English Language Teaching in its Social Context

Chapter 7Michael P. BreenTHE SOCIAL CONTEXT FOR LANGUAGELEARNING: A NEGLECTED SITUATION?IntroductionW I S H T 0 EX P L 0 R E T H E B E L I E F that the classroom will have certain effectsI upon language learning. The assumption resting within what I have to say is thatrelationships can be discovered between the social processes of the classroom group and theindividual psychological process of second language development. Given the present stateof our knowledge about the learning of foreign languages, this assumption is supportedupon tenuous foundations. As most people at least begin to learn new languages inclassrooms, the researcher can hardly fail to locate some variable of classroom life that willhave a systematic effect upon language learning, or some variable of learning behaviourwhich has correlational potential with instructional treatment. The researcher may ask:“What arc the spectf’c contributions of the classroom to the process of language development?”The assumption being that we may lie able to explain how classroom-basedinstruction influences and interacts with learning if we come to understand the spccialworkings of the classroom context. The teacher’s priorities - perhaps more urgent anddirect ~ are to build upon those inherent features of the classroom situation which mayfacilitate the learning of a new languagc.Thc teacher’s question may bc: “In what ways mightI exploit the social reality of the classroom as a resource for the teaching of language?”This paper offers particular answers to both thc rcscarchcr’s and the teacher’s questions.It begins with an examination of the approaches of current research towards the languageclass. I offer a particular evaluation of recent developments in investigations devoted tosecond language acquisition and to language learning in the classroom situation. Thisevaluation, though necessarily brief, has thrcc purposes. First, to identify the possiblecontributions of the language classroom which are pcrccivcd and revealed by currentresearch. Second, to identify what seem to lie significant contriliutions of the classroomwhich current research appears to neglect. And third, to deduce certain implications forfuture research and for language teaching.The researcher and the teacher are confronted by a crucial common problem: how torclatc social activity, to psychological change and how to relate psychological processingto the social dynamics ofa group.Thc researcher must explain these relationships if he is tounderstand adequately language learning as it is experienced by most people ~ in a gatheringmade up of other learners and a teacher. The teacher is a direct participant in this social