For these pedagogic and curricular decisions, we as teachers are relying on different approaches. The approaches of the post-method era, e.g., TBLT and C-BLI, have two characteristics: (1) aiming for communicative meaning in context, and (2) the focus on process rather than product. Other teaching methods did not always have this goal and focus; when I began to learn a second language, metaphors of mastering a language – eine Sprache beherrschen (to command a language), and владеть языком (to possess a language) – were in common use, and to master meant to master lexical and grammatical forms. This led to focus-on-forms exercises (Long, 1991) such as the ones in TUCO II (Taylor, 1979) mentioned above. Later discourses in Applied Linguistics emphasized negotiation of meaning and questioned the dominance of linguistic accuracy in language assessment. Accuracy is only one component of language proficiency; the other two are complexity and fluency (Kowal, 2016; Norris & Ortega, 2009; Schulze et al., 2010). Given the trade-off effects between accuracy and complexity – a learner’s focus on complexity by using new vocabulary or grammatical constructions, for example, often leads to lower levels of accuracy – an increased focus on building complexity in language learning activities and tasks became the preferred step toward language proficiency. These processes and discussions were underway already and have simply become more pressing due to the use of GenAI tools for text generation and machine translation. The generated synthetic text is usually more accurate than a learner text, and the product arrives more quickly than anyone can write. For me as a language learner, the focus was almost exclusively on the assessment of the finished product. As a language teacher, I introduced different stages for feedback and grading as well as peer feedback in my writing classes and rely on meaning-focused approaches such as TBLT.
This is an excerpt from an early draft of a book chapter. The book will be about language teacher education and GenAI. I am posting these in smaller (mostly) self-contained posts. The posts are numbered consecutively. After they will have all come out, I will link them with each other.
So that students go beyond the synthetic text, it is necessary for the teacher to focus on the text production process rather than on the product exclusively (Hamel & Séror, 2016). For the emphasis of process over product to be successful, teachers are encouraged to return to the underpinnings of the communicative approach (Canale & Swain, 1980; Hymes, 1972). Activities and tasks – with or without GenAI or other digital tools – need to be embedded in an authentic and personally and socially relevant communicative situation. One useful tool for this is the S‑P‑E‑A‑K‑I‑N‑G model by Hymes (1974).
Table 1: SPEAKING model by (Hymes, 1974, pp. 53–62)
| S | Setting & Scene | Physical time and place (setting), and the psychological or cultural context (scene). |
| P | Participants | Who is involved? Speaker, listener, bystanders, etc. |
| E | Ends | Purposes and outcomes (both intended and actual) of the interaction. |
| A | Act Sequence | The form and content of what is said, and the order in which it is said. |
| K | Key | Tone, manner, or spirit (e.g., serious, sarcastic, formal, playful). |
| I | Instrumentalities | Channels (e.g., oral, written) and code (language or dialect used). |
| N | Norms | Social rules governing interaction (e.g., turn-taking, politeness). |
| G | Genre | Type of communicative event (e.g., interview, joke, sermon, conversation). |
The notion of authenticity ought to also be revived for texts in receptive activities. An authentic text is “a stretch of real language, produced by a real speaker or writer for a real audience and designed to convey a real message” (Morrow, 1977) and fulfilled a communicative function outside the teaching context. Text authenticity is important to expose learners to cultural and social products, practices, and perspectives in addition to targeted conversation and language practice (Pérez Cañado & Almagro Esteban, 2005) using the synthetic texts of chatbots. This exposure can help learners understand that in the end language is a “passport” to another (speech) community and the goal of language learning is not the fastest manipulation of generated synthetic text. Teachers need to balance conversation practice, with a focus on form, and meaningful and authentic communication, with a focus on social interaction, in their classes. This will lead to a focus on process rather than product organically.
References
Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 1–47.
Hamel, M.-J., & Séror, J. (2016). Video screen capture to document and scaffold the L2 writing process. In Language-learner computer interactions: Theory, methodology and CALL applications (pp. 137–162). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Hymes, D. H. (1972). On Communicative Competence. In J. B. Pride & J. Holmes (Eds.), Sociolinguistics. Selected Readings (pp. 269–293). Penguin.
Hymes, D. H. (1974). Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Kowal, I. (2016). The dynamics of complexity, accuracy and fluency in second language development. Jagiellonian University Press.
Long, M. H. (1991). Focus on Form: A Design Feature in Language Teaching Methodology. In K. de Bot, D. Coste, R. Ginsberg, & C. Kramsch (Eds.), Foreign Language Research in Cross-Cultural Perspectives (pp. 39–52). Benjamins.
Morrow, K. (1977). Authentic texts and ESP. In S. Holden (Ed.), English for Specific Purposes (pp. 13–17). Modern English Publications.
Norris, J. M., & Ortega, L. (2009). Towards an Organic Approach to Investigating CAF in Instructed SLA: The Case of Complexity. Applied Linguistics, 30(4), 555–578.
Pérez Cañado, M. L., & Almagro Esteban, A. (2005). Authenticity in the teaching of ESP: An evaluation proposal. Scripta Manent, 1(1), 35–43.
Schulze, M., Verspoor, M., Wood, P., & Pokorny, B. (2010). Towards automatic proficiency scoring in L2 writing: Balanced complexity. University of Waterloo [unpublished manuscript].
Taylor, H. F. (1979). DECO/TUCO: Students’ reactions to computer assisted instruction in German. Foreign Language Annals, 12(4), 289–291.
