The principles of Community Language Learning:
- the teacher is a counsellor who recognizes how threatening a new learning situation can be for adult learners so he understands and supports his students in their struggle to acquire the target language;
- the student-teacher interaction in the Community Language Learning method changes within the lesson and over time, this method is neither student nor teacher centred but; rather teacher-student centred, with both being decision makers in the class; building a relationship with and among students is very important;
- where possible, literal native equivalents are given to the target language words that have been transcribed, this makes their meaning clear and allows students to combine the target language words to create new sentences;
- active vocabulary is very important as conversations in the target language can replace native language conversations;
- the focus shifts from grammar to sentence formation, language is for communication;
- pronunciation is developed by reading out loud;
- culture is integrated with language;
- the most important skills are the receptive ones and speaking the language, reading and writing are worked on;
- whatever evaluation is conducted it should be in keeping with the principles of the method, a classroom test should be more of an integrative test than a discrete point one, students are asked to write a paragraph rather than being asked to answer a question which deals with only one point of the language at a time; students often self-evaluate to become aware of their own progress;
- errors are corrected in a non threatening way, the teacher repeats correctly what the student has said incorrectly;
- the syllabus is designed primarily by the students.