CHANGING NEEDS FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN EUROPE

CHANGING NEEDS FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN EUROPE

A missing element in the enthusiasm for new methods was consideration of the extent to which teaching methods addressed learner’s need. Jupp and Hodlin (1975) said:

The upsurge in English language teaching since the mid 1950s was accompanied by the introduction of new methods and materials in the classroom particularly during the 1960s. These changes were often radical and can be called a language teaching revolution. But this revolution has taken little account of the situation or motivation of the learners; on the contrary it has been about how people learn and what language is…………Consideration of why people learn a second language or evaluation of results has been more or less missing.

After this there was a reevaluation of language teaching policy in European countries in the 1970s in which foreign languages should be taught in the school system, at what year languages introduced in the curriculum, and in what intensity.

In 1969,the Council of Europe has made decision in order to promote effective learning of foreign languages, which are:

–       If full understanding is to be achieved in Europe the language barriers must be removed.

–       Linguistic diversity is part of the European cultural heritage, so through the study of modern languages they can have source of intellectual enrichment.

–       Only if the study of modern European languages becomes general will full mutual understanding and cooperation be possible in Europe.(Council of Europe 1969,8)

There’s respond in the form of question conveyed by Van Els, T. Bongaerts, G. extra, C. Van Os,and A. Jansen-van Dieten (1984, 159):

–       Does the community consider it important that all its members know foreign language, or is this considered necessary only for certain professional domains?

–       How many languages, and which languages, are felt to be necessary?

–       How great is the demand for each individual language? Does everyone need the same skills, or the same level of command per skill?

–       Is there a stable needs pattern?

There was respond initiated by the Council of Europe that proposed “unit –credit system”:

An educational system in which the syllabus, curriculum or body or material (knowledge and skills) to be studied, learned or acquired, is broken down into a number of quantum units of work, each with its own precise definition of the terminal behavior to be achieved by the learner. All of the units being accompanied by a carefully constructed system of credit ratings. (Kingsbury 1971,11).

A level of proficiency described as the Threshold Level was described “the lowest level of general foreign language ability to recognized in the unit- credit system” (Van Ek and Alexander 1975, 7). It was during period of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) known as a new direction for language teaching, and it attracted widespread interest and enthusiasm as a way of moving language teaching beyond an obsession with the latest teaching methods and to reexamination of basic assumptions about the goals, nature, and processes of language teaching.

 

COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

The necessity of ESP emphasis on needs analysis as a first point in language program design was an important factor in the development of today approaches to language curriculum development. Other influence was the communicative approach to language teaching as a replacement for the structural-situational and audiolingual methods. CLT is abroad approach to teaching that resulted from a focus on communication as the organizing principle for teaching rather than a focus on mastery of the grammatical system of the language.

In the 1970s  people going communicative and linguistics moved away from a focus on grammar as the core component of language abilities to a consideration of how language is used by speakers in different contexts of communication. There are two competencies in language teaching, the first is communicative competence which is the capacity to use language appropriately in communication based on the setting, the roles of the participants, and the nature of the transaction. The second is grammatical competence which is the knowledge people have of a language that underlies their capacities to produce and recognize sentences in the language.

Wilkins described the traditional type of grammar-based syllabus as a synthetic approach. A synthetic approach is contrasted with an analytic approach, which is one there is no attempt at this careful linguistic control of the learning environment. Components of language are not seen as building blocks which have to be progressively accumulated. Much greater variety of linguistic structure is permitted from the beginning and the learner’s task is to approximate his behavior more and more closely to the global language………Analytic approaches are behavioral (though not behaviorist). They are organized in terms of the purposes for which people are learning languages and the kinds of language performance that are necessary to meet those purposes. (Wilkins 1976,2,13).

Wilkins proposed a notional syllabus that meets these criteria. It is contain of three meaning categories: semantic-grammatical meaning, modal meaning and communicative function.

Semantic-grammatical meaning describes the meaning underlying grammatical contrasts and concepts such as:

Time

1. Point of time
2. Duration
3. Time relations
4. Frequency
5. Sequence

Quantity

1. Divided and undivided reference
2. Numerals
3. Operations

Wilkins suggested that modal meaning includes the following categories of meaning:

Modality

Scale of certainty

Scale of commitment

Communicative function refers to the meanings communicated by what linguists referred to as speech acts, such as:

Requests

Complaints

Apologies

Compliments

Suggestion

In the late 1970s and 1980s the syllabus more express in terms of communicative units rather than grammatical ones, and the literature contains a variety of proposal for communicative syllabus.

Yalden (1987, 86-87) describes the goal of syllabus designers at that time:

This means that if we now wish to make up the deficit in earlier syllabus types, and ensure that our learners acquire the ability to communicate in a more appropriate and efficient way, we have to inject larger number of components into the make-up of the syllabus. These components could be listed as follow:

1. The purposes should be stated as clear as possible
2. The setting (physical and social) based on the target language.
3. The role of the learners and the interlocutors will assume in the target language.
4. The communicative events in which the learners will participate.
5. The language functions involved in the events.
6. The notions involved
7. The skills involved in the knitting together of discourse
8. The varieties, the levels in the spoken and written of target language which the learners will need to reach.
9. The grammatical content
10. The lexical content.

This framework is essentially of the threshold level (Van Ek and Alexander 1975,5)

 

 

 

SLIDE

CHANGING NEEDS FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN EUROPE

JUPP AND HODLIN (1975)

–       The upsurge in ELT had new methods and materials in the classroom

–       Language revolution

–       How people learn

–       What language is

European countries (1970s)

–       Foreign languages should be taught in the school system

–       What year

–       What intensity

The Council of Europe (1969)

–       Language barriers must be removed

–       Provide a source of intellectual enrichment

–       Modern European languages become general

Van Els, T. Bongaerts, G. Extra, Van Os and A. Janssen-van Dietten (1984, 159)

–       Do all the people need to know foreign language or only for certain people?

–       How many languages, which languages, are necessary?

–       How great is the demand for individual language? Does everyone need the same skills or the same level?

–       Is there a stable needs pattern?

The Council of Europe proposed “unit credit system”

–       An educational system which syllabus, curriculum, material to be studied.

–       A number of quantum units of work

–       The terminal behavior

–       All the units accompanied by system of credit ratings.

Threshold level (Van Ek and Alexander 1975,7)

–       The lowest level of general foreign language ability to be recognized in the unit-credit system

–       Communicative l\Language Teaching, a new direction for language teaching.

–       Whole context of teaching and learning

–       Societal and learner needs.

 

COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (1960s and 1970s)

–       The emergence of ESP emphasis on needs analysis.

–       The communicative approach to language teaching.

–       Replacement of the structural-situational and audiolingual methods.

–       Focus on communication

–       Everyone was going communicative

–       A response to changes in the field of linguistic.

–       A response to the need for new approaches to language teaching.

–       Linguistic moved away from focus on grammar

–       Communicative competence

–       Grammatical competence.

Wilkins (1976), one of the members of the Council of Europe.

–       Threshold Level

–       Synthetic approach

• No attempt at linguistic control of learning environment.
• Components of language should not be progressively accumulated.
• The learner behavior should be closer to the global language.

–       Analytic approach

• Behavioral
• People learn languages and kinds of language performance byknowing the purposes.

A NOTIONAL SYLLABUS

–       Semanticgrammaticalmeaning

• Traditional items of grammar

–       Modal meaning

• Not too much has advantage in syllabus design

–       Communicative function

• Useful and practical
• Linguists reacted eagerly to use syllabus in terms of communicative.

Yalden (1987, 86-87), the components of syllabus:

1. The purposes should be stated as clear as possible
2. The setting (physical and social) based on the target language.
3. The role of the learners and the interlocutors will assume in the target language.
4. The communicative events in which the learners will participate.
5. The language functions involved in the events.
6. The notions involved
7. The skills involved in the knitting together of discourse
8. The varieties, the levels in the spoken and written of target language which the learners will need to reach.
9. The grammatical content
10. The lexical content.

This framework is essentially of the threshold level (Van Ek and Alexander 1975,5)