ee ee age and language learning is that young children 2 effectively other age group. Most people can think of examples appear to bear this out as when children move to a new country and appear to pick up inguage wit remarkable ease, Howeves as we shall e,thiss not always tre of children ; ea, = Sei co language facility may be something of a myth. ’ certainly true | who learn a new language early have a facility with the ciation which is sometimes denied older learners. Lynne Cameron suggests that children ‘reproduce the accent of their teachers with deadly accuracy’ (2003: m1). Carol Read recounts hhow she hears a young student of hers saying Listen. Quiet now. Attention, please! in such a fect imitation of the teacher that ‘the thought of parody passes through my head! (2003:7)- ‘Apart from pronunciation ability, however, it appears that older children (that is children from about the age of 12) ‘seem to be far better learners than younger ones in most aspects of acquisition, pronunciation excluded’ (Yu, 2006: 53). Patsy Lightbown and Nina Spada, reviewing the literature on the subject, point tothe various studies showing that older children and adolescents make more progress than younger learners (2006: 67-74) "The relative superiority of older children as language learners (especially in formal ‘educational settings) may have something to do with thei increased cognitive abilities, which allow them to benefit from more abstract approaches to language teaching Tt may also have something to do with the way younger children are taught. Lynne Cameron, quoted above, suggests that teachers of young learners need to be especially alert and adaptive in their Tesponse o tasks and have tobe abe to adjust activities on the spo Jdren cannot acquire second languages successfully. Ttis not being suggested that young chil sive have already said, many of them achieve significant competences especially in bilingual are often more effective learners. Yet English is situations, But in learning situations, teenagers increasingly being taught at younger and younger ages. This may have great benefits in terms of Gtizenship, democracy, tolerance and multiculturalism, for example (Read 2003), but especially When there is ineffective transfer of skills and methodology from primary fo secondary school, tariplearning doesnot always appear to offer the substantial sucess often claimed for it. seaeners are necessarily ineflecive language learners. Research has ‘Nori it true that older that they ‘can reach high levels of proficiency in their second language’ (Lightbown ae 81 fee | Escaneado con CamScanner, especially those up to the ages of nine or ten, learn ,adolescents and adults in the following ways: all sides learning from everything around them rather than only focusing, topic they are being taught. = Their understanding comes not just from explanation, but also from what t hear and, crucially, have a chance to touch and interact with. = They find abstract concepts such as grammar rules difficult to grasp. ~ They generally display an enthusiasm for learning and a curiosity about the wo around them. ~ They havea need for individual attention and approval from the teacher = They are keen to talk about themselves and respond well to and their own lives as main topics in the classroom. ~ They have a limited attention span; unless activities easily bored, losing interest after ten minutes or so, learning that uses them are extremely engaging, theyé Itis important, when discussing young learners, within this varied and varying age span. Gill Kes that while pupils who are 1 and 1 years old like g are 12 and 13 years old like activities built around and matching exercises most’ (2001: 61), Various theorists have described the way that children develop and the various age Stages they go through. Piaget suggested that children start at the sensori-motor stage, and proceed through the intuitive stage and the concrete-operational tage before finally re hin straction becomes increasin; i : to take account of changes which takep and Pasa Tevfik Cephe, for example, 8 things. Both Erik Erikson and Abra Bees rues ely bound up in the chiles conndence and eel ‘in suggested that children’s cognitive structures are infinitely much like Vygotsky's knower, aa i Escaneado con CamScannerAll of this reminds us that once a decision has been taken to teach Ex learners, there is a need for highly skilled and dedicated teaching. This may difficult (but rewarding) age to teach, but when teachers do it well (and the ec are right), there is no reason why students should not defy some of the research mentioned above and be highly successful learners ~ provided, of course, that this success is followed up as they move to a new school or grade. We can also draw some conclusions about what a classroom for young children should Jook like and what might be going on in it. First ofall, we will want the classroom to be bright. and colourful, with windows the children can see out of, and with enough room for different activities to be taking place. We might expect the students to be working in groups in different parts of the classroom, changing their activity every ten minutes or so. ‘We are obviously? Susan Halliwell writes, ‘not talking about classrooms where children spend all their time sitting still in rows or talking. only to the teacher’ (1992: 18). Because children love discovering. things, and because they respond well to being asked to use their imagination, they may well be involved in puzzle-like activities, in making things, in drawing things, in games, in physical movement or in songs. A good primary classroom mixes play and learning in an atmosphere of cheerful and supportive harmony. A2 Adolescents Itis strange that, despite their relative success as language learners, adolescents are often seen as problem students, Yet with their greater ability for abstract thought and their passionate commitment to what they are doing once they are engaged, adolescents may well be the most. exciting students of all. Most of them understand the need for learning and, with the right goals, can be responsible enough to do what is asked of them. Itis perfectly true that there are times when things don't seem to go very well. Adolescence is bound up, after all, with a pronounced search for identity and a need for self-esteem; adolescents need to feel good about themselves and valued. All of this is reflected in the secondary student who convincingly argued that a good teacher is someone who knows our names’ (Harmer 2007: 26). But it’s not just teachers, of course; teenage students often have an acute need for peer approval, too (or, at the very least, are extremely vulnerable to the negative judgements of their own age group). 83 Escaneado con CamScanneri 4 children. We can ask te fiom the teaching of young childrer : 5 Bs issues with them. Indeed, part of our job is to Provoke intel y by helping them to be aware of contrasting ideas and concepts which they can are appropriate for teenagers. Adult learners ‘Adult language learners are notable for a number of special characteristics: ‘hey can engage with abstract thought. This suggests that we do not have to rely { Sclsivelyon activities suchas games and songs — though these may be appropriate or some students, __~ They havea whole range of life experiences to draw on, ‘They have expectations about the learning process, and they already have their owns terns of learning. Adultstend, on the whole, to be more disciplined tha 3 Prepared to struggle on despite into classrooms with a rich r. Be of activities with them, n other age groups, and, crucially, 3 boredom. ange of experiences which allow teachers to Use ie ildren and teenagers, and what they wantBt ~ Good teachers of adults take all of these factors into account.’ elated to how much learning new learning experience (1996: 54). They are aware th will often be prepared to stick with an activity for longer than younger learne much boredom can obviously have a disastrous effect on motivation). As well as involving: students in more indirect learning through reading, listening and communicative speaking and. writing, they also allow them to use their intellects to learn consciously where this is appropriate. ‘They encourage their students to use their own life experience in the learning process, too. Asteachers of adults we should recognise the need to minimise the bad effects of past learning experiences. We can diminish the fear of failure by offering activities which are achievable and by paying special attention to the level of challenge presented by exercises. We need to listen to students’ concerns, too, and, in many cases, modify what we do to suit their learning tastes. Learner differences ‘The moment we realise that a cassis composed of individuals (rather than being some kind of unified whole), we have to start thinking about how to respond to these students individually so that while we may frequently teach the group asa whole, we will also, in different ways, pay attention to the different identities we are faced with. We will discuss differentiation in relation to mixed ability in Chapter 7C. In this section, however, we will look at the various ways researchers have tried to identify individual needs and behaviour profiles. Aptitude and intelligence Some students are better at learning languages than others. At least that is the generally held ‘view, and in the 1950s and 1960s it crystallised around the belief that it was possible to predict a student’s future progress on the basis of linguistic aptitude tests. But it soon became clear that such tests were flawed in a number of ways. They didn’t appear to measure anything other than general intellectual ability even though they ostensibly looked forlinguistictalents. Furthermore, they favoured analytic-type learners over their more ‘holistic’ counterparts, so the tests were especially suited to people who have litte trouble doing grammar-focused tasks, Those with a 85. Escaneado con CamScannerlur N nieved high scores will be tempt hose score was low: Aptitude tests end uld be much better for both teacher and stude a fein the class. f have different aptitudes for different kinds of study, Howe elligence for learning language in general, our own exper mwo or more languages can ont alabiltiescan be successful language learners. Th kills rather than metalinguistic od learner’ is. If we c hhas been to try to tease out what a ‘go. acteristics that all good learners share, then we can, perhaps, cult inall our students. and his colleagues included a tolerance of ambiguity as a feature of good factors such as positive task orientation (being prepared to approach ashion), ego involvement (where success is important for a student’ sf ions, goal orientation and perseverance (Naiman et al 1978). hompson listed no fewer than 14 good learner characterii with uncertainty (much like the tolerance of ambiguit for (Rubin and Thompson 1982). But the Rubin and ‘Thompson version Escaneado con CamScannercharac that you thins ery impor A good language learner: sa a isa willing and accurate guesser ie b tries to get a message across even if specific language knowledge is lacking Fa ci 5 ¢ is willing to make mistakes Li aie 5 d constantly looks for patterns in the language (° ene e practises as often as possible 1 2h i 2a f analyses his or her own speech and the speech of others a3 AR) g attends to whether his or her performance meets the standards he or she has learned [tae nga fh enjoys grammar exercises es i begins learning in childhood 1 2 3 ao j_ has an above-average IQ (ae aS kc has good academic skills V2 3) sae) 1 23q aes age and lots of confidence I has a good sel acteristics (Lightbown and Spada 2006: 55) FIGURE 1 behaviours, however. Our insistence upon one ind of good learner’ profile may encourage us to demand that students should act in classin certain ways, whatever their learning background. When we espouse some of the techniques mentioned above, we risk imposing @ methodology on our students that is inimical to their culture. Yet it is precisely because this is not pethaps in the best interests of the students: that we discussed context-sensitive methodology in Chapter 4B. Furthermore, some students may not enjoy grammar exercises, but tis does not mel, they are doomed to learning failure, ‘There is nothing wrong with trying to describe good language learning behaviour, Nevertheless, we need to recognise that some ‘of our assumptions are heavily culture- bound and that students can be successful even if they do not follow these characteristics to the letter. Different cultures value different learning Hesitary, prefer to ay Convergers: these are students who are by nature solitary, groups, and who are independent and confident in their own abil Most Frportanty they are analytic and can impose their own struc ‘on learning. They tend to be cool and pragmatic. Gonformists: these are students who prefer to emphasise learning ‘about language’ over learning to use it. They tend tobe dependent on tho in authority and are perfectly happy to work in non-communicati classrooms, doing what they are told, A classroom of conformists is one. which prefers to see well-organised teachers. Coneretelearners: though they ae like conformists, they also enjoy the Social aspects of learning and like to lear from direct experience, They areinterested in language use and language as communication rather than Tanguageasa system. They enjoy games and groupwork in class, avn 2: Learning styles based on Willing nd Willing’s Categorisations are just two of a large Pp with to tr (1987) number of descripti ‘nt learner styles and lestone, in an extensi list of oj Escaneado con CamScannerld. ‘executives/hierarchics/conservatives versus legislatives/anarchics/liberals riGure 3: Different learner descriptions (from Coffield et al 2004: 136) Coffield and his colleagues have two main reasons for their scepticism. The first is that there are so many different models available (as the list in Figure 3 shows) that it is almost impossible to choose between them. This is a big worry, especially since there is no kind of consensus among researchers about what they are looking at and what they have identified. Secondly, some of the more popular methods, Coffield et al suggest, are driven by commercial interests which have identified themselves with particular models. This is not to suggest that there is anything intrinsically wrong with commercial interests, but rather to introduce a note of caution into our evaluation of different learner style descriptions. It may sound as if, therefore, there is no point in reading about different learner styles at all —or trying to incorporate them into our teaching, But that is not the case. We should do as much as we can to understand the individual differences within a group. We should try to find descriptions that chime with our own perceptions, and we should endeayour to teach individuals as well as groups. Indi Ifsome people are better at some things than others ~ better at analysing, for example ~ this would indicate that there are differences in the ways individual brains work. Italso suggests that people respond differently to the same stimuli. How might such variation determine the waysin which individual students learn most readily? How might it affect the ways in which we teach? ‘There are two models in particular which have tried to account for such perceived individual variation, and which teachers have attempted to use for the benefit of their learners, idual variations © Neuro-Linguistic Programming: according to practitioners of Neuro-Linguistie Programming (NLP), we use a numberof ‘primary representational systems’ to experience the world, These systems are described in the acronym ‘VAKOG which stands for Viswal (we look and see), Auditory (we hear and listen), Kinaesthetic (we feel externally, internally 89 Escaneado con CamScanner |Millro s nce, where teachers and students interact ¢ t resistance, where students do: sem behave (Millrood 2004). NLP practitic a thinking’ (Baker and Rinvolucri 2005a) to g ‘other people’s points of view so that they can rs. sds for Multiple Imtlligences, @ concept introduced by the Ha Toward Gardner. In his book Franres of Mind, he suggested that we dq lligenceybutarangeof'intelligences (Gardner 1983). He listed ical, Verbal/linguistc, Visual/spatial, Bodily/kinaestheti, sersonal and Interpersonal. All people have all of these intelige herson one (or more) of them is more pronounced. This allowed eal occupation (or‘end state’) for people with a strength in log nceis that ofthe scientist, whereas a typical end state for peoplewit intelligence might well be that of the navigator. The athlete for people who arestrong in bodily/kinaesthetic intelligence, ands has since added an eighth intelligence which he calls Naturalistic intellgene }to account for the ability to recognise and classi feda ninth ‘emotional intelligence’ (Goleman 1995). This includes the hise, control impulse and self-motivate. different intelligences predominate in different people, it suggests that he ‘not be appropriate forall of our students. While people with a strong gence might respond well to a complex grammar explanatioN need the comfort of diagrams and physical demonstration becaus® ual/spatial area. Other students who have a strong interpersonal more interactive climate if their learning is to be effective. Rost a chart (se Figure 4) to show what kind of activities might ths in the different intelligences. 4 Escaneado con CamScannerSeay [ite [assem [ees [acts Siena |seied | Goow Soe, |e. |B , | Beee | Bese BROT | Sgamony | peeps =o | pope. | Bamoge re fae SE [Mame seyak | nae Sirosinars | te fon Tannen | speamtoms: exgune 4: Activities for diferent intelligence taken from Tanner (2001) Escaneado con CamScanner