A Practical Guide to Teaching Foreign Languages in the Secondary School

Norbert Pachler, Ana Redondo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781136211478
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

How can you effectively motivate young people to engage with foreign language learning?

How can young people engage with new ideas and cultural experiences within and outside the classroom?

The new edition of A Practical Guide to Teaching Foreign Languages in the Secondary School offers straightforward advice and inspiration for training teachers, NQTs and teachers in their early professional development. Written by a team of expert professionals, it offers a wide range of strategies for successful teaching in the languages classroom. Key topics covered include:

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• Helping pupils develop better listening skills

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• Effective speaking activities

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• Choosing the best texts and technology for reading skills

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• Teaching grammar

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• Internet tools and services for teaching and learning

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• Integrating formative assessment

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• The intercultural dimension of language teaching

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• Collaborating with primary schools and successful transition

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• Teaching Arabic and Mandarin

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• Working with TAs and FLAs

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• Classroom research and reflective practice

This fully revised and updated second edition includes new chapters on homework, motivation and less widely taught languages, while the core sections on reading and writing, planning, and culture and diversity have been significantly updated to reflect important changes in research, practice and policy.

A Practical Guide to Teaching Foreign Languages in the Secondary School extends the popular Learning to Teach Foreign Languages in the Secondary School by providing detailed examples of theory in practice, based on the most up-to-date research and practice, as well as links to relevant sources supporting evidence-informed practice. It is an essential compendium of support and ideas for all those embarking upon their first steps in a successful career in teaching foreign languages.

Chapter 1	Foreign language teaching
	Understanding approaches, making choices^1
	ELSPETH BROADY

BY THE END OF THIS CHAPTER YOU SHOULD:

• understand some of the key challenges involved in foreign language (FL) learning and teaching;

• have reflected on the key aims for FL teaching in secondary schools;

• be aware of how approaches to language teaching may differ, and of their advantages and disadvantages;

• have explored the rationale for target language (TL) and first language (L1) use in the classroom;

• have considered via some practical activities how these debates apply to FL teaching and learning.

THERE IS NO IDEAL WAY TO TEACH A LANGUAGE

Whenever you read or hear about the teaching and learning of FLs, you learn that there is no definitive answer to the question of how people learn a FL. Some swear that you can only learn by immersion in the TL; others emphasise the importance of understanding how the TL grammar works. Some can pick up TL words from just listening; others need to see words written down. You, of course, will have your own view and preferences, based on your personal experience of language learning. But as a teacher, you are going to be working with a range of individuals, all of whom will bring different experiences, learning styles, preferences and motivations to language learning. Furthermore, despite a large body of knowledge on the various factors involved in language learning, there is no ready-made, ‘one-size-fits-all’ teaching recipe to follow with guaranteed results for all.

This apparent lack of clarity may feel daunting at first; it means that as teachers, we have to make the choices about how best to promote language learning given the needs and interests of our pupils. We have to do this in an informed and principled way, interpreting carefully the advice and research available, as well as the various legislative requirements, official guidelines and recommended frameworks that surround everyday teaching. But teaching FLs nevertheless offers scope for considerable creativity. This chapter — and indeed all the chapters in this book — aim(s) to help you understand key principles underpinning FL teaching, so that you can build your professional practice on a well-informed and thoughtful foundation.

Task 1.1

Reflecting on FL learning and teaching experiences

This task is best undertaken first as individual reflection, followed by discussion with others. Do you see things the same or differently from other people in your teacher development group?

• Think back over your own classroom learning of a FL. What kinds of classroom activities helped you? Were there any that hindered you? Why?

• Do you remember a particularly inspirational FL teacher? What was it that they did that made a difference to you as a learner?

• Note down some of the kinds of classroom activities you would particularly like to try out as a classroom FL teacher. What do you think are the possible advantages and disadvantages of these activities? Will they work with all pupils?

Typically, different approaches to language teaching have tended to emphasise either building knowledge of the forms of language in the hope that the ability to communicate meaning will then develop of its own accord, or conversely, emphasising the communication of meaning, on the assumption that learners will pick up the forms of the language inductively. Both approaches have known successes and failures. However, as this chapter aims to make clear, this polarisation is neither necessary nor desirable in the context of school-based FL teaching.

It has sometimes been argued that FL learning should be most effective if it can mimic a ‘natural’ approach, involving immersion in the TL and avoiding all reference to a learner’s other languages. After all, this is how we learn our L1, and many of us have experience of ‘picking up’ a second language (L2) through residence abroad. But think how different those contexts are from a school classroom. No matter how hard we try, we cannot re-create that level of on-going interaction with the TL in three 45-minute periods a week. With no prior knowledge to help, picking up a language inductively in this way takes a long time and, indeed, it can be stressful.

Furthermore, secondary level pupils come to FL learning with extensive knowledge and skills in their first (and sometimes other) language(s), as well as a range of cognitive learning skills. It surely does not make sense to teach a FL without any reference to these. Yet to teach a FL just as some kind of abstract language system to be learned through the medium of the L1 also makes little sense. Reciting verb paradigms and learning lists of decontextualized vocabulary through translation can feel horribly divorced from any reality; its meaninglessness is demotivating for most pupils. Our job as teachers is to find the right balance of form and meaning, learning and using, and L1 and TL use.

The challenge, however you look at it, is that learning a FL takes time and motivation. There are potentially an infinite number of words and structures to be learned, and, like any skill, being able to use a FL takes practice. We have to build up our communicative ‘performance’ gradually; our initial efforts may be awkward and embarrassing, particularly as we are used to communicating effectively in our L1, and much of the practice may feel repetitive. In the school setting, pupils do not have an infinite amount of time; nor can we assume their motivation. As FL teachers, therefore, we need to think carefully about how best to use the opportunities we have to build on our learners’ abilities. We need to be clear what we want learners to achieve and to set both realistic and ambitious goals for our pupils.

UNDERSTANDING THE AIMS OF FL TEACHING

So what should be the aims of FL learning in secondary schools? Most of us would probably say first that we want learners to be able to use the TL. We want them to be able to understand, and be understood, in both speech and writing; we want them to be able to communicate successfully with other users of the TL. That, after all, is what language is for. Furthermore, we probably want to specify that learners should be able to communicate their own personal meanings and develop curiosity and insight into aspects of the lives and culture(s) of TL speakers. Without this, there can be little motivation for language learning. It has been recognised that learning a FL can help pupils become more aware of how different cultural groups think, live and express themselves, and thus come to understand and value cultural diversity — an important social aim.

But if learners are to be able to create their own phrases in the TL, and get to grips with ‘real’ language from the TL culture(s), then we also need to equip our learners with an understanding of how the TL works. As we explore below, insight into language structure is increasingly seen as significant in facilitating classroom language learning. Without it, language learning risks being reduced to mere parroting of set phrases.

Furthermore, learners need to have some idea about how to go about FL learning so that they can become more independent learners and, consequently, more independent users of the TL. As we mentioned earlier, there is a lot to learn in learning a FL, and it cannot all be ‘taught’ directly; secondly, different learners are likely to have different preferences, different strengths and different orientations. Helping learners understand their options for learning is an important way of engaging them as individuals and building their motivation.

Task 1.2

Aims of FL learning

Look at some of the current statutory specifications for FLs, such as the 2014 National Curriculum Programme of Study for FLs at https://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/nationalcurriculum2014, and identify to what extent — and how — the aims presented above are expressed. Would you like to add any other aims?

HOW DO WE BUILD UP ABILITY TO USE THE TL?

So if we want learners to be able to use the TL, let us just think for a moment what developing even minimal communicative ability in an L2 actually requires. Before learners can produce anything, they need ‘input’. We often forget that comprehension is primary in L2 learning; only through exposure to the TL can learners begin to familiarise themselves with the patterns of its sounds, words and grammatical structure. But what should this ‘input’ be? If we ‘throw learners in at the deep end’ and try to engage them immediately with extensive TL use, some may rise to the challenge but many will feel they are drowning. Just trying to proc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Series editors’ introduction
• 1 Foreign language teaching: understanding approaches, making choices
• 2 Motivating pupils to learn foreign languages
• 3 Presenting new vocabulary and structures
• 4 Developing foreign language skills through formative assessment
• 5 Developing listening skills in a foreign language
• 6 Developing speaking skills in a foreign language
• 7 Developing reading and writing skills in a foreign language
• 8 Grammar in the foreign language classroom
• 9 The (inter)cultural turn in foreign language teaching
• 10 Supporting foreign language learning through homework
• 11 Digital technologies in foreign language teaching and learning
• 12 Primary Foreign Languages and Key Stage 2—3 transfer
• 13 Making a diversified and inclusive language curriculum work
• 14 Working with other adults in the foreign languages classroom
• 15 Reflective practice through teacher research
• Index