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Harmer Methods

metodologia enseñanza de ingles

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Leila Santos
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101 views21 pages

Harmer Methods

metodologia enseñanza de ingles

Uploaded by

Leila Santos
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Practia & : Erg ow Conguge Teerhig | Popular ee Cloaynen methodology A Approaches, methods, procedures, and techniques This chapter looks at how theory has been realised in methodological practice. Within the general area of ‘methodology’ people talk about approaches, methods, techniques, procedures and models, all of which go into the practice of English teaching, These tetms, though somewhat vague, are definable: * Approach: this refers to ‘theories about the nature of language and language learning that serve as the source of practices and principles in language teaching’ (Richatds and Rodgers 1986: 16). An approach describes how language s used and how its constituent parts interlock ~ in other words it offers a model of language competence. An approach describes how people acquire theit ige ofthe language and makes statements about the conditions which will promote successful language learning, ‘Method: method is the practical realisation of an approach. The originators ‘of a method have arrived at decisions about types of activities, roles of teachers and learners, the kinds of material which will be helpful, and some model of syllabus organisation (see Chapter 214). Methods include various procedures and techniques (see below) as part of their standard fare When methods have fixed procedures, informed by a clearly articulated approach, they are easy to describe, The more all-embracing they become, however, the more difficult it is to categorise them as real methods in their own right Procedure: a procedure isan ordered sequence of techniques. For example, a popular dictation procedure starts when students are put in small groups. Each group then sends one representative tothe front of the class to read (and remember) the frst line of a poem which has been placed on a desk there. Each student then goes back to their respective group and dictates that line. Each group then sends a second student up to read the second line. The procedure nues until one group has written the whole poem (see Example 3 on page 264 A procedure isa sequence which can be described in terms such as first you do this, shen you do that... Smaller than a method itis bigger than a technique. At * Technique: a common technique when using video material is called ‘silent viewing! (see Chapter 20, m1). This is where the teacher plays the video with zo sound, Silent viewing is a single activity rather than a sequence, and as such isa technique rather than a whole procedure, Likewise the finger technique’ is used by some teachers who hold up their hands and give each of their five fingers a word, eg. He is not play tennis,and then by bringing the isand the not fingers together, hhow how the verb is contracted into is. A term that is also used in discussions about teaching is ‘model’ — used to describe typical procedures or sets of procedures, usually for teachers in training, Such models offer abstractions of these procedures, designed to guide teaching practice. Confusion occurs when these models are elevated to the status of methods, since their purpose is pedagogic in terms of training, rather than inspirational as statements of theoretical belief The way in which people announce and develop new teaching practices can make discussions of comparative methodology somewhat confusing, Some methodologists, for exampl have new insights and claim a new approach’ as a result, Others claim the status of method for a technique or procedure, Some methods start as procedures and techniques which seem to work and for which an approach is then developed. Some approaches have to go in seatch of procedures and te hniques with which to form a method, Some methods are explicit about the approach they exemplify and the procedures they employ. Others are not What the interested teacher needs to do when confronted with a new method, for example, isto se if and/or how it incorporates theories of language and learning What procedures does it incorporate? Are they appropriate and effective fort classroom situation that the teacher works with? In the ase of techniques and activities, two questions seem worth asking: are they satisfying for both students and teachers, and do they actually achieve what they set out to achieve? Popular methodology includes ideas at all the various levels we have discussed, and itis these methods, procedures, approaches (and models) which influence the current state of English language teaching. Audiotlingualism Audio-lingual methodology owed its existence to the Behaviourist models of learning that were discussed in Chapter 5a. U ng the Stimulus-R. Reinforcement mode, it attempted, through a continuous process of such positive esponse— reinforcement, to engender good habits in language learners. Audio-Ii alism relied heavily on drills to form these habits; substitution was built into these drills so that, in small steps, the student was constantly learning and, the drill ‘The following example shows a typical Audio Ided from the possiblity of making mistakes by the design of al drill: Teacher: There's a cup on the table ... repeat Students: There's a cup on the table Teacher: spoon Students: There's a spoon on the table Teacher: Book There's a jak on the table On the chair Students: There's a book on the chair etc This kind of patterned drilling has some drawbacks quite apart from whether or not it can be shown to lead to grammatical and/or lexical mastery of the structures being focused! on (see Chapter 5a). In th rst place the langu: de-contest d carries little com nunicative function, Second, by doing it st to banish mistakes, so that stu is only use correct language, such teaching runs counter to a belief among many theorists that making (and learning) from | ervors isa key part of the process of acquisition. Indeed! Audio-lingual methodology seems to banish all forms of language processing that help students sort out new | language information in their own minds. | Despite these reservations, however, habit-forming drills have remained popula among teachers and students, The theory behind them still informs some taped materials in language laboratories, for example (see Chapter toe); teachers who fee! insecure with the relative Ireedoms of some recent methods of confident with the linguistic restriction of such procedures. ntation, Practice, and Production ation on Audio-lingualism in British-based teaching and ¢ procedure most often referred to as PPP, which stands for Presentation, Practice, ere isthe and Production. In this procedure the teacher introduces a situation which contextualises the language to be taught. The language, too, is then presented The students now practise the language using accurate reproduction techniques such as choral repetition (where the students repeat a word, phrase, or sentence all together with the teacher ‘conducting dividual urging), and cue-response drills (where the teacher gives a cue such as cinema, nomin }s individual repetition (where students repeat a word, phrase, or sentence at the teacher's a | s the desired you like to come to the cinema’). These have similarities with the classic kind of Audio-ling student by name y looking or pointing, and the student mal response, e.g. Would al drill we saw above, but by the situation that has been pr cause they are contextualised than a simpl ake sentences o substitution drill. Lat the students, using the new langu: theit own, and this is referred to as production. The following ‘example demonstrates this procedute: ‘ementary-level © Presentation: the teacher shows the students the following picture and asks them whe! at work or on holiday to elicit the people in ita fact that | they are on holiday. The teacher points to the man and attempts to elicit the phrase He's swimming t’she acher then models the sentence (He swinein before isolating the grammar by saying Can anybody tell me ... he’... 2or asking the question W rody? The ¥e wants to focus on (he), distorting it ( he’), and then giving the ), puting it back together again (1 model in a natural way once more (Listen ing... he's She may accompany this demon: ation of form rules by using some physica ‘means such as bringing two hands (for ke and is) together to show how the contraction works or by us finger technique hapter i, a1) Practice: the tea ie students to repeat the s in chorus. She may then nominate certain students to repe individually, and she corre s any mistakes she hears ( goes back and models more sentences Paul e Chapter 7), Now she Mary’s reading a book m the pictur id Sarah are playing car horal and individual repetition sshere she thinks this is necessary. Now she is in a position to conduct a slightly freer kind of drill than the Audio-lingual one above: Teacher: Can anyone tell me? ... Mary? ... Ye Student: She's reading book. Teacher: Good, ete 5, Sergio In this cue-response drill the teacher gives the cue (3) student (Sergio) who will give the response ( tinga ). By cueing before nominating she keeps everyone alert. She will i in a predictable order for the same reason, ally the teacher puts the students in pairs to avoid nominating students bit more before listening to a few examples just to chee! been effective, hat the learning has Production: the end point of the PPP cycle is production which some trainers have called ‘immediate creativity Here the students are asked to use the new age (in this case the present continuous) in sentences of their own. For example, the teacher maj the stuclents to imagine th AB holiday villa, They must now say what each of them is doin book, Juana’s 8, eg, Sergio’ reading tc. They might write a ‘holiday’ postcard home eg. It's great here, The sun’s shining. Pa Sarah are playing football. et cr, by changing the situation, they may be asked to say what they think thei friends and relations are doing at that moment, e.g. My mother's working atthe hospital. My father’s driving to London. My rer's studying. etc. As we shal se in 43 (below), the PPP procedure has come in for conside b criticism over the last few years, especially as a model for teacher traine: And even when it was at its most popular teachers knew that what might be appropriate for b and ela lary students was less likely to find success at higher levels where accurate reproduction and conttalled repetition seem out of pla PPP and alternatives to PPP The PPP procedure came under a sustained attack the 1990s. It was, critics argued ly teacher-centret (at leat in the kind of procedure which we have demonstrated above therefore sat uneasily in a more humanistic and learne centred framework. It also seems to assume that students learn ‘in straight lines’ — fom no knowk through hi trera es and on to immediate production. Yet human, ng probably is not lke thats it is more random, more convoluted. And, by bre down into small pieces to learn them, it may be cheating the students ofa language which, in Tessa Wood odward 1993: 3). Michael Lewis suggested that PPP was inadequate because it reflected 1's phrase, is full of ‘interlocking variables and systems (W. neither the nature of language nor the nature of learning (Lewis 1993 190), trainer, Jim Scrivener, even wrote that‘it is fundamentally dis (Scrivener 1994a: 15) Later however, Scrivener advanced w worrying aspect of PPP, the fact that i tis perhaps the mast only describes one kind of lesson; itis inadequate as a general proposal concerning approaches to language in the classroom. Tt entirely fils to describe the many ways in which teachers can work when, for example using coursebooks, or when adopting a task-based approach From J Scrivener (997 This, then, course these days offers an undiluted diet of the dry meaning s the problem. Despite writer Andy Hopkins’ assertion that ‘no language ss PPP-structured lessons that so many commentators like » sel up as a straw-man foe’ (1995: 1), large numbers of trainers and trainees still use it as the main default model for the teaching of new lai ige forms. In response to these and ear PPP and alternatives lier criticisms many people have offered variations on it. Keith Johnson offered the ‘de tive (Johnson 1982: Chapt smmediate production (throwing them in at the deep end -end strategy’ asan al ing the students into ) you turn the procedure on its head. The teacher can now see if and where students are having problems g this production phase and return to either presentation or practice as and when ne sary after the production phase is over. A few years later Donn Byrne suggested much the same thing (Byrne 1986: 3), joining the three phases ina circle (sce Figure 13). Teachers and students can decide at which stage to enter the HiGURe 13: Byme’ alternative approach’ However, more recent models, usually designed for trainin further than this: purposes, have ‘© ARC: put forward by Jim Scrivener (1g94b), this stands for Authentic use Restricted use, and Clarification and focu s. The basic premise here is that most language in the classroom can be described as either A, R, or C. Thus a communicative activity will demonstrate ‘authentic’ use, whereas a drill, jazz chant elicited dialogue or guided writing, for example, will provoke restricted use of language by students, Finally Clarification language is that which the teacher and students use to explain gram) r nar, give examples, analyse errors, . clicit oF repeat things By labelling different parts of any lesson in this way Scrivener is abl cto describe lessons differently from the old PPP procedure. An old PPP-type lesson can now be described as CRA (wh point, institutes restricted (controlled) practice, before getting ‘authentic’ use), whereas a different lesson ~ for example, a task-base lesson ~ might follow a procedure such as CACACR. By introducing terminology, Scrivener forces us to look at things differ the teacher presents a situation, tly, and by producing descriptive rather than a prescript into w tool, he is attempting to offer an insight he called ‘the many ways in which teachers can work. © OHE/IE: Michael Lewis claims that students should be all (ead or listen to language) which will then provoke wed to Observe em to Hypothesise about » Experiment on the basis of that how the language works before going on hypothesis, Such a description is close to the III of McCarthy and Carter (McCarthy and Carter 1995) where they show students examples of langu like the transcripts of conversations (Illustration); they then give them discovery activities and questions about the lang for example How would Aa poken langu (Interaction) as a result of which, trough such a noticing routine, stud ts will grasp new facts about language (Induction), We saw an example of the kind of transcript material they migh ask stud s to study in Chapter 2, a1 ‘* BSAt in the ESA model (see Harmer 1998) present in any teachin ee components will usually be sequence, whether of five, fifty, or a hundred minutes. E stands for Engage. The point here is that unless stu sare engaged, ning willbe less effective emotionally, with what is going on, their le S stands for Study and describes any aching a the focus is on how something is constructed, whethe specific intonation patterns, th learning element where it is relative clauses, nstruction of a paragraph or text, the way a lexical phrase is made and used, oF the collocation possibilities ofa particular word dents are A stands for Activate and this means any stage at which encouraged to use all and/or any of the language they know. Communicative activities, for example, igned to activate the students’ a knowledge: so too are reading and listening activities when students are doing it for interest and general understand) in Chapters, ax uch as the extensive reading we discuss ESA allows for three basic lesson procedures, In the frst (‘stra the sequence is ESA, much like PPP or CRA (see above). A ‘boomerang procedure, on the other hand, follows a more task-based or deep-end approach {ere the order is EAS, so that the teacher gets the students engaged asking them to do something like a written task, a communic role-play. Based on what happens there the students will then, aftr the activity haas finished, study some aspect of language which they lacked or which they used incor atchwork’lessons, on the sequences such as ones where eng other hand, may follow a variety of ed students are encouraged to activate theit knowledge before studying one and then another language element, and then returning to more active ta after which the teacher re-engage before doing some more study, etc. What allt a number of teaching procedures for the teacher to employ-~ rather than the central plank of good teaching, The goal is flexibility, not rigidity. hese models demonstrate isa desire to put PPP firmly in its place as one of The Communicative approach The Communicative approach ~ or Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) —is the name which was given to a set of beliefs which included not only a re-examination of what aspects of language to teach, but also shift in emphasisin how to teach, The what to teach’ aspect of the Communicative approach stressed the significance of language functions (see Chapter 2,2) rather than focusing sole grammar and vocabulary. A guiding principle was to train students to use these language forms appropriately ina variety of contexts and fora varity of purposes. a The “how to teach aspect’ of the Communicative approach idea that ‘Tanguage learning will take care of itself (see Chapt is closely related to the fer 58), and that Plntifl exposure to language in use and plenty of opportunities to seit are vitally mportant fora student's development of knowledge and skil I. Activities in CLT typically involve students in real or realistic communication, where the accuracy of the language they use i es important than successful achievement of the communicative task they are performing. Thus role-play and Chapter 19, 36) have hecome very poy lar in CLT, where stu simulation ( dents simulate a ‘clevision programme ora scene at an airport — or they might put together the lated front page of a newspaper. Sometimes they have 10 can only do so by sharing information. Sometimes they have uct a story together. solve a puzzle and to writea poem or What matters in these activities is that students should have a desire to something. They should have a purpose for con mmunicating (eg. to Jnske @ point to buy an airline ticket, or write a letter toa newspaper), Th ey should sed on the content of what they are saying or writing 1 Particular language form. They should use a varity of angua Innguage structure. The teacher will not intervene to stop the ather than on a ige rather than just one activity; and the materials he or she relies on will not dictate what specific language forms the students use either. In other words such activities should atten real communication, All this is seen as being in marked contr. {caching and learning we sw in at and a2 above. They are a opposit ‘communication continuum’ (see Figure 14 Non-communicati activities Communi ‘+ no communicative purpose | * form not content content | £ one language tem only variety ‘teacher intervention no teac | + materials control | + no materials control Notall activities occur at either extren be further towards the con nunicative end, whereas some ma mnicative, An activity in which students have to go round

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