14.10.

2020

“Clearing the ground: fundamental questions”

 “Why is teaching English to young learners a critically important issue?”

 Why it is so?
o From different perspectives, considering different target audiences, this is a critically
important issue for a variety of reasons.
 One of these is a list of misconceptions. Imagine a class full of young learners
of English. We think that teaching English to children is all about playing
games, singing songs and telling stories. But there is more than that!

“Globally, there are more young learners than adults learning EFL.”
 Wherever you go, people are learning EFL. The people are decreasing in age and increasing in
number.

 “Why English? It is because of opportunities. It is to have a better life, to have a better job.”

“When the decision makers of these countries want to be a part of this world, English becomes
the language that is integrated in the education system.”

English is embedded in primary school system as an obligatory foreign language and we are -as
we said, we have a growing number of EFL learners who are increasing in number and decreasing in
age.

Today, Turkish learners are starting to learn English from the 2nd grade.

It is a critically important issue. Because the ones we want to teach are the futures of our
generations.

“We think that teaching English to children is all about playing games, singing songs and telling
stories. But there is more than that!”

It should not be just them. That is not all there is. We also build their further linguistic and
cognitive abilities. We are also going to develop attitudes. We want to broaden their view of the
world. We are doing a lot of things.

Young learner is a primary learner. There is a distinction such as young learner and VERY young
learner but all in all, young learner can be ranged in 5 to 11 years of age.

“Younger is better.”

Q: Is younger always better at learning language?

 Language acquisition perspective
o Bilingual home environments
o Immersion schooling
 Neuroscience
o Structural plasticity of children’s brains
 Socio-political context
o Global interconnectivity; plurilingualism
PLASTICITY: The younger people’s brains have more plasticity, they learn better.

It is better to start learning languages at a younger age.

Young Children’s Abilities:

 Ability to grasp meaning, they can “read the general message”
 Creative use of the language
 Capacity for indirect learning (acquired through continuous exposure and use)
 Instinct for play and fun
 The role of imagination
 Instinct for interaction and talk

Because of the exposure, children have the capacity to pick things up.

Potential Advantages of Young Learners:

 Ease in acquiring the sound system of the new language
 Less language anxious
 More time available overall to employ the advantage of young and older learners
 Range of acquisition and learning processes over time can complement each other
 Productive links between first and additional languages
 Positive influence on children’s general (cognitive, linguistic, emotional and cultural)
development

Potential Advantages of Older Learners:

 Make use of the existing conceptual map of the world
 Experienced in discourse
 Wider range of strategies for learning
 May have a clearer sense of why, what and how to direct their learning

Singleton’s Three Hypothesises:

 Younger = Better
 Older = Better
 Younger = Better but in the long run and under certain circumstances.

What are the necessary conditions for success?

 Teacher expertise
 Sustaining motivation over time
 Continuity (starting from 2nd grade, we continuously learn in every lecture)
 Aims
 Out-of-school learning

Is learning English at a primary level a random practice or policy?

 A European trend since early 1990s
 English has moved from traditional foreign language –offered in secondary schools to
primary level on a global scale since 2000
What are some the policy rationales for primary EFL?
 To create bilingual and plurilingual countries as part of a political and economic project –
European Education Policy: plus one or more additional languages
 To ensure that they have longer time in their school careers to master the language
 To develop intercultural and communicative competences as English is an international
language

Necessary Conditions for Success

 Teacher Expertise
o Just because the teacher is a native speaker does not make him a good teacher.
 Sustaining Motivation
 Continuity
 Aims
 Out-of-school Learning

If we want to achieve success, we have to consider all these.

The Rationale of the Curriculum

 English at primary level is not practiced the same way in every country.

The rationale of teaching English at primary level in Turkey: “To experience it as a means of
communication, rather than focusing on the language as a topic of study.” from MEB’s 2-8
Curriculum. You can find it in MEB’s website which informs about the curriculum.

In Turkish Curriculum, communication is emphasized.

Q: Is English at primary level practiced the same way around the world?
 Variability is the key feature of English at primary level on a global scale.
o Aims and processes
o Starting age
o Duration of formal schooling
o Materials
o Language teaching methodology
...may vary from one setting to another.

What kind of training should young learners receive?

 We cannot talk about a best method for young learners. We should make use of various
methods. It will vary according to our objective or the group we are teaching to.
 The resources should be more than course books. Starting from posters, games, videos and a
nice classroom setting, we need lots of resources.
 For young learners, assessment and evaluation tools are different too.
21.10.2020

How Do Children Learn Languages?

 Piaget’s theory for language learning, Stages of Development

 Vygotsky’s theory for language learning, Socio-cultural aspect
 Bruner’s theory for language learning, Scaffolding

1) Piaget’s Stages of Development

There is the child who is seen as continuously interacting with the world around him.
When he is confronted with a problem in his environment, he tries to work it out. “He acts
on this problem.” It is in this process of taking action to solve the problem that the child
learns. Thus, the child actively constructs his own knowledge without any help from adults,
without imitating, without any innate knowledge.
Teacher’s Thoughts: “He takes the spoon and he has his own way of holding it. It can
be different from other adults. It may look very funny but he is able to do it. He knows how
to work with a spoon and feed himself. If you take away that spoon and give him a fork, that
would be a problem. Because he does not know how to work with it so he has to find a way.”

 According to Piagetian Theory of learning, child’s mental development proceeds with the
adaptation process. Firstly, the child takes the material into his mind from the environment,
which may mean changing the evidence of the senses to make it fit, in other words, Piaget
calls this “assimilation”.

 Secondly, a change has taken place in the child’s mind as a result of assimilation
(accommodation).
“Assimilation involves transforming experience within the mind, whereas accommodation
involves adjusting the mind to new experience.” –P. Sutherland

 According to Piaget, a child passes through several stages of thinking in his cognitive
development. Each stage is qualitatively different from the previous one and in each stage
the child is able to think and do just the things that the particular stage demands from him.

 Stages of Development
o Sensori-Motor Stage: birth to 2 years of age Stage of practical intelligence
o Preoperational Stage: from age 2 to 7 Beginning use of symbolic representation
including language
o Concrete Operational Stage: from age 7 to 11 Understanding relations between two
states of an object (liquid form of water or solid form of water in the form of ice)
o Formal or Abstract Thought Stage: from age 11 onwards Thinking in symbolic terms,
abstract thought can be succeeded.

You cannot skip any stages. The stages are important respectively.

You cannot expect a child who is in second stage to perform the requirements from the
third stage. What Piaget constantly says: “The child is an active learner and thinker.” The
child is always active.
 The child is constructing his/her own knowledge. Actively tries to make sense of the
world, because of this they ask a lot of questions.

PIAGET = ACTION, INVOLVEMENT VYGOTSKY = INTERACTION

2) Socio-cultural Theory: Vygotsky

Development is the result of interaction between the child and the social environment. In the
course of child development, a child typically learns how to use language and other cultural
artefacts through interactions with parents, teachers or more experienced peers.

o According to Vygotsky, in the learning process:

 Assistance is provided by more capable others, e.g. Teachers
 Assistance is provided by private speech (self talk)
o (Self talk becomes internalized) Internalization takes place. Thus, people around the
child and the language that is used play a significant role.

o Zone of Proximal Development

It is the distance between the actual development level as determined by independent

problem-solving and the level of potential development as determined though problem-
solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.

“What a learner can do without help and what s/he can achieve with guidance.”

*Yakınsak Gelişim Alanı*

o Differences between the two theories:

 Piaget says that language exerts no formative effects on the structure of
thinking and that mental actions and operations are derived from action.
 Vygotsky says the child’s cognitive development depends on environment,
interaction and language.

o On readiness to learn...
 Piaget says that child’s readiness is related to the stage he is in; learning
should be designed depending on the developmental stage.
 Vygotsky says that teaching has to proceed in advance of development in
order to challenge child’s maturing functions.

o On Constructivism...
 Individual Constructivism: Learning occurs through active investigations of
environment.
 Social Constructivism: Learning and development are integrally tied to
communicative interactions.
3) Scaffolding: Bruner

(Yapı İskelesi) The environment is mediated for the child by the adults to help him solve
problems or accomplish tasks or activities.

This mediation is to be repeated until the child can do it on its own. (Formats and Routines)

When the instruction is considered, the instructor should try and encourage the student to
discover the principles themselves. It should be inductively. Engagement of the students and
the teacher.

o How does a child learn?

 They learn by being active
 They learn by organizing their own learning experiences
 They learn by using language
 They learn by interacting with others.

o How does a child acquire L1?

 Babbling: from birth to around 8 months
 The first “word”: around 11 to 12 months
 Two words: 18 months to 2 years of age; genuinely syntactic phase of
acquisition
 Phonological, syntactic and lexical norms: 3 to 4 years of age; creativity
phase, essential language elements are put in place
 Syntactic and lexical complexity: 5 to 12 years of age
 Conversational skills

o What do children want to do with language (before school age)?

 Get attention
 Name and classify, asking
 Express complex desires, refer to events
 Explain things, request
 Give information, ask and answer

o Different views of L1 and L2 acquisition:

 Behaviourist (habit formation)
 Nativist (innatist; LAD)
 Cognitive-developmental (cognitive growth)
 Social-interactionist (social interaction)

 According to the Behaviourists...

Imitation and practice or habit formation are key processes in language
development. (Skinner, Pavlov)
 According to the Nativists...
Children are pre-programmed to learn a language and are highly sensitive to the
linguistic features of their environment. Language acquisition device (LAD) allows
infants to learn the language.
 Nativist view allowed for the child’s creativity as an important part of L1 and
regarded it as a factor which has been carried over to L2 learning.
 According to the Cognitive-developmental view...
Language development is an aspect of general cognitive growth; therefore,
certain thinking skills must first mature in order to create a framework for early
language development.
Critical Period Hypothesis suggests that there is a specific and limited time for
language acquisition.
 According to Social-interactionist view...
LAD is not able to function without the help given by an adult (LASS =
Language Acquisition Support System). There is considerable emphasis on
interaction and social support provided by other speakers.

Are L1 and L2 acquired in the same way?

L1 and L2 learners are different in terms of what they bring to the language learning situation, but
similar in their ability to acquire language. The point to consider is how far the processes involved in
learning the L1 are similar to those learning an L2.

The behaviourist view sees the two processes very similar since practice and imitation are common
to both.

The nativist view would believe that L1 and L2 learning are both activities which require the child to
use past experience to structure new ones.

The cognitive-developmental view believes that there are important differences between the two,
as the L2 learner is more cognitively developed than the L1 learner.

The social-interactionist view would argue that the social context for each tends to be very different
in terms of types and amount of input, output and the purposes for which language is used.

It can be said some L1 and L2 acq. processes are very similar although the learning conditions are
different. In terms of processes, most learners go through four phases:

1) Working out the rules of how language works

2) Generalizing these
3) Over-generalizing where they are not appropriate
4) Using language items correctly

04.11.2020

 What is “early bilingualism”?

o Are we bilingual? Most people think bilingualism is the proficient use. So it should be
that other language that you speak next to your L1 has to be as well as your L1. It is
not necessarily so. In order to call yourself a bilingual you do not have to consider
your English as proficient as your L1. WE ARE ALL BILINGUALS.
o Early bilingualism indicates the exposure to the both languages from the early ages.
For example one of the parents is Turkish and the other one is English.
 When does early bilingualism begin?
o Early bilingualism begins from the early ages, nearly from babyhood.
  Is there a limit to the number of languages a child can learn?
o As long as he receives “adequate exposure” and “communicate and interact” there is
no limit.
 When does the language development begin?
o Right at birth. It does not wait the child to get older. When children are born, even a
baby who is one day old is familiar to the voice of his/her mother. When compared
with the other voices s/he listens to his/her mother’s voice more focused.
o This shows us that language processing starts even before birth.
o Every child has “prosody”. It means the rhythm of the language. The children can
learn the rhythm of the language.
 What are some types of bilingualism?
o Simultaneous bilingualism
 Talking the both languages at the same time. This can happen in early ages.
Everything in school is from the second language. Simultaneous
bilingualism is a form of bilingualism that takes place when a child
becomes bilingual by learning two languages from birth.
o Successive Bilingualism
 One started later than the other. Turkish at first but English at school.
Successive.
o Family Bilingualism (Heritage Language)
 Your family is speaking Turkish. Your grandparents are speaking Laz. You are
picking up some words from Laz.

What does L2 acquisition research offer for pedagogical practice in teaching young learners?

 Influence of L1
o L1 and L2 learners are not same cognitively. L2 learners have gone through L1
acquisition so they have cognitive skills. L1 learners do not have cognitive skills. They
are developing them.
o L2 learners when they are acquiring the second language, they do not transfer
directly from their L1 language elements. They do not transfer formulas and
comparative analysis. There are transfer effects. Particularly in “word order”.
 What are they doing? Ball playing.
 Where are we going now? Newcastle going.
 This is a transfer effect. Transfer of word order.
 Natural Order of Acquisition
o Are not the same in L1 and L2 learners; what is learnt early and later on changes in
L1 and L2 acquisition.

METHODS USED IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS

 Total Physical Response (TPR)

o At approach level
 Asher’s theory of language to implicit rather than explicit, but it appears to
be based on a formalistic structural model of language.
 His language learning theory is one based on the belief that language is
learned through motor activity.
o At design level
 The general objectives of TPR are to teach the spoken language to beginning
level students. Comprehension precedes production. The syllabus is
sentence-based, primary lexical and grammatical. Items are selected
 according to the ease with which they may be used in the imperative form to
initiate actions.
o At procedure level
 Activities that are used are primarily command-based drills. Meaning is
communicated via gesture, mime and demonstration. Written and spoken
forms are presented at the same time. Both individual and group work are
used, errors are allowed and are not corrected initially. Comprehension
BEFORE production.
o Advantages of TPR
 Fun
 Memorable
 Good for kinaesthetic learners who are required to be active.
 Can be used both in large or small classes
 Works well with mixed-ability classes
 No need to have materials
 Both left and right-brained learning
o Disadvantages of TPR
 It is not flexibly used to teach everything and if used a lot it would become
repetitive.
 It tends to neglect narrative, descriptions and conversation forms of
language.

11.10.2020

James Asher is the creator of TPR. He thinks that right brain should be activated earlier than
the left brain. The earlier the retracing occurs the stronger the mind remembers. When we base
everything on action, retracing in the mind can be done with verbal stimulus.

Asher’s Laws
1) Multiple Languages
a. A realistic goal would be fluency in multiple languages.
2) Start Before Puberty
3) Get It in the First Exposure
a. “There is no way all the students can acquire multiple languages if we continue
playing to the left hemisphere of the brain. My research shows that the best chance
for long-term retention of anything, including mathematical concepts, is to get in the
first exposure.”
4) You Only Have a Grace Period of Five Minutes
a. You have to convince them to learn the language. You have to make them love the
language learning process in 5 minutes.
5) Words to Delete from Your Vocabulary
a. “Methods”, “Translate” and “Memorize”.
b. Delete “methods” because teaching is an art.
c. Delete “translate” because it becomes unbelievable after a short time. It is because
you are making assertions without any proof.
d. Delete “memorize” because you switch the students into slow-motion learning of the
left brain.
6) Organize Around Student Goals
a. Teacher’s goal is just to “Cover the chapter.” but students’ goals come from them.
They want to learn and they should choose how to or what to learn.
 7) Encourage Doodling with the Language
a. Doodling is to mess around and play around with the target language. Students
should be encouraged to experiment outside of class with novel sentences.
8) Some Practice is Good
a. “There is an important difference between repetition before learning and practice
after learning. For maximum gain, there should be no repetitions before learning.
Learning should happen in the first exposure, but after learning the more one plays
with the language, the steeper the learning curve for fluency becomes.”
9) Wrap It Up in a Few Sentences
a. Start with a short-term student goal. Use TPR for convincing your students in less
than five minutes that they can acquire any language on earth. Then use the primary
tool of TPR to introduce any new vocabulary or new grammatical feature in the
target language. Follow-up with secondary tools in your toolbox. That is it.

Task-Based Pedagogy
Jane Willis comes to mind.

“The most effective way to teach a language is by engaging learners in real language use in
the classroom. This is done by designing tasks –discussions, problems, games and so on- which
require learners to use the language for themselves.” –Jane Willis (2007)

Language use is what we want in Task-Based Pedagogy. Not just in the form of fill in the
blanks or say whether or not something is true or false. We want them to use the language for the
real life experiences, for example leaving a voice message, helping someone on the street with
directions, problem solving, etc.

It allows us to do:

 Attempts to bring the classroom and real life closer together

o To show our learners, the target language is a communication tool
 Prioritizes the communicative essence of language
o We don’t use the language just to fill forms.
 Elaborates active language use
o What they need to express. It is to express what they are feeling.
 Focuses on content feedbacks
 Allow learners’ control of topics
 Positions learners as initiating and responding roles
 Provides opportunities to negotiate meaning when communication problems arise
 Allows learners to regulate turn-taking
o They will have to allow each other to talk and they will listen to each other.
 Makes use of referential questions
 Directs scaffolding primarily at enabling learners to say what they want to say
Task-based Language Learning (TBLL)
 At approach level...
o Language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks. Conversation is the central focus
of language and keystone of language acquisition.
 At design level...
o Language learners are to be engaged with tasks which require learners to
approximate in class the sorts of behaviours required of them in the world beyond
the classroom. Task activity and achievement are motivational. Tasks provide both
input and output.
 At procedure level...
o Tasks should integrate different language skills and also support the use of non-
linguistic skills such as miming characters in a role play, drawing pictures, cutting out
animals or making things.

What makes a “task”?

 “A task is a piece of classroom work that involves learners in comprehending, manipulating,
producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is focused on mobilizing
their grammatical knowledge in order to express meaning rather than to manipulate form.”
o “I want to say this! What should I do if I want to say this for my poster?” –D. Nunan
o They are focused on meaning not on the form.
 “The task should also have a sense of completeness, being able to stand alone as a
communicative act in its own right with a beginning, middle and an end.” –D. Nunan

Methodology of Task-based Teaching

PRE-TASK -> TASK CYCLE -> LANGUAGE FOCUS

 “It is like a sort of P-P-P upside down.” –Willis

o Presentation
 The teacher should show them the language they are going to learn is
different from what they learned first.
o Practice
 They practice this new language item. “You give them a handout, they look
at the sentences and they fill in the blanks with the tenses they have been
wanted to use.”
o Production
 “Students are asked to produce language in which this new language item is
embedded.”

Task-based Teaching reverses the 3P Process. First we give the pre-task, secondly we make
tasks and as third we focus on the language as we practice it.

Pre-task Stage

 Topic area is identified.

  Topic language is identified not explicitly but by activating learners’ prior knowledge by:
o Classifying words and phrases
o Brainstorming and mind maps
o Arranging questions to ask, etc.
 Task instructions, goals and outcomes are clarified.

Task Cycle
1) Task phase
2) Planning phase
3) Report phase

Language Focus Stage

 Students are involved in consciousness raising activities which will help them identify and
consider the uses of the language features encountered in the task.

“Is a task different from an activity or an exercise?”

Yes, because in a task...

 Meaning is primary
 There is some cognitive, linguistic, interactional, metalinguistic, involvement and physical
challenge at an optimum level of difficulty
 There is some kind of a communication problem to solve
 There is a relationship to comparable real-world activities
 Task completion has some priority
 There is a clear outcome that can be assessed in terms of language production

o In a task, there are different demands. In an activity, there is just one demand.

A task...

 ...is goal oriented.

 ...involves primary focus on meaning.
 ...facilitates the learners to choose the linguistic resources needed to complete the task.
o There is no imposition; students are free to chose the linguistic resources.
 ...has a clearly defined outcome.

Activities and Exercises...

 ...focus on language practice.

 ...are cognitively simple.
 ...are not always personalized.
  ...are not a meaningful end in themselves.
 ...provide a small degree of learner freedom and choice.
 ...provide controlled, guided practice, rehearse specific language items.

Tasks...

 ...focus on communication and interaction.

 ...are more cognitively demanding.
 ...have a clear outcome.
 ...have a clear goal.
 ...provide more learner independence and choice.
 ...are contextualized.
 ... encourage production and creativity.

Non-task Activities

 Completing a transformation exercise

 Q and A activities with the teacher
 Inductive learning activities where pre-selected material is conducive to the generation of
language rules

Task-based Activities

 Completing one another’s family trees

 Solving a riddle
 Agreeing on advice to give to the writer of a letter to an agony aunt
 Leaving a message on someone’s answering machine

 Task based language teaching is justified as an appropriate language teaching methodology

because it parallels the natural order of language learning process in children. However,
since a task is characterized with its link to the real world –the word “real world” needs to
be considered very carefully, tasks designed for young learners need to create a discourse
that is similar to use of language in their real world.

A task for young learners needs to have...

 ...a purpose or underlying real life justification for doing the task, involving more than simply
the display of knowledge or practice of skills.
 ...a context (real or imaginary) in which the task takes place.
o Like “imagine yourself in Şirinler Köyü”
 ...a cognitive or physical process at an optimum level of difficulty.
 ...a language product.
 ...a framework of knowledge, strategy and skill in carrying out the task.
Task Types identified by Willis
 Listing
o Processes: Brainstorming and fact finding
o Outcome: Completed list or draft mind map
 Ordering and Sorting
o Processes: Sequencing, ranking, categorizing, classifying
o Outcome: Set of information ordered according to some criteria
 Comparing
o Processes: Matching, finding similarities/differences
o Outcome: Items appropriately matched or assembled
 Problem Solving
o Processes: Analyzing, reasoning, decision making
o Outcome: Problems solved and evaluated
 Sharing Personal Experiences
o Processes: Narrating, describing, exploring opinions
o Outcome: Interaction in social context
 Creative
o Processes: Brainstorming, fact finding, ordering...
o Outcome: Appreciated end product

Unfavourable Conditions
 Large class sizes
 Cramped classrooms
 Lack of appropriate resources
 Teachers not trained in task-based methodologies
o Task-based instruction yields very good results when planned carefully but
sometimes it depends on teacher’s control.
 Traditional examination-based syllabi