The effects of explicit teaching and practice with language are severely limited. Instruction should focus on things that foster acquisition.
We should work with the learner’s natural acquisition processes, not against them.
We must educate students, parents, colleagues, and administrators about the nature of acquisition (as well as the nature of language and communication).
Classroom and materials need to be spaces in which learners receive lots of input and have many chances to interact with it.
The above four statements are Bill VanPatten’s “Implications for Language Teaching”. (While We’re On the Topic, 2017, pp. 54)
At the end of each chapter, VanPatten provides what he believes are significant implications for language instruction from the discussion in the chapter.
The effects of explicit teaching and practice with language are severely limited. Instruction should focus on things that foster acquisition.
VanPatten considers this implication to be quite clear.
If we accept the following precepts as true, then this is the natural conclusion. Unfortunately, it is not widely practiced. What are the precepts?
1. Internal factors (general learning mechanisms and demonstrated psychological factors – often called Universal Grammar) limit the data with which the brain/mind can work to language for communication, as well as constraining and guiding the formation of the mental representation of the language.
2. External factors (input and interaction) constrain acquisition through quantity and quality.
3. Talking about the target language in the mother tongue, fascinating as it may be to some of us, does not contribute to acquisition because it does not provide the right kind of data (language that learners hear or see in a communicative context), i.e. the mind/brain cannot process it for acquisition.
Therefore, the teacher must focus on activities that present learners at all levels – even level one on day one – with the raw data the mind/brain can process. That is, teachers must provide learners with comprehensible input, understandable language that learners hear or see in a communicative context.
Excursus: It might be well to ask ourselves if acquisition is truly the goal of most language programs. Most people would reply, “Well of course it is. Isn’t that why students take the course?”
From many years of teaching in a public high school in the US, I can tell you that learning a language is often NOT the reason students take the course.
In California, we have a set of requirements that students must meet in order to be accepted into the UC (University of California) or CSU (California State University) system. These requirements include a certain number of years in Math, English, Social Science, Science, Art, Foreign Language, and Electives. The categories are labeled with the letters “a” through “g” and are called, ingeniously enough, “The A-G Requirements”.
Many students take a foreign language solely to fulfill college entry requirements. Others take a language because their friends are taking the course, and they want to be with their friends. Still others take a language because that’s what they are expected to do – by parents, by counselors, by peers. Some students even take a language class because they have a slot in their schedule that they must fill and don’t know what else to take or can’t fit something they would rather into their schedule.
So, not all students are in a class because they want to acquire a language.
“But what about the teacher (and administrator)?” you ask.
Good question. Once again, from years of working in a public high school, I have observed that the emphasis is often on preparation for a test rather than acquisition of language.
Schools and districts take pride in the number of students who take and pass the Advanced Placement© exam. Certain courses are designated as AP courses, and the purpose of the course is to prepare students to pass the exam. The College Board also places emphasis on “vertical teaming” and articulation. One regularly hears the maxim, “AP begins in level 1 on the very first day.” So, test preparation pervades the system.
While the College Board has improved the AP Exam in recent years, the underlying problem is that the entire process is geared to passing a specific test rather than acquiring a language with an emphasis that supports the interests of the student.
In the district in which I teach, any students who wish to take four years of Spanish must sign up for the AP Spanish Language and Culture course. There is no opportunity to take a Spanish 4 course, even though it is listed in the district’s course catalogue. Students who want to continue with Spanish in order to improve their communication skills and use the language in a career rather than college have to accommodate themselves to the expectations of the AP course or forego taking the language in school. (I disagree with this position for a number of reasons.)
As generous as I would like to be, the attitude expressed by administrators and teachers alike often reminds me of the following exchange from Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix:
“Now, it is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be more than sufficient to get you through your examination, which, after all, is what school is all about.”
…
“I repeat, as long as you have studied the theory hard enough –”
“And what good’s theory going to be in the real world?” said Harry loudly, his fist in the air again.
Professor Umbridge looked up.
“This is school, Mr Potter, not the real world,” she said softly.
“So we’re not supposed to be prepared for what’s waiting for us out there?”
“There is nothing waiting out there, Mr Potter.”
The example is admittedly exaggerated, but sometimes learning the theory, i.e. learning about the language, rather than acquisition, seems to be the purpose of the language course.
Naturally, if your purpose is not to facilitate acquisition, then the implication for language teaching may not apply. I would hope, though, that ultimately the goal of a language course (as opposed to a linguistics or language appreciation course) is for students to acquire the language.
However, if our purpose is for learners to acquire the language, then it behooves us to remember that “Language is too abstract and complex to be taught and learned explicitly”. (2017, p. 520
We should work with the learner’s natural acquisition processes, not against them.
This implication assumes the validity of VanPatten’s position about the nature of language, the nature of acquisition, and the nature of the constraints on acquisition. Of course, VanPatten assumes the validity of his position, and he has done a credible job of presenting it thus far in the book. At this point, we will not confuse matters by addressing those who have other views.
If language, acquisition, and the constraints on acquisition are as VanPatten has described, then teaching in a manner that works against the learner’s natural acquisition processes will be counterproductive.
One of the discussions that continues in foreign language teaching circles is about method or approach and strategies or practices. Some teachers adhere very strictly to a single method or approach. Others talk about using an “eclectic” approach, taking strategies and practices from a variety of sources. They talk about having a “toolbox”.
The problem that I have observed with the eclectic approach is that too many teachers adopt a strategy, activity, or practice because they have just been introduced to it or because they have used it and the students enjoyed it. There is little or no thought about how the strategy, activity, or practice fits into communicative language teaching, i.e. teaching language through the expression, interpretation, and negotiation of meaning and allowing the unconscious mind to develop a mental representation of the language by processing the raw data of the language itself.
Going back to the “toolbox” analogy, it seems that many eclectic teachers have tools for auto mechanics, computer repair, plumbing, first aid, and a host of other jobs in their toolbox. They then grab tools (strategies, activities, etc.) will-nilly irrespective of any guiding principle behind the selection. The toolbox analogy may be useful, but it’s important to have the correct toolbox.
Another problem with the use of compelling input in the classroom is viewing it as a strategy or approach. VanPatten addresses this in another of his writings. In the article “Creating Comprehensible Input and Output” (The Language Educator, Oct/Nov 2014, pp. 24-26), VanPatten writes:
For at least three decades, research on language acquisition has been pointing to a fundamental reconsideration of teaching, materials, and curricular goals. Understanding the roles of input and output in acquisition means that teachers and administrators may have to make some profound changes in how they approach the classroom if proficiency as communicative ability is the goal of the student’s experience. To drive the point home, without the expression and interpre- tation of meaning at the core of what we do, input and output become mere techniques. But input and output are not techniques; they are the very foundations of language acquisition and communication. (2014, p. 26; emphasis mine)
Implementing this implication in the language classroom will require language teachers to do some serious wrestling with the nature of language, the nature of acquisition, and the nature of the constraints on acquisition so that they can select activities, techniques, and strategies that support and work with students’ natural acquisition processes rather than against them.
It is a daunting task, but one that must be done if we are committed to doing what’s best for students.
We’ll take a look at the final two Implications for Language Teaching from this chapter next week.