Recently, I attended a fabulous conference with Jim Scrivener and in one of his talks he referred to a comment Michael Swan had made about language teaching: our job as language teachers is to teach language. Full stop.
This comment stayed on my mind and made me think about my own language learning experiences. Was this what my language teachers adhered to many moons ago or did we get taught more during our lessons? Well, we certainly learned about culture, but one could argue that teaching a language automatically implies learning about a host culture. However, did they teach me for example how to learn or work together with others? Based on my own experiences, I’d have to say that I did not experience it as such. My language teachers might well have 'taught' this but in that case their teaching was definitely not my learning! Maybe certain things were implicit, through comments made and attitudes embodied in teacher personas, but then again that must have escaped my attention. Any teaching in their lessons beyond language went completely unnoticed to me during my high school years. Maybe due to my level of maturity, or possible lack of it, but in my eyes my language teachers were indeed teaching language. Full stop.
Interestingly, reflecting on my own teaching I think -or at least I feel- I make an effort to teach more than language and its accompanying culture. One could indeed argue if that's really part of our role and if it's justifiable to teach more than language in a language class. And you might wonder in the first place, why would you teach other things if you are hired to be a language teacher?
First of all, let me share with you why I personally feel that teaching language goes beyond language teaching. Vygotsky (1978) describes learning as involving psychological and social processes. Learning is first a social process, where concepts are developed through talk with others and we language teachers seem very much aware of this, we commonly use pair and group work to enable co-construction of knowledge. After this stage of social learning, however, learning becomes more of a psychological, individual process; new knowledge needs to become internalised. This stage highlights the importance of individual mental processes that are involved in the learning process. As many language teachers follow a learner-centred approach, I feel we should have some understanding at least of how learning works within the individual. Below I’ve listed some factors that affect individual learning and that I believe we language teachers need to address in classroom in order to enable more effective language learning:
I'm sure you agree that teaching a concept does not automatically mean that our students learn that concept. We teach with the best intentions but if the conditions for learning are non-existent then it can be a battle to progress. Interestingly, the brain is not designed for thinking (Willingham, 2009), even though we people actually like thinking. In order to enable thinking and thus learning, the conditions have to be right. It is necessary for teachers to create a classroom culture that promotes thinking and learning , thus teachers need to know about establishing an effective learning environment.
It's not only the environment that needs to provide the conditions for learning. Within the environment teachers should facilitate practices that enhance students' learning. To enable effective practices teachers need to have pedagogical knowledge (Fraser, 2012); knowledge about how to deliver content in an effective way. This of course is all dependent on your learners, so one could argue that learner knowledge is possibly even more pertinent; knowledge about learning preferences, motivation and your learners’ perceived strengths and weaknesses is key.
As I believe the main aim of a language teacher is to enable learners to use language effectively outside the classroom, it seems key that learners leave class with a feeling that they can achieve tasks and, step-by-step, their goals in the real-world. For this to happen we need an understanding of how to make learning happen. It is all good and well to send learners off with a vocabulary list and the message of 'remember these words' but we need to teach them how to commit items to memory. Teachers need knowledge about 'the learning machine' -our brain- (Carey, 2014) and tools that can help to accelerate learning.
For learning to take place we also need to create acceptance in our learners of non-learning or so-called mistakes, so learners come to see 'failure' as an invaluable opportunity for progress. Dweck (2006) distinguishes between a 'fixed' and a 'growth' mindset and highlights that learners with a growth mindset regard mistakes as a positive; these indicate action points for future learning. Aiming at enhancing students' performance in the classroom, it is invaluable for teachers to have an awareness of these different mindsets in order to encourage a growth mindset approach in learners and welcome mistakes in the classroom.
Now, as we all know great progress doesn't happen by itself, it comes down to putting in effort. Ericsson (1990) talks about 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert. I don't think any researcher has quantified the amount of hours needed for language learners to become experts, but it certainly requires a lot of effort and hard work for most! Duckworth (2016, p.50) says that grit 'consistent effort over the long run' is key. I think it's important for teachers to know about grit and to create a culture that encourages learners to hold on to their goals and not let go', to raise awareness that language learning needs them to invest their best efforts day after day in challenging practice without giving up. We need to know how to foster an attitude of grit.
Even though there are many other psychological factors that go on inside learners and impact individual learning, self-efficacy is the last one I’ll point out here. Self-efficacy is the belief in one's own ability and affects learners' attitude towards learning, in particular when faced with challenges. High self-efficacy strongly correlates with enhanced levels of performance (Fraser, 2012). As teachers we need to be aware that our expectations of learners' ability reflect in whatever we say and do; our words and actions directly impact students’ motivation and self-efficacy. Having high expectations of all our learners can encourage them to try and believe they can do it, which helps to develop self-belief. Just remember, you might well be the only one who believes in your learner as not everyone is lucky enough to believe in themselves or has others believing in them!
As you can see there are many factors impacting language learning and there is one sentence that sums up my beliefs about effective teaching perfectly: 'Success depends less on materials, techniques and linguistic analysis and more on what goes on inside and between people in the classroom' (Stevick, 1980, p.44). Now, you might agree and think 'this is what I'm already doing' and feel that the above is part of language teaching. But I also understand that some teachers might feel these issues are not part of our job because after all.. we are not trained-psychologist! However, I believe that language learning can be greatly enhanced if we teachers deliberate pay attention to these factors. Don't get me wrong, teaching and learning is a very complex process which involves many different factors we might not even know about yet but I do feel that language learning could be greatly enriched if we take more notice of the impact the above factors can have on performance. It doesn't mean you need to study psychology, it could simply be incorporated through little tweaks in your language or through being more explicit about your belief in their abilities.
Now, you might wonder why I'm so interested in enabling learners and educational psychology. Well, maybe it is due to the fact that I myself was unaware of the impact of these factors on my own learning until much later in life. Once I discovered mindsets, self-efficacy, grit and above all how my brain learns most effectively I realised I could have immensely benefitted from this earlier on in my learning life if my teachers had paid attention to these factors. To be honest, I'd have probably developed into a more confident learner and individual.
So yes, teaching language is our job and language teaching is of utmost importance in the language classroom but that shouldn't stop us from enabling learners as much as possible through enriching other developmental factors during the learning process. Remember, it is where their learning takes them that counts and through paying attention to some of the above mentioned factors we could maybe enable them to achieve even more than they ever though was possible!
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