1 Learning processes
The fundamental question is 'What learning processes should be fostered?'
This is dearly central for all concerned, from curriculum developers to the
learners themselves.
2 Activities
The next question is 'What activities, or what learning tasks, will best
activate the chosen processes, for what elements of content?' A less deterministic
version of this question might be 'What activities or learning tasks
will offer a wide choice of learning processes to the learner, in relation to a
wide variety of content options?' This amendment suggests, I think
correctly, that we can neither predict nor determine learning processes, and
therefore perhaps should not try as hard to do so as we usually do in our
teaching materials.
3 Activity management
The third basic question is 'How can we manage these activities (set up
group work, run simulations, etc.) so that they are maximally profitable?'
(i.e. minimizing the management risks discussed in Allwright, 1978): for
example, who will work best with whom, how long can be allowed for any
particular activity. Such questions may be the subject of suggestions in
teaching materials, but detailed local decisions are clearly beyond the scope
of publications.
Again we come up against die fact diat teaching materials are necessarily
limited in scope. They can, and do, contribute to the management of
language learning, but cannot possibly cope widi many of the important
decisions facing the 'managers' working in their various situations.
Guidance I am using the term 'guidance' to refer to all those things that can be
expected to help people understand what they are doing and how well they
are doing it. The scope of die term dius ranges from the provision of a fullscale
grammatical explanation, to die mere nod from a teacher to signify
acceptance of a learner's pronunciation. It also covers, of course, guidance
about mediod (e.g. instructions for a simulation) as well as about content,
and guidance about appropriate standards of attainment. These are major
issues in die management of language learning, involving decisions, for
example, about die most helpful type of explanadon to offer for given
aspects of die language, and about die type of error treatment diat will help
an individual learner.
Clearly, in die circumstances, there is again a limit to what teaching
materials can be expected to do for us.
This analysis has quite deliberately been presented widiout raising the
important quesdon of'who should do what'. That we can cover in die next
section. Meanwhile, die analysis should have reinforced any doubts diere
might have been about the viability of 'teacher-proof teaching materials!
The whole business of die management of language learning is far too
complex to be satisfactorily catered for by a pre-packaged set of decisions
embodied in teaching materials. This is obvious if we recognize that, while
teaching materials may embody decisions, diey cannot diemselves undertake the
action and die review phases of die management process. Of course very few
writers actually claim diat dieir teaching materials can do everything, but a
surprising number do state diat dieir materials are entirely suitable for the
learner working neidier widi a teacher nor widi fellow learners, and diis
implies strong claims for what die materials can do. In turn it suggests a
possible need for a 'learner's guide' to language learning, of which more