The Role of the English Teacher

In a contemporary ESL Classroom

Introduction

At a conference in 1975, the American psychologist John Carroll stated: "It is sobering to read John Kelly's book 25 Centuries of Language Teaching and to realize that what we think is new today was being done centuries ago in some part of the world". Noted language teacher Mary Finocchiaro has said: "I have not changed my basic teach­ing steps in fifty years except to add or delete a few devices or tech­niques in the practice stage". Why is it, then, that English teachers have been bombarded with so many "new" methods, from the Direct Method, Grammar-Translation Method, Audiolingual Method, and Cognitivism to the more recent Suggestopedia, Delayed Oral Response, and Silent Way, to name but a few? Why is the literature full of terms such as integrative vs. instrumental motivation, generative-transformational grammar, analytic vs. holistic cognitive styles, functional-notional approach, discourse analysis, etc.? Who is right? Are we really just repeating ourselves year after year, perhaps under a different name? Or is what we are doing really new and different?

To recall but a few of the ways in which we are still being influenced by the past we have only to look at Herbart's five basic steps , written in the early 1800s and still used in some form by many teachers:

· Preparation: review of familiar, relevant material

· Presentation: examples of language in use and the discovery of
rules by learners

· Association of new and familiar material

· Systematization: generalization; recapitulation of new material
in a context

· Application: practice

It is obvious that we have much to learn from the history of lan­guage teaching, but it is also evident that language teaching and investigation are progressing at an ever accelerating rate. Today, how­ever, the most significant discoveries are not those describing the new and revolutionary method. The "really new and different things" in language teaching today involve a different approach to teaching. Previously, it was believed that the only basic tool a language teacher needed was a sound knowledge of the language. He was then briefly trained in the methodology and sent into a class­room. Now we know that linguistics is not the only area in which a language teacher should be trained. The importance of psychology and sociology, as well as more extensive training in pedagogy, is being recognized.

The three main areas in which the approach to language teaching has recently changed.

1. Emphasis on the Individual Learner The focus has shifted from the teacher to the learner, and with this has come the realization that each learner is an individual, with distinct needs, learning styles, mental schemata and attitudes.

2. Eclecticism. Having come to the realization that each learner pos­sesses distinct cognitive and personality traits, it follows that one teaching methodology will not be the most appropriate for all students This obviously puts a much larger responsibility on the teacher, for now he should be familiar with a much wider range of materials, exercises, and activi­ties than before.

3. Communication in a Social Context. There are two important points to be made regarding this third general tendency: communication and social. It is not enough to acquire knowledge of linguistic structure. One must also possess the appropriate schemata regarding the culture of the lan­guage being learned in order to understand the communication and be able to respond using the vocabulary and structure that corre­spond to a specific social situation; hence the growing importance of sociology in language teaching.

2.The teacher's central position

Thirty years ago, using the audiolingual method, her role was sometimes caricatured as that of a "combination of a drill sergeant and orchestra conductor", since most activi­ties were well programmed. Today, however, she is a "facilitator" of learning. Today's language teacher must manipulate much more information in several different areas of knowledge. The problem lies not only in the amount of information to be mastered, but in the organization and application of that knowl­edge to a practical situation. While the emphasis in education today is on the student as the focus of learning, it must be remembered that the teacher is still the person specially trained to guide the student, help him select appropriate learning materials, and create a positive classroom environment. In order to perform these tasks, the language teacher should have access to three main types of information about her students: (1) psychological factors, (2) personal needs, and (3) social factors. Regarding the psychological factors, three areas are of particular importance: (a) schemata, (b) cognitive style, and (c) affective factors.

The first type of psychological information the teacher must be aware of is their background knowledge or experience with relation to the material to be studied. With regard to language learning, these schemata fall into at least two general areas: "content" schemata, or background knowledge of the content area under study, and "formal" schemata, background knowledge regarding the lan­guage itself, rhetorical structure of reading texts, etc. (Carrell 1983). This knowledge will help the teacher determine the average level of the class and identify which students may need extra work to bring them up to this level. Information regarding students' schemata might be obtained through school records or interviews with students.

Another important type of psychological information concerns the cognitive learning styles of the students. Psychologists are discovering that different individuals may have different ways of perceiving and organizing information based on a combination of cognition and per­sonality. While these cognitive learning styles may vary under certain circumstances, an individual generally tends toward one particular style. There are many opinions regarding the number of factors that affect cognitive style. Ausubel and Robinson (1969) mention at least 18 different styles, while Hill (1972) defines 29 different factors. Probably the factor that has been most closely studied is field de­pendence/independence. A field-dependent person perceives the "whole" but has difficulty distinguishing the factors that make up the whole, while a field-independent individual easily perceives the com­ponents and imposes his own structure on them. There is a positive and significant relationship between field indepen­dence and language learning.

The social factors are the third major type of information vital to the teacher. In addition to knowledge about the social and cultural envi­ronment surrounding the language being taught, the teacher should also be aware of important factors in the students' social environment that might affect his learning. There are two levels on which this social environment may influence language learning:The first level refers to the society as a whole from which the student comes and the second level of social factors refers to the individual social envi­ronment of each student, i.e., his reference groups. Psychological fac­tors such as attitudes and self-esteem are known to affect language learning, but these attitudes and self-images are largely influenced by the people closest to us: family, friends, professional colleagues, etc. Many of our values and goals are also reflections of those held by the reference groups to which we belong. Therefore, the lack of progress of a student in a language course may not be due to a lack of lan­guage aptitude, but rather to a shared value existing in the society.

The teacher should collect information from his students in each of these three main areas and analyze it, using his knowledge of psychol­ogy, linguistics, and sociology.

First, he should select the most appropriate materials, based especially on his knowledge of the students' needs and their cognitive levels (sche­mata).

Second, he should decide on the way of presenting these mate­rials, keeping in mind the cognitive styles of his students.

And finally, he should create a classroom atmosphere conducive to learning, or in Krashen's terminology, eliminate the affective filter so maximum learning can occur in an open, non-threatening environment. In order to create this environment in which the student feels secure and mo­tivated toward learning, the teacher must be aware of the affective fac­tors and social factors that might influence his students. It is important to note that in the diagram, the arrows joining the three areas of appli­cation are bi-directional. This indicates, for example, that the material selected will affect the method of presentation and the affective envi­ronment. On the other hand, in a group characterized by a positive affective environment, the students themselves may frequently con­tribute to the selection and presentation of class materials, following the humanistic idea that self-initiated learning is more meaningful and permanent. These three areas are therefore closely related.