The Selection of Stimuli The Organization of Stimuli
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Learning is a media to teach language based on the group’s experience and reflection p. 27. The point of this definition is that the method needs a group
work and a reflection of the experience is very important for the group. Community Language Learning adopted Curran’s Counseling-Learning
Approach Larsen-Freeman Anderson, 2011, p. 85. This method has been inspired by the application of psychological counseling techniques to learning. He
believes that students often feel threatened by a new learning situation. They are threatened by the change inherent in learning and by the fear that they will appear
foolish Larsen-Freeman, 2008, p. 89. Therefore, the method asks the teacher to treat students as ‘whole-person.’
According to
Curran as cited in Larsen-Freeman, 2008,
p. 89,
whole-person learning means that teachers consider not only their students’ intellect, but also have some understanding of the relationship among students’
feelings, physical reactions, instinctive protective reactions, and desire to learn. Understanding the students’ feelings means the teachers should know what the
students feel when the teaching-learning process is being progress. When the teachers can understand the students’ feelings, they can respond to the students’
physical reactions correctly. Therefore, the teaching-learning process will be more interesting because the students will not forbear themselves from being
active. In addition, Curran concluded, “Whole-person learning takes place in a communicative situation where teachers and learners are involved in an
interaction in which both experience a sense of their own wholeness” as cited in Richards Rodgers,
1986, p. 117.
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The method is also called as humanistic techniques. The concept of humanistic techniques
according to Moskowitz 1978 is described as follows: Humanistic techniques blend what the student feels, thinks and knows
with what he is learning in the target language. The techniques help students to be themselves, to accept themselves, and be proud of
themselves p. 2.
Therefore, the teachers should understand and know what the students have experienced in their lives.
It draws on the counseling metaphor to redefine the roles of the teacher and learners in the language classroom. The basic procedures of this method can
thus be seen as derived from the counselor-client relationship. The teacher stands as the counselor language counselor in the class and the students stand as the
clients. The teacher who derives the counselor roles gives advice, suggestion, assistance, and support to the students who stand as the clients who have
problems. In this case, the teacher should know everything that the students need. Table 2.1 compares the concept of psychological counseling and its application in
Community Language Learning.
Table 2.1 The Comparison of the Concept of Psychological Counseling and its Application in Community Language Learning
Richards Rodgers,1986, p. 114
No. Psychological Counseling
Community Language Learning
1. Client and counselor agree to
counseling Learner and knower teacher agree to
language learning
2. Client
articulates hisher
problems in language of affect Learner presents to the knower in L1 a
message heshe wishes to deliver to another