Valentina Koscheleva,

Volgograd State In- Service Academy for the Educators,

Foreign Languages Department.

“Some principles of Interactive English Language

Learning and Teaching in the Classroom.”

“We set out from the assumption

that languages are difficult to learn and

no less difficult to teach.”.- Wilga M. Rivers. Harvard University.

There is much stale air in the language classroom. When the children are in the classroom, we are separated there from a big, wide world out there. Language is a living thing – ever changing, ever adapting and indispensable for human activity. Language is the expression of communal life, as it helps us to build society, keep our heritage and plan for the future. As language teachers we should make our classroom microcosms of life (W. Rivers), with real relationships and purposeful use of language. All our techniques should be directed toward achieving this goal. So, it`s upon a teacher how effective their ways of teaching might be in order to help our students use the language we teach in their real life. We must keep in mind some very important things how to turn all the activities into interactive and really communicative.

The first thing to be mentioned is that education process is based on subjective approach of teaching. For me it`s the term which no longer reflects all that is most authoritarian, imperious and manipulative in the teacher- student relationship. Students are no longer the objects to be installed and filled with different sorts of information. They should participate in the education process together with the teacher, not only acquire knowledge presented by the teacher, but they should also get it themselves from a deep well of knowledge and understanding. So we do not teach a language – students learn a language. So, language learning and language teaching may be seen as one interactive process: the teacher’s work is to foster an environment in which effective language learning may develop. Confucius once said “the teacher is always ready to teach and the teacher is always ready to learn”.

So, Principle 1 can be called like this: The student is a language learner.

As early as 1836, W. von Humboldt had concluded that no one can really teach a language; one can only present the conditions under which it will develop spontaneously in the mind in its own way. Similarly, Bronson Alcott, in his General Maxims of education (1826), maintained that we should “teach nothing that pupils cannot teach themselves.” This radical paradox, so applicable to language teaching we are nurturing inner criteria in learners that enable them to advance in their learning. “Only self - education”, he says, “will lead any learner to the mastery of a skill.”

In learning a language, each learner must acquire and consolidate mental representations that are basic to both understanding a language and expressing oneself through it (in speech and in writing). We know that people possess even their native language to differently in the way they use languages to serve their purposes. In teaching a language, we are facilitating the individual’s acquisition and increasingly fluent use of the language in the best ways we know. (Very often the ways of proceeding are often intuitive, since our ignorance at this is great.) We can present clearly and provide opportunities for observing the language in use and for using the language, but only the learners themselves can assimilate the language and make it theirs. They do it in very individual ways, or do not do because they lack motivation to do so. For this reason, in an interactive approach, self and peer-to-peer consideration of errors is promoted. The students must realize that they are responsible for their own progress; they will take this responsibility more seriously if they themselves discover and work at their own weaknesses.

Corollary 1: Motivation springs from within; it can be sparked, but not imposed from without.

Principle 2: Language learning and teaching are shaped by student needs and objectives in particular circumstances.

Student’s needs objectives are not just personal. They are shaped to a considerable degree by societal pressures and political exigencies. These outside forces exert a largely subconscious influence on what are perceived as individual choices. One subtle influence is that of career opportunities for the language learner. Another is growing importance in public perception of certain speech communities at a particular point in time: Should our students be learning Japanese, Chinese or Russian instead of German? Or Spanish or Italian instead of French? Is it pointless and time-wasting for English speakers to learn any other language at this particular period of history Factors such as these influence students` decisions and attitudes.

Language teachers must study the language learners in their classes – their ages, their interests, their goals in language acquisition in a formal setting – and then design language courses that meet the needs of specific groups. Decisions on course content and orientation will affect the way the language will be presented and the types of materials that will be used.

Corollary 2: Language teaching and course design will be very diverse. The days of universal approach to a language course, imposed on all learners, are well past(or should be).As students and their perceived needs and objectives change, so will the content and techniques of language courses.

Besides, wherever there enough students for diversification, several parallel courses should be offered, allowing for student selection of contents and approaches should be available as the student advances through the language sequence.

Principle 3: Any written or oral communication should be meaningful and based on real life situations.

The task of the teacher at the lesson is: to organize lots of practice and these practical exercises should be oriented on using the target language for the normal purposes basic to all strategies and techniques. This should be organized in contradistinction to the artificial types of exercises and drills on which so many languages learners spend their time.

In real interactive situations people use the language to give and get information, to explain, to discuss, to describe, to persuade, to dissuade, promise or refuse, to entertain or to calm, to reveal or hide feelings and attitudes, to direct others in their undertakings, to learn, teach, solve problems etc. There are many more uses for language in speech and writing. Suffice it to say that facility in conveying meanings in purposeful acts is true end of language instruction. The most correct and true way to this end is to provide many opportunities to use language in different communicative situations.

Students learn to communicate in the form that natural interaction takes for speakers of the target language, which includes acquisition of the target language, structure of natural discourse within the culture, which include ways of opening and closing conversations. Many of these features of natural interaction are related to the wider expectations within the culture, as discussed under some other principles.

To sum up, we conclude that, speaking practice at the lesson is a sort of a bridge for learners between the classroom and the world outside. So, between learning new language in the classroom and using language to communicate in real life is speaking. In order to build this bridge, speaking interactive activities must have three features: they must give the learners (1)practice opportunities for (2) purposeful communication in (3) meaningful situations.

Principle 4: Classroom relations reflect mutual liking and respect, which allows both a teacher and a student in a nonthreatening atmosphere to cooperate in education process.

Language teaching and language learning are distinctly different from other school disciplines. Speaking and writing what one really thinks and feels means revealing one`s inner self: one`s feelings, prejudices, values and aspirations.

In a highly structured methodology, in which students perform according to instructions in a well-planed, emotionally neutral and predictable sequence, students are protected from such wounds to self-esteem. Once a teacher tries, however, to stimulate interactive activities where more than the students` intellect and memory are involved. As interactive language – learning environment requires that students and teachers reach a stage of being comfortable with each other and interested in each other, and respectful of each other’s personal temperament- imposed limits. To achieve this equilibrium, teachers must feel comfortable with what they are doing, just as students must be comfortable with what they are expected to do. Teachers need to develop a realistic understanding of their own strengths and weakness. Both teachers and students have to be willing to take risks and laugh together when things go wrong. Together they must exercise the fear of failure. To stimulate the interaction that leads to communication via language they must work toward a nonthreatening atmosphere of cooperative learning, where all can succeed because each has something unique to contribute to valuable procedure of learning and teaching.

Principle 5: Basic to language use are knowledge of language and control of language.

Basic to language use is a mental representation of how language. All languages are organized at several levels. We have a basis for the expression of an infinity of meanings. Grammatical structure and vocabulary, which are interrelated in their functioning, provide the tools for expressing semantic and pragmatic meaning.

We cannot use language without a mental representation. Teachers can help students acquire an understanding of this basic mechanism that will enable them to use it to comprehend language and produce comprehensible speech. Teachers can help their students refine this understanding as they progress. They acquire the language through performing rules, not through memorizing or discussing them; they acquire knowledge of the structure of the language actively through use. In this way it becomes part of the learner’s mental equipment and can be called upon readily to express personal meaning or to comprehend and recreate the meanings others are trying to convey.

The development of control of language is further discussed under Principle 6.

Principle 6: The development of language control proceeds through creativity, which is nurtured by interactive activities.

The ultimate goal for our students is to be able to use the language they are learning for their own purposes, to express their own meanings; that is, to create their own formulations to express their intentions.

Creating new utterances in a language that one only partially controls is not easy. It frequently leads to cognitive overload: learners pause and hesitate; they misuse elements of the new language when they are well aware of the accepted forms. One can do a lot of meaningful interactive situations that stimulate the students` motivation to communicate in different purposeful situations, through which students experience the use of the new language as an important social skills. Activities may be amusing or serious. Games, competitions, skits, simulations and dramatizations enliven the interaction; problem-solving and information – getting activities encourage persistence and probing.

Interactive may be related to content being studied in the language, whether literary, historical, philosophical, scientific, commercial or sociological. Students may work in groups to gather information, set up experiments, develop alternative denouement for literary works to understand further the author’s intent; they may prepare meals according to the cuisine of a country where the language is spoken or engage in appropriate social activities of the culture; they may develop plays, radio or television programs, or prepare entertainments for other students, parents, or the community. In these ways students learn by doing.

Literature:

1. Deller S.1995. Lessons from the Learner Longman.

2. Mugglestone P. 1997. The Lecture Method The Teacher Trainer 1 (3).

3. Stevick E.1998. Images and Options in the Language Classroom. Cambridge University Press.

4. Wilga M. Rivers. 1998. Caring and Sharing in the Foreign Language Classroom. Unpublished Aarticles of Harvard University.

5. Woodward T. 1999. Process in EFl. Teacher Training. Unpublished M. Phil. dissertation. University of Exeter.