Write short articles about the following concepts: 1. Language and languages 2.

Aiiitude to languages 3. The language of nations 4. The growth of English 5. Native

speakers 6. English as a lingua franca ●

Anmar Ahmed
Chapter Three
1 – Language and Languages
Here , I am examining two important concepts , with various differences , language
and languages . The term language is used in the singular , as though language were a
single unitary phenomenon . As a single unity , it can be studied in general to solve
serious issues within it . These issues are translation , teaching , learning , acquisition
and many other universal issues related to language .

Languages on the other hand have common properties , from the point of view of
their users it is the difference that account . The crucial difference between language
and languages lies in the fact that , people do not speak language as an abstraction ,
but particular languages . The languages must be studied in perspective to the
following points :

1 – Languages are mutually comprehensible .

2 – The listener when listens to new language that he did not acquire or learn will face
many problem that are related to disability to make out the boundaries between words
and reading goes useless because the disability to know what the words mean and the
problems of the dictionary meaning and contextual meaning .

Language is the storage that the problems of languages are emerged through , the
previous simple facts mean that one of the main ' problem in which language is
complicated ' is how speakers of different languages can communicate with each
other .

2 – Attitude to Languages

This section will examine the attitudes of the native speakers , linguists and the user
of a certain language toward the language the linguist views about the perspectives of
the language users . Native speakers of a language usually regard it as in some sense
their own property. Yet they do not resent other people acquiring it: they lose nothing
in the process and are flattered to share something so highly valued. Yet, however
many people learn their language, they still regard it as 'theirs'. They feel that
outsiders cannot identify with it quite as they do. To them it remains familiar and
intrinsic, to others it remains foreign and something apart. These strong views extend
beyond the forms of the language to people's general characterizations of their own
language-and of other people's languages too.

Linguists are studied languages in perspective to the following notions :

1 - languages as equal and arbitrary systems capable of fulfilling the same functions .

2 - Some languages are popularly regarded as being less complex than others. For
example, one reason often given for the spread of international English is that it is
easier to learn.

3 – Some languages are regarded as being more beautiful, and all are regarded as
carrying the 'spirit' of a particular nation or people. Thus Latin is widely believed to
be more logical, or German more efficient, or French more romantic than other
languages, and so on.

Language users have their own views too , about what counts as a separate language
and what does not . The linguistic investigation which depends on studying languages
in terms of their history or in terms of their formal similarities failed in determining
the boundaries between the separate language and what does not ( Language users
point of view ) and also failed in determining the boundary between languages , as
popularly believed , as a matter of mutual comprehensibility . There are many cases
where people who are said to speak the same language cannot understand each other
and this issue lies in the matter of dialects .

The popular views about language miss many related areas . This view cannot put a
boundary between the dialect and language , cannot measure the interchangeability
between languages and dialects and it gives a crucial abstract views about language
without any consideration to languages categories which are not based on any very
clear or scientific criteria at all .

3 – The Languages of Nations

The languages of nations emerge in the contemporary world of languages . This
notion depends on the number of speakers and the geographical distribution . The
languages of nations are characterized by salient features :

1 – They are regarded world's largest languages , such as Chinese , English , Hindi ,
Spanish and Arabic .

2 – They have hundreds of millions of speakers and are frequently used beyond their
homelands .

3 – They are survived because nations have frequently asserted their unity by
promoting one single majority language in a standard written form while
simultaneously suppressing or ignoring minority languages .

On the other hand there are smaller languages . They are confined to restricted areas
and specific ethnic groups, and are often vulnerable . Among the world's estimated
6,00o languages, language death now occurs increasingly frequently. It has been
estimated that half of the world's languages are likely to disappear in the twenty-first
century.

There are many serious issues face the notion of the languages of nations . The
constantly changing nature of languages suggests that their fates , and the boundaries
between them reflect not so much either formal linguistic descriptions or popular
ideas , as historical and political forces . There is also difficulties in promoting one
language , these difficulties are best studied within the European languages in
particular and over world in general :

1 - Some European nations which have spread their language beyond their own
borders the result has often been a multiplication rather than a reduction of the
languages within them.

2 - In the aftermath of empire, the capitals of the larger European nations-the most
adamant exponents of monolingualism-have become some of the most multilingual
places on earth . Major European cities are now centers for the multilingual societies ,
in London , Rome , Paris and Berlin
3 - Despite the efforts of nation builders then, the monolingual state remains a myth.
All nations have substantial linguistic groups within their borders, making cross-
linguistic communication an intranational as well as an international affair.

4 - On a personal level this means that many individuals-perhaps even the majority of
the world's population-are bilingual or multilingual. They must change tongue to go to
work or school, to speak to elderly relatives, or deal with bureaucracy, making this
code-switching a salient and significant part of their daily experience. In Africa, for
example, it is common to switch between a small local language, a dominant regional
language, and a former colonial language such as French, English, or Portuguese. For
immigrants to Europe there is switching between the family language and that of their
new home-Turkish and German, or Arabic and French, for example.

4 – The Growth of English

The power or growth of languages can be measured in applied linguistics according to

many bases such as feelings of ownership , stereotyping , unequal distribution and
power , individual and societal multilingualism . These are also issues at the heart of
encounters between different languages , and have been so throughout history . They
must be at the forefront of any applied linguistic investigation if it is to engage
successfully with the many disputes which arise over the rights and relationships
between languages, and the problem of how best to promote communication and
understanding while also preserving cultural and linguistic identity. In a sense, there is
nothing new about these matters. Similar issues to those which we confront today
must have arisen, for example, in the Roman or Mogul empires. Yet there is also a
sense in which recent years have witnessed a new phenomenon whose implications
must be addressed today's applied linguistics. Whereas, in the past, English was but
one international language among others, it is now increasingly in a category of its
own . English has many factors supply its individuality as the most growth language
in the world :

1 – The huge number of English speakers around the world .

2 – It is taught as the main foreign language in virtually every country .

3 – It is the language of business , education , and access to information by a

substantial proportion of the world's population .
4 – English filled the gaps that were happened as a result of retreat other languages
such as French , Russian and German .

5 - In recent years the growth of English has been further accelerated by a startling
expansion in the quantity and speed of international communication. The rise of
international corporations, linked to expanding US power and influence, ensures an
ever-increasing use of English in business. Films, songs, television programmes, and
advertisements in English are heard and seen in many countries where it is not the
first nor even a second language, both feeding and reflecting this growth.

6 - The dominant language of the Internet is English .

This new situation means that, for a large proportion of the world's population, the
learning and use of English as an additional language is both a major language need-
often one upon which their livelihood depends-and also one of the salient language
experiences of their lives. In addition, both non-native and native speakers are
involved in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) as teachers, planners,
administrators, publishers, and testers. For these reasons alone, the teaching and
learning of English has generated tremendous personal, political, academic, and
commercial interest.

5 – Native Speakers

The largest languages in the world are faced many problems in the perspective of the
native speakers . Native speakers can be defined in three ways according to personal
history , the expertise and the knowledge and loyalty . In the matter of personal
history , native speakers are considered to be people who acquired the language
naturally and effortlessly in childhood, through a combination of exposure, the child's
innate talent for language learning, and the need to communicate. In the notion of the
expertise , native speakers are seen as people who use the language, or a variety of it,
correctly, and have insight into what is or is not acceptable . In the manner of
knowledge and loyalty , being a native speaker, it is assumed, entails knowledge of,
and loyalty to, a community which uses the language. In many cases this threefold
definitions is relatively unproblematic , particularly for small languages spoken
mostly in once particular place . Take Icelandic for example, spoken by 300,000
Icelanders on an island of r00,000 square kilometers. Most people there have grown
up speaking Icelandic, are expert in its use, and identify with Icelandic culture.

In the case of larger and more widely distributed languages however, and most
especially in the case of English, serious problems with the usual definitions of native
speaker begin to emerge :

1 - Many English speakers- whether in the inner, outer, or expanding circle-grew up

with and use another language in the home. Their cultural loyalty is wholly or partly
to a non-English-speaking community and the may well be opposed to the dominant
English-speaking culture, feeling that their own language and values are threatened .

2 – The definition of native speakers may sometimes be non – crucial , leading to

miss understanding , here it is important to take stock of those aspects of language
proficiency which the traditional definition of the native speaker does not include :

A - It says nothing about proficiency in writing, but only about proficiency in speech.
Indeed, some native speakers are illiterate, and many of those who can write do so
inaccurately ('Lovly new potato's") or clumsily ("Revised customer service
arrangements presently under implementation').

B - The native speaker's knowledge of the language is implicit rather than explicit. He
or she uses the rules correctly, in other words, but cannot necessarily explain them.
For example, try asking the average native speaker to explain the difference between
'shall' and will'. Lastly, traditional native speakerness implies nothing about size of
vocabulary, range of styles, or ability to communicate across diverse communities. In
all of these aspects of proficiency, it is quite common to find that the expertise of the
non-native speaker exceeds that of many native speakers.

6 – English as A Lingua Franca ( ELF )

English as a lingua franca means the highly proficient users of English are not
necessarily aspiring to speak any of the standard Englishes from either the inner or the
outer circles. Rather, there is a strong case for saying that they speak a new variety of
English which depends neither on childhood acquisition nor on cultural identity, and
is often used in communication in which no native speaker is involved . What matters
in its use is clarity and comprehensibility rather than conformity to one of the existing
standards. Indeed, being a native speaker in the traditional sense does not necessarily
imply expertise in ELF, and for the purposes of international communication native
speakers may need to adjust their language to a new norm.

This rapid growth of ELF should be a major concern to contemporary applied

linguistics . There is an urgent need for documentation and analysis of the world's
changing language landscape, and for informed advice. We need to consider whether
the current situation is unprecedented, whether it has produced a new set of language
related problems (whether, for example, the spread of international English is
implicated in the decline and disappearance of other languages and, if so, how this
should affect language planning). These are pressing issues, affecting in one way or
another everyone who learns or uses English, native and non- native speaker alike.

Considerable insight into changes in the distribution of English, and our attitudes to
its use, can be gained by tracing the history of English Language Teaching (ELT)
through the twentieth century. Different approaches to teaching English did not just
occur by chance, but in response to changing geopolitical circumstances and social
attitudes and values, as well as to shifts of fashion in linguistics which, for all its
apparent objectivity, was itself subject to social change. Thus each successive
movement in ELT has had its own particular stance on language and language
learning, and on what English is, reflecting the ideology of its time. Changes in the
distribution and balance of languages, and in particular the growth of ELF, have both
reflected and influenced the populations and purposes of language learners.

Chapter Four

chapter 4 1. The Grammar- translation method 2. The direct method 3. Natural

language learning 4. The communicative Approach

1 – Grammar - Translation Language Teaching

The history of this approach is extended in the schoolrooms of Europe at the close
of the nineteenth century .The teaching of modern foreign languages was heavily
iptluenced by the more established and prestigious academic study of the dead
classical languages, Latin and Ancient Greek. The characteristics of this approach
are:
1 - Curriculum aims were largely a matter of consensus, and thus seldom spelled out
as they would be today. Modern language learning, it was assumed, brought students
into contact with the great national civilizations and their literatures.

2 - It trained minds in logical thought, developed clegant expression, and perpetuated

the study of the language as an academic discipline. The best-if inimitable-examples
of the language were its greatest writers Shakespeare for English, Dante for Italian,
Pushkin for Russian and so forth.

3 - In the daily grind of the schoolroom, however, these lofty aspirations seemed very
distant. Uses of the language, if thought about at all, were deferred to the time when
school or university would be completed.

4 - In the meantime, grammar rules were explained to the students in their own
language, vocabulary lists were learned with translation equivalents, and then
sentences especially constructed to contain only the grammar and vocabulary which
had already been covered-were laboriously translated, in writing, into and out of the
student's first language.

5 - In this traditional' language teaching, the way into the new language was always
through the student's own fhrst language Complicated rules were mastered and this
mastery then tested by means ot translation.

6 - Success was measured in terms of the accurate use of grammar and vocabulary
rather than effective communication.

7 - There was no emphasis on the development ot fuent speech: it was better to get
things right slowly than say them fast and etfectively, but incorrectly. It was assumed
that the processes of learning the language and eventual use of it could be
disassociated. Eventualy, perhaps, for some students anyway one would lead to the
other, but the ends were most definitely ditferent from the means.

2 – The Direct Method

There was a detour at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries . Although
frammar – translation was in its heday , especially in the privileged secondary schools
of Europe , there was a need to a new method due to many reasons :
1 - The very same time language-learning populations had been already changing in
approaches which have been to gather momentum throughout the twentieth century.
For example, in the early years of the century there was persevering with mass
immigration, by way of speakers of many specific languages, into the USAa us of a
whose solidarity has depended upon the use of English .

2 - New types of students-immigrants, business people, and tour ists-created a new

kind of classroom population.

3 - In the language schools and evening classes which catered for them, the students
did not necessarily share the same first language making it simply impossible for
instruction to proceed through addition, the new type of student needed spoken as
well as written language, and first-language explanation and translation. I they needed
it fast .

4 - Language-learning experts (they were not then called applied linguists) responded
to this challenge with radical new ideas about how languages should be taught. They
advocated a direct method in which the students' own languages were banished and
everything was to be done through the language under instruction.

The direct method has many features . The direct method established a concept
of language learning very different from that implicit in grammar-translation.
Knowledge of a language was no longer an object of scholarship attainable simply by
hard work. Success was to be measured instead by the degree to which the learner's
language proficiency approximated to that of the native speaker, a goal which was not
at that time seen as problematic. This led the way to further changes in both popular
and applied linguistics ideas about how a language might be learned .

3 – ' Natural ' Language Learning

Direct method was not a complete method for solving all language teaching problems
because :

1 - Many of the characteristics of grammar-translation had survived. There was still

explanation and grading of grammar rules, and the language was divided into discrete
areas such as vocabulary or pronunciation practice. Teachers, then, had to do much as
they had done before, but without recourse to either first language explanation or
translation.
2 - In practice grammar rules had to be worked out by students from examples
because an explanation would demand language beyond the level of the rule being
explained, while the meaning of new vocabulary had to be either guessable from the
context, or perhaps illustrated or mimed. This last resort is possible, if often
ridiculous, for a word denoting something specific and physical, like "butterfly' but
imagine the plight of teachers trying to mime more general words such as 'creature' or
abstract ones such as 'specification'!

So because of the previous problems , the specialists developed a new approach , this
was called the natural approach . It was emerged in the 1970s and 1980 , due to the
problems of the direct method . The so called natural approach revived the notion-
previously promulgated under exactly the same name in the nineteenth century!-that
an adult learner can repeat the route to proficiency of the native speaking child. The
idea was that learning would take place without explanation or grading, and without
correction of errors, but simply by exposure to 'meaningful input'. This approach was
based upon theorizing and research in SLA which purported to show that learners,
whatever their first language would follow an internally determined natural order of
their Own, and that neither explicit instruction nor conscious learning had any effect.

In many ways, the natural approach is an object lesson in what applied linguistics
should not be. For it sought to impose upon teachers, without consultation and
without consideration for their existing practices and beliefs, ideas based upon
academic research and theorizing. Its view of SLA, moreover, was derived directly
from mainstream linguistics research into child first language acquisition, where the
early stages are largely internally driven and impervious to instruction. This research
was then assumed to be directly relevant-indeed imperative-to changes in the way
languages were taught. In addition, the approach was culturally insensitive: it was
developed in the USA and then exported as globally relevant without regard to
differing educational traditions or language-learning contexts.

The natural approach, with its suggestion that learning need not involve hard work,
was superficially seductive and there is no doubt that it attracted many followers in its
day. While now seldom followed in its extreme form, it continues to exert a
Considerable influence. Conscious learning, correction of errors practice activities,
and attention to form are all kept at arm's Length, only readmitted with some
reluctance and disdain, while what are perceived as their opposites-natural' and'
meaningful' and 'real' activities-retain something of a sacred aura.

4 – The Communicative Approach

The History of the Communicative Approach and Its Definition

The communicative approach At roughly the same time as the development of the
natural approach, there emerged a tar more durable new movement known as the
communicative approach or Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), which
rapidly became, and still remains, the dominant orthodoxy in progressive language
teaching. The theories behind it have had a profound and far-reaching effect not only
in language teaching but in many other applied linguistic areas too.

Communicative Approach Practical Framework

In practice, both CLT and the natural approach can lead to similar meaning-focused
activities and for this reason they have often been confused. The resemblance,
however, is superficial tor their underlying rationales are deeply opposed. The focus
of CLT was primarily and necessarily social, concerned as it was with the goal of
successful communication. In contrast, the natural approach was essentially
psychological, based upon the idea, derived from first-language acquisition studies,
that attention to meaning would somehow trigger the natural cognitive development
of the language system .

The Essence of Communicative Language Teaching ( CLT )

The essence of CLT is a shift of attention from the language system as end in itself to
the successful use of that system in context; that is to say from an emphasis on form
to an emphasis on communication. Language-learning success is to be assessed
neither in terms of accurate grammar and pronunciation for their own sake, nor in
terms of explicit knowledge of the rules, but by the ability to do things with the
language, appropriately, fluently and effectively. Consequently communicative
pedagogy shifted its attention from the teaching and practice of grammar and
pronunciation rules, and the learning of vocabulary lists, to communicative activities.

The Methodology of the CLT

The methodology depends on the following principles :

1 - As pointed out at the time by its more thoughtful advocates accurate use of the
language system remained the major resource for successful communication. The
richer strands of the CLT movement were not therefore advocating the abandonment
of attention to form, as advocates of the natural approach were, but rather two changes
of emphasis. The first was that, in addition to mastery of form, learners need other
kinds of ability and knowledge if they are to communicate successfully.

2 - The second was that forms should be approached in the context of their usefulness
rather than as an end in themselves. In other words, the traditional sequence of
language learning was reversed. Whereas in the past, whether in grammar-translation
or in direct method teaching, the emphasis had been upon mastery of forms first and
their use later, CLT students considered first what they needed to do with the
language and then learned the forms which would fulfill those needs. Teachers and
materials designers were urged to identify things learners need to do with the
language (i.e. conduct a needs analysis) and simulate these in the classroom. This, it
was believed, would also motivate the learners by constantly emphasizing the
relevance of classroom activity to their goals .

The Characteristics of The CLT

1 - This shift of emphasis from the means to the ends of language learning has had
tar-reaching consequences at both the macro level of syllabus and curriculum design
and at the micro level of classroom activity.

2 - At the macro level, there has been the development of language for specific
purposes (in the case of English, English for Specific Purposes (ESP)) which tries to
develop the: language and discourse skills which will be needed for particular jobs
(English for Occupational Purposes (EOP)) or for particular fields of study (English
for Academic Purposes (EAP At the micro level there has been the development of
Task-Based instruction (TBI), in which learning is organized around tasks related to
real-world activities, focusing the student's attention upon meaning and upon
successful task completion.

The Difference between CLT and Traditional Approaches

1 - All of the developments of the communicative approach differ markedly from the
various kinds of teaching which preceded them.

2 - In traditional approaches, the emphasis was on formal practice, and elements of

the language system were isolated and taught step by step .

3 - In CLT the emphasis became quite different. Language, it was argued, is best
handled all at once, as it would be in the real world, as this is the learner's ultimate .

4 - communicative activities could lead to limited proficiency and a constraining and

conformist model of language use. Thus, at its worst, emphasis on functions rather
than forms could degenerate into learning phrase-book-like lists of things to say in
particular situations.

Problems With CLT

1 - Concentration upon communicating meaning from the outset could lead to

inaccurate-if temporarily successful language use which, uncorrected, could then
fossilize, preventing the learner from further development for more complex use. The
focus upon ends was, in practice interpreted in a utilitarian way, seeing work and the
transaction of mundane information as the limit of the learner's needs, thus denying
attention to the aesthetic, playful, and creative aspects of language use, and its role in
creating and maintaining relationships.

2 - Above all, the belief that communication would be aided by situation ally and
culturally appropriate use of the language was often rather thoughtlessly interpreted to
mean that the foreign learner of English should conform to the norms and conventions
of an English-speaking community. The sum of all of these limitations was the denial
to learners of the resources needed to develop a creative command of the language
which would enable them to express their own individual and social meanings.
Ironically, the communicative approach could often stifle rather than promote the
richest kinds of communication.

3 - This well-documented slippage between theory and practice illustrates a particular

kind of applied linguistic problem. It also emphasizes the importance of considering
more closely an issue which is at the heart of all applied linguistic enquiry: what it
means to learn, to know, and to use a language.
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