COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING

COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING

1. Community Language Learning (CLL) was fostered in the 1960s by Charles A. Curran who worked in the field of psychology at Loyola University, Chicago.

2. In principle he applied his psychotherapeutic studies for the correction of certain defects in speech and later applied these theories and experience in the field of group psychotherapy in the teaching of foreign languages.

3. According to Curran, the professor has a new function here, that of becoming a language counselor, linguistic counselor, so that the student can overcome the psychological barriers that may hinder true learning. We are therefore facing an approach that has a comprehensive vision of the student, that is, emotional factors are taken into account as an integral part of the teaching-learning process.

4. LEARNER ROLES

   • According to Curran, with this method it is expected that the learner becomes a member of the community of speakers and learns interactively with its members. He has the commitment to be involved in each phase of his learning not only in performing cognitive tasks, but also in resolving affective conflicts.

5. TEACHER'S ROLE

   • The teacher becomes a kind of linguistic advisor and is responsible for providing a safe environment for the student to direct their attention to the tasks of communication and learning. It is important to work with the emotional factors of the learner to mediate in their learning process and to reinforce motivation as a stimulating and reinforcing element of the skills that this will acquire.

6. ACTIVITIES

   • As with most methods, CLL combines innovative learning tasks and activities with conventional ones. They include:
     • 1. TRANSLATION. Learners form a small circle. A learner whispers a message or meaning he or she wants to express, the teacher translates it into (and may interpret it in) the target language, and the learner repeats the teacher’s translation.
     • 2. GROUP WORK. Learners may engage in various group tasks, such as small-group discussion of a topic, preparing a conversation, preparing a summary of a topic for presentation to another group, preparing a story that will be presented to the teacher and the rest of the class.
     • 3. RECORDING. Students record conversations in the target language.
     • 4. TRANSCRIPTION. Students transcribe utterances and conversations they have recorded for practice and analysis of linguistic forms.
     • 5. ANALYSIS. Students analyze and study transcriptions of target-language sentences in order to focus on particular lexical usage or on the application of particular grammar rules.
     • 6. REFLECTION AND OBSERVATION. Learners reflect and report on their experience of the class, as a class or in groups. This usually consists of expressions of feelings – sense of one another, reactions to silence, concern for something to say, and so on.
     • 7. LISTENING. Students listen to a monologue by the teacher involving elements they might have elicited or overheard in class interactions.
     • 8. FREE CONVERSATION. Students engage in free conversation with the teacher or with other learners. This might include discussion of what they learned as well as feelings they had about how they learned.

7. ADVANTAGES

   • • Works well with lower levels students who are struggling in spoken English.
   • • Lower students’ anxiety and overcome threatening affective filter.
   • • Train students to become independent.
   • • Counselor allow the learners to determine type of conversation.

8. DISADVANTAGES

   • • Some learners find it difficult to speak on tape.
   • • Teacher has to be highly proficient in the target language and in the language of students.
   • • It is time consuming to carry out.
   • • Translation is an intricate and difficult task. The success of this method relies largely on the counselor’s translation.