Target Language and planning

Target language will be a familiar term for anyone who has studied a course such as CELTA or Trinity Cert TESOL, but it is a core idea for many teachers practice, even if they are unfamiliar with the term.  It basically refers to the language that we plan to teach. I’m not against having a goal for a class or even having language in mind that you think will be useful for your students. However, in this post I want to outline some of the problems that arise when we let the target language dominate our thinking and actions above other goals.

Target language and PPP

The term target language came out of a particular communicative approach to teaching very much linked to its origins in short initial training courses for native speaker teachers. It is strongly connected to lessons that follow a Present Practice Produce lesson shape. The teacher decides what the students will learn. In the case of grammar this would often be presented in the form of a situation or ‘context’ that helps to illustrate the meaning of the language (given that the teachers do not share their learners’ language). Through this stage the teacher exits or presents the language and then checks students understanding through concept checking questions. 

We then have exercises that get students to use the target language in very controlled way to practice pronunciation or test their understanding of form and/or meaning. Learners have limited opportunity to use anything other than the target language. There are often therefore also limits to how much learners can express individual experiences and opinions.

Finally, there is a stage where the learners should integrate this ‘new’ language with other known language in a freer stage. But again, there may actually be limits placed on this stage to restrict the number of other forms that can be used – especially at low levels. Also teachers’ feedback on this stage will often focus on the TL.

Is target language new?

You may have noticed that I placed new in quotation marks in the previous paragraph. That’s because one of the problems with choosing TL is that many students in a class may actually already know it. Recycling language is obviously a good thing, but if language is in review, we need a different approach. Firstly, we should get student to try and recall the language as far as possible. Secondly, we want to deepen their knowledge and ability to use it.

In the case of vocabulary, know ing what is new is even more of a problem because learners tend to acquire it in fairly random ways.  This is a good reason to start use a vocab exercise or list as a test. It’s a way to find out which words are known, partially known or new.

If you have a word list for a unit, you might get students to read through it before they start a unit and mark words that they know and use (1) or have never heard of (3).

In the case of grammar, though, there is a question whether there is much to add about the meaning of grammar after students have got the general meaning. It could be argued that grammar forms should not be ‘target language’ above a B1 level.

Does grammar TL need to be practiced in controlled ways?

It therefore follows that at anything above B1 and certainly above B2, there is no need for any controlled practice of grammar. Learners at the B levels have a basic understanding of almost all the grammatical system. What they lack is the ability to put grammar into use in spontaneous production and with a still relatively limited lexicon.

We would argue that it improvement is more likely to come about through spaced interleaved noticing.  For example, the students may do tasks which are not restricted to particular forms. The teacher may help students notice the forms they used / could have used. The teacher could also ask questions to draw attention to forms and their meaning in the texts Learners read in class (exercises, listenings, readings).

If we see vocabulary exercises as tests of what students know/don’t know, then again a further controlled focus on meaning is not really necessary. We would argue that teacher questions or a ‘practice’ tasks that explores the networks around words make more sense, This is something I discussed in my recent webinar on checking language.

Controlled practice of chunks at low level

Of course, at lower levels grammar may be presented and it does need lots of controlled practice and repetition as we argue in our course teaching languages at low levels. However, we would argue that it is best presented in chunks within the framework of common ‘conversations’. The control is more around restricting the number of variations to the chunk and exploring the common interactions around it. Doing tasks without this language support are likely to fail.

Similarly, we certainly do need more repetition of words at low levels, but rather than restricting practice to simple repetition and naming of items, it is better to show how they are grammaticalised for simple personal interactions.

Production and Feedback

When it comes to a production phase, centring a task on TL can also cause problems. On the one hand it can lead to creating tasks that manipulate interactions and task to using particular language rather than having genuine exchanges where learners express their own meanings.

On the other hand, we may find that a more open productive task ‘fails’ because the TL is actually relatively marginal to the success of a task. In other words, students are able to produce the target language but not know enough other language to extend the interaction beyond it. I will look at this in another post in our Standout Teachers community. But at this point, we should remember that feedback can focus on what Learners wanted to actually say, not the language we set out to teach.

Can students use TL and their own ideas at the same time?

Finally, even where the task does encourage genuine interaction and the TL potentially matching the task well, there is still a psychological impediment to students using it. That’s because there is a clash between learners formulating their own meanings and trying to retain the new language in working memory. Some students may forgo their own genuine meanings. Others may not use the TL.

That does not mean the teaching has been a failure or we should never pre-teach anything. It’s more a case of managing our expectations. It is also a reason why you might want to do some kind of rehearsal before a task. That could be students doing the tasks in L1 first, or learners recording ideas before they start. It’s also a reason for repeating tasks within and across lessons.

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