In my EFL experience using the communicative-based childlike immersion method, a share of the work went into compensating for this incline away from non-studial methods (previously mentioned) that additional studial support, for example, through more extensive coursebook material could hold. The notion that this 'comprehensible input' cannot also come from a coursebook seemed to me at first strange at the language institute — don’t children during the critical acquisition period study to some degree?
However, as I understood the institute better, commercially, perhaps a less studial course is more appealing, perhaps, to a greater number of learners, wider ‘net’ can be captured.
production in learners is comparatively delayed, but the eventual production is stated to be more natural.
However, given the method so largely hinges on principles and theories about the way we acquire information as children — this one-to-one input-output theory read here about the 'black box' theory — there is some disparity with the truth of things: learners are adults who have passed the critical acquisition period.
Methods may be based on general theory too much, or global context, where local context could be taken into account.
In Buenos Aires, for example, are sometimes trying living conditions resulting from disorganised government, high unemployment, suffering economy and infrastructure. Before going to an English lesson a learner may have already travelled several hours between home, work, and university, crowded in on public transport, may have dealt with difficult daily interruptions to the effect that in class they might be (late) distracted or tired perhaps. What was planned for the lesson and expected of the methodology could fall flat under the real-world test: the need for class engagement and interest was felt sometimes in a method whose conditions must be ‘immersive’.
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What actually goes on in the classroom
is the commonest concern for teachers (OUP Webinar, 2012)
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in another point, there is something about the way in which institutes ascribe learner levels according to international frameworks (such as the Common European Framework). This global scale we use has advantages in communicating a system and designing courses, etc., but it is not great in the individual context, or organisational or cultural context, where recognition of achievement is commensurate to such context.
We emphasise, cling to and overuse these broad progress markers. Marking out of needs and aims, tailored to the individual, with praise at milestones, can provide a good sense of achievement.
Nevertheless, a great attempt at imitating this 'immersion' was made at the institutes, imitating a trip to an English-speaking country.
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This quadrant is one way of looking at our preferred styles as learners. The method I worked with, based on Stephen Krashen's theory above, was one that preferred the experiential learner style over the studial; a method that tended towards that individual style.
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It was important to keep learners active about their course and a good chance to foster autonomy. That is, in booking lessons, completing preparatory work, or attending lessons.
Chasing up 'inactive', or lapsed, learners over the telephone was charged to a team of staff who were notified by an automated system when learners lapsed in progress. As mentioned, a certain amount of initiative was required of the learner to arrange their own lessons, since there were no fixed timetables (another attractive attribute): learners booking a level-checking lesson at a particular hour would be grouped with others wanting the same (of the same level). A minimum of two encounters were required of them per month in order to be checked and moved to the next unit.
The principle that helping learners be more autonomous by training them to better understand the why, what, and how of learning, their resources and even the self (see 'Guide to Understanding the Learner' below), produces more successful learners. Integrating this CELTA training into the stages of a lesson we might occasionally take a minute as to as why, what, or how to go about strategies for learning or why, what and how.
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From the CELTA trainee book. A studial and active learner, with, perhaps, a stronger logical/mathematical intelligence who wishes to improve vocabulary, may benefit from strategising a word list such as this.
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I gained a lot of experience developing strategies for the learners in class in order to compensate for, and close this disparity between learner expectations, what they wanted to do, and what really needed to be met with to progress in the course. Read here about some important lessons regarding developing these strategies from an Oxford University Press webinar on teaching theory. Many people in Buenos Aires are exposed to English through television and cinema, and I was able to recommend some while-watching (listening) tasks to learners to aid fluency outside class.
I suppose, the guarantee of this method may be that when it works it really does work, that learners find their footing in a more natural fluency, in a more natural way, minds uncluttered with the analytical and grammatical side of it.
A kind of openness, sociableness, and communication was nurtured at the institute; being experiential implies interacting with others. However, being active this way doesn’t mean you’ll benefit if you are studial over experiential.
At the institute I saw many a great class filled with talkative, engaged, interactive people, the envy of many teachers perhaps, as sometimes half of the work is in getting the class to speak.
I would certainly recommend working for Wall Street Institute to develop clarification skills, concept checking, tailoring learner feedback and developing learner autonomy.
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