TEFL Johnstown New York

teachers experience many difficulties when bridging the gap between ‘L1' and ‘L2' (ITTT unit 3 page 1) ranging from differences in alphabets to drastically different phonemes and grammar structures. However, the biggest obstacle to overcome may be finding a preferred ‘style' to bridge this gap. Styles range from direction and literal transition between ‘L1' and ‘L2' via the ‘Grammar-Translation' method to speaking as little as possible and eliciting what the students already know via ‘The Silent Way' (ITTT unit 3 page 2). There are many approaches, but a handful seem, in my personal experience, to be more viable both on paper and in practice than the others, with some crucial additions and changes. ‘The Silent Way' hinges on the teacher saying as little as he/she possibly can (ITTT unit 3 page 3). I can say that students are less motivated to listen when information is presented willingly. This approach forces them to make educated guesses, facilitating real effort. A downside is that it prohibits activities which are not self-explanatory. These include most role-playing activities in which sentence structure is crucial, such as ‘When I grow up' and other presentation activities designed to practice certain tenses of english. The teacher may be discouraged from maintaining spontaneity of activities in order to avoid having to explain them non-verbally. ‘Community Language Learning' allows teachers to keep lessons ‘student-centered' because students decide what to discuss in a lesson (ITTT unit 3 page 3). However, the majority will nearly always chose the ‘easy way out'. This is especially true of young learners or those who've been forced to take the course. In addition, students ‘cannot' choose to learn/discuss a facet of ‘L2' that they do not yet know exists. The teacher's deliberative abilities cannot be dispensed entirely. ‘Task-based Learning' focuses on completion of a task by whatever necessary means (ITTT unit 3 page 3). This approach allows students to think for themselves and adapt their own approaches which suit their individual needs. However, the task ‘order this list of groceries' given with an accompanying list in a role-play scenario may well elicit a simple presentation of the list and the words ‘please give me these' which is not viable in real-life and does not aid them in any other scenarios. ‘Communicative Language Teaching' bridges this gap by focusing on real-life use of english (ITTT unit 3 page 3). It assumes that continued exposure to native use of english would facilitate automatic absorption of necessary grammar structures, etc., at least in as far as is necessary for typical use. However, the english language offers a host of conundrums. A student may ‘pick up' all parts of the language by continued use and exposure, but it would take much longer and that student would have to be ‘very' observant. The answer to this issue is ‘Grammar-translation'. This approach is direct translation of sentences and words in ‘L1' to english (ITTT Unit 3 page 3). The obvious drawback is that words, phrases, idioms, etc. simply do not always translate to other languages. For instance, to say, “I love my cell phone” would be very confusing to a student whose ‘L1' only has one understanding of the word ‘love' which is the feeling between fond familiars. Obviously, none of these approaches is ‘the whole package'. The best option seems to be combining their respective strengths to make a ‘hybrid approach' that meets all needs of the students. The teacher can ‘elicit' responses and use non-verbal cues such as photos and gestures to use ‘the silent approach. ‘Community Language Learning' can be put to use through open discussion during the ‘engage' phase and choice of games to end class with. ‘Task-based Learning' can be utilized through frequent role-playing to practice grammar structures that are taught after the structures are taught with a combination of ‘Grammar-Translation' and explanation of the various arising inconsistencies. All these together will facilitate effective and productive use of language that can be used in real life to round out the ‘hybrid approach' with ‘Communicative Language Teaching' via the teacher's native perspective. The ‘hybrid approach' will be different for all teachers because it is suited to teacher preference and teaching strengths as it is to student weaknesses.