Band 80-90: Academic Writing about Community Language Learning

Community Language Learning: Introduction, Advantages and Disadvantages as well as it is potential application to Turkish context

“Education is the key to success in life, and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students.” pointed out Solomon Ortiz to accentuate far-reaching roles of teachers on their students’ lives. Namely, teaching has been regarded as a crucial cornerstone of all societies on that account, widely composed of various types, including language teaching. Language teaching broadly hinges on an onerous responsibility in the furtherance of progress of learners. Additionally, language teaching profoundly represents embracing assorted approaches and rewarding methods in consideration of English Language Teaching (ELT). One of the most noteworthy teaching approaches to which ELT is intimately linked is Community Language Learning (CLL), as it intrinsically rests on a potent approach that assuage nervousness, anxiety and language problems a person confronts in the learning of English. It is commonly known that this demanding approach carries both benefits and impediments considering its applicability in divergent contexts. To recapitulate briefly, this paper will focus on the background knowledge about CLL followed by its advantages and disadvantages illustrating in the Turkish context.

CLL is one of the most significant language teaching methods, improved by Charles Arthur Curran, a scholar in counselling, and his collaborators. CLL is principally linked to the Counselling Approach, in which teacher is regarded mainly as a facilitator, counsellor while the learner is considered as a client in the process. The phrase “counselling” represents the person mostly asked for advice, furtherance and encouragement in an intellectually demanding process of learning. Humanistic Approach is incorporated over and above the Counselling Approach for the reason that it deals not only with feelings and sentiments, but also with linguistic knowledge and these approaches are supremely feasible in beginner classes. The CLL is a comprehensive learning, since proper learning of learners is cognitive and subjective. Such soothing learning occurs in a conversational atmosphere where teachers and students get involved in profound interaction, in which the teacher and the student have a part to play in the language learning process. The teacher’s primary role is that of teaching their students to adopt the objective language communicatively. The students are, on the other hand, highly dependent on the teacher at the beginning. As the students keep studying, they become progressively independent. Obviously, the main aim of this method is to pacify learners’ anxiety as much as possible in this challenging phase.

As is mentioned before, there are some advantages and disadvantages of CLL method, which is a colossal endeavor to auspiciously surmount some of the menacing factors in second language learning. To give an illustration of this, learners are not thoroughly confined in their subject of discourse so that sorts of conversations can be determined liberally by learners, regardless of potential retrievable blunders. Moreover, CLL is resourcefully carried out in a non-threatening attitude in order to promote learners’ enthusiasm. To put it another way, they are precisely treated with compassion in this regard since teachers make implicit correction and repair the mistakes rather than insulting or humiliating them among others. However, there are some insuperable impediments to practice CLL fastidiously in this can be exemplified by the fact that learners may have their own phrases and expressions coupled with the target language statements, which will inevitably bring about utter chaos in language learning process, and learners will potentially be totally bewildered by the dilemma between two languages as well. Furthermore, in CLL, teachers have to be immensely consummate in the target language since translation requires diligent proficiency. All things stated above show that CLL method vastly embraces both advantages and disadvantages in a language learning.

At a glance, when the possible contingency of CLL application in Turkish context is taken into consideration, two predominant factors are totally at variance with implementation of this method. To illustrate this, utilization of this method fundamentally requires to be laboriously scrutinized, since the number of learners is customarily supposed to be restricted in CLL in order to carry out this method prudently. In line with this, CLL is mostly executed with tape recording and transcription; therefore, it is supremely unfeasible to suffice enough for every one of the students in large groups. Namely, in constructive terms, this method is utterly impracticable in Turkey where the classrooms are constituted of numerous learners, who will instinctively call for definite amount of active and guiding directions from the competent counsellor. Moreover, teaching in Turkish context chiefly hinges on syllabus and it is demonstrably considered as textbook-oriented, which impedes prosecution of the method thoroughly. On the contrary, CLL method entirely disregards conventional textbooks and syllabus, which work out in advance vocabulary, grammar, and other language elements to teach. Besides, a CLL syllabus arises out of the communication between learners and intervention of the counsellor in maintaining communication. All things discussed above can explicitly spell out why the possible implementation of CLL in Turkish context is terribly inconvenient.

In epitome, this paper has attempted to wholly explicate the undue emphasis of CLL, following both advantages and disadvantages as well as regarding its potential applicability in Turkish context. In order to review the radical background of CLL, the method has been laid out assiduously to noticeably minimize learner’s disruptive anxiety and overwhelming hesitation. In line with this, CLL is a highly responsive method which has been painstakingly scrutinized in terms of occurrence of conversations in order to teach the target language and it is a relatively productive method for communication besides its remarkable efficacy for learners in the second language learning. Moreover, as mentioned before, CLL principally proposes to liberate learners from restrictive conversation types being treated like parents so that they contrive to learn the aimed language relatively smoothly. On the other hand, it cannot be contradicted by the fact that the method also has many hindrances resulting in bewilderment between two languages. Consequently, when the congregation of all ideas is taken into consideration, it can evidently be noticed that it is not advisable to implement CLL in Turkey regarding its contrasting education system. To illustrate this, having crowded classes and being dependent on a fixed syllabus can be demonstrated as barriers to prosecution of the method in there. In order to overcome the impediments ultimately, drastic alterations must be followed in terms of education system and the number of learners should be shrunk in an exact figure.

Note: This is an original piece of writing lease cite this website if you want to use it for any educational purposes. The text was produced by 1st year ELT student Sinem Hızcan at Erciyes University, Kayseri