Some organizational peculiarities of the CLL

In the description below we used some material from the book by Rich­ards J. С and RodgersT. S. [82, 113 - 122].

Learners are organized in circles from 6 to 12._Circles are grouped typically and not at random: all the members of a circle must have the same cultural con­text and knowledge of the language. The number of teachers in a circle is from one for each learner or two for a circle.

Before learning the teacher and learners are getting acquainted with each other, sizing up their tastes, likings and dislikings and getting to know each other better.

A course of CLL lasts a month, four hours every day: 10 units are planned, mastering of each takes 3 days.

A round desk is used for classes. The teachers stand round the desk behind the learners, all the learners have good visual contacts with each other and each has a tape-recorder microphone.

The first day's class is as follows:

The teacher makes a statement of the goal of the lesson, e.g.:

Today we begin studying how people can make reservation of a room in a hotel, how they behave when they come to a hotel. Suppose some of you work at a hotel, and some are hotel guests. If the circle's knowledge doesn't allow to speak English the teacher uses the native language.

Then there follows a discussion of the script to be used as the main guide-line and the roles are distributed, e.g:

You are a hotel-receptionist. You are hotel manager. You are hotel-guests. and so on).

Each learner is asked to individually add the main script with details of his/ her own. In the course of time students start feeling like having an urgent desire to add something to the script.

Then a period of silence follows: learners try to determine what is supposed to happen. They concentrate on the lines of the script.

Then a conversational session follows: a student initiates conversation by giv­ing a message to the other student:

Добрий день! Я телефоную з Ku' iea . Я хочу забронювати номер з наступно! середи.

The message is given in the native language, and everybody hears it. The teacher standing behind the student whispers an eauivalent of the messaee in the foreign language. The student then repeats the message to its addressee and into the microphone for it to be stored for further learning. The other students give answers constructing them with the help of their teachers. Any learner may build his/her answer not foreseen in the script.JThis gives a possibility to the others to react spontaneously. Each student has a chance to produce 3—4 messages.

After a conversation session there follows a period of reflection: learners dis­cuss the conversation conducted, express their feelings, the teachers ask them what they have memorized and ask the students to give their personal estimation of the conversational session. The circle decides whether it had been a success and what is to be done to improve it.

Then there comes a period of learning. The tape-recorder is rewound and replayed. Each student repeats his message in English. They focus on learning the linguistic items of the conversational session. The teacher writes sentences to be studied, highlights elements of grammar, vocabulary and phonetics. All traditional exercises and drills in all three language elements are carried out. Sometimes translation into learners* native language takes place.

Grammar explanations are directed from the usage to the rule and are frag­mentary (only what is needed for the message). Transcription is studied. However, learners are not constraint, to say more exactly learners are self-constrained.

Listening to a monologue given by the teacher is the last period of the first day class. In the monologue the language items, which had been overheard by the students, are used. After the monologue the following hometask is given: to memorize all the messages and be able to pronounce them.

The second day class is as follows:

It begins with the teacher's stating the goals of the class. The circle together with the teachers develops another script on the topic studied yesterday. The suc­cession of the periods is the same, however, the learners play one script several times, each time changing the roles and adding some new details and messages. During the second day less time is required to develop and conduct conversa­tional sessions for learners had already studied a rather sufficient number of lan­guage forms. Two or even more scripts are role-played during the second day.

The Third-Day Class

Learners develop a script of their own which is prepared and trained. After the period of reflection they create a new script; so, up to 5 new scripts are pre­pared at the third-day class.

As we can see, in CLL learners don't use ready-made texts. In the history of methodology it was the first method in which suggesting ready-made texts to learners was rejected from the very first class. In the process of studying learners create texts themselves. This was a very peculiar feature of the method.

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