COMPETENCY BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING
= Performance Based Instructions
= Communicative Language Teaching
· What is competency? It is simply a statement of learning outcomes for a skill or a body of knowledge.
· When students demonstrate a competency, they are demonstrating their ability to do something. They are showing the outcome of the learning process.
· Competency is an integrated set of skills, knowledge and attitudes that enables one to effectively perform the activities of a given occupation or function to standards expected in employment.
· Competencies are correlated with performance on a job and are typically measured against commonly accepted standards
· CBE is an educational movement that focuses on the outcomes or outputs of the learning.
· The focus is on the output rather than input.
· CBE emerged in the United States in the 1970s and refers to an educational movement that advocates defining educational goals in terms of precise measurable descriptions of knowledge, skills, and behaviours students should possess at the end of a course of study.
· CBE is outcome based instruction and is adoptive to the changing needs of students, teachers, and the community.
· Competencies describe the student’s ability to apply basic and other skills in situations that are commonly encountered in everyday life. So they differ from other goals and objectives.
· Thus, CBE is based on a set of outcomes that are derived from an analysis of tasks typically required of students in life role situations.
· Competency-Based Language Teaching is an application of the principles of CBE to the language teaching.
· Such approach has been widely adopted particularly as the basis for the design of work-related and survival-oriented language programs for adults.
· CBE has much in common with such approaches to learning as performance-based instruction, mastery learning and individualized instruction.
· Typically, such programs were based on a performance outline of language tasks that lead to a demonstrated mastery of language associated with specific skills that are necessary for individuals to function proficiently in the society they live in.
· Competency-based approaches offer teachers an opportunity to revitalize their education and training programs.
· Not only will the quality of assessment improve, but the quality of teaching and student learning will be enhanced by the clear specification of expected outcomes and the continuous feedback that competency-based assessment can offer.
· These beneficial effects are seen from primary school to university and from academic studies to workplace training.
· With the press for standards for national education, standards emerged.
· The press for standards was evidenced by the efforts of federal and state legislators, presidential and gubernatorial candidates, teacher and subject matter specialists, councils, governmental agencies, and private foundations.
· Americans were late to standardize the ESL. So they tried to develop K-12 school standards for ESL.
Approach
Theory of Language Learning
· CBLT is based on a functional and interactional perspective on the nature of language.
· Language is given in social context.
· Language always occurs as a medium of instruction, and communication between people for the achievement of specific goals and purposes.
· Used in situations for specific needs.
· Language skills can be predicted or determined.
· The view is that language can be functionally analyzed into appropriate parts and subparts which can be taught incrementally.
· CBLT has a mosaic approach; whole communicative competence is constructed from smaller components correctly assembled.
· It is also built around the notion of communicative competence and seeks to develop functional communication skills in learners.
· These skills are generally described in only the most general terms rather than being linked to the performance of specific real-world tasks.
Design
· Docking points out that the traditional approach to developing a syllabus involves using one’s understanding of subject matter as the basis for syllabus planning.
· According to Docking:
· CBLT is designed not around the notion of subject knowledge but around the notion of competency.
· The focus moves from what students know about language to what they can do with it.
· The focus on competencies or learning outcomes underpins the curriculum framework and syllabus specification, teaching strategies, assessment and reporting.
· Instead of norm-referencing assessment, criterion-based assessment procedures are used in which learners are assessed according to how well they can perform on specific learning tasks.
· Norm-referencing assessment is contrasted with criteria-referenced assessment.
· The former tends to be relative to performance of others while the latter is based on performance against pre-set criteria.
· Competencies consist of a description of the essential skills, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours required for effective performance of a real-world task or activity.
· These activities may be related to any domain of life, though have typically been linked to the field of work and to social survival in a new environment. For the area of retaining a job the following competencies are described:
1. follow instructions to carry out a simple task
2. respond appropriately to supervisor’s comments
3. request supervisor to check word
4. report completion of task to supervisor
5. request supplies
6. ask where object is located
7. read charts, labels, forms or written instructions to perform a task
8. state problem and ask for help if necessary
9. respond to inquiry as to nature or progress of current task
10. respond appropriately to work interruption or modification
· The focus on the outcomes of learning as the driving force of teaching and the curriculum characterizes a competency-based approach.
· Auerbach identifies eight features involved in the implementation of CBI programs in language teaching:
1.A focus on successful functioning in society. The goal is to enable students to become autonomous individuals capable of coping with the demands of the world.
2. A focus on life skills. Rather than teaching language in isolation, CBLT teaches language as a function of communication about concrete tasks. Students are taught just those language forms/skills required by the situations in which they will function. These forms are normally determined by needs analysis.
3. Task or performance-oriented instruction. What counts is what students can do as a result of instruction. The emphasis is on overt behaviours rather than on knowledge or the ability to talk about language and skills.
4. Modularised instruction. Language learning is broken down into meaningful chunks. Objectives are broken into narrowly focused sub-objectives so that both teachers and students can get a clear sense of progress.
5. Outcomes are made explicit. They are public knowledge, known and agreed upon by both learner and teacher. They are specified in terms of behavioural objectives so that students know what behaviours are expected of them.
6. Continuous and ongoing assessment. Students are pre-tested to determine what skills they lack and post-tested after instruction on that skill. If they do not achieve the desired level of mastery, they continue to work on the objective and re-tested.
7. Demonstrated mastery of performance objectives. Rather than the traditional paper and pencil tests, assessment is based on the ability to demonstrate pre-specified behaviours.
8. Individualized, student-centred instruction. In content, level, and pace, objectives are defined in terms of individual needs; prior learning and achievement are taken into account in developing curricula. Instruction is not time-based; students progress at their own rates and concentrate on just those areas in which they lack competence.
· According to Hagan, how the framework operates after an initial assessment, students are placed within the framework on the basis of their current English proficiency level, their learning pace, their needs and their social goals for learning English.
· Competencies each stages in four domains:
1.knowledge and learning competencies
2. oral competencies
3. reading competencies
4. writing competencies
· All competencies are described in terms of:
-elements that break down the competency into smaller components and refer to the essential linguistic features of the text.
-performance criteria that specify the minimal performance required to achieve a competency.
-range of variables that sets limits for the performance of the competency.
-sample texts and assessment tasks that provide examples of texts and relate to the competency.
· Competency area
-social interaction
-instructional language
-safety language
-specific occupational terminology
-on the job language
-job seeking language.
Criticism
· Tollefson argues that there are in fact no valid procedures available to develop competency lists for most programs.
· Many of the areas for which competencies are needed such as adult living, survival and functioning proficiently in the community are impossible to operationalize.
· CBLT as applied in the USA attempts to inculcate attitudes and values that will make refugees passive students who accept quo rather than challenge it.
· Problems with implementing a competency-based approach
-looks easier and neater than it is.
- analyzing situations into tasks and underlying competencies is not always feasible and possible.
-this is a reductionist approach. Language learning is reduced to a set of lists and such things as thinking skills are ignored.
