Teaching Methods for Teaching ESL: An Analysis

LARSEN-FREEMAN ON TEACHING METHODS AND APPROACHES FOR TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE Pablo Peláez Galán Máster en Formación del Profesorado Fundamentación Didáctica del Inglés Lengua Extranjera Prof. Anna Jutta Steele Academic year 2015-2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 2 2. THE AUDIOLINGUAL METHOD .............................................................................................. 2 3. COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING .................................................................................... 3 4. THE COMPREHENSION APPROACH ....................................................................................... 6 5. SUGGESTOPEDIA ................................................................................................................... 7 6. THE SILENT WAY .................................................................................................................... 9 7. THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH ..................................................................................... 11 8. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................... 13 9. WORKS CITED: ..................................................................................................................... 14 ~1~ 1. INTRODUCTION The 20th Century can be regarded as the century of innovation and discovering: Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Lemaître formulation of the Theory of the Big Bang, Freud’s Psychoanalysis, etc. But those developments were not limited to the scientific area. Linguists and psychologists also felt the need to find new ways of teaching that would enhance and help children acquiring not only their mother tongue, but also a second language. The following pages would be devoted to an analysis of various methodologies of English language teaching, using several videos produced in 1990 in which Diane Larsen-Freeman and her colleagues illustrate different approaches and techniques of teaching English as a foreign language. 2. THE AUDIOLINGUAL METHOD The first method we could see implemented in a classroom is the Audiolingual Method. This method was developed in the 1950s and 1960s as the result of different variations and adaptations of what was known as the Army Method, a method that appeared when World War II started as a result of “the need for Americans to become orally proficient in the languages of both their allies and their enemies” (Brown 2007: 111) This Army Method evolved during the following years, giving birth to the Audiolingual method, which is based on the idea that language learning should be focus on learning new habits, and in this sense, the use of drills and prompts would help students learn and create their own sentence patterns (Lindsay 2006: 18). The lesson begins with the teacher presenting students a dialogue, writing down in the blackboard the two characters he is going to perform (i.e. a salesman and a woman or housewife). Students have to be quite and listen carefully to the performed dialogue, paying attention to what each character is saying and their interaction. The teachers performs the role playing twice so that students understand it properly, and afterwards the teacher asks the students to repeat with him each piece of the dialogue he has performed, stopping when the teacher wants his students to properly understand any piece. The teacher tells his students to listen carefully and try to memorize the dialogue without writing anything down, as he will give students a copy at the end of the class. Then, he does the role playing with his students, interacting with them and making them perform both roles and practice the two parts of the dialogue by themselves. To finish with the dialogue exercise, the teacher asks his students for volunteers, to practice the dialogue in pairs, by themselves and in front of the rest of the class. To conclude with the class, the teacher practices some grammar with his students, by repeating the sentences the teacher says. As homework for students, the teachers ask them to memorize the dialogue he has provide them in a photocopy in order to be able to repeat it the following day with no mistakes. In this video, it can be appreciated that students are required “to repeat as accurately as they can the teacher’s model” (Larsen- Freeman, 1990: 21:371) in the target language. The main principle at work in this method is that 2language learning is a 1 This paper will analyze different videos, all of them presented and described by Diane Larsen-Freeman and recorded in 1990. From here on in this chapter, any in-text citation will only include the minute and second in which the quotation appears within the video. ~2~ process of habit formation” (21:40), and so “the more often the students repeat something, the stronger the habit and the greater the learning” of that something (21:42-21:46). Another principle of the ALM is error correction in order to prevent the formation of bad habits (i.e. bad language use). The teacher makes use of language drills with students in order to make them learn grammar, with the idea that it helps students overlearn the sentence patterns of the target language. Another principle at work in this method is the use of “positive reinforcement” to help “students to develop correct habits” (22:48), something that can be appreciated when the teacher says “good” or “very good” whenever students say something correctly. Another important aspect of this method is that students are not given a written version of the dialogue until the end of the lesson, so that students have to focus just on listening, repeating and memorizing the dialogue without paying attention to a written version, related to the ALM principle that “speech is more basic language than written form” (23:04). I agree with the ALM in the idea that speech is very important in language acquisition, and so the use of drills and repetition will help students to better acquire this part of the language. However, I believe devoting the whole class to repeating constantly a dialogue will bore students to death, and I think motivation is one of the keys to gain students attention, activate them and helps them involve in the course of the class and increase students’ effectiveness acquiring language. Another positive aspect I found of this method is the idea of reinforcement when students do their work properly; I believe that in the same way we give students a bad grade when they do something wrong, we should also praise them when they do their work accurately to promote their correct linguistic behavior and enhance their involvement in the lesson. 3. COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING Community Language Learning (CLL) was a method developed during the 1970s as opposed to the ALM. CLL method was theorized by Charles A. Curran in 1972, claiming that both “students and teacher [should] join together to facilitate learning in a context of valuing and prizing each individual in the group” (Brown 2007: 113). LaForge used Curran’s theory and applied in the pedagogic domain, stating that students should be regarded as clients, who should be placed in the classroom forming a circle where they are able to interact with each other, and with the supervision of a counselor (the teacher), who would be outside the circle: this interaction between students would occur using students’ native language and it would be the teacher who would translate it back to the students’ second language (Brown 2007: 113. Emphasis added). One of the principles CLL is based on is that teachers must “recognize and understand the struggles students face as they attempt to internalize another language” (0:332). In this sense, the very first thing that can be appreciated in the video is that the teacher begins the lesson by clearly establishing the aims of the lesson, what students are going to be taught and what she expects from her students. The teacher asks students 2 This paper will analyze different videos, all of them presented and described by Diane Larsen-Freeman and recorded in 1990. From here on in this chapter, any in-text citation will only include the minute and second in which the quotation appears within the video. ~3~ to create a mental picture of their homes, and once they have it, to work in pairs and share it with their partners, trying to make their partners picture the exact image they have in their minds. This activity allows the teacher to find out the vocabulary the students already know about the house and the difficulties they might find describing it. Following this idea, the teacher asks students to think about the vocabulary related to the house and the emotions they might associate with it and to write them down in a list. This activity would also help the teacher getting the previous knowledge her students have regarding house-related vocabulary and the vocabulary dealing with emotions. Once they finish, the teacher ask students to share their words with her in order to make a list on the blackboard in order to clarify their meaning and practice their pronunciation both isolated and within a sentence. Once they have filled the blackboard, the teacher asks students to read them silently and see if they have problems with any word, if they do not understand any of the words written in the blackboard. Whenever there is a word someone does not understand, the teacher asks the rest of the students if any of them can define it aloud, before the teacher explain the appropriate meaning of the word herself, making students also participating in the explanation of the word’s meaning. Once the teacher has solved students’ problems with meaning, she moves towards working with the pronunciation of these words: in this sense, the teacher asks students to practice pronunciation themselves, saying aloud the list of vocabulary written in the blackboard before the teacher repeats these words in the appropriate pronunciation. By this way, the teacher encourages students to think by themselves how words are pronounced before she gives them the correct pronunciation. After working with pronunciation with the whole group at the same time, the teacher asks students to work individually with pronunciation, to see whether they have picked the proper pronunciation or they need the teacher to repeat any word to get the appropriate pronunciation. When students finish working with pronunciation, the next task the teacher poses them is to write a sentence about their home, in which they can use the words they have been working with as well as any other house-related word they may have in mind and want to use. The idea is that students write a single sentence about their home, read it aloud and then the teacher repeats this sentence with the appropriate pronunciation, in order for the students to get the adequate pronunciation and practice it by repeating it until they feel they get it. The teacher devotes the last minutes of the class to basically know students’ opinion about the class, to see whether they like it or not, if they felt comfortable with it and found it useful. The very first principle we see implemented in this CLL classroom is that the teacher is aware of the fact that “any new learning experience can be threatening,” and so the teacher tells students what will be the purpose of the lesson to make them “feel more secure” (18:26-18:32). The idea behind this practice is that “people learn best when they feel more secure” (18:36), and by stating the purpose of the class at its very beginning will help students feel more comfortable and secure. Likewise, “setting and enforcing time limits also enhances students’ security” (18:52-18:56), which is something the teacher acquires by telling students to first visualize their homes and then describe them in a limited period of time, reminding them the time they have left when the time is almost over. By listing "the words they would need to describe their ~4~ home, the teacher allow their students the “opportunity to assert themselves, be actively involved and to invest themselves in the learning experience” (19:03-19:08), as it is believed according to Kern that “students should have the responsibility for generating the language the wish to learn” (19:12-19:20). The teacher then focus on meaning and pronunciation of the listed words, asking students to find out the meaning of the words and repeating after them the correct pronunciation of the words. The teacher does so because of the belief in CLL that “the superior knowledge in power of the teacher can be threatening” (19:30-19:35), so if the teacher do not lead the exercise and let students see the blackboard and practice by themselves, they will “focus their full attention on the words in front of them” (19:40-19:42). Another aspect of this method that can be observed in this example is what is known as “the human-computer” (19:55), where students practice themselves the pronunciation of the words individually and ask the teacher to repeat the words they do not pronounce properly until they feel they get the correct pronunciation. Students would ask the teacher to repeat the word or words they do not understand as many times as they need until they can pronounce it accurately, telling the teacher to stope repeating. This exercise will help students “learn to discriminate, to listen carefully to see if what they are saying matches with the teacher’s saying” (19:59-20:06). The last exercise students have to do in this class is to create a sentence using the new words they have learned; they will read the sentence aloud once they finished and the teacher will repeat it after them with the appropriate pronunciation, following the idea of help students feel comfortable and relaxed rather threatened by teacher’s knowledge. The class ends with a “feedback session” (20:23) in which students tell the teacher their impressions, feelings and opinions related to the lesson. This feedback session is important in CLL as it allows the teacher to “understand what each student was feeling,” as well as giving students the “opportunity to feel accepted as whole persons, to learn about their own learning in addition to learn about the language” (20:32-20:43). I think the most positive aspect of the CLL approach is the idea that students should be given the opportunity to express by themselves before the teacher tells them what it is right or wrong. It is important to enhance students’ participation and create an atmosphere that helps students feel comfortable and relaxed, as it will help students participate actively in the class and learn better. However, I do not believe that teachers should merely perform a computer role and just repeat after students what they have created to help them memorize it. In my opinion, learning is not merely a process of memorizing one thing or the other, I believe that learning also involves the teacher’s explanation and reasoning, as it would help open students’ eyes and help them realizing aspects of the language they might not have notice and that would help them better understand and acquire the language. Another practice I like about this method is the feedback session, because it would help not only understand your students and see if they have feel comfortable with the lesson and learned something, but also because it allows teachers to engage with their students, creating an atmosphere of confidence and respect that would motivate students for the following lessons and would make them feel relaxed and comfortable. ~5~ 4. THE COMPREHENSION APPROACH The next method that can be analyzed is the Comprehension Approach, also known as Total Physical Response (TPR). This method was proposed by James Asher in 1977, based on his observations on how children acquire their first language. Asher believes that “much of the linguistic input directed to child contains commands” (1:04), which is something that characterizes this method. Asher believes that the teacher of a TPR classroom is merely a “director of a stage play in which the students are the actors” (Brown 2007: 78), and so the teacher would make use of commands to make students perform this role play. This method also enhances the idea of creating a stress-free atmosphere that would help students feel comfortable enough to interact and use language (Brown 2007: 78). Like it could be seen in the CLL classroom, the teacher following the TPR approach begins her lesson by stating what students will learn in that lesson, i.e. learning about cleaning the house. Then, she shows her students different objects that are used to clean the house and ask for a volunteer to come to the front of the class and point to the objects the teacher tells him: first of all, the teacher asks the volunteer to pint to one object and the other, and after some examples the teacher starts to give orders to the volunteer. Once the teacher finishes doing this exercise with just one student, the teacher does it with the whole class at the same time, ordering students to point to one object and the other. The teacher complicates the exercise little by little, introducing a chain of commands that the students have to follow. The teacher then asks students to remember something they worked with and shows them different actions that have to be done when cleaning the house. Once the teacher has shown students these actions, she follows the same procedure as with the previous exercise: the teacher asks for a volunteer to perform these actions in front of the class (in this case, the teacher performs the actions with the student) and then orders the whole class to do these actions, with the help of the teacher. After practicing with the whole class, the teacher asks student by student to order another student to do any action. The teacher then adds some more difficulty to the exercise by adding the modifiers “quickly” and “carefully,” using first just one action with each of them and then mixing progressively different actions with these two modifiers. The teacher starts practicing these new commands with the whole class, then she moves on to practice it in small groups and individually and finally she asks student by student to give a command to a fellow student. When all students have given commands to each other, the teacher asks them whether or not they like to clean the house; the last command activity the teacher practice with her students requires students to point out to someone who does or does not like to clean the house, depending to what the teacher tells them. The class ends with a review of the vocabulary they have been using the whole class, this time written in the blackboard, and by assigning them as homework to learn a sheet with the vocabulary the have used in the lesson in order to practice the commands for the following class. In this TFP classroom, it can be easily tracked the use of imperatives as a useful linguistic tool when teaching a foreign language. The TFP approach believes that “meaning in the target language can often be conveyed through actions” (Larsen- ~6~ Freeman, 1990: 13:15-13:183), based on how small children acquire their first language by means of listening, accompanied with a physical response (Brown 2007: 78). In this sense, this approach holds the belief that “retention is supposed to be enhanced when learners respond physically” (13:20-13:23), something the teacher carries out by enhancing students to perform the actions she tells them to perform. The TPR approach gives importance to the idea that “feelings of success and low anxiety facilitates learning” (13:31-13:34), and so little by little, the teacher’s commands become more complex, but never too quickly to help students feel successful, to feel that they are improving. Moreover, the teacher also changes the order of the commands she gives to her students so that they cannot memorize them and learn them as a routine, as well as introducing new ways of giving commands. This is important because students need to understand commands that are not just those they have been practicing. Besides, new commands may be motivating and may surprise students, who can find it funny, and it is believed that “language learning is more effective when it is fun” (14:06-14:08). It can be appreciated in this video that students do not do much speaking: this is due to the principle in the TFR approach that “listen comprehension comes first” and that “students will speak when they are ready” (14:13). Although little speaking is practice, teachers should not worry because students will do it later, once they are ready to do so, and they will start talking by giving commands. In this sense, students’ errors are assumed, and it is important for teachers to be tolerant with these errors, waiting until students are more proficient to develop more detailed aspects of the language. Finally, regarding error-correction, it is important for teachers to do it in a non-threatening way; good examples of this kind of corrections might be the repetition of the command and to allow students’ self-correction. 5. SUGGESTOPEDIA Suggestopedia is a method developed by G. Lozanov, who believed that “we set up psychological barriers to learning” because “we fear we will not able to perform, that we will be limited in our ability to learn or that we will fail” (Larsen- Freeman, 1990: 1:38-1:474). As a consequence, we as learners we will not use “the full metal powers that we have” (1:52), so in order to overcome those difficulties and limitations, teachers should “di-suggest” them. To do so, Lozanov proposed to implement the study of suggestion to pedagogy (2:04-2:05), which would help students believe in themselves and think they can succeed in learning a foreign language, as well as helping them overcome these barriers Lozanov believes we set up to ourselves. Lozanov also believes that the musical background helps to induce a relaxed attitude and that intonation and rhythm should coordinate with it to enhance and help students’ acquisition and learning (Richards 1999: 146). 3 This paper will analyze different videos, all of them presented and described by Diane Larsen-Freeman and recorded in 1990. From here on in this chapter, any in-text citation will only include the minute and second in which the quotation appears within the video. 4 This paper will analyze different videos, all of them presented and described by Diane Larsen-Freeman and recorded in 1990. From here on in this chapter, any in-text citation will only include the minute and second in which the quotation appears within the video. ~7~ The teacher in the video begins the lesson by telling students that they will be working with a reading passage, but before doing so, she asks them to get ready for this tax by relaxing with the different music she put students; by doing so, the teacher creates and atmosphere that helps students feel comfortable with the lesson, it breaks down their psychological barriers and it also enhance students’ learning. While they are listening to the music, the teacher will read and perform the passage for the first time, and after that, she is going to turn off the music and just read normally the passage for a second time, without acting, so that students would focus on just listening to her, finding out how much they can remember from the passage and what she performed and what they can understand of it. After reading the passage for the second time, the teacher gives students a copy of the passage she had read and asks them to read it aloud and accompany the reading with an action that would help them remember the vocabulary the teacher wants them to acquire. To work with pronunciation, the teacher asks students to focus on a list of verbs coded in colors: she asks students to read the verbs and find by themselves the difference between the verbs. Students then repeat the list of verbs knowing the difference between them and paying attention to it in order to pronounce the verbs accurately. The next thing the teacher asks her students is to open an envelope they have under their seats: they will find two cards of two different colors, matching those in which the verbs were written, with a “D” and a “T” written on it. The purpose of the exercise with the cards is that students try to identify whether the verbs are pronounced with a final “d” or “t” just by listening to them: if they are able to identify the verb, they have to raise the appropriate card. When the teacher thinks that students have gotten the idea, she moves to the next exercise; in this exercise, the teacher uses an inflatable ball she throws to one student, who would have to say the appropriate past tense or the verb the teacher asks him/her. Once the teacher has practice this exercise with all the students, she asks them to work in pairs and practice with the passage she had given them before, so that one of the students in the pair would read the passage and the other would have to perform it at the same time. This exercise would help students remember and consolidate the vocabulary they have worked with. After giving students time to do this activity at least once, the teacher asks students for a volunteer to act out the passage while the rest of the class read it aloud. The teacher congratulates the student that volunteered for the activity and concludes the class with a dictation related to the topic they worked with during the lesson. Students’ homework for the following lesson would be to check for spelling mistakes in their dictations and to read it carefully in order to remember how to pronounce properly some of the words they have worked with in that lesson. One of the main features of Suggestopedia is the use of different resources such as music, posters, the ball, etc. in order to create a positive atmosphere for learning. The teacher does so because Suggestopedia claims that “learning is facilitated in a pleasant, comfortable environment” (21:18), and so by creating this atmosphere students would feel comfortable and confident, and “the more confident the students feel, the better they will learn” (21:28). Moreover, the fact that the teacher read aloud the passage while performing it at the same time is something she does on purpose, believing that “communication has two planes,” and “when there is a unity between them, learning is enhanced” (22:10). Likewise, the use of several resources and different activities is something the teacher does on purpose too, because ~8~ Suggestopedia claims that “the means of activating the material should be varied and playful” (22:28), reducing students’ psychological barriers, indirectly suggesting that learning can be something funny. In my opinion, this is an interesting approach for teaching a foreign language, especially with children, as it would activate them, help them feel relaxed with the lesson as well as motivating them and catching their attention, which I believe are essential aspects for learning. However, I also think that it is complicate to put it into practice, as it involves a wide variety of activities that might not please some students and would cause them boredom. I would be interesting to combine this method with the multimodality theory in which we use different modes (set of resources for meaning making) in order to construct meaning. Thus, it would be interesting to combine music, video, presentations, posters, etc. with other activities such as performance or games in order to make the lesson more appealing, but always bearing in mind the aims we want to achieve with our lesson. 6. THE SILENT WAY The Silent Way Approach (SWA) is a method developed by C. Gattegno in which he introduced some elements, particularly the use of color charts and wooden sticks, from his previous experience as an educational designer of reading and mathematics programs in the pedagogic domain for teaching EFL (Richards 1999: 99). Gattegno also shares the idea of other approaches that understanding the process of first language learning could help deriving principles for teaching foreign languages, claiming for instances that students need to "return to the state of mind that characterizes a baby's learning” in order to overcome the psychological barriers they might have created towards learning a foreign language (Richards 1999: 102). In the example given of a SWA classroom, it can be appreciated that the lesson begins with the teacher stating the purpose of the lesson, what students are going to learn, in the same way that it was done in the two previous approaches. Afterwards, the video focus on how the teacher uses a fidel chart, “a color-coded word chart in which each English sound is assigned a distinctive color” (Larsen- Freeman, 1990: 0:53-0:585) to make students focus on the color of the letter and how it is pronounced according to that use certain words of the chart. In this way, the teacher makes students realize that the word “the” can be pronounced in two different ways, i.e. /ðə/ or /ðiː/. The teacher remains as silent as possible so that students are the ones who speak, in order to make them learn. After this initial exercise, the teacher ask the front row of the class to come near him; he uses some red and blue wooden pieces to form a floor plan on the table, asking students whether or not they know what a floor plan is, and then he ask them about the different parts of the house, so that students have to decide the correct pronunciation of “the” for each case, using also the fidel chart to help them decide the correct pronunciation, while at the same time students learn the vocabulary of the 5 This paper will analyze different videos, all of them presented and described by Diane Larsen-Freeman and recorded in 1990. From here on in this chapter, any in-text citation will only include the minute and second in which the quotation appears within the video. ~9~ house. The teachers speaks the least he is able to, communicating with his students mainly by gestures and using his voices just to guide the students towards what he want them to guess and practice. He does this exercise with different groups, one after the other, so that everyone does the exercise. After doing this exercise with the students, the teacher asks them to create a sentence using something new about the house they have learned in the lesson; once they have finished, the teacher asked them to read them allowed, so that he can correct them any errors they make with vocabulary but also with pronunciation, not by giving them the answer explicitly but by directing them towards it. The teacher finishes the lesson by asking students if they have learned anything new about the house, making them reflect on their own knowledge and learning. SWA claims that language learning is something that may happen faster than how we think it does, and that it is teaching what normally slows it down. Therefore, this approach is based upon the principle that this fact could be avoided if teaching is subordinated to learning (0:26). The SWA maintains that “teachers should base his lesson on what the students are learning at the moment, not what he wants to teach them” (0:29-0:36). It can be appreciated in the video that the teacher use the fidel chart because it is something students are familiar with and something that allows the teacher to work from what students already know towards what it is still unknown for them. He also uses the wooden pieces to create the floor plan and guide students in the construction of the plan. By doing so, the teacher shows respect towards their students’ knowledge while at the same time he helps them go beyond it. LarsenFreeman linked this practice with a SWA principle that claims that “language is not learned by repeating after a model; students need to develop their own “inner criteria” for correctness” (15:10), which means that students are the ones who have to trust themselves when deciding the appropriate way to express something in a foreign language. The SWA also claims that “errors are important and necessary to learning,” allowing teachers to see “how students understand what he is teaching and specifically which things are unclear” (15:35-15:43). The most characteristic feature of the SWA is that teachers barely use their voice but they use a wide variety of other resources to carry out the class, such as gestures, the blackboard, the fidel chart, other students, etc. Not to correct students himself, but to make them correct themselves. The teacher is not the one speaking most of the time but rather students are the ones doing so because the SWA believes that “it is students who should be practicing the language, not the teacher” (16:15). Students are the ones who need to develop and master the foreign language and so they should be the ones speaking during most of the lesson’s time. I believe that carrying a lesson using only the SWA could be problematic in the sense that there is a high risk of losing students attention. In my opinion, the fact that you work with just a group of a few students would probably make that with the rest of them feel bored and would easily get distracted. Besides, it is essential that students are familiar with the fidel chart, otherwise they would probably not understand it and get confuse and frustrated when the teacher makes use of it. However, it seems that students were motivated and had fun with the floor plan exercise, which is something essential in language learning: if the teacher can get students attention and can motivate them to be active along the class, they would probably learn better and ~ 10 ~ faster than if they cannot see anything positive in the lesson. Finally, I think this approach can be used within an exercise, for instance in a debate or a discussion around a given topic, so that while students are doing it the teacher remains as silent as possible, enhancing students to speak themselves and show their own ideas. I also think some of the principles the SWA is based on should be taken into account, such as the importance of students’ feedback after the lesson and the idea that students are the ones who should be practicing the language, as much as possible so that they can develop the language and master it by themselves, finding their own ways to acquire it easier but with the guidance and help of the teacher. 7. THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH The Communicative Approach (CA) also emerged in the 1970s, when some experts claimed investigated the possibility of developing language courses based on a system in which tasks “are broken down into portions or units, each of which corresponds to a component of a learner's needs and is systematically related to all the other portions" (Richards 1999: 65). In these sense, this approach advocate for the use of “activities that involve real communication [in order to] promote learning”, as well as “activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks,” that would also enhance linage learning (Richards 1999: 72). When designing and decided the activities to carry out in the class, this approach states that they should be “selected according to how well they engage the learner in meaningful and authentic language use” (Richards 1999: 72). The teacher of the CA classroom illustrated in the video starts the lesson by stating what he will be practicing with students, highlighting the usefulness of the topic (i.e. persuasion) they will deal with. The teacher tries to empathize with his students by telling them his personal experience, asking them different question to catch their attention and get them involved in a discussion around the topic. The teacher makes students discuss around a familiar topic, playing with the idea that they would help him to make a decision so that students find the discussion funny, appealing and they feel confident and participate in the discussion. However, before they move on to the role-play debate, the teacher asks students to pay attention to the structure of persuasion he is going to explain them: he starts by asking them question about the city where they live, working on this idea of emphasize with the students while catching their attention and trust too. The teacher makes them think about the pros and cons of living where they live, so that they have some knowledge of reasoning and could think of different ideas that they could use later in the role play. With all the reasons students find for living in a big city, the teacher then show them an example of how they could stand for living in a big city using the ideas they all have think about, showing them the appropriate way of structure their ideas and persuasive speech. The teacher then shows students the structure in the blackboard, explaining it step by step to make it clear to the students; once he explains them the structure, the teacher ask for a volunteer to make a case for living in Florida, so that one of the students could practice the structure he has just explained them and the rest of the class can also appreciate how to do it and also evaluate it. After the student’s example, the teacher congratulates her for doing it so well and he also tell the students the ~ 11 ~ usefulness of persuasion, giving them different examples where they could use it. Afterwards, he asks the students to do the role play so that all of them can practice making the case: the teacher divides the class in groups and gives them a card in order to provide them with the stance they have to stand for. Although these cards also include some hints that would help students find reasons to stand for the place they have been assigned and prepare their persuasive speech to try to convince the parents to go to the place they stand for, the teacher reminds students that they could ask any questions regarding any doubts they may have. After giving students time enough to practice the structure the teacher has taught them for making a case, the teacher ask students to share with their classmates which place they have decided to live in and the reasons why they decided on that place. With all the decisions the students have given, he thank students and ask them to write a composition, using the formula for making a case the teacher has explained them and they have been practicing along the class, making a case for the real place they live in in their own country. One of the principles the CA is based on consist of the belief that language teaching must enable “students to use the language to communicate,” with the assumption that “communication involves using language functions as well as grammar structures” (Larsen- Freeman, 1990: 0:316). Moreover, the video shows a teacher that uses the role play to teach and practice students how to make a case; it allows the teacher to use a real-life situation because the CA advocate for using language “in a social context” and for language to be “appropriate to setting, topic and participants” (17:23). The fact that the teacher divides the class in groups enhance group working and interaction between students, believing that “students should be given an opportunity to negotiate meaning,” trying to “make themselves understood” (17:49). Students need to learn to communicate with their classmates in order to negotiate meaning, and to do so students have precisely to communicate with each other. The teacher also moves around the class asking students if they need help and listening to them to check how they are doing before he asks them to share their decisions. It is important to allow students to express their opinions, ideas and feelings in order to help them realizing it is a natural outcome of the development of communication skills (18:27). I find the CA as an interesting method for teaching English as a foreign language (EFL). I believe the way the teacher in the example carried out the class is a very good way of enhancing students participation, as well as emphasizing and motivating them, which is something I find essential for the proper functioning of the class. I also think it is a good idea to provide students with a model and then allow them to practice it by themselves, so that students are the first ones realizing the problems they find to use language and so the first ones to correct themselves and find solutions to their problems. Like in other previous methods analyzed in this paper, I believe positive reinforcement is a good tool encouraging students to keep practicing language in an EFL classroom, as well as move around the class and show interest for your students. 6 This paper will analyze different videos, all of them presented and described by Diane Larsen-Freeman and recorded in 1990. From here on in this chapter, any in-text citation will only include the minute and second in which the quotation appears within the video. ~ 12 ~ 8. CONCLUSION During the last month and a half, we were able to see different methods and approaches that can be applied for teaching EFL. It can be inferred that traditional ways of teaching might be outdated and that using new means and ways of teaching EFL would be not only useful for teachers when preparing a lesson for their students, but also useful, successful and appealing for students, finding themselves more active, relaxed and predisposed for learning than they were with traditional ways. I believe there are not absolute truths and so there is not one single, universal method that can be applied and be useful and successful for teaching EFL; on the contrary, I think the best way for teachers to approach teaching EFL is to be open-minded and try to find the salient and most useful features of the different methods and approaches for teaching EFL and create their own methodology, without limiting themselves to just one approach or the other. Children do not learn in the same way, and so teachers should neither teach children in the same way, we have to adapt to our students, the social and cultural context we all live in and to the different means we are able to use for teaching. ~ 13 ~ 9. WORKS CITED: Brown, H. Douglas. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. New York: Pearson Education Inc., 2007. Print. Larsen-Freeman, D. (1990). Language teaching methods. United States Department of State American English. 2015. Retrieved from: http://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/language-teaching-methods Lindsay, Cora and Knight, Paul. “Teaching Methods and Ideas.” Learning and Teaching English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 15-25. Print. Richards, Jack C. and Rodgers, Theodore S. Approaches and Methods In Language Teaching. A description and analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Print. ~ 14 ~