A critical role of digital media and Mass communication on the Comprehensive Instructional Model of Language Learning
Abstract
A role of digital media for any learning theory is comprehensive and critical, it should integrate all the learning elements without missing anyone of them. Hence, this paper is an attempt to critically analyze a controlled language class based on the Comprehensive Instructional Model of Language Learning (CIMLL). The method of analysis is descriptive and instructional. Descriptive in the sense that it is observational, qualitative, and quantitative. Instructional in the sense that it is evaluative because it is based on the four evaluative factors, namely quantity, quality, manner, and relation. It is an evaluation, which is not taken as a judgement for the teachers’ work because the new comprehensive model helps them to build on their evaluation in order to improve on their practices without changing their teaching strategies. The comprehensive character of learning should be explicitly presented in every practice to prevent any ambiguity in terms of instructions or the clarity of the teaching materials.
Keywords: Digital Media and Mass communication, Comprehensive Instructional Model of Language Learning, the learning components, the evaluative dimensions, the comprehensive character, instructional, practice.
1. Introduction
The comprehensive aspect of any language learning model in any teaching context is the cornerstone of its success or failure. In this paper, our focus will be on a controlled language class that we tried to analyze in the light of the Comprehensive Instructional Model of Language Learning (CIMLL). We started our analysis with the description of the process of the lesson in terms of the teacher’s performance, behaviour, instructions, the use of the board, the use of the mother tongue, reactions, and to what extent she was able to integrate the three learning components in every step of the lesson, namely the input, the competency building, and the communicative acts. In terms of evaluation, the teacher adopts the CIMLL’s matrix, which is based on the four qualitative dimensions, quantity, quality, manner, and relation. The informants of the experiment are a group of twelve Moroccan public school students with different backgrounds where English is studied as a foreign language.
However, in terms of the use of the three learning components and the evaluation of their comprehensive characters in this reading comprehension lesson, we can state that the teacher was able to introduce her students to an input in the form of some flash cards to display and a text to read, which was not enough in terms of variety and richness. The students were not introduced to any audio or video to listen to or a paragraph or a small text or a dialogue to read before being introduced to the main text. The teacher did not succeed to solve the problem of the flash cards in terms of pronunciation through the absence of any native speaker or voiceover. In what concerns the evaluation of the comprehensive character of the students’ competency building, all the indicators demonstrate to what extent the material used was not enough either for not being appropriately exploited or due to the teacher’s humbleness in terms of the delivery of instructions or in terms of variety and richness. Thus, we could notice that the building of the students’ competency was almost inexistent. On the other hand, the absence of any concrete interaction or collaboration among students indicates that their comprehensive character in terms of the meaningful communicative acts was almost null.
In the present analysis, we can state that the evaluation of the controlled language class was done on the fact that the quality of the learning process depends on how comprehensive and cooperative it is on the basis of the three learning components in accordance with the four evaluative dimensions or Paul Grice’s (1975) four maxims. The teacher’s role is to pave the way for all the students to be fully engaged in every single activity by providing adequate material and using appropriate teaching and learning context and by demonstrating how cooperation takes place.
2. Literature review
Different scholars in different contexts have raised the concept of comprehensiveness in the domain of teaching and learning by conducting various studies in such a way as to explore the natural aspect of language acquisition. In terms of acquisition, we have to take into consideration language as a human faculty from various perspectives. In order to be ‘linguistically literate’ whatsoever the modality is, we should be “able to produce interesting and varied linguistic output that is attuned to different addressees and communicative contexts” (Ravid and Tolchinsky, 2002, p. 420). Hence, the learners’ linguistic performance or output is considered as one of the crucial learning components in the process of learning and one of the most frequent modalities in terms of language use in different natural contexts (Chafe, 1994). This kind of process should also take place in a comprehensive way and in anxiety-free and varied linguistic circumstances where the learners become aware of their own linguistic abilities and in complete control of them. Hutchby & Wooffitt (1998) stated that in the conversational processes, or what is called the meaningful communicative acts or the continuous dialogic or conversational context for learning a language (Boughoulid, 2022a), the learners’ intentions are completely focused on the content of the interaction as well as the role each one reincarnates in it in such a way as to realize their linguistic objectives. According to Ravid and Tolchinsky (2002), “language production in different circumstances is shaped in each modality under constraints and principles of human information processing such as speed, clarity, economy, and expressiveness” (p. 426). In fact, such principles should not be taken for granted because they represent the cornerstone that defines the success or failure of any language learning model in any teaching and learning context where the domain is human and the organism is language (Chomsky, 1975).
However, in terms of the concept of comprehensiveness and its implementation in any linguistic skill in general and in relation to the comprehensive theory of comprehension in particular, McNamara & Magliano (2009) demonstrated that “a comprehensive model should be able to account for not only situations where demands are low […], but also when processing demands high” (p. 353). Thus, the features of comprehensiveness should be omnipresent and explicitly stated in all the components of learning in such a way as to avoid any kind of ambiguity on all the learning/teaching levels, which are related either to content, the material used, the instructions provided by the teachers, monitoring, the learners’ activities, the teaching strategies that are used, or the process of learning from its very beginning to the end. It should also integrate all the cognitive and non-cognitive factors as psychological adequacies that are relevant to the content objectives in the domain of learning in order to activate enough knowledge among the learners and see how it manifests in their understanding (Bougoulid, 2023). In relation to this issue, Krashen (1981; 1983; 1985) stated that the fact of providing the learners with the appropriate comprehensible input would contribute in the promotion of their acquisition of the target language. This idea is based on his considerable theory of second-language acquisition. According to Krashen (1983), what is important in language acquisition is not the focus on the grammatical errors. Rather, the learning occurs among students when they are engaged in meaningful conversational acts in which they are concerned with the message that should be comprehensible and at hand and that takes place in a comfortable atmosphere that paves the way for the learners to figure out things by themselves.
Generally speaking, for any learning objective to be attained in a learning process, practitioners in the field of education are supposed to adopt adequate learning/teaching strategies in such a way as to meet their learners’ needs and help them develop their linguistic skills, especially when it has to do with the learning of a second or a foreign language. “A good understanding of what a task entails, and the ability to orchestrate the strategies that best meet both the task demands and their own learning strengths” (Chamot, 2004, p. 14) is the master key for the success or failure of any learning procedures in any teaching context. In the light of the emergence of various strategies related to the teaching and learning of natural languages such as English, it becomes difficult to choose among them if we do not take into consideration the different factors that might have an impact either on the learner or on the process of learning as a whole. In terms of evaluation, most of the adopted teaching strategies are evaluated through observation especially when it has to do with the learners’ engagement in different tasks. Sometimes, some teachers use what they have at hand and that they have already worked on and experienced, and even developed, because no one can tell how to get inside the human brain in such a way as to discover what is needed in terms of language acquisition (Grenfell and Harris,1999). Nevertheless, each learning theory has its limitations and strengths and the teacher’s choice should be based on a specific set of principles or criteria, which are demonstrated as psychologically motivated principles that include the input, competency building, and the communicative acts (Boughoulid, 2022b). In fact, the purpose of learning and its context in relation to the learners’ needs reveals the kind of strategies that should be used. Learning or teaching a new foreign language may have various purposes most of which are defined by the learners’ goals such as the fact of learning it for daily life communication, for academic reasons, for traveling, or even learning it per se. Each learning purpose requires the type of the efficient learning strategies that suit it and facilitate the learners’ engagement into meaningful and comprehensive activities.
3. The methodology and the analysis of the controlled class
3.1. The description of the process of the lesson of the controlled class
3.1.1. Introduction
The description of the process of the lesson of the controlled class focuses on the teacher’s performance as well as her reactions on the basis of the use of the three learning components in the process of learning. The adopted methodology in this experiment is based on the description of the target class through which we tried to check the presence and/or the absence of the input to which the learners were exposed at the very beginning of the lesson, the appropriateness of the students’ competency building, and the activation of the students’ meaningful communicative acts or engagement in the learning pool. Each one of these three learning elements should go hand in hand with the four evaluative values, which are quantity, quality, manner, and relation.
3.1.2. The participants
The participants in this experimental language class are a group of twelve Moroccan public school students. There are five boys and seven girls. Their ages vary between sixteen and eighteen years old. They are all Baccalaureate students (12th grade / K-12). They started studying English in public schools three years ago (i.e. when they were in K-9). Their levels of English vary between A2 and B1. These students came from different social backgrounds. The teacher who conducted the lesson is Ms B.F. She is a Moroccan secondary public school teacher of English since 2013. She taught English for students of different levels in private and public schools.
3.1.3. The setting
Due to the restricted measures adopted in relation to COVID-19 and the delay of studies in all Moroccan schools until October 1st, 2021, we tried to conduct the lesson in a private English center in the city of Chichaoua, Marrakech, Morocco. The classroom in which the lesson took place was not wide enough for such number of students (12 students). It was about 4m2. It should be at least of an average of 6m2.There was a whiteboard of a medium size and a desk for the teacher in the front right corner. There were two rows in the classroom with twelve individual chairs and two long tables with six chairs that surround each table. The access between the two rows was very narrow, which restricted both the teacher to supervise the students’ work and the students to move from one row to another in case they want to work in groups or pairs or go to the board.
Table 1: The students’ statistics in the controlled class
| N° | Students’ names | Gender | Age | Level |
| 1 | M.E. | M | 16 | 2nd year Baccalaureate (K-12) |
| 2 | M.M. | M | 16 | 2nd year Baccalaureate (K-12) |
| 3 | S.B. | M | 16 | 2nd year Baccalaureate (K-12) |
| 4 | I.B. | M | 18 | 2nd year Baccalaureate (K-12) |
| 5 | S.E. | M | 17 | 2nd year Baccalaureate (K-12) |
| 6 | J.R. | F | 16 | 2nd year Baccalaureate (K-12) |
| 7 | M.E. | F | 16 | 2nd year Baccalaureate (K-12) |
| 8 | A.E. | F | 17 | 2nd year Baccalaureate (K-12) |
| 9 | H.K. | F | 17 | 2nd year Baccalaureate (K-12) |
| 10 | R.J. | F | 16 | 2nd year Baccalaureate (K-12) |
| 11 | A.B. | F | 17 | 2nd year Baccalauréat (K-12) |
| 12 | H.E. | F | 16 | 2nd year Baccalauréat (K-12) |
3.1.4. The description of the teacher’s behaviour during the lesson
The teacher’s long experience (more than 8 years) as a Moroccan secondary public school teacher of English did not prevent her from dominating the lesson from the beginning to the end. Her talking time was so high to the extent that she was interfering in every single action during the process of the lesson. This interference went to the extent that she, most of the time, contributes in the selection of the students who are supposed to answer the questions or write something on the board. She even helped them to form their own groups by proposing who should sit with whom and where. Although the number of the participants was an ideal one with twelve students only, it could be well noticed that some of them were not given enough attention in terms of their participation in the building of the lesson and in their engagement and interaction with their classmates.
3.1.5. The use of the board and the description of the teacher’s instructions
The board is always considered as one of the important tools that contribute in the success or failure of any lesson, whether in terms of its organization, the teacher’s handwriting, the use of different colours for more illustration, the correction of mistakes, or as an instructional facilitator means. It is also important in the sense that it is related to the students’ engagement and the building of their competency, as one of the main components in the process of learning.
However, if one focuses on what the teacher recorded on the board, he or she would determine that there were some unintentional recorded mistakes that were transmitted to the students without being corrected. Among these mistakes, one would find that the word “saffron” was written on the board with one “f”. Another remark is that the word “rosemary” was written on the board in two different instances, once it was written as one word, which is the correct form, and for the second time it was written as two words, “rose” and “mary”, which is not correct. The word “rosemary” was also found in the text taking its correct form, “rosemary”. There was also the mentioning of “marinate” and “marinade” as a verb and as a noun, but the teacher did not explain the difference between these two words, especially that at some point during the lesson, the two words were used interchangeably by both the teacher and the students. The word “cauliflower” was also written on the board with an “o” instead of an “a” (See Appendices).
On the other hand, the students were confused in the classification of some of the ingredients needed in the preparation of a Moroccan Tagine (See the text in Appendices). In terms of interaction, the teacher drew a table of two columns in which the students had to categorize the ingredients into herbs or vegetables. The students’ confusion was embodied in the sense that some of them named some crucial ingredients that are used in such dishes such as “oil” and “salt”, but the teacher unintentionally failed to provide them with a satisfactory answer. She said that “oil” is a liquid, but she was unable to categorize “salt” in one of the two columns. The same thing happened with “meat” and “chicken”. Hence, the fact of focusing on herbs and vegetables pushed the teacher to forget to add one or two columns for other ingredients, which are used in such situations. Although the teacher was able to make an extraordinary effort throughout the whole process of this lesson, from its beginning to its end, it seems that most of the given instructions were not clear enough for all the students, which might confuse them in terms of understanding.
Concerning the feedback, after reading their final productions in front of their classmates, the students were not provided with any concrete remarks or ideas to evaluate their work neither in terms of fluency nor in terms of accuracy. The teacher’s sole reaction in this sense was her applauding of the students by the end of the class, which could be taken as a kind of approval and satisfaction of their performance in this lesson.
3.1.6. The use of the mother tongue (L1)
The use of the mother tongue (L1) was apparent in the lesson in the sense that both the teacher and the students used it from time to time. It was used by the teacher to explain the names of some ingredients and by the students while they were working in pairs or groups. Even though the teacher asked them to use the target language, which is English, the students continued using their L1 unconsciously. Another example of the impact of the mother tongue in this class was noticed in the way the teacher built the questions. In the second hand-out, one would find that the fourth question of the first exercise was written in the following way: “How much time does it take to cook a Tagine?” In fact, it was a literal translation from Arabic into English. Instead of saying “How much time does it take to cook a tagine?”, the teacher might say “How long does it take to cook a tagine?” (See the worksheet of the controlled class, Appendices).
4. The description of the controlled class in terms of the three learning components
4. 1. Introduction
The teacher introduced the lesson by greeting and welcoming her students with a wide smile. She started with a warm-up through which she asked them how they usually spend their summer holidays and whether they were able to organise an excursion or a picnic during this period or not. She stated that the purpose behind this activity was to test the students’ knowledge and then introduce them to the topic of the lesson, which was about vocabulary related to herbs and vegetables and how they would be used in the Moroccan cuisine and what for. The grammar focal point was about the different uses of the wh-questions and how the students reacted to them especially in terms of their formation and meaning. The lesson’s focus was the reading comprehension. The teacher conducted it by going through three different stages; (1) the pre-reading stage, (2) the while-reading stage, and (3) the post-reading stage (See the lesson plan of the controlled class, Appendices).
In the pre-reading phase, the teacher asked the students to work in pairs and make a list of vegetables and herbs that Moroccans use in their cuisines in order to prepare their famous tagines. The students took turns to classify the herbs and the vegetables based on a chart that the teacher drew on the board. For more emphasis, the teacher exposed them to some pictures of other herbs and vegetables, and then asked them to guess their names and add them to the chart on the board.
In the while-reading phase, the teacher started with a top-down task. She provided the students with a text and asked them to read it and find out why Moroccans use herbs. The students worked in pairs to read the text, discuss their ideas, and answer some questions. As a bottom-up activity, the teacher provided her students with a new hand-out and asked them to answer the four wh-questions and label the underlined bold words in the text to the pictures on the same hand-out (see the worksheet of the controlled class, Appendices).
In the post-reading phase, the teacher asked the students to work cooperatively in groups of three and write a paragraph on how to prepare a Moroccan Tagine by using herbs and vegetables as the main ingredients. The teacher helped her students to form four groups. By the end of the lesson, a volunteer of each group stepped to the front of the class in order to read their final productions using papers.
4. 2. The description of the input in the controlled class
Concerning the input as the first learning component, and in terms of its quantity, in addition to the students and the teacher’s speak, the teacher provided her students with a text for reading, a worksheet with two different tasks, and the use of flashcards. In fact, the text was the only important input to which they were exposed. It was short with only 482 words (table 2). The students read it in ten minutes, but at the beginning, the teacher assigned them only three minutes to read it and answer one question at the same time. The whole class time was one hour. During the process of learning, one cannot notice neither a pre-class nor a post-class reading.
Concerning the flashcards, there were seventeen colourful pictures of different items. The teacher introduced them by displaying them in front of the students and asked them to guess the names of each item. She went reading them one by one except for two or three cards that she repeated twice. The names of the different items were not pronounced by an English native speaker. The teacher did not use any technological device to solve this problem such as a voiceover. The use of the Total Physical Response (TPR) technique was missing as well. In terms of the class coverage, the indicators showed that the teacher was the only person who was dominating the class in terms of speaking because her talking time was so high. The students’ contributions or engagement could be summed up in terms of speaking on the basis of their answers of some comprehension questions or their utterings of the names of some items by pronouncing one or two words.
Table 2: The general statistics about the text used in the controlled class
| Items | Number | Observation |
| Number of words in the text | 482 | All the words of the text |
| Number of wh-questions in the text | 05 | All the wh-questions |
| Number of names of herbs | 13 | All the names of herbs |
| Number of verbs in the text | 59 | All the verbs |
| Number of kitchen verbs in the text | 22 | All the kitchen verbs |
| Number of names of vegetables in the text | 10 | All the vegetables |
4. 3. The description of the Competency Building criterion in the controlled class
In order to build the students’ competency in a reading comprehension activity, the teacher provided them with a one-page text and asked them to read it and answer some related questions (See Appendices). The task was done silently and individually. The teacher did not demonstrate how to do it nor did she teach them anything about the main constituents of a paragraph nor how to deal with it in terms of comprehension. She did not use any teaching techniques in such a way as to help them build and fasten their learning capacities in terms of reading. She did not even ensure the students’ complete reading of the text. In fact, there were no indicators that might show that the students were able to read all the details of the text intelligibly. They did not read it in order to develop any information. Hence, there was no evidence that these students’ competency was built in a comprehensive way.
4. 4. The description of the Communicative Acts criterion in the controlled class
The third learning component was related to communicative acts or the students’ Energeia (Humboldt, 1988). In fact, there was no post-reading group discussions and no pair-to-pair communication about the text. The students were never brought together to discuss what they learned from it. There was also the absence of any free discussion about the main topic of the lesson. One could witness that there was no report exchange between the students except for some pair or group work in which they were silently involved. Hence, no conversation was performed and no clear student-student or teacher-student interaction was maintained during the whole period of the lesson. The whole class discussion or engagement into active communication acts was almost absent, except for the students’ final productions that were individually read using papers without receiving any concrete feedback neither from the teacher nor from their classmates.
5. The evaluation of the Comprehensive and Cooperative Characters of the learning process of the controlled class
5.1. Introduction
The purpose of this section is to distinguish between two crucial aspects of the learning process: (1) the quantitative aspect and (2) the qualitative aspect. The first aspect is basically quantitative because it has to do with the presence or/and the balance of the different components of learning in terms of their comprehensiveness and whether they are all taken into consideration in the process of learning from the beginning to the end or not. The second aspect is qualitative because it has to do with the presence or/and the balance of the cooperative character of the learning process in terms of Paul Grice’s (1975) four maxims, quantity, quality, manner, and relation.
5.2. The evaluation of the Comprehensive Character of the learning process of the controlled class.
The evaluative analysis of the lesson of the controlled class is done in the light of the three components of learning: (1) the input and how much of it was included in the lesson in terms of its richness and variety, (2) what were the teacher’s possibilities that were used to help the students build their competencies, and (3) what were the types of engagements or communicative acts in which the students were completely involved. However, the main objective of this evaluative analysis is to examine whether these three learning criteria were taken into consideration during the process of learning or not, and to what extent their presence or absence was able to contribute in the success or failure of the lesson.
5.2.1. The evaluation of the Comprehensive Character of the Input in the controlled class
In what concerns the evaluation of the Comprehensive Character of the Input in the controlled class, and in terms of its quantity, the teacher provided her students with a text to read, a worksheet with some exercises to do, the flashcards, and the students and the teacher’s speak. It seems that the only valuable input that these students were exposed to, apart from what they were supposed to do on their daily basis, is the main text (Appendices). In fact, the quantification of the text started with answering different questions related to it such as, how long it is? How many vocabulary items are relevant to the field of herbs and foods? How many kitchen action words are in the text? When did they start reading the text? How long did it take them to read it? How many times did they read it? Etc. In fact, we would like to make sure whether it was enough or not (See table 2 and figure 1). On the other hand, one should examine whether the teacher was able to provide her students with any other complementary materials to read at home or not.
Figure 1: Indicators about the different items in the text of the controlled class
Therefore, the input was not enough in the sense that the only genuine input that was found in the class was the main text, which took them ten minutes to read. Originally, the teacher assigned only three minutes to read it. The whole class time frame was covered in one hour. The ten minutes’ time in which the students read the text represents 16.66% of the whole class time coverage, which is not enough for a successful reading comprehension class to take place. Fundamentally, the quality of exposure was very low in terms of input. In fact, the students were exposed to no short audios to listen to, no videos to watch, and no little text to read as an introductory activity before being introduced to the main text. The students were assigned no magazines or articles to read, neither at home nor before the class, in order to come to class with some information. That is to say, there was neither a pre-class nor a post-class reading. The text itself is constitutive of one page with 482 words, which includes 52 verbs, and 5 wh-questions, which shows that it is relatively very short (See table 2).
Figure 2: The statistics concerning the text of the controlled class
Concerning the flashcards, the teacher displayed and pronounced the names of the items in front of the students without being pronounced by an English native speaker or a voiceover. However, the quality of the pronunciation was low and less comprehensible in terms of reception and production. The teacher’s high talking time made of her the first dominator of the class par excellence, which was a problematic issue that should be avoided while conducting any lesson. Hence, the comprehensibility principle stated by Krashen (1982) explained that 80% of the text should be clear for the students before exposing them to read it. On the basis of the chart that concerns the evaluation of the students’ comprehension of the text (Table 3 and figure 3), one could notice that their comprehension capacities in terms of reading were low in quality in the sense that 8 out of the 12 students found it hard or very hard to understand the content of the text, which represents 42% of the whole class. In addition, two of the students said that they did not find it so difficult to understand it and only one of them who said that it was easy for him to get the meaning of the text.
Table 3: The evaluation of the students’ comprehension of the text used in the controlled class
The question: Did you understand the text when you read it for the first time?
(The evaluation score from 1 to 5: 1 as the lowest score and 5 as the highest score)
| The evaluation The score | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 | Very hard to understand | 3students | ||||
| 2 | Hard to understand | 5students | ||||
| 3 | Found some difficulties to understand | 1 student | ||||
| 4 | Not so difficult to understand | 2 students | ||||
| 5 | Easy toUnderstand | 1 student | ||||
Figure 3: The evaluation of the students’ comprehension of the text used in the controlled class
In fact, the students’ low comprehensibility of the text in the controlled class, as it is stated in the chart above (Figure 3), is one of the strongest indicators of its low quality. What strengthens this evaluation is that the students’ answers were also low in terms of quality even after the post-reading period.
However, the quantification of the input indicates that in terms of quantity, there was the absence of any audios or videos, there were no dialogues for practice, and the teacher did not manage to use the voiceover device to solve the problem of pronunciation. All what we have is one Moroccan teacher of English who thought that she was pronouncing it right. She did not assign any future reading, which is very poor in terms of quality. For the flashcards, the absence of repetition and the non-use of any voiceover to reinforce the students’ pronunciation was a problematic issue in terms of quality. In terms of relevance and manner, it seems that there was no problem because the whole vocabulary was related to the main topic of the lesson, which is related to foods and herbs, and that all the used pictures were clearly displayed for the students.
In what concerns the main text’s layout, the overall design of the whole page should be revised and redesigned by taking into consideration some elements such as the type of writing, the form of the text, the interlining, and the title arrangement.
5.2.2. The evaluation of the Comprehensive Character of the students’ Competency Building in the controlled class.
In fact, the students’ Competency Building in reading was based on the main text and the questions related to it (See Appendices). The students’ interaction with the text was vague in the sense that one could not say how serious they were while they were reading it individually. The absence of the student-student apparent cooperation and collaboration in the light of the provided documents decreased the degree of the students’ chances for a better building of their reading comprehension skills capacities. All the indicators show that the Competency Building tools used during this lesson were not enough either because they were not exploited appropriately or because they were used inadequately due to the humbleness of the teacher’s instructions and the way they were delivered during the lesson process. Hence, one can state that the comprehensive character of the students’ Competency Building was almost null.
5.2.3. The evaluation of the Comprehensive Character of the students’ Communicative Acts of the controlled class.
The evaluation of the students’ Communicative Acts in this controlled lesson could be perceived as low and weak in terms of its quality. Due to the lack of any kind of discussion or interaction or complete communicative involvement during the whole class session, the only activity in which the students seemed to be involved was the last one in which they were asked to work in groups and write a paragraph about how to prepare a Tagine using the vocabulary studied so far. The students were able to prepare a recipe and read it in front of the whole class as a final product. In fact, this was not enough to maintain the students’ successful interaction and reinforce their communication. Nothing indicated that the so-called pair or group work in this lesson could be taken for students’ Communicative Acts. Hence, one can state again that the comprehensive character of the students’ Communicative Acts or full engagement was almost null.
5.3. The evaluation of the Cooperative Character of the learning process of the controlled class.
However, the evaluation of the Cooperative Character of the learning process of the controlled class is conducted in terms of Paul Grice’s (1975) four evaluative dimensions, namely quantity, quality, manner, and relation, which are associated with the main components of learning (input, competency building, and communicative acts). In fact, learning is fundamentally about cooperation work. In this work, one combines between different classroom activities where students are coactively engaged in the learning process. When the cooperation in the class is evaluated, it is done on the assumption that the quality of the learning process is contingent on how cooperative it is. What is needed in a class is a kind of cooperation and communication in which all the participants have their own active roles in the process of learning. The teacher’s role in such circumstances is to prepare the students for such activities by demonstrating how cooperation takes place among them in the classroom. Hence, the more cooperative the learning process is, the better the students’ results will be.
Actually, the provided input in this controlled class was limited in terms of its quantity because it was about a unique text, in addition to a worksheet, the flashcards, and the teacher and students’ speak. Though it was not enough, the available input was clearly put in terms of printing and display. The quality of the flashcards was reliable, true, and relevant to the main topic of the lesson. In fact, the impoverished character of the input in terms of its variety and richness did not help much in the development of the cooperative aspect of the students in this lesson.
On the other hand, the students’ competency building was based on how cooperative they were in the process of learning, and whether they were assigned any role or not, and how comprehensive these roles were. Thus, the students’ unique assigned roles included their passive cooperation in terms of pair and group work, which can be evaluated as not enough. In terms of language quality, it was low and poor because it was done silently and no one could say who did what. The students were not asked to read the text or part of it in such a way as to judge their way of reading in terms of different learning components. Even though the outcome could be looked at as relevant, one could say that it was insufficient for building the students’ learning Comprehensive Character due to the absence of this cooperative aspect among students.
Concerning the students’ Cooperative Character in terms of the communicative acts and conversational engagement, we can state that it is embodied in one and only one activity in which the students gave the impression to work cooperatively and deliver their productions orally. It was about the last task where they were asked to produce something on the basis of what they have already studied. This activity took the students more than thirteen minutes to realize it. What is striking about it is that no one could hear anything of what they were doing and how they did it except for their individual reading of these productions by the end of the class.
However, this lesson’s Cooperative Character in terms of the students’ learning through their cooperation and collaboration with each other, either in pairs or in groups, could be evaluated as inadequate. In fact, the students’ groupings could not be taken as a concrete form of cooperation due to its limitedness in terms of the number of times of the cooperative activities, the role of each student, and also for its poor quality. The relevance of its content to the topic of the lesson did not guarantee its transparency and comprehensibility. Even the quality of their writings could not be evaluated appropriately. In fact, there was no way to see the students writing something on the board except for some words they were able to produce while they were filling the chart on the board or during their correction of the comprehension questions in which some of the students were able to exchange some words with their teacher (See Appendices).
Therefore, one can conclude that the cooperative aspect of the students’ successful engagement in the process of learning through the writing and reading of a transcript was just a half-a-way of what they were supposed to do in terms of their requirements in this experiment lesson, especially that it is a reading comprehension session. That was a kind of inadequacy in terms of the communicative acts, which clearly demonstrated to what extent the learning process was almost inexistent in the controlled class.
6. The use of the Learning Evaluation Matrix (LEM) to evaluate the lesson of the controlled class
Table 4: The use of the Learning Evaluation Matrix (LEM) to evaluate the controlled class
Name: …………………………………….…. Language: ..…….…………………………..
Level: ……………………………….………. Score from 1 to 5: …………………………..
| The LearningComponents | The Four Evaluative Factors | |||
| Quantity | Quality | Manner | Relation | |
| Input(EXP) | Experience resources | Background texts | Clarity of print | |
| Competency Building (CMOP) | Quality of pronunciation | Ideational presentation | Felicitous implicature | |
| Energeia (Or Communicative Acts) (ENRG) | How many dialogic situations? | Quality of modelling | | |
7. Conclusion
In this article, we have introduced a conceptual framework for criticising and analysing a controlled English language class on the basis of the Comprehensive Instructional Model of Language Learning (CIMLL) in a teaching context. Through this paper, we tried to define various concepts such as what is meant by “comprehensiveness” and how a model of learning is instructional. We also tried to introduce the learning components and their impact on the learning process and to what extent the absence of one or more components may affect the learners’ acquisition of any language. Hence, the development of the different practices of the controlled class paved the way for the teachers to self-evaluate their work without adopting any new teaching strategies. On the basis of this new model of learning and within this new framework, it is assumed that the use of the discovery procedure in which three criteria are taken into consideration in such a way as to facilitate, enrich, and boost the linguistic outcomes among students and overcome any restrictions either in terms of the time span, content, or the use of language. The new learning model functions as a comprehensive and instructional framework that has the tools to find out any difficulties in the learning sequence of any theory of learning and provide us with adequate answers.
Conflict of Interest Statement:
The author declares no conflicts of interest.
About the Author:
Mustapha Boughoulid is an EFL/ESL teacher and a researcher in the field of Linguistics and English Language Teaching Theory (ELTT). He taught English as a foreign language for more than 24 years. He is the co-author of the book “How was Moroccan Darija one century ago?” Vol.I, and the author of many articles in the field of teaching and learning.
REFERENCES
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Boughoulid, M. (2022b). Approaches to Language Teaching: Criticism from Theory to Practice. International Journal of Social Science and Education Research Studies, 2(12), 787-793. DOI: https://doi.org/10.55677/ijssers/V02I12Y2022-11. Available at: www.ijssers.org
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Appendices
Text: Moroccan Tagine with vegetables & herbs
When we talk about herbs, many questions come to our mind. Why do we use herbs? What kind of herbs do we use in Moroccan cuisine and what for? In fact, people use herbs for medical reasons, cooking, as a sanitizer, and for preserving their natural beauty. The herbs can be used either fresh or dried. Common herbs in the Moroccan cuisine include mint, parsley, ,verbena, sage and bay leaf, thyme, and rosemary. They are used to prepare savoury and delicious dishes. Some people like to sprinkle them on their foods. Other people prefer to use them in pinch or to use their leaves freshly chopped in cooking, but it is better to add them at the end so that the heat does not destroy their flavour. Herbs can be turned into spices. They can also be used to marinate meat like fish, red meat, or chicken with oil or lemon juice. Herbs do not only excite the appetite, but they also enhance the flavours of our dishes.
The ingredients
| • 2 carrots • 2 zucchinis • 1 large potato • 1 tomato • 1 cauliflower • ½ green pepper | • ½ cup of green peas (125g) • ½ cup of green beans (125g) • 1 onion • 1 garlic clove (thinly sliced) • 1 tbs of finely chopped parsley • 2 tbs olive oil | • 1 tbs of finely chopped cilantro• 1 tsp ground ginger • 1 tsp ground turmeric• 1 tsp ground cumin• 2 tps of paprika |
Cooking instruction
I. Prepare the sauce
Mix all the spices and the chopped garlic in one cup of water to create a spice marinade.
II. Prepare the vegetables:
Clean and prepare the vegetables. Peel the carrots and cut them in half. Cut the zucchinis in half without peeling them. Peel the potato and cut it into quarters. Dice the tomato with the skin. Remove the leaves of the cauliflower, cut their florets from the hard stem, then throw them. Slice the green pepper. Take off the ends of the green beans on both sides and throw them. Finally, thinly slice the onion.
III. Prepare the tagine
1. Pour a bit of olive oil in the Tagine and spread the onion slices.
2. Add the vegetables to the tagine to create a nice display. Then put the tomato slice on top.
3. Pour the spices sauce over the vegetables.
4. Sprinkle parsley and cilantro on top of the vegetables.
5. Put the lid on the tagine and let the vegetables cook on low heat for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
IV. During-cooking tips
From time to time, check on the vegetables to make sure that there is enough liquid. Add small amounts of water if necessary. Frequently, take some of the liquid in the tagine and pour it over the vegetables so that those that are placed on top absorb the flavours of the sauce. Serve the tagine hot with crusty bread.
The worksheet of the controlled class
Comprehension check
Read the text and answer these questions:
- How are herbs used?
…………………………………………………………………………………………
- What herbs are used in this Tagine?
…………………………………………………………………………………………
- Why do we mix spices?
…………………………………………………………………………………………
- How much time does it take to cook a Tagine?
…………………………………………………………………………………………
Label the pictures with the underlined words in the text
……………….… …………………….. ……………………. ……………….
………………… …………………… …………………. ………………….
The lesson plan of the controlled class
| Business/Materials | Lesson Objectives |
| Teacher: B.F.Level: 2nd year Baccalaureate studentsComponent: Vocabulary and Reading | By the end of this lesson, students will be able to recognize and use specific words related to herbs and food to make a recipe. |
| Materials: pictures/worksheets | |
| Warm-up | |
| Greet students. Ask them about their holidays.Lead-in: ask them about what they cook when they go on trip or a picnic. | |
| Pre-reading | R W L S |
| Group work: ask students to work in groups and make a list of vegetables and herbs that Moroccans use in their cuisine. Students take turns to classify herbs and vegies on the board. Teacher shows pictures of vegies and herbs so that students guess their names and add them to the lists on the board. | |
| While-reading | R W L S |
| Top-down: Hand out the text and ask students to read it and find out why Moroccans use herbs. Students work in pairs to read the text and answer the questions. Bottom-up: They match the words in bold to their pictures. | |
| Post-reading | R W L S |
| Get students to work in groups of three and write a paragraph on how to make a tagine then one of them volunteers to read the paragraph in front of others. | |