3.3 Modern communicative approaches and the issue of learner/teacher roles

The development of teaching methodology in the past sixty years can be seen as a progression towards the liberation of the human mind – a trajectory parallel to the development in modern psychology. Audiolingualism⁶, for instance, had its roots in behaviorism, which stated that the human mind presents itself in a number of observable and fairly predictable behaviors. As it was believed that giving the mind a number of controlled stimuli will produce predictable results, the audiolingual method created an excessively controlled learning environment, reducing the learning of a language to acquiring a habit. Most of the traditional modes of teaching, including the grammar-translation approach, worked with similar assumptions, in the blind faith that teaching will produce learning and dogged practice will produce communicative competence. Modern communicative approaches, on the other hand, are deep-rooted in modern cognitive psychology which sees the human mind as an active, inquiring entity, a unique interpreter of the world. This change in the psychological – and consequently, educational – paradigm brought about, besides other things, drastic changes in the perception of learner/teacher roles in the language classroom.

It is clear that in a modern communicative classroom, a learner can no longer be a passive recipient of knowledge. In accordance with the ideas presented in the previous chapter, learners need to be given opportunity to take an active part in the learning process, discovering things for themselves and – if learning in a group – negotiating their learning with others, making it into a shared activity. Nunan presents an overview of teaching approaches and the different learner roles implied in them. In quoting his study, we are going to distinguish between two sets of roles:

Roles that run counter to the notion of learner autonomy:

• the learner is the passive recipient of outside stimuli

• the learner is a listener and performer who has little control over the content of learning

Roles that adhere to the notion of learner autonomy:

• the learner is an interactor and negotiator who is capable of giving as well as taking

• the learner is involved in a process of personal growth

• the learner is involved in a social activity, and the social and interpersonal roles of the learner cannot be divorced from psychological learning processes

• learners must take responsibility for their own learning, developing autonomy and skills in learning how-to-learn

(adapted from Nunan 1989: 80)

It is not necessary to identify these roles with any particular teaching approaches for, as we have seen earlier, the notion of learner autonomy does not adhere to any particular methodology. However, what we do infer is that with respect to autonomy, the second list of roles presents three major characteristics – control over learning, the interpersonal aspect of learning and the personal aspect of learning. We have expanded on the last characteristic in the previous chapter; let us now investigate the other two.

Taking into account some traditional modes of teaching, the issue of control over learning will probably have a lot to do with transferring certain roles from the teacher to the learner (an issue we touched upon in Chapter 2.6). The learners will be expected to negotiate the contents, progression and outcome of their learning. They will be expected to evaluate their progress and be active in inquiring and seeking out help. In her study of learner beliefs and autonomy, Cotterall identifies a cluster of beliefs associated with the role of the teacher. In her analysis, she assesses them with respect to dominance; that is, to what extent the teacher or learner are dominant in possessing this or that particular role. She concludes her analysis by saying that "the functions which [some learners] assign to the teacher – diagnosing difficulties, allocating time, establishing the purpose of activities – are central to the behavior of autonomous learners" (Cotterall 1995: 197). We would, of course, argue that the range of roles is much wider; however, the study does support our view that we are dealing with the transfer of roles from the teacher to the learner. Also, the idea of dominance will be of key importance further in our study.

With respect to Cotterall's (1995) and other studies, we shall propose a working list of learner/teacher roles that are connected with the aspect of control and which can be used in a further study of the problem; however, we do not expect it to be final or complete in any way:

Roles associated with teachers and/or learners:

• giving help (Cotterall 1995: 197)

• supplying motivation (Dickinson 1995)

• supplying stimulation (Skehan 1989: 50)

• being creative (Richards and Rogers 2001: 235)

• maintaining discipline (Wright 1987: 53)

• choosing language to be used (Richards and Rogers 2001: 157)

• organizing contents, procedures and outcomes of learning (Holec qtd. in Benson 2001)

• managing anxiety (Oxford 1989)

• setting learning goals (Cotterall 1999: 500)

• creating opportunities to practice (Cotterall 1999: 500)

• acting as a resource for others (Wright 1987: 52)

• allocating time for activities (Cotterall 1995: 197)

• informing on progress and diagnosing difficulties (Cotterall 1999: 500)

It is easy to see that the issue of learner/teacher roles comprises many aspects of learner autonomy (such as motivation, managing anxiety, learning management etc.) and could provide a relatively easy way to conduct research into learner beliefs and readiness for autonomy, without subtracting too much from the complexity of the concept.

In examining the interpersonal aspect of roles in modern teaching approaches, Richards and Rogers (2001) give plenty of evidence that supports our preliminary analysis of Nunan's (1989) observation. In analyzing Communicative Language Teaching, they quote Breen and Candin who analyze the learner's roles as "negotiator – between the self, the learning process, and the object of learning [and] joint negotiator within the group and within the classroom procedures and activities which the group undertakes" (Richards and Rogers 2001: 166). Similarly, in Cooperative Language Teaching, the learner is a "member of a group who must work collaboratively on tasks with other group members"; learners often find themselves to be "tutors, checkers, recorders and information sharers" (Ibid: 199). Content-Based Instruction expects learners to "support each other in collaborative modes of learning" (Ibid: 213) and Task-Based Language Teaching expects them to be "group participants" (Ibid: 235).

It is clear that within modern communicative approaches, learners engage in a number of interpersonal roles; they are supposed to collaborate on tasks, share information, instruct, monitor and give feedback to others, negotiate meaning and negotiate classroom procedures. These roles presuppose different patterns of interaction, such as pair work or group work. Benson interprets Vygotsky's work in saying that "it offers [support] to the idea of collaboration as a key factor in the development of autonomy"; in collaborative tasks, learners need to "externalize" their processes of "analysis, planning and synthesis" (Benson 2001: 39).

Thus, we have both given some meaning to the idea of interdependent learning (introduced in Chapters 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5) and given evidence that learners are given ample opportunities to go about learning in this way in modern communicative approaches. However, our argument about interpersonal roles is not methodological, for, as we know, the concept of autonomy is above methods. Therefore, we are not saying that considering the number of roles created in the classroom with the help of modern communicative approaches, it logically follows that an autonomous learner must make full use of them; otherwise, he is not autonomous. On the contrary, what we are saying is that in learning a foreign language, an autonomous learner attempts to explore the great number of roles available to him in human discourse, and that modern communicative approaches merely happen to offer the exploration of these roles in the classroom.

As interaction in the classroom appears to be a major element in the promotion of interdependent, autonomous learning, it seems wise to stress the importance of both learner training and research in this area. In studying learner beliefs and readiness for autonomy, we would consider the interpersonal aspect of learning an indispensable part of such research.