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The Criteria for a Good Language Teaching Theory
The Criteria of a Good LTT
We expect a theory of LT to meet certain standards:
1. Applicability
2. Explicitness
3. Comprehensiveness
4. Verifiability
5. Systematicity
1- Applicability
A theory of language teaching is said to be practical if it proves to be useful at the broad level of planning and decision making as well at the level of classroom activities.
Here is an example of scientifically interesting theories that do not meet the applicability requirement: Consider the example of “localization” theories; ie., theories that tell you where ”the language module” is located in the brain.
Basing ourselves on what we know about aphasia, we can learn something about where language is located in the brain.
Aphasia means "partial or total loss of the ability to articulate ideas due to brain damage."
We can distinguish two types of aphasia:
Broca's aphasia results from damage to the front portion of the language dominant side of the brain.
Wernicke's aphasia results from damage to the back portion of the language dominant side of the brain.
So we do know something concrete about where language is located in the brain We do have some neurological information about language that may hopefully allow doctors to treat language loss problems in the future.
But how useful is this information in language teaching at the current stage of our scientific understanding?
Unfortunately, given the kind of technologies available to us at the current stage of the human progress
and given the insufficiency of what we know about the neurology of language, a purely neurological theory is NOT applicable to language teaching.
2- Explicitness
Explicit means that the functioning of assumptions and principles of the theory should advance from a naive unreflecting realism to a more conscious understanding.
What happens when a language teacher’s assumptions are not explicit? S/he will probably internalize wrong implicit assumptions (and harmful prejudices) about what it means for to learn a language.
To illustrate, consider the following example: Suppose you are a teacher teaching Japanese to non-Japanese speakers. How should you proceed if you are planning to teach your students how to thank in Japanese?
A potential mistake that American learners of Japanese usually make has to do with how a dinner guest in Japan is supposed to thank the host. For the invitation and the meal the guests in Japan may will apologize a number of times in addition to using an expression of gratitude (arigatou gosaimasu)
A Japanese guest can apologize for the intrusion into the private home (sumimasen ojama shimasu), for the commotion that they are causing by getting up from the table (shitsurei shimasu), for the fact that they put their host out since they had to cook the meal, serve it, and will have to do the dishes once the guests have left (sumimasen).
American guests might think this to be rude or inappropriate and choose to compliment the host on the wonderful food and festive atmosphere, or thank the host for inviting them, unaware of the social conventions involved in performing such a speech act in Japanese. Although such compliments or expression of thanks are also appropriate in Japanese, they are hardly enough for native speakers of Japanese -- not without a few apologies!
So a part of what we need to develop a good language teaching theory is a good understanding of how speech acts are performed in the language we teach. If we fail to understand that meaning production is fundamentally about the performance of what pragmatists call speech act, our decisions in the teaching process will be probably affectd by false assumptions about how meaning is produced.
What happens when your assumptions are not explicit? If you internalize wrong implicit assumptions (and harmful prejudices) about LT, these wrong assumptions will certainly affect the LT process in a negative way.
3- Comprehensiveness
A language teaching theory should cover all the areas that are relevant to language teaching.
A language learner should learn four linguistic skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing. A language teaching theory that overlooks one or more of these skills is not a comprehensive language teaching theory.
Suppose that we have developed a language teaching theory that tells you what language is, what are the cognitive processes needed for language learning but which does not tell you what are the affective (psychological) conditions necessary for efficient language teaching. Would you consider this theory as a comprehensive language teaching theory?
3- Verifiability
A verifiable language teaching theory is one which has been checked in the light of observation and experiment.
Here is an example of a popular attractive theory which has not been verified: Brooks Theory.
According to Brooks: there are two kinds of bilingualisms:
Compound bilingualism: that bilingualism which involves some reference to the mother tongue
Co-ordinate bilingualism: that bilingualism which involves no reference to the mother tongue
In co-ordinate bilingualism, the linguistic elements (words, phrases) in the speaker's mind are all related to their own unique concepts. In compound bilingualism, on the other hand, speakers attach most of their linguistic elements to the same concepts.
For example, a French-English co-ordinate bilingual speaker has different associations for the French word “chien” and the English word “dog”. Furthermore, co-ordinate bilinguals have been reported to use very different intonation and pronunciation features, and not seldom assert the feeling of having different personalities attached to each of their languages.
Compound bilinguals, on the other hand, attach most of their linguistic elements to the same concepts.
For them, a 'chien' and a 'dog' are two words for the same concept. They are also reported to have less extreme differences in their pronunciations and are often found in minority language communities, or amongst fluent L2-speakers.
If Brooks theory is correct, it will have one interesting practical consequence for second language teaching, namely that language teaching should seek to establish in the learner a completely separate co-ordinate systemthat would reproduce the condition of L1 language.
The problem of Brooks theory, however attractive and interesting it sounds, is that it has NOT been supported when it was checked in the light of experiments!
4- Systematicity
One way of making a theory learnable and accessible to verifiability is to make it systematic. A language teaching theory is said to be “systematic” if this theory is centered around a limited set of consistent assumptions so that it can be taught and applied critically to the teaching of different languages.
A long list of unrelated tips about how a language teacher should proceed in teaching language lacks the power of a systematic theory
Here is an example of how a theory can be non-systematic. Frederick H. Jackson and Marsha A. Kaplan, from theForeign Service Institute (FSI) that was established in1947 gave a talk where they present their view “of what has been learned from FSI’s half century of practical experience preparing thousands of adult learners to carry out complex, professional tasks in foreign languages.” The core of their talk is “twelve pragmatic lessons” that Frederick and Kaplan have learned about language learning and instruction at FSI. Here is a synoptic overview of their12 “pragmatic lessons”.
1- Mature adults can learn a foreign language well enough through intensive language study to do professional work in the language (almost) as well as native speakers.
2- “Language Learning Aptitude” varies among individuals and affects their classroom learning success (but at least some aspects of aptitude can be learned). 3- There is no “one right way” to teach (or learn) languages, nor is there a single “right” syllabus. 4- Time on task and the intensity of the learning experience appear crucial for efficient learning. 5- A learner’s knowledge about language affects his/her learning. 6- If a learner already has learned another language to a high level, that is a great advantage, but if s/he doesn’t know how to learn a language IN A CLASSROOM, that is a disadvantage. 7- The importance of “automaticity” in building learner skill and confidence in speaking and reading a language has been undervalued. 8- Learners may not learn a linguistic form until they are “ready”, but our experience indicates that teachers and a well designed course can help learners become ready earlier.9- In order to attain very high levels of proficiency, learners need to be helped to “notice the gap” between their current production and the speech of more proficient users.
10- A supportive, collaborative, responsive learning environment, with a rich variety of authentic and teacher-made resources, is very important in fostering effective learning.11- The most effective language teaching responds appropriately to where the learner is and what he or she is trying to do.
12- Conversation, which on the surface appears to be one of the most basic forms of communication, is actually one of the hardest to master.Understanding that this list of tips involves practitioners’ conclusions about how to deal with the challenges of language teaching in a highly sensitive institution where the exigencies of successful performance are compulsory, it will be wise to assume that this instructions list is both illuminating and practical. Both language teaching theoreticians and practitioners will be happy to learn from the strong down-to-earth “conclusions” that the presenters seem to have made throughout “half century of practical experience preparing thousands of adult learners”.
The problem of this list of instructions, however, is that it does not constitute a systematic theory of language teaching. To verify how this method works, experimenters and practitioners will have to try each tip on its own. And to learn this method, the student of language teaching methodology needs to “memorize” all the twelve tips in a fragmentary fashion without understanding why and how the different fragments (i.e., tips) go together.
Conclusion
A good language teaching theory should be:
1. applicable,
2. explicit,
3. verifiable,
4. comprehensive and
5. systematic
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