Classroom Management

I/ Contextualised Input and Output:

1/ The Monitor Model: Krashen (1982), also called:
 Learning-acquisition Knowledge
 Conscious-subconscious Knowledge
 Receptive-based Hypothesis

A/ Definition: This model encompasses five hypotheses:

1) The Input Hypothesis: For acquisition to occur, the input provided to the learner must be
optimal, interesting, relevant and comprehensible. A comprehensible input (i+1) is an
input slightly ahead of the current level of the learner (i), and provided in a sufficient
quantity.
2) The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis: Acquisition leads to spontaneous unplanned
production (speech). The learner starts producing when ready.
3) The Natural Order Hypothesis: Acquisition of a language comes in a natural and
predictable order.
4) The Monitor Hypothesis: Learning is the monitor that checks, edits and polishes the
output.
5) The Affective Filter Hypothesis: Anxiety forms an affective filter that prevents learning to
occur. This affective filter has to be lowered to achieve learning.

B/ Criticism: It is too theoretical for it was not tested in the classroom. And it is too simplistic for it
claims the teacher to be the unique source of input in the classroom.

2/ The Output Hypothesis: Swain (1985), also called: ● Production-based Hypothesis

A/ Definition: It stipulates that the learners must be pushed to produce and interact in a social
context in order to discover their gaps and repair them.

B/ Functions of Output:

1) Noticing/ Triggering function

2) Hypothesis testing function
3) Meta-linguistic/ Reflective function: The learner’s behaviour is corrected by other learners’
behaviour.

C/ Roles of Output: It is to:

1) test hypotheses
2) develop automaticity
3) develop discourse skills (turn-taking mechanisms): IRF= initiation – response – feedback
also called: QAC = question – answer – comment.
4) develop a personal voice to generate a better input
5) enforce syntactic processing
II/ Teacher Talk:
1/ Definition:
Teacher talk is the main input in classroom. It is simplified input similar in its characteristics to
foreigner talk and caretaker talk.

 Slow rate of delivery

 Clear articulation
 Exaggerated pronunciation
 Emphatic stress
 Replacement of syntactic structures (simple sentences)
 Use of synonyms and substitution of lexical items.
 Paraphrasing.
 Pauses.
 Repetitions.

2/ Discussion:
TT emphasises more on simplified input (comprehensible input : Krashen) rather than on extended
interaction between the teacher and the learner. It is sufficient only in the initial stages of learning.

Krashen (1985): learners learn by understanding comprehensible input.

Allwright and bailey (1990 ; 1994): i = the learner’s current stage of the interlanguage
development i+1= an input that is challenging but not overwhelming to the learner. For them, this
definition is not operationalisable because (i) and (i+1) cannot be measured and the learners are in
different levels.

Tsui (1995): to increase the comprehensibility of the input, the teacher must:

 use repetition and paraphrasing

 use simple conversation
 use situational role-plays to create what Krashen calls: “original dialogues” among learners

Teacher talk is a major way to:

 convey information to learners

 control learners’ behaviour

Bowers (1980): indentified six categories of the teacher’s verbal behaviour in the classroom:

 Questioning and eliciting.

 Responding to learners’ contributions.
 Correcting and evaluating.
 Presenting and explaining.
 Organising and giving instructions.
 Sociating: establishing and maintaining classroom rapport.

Cullen (1998): good teacher talk is little teacher talk. Much teacher talk deprives learners from
opportunities to produce.
Allwright and Bailey: ½ to ¾ of the talk inside the classroom is teacher talk.

Tsui (1995): 70% of classroom talk is:

 asking questions (teacher)

 nominating learners to answer (teacher)
 commenting/ providing feedback (teacher)

Cullen (1998): There must be a shift in teacher talk from quantity to quality. Effective teacher talk
is the way to facilitate learning. The teachers can achieve that through paying attention to:

 the questions they ask

 their speech modifications
 their feedback to their learners’ responses and errors

3/ Teacher’s Questions:
Chaudron (1988): Questions constitute 20-40% of classroom talk.

Tsui (1995): The type of questions the teacher asks affects the kind of response the learners
produce.

Van Lier: Questions of whatever type in the classroom are designed to get learners to produce
language.

A/ Open-ended Vs Closed-ended Questions:

Barnes (1969):

 Open-ended questions = reasoning questions: how – why.

 Closed-ended questions = factual questions: what – when – who – where.

B/ Display Vs Referential questions:

Long and Sato (1983) and Tsui (1995):

 Display questions are knowledge-checking questions

 Referential questions are questions to which even the teacher does not have an answer. In an
authentic communication, it is them which are more likely to occur because they serve
meaningful communication.

Brock (1986): The focus should be on referential questions because they may increase the amount
of speaking learners do in the classroom.

Nunan and Cullen: classroom interaction is characterised by:

 exclusive and excessive use of display questions

 most total exclusion of referential questions
4/ Teacher Explanation:
The role of the teacher is to make knowledge accessible to learners. This can be achieved through
two types of explanation:

 Content explanation: explanation of the subject content of the lesson. E.g. grammar rules.
 Procedural explanation: explanation of the organisation of the lesson. E.g. activities.

Martin (1970): If the teacher explains something and the learner does not understand it, then it is
not an explanation.

Allwright (1986): Many teachers’ explanations simply do not make sense.

A/ Aspects of an effective explanation:

 It is not a one-way process in which the teacher imparts knowledge to the learners. But it
requires the active involvement of the learners in processing information and in relating new
information to the old.
 The teacher must have a good grasp of the problem to be explained.
 The teacher must gauge (measure) the current state of the learner’s knowledge in order not
to over or under-explain the problem. Chaudron (1982).
 The teacher must organize and signpost the explanation in a clear sequence.

5/ Teacher Feedback and Error Treatment:

 Error: permanent deviation in competence (interlanguage) of the learner. The learner is not
aware of it and cannot correct it.
 Mistake: occasional deviation in performance. The learner can notice and correct it.
 Feedback: information, immediate or delayed, learners get on their performance, and some
of which may have a long term effect on their knowledge of the language. Feedback can be
positive (right, yes, etc) or negative (no, not right, etc) in case of a deviation.
Feedback (technical) = Correction (traditional).
 Types of feedback: Lyster and Ranta (1997)
1) Explicit feedback: direct indication of the error by the teacher
2) Recast: implicit correction through repeating a part of the learner’s utterance
3) Clarification request: E.g. “Pardon!”
4) Meta-linguistic feedback: praise of the well-formedness of the learner’s utterance
5) Elicitation: explicitly requesting the learner to correct himself.
6) Repetition (echoing): repeating the mistake of the learner and highlighting the mistake
with intonation.
 Treatment Vs Cure: A treatment is the way used by the teacher to correct the learner’s
error and which leads to its immediate correction. But it is only in the hands of the learner to
make this correction permanent, transforming it into a cure.
 Use encouraging feedback to motivate the learner and to create a friendly atmosphere in the
classroom.
 When to correct? (immediate or delayed)
o Lightbown and Spada: in oral communication, there must be immediate correction.
o Allwright and Bailey: it depends on the learner due to individual differences.
 Some learners need immediate correction to test their hypotheses.
  Some learners find immediate correction disruptive and hindering their
willingness to communicate in the classroom.
 When a common error keeps occurring, make a lesson about it.
o Tsui: it is the teacher’s decision to choose the correction type.
o Long: criticised delayed feedback because delaying the treatment makes it less
effective and needing more effort. He recommends not to leave much time between
error and treatment.
 What to correct?
o Allwright and Bailey: (in the beginning?), teachers are obliged to be inconsistent,
depending on the overall proficiency level of the learners.
o Modified input: to allow learning to take place.
o Wong-Fillmore: we modify because sometimes the teacher is the only competent
English speaker available to give the learner comprehensible input.
o Modification of questions:
 Tsui: 86.80% of questions in the classroom are repetitions of what the teacher
has asked before.
 Comprehension-oriented modifications:
o Syntactic modifications
o Semantic modifications
 Response-oriented modifications:
o Syntactic modifications
o Lexical modifications: use of frequent simultations (words)
o Clues: providing a part of the answer
o Socratic questions: series of questions leading to answer the
initial question
 Techniques to correct learners’ errors:
o Correction of oral production:
1. Drawing a time line, especially in correcting grammatical mistakes in verb
tenses.
2. Finger-correction: in correcting contractions, where each finger represents a
word, and the ones representing the contracted words are crossed.
3. Gestures and facial expressions
4. Phonemic symbols: writing phonemic symbols and pointing to the correct one
when correcting an utterance. E.g. pointing to /i:/ when the learner pronounces /I/
instead.
5. Echoing or echo-correcting through repeating the learner’s utterance and
pinpointing the deviation using intonation.
6. Directly identifying the problem.
7. Self/peer-correction: giving the learners wait-time to correct themselves or each
other.
8. No correction: write all the deviations on the board then let the whole class
correct them to protect shy learners.
9. Ignoring correction: write all the deviations on the board to protect shy learners
but ignore the ones that are beyond the learners’ level.
o Correction of written production:
1. Teacher correction: underlying errors and correcting them.
 2. Peer-correction: done by a peer according to a guidance-sheet.
3. Self-correction: done by the learner himself according to a guidance sheet.
4. Ignoring correction: ignoring the deviations that are beyond the learner’s level.

6/ Discipline problems (disruptive behaviour):

 Causes:
1. Learner’s family problems: difficult home problems
2. Desire of the learners to be noticed
a. Because of their age needs: adolescence
b. Because of familial circumstances: discrimination between children.
3. Teacher behaviour that can privilege a feeling of unfairness in the classroom.
4. The learners’ self-esteem (ego): adolescents have a fragile ego which they want
to protect by all means. Thus, any sign of disrespect by the teacher or by a peer
would lead the learner to a disruptive behaviour.
5. Time of the day: in early morning, learners are sleepy, and in the afternoon,
learners are hungry and tired.
6. External factors: e.g. the weather
 Solutions:
1. Planning and organising lessons carefully: time used by the teacher in looking
for what to do will be filled with disruptive behaviour by the learners.
2. Creating a code of conduct at the beginning of the year which has to be respected
by the teacher himself to give the example to the learners.
3. Consistency in rules: they must not be changed, otherwise disrespect would
reign.
4. Fairness: not showing preference to specific learners.
5. Teacher’s attitude: he should not show a dislike of teaching and knowledge.
6. Interpersonal relationships: between the teacher and the learner should be based
on mutual respect.
7. Methodology of the teacher: should be interesting and enjoyable. There must be
a variety in tools and techniques. The instructions must be clear.
8. Teacher’s professionalism: He must be knowledgeable, serious and honest. He
must be the first to respect the rules set by himself.
 Rising problem:
1. The teacher must be firm.
2. He should not use empty threats which could lead the learners to disrespect him.
3. He must take immediate action in response to the problem.
4. He must deal with it quietly to give a low profile to the deviant behaviour.
5. He should not take the problem personally. It is the problem that must be dealt
with and not the person.
 Exploding problem:
1. The teacher has to avoid raising his voice.
2. He should try reseating.
3. He can opt for changing the activity to attract the learners’ attention.
4. He can try to have personal talks with disruptive learners.
 Classroom interaction

1/ Institutional Core Goal:

 “Classroom discourse is an institutional discourse similar to institutional goals” Seedhouse
(1996).
 “The first step to understand institutional discourse in L2 classroom is through
understanding institutional core goal” Seedhouse (2009). Institutional core goal has three
properties that shape classroom interaction:
1. Language functions on two levels:
a. Language is the means of instruction
b. Language is the target
2. There is a reflexive relationship between pedagogy and language (interaction): Van Lier
(1996) called it: the institutional power (IRF cycle)
3. A learner’s output is subject to the teacher’s feedback
 Criticism:
1. Cook (1998), in classroom observation, concluded that there was a massive quantity of
talk done by the teacher.
2. Cullen (1998): features of teacher talk do not match with the communicative norms met
outside of the classroom.
3. Gass (1997): criticised Comprehensible Input Hypothesis (i+1) by Krashen. She claimed
that it cannot be said whether an input is comprehensible without involving the learners.
4. Recent researches claim that it is the learner’s effort to comprehend the input and not the
input’s comprehensibility that fosters L2 development. This effort is done in face-to-face
interaction.
5. Hatch (1978): it’s not sufficient to look at the input to argue that it is possible to learn an
L2.
6. Another research found that L2 comprehension is facilitated by both comprehensible
input and interactional modifications. This is the core tenet of : The Interaction
Hypothesis. Interactional modifications are also called: conversational adjustments or
discourse repair strategies.

2/ The Interactionist Hypotheses:

1) Long (1981 and updated 1996):
 All communication in which communication problems are negotiated between participants
will foster L2 comprehension and production, and will lead to L2 development. Negotiation
is made for two purposes:
o To avoid a communication breakdown.
o To repair deviant utterances.
 Negotiation can be performed through:
 o Modified input: which provides the learner with comprehensible input but does not
provide him with opportunities to make the relationship between form and meaning.
o Modified interaction: which contains modifications of the interactional structure
through the use of:
 Clarification requests: used by the listener to ask for further clarification
about what was not understood.
 Comprehension checks: used by the speaker to check whether the listener has
understood.
 Confirmation checks: used by the listener to check whether he has
understood the speaker properly.
 In order to make L2 learners competent communicators outside of the institutional setting,
they should spend interactional effort that will make form-meaning relationship in L2 data
accessible then internalised.
 Long et.al in (1987) found that:
o learners exposed to linguistically unmodified input but with opportunities to
negotiate meaning understood better than those exposed to modified input with no
opportunities to negotiate meaning.
o negative feedback that learners receive through interactional modifications will
hinder them from paying attention selectively to some problematic matters.
 In 1996, Long came up with an updated version of his hypothesis: negotiating interaction
connects between input, internal learner capacities (selective attention) and output in
interactive/productive ways.

2) Kumaravadevilu:
 comprehensible input is necessary but not sufficient.
 modified interaction is a facilitating tool.
 comprehensible output is also necessary. It helps the learner notice the gaps in their
developing interlanguage through testing their hypotheses to a grammar based approach.
 One weak point of this theory is that it focuses only on grammar, neglecting the individual,
social and pragmatic dimension of language.

3/ The Socio-cultural Theory (Vygotsky in 1963):

 It emphasises on the role of social interaction in developing language.
 Meaning is constructed through social interaction with competent speakers and within the
learner.
 Any new function (term) appears twice: in a social (inter-psychological) level and in an
individual (intra-psychological) level.
 Social interaction includes the learner’s participation under the guidance of competent
speakers who must produce a language within the ZPD (zone of proximal development).
The ZPD is the zone between the learner’s current level of knowledge and his future level
which is bridged with the help of others.
6/ Management of Classroom Interaction:
1. Who gets to speak: participant turn distribution
2. What they are speaking about: topic
3. What each of them does when they have the opportunity to speak: task
4. What sort of atmosphere is created: tone
5. Which language or dialect and which accent is used: code

5/ Types of CR interactions:
 Ragen (1995)
1. learner-teacher interaction
2. learner-learner interaction
3. learner-lesson content interaction
4. learner-media interaction
 Learner-learner interaction is the best among them to develop learner language, because:
o it teaches learners social competences
o it helps them to work cooperatively
o it helps them to accept the perspectives of the other
o all of this would increase educational success and achievement.
 Individual differences

1/ Introduction:
Many factors can lead to L2 success or failure in EFL classroom. Some of them are internal and
some of them are external.

2/ Internal factors:
1) The learner’s personality:
 It is an affective factor. It can influence the degree of anxiety inside the classroom and the
preparedness of the learner to take risks in language learning.
 Lightbown and Spada (1993): extrovert learners are best language learners.
 Brown and Arnold: extroverts are often defined as outgoing, talkative and thus they are
better language learners. Introverts are too reserved and too self-restrained and thus they
are better writers.
 Extroversion: desire for ego enhancement and self-esteem and a sense of wholeness from
the other.
 Introversion: desire for these feeling from within oneself.

2) Inhibition:
 It is an affective factor. It discourages risk taking which is necessary for L2 learning and L2
development.
 Adolescents suffer from this problem more than children because of their self-
consciousness.
 Inhibitions develop when gradually young children begin to develop the notion “self” and
when affective traits start to appear.
 With a greater awareness of a distinct self, they want to protect a fragile ego by any means,
even by avoiding learning, including learning language.
 Punishment and insults would weaken the learner’s ego.
 The weaker the ego is, the higher are the walls of inhibition.
 Dufeu (1994) spoke about establishing an affective framework so that learners would feel
comfortable as they take their first public steps in the strange world of foreign language. for
this, a climate of acceptance has to be created.

3) Age:
 It is a biological factor.
 For specialists, there is a critical period for language learning which they call Critical
Period Hypothesis (CPH).
o It is the claim that there is a biological determined period in which language learning
is easier.
o Beyond it, it becomes increasingly difficult.
 o It was first introduced by neurologists, mainly: Penfield and Roberts (1959), then
developed by neuro-linguist Lenneberg (1967).
o For them, the CPH takes place between 2 and 12 (puberty). They call this period: the
language span.
o They say SLA in this period is relatively fast, successful and qualitatively similar to
L1 acquisition, because the child’s brain is plastic to learn languages.
o Before the age of 9 child is a specialist in learning languages like a sponge with
water.
o After puberty, the brain progressively becomes stiff and rigid (Penfield and Roberts),
which causes a rapid block for learning languages (Lenneberg).
 Singleten (1989) claims that young is better in the long run, because children acquire
language naturally and unconsciously, but it is a laborious work for adults due to some
neurological changes.
 Pinker (1994) the CPH does not have to do with discourse but with pronunciation. He
distinguishes between:
o lower order processes: mainly pronunciation which is affected positively during the
CPH and negatively after it
o and higher order processes: meaning, semantic relations and coherence which are
not affected by CPH.
 Piaget said that abstract thoughts are developed only after puberty.
 Schuman (1975) said that after puberty there are affective changes negatively affecting
language learning (self-consciousness and ego).
 Dulay and Burt (1978) claim that the socio-affective filter is the place where the more the
learner is aware of himself, the more he/she is afraid of making mistakes. This filter is
related to the reactions of the others to the learner’s mistakes.
 Ausubel (1964) compared between adult and child learners. Adults have a cognitive and
affective advantage over children because
o they have greater memory storage (connected and organized ways),
o greater analytic reasoning,
o greater instrumental motivation (knowing exactly the purpose of learning).

4) Anxiety:
 It has to do with: uneasiness, self-doubt, frustration, apprehension and tension.
 Heron (1989) refers to “existential anxiety” which has three inter-related sides:
a. Performance anxiety: am I going to be able to apply and produce what I will learn?
b. Orientation anxiety: am I going to understand what is going on?
c. Acceptance anxiety: am I going to be accepted?
 Why are learners anxious? It is because of the fear of being ridicule caused by the archaic
anxiety which is the repressed distress of the past (personal hurts denied by the individual in
the childhood in order to survive emotionally emerge under the form of anxiety). Mac
Intyre and Gardner (1991) said that anxiety is a response learned from past experiences
which can increase until the whole learning process is badly damaged.
 Eysenck (1979) anxiety makes us nervous, afraid, worried which will lead to poor
performance due the loss of energy and time.

5) Aptitude:
 people differ in their natural ability to learn.
 Ellis (1997): Aptitude is distinct and natural and also has to do with general intelligence.
 Linghtbown and Spada (1993): Learning quickly is the distinguishing feature of aptitude.
 Skehon (1998): What distinguishes excellent students is their unusual memories in retaining
things they hear.
 Carroll ( ): Aptitude is composed of different inter-related abilities:
o The phonemic-coding ability (the auditory ability): It identifies something the
learner has heard.
o The grammatical sensitivity: It deduces the function of a word in the sentence.
o The inductive language-learning ability: It deduces rules from sentences.
o The rote language-learning ability: recalling things through repeating inside the
class.

6) Learning styles:
 Reid (1995): If we have a glance at any class we will discover that there are different ways
in which learners learn.
 Harmer (2001): Are there different kinds of learners? Are there different behaviours in a
group? If we assume that our learners are different, how can we tailor our teaching to fit the
needs of our learners?

1. The Neuro-linguistic Programming Theory (Revell and Norman 1997):

 Some people are better than others in doing some things.
 People behave differently to the same stimuli. They use a number of different primary
representational systems to experience the world (VAKOG): Visual-Auditory-Kinaesthetic-
Olfactory-Gustatory. Olfactory and Gustatory systems have not yet been explored in
language teaching so far (Harmer 2003) [PPU (P): Presentation-Practice-Use (Production)
PDP: Pre-During-Post]

2. The Multiple Intelligences Theory (Gardner 1983): Humans do not have a single
intelligence but a range of intelligences. He described seven of them:
a. Musical or rhythmic intelligence: It creates attraction towards listening to music and
singing. It improves remembering songs and learning through them.
b. Linguistic or verbal intelligence: It is left-brain dominant. It creates attraction towards
speaking and listening. It improves remembering names, places and dates.
c. Visual or spatial intelligence: It creates attraction towards learning through pictures,
colours, charts, diagrams, movies, etc. It improves dreaming, imagining and visualising.
d. Kinaesthetic intelligence: It is right-brain dominant. It creates attraction towards
movement and action. It improves touching, sports, using body language, role playing,
acting, etc.
e. Logical or mathematical intelligence: It creates attraction towards working with
numbers, figuring things out, working with abstract patterns, doing experiences, etc. It
improves calculating.
f. Intra-personal intelligence: It is introvert. It creates attraction towards isolation. It
improves creating personal original ideas and self-paced instructions. It creates a sense
of wholeness from within the inside and a high sense of self-awareness.
g. Inter-personal intelligence: It is extrovert. It creates attraction towards socialisation
and oral rewards. It lowers the fear of participating and making mistakes. It creates a
 sense of wholeness from the outside. It pushes to enjoy group work, to show off and to
dominate the class. It improves learning through sharing and cooperating.

3. The Learner Styles Theory (Willing 1987): There are four categories of learners:
a. Convergers: They are solitary (loners) by nature. They avoid group work. They are
independent and confident about their abilities. They are cool, pragmatic and analytic.
b. Conformist: They like to follow authority and orders. They do not like communicative
classes involving speaking and participating. They like well organised teachers. They
also like to give and receive orders because they consider them a means to organisation.
They like language as a system (usage) and not as a communication tool (use).
c. Concrete: They like the social aspect of learning. They like language as use. They like
team work and games.
d. Communicative: They are language use oriented. They are good and comfortable in
communication outside the class. Language for them is practice rather than rules. They
show confidence in communicating and taking risks. They try to avoid the dominance
of the teacher and they like to learn by themselves.

7) Language learning strategies:

a. Definition:
 Oxford (1990):
o Strategy is from Greek Strategia which means a general ship or the art of war
involving the arrangement of ships and troupes in a planned campaign.
o A strategy is a step, a plan, a conscious action for the achievement of a certain goal.
o In the educational field, strategies have to do with operations taken by the learner to
help the acquisition , storage, retrieval and use of information.
 Oxford and Crooked (1989): Strategies are techniques, behaviours, actions, thought
processes, problem solving skills and study skills used by the learner to make his learning
easier, more self-directed, more efficient, and more transferable to a new situation.
 Allwright (1990): Strategies enable confident, conscious, autonomous and life-long
learning.
 Cohen (1994): If we want to describe language learning strategies, we have to do that in a
cognitive model of learning where learning is an active and dynamic process in which
learners do many things:
o They select information from the surrounding environment,
o then organise it,
o then relate the new information to the old one,
o then they retain what they feel important,
o then they use it in appropriate contexts,
o then they reflect on the success of their effort spent in this process of learning.

b. Features:
1. They are problem oriented devices used by the learners to resolve problems.
2. They are action-bases used by the learners to achieve goals and to enhance learning.
3. They are not just cognitive, but they include involvement. Learning and teaching are
emotional inter-personal processes in addition of being cognitive and meta-cognitive
processes.
 4. They can be direct (observable) or indirect (unobservable) supports of learning.

5. Degree of observability:
o Some strategies are observable through senses e.g. comprehension checks
o Other ones are not observable (internal) e.g. memorisation strategies.
6. Level of consciousness: direct teaching leads to consciousness.
7. Teachability: unlike styles, strategies can be taught.
8. Flexibility: there is a high degree of individuality to choose, combine and sequence the
strategies. They do not come in a predictable set.

c. Classification:
1. Cohen (2003): Strategies can be classified by:
i. Goal: use or usage
ii. Skill: receptive (listening and reading) or productive (speaking and writing).
iii. Function: cognitive, meta-cognitive, affective, social, etc.
2. Oxford (1990):
I. Direct:
a. Cognitive
1. Practicing:
2. Receiving and sending messages:
3. Analysing and reasoning:
4. Creating structure for input and output
b. Memory
1. Creating mental images:
2. Applying images and sounds:
3. Reviewing well:
4. Employing action:
c. Compensation
1. Guessing intelligently:
2. Overcoming limitations in speaking and writing:
II. Indirect:
a. Meta-cognitive
1. Centring your learning:
2. Arranging and planning your learning:
3. Evaluating your learning:
b. Affective
1. Lowering your anxiety:
2. Encouraging yourself:
3. Taking your emotional temperature:
c. Social
1. Asking questions:
2. Cooperating with others:
3. Empathising with others:
 d. How learning strategies can be taught: The way to teach language learning
strategies is given by the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach
(CALLA), which is a powerful framework of teaching learning strategies in a
five-phase cycle:
1. Preparation: introducing strategies to the learners through rising their
awareness about the existence of the strategies present in L1.
2. Presentation: presenting similarities and differences between strategies in
L1 and L2.
3. Practice: giving guided tasks then raising debates about the strategies used.
4. Evaluation: making learners start evaluating their strategies and their peers’.
5. Expansion (application): introducing open tasks chosen by the learners then
asking them what strategies they applied and why.

3/ External Factors:
1) The role of L1 in the ESL/EFL class:
 Mart (2013): The insistence on English-only policy and total prohibition of L1 will
maximise the effect of learning.
 Recent studies demonstrate that the appropriate use of L1 has a facilitating role inside the
EFL class.
 Cook (2001): We have to open the door of introducing L1 in EFL class that has been shut in
language teaching for 100 years.
 Bolitho (1983): L1 in EFL class permits the learner to say what he really wants to say in L2.
 Willis (1996): Do not ban the mother tongue but encourage attempts to use the target
language.
 Stern (1992): It is impossible to keep L1 and L2 apart. L1-L2 interaction is an indisputable
fact of life. Whether we like it or not the new language is learnt on the basis of the
previously acquired languages. A total ban of the L1 will lead to the miscomprehension of
L2 from the learner’s part which will prevent him from achievement. Thus, L1 should be
used when needed.
 Weschler (1997): Use English when possible and L1 when necessary.
 Nation (1997): The role of L1 is small but important, especially in communicating meaning
and content.
 Macaro (2005): The avoidance of the use of L1 will lead to an increased use of modified
input.
 Pan and Pan (2010): Using modified input would:
o makes discourse less realistic
o reduce the lexical diversity
o eliminate the exposure to complex syntax
 Schweers (1999): Teachers should integrate L1 in their classes because it will give students:
o a sense of security
o a possibility to validate their life experiences
o and a chance to express themselves.
 Nunan and Lomb (1996): The use of L1 is imperative in lower levels.
 Auerbach (1993) and Tong (2002): L1 in EFL class aids L2 learning.
 Brooks and Donato (1994): L1 in EFL/ESL class helps in comprehension and in
communicating effectively, and the use of translation provides the learners with an
opportunity to depict similarities and differences between the two languages.
 Ross (2000): Translation is the fifth skill of language and the most significant social skill
that will make communication better between strangers.
 Cook (2001): Among the roles played by L1 in EFL/ESL class are:
o Proficiency
o Learning
o Naturalness
o External relevance
 Tong (2002): The teacher can use L1 in:
o explaining the meaning of words, especially complicated ones
o explaining some complicated concepts
o giving instructions and prompts
o checking comprehension
 Auerbach (1993) and Cook (2001): Teachers can use L1 to discuss cross-cultural studies to
build up L1-L2 knowledge in the learner’s mind.
 Piasecka (1988): The teacher can use L1 for:
o negotiating of the content of the syllabus or the lesson
o keeping records, where learners express their problems and feeling about the teacher,
lessons, how they are taught, their learning, etc.
 Macaro (1997): The teacher can use L1 for:
o making individual comments
o giving feedback
o keeping discipline
 Meyer (2008): The teacher can use L1 to allay (reduce) a possible threat posed by the L2
on the learner’s cultural identity.
 The learner can use the L1 in EFL class in:
o to ask to clarify questions
o to express frustration about not understanding something which is an call for help
o to express their inability to understand
o to process complex concepts
o to discuss cross-cultural matters e.g. similar vocabulary in L2 and L1
 Connick-Hirtz (2001): Before using L1 you have to ask:
o what is this L1?
o what is the learner’s age?
o what is the learner’s proficiency level?
o what is the ration of teaching time?
o how long the learner is going to learn L2?
o what are the learner’s purposes? e.g. studying for the sake of learning the language
(learner would read and search by himself) is different from studying for a job.
 The place of L1 in different teaching methods:
 o The grammar-translation method (GTM): Translation to L1 is crucial in
classroom.
o The audio-lingual method: L1 is not permitted at all to avoid its interference in L2
learning.
o The silent way method: L1 can be used to explain difficult matters when necessary,
in order to improve the learner’s L2 pronunciation (comparing pronunciations in L2
with L1). It can also be used to provide feedback to beginners.
o The suggestopedia method: L1 is used when necessary, especially in dialogues to
translate unclear meanings. The amount of L1 use should be decreased gradually.
o Community language learning method: L1 is a bridge from the familiar to the
unfamiliar and provides the learner with a feeling of security, which leads it to be
very used. L1 is also used to give directions and instructions and to allow the
learners to express their feelings.
o The Total-physical response (TPR) response: L1 is used in the introductory
sessions. After that, it is rarely used. Meanings are mainly used through body
language.
o The communicative language teaching method: L1 should be used judiciously in a
good and useful way.
 Drawbacks (pitfalls) of using L1 in ESL/EFL class:
o The excessive use of L1 is not permitted at all and L1 should not be a direct option
in explaining L2.
Harmer (2001): The overuse of L1 hinders L2 achievement.
o It lead learners not to realise the importance of L2.
o It leads to oversimplification and inaccurate translations. Atkinson (1989)
2) L2 culture in ESL/EFL class:
 L2 culture can be taught through:
o Realia (authentic material)
o Culture capsule: creating a cultural atmosphere through bringing the necessary
materials (clothing, tools, etc.)
o Ethnographic studies
o Proverbs
o Role playing
o Students (immigrants, exchange students, etc)

What is the difference between a strategy and a style?

 Testing

Types:

1) The discrete-point testing: teaching the language points separately and testing them
separately (mechanics).
2) The integrative testing: teaching and testing the functions of language or speech acts e.g.
inviting, requesting, etc.
3) The communicative testing: bringing both mechanics and functions of the language into
practice.

Traditional tests:

 They include selected-response items and constructed-response items.

 Advantages:
o they are easy to construct
o easy to administer
o easy to correct
o they are reliable
o many points could be tested at once
 disadvantages:
o possible to guess the answers or to cheat
o no continuous assessment
o might not reflect the real level of the learners
o difficult to test all what was taught

Alternative tests: e.g. portfolio, self-assessment, peer-assessment, etc.

 advantages:
o continuous assessment
o possible to assess all the language points dealt with
 Approaches of language teaching and testing

1) Approaches:
a. The discrete-point testing:
 If you want to know a language, you need to know its components (grammar, vocabulary
and pronunciation) i.e. its mechanics. These are taught and tested separately and
decontextualisedly.
 A pitfall of this approach is that it tests items separately and focuses on the formal aspects of
language and neglects its communicative aspect.

b. The integrative testing:

 It focuses on the functional aspect of language. The components of language are taken
together. Meaning and thus speech acts are taken into consideration.

c. The communicative testing:

 Language in use is highlighted. Form and functions are taken together. It is about using
language in context.

2) Types of tests:
a. Traditional tests: paper and pen tests
 They are based on the classical test theory. Each observed score is composed of a correct
(true) score and an error (true or false, yes or no). It is based on the belief that learning is
linear, and that testing comes hand in hand with teaching → binary thinking.
 Traditional tests come in two types:
o Selected-response items
 Binary-response items
 Error-recognition items
 Multiple choice items
 Matching items
o Constructive response items
 Completion items: short-response items
 Essay items
 Fill in the gaps items
 Advantages:
o Easy to create, to score and to administer
o Easy to answer (based on binary thinking)
o Reliable in matter of objectivity, consistency and fairness of the scores
o Effective in testing memorization
 o A large number of items can be tested in a short period of time
 Pitfalls:
o Cheating
o Guessing
o Negative washback
o Focus on receptive skills and neglection of productive skills (most of the time)
o One-shot exams (no continuous assessing)
o Summative exams: teaching many things and testing only a few
o Decontextualized tests focusing on usage but not on use

b. Modern tests: alternative assessment

 They may come in the form of projects, portfolios, self-assessments, peer-assessments, etc.
 It is about performance assessment, whether written or spoken. It is based on a model
proposed by Canale and Swain (1980): Model of Communicative Competence.
Communicative competence is made of four layers:
o Grammatical competence
o Sociolinguistic competence: has to do with speech acts
o Organisational competence
o Pragmatic competence
 They foster Higher Order Thinking by giving meaningful tasks.
 Advantages:
o The learner is put in situations of production
o The assessment is integrated and continuous
o The focus is on the learning process rather than the learning product
 Pitfalls:
o Time consuming
o Effort consuming
o The subjectivity in scoring threatens reliability and validity
c. Traditional vs Modern Tests:

Traditional tests Modern tests

Standardised Continuous (long term)
Unauthentic Authentic
Timed Untimed
Multiple choice items Contextualised communicative items
Scores are enough Individualised feedback
Norm-reference test: classifying learners Criterion-reference: having an objective to
according to certain norms reach
Summative exams Formative exams
Product-centred Process-centred
Accuracy Fluency
Language-centred Learner-centred
Teaching to test Teaching to make learners learn
Extrinsic motivation Intrinsic motivation

3) Principles for designing a language test:

 A good language test is one that follows certain principles:
 a. Reliability: consistency and credibility of the measurement
 A test must give a consistent and credible score of a person’s language ability, supposing
that his or her ability did not change.
 Many factors may threaten a test’s reliability:
o Student reliability: illness, psychological problems, tiredness, etc.
o Rater reliability:
 Inter-rater reliability: i.e. affected by external factors e.g. physical
appearance.
 Intra-rater reliability: e.g. exhaustion of the rater
o Test reliability: subjective tests, ambiguous tests, long tests.
o Administration reliability: inappropriate materials or time, lack of materials or
time, etc.

b. Validity: The test measures what it is supposed to measure. Validity comes in two
ways:
i. Face validity: the overall shape of the test goes hand in hand with the
language point or skill.
ii. Content validity: what was not taught must not be tested.

c. Impact consequential validity:

i. Macro level: the consequences of the test at educational level, or society
perceptions.
ii. Micro level: the consequences of the test on the learner and his/her parents.

d. Practicality: It means the availability of facilities to administer the test. These

facilities come in two types:
i. Administration: such as classrooms, laboratories, audios, etc.
ii. Scoring procedures: whether the test is easy to score.

e. Authenticity: It is the degree of correspondence between the characteristics of the

test items and native-like contexts and tasks:
o Give meaningful and contextualised tasks.
o Make the language as natural as possible.

f. Washback: It is said to be another face of the consequential validity. It is the effect

of testing on the teaching and learning processes.

4) Blueprint: specs / Table of specifications

 Hughes (1989): It is the official statement about what the test tests and how to test it.
 Brown (2010): It is the outline of your test and what it will look like. It is a detailed plan that
provide the basic for developing an entire test.
 Functions: It is beneficial to test constructors because:
o It gives a clear view about the content and the form of the test.
o It provides a bank for possible test tasks.
o It evaluates the intentions of test developers.
o It evaluates the correspondence between the blueprint and the test.
5) Teaching and testing reading:
a. Teaching:
 First stage: linking sounds to written symbols
o The memorisation of basic dialogue sentences and reading them in graphic forms.
o The reading should be first coral class reading for the learners to benefit from each
other and practice together, then group reading for better acoustics, and finally
individual reading.
 Second stage: linking memory to context
o Presenting the memorised forms in different contexts to get familiar with meaning.
o Presenting simple new forms that are challenging but not overwhelming for the
learners.
o Training them, through stories, to look ahead and recognise events as they develop.
 Third stage:
o Introducing reading for pleasure.
o Learners may be introduced to more sustained reading corrected by the teacher.
o Materials of this type written by native speaker must be adapted to the learners’
vocabulary and level.
 Fourth stage:
o Introducing the learners to intensive reading (outside class of texts provided by the
teacher) and extensive reading (inside classroom under the guidance of the teacher).
o Introducing the L2 culture in reading and comparing it with the L1 culture.
o Using readers.
o Reading is performed with minimal help by the teacher.
o Asking the learners about their reading to promote and test comprehension.
o Promoting the learners’ imagination and language production through asking them to
imagine an end to a story.
 Fifth stage:
o Granting learners total independence from the teacher’s support and intervention.
o Reading by themselves diversified materials in a critical way.
 Sixth stage:
o Learners are able to read, criticise, argue and write about their reading.
b. Testing:
 MCQ, short answers, information transfer (translating in the L1), note-taking, partial
dictation.
6) Construction of a fair test:
 Constructed, familiar.
 Items should be clear, complete, and rehearsed before.
 Tasks should be contextualised.
 Time allocated must be respected.
 Rubrics can be either written or spoken, in the L1 or in the L2.
 The test must have content validity. It must contain what was taught.
 Tasks should be meaningful.