Teaching and learning MFL
Language acquisition theory
Papers & recommended reading | Editorial reviews | Task for traineesA telling tale of a tail and language
teaching and/or learning (pdf document)
Haezewindt, Bernard (2006) Language Learning Journal, 34, pp 72-76
The author presents an entertaining and compelling argument for alternative and more adventurous approaches to the perennial issue of raising the {foreign) language capability of our pupils and students. While the focus is mainly on UK-based English speaking learners of European languages, there is reference to other countries’ language learning ‘problem’, and it is portrayed as a motivational challenge rather than a national one. A very small percentage of our population emerging from MFL classes profess any degree of language expertise: how can this be?
The author argues essentially that teaching does not address learner needs; that we need to make a distinction in the provision for those who study language for its own sake, and those who study to use it for specific purposes; that an assessment-driven curricular model that has not broken free of its historical obsession with grammatical accuracy has nurtured a culture of over-correction by teachers who themselves aspire to near native-speaker standards of understanding and production.
Students in this paper are very clearly from the outset not situated where they might ‘acquire’ language, but in learning environments. The crux of the matter is whether they are taught, or whether they learn. The author argues students are customarily taught, a passive process riddled with the fear of failure, rather than suffused with the excitement of learning actively. There is an effective call to enable a freer learning environment in which pupils and students can find their own ways of communicating successfully for their own purposes, and via enabling strategies. At a time when language learners are not opting in large numbers to continue study past the short key stage 3 period of compulsory study, there is a clear invitation by the message conveyed by this article for closer analysis of the extent to which our current languages teacher cohort ‘let go’ (or not), and allow the learners some degree of motivating autonomy. Via such in-class research we might also experiment with more liberating strategies for self-directed learning. The author has drawn very clear links between successful language learning, autonomy and motivation.
We only learn language once. The role of the mother tongue in FL classrooms: death of a dogma (pdf document) Butzkamm, W. (2003) Language Learning Journal, 28, pp 29-39
The article draws attention to opposing attitudes to teaching in the target language and teaching through the use of the students’ first language. The author shows that students’ mother tongue is their strongest ally in leaning any subject, including modern languages, and shows how teachers can use it to good effect in the classroom.
The author argues that C.J. Dodson’s work in 1967 on a bilingual method was groundbreaking and more attention should be given to mother tongue use in the modern language classroom than at present.
He puts forward the theory that the mother tongue opens the doors to all languages and proceeds by breaking his theory down into 10 statements using real life situations and showing that this method can not only support target language learning and use, but also accelerate them.
Far from being counter-productive a skilful use of the mother tongue can be an effective and essential tool in modern languages classes.
SLA research in the classroom/SLA
research for the classroom (pdf document)
Lightbown, P.M. (2003) Language Learning Journal, 28, pp 4-13
Teachers draw on second language acquisition research to inform their teaching. The article will be of interest to anybody who wants to keep up-to-date with research and practice in the classroom. Themes range from error correction to sequences in second language acquisition and the effects of language exposure as well as formally taught language recognition.
The author revisits 10 generalisations, which had been made in 1985 about second language acquisition, by using recent research in this area and research on studies carried out in the classroom.
The article helps “to modernise” some ideas about second language acquisition and will be of help to teachers wanting to review and update pedagogical aspects of their own practice in the classroom.
The author sheds light on several generalisations about second language acquisition by reviewing and updating them.
Reflections on being a beginner
again (pdf document)
Heywood, K. (2000) Language Learning Journal, 22, pp 63-66
The author of the article retraces his learning of Finnish while on a trip to Finland. We follow his learning experience through a diary of his day-to-day attempts to understand and memorise a new language of which he had no prior knowledge.
Some linguists advocate that language immersion is enough to learn a language while others believe a more aware and pro-active role brings more benefits to the learning experience.
The article shows us the importance of learning awareness when learning a new language, and the reader will find inspiration on how to support learners further while they attempt to learn new language (mnemonics, gestures, etc.) and how to help them cope with the ups and downs of motivation.
The author describes his first hand experience of language learning from scratch and gives the reader insight into learning strategies and motivation.
How literacy emerges: foreign
language implications (pdf document)
Fitzgerald, J. (1994) Language Learning Journal, 9, pp 32-35
This article introduces a new theory about emergent literacy and explains how this theory differs from previous ones in terms of first language acquisition, clearing away many past misconceptions. Literacy (reading and writing) starts developing in pre-school years, is enhanced by social interaction, and develops alongside aural and oral skills. Children are active participants in their literacy development rather than mere passive recipients.
Ever since the fifties theories have emerged one after the other about first language acquisition and about the differences and similarities between first and second language development.
However in this article the author points out that research shows they are not very different and suggestions are given to enhance language development in the ML classroom.
The article sweeps away misconceptions about first language acquisition,
explains that first and second language acquisition are very similar and
outlines implications for the ML classroom.
Print page
The Natural Approach to Language Teaching: An Update
Terrell, T.D. (1982) The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 66, No. 2, pp. 121-132
With the advent of a national curriculum for languages that is arguably considerably more sophisticated than any of its predecessors, current MFL classrooms have school-age students interacting explicitly with learning and language learning strategies, different modes of assessment, aspects of intercultural awareness and global citizenship, and engaging with the form and structural aspects of language in a bid to improve accuracy. Whilst these are linguistically, socially and cognitively demanding and satisfying areas of MFL learning, we may do well to remind ourselves of the arguments around expectations of students’ language performance in relation to how they come to know the language in the first place.
As the title declares, this article represents Terrell’s 1982 update, in the light of 5 more years of teaching languages, of his previous theoretical stance. He is able to support his previous line of argument with illustrations from his own classrooms, and recommend ways of implementing the ‘natural approach.’ The author distinguishes ‘acquisition’ carefully from ‘learning’ activities, and further argues that too much focus on ‘learning’ leads to unhelpful obsession with accuracy of form and structure; several examples of non-native like utterances demonstrate that messages can be conveyed by ‘ungrammatical’ language by students confident in their capacity to communicate, and uninhibited by the desire to do this with native levels of accuracy. Not that Terrell dismisses detailed study of ‘the rules’; rather he claims that this way of learning is for those for whom languages is their particular field of expertise, the ‘super-monitors’ of Krashen’s theory. This is a key point to make to beginning languages teachers about ‘learning styles’: your students may not best learn for their own purposes the way you learned languages! The ‘natural method’ is illustrated with detailed examples, and there are particularly practical articulations of how to provide ‘simplified input’, how to precede production with reception skills, and thence progress to initial production in which, controversially perhaps, error correction has no effective role, but challenging and motivating activity types do.
At certain points in the history of any development, it is apposite to take a look back; this article represents a key contribution to the thinking which still underpins MFL study in its current form, makes important points with regard to the constitution of communicative competence and questions the place of native-speaker-like levels of accuracy. A redirection of research into these areas, and the value of prepared exposure to the target language, is worthy of consideration.
