COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING

METHODOLOGY IN TESOL
L U T F I A A D I N D A (2 1 0 5 0 2 0 0 0 4 )
 COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING (CLL)

Community Language Learning (CLL) is the name of a method developed by Charles A. Curran and his associates in Chicago, 1955.

Curran was a specialist in counseling and a professor of psychology at Loyola University, Chicago. His application of psychological

counseling techniques to learning is known as Counseling-Learning. Community Language Learning represents the use of Counseling-

Learning theory to teach languages.

 INTRODUCTION

• Community Language Learning advises teachers to take their students as “whole person”.

• Whole person learning means that teachers consider not only the students’ intellect but also their feelings.

• Teacher become “language counselors” and give no treathening to students.

 UNIQUE FEATURES

• Students decide topics

• Teacher translates

• Teacher are “counselor”

• Student aare “clients”

• 100% safe

• Learning is inductive
HOW IT WORKS IN TEH CLASSROOM?

• Stage 1 - Reflection

• Stage 2 - Recorded conversation

• Stage 3 - Discussion

• Stage 4 - Transcription

• Stage 5 - Language Analysis

 Stage 1 - Reflection
The students think in silence about what

they’d like to talk about, while I remain

outside the circle.

We start with students sitting in a circle

around a tape recorder to create a

community atmosphere.

To avoid a lack of ideas student can

brainstorm their ideas on the board

before recording.
 Stage 2 Recorded conversation

With higher levels if the students feel comfortable

enough they can say some of it directly in English

Once they have chosen a subject the students tell me in
sentence. When they feel ready to speak the students
their L1 what they’d like to say and discreetly come up
record their sentence.
behind them and translate the language chunks inti

English.

They’re working on pace and fluency. They immediately stop recording

and then wait until another student wants to respond. This continues until

a whole conversations has been recorded.

Stage 3 - Discussion

Next the students discuss how they think the

conversation went.

They can discuss how they felt about talking to a microphone and whether they felt more

comfortable speaking aloud than they might do normally.

This part is not recorded

Stage 4 - Trancription

Next they listen to the tape and transcribe their conversation. I only intervene when they ask for help.

The first few times you try this with a class they might try and rely on you a lot

but aim to distance yourself from the whole process in terms of leading and

push them to do it themeselves.

Stage 5 - Language analysis

This involves looking at the form of tenses and vocabulary used and why certain ones were chosen, but it will depend on the

language produced by the students.

They are involved in the analysis process. The language is

With lower levels you can guide the analysis by choosing teh
personalised and with ihgher levels they can decide what
most common problems you noted in the recording stages or by
parts of their conversation they would like to analyse or
using the final transcription.
discourse.
 STUDENT - TEACHER RELATIONSHIP

Role Interaction
Teacher’s role Teacher- Student-Centered
: a counselor
• Teacher’s part
• In charge & provide direction
Student’s role
• Structure the class
: dependent independent
• Physically remove from the circle.

2. Student’ s part
• Be assertive to have conversation
• Take more and more responsibility
• Interact with each other.
 Teacher’s role

• The counselor’s role is to respond calmly and non judgmentally, in a supportive manner, and help the client try to understand his or her

problems better applying order and analysis to them.

• There is also room for actual counseling in CLL. Explicit recognition is given to the psychological problems that may arise in learning a

second language.
• The teacher monitors learner utterances, providing assistance when requested.

• The teacher’s role is initially likened to taht of a nurturing parent.

• The teacher is responsible for providing a safe environment in which clients can learn and grow.
 Types of Learning and Teaching Activities

• Translation : Learners from a small circle. A learner whispers a message or meaning he or she wants to express, the teacher translates it into

( and may interpret it in) the target language, and the learner repeats thr teacher’s translation.
• Group Work. Learners may engage in various group task, such as small-group discussion of a topic, preparing conversation. preparing a

summary of a topic for presentation to another group, preparing a story that will be presented to the teacher and the rest of the class.
• Recording. Students record conversations in the target language

• Transcription. Students transcribe utterances and convertation they have recorded for practice and analysis linguistic forms.
 Types of Learning and Teaching Activities

• Analysis. Student analyze and study transcription of target language sentences in order to focus on particular lexical usage or on the aplication of

particular grammar rules.

• Reflection and observation. Learners refect and report on their experience of the class, as a class or in groups. This usually consist of expressions

of feelings- sense of one another, reaction to silence, concern for something to say, etc.
• Listening. Students listen to a monologue by the teacher involving elements they might have elicited or overheard in class interactions.

• Free conversation. Student engage in ‘free conversation with‘ the teacher or with other learners. This might include discussion of what they

learned as well as feelings they had about how they learned.

 Student’s Role

• It implies giving support to fellow learners and acting as a counsellor for other students.

• Students determine content. Learners learn trough interacting with members of the community and establish an interpersonal relationship.

• CLL compares language learning to the stages of human growth.

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Stage 5

the learner is like an the “child achieves a measure “the separate existence stage” may be considered a kind of is called “the independent

infant. of independence from the adolescence stage”

parent.”
 ADVANTAGES

• Student interest

• Student independence

• Student learn inductive techniques

• Nonthreatening

• The councellour allow learners to determine type of conversation

and to analyze the language inductively.

• The student centered nature of the method can provide extrinsic

motivation.
 DISADVANTAGES

• Time wasted

• Teacher poor translator?

• Students have mix of languages

• Not enough time in school

• Risk can be good

• The counsellor/ teacher can become too non directive.

• Students often need directions.

• The inductive learning method.

• Translation is a difficult task.

 CONCLUSION

• Learning is persons : whole - person language takes place best in a relationship of trust, support, and cooperation between teacher

and students and among students.

• Learning is dynamic and creative : learning is a living and developmental process

THANK YOU!