COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING
COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING
Community Language Learning (CLL) is a teaching method developed in the 1970s in the USA by Jesuit priest, psychologist and educator Charles Curran. Drawing on principles of counselling therapy then prevalent, CLL emphasizes the importance of the learners themselves by calling them "clients" and letting them design lesson content. The teacher plays the part of "counsellor", while the learners are encouraged to work together, interacting and helping each other personally in a supportive community. The method, which aims to alleviate the anxiety and threat so often felt by language learners, is sometimes described as "counselling learning".
Typical features of a CLL lesson:
• target language/mother tongue.
• teacher/learner-centred.
• counselling role for teacher; client roles for learners.
• in-a-circle seating for learners.
• recorder inside circle and teacher outside.
• TL dialogue generated learner by learner (helped as necessary by teacher).
• recorded dialogue transcribed by teacher on board.
• analysis of dialogue by learners.
• dialogue used in follow-up sessions for other activities.
• movement for learners from total dependence to growing autonomy.
THE PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING
1. Language is for communication, first and foremost.
2. Teacher must build a relationship with the students from the outset.
3. Explain each task so that students don't feel threatened in any way.
4. Interaction among students is desired so Teacher can stand at back of room.
5. The teacher can translate in chunks to help students.
6. Time activities and remind students when only a short time remains.
7. Students are invited to talk about how they feel.
8. The atmosphere is accepting of students' offerings.
9. The L1 can be used to build a bridge from the known to the unknown.
10. Students learn to listen; to discriminate the similarities and differences among the language forms.
11. Cooperation is encouraged, so students can work in pairs and small groups.
12. Retention of language will be best assimilated between novelty and familiarity.
13. The students again discuss their experiences in the lesson.
14. Students generate most of the syllabus in the beginning stages.
How it works in the classroom? Below there are some examples of techniques in the classroom applying CLL.
Reflection
I start with students sitting in a circle around a tape recorder to create a community atmosphere.
• The students think in silence about what they'd like to talk about, while I remain outside the circle.
• To avoid a lack of ideas students can brainstorm their ideas on the board before recording.
Recorded conversation
Once they have chosen a subject the students tell me in their L1 what they'd like to say and I discreetly come up behind them and translate the language chunks into English.
• With higher levels if the students feel comfortable enough they can say some of it directly in English and I give the full English sentence. When they feel ready to speak the students take the microphone and record their sentence.
• It's best if you can use a microphone as the sound quality is better and it's easier to pick up and put down.
• Here they're working on pace and fluency. They immediately stop recording and then wait until another student wants to respond. This continues until a whole conversation has been recorded.
Discussion
Next the students discuss how they think the conversation went. They can discuss how they felt about talking to a microphone and whether they felt more comfortable speaking aloud than they might do normally.
• This part is not recorded.
Transcription
Next they listen to the tape and transcribe their conversation. I only intervene when they ask for help.
• The first few times you try this with a class they might try and rely on you a lot but aim to distance yourself from the whole process in terms of leading and push them to do it themselves.
Language analysis
I sometimes get students to analyse the language the same lesson or sometimes in the next lesson. This involves looking at the form of tenses and vocabulary used and why certain ones were chosen, but it will depend on the language produced by the students.
• In this way they are totally involved in the analysis process. The language is completely personalised and with higher levels they can themselves decide what parts of their conversation they would like to analyse, whether it be tenses, lexis or discourse.
• With lower levels you can guide the analysis by choosing the most common problems you noted in the recording stages or by using the final transcription.
Typical features of a CLL lesson:
• target language/mother tongue.
• teacher/learner-centred.
• counselling role for teacher; client roles for learners.
• in-a-circle seating for learners.
• recorder inside circle and teacher outside.
• TL dialogue generated learner by learner (helped as necessary by teacher).
• recorded dialogue transcribed by teacher on board.
• analysis of dialogue by learners.
• dialogue used in follow-up sessions for other activities.
• movement for learners from total dependence to growing autonomy.
THE PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING
1. Language is for communication, first and foremost.
2. Teacher must build a relationship with the students from the outset.
3. Explain each task so that students don't feel threatened in any way.
4. Interaction among students is desired so Teacher can stand at back of room.
5. The teacher can translate in chunks to help students.
6. Time activities and remind students when only a short time remains.
7. Students are invited to talk about how they feel.
8. The atmosphere is accepting of students' offerings.
9. The L1 can be used to build a bridge from the known to the unknown.
10. Students learn to listen; to discriminate the similarities and differences among the language forms.
11. Cooperation is encouraged, so students can work in pairs and small groups.
12. Retention of language will be best assimilated between novelty and familiarity.
13. The students again discuss their experiences in the lesson.
14. Students generate most of the syllabus in the beginning stages.
How it works in the classroom? Below there are some examples of techniques in the classroom applying CLL.
Reflection
I start with students sitting in a circle around a tape recorder to create a community atmosphere.
• The students think in silence about what they'd like to talk about, while I remain outside the circle.
• To avoid a lack of ideas students can brainstorm their ideas on the board before recording.
Recorded conversation
Once they have chosen a subject the students tell me in their L1 what they'd like to say and I discreetly come up behind them and translate the language chunks into English.
• With higher levels if the students feel comfortable enough they can say some of it directly in English and I give the full English sentence. When they feel ready to speak the students take the microphone and record their sentence.
• It's best if you can use a microphone as the sound quality is better and it's easier to pick up and put down.
• Here they're working on pace and fluency. They immediately stop recording and then wait until another student wants to respond. This continues until a whole conversation has been recorded.
Discussion
Next the students discuss how they think the conversation went. They can discuss how they felt about talking to a microphone and whether they felt more comfortable speaking aloud than they might do normally.
• This part is not recorded.
Transcription
Next they listen to the tape and transcribe their conversation. I only intervene when they ask for help.
• The first few times you try this with a class they might try and rely on you a lot but aim to distance yourself from the whole process in terms of leading and push them to do it themselves.
Language analysis
I sometimes get students to analyse the language the same lesson or sometimes in the next lesson. This involves looking at the form of tenses and vocabulary used and why certain ones were chosen, but it will depend on the language produced by the students.
• In this way they are totally involved in the analysis process. The language is completely personalised and with higher levels they can themselves decide what parts of their conversation they would like to analyse, whether it be tenses, lexis or discourse.
• With lower levels you can guide the analysis by choosing the most common problems you noted in the recording stages or by using the final transcription.
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