FACULDADE DE LETRAS - FALECEI - CURSO DE ESPECIALIZAÇÃO EM INGLÊS - ENSINO

SECOND SEMESTER - 2009

WORKGROUP 3: ALEXANDRE FORTES

CAMILA LOBATOCAMILA MAGALHÃES

ERICKA CAMILA

TATIANA RAMALHO

SUBJECT:ACADEMIC SKILLS PROFESSOR: DR. RICARDO AUGUSTO DE SOUZA

REGULAR USE OF DRILLS IN CLT ISTASTEFUL AND SHALL BE REVISITED

CLT AUDIOLINGUAL

CONTRASTIVE FEATURES BETWEEN THE COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT) AND THE AUDIOLINGUAL METHOD *

• Drilling may occur, but peripherally• Comprehensible pronunciation

is sought

• Attempts to communicate may be encouraged from a very beginning

• Language is created by individual, often through trials and errors

• Drilling is a central technique

• Native-speaker-like pronunciation is sought

• Communicative activities only come after a long process of rigid drills and exercises

• “Language is habit” so errors must be prevented at all costs

* according to Finocchiaro and Brumfrit (1983 cited in RICHARDS and ROGERS, 2001).

THE “MARCH” TOWARDS CLT

“Beyond grammatical discourse elements in communication, we are probing the nature of social, cultural, and pragmatic features of language. We are exploring pedagogical means for 'real-life' communication in the classroom. We are trying to get our learners to develop linguistic fluency, not just the accuracy that has so consumed our historical journey. We are equipping our students with tools for generating unrehearsed language performance 'out there' when they leave the womb of our classrooms.”

(Brown 1994:77)

ARGUMENTS AGAINST DRILLS AND CHOMSKY’S RELEVANT COMMENT ON PATTERNS

• “Students were often found to be unable to transfer skills acquired through Audiolingualism to real communication outside the classroom.” (Richards and Rodgers 2001: 65)

• Employing the drills would also lead students to boredom and unsatisfactoriness.

• “Linguists have had their share in perpetuating the myth that linguistic behavior is "habitual" and that a fixed stock of "patterns" is acquired through practice and used as the basis for analogy. These views could be maintained only as long as grammatical description was sufficiently vague and imprecise.” Chomsky (1966 cited in Paulston, 1992, p.11)

… although there are several other arguments against drills as a central-technique in the English language acquisition, it plays a very important role in the effectiveness of the learning process when applied routinely in CLT classes. Moreover, it can also be joyful.

WE STATE THAT…

COUNTERARGUMENTS

• “ According to Charles Fries, director of the University of Michigan ( 1939 cited in RICHARDS and RODGERS, 2001) grammar or "structure" was the starting point. Drills were put to use by having a systematic attention to pronunciation and by intensive oral practice of its fundamental patterns of sentences.”

• “ It is these basic patterns that constitute the learner’s task. They require drill, drill, and more drill, and only enough vocabulary to make such drills possible.” Hockett (1959 cited in RICHARDS and RODGERS, 2001).

CLT WEAKNESSES

The communicative approach allows second language students to broaden moderate autonomy.

• Lack of accuracy

• Lack of precision

• Misuse of prepositions

• Misuse of articles

• Slow output production of language at early stages • Error fossilization may occur after extended period of time

Nevertheless, even after having instigated the autonomy aforementioned and also the ability to speak in the target language in different situations, the following problems stand out.

WHAT CAN BE DONE TO HAVE STUDENTS ACQUIRETHE SKILL OF PRODUCING SUITABLE SENTENCESCONCERNING THE TARGET LANGUAGE GRAMMAR?

ADVANTAGES OF THE USE OF DRILLS INTO CLT CLASSES

• It assists learners detect similar and problematic phoneme in words.

• It improves pronunciation, in as much as students are corrected promptly and are required to repeat the word having focus on pronunciation.

• It accelerates the output production of language at early stages.

• It corrects the use of prepositions and other grammar rules.

• It boosts promptness, as well as it triggers enjoyment, for it is a practical and advantageous technique.

CONCLUSION

What is under discussion is not which method or approach is proved to be of the highest excellence, seeing that the CLT and The Audiolingual Method have shown significant results in teaching English as a second language.

Then again, we are supporting the idea that students who learn English through CLT can accurately produce language while exposed to a balanced and well-defined use of drills.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brown, H.D. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. Longman 1994.

RICHARS, Jack C.; RODGERS, Theodore S. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press 2001.

WEBLIOGRAPHY

Essay writing workshop. Empire State College. Produced by Matthew Sanders; Lisa Mastrangelo; Susan Oaks.From:http://www.esc.edu/ESConline/Across_ESC/WritersComplex.nsf/wholeshortlinks2/Essay+Writing+Menu

Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It. Produced by Writing Tutorial Services, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN From: http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml

The thesis statement. University of Pennsylvania From: http://www.english.upenn.edu/Grad/Teachweb/scthesis.html

Argumentative Essay. Written by Oya Ozagac, September 2004, Purdue University, Indiana. From: http://www.buowl.boun.edu.tr/students/types%20of%20essays/ARGUMENTATIVE%20ESSAY.htm

WEBLIOGRAPHY

PURDUE UNIVERSITY ONLINE WRITING LAB (OWL) (Last edited by Allen Brizee on September 23rd 2009 at 10:16AM). Reference List: Electronic Sources. From: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/

SOUZA, Ricardo Augusto de. Curso de Especialização em Inglês (Ensino). Faculdade de Letras - Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Academic Skills Website. From: http://www.letras.ufmg.br/cei-ac_wri/schedule.htm.

PAULSTON, Christina Bratt. Linguistic and Communicative Competence: Topics inESL Clevedon, UK: Multilingual matters, 1992. From:http://books.google.com.br/books?id=pHsz233z1nYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=&f=false)