Chapter7

INTRODUCTION
Unlike the advocates of learning-centered methods, those of
language- and learner-centered methods did not have the full
benefit of nearly a quarter century of sustained research in the
psycholinguistic processes of L2 development.
Studies on intake factors and intake processes governing L2
development , in spite of their conceptual and methodological
limitations, have certainly provided a fast-expanding site on
which the fundementals of a process-based method could be
constructed.
During the 1980s, several scholars experimented with various
process-oriented approaches to language teaching.
In this chapter, the focus is on two learning-centered methods,
mainly because both of them have been widely recognized and
reviewed in the L2 literature: the Natural Approach, and the
Communicational Approach.
The Natural Approach (NA)
 The Natural Approach (NA) was originally proposed by Terrell at
the University of California at Irvine initially for teaching
beginning level Spanish for adult learners in the United States.
 It was later developed fully by combining the practical
experience gained by Terrell and the theoretical constructs of the
Monitor Model of second language acquisition proposed by
Krashen,.
 In addition, Brown and Palmer (1988) developed language
specifications and instructional materials for applying Krashen’s
theory.
 The NA is premised on the belief that a language is best acquired
when the learner’s focus is not directly on the language.
Communicational Teaching Project
(CTP)
 It was developed through a long-term project initiated and
directed by Prabhu, South India. The need for the project arose
from a widespread dissatisfaction with a version of language-
centered pedagogy followed in Indian schools.
 It was also felt that the learner-centered pedagogy with its
emphasis on situational appropriacy might not be relevant for a
context where English is taught and learned more for academic
and administrative reasons than for social interactional
purposes. The project was carried out for5 years in large classes
in South India .
 Toward the end of the project period and at the invitation of the
project team, a group of program evaluators from the University
of Edinburgh, U.K. evaluated the efficacy of the approach. Thus,
among the known learning-centered methods, the CTP is
perhaps the only one that enjoys the benefits of a sustained
systematic investigation as well as a formal external evaluation.
Theory of Language
 They have drawn heavily from the Chomskyan cognitive perspective on
language learning, and from the Hallidayan functional perspective on
language use.
 They particularly owe a debt to Halliday’s concept of learning to mean
and his observation that language is learned only in relation to use.
 They have, however, been very selective in applying the Hallidayan
perspective. For instance, they have emphasized the primacy of
meaning and lexicon while, unlike Halliday, minimizing the
importance of grammar.
 There is also an important difference between the NA and the CTP in
terms of the theory of language: while the NA values sociocultural
aspects of pragmatic knowledge, the CTP devalues them. The reason is
simple: unlike the NA, the CTP is concerned with developing linguistic
knowledge/ability that can be used for academic purposes rather than
developing pragmatic knowledge/ability that can be used for social
interaction.
Theory of Language Learning
 Both the NA and the CTP believe that L2 grammar
construction can take place incidentally, that is, even when
the learners’ conscious attention is not brought to bear on
the grammatical system.
 There is, however, a subtle difference in their approach to
language learning:
 The NA treats L2 grammar construction as largely
incidental. That is, it does not rule out a restricted role for
explicit focus on grammar.
 The CTP, however, treats L2 grammar construction as
exclusively incidental. That is, it rules out any role for
explicit focus on grammar even in formal contexts.
The language learning theory of
learning-centered pedagogy rests
on the following four basic
premises:
1. Language development is incidental, not intentional
2. Language development is meaning focused, not form
focused.
3. Language development is comprehension based, not
production based.
4. Language development is cyclical and parallel, not
sequential and additive
Language development is
incidental, not intentional.
 Krashen has put forth arguments in his hypotheses that form part of his Monitor Model
of second-language acquisition. His input hypothesis states “humans acquire language in
only one way—by understanding messages, or by receiving comprehensible input....If
input is understood, and there is enough of it, the necessary grammar is automatically
provided”
 His acquisition/learning hypothesis states that adults have two distinct and independent
ways of developing L2 knowledge/ability. One way is acquisition, a process similar, if not
identical, to the way children develop their knowledge/ability in the first language. It is a
subconscious process. Acquisition, therefore, is “picking-up” a language incidentally
 Unlike Krashen, Prabhu claims that language development is exclusively incidental. He
dismisses any explicit teaching of descriptive grammar to learners. He, therefore, sees no
reason why any structure or vocabulary has to be consciously presented by the teacher or
practiced by the learner. The CTP operates under the assumption that while the
conscious mind is working out some of the meaning-content, a sub-conscious part of the
mind perceives, abstracts, or acquires (or recreates, as a cognitive structure) some of the
linguistic structuring embodied in those entities, as a step in the development of an
internal system of rules.
Language development is meaning
focused, not form focused
 Learning-centered pedagogists point out the futility of
focusing on form by arguing that the internal system
developed by successful learners is far more complex than
any grammar yet constructed by a linguist, and it is,
therefore, unreasonable to suppose that any language
learner can acquire a deployable internal system by
consciously understanding and assimilating the rules in a
linguist’s grammar, not to mention those in a pedagogic
grammar which represent a simplification of the linguist’s
grammars and consequently can only be still further
removed from the internally developed system.
 These statements clearly echo an earlier argument by
Newmark that“the study of grammar as such is neither
necessary nor sufficient for learning to use a language
Language development is
comprehension based, not
production based.
 It makes sense empirically as well as intuitively to emphasize comprehension
over production at least in the initial stages of L2 development.
 Comprehension, according to several scholars has cognitive, affective, and
communicative advantages.
 Cognitively, they point out, it is better to concentrate on one skill at a time.
 Affectively, a major handicap for some learners is that speaking in public,
using their still-developing L2,embarrasses or frightens them; they should
therefore have to speak only when they feel ready to do so.
 Communicatively, listening is inherently interactive in that the listeners try to
work out a message from what they hear ; speaking can be, at least in the initial
stages, no more than parrot-like repetitions or manipulations of a cluster of
phonological features.
 Learning-centered pedagogists also believe that once comprehension is
achieved, the knowledge/ability to speak or write fluently will automatically
emerge.
Language development is cyclical
and parallel, not sequential and
additive.
 It rejects the notion of linearity and systematicity in the
language- and learner-centered pedagogies.
 The natural order hypothesis “does not state that every acquirer
will acquire grammatical structures in the exact same order”.
Learners may tend to develop certain structures early and certain
other structures late. In other words, learner performance
sequence need not be the same as language learning sequence,
and the learning sequence may not be the same as teaching
sequence.
 Therefore, any preplanned progression of instructional sequence
is bound to be counterproductive.
 According to their view an adult can effectively be taught by
grammatically unordered materials and that such an approach
is, indeed, the only learning process which we know for certain
will produce mastery of the language at a native level.
Theory of Language Teaching
 In accordance with their theory of L2 development,
learning-centered pedagogists assert that language is best
taught when it is being used to transmit messages, not
when it is explicitly taught for conscious learning.
 Accordingly, their pedagogic agenda centers around what
the teacher can do in order to keep the learners’ attention
on informational content rather than on the linguistic
form.
 Their theory of language teaching is predominantly
teacher-fronted, and there is best characterized in terms of
teacher activity in the classroom
Teacher activities in the classroom:
 1. The teacher follows meaning-focused activities.
 2. The teacher provides comprehensible input.
 3. The teacher integrates language skills.
 4. The teacher makes incidental correction.
The teacher follows meaning-
focused activities
 the learner’s attention is focused on communicative activities
and problem-solving tasks, and not on grammatical exercises.
 Instruction is seen as an instrument to promote the learner’s
ability to understand and say something.
 Interaction is seen as a meaning-focused activity directed by the
teacher.
 Language use is contingent upon task completion and the
meaning exchange required for such a purpose.
 Any attention to language forms as such is necessarily incidental
to communication.
 In the absence of any explicit focus on grammar, vocabulary
gains importance because with more vocabulary, there will be
more comprehension and with more comprehension, there will
be, hopefully, more language development.
The teacher provides
comprehensible input.
 Comprehensible input, according to Krashen, is i+ 1 where i
represents the learner’s current level of knowledge/ability and i+
1, the next higher level.
 Because it is the stated goal of instruction to provide
comprehensible input,and move the learner along a
developmental path, “all the teacher need to do is make sure the
students understand what is being said or what they are reading.
 The teacher has to exercise language control, which is done not
in any systematic way, but naturally, incidentally by regulating
the cognitive and communicative complexity of activities and
tasks.
 The teacher determines the topic, the task, and the challenge
level.
The teacher integrates language
skills.
 The principle of comprehension-before-production
assumes that, at least at the initial level of L2
development, the focus is mainly on listening and
reading. Therefore, learning-centered pedagogists do
not believe in teaching language skills. In fact, the
communicative activities and problem-solving tasks
create a condition where the learners have to draw, not
just from language skills, but from other forms of
language use,including gestures and mimes.
The teacher makes incidental
correction.
 The learning-centered pedagogy attempts to avoid overt
error correction. Any correction that takes place should be
incidental and not systematic.
 The error itself is corrected, but there is no generalization
to the type of error it represents);
 Only responsive (i.e., not leading to any preventive or
preemptive action);
 facilitative (i.e. regarded by learners as a part of getting
objective and not being more important than other aspects
of the activity
 transitory (i.e., drawing attention to itself only for a
moment—not for as long as systematic correction does).