Content-Based Instruction and Input/Output

Our Week 2 blogging assignment involves multiple parts. First, on Stoller and Content-Based Instruction:

Reading Stoller's article definitely made me think about to what degree I am effectively engaging in CBI. Since I teach beginning, intermediate and advanced Spanish courses, I took advantage of this opportunity to examine multiple courses.

In my beginning- and intermediate-level courses, I have not used task-based activities and project work as much as I could and should. My teaching involves some of the principles she recommends but not in a sufficiently organized and systematic way. I rely too much on a textbook that:

• is not task-based
• is focused much more on language than on content (and, therefore, does not incorporate multiple perspectives that would make course material more exciting and interesting)
• does not do a good job at incorporating higher-order thinking skills
• is not very good at contextualizing grammar and tenses with authentic, non-classroom activities
• is chapter-based, with each chapter having a different topic but not having an overarching thematic coherence.

In my upper-level courses:

• I use a thematic and topical approach, but I definitely see areas for improvement in terms of scaffolding tasks and being more clear on how themes and topics are related.
•  I generally present diverse perspectives on related subject matter, but I do see room for improvement.
• I give students opportunities to synthesize knowledge, but the culminating activities tend to be tests rather than culminating tasks in which students demonstrate knowledge and skills for a real audience.
• I definitely see that I do not do enough language instruction in certain upper-level courses, especially in civilization & culture courses. I do not do enough to assist them in improving their language abilities. I focus so heavily on content that in terms of language they essentially sink or swim.

 I found the article very thought-provoking, and I read other resources on the CARLA site that will be exceptionally helpful to me this summer as I consider how to make my teaching more effective both in terms of language and content. Some of the resources provide very detailed and practical nuts-and-bolts type information.

Second, on Szynalski and Input:

Although I agree that Input is extremely important and believe that students learning a second language in a classroom do not get nearly enough listening and reading input, I disagree with the writer's cautious--even fearful--attitude towards Output. I find both people and language to be much more complex, dynamic and messy than his approach suggests.

Language learners--especially those who learn in a classroom or online--tend to be sufficiently tentative about using the language they are learning without teachers discouraging and frightening them with the idea that speaking or writing without perfect accuracy can be "damaging." Particularly at the beginning level, learners do not need to take themselves so seriously that they fear not being perfect. I don't want my learners to fear Spanish or people who speak Spanish. I want them to have a sense of humor and enjoy the adventure of learning a language--a bit more like Benny the Language Hacker.

In my opinion, the degree of accuracy required depends on the communicative goals of the learner. If the goal is "survival"-tourist communication, the learner does not need intense analysis of grammar principles and grammatical perfection. Nearly all native speakers themselves make mistakes, at least from time to time. Furthermore, different dialects disagree on whether certain structures are correct or acceptable. At the proficiency level of memorized phrases and simple vocabulary and structures, the expectation is not structural perfection. One can have successful communication with little structure.

If the learner wants to achieve higher levels of proficiency and needs to speak and write the target language professionally, accuracy is more important. The teacher can help students create effective outputs by ensuring that they continue to get lots of input and feedback on their own output. The teacher can also model the technique of negotiating meaning with the listener and how to solicit, interpret, and accept correction. In my experience, error correction is most effective when the correction is connected to a principle. A student may repeat a correction given by another speaker but if the correction seems random or is not connected to any understanding of why the original utterance was incorrect, the student may not even truly process the correction. Merely repeating the correction without a conscious (even if fleeting) connection to they "why" may not be internalized in any meaningful way. Although it isn't the most exciting activity, I have found that students benefit from identifying errors in written and spoken speech and then writing a list of the errors and corrections and an explanation. The process of articulating the "why" is very helpful.

In sum, the degree of understanding of grammar principles should depend on the goals and purpose of the communication, and the importance placed on accuracy should match the expectation of the level of proficiency. Being a "grammar geek" myself, however, I cannot resist pointing out that an understanding of certain structures of language can speed up acquisition of a second language.

A final component of our week 2 blog assignment involves an activity in which we categorize a list of tasks as either "input" or "output" or "both" and then determine the relative value of the different tasks. I think that how valuable the different tasks or activities are depends on the level of the student, where the activity falls in the scaffolding process, and many other factors. Nonetheless, in preparation for the second hangout, I did categorize the tasks. I found, however, that I needed to add a fourth category, "ambiguous", for those tasks that do not seem like either input or output. Perhaps after the hangout tomorrow I will have a better understanding of what to do with these tasks I couldn't categorize.