Community Language Learning: The teacher as a counsellor?

Introduction

According to Nostrati, Karimi, Malekian and Hariri (2013). The objective of the community language learning approach is to build a relationship between the teacher counsellor and the student patient. In line with the humanistic approach, this method abides to the whole-person learning whereby the learner develops holistically in the language classroom (Richards & Rodgers, 2016). In achieving this, I played the role of a language teacher and a language counsellor in becoming the skilful ‘understander’ of the barriers the students face (Larsen-Freeman & Anderson, 2016).

This entry aims to analyse the strengths, weakness and consideration of the community language learning approach in my experience as a teacher.

Strengths

Community based language learning

The community language learning occurs in a community of learners alongside the teacher.

In the preparation of this approach, my group mate and I decided on teaching the subject of friendship. This decision was made to further fossilise the concept of community among our students. During the introduction activity of building vocabulary in adjectives, our learners were made to use four adjectives in describing their friend in the community circle.

This step promoted their understanding of the community approach where students began to assimilate with one another in learning English.

It can be noted here that the support we offered as counsellors allowed our students to reduce their anxiety level in the classroom. This maximised their comprehensible input.

Besides that, the community setting was enhanced in the recorded conversation as our learners communicated to construct their sentences, they were given time to discuss and formulate their sentences with one another.

Therefore, the key strength in the community language approach lies in the community of learners created in our lesson using this approach.

Weakness

Unstructured syllabus

The community language learning approach is an unstructured approach that causes challenges in its instructional delivery.

Literature claims that the community language approach lacks a structured syllabus in implementing the lesson (Nosrati et.al. 2013; Richards and Rodgers, 2016).

In preparing this lesson, we faced challenges in determining the syllabus and the content that was appropriate to teach our learners.

As this was my first time teaching this group of students, I could not predict the area of weakness of my students prior to the class. Here, the unstructured nature of this approach resulted in a somewhat daunting task. Upon reflection, I was concerned that in the teaching demonstration I was unable to cater to the language needs of my students.

In relation to this, in the Malaysian classroom this approach will not be applicable as there is a fixed curriculum that teachers must adhere to. Hence, to deliver a purely community language approach is impractical.

All in all, a teaching guide and syllabus is absent in this approach.

Consideration

In the end, this approach is beneficial because of its community based concept that allowed our learners to feel comfortable in learning English with their peers. The whole-person learning that takes place in this approach did result in increased motivation among our students’. Despite this, as a teacher this approach required a larger preparation time for me due to its lack of syllabus.

References

Larsen-Freeman, D., & Anderson, M. (2016). Techniques and Principles in Language \

Teaching 3rd

edition-Oxford Handbooks for Language Teachers. Oxford university press.

Nostrati, M., Karimi, R., Malekian, K., & Hariri, M. (2013). Investigation of language

teaching methodologies in second language learning. International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Studies, 2(5), 207-211. Retrieved from: http://waprogramming.com/papers/517b4489078254.24008577.pdf

Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. S. (2014). Approaches and methods in language teaching 3rd

edition. Cambridge university press.