Phase 1 - Introduction to TESOL

Language teaching as a profession involves challenges, growth, joy and fulfillment to teachers who enjoy their job. The joy of teaching language lies in the pleasure of seeing students grow in linguistic proficiency, and in successfully meeting their communication needs and interests. Some familiar terms that are in play in the world of language teaching includes “ESL” (English as a Second Language) and “ESOL” (English for Speakers of Other Languages) - most commonly used in relation to teaching and learning English. “TESL” (Teaching English as a Second Language), “TEFL” (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and “TESOL” (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) are also used in the same context of teaching-learning. TESOL is an acronym that stands for Teaching English to speakers of other languages. Within the purview of TESOL comes the teaching of English as a second language as well as a foreign language. ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) the integral component of TESOL, is extensively used worldwide, especially in the United States. The terms ESL (English as a second language) and EFL (English as a foreign language) play significant roles in teaching and learning of English language worldwide. Despite sharing the same origin, EFL and ESL differ on the basis of context. This variance in context requires different materials, syllabi and pedagogy.

EFL is used in contexts where English is neither widely used for communication, nor used as the medium of instruction. Brazil, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Mexico are countries where English is taught as a foreign language, either as part of the elementary and high-school curriculum, or in private schools and other educational settings. In most EFL settings there is limited exposure to the language outside of the classroom, and often limited opportunity to use it. The syllabus therefore needs to be carefully structured with extensive recycling of key target-language items. In addition the burden for providing the cultural dimension to the curriculum very much rests with the teacher. Teaching is also complicated by the fact that teachers are usually non-native speakers of English who may lack opportunities to use the language, or lack confidence in using it. In such situations it is important for the materials to provide the sort of rich and diverse linguistic input that ESL learners encounter in the world beyond the classroom.

With globalization and the rapid expansion of information technologies, there has been an explosion in the demand for English worldwide. This has led to greater diversification in the contexts and situations in which it is learned and used, as well as in the nature of the language itself. English no longer belongs to the United Kingdom, or to the United States. It is an increasingly diverse and diversified resource for global communication.

There are many teaching aspects to look at before the actual teaching that will make you well prepared, such as, a solid awareness of language. There are also ideas and methods to learn that will help make you a good teacher. A comprehensive teacher training course driven with a well defined approach has the potential to lead a teacher to this joy of teaching. A proper program, such as TESOL, will equip you with the skills, knowledge and methods to produce your own successful classes.

In order to develop into a successful TESOL professional you will want to develop your own teaching style. You may feel that the real training starts inside the classroom and in front of your students. But this TESOL program endeavors to help you emerge ready, prepared and confident before making your way into the classroom. This TESOL program takes a principled approach towards language teaching. But no amount of theory can prepare you for what you are going to face when you are standing in front of your students. Therefore, in a TESOL program, you are asked to do tasks based on the things that work most of the time (with most classes and most teachers). Moves here are based upon principles of language learning and teaching found in most “communicative language learning” classrooms.

Our endeavor on the TESOL course is to make you go through that experience before you take up a teaching assignment; to help you to be ready, prepared and confident before you step into the classroom.

This course involves behaviors and choreographies that can be employed in classrooms to facilitate learning. Learned behavior for effective teaching when linked with your planned lesson frameworks, will form the choreographies to facilitate your students? learning. To be precise, this TESOL program blends proven techniques with the ability to provide interplay between the students, teacher and texts that constitute real teaching and learning situations. The goal of our program is to get you into the classroom with these “moves”. Then the rest is up to you to use them at your disposal to build a successful personal teaching style that will bring you a memorable lifelong learning experience, and joy in your new chosen profession.

What about methodology, techniques and approaches to language learning? It is evident that talking about language and grammar rules is not a sufficient or even necessary condition for learning language. Equally, talking about language teaching

ideas and methods seems an unlikely condition for learning to teach. Put another way, good teachers know what to do. It is not necessarily true that they know why they do certain things, or what makes them effective. TESOL will present “what to do” based upon things that work most of the time with most classes for most teachers. These “moves” are based upon principles of language learning and teaching that are found in “communicative language learning” classrooms.

The Online TESOL Certificate Program will present the behaviors and choreographies that can be employed in a classroom to facilitate learning. It provides the behaviors for effective teaching, and when linked together in lesson frameworks, forms the choreographies to facilitate learning. The comparison to dancing is more than an accurate metaphor. Like dancing, teaching requires that you learn some body movements and choreographies that are not natural for most. Learning these behaviors and choreographies requires the same neural-motor skills as dancing. The only thing missing is the “music” and that is provided by the interplay between students, teacher and text that constitutes the real teaching learning situation. While anyone can learn to perform the steps, dancing to the music may take some time and experience in classrooms with real students. The goal of TESOL is to get you into the classroom with the “moves” you need to work with. The rest is up to you and a lifelong learning experience called teaching.

Language Acquisition

Second Language Acquisition

Language acquisition is one of the most impressive and fascinating aspects of human development. Language learning is an amazing feat that has attracted attention of linguist and psychologists for generations. Both first and second language acquisition share important similarities that explain the development of the target language in a learners psyche. Several theories have also been used in explaining how language is learned.

The ‘Monitor Model’ proposed by Stephen Krashen constitute of five hypotheses’ based on the Innatist theory of second language acquisition.

Krashen claims that if the input contains forms and structures above the learner´s existing level of language competence, it is bound to initiate comprehension and acquisition. Undirected pleasure reading can be such a source of comprehensible input that underlines the theory of the input hypothesis.
• The affective filter hypothesis has features that are linked to classroom

practice and is able to diagnose the reason behind the discrepancy in the level of learning among various students under the same learning condition. The term `affect´ in `affective filter´ refers to motivates, needs, attitudes and emotional states that has potential to filter out input, creating a virtual barrier that prevents learning and acquisition. The filter operates at the disposal of the learner´s state of mind, limiting or encouraging acquisition.

The more recent psychological theories include the model of information processing where acquisition is viewed as the construction of a knowledge system that is accessed automatically for speaking and understanding. This principle of Automaticity involves a timely movement of the control of a few language forms into automatic processing of a relatively unlimited number of language forms. Over analyzing language, thinking too much about its forms and consciously lingering on rules of language all tend to impede this graduation to automaticity.

In addition to the development of automaticity through practice, skill and knowledge also undergo change due to ‘restructuring’. Away form the concept of gradual build-up, skills and knowledge seems to be based on the interaction of existing knowledge or the acquired new knowledge that fits into an existing system and causes it to be transformed or restructured. This set of action can have both positive and negative impact on the learner.
Connectionism is a cognitive approach that attributes greater importance to the role of the environment as compared to the existence of innate knowledge in the learner. The knowledge bank here is developed with the help of exposure to linguistic features through innumerable instances. The Connectionists consider external inputs as the principal source of linguistic knowledge.

Theories have also been based on acquisition that takes place through conversational interaction. Interactions between learners and native speakers produce acquirable inputs that are comprehensive in nature. The interactionist position as discussed by Evelyn Hatch, Teresa Pica, and Michael Long states that the learners need opportunity to interact with other speakers in a way that is conducive to adaptation until the learner shows signs of understanding. Yet another perspective on this role of interaction is the socio-cultural theory of human mental processing. Social interactions between individuals are at the centre stage here. Further collaboration and interaction with more knowledgeable speakers elevates the learners to an advanced level of knowledge.

Acquisition Vs Learning

The distinction between “language learning” and “ language acquisition” has been brought to us by researchers in linguistics, psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology – notably by Steve Krashen, Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker and others – and through studies of both first and second language learning. More significantly, the majority of people who learn another language do so without teachers, books or classroom study. They do it by being exposed to comprehensible input that is for some reason important to their lives – trading, traveling, studying or working. They do it not by thinking about learning language, but by using new sounds and systems to communicate something of importance to them. We might do well to look at this phenomenon since these “non-students” are relatively more successful in their task than the majority of formal language students. The critical difference is the focus on the “message” rather than the form of the language used to transmit the message. To summarize: as illustrated by Dave Hopkins in his book ‘Smooth Moves’:

Another way of looking at this distinction may be the following. Native speakers have a built in “feel” for what is right or wrong in language.

I love to swim.
I enjoy to swim. *

While the second sentence is a logical extension of the first, native English speakers know it isn’t right.
In order to bring language teaching closer to the ‘natural acquisition’ of language characterized by first language learning (L1) certain areas and consideration need to be strongly emphasized. This also helps in reducing the type of ‘learning’ practiced in many second-language classrooms. The areas are –

EFL Teaching – Methodologies and Approaches

Learners of English who have the opportunity to live in an English speaking environment while studying have a huge advantage. They are surrounded by the language continuously and are able to put acquired language into practice in everyday, realistic situations. However, the majority of English learners are living in their native countries, where English is not the first language and as a result do not have these benefits. Many of these students may have the opportunity to use English at work, with their friends or in some other practical way where they are able to use their English on a fairly regular basis. Many other learners of English are not so fortunate and their only contact with the language may be twice a week at a language institute. Even if they have daily exposure to English they get to use it only in English classes at school or at a private language institute. As a result these students do not get sufficient exposure to the language or the opportunity to put into practice what they have acquired in class.

As children we all learnt our native language without the aid of language teachers and course books. We simply absorbed the language around us, processed it and through trial and error formulated internal ideas and rules to allow us to be able to use the language fluently and accurately. This ‘natural language acquisition’ is impossible to replicate in the classroom but many of the most popular methodologies in EFL teaching today try to imitate it as far as practical.

The concept of methodology evolved with the search for an ideal single method that would successfully teach a foreign language in the classroom. This search found new ideologies in a row that replaced the previous one and eventually gave way to the next. In the process, language teaching was deduced to be composed of three hierarchical components – Approach, Method and Technique.

Approach deals with assumptions, beliefs and theories that underline the nature of language, learning and teaching. It is fed by theories about the applicability of language and its nature of learning in pedagogical settings.

Method or design systematically presents the language, following a selected approach. We can also designate it as an umbrella term that marks the specification and interrelation of theory and practice. A strict definition goes as pedagogical practices that include theory and research as the basis, trying to formulate ‘how to teach’.

Techniques are classroom activities and practices specific to any method and also in accordance with the basic approach. Techniques generally involve a wide variety of exercises, activities, tasks; everything that turn theory into practice.

To describe it in a single line we can state that ‘teaching methods are approaches in action’ or ‘practical application of theoretical findings and positions’. History of language teaching has seen new methods emerging every quarter of a century.

The individual methods are based on a set of beliefs about the nature of language and learning. For as long as people have been learning and teaching language, there has been continual, and often heated, debate as to which method and technique produce the best results. The shifting focus over the years have been distinguished under the major methodological findings –

Grammar – translation

This was probably the main stay of language teaching and learning for hundred of years, and indeed is still practiced in many situations. Many of us will have been exposed to this system of learning in the state school sector.

The basic principle of this system is, as its name suggests, learning about a language through finding equivalent in the students’ own language and the foreign language being learned. In is in effect, a system of translation.

The major characteristics of Grammar Translation method can be charted as:

The major drawback with grammar – translation is that it seems to prevent the students from getting the kind of natural language input that will really help them acquire the language. The danger therefore, is that students will learn about the language rather than learning the language itself. This methodology also requires the teachers to be proficient in the students’ native language.

Audio – lingualism

This is the name given to a language teaching/learning methodology based upon behaviorist theories of learning. This theory basically suggests that much learning is as a result of habit formation through conditioning. Audio- lingualism concentrates therefore, to a large degree, on long repetition-drills, in which the students would be conditioned into using the language correctly.

Audio – lingualism largely went out of fashion because most linguists believe that language learning consisted of more than merely forming habits and that speakers of a language are able to process language more effectively from the knowledge they have acquired . However, it is useful to the extent that the language drills are still popular (though in a much more limited way) especially for the low level students.

The characteristics of ALM may be summed up in the following list:

Presentation, Practice and Production

In this method teacher first presents the context and situation for the language, as well as explaining and demonstrating the meaning and form of the new language. The students then practice making sentences with the language in a controlled way (including drilling) before going on to the production stage where they are able to be more creative with the language.

PPP has proved to be extremely effective in teaching simple language at lower levels. It is less effective with higher level students who already know a lot of language, and therefore do not need such a marked production stage.

Many teacher training centers (and teachers) still use PPP today. The system does, however, lack in flexibility and it is easy for the lessons to become too ‘teacher-cantered’.

Task – Based Learning

In this method the focus is more on a task than the language. Students are given a task to complete (while using the English language). When they have completed the task, the teacher can, if necessary – and only if necessary- provides some language study to help clear up some of the problems they had while doing the task.
The language lessons are based on learning experiences that have nonlinguistic outcomes, and in which there is a clear connection between the things learners do in class and the things they will ultimately need to do outside of the classroom.

Communicative Language Teaching

The communicative approach stresses the importance of language functions (such as agreeing, inviting, suggesting, etc.) as opposed to reliance only on grammar and vocabulary. This approach also suggests that if students have enough exposure to the language and the opportunity to use it then language learning would in effect, take care of itself. Activities in CLT typically require students to use the language in real life situations, so role-play and simulation have become popular with this method. CLT places far more emphasis on completion of the task than the accuracy of the language.

Community Language Learning

In CLL students will typically sit in a circle and it is up to them to decide what they want to talk about. The teacher (standing outside the circle) will help, as and when necessary, with language problems that arise during the course of the discussion. This methodology has helped teachers focus on the need to make the lessons as ‘student- centered’ as possible by allowing the students to choose the topic and language.

The important characteristics are:

The Silent Way

The most notable feature of the silent way is the behavior of the teacher- who says as little as possible. This is because it is believe that if the students had to ‘discover’ the language for themselves ,learning will be better facilitated rather than just remembering and repeating what had been taught . Many teachers have found this method to be a little unnatural in application. The theory of silent way can be summarized as:

• Discovery and creation of language induces learning more than memorizing and repetition of the subject
• Mediating physical objects facilitate learning
• Solving problems that belong to the context of the subject facilitates learning

Suggestopaedia

This method was developed largely on the need for the students to be comfortable, confident and relaxed in order for learning to be more effective. Another feature is that the teacher and students exist in a parent-children relationship; students are given new names and traumatic themes are avoided. A suggestopaedia lesson has three main parts firstly there is an oral review of the previous lesson. This is followed by the presentation and discussion of the new language. Finally, students listen to relaxing music while the teacher reads the new dialogue.

The Lexical Approach
This approach argues that words and phrases are far better building blocks for language acquisition than grammatical structure.

The Natural Approach
Stephen Krashen’s theories of second language acquisition have been widely discussed and debated. Both Krashen and his colleague Tracy Terrell felt that learners would benefit from delaying out put of language until the learner starts to speak. “Learners should be relaxed in the classroom and that a great deal of communication and acquisition should take place, as opposed to analysis”, H. Douglas Brown, Teaching by Principles. In fact this approach recommends the TPR activities at the starter level when “comprehensible input” is a key element in the process of acquisition.

The Natural Approach was aimed at basic personal communication in everyday life situation. The teacher needed to provide oral inputs that the learner is able to understand while the learner was expected to remain silent and take everything in and respond only when he or she was ready. So the teacher through different interesting activities would be the source for all language input.

Krashen and Terrell defined three main stages in this process: (i) Pre-production stage wherein listening comprehension skills are developed. (ii) Early production stage where the learner struggles with the language and naturally makes errors. (iii) The last stage demands production of more complex and longer “discourses” through role-plays, games, open-ended dialogues in groups. The aim is developing fluency rather than accuracy, so error correction should be minimal.

This approach was criticized due to the delay in oral production (silent periods) and its dependence on the teacher to give “comprehensible input”. How does the teacher decide which structures are to be provided to the learner? Some teachers may not be able to do so, on their own. The positive of this approach was to allow students to remain silent till the time they are comfortable to speak. Therefore they do not feel threatened or embarrassed to experiment with the new language. The resulting self-confidence helps in language learning.

The teacher needs to choose the best of what others have experimented with and adapt those insights to the situation he or she is in.

Which methodology is best?
With so many different approaches and methods it can be rather difficult to decide which is the best to use. Unfortunately there is no clear answer as much will depend upon your individual circumstances. Your personality, the culture for students, and their needs will all play a part in your decision. In reality each method has its pluses and minuses but certain conclusion can be drawn:

The methodology that the teacher prefers may not be the preferred or correct option for students from different cultures. Compromise may be necessary.

Over the years, a blind search for the perfect method gave way to integration of approach to language teaching practices. The demand was for unifying approach to language teaching and designing effective tasks and techniques, informed by that approach. The eclectic blend of tasks and activities now are beyond any methodology; they only focus at the dynamics of the classroom.

The enlightened, eclectic approach incorporates a number of basic principles of learning and teaching, inspired by interconnection of reading and observation, discussion and teaching. It is a dynamic composition of perception and experience, where approach and classroom practice is at constant interaction. Feedback on innovations yields new insight and more creative possibilities which run in a cycle. When the eclectic approach is at work, designing of a lesson depends upon the selection of focus. The approach chosen is also guided by factors like the teacher’s experience as a learner, a teacher, observer, reader, and specialized orientation in the same field, if any. Approaches are necessarily controlled by varying contexts and are subject to interpretation.

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is a more generally accepted approach today owing to a wide variety of interpretations and classroom applications. The approach highlights distinct communicative traits and incorporates authentic, real-world simulations and meaningful tasks. CLT can be defined as a unified yet broadly based, theoretically well informed set of doctrines about nature of language and of language learning and teaching. CLT highlights the social, cultural and pragmatic features of languages. CLT uses authentic language to a great extent in an attempt to build fluency. The basic characteristics of the communicative mode of teaching feature distinct digression from the previous approaches.

In Communicative Language Teaching the grammatical, functional, socio-linguistic, and strategic discourse components are at their best possible interplay. The techniques are utilitarian and driven towards fulfillment of individual purposes. Fluency and accuracy are complementary principles that alternatively acquire high degree of importance. Productive and contextualized communication is necessarily the goal and the students need to work towards this goal through the development of appropriate strategies for autonomous learning. The teacher here is the facilitator who is supposed to facilitate authentic linguistic interaction and encourage meaningful construction of language. The functional aspects like fluency and spontaneity displace overt presentation and discussion of grammatical rules and concentrate on the learner’s initiative, in CLT.

The concepts that are derivatives from the Communicative Approach of language teaching are

Language Learners and their Levels

ESL learners are socio-cultural products, necessarily conditioned by their surrounding, family orientation, exposure to the greater society and several such factors. Therefore, while assessing the learner/s the factors like age culture, language level and motivation for learning are always taken into consideration. Any of these factors could have a bearing on what we perceive to be a ‘good learner’. However, there are number of general characteristics that successful students appear to possess. These can include:

These are all qualities that successful learners usually have and it is the teacher’s responsibility to encourage and foster these attributes in the classroom.

Age
The broad categorization would be under the subheads - young learners and adults. Generally, adults are taken to mean those who are 18 years of age or more, and the term is self-explanatory.

However, there are at least three categories of young learners.
• First is the post puberty or early teen age learner i.e. 13-plus.
• Second is the pre-puberty learner, corresponding to primary school or 8 to 12 years old.
• Finally, the very young learners, who are often pre-schoolers, aged 7 years and less. These are becoming an increasingly bigger market the world over. They have shorter attention spans, and in the case of very young ones they have not even completely mastered the grammar of their mother tongue, but all are generally amenable to fun games, singing, drawing etc.

Culture and First Language
Approaches to learning vary with the change in cultural backgrounds of the students.
Students from some Asian Countries, for example are noted as being very serious about their learning and respectful to their teachers but sometimes lacking in willingness to communicate. The problem possibly stems from the fact in these areas, the teacher is often still expected to do all the talking and the students are encouraged not to speak in class unless addressed directly by the teacher. In some schools TEFL teachers are sometimes frowned upon and some classes considered unruly because of the noise (Inevitable and necessary when there is choral work or pair and group work!). A good teacher should be aware of their student’s customs and differences that could affect the success of the classes.

Language Level

Distinctions between the different levels of ability in English language learning have to be clearly demarcated.
The most common breakdown is as follows:

Beginners - From zero knowledge of English to very basic knowledge of English, which cannot be quickly or easily activated.

Elementary – Students at this level are likely to be able to form basic sentence
structures and communicate on simple topics.

Low or pre-intermediate - Students are able to communicate and understand a greater variety of topics but lacking general fluency and depth of language awareness but are still likely to make many errors even with basic structures.
Intermediate – Able to understand and communicate on a wide range of issues using limited vocabulary store but still lacking in accuracy and fluency.

Upper Intermediate – Should be able to actively communicate on almost all topics using a greater range of language but still lacking in accuracy.

Advanced – Students should have a very good knowledge of English language and now will be studying more subtle language items.

It should be noted that while the above terms are the most commonly used their actual meaning can differ considerably depending on where you work and which text book you may be using, an elementary student in one country could be viewed as intermediate in a different country!

The common European framework recently established by the council of Europe state the following six levels:

The complex variables introduced by sociopolitical contexts of teaching (country, societal expectations, cultural factors, political constraints, the status of English), the ethics and views of the institution one is teaching in (school, university, language school, adult education, vocational/workplace courses), and the implied purposes for learning English (academic, technical, social, immersion, enrichment, survival) heavily conditions the teacher-student relationship and the final output in the classroom . Each of these considerations is essential to incorporate into your choices of techniques, lesson organization, and supporting materials.

Teaching Children Children exercise a good deal of both cognitive and affective effort in order to internalize both native and second languages. The difference between children and adults (that is, persons beyond the age of puberty) lies primarily in the contrast between the child's spontaneous, peripheral attention to language forms and the adult's overt, focal awareness of and attention to those forms.

Children are blessed with fluency and naturalness that help them to score over the superior intellect of the adults. The context of classroom instruction may introduce some difficulties to children learning a second language.

Many fail to differentiate between very young children (4-6 years old) and pre-pubescent children (12-13 years) and the whole range of ages in between. There are actually many instances of six- to twelve-year-old children manifesting significant difficulty in acquiring a second language for a multitude. Ranking high on that list of reasons are a number of complex personal, cultural, and political factors at play in elementary school education. Teaching ESL to school-age children, therefore, is not merely a matter of setting them loose on a plethora of authentic language tasks in the classroom. To successfully teach children a second language requires specific skills and intuitions that differ from those appropriate for adult teaching. Five categories may help give some practical approaches to teaching children.

Teaching Teens The Job of teaching ‘Young Adults’, ‘Teens’ and ‘high school-age children’ should preferably be a mix of variables that can appropriately cater to an age of physical, psychological transition between twelve and eighteen. Students at this stage of evolution from childhood to adulthood need to be handled with special consideration. Some thoughts worth verbalizing are:

• Intellectual capacity adds abstract operational thought around the age of twelve. Therefore, some sophisticated intellectual processing is increasingly possible. Complex problems can be solved with logical thinking. This means that linguistic metalanguage can now, theoretically, have some impact. But for any intellectual endeavor to be successful the learner must pay full attention to the task at hand. If a learner is simultaneously trying to attend to other things like her/his appearance, or to sexual thoughts, or to planning a weekend party, or whatever, the intellectual task at hand may suffer.

• Attention span extends with intellectual maturity. However, with potential diversions present all around, the same attention span tend to get shortened.

• Varieties of sensory input are still important, but, again, increasing capacities for abstraction lessen the essential nature of appealing to all five senses.

• Teaching process dedicated to teenagers should have elements to bolster their ultra-sensitive sense of self-image, ego and self-esteem. The secondary school teacher should aim at that by avoiding embarrassment of students affirming their personal talents and strength making room for acceptance of mistakes and errors de-emphasizing competition between peers encouraging group work and activities

Teaching Adults Compared to children, adults have superior, cognitive abilities that spell success for them in varied classroom endeavors. Their need for sensory input can largely be generated from their imagination (“imagine touching a leaf” VS actually touching it). Adults also score an advantage over children for having acquired self-confidence that help them to handle shyness to certain extent. The cognitive faculty also enables them to deal with languages that are not currently contextualized. Therefore, besides considering the thumb-rules specified for teaching children, special suggestions can be:

• Adults are better at handling abstract rules and concepts. But beware! As an adult you may get carried away by too much abstract generalization about usage and never get around to practicing the language in real life situations. In other words too much focus on language learning concepts and rules may hinder the actual language learning process.

• Adults have longer attention spans and can concentrate on material that may not be intrinsically interesting to them. But again, the rule of keeping your activities short and interesting applies also to adult teaching.

• Sensory input need not always be quite as varied with adults, but one of the secrets of lively adult classes is to make the activities multiple sense based.

• Adults often bring a modicum of general self-confidence (global self-esteem) into a classroom. The fragility of egos may therefore not be quite as critical as of children. Yet we should never underestimate the emotional factors that may be attendant to adult second language learning.

• Adults with their more developed abstract thinking ability, arc better able to understand a context-reduced segment of language. Authenticity and meaningfulness are of course still highly important, but in adult language teaching, a teacher can take temporary digressions to dissect and examine isolated linguistic properties, as long as students are returned to the original context.

2. Why do you think the CLT has gained popularity in the language classroom? (200 words)

3. How would you approach a class with true beginners and false beginners? How would you keep the latter challenged without overwhelming the former? (150 words)