UNIT 1 - THE WORLD OF ENGLISH

A - The Place of English
• English has become a lingua franca. Lingua franca is a language used for communication between two speakers whose native languages are different from each other.
• Today English is one of the main languages for international communication.
How English Got There
• A colonial history: America, Australia, India
• Economics: The emergence of the United States as a world economic power; globalisation
• Travel: Much travel and tourism carried on in English; most airports use English; English is also used as language of air traffic control and sea travel communication
• Information Exchange: academic discourse, articles, conferences; the internet
• Popular Culture: pop music; TV; cinema

Where English Fits / The Future of English
• Language is an intensely political issue since it is bound up with iidentity and power. Also many people worry about what English means for culture it comes into contact with, seeing its teaching as a form of “cultural imperialism”. Thererfore they ask this question “Is English used for cultural imperialism or not? “ According to Kanavilil Rajagopalan suggests that the teaching of English should not be seen as a form of “cultural imperialism”…. in a world marked by cultural intermixing and growing multilingualism at a hitherto unprecedented level.

B – VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
Like other languages, English can take many forms. There can be great differences in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar depending on who speaks or writes it.
• British English, American English, Australian English are some of the variations; even there are varieties of American English like Black English, Hispanic English, Chinese English
Geography, social class, ethnic gropuing, and sex affect the language being used and influence the way in which listeners judge speakers. Here we can talk about the “Received Pronunciation (RP)”.
Received Pronunciation (RP): This is the commonly accepted and the standard way of pronouncing a certain language. It is also related to the accent of a certain prestigious and higher level social class, and is widely used and encouraged to be used by the government and public institutions as well as by the media. For example, in Turkey , the way the native inhabitants in Istanbul speak is accepted as the Received Pronunciation (RP). Therefore, among the different Turkish versions of the English statement ‘I'm coming', i.e. ‘geliyorum,' ‘geliyom,' ‘geliyem', ‘geliyerim', etc, the first one (if properly pronounced without omitting the sound ‘r') fits the Received Pronunciation

Three Circles (the division of English speaking world)
• Inner Circle – countries where English is spoken as a first language. (Britain, Canada, etc.) 320- 380 million people speak English.
• Outer Circle – countries where English is spoken as a second or significant language ( India, Singapore, etc.) 150- 300 million people speak English.
• Expanding Circle – countries where English has acquired cultural or commercial importance ( China, Japan, Turkey etc.) 100 m-1billion million people speak English.
• In a world of so many Englishes, we have to consider which variety to teach.
• Teachers should expose students to different language varieties. This will help students when they come into contact with different language varieties.
• Level is very important in exposure to different varieties.
• Another issue to consider is to decide whether English we teach our students will be general or specific.
• General: all-purpose language with no special focus on one area.
• Specific (ESP): e.g. English for Academic Purposes (EAP), English for Science and Technology (EST)

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2 – DESCRIBING LANGUAGE

A- Grammar
• Grammar: the description of the ways in which words can change their forms and can be combined into sentences.
• Phrase Structure Rules: we can produce infinite number of sentences by using finite number of rules.
• Competence: The knowledge of rules that are known at subconscious level by all competent speakers of language. (phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic)
• Performance: The realisation of competence. (producing language)

Spoken and Written Grammar
• In spoken language some grammar rules can be ignored.
• The grammar of speech has its own constructional principles; it is organised differently from writing.
Problems with Grammar Rules
• Some grammar rules are straightforward but some others are too complex.
• Descriptive Grammar: attempts to describe everything there is in the language
• Pedagogic Grammar: is designed to help the teachers and students; consists of clear summaries of what is and what is not correct.
• Measures of a good rule: simplicity, truth, clarity and relevance

B – Vocabulary
• Language Corpora: large banks of language data stored on computers; help us to see how often and in what linguistic contexts words are used
• Polysemy: one form having multiple related meanings e.g. head: top of your body, top of a company; foot: of person, of bed (context is very important for interpreting the meaning)
• Antonyms: e.g. high-low, small-large, rich-poor, legal-illegal, true-false, zip-unzip
• Synonyms: e.g. remember-recall, big-large, youth-adolescent
• Hyponym: e.g. piano, violin, flute, guitar are all hyponyms of superordinate musical instrument.
• Connotations: words have different associative meanings depending on the context they occur. e.g. fox, pig, cool, chicken, chick
• Words are also used in metaphorical and idiomatic meanings.
• Collocations: the way in which words co-occur; these combinations occur through custom and practice, and they are seen as normal and acceptable. e.g. butter and bread, table and chair, salt and pepper
• We also have grammatical categories of words such as noun, adjective, verb; countable and uncountable nouns; transitive and intransitive words

C - Language in Use
• Purpose: While using language we have a purpose in mind which we wish to achieve. Language functions show our purpose in mind. e.g. inviting, apologizing, offering, suggesting
• Appropriacy: While using language we have to choose appropriate forms to use. Considering the situation we are in, we try to use the most appropriate form.
• Some variables affect our choice for appropriate use of language. The basic variables are setting, participants, gender, channel and topic.
• We should draw our students attention to appropriate use of language. They should know when to say what.

Language as discourse
• Some researchers describe conversations in terms such as turn-taking, and the patterns and routes which typical conversations follow. Instead of studying words and grammar, they study how these bits are used in discourse. How can we use this knowledge in the language classroom?
• Organization of meaning within a text can also be described. It is possible to break any piece of discourse into small chunks. These chunks can be used to show our students how competent language users put the language together into longer chunks. (example on page 26)
• The more our students can identify typical patterns of use, the better they will be able to read, listen, write and speak.

Genre
• We can describe different types of writing and speaking as different genres. e.g. scientific writing, report writing, thriller, romantic fiction, postcard writing, etc.
• Students who are aware of different genres will be better in understanding what they read or hear, and they will produce their own written and spoken language.
D – The Sounds of Language
Pitch
• Pitch can be defined as high or low level of speech sound.
• It may convey basic information about the mood and emotion of a person.

Intonation
• Intonation is the rise and fall in the level of someone’s voice. It can al so be defined as the music of the speech. By using intonation, we are able to convey meaning.
• It is used to put words or information in the foreground (by using high pitch), in the background ( by using lower pitch than normal), to signal ends and beginnings of conversation.
• We can also use intonation to convey emotion, involvement, and empathy. Fort example, by using intonation we can show if we are surprised or frightened.
• It is also used as a way of modifying the strength or intention of what we are saying. e.g. well for expressing agreement, disagreement, doubt, etc.
• Intonation can also be used to show how certain we are about what we are saying and to indicate what response we expect.
• Our students should be aware of different purposes of using intonation. By having such knowledge they can understand spoken language better.

Individual Sounds
• Words and sentences are made up of phonemes.
• Although they may not carry meaning on their own, they make words and phrases in combination.

Sounds and Spelling
• In English there is no close correlation between sounds and spelling.
• We spell some sounds in a variety of different ways, and we have a variety of different sounds for some spelling.
• Elision, assimilation

Stress
• Stress shows the point in a word where pitch changes, vowels lengthen, and volume increases.
• In multisyllable words there is often more than one stressed syllable. The strongest force is called primary stress and the weaker force the secondary stress.
• Stress is very important in conveying meaning in phrases and sentences.

Paralinguistic Features of Language
• Vocal paralinguistic features
• Physical paralinguistic features

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3 – DESCRIBING LEARNERS

A – Age
• Age is an important factor on deciding how and what to teach. Students of different ages have different needs, competences, and cognitive skills.

Young Children
General Characteristics
• Meaning is important, they respond to meaning
• They often learn indirectly rather than directly
• What they see, hear and touch are very important for their understanding
• They are generally enthusiastic and curious
• They want to see individual attention and approval from the teacher
• They like talking about themselves
• Their attention span is very limited, they can easily get bored

What To Do?
• Use a variety of sources
• Develop good relationships
• Be flexible
• Classroom should be bright and colorful
• Students can work in groups in different parts of the classroom, changing their activity every ten minutes
• Activities that involve physical movement would be useful

Adolescents
General Charecteristics
• They are in the search for individual identity, and this search provides the key challenge for this age group
• They may be disruptive in the class
• Some discipline problems may occur
• On the other hand, if they are engaged, they have a great capacity to learn and a great potential for creativity

What To Do?
• We must provoke student engagement with relevant and involving material.
• We should be conscious of their need for identity.
• We should try to link language teaching to students’ everyday interests
• We should encourage students to respond to texts and situations with their own thoughts and experience, rather than just doing abstract learning activities.

Adults
General Characteristics
• They can engage with abstract thought
• They have life experience, and teachers can use a wide range of activities with them
• They have expectations about the learning process
• They tend to be more disciplined than teenagers
• They often have a clear understanding of why they are learning
• Their previous learning experience may affect their learning
• They may have experienced failure or criticism at school, and this may affect their performance
• They may worry about not having enough intellectual power for learning a language




What To Do?
• We should be aware of that these learners are prepared to do longer activities than teenagers do.
• We should encourage them to use their intellectual power and life experience to learn consciously and efficiently.
• We should try to minimize the bad effects of past learning experiences.

B – Learner Differences
Aptitude
• Some people think that some students are better at learning languages than others, and it is possible to predict a student’s future progress by using linguistic aptitude tests.
• However, these tests appear to measure just the intellectual ability of people
• And these test discriminate between the most and the least “intelligent” students, they are not distinguishing the majority of students who are between these two extremes.
• As teachers we should try to be optimistic about all the students in the class.

Good Learner Charateristics
• Tolerance of ambiguity, learning to live with uncertainty
• Positive task orientation
• Ego involvement (success is important for the student’s self-image)
• High aspirations
• Goal orientation
• Perseverance
• Fin their own way
• Creative
• Make intelligent guesses
• Make their own opportunities for practice
• Make errors work for them, learn from their errors
• Use contextual clues

• If we know a number of characteristics that good language learners share, then we can try to cultivate these characteristics in all our learners.
• Cultural factors affect some of these characteristics, different cultures value different learner behaviors.

Learner Styles
• There are different individuals in our classes and they may have different preferences for learning.
• Enthusiast: teacher is a point of reference, goals of the learning group are important
• Oracular: focuses on the teacher but is more oriented towards the satisfaction of personal goals
• Participator: tends to concentrate on group goals and group solidarity
• Rebel: is mainly concerned with the satisfaction of his own goals
• Convergers: they prefer to avoid groups, independent and confident in their own abilities
• Conformists: they prefer learning about the language rather than learning how to use it
• Concrete learners: they enjoy the social aspect of learning, they are interested in language use and language as communication, they enjoy games and group work in class
• Communicative learners: language use oriented, take risks out of class, try to operate without the guidance of teacher
• What to do as teachers? Although it is not possible to cater for each preference all the time, there should be variety in our classes. We should try to respond different learning preferences by using a variety of techniques and materials.
Langauge Levels
Some issues are related to the level of our students:
• The plateau effect: at beginner levels it is easy to see the progress, but it becomes more difficult when the students reach higher levels; this causes a plateau effect where students consider the level they have reached as enough for their needs
• In order to avoid this effect, we should set clear goals, explain what students need to learn, and prepare involving and interesting activities.
• Methodology: some techniques and activities are suitable for some levels, we should take our students’ level into consideration while choosing techniques and activities
• Language: we should adjust our classroom language according to our students’ level


• Topics: topics should also be selected considering the students’ level, much complex topics would not be appropriate for low levels

Individual Variations
• NLP: “preferred primary system” to experience the world; visual, auditory, kinaesthetic
• MI theory: we don’t possess a single intelligence, but a variety of intelligences (visual/spatial, logical/mathematical, etc.); in each person one (or more) of them is more dominant.
• If students have different predominate intelligences, and different representational systems, then the same learning task may not be appropriate for all students.

• Teachers should use a variety of activities to help various types of learners.
• We can try to recognize individual differences by using observations, questionnaires, or we can ask our students’ comments.



C – Motivation
• internal drive that pushes someone to do things in order to achieve something
• Extrinsic: caused by some outside factors (passing an exam, having financial reward)
• Intrinsic: comes from within the individual (enjoyment of the learning process itself, desire to make yourself feel better)

Sources of motivation
• Society: the attitudes in the society to language learning and English language
• Significant others: the influence of people who are close to students ( family members, friends )
• The teacher: teacher’s attitude to the language and the task of learning is very important
• The method: the way teaching and learning take place is very important for motivation

What to do?
• Goals and goal setting: long-term goals (passing an exam at the end of the year, having a good job in the future); short-term goals (learning something new, successful writing of a paragraph)
• Long-term goals are very important but they may seem too far away to students. If we help our students to achieve short-term goals, this will effect their motivation positively.
• Learning environment: physical and emotional atmosphere of the class should be motivating
• For example, we can use more visual materials and music for the physical atmosphere; and we can create a supportive, cooperative and encouraging classroom for the emotional atmosphere; our rapport with the students is also very important
• Interesting classes: we should provide our students a variety of subjects and exercises to keep them engaged in the lesson; also using various techniques will be helpful for creating more interesting and engaging classes.


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4 – DESCRIBING TEACHERS

A – What is a teacher?
Definitions of teachers/teaching:
a) actors – always on the stage
b) orchestral conductors – direct conversation and set the pace and the tone
c) gardeners – plant the seeds and then watch them grow !!!
d) “teaching” means to give (someone) knowledge or to instruct or train (someone)
e) “teaching” means to show somebody how to do something or to change somebody’s ideas
• Is teaching about the transmission of knowledge from teacher to student, or is it about creating conditions in which students learn for themselves?

Learner-centered teaching
• Makes the learner’s needs and experience central to the educational process.
• Students’ needs drive the syllabus and students’ learning experiences are at the heart of the course.
• The measure of a good lesson is the student activity taking place, not the performance of the teacher.
• The teacher is no longer the giver of knowledge, the controller, and the authority, he is a facilitator and a resource for the students to draw on

B - The roles of a teacher:
a) Controller
b) Organizer
c) Assessor
d) Prompter
e) Participant
f) Resource
g) Tutor
h) Observer

1 - What does the teacher do while acting this role?
2 - What are the things that should be considered while acting this role?

Which role?
• We should be able to switch between various roles, judging when it is appropriate to use one or other of them.
C – The teacher as performer
• How we actually behave during the performance of different roles and classroom situations is very important. Different classroom situations require different performance styles. (e.g. Figure 12, p:64)


D - The teacher as teaching aid
a) Mime and gesture
• To convey, express and demonstrate meaning
b) Language model
• Acting dialogues
• Reading aloud (use exciting and interesting texts, encourage students to predict what they are going to hear)
c) Provider of comprehensible input
• Exposure to language is very important
• Ss need something or someone to provide language that was tuned to be comprehensible for them
• More STT than TTT (You don’t need the language practice, students do!)

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