Following on from the last entry, this one looks at what we can expect and what we can do with our different types, and also what they bring to the table, learning-wise and how (or to what degree) they interact with the language.
The Tourist
From a teaching perspective, the tourist is not the most promising of pupils. They are unlikely to engage with the language to any great depth, nor attain a very high level of fluency. They may use only a few set phrases - indeed, they may actually be happy to achieve only this. This type of learner is likely to be encountered in informal learning situations, e.g. a tourist in the real sense of the word, or, dare I say, an EFL teacher on their first overseas posting, but also in more formal class environments, especially in primary and secondary education, where the focus is on the language as a study subject.
The Tourist generally has little real motivation to learn a language - it has minimal 'value' as a medium of communication.
You might think that the Tourist brings nothing to and takes nothing from the language, but in fact this isn't the case. When you look at the number of loan words in English, for example, you have a demonstration of the Language Tourist in action.
In terms of engaging this kind of learner into a deeper understanding of the language, it's a difficult one. One way forward could be by making them notice the use of common vocabulary between the their L1 and the target L2. It may also be beneficial to point out the advantage being able to 'actively' use another language is. Ultimately, however, it really does boil down to the individual learner and their perceived need of the L2.
The Commuter
The Commuter type of language interactor is perhaps the one type of learner we are most likely to encounter in our classes - typically, they are motivated to learn the language, and will have a relatively low affective filter. They approach language, as it were, from a professional perspective - that is, they go into the language for specific purposes: getting an exam, entry to university, for work purposes etc. While this kind of learner is , from the teacher's perspective, ideal, the issue may be that they are technically very competent, but may not actually be that productive, except within their own range/width of knowledge. It is in this way that they resemble commuters: perfectly able to reach goals within the Language City, but a bit lost when outside their comfort zones.
In some ways, we need to encourage this kind of learner to be a little bit like a tourist - that is, get off the beaten track of their own interests and explore a bit - but also they should be encouraged to believe that they can achieve mastery of the language - that is, they are able to become a citizen or denizen.
The Citizen -
Now, you might think that you won't get many Citizen-type language interactors in your class, and this could well be true if you're overseas in a monolingual group. However, when you're teaching in a so-called Native English Speaking country, you are far more likely to encounter this kind of learner. I deal with Indian, Pakistani, Nepalese, Ghanaian, Kenyan, Tanzanian and Singaporean students, to name a few and they all speak a variety of English already. Well, that should be easy then, shouldn't it?
Wrong. In fact the Citizen can be one of the hardest to teach. After all, they already speak English - what we are doing is teaching a different variety, with different conventions. What we can end up doing, if we are not careful, is make them feel as if their own variety of English is inferior, which of course is a massively demotivating thing. The Citizen has, as it were, their own map of the Language City, and know their own district inside out; When they come into the classroom, we are effectively giving them a new map of a new district, strangely familiar to the one they know, but soon disorienting, and this in turn can lead to disillusionment. For this kind of learner, we need to use their native knowledge of the language to help facilitate learning in others, and also carefully target the kind of language knowledge, whether in systems or skills, that they need, without devaluing their own language variety.
The Denizen
If you have ever taught ESOL/ESL, you will more than likely taught The Denizen - someone who needs to be in the Language City because of personal circumstances, and is required to engage with the language whetehr they like it or not. This group of language interactors can be problematic, as the range of motivation can be enormous. Some Denizens are highly motivated, and in fact are closer to being Citizens; Others are lost, confused and angry, and resent the language entirely. Some Denizens are fluent and efficient communicators; some retreat in acculturation and reach a level of language knowledge that is sufficient (but only just) for them. Denizens, unlike Commuters, may lack learning skills and strategies, or not be able to analyse language in the same way.
However, Denizens are perhaps the great bringers of variety into language. They introduce new expressions and phrases, or retool language into new and interesting forms. Over time, they become citizens in their own right, creating a new district in the Language City, as it were. From the classroom perspective, the more realistic the situations used - that is, real-life issues that the learner is likley to encounter, such as using Council facilities, or applying for a job - the more likely that their motivation will be kept high. Encouraging the confidence to tackle seemingly insurmountable situations is the way to drive this kind of learner towards fluency and, crucially, belief that they 'belong' within the language.
Well, this one way to look at how language users can interact with a language. It has the advantage of being a very flexible, dynamic model, as it should be clear that people's interactions over time can change: tourists can become commuters; commuters, denizens or citizens; denizens can create their own 'district' (=variety) of the language over time, and become citizens in their own right, and citizens can become denizens in another variety of the language, and so on. Give it a try with your own classes - which of your students would you say are Tourists, Commuters, Denizens or Citizens?
Showing posts with label The Language City. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Language City. Show all posts
Wednesday, 15 May 2013
Monday, 18 February 2013
Four Types of Language Interactor
Well, half term is upon us, and the work load is shifting round to a vaguely lighter pattern, so I thought it was high time I endeavoured to produce a post. In fact, I'm going back to a previous entry, as I want to expand on how we deal with different types of language user.
Working in FE as I do, I come across a veritable smorgasbord of language learners of different nationalities, backgrounds and ages, and this of course presents very different challenges from those in a monolingual classroom. I have one group that can best be charitably described as :Ladies What Lunch, or more accurately Ladies Who Use The Classroom To Catch Up On The Latest Gossip. While they are all very polite and lovely, they have about as much chance of becoming fluent in English as a fish has of developing opposable thumbs.
There are also students who are, in fact, fluent English users - it's just that they use a different variety of English, such as Hinglish, and much of what they produce either seems very weird to a British English user, or actually prevents them from effectively communicating with others.
I have also taught Academic English, FCE, CAE, so in these groups I tend to get learners with a very determined perspective, knowing precisely the things they want to learn. This is the kind of learner that actually bays for MORE grammar.
Then there is a big fat group of people who need to learn English just to get on - these are a big slice of my ESOL learners, people who for whatever reason have come to live and work in the UK and need English in order to live.
The problem is, what to do with all these different learners when they're all bunged in together in the same class?
A couple of years ago, I gave a presentation at the English UK Teachers' Conference on the subject of Global Englishes, and I came up with the analogy of a language being like a city in the way that people interact with it. A couple of years down the line, I feel my analogy still holds water, so I'd like to (re-)introduce four kinds of Language Interactor, where we usually encounter them, and how to deal with them.
1 The Tourist
The tourist is the kind of learner who is 'just visiting' a language, just as a tourist passes through a place. Tourists look around, take photos, maybe scribble a postcard home - but then leave. Their interaction with the place is relatively minimal, especially if they're the kind of tourist who follows the environmentalist's maxim of 'take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints'. Alternatively, the Tourist wanders round in a kind of terrified daze, petrified of everything they see in this strange new place, clinging on desperately to anything that remids them of home, and deeply glad to get the Hell out when they can.
This kind of learner is really not going to do much with the language. He or she will only work in class, and then not particularly well, and hardly does anything with it when they are outside. In other words, they just come in and out of the language, with little attempt to understand it. Looking back at my career as a neophyte language learner, doing French at school, I can safely say that I was a Language Tourist.
2 The Commuter
The Commuter comes into the city, moving with purpose and speed towards their destination. They work diligently for a given chunk of time, then, at the appointed hour, they move with equal speed and purpose back where they came from. Their movements have a specific goal - namely, do the work necessary and get out of the city again. The Commuter may know everything he or she needs to know between points A and B, but may not have considered that points C,D, or E even exist.
This kind of learner has a very fixed point of view. They may well have exact knowledge of the language, but it is not broad knowledge - for example, they might be able to tell you in excruciating detail all the uses of perfect tenses, but they don't really know enough to use it outside the class or in a natural context. This learner will know enough to pass exams, and function well in English, but for them the language is a means to an end. They are more likely to view language as a subject of study, rather than as a skill.
What Tourists and Commuters have in common is that they are approaching the language from the outside - that is, they don't, as it were, habitually live in the language. This may be literally true: If you have a monolingual group in a Non-English Speaking country, then learners are far more likely to regard language as a study subject rather than a skill - that is, they are travelling into and out of the language. The difference between them is that Tourists tend to have low motivation while Commuters tend to be more highly motivated, although possibly only about specific learning points.
3 The Citizen
The Citizen, is, surprise, surprise, someone who lives in the city. They know the place well, feel at ease in it, and can find their way around with little difficulty. Typically, though, they may take the place for granted: They might live near to a place of historical interest, but never actually visit it at all, simply because it is just there. Likewise, they know their own part of the city intimately well, but there may be quarters and outliers that they are unfamiliar with.
This type of learner is, of course, a Native Language Speaker - but which variety? Just as a city can have different districts with distinctive characters, so can language. In terms of teaching English, this kind of learner can be especially challenging - after all, they speak the language already, so what in fact are we teaching them? It's more akin to instructing someone in the layout of a different part of the city they already inhabit.
4 The Denizen
The term 'Denizen' can mean, simply, 'inhabitant', but it can also mean 'a foreigner who has been granted rights of residence - and sometimes citizenship', and it is in this context that I use the term. The denizen, in our model of a Language City, is someone who has to live within the city, even though it is not necessarily a place entirely familiar to them. Some denizens may know it quite well, and like the place: for others, it is a disquieting, alien, even terrifying place to be. Some are there to work, some there because of family, some for reasons they don't really understand - but the key feature is that they have to live within this city, and they encompass a variety of attitudes towards it, from enthusiastic participants to sullen, angry follwers.
This type of learner is what we might imagine the typical ESOL student to be - someone who has settled in the UK (or another NES country) and who needs to learn English in order to get on, get citizenship etc. We also see that this type of learner's attitude towards and motivation for learning English can vary widely. However, we can also find the Denizen in countries where English, for whatever reason, is a requirement of some kind - it may be, for example, that it is an offical second language, or the medium for judicial/official procedure. We can expect the learner's attitudes in these kind of situations to vary from acceptance to extreme resentment.
The key similarity between the Citizen and the Denizen is that they experience language from within - they are either born into it or have to live within it. However, we can also say that some Citizens are at times like denizens, or even tourists, when they 'visit' other areas of the language. Likewise, some Denizens are on their way to becoming Citizens, or are Citizen-like, as are some Commuters.
This whole model is meant to be dynamic and show that things can and do change within the ways people interact with a language. I hope to show that Kachru's model of language, where you have a kind of 'superior' version of the language in the middle and weaker ones outside of that, is not the only way to look at language learning and acquisition.
In my next post, I'll look at the motivations of each group as language learners (even citizens!), and the problems each pose teachers in the classroom.
Working in FE as I do, I come across a veritable smorgasbord of language learners of different nationalities, backgrounds and ages, and this of course presents very different challenges from those in a monolingual classroom. I have one group that can best be charitably described as :Ladies What Lunch, or more accurately Ladies Who Use The Classroom To Catch Up On The Latest Gossip. While they are all very polite and lovely, they have about as much chance of becoming fluent in English as a fish has of developing opposable thumbs.
There are also students who are, in fact, fluent English users - it's just that they use a different variety of English, such as Hinglish, and much of what they produce either seems very weird to a British English user, or actually prevents them from effectively communicating with others.
I have also taught Academic English, FCE, CAE, so in these groups I tend to get learners with a very determined perspective, knowing precisely the things they want to learn. This is the kind of learner that actually bays for MORE grammar.
Then there is a big fat group of people who need to learn English just to get on - these are a big slice of my ESOL learners, people who for whatever reason have come to live and work in the UK and need English in order to live.
The problem is, what to do with all these different learners when they're all bunged in together in the same class?
A couple of years ago, I gave a presentation at the English UK Teachers' Conference on the subject of Global Englishes, and I came up with the analogy of a language being like a city in the way that people interact with it. A couple of years down the line, I feel my analogy still holds water, so I'd like to (re-)introduce four kinds of Language Interactor, where we usually encounter them, and how to deal with them.
1 The Tourist
The tourist is the kind of learner who is 'just visiting' a language, just as a tourist passes through a place. Tourists look around, take photos, maybe scribble a postcard home - but then leave. Their interaction with the place is relatively minimal, especially if they're the kind of tourist who follows the environmentalist's maxim of 'take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints'. Alternatively, the Tourist wanders round in a kind of terrified daze, petrified of everything they see in this strange new place, clinging on desperately to anything that remids them of home, and deeply glad to get the Hell out when they can.
This kind of learner is really not going to do much with the language. He or she will only work in class, and then not particularly well, and hardly does anything with it when they are outside. In other words, they just come in and out of the language, with little attempt to understand it. Looking back at my career as a neophyte language learner, doing French at school, I can safely say that I was a Language Tourist.
2 The Commuter
The Commuter comes into the city, moving with purpose and speed towards their destination. They work diligently for a given chunk of time, then, at the appointed hour, they move with equal speed and purpose back where they came from. Their movements have a specific goal - namely, do the work necessary and get out of the city again. The Commuter may know everything he or she needs to know between points A and B, but may not have considered that points C,D, or E even exist.
This kind of learner has a very fixed point of view. They may well have exact knowledge of the language, but it is not broad knowledge - for example, they might be able to tell you in excruciating detail all the uses of perfect tenses, but they don't really know enough to use it outside the class or in a natural context. This learner will know enough to pass exams, and function well in English, but for them the language is a means to an end. They are more likely to view language as a subject of study, rather than as a skill.
What Tourists and Commuters have in common is that they are approaching the language from the outside - that is, they don't, as it were, habitually live in the language. This may be literally true: If you have a monolingual group in a Non-English Speaking country, then learners are far more likely to regard language as a study subject rather than a skill - that is, they are travelling into and out of the language. The difference between them is that Tourists tend to have low motivation while Commuters tend to be more highly motivated, although possibly only about specific learning points.
3 The Citizen
The Citizen, is, surprise, surprise, someone who lives in the city. They know the place well, feel at ease in it, and can find their way around with little difficulty. Typically, though, they may take the place for granted: They might live near to a place of historical interest, but never actually visit it at all, simply because it is just there. Likewise, they know their own part of the city intimately well, but there may be quarters and outliers that they are unfamiliar with.
This type of learner is, of course, a Native Language Speaker - but which variety? Just as a city can have different districts with distinctive characters, so can language. In terms of teaching English, this kind of learner can be especially challenging - after all, they speak the language already, so what in fact are we teaching them? It's more akin to instructing someone in the layout of a different part of the city they already inhabit.
4 The Denizen
The term 'Denizen' can mean, simply, 'inhabitant', but it can also mean 'a foreigner who has been granted rights of residence - and sometimes citizenship', and it is in this context that I use the term. The denizen, in our model of a Language City, is someone who has to live within the city, even though it is not necessarily a place entirely familiar to them. Some denizens may know it quite well, and like the place: for others, it is a disquieting, alien, even terrifying place to be. Some are there to work, some there because of family, some for reasons they don't really understand - but the key feature is that they have to live within this city, and they encompass a variety of attitudes towards it, from enthusiastic participants to sullen, angry follwers.
This type of learner is what we might imagine the typical ESOL student to be - someone who has settled in the UK (or another NES country) and who needs to learn English in order to get on, get citizenship etc. We also see that this type of learner's attitude towards and motivation for learning English can vary widely. However, we can also find the Denizen in countries where English, for whatever reason, is a requirement of some kind - it may be, for example, that it is an offical second language, or the medium for judicial/official procedure. We can expect the learner's attitudes in these kind of situations to vary from acceptance to extreme resentment.
The key similarity between the Citizen and the Denizen is that they experience language from within - they are either born into it or have to live within it. However, we can also say that some Citizens are at times like denizens, or even tourists, when they 'visit' other areas of the language. Likewise, some Denizens are on their way to becoming Citizens, or are Citizen-like, as are some Commuters.
This whole model is meant to be dynamic and show that things can and do change within the ways people interact with a language. I hope to show that Kachru's model of language, where you have a kind of 'superior' version of the language in the middle and weaker ones outside of that, is not the only way to look at language learning and acquisition.
In my next post, I'll look at the motivations of each group as language learners (even citizens!), and the problems each pose teachers in the classroom.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)