COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING (CLL)
Community Language Learning (CLL): is the name of a method developedby Charles A. Curran and his associates. Community Language Learningdraws on the counseling metaphor to redefine the roles of the teacher(the counselor) and learners (the clients) in the language classroom.
CLL procedures:
- A group of learners sit in a circle with the teacher standing outside the circle.
- A student whispers a message in the native language (L1).
- The teacher translates it into the foreign language (L2).
- The student repeats the messages in the foreign language into a cassette.
- Students compose further massages in the foreign language with the teacher's help.
- Students reflect about their feelings.
APPROACH
A. Theory of Language
The social process view of language is elaborated in terms of six qualities or sub processes:
1. The whole person process.
2. The educational process.
3. The interpersonal process.
4. The developmental process.
5. The communicative process.
6. The cultural process.
B. Theory of Learning
CLL advocates a holistic approach to language learning. this is termed as “whole person learning.” this process is divided into five stages and compared to the onto genetic development of the child.
1. Birth stage.
2. Independent stage.
3. Learner as secure enough to take criticism.
4. Improving style and knowledge.
5. Learner as adult.
Types of learning and teaching activities
CLL combines innovative learning tasks and conventional activities
1. Translation: Ss ask in native lang. T translates to target lang.
2. Small/pair group: discuss a topic, a dialogue or a story.
3. Recording: Ss record the dialogue in target lang.
4. Transcribing: Ss transcribe the dialogue in target language in written form.
5. Analyzing: Ssanalyze the written dialogue in target lang.
6. Reflection and observation: Ss reflect what have learned in the classroom and make an oral report, including express their feelings.
7. Listening: Ss listen to T’s monologue.
8. Free conversation: Ss and T or other Ss can free talk or exchange experience.
Learner Roles
• CLL learners are typically grouped in a circle of 6-12 learners, with the number of knowers varying from one per group to one per student
• Being a member of the community
• Listening carefully
• Telling messages independently
• Repeating messages without any hesitation
• Expressing feelings, frustration
• Being counselor of other learners
Teacher roles
Encourage
Supporter
Monitoring relationship
Politely criticizer
Adviser
Advantages of CLL
• Learners appreciate the autonomy
• Students determine content
• Safe environment
• Give responsibility to the students
• Allow students to look back and analyze their utterances
Disadvantages
- Inductive learning in the early stage of language learning is not effective and less successful.
- The learners-teacher can become too non-directive.
- Translation is an intricate and difficult task.