Emphasis on rapid acquisition of practical proficiency
Most students in intensive ESL programs are there to improve their English proficiency. Other goals, such as academic skill development and cultural enrichment, are also important to many students, and cannot be slighted. However, English proficiency is the major consideration in most cases.
It takes time to develop language proficiency. FOCAL SKILLS therefore regards accelerated language acquisition as its highest priority. Cultural studies, academic skill development, and other goals involving the use of language will be more successful after students have acquired good functional use of the English language.
Research indicates that students in FOCAL SKILLS programs acquire English language proficiency faster than students in most other types of intensive English program. A number of studies have found that FOCAL SKILLS students gain about 35% more English ability in a semester than other IEP students (see research on the effectiveness of FOCAL SKILLS).
We attribute the FOCAL SKILLS advantage to a number of factors, which are discussed in the following sections.
Powerful techniques for delivering comprehensible input
Most researchers agree that comprehensible input is necessary (or at least highly desirable) if students are to acquire language proficiency. Following the work of Dr. Stephen Krashen, FOCAL SKILLS regards comprehensible input as essential. Comprehensible input is Job One for every FOCAL SKILLS teacher.
We have developed or adapted a number of key techniques that enable us to provide large amounts of high-quality comprehensible input to ESL students:
- The FOCAL SKILLS Movie Technique uses authentic movies to bring an immense variety of meaning into the classroom. By narrating and paraphrasing at the appropriate level of complexity, the teacher can create a rich stream of comprehensible input that is directly related to what the students are seeing and hearing. This input is supported and reinforced by the coherence of the plot, the appeal of the characters, and the affective impact of the scenes.
- In The Talk Show, two teachers converse and interact with the class while carrying out some project or purposeful activity involving realia.
- Interactive Reading is a group activity in which the class, guided by the teacher, explores an authentic text together.
- Personal Reading is an application of Krashen's "Free Voluntary Reading," with a teacher serving as resource person.
- In Free Writing, students write individually on topics of interest and importance to them. The teacher consults with the student and responds in the form of a Focused Rewrite, in which selected portions of the student's work are rewritten in clear, standard English. This technique provides highly focused, personalized comprehensible input, because the rewritten material expresses the student's own thoughts, while the language elements modeled in this way are likely to contain a hefty sample of the student's personal i+1.
- A Mini-Course is a short course on any reasonable topic, with readings, media materials, discussions, presentations, and other standard academic activities.
Many of these techniques are described more fully in these articles about the FOCAL SKILLS classroom. These techniques are used selectively in the various skill-focused modules.
Classroom atmosphere encouraging low affective filter
Affective Filter is the term Stephen Krashen has used to refer to the complex of negative emotional and motivational factors that may interfere with the reception and processing of comprehensible input. Such factors include: anxiety, self-consciousness, boredom, annoyance, alienation, and so forth. In FOCAL SKILLS programs, we maintain low affective filters in the following ways:
- We do not test students on the material they are working with. This eliminates a major source of anxiety. The only testing in the program is for placement purposes; whatever anxiety this generates is associated with the infrequent placement procedure, not with the daily classroom environment.
- We do not require students to perform when they are not ready and willing to do so. Speaking is always voluntary and always welcome; hence, it is genuine speaking, in contrast to the embarrassed, strained output that passes for speaking in some methods. We never make our students feel awkward or self-conscious by putting them on the spot.
- We use authentic materials — feature movies, newspapers and magazines, popular fiction, etc. — rather than ESL textbooks and the like. Boredom is less likely with these materials, since they are the kinds of things normal people enjoy in real life.
- We do not use exercises, drills, or any kind of artificial task that has no ostensible or sensible purpose other than language practice. Instead, we maintain a flow of ordinary, meaningful language about people, places, things, ideas, stories, and so on. Such activities do not become annoying; they are universally accepted as normal, basic modes of human interaction.
- Teachers function as partners and mentors (positive roles) but not as testers and judges (negative roles). All testing and placement is done at the program level, not by the individual teachers. This helps prevent feelings of alienation and hostility toward teachers.
- Frequent placement testing enables us to keep students in groups that reflect their current needs and abilities. Since all of the students in a class have similar skill profiles, they function well as a community. This helps maintain positive attitudes and good will among the class members.
Progressive Functional Skill Integration
The four macroskills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) are all part of normal language proficiency and use. They can also work together in language acquisition, and the phrase integrated skills is commonly used to describe curricula that develop the skills in parallel fashion.
FOCAL SKILLS integrates the skills in a particularly effective way: by exploiting certain skills as tools for developing others. Progressive Functional Skill Integration refers to the logical, systematic integration of the skills in accordance with their potential uses in the classroom.
Since all classes in our intensive ESL environments are conducted in English, the ability to understand spoken English is fundamental for the development of reading, writing, and speaking. Reading ability is essential to the growth of writing ability. Speaking skills are built gradually on the foundation of the other skills, especially listening. All four skills contribute to academic performance.
These considerations lead to the following principles:
- Students should have good listening comprehension before working on reading, writing, and academic skills.
- Students should have good reading comprehension before working on writing and academic skills.
- Students should have good writing ability before working on academic skills.
- Speaking should be encouraged throughout the process of acquiring English, especially after good listening comprehension has been attained.
The disciplined order of development set forth in these principles intensifies the efficiency of language acquisition, since students are always working on their weak skills from a position of strength.
We have developed some terminology to facilitate discussion of skills in this framework:
- A focal skill is a language skill that a student is currently working on. Our system of modules is set up in such a way that each student works on only one focal skill at a time.
- Supporting skills are language skills that can be used to support work on a focal skill. As outlined above, listening can be used to support work that is focused on all other skills; reading supports work focused on writing; and so on. A skill that has developed to the supporting level can normally continue to develop through regular use, and no longer requires focused attention.
- An emergent skill develops to some extent as a consequence of work focused on some other skill. For example, speaking and reading both improve somewhat as a result of progress in listening; and writing improves as reading improves.
The FOCAL SKILLS modular placement system makes sure that students have adequate supporting skills before they work on a focal skill. The system also ensures that students do not continue to focus unnecessarily on supporting skills, which will continue to grow through use. Furthermore, our system sequences the focal skills in such a way that emergent skills have the opportunity to grow spontaneously for a time.
All of these factors contribute to the efficiency of the classroom. We focus time and attention on a skill only when it needs focus, and only when its supporting skills are well developed. This eliminates a lot of the wasted effort that can be seen in some other programs.
This bare description of Progressive Functional Skill Integration may sound dry and artificial. However, the FOCAL SKILLS modular design fleshes out these concepts in a curriculum that is both natural and engaging.
Modular Design
The core curriculum of FOCAL SKILLS is covered in 4 modules. Each module (except the Advanced) focuses on a particular language skill, which we call its focal skill. The activities in each module are selected to take full advantage of the supporting skills. Here is an overview of the modules.
In an intensive program, students spend 3 hours a day on the focal skill and one hour in an elective. Genuine speaking opportunities are integrated naturally, appropriately, and supportively into all activities, every hour, every day.
FOCAL SKILLS classes are lively, interesting, and productive, because:
- We use authentic materials.
- Students' affective filters are low.
- The students all need to improve in the focal skill of the module, and they all have the prerequisite supporting skills that enable effective work on that focal skill. This is assured by the placement system.
Simple and intuitive placement system
An entering student (1) first takes the Listening Assessment. If the score indicates intermediate listening comprehension or better, the next step is the Reading Assessment (2). If the Listening score does not satisfy the criterion, the student is placed into the Listening Module (1a). After 4 weeks, a different version of the Listening Assessment is given (1b). Again, the score determines whether the student goes on to the Reading Assessment or spends another 4 weeks in the Listening Module. This cycle repeats until the Listening score is satisfactory.
The same system is followed with the Reading and Writing Assessments and Modules. After the criterion on the Writing Assessment has been attained, the student goes directly into the Advanced Module (4) and leaves (5) whenever personal goals have been achieved.
The logic of this placement system should be apparent. It applies the principle of Progressive Functional Skill Integration and enables the modules to focus on their respective skills with the full power of the teaching techniques described earlier.
Individualized curriculum
With the placement system described above, the core curriculum of FOCAL SKILLS adjusts readily to the individual needs and strengths of each student. Students skip modules that they do not need, and stay in modules that they do need for as long as they need them.
A student might spend an entire semester in the Listening Module. Or, a student might skip Listening altogether and go on to Reading for 4 weeks and Writing for 12 weeks. Or, a student might take 8 weeks of Listening and then be ready to go directly to the Advanced Module.
Below is a list of the possible schedules a student might follow over the course of one 16-week semester. Each of these schedules represents a distinct individualized curriculum. If we have counted correctly, there are 33 possible curricular sequences in 1 semester — far more than would be possible in most intensive ESL programs. This great variety of possibilities is produced by a simple placement procedure repeated every 4 weeks.
It seems reasonable that students should progress faster if they are given curricular sequences that closely match their individual strengths, weaknesses, and aptitudes.
Flexible electives
The FOCAL SKILLS core curriculum is rich and varied, but it is a good idea to provide opportunities for students and teachers to explore areas outside the core. Our program design has a built-in Elective Hour that is entirely independent from the modules.
What is covered in the electives? Any reasonable topic or activity that students want to work on and teachers are willing to offer is eligible to be an elective.
- Some staples have been Grammar Workshop, Conversation, Vocabulary Development, Pronunciation, and similar subjects that echo parts of traditional ESL curricula. These electives enable us to respond to the needs and wishes of those students who feel reassured by traditional approaches to language study.
- Other electives can provide experiences similar to the various modules, for students who want to have additional work related to their current module or sample the type of work that is done in another module. Some examples are Cinema, Fiction, and Creative Writing.
- Perhaps the most interesting and successful electives have been those that range over topics far removed from language study. Examples are Photography, Science Fiction, and Famous Local Restaurants.
We have found that the elective system works very well when it is made as flexible as practical circumstances allow. The following model has been quite successful:
- Students are allowed to change their elective every week, subject to availability.
- A sign-up list is passed around the classes on Friday, and elective class lists are posted on Monday.
- Students and teachers are free to propose new electives.
- The number of electives offered at any one time is determined by staffing constraints.
- Under-enrolled electives are dropped from the list and replaced with new offerings.
Authentic materials
FOCAL SKILLS programs make extensive use of authentic materials, but they use few if any of the textbooks and related materials that are so prevalent in the field.
There are two major reasons for our reliance on authentic materials. First, authentic materials are, on the whole, more interesting, more motivating, and more readily available than textbooks. Second, it is difficult to find textbooks that are well suited to the FOCAL SKILLS curriculum and methods.
What do we mean by authentic materials? We mean materials that were created, or at least appear to have been created, for the use and enjoyment of people who are not studying English as a Second Language. A movie such as Shakespeare in Love is authentic. A newspaper such as USA Today is authentic. An essay that you might write about the major attractions of your home town is authentic.
Authentic materials need not be difficult, and they need not be intended for competent native speakers. They may be simplified or adapted in various ways for the uses of ESL students. What makes them authentic, in our sense of the term, is that have the feel of materials that are meant to be used in authentic ways — for information, self-expressions, enjoyment, and so on.
The main pedagogical points about authentic materials are:
- They engage our students' attention — and our attention as well.
- They provide vast amounts of comprehensible input.
- They keep affective filters low.
- They offer unparalleled variety.
- They are available everywhere.
- They are perfectly suited for the FOCAL SKILLS curriculum and teaching methods.
- They offer unsurpassed opportunities for creative teaching.
Creative teaching
FOCAL SKILLS teachers have at least two major sources of job satisfaction. One is the rapid progress their students make. The other is the wide scope for creativity that goes along with teaching in this kind of program.
It must be admitted that the creative aspect of FOCAL SKILLS is not for everyone. Some ESL teachers are much happier using materials prepared by others, following lesson plans designed to accompany the materials, and in general serving as conveyers rather than producers of pedagogy. There is nothing at all wrong with this; in fact, this style of teaching is absolutely necessary in many programs and curricula.
In FOCAL SKILLS, however, the successful teacher is one who
- finds large quantities of interesting materials
- becomes extremely familiar with the materials
- plans appropriate ways of using the materials
- presents the materials in an effective, engaging, professional manner,
all within the framework of the FOCAL SKILLS curricular guidelines.
For example, a Listening Module teacher may use 2 or possibly even 3 feature-length movies each week. This entails the following steps. First, prospective movies must be previewed. Usable movies must be selected, taking the personality of the teacher, the make-up of the class, and perhaps local cultural constraints into account. Each movie that has been chosen must be viewed carefully, a number of times, until the teacher knows the movie well enough to recall the names of the characters, anticipate what is coming from scene to scene, and explain the plot, the motives of the characters, and other vital elements in clear, simple language. The illustrative potential of scenes must be evaluated, and plans made for the use of freeze-frame, rewind and review, slow motion, silent replay, and similar techniques that might be used to accompany narration, paraphrases, and simple questions. Finally comes the actual use of the movie in class, which requires energetic delivery, smooth transitions, attention to detail, awareness of student response, and the ability to improvise on one's feet.
Is this more or less difficult than using packaged materials and lesson plans? For some teachers, it is probably more difficult, and for others, it is probably easier. In any case, it is here, where the teacher creates meaningful language experiences for the students, that the real work of the FOCAL SKILLS approach is done.