COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING

Community Language Learning (CLL)

CLL techniques also belong to a larger set of foreign language teaching practices sometimes described as humanistic techniques (Moskowitz 1978). Moskowitz defines humanistic techniques as those that blend what the student feels, thinks and knows with what he is learning in the target language. Rather than self-denial being the acceptable way of life, self-actualization and self-esteem are the ideals the exercises pursue

CLL is one of the so-called ‘designer’ methods which arose in the flurry of methodological experimentation in the 1970’s (along with The Silent Way, Suggestopoedia, TPR etc.), which form part of the Humanistic Approach to language learning. The key features of all these innovative methodologies are that they all in some way flouted the current language teaching orthodoxy, that they all had a guru who was regarded by devotees of the method with something approaching religious awe, and they all developed from outside language teaching, they were all fairly rigidly-prescriptive, and they all emphasised the learners’ responsibility for their own learning.

Working with large classes

For the first lesson it's important to record the conversation as a whole class even though this can limit student-speaking time. It's more practical in terms of giving instructions before you start and for moving from one student to another when they need you to translate or reformulate what they want to say. The next time you use CLL however, you could split the class into two groups. This gives them more speaking time.

• Make sure the groups are far enough away from each other for the recording stage but not so far that you can't move freely from one group to another.

• A further alternative is that they swap tapes for the transcription stage. The language is obviously less personalized but their listening skills are being challenged in a different way and they still feel part of a whole class community.

Conclusion
Although CLL is primarily meant as a 'whole' approach to teaching I have found it equally useful for an occasional lesson, especially with teenagers. It enables me to refocus on the learner while my students immediately react positively to working in a community. They take exceptionally well to peer-correction and by working together they overcome their fear of speaking