PRINCIPLES OF INTERACTIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

WILGA M. RIVERS HARVARD UNIVERSITY

As fashions in language teaching come and go, the teacher in the classroom needs reassurance that there is some bedrock beneath the shifting sands. Once solidly founded on the bedrock, like the sea anemone the teacher can sway to the rhythms of any tides or currents, without the trauma of being swept away purposelessly. It is fun to sway to new rhythms, but as we ourselves choose, not under the pressure of outsiders who do not understand the complexities of our situation. Teachers need the stimulation of new thinking and new techniques to keep a fresh and lively approach to their teaching, but without losing their grip on enduring truths of learning and teaching that have proved to be basic to effective language experiences.

I have tried to distill this central core, as I see it, in the form of Ten Principles of Interactive Language Learning and Teaching, which attempt to capture in simple language what teachers in different approaches have found to be the essential facilitators of learning. These basic principles provide teachers with a yardstick against which to evaluate new proposals as they appear _ to help them delve beneath the surface features of exciting new theories, techniques, and learning aids, to separate chaff, exciting as it may be to play with, from the germinative grain, and to decide how much of their established practice can be sacrificed to the new without loss of learning efficacy. With this firm foundation, teachers are liberated from group pressures to yield unthinkingly to whichever winds of change are sweeping through their professional field at a particular time, and are empowered to develop and strengthen their own ways of proceeding in relation to the needs and individual strengths of their students in a particular context. They may find new trends fully consistent with their basic philosophy and enthusiastically endorse them, or, not being fully convinced, they may prefer to pick and choose from what is proposed, selecting what is compatible with their own approach and rejecting what they do not see as conducive to effective language learning in their present situation. In this way the teacher is in control, making his or her own decisions, which will vary with changing circumstances, experimenting judiciously and observing in practice what is effective and what is not for his or her own students.

An explication of the Ten Principles will help the teacher distinguish between what is fundamental and what is expendable. These principles are elaborated as principles of teaching and learning because the two activities are viewed as two aspects of one reciprocal process: the teacher's work is to foster an environment in which effective language learning may develop. In so doing the teacher experiences what Seneca observed, namely, that "while we teach we learn." [1] The teacher is a learner and the learner is a teacher. In the words of an old proverb the person "who is too old to learn is too old to teach." This reciprocal relationship is vividly demonstrated by the use in a number of languages of a single verb form to express the concepts of both teaching and learning. In French, for instance, we can say: Elle apprend le poème; je lui apprends le poème (She learns the poem; I teach her the poem), and the same usage is found in some dialects of English. The relationship between teaching and learning is well represented by De Saussure's metaphor of the piece of paper: if you cut into one side, you cut into the other. It is this interactive approach to teaching and learning that is basic to the Ten Principles.

Principle 1.: The student is the language learner

Emphasis on the student learning rather than the teacher teaching is hardly new. Already in 1836, Wilhelm von Humboldt concluded that no one can really teach a language, one can only present the conditions under which it will develop spontaneously in its own way; and in 1965 Chomsky redirected our attention to this insight in no uncertain terms[2], thus influencing language teaching significantly during the 1970s and 80s. Bronson Alcott, who was a noted nineteenth century educator, maintained in his General Maxims (1826-27) that we should "teach nothing that pupils cannot teach themselves." [3] This radical paradox was echoed in 1972 by Gattegno, who observed that in teaching we are nurturing in learners inner criteria that enable them to advance in their learning. "Only self-education," he said, "will lead any learner to the mastery of a skill." [4]

In learning a language, their own or another, each learner must develop and consolidate mental representations that are basic to understanding the language as well as to expressing oneself through it, whether in speech or writing. For whatever we attempt, whether tying shoelaces or driving a car, we need a kind of mental map or blueprint of what we are trying to do that guides us to effective performance (see also Principle 5). This mental representation is very personal, evolving as the learner becomes more fully competent in the language. Different speakers possess even their native language to varying degrees of control, manipulating it to make it serve their purposes according to somewhat different mental representations.

In teaching a language, we are helping individual learners, in the best ways we know, to consolidate their control of it, so that they become increasingly fluent in using it for expression of personal meaning. Our ways of proceeding are often intuitive, since our ignorance in this area is great. We can provide opportunities for observing the language in use and for using the language creatively, but only the learners themselves can assimilate the language and make it their own. This they do in very individualistic ways. Consequently, in recent years we have been paying more and more attention to differing styles and preferred strategies of learning.[5] Sometimes, despite our efforts, our students do not learn as we would like, because they are not motivated to do so, and this is an important issue (see Corollary 1.1). With the individual learning process as central, self and peer-to-peer assessment of progress and error detection become important. Students must realize they are responsible for their own learning; they will take this responsibility more seriously if they themselves discover and work at their own weaknesses and insufficiencies.

Corollary 1.1: Motivation springs from within; it can be sparked, but not imposed from without

There is a misconception among some teachers that it is their task to "motivate" their students. "My students are completely unmotivated," they complain. Corpses and mummies are "completely unmotivated," but every living being is motivated. One student may be motivated to get through each language class with the least personal hassle, while acquiring the barest minimum of the language compatible with not flunking out; another may be motivated to get high grades by supplying what the teacher or some testing agency seems to be seeking on tests; yet another may be motivated to learn a subset of skills or a distinctive vocabulary to achieve personal goals, which may not be those of the course or the teacher. Motivation, strong or weak, is always there. It is the task of the teacher to discover the springs of motivation in individual students and channel it in the direction of further language acquisition through course content, activities in and out of the classroom, and learner-generated or at least learner-maintained projects (see also Principle 2). Frequently the intrinsic attraction of the subject matter and the interest aroused by classroom interaction will spark motivation to persist with language learning, and this will continue until a degree of language control satisfying to the learner has been attained.[6]

It is noticeable that language learning motivation waxes and wanes as students feel they can operate in the language sufficiently to satisfy their immediate needs or presently perceived longer term objectives. It is for this reason that, although adults and adolescents learn a language faster in the short run than young children, they are more easily satisfied with what they can do with it than younger learners who, wishing to be accepted by their peers and succeed in a new environment, persist to a higher level of control over the long haul.[7] It is for the teacher to find ways of restimulating the motivation of older learners by opening up new vistas of potentiality. Sometimes external factors do this for us and the student's interest and enthusiasm rekindle. Hence the number of older learners who return to language study in the ir adult years.[8 ]

Principle 2: Language learning and teaching are shaped by student needs and objectives in particular circumstances

Student needs and objectives are not just personal. They are shaped to a considerable degree by societal pressures, political exigencies, and parental expectations influenced by these two. Social forces and community-wide perceptions, whether reflecting reality or merely hopes and fears, exert a largely subconscious influence on what are perceived as individual choices. One such subtle influence is that of perceived career opportunities for the language learner; these change over time, as economies and political alliances shift in emphasis, and this affects demand for particular languages. Another influence is the growing importance in public perception of certain speech communities at a particular point in time: Should our students be learning Japanese or Chinese, for instance, instead of German; or Spanish or Italian instead of French? Is it pointless and time-wasting for English speakers to learn any other language at this particular period of history when students all over the world are clamoring to learn English? Despite any rationale we may present, it is factors such as these that are influencing student decisions and attitudes. From another perspective, should we be emphasizing oral skills, or are reading and writing of growing interest to our students in this age of the Internet and the World Wide Web? What about listening and cross-cultural skills in an age of so much mutual misunderstanding? These are some of the kinds of decisions that confront us, which can only be resolved in a particular context.

It is imperative in the present period of rapid change that language teachers study carefully the language learners in their classes _ their ages, backgrounds, aspirations, interests, goals in language learning, aptitude for language acquisition in a formal setting, and opportunities for language use outside of the classroom (see Principle 10) _ and then design language courses and language teaching materials that meet the needs of specific groups. "One size fits all" is not applicable in our work. A needs analysis must come first, before decisions are made on orientation and content of courses, and this will affect the way the language will be presented and the types of materials that will be incorporated. Such a needs analysis must be repeated in each new circumstance, and also as cohorts of students change in what may seem to be a stable context.

In all language teaching decisions, the question Who? (Who are my students?) precedes What?(What kind of course or learning materials do they need?), and these two determine How?(What approach and which techniques are most appropriate in this situation?)

Corollary 2.1: Language teaching and course design will be very diverse

The days of a monolithic approach to language courses, imposed on all learners, is well past (or should be). As students change and their perceived needs and objectives change, so will the content and techniques of language courses. Sometimes language programs are set up as a series of discrete units on grammar, sound production, development of reading skills, or written composition, thus tearing apart the seamless garment of language. Study of sound production is integrally related to syntax, which can be of no use without semantics and pragmatics. Cultural expectations affect syntactic and lexical choice, as well as sound and kinesic elements These things are best learned and practiced together in use.

Living language courses should be designed with primary attention to content, while allowing for the development and consolidation of relevant language skills. Written language can be improved through reports and articles on political and economic developments in a country where the language is spoken, or through correspondence (most likely electronic these days) with someone who knows that country intimately. Classes can now be twinned easily across language groups and geographical areas to work on joint projects via computer and modem. Sounds can be practiced through drama, the reading and writing of poetry, or production of radio or video programs for community access broadcasts. The literature and intellectual ideas of other cultures have always attracted language learners. Travel narratives, biographies, case studies from the business or legal world, environmental and conflict-resolution studies are other candidates, the latter often introduced through simulations that involve the students actively.). One could go on endlessly brainstorming possibilities. Language is a vehicle that should not be driven around empty.

There is no need, as has so often been the accusation, for language courses to lack intellectual content. As language teachers we are fortunate in that any kind of content (philosophical, literary, scientific, commercial, aesthetic, or cultural) is appropriate for a language course, so long as it provides opportunities for contact with and active personalized use of the language. Wherever there are enough students for diversification, several parallel courses should be offered at each level, allowing for student selection of content and approach. Should such diversity not be possible for logistical reasons, different contents and approaches should be available as the student advances through the language sequence.[9] Students from abroad who will be proceeding to specialized studies in their new language need a different kind of help; if they come from very different educational systems they frequently need guidance in giving oral reports and reporting on experiments, as well as in the formal requirements of writing papers, searching databases, and drawing up bibliographies. In many institutions it is possible for teachers of language to cooperate with teachers of other disciplines by providing tutorials in the study of documents and other textual material (aural or written) that are available only in the language they are learning; in yet others, language teachers prepare language learners for internships in career-related fields in a country where the language is spoken. In some settings it is appropriate for whole courses of specialized subject matter (history, economics, cultural studies) to be taught in the language or for language learners to be incorporated in ongoing subject-matter courses along with native speakers. Care should be taken in such situations to see that students, when first confronted with studying a high level of subject matter in their new language, are provided with a backup of language assistance, so that they do not feel overwhelmed and fall back on desperate dictionary searching and mental translation into the first language. Such a traumatic experience often sets language learners back considerably in their progress and destroys fragile, newly developing skills of natural expression in their new language.

Content of relevance to the life, interests, and future career of the student brings the language alive and sparks motivation to use it actively.Let us be imaginative in devising course content and learning activities to meet the needs of all comers, so that students learn through doing _ through using the language in intellectually and socially demanding ways.

Principle 3: Language learning and teaching are based on normal uses of language, with communication of meanings (in oral or written form ) basic to all strategies and techniques

To learn a language naturally, one needs much practice in using the language for the normal purposes language serves in everyday life. This is in contradistinction to the artificial types of drills and practice exercises to which many learners are still subjected. Manipulation of structural patterns in some presumed logical order in a sequence that is semantically incoherent does not prepare the learner for normal uses of language. Language practice should already be as close to real communication as practicable. Even practice exercises should be designed to elicit an exchange of new information of interest to the participants. In 1904 Jespersen, the Danish linguist, observed that language textbooks often give the impression that Frenchmen" (substitute Americans, Germans, Russians, Hispanics) "must be strictly systematical beings, who one day speak merely in futures, another day in [past tenses], and who say the most disconnected things only for the sake of being able to use all the persons in the tense which for the time being happens to be the subject for conversation, while they carefully postpone the use of the subjunctive until next year."[10] Little seems to have changed in a hundred years.

It is useful to reflect on the ways we use language in normal interaction. Sometimes the use is phatic or ritualistic, as in conventional greetings and rejoinders and in ceremonial discourse. Beyond this, we use language to give and get new information; to explain, discuss, and describe; to persuade, dissuade, promise, or refuse; to entertain or to calm the troubled waters of social contact; to reveal or hide our feelings and attitudes; to direct others in their undertakings; we use language for learning, teaching,. problem-solving, or creating with words, and these are only some of its uses. Facility in conveying meanings in purposeful acts, appropriately tailored to the cultural context, is the true end of language learning, and use of language must reflect this end from the earliest stages.

Language in natural interaction requires more than correctly manipulated structures and lexicon, uttered with comprehensible sounds and intonation. It requires also conformity to the accepted forms of natural discourse within its associated culture: students need to know how to open and close conversational interludes; how to negotiate meaning; how to assert conversational control, fill pauses, interrupt or not interrupt, and navigate within the exchange so that the conversation is channeled in a direction of interest to the interlocutor.[11] It also requires appropriateness of language use for particular situations and relationships. Even gestures of our own culture can betray us. All of these features of natural interaction are related to the wider expectations within the culture (see Principle 9).

There are many problems for teachers to solve if this principle is to be respected. How, for instance, does one promote normal conversational interaction in large classes, particularly among students whose cultural upbringing inhibits them from expressing their opinions freely in the presence of respected authority figures or persons of the other sex? Some students in any culture are open and outgoing, even chatterboxes, while others are taciturn or shy. In some cultures students have learned not to waste words on comments that do not add substantially to the discussion and find it hard to natter on about trivialities. This leads us to Principle 4.

Principle 4: Classroom relations reflect mutual liking and respect, allowing for both teacher personality and student personality in a non-threatening atmosphere of cooperative learning

Teaching and learning languages are distinctly different from other subject disciplines. Speaking and writing what one really thinks and feels means revealing one's inner self: one's feelings, prejudices, values, and aspirations. In a new language, learners can do this only in a roughly approximate, unnuanced way, that is,. in a simplified form of the language, perhaps incorrectly formulated, so that they can easily give a false impression of who they are, or who they would like people to think they are. This experience can be very inhibiting and ego-threatening, if not traumatic. Students frequently seek to avoid it. The speaker of a new language may also approach other people with a lack of subtlety because of ignorance of nuances of the linguistic system, as well as the associated pragmatics and cultural expectations. A teacher who is not a native speaker of the language he or she is teaching (and this comprises the majority of language teachers worldwide) also suffers from a certain insecurity and may take refuge in the native language as a teaching medium.

In a highly structured methodology, like the grammar-translation method or the teacher-directed audiolingual approach, where students perform according to instructions in a well planned, emotionally neutral, and predictable sequence, constructed to eliminate the possibility of student error, students are protected from such wounds to their self-esteem. Once the teacher tries, however, to stimulate interactive activities, where more than the student's intellect and memory are involved, the whole personality of the student comes into play. The language learning becomes, in Curran's terminology, a "unified personality encounter."[12] The student is trying to handle many aspects of the language at once (message intention, vocabulary and syntactic choice, morphology, stress, intonation, and tone of utterance) while noting interlocutor response and preparing to change the direction of the message if necessary. With so many cognitive activities involved at the same time, the student may very well stumble over some of them. It is. this cognitive overload that explains many of the errors students make, even when they know the appropriate forms perfectly well (see also Principle 6). These lapses often make them feel foolish in front of their peers. It is no wonder that many students feel anxious and emotionally stressed in such situations.[13] Students experiencing emotional hurt and embarrassment may even develop feelings of hostility toward the teacher, as the source of their frustration.[14] The teacher must be aware of the many emotional factors in communicative encounters that can either depress or exhilarate the student, depending on how they are handled. For students, the emotional threat comes as much from fear of the reaction of peers as the reaction of the teacher, so time should be allowed for peer with peer bonding and the development of mutual trust and confidence as students share successful, and therefore enjoyable, experiences.

Teachers in a structured methodology, who are expected to remain within the limits of the materials, feel safe and self-assured. In an interactive communicative situation anything may crop up and the natural exchange may take quite unexpected twists and turns that lead the teacher into unknown territory. This can unsettle the teacher, particularly the nonnative speaker, whose anxiety, even if well controlled, may communicate itself subtly to the students and further compound their own.

An interactive language-learning environment requires that students and teachers, and students among themselves, reach a stage of being comfortable with each other, interested in each other, and respectful of each other's personal temperament-imposed limits. In order to achieve this equilibrium, teachers must feel comfortable with what they are doing, just as students must be comfortable with what they are expected to do. Teachers need to develop a realistic understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses as instructors and as individuals, selecting approaches and techniques that play to their strengths. They must also know how far they can go in interpersonal relations and how they best relate to others, allowing themselves time to get to know their students' individual ways of reacting. Both teachers and students have to be willing to take risks and laugh together when things go wrong. Together they must exorcise the fear of failure (which is as real for teachers as for students).

In the past, much language learning was restricted to an elite "academic stream," who had demonstrated their ability to cope with abstract logico-deductive thinking and verbal learning of the type required in school settings, for instance, for the study of grammar, the application of grammar rules in composition exercises, and the translation of literary texts. These students were considered to have "a high IQ" as measured by a distinctly verbal test. Of recent years, Howard Gardner has drawn our attention to the existence of "multiple intelligences" [15]: verbal, mathematical-logical, spatial, kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Now that emphasis is on language learning for all students, we need to consider ways of enabling students who are strong in any of these areas to apply their particular kinds of intelligence in language learning tasks, and to see that our assessment procedures provide them with opportunities to demonstrate their progress in the use of the language through other means than written tests (see also Principle 8).

For the interaction that leads to communication via language (much meaning is, after all, communicated without a common language), both teachers and students need to work toward a non-threatening atmosphere of cooperative learning. In discussions on cooperative learning, the term is often unnecessarily restricted to small-group learning. Many students learn well in small groups, others do not. There is room for all kinds of learning situations: large group, small group, pair work, or individual study. Cooperative learning implies full participation of students in planning and in making effective choices. The essence of cooperative learning is in the attitude: it requires acceptance of each other's differences and a willingness to share and to facilitate each other's learning in whichever ways are most appropriate. Teachers should be aware that students from certain cultures may be accustomed only to a teacher-directed competitive mode of education and that these students will need explanation of this new approach and an initial period of familiarization before they can be fully and willingly assimilated into a cooperative learning situation.

A non-threatening atmosphere does not mean that teachers and students must be effervescently cheerful and amusing at all times. Some teachers, as well as some students, are reserved and take time to unbend with strangers. We like, respect, and trust people of very varied personalities, and each has a contribution to make in a cooperative atmosphere. Not all students nor all teachers wish to interact with each other at a very deep level, and this must be respected. Where this is the case, we involve our students in surface activities _ games, simulations, dramatizations, informative activities through which they communicate. For interaction at a deep personal level, they will find their own partners and arrange their own activities. Respect for the privacy of the individual to interact as he or she feels the need or desire is another aspect of cooperative learning. "In cooperative learning, all can succeed because each has something unique to contribute to the enterprise, and because success is not an external standard constructed to exclude, but the individual perception of the attainment of a self-selected goal."[16]

Principle 5: Basic to use of language are language knowledge and language control

Basic to use of a language is a mental representation of how that language works. We need a certain basis of systematic knowledge in order to be able to operate in the language, no matter how minimally. We cannot learn everything we wish to express in a language one thing at a time; there is an infinite number of potential sentences we may wish to utter, yet each has a structural framework that can be used to convey many other messages. The human mind systematizes and organizes material to make it manageable, and this systematization is basic to our mental representation of the language. We cannot operate in a language without such a mental representation because comprehensible language use at any level is rule-governed; in other words, to understand and be understood we cannot use elements of the new language haphazardly. We need a succinct, internalized structural model as a plan to direct our tactics (in this instance, expression of personal meaning).

All languages are organized at several levels (phonological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic), and these various subsystems interact within the mental representation. Grammatical structure and vocabulary, which are interrelated in their functioning, provide the tools for expressing semantic and pragmatic meaning. As Halliday expresses it: "Reality consists of 'goings-on': of doing, happening, feeling, being. These goings-on are sorted out in the semantic system of the language, and expressed through the grammar of the clause."[17] Once we have internalized the fundamentals of this organization for our new language (linguists are working continually at systematizing the details and even native speakers are still learning its potential), we are liberated to express a multiplicity of meanings.

A ballet dancer learns basic steps and then can fly. Scientists learn basic principles and can then build new knowledge: experimenting, applying, thinking creatively. Scientists may not fully understand the principles (research is always continuing), and their findings may even cast doubt on some of these principles or even cause them to restructure their concept of the basic framework, but the basic framework is there to be reinterpreted. Linguistic scientists continue to research linguistic structure. They may propose new models or variations of existing models to explain what is there, but they cannot restructure the object of their study: they can only reinterpret the operation of the basic framework or bone structure of the language.

Is the problem for language learning an inadequate or incomplete description of the linguistic structure of the language? People have learned languages for millennia while awaiting discovery and description of the ultimate adequate model of what they are learning, just as people have grown crops and lit fires, without a complete understanding of the processes underlying these phenomena. What language learners need is a functional mental model of the linguistic structure of a particular language that works for them in producing at a basic level speech that communicates their meanings}; their present needs obviate their waiting for final decisions by linguistic researchers on the structural model that will best describe the inner workings of the basic framework. Chomsky speaks of language behavior as being governed by an innate knowledge of a system of rules of universal grammar, with values of parameters set according to the language within which one is operating; this systematic framework consists of a core or basic skeleton on which the language is constructed and a periphery of marked exceptions that are added to the core on the basis of specific experience [18]. This is one description of a mental representation; there are others. The real problem for the language learner is the setting of the values of the parameters for the mental representation of the new language. How this can be achieved most effectively and economically is a subject for research for applied linguists _ research to which classroom teachers, who are observing students daily can contribute valuable insights.

We cannot use a language without some sort of mental representation of the basic framework or mechanism, no matter how personal and idiosyncratic; this we shall call knowledge of language . Learners pass through a succession of interim grammars at various stages in the learning process, as they work to construct a functional model, or establish values of parameters for the new language, in the Chomskyan sense. Teachers can help students acquire an understanding of this basic mechanism that is sufficient to enable them to use it at their particular stage of development, and to further refine this understanding as they progress. Without expert help, students will acquire some form of mental representation, often incorporating elements of the mental representation of their first or another language; with help they will acquire more rapidly one that is closer to the native model. Years of experience with learners of many languages in the federal government's language institutes, which comprise the Interagency Language Roundtable, have demonstrated that, when language learners try to express their meanings freely without a firm structural framework, "incorrect communication strategies ... fossilize prematurely," and "their subsequent modification or ultimate correction is rendered difficult to the point of impossibility, irrespective of the native talent or high motivation that the individual may originally have brought to the task."[19] Yet precision of construction of meaningful phrases is important for fluent expression of meanings that will be understood by native speakers.

Students acquire this precision of expression through performing rules, not through memorizing or discussing them. Knowledge of the systematic interrelationships that constitute the structure of the language is acquired actively through use in communicative contexts. In this way it becomes part of the learner's mental equipment (it becomes internalized) and can be called upon readily, even if more and more without conscious focus, to express personal meaning or to comprehend and recreate the meanings others are trying to convey. It can also be re-examined consciously, should there be a need to reinterpret its potential. As William James observed: "Experience is never yours merely as it comes to you, facts are never mere data, they are data to which you respond , your experience is constantly transformed by your deeds."[20]

Sharwood Smith expresses succinctly this necessity for performing rules when he says: "Whatever the view of the underlying processes in second language learning ... it is quite clear and uncontroversial to say that most spontaneous performance is attained by dint of practice. In the course of actually performing in the target language, the learner gains the necessary control over its structures such that he or she can use them quickly without reflection." [21] Experimentation in Sweden has demonstrated that this performance practice is most effective when it involves student-initiated utterances,[22] which constitute student response to the data in James's sense and gradually transform the student's mental representation.

Performing rules, then, provides the natural bridge to using these rules in creating personal messages, which we shall call control of language. Language control necessarily implies the ability to understand messages and their full implications in the context, social and cultural, interpreting tone of voice, stress, intonation, and kinesics, as well as actual words and structures. In expression, it implies more than syntactic accuracy; it requires also syntactic appropriateness in contexts of use and in culturally determined relationships. Once some degree of language control has been attained, language is used "as a medium which will engage the thought, perception, and imagination of the learner." [23]

Principle 6: Development of language control proceeds through creativity, which is nurtured by interactive, participatory activities.

The ultimate goal for our students is to be able to use the language they are learning for their own purposes, to express their own meanings, that is, to create their own formulations to express their intentions. That use of language is creative, not imitative, has been emphasized by language teaching theorists, linguists, and psycholinguists for years, yet many language teachers continue to teach as though imitation, repetition, and reconstruction or transformation of other people's meanings in exercises were the be-all and end-all of language learning. In 1966, Chomsky forcefully drew to the attention of language teachers the fact that "ordinary linguistic behavior characteristically involves innovation, formation of new sentences and new patterns"[24] This he succinctly described as "the creative aspect of normal language use,"[25] and this creativity applies as much to listening and reading as to speaking and writing, as psychologists have long pointed out. Blumenthal cites Wundt, for instance, as observing, in 1912, that "the mind of the hearer is just as active in transforming and creating as the mind of the speaker."[26]

Creating new utterances in a language that one only partially controls is not easy. Because so much cognitive activity is involved, language learners frequently suffer from cognitive overload: they pause and hesitate (both phenomena of natural native speech); they misuse elements of the new language when they are well aware of the accepted forms (even in the native language, we sometimes slip up when concentrating on our message); they self-correct or let it be, depending on the situation and the amount of time available; conversations of genuine concern have a tendency to veer off in different directions, depending on the comprehension and involvement of the interlocutor whose responses thus become unpredictable, and this can be disconcerting. Consequently, language learners frequently experience embarrassment or feel humiliated by their poor showing and may give up their attempts to formulate utterances because the effort demands too much of them.

Yet learners cannot acquire facility in expressing their own meanings in a new language without much experience in doing just that. This type of experience is acquired in interactive situations that stimulate the students' motivation to communicate.[27] For this motivation to be strengthened and maintained, interactive situations need to be so structured that the potential for ego-threat and frustration is low (see also Principle 4). Through interactive situations that stimulate the desire to communicate, students experience the use of the new language as an important social skill, and success in conveying meanings and evoking a response encourages them to seek more success.

How does one promote interaction? One encourages participatory activities that engage the students' attention, so that they become involved and frequently exhilarated as they use the language. We use the word "encourage" because many of these activities will be student-initiated. When they are teacher-initiated, they should be student-sustained and developed. Purposeful and task-oriented, such activities are frequently conducted through peer-with-peer or small group discussion and elaboration. Some teachers are hesitant to encourage such activities because the students will inevitably make mistakes, and they are afraid that these may become ingrained or fossilized. We need to see these errors as resulting from genuine attempts to express themselves through the language and, therefore, as opportunities for further learning. The experience students gain in creating utterances that carry personal meanings and the confidence this engenders are vital to future autonomous language use. When students have been worked into a cooperative learning group (see Principle 4), they learn from their peers and help each other, with unobtrusive teacher assistance as they feel the need for it.

Activities may be amusing or serious. Games, competitions, skits, simulations, and dramatizations encourage imagination and spontaneous communication, problem-solving, information-gap, and information-getting activities invite persistence and probing as the students become intellectually involved in finding solutions. As they cooperate on a task, they are stimulated to use the language with each other, especially if this is continually set before them as a goal. Interactive activities may be related to content being studied in the language, whether literary, philosophical, scientific, commercial, or sociological: Students may work in groups to gather information, set up experiments, or develop alternative denouements for literary works in order to further understand the author's intent; they may use the case study method for investigating legal or economic aspects of the society that uses the language [28]; they may prepare meals according to the cuisine of a country where the language is spoken or engage in appropriate social activities of the culture; they may develop plays, radio, or television programs, soap operas, or videos, or engage in argument on the Internet; they may write poems that they discuss with each other or prepare entertainments for students in other classes, for parents, or for the community. Above all, these interactive activities should be purposeful, not just time-fillers, involving a task that is clearly defined to channel the students' language use and lead to the satisfaction of achievement. In these ways students learn by doing.

In language use, "true creativity means free action within the framework of a system of rules," as Chomsky has phrased it.[29] Once one has a functional mental representation of the system of rules of the language one can break rules, using the language in unorthodox ways to make one's meaning more vivid and expressive, using the language in all its richness and flexibility, and this demonstrates language control.

Principle 7: Every possible medium and modality is used to aid learning

In 1966, Carroll made the point that "the more numerous kinds of association that are made to an item, the better are learning and retention."[30] In communicative interaction, language learners need to draw on all kinds of unpredictable items to express their meaning _ items they learned the previous day, even items they learned on the first day they had contact with the language. What they have learned of the language must be firmly established in their memory networks with many associative triggers, so that it becomes readily available, in some cases for recognition in speech or writing and in others for retrieval for active use.[31]

Context is an important factor in recall, as well as being a guide to possible and appropriate meanings; context, it must be remembered, may be linguistic or non-linguistic; it may be aural, visual, kinesic, olfactory, or tactile; it may be situational or emotional (often perceived as relevant only by individuals themselves). Language teaching or learning that restricts itself in the main to presentation and practice in one modality (e.g., the visual in a traditional grammar-translation approach) does not prepare the learner for the full array of contexts in which items may recur. For these reasons, interactive learning needs to draw on every type of experience to reinforce what is being learned: physical response, aural input, spoken output, reading materials, written expression, word puzzles, the act of drawing what is meant, the manipulation of objects (in the Pestalozzian tradition), interpretation of pictures, acting out of scenes, music, song, dance, purposeful tasks (e.g., making things, preparing and eating them), gestures, facial expressions, communicative interludes, and so on. Gattegno emphasizes the importance of breathing and kinesics,[32] Lozanov the suggestive impact of paintings and music,[33] Asher the kinesic associations of physical movement[34], Terrell the affective,[35] and Curran calls for the involvement of the "whole person."[36]

At the present time, it is much more possible than in the past for the learner to have a well-rounded experience of the language: to see, hear, and live it in all kinds of ways. Teachers are no longer limited to the book, the chalkboard, their own vocal apparatus, an occasional picture or chart, and a few objects to be handled to bring a sense of reality and a broader context to the elements of the language and how they combine to create meanings. First came the gramophone record, then radio, film, television, magnetic tape (on reel and then on cassette), videocassettes, the computer with possibilities for videodisc, CD-ROM, and the Internet, as well as the camcorder for recording and evaluating the students' own performance in and out of class. From ready availability of foreign-language newspapers, magazines, and films, we have moved to audio and visual material beamed by satellite, and the possibility of downloading a multiplicity of culturally informative materials from around the world via computer and modem. Students can communicate with speakers of the language any time of the day or night through their own computers via e-mail and chat rooms. Student exchange programs have proliferated, and most schools, even in isolated situations, now have some contact with a visiting native speaker of the language. Each new medium has presented additional opportunities for teachers to provide multiple associations with language as used by native speakers and insights into their ways of thinking and reacting, as well as opportunities for students to view and hear themselves as they attempt to use the language in authentic ways.

In 1921 Palmer, that most enduring of methodologists, advocated that "we select judiciously and without prejudice all that is most likely to help us in our work;" he called this "the multiple line of approach."[37] Now is the time for teachers to investigate, experiment, and use judiciously the many possibilities for increasing language impact for the learner and opportunities for interaction, in order to increase motivation to communicate among their students. The sparsely distributed master teachers of less commonly taught languages can extend their teaching to many more students via television, satellite, and computer networks in distance learning, often supplemented by individual telephone conversations with the teacher. Auto-didacts and students far from their teachers now have access to many of the same advantages for language contact as those in more formal situations, and students of their own initiative can expand their contacts with the language, without waiting for structured assistance.

Despite these formerly undreamed of opportunities for contact with the language, all is not sunshine and light in language-learning land. We return to Palmer's phrase "select judiciously." Much that is available ostensibly to "help us in our work" does not promote or encourage that interaction that leads to communication through language. Much attention, time, and energy need to be devoted to what passes over the airwaves or is stored on disc, film. or cassette. "Garbage in, garbage out" is still as true as it ever was, and time is a precious commodity. Material that is not integrated in some way into the student's progressive learning experience (material that is inaccessible, for instance, because of level of difficulty) can be suffocating and discouraging. Teachers need to reflect very carefully on how to use, or help students to use, this almost mesmerizing variety of materials, so as to insure that it increases opportunities for learning and improves quality of learning. For us all, the watchword is cavete ("Y'all watch out now").

Six areas need careful consideration if we are to draw the most benefit for language learners from the present rapid development of resources. For them, as for us, open access to chaos can be more confusing than consolidating.

1. In what ways do the programs available for use with the new technologies fit in with the aims, content, and approaches of the courses we feel our students need in light of the goals they have set themselves?

2. What can technology-based courseware accomplish as an aid to learning that cannot be achieved at lower cost, monetarily and in time and energy, through other means? (In other words, how much is enough to enhance learning?)

3. How can we ensure that teachers wholeheartedly and advisedly cooperate in incorporating the latest technological resources into the language program, facilitating individual student access to them? (Are we providing sufficient orientation, training, and retraining to build up their confidence and expertise?)

4. Do we have research evidence that incorporation of the latest technological adjuncts leads to more efficient and effective language learning and use, and are we making the adjustments indicated by what has been learned to date?

5. How do we adjust our course design, materials, and teaching so as to incorporate and supplement most usefully what the student has access to outside of the classroom? (See also Principle 10.)

6. What steps must we take to ensure that teachers who devote much time, energy, and expertise to developing effective materials using new media are suitably recognized and compensated for these efforts?

Principle 8: Testing is an aid to learning

Testing has so often been punitive. Students become very nervous about tests, which as often as not seek to discover what the students do not know or cannot immediately recall, rather than providing them with an opportunity to demonstrate to the examiners and themselves what they can do with the language. Many test-writers, unfortunately, concentrate on minutiae of language, looking for little slips or familiarity with lesser known grammatical usages rather then the broader aspects of comprehensible and acceptable language use. (Is this why teachers need answer keys to help them correct tests?) We must work to reduce in every possible way the debilitating level of anxiety and apprehension from which many students suffer in testing situations.

1. Rather than being a ranking, exclusionary procedure, tests should concentrate on enabling all students to demonstrate what they can do with whatever level of language they possess. In this way, the test is a guide to the students, as well as the teacher, as to what they have assimilated sufficiently for it to be usable for real communicative purposes, in speech or writing.[38] The test then becomes an aid to learning, not an intentionally tricky hurdle.

Computer-adaptive testing (CAT) is useful in this regard; the computer is programmed to seek out, through the choice of items presented, the individual student's performance level and to verify this level through further testing, terminating the test when this has been determined, so that students are not subjected to the frustrations of a multiplicity of items beyond their knowledge and competence. The verification check, providing as it does repeated testing round about a certain level, also reduces the possibility of measurement error that can creep in with a more hit-or-miss approach.

2. The test itself should be a learning experience that is part of the ongoing course. If the test is to act as a guide to the student as well as the teacher, it cannot be final. The student goes on to relearn and consolidate what has been found to be lacking or misunderstood, and then has the opportunity to retest (not "be retested," since the decision is voluntary) to see how the learning is progressing.[39] In brief, the test stimulates further learning. This approach to testing reduces the emotional and stressful element that discriminates against students of certain temperaments when faced with the once-for-all, future-determining character of much present-day testing.

3. It cannot be overemphasized that the test should reflect the objectives of the course, which, as we have seen in the discussion of Principle 2, should reflect the objectives of the student. For too long we have taught and students have learned one thing, and the test has concentrated on another (for instance, the course may be orally oriented, while the test is entirely written). This is often because we have relied on a kind of test that was easy to prepare and easy to correct, thus putting large groups through the same wringer for our own convenience. When this is not the case, the problem is frequently because the form of the test is already well known to teacher and students, and the teacher "teaches to the test," so that the students will perform well on the test whatever their linguistic strengths or weaknesses. We thus put expedience before educational objectives, and the test becomes the be-all and end-all of the course in the students' minds, and even for some of the teachers. This washback effect of the form of the test on the way the course is taught and the way students choose to learn cannot be ignored. Much thought is required to design a test appropriate for a particular course that will encourage effectual learning behavior, while enabling students to demonstrate their control of what they have been learning. The construction of tests is a process that requires not just time and energy but much reflection.

4. The test should be interesting. Students should enjoy taking the test. If thought is given to creating a test that involves students in working out interesting problems, comprehending and reacting to stimulating ideas, expressing their own ideas, or at least producing some form of original response, if students are asked to take the initiative in some way that enables them to demonstrate how well they can interact in the language (in speech or writing), then the test will be motivational and a means of growth for the students. We must be wary of ways of group testing that save time, but force us back into too much discrete-point testing, which encourages discrete-point teaching.

5. Tests should not be rigidly timed. The old picture of the exam proctor forcing examinees to stop in the middle of a sentence because "time is up" should be obsolete as an absurdity. In a student-centered program we are aware of individual differences among students, and we recognize that some students think and write more deliberately than others; some are perfectionists; some rush at a task too precipitately and need time afterwards to edit and rethink parts of their work; some finish early; some need a little longer to proofread their final effort. In many tests, a few more minutes to demonstrate what the student knows can make all the difference between success and failure . We test for success.

6. We should avoid overtesting. Continual testing not only raises the anxiety level for students, it also reaches a point of diminishing returns. A test that reveals only what one already knows about the students is a superfluous test and a waste of valuable time that could be used more profitably for further interactive activity. Tests should be administered sparingly at intervals throughout the course when they can yield information on progress that is useful to both student and teacher.

7. An important question for many instructors is whether student-centered testing can be conducted for big groups (across sections in large institutions, across a number of schools in a local area, or for all students of a certain level in national examinations). A more appropriate question would be: Is there genuine educational value in wide-scale impersonal testing, in which, as we well know, a certain number of students always fall through the cracks, often through no fault of their own? The attainment of local or national standards can be ascertained, if so desired, by more personalized alternative forms of assessment (portfolios, for instance, oral interviews, or certified dossiers of personal production, which now may be in the form of videos, not just as written documentation). Fill-in-the blank and multiple-choice tests, although sometimes useful for quizzes of small segments of class work, do not tap performance levels in real language use. We need the development of more imaginative, humane tests of what one really does with language[40], just as art and music require different types of tests from fact-based content courses. We must train teachers well in testing theory and techniques so that testing can be conducted at the interpersonal, rather than the impersonal level.

Principle 9: Language Learning is penetrating another culture; students learn to operate harmoniously within it or in contact with it

Language and the cultural values, reactions, and expectations of speakers of that language are subtly melded. Gattegno brings this out when he says that "only when one is really imbued with the literature or soaked in the environment of the people using the language can one express oneself in speech or writing as a native would. It is the spirit of a language that has to get hold of one's mind."[41] Not even consciously realized by the culture-bearers themselves, these values, expectations, and presuppositions (what Nostrand has called "the culture's 'ground of meaning'")[42] frequently pass unperceived by the learners of the language, who bumble and fumble their way through relations and contacts with native speakers, quite unaware of their cultural faux pas and unintentional offensiveness. Plunged into the culture, they suffer from depressing shock and stress and confidence-destroying frustrations that affect their ability to interact harmoniously with those with whom they come in contact. Not infrequently they end up loving the language, but hating its users.

Unfortunately being fluent in the language is not enough. As Cortese expresses it: "If the social compact requires the observation of pretty, polite techniques for the avoidance of conflict" (these are frequently taught to the learner), "it is also, at a deeper level, built on negotiation of and respect for individual values and traits. It is to this level that a formative language learning process must reach, both in the sense of helping the individual to shape his [or her] own values and in the sense of comprehending different value orientations;" this, she says, distinguishes "production performance" from the mere "imitation of politeness norms."[43]

We develop our students' ability to interact initially with those who are linguistically and culturally different by teaching social amenities that oil wheels and open doors of acceptance (Cortese's pretty politenesses), but these merely provide opportunities to advance further in understanding. As we proceed, we need to understand culturally diverse interaction styles,[44] and, in many cases, adopt these ourselves, if we are not to find our progress arrested by misunderstandings. We need to learn different pragmatic routines _ ways of opening and closing conversations, taking turns, and so on. As we come into closer contact with the other culture through these outer doors, we begin to recognize systematic patterns of beliefs and behavior, soon finding that what may appear to be exotic, discrete acts or ways of expressing oneself are in fact manifestations of societal subsystems (e.g., maintaining a hierarchy of respect or rejection of discriminatory distinctions; dislike of vanity, bombast, or servility; deep-seated needs for individualistic expression or a tendency to take refuge in group conformity).

These linguistic and pragmatic reactions, even in the form of verbal formulae, cannot be learned piecemeal; they need to be acquired in culturally probable situations. When actually living and working with native speakers is not a possibility, they may be observed in films, plays, novels, soap operas, or radio talk shows, as well as in newspapers or magazines. The teacher, being more experienced, acts as a guide to interpretation, however, since students will tend to interpret this raw material from the point of view of their own culture. Practice in interacting with people of different cultural viewpoints may be gained also through acting out problem situations within the culture, as in Di Pietro's interactive scenarios.[45] Students work out possible, culturally appropriate solutions as they are simulating interaction within the culture, facing up to the unpredictable and making decisions as native speakers might do. Later discussion brings out areas of cultural understanding and misunderstanding that surfaced during the interaction. Here again explanations and advice from a person with intimate acquaintance with the culture is essential to avoid misinterpretations based on the students' own culturally determined viewpoint.

Seeking to understand from her own experience "ease of interaction" in new social and cultural situations, Robinson draws four conclusions.[46] that help us to understand our pedagogical task. She found that emphasis on cultural differences divides, whereas commonalities bring people together (in other words, we combat stereotypes more effectively by bringing out cultural similarities than differences); that understanding, in the sense of getting over barriers to communication, is not just derived from the ability to anticipate culturally different events, but comes through all modes of perception _ physiological, emotional, kinesthetic, tactile, as well as cognitive _ that is, the experience of the culture in all its richness must be integrated with attempts to describe and explain, something that is more possible in this age of interactive multimedia and ease of travel by people of both cultures (see also Principle 7). She also emphasizes the fact that new cultural experiences are not 'add-ons', rather they are interpreted through and integrated with the learner's previous experience (the students are thus enriched in their experience of the world and their viewpoint is changed); and, finally, genuine intercultural understanding takes time. As Kramsch warns us: "The difficulty of understanding cultural codes stems from the difficulty of viewing the world from another perspective, not of grasping another lexical or grammatical code"[47]; this is a process of simmering, not of rapid boiling.

Through our attempts to understand the cultural-linguistic behavior of others, we come to understand our own value systems and our own culture-laden language use. As a result, we emerge enriched, as we broaden our experience of human ways of thinking and behaving; we develop a tolerance for difference, even within apparent similarity; and we learn to interact harmoniously and comfortably with others from different backgrounds, within our own and other societies, without confusion of our own sense of identity.

Such a result does not come of itself; it requires hard work, hard thinking, patience, and persistence on the part of both teacher and learner.

Principle 10: The real world extends beyond the classroom walls; language learning takes place in and out of the classroom

"Language is a natural function of human association," according to Dewey.[48] The more opportunities we have for human association with speakers of our new language, the more potential for growth in control of language for normal uses and spontaneous expression. In second language and bilingual situations, teachers with interactive aims have many possibilities available for strengthening language learning outside of the classroom through facilitating contacts between second-language learners and the native-speaker community surrounding them. They arrange for host families who invite students from other countries to shar