ED7502: Second Language Teaching and Learning

Formative Unit

A critical evaluation of Ellis, G. (1996)How culturally appropriate is the communicative approach? ELT Journal, 50/3: 213-218

April 2013

IntroductionOver the last 30 years increasing emphasis has been placed on the importance of communicative competence in regards to language teaching and learning. In his article How Culturally Appropriate is the Communicative Approach, Greg Ellis (1996) explores the question of how relevant the communicative approach is within cultural contexts that differ widely from the Western context in which it has found success. He focuses on Far Eastern cultures, finding that in order to be at least accepted by the students, the communicative approach requires modification, and suggests that the role of cultural mediator, someone who seeks to find common ground between the 2 cultures, is essential for teachers to adopt in order that resistance to communicative language teaching (CLT) strategies is reduced. This analysis seeks to examine the validity of these claims based on personal teaching experience with East Asian students.

The first section of the report will give some background information on the communicative approach. The second will summarise the claims made in Ellis article and the final section will evaluate the claims in light of my own experience.

The Communicative ApproachCLT is best considered an approach, principles that are concerned with a communicative view of language learning, rather than a method. In CLT, language is seen as a system for the expression of meaning where the main purpose of language is to interact with and communicate with others. This underlying principle becomes a lens through which teaching practices are evaluated; activities, exercises and tasks are selected based on the extent to which they engage the learner in authentic, meaningful language use, and guidance on the roles and demands of the teacher and learners is provided.Nunan (2004) notes that Learners and the cognitive processes they engage in as they learn are seen as fundamentally important to the learning process. (p.7). As such, the roles of learners are seen as key to defining what constitutes a communicative class. Learners are expected to be interdependent, interacting with one another more so than with the teacher. The teacher, then no longer acts as the sole arbiter of knowledge but takes on, among other roles, those of needs analyst, manager, guide and facilitator.

It is necessary to discuss what is meant by the narrow definition of communicative competence with regard to the communicative approach. This is where CLT differentiates itself from earlier approaches, most notable of which being Chomskys generative grammar, which emphasised grammatical accuracy, structures and passive knowledge of ideal speakers. The term communicative competence was coined by Hymes as a response to generative grammar, and in particular to the restriction of competence to the notions of a homogeneous community, perfect knowledge and independence of sociocultural factors.(Hymes, 1972:55) It is this disregard for the social aspect of language, the fact that a normal child acquires knowledge of sentences not only as grammatical, but also as appropriate. He or she acquires competence as to when to speak, when not, and as to what to talk about with whom, when, where, in what manner. (p.60) that prompted the inclusion of sociocultural features in Hymes description of language.

The definition of communicative competence is further refined by Canale and Swain (1980) who proposed that This notion is intended to include not only grammatical competence (or implicit and explicit knowledge of the rules of grammar) but also contextual or sociolinguistic competence (knowledge of the rules of language use)(p.4) - Sociolinguistic competence being an understanding for the social context in which communication takes place including knowledge of role-relationships, the shared information of the participants and the communicative purpose of the interaction. (Richards and Rogers 2001:160)

It is these two aspects of CLT which are important for the evaluation of Ellis claims in section 3, that, as an approach, CLT is pluralistic and flexible and, by its own definition, places great value on socio-cultural factors and role-relationships.

Summary of the main pointsEllis begins by pointing out that the roles the teacher are expected to play in the classroom (facilitator/friend etc.) are themselves culturally-relative concepts operating at a subconscious level in the minds of the learners. He suggests that it would be simpler to modify the approach rather than expect the students to fundamentally shift their beliefs about these roles in order to adapt to those demanded by communicative principles.

Ellis questions the validity of substituting the teachers own value system for the learners, as the Western concept of the teacher-as-facilitator(Ellis 1996:216) may, in fact, be far from ideal as examined from other cultural perspectives when:

touching upon an essential part of the learning process, that learning involves the incorporating of new information into old sets of beliefs and knowledge for the purpose of maintaining a consistent world view(p.214), Ellis looks at research that shows that unfamiliar activities having a communicative or process orientation were not highly valued by students from traditional backgrounds.(p.214), and that a gap in expectations results in a breakdown of language production, and frustration for the language learner; the breakdown in production being in direct contrast to the goals of the communicative approach.

He points to the fact that the communicative approach with its emphasis on the learning process and fluency rather than content and accuracy, may be all that is required to form an unbridgeable gap in societies which value mastery of content.(p.214)

While highlighting the fact that ESL learners operate in an environment where there is pressure to integrate, Ellis suggests that the communicative approach is appropriate in such an environment where there is a real need to communicate. Contrastively however, he goes on to draw attention to the fact that in an EFL context with which he is concerned, where English is usually part of a school curriculum, passing an examination may be a priority to the learner rather than communicative competence. (p.215)

These observations; the focus on process rather than content; the focus on communication with its flawed or degenerate quality (Hymes citing Chomsky, 1972:55) and the mismatch of aims between the goals of the approach and the students needs are enough to generate resistance to the approach in the learners, yet when combined with the gap in expectations of what teachers and learners should be doing, a complete rejection of the approach, or the teacher could be engendered.

By way of a solution, Ellis draws upon research to offer an alternative role for the teacher as that of cultural mediator, someone who finds common ground between the two cultures and is sympathetic to different cultural identities. This, he posits, is the key role for the Western teacher to adopt in order to bridge the gap.

He concludes by saying that if the teacher hopes to succeed in transmission of knowledge in a cross-cultural context, then finding points of congruence between the two cultures is an essential tool in the teaching box.

AnalysisMy own experience has shown that many of the points raised in this article are valid.

Ellis makes the distinction between the integrative pressure and demand to communicate of an ESL environment as compared to an EFL environment, where pressure to communicate in the target language is minimal. As I work in the Netherlands, my Asian students are effectively EFL students. The university itself strives to be international, and while international students constitute only 10% of the student body, English is spoken widely by the staff, creating somewhat of an ESL micro-climate within the institution. Despite having many opportunities to mix with locals and other international students, the East Asian students largely isolate themselves and make few attempts to integrate and thus lack the pressure to communicate. Consequently, learners overlook the importance of communicative activities.

Ellis point about examination pressure being a more fundamental concern is also borne out here. While tasked with providing a preparatory course for students to access higher education in a Western teaching environment, the requirement for acceptance is an IELTS score. The students come with the belief that what is provided is an extended IELTS preparation course. This expectation, coupled with their own beliefs about the value of examinations, and examination and study techniques have led to strong resistance from a large section of the student body to anything which deviates from rote exam practice. Students will regularly substitute IELTS practice writing tests, consisting of near identical sentence stems and phrases they believe to have academic value for set work and generally fail to see the value of communicative activities. This is evidenced by the students attempts to get through communicative tasks as quickly as possible, then sit in silence or chat in their native language while waiting for others to finish. Resolving the issues stemming from these expectations is of great concern; the subsequent drop-out rate when students access their university course is high, as the learners stock of disconnected, memorized phrases render them unprepared for the demands of functioning in a higher education environment.

That expectations are culturally relative concepts; that expectations of authorities, parents and peers vary quite widely between cultures, is not in question; the expected roles and functions of the teacher as well as the course content are subject to the same shifting definition. It is quickly evident in classes that students have their own expectations of classroom culture, learning and teaching which largely fit a passive learning model. Any attempts to modify these expectations are frustrated by disinterest, distrust, and a general sense of inertia. In transformative learning theory, the idea that adults often reject ideas that do not match their own values is verified in the classroom. Rewriting cultural programming seems a near impossible task, and with that in mind, Elliss point of adapting the approach to the students rather than the reverse seems well made. Given the pluralistic nature of CLT, modification would not seem to violate any tenets, and given the concern of CLT with knowledge of culturally acceptable ways of interaction, it would be a critical to understand the idea that the concept of roles vary culturally.

While the term cultural mediator is new to me, I have tried to integrate aspects of cross-cultural communication into my teaching. It is hard to definitively attribute success in the classroom solely to this element, given the unscientific application of its inclusion, yet for my current crop of students, the addition of this element seems to be bearing fruit. Comments such as I just realised that not all Western culture is the same, and I wish to be an East-West person are encouraging, but it was during a week in which students researched and compared Socrates and Confucius looking for commonalities, culminating in a Socratic seminar, a whole group discussion, analysing a text which described how Western students acted in an Asian classroom from an Asian perspective (see appendix) that saw the communicative approach being truly embraced by the learners.

The idea of grounding new knowledge in existing knowledge is a cornerstone of constructivist models of learning. I have discovered that integrating reflective practices, disguised as in-class free-writing assignments have further revealed doubts from the students themselves about their own approach to study and the effectiveness thereof. Through their writing, admissions of an initial sense that the process was a waste of time were almost universally replaced by reports of a deeper understanding of the text from open discussion with peers and positive feedback about the method itself.

Conclusion and recommendationsThere is much to reflect on in Ellis article, chief among which is the idea that as the very definition of CLT hinges upon the inclusion of socio-linguisitic competence, it must consequently have to take into account the differences in role-relationships for any given culture. In my own experience, struggling with washback effects of the exam, combined with passive approaches to learning, I have found results worthy of further investigation. I would further agree with Ellis recommendations that further research should be done in these areas with a view to perhaps producing guides to areas of cultural overlap for in-house training purposes.As mentioned above, it is hard to testify to the points of cultural congruence being the only factor involved in the open attitude my most recent students have taken to my communicative overtures. Reflective practices; attempts at promoting learner-autonomy; a focus on overtly teaching study skills; and elements of critical thinking are all recent additions to my syllabus. As such, my own evidence in support of Ellis core claim is anecdotal at best, and there is always the possibility of these students being coincidentally receptive to communicative teaching practices. However, the unusually receptive response of the students to the communicative demands of a Socratic seminar led me to conclude that this activity is at least worthy of future exploration.

References:

Canale, M. & Swain, M. (1980) Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing, Applied Linguistics 1(1), 1-47. Ellis, G. (1996) How culturally appropriate is the communicative approach? ELT Journal, 50/3: 213-218.Hymes, D.H. (1972) On communicative competence. In J. B Pride and J. Holmes (eds.) Sociolinguistics, Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books. pp. 269-293.Nunan, D. (2004) Task-Based Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J. & Rogers, T. (2001) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Appendix A:

Text used for Socratic SeminarAn Interrupted LessonLast year, I took a course Ecological environment of China at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. I expected that all my classmates would be local students. After I entered the lecture theatre, I saw a few exchange students chatting with each other in the first rows of the seats until Professor Lo began to talk.I remember the topic of the lecture was the impact of the Three Gorges Dam. I really felt that the topic was boring because it was rather factual and theoretical to me. The impact of the project was obvious and not difficult to understand. Thus, I thought I would fall asleep throughout the lessons. However, my expectation seemed to be wrong due to the exchange students.The lesson started smoothly and all students were silent. No one made a sound. After Professor Ho lectured for half an hour, an exchange student called Natalie suddenly raised her hand. As Professor Lo was concentrating on his lesson, he was not aware of her, or maybe he did not expect any questions from students. However, local students sitting behind those exchange students saw her clearly. Their first reaction was to open their eyes widely. We felt a bit surprised because there were rarely any students asking questions during lessons. After a while, Professor Lo saw Natalie and she spoke. She said, Id like to ask where exactly the Three Gorges Dam is? And how seriously does it affect the soil? Professor Lo smiled and nodded his head, and then he answered Natalies queries. After she got her answers, she continued her attention on Professor Los lesson.We, local students, thought that the remaining one and a half hours would be passed in silence. We tried to pay attention to professors lecture. However, as his tone is too flat it seemed to be a lullaby to us; our eyelids began to fall. At this moment, not only Natalie, but also other exchange students took turns to raise their hands and ask questions. I looked at my classmate who sat beside me, and saw her looking at me, too. Other local students also looked and smiled at each other, feeling half surprised and half doubtful. The exchange students were so eager to ask questions that, along with the students, Professor Lo also showed his uneasiness. He rarely encountered so many questions in a lesson and he was certainly worried that he could not finish his syllabus.Following the question and answer session, the exchange students amazed us again as they pushed the lessons to the climax when they could not agree with Professor Los point of view. Near the end of the lesson, he mentioned the impact of the project, that the pros exceeded the cons for its contribution to the future economic development of China. There was nothing wrong with his standpoint. Of course, we know that it was hard to say which factors outweighed others, but Professor Los view reflected his own idea and one of the facts only.Therefore, we got his view and tried to think of our own perspectives. I thought to myself that I could not totally agree with Professor Lo because I regarded the damage caused by the Three Gorges Dam on the environment as irreversible. However, I had no intention of speaking my mind, as it was unnecessary and also embarrassing to talk in front of the whole class.Yet, an exchange student called Alison held the same view as me. She did not know anyone in the class, including other exchange students. However, she started to debate with Professor Lo. I felt the atmosphere become strange and intense. Other local students were also startled by Alisons behaviour and they murmured to each other. Some of them even seemed embarrassed. They seemed to be thinking: How come a student challenges a professor and doesnt give him face?Luckily, time was up and the lesson ended. The exchange students may have needed to hurry for the next lessons so they left on time. At that moment, Professor Lo sighed and looked relieved - just like the rest of us.

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