Wednesday, September 21, 2005
The Value of Open-Ended Activities.
In the language learning classroom, there are many valuable things that can and need to be done with the little time available, and one certainly could argue for any number of things over activities that are open-ended, that is, those where the language to be used to achieve the goal of the task is not predetermined, but these freer types of exercises are exactly what the EFL learner in an institutional setting is missing.
There needs to be a gap between the action in the outside world the learner intends to create with language and the language s/he is able to find to enact that function. Before any gap can exist, the learner needs to have an action in mind and attempt to achieve it.
The problem is the little amount of output and the limited range of speech acts these activities can produce, or rather, sometimes fail to produce, especially with lower proficiency groups.
There is a danger that both the instructor and learner could end up feeling unproductive when comparing a mildly successful open-ended activity to some more industrious language focus work.
What is needed is some faith that people learn to speak by speaking, and this can take some time. While this very aspect of perhaps being faith-based is one criticism of communicitative methodologies, such as Task-based Learning, that promote the use of free frameworks, let me ask you this question: Aside from perhaps the amount of comprehesible input experienced, what is the difference between the learner that has lived in, and operated in a foreign language speaking environment for even a short span of time and is ipso facto somewhat successful with their foreign language and the diligent learner lacking such experience who is not? The answer is the balance of experience, action and focus.
There needs to be a gap between the action in the outside world the learner intends to create with language and the language s/he is able to find to enact that function. Before any gap can exist, the learner needs to have an action in mind and attempt to achieve it.
The problem is the little amount of output and the limited range of speech acts these activities can produce, or rather, sometimes fail to produce, especially with lower proficiency groups.
There is a danger that both the instructor and learner could end up feeling unproductive when comparing a mildly successful open-ended activity to some more industrious language focus work.
What is needed is some faith that people learn to speak by speaking, and this can take some time. While this very aspect of perhaps being faith-based is one criticism of communicitative methodologies, such as Task-based Learning, that promote the use of free frameworks, let me ask you this question: Aside from perhaps the amount of comprehesible input experienced, what is the difference between the learner that has lived in, and operated in a foreign language speaking environment for even a short span of time and is ipso facto somewhat successful with their foreign language and the diligent learner lacking such experience who is not? The answer is the balance of experience, action and focus.
