Sabih Enes İzyaran graduated from the ELT department at Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University, Türkiye. He participated in this study because he is interested in writing poems and reading articles on English language teaching, in short doing studies on language pedagogy. Email: enesizyaran45@gmail.com

Sema Nur Şahin is a graduate of Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University, Department of English Language Teaching. Her areas of interest surround diversification of language teaching through the integration of texts and topics that raise learners’ social awareness. Email: nrsemasahin@gmail.com

Merve Gülnida Bakır graduated from the ELT department at Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University, Türkiye. With the intention to explore how to humanise language teaching and to make a difference in language teaching, she participated in this study with her classmates. Email: mervegulnidabakir@gmail.com

Cennet Ünal, about to start as a novice teacher after graduating from Kahramanmaraş Süçü İmam University, Department of English Language teaching, the participation in this study helped her gain insights into enriching language teaching through poems and debatable content. Email: cennetunal225@gmail.com

 

Introduction

Without a doubt, as foreign language is about language, texts play an important role in language teaching and learning. This statement may sound trivial, but it reminds us of the need to design materials and find texts that in some way serve the aim of language learning. However, many coursebooks, the most commonly used material in instruction, are often criticised for presenting texts that are not appealing or have no relevance for the learners, and therefore do not encourage learners to put effort in their studies.

Based on the importance of texts and as a response to the deficiencies of material-light methods such as Tasked-based Language Teaching, Tomlinson (2003, 2018) has suggested a text-driven approach that centres instruction around instruction, but at the same time highlights the importance of text selection and using texts in classroom so that they are relevant for learners and facilitate language learning.

The lesson outline that we present in our paper is an outcome of two courses that we attended in our teacher education at Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University. In these courses, we were introduced into Tomlinson’s text-driven approach and general methodology and techniques useful for teachers. The lesson was planned and parts of the lesson were delivered in micro teaching sessions.

 

Text-driven approach

The text driven approach (Tomlinson, 2003, 2018) is guided by the conviction that texts need to lead into learners’ affective and cognitive engagement, avoid shallow learning experiences, allow learners to connect content conveyed to their own lives, present examples of authentic language, thereby exposing learners to rich and meaningful samples of language. To achieve these purposes, Tomlinson presents an idealised sequence that does not need to be followed to the letter but can be adapted to serve the needs of the learners and the peculiarities of the text to be used. The sequence consists of the following steps:

1. In the readiness activity, the learners are introduced to the thematic content of the text by activating their schemata.

2. In the experiential stage, the learners are exposed to the text with the aim of processing the text in an experiential way.

3. In the intake response stage, the learners react to the text by, for example, issuing preliminary interpretations or expressing likes or dislikes, thereby achieving a mental representation of the text

4. In the task or development activities stage, the text is taken as a starting point to ‘do something’ with the text; this might be a letter to the author, an interview with characters in the text or a continuation of the text.

5. Input response activities aim at making learners discoveries about the linguistic features of the text.

The text-driven approach does not neglect more conventional ways of language teaching and learning as, for example, grammar content is integrated in the input response stage. Following principles of communicative language teaching, however, this is postponed until the content of the text has been explored and utilised in some way. As a flexible approach, the sequence of stages can be changed. A teacher may decide to run the development stage after the input response stage when she believes that clarifying linguistic issues may be preferable to help learners engage in development activities.

Another crucial feature of the text-driven approach is that the text needs to be selected not only considering the needs and interests of the learners but also those of the teacher’s. Put simply, if a text a teacher does not find a text affectively and cognitively appealing, it is unlikely to arouse the interest of the learners.

 

The lesson outline

Selection of the topic and the text

Child labour is a topic that raised our interest. Even though we live in 2024, child labour can be seen in our country, for example, when we look at small working places such as car repair businesses, or farming locations. So, the topic seems to be related to our lives, that is the teachers’ and the learners’ immediate environment.

In one of our courses, “London”, a poem written by William Blake (1757-1827), was analysed and its potential for language teaching was evaluated. Although the poem is quite old, we were affectively engaged, and we thought, if we were engaged, our (potential) learners would be as well. Due to the topic and the content of the poem, it would be conducive to developing their critical thinking skills.

Taking the language of the poem and the topic into consideration, the poem may be used for young adult learners at B1/B2 level. We then decided to design a lesson based on the text driven approach, as outlined in the following description.

 

Readiness stage

The teacher asks the learners to imagine a child worker, draw the child on a piece of paper, give her/him a name and to answer the following questions:

• Where does s/he work?

• Where does s/he live (in a village, in a city with factories, etc.)?

• Who is in her/his family? How many people? What are their names? How old are they? What do they do?

• What does s/he look like (physical appearance/clothes, etc.)?

The learners share with a partner their drawn child worker and their circumstances.

 

Experiential stage

The teacher delivers the poem and asks the learners to compare the situation described in the poem with the situation of their imagined child worker.

 

Intake response stage

The experiential stage leads organically into the intake response stake as the learners are allowed to report on how the situation in the poem differs from the situation of their imagined child. The learners are encouraged to describe the atmosphere created in the poem with reference to some words (such as “weakness”, “cry”, “tear”).

 

Input response stage

As the language of the poem is rather challenging, the input response stage is realised before the development activities stage. As a first activity, the learners are asked to match words in the poem with synonyms/definitions the learners are likely to know.

At this stage, because it is a poetic text, the teacher may encourage her/his learners to translate (parts of the) poem. Teachers will decide on additional language-related tasks based on the needs of their learners.

As a preparation for the development stage, the learners collect vocabulary that fits the circumstances of their imagined child worker. Expected words and phrases (and perhaps suggested by the teacher) may be:

 

industrial

work on the fields

harvesting (cotton) [an area where child work is common in Türkiye]

scavenger

refugee

seasonal worker

café

market

 

Development activities stage

 

Using the words and phrases collected in the input response stage, the learners are encouraged to write a poem about their imagined child worker. This stage can be realised individually, in pair or group work. The actual poem writing should be, at least partly done in class with the teacher monitoring, but the learners should be given time to work on their poem, to polish it until they are ready to share it with the class or even a wider audience, why not in the school magazine?

 

Looking back and forward

This collaborative lesson outline was nurtured by the courses we attended during our teacher education. Now, as we are at the stage of becoming novice teachers, we are eager to try the lesson outline out, which of course, requires adapting this outline to the specific learner group it will be used for. Anyway, we would like to share a poem that we were inspired to write as an outcome of the lesson planning. Here we go:

 

Adana

 

Sabih Enes İzyaran and Sema Nur Şahin

 

I wander in my clime where the land is priceless

On the other hand, people also unscrupulous

 

Child with heart full of hope

Doomed to a life of loop

 

Feeds other people's pockets and his own stomach

Fills the field with a piece of branch

 

Throws the branch to the cotton harvest with grace

With a bittersweet joy on his face

 

Sweat flowing from forehead

Heavy load on head

 

Teary eyes, aching back

Be sure, life will smile you back

 

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank our academic teachers Gözde Balıkçı and Stefan Rathert. The courses they delivered have been an inspiration for us—not only while preparing this paper—but surely also for our future professional lives.

 

References

Tomlinson, B. (2003). Developing principled frameworks for materials development. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.). Developing materials for language teaching (pp. 107-129). Bloomsbury.

Tomlinson, B. (2018). Text-driven approaches to task-based language teaching. Folio, 18(2), 4-7.

 

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