task-based instruction (TBI) focuses on the use of authentic language and on asking students to do meaningful tasks using the target language. Such tasks can include visiting a doctor, conducting an interview, or calling customer service for help. Assessment is primarily based on task outcome (in other words the appropriate completion of real world tasks) rather than on accuracy of prescribed language forms. This makes TBLL especially popular for developing target language fluency and student confidence. As such TBLL can be considered a branch ofCommunicative Language Teaching (CLT).

In practice

The core of the lesson or project is, as the name suggests, the task. Teachers and curriculum developers should bear in mind that any attention to form, i.e. grammar or vocabulary, increases the likelihood that learners may be distracted from the task itself and become preoccupied with detecting and correcting errors and/or looking up language in dictionaries and grammar references. Although there may be several effective frameworks for creating a task-based learning lesson, here is a basic outline:

Pre-task

In the pre-task, the teacher will present what will be expected of the students in the task phase. Additionally, in the "weak" form of TBLL, the teacher may prime the students with key vocabulary or grammatical constructs, although this can mean that the activity is, in effect, more similar to the more traditional present-practise-produce (PPP) paradigm. In "strong" task-based learning lessons, learners are responsible for selecting the appropriate language for any given context themselves. The instructor may also present a model of the task by either doing it themselves or by presenting picture, audio, or video demonstrating the task.

Task

During the task phase, the students perform the task, typically in small groups, although this is dependent on the type of activity. And unless the teacher plays a particular role in the task, then the teacher's role is typically limited to one of an observer or counselor—thus the reason for it being a more student-centered methodology.

Review

If learners have created tangible linguistic products, e.g. text, montage, presentation, audio or video recording, learners can review each others' work and offer constructive feedback. If a task is set to extend over longer periods of time, e.g. weeks, and includes iterative cycles of constructive activity followed by review, TBLL can be seen as analogous to Project-based learning

Theory of multiple intelligences

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This article is about Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. For other uses, see Intelligence.

The theory of multiple intelligences was proposed by Howard Gardner in his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences as a model of intelligence that differentiates it into specific (primarily sensory) "modalities", rather than seeing it as dominated by a single general ability.
Gardner argues that there is a wide range of cognitive abilities, and that there are only very weak correlations among them. For example, the theory postulates that a child who learns to multiply easily is not necessarily more intelligent than a child who has more difficulty on this task. The child who takes more time to master multiplication may best learn to multiply through a different approach, may excel in a field outside mathematics, or may be looking at and understanding the multiplication process at a fundamentally deeper level. Such a fundamental understanding can result in slowness and can hide a mathematical intelligence potentially higher than that of a child who quickly memorizes the multiplication table despite possessing a shallower understanding of the process of multiplication.
Intelligence tests and psychometrics have generally found high correlations between different aspects of intelligence, rather than the low correlations which Gardner's theory predicts, supporting the prevailing theory of general intelligence rather than multiple intelligences (MI). The theory has been widely criticized by mainstream psychology for its lack of empirical evidence, and its dependence on subjective judgement. Certain models of alternative education employ the approaches suggested by the theory.

The multiple intelligences

Gardner articulated seven criteria for a behavior to be considered an intelligence.^[ These were that the intelligences showed:

Potential for brain isolation by brain damage,
Place in evolutionary history,
Presence of core operations,
Susceptibility to encoding (symbolic expression),
A distinct developmental progression,
The existence of savants, prodigies and other exceptional people,
Support from experimental psychology and psychometric findings.

Gardner chose eight abilities that he held to meet these criteria spatial, linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. He later suggested that existential and moral intelligence may also be worthy of inclusion.

Logical-mathematical

This area has to do with logic, abstractions, reasoning and numbers and critical thinking. This also has to do with having the capacity to understand the underlying principles of some kind of causal system. Logical reasoning is closely linked to fluid intelligence and to general intelligence (g factor).

Spatial

Main article: Spatial intelligence (psychology)

This area deals with spatial judgment and the ability to visualize with the mind's eye. Spatial ability is one of the three factors beneath g in the hierarchical model of intelligence.

Linguistic

People with high verbal-linguistic intelligence display a facility with words and languages. They are typically good at reading, writing, telling stories and memorizing words along with dates. Verbal ability is one of the most g-loaded abilities.This type of intelligence is associated with the Verbal IQ in WAIS-III.

Bodily-kinesthetic

Main article: Kinesthetic learning

The core elements of the bodily-kinesthetic intelligence are control of one's bodily motions and the capacity to handle objects skillfully. Gardner elaborates to say that this also includes a sense of timing, a clear sense of the goal of a physical action, along with the ability to train responses.
People who have bodily-kinesthetic intelligence should learn better by involving muscular movement (e.g. getting up and moving around into the learning experience), and be generally good at physical activities such as sports, dance, acting, and making things.
Gardner believes that careers that suit those with this intelligence include: athletes, pilots, dancers, musicians, actors, surgeons, builders, police officers, and soldiers. Although these careers can be duplicated through virtual simulation, they will not produce the actual physical learning that is needed in this intelligence.

Musical

Further information: auditory learning

This area has to do with sensitivity to sounds, rhythms, tones, and music. People with a high musical intelligence normally have good pitch and may even have absolute pitch, and are able to sing, play musical instruments, and compose music. Since there is a strong auditory component to this intelligence, those who are strongest in it may learn best via lecture. They will sometimes use songs or rhythms to learn. They have sensitivity to rhythm, pitch, meter, tone, melody or timbre.

Interpersonal

This area has to do with interaction with others. In theory, individuals who have high interpersonal intelligence are characterized by their sensitivity to others' moods, feelings, temperaments and motivations, and their ability to cooperate in order to work as part of a group. According to Gardner in How Are Kids Smart: Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, "Inter- and Intra- personal intelligence is often misunderstood with being extroverted or liking other people..." Those with this intelligence communicate effectively and empathize easily with others, and may be either leaders or followers. They typically learn best by working with others and often enjoy discussion and debate.
Gardner believes that careers that suit those with this intelligence include sales, politicians, managers, teachers, counselors and social workers

Intrapersonal

This area has to do with introspective and self-reflective capacities. This refers to having a deep understanding of the self; what your strengths/ weaknesses are, what makes you unique, being able to predict your own reactions/emotions.

Naturalistic

This area has to do with nurturing and relating information to one’s natural surroundings. Examples include classifying natural forms such as animal and plant species and rocks and mountain types. This ability was clearly of value in our evolutionary past as hunters, gatherers, and farmers; it continues to be central in such roles as botanist or chef.

Existential

Some proponents of multiple intelligence theory proposed spiritual or religious intelligence as a possible additional type. Gardner did not want to commit to a spiritual intelligence, but suggested that an "existential" intelligence may be a useful construct.he hypothesis of an existential intelligence has been further explored by educational researchers.

Critical reception

Definition of intelligence

One major criticism of the theory is that it is ad hoc: that Gardner is not expanding the definition of the word "intelligence", but rather denies the existence of intelligence as traditionally understood, and instead uses the word "intelligence" where other people have traditionally used words like "ability" and "aptitude". This practice has been criticized by Robert J. Sternberg,^] Eysenck, and Scarr.^] White (2006) points out that Gardner's selection and application of criteria for his "intelligences" is subjective and arbitrary, and that a different researcher would likely have come up with different criteria.
Defenders of MI theory argue that the traditional definition of intelligence is too narrow, and thus a broader definition more accurately reflects the differing ways in which humans think and learn. They would state that the traditional interpretation of intelligence collapses under the weight of its own logic and definition, noting that intelligence is usually defined as the cognitive or mental capacity of an individual, which by logical necessity would include all forms of mental qualities, not just the ones most transparent to I.Q. tests.
Some criticisms arise from the fact that Gardner has not provided a test of his multiple intelligences. He originally defined it as the ability to solve problems that have value in at least one culture, or as something that a student is interested in. He then added a disclaimer that he has no fixed definition, and his classification is more of an artistic judgment than fact:

Ultimately, it would certainly be desirable to have an algorithm for the selection of an intelligence, such that any trained researcher could determine whether a candidate's intelligence met the appropriate criteria. At present, however, it must be admitted that the selection (or rejection) of a candidate's intelligence is reminiscent more of an artistic judgment than of a scientific assessment.

Gardner argues that by calling linguistic and logical-mathematical abilities intelligences, but not artistic, musical, athletic, etc. abilities, the former are needlessly aggrandized. Certain critics balk at this widening of the definition, saying that it ignores "the connotation of intelligence ... [which] has always connoted the kind of thinking skills that makes one successful in school."
Gardner writes "I balk at the unwarranted assumption that certain human abilities can be arbitrarily singled out as intelligence while others cannot." Critics hold that given this statement, any interest or ability can be redefined as "intelligence". Thus, studying intelligence becomes difficult, because it diffuses into the broader concept of ability or talent. Gardner's addition of the naturalistic intelligence and conceptions of the existential and moral intelligences are seen as fruits of this diffusion. Defenders of the MI theory would argue that this is simply a recognition of the broad scope of inherent mental abilities, and that such an exhaustive scope by nature defies a one-dimensional classification such as an IQ value.
The theory and definitions have been critiqued by Perry D. Klein as being so unclear as to be tautologous and thus unfalsifiable. Having a high musical ability means being good at music while at the same time being good at music is explained by having a high musical ability.

Neo-Piagetian criticism

Andreas Demetriou suggests that theories which overemphasize the autonomy of the domains are as simplistic as the theories that overemphasize the role of general intelligence and ignore the domains. He agrees with Gardner that there are indeed domains of intelligence that are relevantly autonomous of each other.Some of the domains, such as verbal, spatial, mathematical, and social intelligence are identified by most lines of research in psychology. In Demetriou's theory, one of the neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development, Gardner is criticized for underestimating the effects exerted on the various domains of intelligences by processes that define general processing efficiency, such as speed of processing, executive functions, working memory, and meta-cognitive processes underlying self-awareness and self-regulation. All of these processes are integral components of general intelligence that regulate the functioning and development of different domains of intelligence.
The domains are to a large extent expressions of the condition of the general processes, and may vary because of their constitutional differences but also differences in individual preferences and inclinations. Their functioning both channels and influences the operation of the general processes. Thus, one cannot satisfactorily specify the intelligence of an individual or design effective intervention programs unless both the general processes and the domains of interest are evaluated.

IQ tests

Gardner argues that IQ tests only measures linguistic and logical-mathematical abilities. Psychologist Alan S. Kaufman points out that IQ tests have measured spatial abilities for 70 years.^[27] Modern IQ tests are greatly influenced by the Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory which incorporates a general intelligence but also many more narrow abilities. While IQ tests do give an overall IQ score, they now also give scores for many more narrow abilities.^[27]

Lack of empirical evidence

According to a 2006 study many of Gardner's "intelligences" correlate with the g factor, supporting the idea of a single dominant type of intelligence. According to the study, each of the domains proposed by Gardner involved a blend of g, of cognitive abilities other than g, and, in some cases, of non-cognitive abilities or of personality characteristics.ued that thousands of studies support the importance of intelligence quotient (IQ) in predicting school and job performance, and numerous other life outcomes. In contrast, empirical support for non-g intelligences is lacking or very poor. She argued that despite this the ideas of multiple non-g intelligences are very attractive to many due to the suggestion that everyone can be smart in some way.^[29]
A critical review of MI theory argues that there is little empirical evidence to support it:

To date there have been no published studies that offer evidence of the validity of the multiple intelligences. In 1994 Sternberg reported finding no empirical studies. In 2000 Allix reported finding no empirical validating studies, and at that time Gardner and Connell conceded that there was "little hard evidence for MI theory" (2000, p. 292). In 2004 Sternberg and Grigerenko stated that there were no validating studies for multiple intelligences, and in 2004 Gardner asserted that he would be "delighted were such evidence to accrue"nd admitted that "MI theory has few enthusiasts among psychometricians or others of a traditional psychological background" because they require "psychometric or experimental evidence that allows one to prove the existence of the several intelligences.

The same review presents evidence to demonstrate that cognitive neuroscience research does not support the theory of multiple intelligences:

... the human brain is unlikely to function via Gardner’s multiple intelligences. Taken together the evidence for the intercorrelations of subskills of IQ measures, the evidence for a shared set of genes associated with mathematics, reading, and g, and the evidence for shared and overlapping "what is it?" and "where is it?" neural processing pathways, and shared neural pathways for language, music, motor skills, and emotions suggest that it is unlikely that each of Gardner’s intelligences could operate "via a different set of neural mechanisms" (1999, p. 99). Equally important, the evidence for the "what is it?" and "where is it?" processing pathways, for Kahneman’s two decision-making systems, and for adapted cognition modules suggests that these cognitive brain specializations have evolved to address very specific problems in our environment. Because Gardner claimed that the intelligences are innate potentialities related to a general content area, MI theory lacks a rationale for the phylogenetic emergence of the intelligences.

Several articles have surveyed the use of Gardner's ideas and conclude that there is little to no academically substantiated evidence that his ideas work in practice. Steven A. Stahl found that most of the previous studies which claimed to show positive results had major flaws:

Among others, Marie Carbo claims that her learning styles work is based on research. (I discuss Carbo because she publishes extensively on her model and is very prominent in the workshop circuit ...) But given the overwhelmingly negative findings in the published research, I wondered what she was citing, and about a decade ago, I thought it would be interesting to take a look. Reviewing her articles, I found that out of 17 studies she had cited, only one was published. Fifteen were doctoral dissertations and 13 of these came out of one university—St. John’s University in New York, Carbo’s alma mater. None of these had been in a peer-refereed journal. When I looked closely at the dissertations and other materials, I found that 13 of the 17 studies that supposedly support her claim had to do with learning styles based on something other than modality.

The theory of multiple intelligences has been widely used as an example of pseudoscience, because it lacks empirical evidence or falsifiability.

Use in education

Gardner defines an intelligence as "biopsychological potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture. According to Gardner, there are more ways to do this than just through logical and linguistic intelligence. Gardner believes that the purpose of schooling "should be to develop intelligences and to help people reach vocational and avocational goals that are appropriate to their particular spectrum of intelligences. People who are helped to do so, [he] believe[s], feel more engaged and competent and therefore more inclined to serve society in a constructive way.
Gardner contends that IQ tests focus mostly on logical and linguistic intelligence. Upon doing well on these tests, the chances of attending a prestigious college or university increase, which in turn creates contributing members of society. While many students function well in this environment, there are those who do not. According to Helding (2009), "Standard IQ tests measure knowledge gained at a particular moment in time, they can only provide a freeze-frame view of crystallized knowledge. They cannot assess or predict a person’s ability to learn, to assimilate new information, or to solve new problems. Gardner's theory argues that students will be better served by a broader vision of education, wherein teachers use different methodologies, exercises and activities to reach all students, not just those who excel at linguistic and logical intelligence. It challenges educators to find "ways that will work for this student learning this topic".
James Traub's article in The New Republic notes that Gardner's system has not been accepted by most academics in intelligence or teaching. Gardner states that "while Multiple Intelligences theory is consistent with much empirical evidence, it has not been subjected to strong experimental tests ... Within the area of education, the applications of the theory are currently being examined in many projects. Our hunches will have to be revised many times in light of actual classroom experience.
George Miller, a prominent cognitive psychologist, wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Gardner's argument consisted of "hunch and opinion". Jerome Bruner called Gardner’s "intelligences" "at best useful fictions," and Charles Murray and Richard J. Herrnstein in The Bell Curve (1994) called Gardner's theory "uniquely devoid of psychometric or other quantitative evidence."
Thomas Armstrong argues that Waldorf education engages all of Gardner's original seven intelligences. In spite of its lack of general acceptance in the psychological community, Gardner's theory has been adopted by many schools, where it is often used to underpin discussion about learning styles, and hundreds of books have been written about its applications in education.Gardner himself has said he is "uneasy" with the way his theory has been used in education. The No Child Left Behind test legislation in the United States does not encompass the multiple intelligences framework in the exams' design or implementatio

Grammar-translation method

The grammar-translation method is a method of teaching foreign languages derived from the classical (sometimes called traditional) method of teaching Greek and Latin. In grammar-translation classes, students learn grammatical rules and then apply those rules by translating sentences between the target language and their native language. Advanced students may be required to translate whole texts word-for-word. The method has two main goals: to enable students to read and translate literature written in the target language, and to further students’ general intellectual development.

History and philosophy

The grammar-translation method originated from the practice of teaching Latin. In the early 1500s, Latin was the most widely-studied foreign language due to its prominence in government, academia, and business.However, during the course of the century the use of Latin dwindled, and it was gradually replaced by English, French, and Italian. After the decline of Latin, the purpose of learning it in schools changed. Whereas previously students had learned Latin for the purpose of communication, it came to be learned as a purely academic subject.
Throughout Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, the education system was formed primarily around a concept called faculty psychology. This theory dictated that the body and mind were separate and the mind consisted of three parts: the will, emotion, and intellect. It was believed that the intellect could be sharpened enough to eventually control the will and emotions. The way to do this was through learning classical literature of the Greeks and Romans, as well as mathematics.^{[citation needed]} Additionally, an adult with such an education was considered mentally prepared for the world and its challenges.
At first it was believed that teaching modern languages was not useful for the development of mental discipline and thus they were left out of the curriculum.^{[citation needed]} When modern languages did begin to appear in school curricula in the 19th century, teachers taught them with the same grammar-translation method as was used for classical Latin and Greek. As a result, textbooks were essentially copied for the modern language classroom. In the United States of America, the basic foundations of this method were used in most high school and college foreign language classrooms.

Principles and goals

There are two main goals to grammar-translation classes. One is to develop students’ reading ability to a level where they can read literature in the target language. ^[The other is to develop students’ general mental discipline. The users of foreign language wanted simply to note things of their interest in the literature of foreign languages. Therefore, this method focuses on reading and writing and has developed techniques which facilitate more or less the learning of reading and writing only. As a result, speaking and listening are overlooked.

Method

Grammar-translation classes are usually conducted in the students’ native language. Grammar rules are learned deductively; students learn grammar rules by rote, and then practice the rules by doing grammar drills and translating sentences to and from the target language. More attention is paid to the form of the sentences being translated than to their content. When students reach more advanced levels of achievement, they may translate entire texts from the target language. Tests often consist of the translation of classical texts.
There is not usually any listening or speaking practice, and very little attention is placed on pronunciation or any communicative aspects of the language. The skill exercised is reading, and then only in the context of translation.

Materials

The mainstay of classroom materials for the grammar-translation method is the textbook. Textbooks in the 19th century attempted to codify the grammar of the target language into discrete rules for students to learn and memorize. A chapter in a typical grammar-translation textbook would begin with a bilingual vocabulary list, after which there would be grammar rules for students to study and sentences for them to translate.^[1] Some typical sentences from 19th-century textbooks are as follows:

The philosopher pulled the lower jaw of the hen.
My sons have bought the mirrors of the Duke.
The cat of my aunt is more treacherous than the dog of your uncle.^[3]

Reception

The method by definition has a very limited scope. Because speaking or any kind of spontaneous creative output was missing from the curriculum, students would often fail at speaking or even letter writing in the target language. A noteworthy quote describing the effect of this method comes from Bahlsen, who was a student of Plötz, a major proponent of this method in the 19th century. In commenting about writing letters or speaking he said he would be overcome with "a veritable forest of paragraphs, and an impenetrable thicket of grammatical rules."^[4]
According to Richards and Rodgers, the grammar-translation has been rejected as a legitimate language teaching method by modern scholars:

[T]hough it may be true to say that the Grammar-Translation Method is still widely practiced, it has no advocates. It is a method for which there is no theory. There is no literature that offers a rationale or justification for it or that attempts to relate it to issues in linguistics, psychology, or educational theory.

WHOLE LANGUAGE

Whole language describes a literacy philosophy which emphasizes that children should focus on meaning and strategy instruction. It is often contrasted with phonics-based methods of teaching reading and writing which emphasize instruction for decoding and spelling. However, from whole language practitioners' perspective, this view is erroneous and sets up a false dichotomy. Whole language practitioners teach to develop a knowledge of language including the graphophonic, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects of language. Within a whole language perspective, language is treated as a complete meaning-making system, the parts of which function in relational ways. It has drawn criticism by those who advocate "back to basics" pedagogy or reading instruction because whole language is based on a limited body of scientific research.
Whole language is an educational philosophy that is complex to describe, particularly because it is informed by multiple research fields including but not limited to education, linguistics, psychology, sociology, and anthropology (see also Language Experience Approach). Several strands run through most descriptions of whole language:

focus on making meaning in reading and expressing meaning in writing;
constructivist approaches to knowledge creation, emphasizing students' interpretations of text and free expression of ideas in writing (often through daily journal entries);
emphasis on high-quality and culturally-diverse literature;
integrating literacy into other areas of the curriculum, especially math, science, and social studies;
frequent reading
- with students in small "guided reading" groups
- to students with "read alouds"
- by students independently;
reading and writing for real purposes;
focus on motivational aspects of literacy, emphasizing the love of books and engaging reading materials;
meaning-centered whole to part to whole instruction where phonics are taught contextually in "embedded" phonics (different from Synthetic phonics or Analytical phonics); and
emphasis on using and understanding the meaning-making role of phonics, grammar, spelling, capitalization and punctuation in diverse social contexts.

Sub-lexical reading

Sub-lexical reading^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] involves teaching reading by associating characters or groups of characters with sounds or by using phonics learning and teaching methodology. Sometimes argued to be in competition with whole language methods.

Lexical reading

Lexical reading involves acquiring words or phrases without attention to the characters or groups of characters that compose them or by using Whole language learning and teaching methodology. Sometimes argued to be in competition with phonics methods, and that the whole language approach tends to impair learning how to spell.

Learning theory

The idea of "whole" language has its basis in a range of theories of learning related to the epistemologies called "holism". Holism is based upon the belief that it is not possible to understand learning of any kind by analyzing small chunks of the learning system. Holism was very much a response to behaviorism, which emphasized that the world could be understood by experimenting with stimuli and responses. Holists considered this a reductionist perspective that did not recognize that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." Analyzing individual behaviors, holists argued, could never tell us how the entire human mind worked. This is—in simplified terms—the theoretical basis for the term "whole language."^{[citation needed]}

Chomsky and Goodman

The whole language approach to phonics grew out of Noam Chomsky's ideas about language acquisition. In 1967, Ken Goodman had an idea about reading, which he considered similar to Chomsky's, and he wrote a widely-cited article calling reading a "psycholinguistic guessing game". He chided educators for attempting to apply what he saw as unnecessary orthographic order to a process that relied on holistic examination of words.^[6]
Goodman thought that there are four "cueing systems" for reading, four things that readers have to guess what word comes next:

graphophonemic: the shapes of the letters, and the sounds that they evoke (see phonetics).
semantic: what word one would expect to occur based on the meaning of the sentence so far (see semantics).
syntactic: what part of speech or word would make sense based on the grammar of the language (see syntax).
pragmatic: what is the function of the text

The "graph" part of the word "graphophonemic" means the shape or symbol of the graphic input, i.e., the text. According to Goodman, these systems work together to help readers guess the right word. He emphasized that pronouncing individual words will involve the use of all three systems (letter clues, meaning clues from context, and syntactical structure of the sentence).
The graphophonemic cues are related to the sounds we hear (the phonological system including individual letters and letter combinations), the letters of the alphabet, and the conventions of spelling, punctuation and print. Students who are emerging readers use these cues considerably. However, in the English language there is a very imprecise relationship between written symbols and sound symbols.^[7] Sometimes the relationships and their patterns do not work, as in the example of great and head. Proficient readers and writers draw on their prior experiences with text and the other cueing systems, as well as the phonological system, as their reading and writing develops. Ken Goodman writes that, "The cue systems are used simultaneously and interdependently. What constitutes useful graphic information depends on how much syntactic and semantic information is available. Within high contextual constraints an initial consonant may be all that is needed to identify an element and make possible the prediction of an ensuing sequence or the confirmation of prior predictions."^[8] He continues with, "Reading requires not so much skills as strategies that make it possible to select the most productive cues." He believes that reading involves the interrelationship of all the language systems. Readers sample and make judgments about which cues from each system will provide the most useful information in making predictions that will get them to meaning. Goodman^[8] provides a partial list of the various systems readers use as they interact with text. Within the graphophonemic system there are:

Letter-sound relationships
Shape (or word configuration)
Know ‘little words’ in bigger words
Whole know words
Recurrent spelling patterns

The semantic cuing system is the one in which meaning is constructed. "So focused is reading on making sense that the visual input, the perceptions we form, and the syntactic patterns we assign are all directed by our meaning construction."^[9] The key component of the semantic system is context. A reader must be able to attach meaning to words and have some prior knowledge to use as a context for understanding the word. They must be able to relate the newly learned word to prior knowledge through personal associations with text and the structure of text.
The semantic system is developed from the beginning through early interactions with adults. At first, this usually involves labeling (e.g. This is a dog). Then labeling becomes more detailed (e.g., It is a Labrador dog. Its coat is black.) The child learns that there is a set of "dog attributes" and that within the category "dog", there are subsets of "dog" (e.g. long-hair, short-hair). The development of this system and the development of the important concepts that relate to the system are largely accomplished as children begin to explore language independently. As children speak about what they’ve done and play out their experiences, they are making personal associations between their experiences and language. This is critical to success in later literacy practices such as reading comprehension and writing. The meaning people bring to the reading is available to them through every cuing system, but it’s particularly influential as we move from our sense of the syntactic patterns to the semantic structures.^[8]
To support the reader in developing the semantic system, ask, "Does that make sense"?
The syntactic system, according to Goodman and Watson,^[7] includes the interrelation of words and sentences within connected text. In the English language, syntactic relations include word order, tense, number, and gender. The syntactic system is also concerned with word parts that change the meaning of a word, called morphemes. For example, adding the suffix "less" or adding "s" to the end of a word changes its meaning or tense. As speakers of English, people know where to place subjects, which pronoun to use and where adjectives occur. Individual word meaning is determined by the place of the word in the sentence and the particular semantic or syntactic role it occupies.^[10] For example: The mayor was present when he received a beautiful present from the present members of the board.
The syntactic system is usually in place when children begin school. Immersed in language, children begin to recognize that phrases and sentences are usually ordered in certain ways. This notion of ordering is the development of syntax. Like all the cueing systems, syntax provides the possibility of correct prediction when trying to make sense or meaning of written language. Goodman notes the cues found in the flow of language are:^[8]

Patterns of words (or function order)
Inflection and inflectional agreement
Function words such as noun markers (the, a, that)
Intonation (which is poorly represented in writing by punctuation)

To support a reader in developing the syntactic system, ask, "Can we say it that way? Does that sound right?"
The pragmatic system is also involved in the construction of meaning while reading. This brings into play the socio-cultural knowledge of the reader. It provides information about the purposes and needs the reader has while reading. Yetta Goodman and Dorothy Watson state that, "Language has different meaning depending on the reason for use, the circumstances in which the language is used, and the ideas writers and readers have about the contextual relations with the language users. Language cannot exist outside a sociocultural context, which includes the prior knowledge of the language user. For example, shopping lists, menus, reports and plays are arranged uniquely and are dependent on the message, the intent, the audience, and the context."^[7]
By the time children begin school, they may have developed an inferred understanding of some of the pragmatics of a particular situation. For example, turn taking in conversation, reading poetry or a shopping list. "While different materials may share common semantic, syntactic, and graphophonic features, each genre has its own organization and each requires certain experiences by the reader."^[7]
To support the reader in developing the pragmatic system ask, "What is the purpose and function of this literacy event?"
Goodman performed a study where children first read words individually, and then read the same words in connected text. He found that the children did better when they read the words in connected text. Later replications of the experiment failed to find effects, however, when children did not read the same words in connected text immediately after reading them individually, as they had in Goodman's experiment.^[11]^[12]
Goodman's theory has been criticized by other researchers who favor a phonics-based approach, and present research to support their viewpoint. Critics argue that good readers use decoding as their primary approach to reading, and use context to confirm that what they have read makes sense.

Application of Goodman's theory

Goodman's argument was compelling to educators as a way of thinking about beginning reading and literacy more broadly. This led to the idea that reading and writing were ideas that should be considered as wholes, learned by experience and exposure more than analysis and didactic instruction. This largely accounts for the focus on time spent reading, especially independent reading. Many classrooms (whole language or otherwise) include silent reading time, sometimes called DEAR ("Drop Everything And Read") time or SSR (sustained silent reading). Some versions of this independent reading time include a structured role for the teacher, especially Reader's Workshop. Despite the popularity of the extension of Chomsky's linguistic ideas to literacy, there is some neurological and experimental research that has concluded that reading, unlike language, is not a pre-programmed human skill. It must be learned. Dr. Sally Shaywitz,^[13] a neurologist at Yale University, is credited with much of the research on the neurological structures of reading.

Contrasts with phonics

Because of this holistic emphasis, whole language is contrasted with skill-based areas of instruction, especially phonics and synthetic phonics. Phonics instruction is a commonly-used technique for teaching students to read. Phonics instruction tends to emphasize attention to the individual components of words, for example, the phonemes /k/, /æ/, and /t/ are represented by the graphemes c, a, and t. Because they do not focus exclusively on the individual parts, tending to focus on the relationship of parts to and within the larger context, whole language proponents do not favor some types of phonics instruction. Interestingly, whole language advocates state that they do teach, and believe in, phonics, especially a type of phonics known as embedded phonics. In embedded phonics, letters are taught during other lessons focused on meaning and the phonics component is considered a "minilesson". Instruction in embedded phonics typically emphasizes the consonants and the short vowels, as well as letter combinations called rimes or phonograms. The use of this embedded phonics model is called a "whole-part-whole" approach because, consistent with holistic thinking, students read the text for meaning first (whole), then examine features of the phonics system (part) and finally use their new knowledge while reading the text again (whole). Reading Recovery is a program that uses holistic practices with struggling readers.
Most whole language advocates see that children go through stages of spelling development as they develop, use and gain control over written language. Early literacy research conducted by Piagetian researcher, Emilia Ferreiro and published in her landmark book, Literacy Before Schooling, has been replicated by University of Alabama professor, Maryann Manning. Based on this research "invented spelling" is another "whole-part-whole" approach: children learn to read by writing in a meaningful context, e.g. by writing letters to others. To write a word they have to decompose its spoken form into sounds and then to translate them into letters, e.g. k, a, t for the phonemes /k/, /æ/, and /t/. Empirical studies^[14] show that later orthographic development is fostered rather than hindered by these invented spellings - as long as children from the beginning are confronted with "book spellings", too.

Rise of whole language and reaction

After its introduction by Goodman, whole language rose in popularity dramatically. It became a major educational paradigm of the late 1980s and the 1990s. Despite its popularity during this period, educators who believed that skill instruction was important for students' learning and some researchers in education were skeptical of whole language claims and said so loudly. What followed were the "Reading Wars" of the 1980s and 1990s between advocates of phonics and those of Whole Language methodology, which in turn led to several attempts to catalog research on the efficacy of phonics and whole language. Congress commissioned reading expert Marilyn Jager Adams to write a definitive book on the topic. She determined that phonics was important but suggested that some elements of the whole language approach were helpful.^[15]^[16] Two large scale efforts, in 1998 by the United States National Research Council's Commission on Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children^[17]^[18] and in 2000 by the United States National Reading Panel,^[19]^[20] catalogued the most important elements of a reading program. While proponents of whole language find the latter to be controversial, both panels found that phonics instruction of varying kinds, especially analytic and Synthetic Phonics, contributed positively to students' ability to read words on tests of reading words in isolation. Both panels also found that embedded phonics and no phonics contributed to lower rates of achievement for most populations of students when measured on test of reading words in isolation. The Panel recommended an approach it described as "scientifically-based reading research" (SBRR), that cited 5 elements essential to effective reading instruction, one of which was explicit, Systematic Phonics instruction (phonological awareness, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency were the other 4).
In December 2005 the Australian Government endorsed the teaching of synthetic phonics, and discredited the whole language approach ("on its own"). Its Department of Education, Science and Training published a National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy. [1] The report states "The evidence is clear, whether from research, good practice observed in schools, advice from submissions to the Inquiry, consultations, or from Committee members’ own individual experiences, that direct systematic instruction in phonics during the early years of schooling is an essential foundation for teaching children to read." Pg 11. See Synthetic phonics#Acceptance in Australia

State of the debate

Despite these results, many whole language advocates continue to argue that their approach, including embedded phonics, has been shown to improve student achievement. Whole language advocates sometimes criticize advocates of skill instruction as "reductionist" and describe the use of phonics as "word calling" because it does not involve the use of meaning. The United States National Reading Panel is criticized especially harshly by some in the whole language community for failing to include qualitative research designs that showed benefits for embedded phonics (the panel only considered experiments and quasi-experiments). On the other hand, some parents and teachers have objected to the de-emphasis on phonics in whole language-based curricula such as Reading Recovery and advocated their removal from schools.^[21]

Adoption of some whole language concepts

While rancor continues, much of whole language's emphasis on quality literature, cultural diversity, and reading in groups and to students is widely supported^[who?] by the educational community. The importance of motivation, long a central focus of whole language approaches, has gained more attention in the broader educational community in the last few years. Prominent critic of whole language Louisa Cook Moats has argued, however, that the foci on quality literature, diversity, reading groups, and motivation are not the sole property of whole language.^[22] She, and others^[who?], contend these components of instruction are supported by educators of diverse educational perspectives. Moats contends that the properties essential to Whole Language, and those that render it ineffective and unfit for reading education are the principles that children learn to read from exposure to print, the hostility to drilling in phonics and other forms of direct instruction, and the tendency to endorse the use of context-clues and guess-work to decipher a word rather than phonemic decoding. In these and certain other tenets lie the essence and the error of Whole Language. Emphases on cultural diversity and quality literature is neither limited to Whole Language nor fundamental to it.

Balanced Literacy

More recently, "Balanced Literacy" has been suggested as an integrative approach, portrayed by its advocates as taking the best elements of both whole language and code-emphasizing phonics, something advocated by Adams in 1990. The New York Public School system has adopted Balanced Literacy as its literacy curriculum, though critics of whole language have suggested that "Balanced Literacy" is just the disingenuous recasting of the very same whole language with obfuscating new terminology. Equally vociferously, the whole language advocates have criticized the United States National Reading Panel. Allington went so far as to use the term "big brother" to describe the government's role in the reading debate.^[23]
No Child Left Behind has brought a resurgence of interest in phonics. Whole language has thus during the 2000s receded from being the dominant reading model in the education field to marginal status, and it continues to fade.

Thinkers

Prominent proponents of whole language include Kenneth Goodman, Frank Smith (psycholinguist), Carolyn Burke, Jerome Harste, Yetta Goodman, Doroth

AUDIO LINGUAL METHOD

The audio-lingual method, Army Method, or New Key,^[1] is a style of teaching used in teaching foreign languages. It is based on behaviorist theory, which professes that certain traits of living things, and in this case humans, could be trained through a system of reinforcement—correct use of a trait would receive positive feedback while incorrect use of that trait would receive negative feedback.
This approach to language learning was similar to another, earlier method called the direct method. Like the direct method, the audio-lingual method advised that students be taught a language directly, without using the students' native language to explain new words or grammar in the target language. However, unlike the direct method, the audio-lingual method didn’t focus on teaching vocabulary. Rather, the teacher drilled students in the use of grammar.
Applied to language instruction, and often within the context of the language lab, this means that the instructor would present the correct model of a sentence and the students would have to repeat it. The teacher would then continue by presenting new words for the students to sample in the same structure. In audio-lingualism, there is no explicit grammar instruction—everything is simply memorized in form. The idea is for the students to practice the particular construct until they can use it spontaneously. In this manner, the lessons are built on static drills in which the students have little or no control on their own output; the teacher is expecting a particular response and not providing that will result in a student receiving negative feedback. This type of activity, for the foundation of language learning, is in direct opposition with communicative language teaching.

Charles Fries, the director of the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States, believed that learning structure, or grammar was the starting point for the student. In other words, it was the students' job to orally recite the basic sentence patterns and grammatical structures. The students were only given “enough vocabulary to make such drills possible.” (Richards, J.C. et-al. 1986). Fries later included principles for behavioural psychology, as developed by B.F. Skinner, into this method Example

Inflection : Teacher : I ate the sandwich. Student : I ate the sandwiches.
Replacement : Teacher : He bought the car for half-price. Student : He bought it for half-price.
Restatement : Teacher : Tell me not to smoke so often. Student : Don't smoke so often!

The following example illustrates how more than one sort of drill can be incorporated into one practice session :
“Teacher: There's a cup on the table ... repeat
Students: There's a cup on the table
Teacher: Spoon
Students: There's a spoon on the table
Teacher: Book
Students: There's a book on the table
Teacher: On the chair
Students: There's a book on the chair
etc.”^[2]

Historical roots

The Audio-lingual method is the product of three historical circumstances. For its views on language, audiolingualism drew on the work of American linguists such as Leonard Bloomfield. The prime concern of American Linguistics at the early decades of the 20th century had been to document all the indigenous languages spoken in the USA. However, because of the death of trained native teachers who would provide a theoretical description of the native languages, linguists had to rely on observation. For the same reason, a strong focus on oral language was developed. At the same time, behaviourist psychologists such as B.F. Skinner were forming the belief that all behaviour (including language) was learnt through repetition and positive or negative reinforcement. The third factor that enabled the birth of the Audio-lingual method was the outbreak of World War II, which created the need to post large number of American servicemen all over the world. It was therefore necessary to provide these soldiers with at least basic verbal communication skills. Unsurprisingly, the new method relied on the prevailing scientific methods of the time, observation and repetition, which were also admirably suited to teaching en masse. Because of the influence of the military, early versions of the audio-lingualism came to be known as the “army method.”^[1]

In practice

As mentioned, lessons in the classroom focus on the correct imitation of the teacher by the students. Not only are the students expected to produce the correct output, but attention is also paid to correct pronunciation. Although correct grammar is expected in usage, no explicit grammatical instruction is given. Furthermore, the target language is the only language to be used in the classroom.^[1] Modern day implementations are more lax on this last requirement.

Fall from popularity

In the late 1950s, the theoretical underpinnings of the method were questioned by linguists such as Noam Chomsky, who pointed out the limitations of structural linguistics. The relevance of behaviorist psychology to language learning was also questioned, most famously by Chomsky's review of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior in 1959. The audio-lingual method was thus deprived of its scientific credibility and it was only a matter of time before the effectiveness of the method itself was questioned.
In 1964, Wilga Rivers released a critique of the method in her book, The Psychologist and the Foreign Language Teacher. Subsequent research by others, inspired by her book, produced results which showed explicit grammatical instruction in the mother language to be more productive.^{[citation needed]} These developments, coupled with the emergence of humanist pedagogy led to a rapid decline in the popularity of audiolingualism^{[citation needed]}.
Philip Smith's study from 1965-1969, termed the Pennsylvania Project, provided significant proof that audio-lingual methods were less effective than a more traditional cognitive approach involving the learner's first language.^[3]

Today

Despite being discredited as an effective teaching methodology in 1970,^[3] audio-lingualism continues to be used today, although it is typically not used as the foundation of a course, but rather, has been relegated to use in individual lessons. As it continues to be used, it also continues to gain criticism, as Jeremy Harmer notes, “Audio-lingual methodology seems to banish all forms of language processing that help students sort out new language information in their own minds.” As this type of lesson is very teacher centered, it is a popular methodology for both teachers and students, perhaps for several reasons but in particular, because the input and output is restricted and both parties know what to expect. Some hybrid approaches have been developed, as can be seen in the textbook Japanese: The Spoken Language (1987–90), which uses repetition and drills extensively, but supplements them with detailed grammar explanations in English.
Butzkamm & Caldwell have tried to revive traditional pattern practice in the form of bilingual semi-communicative drills. For them, the theoretical basis, and sufficient justification, of pattern drills is the generative principle, which refers to the human capacity to generate an infinite number of sentences from a finite grammatical competence.^[4]

I

DIRECT METHOD

he method refrains from using the learners' native language and uses only the target language. It was established in Germany and France around 1900. Characteristic features of the direct method are:

teaching concepts and vocabulary through pantomiming, real-life objects and other visual materials
teaching grammar by using an inductive approach (i.e. having learners find out rules through the presentation of adequate linguistic forms in the target language)
centrality of spoken language (including a native-like pronunciation)
focus on question-answer patterns

Principles

Classroom instructions are conducted exclusively in the target language.
Only everyday vocabulary and sentences are taught during the initial phase; grammar, reading and writing are introduced in intermediate phase.
Oral communication skills are built up in a carefully graded progression organized around question-and-answer exchanges between teachers and students in small, intensive classes.
Grammar is taught inductively.
New teaching points are introduced orally.
Concrete vocabulary is taught through demonstration, objects, and pictures; abstract vocabulary is taught by association of ideas.
Both speech and listening comprehensions are taught.
Correct pronunciation and grammar are emphasized.
Student should be speaking approximately 80% of the time during the lesson.
Students are taught from inception to ask questions as well as answer them.

Pedagogy

The key Aspects of this method are:
I. Introduction of new word, number, alphabet character, sentence or concept (referred to as an Element) :

• SHOW...Point to Visual Aid or Gestures (for verbs), to ensure student clearly understands what is being taught.

• SAY...Teacher verbally introduces Element, with care and enunciation.

• TRY...Student makes various attempts to pronounce new Element.

• MO

The Direct Method, also called the Natural Approach, developed towards the end of the 19^th century. It represents are critical reaction to the teaching methods of the ancient Grammar Translation Method which produced knowledge about language rather than knowledge of language. The general goal of the Direct Method is to provide learners with a practically useful knowledge of language. They should learn to speak and understand the target language in everyday situations.

The historical background to the call for a new approach to the teaching of modern languages like French and English has both socio-economic and scientific aspects. On the social and economic level the industrialization of western European countries created a demand for a practically useful knowledge in subjects like mathematics, physics, and modern languages. In Germany this gave rise to a new type of school called Realschule. Unlike the traditional grammar schools the new type of school catered mainly for children from the rising middle-classes. On the scientific side the call for the teaching of living languages like French and English was accompanied by the development of new linguistic approaches to the study of language. One of the most prominent aspects of that development is the rise of phonetics and phonology as a new linguistic discipline with the creation of the international phonetic alphabet. At a time when teachers had no access to modern gadgets like tape recorders or videos this provided them with the first sound information on how to pronounce the target language words.

The teaching methods recommended by the new reform movement followed logically from the emphasis on providing a useful knowledge of target knowledge, because that can only be developed by the direct use of the target language in class. Rather than forcing learners to accumulate abstract knowledge about rules of grammar, declensions and conjugations, with translations as a test of knowledge, reformers proposed that the target language should be learnt like children learn their first language, that is by using it in class. This is why the new approach is known as the Natural Approach or the Direct Method. Typical of the new teaching methods is the use of chains of activities accompanied by verbal comments like: I go to the door. I open the door. I close the door. I return to my place. I sit down. They are also called Gouin Series after the French reformer Gouin. There can be no doubt, however, that given the general authoritarian attitude to education typical of the 19^th century teachers remained very much in command and all teaching was very much teacher centred.

There was a marked change in teaching contents, however. The emphasis was now on knowledge of words and phrases useful for everyday life, and of factual knowledge about the target language country, its geography, major cities, industry, etc. In contrast to that the reading of great literary texts by the greatest authors, which is typical of the Grammar Translation Method, was given no priority. Note, however, that the still strong and influential faction of grammar school teachers considered this a debasing of the high principles of good education, and eventually many reformers were willing or forced to compromise when they fought for recognition of the new type of Oberrealschule as institutions entitled to issue school living certificates that granted access to university studies and were equal in status to grammar school diplomas. It is important to note this because for many years to come classroom reality was characterized by a mixture of methods and goals of teaching that had their origin no less in ancient grammar translation methods than in the reformist concepts of the Direct Method.

Content-Based Instruction (CBI) is a significant approach in language education (Brinton, Snow, & Wesche, 1989). CBI is designed to provide second-language learners instruction in content and language.
Historically, the word content has changed its meaning in language teaching. Content used to refer to the methods of grammar-translation, audio-lingual methodology and vocabulary or sound patterns in dialog form. Recently, content is interpreted as the use of subject matter as a vehicle for second or foreign language teaching/learning.

Benefits of content based instruction

1. Learners are exposed to a considerable amount of language through stimulating content. Learners explore interesting content & are engaged in appropriate language-dependant activities. Learning language becomes automatic.
2. CBI supports contextualized learning; learners are taught useful language that is embedded within relevant discourse contexts rather than as isolated language fragments. Hence students make greater connections with the language & what they already know.
3. Complex information is delivered through real life context for the students to grasp well & leads to intrinsic motivation.
4. In CBI information is reiterated by strategically delivering information at right time & situation compelling the students to learn out of passion.
5. Greater flexibility & adaptability in the curriculum can be deployed as per the students interest.

Comparison to other approaches

The CBI approach is comparable to English for Specific Purposes (ESP), which usually is for vocational or occupational needs or English for Academic Purposes (EAP). The goal of CBI is to prepare students to acquire the languages while using the context of any subject matter so that students learn the language by using it within the specific context. Rather than learning a language out of context, it is learned within the context of a specific academic subject.
As educators realized that in order to successfully complete an academic task, second language (L2) learners have to master both English as a language form (grammar, vocabulary etc.) and how English is used in core content classes, they started to implement various approaches such as Sheltered instruction and learning to learn in CBI classes. Sheltered instruction is more of a teacher-driven approach that puts the responsibility on the teachers' shoulders. This is the case by stressing several pedagogical needs to help learners achieve their goals, such as teachers having knowledge of the subject matter, knowledge of instructional strategies to comprehensible and accessible content, knowledge of L2 learning processes and the ability to assess cognitive, linguistic and social strategies that students use to assure content comprehension while promoting English academic development. Learning to learn is more of a student-centered approach that stresses the importance of having the learners share this responsibility with their teachers. Learning to learn emphasizes the significant role that learning strategies play in the process of learning.

Motivating students

Keeping students motivated and interested are two important factors underlying content-based instruction. Motivation and interest are crucial in supporting student success with challenging, informative activities that support success and which help the student learn complex skills (Grabe & Stoller, 1997). When students are motivated and interested in the material they are learning, they make greater connections between topics, elaborations with learning material and can recall information better (Alexander, Kulikowich, & Jetton, 1994: Krapp, Hidi, & Renninger, 1992). In short, when a student is intrinsically motivated the student achieves more. This in turn leads to a perception of success, of gaining positive attributes which will continue a circular learning pattern of success and interest. Krapp, Hidi and Renninger (1992) state that, "situational interest, triggered by environmental factors, may evoke or contribute to the development of long-lasting individual interests" (p. 18). Because CBI is student centered, one of its goals is to keep students interested and motivation high by generating stimulating content instruction and materials.

Active student involvement

Because it falls under the more general rubric of communicative language teaching (CLT), the CBI classroom is learner rather than teacher centered (Littlewood, 1981). In such classrooms, students learn through doing and are actively engaged in the learning process. They do not depend on the teacher to direct all learning or to be the source of all information. Central to CBI is the belief that learning occurs not only through exposure to the teacher's input, but also through peer input and interactions. Accordingly, students assume active, social roles in the classroom that involve interactive learning, negotiation, information gathering and the co-construction of meaning (Lee and VanPatten, 1995). William Glasser's "control theory" exemplifies his attempts to empower students and give them voice by focusing on their basic, human needs: Unless students are given power, they may exert what little power they have to thwart learning and achievement through inappropriate behavior and mediocrity. Thus, it is important for teachers to give students voice, especially in the current educational climate, which is dominated by standardization and testing (Simmons and Page, 2010).^[1]

Conclusion

The integration of language & content teaching is perceived by the European Commission as "an excellent way of making progress in a foreign language". CBI effectively increases learners' English language proficiency & teaches them the skills necessary for the success in various professions. With CBI, learners gradually acquire greater control of the English language, enabling them to participate more fully in an increasingly complex academic & social environment.

CONTENT BASED INTRUCTION

Benefits of content based instruction

Comparison to other approaches

Motivating students

Active student involvement

Conclusion

COMPETENCY BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING

Competency-Based Language Teaching (CBLT) focuses on what “learners are expected to do with the language” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.141). This approach emerged in the United States in the 1970s and can be described as “defining educational goals in terms of precise measurable descriptions of the knowledge, skills, and behaviors students should possess at the end of a course of study” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.141).
The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2000, p.246) defines competency as “the ability to do sth well” and as “a skill that you need in a particular job or for a particular task”.

Theory of Language and Learning

The major basis of CBLT is the “functional and interactional perspective on the nature of language (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 143) which means that language learning always needs to be connected to the social context it is used in. Therefore, language is seen as “a medium of interaction and communication between people” who want to achieve “specific goals and purposes” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.143). This especially applies to situations in which the learner has to fulfill a particular role with language skills which can be predicted or determined for the relevant context (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.143). In connection to this Competency-Based Language Teaching shares the behaviorist view of learning that “certain life encounters call for certain kinds of language” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.143). Another key aspect of both language and learning theory is the so called “mosaic approach to language learning” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.143), which assumes that language can be divided into appropriate parts and subparts. Communicative competence is then constructed from these subparts put together in the correct order (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.143). All these aspects together show that CBLT is in some respects similar to Communicative Language Teaching (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.143).

Syllabus

A syllabus for a competency-based framework clearly differs from the traditional approach to developing a syllabus. Instead of selecting a topic or field of knowledge that one is going to teach (e.g., British History, American Literature, or poetry) and then choosing “concepts, knowledge, and skills that constitute that field of knowledge” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.144), Competency-based Language Teaching “is designed not around the notion of subject knowledge but around the notion of competency” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.144). Therefore, the focus is on how the students can use the language instead of their knowledge about the language. Schenck (1978) points out that the teacher provides a list of competencies which the course is going to deal with, and these are “typically required of students in life role situations”.
The fact that CBLT is an outcome-based approach also influences the syllabus, especially the kind of assessment which is used. In contrast to “norm-referenced assessment” (Docking, 1994, p.16), which is used in many other teaching approaches and methods, “criterion-based assessment” (Docking, 1994, p.16) is essential for CBLT. Students have to perform specific language skills which they have already learned during the course (Docking, 1994, p.16). The competencies tested “consist of a description of the essential skills, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors required for effective performance of a real-world task or activity” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.144). These performance-criteria form the basis for the assessment.

Learning Activities

The learning activities used in CBLT can be described as systematically designed activities to achieve a certain competence. These activities are real-world tasks which “may be related to any domain of life” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.144) but especially to survival-oriented and work-related situations in a new environment (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.144). Typical areas, for which such competency-based activities have been developed, are for example Job Application, Job Interview, or Work Schedules (Mrowicki, 1986). All these areas “can be described as a collection of units of competencies” which consist of “specific knowledge, thinking processes, attitudes, and perceptual and physical skills” (Docking, 1994, p.11).

Eight Key Features

According to Auerbach (1986) there are eight key features which are essential for Competency-Based Language Teaching:
1. A focus on successful functioning in society which means that language is taught in order to prepare the students for the different demands of the world (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.146).
2. A focus on life skills to determine that language is always taught as a medium of communication in concrete tasks in which specific language forms/skills are required (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.146).
3. Task- or performance-centered orientation. The focus is on what the students can do with the language and certain behaviors instead of knowledge of the language (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.146).
4. Modularized instruction emphasizes that the competencies which are taught have to be systematically separated into manageable parts so that both the teacher and students can handle the content and realize their progress (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.146).
5. Outcomes that are made explicit a priori. “Outcomes are public knowledge, known and agreed upon by both learner and teacher” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.146). Therefore, the students clearly know what behaviors and skills are expected of them (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.146).
6. Continuous and ongoing assessment which means that the students are tested before the course to determine which skills they lack and after they have had instructions in that skill they are tested again to ascertain whether they have achieved the necessary skills or not (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.146).
7. Demonstrated mastery of performance objectives. The assessment is based on the students’ performance of specific behaviors instead of traditional paper-and-pencil-tests (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.146).
8. Individualized, student-centered instruction. The instructions given by the teacher are not time-based but the focus is on the progress the individual students make at their own rate. Therefore, the teacher has to concentrate on each individual students in order to support them in those areas in which they lack competence (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.146).

Role of Teacher

The role of the teacher in a competency-based framework is not defined by specific terms. The teacher has to provide positive and constructive feedback in order to help the students to improve their skills. She/he needs to be aware of the learners’ needs so that everybody feels welcome in class (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.146). The different competencies dealt with in class require specific instructions for the various learning activities. Thus the teacher has to give clear orders and explanations to make sure that every student understands the task they are going to deal with. But the teacher does not push the students because the instructions are not time-based; instead the student’s progress is most important (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.146). Another task of the teacher in CBLT is to select learning activities and to design a syllabus according to the competency the students are going to acquire.

Role of Learner

The role of the learner in a competency-based framework is to decide whether the competencies are useful and relevant for him/her (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.146). This shows that the learner has an active role in the classroom which is underlined by the fact that the students are expected to perform the skills learned (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.146). The competencies the students will learn are clearly defined and present in the public so that “the learner knows exactly what needs to be learned” and for which purpose he/she has to use the competencies (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.147). In this regard it is vital that every competency is mastered one at a time because this makes sure that the learners know what they have already learned and what the next steps will look like (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.147). Moreover, the students have to stay in the actual program until they improve. After they mastered their skills, they move into a more proficient group of students. The main goal of the learner in Competency-Based Language Teaching is to be able to adapt and transfer knowledge from one setting to another.

Materials

The materials the teacher chooses are mainly “sample texts and assessment tasks that provide examples of texts and assessment tasks that relate to the competency” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.147). These materials are used to provide the students with “the essential skills, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors required for effective performance of a real-world task or activity” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.144). A great variety of competencies should be improved by these tasks. On the one hand, knowledge and learning competencies as well as oral competencies are dealt with. On the other hand, the materials include tasks to improve the reading and writing competencies (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.147).

Procedure

At the beginning of a course in a competency-based framework the students have to go through an initial assessment, in which the teacher determines the current proficiency level of the individual student. After this the students are grouped on the basis of “their current English proficiency level, their learning pace, their needs, and their social goals for learning English” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.147). Furthermore, a course based on CBLT is divided into three stages, which the students have to go through in order to successfully finish the course (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.147). At Stages 1 and 2 the learners deal with twelve competencies which are related to general language development (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.147). At Stage 3 the students are grouped on the basis of their learning goals and “competencies are defined according to the three syllabus strands of Further Study, Vocational English, and Community Access” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.147).

Conclusion

There are both critics and supporters of Competency-Based Language Teaching. According to Tollefson (1986) it is very difficult to develop lists of competencies for every specific situation. This is due above all to the fact that many areas in which people need certain competencies are impossible to operationalise (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.148). Other researchers argue that describing an activity in terms of a set of different competencies is not enough in order to deal with the complexity of the activity as a whole (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.148). But on the other hand, CBLT is gaining popularity in the whole world. It is argued that through the clearly defined outcomes and the continuous feedback in CBLT, the quality of assessment as well as the students’ learning and the teaching are improved (Docking, 1994, p.15). These improvements can be seen on all educational levels, “from primary school to university, and from academic studies to workplace training” (Docking, 1994, p.15). Rylatt and Lohan (1997, p.18) point out that “the business of improving learning competencies and skills will remain one of the world’s fastest growing industries and priorities” in the future.

COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

Communicative language teaching (CLT), or the communicative approach, is an approach to language teaching that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of study.
Communicative language teaching rose to prominence in the 1970s and early 1980s as a result of many disparate developments in both Europe and the United States.First, there was an increased demand for language learning, particularly in Europe. The advent of the European Common Market led to widespread European migration, and consequently there was a large population of people who needed to learn a foreign language for work or for personal reasons. At the same time, children were increasingly able to learn foreign languages in school. The number of secondary schools offering languages rose worldwide in the 1960s and 1970s as part of a general trend of curriculum-broadening and modernization, and foreign-language study ceased to be confined to the elite academies. In Britain, the introduction of comprehensive schools meant that almost all children had the opportunity to study foreign languages.
This increased demand put pressure on educators to change their teaching methods. Traditional methods such as grammar translation assumed that students were aiming for mastery of the target language, and that students were willing to study for years before expecting to use the language in real life. However, these assumptions were challenged by adult learners who were busy with work, and by schoolchildren who were less academically able. Educators realized that to motivate these students an approach with a more immediate payoff was necessary.
The trend of progressivism in education provided a further pressure for educators to change their methods.^[3] Progressivism holds that active learning is more effective than passive learning,^[4] and as this idea gained traction in schools there was a general shift towards using techniques where students were more actively involved, such as group work. Foreign-language education was no exception to this trend, and teachers sought to find new methods that could better embody this shift in thinking.^[3]

Academic influences

The development of communicative language teaching was also helped by new academic ideas. In Britain, applied linguists began to doubt the efficacy of situational language teaching, the dominant method in that country at the time. This was partly in response to Chomsky’s insights into the nature of language. Chomsky had shown that the structural theories of language prevalent at the time could not explain the creativity and variety evident in real communication. In addition, British applied linguists such as Christopher Candlin and Henry Widdowson began to see that a focus on structure was also not helping language students. They saw a need for students to develop communicative skill and functional competence in addition to mastering language structures.
In the United States, the linguist and anthropologist Dell Hymes developed the concept of communicative competence. This was a reaction to Chomsky’s concept of the linguistic competence of an ideal native speaker.^[1] Communicative competence redefined what it meant to “know” a language; in addition to speakers having mastery over the structural elements of language, according to communicative competence they must also be able to use those structural elements appropriately in different social situations.^[1] This is neatly summed up by Hymes’s statement, “There are rules of use without which the rules of grammar would be useless.”^[3] Hymes did not make a concrete formulation of communicative competence, but subsequent authors have tied the concept to language teaching, notably Michael Canale.^[3]

Communicative syllabuses

An influential development in the history of communicative language teaching was the work of the Council of Europe in creating new language syllabuses. Education was a high priority for the Council of Europe, and they set out to provide syllabuses that would meet the needs of European immigrants.^[2] Among the studies used by the council when designing the course was one by the British linguist, D. A. Wilkins, that defined language using “notions” and “functions”, rather than more traditional categories of grammar and vocabulary. Notional categories include concepts such as time, location, frequency, and quantity, and functional categories include communicative acts such as offers, complaints, denials, and requests. These syllabuses were widely used.^[2]
Communicative language-learning materials were also developed in Germany. There was a new emphasis on personal freedom in German education at the time, an attitude exemplified in the philosophy of Jürgen Habermas.^[1] To fulfill this goal, educators developed materials that allowed learners to choose what they wanted to communicate freely. These materials concentrated on the various different social meanings a given item of grammar could have, and were structured in such a way that learners could choose how to progress through the course themselves.^[1] The materials were used in teacher training courses and workshops to encourage teachers to change to using a communicative syllabus. Two similar projects were also undertaken by Candlin at Lancaster University, and by Holec at the University of Nancy.^[1]
Meanwhile, at the University of Illinois, there was a study that investigated the effects of the explicit teaching of learning strategies to language learners. The study encouraged learners to take risks while communicating, and to use constructs other than rote memorized patterns. At the study’s conclusion, students who were taught communicatively fared no worse on grammatical tests than students that had been taught with traditional methods, but they performed significantly better in tests of communicative ability. This was the case even for beginners.^[1] As a result of this study, supplemental communicative activities were created for the French CRÉDIF course Voix et Visages de la France. These materials focused on classroom autonomy, and learners were taught various phrases they could use to negotiate meaning, such as “What’s the word for …” and “I don’t understand”.^[1]

Outline

CLT is usually characterized as a broad approach to teaching, rather than as a teaching method with a clearly defined set of classroom practices. As such, it is most often defined as a list of general principles or features. One of the most recognized of these lists is David Nunan’s (1991) five features of CLT:

An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language.
The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation.
The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also on the learning process itself.
An enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning.
An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activities outside the classroom.

These five features are claimed by practitioners of CLT to show that they are very interested in the needs and desires of their learners as well as the connection between the language as it is taught in their class and as it used outside the classroom. Under this broad umbrella definition, any teaching practice that helps students develop their communicative competence in an authentic context is deemed an acceptable and beneficial form of instruction. Thus, in the classroom CLT often takes the form of pair and group work requiring negotiation and cooperation between learners, fluency-based activities that encourage learners to develop their confidence, role-plays in which students practise and develop language functions, as well as judicious use of grammar and pronunciation focused activities.
In the mid 1990s the Dogma 95 manifesto influenced language teaching through the Dogme language teaching movement, who proposed that published materials can stifle the communicative approach. As such the aim of the Dogme approach to language teaching is to focus on real conversations about real subjects so that communication is the engine of learning. This communication may lead to explanation, but that this in turn will lead to further communication.^[5]

Classroom activities

Classroom activities used in communicative language teaching can include the following:

Role-play
Interviews
information gap
Games
Language exchanges
Surveys
Pair-work
Learning by teaching

However, not all courses that utilize the Communicative Language approach will restrict their activities solely to these. Some courses will have the students take occasional grammar quizzes, or prepare at home using non-communicative drills, for instance. William Glasser's "control theory" exemplifies his attempts to empower students and give them voice by focusing on their basic, human needs: Unless students are given power, they may exert what little power they have to thwart learning and achievement through inappropriate behavior and mediocrity. Thus, it is important for teachers to give students voice, especially in the current educational climate, which is dominated by standardization and testing (Simmons and Page, 2010).^[6]

Critiques of CLT

One of the most famous attacks on communicative language teaching was offered by Michael Swan in the English Language Teaching Journal in 1985.^[7] Henry Widdowson responded in defense of CLT, also in the ELT Journal (1985 39(3):158-161). More recently other writers (e.g. Bax^[8]) have critiqued CLT for paying insufficient attention to the context in which teaching and learning take place, though CLT has also been defended against this charge (e.g. Harmer 2003^[9]).
Often, the communicative approach is deemed a success if the teacher understands the student. But, if the teacher is from the same region as the student, the teacher will understand errors resulting from an influence from their first language. Native speakers of the target language may still have difficulty understanding them. This observation may call for new thinking on and adaptation of the communicative approach. The adapted communicative approach should be a simulation where the teacher pretends to understand only what any regular speaker of the target language would and reacts accordingly (Hattum 2006^[10]).

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Language-teaching methodology

COMMUNITY LANGUAGE TEACHING

Community language learning (CLL) is an approach in which students work together to develop what aspects of a language they would like to learn. The teacher acts as a counsellor and a paraphraser, while the learner acts as a collaborator, although sometimes this role can be changed.
Examples of these types of communities have recently arisen with the explosion of educational resources for language learning on the Web.

Background

The CLL method was developed by Charles A. Curran, a professor of psychology at Loyola University in Chicago.^[1] This method refers to two roles: that of the know-er (teacher) and student (learner). Also the method draws on the counseling metaphor and refers to these respective roles as a counselor and a client. According to Curran, a counselor helps a client understand his or her own problems better by 'capturing the essence of the clients concern ...[and] relating [the client's] affect to cognition...;' in effect, understanding the client and responding in a detached yet considerate manner.
To restate, the counselor blends what the client feels and what he is learning in order to make the experience a meaningful one. Often, this supportive role requires greater energy expenditure than an 'average' teacher.^[2]

Methods

Natural Approach

The foreign language learner's tasks, according to CLL are (1) to apprehend the sound system of the language (2) assign fundamental meanings to individual lexical units and (3) construct a basic grammar.
In these three steps, the CLL resembles the Natural Approach to language teaching in which a learner is not expected to speak until he has achieved some basic level of comprehension.^[3]
There are 5 stages of development in this method.

“Birth” stage: feeling of security and belonging are established.
As the learners' ability improve, they achieve a measure of independence from the parent.
Learners can speak independently.
The learners are secure enough to take criticism and being corrected.
The child becomes an adult and becomes the know-er.

Online Communities

A new wave of Community Learning Languages have come into place with the internet growth and the boom of social networking technologies. These online CLLs are social network services such as Papora (language education company), English, baby! and LiveMocha that take advantage of the Web 2.0 concept of information sharing and collaboration tools, for which users can help other users to learn languages by direct communication or mutual correction of proposed exercises.

Barriers in Community Language Learning

When learning a different language while in a multilingual community, there are certain barriers that one definitely will encounter. The reason for these barriers is that in language learning while in a multicultural community, native and nonnative groups will think, act, and write in different ways based on each of their own cultural norms. Research shows that students in multicultural environments communicate less with those not familiar with their culture. Long-term problems include that the foreign speakers will have their own terms of expression combined into the language native to the area, which oftentimes makes for awkward sentences to a native speaker. Native students tend to develop an exclusive attitude toward the nonnative speaker because they feel threatened when they do not understand the foreign language. Short-term problems include the fact that native students will usually lack in-depth knowledge of the nonnative cultures, which makes them more likely to be unwilling to communicate with the foreign speakers. Because these foreign students grew up and were educated in a totally different cultural environment, their ideologies, identities and logic that form in the early age cause different ways of expressing ideas both in written and spoken form. They will have to modify and redefine their original identities when they enter a multicultural environment (Shen, 459). This is no easy task. Consequentially, a low-level of social involvement and enculturation will occur for both native and nonnative speakers in the community.

References

^ Richards, Jack C. (1986:113) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching
^ Richards, Jack C (1986:138)
^ Krashen, S.D., and Terrel, T.D. (1983). The Natural Approach: Language acquisition in the Classroom.


Audio-lingual method Communicative language teaching Comprehension approach Lexical approach Community language learning Computer-assisted language learning Content-based instruction Direct Method Dogme language teaching Focal Skills Grammar-translation Language immersion Literature-based curriculum Lexical approach Michel Thomas Method Natural approach Participatory language teaching Pimsleur system Silent way Suggestopedia Task-based language learning Total physical response TPR Storytelling Vocabulary development Whole language
Mother tongue mirroring Sandwich technique Back-chaining Dictogloss Information gap
Bilingual dictionary Critical period hypothesis Discrete skills English as a lingua franca Episode hypothesis Fossilization Integrated skills Interlanguage Language transfer Learnability/teachability hypothesis Second-language acquisition World Englishes
Language assessment Corrective feedback Competency evaluation DIALANG IELTS TOEFL TOEIC UCLES
English as a second or foreign language English for specific purposes TESOL
Betty Azar H. Douglas Brown Pit Corder Jim Cummins Rod Ellis Stephen Krashen Diane Larsen-Freeman Alastair Pennycook Patricia A. Richard-Amato Jack C. Richards Dave Sperling Scott Thornbury

CONTEXTUAL TEACHING LEARNING

Contextual Learning is based on a constructivist theory of teaching and learning.^[1]^{[page needed]} Learning takes place when teachers are able to present information in a way that students are able to construct meaning based on their own experiences. Contextual learning experiences include internships, service learning, and study abroad programs, among others.^[2]^{[not in citation given]}
Contextual learning has the following characteristics:

emphasizing problem solving
recognizing that teaching and learning need to occur in multiple contexts
assisting students in learning how to monitor their learning and thereby become self-regulated learners
anchoring teaching in the diverse life context of students^{[clarification needed]}
encouraging students to learn from each other
employing authentic assessment^{[clarification needed]}

Key Elements

This article may be too technical for most readers to understand. Please help improve this article to make it understandable to non-experts, without removing the technical details. The talk page may contain suggestions. (April 2013)

Current perspectives on what it means for learning to be contextualized include

situated cognition- all learning is applied knowledge
social cognition- intrapersonal constructs
distributed cognition- constructs that are continually shaped by other people and things outside the individual

Constructivist learning theory maintains that learning is a process of constructing meaning from experience^[3]^{[page needed]}^[4] Contextual learning may be useful for child development if it provides learning experiences in a context in which children are interested and motivated. Various experiential learning theorists have contributed to an understanding of contextual learning.^{[citation needed]}

Benefits of contextual learning

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (April 2013)

Both direct instruction and constructivist activities can be compatible and effective in the achievement of learning goals.^{[clarification needed]}^[5]^{[page needed]}
Increasing one’s efforts results in more ability. This theory opposes the notion that one’s aptitude is unchangeable. Striving for learning goals motivates an individual to be engaged in activities with a commitment to learning.^{[clarification needed]}^[5]^{[page needed]}
Children learn the standards values, and knowledge of society by raising questions and accepting challenges to find solutions that are not immediately apparent. Other learning processes are explaining concepts, justifying their reasoning and seeking information. Therefore, learning is a social process which requires social and cultural factors to be considered during instructional planning. This social nature of learning also drives the determination of the learning goals.^{[clarification needed]}^[6]^{[page needed]}
Knowledge and learning are situated in particular physical and social context. A range of settings may be used such as the home, the community, and the workplace, depending on the purpose of instruction and the intended learning goals.^[6]^{[page needed]}
Knowledge may be viewed as distributed or stretched over^[7]^{[page needed]} the individual, other persons, and various artifacts such as physical and symbolic tools^[8]^{[page needed]} and not solely as a property of individuals. Thus, people, as an integral part of the learning process, must share knowledge and tasks.^[6]^{[page needed]}

References

^ Hull, D (1993). Opening Minds, Opening Doors: The Rebirth of American Education.
^ http://www.nsee.org
^ Imel, S (2000). Contextual learning in adult education.
^ http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED448304.pdf
^ ^a ^b Resnick & Hall (1998). Learning organizations for sustainable education reform.
^ ^a ^b ^c Borko & Putnam (1998). The role of context in teacher learning and teacher education.
^ Lave, J (1988). Cognition in practice: Mind, mathematics and culture in everyday life. Cambridge University Press.
^ Salomon, G (1993). Distributed cognitions. Cambridge University Press.

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Alternative education

COOPERATIVE LEARNING

Cooperative learning is an approach to organizing classroom activities into academic and social learning experiences. It differs from group work, and it has been described as "structuring positive interdependence."^[1]^[2] Students must work in groups to complete tasks collectively toward academic goals. Unlike individual learning, which can be competitive in nature, students learning cooperatively capitalize on one another’s resources and skills (asking one another for information, evaluating one another’s ideas, monitoring one another’s work, etc.).^[3]^[4] Furthermore, the teacher's role changes from giving information to facilitating students' learning.^[5]^[6] Everyone succeeds when the group succeeds. Ross and Smyth (1995) describe successful cooperative learning tasks as intellectually demanding, creative, open-ended, and involve higher order thinking tasks.^[7] Five essential elements are identified for the successful incorporation of cooperative learning in the classroom.

History

Prior to World War II, social theorists such as Allport, Watson, Shaw, and Mead began establishing cooperative learning theory after finding that group work was more effective and efficient in quantity, quality, and overall productivity when compared to working alone.^[8] However, it wasn’t until 1937 when researchers May and Doob^[9] found that people who cooperate and work together to achieve shared goals, were more successful in attaining outcomes, than those who strived independently to complete the same goals. Furthermore, they found that independent achievers had a greater likelihood of displaying competitive behaviours.
Philosophers and psychologists in the 1930s and 40’s such as John Dewey, Kurt Lewin, and Morton Deutsh also influenced the cooperative learning theory practiced today.^[10] Dewey believed it was important that students develop knowledge and social skills that could be used outside of the classroom, and in the democratic society. This theory portrayed students as active recipients of knowledge by discussing information and answers in groups, engaging in the learning process together rather than being passive receivers of information (e.g., teacher talking, students listening).
Lewin’s contributions to cooperative learning were based on the ideas of establishing relationships between group members in order to successfully carry out and achieve the learning goal. Deutsh’s contribution to cooperative learning was positive social interdependence, the idea that the student is responsible for contributing to group knowledge.^[10]
Since then, David and Roger Johnson have been actively contributing to the cooperative learning theory. In 1975, they identified that cooperative learning promoted mutual liking, better communication, high acceptance and support, as well as demonstrated an increase in a variety of thinking strategies among individuals in the group.^[11] Students who showed to be more competitive lacked in their interaction and trust with others, as well as in their emotional involvement with other students.
In 1994 Johnson and Johnson published the 5 elements (positive interdependence, individual accountability, face-to-face interaction, social skills, and processing) essential for effective group learning, achievement, and higher-order social, personal and cognitive skills (e.g., problem solving, reasoning, decision-making, planning, organizing, and reflecting).^[12]

Types

Formal cooperative learning is structured, facilitated, and monitored by the educator over time and is used to achieve group goals in task work (e.g. completing a unit). Any course material or assignment can be adapted to this type of learning, and groups can vary from 2-6 people with discussions lasting from a few minutes up to an entire period. Types of formal cooperative learning strategies include:

The jigsaw technique
Assignments that involve group problem solving and decision making
Laboratory or experiment assignments
Peer review work (e.g. editing writing assignments).

Having experience and developing skill with this type of learning often facilitates informal and base learning.^[13] Jigsaw activities are wonderful because the student assumes the role of the teacher on a given topic and is in charge of teaching the topic to a classmate. The idea is that if students can teach something, they have already learned the material.
Informal cooperative learning incorporates group learning with passive teaching by drawing attention to material through small groups throughout the lesson or by discussion at the end of a lesson, and typically involves groups of two (e.g. turn-to-your-partner discussions). These groups are often temporary and can change from lesson to lesson (very much unlike formal learning where 2 students may be lab partners throughout the entire semester contributing to one another’s knowledge of science).
Discussions typically have four components that include formulating a response to questions asked by the educator, sharing responses to the questions asked with a partner, listening to a partner’s responses to the same question, and creating a new well-developed answer. This type of learning enables the student to process, consolidate, and retain more information.^[13]
In group-based cooperative learning, these peer groups gather together over the long term (e.g. over the course of a year, or several years such as in high school or post-secondary studies) to develop and contribute to one another’s knowledge mastery on a topic by regularly discussing material, encouraging one another, and supporting the academic and personal success of group members.
Base group learning (e.g., a long term study group) is effective for learning complex subject matter over the course or semester and establishes caring, supportive peer relationships, which in turn motivates and strengthens the student’s commitment to the group’s education while increasing self-esteem and self-worth. Base group approaches also make the students accountable to educating their peer group in the event that a member was absent for a lesson. This is effective both for individual learning, as well as social support.

Elements

Brown & Ciuffetelli Parker (2009) and Siltala (2010) discuss the 5 basic and essential elements to cooperative learning:^[14]^[15]^[16]

Positive interdependence
1. Students must fully participate and put forth effort within their group
2. Each group member has a task/role/responsibility therefore must believe that they are responsible for their learning and that of their group
Face-to-face promotive interaction
1. Members promote each other's success
2. Students explain to one another what they have or are learning and assist one another with understanding and completion of assignments
Individual and group accountability
1. Each student must demonstrate mastery of the content being studied
2. Each student is accountable for their learning and work, therefore eliminating “social loafing”
Social skills
1. Social skills that must be taught in order for successful cooperative learning to occur
2. Skills include effective communication, interpersonal and group skills
  1. Leadership
  2. Decision-making
  3. Trust-building
  4. Communication
  5. Conflict-management skills
Group processing
1. Every so often groups must assess their effectiveness and decide how it can be improved

In order for student achievement to improve considerably, two characteristics must be present:^[17]

When designing cooperative learning tasks and reward structures, individual responsibility and accountability must be identified. Individuals must know exactly what their responsibilities are and that they are accountable to the group in order to reach their goal.
All group members must be involved in order for the group to complete the task. In order for this to occur each member must have a task that they are responsible for which cannot be completed by any other group member.

Cooperative Learning Techniques

There are a great number of cooperative learning techniques available. Some cooperative learning techniques utilize student pairing, while others utilize small groups of four or five students. Hundreds of techniques have been created into structures to use in any content area.^[18] Among the easy to implement structures are Think-Pair-Share, Think-Pair-Write, variations of Round Robin, and the Reciprocal Teaching Technique.^[19] A well known cooperative learning technique is the Jigsaw, Jigsaw II and Reverse Jigsaw.

Think Pair Share

Originally developed by Frank T. Lyman (1981),^[20] Think-Pair-Share allows for students to contemplate a posed question or problem silently. The student may write down thoughts or simply just brainstorm in his or her head. When prompted, the student pairs up with a peer and discusses his or her idea(s) and then listens to the ideas of his or her partner. Following pair dialogue, the teacher solicits responses from the whole group.^[19]

Jigsaw

Students are members of two groups: home group and expert group. In the heterogeneous home group, students are each assigned a different topic. Once a topic has been identified, students leave the home group and group with the other students with their assigned topic. In the new group, students learn the material together before returning to their home group. Once back in their home group, each student is accountable for teaching his or her assigned topic.^[19]

Jigsaw II

Jigsaw II is Robert Slavin's (1980) variation of Jigsaw in which members of the home group are assigned the same material, but focus on separate portions of the material. Each member must become an "expert" on his or her assigned portion and teach the other members of the home group.^[21]

Reverse Jigsaw

This variation was created by Timothy Hedeen (2003)^[22] It differs from the original Jigsaw during the teaching portion of the activity. In the Reverse Jigsaw technique, students in the expert groups teach the whole class rather than return to their home groups to teach the content.

Reciprocal Teaching

Brown & Paliscar (1982) developed reciprocal teaching. It is a cooperative technique that allows for student pairs to participate in a dialogue about text. Partners take turns reading and asking questions of each other, receiving immediate feedback. Such a model allows for students to use important metacognitive techniques such as clarifying, questioning, predicting, and summarizing. It embraces the idea that students can effectively learn from each other.^[23]

The Williams

Students collaborate to answer a big question that is the learning objective. Each group has differentiated questions that increases in cognitive ability to allow students to progress and meet the learning objective.

STAD (or Student-Teams-Achievement Divisions)

Students are placed in small groups (or teams). The class in its entirety is presented with a lesson and the students are subsequently tested. Individuals are graded on the team's performance. Although the tests are taken individually, students are encouraged to work together to improve the overall performance of the group.^[24]

Research supporting cooperative learning

Research on cooperative learning demonstrated “overwhelmingly positive” results and confirmed that cooperative modes are cross-curricular.^[25] Cooperative learning requires students to engage in group activities that increase learning and adds other important dimensions.^[14] The positive outcomes include academic gains, improved race relations and increased personal and social development.^[14] Students who fully participate in group activities, exhibit collaborative behaviors, provide constructive feedback, and cooperate with their groups have a higher likelihood of receiving higher test scores and course grades at the end of the semester.^[26] Cooperative learning is an active pedagogy that fosters higher academic achievement.^[26] Cooperative learning has also been found to increase attendance, time on task, enjoyment of school and classes, motivation, and independence.^[27]^[28]^[29]^[30]

Benefits and applicability of cooperative learning:^[17]

Students demonstrate academic achievement
Cooperative learning methods are usually equally effective for all ability levels
Cooperative learning is effective for all ethnic groups
Student perceptions of one another are enhanced when given the opportunity to work with one another
Cooperative learning increases self-esteem and self-concept
Ethnic and physically/mentally handicapped barriers are broken down allowing for positive interactions and friendships to occur

Cooperative learning results in:^[31]

Increased higher level reasoning
Increased generation of new ideas and solutions
Greater transfer of learning between situations

Cooperative learning is significant in business:^[15]

Cooperative learning can be seen as a characteristic of innovative businesses
The five stage division on cooperative learning creates a useful method of analyzing learning in innovative businesses
Innovativity connected to cooperative learning seems to make the creation of innovations possible

Limitations

Cooperative Learning has many limitations that could cause the process to be more complicated than first perceived. Sharan (2010) describes the constant evolution of cooperative learning as a threat. Due to the fact that cooperative learning is constantly changing, there is a possibility that teachers may become confused and lack complete understanding of the method. Teachers implementing cooperative learning may also be challenged with resistance and hostility from students who believe that they are being held back by their slower teammates or by students who are less confident and feel that they are being ignored or demeaned by their team.^[10]
Students often provide feedback in the success of the teamwork experienced during cooperative learning experiences. Peer review and evaluations may not reflect true experiences due to perceived competition among peers. A confidential evaluation process may help to increase evaluation strength.^[32]

References

^ Slavin, R. E.(1990). Cooperative Learning. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
^ Kagan, S. (1990). The structural approach to cooperative learning. Educational Leadership, 47(4), 12-15.
^ Chiu, M. M. (2000). Group problem solving processes: Social interactions and individual actions. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 30, 1, 27-50.600-631.
^ Chiu, M. M. (2008).Flowing toward correct contributions during groups' mathematics problem solving: A statistical discourse analysis. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 17 (3), 415 - 463.
^ Chiu, M. M. (2004). Adapting teacher interventions to student needs during cooperative learning. American Educational Research Journal, 41, 365-399.
^ Cohen, E. G. (1994). Designing group work. New York: Teacher's College.
^ Ross, J.,& Smythe, E. (1995). Differentiating cooperative learning to meet the needs of gifted learners: A case for transformational leadership. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 19, 63-82.
^ Gilles, R.M., & Adrian, F. (2003). Cooperative Learning: The social and intellectual Outcomes of Learning in Groups. London: Farmer Press.
^ May, M. and Doob, L. (1937). Cooperation and Competition. New York: Social Sciences Research Council
^ ^a ^b ^c Sharan, Y. (2010). Cooperative Learning for Academic and Social Gains: valued pedagogy, problematic practice. European Journal of Education, 45,(2), 300-313.
^ Johnson, D., Johnson, R. (1975). Learning together and alone, cooperation, competition, and individualization. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
^ Johnson, D., Johnson, R. (1994). Learning together and alone, cooperative, competitive, and individualistic learning. Needham Heights, MA: Prentice-Hall.
^ ^a ^b Johnson, D., Johnson, R., & Holubec, E. (1988). Advanced Cooperative Learning. Edin, MN: Interaction Book Company.
^ ^a ^b ^c Brown, H., & Ciuffetelli, D.C. (Eds.). (2009). Foundational methods: Understanding teaching and learning. Toronto: Pearson Education.
^ ^a ^b Siltala, R. (2010). Innovativity and cooperative learning in business life and teaching. University of Turku.
^ Siltala, R., Suomala, J., Taatila, V. & Keskinen, S. (2007). Cooperative Learning in Finland and in California during the innovation process. In Andriessen D. (Eds.) (2007). Intellectual Capital. Haarlem: Inholland University.
^ ^a ^b Brown, H., & Ciuffetelli, D.C. (Eds.). (2009). Foundational methods: Understanding teaching and learning, p. 507. Toronto: Pearson Education.
^ Kagan,S. 1994. Kagan cooperative learning. 2nd ed. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing.
^ ^a ^b ^c Schul, J.E. (2011). Revisiting and old friend: The practice and promise of cooperative learning for the twenty-first century. The Social Studies, 102, 88-93.
^ Lyman, F.T. 1981. The responsive classroom discussion: The inclusion of all students. In Mainstreaming Digest, ed. A. Anderson, 109-113. College Park: University of Maryland Press.
^ Schul, J.E. (2012). Revisiting and old friend: The practice and promise of cooperative learning for the twenty-first century. The Social Studies, 102, 88-93.
^ Heeden,T. 2003. The reverse jigsaw: A process of cooperative learning and discussion. Teaching Sociology 31 (3): 325-332.
^ Palinscar, A.S., & Brown, A.L. (1984). Reciprocal teaching of comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities. Cognition and Instruction, I (2), 117-175.
^ Kevin Seifert and Rosemary Sutton. (2009) Educational Psychology 2nd Edition. “Chapter 9: Facilitating Complex Thinking.” pp. 204 [1]
^ Brown, H., & Ciuffetelli, D.C. (Eds.). (2009). Foundational methods: Understanding teaching and learning, p. 508. Toronto: Pearson Education.
^ ^a ^b Tsay, Mina; Miranda Brady (June 2010). "A case study of cooperative learning and communication pedagogy: Does working in teams make a difference?". Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. 2 10: 78–89.
^ Augustine, D.K., Gruber, K. D., & Hanson, L. R. (1989-1990). Cooperation works! Educational Leadership, 47, 4-7.
^ Good, T. L., Reys, B. J., Grouws, D. A., & Mulryan, C. M.(1989-1990). Using work groups in mathematics instruction. Educational leadership, 47, 56-60.
^ Slavin, R. E.(1990). Cooperative learning. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
^ Wood, K. D.(1987). Fostering cooperative learning in the middle and secondary level classrooms. Journal of Reading, 31, 10-18.
^ Johnson, D. W.& Johnson, R. T.(1989). Cooperation and competition: Theory and research. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Company.
^ Tsay,M., & Brady, M. (2010). A case study of cooperative learning and communication pedagogy; Does working in teams make a difference? Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 10(2), 78-89.

History

Inquiry-based learning is primarily a pedagogical method, developed during the discovery learning movement of the 1960s as a response to traditional forms of instruction - where people were required to memorize information from instructional materials.^[3]
The philosophy of inquiry based learning finds its antecedents in constructivist learning theories, such as the work of Piaget, Dewey, Vygotsky, and Freire among others,^[4]^[5]^[6] and can be considered a constructivist
In the 1960s Joseph Schwab called for inquiry to be divided into four distinct levels.^[7] This was later formalized by Marshall Herron in 1971, who developed the Herron Scale to evaluate the amount of inquiry within a particular lab exercise.^[8] Since then, there have been a number of revisions proposed, but the consensus in the science education community is that there is a spectrum of inquiry-based teaching methods available.^{[citation needed]}

Characteristics

Inquiry learning emphasizes constructivist ideas of learning, where knowledge is built from experience and process, especially socially based experience. Under this premise learning develops best in group situations.^{[citation needed]} Progress and outcomes are generally assessed by how well people develop experimental and analytic skills, and often how well they work in groups.^{[citation needed]}
Inquiry-based learning covers a range of approaches to learning and teaching, including:

Field-work
Case studies
Investigations
Individual and group projects
Research projects

Specific learning processes that people engage in during inquiry-learning include:^[9]

Creating questions of their own
Obtaining supporting evidence to answer the question(s)
Explaining the evidence collected
Connecting the explanation to the knowledge obtained from the investigative process
Creating an argument and justification for the explanation

More recently, Heather Banchi and Randy Bell (2008) suggest that there are four levels of inquiry-based learning in science education:^[10]

confirmation inquiry,
structured inquiry,
guided inquiry and
open inquiry.

In confirmation inquiry, people are provided with the question and procedure (method) where the results are known in advance, and confirmation of the results is the object of the inquiry. Confirmation inquiry is useful to reinforce a previously learned idea; to experience investigation processes; or to practice a specific inquiry skill, such as collecting and recording data.
In structured inquiry, people are provided with the question and procedure (method), however the task is to generate an explanation that is supported by the evidence collected in the procedure.
In guided inquiry, people are provided with only the research question, and the task is to design the procedure (method) and to test the question and the resulting explanations. Because this kind of inquiry is more open than a confirmation or structured inquiry, it is most successful when people have had numerous opportunities to learn and practice different ways to plan experiments and record data.
In open inquiry, people form questions, design procedures for carrying out an inquiry, and communicate their results.

Inquiry-based science

Main article: Inquiry-based science

Inquiry-based learning has been of an influence in science education, where it is known as Inquiry-based science. Inquiry is an integral feature of Science, and Inquiry-based science is featured in the U.S. National Science Educational Standards of 1996, supported by the U.S. National Research Council' second volume, 'Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards' in 2000.

Inquiry-based learning in other disciplines

Science naturally lends itself to investigation and collection of data, but it is applicable in other subject areas where people are developing critical thinking and investigation skills. In the social sciences such as history, Robert Bain in his article in How Students Learn, describes how to "problematize" history.^[11] Bain's idea is to first organize a learning curriculum around central concepts. Next, people studying the curriculum are given a question and primary sources such as eye witness historical accounts, and the task for inquiry is to create an interpretation of history that will answer the central question. It is held that through the inquiry people will develop skills and factual knowledge that supports their answers to a question. They will form an hypothesis, collect and consider information and revisit their hypothesis as they evaluate their data.

Open learning

Main article: Open learning

An important aspect of inquiry-based learning (and science) is the use of open learning.^{[citation needed]} Open learning has no prescribed target or result that people have to achieve. There is an emphasis on the individual manipulating information and creating meaning from a set of given materials or circumstances.^[12] In many conventional and structured learning environments, people are told what the outcome is expected to be, and then they are simply expected to 'confirm' or show evidence that this is the case.
Open learning has many benefits.^{[citation needed]} It means students do not simply perform experiments in a routine like fashion, but actually think about the results they collect and what they mean. With traditional non-open lessons there is a tendency for students to say that the experiment 'went wrong' when they collect results contrary to what they are told to expect. In open learning there are no wrong results, and students have to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the results they collect themselves and decide their value.
Open learning has been developed by a number of science educators including the American John Dewey and the German Martin Wagenschein.^{[citation needed]} Wagenschein's ideas particularly complement both open learning and inquiry-based learning in teaching work. He emphasized that students should not be taught bald facts, but should understand and explain what they are learning. His most famous example of this was when he asked physics students to tell him what the speed of a falling object was. Nearly all students would produce an equation, but no students could explain what this equation meant.^{[citation needed]} Wagenschien used this example to show the importance of understanding over knowledge.

Studies

Cindy Melo-Silver reviewed a number of reports on a variety studies into problem based learning.^[13]
Edelson, Gordin and Pea describe five significant challenges to implementing inquiry-based learning and present strategies for addressing them through the design of technology and curriculum. They present a design history covering four generations of software and curriculum to show how these challenges arise in classrooms and how the design strategies respond to them. ^[14]

Criticism

“	After a half century of advocacy associated with instruction using minimal guidance, there appears no body of research supporting the technique. In so far as there is any evidence from controlled studies, it almost uniformly supports direct, strong instructional guidance rather than constructivist-based minimal guidance during the instruction of novice to intermediate learners. Even for students with considerable prior knowledge, strong guidance while learning is most often found to be equally effective as unguided approaches. Not only is unguided instruction normally less effective; there is also evidence that it may have negative results when student acquire misconceptions or incomplete or disorganized knowledge	”
	— Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching by Kirschner, Sweller, Clark ^[15]

Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006)^[15] review of literature found that although constructivists often cite each other's work, empirical evidence is not often cited. Nonetheless the constructivist movement gained great momentum in the 1990s, because many educators began to write about this philosophy of learning.
Hmelo-Silver, Duncan, & Chinn cite several studies supporting the success of the constructivist problem-based and inquiry learning methods. For example, they describe a project called GenScope, an inquiry-based science software application. Students using the GenScope software showed significant gains over the control groups, with the largest gains shown in students from basic courses.^[16]
In contrast, Hmelo-Silver et al. also cite a large study by Geier on the effectiveness of inquiry-based science for middle school students, as demonstrated by their performance on high-stakes standardized tests. The improvement was 14% for the first cohort of students and 13% for the second cohort. This study also found that inquiry-based teaching methods greatly reduced the achievement gap for African-American students.^[16]
Based on their 2005 research, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute concluded that while inquiry-based learning is fine to some degree, it has been carried to excess.^[17]
Richard E. Mayer from the University of California, Santa Barbara, wrote in 2004 that there was sufﬁcient research evidence to make any reasonable person skeptical about the beneﬁts of discovery learning—practiced under the guise of cognitive constructivism or social constructivism—as a preferred instructional method. He reviewed research on discovery of problem-solving rules culminating in the 1960s, discovery of conservation strategies culminating in the 1970s, and discovery of LOGO programming strategies culminating in the 1980s. In each case, guided discovery was more effective than pure discovery in helping students learn and transfer.^[18]
It should be cautioned that inquiry-based learning takes a lot of planning before implementation. It is not something that can be put into place in the classroom quickly. Measurements must be put in place for how students knowledge and performance will be measured and how standards will be incorporated. The teacher's responsibility during inquiry exercises is to support and facilitate student learning (Bell et al., 769-770). A common mistake teachers make is lacking the vision to see where students' weaknesses lie. According to Bain, teachers cannot assume that students will hold the same assumptions and thinking processes as a professional within that discipline (p. 201).
While some see inquiry-based teaching as increasingly mainstream, it can be perceived as in conflict with Standardized testing common in Standards-based assessment systems which emphasise the measurement of student knowledge, and meeting of pre-defined criteria, for example the shift towards 'fact' in changes to the 'National Assessment of Educational Progress' as a result of the American No Child Left Behind program.
Programs such as the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program can be criticized for their claims to be an inquiry based learning program. While there are different types of inquiry (as stated above) the rigid structure of this style of inquiry based learning program almost completely rules out any real inquiry based learning in the lower grades. Each “unit of inquiry” is given to the students, structured to guide them and does not allow students choosing the path or topic of their inquiry. Each unit is carefully plan to connect with the topics the students are required to be learning in school and do not leave room for open inquiry in topics that the students pick Some may feel that until the inquiry learning process is open inquiry then it is not true inquiry based learning at all. Instead of opportunities to learn through open and student led inquiry the IB program is viewed by some to simply be an extra set of learning requirements for the students to complete.

References and further reading

^ The UK dictionaries Collins and Longman list the spelling "inquiry" first, and Oxford simply calls it another spelling, without labeling it as US English.
^ What is Inquiry Based Learning (EBL)? Centre for Excellence in Enquiry-Based Learning. University of Manchester. Retrieved October 2012
^ Bruner, J. S. (1961). "The act of discovery". Harvard Educational Review 31 (1): 21–32.
^ Dewey, J (1997) How We Think, New York: Dover Publications.
^ Freire, P. (1984) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Continuum Publishing Company.
^ Vygotsky, L.S. (1962) Thought and Language, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
^ Schwab, J. (1960) Inquiry, the Science Teacher, and the Educator. The School Review © 1960 The University of Chicago Press
^ Herron, M.D. (1971). The nature of scientific enquiry. The school review, 79(2), 171-212.
^ Bell, T., Urhahne, D., Schanze, S., and Ploetzner, R. 2010. Collaborative inquiry learning: Models, tools, and challenges. International Journal of Science Education. 3(1), 349-377.
^ Banchi, H. and Bell, R. (2008) The Many Levels of Inquiry. The Learning Centre of the NSTA. Retrieved October 2012
^ Bain, R.B., Donovan, M.S. & Bransford, J.D. (Eds).(2005). "They thought the world was flat?": Applying the principles of How People Learn in teaching high school history. How Students Learn. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309074339
^ Hannafin, M., Land, S., Oliver, K. (1999). Open learning environments: Foundation, methods, and models. In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional-design theories and models. A new paradigm of instructional theory Volume II (pp. 115-140). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
^ Melo-Silver, C. (2004) Problem Based Learning: What and how do students learn. Educational Psychology Review, Vol. 16, No. 3, September 2004
^ Edelson, D., Gordin, D., Pea, R. (1999) Addressing the Challenges of Inquiry-Based Learning Through Technology and Curriculum Design . Edelson, Daniel, Douglas Gordin, and Roy Pea. Journal of the Learning Sciences 8.3 (1999): 391-450.
^ ^a ^b Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., and Clark, R. E. (2006) Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: an analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. Educational Psychologist 41 (2) 75-86
^ ^a ^b Scaffolding and Achievement in Problem-Based and Inquiry Learning: A Response to Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006) Hmelo-Silver, Duncan, & Chinn. (2007). Educational Psychologist, 42(2), 99–107
^ Tonsho, R. (2006) What's the Right Formula? Pressure From New Tests Leads Educators to Debate How Best to Teach Science. Wall Street Journal, 19 January 2006 (p. A09)
^ Mayer, R. (2004). Should there be a three-strikes rule against pure discovery learning? The case for guided methods of instruction. American Psychologist 59 (1): 14–19.

See

External links

Wikiversity has learning materials about Inquiry-based learning

History

Characteristics

Field-work
Case studies
Investigations
Individual and group projects
Research projects

Specific learning processes that people engage in during inquiry-learning include:^[9]

Creating questions of their own
Obtaining supporting evidence to answer the question(s)
Explaining the evidence collected
Connecting the explanation to the knowledge obtained from the investigative process
Creating an argument and justification for the explanation

More recently, Heather Banchi and Randy Bell (2008) suggest that there are four levels of inquiry-based learning in science education:^[10]

confirmation inquiry,
structured inquiry,
guided inquiry and
open inquiry.

Inquiry-based science

Main article: Inquiry-based science

Inquiry-based learning in other disciplines

Open learning

Main article: Open learning

Studies

Criticism

“	After a half century of advocacy associated with instruction using minimal guidance, there appears no body of research supporting the technique. In so far as there is any evidence from controlled studies, it almost uniformly supports direct, strong instructional guidance rather than constructivist-based minimal guidance during the instruction of novice to intermediate learners. Even for students with considerable prior knowledge, strong guidance while learning is most often found to be equally effective as unguided approaches. Not only is unguided instruction normally less effective; there is also evidence that it may have negative results when student acquire misconceptions or incomplete or disorganized knowledge	”
	— Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching by Kirschner, Sweller, Clark ^[15]

The lexical approach is a method of teaching foreign languages described by M. Lewis in the 1990s. The basic concept on which this approach rests is the idea that an important part of learning a language consists of being able to understand and produce lexical phrases as chunks. Students are thought to be able to perceive patterns of language (grammar) as well as have meaningful set uses of words at their disposal when they are taught in this way.
In the lexical approach, instruction focuses on fixed expressions that occur frequently in dialogues, which Lewis claims make up a larger part of discourse than unique phrases and sentences. Vocabulary is prized over grammar per se in this approach. The teaching of chunks and set phrases has become common in English as a second or foreign language, though this is not necessarily primarily due to the Lexical Approach.

Syllabus

The lexical syllabus is a form of the propositional paradigm that takes 'word' as the unit of analysis and content for syllabus design. Various vocabulary selection studies can be traced back to the 1920s and 1930s (West 1926; Ogden 1930; Faucet et al. 1936), and recent advances in techniques for the computer analysis of large databases of authentic text have helped to resuscitate this line of work. The modern lexical syllabus is discussed in Sinclair & Renouf (1988), who state that the main benefit of a lexical syllabus is that it emphasises utility - the student learns that which is most valuable because it is most frequent. Related work on collocation is reported by Sinclair (1987) and Kennedy (1989), and the Collins COBUILD English Course (Willis & Willis 1988) is cited as an exemplary pedagogic implementation of the work, though "in fact, however, the COBUILD textbooks utilise one of the more complex hybrid syllabi in current ESL texts" (Long & Crookes 1993:23).
Sinclair & Renouf (1988:155) find that (as with other synthetic syllabi), claims made for the lexical syllabus are not supported by evidence, and the assertion that the lexical syllabus is "an independent syllabus, unrelated by any principles to any methodology" (Sinclair et al. 1988:155) is subject to the criticism levelled by Brumfit against notional functional syllabi, i.e. that it (in this case, deliberately) takes no cognisance of how a second language is learned. Since these observations were made, however, Willis (1990) and Lewis (1993) have gone some way to provide such a theoretical justification.

References

Boers, Frank (2006) "Formulaic sequences and perceived oral proficiency: putting a Lexical Approach to the test," Language Teaching Research, Vol. 10, No. 3, 245-261 doi:10.1191/1362168806lr195oa.
Faucet, L., West, M., Palmer, H. & Thorndike, E.L. (1936). The Interim Report on Vocabulary Selection for the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language. London: P.S. King.
Lewis, Michael, ed. (1997). Implementing the Lexical Approach, Language Teaching Publications, Hove, England.
Lewis, Michael (1993) The Lexical Approach.
Ogden, C.K. (1930). Basic English: An Introduction with Rules and Grammar. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Trubner.
Sinclair, B. (1996). Materials design for the promotion of learner autonomy: how explicit is explicit? In R. Pemberton, S.L. Edward, W.W.F. Or, and H.D. Pierson (Eds.). Taking Control: Autonomy in Language Learning. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. 149-165.
West, M. (1926). Bilingualism (With Special Reference to Bengal). Calcutta: Bureau of Education, India.
Willis, J. & Willis, D. (Eds.) (1996). Challenge and Change in Language Teaching. Oxford: Heinemann
Willis, D. (1990). The Lexical Syllabus. London: Collins.

[hide] v t e Language education

Methodology	Audio-lingual method Communicative language teaching Comprehension approach Lexical approach Community language learning Computer-assisted language learning Content-based instruction Direct Method Dogme language teaching Focal Skills Grammar-translation Language immersion Literature-based curriculum Lexical approach Michel Thomas Method Natural approach Participatory language teaching Pimsleur system Silent way Suggestopedia Task-based language learning Total physical response TPR Storytelling Vocabulary development Whole language

Teaching techniques	Mother tongue mirroring Sandwich technique Back-chaining Dictogloss Information gap

Key concepts	Bilingual dictionary Critical period hypothesis Discrete skills English as a lingua franca Episode hypothesis Fossilization Integrated skills Interlanguage Language transfer Learnability/teachability hypothesis Second-language acquisition World Englishes

Assessment	Language assessment Corrective feedback Competency evaluation DIALANG IELTS TOEFL TOEIC UCLES

Programs and organizations	English as a second or foreign language English for specific purposes TESOL

Key people	Betty Azar H. Douglas Brown Pit Corder Jim Cummins Rod Ellis Stephen Krashen Diane Larsen-Freeman Alastair Pennycook Patricia A. Richard-Amato Jack C. Richards Dave Sperling Scott Thornbury

Statistics	List of countries where English is an official language List of countries by English-speaking population EF English Proficiency Index

Categories:

Language-teaching methodology

LEXICAL APPROACH

The lexical approach is a method of teaching foreign languages described by M. Lewis in the 1990s. The basic concept on which this approach rests is the idea that an important part of learning a language consists of being able to understand and produce lexical phrases as chunks. Students are thought to be able to perceive patterns of language (grammar) as well as have meaningful set uses of words at their disposal when they are taught in this way.

In the lexical approach, instruction focuses on fixed expressions that occur frequently in dialogues, which Lewis claims make up a larger part of discourse than unique phrases and sentences. Vocabulary is prized over grammar per se in this approach. The teaching of chunks and set phrases has become common in English as a second or foreign language, though this is not necessarily primarily due to the Lexical Approach.

Syllabus

West, M. (1926). Bilingualism (With Special Reference to Bengal). Calcutta: Bureau of Education, India.
Willis, J. & Willis, D. (Eds.) (1996). Challenge and Change in Language Teaching. Oxford: Heinemann
Willis, D. (1990). The Lexical Syllabus. London: Collins.



Methodology

Teaching techniques



Assessment

Programs and organizations



Statistics	List of countries where English is an official language List of countries by English-speaking population EF English Proficiency Index

Categories:

Language-teaching methodology

SUSTAINED SILENT READING

Sustained silent reading (SSR) is a form of school-based recreational reading, or free voluntary reading, where students read silently in a designated time period every day in school. An underlying assumption of SSR is that students learn to read by reading constantly. Successful models of SSR typically allow students to select their own books and require neither testing for comprehension nor book reports. Schools have implemented SSR under a variety of names, such as "Drop Everything and Read (DEAR)" or "Free Uninterrupted Reading (FUR)".

Value of Sustained silent reading

Advocates' perspective

According to advocates, such as Stephen Krashen, SSR has been shown to lead to gains in several literacy domains, including comprehension, spelling and increased vocabulary.^[1]
Advocates also point out that students in SSR programs have more positive attitudes toward reading than students who do not participate in SSR programs.

National Reading Panel analysis of sustained silent reading studies

The National Reading Panel (NRP) in the United States meta-analyzed all quasi-experimental and experimental studies of SSR and challenged the claim that SSR has positive effects. The panel stated that the literature contained insufficient numbers of quasi-experimental or experimental studies on SSR to validate its use as a sound educational practice. The panel also noted that the absence of quantitative evidence was not evidence against the practice in itself. They recommended further study of SSR.

Sustained silent reading practices

A range of practices have been associated with SSR, and some advocates suggest that teacher models of reading behavior (i.e., teachers read while the students read), a long term commitment to SSR, availability of multiple level, high interest texts, and a sense of reading community are particularly relevant.

Free voluntary reading (FVR)

Free voluntary reading (FVR) or recreation reading, related to the comprehension hypothesis, is an educational theory that says many student gains in reading can be encouraged by giving them time to read what they want without too many evaluative measures. Sustained silent reading is a method of implementing recreational and FVR theory.

In popular culture

DEAR and SSR play a cameo role in the Ramona Quimby series of children's books by Beverly Cleary, in which young Ramona uses her assignment as an excuse not to talk to an annoying younger child.

References

^ Krashen, Stephen. "False Claims About Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Skills vs. Whole Language, and Recreational Reading". No Child Left. Retrieved 16 June 2011.

External links

"Free Voluntary Reading: New Research, Applications, and Controversies" by Stephen Krashen

Categories:

Learning

TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE

Total physical response (TPR) is a language-teaching method developed by James Asher, a professor emeritus of psychology at San José State University. It is based on the coordination of language and physical movement. In TPR, instructors give commands to students in the target language, and students respond with whole-body actions.
The method is an example of the comprehension approach to language teaching. Listening serves a dual purpose; it is both a means of understanding messages in the language being learned, and a means of learning the structure of the language itself. Grammar is not taught explicitly, but is induced from the language input.
Asher developed TPR as a result of his experiences observing young children learning their first language. He noticed that interactions between parents and children often took the form of speech from the parent followed by a physical response from the child. Asher made three hypotheses based on his observations: first, that language is learned primarily by listening; second, that language learning must engage the right hemisphere of the brain; and third, that learning language should not involve any stress.
Total physical response is often used alongside other methods and techniques. It is popular with beginners and with young learners, although it can be used with students of all levels and all age groups.

Background

James Asher developed the total physical response method as a result of his observation of the language development of young children. Asher saw that most of the interactions that young children experience with parents or other adults combine both verbal and physical aspects. The child responds physically to the speech of the parent, and the parent reinforces the child’s responses through further speech. This creates a positive feedback loop between the parent’s speech and the child’s actions.^[1] Asher also observed that young children typically spend a long time listening to language before ever attempting to speak, and that they can understand and react to utterances that are much more complex than those they can produce themselves.^[2]
From his experiences, Asher outlined three main hypotheses about learning second languages that are embodied in the total physical response method. The first is that the brain is naturally predisposed to learn language through listening. Specifically, Asher says that learners best internalize language when they respond with physical movement to language input. Asher hypothesizes that speech develops naturally and spontaneously after learners internalize the target language through input, and that it should not be forced.^[2] In Asher’s own words:

A reasonable hypothesis is that the brain and the nervous system are biologically programmed to acquire language, either the first or the second in a particular sequence and in a particular mode. The sequence is listening before speaking and the mode is to synchronise language with the individual’s body.^[3]

The second of Asher’s hypotheses is that effective language learning must engage the right hemisphere of the brain. Physical movement is controlled primarily by the right hemisphere, and Asher sees the coupling of movement with language comprehension as the key to language acquisition. He says that left-hemisphere learning should be avoided, and that the left hemisphere needs a great deal of experience of right-hemisphere-based input before natural speech can occur.^[4]
Asher’s third hypothesis is that language learning should not involve any stress, as stress and negative emotions inhibit the natural language-learning process. He regards the stressful nature of most language-teaching methods as one of their major weaknesses. Asher recommends that teachers focus on meaning and physical movement to avoid stress.^[4]
The main text on total physical response is James Asher’s Learning Another Language through Actions, first published in 1977.^[1]

Principles

Total physical response is an example of the comprehension approach to language teaching. Methods in the comprehension approach emphasize the importance of listening on language development, and do not require spoken output in the early stages of learning.^[5] In total physical response, students are not forced to speak. Instead, teachers wait until students acquire enough language through listening that they start to speak spontaneously. ^[1]. At the beginning stages of instruction students can respond to the instructor in their native language.^[6]
While the majority of class time in total physical response is spent on listening comprehension, the ultimate goal of the method is to develop oral fluency. Asher sees developing listening comprehension skills as the most efficient way of developing spoken language skills.^[4]
Lessons in TPR are organized around grammar, and in particular around the verb. Instructors issue commands based on the verbs and vocabulary to be learned in that lesson.^[7] However, the primary focus in lessons is on meaning, which distinguishes TPR from other grammar-based methods such as grammar-translation.^[8]
Grammar is not explicitly taught, but is learned by induction.^[8] Students are expected to subconsciously acquire the grammatical structure of the language through exposure to spoken language input, in addition to decoding the messages in the input to find their meaning. This approach to listening is called codebreaking.^[9]
Total physical response is both a teaching technique and a philosophy of language teaching. Teachers do not have to limit themselves to TPR techniques to teach according to the principles of the total physical response method.^[10]
Because the students are only expected to listen and not to speak, the teacher has the sole responsibility for deciding what input students hear.^[11]

Procedure

The majority of class time in TPR lessons is spent doing drills in which the instructor gives commands using the imperative mood. Students respond to these commands with physical actions. Initially, students learn the meaning of the commands they hear by direct observation. After they learn the meaning of the words in these commands, the teacher issues commands that use novel combinations of the words the students have learned.^[10]
Instructors limit the number of new vocabulary items given to students at any one time. This is to help students differentiate the new words from those previously learned, and to facilitate integration with their existing language knowledge.^[10] Asher suggests that students can learn between 12 and 36 words for every hour of instruction, depending on their language level and class size.^[10]
While drills using the imperative are the mainstay of total physical response classes, teachers can use other activities as well. Some typical other activities are role plays and slide presentations.^[10] However, beginners are not made to learn conversational dialogs until 120 hours into their course.^[10]
There is little error correction in TPR. Asher advises teachers to treat learners’ mistakes the same way a parent would treat their children’s. Errors made by beginning-level students are usually overlooked, but as students become more advanced teachers may correct more of their errors. This is similar to parents raising their children; as children get older parents tend to correct their grammatical mistakes more often.^[10]
According to Asher, TPR lesson plans should contain the detailed commands that the teacher intends to use. He says, “It is wise to write out the exact utterances you will be using and especially the novel commands because the action is so fast-moving there is usually not time for you to create spontaneously.”^[12]

Teaching materials

Total physical response lessons typically use a wide variety of realia, posters, and props. Teaching materials are not compulsory, and for the very first lessons they may not be used. As students progress in ability the teacher may begin to use objects found in the classroom such as furniture or books, and later may use word charts, pictures, and realia.^[13]
There are a number of specialized TPR teaching products available, including student kits developed by Asher and an interactive CD-ROM for students to practice with privately.^[14]^[15]

Research

Asher conducted a large number of scientific studies to test and refine his hypotheses and the teaching practices in total physical response. When testing children and adults learning Russian, Asher and Price found that the adults outperformed the children.^[16]

Reception

According to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning, TPR is often criticized as being only suitable for beginning students.^[1] However, the encyclopedia goes on to note that there are several publications available about how to use TPR with intermediate and advanced students.^[1]
According to its proponents, total physical response has a number of advantages: Students enjoy getting out of their chairs and moving around. Simple TPR activities do not require a great deal of preparation on the part of the teacher. TPR is aptitude-free, working well with a mixed ability class, and with students having various disabilities.^[17] It is good for kinesthetic learners who need to be active in the class. Class size need not be a problem, and it works effectively for children and adults.^{[citation needed]}
However, it is recognized that TPR is most useful for beginners, though it can be used at higher levels where preparation becomes an issue for the teacher. It does not give students the opportunity to express their own thoughts in a creative way. Further, it is easy to overuse TPR-- "Any novelty, if carried on too long, will trigger adaptation."^{[citation needed]} It can be a challenge for shy students. Additionally, the nature of TPR places an unnaturally heavy emphasis on the use of the imperative mood, that is to say commands such as sit down and stand up. These features are of limited utility to the learner, and can lead to a learner appearing rude when attempting to use his new language. As a TPR class progresses, group activities and descriptions can extend basic TPR concepts into full communication situations.
Because of its participatory approach, TPR may also be a useful alternative teaching strategy for students with dyslexia or related learning disabilities, who typically experience difficulty learning foreign languages with traditional classroom instruction.^[18]

Influence

Teachers who use TPR typically use it together with a variety of other activities and techniques.^[19] It is most often used for introducing new vocabulary.^[1] This is in line with Asher’s recommendations for using the method.^[19]
Blaine Ray, a Spanish language teacher, added stories to TPR to help students acquire non-physical language creating the foundation of the method known as Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS) built on Stephen Krashen's theories of language acquisition.^[20]

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Byram 2000, pp. 631-633.
^ ^a ^b Richards & Rodgers 2001, p. 74.
^ Asher 1996, p. 2-4.
^ ^a ^b ^c Richards & Rodgers 2001, p. 75.
^ Larsen-Freeman 2000, pp. 107-108.
^ Rosenthal 2000, pp. 78-79.
^ Richards & Rodgers 2001, pp. 73, 75-76.
^ ^a ^b Richards & Rodgers 2001, pp. 75-76.
^ Cook 2008, pp. 131-132.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Richards & Rodgers 2001, p. 76.
^ Cook 2008, p. 162.
^ Asher 1977, p. 47, cited in Richards & Rodgers 2001, p. 76.
^ Richards & Rodgers 2001, pp. 76-77.
^ Richards & Rodgers 2001, p. 77.
^ Cook 2008, p. 131.
^ Cook 2008, p. 148.
^ Conroy 1999.
^ Zink de Diaz 2005.
^ ^a ^b Richards & Rodgers 2001, pp. 78-79.
^ Marsh n. d..

Background

A reasonable hypothesis is that the brain and the nervous system are biologically programmed to acquire language, either the first or the second in a particular sequence and in a particular mode. The sequence is listening before speaking and the mode is to synchronise language with the individual’s body.^[3]

Principles

Procedure

Teaching materials

Research

Reception

Influence

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Byram 2000, pp. 631-633.
^ ^a ^b Richards & Rodgers 2001, p. 74.
^ Asher 1996, p. 2-4.
^ ^a ^b ^c Richards & Rodgers 2001, p. 75.
^ Larsen-Freeman 2000, pp. 107-108.
^ Rosenthal 2000, pp. 78-79.
^ Richards & Rodgers 2001, pp. 73, 75-76.
^ ^a ^b Richards & Rodgers 2001, pp. 75-76.
^ Cook 2008, pp. 131-132.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Richards & Rodgers 2001, p. 76.
^ Cook 2008, p. 162.
^ Asher 1977, p. 47, cited in Richards & Rodgers 2001, p. 76.
^ Richards & Rodgers 2001, pp. 76-77.
^ Richards & Rodgers 2001, p. 77.
^ Cook 2008, p. 131.
^ Cook 2008, p. 148.
^ Conroy 1999.
^ Zink de Diaz 2005.
^ ^a ^b Richards & Rodgers 2001, pp. 78-79.
^ Marsh n. d..

References

Asher, James J., "What is TPR ?" in TPR-World. Retrieved on 2012-05-29.
"The Total Physical Response Approach to Second Language Learning" by James J. Asher. The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 53, No. 1 (Jan., 1969), pp. 3-17 JSTOR
"The Learning Strategy of the Total Physical Response: A Review" by James J. Asher The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Feb., 1966), pp. 79-84 JSTOR
"The strategy of the total physical response: an application to learning Russian" ERIC ED011378 by JJ Asher, 1965
Asher, James (1996). Learning Another Language Through Actions (5th ed.). Los Gatos, CA: Sky Oaks Productions.
Byram, Michael, ed

PROJECT BASED LEARNING

Project-based learning is considered an alternative to paper-based, rote memorization, teacher-led classrooms. Proponents of project-based learning cite numerous benefits to the implementation of these strategies in the classroom including a greater depth of understanding of concepts, broader knowledge base, improved communication and interpersonal/social skills, enhanced leadership skills, increased creativity, and improved writing skills.
John Dewey initially promoted the idea of "learning by doing." In My Pedagogical Creed (1897) Dewey enumerated his beliefs regarding education: "The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to these.......I believe, therefore, in the so-called expressive or constructive activities as the centre of correlation." ^[1](Dewey, 1897) Educational research has advanced this idea of teaching and learning into a methodology known as "project-based learning." Blumenfeld & Krajcik (2006)^[2] cite studies by Marx et al., 2004, Rivet & Krajcki, 2004 and William & Linn, 2003 and state that "research has demonstrated that student in project-based learning classrooms get higher scores than students in traditional classroom."

John Dewey, 1902

Markham (2011) describes project-based learning (PBL) as: " PBL integrates knowing and doing. Students learn knowledge and elements of the core curriculum, but also apply what they know to solve authentic problems and produce results that matter. PBL students take advantage of digital tools to produce high quality, collaborative products. PBL refocuses education on the student, not the curriculum--a shift mandated by the global world, which rewards intangible assets such as drive, passion, creativity, empathy, and resiliency. These cannot be taught out of a textbook, but must be activated through experience." ^[3]
Project-based learning has been associated with the "situated learning" perspective of James G. Greeno (2006) and on the constructivist theories of Jean Piaget. A more precise description of the processes of PBL given by Blumenfeld et al. says that, "Project-based learning is a comprehensive perspective focused on teaching by engaging students in investigation. Within this framework, students pursue solutions to nontrivial problems by asking and refining questions, debating ideas, making predictions, designing plans and/or experiments, collecting and analyzing data, drawing conclusions, communicating their ideas and findings to others, asking new questions, and creating artifacts." ^[4](Blumenfeld, et al., 1991) The basis of PBL lies in the authenticity or real-life application of the research. Students working as a team are given a "driving question" to respond to or answer, then directed to create an artifact (or artifacts) to present their gained knowledge. Artifacts may include a variety of media such as writings, art, drawings, three-dimensional representations, videos, photography, or technology-based presentations.
Project-based learning is not without its opponents, however; in Peer Evaluation in Blended Team Project-Based Learning: What Do Students Find Important? Hye-Jung & Cheolil (2012) describe social loafing as a negative aspect of collaborative learning. Social loafing may include insufficient performances by some team members as well as a lowering of expected standards of performance by the group as a whole to maintain congeniality amongst members. These authors said that because teachers tend to grade the finished product only, the social dynamics of the assignment may escape the teacher's notice.^[5]

Structure

Project-based learning emphasizes learning activities that are long-term, interdisciplinary and student-centered. Unlike traditional, teacher-led classroom activities, students often must organize their own work and manage their own time in a project-based class. Project-based instruction differs from traditional inquiry by its emphasis on students' collaborative or individual artifact construction to represent what is being learned.

Elements

The core idea of project-based learning is that real-world problems capture students' interest and provoke serious thinking as the students acquire and apply new knowledge in a problem-solving context. The teacher plays the role of facilitator, working with students to frame worthwhile questions, structuring meaningful tasks, coaching both knowledge development and social skills, and carefully assessing what students have learned from the experience. Typical projects present a problem to solve (What is the best way to reduce the pollution in the schoolyard pond?) or a phenomenon to investigate (What causes rain?).
Comprehensive Project-based Learning:

is organized around an open-ended driving question or challenge.
creates a need to know essential content and skills.
requires inquiry to learn and/or create something new.
requires critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and various forms of communication, often known as "21st Century Skills."^[6]
allows some degree of student voice and choice.
incorporates feedback and revision.
results in a publicly presented product or performance.^[7]

Examples

Although projects are the primary vehicle for instruction in project-based learning, there are no commonly shared criteria for what constitutes an acceptable project. Projects vary greatly in the depth of the questions explored, the clarity of the learning goals, the content and structure of the activity, and guidance from the teacher. The role of projects in the overall curriculum is also open to interpretation. Projects can guide the entire curriculum (more common in charter or other alternative schools) or simply comprise of a few hands-on activities. They might be multidisciplinary (more likely in elementary schools) or single-subject (commonly science and math). Some projects involve the whole class, while others are done in small groups or individually.
When PBL is used with 21st-century tools/skills [1], students are expected to use technology in meaningful ways to help them investigate, collaborate, analyze, synthesize and present their learning. Where technology is infused throughout the project, a more appropriate term for the pedagogy can be referred to as iPBL (copyright 2006, ITJAB), to reflect the emphasis on technological skills as well as academic content.
An example of applied PBL is Muscatine High School, located in Muscatine, Iowa. The school started the G2 (Global Generation Exponential Learning) which consists of middle and high school “Schools within Schools” that deliver the four core subject areas. At the high school level, activities may include making water purification systems, investigating service learning, or creating new bus routes. At the middle school level, activities may include researching trash statistics, documenting local history through interviews, or writing essays about a community scavenger hunt. Classes are designed to help diverse students become college and career ready after high school.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has provided funding to start holistic PBL schools across the United States. These organizations include:

EdVisions Schools [2]
Envision Schools [3]
North Bay Academy of Communication and Design [4]
Big Picture Schools [5]
New Tech Network [6]

Another example is Manor New Technology High School, a public high school that is part of the New Tech Network of school. Manor New Technology High School is a 100 percent project-based instruction school. Students average 60 projects a year across subjects. Since opening in fall 2007, the school has outperformed the state of Texas and Manor Independent School District in the percentage of students passing state standards in three of the four subjects tested: science, social studies, and reading/English language arts.^[8]

Roles

PBL relies on learning groups. Student groups determine their projects, in so doing, they engage student voice by encouraging students to take full responsibility for their learning. This is what makes PBL constructivist. Students work together to accomplish specific goals.
When students use technology as a tool to communicate with others, they take on an active role vs. a passive role of transmitting the information by a teacher, a book, or broadcast. The student is constantly making choices on how to obtain, display, or manipulate information. Technology makes it possible for students to think actively about the choices they make and execute. Every student has the opportunity to get involved either individually or as a group.
Instructor role in Project Based Learning is that of a facilitator. They do not relinquish control of the classroom or student learning but rather develop an atmosphere of shared responsibility. The Instructor must structure the proposed question/issue so as to direct the student's learning toward content-based materials. The instructor must regulate student success with intermittent, transitional goals to ensure student projects remain focused and students have a deep understanding of the concepts being investigated. It is important for teachers not to provide the students any answers because it defeats the learning and investigating process. Once the project is finished, the instructor provides the students with feedback that will help them strengthen their skills for their next project
Student role is to ask questions, build knowledge, and determine a real-world solution to the issue/question presented. Students must collaborate expanding their active listening skills and requiring them to engage in intelligent focused communication. Therefore, allowing them to think rationally on how to solve problems. PBL forces students to take ownership of their success.

Outcomes

More important than learning science, students need to learn to work in a community, thereby taking on social responsibilities. The most significant contributions of PBL have been in schools languishing in poverty stricken areas; when students take responsibility, or ownership, for their learning, their self-esteem soars. It also helps to create better work habits and attitudes toward learning. In standardized tests, languishing schools have been able to raise their testing grades a full level by implementing PBL.^{[citation needed]} Although students do work in groups, they also become more independent because they are receiving little instruction from the teacher. With Project-Based Learning students also learn skills that are essential in higher education. The students learn more than just finding answers, PBL allows them to expand their minds and think beyond what they normally would. Students have to find answers to questions and combine them using critically thinking skills to come up with answers.
PBL is significant to the study of (mis-)conceptions; local concepts and childhood intuitions that are hard to replace with conventional classroom lessons. In PBL, project science is the community culture; the student groups themselves resolve their understandings of phenomena with their own knowledge building. Technology allows them to search in more useful ways, along with getting more rapid results.
Opponents of Project Based Learning warn against negative outcomes primarily in projects that become unfocused and tangential arguing that underdeveloped lessons can result in the wasting of precious class time. No one teaching method has been proven more effective than another. Opponents suggest that narratives and presentation of anecdotal evidence included in lecture-style instruction can convey the same knowledge in less class time. Given that disadvantaged students generally have fewer opportunities to learn academic content outside of school, wasted class time due to an unfocused lesson presents a particular problem. Instructors can be deluded into thinking that as long as a student is engaged and doing, they are learning. Ultimately it is cognitive activity that determines the success of a lesson. If the project does not remain on task and content driven the student will not be successful in learning the material. The lesson will be ineffective. A source of difficulty for teachers includes, "Keeping these complex projects on track while attending to students' individual learning needs requires artful teaching, as well as industrial-strength project management."^[9] Like any approach, Project Based Learning is only beneficial when applied successfully.
Problem-based learning is a similar pedagogic approach, however, problem-based approaches structure students' activities more by asking them to solve specific (open-ended) problems rather than relying on students to come up with their own problems in the course of completing a project.
A meta-analysis conducted by Purdue University found that when implemented well, PBL can increase long-term retention of material and replicable skill, as well as improve teachers' and students' attitudes towards learning.^[10]

Criticism

One concern is that PBL may be inappropriate in mathematics, the reason being that mathematics is primarily skill-based at the elementary level. Transforming the curriculum into an over-reaching project or series of projects does not allow for the necessary practice at particular mathematical skills. For instance, factoring quadratic equations in elementary algebra is something that requires extensive practice.
On the other hand, a teacher could integrate a PBL approach into the standard curriculum, helping the students see some broader contexts where abstract quadratic equations may apply. For example, Newton's law implies that tossed objects follow a parabolic path, and the roots of the corresponding equation correspond to the starting and ending locations of the object.
Another criticism of PBL is that measures that are stated as reasons for its success are not measurable using standard measurement tools, and rely on subjective rubrics for assessing results.
In PBL there is also a certain tendency for the creation of the final product of the project to become the driving force in classroom activities. When this happens, the project can lose its content focus and be ineffective in helping students learn certain concepts and skills. For example, academic projects that culminate in an artistic display or exhibit may place more emphasis on the artistic processes involved in creating the display than on the academic content that the project is meant to help students learn.

External links

Project Based Learning Online From Super Star Learning Company
Project Based Learning for the 21st Century From The Buck Institute for Education
Ten Tips for Assessing Project-Based Learning From Edutopia by The George Lucas Educational Foundation.
Project-Based Learning and High Standards at Shutesbury Elementary School From Edutopia by The George Lucas Educational Foundation.
Project Foundry- Project-based Learning Management Tool grew out of an educational non-profit in Milwaukee, WI.
Learning for a Cause is a project-based high school creative writing initiative in Canada founded in 2003 by noted educator and writer Michael Ernest Sweet.
[7] Changing the Face of Traditional Education: Project-based Learning
Intel Teach Elements: Project-Based Approaches is a free, online professional development course that explores project-based learning.
LearningReviews Directory of Project Based Learning Lesson Websites has websites with ideas, planning templates and grading rubrics.
Project Work in (English) Language Teaching provides a practical guide to running a successful 30-hour (15-lesson) short film project in English with (pre-)intermediate students: planning, lessons, evaluation, deliverables, samples and experiences, plus ideas for other projects.

References

^ John Dewey, Education and Experience, 1938/1997. New York. Touchstone.
^ Sawyer, R. K. (2006) The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press.
^ Markham, T. (2011). Project Based Learning. Teacher Librarian, 39(2), 38-42.
^ Blumenfeld et al 1991 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, 26(3&4) 369-398 "Motivating Project-Based Learning: Sustaining the Doing, Supporting the Learning." Phyllis C. Blumenfeld, Elliot Soloway, Ronald W. Marx, Joseph S. Krajcik, Mark Guzdial, and Annemarie Palincsar.
^ Hye-Jung Lee1, h., & Cheolil Lim1, c. (2012). Peer Evaluation in Blended Team Project-Based Learning: What Do Students Find Important?. Journal Of Educational Technology & Society, 15(4), 214-224.
^ http://www.bie.org/about/21st_century_skills
^ http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/sept10/vol68/num01/Seven_Essentials_for_Project-Based_Learning.aspx
^ http://www.edutopia.org/stw-project-based-learning-best-practices
^ http://www.edutopia.org/blog/projects-partnerships-pbl-suzie-boss
^ http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/ijpbl/vol3/iss1/4/

John Dewey, Education and Experience, 1938/1997. New York. Touchstone.
Hye-Jung Lee1, h., & Cheolil Lim1, c. (2012). Peer Evaluation in Blended Team Project-Based Learning: What Do Students Find Important?. Journal Of Educational Technology & Society, 15(4), 214-224.
Markham, T. (2011). Project Based Learning. Teacher Librarian, 39(2), 38-42.
Blumenfeld et al. 1991 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, 26(3&4) 369-398 "Motivating Project-Based Learning: Sustaining the Doing, Supporting the Learning." Phyllis C. Blumenfeld, Elliot Soloway, Ronald W. Marx, Joseph S. Krajcik, Mark Guzdial, and Annemarie Palincsar.
Sawyer, R. K. (2006) The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Buck Institute for Education (2009). PBL Starter Kit: To-the-Point Advice, Tools and Tips for Your First Project. Introduction chapter free to download at: http://www.bie.org/tools/toolkit/starter
Buck Institute for Education (2003). Project Based Learning Handbook: A Guide to Standards-Focused Project Based Learning for Middle and High School Teachers. Introduction chapter free to download at: http://www.bie.org/tools/handbook
Barron, B. (1998). Doing with understanding: Lessons from research on problem- and project-based learning. Journal of the Learning Sciences. 7 (3&4), 271-311.
Blumenfeld, P.C. et al. (1991). Motivating project-based learning: sustaining the doing, supporting the learning. Educational Psychologist, 26, 369-398.
Boss, S., & Krauss, J. (2007). Reinventing project-based learning: Your field guide to real-world projects in the digital age. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

•Falk, B. (2008). Teaching the way children learn. New York: Teachers College Press.

Katz, L. and Chard, S.C.. (2000) Engaging Children's Minds: The Project Approach (2d Edition), Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
Keller, B. (2007, September 19). No Easy Project. Education Week, 27(4), 21-23. Retrieved March 25, 2008, from Academic Search Premier database.
Knoll, M. (1997). The project method: its origin and international development. Journal of Industrial Teacher Education 34 (3), 59-80.
Shapiro, B. L. (1994). What Children Bring to Light: A Constructivist Perspective on Children's Learning in Science; New York. Teachers College Press.
Helm, J. H., Katz, L. (2001). Young investigators: The project approach in the early years. New York: Teachers College Press.
Mitchell, S., Foulger, T. S., & Wetzel, K., Rathkey, C. (February, 2009). The negotiated project approach: Project-based learning without leaving the standards behind. Early Childhood Education Journal, 36(4), 339-346. Available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/c73q57211024x727/fulltext.html
Polman, J. L. (2000). Designing project-based science: Connecting learners through guided inquiry. New York: Teachers College Press.
Reeves, Diane Lindsey STICKY LEARNING. Raleigh, North Carolina: Bright Futures Press, 2009. [8].
Foulger, T.S. & Jimenez-Silva, M. (2007). Enhancing the writing development of English learners: Teacher perceptions of common technology in project-based learning. Journal of Research on Childhood Education, 22(2), 109-124.
Wetzel, K., Mitchell-Kay, S., & Foulger, T. S., Rathkey, C. (June, 2009). Using technology to support learning in a first grade animal and habitat project. International Journal of Technology in Teaching and Learning.

Categories:

THE SILENT WAY

The Silent Way is a language-teaching method created by Caleb Gattegno that makes extensive use of silence as a teaching technique. It is not usually considered a mainstream method in language education.^[1] It was first introduced in Gattegno's book Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: The Silent Way in 1963.^[2] Gattegno was skeptical of the mainstream language education of the time, and conceived of the method as a special case of his general theories of education.
The method emphasises the autonomy of the learner; the teacher's role is to monitor the students' efforts, and the students are encouraged to have an active role in learning the language. Pronunciation is seen as fundamental; beginning students start their study with pronunciation, and much time is spent practising it each lesson. The Silent Way uses a structural syllabus, and structures are constantly reviewed and recycled. The choice of vocabulary is important, with functional and versatile words seen as the best. Translation and rote repetition are avoided and the language is usually practiced in meaningful contexts. Evaluation is carried out by observation, and the teacher may never set a formal test.
The teacher uses silence for multiple purposes in the Silent Way. It is used to focus students' attention, to elicit student responses, and to encourage them to correct their own errors. Even though teachers are often silent, they are still active; they will commonly use techniques such as mouthing words and using hand gestures to help the students with their pronunciation. Teachers will also encourage students to help their peers.
Silent Way teachers use specialized teaching materials. One of the hallmarks of the method is the use of Cuisenaire rods, which can be used for anything from introducing simple commands to representing abstract objects such as clocks and floor plans. The method also makes use of color association to help teach pronunciation; there is a sound-color chart which is used to teach the language sounds, colored word charts which are used to teach sentences, and colored Fidel charts which are used to teach spelling.

Background and principles

Caleb Gattegno, the creator of the Silent Way

Gattegno was a rank outsider to language education when Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools was first published in 1963. The book was conspicuously lacking the names of most prominent language educators and linguists of the time, and Gattegno's works were only cited rarely in language education books and journals.^[3] He was previously a designer of mathematics and reading programmes, and the use of color charts and colored Cuisenaire rods in the Silent Way grew directly out of this experience.^[4]
Gattegno was openly sceptical of the role linguistic theory of the time had in language teaching. He felt that linguistic studies "may be a specialization, [that] carry with them a narrow opening of one's sensitivity and perhaps serve very little towards the broad end in mind".^[5] The Silent Way was conceived as a special case of Gattegno's broader educational principles, rather than a method specifically aimed at teaching languages. Gattegno developed these ideas to solve general problems in learning, and he also applied them to his work in the teaching of mathematics and the mother tongue. Broadly, these principles are:^[6]

Teachers should concentrate on how students learn, not on how to teach
Imitation and drill are not the primary means by which students learn
Learning consists of trial and error, deliberate experimentation, suspending judgement, and revising conclusions
In learning, learners draw on everything that they already know, especially their native language
The teacher must not interfere with the learning process

These principles situate the Silent Way in the tradition of discovery learning, that sees learning as a creative problem-solving activity.^[4]

Design and goals

The general goal of the Silent Way is to help beginning-level students gain basic fluency in the target language, with the ultimate aim being near-native language proficiency and good pronunciation.^[7] An important part of this ability is being able to use the language for self-expression; students should be able to express their thoughts, feelings, and needs in the target language. In order to help them achieve this, teachers emphasize self-reliance.^[8] Students are encouraged to actively explore the language,^[9] and to develop their own 'inner criteria' as to what is linguistically acceptable. ^[10]
The role of the teacher is that of technician or engineer. The teacher's task is to focus the students' attention, and provide exercises to help them develop language facility; however, to ensure their self-reliance, the teacher should only help the students as much as is strictly necessary.^[11] As Gattegno says, "The teacher works with the student; the student works on the language."^[12] For example, teachers will often give students time to correct their own mistakes before giving them the answer to a question.^[13] Teachers also avoid praise or criticism, as it can discourage students from developing self-reliance.^[13]

A sound-color chart for English; these charts are used right from the beginning stages to teach pronunciation and word stress.

In the Silent Way students are seen as bringing a vast amount of experience and knowledge with them to the classroom; namely, their first language. The teacher capitalizes on this knowledge when introducing new material, always building from the known to the unknown.^[14] The students begin their study of the language by studying its sound system. The sounds are associated to different colors using a sound-color chart that is specific to the language being learned. The teacher first introduces sounds that are already present in the students' native language, and then progresses to sounds that are new to them. These sound-color associations are later used to help the students with spelling, reading, and pronunciation.^[12]
The Silent Way uses a structural syllabus. The teacher will typically introduce one new language structure at a time, and old structures are continuously reviewed and recycled.^[8] These structures are chosen for their propositional meaning, not for their communicative value.^[15] The teacher will set up learning situations for the students which focus their attention on each new structure.^[12] For example, the teacher might ask students to label a floor plan of a house in order to introduce the concepts of inside and outside.^[16] Once the language structures have been presented in this way, learners learn the grammar rules through a process of induction.^[15]
Gattegno saw the choice of which vocabulary to teach as vital to the language learning process. He advised teachers to concentrate on the most functional and versatile words, to help students build a functional vocabulary.^[15]
Translation and rote repetition are avoided, and instead emphasis is placed on conveying meaning through students' perceptions, and through practicing the language in meaningful contexts.^[17] In the floor plan example, the plan itself negates the need for translation, and the teacher is able to give the students meaningful practice simply by pointing to different parts of the house.^[16] The four skills of active listening, speaking, reading, and writing are worked on from the beginning stages, although students only learn to read something after they have learned to say it.^[18]
Evaluation in the Silent Way is carried out primarily by observation. Teachers may never give a formal test, but they constantly assess students by observing their actions. This allows them to respond straight away to any problems the students might have.^[19] Teachers also gain feedback through observing students' errors; errors are seen as natural and necessary for learning, and can be a useful guide as to what structures need more practice.^[13] Furthermore, teachers may gain feedback by asking the students at the end of the lesson.^[9] When evaluating the students, teachers expect them to learn at different rates, and students are not penalized for learning more slowly than their classmates. Teachers look for steady progress in the language, not perfection.^[13]

Process

Teaching techniques

Just as the name implies, silence is a key tool of the teacher in the Silent Way. From the beginning levels, students do 90 percent or more of the talking.^[20] Being silent moves the focus of the classroom from the teacher to the students,^[21] and can encourage cooperation among them.^[13] It also frees the teacher to observe the class.^[9] Silence can be used to help students correct their own errors. Teachers can remain silent when a student makes a mistake to give them time to self-correct;^[13] they can also help students with their pronunciation by mouthing words without vocalizing, and by using certain hand gestures.^[22] When teachers do speak, they tend to say things only once so that students learn to focus their attention on them.^[9]
A Silent Way classroom also makes extensive use of peer correction. Students are encouraged to help their classmates when they have trouble with any particular feature of the language. This help should be made in a cooperative fashion, not a competitive one. One of the teacher's tasks is to monitor these interactions, so that they are helpful and do not interfere with students' learning.^[23]

Teaching materials

A set of Cuisenaire rods

The silent way makes use of specialized teaching materials: colored Cuisenaire rods, the sound-color chart, word charts, and Fidel charts. The Cuisenaire rods are wooden, and come in ten different lengths, but identical cross-section; each length has its own assigned color.^[20] The rods are used in a wide variety of situations in the classroom. At the beginning stages they can be used to practice colors and numbers, and later they can be used in more complex grammar. For example, to teach prepositions the teacher could use the statement "The blue rod is between the green one and the yellow one". They can also be used more abstractly, perhaps to represent a clock or the floor plan of a house.^[24]

A Fidel chart for English; these charts are used to teach spelling.

The sound-color chart consists of blocks of color, with one color representing one sound in the language being learned. The teacher uses this chart to help teach pronunciation; as well as pointing to colors to help students with the different sounds, she can also tap particular colors very hard to help students learn word stress. Later in the learning process, students can point to the chart themselves. The chart can help students perceive sounds that may not occur in their first language, and it also allows students to practice making these sounds without relying on mechanical repetition. It also provides an easily verifiable record of which sounds the students and which they have not, which can help their autonomy.^[23]
The word charts contain the functional vocabulary of the target language, and use the same color scheme as the sound-color chart. Each letter is colored in a way that indicates its pronunciation. The teacher can point to the chart to highlight the pronunciation of different words in sentences that the students are learning. There are twelve word charts in English, containing a total of around five hundred words.^[25] The Fidel charts also use the same color-coding, and list the various ways that sounds can be spelled. For example, in English, the entry for the sound /ey/ contains the spellings ay, ea, ei, eigh, etc., all written in the same color. These can be used to help students associate sounds with their spelling.^[26]

SUGGESTOPEDIA

Suggestopedia (USA English) or Suggestopædia (UK English) is a teaching method developed by the Bulgarian psychotherapist Georgi Lozanov. It is used in different fields, but mostly in the field of foreign language learning. Lozanov has claimed that by using this method a teacher's students can learn a language approximately three to five times as quickly as through conventional teaching methods.
Suggestopedia has been called a "pseudo-science".^[1] It strongly depends on the trust that students develop towards the method by simply believing that it works.
The theory applied positive suggestion in teaching when it was developed in the 1970s. However, as the method improved, it has focused more on “desuggestive learning” and now is often called “desuggestopedia.” ^[2] Suggestopedia is a portmanteau of the words “suggestion” and “pedagogy". A common misconception is to link "suggestion" to "hypnosis". However, Lozanov intended it in the sense of offering or proposing, emphasising student choice.

Purpose and theory

The intended purpose of Suggestopedia was to enhance learning by tapping into the power of suggestion. Lozanov claims in his website, Suggestology and Suggestopedy,^[2] that “suggestopedia is a system for liberation”; liberation from the “preliminary negative concept regarding the difficulties in the process of learning” that is established throughout their life in the society. Desuggestopedia focuses more on liberation as Lozanov describes “desuggestive learning” as “free, without a mildest pressure, liberation of previously suggested programs to restrict intelligence and spontaneous acquisition of knowledge, skills and habits.” The method implements this by working not only on the conscious level of human mind but also on the subconscious level, the mind’s reserves.

In practice

Physical surroundings and atmosphere in classroom are the vital factors to make sure that "the students feel comfortable and confident",^[3] and various techniques, including art and music, are used by the trained teachers. The lesson of Suggestopedia consisted of three phases at first: deciphering, concert session (memorization séance), and elaboration.^[2]^[4]
Deciphering: The teacher introduces the grammar and lexis of the content.
Concert session (active and passive): In the active session, the teacher reads the text at a normal speed, sometimes intoning some words, and the students follow. In the passive session, the students relax and listen to the teacher reading the text calmly. Music (“Pre-Classical”) is played in the background.
Elaboration: The students finish off what they have learned with dramas, songs, and games.
Then it has developed into four phases as lots of experiments were done: introduction, concert session, elaboration, and production.^[2]^[4]
Introduction: The teacher teaches the material in “a playful manner” instead of analyzing lexis and grammar of the text in a directive manner.
Concert session (active and passive): In the active session, the teacher reads with intoning as selected music is played. Occasionally, the students read the text together with the teacher, and listen only to the music as the teacher pauses in particular moments. The passive session is done more calmly.
Elaboration: The students sing classical songs and play games while “the teacher acts more like a consultant”.^[2]
Production: The students spontaneously speak and interact in the target language without interruption or correction.

Teachers

Teachers should not act in a directive way, although this method is teacher-controlled and not student-controlled. For example, they should act as a real partner to the students, participating in the activities such as games and songs “naturally” and “genuinely.” ^[2] In the concert session, they should fully include classical art in their behaviors. Although there are many techniques that the teachers use, factors such as “communication in the spirit of love, respect for man as a human being, the specific humanitarian way of applying their ‘techniques’” etc. are crucial.^[4] The teachers not only need to know the techniques and to acquire the practical methodology completely, but also to fully understand the theory, because, if they implement those techniques without complete understanding, they will not be able lead their learners to successful results, or they could even cause a negative impact on their learning. Therefore, the teacher has to be trained in a course taught by certified trainers.
Here are the most important factors for teachers to acquire, described by Lozanov.^[2]

Covering a huge bulk of learning material.
Structuring the material in the suggestopaedic way: global-partial – partial-global, and global in the part – part in the global, related to the golden proportion.
As a professional, on one hand, and a personality, on the other hand, the teacher should be a highly-regarded professional, reliable and credible.
The teacher should have, not play, a hundred percent expectation of positive results (because the teacher is already experienced even from the time of the teacher training course).
The teacher should love his/her students (of course, not sentimentally but as human beings) and teach them with personal participation through games, songs, classical arts, and pleasure.

Method for children (preventive Suggestopedia)

The method for Adults includes long sessions without movement,^[2] and materials that are appropriate for adults. Children, however, get impacts from “the social suggestive norms” differently and their brains are more delicate than those of adults. Therefore, another method with different materials should be applied to children, which better matches their characteristics. Lessons for children are more incidental and short, preventing the children from the negative pedagogical suggestions of Society. It is important to tell the parents about the method and their roles because they could influence children both negatively and positively, depending on how they support the kids.^[4]

Side effects

Lozanov claims that the effect of the method is not only in language learning, but also in producing favorable side effects on health, the social and psychological relations, and the subsequent success in other subjects.^[2]

Unesco's final report on Suggestopedia

Recommendations (Extraction) ^[5]
Made by the Experts from the Working Group on Suggestology as a Learning Methodology Meeting in Sofia, December 11–17, 1978
...1. There is consensus that Suggestopedia is a generally superior teaching method for many subjects and for many types of students, compared with traditional methods. We have arrived at this consensus following a study of the research literature, listening to the testimony of international experts, observing films portraying Suggestopedia instruction and visiting classes in which Suggestopedia is practiced. The films were prepared and the classroom visitations were impressive.
...2. Standards should be set up for the training, certification and maintaining of standards of suggestopedic training.
...3. Different categories of competency of teachers should be used to reflect increasing levels of teaching performance in certification.
...4. Suggestopedic teacher training should be started as soon as possible.
...5. An International Association for Suggestology and Suggestopedia should be set up that is affiliated with UNESCO and should have the assistance and guidance of Dr. Lozanov for training, research, coordination and publication of results.
...6. UNESCO is requested to give its support to all these proposed activities by all possible means and under the existing international regulations.”

Criticism

Like any other method, there are some people who do not agree or like the method. It is said that it depends on the trust that students develop towards the method by simply believing that it works. That's not entirely true. The prestige effect is highly documented and scientifically proved, but Suggestopedia does not rely on it. It cannot be compared to a placebo at any fashion. Dr. Lozanov, although, argues, that placebos are indeed effective, which they are.

Later variations

Suggestopedia produced four main offshoots. The first was still called Suggestopedia but was developed in eastern Europe and used different techniques from Lozanov's original version. The other three are named Superlearning, Suggestive Accelerated Learning and Teaching (SALT), and Psychopädie.^[6] Superlearning and SALT originated in North America, while Psychopädie was developed in West Germany.^[6] While all four are slightly different from the original Suggestopedia and from each other, they still share the common traits of music, relaxation, and suggestion.^[6]. It is important to stand out that those variants of Suggestopedia mentioned above are way too far from the original concept and are based on the early experiments, which were left behind during the new improvements of the method.

References

^ Richards, J.C. and Rodgers, T.S. (2001). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Lozanov, Georgi. Suggestology and Suggestopedy. http://lozanov.hit.bg/ 4/30/2006
^ Harmer, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language Teaching. 3rd Edition. Person Education Limited, 2001
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Lozanov, Georgi. Suggestopaedia - Desggestive Teaching Communicative Method on the Level of the Hidden Reserves of the Human Mind. http://dr-lozanov.dir.bg/book/start_book.htm 4/30/2006
^ Journal of Suggestive Accelerative Learning and Teaching, v3 n3 Fall 1978
^ ^a ^b ^c Felix, Uschi (1989). An Investigation of the Effects of Music, Relaxation and Suggestion in Sceond Language Acquisition in Schools (PhD thesis). Flinders University, Adelaide. pp. Chapter 2.7. Retrieved January 12, 2012.

Edelmann, Walter, Suggestgopädie/Superlearning, Heidelberg: Ansanger, 1998.
Lozanov, Georgi, Suggestology and Outlines of Suggestopedy, New York: Gordon & Breach 1978 (Translation of: Nauka i Iskustvi, Sofia 1971).
Meier, Josef, Mehr Freude und Erfolg beim Englischlernen mit innovativen Lern- und Mentaltechniken, München:IBS, 1999.
Riedel, Katja, Persönlichkeitsentfaltung durch Suggestopädie, Hohengehren: Schneider, 1995.
Schiffler, Ludger, Suggestopädie und Superlearning - empirisch geprüft. Einführung und Weiterentwicklung für Schule und Erwachsenenbildung, Frankfurt am Main: Diesterweg, 1989.
Schiffler, Ludger, La Suggestopédie et le Superlearning - Mise à l'épreuve statistique, Paris: Didier Erudition, 1991.
Schiffler, Ludger: "Suggestopedic Methods and Applications", Philadelphia, Tokyo, Paris etc.: Gordon & Breach Science Publisher, 1992.
Schiffler, Ludger, Effektiver Fremdsprachen lehren und lernen - Beide Gehirnhälften aktivieren, Donauwörth: Auer, 2002.
Schiffler, Ludger, Interhemispheric Foreign Language Learning - Activating Both Sides of the Brain, online 2003 (732KB )(download available: http://www.ludger-schiffler.de).

Categories:

PROBLEM BASED LEARNING

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered pedagogy in which students learn about a subject through the experience of problem solving. Students learn both thinking strategies and domain knowledge. The PBL format originated from the medical school of thought, and is now used in other schools of thought too. The goals of PBL are to help the students develop flexible knowledge, effective problem solving skills, self-directed learning, effective collaboration skills and intrinsic motivation.^[1] Problem-based learning is a style of active learning.
Working in groups, students identify what they already know, what they need to know, and how and where to access new information that may lead to resolution of the problem. The role of the instructor (known as the tutor in PBL) is to facilitate learning by supporting, guiding, and monitoring the learning process.^[2] The tutor must build students' confidence to take on the problem, and encourage the students, while also stretching their understanding. PBL represents a paradigm shift from traditional teaching and learning philosophy,^[3] which is more often lecture-based. The constructs for teaching PBL are very different from traditional classroom/lecture teaching.

Definition

Barrows defines the Problem-Based Learning Model as:^[4]

1. Student Centered Learning

2. Learning is done in Small Student Groups, ideally 6-10 people

3. Facilitators or Tutors guide the students rather than teach

4. A Problem forms the basis for the organized focus of the group, and stimulates learning

5. The problem is a vehicle for the development of problem solving skills. It stimulates the cognitive process.

6. New knowledge is obtained through Self-Directed Learning(SDL)

History

PBL was pioneered in the medical school program at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in the late 1960s by Howard Barrows and his colleagues.^[5] Traditional medical education disenchanted students, who perceived the vast amount of material presented in the first three years of medical school as having little relevance to the practice of medicine and clinically based medicine.^[4] The PBL curriculum was developed in order to stimulate the learners, assist the learners in seeing the relevance of learning to future roles, maintain a higher level of motivation towards learning, and to show the learners the importance of responsible, professional attitudes.^[4]
Problem-based learning has subsequently been adopted by other medical school programs,^[4] adapted for undergraduate instruction,^[6]^[7]^[8] as well as K-12.^[4]^[9] The use of PBL has expanded from its initial introduction into medical school programs to include education in the areas of other health sciences, math, law, education, economics, business, social studies, and engineering.^[9] The use of PBL, like other student-centered pedagogies, has been motivated by recognition of the failures of traditional instruction.^[10]^[11] and the emergence of deeper understandings of how people learn.^[12] Unlike traditional instruction, PBL actively engages the student in constructing knowledge. PBL includes problems that can be solved in many different ways and have more than one solution.^[13]

Supporters

Advocates of PBL claim it can be used to enhance content knowledge while simultaneously fostering the development of communication, problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, and self-directed learning skills.^[14]^[15] PBL may position students in a simulated real world working and professional context which involves policy, process, and ethical problems that will need to be understood and resolved to some outcome. By working through a combination of learning strategies to discover the nature of a problem, understanding the constraints and options to its resolution, defining the input variables, and understanding the viewpoints involved, students learn to negotiate the complex sociological nature of the problem and how competing resolutions may inform decision-making.

Constructivism and PBL

Problem Based Learning addresses the need to promote lifelong learning through the process of inquiry and constructivist learning.^[2] PBL can be considered a constructivist approach to instruction, emphasizing collaborative and self-directed learning and being supported by flexible teacher scaffolding.^[16] Yew and Schmidt,^[17] Schmidt, and Hung elaborate on the cognitive constructivist process of PBL:^[2]^[3]

1. Learners are presented with a problem and through discussion within their group, activate their prior knowledge.

2. Within their group, they develop possible theories or hypotheses to explain the problem. Together they identify learning issues to be researched. They construct a shared primary model to explain the problem at hand. Facilitators provide scaffold, which is a frame work on which students can construct knowledge relating to the problem.

3. After the initial team work, students work independently in self directed study to research the identified issues.

4. The students re-group to discuss their findings and refine their initial explanations based on what they learned.

A PBL group at Gadjah Mada University

PBL follows a constructivist perspective in learning as the role of the instructor is to guide and challenge the learning process rather than strictly providing knowledge.^[18]^[19] From this perspective, feedback and reflection on the learning process and group dynamics are essential components of PBL. Students are considered to be active agents who engage in social knowledge construction. PBL assists in processes of creating meaning and building personal interpretations of the world based on experiences and interactions.^[20] PBL assists to guide the student from theory to practice during their journey through solving the problem.^[21]

Supporting evidence

Several studies support the success of the constructivist problem-based and inquiry learning methods.^[22] One example is a study on a project called GenScope, an inquiry-based science software application, which found that students using the GenScope software showed significant gains over the control groups, with the largest gains shown in students from basic courses.^[22]
One large study tracked middle school students' performance on high-stakes standardized tests to evaluate the effectiveness of inquiry-based science.^[22] The study found a 14 percent improvement for the first cohort of students and a 13 percent improvement for the second cohort.^[22] The study also found that inquiry-based teaching methods greatly reduced the achievement gap for African-American students.^[22]
A systematic review of the effects of problem-based learning in medical school on the performance of doctors after graduation showed clear positive effects on physician competence. This effect was especially strong for social and cognitive competencies such as coping with uncertainty and communication skills.^[23]
Another study from Slovenia looked at whether students who learn with PBL are better at solving problems and if their attitudes towards mathematics were improved compared to their peers in a more traditional curriculum. The study found that students who were exposed to PBL were better at solving more difficult problems, however, there was no significant difference in student attitude towards mathematics.^[13]

Examples of PBL in curricula

Malaysia

In Malaysia, an attempt is being made to introduce a problem-based learning model in secondary mathematics, with the aim of educating citizens to prepare them for decision-making in sustainable and responsible development. This model called problem-based learning the four core areas (PBL4C) first sprouted in SEAMEO RECSAM in 2008, and as a result of training courses conducted, a paper^[24] was presented at the EARCOME5 conference in 2010, followed by two papers during the 15th UNESCO-APEID conference in 2011. This model has since expanded in its use in the field of education management, Education for International & Intranational Understanding (EIU), and human resource management. Subsequently, many Malaysian universities began implementing PBL in their curricula in an effort to improve the quality of their education. In collaboration with Aalborg University of Denmark, PBL was introduced at University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM). Since then the PBL was widely used among engineering and as well as humanities lecturers at UTHM (Berhannudin, 2007). In Universiti Malaya, the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery and Bachelor of Dental Surgery courses included several sessions of problem-based learning in their curriculum as a way of teaching interactions between students.

Medical schools

Several medical schools have incorporated problem-based learning into their curricula, using real patient cases to teach students how to think like a clinician. More than eighty percent of medical schools in the United States now have some form of problem-based learning in their programs.^[25] Research of 10 years of data from the University of Missouri School of Medicine indicates that PBL has a positive effect on the students' competency as physicians after graduation.^[23]
Monash University was the second institution to adopt PBL within a medical school environment and continues to apply this within the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences for the Bachelor of Medicine / Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) programs delivered in Australia and Malaysia.^{[citation needed]}
Maastricht University offers its whole program in PBL format only, as does the University of Limerick graduate entry medical school in Ireland.
In 1998, Western University of Health Sciences opened its College of Veterinary Medicine, with curriculum based completely on PBL.^[26]
In 2004, the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine founded a branch campus in Bradenton, Florida, using an entirely PBL format. From 2006 to 2010, this campus led the nation in COMLEX scores.^{[citation needed]}
In 2002, Gadjah Mada University of Yogyakarta, Indonesia began offering an International Medicine program based on problem-based learning.^[27]
In 2009, Libyan International Medical University of Benghazi, Libya started using PBL for all of its medical programmes.^[28]

High School

In 2008, Parramatta Marist High School a secondary Catholic school in Australia employed the methods of PBL in their teaching for year 9 and 10 boys. The learning system was a great success and since has been expanded to lower grades to challenge students to think outside of the box and relate content drive courses to problems in the real world.

Ecological Economics

The transdisciplinary field of ecological economics has embraced problem-based learning as a core pedagogy. A workbook developed by Joshua Farley, Jon Erickson, and Herman Daly organizes the problem-solving process into (1) building the problem base, (2) analyzing the problem, (3) synthesizing the findings, and (4) communicating the results. Building the problem base includes choosing, defining, and structuring an ecological economic problem. Analysis is breaking down of a problem into understandable components. Synthesis is the re-integration of the parts in a way that helps better understand the whole. Communication is the translation of results into a form relevant to stakeholders, broadly defined as the extended peer community.^[29]

Criticisms

Cognitive load

Sweller and others have published a series of studies over the past twenty years that is relevant to problem-based learning but concerning cognitive load and what they describe as the guidance-fading effect.^[30] Sweller et al. conducted several classroom-based studies with students studying algebra problems.^[31] These studies have shown that active problem solving early in the learning process is a less effective instructional strategy than studying worked examples (Sweller and Cooper, 1985; Cooper and Sweller, 1987). Certainly active problem solving is useful as learners become more competent, and better able to deal with their working memory limitations. But early in the learning process, learners may find it difficult to process a large amount of information in a short amount of time. Thus the rigors of active problem solving may become an issue for novices. Once learners gain expertise the scaffolding inherent in problem-based learning helps learners avoid these issues. These studies have however been conducted largely based on individual problem solving of well-defined problems.
Sweller (1988) proposed cognitive load theory to explain how novices react to problem solving during the early stages of learning.^[31] Sweller, et al. suggests a worked example early, and then a gradual introduction of problems to be solved. They propose other forms of learning early in the learning process (worked example, goal free problems, etc.); to later be replaced by completions problems, with the eventual goal of solving problems on their own.^[32] This problem based learning becomes very useful later in the learning process.
Many forms of scaffolding have been implemented in problem based learning to reduce the cognitive load of learners. These are most useful to fade guidance during problem solving. As an example, consider the fading effect helps learners to slowly transit from studying examples to solving problems. In this case backwards fading was found to be quite effective and assisting in decreasing the cognitive load on learners.^[1]
Evaluation of the effects of PBL learning in comparison to traditional instructional learning have proved to be a challenge. Various factors can influence the implementation of PBL: extent of PBL incorporation into curriculum, group dynamics, nature of problems used, facilitator influence on group, and the motivation of the learners. There are also various outcomes of PBL that can be measured including knowledge acquisition and clinical competence.Additional studies are needed to investigate all the variables^[5] and technological scaffolds,that may impact the efficacy PBL.

Demands of Implementing

Implementing PBL in schools and Universities is a demanding process that requires resources, a lot of planning and organization. Azer discusses the 12 steps for implementing the "pure PBL"

1. Prepare faculty for change

2. Establish a new curriculum committee and working group

3. Designing the new PBL curriculum and defining educational outcomes

4. Seeking Advice from Experts in PBL

5. Planning, Organizing and Managing

6. Training PBL facilitators and defining the objectives of a facilitator

7. Introducing Students to the PBL Program

8. Using 3-learning to support the delivery of the PBL program

9. Changing the assessment to suit the PBL curriculum

10. Encouraging feedback from students and teaching staff

11. Managing learning resources and facilities that support self directed learning

12. Continuing evaluation and making changes (pg. 809-812)

Hung reviews the various models of PBL, Barrow's original concept or "pure PBL", the Hybrid PBL and lecture based learning with problem solving activities.In general these models form a continuum where the level of instruction and lecture are inversely proportional to the amount of self-directed learning. The individual Problem design, or "trigger" must ultimately guide students to obtain the learning objectives. Azer reviews the detailed objectives for constructing "the problem" for PBL. Facilitator selection, training and development is very important to PBL. Students respond better to motivated and enthusiastic facilitators.time then simply giving students the answers. Kol et al.(2008) reported PBL facilitator-student contact time was 3-4 times greater than instructors in traditional methods.

Other outcomes

One of the aims of PBL is the development of self-directed learning (SDL) skills. In Loyens, Magda & Rikers' discussion, SDL is defined as "a process in which individuals take the initiative…in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating goals, identifying human and material resources, choosing and implementing appropriate learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes. By being invited into the learning process, students are also invited to take responsibility for their learning, which leads to an increase in self-directed learning skills. In Severiens and Schmidt’s study of 305 first year college students, they found that PBL and its focus on SDL led to motivation for students to maintain study pace, led to social and academic integration, encouraged development of cognitive skills, and fostered more study progress than students in a conventional learning setting. PBL encourages learners to take a place in the academic world through inquiring and discovery that is central to problem-based learning.
PBL is also argued as a learning method that can promote the development of critical thinking skills. In PBL learning, students learn how to analyze a problem, identify relevant facts and generate hypotheses, identify necessary information/knowledge for solving the problem and make reasonable judgments about solving the problem.
Employers have appreciated the positive attributes of communication, teamwork, respect and collaboration that PBL experienced students have developed. These skills provide for better future skills preparation in the ever-changing information explosion. PBL curriculum includes building these attributes through knowledge building, written and interpersonal interactions and through the experience of the problem solving process.

NEURO LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is an approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in California, USA in the 1970s. Its creators claim a connection between the neurological processes ("neuro"), language ("linguistic") and behavioural patterns learned through experience ("programming") and that these can be changed to achieve specific goals in life. Bandler and Grinder claim that the skills of exceptional people can be "modeled" using NLP methodology then those skills can be acquired by anyone Bandler and Grinder also claim that NLP can treat problems such as phobias, depression, habit disorder, psychosomatic illnesses, myopia,^[8 allergy, common cold^[9] and learning disorders, often in a single session.^[10]^[11]^[12]^[13] NLP has been adopted by some hypnotherapists and in seminars marketed to business and government.^[14]^[15]
Reviews of empirical research find that NLPs core tenets are poorly supported.^[16] The balance of scientific evidence reveals NLP to be a largely discredited pseudoscience. Scientific reviews show it contains numerous factual errors,^[14]^[17] and fails to produce the results asserted by proponents.^[16]^[18] According to clinical psychologist Grant Devilly (2005),^[19] NLP has had a consequent decline in prevalence since the 1970s. Criticisms go beyond lack of empirical evidence for effectiveness, saying NLP exhibits pseudoscientific characteristics,^[19] title,^[20] concepts and terminology as well.^[21]^[22] NLP serves as an example of pseudoscience for facilitating the teaching of scientific literacy at the professional and university level. NLP also appears on peer reviewed expert-consensus based lists of discredited interventions.

In research designed to identify the "quack factor" in modern mental health practice, Norcross et al. (2006) list NLP as possibly or probably discredited for treatment of behavioural problems. Norcross et al. (2010) list NLP in the top ten most discredited interventions and Glasner-Edwards and Rawson ist NLP therapy as "certainly discredited".

History and conception

Early development

According to Bandler and Grinder, NLP comprises a methodology termed modeling and a set of techniques that were derived from its initial applications by Bandler and Grinder.^[28]^[29] Many of those methods that have come to be considered fundamental were derived from the initial modeling by Bandler and Grinder of the work of Virginia Satir, Milton Erickson and Fritz Perls.^[30] Bandler and Grinder also drew upon theories of Gregory Bateson, Alfred Korzybski and Noam Chomsky, particularly transformational grammar.^[21]^[31]^[32] Bandler and Grinder claim that the therapeutic "magic" as performed in therapy by Perls, Satir and Erikson, and by performers in any complex human activity, had a structure that could be codified using their methodology and thereby learned by others. Their 1975 book The Structure of Magic I: A Book about Language and Therapy is intended to be a codification of the therapeutic techniques of Perls and Satir.^[33]
Bandler and Grinder say that they modeled Virginia Satir, to produce what they termed the Meta-Model (via their process of modeling), a model for gathering information and challenging a client's language and underlying thinking.^[33]^[34] By challenging linguistic distortions, specifying generalizations, and recovering deleted information in the client's statements, the transformational grammar concepts of surface structure were said to yield a more complete representation of the underlying deep structure and to have therapeutic benefit.^[35]^[36] Also derived from Satir were anchoring, future pacing and representational systems.^[37] In contrast, the Milton-Model—a model of the purportedly hypnotic language of Milton Eriskson—was described by Bandler and Grinder as "artfully vague" and metaphoric.^[38] The Milton-Model is used in combination with the Meta-Model as a softener, to induce "trance" and to deliver indirect therapeutic suggestion.^[39] However, adjunct lecturer in linguistics Stollznow, describes Bander and Grinder’s reference to such experts as namedropping. Other than Satir, the people they cite as influences did not collaborate with Bandler or Grinder. Chomsky himself has no association with NLP whatsoever; his original work was intended as theory not therapy. According to Stollznow, “[o]ther than borrowing terminology, NLP does not bear authentic resemblance to any of Chomsky's theories or philosophies - linguistic, cognitive or political.”^[40]

Commercialization and evaluation

By the late 1970s, the human potential movement had developed into an industry and provided a market for some NLP ideas. At the center of this growth was the Esalen Institute at Big Sur, California. Perls had led numerous Gestalt therapy seminars at Esalen. Satir was an early leader and Bateson was a guest teacher. Bandler and Grinder claimed that in addition to being a therapeutic method, NLP was also a study of communication and began marketing it as a business tool, claiming that, "if any human being can do anything, so can you".^[34] After 150 students paid $1,000 each for a ten-day workshop in Santa Cruz, California, Bandler and Grinder gave up academic writing and produced popular books from seminar transcripts, such as Frogs into Princes, which sold more than 270,000 copies. According to court documents relating to an intellectual property dispute between Bandler and Grinder, Bandler made more than $800,000 in 1980 from workshop and book sales.^[34]
A community of psychotherapists and students began to form around Bandler and Grinder's initial works, leading to the growth and spread of NLP as a theory and practice.^[41] For example, Tony Robbins trained with Grinder and utilized a few ideas from NLP as part of his own self-help and motivational speaking programs.^[42] Bandler led several unsuccessful efforts to exclude other parties from using NLP.^[43] Meanwhile, the rising number of practitioners and theorists led NLP to become even less uniform than it was at its foundation.^[21] Prior to the decline of NLP, scientific researchers began testing its theoretical underpinnings empirically, with research indicating a lack of empirical support for NLP's essential theories.^[16] The 1990s were characterized by fewer scientific studies evaluating the methods of NLP than the previous decade. Witkowski attributes this to a declining interest in the debate as the result of a lack of empirical support for NLP from its proponents.^[16]
By the 2000s, some disciplines involving hypnosis and/or influence referenced NLP. However, without any official licensing practices and any ethical or professional limits on who could practice NLP; even proponents of NLP acknowledged that the desire to influence people for purely selfish reasons added to NLP's negative reputation.^[41] In addition to concerns about the motivations of both students and practitioners, ethical concerns have been raised about the supposed benefits promised by NLP practitioners.^[21] After several decades of theory and practice, there is no scientific proof that NLP is effective other than as a placebo effect or confirmation bias, which has led to it being discredited within the scientific community.^[26]^[27]

Techniques or set of practices

Further information: Methods of neuro-linguistic programming

An "eye accessing cue chart" as it appears as an example in Bandler & Grinder's Frogs into Princes (1979). The six directions represent "visual construct", "visual recall", "auditory construct", "auditory recall", "kinesthetic" and "auditory internal dialogue".

According to one study by Steinbach,^[44] a classic interaction in NLP can be understood in terms of several major stages including establishing rapport, gleaning information about a problem mental state and desired goals, using specific tools and techniques to make interventions, and integrating proposed changes into the client's life. The entire process is guided by the non-verbal responses of the client.^[44] The first is the act of establishing and maintaining rapport between the practitioner and the client which is achieved through pacing and leading the verbal (e.g. sensory predicates and keywords) and non-verbal behaviour (e.g. matching and mirroring non-verbal behaviour, or responding to eye movements) of the client.^[45]
Once rapport is established, the practitioner may gather information (e.g. using the Meta-Model questions) about the client's present state as well as help the client define a desired state or goal for the interaction. The practitioner pays particular attention to the verbal and non-verbal responses as the client defines the present state and desired state and any "resources" that may be required to bridge the gap.^[44] The client is typically encouraged to consider the consequences of the desired outcome, and how they may affect his or her personal or professional life and relationships, taking into account any positive intentions of any problems that may arise (i.e. ecological check).^[44] Fourth, the practitioner assists the client in achieving the desired outcomes by using certain tools and techniques to change internal representations and responses to stimuli in the world.^[46]^[47] Finally, the changes are "future paced" by helping the client to mentally rehearse and integrate the changes into his or her life.^[44] For example, the client may be asked to "step into the future" and represent (mentally see, hear and feel) what it is like having already achieved the outcome.
According to Stollznow (2010), "NLP also involves fringe discourse analysis and "practical" guidelines for "improved" communication. For example, one text asserts "when you adopt the "but" word, people will remember what you said afterwards. With the "and" word, people remember what you said before and after."^[40]

Applications

Psychotherapeutic

Early books about NLP had a psychotherapeutic focus given that the early models were psychotherapists. As an approach to psychotherapy, NLP shares similar core assumptions and foundations in common with some contemporary brief and systemic practices,^[48]^[49]^[50] such as solution focused brief therapy.^[51]^[52] NLP has also been acknowledged as having influenced these practices^[50]^[53] with its reframing techniques^[54]^[55] which seeks to achieve behaviour change by shifting its context or meaning,^[56] for example, by finding the positive connotation of a thought or behaviour.
The two main therapeutic uses of NLP are: (1) as an adjunct by therapists^[57] practicing in other therapeutic disciplines; (2) as a specific therapy called Neurolinguistic Psychotherapy^[58] which is recognized by the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy^[59] with accreditation governed at first by the Association for Neuro Linguistic Programming^[60] and more recently by its daughter organization the Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapy and Counselling Association.^[61] Neither Neuro-Linguistic Programming nor Neuro-Linguistic Psychotherapy are NICE-approved.^[62]
According to Stollznow (2010) "Bandler and Grinder's infamous Frogs into Princes and other books boast that NLP is a cure-all that treats a broad range of physical and mental conditions and learning difficulties, including epilepsy, myopia and dyslexia. With its promises to cure schizophrenia, depression, and post traumatic stress disorder, NLP shares similarities with Scientology and the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, CCHR." A systematic review of experimental studies by Sturt et al (2012) concluded that "that there is little evidence that NLP interventions improve health-related outcomes." ^[63] In his review of NLP, Stephen Briers writes, "NLP is not really a cohesive therapy but a ragbag of different techniques without a particularly clear theoretical basis...[and its] evidence base is virtually non-existent."^[64] Eisner writes, "NLP appears to be a superficial and gimmicky approach to dealing with mental health problems. Unfortunately, NLP appears to be the first in a long line of mass marketing seminars that purport to virtually cure any mental disorder...it appears that NLP has no empirical or scientific support as to the underlying tenets of its theory or clinical effectiveness. What remains is a mass-marketed serving of psychopablum."^[65]

Other uses

While the original goals of neuro-linguistic programming were therapeutic, the patterns have also been adapted for use outside psychotherapy for interpersonal communications and persuasion including business communication, management training,^[66] sales,^[67] sports,^[68] and interpersonal influence,^[43] used for coaching, team building, public speaking, negotiation,^[69] and communication. The UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development included a number of NLP courses, including an application of NLP to coaching, in its 2010 training program.^[70] A range of books have been published related to the application of NLP to coaching.

Scientific evaluation

Empirical validity

In the early 1980s, NLP was advertised as an important advance in psychotherapy and counseling, and attracted some interest in counseling research and clinical psychology. However, as controlled trials failed to show any benefit from NLP and its advocates made increasingly dubious claims, scientific interest in NLP faded.^[19]
Focussing primarily on preferred representational systems, reviews by Sharpley (1984)^[71] and—in response to criticism from Einspruch and Forman (1987)^[72]—Sharpley (1987)^[18] concluded that there was little evidence for NLP's usefulness as an effective counseling tool. Reviewing the literature, Heap (1988) also concluded that objective and fair investigations had shown no support for NLP's claims about preferred representational systems.^[73]
A research committee^[43] working for the United States National Research Council led by Daniel Druckman came to two conclusions. First, the committee "found little if any" evidence to support NLP's assumptions or to indicate that it is effective as a strategy for social influence. "It assumes that by tracking another's eye movements and language, an NLP trainer can shape the person's thoughts, feelings, and opinions (Dilts, 1983^[74]). There is no scientific support for these assumptions."^[17] Secondly, the committee members "were impressed with the modeling approach used to develop the technique. The technique was developed from careful observations of the way three master psychotherapists conducted their sessions, emphasizing imitation of verbal and nonverbal behaviors... This then led the committee to take up the topic of expert modeling in the second phase of its work."^[17] Von Bergen et al. (1997) state that "the most telling commentary on NLP may be that in the latest revision of his text on enhancing human performance, Druckman (Druckman & Bjork 1991) omitted all reference to Neurolinguistic Programming."^[14] According to Gelso and Fassinger (1990) Sharpley's literature review, marked a decline in empirical research of NLP, and particularly in matching sensory predicates and its use in the counselor-client relationship in counseling psychology.^[75]
NLP practitioners and academics Tosey and Mathison have argued that the experimental approach is not always appropriate for researching NLP, instead proposing that NLP should be researched phenomenologically.^[76]^[77] Gareth Roderique-Davies (2009) stated that "Phenomenological research is free from hypotheses, pre-conceptions and assumptions, and seeks to describe rather than explain. Given the claims made by proponents of NLP, this adds little to the credibility debate and would produce reports concerning the experience from the perspective of the individual rather than confirmation of the supposed efficacy. The fact remains that NLP proponents make specific claims about how NLP works and what it can do and this compels providing evidence to substantiate these claims."^[78] He argued that the proposal to conduct phenomenology research using NLP modeling "constitutes an admission that NLP does not have an evidence base and that NLP practitioners are seeking a post-hoc credibility."^[78]
More recent systematic reviews of all NLP-related research conclude that that the efficacy of NLP and the validity of its core tenets has not been demonstrated;^[16]^[63] this is a view that is shared by some NLP proponents that are calling for rigorous scientific research.^[79]^[80]^[81] Reviewers Witkowski (2010) and Sturt et al (2012) agree that NLP lacks an evidence base but disagree on the invalidity of NLP: Witkowski—expressing the consensus scientific opinion—states, "My analysis leads undeniably to the statement that NLP represents pseudoscientific rubbish, which should be mothballed forever"; Sturt et al—in common with some NLP proponents—state that "[t]he study conclusion [of no effect] reflects the limited quantity and quality of NLP research, rather than robust evidence of no effect." Reviewing Sturt et al (2012) Murray (2013) affirms their conclusion and adds that "[c]ollectively, the academic research base yields nominal support for paying for NLP training or services."^[82]

Scientific criticism

Neuro-linguistic programming has been characterized as a New Age^[83]^[84] pseudoscience. Witkowski (2010) writes that "NLP represents pseudoscientific rubbish, which should be mothballed forever." The name Neuro-linguistic programming has also been criticised. Roderique-Davies (2009) states that "neuro" in NLP is "effectively fraudulent since NLP offers no explanation at a neuronal level and it could be argued that its use fallaciously feeds into the notion of scientific credibility."^[78] Witkowski (2010) also states that at the neuronal level NLP provides no explanation at all and has nothing in common with academic linguistics or programming. Similarly, experimental psychologist Corballis (1999) in his critique of lateralization of brain function (the left/right brain myth), states that "NLP is a thoroughly fake title, designed to give the impression of scientific respectability."^[20] According to psycholinguist Willem Levelt "[NLP] is not informed about the literature, it starts from insights that have been rendered out of date long ago, concepts are not apprehended or are a mere fabrication, conclusions are based upon wrong presumptions. NLP theory and practice have nothing to do with neuroscientific insights, nor with linguistics, nor with informatics and theory of programming."^[85]^[86]^[87]
Neuroscientists Sergio Della Sala and Barry Beyerstein wrote, "[NLP] began with some now outmoded information from legitimate psychology, linguistics and neuroscience that even most experts accepted back in the 1960s, when NLP first arrived on the scene. The nice thing about real science, as opposed to psuedoscience, is the former eventually corrects its mistakes as new discoveries emerge. NLP remains mired in the past or the never-was."^[88] According to Beyerstein (1995)^[84] and Witkowski (2010) NLP jargon—such as pragmagraphics, metamodeling, metaprogramming, submodalities—is intended to impress, obfuscate and give the false impression that NLP is a scientific discipline. Beyerstein says, "though it claims neuroscience in its pedigree, NLP's outmoded view of the relationship between cognitive style and brain function ultimately boils down to crude analogies."^[84] Furthermore Beyerstein (1995) believed that NLP has helped popularize myths about the brain and neurology and that that the aphorism "you create your own reality" promotes an epistemologically relativistic perspective, the purpose of which is to gain immunity from scientific testing.
Devilly argues that the so-called power therapies gain popularity because they are promoted, like other pseudoscience, using a set of social influence tactics. These include making extraordinary claims (e.g. a one-session cure for any trauma-related memory), creating a rationalization trap by obtaining incremental commitments from students learning the power therapy (e.g. first lesson is free and subsequent courses increase in price), manufacturing source credibility and sincerity by creating a guru-like leader that is most qualified in the power therapy, creating a self-regulated body composed of those that have completed a course in the power therapy, and defining an enemy to facilitate in-group/out-group thinking and behaviour and to serve as a scapegoat.^[19]
NLP has been criticized alongside theories and practices characterized as questionable, pseudoscience and/or discredited practices in therapy. Sources within therapy and psychology include books such as Crazy Therapies (1997), Science and Pseudo-science in Clinical Psychology (2002), and Tall Tales about the Mind and Brain (2007). Articles critical of NLP also appear in the Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience (2000) and The Skeptic's Dictionary (2003). NLP has also been used as a key example of pseudoscience to facilitate the understanding of the importance of rational and critical thinking in a number of academic subjects.^[23]^[24]^[25]
According to Witkowski (2010), NLP also appears on "the list of discredited therapies" published in the Journal of Professional Psychology: Research and Practice. With reference to work by Carroll (2003), Della Sala (1999), Lilienfeld et al. (2003) and Singer and Lalich (1996) on "pseudoscientific, unvalidated, or "quack" psychotherapies" within clinical psychology, Norcross et al. (2006) included NLP for treatment of mental/behaviour disorders in a survey^[22] of the opinions of psychologists who rated NLP between possibly discredited and probably discredited, a rating similar to dolphin assisted therapy, equine therapy, psychosynthesis, scared straight programs, and emotional freedom technique (EFT). Norcross et al. (2010) listed "neurolinguistic programming for drug and alcohol dependence" seventh out of their list of the ten most discredited drugs and alcohol interventions,^[26] and it is listed as "certainly discredited" for addiction treatment in Evidence-based practices in addiction treatment: review and recommendations for public policy.^[27]

Intellectual property disputes

By the end of 1980, the collaboration between Bandler and Grinder ended.^[34] On 25 September 1981, Bandler instituted a civil action against Grinder and his company, seeking injunctive relief and damages for Grinder's commercial activity in relation to NLP. On 29 October 1981, judgement was made in favor of Bandler.^[89] As part of a settlement agreement Bandler granted to Grinder a limited 10-year license to conduct NLP seminars, offer certification in NLP and use the NLP name on the condition that royalties from the earnings of the seminars be paid to Bandler. In July 1996 and January 1997, Bandler instituted a further two civil actions against Grinder and his company, numerous other prominent figures in NLP and 200 further initially unnamed persons. Bandler alleged that Grinder had violated the terms of the settlement agreement reached in the initial case and had suffered commercial damage as a result of the allegedly illegal commercial activities of the defendants. Bandler sought from each defendant damages no less than US$10,000,000.00.^[90]^[91] In February 2000, the Court found against Bandler, stating that "Bandler has misrepresented to the public, through his licensing agreement and promotional materials, that he is the exclusive owner of all intellectual property rights associated with NLP, and maintains the exclusive authority to determine membership in and certification in the Society of NLP."^[92]^[93]
In December 1997, Tony Clarkson instituted civil proceedings against Bandler to have Bandler's UK trademark of NLP revoked. The Court found in favor of Clarkson; Bandler's trademark was subsequently revoked.^[94]^[95]
By the end of 2000, Bandler and Grinder entered a release where they agreed, amongst other things, that "they are the co-creators and co-founders of the technology of Neuro-linguistic Programming" and "mutually agree to refrain from disparaging each other's efforts, in any fashion, concerning their respective involvement in the field of NeuroLinguistic Programming." ^[96]
As a consequence of these disputes and settlements, the names NLP and Neuro-linguistic Programming are not owned by any party and there is no restriction on any party offering NLP certification.^[97]^[98]^[99]^[100]^[101]

Associations, certification, and practitioner standards

The names NLP and Neuro-linguistic Programming are not owned by any person or organisation, they are not trademarked intellectual property^[102]^[103] and there is no central regulating authority for NLP instruction and certification.^[101]^[104] There is no restriction on who can describe themselves as an NLP Master Practitioner or NLP Master Trainer and there are a multitude of certifying associations;^[105] this has led Devilly (2005) to describe such training and certifying associations as granfalloons, i.e. proud and meaningless associations of human beings.^[19]
There is great variation in the depth and breadth of training and standards of practitioners, and some disagreement between those in the field about which patterns are, or are not, actual NLP.^[18]^[106] NLP is an open field of training with no "official" best practice. With different authors, individual trainers and practitioners having developed their own methods, concepts and labels, often branding them as NLP,^[83] the training standards and quality differ greatly.^[107] In 2009, a British television presenter was able to register his pet cat as a member of the British Board of Neuro Linguistic Programming (BBNLP), which subsequently claimed that it existed only to provide benefits to its members and not to certify credentials.^[108]
According to Peter Schütz, the length of training in Europe varies from two to three days for the hobbyist and 35 to 40 days over at least nine months to achieve a professional level of competence. He says that the multiplicity and general lack of controls has led to difficulty discerning the comparative level of competence, skill and attitude in different NLP trainings and has resulted in NLP becoming associated with alleged cults such as Scientology and labeled in unfavorable political ways ("nazilinguistic programming").^[107] Sociologists such as Hunt^[109] and Barrett,^[110] describe NLP as an example of a development within the sociology of religion. Hunt (2003) says that NLP is an alternative to Scientology and also similar to some eastern religions which follow a lineage of gurus. Barrett (1998) also describes NLP as a human potential development within the categories of cults, sects and new alternative religion.

COLLABORATING

Collaboration is working with each other to do a task.^[1] It is a recursive^[2] process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, (this is more than the intersection of common goals seen in co-operative ventures, but a deep, collective, determination to reach an identical objective^{[by whom?]}^{[original research?]}) — for example, an endeavor^[3]^[4] that is creative in nature^[5]—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. Most collaboration requires leadership, although the form of leadership can be social within a decentralized and egalitarian group.^[6] In particular, teams that work collaboratively can obtain greater resources, recognition and reward when facing competition for finite resources.^[7] Collaboration is also present in opposing goals exhibiting the notion of adversarial collaboration, though this is not a common case for using the word.
Structured methods of collaboration encourage introspection of behavior and communication.^[6] These methods specifically aim to increase the success of teams as they engage in collaborative problem solving. Forms, rubrics, charts and graphs are useful in these situations to objectively document personal traits with the goal of improving performance in current and future projects.
Since the Second World War the term "Collaboration" acquired a very negative meaning as referring to persons and groups which help a foreign occupier of their country—due to actual use by people in European countries who worked with and for the Nazi German occupiers. Linguistically, "collaboration" implies more or less equal partners who work together—which is obviously not the case when one party is an army of occupation and the other are people of the occupied country living under the power of this army.
In order to make a distinction, the more specific term Collaborationism is often used for this phenomenon of collaboration with an occupying army. However, there is no water-tight distinction; "Collaboration" and "Collaborator", as well as "Collaborationism" and "Collaborationist", are often used in this pejorative sense—and even more so, the equivalent terms in French and other languages spoken in countries which experienced direct Nazi occupation.

Classical examples of collaboration

Following are some examples of successful collaboration efforts in the past.

Trade

The trade of goods is an economic activity providing mutual benefit

Trade originated with the start of communication in prehistoric times. Trading was the main facility of prehistoric people, who bartered goods and services from each other when there was no such thing as the modern day currency. Peter Watson dates the history of long-distance commerce from circa 150,000 years ago.^[8] Trade exists for many reasons. Due to specialisation and division of labor, most people concentrate on a small aspect of production, trading for other products. Trade exists between regions because different regions have a comparative advantage in the production of some tradable commodity, or because different regions' size allows for the benefits of mass production. As such, trade at market prices between locations benefits both locations.

Community organization

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Organization and cooperation between community members provides economic and social benefits

Main article: intentional community

The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political or spiritual vision. They also share responsibilities and resources. Intentional communities include cohousing, residential land trusts, ecovillages, communes, kibbutzim, ashrams, and housing cooperatives. Typically, new members of an intentional community are selected by the community's existing membership, rather than by real-estate agents or land owners (if the land is not owned by the community).

Hutterite, Austria (16th century): Housing units are built and assigned to individual families but belong to the colony and there is very little personal property. Meals are taken by the entire colony in a common long room.

Oneida Community, Oneida, New York (1848): The Oneida Community practiced Communalism (in the sense of communal property and possessions) and Mutual Criticism, where every member of the community was subject to criticism by committee or the community as a whole, during a general meeting. The goal was to eliminate bad character traits.

Early Kibbutz settlements founded near Jerusalem (1890): A Kibbutz is an Israeli collective community. The movement combines socialism and Zionism in a form of practical Labor Zionism, founded at a time when independent farming was not practical or perhaps more correctly—not practicable. Forced by necessity into communal life, and inspired by their own ideology, the kibbutz members developed a pure communal mode of living that attracted interest from the entire world. While the kibbutzim lasted for several generations as utopian communities, most of today's kibbutzim are scarcely different from the capitalist enterprises and regular towns to which the kibbutzim were originally supposed to be alternatives.^{[citation needed]}

Game theory

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Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics and economics that looks at situations where multiple players make decisions in an attempt to maximize their returns. The first documented discussion of it is a letter written by James Waldegrave, 1st Earl Waldegrave in 1713. Antoine Augustin Cournot's Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth in 1838 provided the first general theory. It was not until 1928 that this became a recognized, unique field when John von Neumann published a series of papers. Von Neumann's work in game theory culminated in the 1944 book The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior by von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern.

Military-industrial complex

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The term military-industrial complex refers to a close and symbiotic relationship among a nation's armed forces, its private industry, and associated political and commercial interests. In such a system, the military is dependent on industry to supply material and other support, while the defense industry depends on government for revenue.

Skunk Works: Skunk Works is a term used in engineering and technical fields to describe a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, tasked with working on advanced or secret projects. Founded at Lockheed Martin in 1943, the team developed highly innovative aircraft in short time frames, even beating its first deadline by 37 days.^[9] Creator of the organization, Kelly Johnson is said to have been an 'organizing genius' and had fourteen basic operating rules.^[9]
Manhattan Project: The Manhattan Project was the project to develop the first nuclear weapon (atomic bomb) during World War II by the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Formally designated as the Manhattan Engineer District, it refers specifically to the period of the project from 1941–1946 under the control of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, under the administration of General Leslie R. Groves. The scientific research was directed by American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.; While the aforementioned persons were influential in the project itself, the value of this project as an influence on organized collaboration is better attributed to Vannevar Bush.^[9] In early 1940, Bush lobbied for the creation of the National Defense Research Committee. Frustrated by previous bureaucratic failures in implementing technology in World War I, Bush sought to organize the scientific power of the United States for greater success.^[9]; The project succeeded in developing and detonating three nuclear weapons in 1945: a test detonation of a plutonium implosion bomb on July 16 (the Trinity test) near Alamogordo, New Mexico; an enriched uranium bomb code-named "Little Boy" on August 6 over Hiroshima, Japan; and a second plutonium bomb, code-named "Fat Man" on August 9 over Nagasaki, Japan.

Project management

The 2,751 Liberty ships built in four years by the United States during World War II required new approaches in organization and manufacturing

As a discipline, Project Management developed from different fields of application including construction, engineering, and defense. In the United States, the forefather of project management is Henry Gantt, called the father of planning and control techniques, who is famously known for his use of the "bar" chart as a project management tool, for being an associate of Frederick Winslow Taylor's theories of scientific management, and for his study of the work and management of Navy ship building. His work is the forerunner to many modern project management tools including the work breakdown structure (WBS) and resource allocation.
The 1950s marked the beginning of the modern project management era. Again, in the United States, prior to the 1950s, projects were managed on an ad hoc basis using mostly Gantt charts, and informal techniques and tools. At that time, two mathematical project scheduling models were developed: (1) the "Program Evaluation and Review Technique" or PERT, developed as part of the United States Navy's (in conjunction with the Lockheed Corporation) Polaris missile submarine program;^[10] and (2) the "Critical Path Method" (CPM) developed in a joint venture by both DuPont Corporation and Remington Rand Corporation for managing plant maintenance projects. These mathematical techniques quickly spread into many private enterprises.
In 1969, the Project Management Institute (PMI) was formed to serve the interest of the project management industry. The premise of PMI is that the tools and techniques of project management are common even among the widespread application of projects from the software industry to the construction industry. In 1981, the PMI Board of Directors authorized the development of what has become A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), containing the standards and guidelines of practice that are widely used throughout the profession. The International Project Management Association (IPMA), founded in Europe in 1967, has undergone a similar development and instituted the IPMA Project Baseline. Both organizations are now participating in the development of a global project management standard.

Academia

Black Mountain College: Founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier and other former faculty of Rollins College, Black Mountain was experimental by nature and committed to an interdisciplinary approach, attracting a faculty which included many of America's leading visual artists, poets, and designers.; Operating in a relatively isolated rural location with little budget, Black Mountain College inculcated an informal and collaborative spirit, and over its lifetime attracted a venerable roster of instructors. Some of the innovations, relationships and unexpected connections formed at Black Mountain would prove to have a lasting influence on the postwar American art scene, high culture, and eventually pop culture. Buckminster Fuller met student Kenneth Snelson at Black Mountain, and the result was the first geodesic dome (improvised out of slats in the school's back yard); Merce Cunningham formed his dance company; and John Cage staged his first happening.; Not a haphazardly conceived venture, Black Mountain College was a consciously directed liberal arts school that grew out of the progressive education movement. In its day it was a unique educational experiment for the artists and writers who conducted it, and as such an important incubator for the American avant garde. Black Mountain proved to be an important precursor to and prototype for many of the alternative colleges of today ranging from the University of California, Santa Cruz to Hampshire College and Evergreen State College, among others.

Learning Community

The Evergreen signature clock tower

Dr. Wolff-Michael Roth and Stuart Lee of the University of Victoria assert^[11] that until the early 1990s the individual was the 'unit of instruction' and the focus of research. The two observed that researchers and practitioners switched^[12]^[13] to the idea that knowing is 'better' thought of as a cultural practice.^[14]^[15]^[16]^[17] Roth and Lee also claim^[11] that this led to changes in learning and teaching design in which students were encouraged to share their ways of doing mathematics, history, science, with each other. In other words, that children take part in the construction of consensual domains, and 'participate in the negotiation and institutionalisation of … meaning'. In effect, they are participating in learning communities.

This analysis does not take account of the appearance of Learning communities in the United States in the early 1980s. For example, The Evergreen State College, which is widely considered a pioneer in this area, established an intercollegiate learning community in 1984. In 1985, this same college established The Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education, which focuses on collaborative education approaches, including learning communities as one of its centerpieces.

Classical music

Main article: Classical music written in collaboration

Although relatively rare compared with collaboration in popular music, there have been some notable examples of music written in collaboration between classical composers. Perhaps the best-known examples are:

Hexameron, a set of variations for solo piano on a theme from Vincenzo Bellini's opera I puritani. It was written and first performed in 1837. The contributors were Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, Carl Czerny, Sigismond Thalberg, Johann Peter Pixis, and Henri Herz.
The F-A-E Sonata, a sonata for violin and piano, written in 1853 as a gift for the violinist Joseph Joachim. The composers were Albert Dietrich (first movement), Robert Schumann (second and fourth movements), and Johannes Brahms (third movement).

Contemporary examples

Arts

A piece of collaborative art created by students in Currier House at Harvard University

Collaboration—or joint production by two or more artists—is a common style among musicians and performance artists. It has not been so popular, on the other hand, in the world of art, and especially in modern art. But the strong sense of individualism long possessed by artists of fine art began to wane around the 1960s, and some artists working in units have emerged and become widely known along with the development of new media based on the advances in information technology. They have changed the concept of art into something that can be engaged in by more than individual artists alone.

Art groups

Fluxus: An international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. Fluxus encouraged a do it yourself aesthetic, and valued simplicity over complexity. Like Dada before it, Fluxus included a strong current of anti-commercialism and an anti-art sensibility, disparaging the conventional market-driven art world in favor of an artist-centered creative practice. As Fluxus artist Robert Filliou wrote, however, Fluxus differed from Dada in its richer set of aspirations, and the positive social and communitarian aspirations of Fluxus far outweighed the anti-art tendency that also marked.

Just Buffalo Literary Center, CEPA Gallery, and Big Orbit are three nonprofit arts organizations in Buffalo, New York, that have shared space and certain administrative functions since 2005. Just Buffalo offers an array of literary arts and arts-in-education programs. CEPA Gallery presents contemporary photo-related art and supports working artists. And Big Orbit has an art gallery and programs in the fields of experimental theater, literary performance, new music and sound art.
Once they co-located their administrative offices they quickly started to realize a number of advantages. Financial savings was an obvious one (they share equipment, a software contract, phone and Internet services and more). Physical proximity also helped the three executives develop a strong sense of trust and respect, and they soon looked for other ways to collaborate, such as hiring a shared grant writer who brings in grants for all three organizations.
There have been many benefits: financial savings because of their shared space, increased donations, and improved artistic programming. Beyond the tangible benefits, there are important intangibles. The agency directors share information and ideas, and they coordinate mailings. Perhaps most important, the organizations have increased their creativity; being in the same space has led to a "think tank" atmosphere. One of the three directors notes that "We work so closely … it's helped us come up with new thinking to expand our capacity and create a built-in brain trust and support system for problem solving and practical help."

Situationist International: The Situationist International (SI) was a small group of international political and artistic agitators with roots in Marxism, Lettrism and the early 20th century European artistic and political avant-gardes. Formed in 1957, the SI was active in Europe through the 1960s and aspired to major social and political transformations. In the 1960s it split into a number of different groups, including the Situationist Bauhaus, the Antinational and the Second Situationist International. The first SI disbanded in 1972.^[18]

See also Experiments in Art and Technology, Dada and Colab.

Ballet

Ballet is, almost always, by nature a collaborative art form. Ballet needs music, it needs dancers, it needs costumes, a venue, lighting, etc. Hypothetically, one person could control all of this. But most often, every work of ballet is the by product of collaboration. From the earliest formal works of ballet, to the great 19th century masterpieces of Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa, to the 20th century masterworks of George Balanchine and Igor Stravinsky, to today’s ballet companies, such as New York’s BalletCollective, feature strong collaborative connections between choreographers, composers and costume designers are essential. Within dance as an art form, there is also the collaboration between choreographer and dancer. The choreographer creates a movement in her/his head and then physically demonstrates the movement to the dancer, which the dancer sees and attempts to either mimic or interpret - two or more people striving for a connected goal.

Business

Collaboration in business can be found both inter- and intra-organization^[19] and ranges from the simplicity of a partnership and crowd funding to the complexity of a multinational corporation. Collaboration between public, private and voluntary sectors can be effective in tackling complex policy problems, but may be handled more effectively by committed boundary-spanning teams and networks than by formal organizational structures.^[20] Collaboration between team members allows for better communication within the organization and throughout the supply chains. It is a way of coordinating different ideas from numerous people to generate a wide variety of knowledge. Collaboration with a selected few firms as opposed to collaboration with a large number of different firms has been shown to positively impact firm performance and innovation outcomes.^[21] The recent improvement in technology has provided the world with high speed internet, wireless connection, and web-based collaboration tools like blogs, and wikis, and has as such created a "mass collaboration." People from all over the world are efficiently able to communicate and share ideas through the internet, or even conferences, without any geographical barriers. The power of social networks it beginning to permeate into business culture where many collaborative uses are being found including file sharing and knowledge transfer.
See also : Management cybernetics
A plethora of studies have shown that collaboration can be a powerful tool towards higher achievement and increased productivity since collective efficacy can significantly boost groups’ aspirations, motivational investment, morale, and resilience to challenges.^[22] However, a four-year study of interorganizational collaboration by Fischer and colleagues at the University of Oxford, found that successful collaboration can be rapidly derailed through external policy steering, particularly where it undermines relations built on trust.^[23] ^[24]

Education

Generally defined, an Educational Collaborative Partnership is ongoing involvement between schools and business/industry, unions, governments and community organizations. Educational Collaborative Partnerships are established by mutual agreement between two or more parties to work together on projects and activities that will enhance the quality of education for students while improving skills critical to success in the workplace.^{[by whom?]}
Collaboration in Education- two or more co-equal individual voluntarily brings their knowledge and experience together by interacting toward a common goal in the best interest of students for the betterment of their education success. Students achieve team building and communication skills meeting many curricular standards. Students have the ability to practice real-world communication experiences. Students gain leadership through collaboration and empowers peer to peer learning.^{[third-party source needed]}
When collaborating in education, according to ISTE NEST-S and NEST-T standards, there is cultural understanding by engaging learners with other cultures and develop technology in enriched learning environments.^{[third-party source needed]}
Societal changes that have taken place over the past few decades allows new ways of conceptualizing collaboration, and to understand the evolution and expansion of these types of relationships. For example, economic changes that have taken place domestically and internationally have resulted in the transformation from an industry-dependent economy to an information-centered economy that is dependent on new technologies and expansion of industries that provide services.^[25] From an educational standpoint, such transformations were projected through federal reports, such as A Nation at Risk in 1983 and What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future in 1996. In these reports, economic success could be assured if students developed the capacity to learn how to “manage teams… and…work together successfully in teams”.^[26]
The continuing development of Web 2.0 technologies, such as wikis, blogs, multiplayer games, online communities, and Twitter, among others, has changed the manner in which students communicate and collaborate.
See also :

Music

Main article: Classical music written in collaboration

Musical collaboration occurs when musicians in different places or groups work on the same album or song. Collaboration between musicians, especially with regards to jazz, is often heralded as the epitome of complex collaborative practice. Special websites as well as software have been created to facilitate musical collaboration over the Internet resulting in the emergence of Online Bands.
Several awards exist specifically for collaboration in music:

Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals—awarded since 1988
Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals—awarded since 1995
Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration—awarded since 2002

Entertainment

Collaboration in entertainment is a relatively new phenomenon brought on with the advent of social media, reality TV, and video sharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo. Collaboration occurs when writers, directors, actors, producers and other individuals or groups work on the same television show, short film, or feature length film. A revolutionary system has been developed by Will Wright for the production of the TV series title Bar Karma on CurrentTV. Special web-based software, titled Storymaker, has been written to facilitate plot collaboration over the Internet. Organizations such as Orange County Screenwriters Association bring together professional and amateur writers and filmmakers in a collaborative manner for entertainment development.

Publishing

Collaboration in publishing can be as simple as dual-authorship or as complex as commons-based peer production. Technological examples include Usenet, e-mail lists, blogs and Wikis while 'brick and mortar' examples include monographs (books) and periodicals such as newspapers, journals and magazines.

Science

Though there is no political institution organizing the sciences on an international level, a self-organized, global network had formed in the late 20th century.^[7] Observed by the rise in co-authorships in published papers, Wagner and Leydesdorff found international collaborations to have doubled from 1990 to 2005.^[7] While collaborative authorships within nations has also risen, this has done so at a slower rate and is not cited as frequently.^[7]

Medicine

In medicine the physician assistant - physician relationship involves a collaborative plan to be on file with each state board of medicine where the PA works. This plan formally delineates the scope of practice approved by the physician.

Technology

Due to the complexity of today's business environment, collaboration in technology encompasses a broad range of tools that enable groups of people to work together including social networking, instant messaging, team spaces, web sharing, audio conferencing, video, and telephony. Broadly defined, any technology that facilitates linking of two or more humans to work together can be considered a collaborative tool. Wikipedia, Blogs, even Twitter are collaborative tools. Many large companies are developing enterprise collaboration strategies and standardizing on a collaboration platform to allow their employees, customers and partners to intelligently connect and interact.
Enterprise collaboration tools are centered around attaining collective intelligence and staff collaboration at the organization level, or with partners. These include features such as staff networking, expert recommendations, information sharing, expertise location, peer feedback, and real-time collaboration. At the personal level, this enables employees to enhance social awareness and their profiles and interactions Collaboration encompasses both asynchronous and synchronous methods of communication and serves as an umbrella term for a wide variety of software packages. Perhaps the most commonly associated form of synchronous collaboration is web conferencing using tools such as Cisco TelePresence, Cisco WebEx Meetings, HP Halo Telepresence Solutions, GoToMeeting Web Conferencing, or Microsoft Live Meeting, but the term can easily be applied to IP telephony, instant messaging, and rich video interaction with telepresence, as well. Examples of asynchronous collaboration software include Cisco WebEx Connect, GoToMeeting, Microsoft Sharepoint and MediaWiki.
The effectiveness of a collaborative effort is driven by three critical factors: - Communication - Content Management - Workflow control

t: The low cost and nearly instantaneous sharing of ideas, knowledge, and skills has made collaborative work dramatically easier. Not only can a group cheaply communicate and test, but the wide reach of the Internet allows such groups to easily form in the first place, even among niche interests. An example of this is the free software movement in software development which produced GNU and Linux from scratch and has taken over development of Mozilla and OpenOffice.org (formerly known as Netscape Communicator and StarOffice).
Commons-based peer production: Commons-based peer production is a term coined by Yale's Law professor Yochai Benkler to describe a new model of economic production in which the creative energy of large numbers of people is coordinated (usually with the aid of the internet) into large, meaningful projects, mostly without traditional hierarchical organization or financial compensation. He compares this to firm production (where a centralized decision process decides what has to be done and by whom) and market-based production (when tagging different prices to different jobs serves as an attractor to anyone interested in doing the job).; Examples of products created by means of commons-based peer production include Linux, a computer operating system; Slashdot, a news and announcements website; Kuro5hin, a discussion site for technology and culture; Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia; and Clickworkers, a collaborative scientific work. Another example is Socialtext which is a software that uses tools such as wikis and weblogs and helps companies to create a collaborative work environment.

Massively distributed collaboration: The term massively distributed collaboration was coined by Mitchell Kapor, in a presentation at UC Berkeley on 2005-11-09, to describe an emerging activity of wikis and electronic mailing lists and blogs and other content-creating virtual communities online.

NATURAL APPROACH

The natural approach is a method of language teaching developed by Stephen Krashen and Tracy Terrell in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It aims to foster naturalistic language acquisition in a classroom setting, and to this end it emphasises communication, and places decreased importance on conscious grammar study and explicit correction of student errors. Efforts are also made to make the learning environment as stress-free as possible. In the natural approach, language output is not forced, but allowed to emerge spontaneously after students have attended to large amounts of comprehensible language input.
The natural approach has become closely associated with Krashen's monitor model, and it is often seen as an application of the theory to language teaching. Despite this perception, there are some differences, particularly Terrell's view that some degree of conscious grammar study can be beneficial. The syllabus focuses on activities which Terrell sees as promoting subconscious language acquisition. He divides these activities into four main areas: content activities, such as learning a new subject in the target language; activities which focus on personalizing language, such as students sharing their favorite music; games; and problem-solving activities.

Background
The natural approach was originally created in 1977 by Terrell, a Spanish teacher in California, who wished to develop a style of teaching based on the findings of naturalistic studies of second-language acquisition.^[1]^[2] After the original formulation, Terrell worked with Krashen to further develop the theoretical aspects of the method. Terrell and Krashen published the results of their collaboration in the 1983 book The Natural Approach.^[1]
The natural approach was strikingly different from the mainstream approach in the United States in the 1970s and early 1980s, the audio-lingual method. While the audio-lingual method prized drilling and error correction, these things disappeared almost entirely from the natural approach.^[3] Terrell and Krashen themselves characterized the natural approach as a "traditional" method^[1] and contrasted it with grammar-based approaches, which they characterized as new inventions that had "misled" teachers.^[4]
The natural approach shares many features with the direct method (itself also known as the "natural method"), which was formulated around 1900 and was also a reaction to grammar-translation.^[5] Both the natural approach and the direct method are based on the idea of enabling naturalistic language acquisition in the language classroom; they differ in that the natural approach puts less emphasis on practice and more on exposure to language input and on reducing learners' anxiety.^[5]

Outline
The aim of the natural approach is to develop communicative skills,^[] and it is primarily intended to be used with beginning learners. It is presented as a set of principles that can apply to a wide range of learners and teaching situations, and concrete objectives depend on the specific context in which it is used.Terrell outlines three basic principles of the approach:
- "Focus of instruction is on communication rather than its form."
- "Speech production comes slowly and is never forced."
- "Early speech goes through natural stages (yes or no response, one- word answers, lists of words, short phrases, complete sentences.)"
These principles result in classrooms where the teacher emphasizes interesting, comprehensible input and low-anxiety situations. Lessons in the natural approach focus on understanding messages in the foreign language, and place little or no importance on error correction, drilling or on conscious learning of grammar rules They also emphasize learning of a wide vocabulary base over learning new grammatical structures. In addition, teachers using the natural approach aim to create situations in the classroom that are intrinsically motivating for students.
Terrell sees learners going through three stages in their acquisition of speech: comprehension, early speech, and speech emergence. In the comprehension stage Terrell focuses on students' vocabulary knowledge. His aim is to make the vocabulary stick in students' long term memory, a process which he calls binding. Terrell sees some techniques as more binding than others; for example, the use of gestures or actions, such as in Total Physical Response, is seen to be more binding than the use of translation.
According to Terrell, students' speech will only emerge after enough language has been bound through communicative input. When this occurs, the learners enter the early speech stage. In this stage, students answer simple questions, use single words and set phrases, and fill in simple charts in the foreign language. In the speech emergence stage, students take part in activities requiring more advanced language, such as role-plays and problem-solving activities.

Theory
Although Terrell originally created the natural approach without relying on a particular theoretical model, his subsequent collaboration with Krashen has meant that the method is often seen as an application to language teaching of Krashen's monitor model. Krashen outlined five hypotheses in his model:
1. The acquisition-learning hypothesis. This states that there is a strict separation between conscious learning of language and subconscious acquisition of language, and that only acquisition can lead to fluent language use.
2. The monitor hypothesis. This states that language knowledge that is consciously learned can only be used to monitor output, not to generate new language. Monitoring output requires learners to be focused on the rule and to have time to apply it.^[4]
3. The input hypothesis. This states that language is acquired by exposure to comprehensible input at a level a little higher than that the learner can already understand. Krashen names this kind of input "i+1".^[4]
4. The natural order hypothesis. This states that learners acquire the grammatical features of a language in a fixed order, and that this is not affected by instruction.^[4]
5. The affective filter hypothesis. This states that learners must be relaxed and open to learning in order for language to be acquired. Learners who are nervous or distressed may not learn features in the input that more relaxed learners would pick up with little effort.
Despite its basis in Krashen's theory, the natural approach does not adhere to the theory strictly. In particular, Terrell perceives a greater role for the conscious learning of grammar than Krashen. Krashen's monitor hypothesis contends that conscious learning has no effect on learners' ability to generate novel language, whereas Terrell is of the opinion that some conscious learning of grammar rules can be beneficial

Syllabus
Terrell outlines four categories of classroom activities that can facilitate language acquisition (as opposed to language learning):
- "Content (culture, subject matter, new information, reading, e.g. teacher tells interesting anecdote involving contrast between target and native culture.)"^[11]
- "Affective-humanistic (students' own ideas, opinions, experiences, e.g. students are asked to share personal preferences as to music, places to live, clothes, hair styles, etc.)"^[11]
- "Games [focus on using language to participate in the game, e.g. 20 questions: I, the teacher, am thinking of an object in this room. You, students, have twenty questions to guess object. Typical questions: is it clothing? (yes) is it for a man or a woman? (woman) is it a skirt? (yes) is it brown? (yes) is it Ellen's skirt? (yes)]"^[11]
- "Problem solving (focus on using language to locate information, use information, etc., e.g. looking at this listing of films in the newspaper, and considering the different tastes and schedule needs in the group, which film would be appropriate for all of us to attend, and when?)
Reception
The natural approach enjoyed much popularity with language teachers, particularly with Spanish teachers in the United States, Markee (1997) puts forward four reasons for the success of the method. First, she says that the method was simple to understand, despite the complex nature of the research involved. Second, it was also compatible with the knowledge about second-language acquisition at the time. Third, Krashen stressed that teachers should be free to try the method, and that it could go alongside their existing classroom practices. Finally, Krashen demonstrated the method to many teachers' groups, so that they could see how it would work in practice.

SELF DIRECTED LEARNING
Self-directed learning is not a new concept. In fact, much has been written about it. Unfortunately, however, it is a notion that has a variety of interpretations and applications in the corporate training arena. Typical, narrow interpretations involve simply giving learners some sort of choice in their learning. For example, allowing learners to select one or more courses from a curriculum, or, in cases of structured on-the-job training, allowing employees to choose what pre-designed modules (e.g., a video tape, workbook, special reading, etc.) to complete. In terms of e-learning, the fact that learners can determine which modules or scenarios to review is also frequently touted as self-directed learning.The fact that the learner has a choice and makes a decision to select this or that module does not constitute true self-directed learning.
This interpretation is too limited. Self-directed learning is much more. Using the analogy of taking a trip, the narrow interpretation of SDL is equivalent to selecting where to go, i.e., the destination. The essence of the notion of self-directed learning advocated here, however, is broader, more fundamental. It is about the learner deciding not just where to take a trip but how they will go (both the means of transportation as well as route), when they will leave, how they will get there and how long they will stay.
Essentially, the notion of SDL advocated here reflects Malcolm Knowles definition of SDL:
“In its broadest meaning, ’self-directed learning’ describes a process by which individuals take the initiative, with our without the assistance of others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identify human and material resources for learning, choosing and implement appropriate learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes.” (Knowles, 1975, p. 18)
Of primary concern in this definition of SDL is the fact the learner takes 1) the initiative to pursue a learning experience, and 2) the responsibility for completing their learning. Once the initiative is taken, the learner assumes complete responsibility and accountability for defining the learning experience and following it through to its conclusion. This does not preclude input from others, but the final decision is the learner’s. Self-direction does not mean the learner learns alone or in isolation. While, that may be the case in any given learning situation, the critical factor here, again, is the fact the learner is driving the total learning experience, beginning with recognizing a need to learn.

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