Page 58 - Beyond Methods

46 Maximizing learning opportunities
what is available to learn. In making this important distinction, All- wright (1981, p. 7) points out that what is available to learn is “a re- sult of the interactive nature of classroom events.” That is, beyond the teachers’ planned agenda, the unfolding classroom interaction provides opportunities for teachers to explain something in the target language, and for learners to ask questions. All the things said in the target language by all the participants are available for all the learn- ers to learn, if they pay attention to them. In other words, learners join their teachers in generating language input that is potentially available for everybody to learn. In doing so, they change the course of their teacher’s agenda.
Limitations of Teaching Materials
By their very nature, teaching materials represent the product of careful and creative planning on the part of textbook writers; they are not the result of any interactive process of classroom events. They are frequently looked upon as carriers of grammatical struc- tures or vocabulary items that have to be introduced to the learners. Commercially produced for mass consumption, they can hardly ad- dress the specific interactive needs and wants of a given group of learners.
Because of these limitations, it is better to treat a text as a pre- text (or, even as a pretext, an excuse). That is, it should be treated as no more than a springboard to launch the interactive process in the classroom. In that sense, textbooks should function as source-books rather than course-books (Prabhu, 1987, p. 94). The language that is needed for the interactive process has to be negotiated by the learner with the help of the teacher, whose job it is to maximize learning opportunities in class.
Limitations of Syllabus Specifications
Just as a prescribed textbook, a syllabus is also a preplanned and presequenced inventory of linguistic specifications handed down, in most cases, to teachers and learners. The practicing teacher is ex- pected to chart a course of action in the classroom to achieve the goals of syllabus specifications. The teacher tries to do that either by using textbooks that closely follow those syllabus specifications or by designing supplementary activities that are appropriate to the needs of a particular group of learners. In doing so, teachers recog-