rather than by telling them things. Teachers can create more opportunities for students to monitor their thinking, develop and apply analytical ways of reasoning, and evaluate the effectiveness of shortcut reasoning procedures in different contexts

Heuristics simplify reasoning by providing implicit rules of thumb for how and where to look for information, when to stop the search, and what to do with the results (Maeyer and Talanquer, 2010). Many heuristics are task-specific reasoning procedures because they can only be applied to certain type of tasks, but they are domain-general in the sense that they can be employed in a variety of domains (Roberts, 2004). For example, shortcut procedures such as the representativeness heuristic (i.e., judge things as being similar based on how closely they resemble each other on first appearances) are useful for categorization purposes in many domains, but not applicable in tasks where one has to select between two or more options. In this latter type of situations, a recognition heuristic (i.e., if one of the objects is recognized and the others are not, then infer that the recognized object has the higher value) may be more useful (Goldstein & Gigerenzer, 2002). However, some heuristics could be domain specific as prior knowledge in a certain area may provide the basis for valuable shortcuts in reasoning. For example, the heuristic “when having stomach problems, first think of what you ate” frequently allows us to make successful diagnoses without a full medical analysis.

As I stated previous, I let them to explore report text by finding examples of it in different resources and discover what is report text and its rhetorical structures of report text then they create it. I just give briefly information what we are going to do in classroom and what is report text about. They are free to choose topic that will be report. It may be their favorite artist, places, countries, family, interview, observe a conflict, etc.

4.   Foster language awareness

Piedras (1996) stated that Language Awareness refers to explicit knowledge about and sensitivity to language issues. Promoters of Language Awareness believe that there are societal benefits to developing conscious understanding of how language is structured, used, and acquired, as well as learning about attitudes and their effect upon interpersonal interaction, work relations, professional activities, community life, and family socialization practices.

This principle focuses on drawing learners’ attention to the formal and function of language items to promote learning. Teachers may provide activities in which students can infer the role of language and its structure in human life. Language structure is not limited to the structure of sentences (16 forms of tense) but it discovers all structure of language form such as word structure, form, sound, and meaning). Language function is not limited to written or spoken in examination text rather than it language is used in real situation in varied context.

Teachers may involve students in activities where they are free to express their idea in their own way through language usage and give them feedback. Students need to receive feedback from their teachers or their friends. It helps them to be aware of language function, form and meaning.

The kinds of linguistic themes and competencies that could be incorporated into a Language Awareness include the following:

1.     perception of language as a system of human communication

2.     recognition of linguistic resources and their functions in different communities

3.     awareness of the role of context in communication

4.     appreciation of language variation both locally and world-wide

5.     notions of standard language and norms and the limitations of these language comparison and contrastive analysis as a learning aid

6.      coping strategies for dealing with unfamiliar vocabulary,

7.     fundamentals of language learning

8.     techniques of translation

9.     recognition and avoidance of grammatical errors

10.  regularities of pronunciation and orthography

11.   understanding of text types and textual cohesion

12.   basic notions of sentence cohesion

13.    rhetorical resources and their functions

14.   analysis of speech intentions

15.   exposure to metalinguistics (i.e. grammatical categories and technical terms)

Piedras, 1996

Teacher should check report text that students create and give them feedback when their sentences are incorrect. Teacher may show to students the wrong of structure or grammar of sentences can affect its meaning. For instance when they write down “I am like Bali” to express that she/he likes Bali. When they discuss or communicate with their group members/friends by using English and express their opinion about the activity, task, and even their group members teachers could give them feedback or students receive feedback from their friends.

5.   Contextualize  linguistic input

This principle highlights the integration of syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and discourse aspects of language (Kumaravadivelu, 2003). Students learn to use language in different context. Classroom activities should encourage both focus on form (contextualized grammar teaching) and focus on forms (grammar in isolation), especially when the latter is in need.

How students learn English in different context in classroom where classroom are expected to arrange in formal language usage and all participants (teachers and students) of this context are Non-Native speaker? Some experts suggest to arrange classroom into the others context such as arrange it in market, Bank, etc context in which some students act in these context, when they in market context, some of them could be a seller and other as buyer.

How could I involve my students to use language in different context while they are learning report text? After students have been able to discover report text, its rhetorical structures, and are able to create report text, Teacher may directed them to read report text in news paper or magazine then they should analyze language usage in these text about its grammar and word, phrase and sentences, and identify formal and informal sentences.

Sentence comprehension and production involve rapid and simultaneous integration of syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, and discourse phenomena. Studies in L2 development show that the acquisition of syntax is constrained in part by pragmatics, that the phonological forms L2 learners produce depended crucially on the content of discourse, and that syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic features cannot be understood as isolated linguistic components with a unidirectional information flow (Gass, 1997).

6.  Integrate language skills

Teaching language is not limited to teach language form and meaning. It directed to make students have skill in using language in a real context. Generally language has four main skills: listening, reading, speaking, and writing. These four skills cannot be separated in teaching-learning process. They should be integrated to guide students in use language in different context of language usage. Teachers should conduct lesson in a various way that encourage students to practice language skills.

Integrate language skills could be implemented by integrating two or more language skills such as reading and writing, listening and speaking, listening, speaking, and writing, or integrate all of skills. What kinds of activities are supported for this principle? Teachers can connect it to the content of learning or learning objectives.

In activities that I plan to implement in previous section, we can see that students can read example of report text, discuss with their group members, report or express their opinion, and create report text. These activities provide opportunities for students to practice three English skills: reading, writing, and speaking. Listening skills could be practice by directed them to watch television news or YouTobe video about profile of the famous person.

7.   Raise cultural consciousness

Teaching language involves teaching culture of target language. Students may find the differences between their language and target language (English), and it causes the difficulty of learning language successfully. Students need a cultural informant to ease them understand target language. Teachers should be able to develop critical cultural consciousness by giving students the opportunity to make comparisons between their culture and the target culture.

Classrooms respect and incorporate the cultures of learners in those classes while helping them to understand the new culture of the community, the school, and the classroom. Teachers play the most important role in determining the quality and quantity of students in classrooms. When teachers develop a climate of trust, understand students cultural needs, and model for the rest of the class how they, too, can include English learners in classroom conversations and activities as important members of the classroom learning communities, ELs’ active involvement in the classroom and their learning show improvement (Yoon, 2007).

When students make mistake in their report text or errors in their conversation, they directed to recognize their mistakes through the analyzing the possible problem why it is incorrect. They sometimes translate the structure of their language into English structure, for instance when we meet new people in our countries, it is still acceptable if we ask their occupation but in western it is not polite. The way of native speaker of English construct their language is different with Indonesian people.

8.   Ensure social relevance

Kumaravadivelu (2003a) suggests that the use of L1 as a rich resource enables the teacher to make a connection between the home language and the target language and hence, ensures social relevance. Furthermore, utilizing socially relevant teaching materials that not only reflect the English culture but also draw on learners’ own life and culture also carry great importance in creating social relevance.

Kumaravadivelu (2006) argued that Learning purpose and language use are perhaps most crucial in determining the social relevance of an L2 program. Different social contexts contribute to the emergence of various functions in an L2 speech community thereby influencing L2 learning and use in significantly different ways. In these contexts, learners are seldom exposed to the full range of their L2 in all its complexity that one would expect in a context where it is used as the primary vehicle of communication. In the use of an L2, “the learner is not becoming an imitation native speaker, but a person who can stand between the two languages, using both when appropriate” (Cook 1992:583). Such an observation should inform the teacher’s decision making in terms of appropriate instructional materials, evaluation measures, and target  knowledge/ability.

9.   Minimize perceptual mismatches

Teachers may find that their intention of learning activities is different from students’ interpretation. In some way, students may have different view of something and infer something in their own point. Teachers need to recognize these differences when they plan learning activities and try to understand students’ perceptual. Teachers may show some guidelines and let students to act or perform based on their self- discovery, consider learning style, learning strategies, learning process.

There are at least ten potential sources of perceptual mismatch that we should be aware of (Kumaravadivelu, 1991):

1.      Cognitive: a source that refers to the knowledge of the world and mental processes through which learners obtain conceptual understanding of physical and natural phenomena;

2.      Communicative: a source that refers to skills through which learners exchange messages, including the use of communication strategies;

3.     Linguistic: a source that refers to linguistic repertoire—syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic knowledge of the target language—that is minimally required to participate in classroom activities;

4.      Pedagogic: a source that refers to teacher/learner recognition of stated or unstated, short- and/or long-term objective(s) of classroom activities;

5.     Strategic: a source that refers to learning strategies, that is, operations, steps, plans, and routines used by the learner to facilitate the obtaining, storage, retrieval, and use of information;

6.     Cultural: a source that refers to prior knowledge of the target cultural norms minimally required for the learner to understand classroom activities;

7.     Evaluative: a source that refers to articulated or unarticulated types and modes of ongoing self-evaluation measures used by learners to monitor their classroom performance;

8.      Procedural: a source that refers to stated or unstated paths chosen by the learner to achieve an immediate goal. Procedural source pertains to locally specified, currently identified bottom–up tactics, which seek a quick resolution to a specific problem on hand, whereas strategic source, mentioned earlier, pertains to broad-based, higher-level, top–down strategy, which seeks an overall solution to a general language-learning situation;

9.     Instructional: a source that refers to instructional directions given by the teacher and/or indicated by the textbook writer to help learners achieve their goal(s); and

10.  Attitudinal: a source that refers to participants’ attitude toward the nature of L2 learning and teaching, the nature of classroom culture, and the nature of participant role relationships

10.    Promote learner autonomy

 The concept of learner autonomy or autonomous learner emphasizes the role of the learner rather than the role of the teacher. It focuses on the process rather than the product and encourages learners to develop their own purposes for learning and to see learning as a lifelong process” (Jacobs & Farrell, 2001)

Holec 1(1981:3) defined learner autonomy as the “ability to take charge of one’s own learning. This ability is not inborn but must be acquired either by ‘natural’ means or (as most often happens) by formal learning. To take charge of one’s learning is to have the responsibility for all the decisions concerning all aspects of learning such as determining object, defining the contents, the progression, selecting method and techniques to be used, monitoring the procedure of acquisition, and evaluating what has been acquire.

The development of autonomy in language learning is governed by three basic pedagogical principles:

a.       Learner involvement – engaging learners to share responsibility for the learning process (the affective and the metacognitive dimensions);

b.        Learner reflection – helping learners to think critically when they plan, monitor and evaluate their learning (the metacognitive dimensions);

c.        Appropriate target language use – using the target language as the principal medium of language learning (the communicative and the metacognitive dimensions).

Little, 2002

Autonomous learners can be characterized as:

a.     willing and have the capacity to control or supervise learning

b.    knowing their own learning style and strategies

c.    motivated to learn

d.    good guessers

e.     choosing materials, methods and tasks

f.     exercising choice and purpose in organizing and carrying out the chosen task

g.     selecting the criteria for evaluation

h.    taking an active approach to the task

i.      making and rejecting hypotheses

j.      paying attention to both form and content

k.     willing to take risks

Louis (2010)

       Promote learning autonomy is not a simple task for teacher when students in classroom have different level of English skill. In activities above, I let students to explore report text by finding examples of it in different resources, they work at this task in their way and I group to ease the low level of students. If they found the difficulties, they could ask their friends. I only give guidelines or briefly explanation and monitor how activities are carried on by students.

Conclusion

 These ten principles of active language teaching can lead teachers to create their own method based on the context where teaching-learning English is conducted. Teachers could draw students’ interest in learning English through the implemented of these ten principles.

References

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