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■ Key concepts
Have you learnt English more successfully from formal study or just by picking it up?
Research has identified three main ways in which we learn a foreign language. Firstly,
experts talk of us acquiring language, or language acquisition. This means the same
as picking up language. They say that to learn a foreign language successfully we need
lots of exposure to it and that we learn from being surrounded by language. We need
to hear and read language which is rich in variety, interesting to us and just difficult
enough for us, i.e. just beyond our level, but not too difficult. Acquisition then takes
place over a period of time without our realising that we are learning. We listen to
and read items of language many times before we begin to use them (silent period),
unconsciously working out (calculating/deducing) their meaning and form.
Secondly, experts believe that to learn language successfully we need to use it in
interaction with other people. We need to use language to express ourselves and
make our meanings clear to them, and to understand them. The person we are talking
to will let us know, directly or indirectly, if they have understood us or not. If they
have not understood, we need to try again, using other language (paraphrasing),
until we manage to communicate successfully. It is this process of struggling to make
meaning clear which helps learners experiment with language, forcing them to try out
structures, chunks and vocabulary they have already learnt, to see if they help them
get their message across.
Thirdly, research shows that foreign language learners also need to focus on form.
This means that they need to pay attention not just to the meaning of language
but also to its formal features, e.g. pronunciation, word order, affixes, spelling,
grammatical structures.
Nowadays, it is thought that, depending on our age and learning style, we learn
language best by picking it up, by interacting with others and by focusing on form.
This suggests that several approaches to language teaching which were commonly
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Unit 10 Exposure and focus on form
used in the past may not be sufficiently helpful to learners, e.g. the Grammar-
Translation method which focused only on grammar and translating texts, the
Structural Approach which focused only on learning and practising structures,
or communicative approaches which just focused on using language fluently in
communication. But the research still continues, and we do not yet fully understand
how foreign languages are learnt.
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Module 1
REFLECTION
Think about these teachers’ comments. Which do you agree with and why?
1 I learnt Russian at school through grammar translation. Then after I left school I
went to live in Russia and just picked it up. The two ways of learning really helped
me speak Russian well.
2 It’s very difficult to bring interaction and acquisition into my classes – I have more
than 30 students in each class and very few resources.
3 The exams my students have to take focus on correct grammar, so that’s what we
focus on in class. I know I’m not teaching my students English, but teaching them
to pass an exam in English.
DISCOVERY ACTIVITIES
1 To read more about how languages are learnt, see Chapter 3, The Practice of
English Language Teaching (Fourth edition) by Jeremy Harmer, Longman 2007.
2 Watch your learners. Are there any who seem to prefer learning by acquisition,
interaction or focus on form? Write down your observations and put them in
your Teacher Portfolio.
3 Look at a unit from your coursebook. See what the focus of each activity is:
acquisition, interaction or focus on form? Does the overall unit focus suit your
learners’ needs?
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