Origin
CLL was developed by Charles A. Curran and his
associates in Chicago, 1955. It is sometimes cited as an
example of a humanistic approach and derives its primary
insights from counseling.
With that, the roles of the teacher are the counselor and
learners, the clients. The counselor does not automatically
assist the clients but passively offer his help to them. CLL
involves humanistic techniques which engage the whole
person, including the emotions and feelings as well as
linguistic knowledge and behavioral skills.
Influenced by Carl Roger’s humanistic psychology, Curran found
that adults often feel threatened by a new learning situation or fear
that they will appear foolish.
A way to deal with the fears of students is for teachers to become
language counselors, skillful understanders of the struggle students
face as they attempt to internalize another language. In this way,
teachers can help students overcome their negative feelings and
further turn them into positive energy in learning.
Principles
Learning is persons: human individuals need to be
understood and aided in the process of fulfilling personal
values and goals; this is best done in community with
others striving to attain the same goals; whole-persons
learning in a relationship of trust, support, and cooperation
between teacher and students and among students
Principles
Learning is dynamic and creative: learning is a living and developmental
process
Building a relationship with and among students is important as well as
lessening their fears to a new learning situation.
Teachers do not remain in the front of the classroom to reduce threat to them.
To let students feel secure facilitates their learning such as use of L1, more
cooperation in the community, understanding what will happen in each
activity and so on.
Characteristics
a conversation in a beginning class in L1 with translation of the teacher and
later on transcription
students sitting in a circle with a tape recorder: a dependent community to
cooperate with each other rather than compete with each other.
teachers as counselors and students as clients: sensitive to students’ feelings
and fears
six elements necessary for nondefensive learning: security, aggression,
attention, reflection, retention and discrimination
Influences
the role of teachers as counselors who understand and assist
students to help them overcome the threatening affective
factors
emphasis of classroom interaction in cooperation, not
competition
respect for students’ choice of learning content with a learner-
generated conversation
no translation but for Ss to induce rules
Drawbacks
The procedure doesn’t ensure that a variety of contexts necessary
for coping in the target culture is included since the content is
determined by the participants.
Students may feel uncomfortable with the apparent lack of
structure or sequence in the introduction of grammatical and
lexical items; that is too much reliance on an inductive strategy
of learning. Besides, there is no syllabus for CLL, a posteriori
approach to syllabus specification. The teacher is too
nondirective. Finally, the success of CLL depended largely on
the translation expertise of the counselor.
10 Questions to be answered
What are the goals of teachers who use the CLL
method?
-- To learn how to use the target language
communicatively in a nondefensive manner
What is the role of the teacher? What is the role of the
students?
T—a counselor; S—a client
The relationship between T and S from dependency to
independency through five stages (focus of fluency or
accuracy)
What are some characteristics of the
teaching/learning process?
a conversation in L1-> translation in chunks
recording of the conversation a transcript with
L1 equivalents activities based on the
conversation
Six elements necessary for nondefensive learning
Security—non-threatening learning environment
Aggression—actively involved in the learning experience
Attention—ability to attend to many factors simultaneously by
narrowing the scope of attention initially
Reflection—when Ss reflect on the language as the teacher reads the
transcript three times; when Ss are invited to stop and consider the
active experience they have
Retention—the integration of the new material that takes place within
the whole self
Discrimination—sorting out differences among target language forms
such as Human Computer
What is the nature of student-teacher interaction? What is the
nature of student-student interaction?
S-T first and S-S interaction afterwards; teacher-student-
centered with both being decision-makers in the class
How are the feelings of the students dealt with?
Inviting Ss to comment on how they feel to keep their security
How is language viewed? How is culture viewed?
Language for communication in a supportive learning process;
culture as an integral part of language learning
What areas of language are emphasized? What language skills
are emphasized?
Grammar points, pronunciation patterns and vocabulary based
on the language Ss generate; the importance of understanding
and speaking the language at first, then reading and writing
What is the role of the students’ native language?
L1 to enhance students’ security as a bridge from the familiar to the unfamiliar;
literal L1 equivalents but less L1 in later stages
How is evaluation accomplished?
An integrative test rather than a discrete-point one such as writing a paragraph
or an oral interview or self-evaluation too
How does the teacher respond to student errors?
T repeats correctly what Ss say incorrectly without calling further attention to
the error
Summary(Charles Curran, 1972)
A counseling-learning model in which non-defensive learning is achieved
with six elements (security, aggression, attention, reflection, retention, and
discrimination) and learners are considered “whole persons.” It aims at
building a supportive community of Ss to interact in an interpersonal
relationship, to lower defenses, and to meet learner needs.
The principles of discovery learning, student-centered participation and
development of student autonomy (independence) remain viable in the
application to lg classrooms. But it was too restrictive for institutional lg
programs. Teachers are too non-directive, and their translation expertise
determines success. Finally, there is too much reliance on an inductive
strategy of learning.
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