Competency-Based Language Teaching

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Competency-Based Language Teaching
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Competency

• Essential skill, knowledge or behaviour
  required for effective performance of a real
  world task or activity.

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Background

• CBE (Competency-Based Education)
• Emerged in the U.S in 1970s
• For immigrants and refugees
• An educational movement
• Focusing on the outputs and outcomes of learning
  rather than inputs
• To the competencies perspective, outputs to
  learning is central

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Differences between CBE and other methods
Other methods Input centered Syllabuses, materials, activities Changing the role of the learners and teachers So, more effective language learning occurs CBE Output centered No matter how the language learning occurs What are expected from students (output)
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• CBE Described by Schenk 1978
• Performance based instruction
• Individualized instruction
• Mastery learning
• Outcome based
• Adaptive to the changing needs

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Competency-Based Language Teaching(CBLT)

• By the end of 1970s
• Work-related and survival-oriented language
  teaching programs for adults.
• The most important breakthrough in adult ESL

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• 1990s
• The state-of-the-art approach to adult ESL by
  national policymakers and leaders in curriculum
  development as well.
• 1986
• Refugees in the U.S had to be enrolled in a
  competency-based program.
• Programs based on specific skills needed for
  individuals

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Advocates of CBLT see it as a powerful agent of
change. Because

• Opportuinty for teachers to revitalize their
  education and training programs
• Quality of assessment and teaching improves
• Student learning is enhanced
• Specification of expected outcomes
• Continuous feedback

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Standards Movement since 1990s

• Glaser and Linn states..The national
  educational standards emerged
• Washington D.C.-based center for Applied
  Linguistics under control to the TESOL
  organization- developed the K-12 school standards
  for ESL.

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• They divided the grade levels into clusters
• Pre-K to 3rd grade
• 4th to 8th grade
• 9th to 12th grade

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CBLT in Britain in 1980s

• Sharing features of the graded objectives
  movement proposed as a framework for organizing
  foreign language teaching
• Graded objectives are series of short-term
  goals-builded upon one before.
• One of the most remarkable events in modern
  language learning in UK.

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CBLT in general

• the principles of CBE
• educational movement
• focuses on outcomes of learning
• Work-related and survival-oriented learning
• The learners refugees, immigrants
• the most important breakthrough in adult ESL
• teachers opportunity to revitalize their
  education programs
• Teaching quality enhances
• The aim is that the students being master of
  specific language skills to function proficiently
  in the society

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Approach Theory of Language and Learning

• CBLT (Competency Based Language Teaching)
• is based on functional and interactional
  perspective
• language is taught in social context
• Has in common with behaviorist views
• Language can be analyzed into parts and subpart
  and they can be tested incrementally.
• mosaic approach
• develops functional communication skills in
  learners, known of specific real-world task.

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DesignObjectives, Syllabus, Learning activities,
Role of Learners, Teachers, and Material

• Docking(1994)
• Syllabus
• Start with field of knowledge
• Subject based content and syllabus
• Objectives
• Assessment based on norm referencing
• Recieving marks for performances
• CBLT
• designed not around the notion of subject
  knowledge but around the notion of competency

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• Focuses on what students can do with language not
  what they know about language.
• Instead of norm-referenced assessment,
  criterion-based assessment procedures are used in
  which learners are assessed according to how well
  they can perform on specific learning tasks.
  (tells us how well students are performing on
  specific course or standards rather than just
  telling how their performance compare to group
  of students)
• Competency consists of knowledge attitudes,
  behaviors, for reals tasks and activities

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HOW CBLT WORKS

• Teacher
• first carries out a needs analysis to see how and
  where the students will need to use their
  English.
• defines some competencies (tasks) that the
  students will need to accomplish. For example,
  giving personal information, filling a form,
  making a doctors appointment, applying for work,
  and so on.
• creates activities that will teach the students
  how to accomplish those competencies (tasks).
• Finally evaluates the students on their ability
  to perform those tasks.

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• Competencies consist of activities related with
  the real life situations for surviving social
  environment.
• ESL curriculum for immigrant and refugees
  include
• Task performance
• Safety
• General word-related
• Work schedules, times sheets, paychecks
• Social language
• Job application
• Job interview

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• Competencies for retaining a job
• Follow instructions to carry out a simple task
• Respond appropriately to supervisors comments
• Request supervisor to check work
• Report completion of task to supervisor
• Request supplies

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• Follow oral directions to locate an object
• Follow simple oral directions to locate a place
• Read charts, labels, forms or written
  instructions to perform a task
• State problem and ask for help if necessary
• State amount and type of work already competed.
• Respond appropriately to work interruption or
  modification

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Dockings relationship between competencies and
job performance

• a unit of competency
• A role, function, task or learning module
• Change over time, show difference from
  context to context
• An element of competency
• any quality or characteristic of and
  individual
• specific knowledge, attidutes,thinking
  process,perceptual and physical skills
• independent of context and time
• building block

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Mid-nineteenth century

• Spencer in1860
• The major areas of human activity as the basis
  for curricular objectives.
• Bobbitt in 1926
• curricual objectives related to his analysis of
  functional competencies required for adults in
  U.S

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• Northrups report in 1977
• Five knowledge areas
• Four basic skill areas
• 65 competencies

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Auerbach in 1986

• Eight key features in the implementation of CBE
  programs in ESL
• A focus on successful functioning in society
• Autonomus learners
• A focus on life skills
• Language as a function of communication
• Task-or performance-centered orientation
• What a person can do rather than what he
  knows
• Modularized instruction
• objectives are broken into narowly focused
  subobjectives

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• Outcomes that are made explicit a priori
• specifying in terms of behavioral
  objectives
• Continuous and ongoing assessment
• Students being pretested and posttested
• Demonstrated mastery of performance objectives
• assesment relying on demonstration of the
  behaviours
• Individualized, student-centered instruction
• Objectives acording to students needs, prior
  learning, no time based instruction

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Advantages of CBE for learners

• Specific and practical
• judged by learners
• specific and public
• can be mastered one at a time

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Procedure

• Australian Migrant Education Program
• One of the largest immigrant language training
  program.
• Moved from centralised planing (content-based and
  structural curriculum) to decentralised
  learner-centered (needs-based)
• More recently to the competency-based curriculum
  frameworks.

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Certificate in Spoken and Written English

• Learning outcomes are specified in three stages
• Stages 1 and 2 relate to
• General language development
• Stage 3 relates
• Grouping learners according to their goal focus
  and competencies
• Competencies defined by three syllabus
• Further Study
• Vocational English
• Community Access

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Advanced Certificate in Spoken and Written English

• These three stages lead to Stage 4 Advanced
  Certificate in Spoken and Written English.

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Students are placed according to their

• English proficiency level
• Learning pace
• Needs
• Social Goals for learning English

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The Competency descriptions

• 1)Knowledge and learning competencies
• 2)Oral competencies
• 3)Reading competencies
• 4)Writing competencies

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Competencies described in terms of

• Elements breaking down competency into smaller
  components
• and linguistic features
• Performance criteria
• Range of variables setting limit for competency
  peformanc
• Sample texts and assessment tasks providing
  examples of texts and tasks

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CONCLUSION

• Embraced with enthusiasm
• Criticised practically and philosophically
• No valid procedures available
• Impossibility of applying needed competencies
  (adult living, survival, functioning proficiently
  in the community)
• Sum of the parts is not equal to the whole
  (reductionist approach)

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Banking Model

• The function of education is
• Socializing learners according to their dominant
  socio-economic group
• Transmitting the knowledge
• Teachers job is to create ways to teach
  skills.
• Prescriptivist in that teaching focuses on
  behavior and performance rather than on the
  development of thinking skills

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• CBLT is gaining strength internationally. As
  Rylatt and Lohan said
• It can confidently be said, as we enter a new
  millennium, that the business of improving
  learning competencies and skills will remain one
  of the worlds growing industries and
  priorities.

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• Thank you for your attention!..