Second edition

59

Module!

(See page 239 for answers)


Put these classroom activities into the correct column .in the table according to which way of learning they encourage most. Some may go into more than one column.

1. 
   Learners proofread and correct the first draft of their compositions.
   
2. 
   A group of learners explains to the rest of the class how to make a paper plane.
   
3. 
   A learner says T go to see a great film yesterday'; the teacher says 'past tense'.
   
4. 
   Learners use the internet to find recipes for how to make their favourite dishes.
   
5. 
   Learners explain to one another why a certain multiple-choice answer on a reading text must be correct.
   
6. 
   The learners see how many different prefixes they can find in a text.
   
7. 
   The learners complete gapped sentences with the right tense of the verbs in brackets.
   
8. 
   The learners tell one another about a good book they have just read.
   
9. 
   Learners listen to two songs which are their favourite English songs.
   
10. 
    Learners look at a map of their town and discuss where to build a new sports centre.
    

Think about these teachers' comments. Which do you agree with and why?

1. 
   I learnt Russian at school through grammar translation. Then after I left school f went to live in Russia and just picked it up. The two ways of learning really helped me speak Russian well.
   
2. 
   It's very difficult to bring interaction and acquisition into my classes -1 have more than 30 students in each class and very few resources.
   
3. 
   The exams my students have to take focus on correct grammar, so that's what we focus on in class. I know I'm not teaching my students English, but teaching them to pass an exam In English.
   

1 To read more about how languages are learnt, see Chapter 3, The Practice of English Language Teaching (Fourth edition) by Jeremy Banner, Longman 2007.

2. 
   Watch your learners. Are there any who seem to prefer learning by acquisition, interaction or focus on form? Write down your observations and put them in your Teacher Portfolio.
   
3. 
   Look at: a unit from your eoursebook. See what the focus of each activity is; acquisition, interaction or focus on form? Does the overall unit focus suit your learners' needs?
   

Acquisition


interaction


Focus on form








60


Unit 10 Exposure and focus on form


■:>v- ^,.,>,SKX:practic©vtaskv.10 (See page 245 for answers) ^
For questions 1-5, look at the terms about language learning and the three classroom activities listed A, В and C.
Two of the activities are examples of the term. One activity is NOT.
Choose the letter (A, В or C) of the activity which is NOT an example of the term. ¹


1 Interaction
A The learner listened to a recording and wrote down the words he didn’t know.
В A learner discussed with his teacher why his answer was correct.
C A group of learners designed a poster together.

2. 
   Focus on form
   

A The learners had to decide if certain verbs are followed by the gerund or the infinitive. В The learners matched words to explanations of their meanings to complete an exercise.
C The learners ticked which word they heard in sets of minimal pairs.

2. 
   Working out meaning
   

A The learners completed a gapped text by reading the words around each gap.
В The learners listened to a recording and counted the stressed syllables in each word. C The learners listened to short dialogues and deduced who the speakers were.

2. 
   Exposure
   

A The class invited an outside speaker to speak to them about the life of young people in her country.
В The learners listened to their teacher read them a detective story.
C The teacher gave her students an example of the target language.

2. 
   Paraphrasing
   

A The learners read one another’s emails and underlined and corrected the mistakes.
В The learners used prompts to write new sentences with the same meaning but different words from the original sentences.
C The learner summarised the contents of his recent presentation for his classmates.


61

Unit П The role of error

What is the role of error?
Making mistakes plays an important and useful part in language learning because it allows learners to experiment with language and measure their success in communicating. This unit focuses on the kinds of mistakes learners make when they speak or write a foreign language, why they make these mistakes and the part that mistakes play in language learning.
Key concepts
What are the main reasons why your learners make mistakes?
Mistakes are often categorised into errors and slips. Errors occur when learners try to say something that is beyond their current, level of knowledge or language processing (working on the language unconsciously to try to understand and learn it). Usually, because they are still processing or don't know this part of the language, learners cannot correct errors themselves because they don't understand what is wrong.
Slips are the result of tiredness, worry or other temporary emotions or circumstances. We make them because we are not concentrating on what we are saying or writing. They are not a result of .incomplete language processing or a lack of knowledge. They happen simply because our attention is somewhere else at that moment. These kinds of mistakes can be corrected by learners themselves, once they realise they have made them.
There are two main reasons why second language learners make errors. The first reason is influence from the learner's first language (mother tongue/Ll) on the second language (E2). This is called interference or transfer. Learners may use sound patterns, lexis or grammatical structures from their own language in English.
The second reason why learners make errors is because they are unconsciously (without knowing or being aware) working out, organising and experimenting with language they have learnt, but this process.is not yet complete. This kind of error is called a developmental error. These errors are common to all learners, whatever their LI, and are often similar to those made by a young first language speaker as pari of their normal language development. Common developmental errors in English are using the past tense for the present perfect tense, or making mistakes with past verb forms. For example, very young first language speakers of English as well as English language learners often say things like T goed' instead of T went'. Errors such as this one, in which learners wrongly apply a rule for one item of the language to another item, are the result of overgeneralisation, i.e. applying a rule too widely. Once children develop their LI language abilities, these errors disappear, and as a second language learner's language ability increases, these errors often disappear, too.
Errors play a necessary and important part in language learning. They are part of learners' inter language, i.e. the learners' own version of the second language which

Unit 11 The roie of error

they speak as they learn. Learners unconsciously process, i.e. analyse and reorganise their interlanguage. Interlanguage is not fixed. It develops and progresses as learners learn more. Experts think that interlanguage is an essential and unavoidable stage in language learning. In other words, interlanguage and errors are necessary to language learning. LI learners go through a stage similar to the interlanguage stage: when children learn their mother tongue they seem to speak their own version of it for a while, to make progress on some language items, then to go backwards, and to make mistakes for a time before these mistakes finally disappear, usually without obvious correction.
Errors are a natural part of learning. They usually show that learners are learning and that their internal mental processes are working on and experimenting with language. By making mistakes you realise that you don't know something and you try to put it right. For example, if you fall off a bicycle through your own fault you realise that you did something wrong, and you make sure you don't make the same mistake again. Similarly, as we communicate with others and see that our communication isn't working, we try again, using other words or aiming for greater accuracy. We go through stages of learning new language, and each new piece of language we learn helps us learn more fully other pieces of language that we already know - like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle which only make full sense when they are all in place.
Developmental and interference errors can disappear by themselves, without correction, as the learner learns more language. In fact, experts say that correction may only help learners if they are ready for it, i.e. they are at the right stage in their individual learning process, or interlanguage. There are three main ways of helping learners develop their language. Firstly, learners need exposure to lots of interesting language at the right level; secondly, they need to use language to interact; and thirdly, they need to focus their attention on language forms.
Sometimes errors do not disappear, but get fossilised. Fossilised errors are errors which a learner does not stop making and which last for a long time, even for ever, in his/her foreign language use. Fossilisation of errors often happens when learners, particularly adults, are able to communicate as much as they need to in the foreign language and so have no communicative reason to improve their language. These fossilised errors may be the result of lack of exposure to the L2, the result of a learner's conscious (knowing/aware) or unconscious lack of motivation to improve their level of accuracy, or the fact that they cause no problem in communication.
■ Key concepts and the language teaching classroom