cll (community language learning)
CLL | Francesca Michalski | April 15th, 2001
The only similar experience I had was when I was trying out a kind of community language technique where I recorded parts of the lesson and then used this to reformulate the student's English. The student said it was distracting talking into a tape recorder. So that was the end of that.
Jonathan
(from the "Recording Students" discussion)
Jonathan- I recently tried out the CLL technique with a one-to-one student using a mixture of reformulation and translation before recording his contributions to a short conversation. It was an interesting experience with negative and positive aspects and now I'm thinking of ways to modify the technique so that I can try it again with more success. Have you ever tried again or did your one experience put you off?
Francesca
Re: CLL | Jonathan Clifton | April 15th, 2001
Hi Francesca,
No I've never really worked seriously with CLL- I just tried to adapt some of its ideas to my own situation. The incident with the tape recorder I was talking about goes back a few years and was inspired by a book by Peter Wilberg "One to one- a teachers handbook" (1987) LTP. The basic paradigm he was putting forward was:
• create space for learner input
• structure this space
• reformulate the students content
• analyze and draw student's attention to language
I remember liking the book at the time; maybe I should go back and read it again and persist a little more in getting students to record themselves.
Best,
Jonathan
PS: CLL, in a nutshell, is a technique where the student says what he/she wants in their native language, the teacher translates, the student records this onto a tape and then the tape is used for subsequent language analysis.
Editor's note: Here is a link to a website about CLL.
Re: CLL | Francesca Michalski | April 15th, 2001
Jonathan,
A coincidence, I was also reminded about CLL by looking at Wilberg's book 'One-to-One' when preparing for a teacher training session on teaching individual classes. What I noticed about the technique is how accuracy-focused it is in practice as the students have to record their part of the conversation word perfect. Normally, with low levels, I allow plenty of errors in an attempt to encourage them to speak as much as possible. On the other hand, I think the technique might be valuable for people preparing for specific situations, such as a business presentation or for the sort of student who speaks relatively fluently but with little attention to accuracy, to try and counteract this tendency. I haven't attempted the final stage- where you transcribe the dialogue. I think it would be time consuming and monotonous unless the dialogue were very short. I might take the tape home and transcribe it myself for subsequent analysis in class or even ask the student to do it for homework. You mentioned that you haven't worked seriously with CLL, but rather tried to adapt some of the ideas for your situation. Personally, I think that's exactly what we should be doing with these more alternative approaches.
Francesca
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