Academic Article Discussion: Parts and Goals of a Listening and Speaking Course

Context: We read Chapter 1 of the book Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking by I.S.P. Nation and Jonathan Newton.

Summary of Key Concepts: The chapter introduces the Four Strands model that will be used as theoretical support for the other chapters in the book. The authors claim that a balanced language course should be made up of four roughly equal strands.

• 1) Meaning-Focused Input - listening and reading where attention is on the ideas and messages
• 2) Meaning-Focused Output - speaking and writing with intention of conveying a message
• 3) Language-Focused Learning - direct study of language items, features, and strategies
• 4) Fluency - developing fluent use of known language items over the four skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing)

The authors state that three of the four strands are meaning-focused. Only the strand of Language-Focused Learning is not. This means that 3/4 of a well balanced language course should be focused on using the language for communicative purposes.

One of the most interesting strands is the focus on fluency development. The authors say that it should involve all four language macroskills and they set the following conditions for fluency activities:

• Students must be familiar with all of language features, content, and discourse features.
• The activity is meaning-focused.
• They are pressured to go faster than usual.
• The activity contains large amounts of input or output depending on the whether they are working on a receptive or productive skill.

It is important to remember that this is a chance for learners to practice what they already know, not be exposed to anything new. The authors say that teachers in many language courses neglect fluency development because of the mistaken view that it is a waste of time if they are not constantly progressing through new content.  
The authors finish the chapter by providing a list of 10 pedagogical principles for teachers.

• Provide and organize large amounts of comprehensible input through both listening and reading
• Boost learning through comprehensible input by adding a deliberate element
• Support and push learners to produce spoken and written output in a variety of appropriate genres
• Provide opportunities for cooperative interaction
• Help learners deliberately learn language items and patterns
• Train learners in strategies that will contribute to language learning
• Provide fluency development in each of the four skills
• Provide a roughly equal balance of the four strands
• Plan for repeated coverage of the most useful language items
• Use analysis, monitoring and assessment to help address learners' language and communication needs

Thought Provoking Quotes: Here are some quotes from the article that we found to be particularly meaningful.

•  "The opportunities for learning language are called strands because they can be seen as long continuous sets of learning conditions that run through the whole language course. Every activity in a language course fits into one of these strands (p. 2)."
• "A common-sense justification of the four strands is the time-on-task principle. How can you learn to do something if you don't do that during learning? How can you learn to read if you don't do reading? How can you learn to write without writing? The time-on-task principle simply says that the more time you spend doing something, the better you are likely to be at doing it (p. 2)."
• "If the activity involves unknown vocabulary, it is not a fluency activity. If the focus is on language features, it is not a fluency activity. If there is no push to go faster or more smoothly, it is not a fluency activity. The fluency strand should make up about one-quarter of the course time. It is time out from learning new items and is a time for getting good at using what is already known (p. 9)."
• "In most language course not enough attention is given to fluency development, possibly because it does not involve the learning of new language items and thus is not seen as moving the learners forward in their knowledge of the language (p. 10)."
• "A basic assumption that lies behind the book is that it is not wise for a teacher or course designer to ally themselves with a particular method of language teaching. It is much more productive to become aware of the important principles of teaching and learning and to apply these in ways that suit the learners, the teaching conditions and the skills of the teacher. This may result in courses that use different kinds of teaching and learning activities but which fundamentally draw on the same principles (p. 13)."

Connections and Criticism: The content of this chapter seems very relevant and applicable to our context at CCCN. We follow the Communicative Approach and the fact that three out of the four strands are meaning-focused means that the majority of our class should be dedicated to activities in which students are focused on expressing or receiving ideas and messages. The four strands model also helps us ensure a balanced development of our students' langauge abilities. We know that our ultimate goal is for students to be communicatively competent users of the English and we need to provide them with the opportunities to develop accuracy and fluency in all four language skills. We also know that it is important to constantly analyze our teaching practices to identify areas to improve and grow. The four strands model provides a useful lens for analyzing what we do. Finally, it is important to have a principled approach to language teaching and be able to justify what we do in the class by making reference to a set of principles that we all agree upon (see quote 5 above). 

Peer Discussion Questions: The questions below will help you apply the concepts from the article to your own personal context. Choose one or two of the questions that seem most interesting to you and write your response as a comment at the bottom of this page. Also, take a moment to respond to some of messages your peers wrote.

• 1) The time-on-task principle provides a common-sense justification for balancing the four strands and it basically means that the more time you spend performing a given task, the better you will be at it. Think about your own experiences learning English in a formal context of school, college, or an institute. What kinds of tasks did you spend your time doing most? Least? How did that help or hinder your language development?
• 2) Apply the time-on-task principle to your language study in an informal context outside of school, college, or a course. In other words, what kind of language tasks did (or do) you do more often on your own? How did that contribute to your language development? 
• 3) Which of the four strands to you think is most prominent in your teaching and planning process? Why do you think that is? Which strand receives the least attention in your courses? Why might that be?
• 4) We typically associate fluency with speaking. However, the authors claim that fluency can and should be developed with all four language macroskills. Can you think of one fluency activity that you could do with each of the other skills (reading, writing, and listening)?
• 5) Which concept or idea from this chapter was most interesting to you? Why?

Bibliography

Nation, I.S.P., & Newton, J. (2009) Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking. New York: Routledge.