My understandings of Equity Issues in Language and Literacy Education

In this class, I have learned some “hot” issues about language and English teaching through problem solving, facilitation, in class writing and other methods. Although I have learned language, including Chinese and English, for a long time, I have little chances or sense to find out “how has internet changed the way of language is used?”, “What is future of languages under the influence of globalization?”, “What is the influence of students’ underlife to English teaching?” and “what is the importance of gender issue, race issue and critical pedagogy?” These big questions actually happen everyday, and gradually make big changes in language teaching. 

 

     Under so many issues in language and literacy teaching, I put my emphasis on the resistance of employing CLT in China’s EFL classroom and what might do to change the resistance. I have selected some research papers and medias about it to support my research.

 

What do you think about CLT?

The first chart shows how important CLT is in English teaching among a class of Non-English major students in China. We can see that one quarter students chose A, very important; one half students chose B, important; one eighth chose C, not important, and the rest are D, do not care.

 

      Move to the second chart, what we get is “What are your comments about applying CLT in your English class?” Surprisingly, half of students think it is not good. (A. very good B. good C. OK D. bad E. very bad.) There are two reasons. Firstly, CLT is only used in oral English classroom, which does not change the boring learning environment in grammar or writing course. Secondly, some students prefer individual learning, which can make them concentrated on their studying. This is a result from Chinese traditional learning style or habit, which is not easy to change.

 

CLT vs. Examination

With the pressure of examination and the magnifier of seeing English as a gatekeeper to a higher career development, it seems that CLT can not serve for the “English Needs” in China: “Can CLT really help students to get a higher score?”This is one big reason to explain the resistance of CLT in China’s context. However, is that true that CLT is not qualified enough to assist examination, or is there any misunderstandings about CLT?

Literacy Autobiography

        When I knew that I should write down an article to describe my life which is related to learning to read and write, I suddenly felt blank, and then a little embarrassed. I did not mean that I do not have a reading and writing life, I just tried so hard to find out the pieces of these evidences in my blurry memory.

Time went back to one late night at my home. With the yellow light and the consecutive sound of cicadas, my parents were reading their books quietly. As an eight years old girl, I was so attracted by my own composition book at that time. Although we did not talk to each other, I could fell the joyfulness in our hearts. This is a beautiful picture. I used to use this picture to remind how harmonious my family was, but now, I think that was the beginning of my reading life. Yes, my reading life began with a composition book, not a fairy tales or cartoons. This beginning interestingly determines my writing also stays at the composition field.

Referring to writing, I used to think that it is a result of my passion. But when I looked back, took a second look at what I have read and wrote, I was wondering, Is it a true passion? If it is true, why did I stop reading when I was in high school? Why did I only practice examination compositions just before examination? Why am I so shocked when I found my reading and writing is only happened at school? So, what is the purpose of reading and writing in my life? Examination!

It seems so easy to answer this question, which makes it like an excuse rather than an answer. I laughed at myself, “do you really so shallow to take advantage of reading and writing for examination?” I do not want to be that shallow, and then I worked on digging out it deeper. Then, I got one word to explain it. That is compliments. To be specific, compliments from my parents. When I was in elementary school, they bought me a lot of composition books, in order to get high scores in examination. I read a lot and wrote hardly, and my composition was the best one in my class and was often borrowed to share in other classes. My parents were very proud of me. Since they liked me doing this, I read more and wrote more. Everything became different when my high school life began, as more subjects were flooded into my life, composition was not the only one I should work hard on. There were mathematics, physics, chemistry, philosophy, biology, etc. In order to bring me up as a good student, my parents started to buy exercise books instead of composition books for me. I could not get compliments from my parents even if I have written good articles. So, naturally, I put more energy on different subjects, and I did not have time to read, not mention to write. I stopped reading and writing when my parents stopped complimenting me for them. That is why I thought my passion for writing is a fake one, and it is actually controlled by my parents, or me. However, passion should not be controlled.

People say that reading should be a good and lifelong habit. But, I think my reading and writing life officially ended up when I finished my elementary school. This is my Chinese reading and writing part, simple and a little bit boring. Then, my English reading and writing came to my life, still as a production of endless examinations. So, basically, my principle is “read for what determines what to read, write for what determines what to write.” In other words, I read and write just for examination. In English tests, when I was doing reading comprehension, I was trying to look for answers instead of understanding articles. In the writing part, we have a lot of books to teach the models of structures, beginnings, conclusions and examples. That is almost the whole English reading and writing life.

Then, my memory became clearer. I began my master study in SFU last year. Academic reading and writing rudely jumped into my life. I had not prepared it well. It was so harshly without refusing. I read carefully on every article, although some of them are really not friendly. However, it helps me to pick up reading as a habit. I began to read newspaper. At the same time, I began to write down my journals at my blog voluntarily. I am finding myself in this reading and writing process. I regard this as the key point in my timeline. Now, I can read and write for my interest, or, I should say, for my passion.

 At the beginning of this autobiography, I do not know how to place reading and writing in my life as a language learner. But now, the picture becomes clearer and closer. It seems that I began to own my reading and writing in the master study. I regard this as a transition from fake passion to true passion. I am eager to keep this true passion as one part of my life, naturally, not a result of other forced influence.

My professor told us, “When you are writing, keep your pen moving.” I think it is time for me to keep my reading and writing moving; it is time to make them jumped out of the small circle of examinations, with exploring more passion.

 

Critical Summary

In Chinese students’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in EFL classroom, the author aimed to analyze the CL T’s effectiveness in Chinese students’ perspectives. In my critical summary, I am going to gather the main idea of this article, find my location in this article while put this issue in a larger context by stepping back author’s arguments. my understandings of this article and my ideas of introducing CLT are reformed from feedback from our classmates and the discussion facilitation.

First of all, Chinese students’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in EFL classroom is a research report. Rao (2002) stated that “This article reports the views of 30 Chinese university students on the appropriateness and effectiveness of communicative and non-communicative activities in their EFL courses in China.” (p.85) That is to say, this research is focused on Chinese EFL students and their opinions of traditional learning strategies and CLT. After the research ,“The results suggest that, to update English teaching methods, EFL countries like China need to modernize, not westernize, English teaching; that is, to combine the ‘new’ with the ‘old’ to align the communicative approach with traditional teaching structures.” (Rao, 2002, p.85) In this article, the author defined Communicative Language Teaching as “CLT starts with a theory of language as communication, and its goal is to develop learners’ communicative competence.”(Rao, 2001, p.87) With the fever of introducing CLT in China’s EFL, let us take a look at Chinese EFL students’ feedback, “Students preferred more traditional classroom work to communicative activities”. (Rao, 2001, p.88) Without the support from learners, CLT can not be successful. At the same time, “Teachers were discouraged by both students reaction and they lack of training.” (Rao, 2001, p88) This is one dilemma for EFL teachers. On one hand, they are asked to apply good teaching methods; on the other hand, they have not got professional training in this field.

In order to make participants clearly about this research, the author raised four questions: “Do they enjoy activities involving communication and real use of language? Are they receptive to the teaching techniques that may be new to them? Do they agree that real-language activities emphasizing language content are more effective than non-communicative activities that stress formal correction? Do they believe that such activities are helpful to them as language learners?” (Rao, 2001, p. 86) Most of time, Chinese educational system and big outside environment are regarded as barriers of applying CLT, however, these questions provide a good opportunity to focus on EFL learners.

Referring to the conflict between traditional learning strategies and CLT, we can find out that, “Discontent with the traditional grammar-translation method” (Yu, 2001, p.195) makes CLT strange to Chinese EFL learners. “Grammar-based test”,(Rao, 2002, p.93) ,“Career orientation” (Rao, 2002,p.95),  “EFL situation” (Rao, 2002,p.p.96) and “Lack of funding” (Rao, 2002,p.p.97) also prevent from making full use of CLT. Based on these research outcomes, the author asked to combine the CLT and Chinese traditional learning approach, which is “modernized” rather than “westernized”. (Rao, 2002, p. 85)

In my point of vies, introducing CLT into China’s EFL classroom is a graduating process which needs ongoing negotiating with students, teachers and objective conditions. In our facilitation, we asked classmates to make a lesson designing which ncan make CLT possible and get benefits from it. It is easy to describe it in listening and speaking due to their obvious communicative characteristics. But in our facilitation, the reading and writing lesson plan were so impressive. The reading group used menu as a reading materials, which helps students to learn some ingredients and action words. Then, teachers will take students to go to supermarket to find out these materials and cook them. In this way, students will learn from doing, and learn from fun. Meanwhile, writing group supplied English employment advertisements to students, and then they encouraged students to find an appropriate job and write down their resumes. In this progress, students have chances to touch “real writing” and know themselves better.

Although CLT was firstly developed in western ESL environment, we still can borrow its advantages into China’s context. In my future teaching, how to use appropriate activities based on existed material is what I should pursue, especially meaningful activities. Like Hu (2001) argued, “Activities that involve real communication promote learning, Activities in which language is used for carrying our meaningful tasks promote learning, and Language that is meaningful to the learner supports the learning process.” (p.95)

 

 

Reference:

Hu,G.W.(2002). Potential cultural resistance to pedagogical imports: the case

of communicative language teaching in China.  

Language Culture and Curriculum. 15, 93 – 105

Rao, Z. (2002). Chinese students’ perceptions of communicative an non-communicative activities in EFL classroom.

System. 30. 85-105

Yu,L.(2001). Communicative language teaching in China: progress and resistance. TESOL Quarterly. 35 (1). 194-198

论中国语言教学环境下的交际教学法—-黄卫军

    作为一种新的教学方法，交际语言教学法（以下简称CLT）可追溯到20世纪60年代后期。它是把提高交际能力作为语言教学的目标，强调提高语言的四种基本技能，并着重语言与交际的相互依存性的一种教学方法。目前，这种教学法已被许多教师所接受，并把它作为最有效的教学方法之一。然而，当这种教学方法由英、澳、北美（BANA）的语言教学环境转到英语作为非母语言的大、中、小学（TESEP）的教学环境中时，它的成效引起了激烈的争议。绝大多数中国语言课堂教学是属于TESEP型的。因此，大多数人争论的焦点也总是围绕中国教学环境下的语言教学，这也将是本文着重讨论的对象。

Chang和Beaumont（2004）认为，对教学法取舍的争论主要源于以下两方面：一方面表现在CLT和传统的文化理念的冲突（这一点是与孔子思想紧密相连的）。另一方面就是CLT的应用与亚洲教学环境下采用它时的实际困难之间的冲突。比如说大班教学，缺乏必要的师资培训，以及国家统一考试的设置都限制了CLT的有效使用。

1.避免对CLT的误解。Thompson（1996）指出了关于CLT的四大误解：（1）CLT意味着不教语法；（2）CLT意味着课堂上只教口语；（3）CLT意味着在课堂上多进行小组活动，比如说角色扮演；（4）CLT意味着对教师的要求过高。前两种误解是中国语言教师的主要担忧。在很大程度上，中国以语法为基础的考试制度影响着课堂教学。在有限的课堂时间内，教师抱怨他们不敢忽视语法教学而只专注于口语教学，所以他们在教室里就不采用CLT。第三种误解代表了对CLT弱定义有一定理解的教师的观点。他们认为，由于他们是大班教学或者学生抵制课堂小组活动，CLT不是很适合的方法。又因为教师缺乏教学技能和语言技能提高方面的培训，他们在采用CLT时显得信心不足。笔者认为，这些误解主要是由于受到了对交际语言教学课堂中容易察觉到的表面现象的影响或是对CLT弱定义的部分理解所造成的。
　　2.CLT与其他教学方法并不相抵触。正如Harvey（1985.86）所认为的：从根本上来说，在中国的教学环境下，传统的语言教学方法和技能一样切实可行。另外，Richard（1990.5）指出方法也不是一成不变的。更确切地说，方法是动态的、创造性的和探索性的过程，在这个过程中教师会不断地接触到一批批的新学生，并因此对方法有新的发现、新的创造。或许我们应该提倡一种折中教学法作为外语教学法中新的主流，如前面Hu Guangwei （2002b）所倡导的方法，在这种主流教学法中各种教学方法都能发挥各自的作用，也会更好地发挥各自的教学功能。
　　3.超越方法论。根据当前教育理论，TESOL（Teaching Eng-lish to the Speakers of Other Languages）方法学已由方法时代转到后方法时代，对此人们已广泛地接受。后方法学家担心的是，尽管教师们处在各自不同的教学环境中，但他们可能会生搬硬套某些教学法（Bell，2003）。因此，后方法学家提倡教师应该像医生诊断病人一样能判断学生的需求，用成功的教学技能对学生进行教学，并且能正确评估教学效果（Brown，2002.1）。在后方法论中，自主学习是其中的核心理念，自主学习者能把握自己的学习（ibid.45）。同样，教师也是自由的个体，教师可以根据他们的实际教学实施他们自己的教学理论（ibid.48）。方法论和后方法论的分歧是显而易见的：方法论强调自上而下的教学方法，而后方法论则是一种自下而上的教学理念。从这种意义上来说，后方法论试图更全面的统一教学活动（Bell，2003.26）。然而，在英语教学中，这种观点与前面着重讨论的教学法并没有什么矛盾。正如Bell （2003.34）所指出的，后方法论并不意味着方法论的结束，更准确地说，方法论和后方法论应该结合在一起，使教师的教学活动更加自由和开放。

 

My words: This Chinese paper emphasizes on digging out the conflict between traditional teaching pedagogy and CLT, and then it works on solving these surface conflicts, reaching a common teaching philosophy in a deeper understanding. In our class, we have talked about the “pedagogical traditions” in our home country and why are these pedagogical principles important. In this paper, we can find that although “traditional pedagogy” and “CLT” has different forms, they still can work together and share the “pedagogical principles”.

 

 

Communicative Language Teaching in China: Misconceptions, Applications and Perceptions

 

      The paper focuses on communicative language teaching, its application and different understanding of it from students’ and teachers’ positions. It shows us some resistance and difficulties in employing CLT in class. These complexities provide some insights into the barriers to the processes of English teaching reform in China. In this way the paper explores good ways to improve students’ communicative competence and their overall ability in English.

 

Why is CLT important?

This paper shows English language teaching in China is constituted by divergent stories and not a single narrative. Chinese students’ English learning strategies are primarily composed of the following features: focus on reading and writing; grammar and translation; memorization of vocabulary (Rao, 2002). However, this traditional grammar-translation method “failed to develop an adequate level of communicative competence (i.e. the ability to use the target language for authentic communication)” (Hu, 2002, p.93). In order to catch up with the development of economy and to promote international exchange, students’ communicative competence even their overall ability in language need to be improved. Both secondary schools and universities began to reform English teaching by introducing communicative language teaching (CLT) in the early 1980s. With CLT now in place the stress is on listening and speaking activities along with the previous focus on reading and writing.

 

What are difficulties in applying CLT?

Nevertheless, the adoption of CLT methods has not necessarily resulted in the expected outcomes for improvements in English communicative competence (Rao, 2002). Some students have responded negatively to communicative activities, while some teachers have not been confident about using CLT pedagogies. The reform of the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in China through the adoption of CLT has aroused considerable debate. The valuing of CLT stands in relation the importance attached to traditional Chinese teaching and learning strategies. This has led to the adjustment of CLT to the demands and conditions for language learning and teaching in China.

 

My words: There are three reasons for me to choose this article. First of all, it gives us a good background of CLT in China, which provides a chance to see why and how does CLT work in China’s context. Second, this article describes the difficulties of applying CLT in China’s EFL classroom from teachers’ and students’ perspectives. If a teaching pedagogy does not work, both teachers and students should be responsible for it, but what are the barriers, even the common barriers of both teachers and students? We can find answer from this article. Last, after the discussion of equity issue of employing CLT, the article also illustrate some strategies to solve this problem, again, from both teachers’ and students’ standings.