4 - Drills

Definition: Repetition drills concern a task or an exercise which aims to teach and/or perfect a skill by repetition. In the L2 learning process, the student repeats words, structures and chunks in order to practice and memorize them. 

 Comment: Since it does not involve communication skills, it is not a communicative activity, but it can be a very powerful memorizing tool for the things we do have to memorize. The teachers must be aware that the excess of repetition can make a class very boring. It is interesting to use it with games and make it funny.

 

References:

MUMFORD, S. Drilling can be fun. The internet TESL Journal, v. 8, n. 7, jul. 2002. Disponível em: http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Mumford-Drilling.html. Acesso em: 02 jul 2010

RUSSELL, A. Drilling - Judicious Use of Brute Force in the ESL Classroom. UsingEnglish.com.

Disponível em: http://www.usingenglish.com/weblog/archives/000414.html.

Acesso em: 02 jul 2010

 

More Sources:

 

Teaching English – Drilling 2

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/drilling-2

3 - Community of Practice

Definition: Community of Practice (also known as CoP) concerns a group of people who share the same interests, crafts, and/or jobs. In the L2 learning context, it defines a group of people who interact and share efforts and experiences to learn together.

 

Comment: “Two heads are better than one”, my mom used to say. And I believe she is right. Interacting with peers is a very good way of exchanging knowledge, because your partners can support and complement your skills, as you do the same for them.

 

References:

KIMBLE, C.; HILDRETH, P.; BOURDON, I. Communities of Practice: Creating Learning Environments for Educators. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, abr. 2008. Disponível em: http://www.chris-kimble.com/CLEE/ToC.html. Acesso em: 2 jul 2010.

WENGER, Etienne. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

 

More Sources:

Communities of Practice - A Brief Introduction

http://ewenger.com/theory/

Communities of Practice

http://www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm

2 - Communicative Approach

Definition: The Communicative Approach (CA, from now on), is an approach to language teaching which is based on the premise that the successful learning process lies on the emphasis of communication practice. According to its theoretical definition, the students must know the rules of language usage and more than this must be able to use the language. Thus, the goal is to have one’s students become communicatively competent, being able to manage the process of negotiating meaning with their interlocutors. Language functions are emphasized over form.

Comment: Since the aim of the majority of the L2 students is to learn how to communicate using this language, I believe the communicative approach is the most appropriate way to reach this goal. There is no way to learn how to communicate without practicing it. It reinforces that communication is not only made of the memorized chunks, but one has to know how to negotiate meaning with one’s interlocutor: it is important to remember that the same form will not always carry the same meaning, for instance.

 

References:

NAGARAJ, Geetha. English Language Teaching: Approaches-Methods-Techniques, Orient Longman, Hyderabad, 2004

LARSEN-FREEMAN, Dianne.  Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. 

More Sources:

Luke Meddings’ “Throw away your textbooks!”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2004/mar/26/tefl.lukemeddings

1 - Affordances

Definition: According to Menezes (2009), this term was developed by Gibson (1986), in a comparison with the interaction between living things in an ecosystem, specifically talking about both the animal and his environment which complement and interact all the time with each other. In the context of learning an L2, the concept of affordance has to do with the possibilities you have to learn L2 and the opportunities you have to do such thing. In other words, it has to do with the relation between the environment and the learner and how he gathers information from a diverse range of sources. Some people can learn from a simple coke label, but some people simply cannot see it as a learning tool. Metaphorically speaking, the resources are there for everyone, with the potential, but their effects are individual because each person sees it in a different way.

This is an example of the biological affordance. One is estimulated by the environment and have to decide what to do with what one sees.

Comment: It is a very subjective concept, since each student or each teacher can see things differently, even in a classroom with the explanations of the teacher. Some people need more things to effectively learn, while others can successfully “walk in a rocky field”. The concept of affordance can also be very close to the concept of practicality, which is the practical side of teaching/learning – if the teaching/learning process is not affordable, it cannot be successful.

References:

MENEZES, Vera. Propiciamento (affordance) e autonomia na aprendizagem de língua inglesa In: LIMA, Diógens Cândido. Aprendizagem de língua inglesa: histórias refletidas. Vitória da Conquista: Edições UESB, 2010. Disponível em: http://www.veramenezes.com/affordance.pdf. Acesso em: 02 jul. 2010

GENESEE, Fred. UPSHUR, John A. Classroom based evaluation in second language education. Cambridge: CUP, 1996.

 

More Sources:

Categorization of Affordances, by Jiajie Zhang

http://acad88.sahs.uth.tmc.edu/courses/hi6301/affordance.html

 

Affordances, by Mads Soegaard

http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/affordances.html