My name is Raimo Junnikkala and my articles mostly deal with communicative language teaching (CLT). I want to help language teachers who wish to modernize their teaching and apply CLT principles more efficiently.
I am a recently retired teacher of English who also ran the IB Section of Turku Teacher Training School for nearly 30 years. I have worked as a teacher trainer for 42 years in Finland and recently in Oman as well.
Depending on the feedback I will get on my articles I am considering having them in Podcasts as well to elaborate the ideas. These articles are actually a story of how I gradually came to realize how one can learn all aspects of a foreign languageif the teacher knows what to do. There are lots of acticles on CLT in the internet but my ideas are directly linked to the work in class. Teachers need practical advice more than theory.
When I started my career I hated the idea of my students spending more than 10 years without learning to master English, without learning to speak and communicate in English. As a result I decided I would not let it happen to my students. Still, it took me many years to learn the tricks of the trade.
I used to hate my lessons but I at first did not have a clue how to change them. Not until I learnt to apply CLT in full.
to mirror the changes I have gone through in language teaching in 40 years, and I also discuss the reasons for the changes I have made in my career
Turku Teacher Training SchoolLunch hall2nd floor staircase
I was inspired by two things to write these articles:
In my IB years I learnt that far too many students, especially in Central Europe and the Middle East, do not learn to speak and use English properly. With 42 years of experience I know how it can be done.
Working in Oman as a language teaching expert a few years ago I realized it is practical tips on how to apply CLT principles that the teachers need. I will keep theory to minimum.
At present I am living in Sauvo, southern Finland, close to the sea with my wife. My four children and their five grand children are living on their own in Oulu and Turku. My favourite hobbies include going on singing gigs with a dance band, playing icehockey with my friends, renovating my house and picking up blueberries in July.
MOTTO: Learning starts when the teacher stops talking.
Don’t worry! This argument is a bit provocative but there is a lot of truth in it. It took me a couple of years before I really understood what Rogers meant by this argument. These articles are about the application of this and other CLT principles.
My second article under this heading is about my own history as a language learner and teacher. It will give you some perspective to how language teaching has changed over the last 50 years, and how and why I completely changed my ways of teaching English in 1986.
I still remember the fear when I decided I have to change the way I’m teaching English! What if I make a fool of myself? What if I become a laughing stock in the school and in front of the parents?
That was in the autumn of 1986. All that fear was gone in a week when I saw what was happening in my classes.
Over the last 50 years language teaching has gone through some major changes aiming at better and better teaching and learning. Even if the methodology has been drastically changed many teachers are are still unsure how to make the changes needed. How to apply the principles of communicative language learning (CLT).
We all want our students to enjoy our lessons, to speak and write English well, or whatever language we are teaching. We want to help and encourage our students to reach their full potential as language learners and human beings.
I remember the fear I had when I changed my style of teaching. What if I make a fool of myself? What if I become a laughing stock in the school and in front of the parents? But I wanted to do my job well and I had no other choice than take the risk. I told my students about my plans and the reasons for the changes I was about to make and they agreed to give it a try. And we never went back to what the lessons used to be like.
The basic questions are still the same: What is the best and most effective way to teach and learn a foreign language? What kind of language lesson would I myself enjoy?
The translation method was used up to the 1970’s: translating texts from English into the mother tongue and vice verca focusing on grammar with a very limited view on other language skills.
I myself am a child of this period, graduated from high school in 1973 and could not speak English at all when I started to study English at Oulu University in Finland. I never heard the teacher speak English freely, we students never spoke or heard recorded English in class, no recordings were available, hands were raised for the answer and we stood up, answered and sat down one at a time. We were nice students who could stand the process since we knew of nothing better.
Until – we realized the new German teacher’s methods were effective: a lot of reading aloud in class, dealing with the chapters properly in groups and spending two hours a week in the language lab speaking German, recording and listening to ourselves speaking. Hely Laitinen, the teacher, was 20 years ahead of her time. Six German lessons a week for two years – and I can still speak German even if I learnt it 50 years ago and have not used it very much. One of the miracles of my limited brain capacity.
It was actually amusing that when I got in the university to study English and Swedish I could not speak the languages more than at an elementary level since we had not practiced speaking at school and there was no other source available in those days. Of course I Iearnt to speak both langauges quite well in a year but still, I was 19 years of age at that time. What a waste!Still, it is a comforting story for my students: It is never too late to learn to speak a language!
In the early 1980’s the audio-lingual method was introduced in Finland, which meant a step forward towards real usage of language and developing speaking, listening and writing in particular. New methological approaches were introduced and teachers started to use English recordings, students timidly spoke for a few minutes in each lesson and writing tasks were given to the students. Nevertheless, the full potential of CLT was not understood.
I did my compulsory one-year teacher training in 1979 – 1980 in a training school in Oulu in northern Finland. The teaching methods were very teacher-oriented even if there were glimpses of students working in pairs and groups. After the teacher training I taught English, Swedish and Finnish in a local prison and was a part-time teacher in a couple of other schools until I got a permanent positionas a teacher trainer in English in Oulu University teacher training school.
In the 1970s suggestopedia developed by Georgi Lozanov brought many new ideas into language teaching even if it was considered to be too different a style to be used continuously. Thanks to suggestopedia we started to eliminate the barriers of learning aiming at more relaxed lessons where all human senses were made use of while the students were working in pairs or groups. Music and language games were made use of. The students felt relaxed and were not afraid of making mistakes when speaking and working together. I personally felt better thanks to the changes but I was still not pleased.
My hometown Oulu by the Gulf of Bothnia, northern Finland
It was an in-service course in southern Finland that changed my style of teaching permanently. On the way back to Oulu I had an incredibly illuminating discussion with professor Irma Huttunen who had been one of the lecturers in the course. She had recently finished her doctoral thesis on autonomous learning and I was absolutely fascinated by her ideas and what she had learnt while applying the ideas in her own classes.
I spent the weekend developing the new approach to the texts in the English books and how the time in the class was to be spent. On the following Monday morning I had a double lesson with senior high students and I said to them that I hated much of what we did in my own lessons and that I wanted to try out something new with them. I explained what I thought was wrong in our system and what and why I was going to do with them in the future.
We agreed on a two-week trial period and would come back to the old style if the new style turned out to be disasterous. We never went back. It was 1986 and most of the principles I came up with at that time served me until I retired a couple of years ago. Of course there have been many methological advances since then but the student-centred approach is still valid today.
In the 1990’s it was finally realized that English and languages in general are to be learnt with true real-life skills in mind: the principles of communicative language teaching became more and more popular. Teachers realized that they have to teach not only all the language skills but also about the culture of the target language as well as study skills. The emphasis on speaking skills was a natural consequence of student-oriented methods. Luckily, the ministeries of education in most countries have understood the same things and the skills are also tested in the final exams, which forces teachers to these these skills in class as well.
Still the biggest changes were seen in classes themselves:
The teachers’ role began to change and they were more organizers of the lessons than the ones actually speaking and teaching all the time. Their job was to make learning possible as faciliators of learning.
Students were not evaluated only on the basis of exams but their activity level and participation in class was also taken into account. Learning for life, not for grades and exams, was acknowledged.
The third change was the introduction of the use of computer programmes and modern technology in lessons.
Turku Teacher Training School – renovated six years ago
The 21st century has seen this tendency taken further in many ways:
classes and methods have become more student-oriented
the objectives for language learning lessons now cover all skill areas
time is devoted to enhance the students’ study and social skills
the teacher has become more an organizer of learning than the one who talks about the language
assessment is not based only on tests and exams
learning strategies and styles, how to learn effectively are actively taught
instead of memorization we now emphasize understanding and application of the language
modern technology and the internet are made use of and they provide us with plenty of opportunities in distance learning
even final examinations are taken via the internet in many countries
The internet became a valid source for new information and publishers introduced computer materials that were directly linked to the textbooks used. Even exams can now be taken in special exam locations at a time chosen by the students themselves. The goals set for the 21st century are becoming reality.
I was accepted to study English at Oulu University in 1974 thanks to my passive skills in English. I could not speak English at all because we had never practised it at school. Neither could I write English well since in all my years at school I had written only one text which was a joke. The first book I read in English was the entrance exam novel ’Brighton Rock’ by Graham Green. I had to buy a DX radio to learn to understand spoken language in the BBC programmes. In brief, my learning of English at school was a joke in itself.
”I swore to myself that I would not let the same thing happen to my own students.”
I started my teaching career in 1977 but it took many years before I realized how to apply the principles of communicative language teaching in full.
REVELATION ON THE TRAIN
In the autumn of 1986 I was sitting on a train heading for Oulu, my hometown in Finland, after attending an in-service course in Heinola, southern Finland. For the first time in my career as an English teacher I felt puzzled but still hopeful because of a lecture given by Professor Irma Huttunen. She had been studying autonomous learning for years and I was fascinated by the ideas she had put forward.
Luckily we lived in the same city and she happened to be in the same coach on the train as me. Consequently we spent more than four hours talking about student-centered teaching and learning. I had, of course, read a lot about communicative language teaching but now I realized I should be applying the principles much more effectively.
“The results of my students were good but I felt something had to be changed. But what and how? I had a lesson to learn.”
Secondly, I also realized that I had wanted to play safe and I did not fully believe in the CLT ideas presented in books. Thirdly, deep down inside I hated the way I was teaching English but I had known of nothing better. On the surface level it seemed there was no need to make changes in my teaching since my students’ results were very good. Still, I felt I had to make a lot of changes but I just did not know how to get started properly.
”I was afraid of becoming a laughing stock in my school. But I had to take the risk. I could not go on the next 30 years teaching the way I was doing.”
ONLY I HAD THE KEY TO THE CLASSROOM – and TO MAKE THE CHANGE
I spent the following weekend making plans how I could change my way of teaching English. In those days we did not have the Internet or many additional sources so our teaching was mainly based on the textbooks we used. I assume that is still the case in most classes all over the world. The use of internet sources, for example, requires many skills that are actually learnt gradually when we use student-oriented methods.
The next Monday morning I had a double lesson, 90 minutes, with my 16-year-olds and spent all of it telling my senior high students that I really hated the way I had been teaching them English and that I wanted to try something new with them for a month. They were amazed and sat quietly listening to me explaining how the lessons would be changed and why. I tried to argue clearly and told that I was not absolutely sure how everything would work out and was very willing to get feedback from them. In the end we agreed to have a trial period and besides we could always go back to the old system. But we never did.
“The only thing my students would not be able to do in the English lesson was to open the door. Only I had the key.”
So what I did in practice over the weekend was that I went through all the stages in my lessons thinking how the students could be more active at that point. To my horror it dawned on me that just about the only thing the students could not do was to open the classroom door because only I had the key.
OH, THE JOY ON THE STUDENTS’ FACES
Homework was checked in groups or pairs, much more quickly than under my supervision. The new chapter was listened to together and I taught a shy and weak student how to use the CD recorder. Oh, how proud he was when he was in control. After listening differentiation stepped in when understanding of the text was checked. I felt I had no right to hold back those who understood the text perfectly so they made a group of their own and skipped the translation, some students checked a few sentences and I translated nearly the whole chapter with the weakest students.
“Who am I took slow down the learning process of the best ones? No, I had to learn how to use differentiation in my lessons.”
I had anticipated all of this and I had a list of things on a flip board for the students what to do next . In brief, after listening to the chapter every group made progress on their own following my instructions. First I was scared but in the end I was relieved and pleased: the students understood they were working for themselves but still enjoying the lesson and each other’s company.
Next the students read aloud any part of the text they wanted in their group at their own pace instead of me telling them what to read. I took control of the weakest students again and made them read parts of the text aloud. In two weeks time no translations were needed in any lessons and the questions presented to me reflected true understanding and it often turned out that it was the writer’s fault, not the students’, that some part of the text was found hard. Teaching strategies on how the students could learn English more effectively was something I myself learnt to teach little by little.
NO FEAR OF MAKING MISTAKES
The next stage was ’questions on the text’. I felt some students found these questions too easy and even boring so I had to differentiate again and had thought of offering three options: 1)Ask each other and answer the questions on the screen OR 2)Explain in your own words what the text is about and give your opinion about the ideas OR 3)Discuss the text-related topic given in pairs or groups and/or make a mind-map of some key ideas.
“The older generations are still afraid of speaking in English because they were punished for making mistakes. As a result they stopped talking. The CLT message was: Stop worrying about mistakes. We all make them.”
I can still remember the first lessons and the joy on the students’ faces when they were freely talking and doing things at the level they wanted. No fear of making mistakes, finally putting their passive knowledge of English into active use. ’But the preparation takes a lot time’, you say, don’t you? Well, not really because I had to think about the questions about the text anyway.
I had been in the habit of telling my students what to underline in the text but now I told them to underline anything they found worth underlining. Why should they underline something with me that they already knew? How did they learn the underlined words and phrases? Well, by using them in their own oral sentences. Who checked the utterances? Their pair or others in the group. I interfered only if I was asked something.
TEACHING WITHOUT TEACHING by making learning possible
First I found my new role akward because I was not actively teaching everyone at the same time but simply observed what was going on and offered help when needed. Was this the new role I had to take having studied at the uni for many years? Yes, definetely it was. Of course, I had to do some planning at home and organize the activities in class but on the whole I had finally assumed the CLT teacher’s role as an organizer and fasciliator of learning.
“First my new role felt strange but then I started to enjoy it and learnt new methods in group work.”
In short, I started my true CLT career by changing the flow of my text-based lessons to a great extent. Later on we had a lot of variations in the lessons doing station work, co-operative learning, task and inquiry-based learning and flipped learning making use of the internet and computer programmes at the same time.
The whole atmosphere in my classes changed drastically and class control was not needed in the traditional sense. I tried to remember to serve visual, auditive and kinesthetic students in every lesson, started to teach learning strategies as well and assessment became a continuous process with much less stress on it. My lessons were completely different from the ones I had attended and the years and excellent learning results proved my decisions correct.
Learning is enjoyable in a relaxing atmosphere. The more the students are active, discuss matters in groups and work at a level that they find challenging enough, the more they learn. It may be challenging for the teacher to talk less and let the learning of English take place in pairs and groups, as a by-product of the process.
