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Adapting
ESL Methodology to the EFL Environment
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The vast majority of students
of English are not found in native-speaking countries such as England and the United
States but spread out in countries all over the globe. Nevertheless, the majority of
ESL/EFL methods and approaches are developed in native-speaker settings, especially in the
U.S., and much literature in the field is thus oriented toward teaching students in the
ESL environment.
However, as anyone who has taught both ESL and EFL knows, there are cultural and
logistical circumstances which make a strict application of current ESL trends
inappropriate, if not impossible, abroad. Developing a teaching approach that is both in
step with current American methodology, yet fits the culture and logistical circumstances
overseas, is the challenge facing most serious English schools around the world, and one
which the Instituto de Estudios Norteamericanos (IEN) in Barcelona, Spain, has
successfully met. In this article, I will summarize our approach as we communicate it both
to teachers and students in the hope that this approach will be a useful guideline for
other English schools around the world, and perhaps even for ESL programs.
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Like many private and government-affiliated
institutions around the world, the IEN teaches general English primarily to adults in
classes which meet three hours per week. The entire program, if completed at a normal
pace, takes five years, and students study English in addition to their primary activity
(generally work or university).
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Our students come from a cultural and
educational background quite distinct from that in the U.S. Education in Spain is much
more rigorous and traditional; there is a strong emphasis on information and memorization
and little on personal development. The teacher here is central to the classroom, and
students are little more than passive note takers. Failure in school is a common
occurrence, even at the elementary level. The system is elitist, especially in high
schools and universities, and while it leaves little room for the personal expression and
creative development so emphasized in American education, it does produce a highly
literate population with a good level of general knowledge. In this aspect, its values and
methods stand in stark contrast to the U.S. educational system, but are very similar to
the education in most other countries around the world where EFL is taught.
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Our students, like many EFL students, come to
study for two reasons: either to learn how to use English, especially for speaking and to
a lesser degree writing; or to obtain a certificate; or both, as is the case with the
majority. Those students that want to learn to speak need English in their work or for job
interviews. They also need English for their leisure time, to travel or meet tourists that
come to Spain, or to better understand American culture as it appears in movies, music, or
literature. At the same time, those that want a certificate-in Spain and many countries
around the world certificates are required for everything-need to know and be able to use
the structure and vocabulary of English.
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The IEN hires its teachers from the United
States, and the majority have Master's degrees in TEFL or applied linguistics from
American universities. Thus, our teachers come here equipped with the stereotypical
American dynamism and energy, while also bringing the latest in English teaching
methodology. My task as Academic Director of the IEN is to translate this into an approach
that blends the best of current ESL methodology and the educational system here, while
adapting to the constraints and circumstances of the EFL setting and the needs of our
students.
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Our approach establishes a reasonable standard
among teachers without depriving them of their creativity and uniqueness in the class.
Since what we do is usually unfamiliar to students, we also describe our methodology to
them, not only to explain what we do, but also to explain why we do it. Below is an
outline of the guidelines we give to teachers in their initial and in-service training,
and the message that we give to our students. The purpose of both the teacher training and
the learner training is to get both parties working together toward the mutually
compatible goals of helping our students learn English while helping our staff realize
their potential as teachers.
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To the teachers, we characterize our teaching
goals with the two key words: communication and rigor ; that is, we apply a
communicative approach within a rigorous framework. To achieve these aims, we stress the
interaction of three elements: pacing, content, and evaluation .
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Pacing relates to the rhythm of a class and the
degree to which class time is used well. Since students study only three hours per week,
we try to maximize the time by doing activities that can be done only in class; that is,
activities which require the presence of either the teacher or the classmates. This can
include grammar exercises that are not rote or that are done or checked with partners, or
grammar explanations when students are not clear on a point. However, class time is spent
mainly on activities in which the students use the language by speaking and listening, and
to a lesser degree writing and reading. Class time is also spent giving students feedback
on their performance.
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Pacing in the class not only involves knowing
what to spend class time on but also involves knowing what to leave for homework. Rote
grammar exercises, long readings, writing, and other individual activities that require
time and reflection more than the presence of a teacher or classmate are ideal candidates
for homework. The greatest measure of good pacing is that students leave each class
feeling that they have learned something concrete, either that they have practiced a lot
or that they have acquired more knowledge about the language, and that the time in class
has been well spent.
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The second element of a rigorous class is the
content. We divide the content into three parts: input, focus on structure, and output
. Input means that students are given rich and varied exposure to English; they are
literally bombarded with aural and written English at the appropriate level. This input is
provided both in class and in such homework assignments as reading/listening/vocabulary
journals, seeing movies in English, and reading authentic texts or graded readers. The
idea is to give students maximum exposure to the English language in forms as authentic as
possible given the level (See Krashen 1985).
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However, input alone will not lead to students'
learning how to use the language. In order to achieve accurate output, students must learn
how the structure of the language works. For many years, ESL/EFL theory in the U.S. argued
against the explicit teaching of structure, with the idea that through exposure, students
would eventually "get it," and that by getting it themselves they are more
likely to retain it. This has some validity-certainly eliciting structures from students
and learning through discovery have their advantages. But avoiding an explicit focus on
grammar is not only considered in recent literature as an inefficient way for students to
learn (See Pica 1994, Williams 1995), it is especially inappropriate in the EFL
environment. In the native environment, ESL students have lots of input and direct
response to their output-if they use incorrect structures or accents, native speakers
probably will not understand them and they will have to adjust their language accordingly.
This tends not to happen in the EFL environment since the other students, and frequently
the teacher too, understand the inter- language (in our case, Spanglish) perfectly well,
maybe even better than native English! ESL students also have much greater exposure to
correct English than EFL students do, making it more likely that they will, in fact,
"pick up" correct English. But for EFL students, teachers are possibly the only,
and certainly the main, source of native English. If students do not learn correct
structure from us, where will they learn it? Furthermore, because students overseas are
accustomed to the traditional style of education in which the teacher is the expert and
students are passive absorbers of knowledge, EFL students generally expect the teacher to
"teach" and explain things to them. Despite the previous trend in the United
States discouraging teachers from taking on the role of sole expert and authority, recent
literature is returning to this authoritative role as an important one, if not the only
one, for teachers (See Harmer 1991, Prodromou 1991).
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This is not to say that the only acceptable way
to teach is teacher-centered, structure-oriented classes. ESL methodology has come too far
to revert back to this, despite the cultural preferences and logistical problems inherent
in most EFL situations. There is definitely room for elicitation and other indirect ways
of teaching as long as students make good use of class time and as long as in the end they
all understand the structure. At the IEN, the basic schema we follow for teaching grammar
involves telling or eliciting a structure, making comprehension checks to make sure that
all students understand it, and reinforcing the structure with clear board work. Board
work helps students who learn visually or kinesthetically and ensures that students have
good notes for future reference. Logically, the question that teachers should be asking
themselves as they make lesson plans and spontaneous decisions in the classroom is: Am I
choosing the best way to convey this to students so that they learn it in the most
efficient way possible? After all, what we really want is to make the structural part of
class as streamlined as possible in order to spend more time on communication or real use
of the language.
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This leads to the third element in the content
of our classes: output. Students are given rich input in order to learn what good English
looks and sounds like. They are given the rules of the language so that they know how to
put the elements together correctly. And finally, they are given opportunities to practice
and express themselves in English in both written and spoken forms. Written practice is
done largely outside of class although there are certainly times when writing in class is
valuable. However, speaking practice occupies a large part of class time and is achieved
not only through a communicative approach in which students participate actively, but also
through specific speaking activities. And for both written and spoken output, error
correction takes place to ensure that students are learning and improving from their
practice, especially since they lack the real-life feedback that ESL students receive
outside the class.
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The last element of our classes is evaluation.
The easiest element of language to measure is grammar, which is why it is evaluated most
frequently. Certainly students' knowledge of grammar needs measuring, since in the end it
will determine their ability to understand and produce the language. However, grammar is
neither the only nor the most important element, because in reality it is only the
structure of language, not language itself in the functional sense of a system of
communication between people. In this sense, language is the four skills: reading,
writing, listening, and speaking , and these skills are also measured,
particularly the productive skills. Speaking is evaluated both by continuous assessment of
students' spontaneous performance in classroom interactions and activities, and in more
formal situations such as presentations and debates. Students frequently have the mistaken
idea that speaking is "fun" and grammar is "really" language. We try
to dispel that myth not only by explaining why we spend so much time on speaking
(see below), but also by making it a large part of the final grade. Writing is also
assessed, not so much to turn our students into master writers, but rather to use it as an
assessment tool which indicates more accurately than a typical fill-in-the-blank test a
student's understanding of how students can use English structure, vocabulary, and
expression.
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Evaluation involves not only what to
evaluate, but also how to evaluate it. This is essential in a society in which
grading tends to be tough, and a program's prestige is measured by its difficulty. We
encourage teachers to maintain high standards when evaluating students' work and progress.
Evaluation is based on students' language production, not on their attitudes in class. In
other words, we evaluate results and progress, not effort. We also communicate this
evaluation constantly to the students, giving them each a sense of their progress and
indicating where they need to improve.
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Thus, the IEN's approach is defined by the two
key elements of communication and rigor. We stress to teachers that we in no way view
these elements as separable; rather they occur simultaneously. The idea is to blend the
two: focusing on structure during communicative activities (e.g., error correction), and
making grammar activities communicative (e.g., doing exercises in pairs). This approach
not only fits our students' reasons for studying English, it also fits in with current
trends in ESL methodology which attempt to balance and take the best from the traditional
structural methods and more recent communicative methods. The approach is specific enough
to give teachers guidelines on planning and implementing their classes, but flexible
enough to allow them to design their classes based on their own and their students'
individual needs and interests. The approach is constantly evolving to meet our students'
changing needs and to keep pace with relevant changes in ESL methodology.
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So how do we communicate our approach to our
students? Like many in EFL situations, our students are used to a traditional, passive,
grammar-oriented way of learning languages. And, if they have studied in other private
academies in Barcelona, they have probably been promised miraculous results by studying
with a computer a few hours per week. Needless to say, they are confounded when they first
come to the IEN and spend so much class time on what they consider to be
"frivolous" activities (i.e., speaking), and so little time on "real"
activities (i.e., grammar). They also are suspicious when our teachers tell them that they
are responsible for their own learning. To explain to them how language learning works,
how we will proceed, and what we expect of them inside and outside the classroom, we
distribute a handout about their roles and responsibilities in learning English (See Figure 1 ).
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Teachers go over the handout with students at
the beginning of the term, spending class time reading and discussing it. In the higher
levels, some teachers even use the Spanish version of the form as a translation exercise
into English to test students' knowledge of vocabulary and native structure and
expressions. The results frequently reinforce the message to the students that they must
each make an effort outside the classroom if they want to reach their desired level.
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The text, which is periodically updated, follows
a simple question and answer format to simulate a conversation between a teacher and a
student.
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This handout accomplishes three tasks at once:
It explains our teaching approach, it explains the nature of language learning in lay
terms with everyday analogies, and it motivates students to study and practice outside of
class. Handing it out implicates teachers in the approach and helps them work through the
rationale with the students.
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I hope that the IEN's approach, as explained
both to teachers and students, can be of use to other EFL programs which face the same
circumstances particular to overseas environments that we face at the IEN. I also hope
that this approach is useful to ESL programs as a balanced mean between traditional and
communicative language teaching.
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Mary C.
Black has been the Academic Director at the Institute of North American Studies
(IEN) in Barcelona, Spain, since August 1996. |
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Return
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- Harmer, J. 1991. Taming the big `'I": Teacher performance and student satisfaction.
ELT Journal, 49, 4, pp. 337-45.
- Krashen, S. 1985. The input hypothesis. New York: Longman.
- Pica, T. 1994. Questions from the language classroom: Research perspectives. TESOL
Quarterly, 28, pp. 49-79.
- Prodromou, L. 1991. The good language teacher. English Teaching Forum, 29, 2, pp. 2-7.
- Williams, J. 1995. Focus on form in communicative language teaching: Research teaching
and the classroom teacher. TESOL Journal, 4, pp. 12-16.
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Figure 1
| Learning English is like: |
____history |
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____tennis |
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____geography |
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| A lot of people think that learning a language involves
simply acquiring knowledge like learning history or geography. But learning a language is
a lot more like learning tennis-it involves learning a skill, whereas learning history or
geography simply involves learning a set of facts or a body of knowledge. Facts and
knowledge are static, but skills like tennis or English are living and changing and need
constant practice. They are spontaneous activities between two or more people. And just as
in a tennis game you never know where the ball will land next, in English you can never
predict what another person will say. |
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can students learn to face any kind of situation in English? |
| In tennis, what leads to a good game is practice, and
this involves not only learning the rules of the game and doing repetitive drills, but
also spontaneous practice with real partners. It is the same with English. What leads to
mastery of the language is not only learning the "rules of the game"-grammar and
doing repetitive drills, but also spontaneous practice with real partners, your
classmates. |
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Why should I practice
with my classmates instead of the teacher?
They don't know any more than I do. |
| More practice leads to more progress in your abilities.
Just as someone learning tennis does not always have to play with a pro to improve, it is
more important for students to spend more time talking to their partners rather
than less time talking to the teacher. That is why we organize our classes to maximize the
amount of time each student speaks. While students speak with the classmates, the teacher
circulates from group to group to correct errors, provide vocabulary, evaluate your
progress and help with problems. This way students have the "best of both
worlds"-more speaking practice than in a traditional class where the only exchange is
teacher-to-student, with the benefit of the attention and expertise of the teacher. |
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| So if practice is so
important, is grammar necessary at all? |
| It certainly is. Grammar is the structure and rules of
the language. Correct grammar is necessary in order to be able to communicate effectively.
And the teacher will definitely spend class time explaining grammar and clearing up your
questions so that students can practice it correctly. But we think that doing repetitive
grammar drills in class is not maximizing your class time because it is something that
students could do at home, without your classmates or the teacher. Since we have only
three hours of class per week, we prefer focusing only on those activities which require
the presence of other students or the teacher. |
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| So should students
practice in class and do grammar exercises at home? |
| English is like learning tennis; it does not only
require taking lessons, it also requires hours and hours of practice. In addition to
in-class practice, to really improve and advance, students need to make an effort to use
English outside of class-not just doing grammar exercises, but also reading books and
magazines, writing letters and compositions, seeing movies, listening to music, and
speaking to other people. |
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