A Visit to Luang Prabang

By Kevin Brown

“On 25, July, 1861 I came to Luang Prabang,” wrote French explorer Henri Mouhot. It is “a delightful little town, set in its amphitheatre of mountains… a paradise.” It is a good thing he liked it, because Mouhot died there soon after.

Fourteen decades later an American explorer, Edward Gargan, found that the town had retained its charm. “Dawn trickled into Luang Prabang in cobalt blues and mauves flecked with gold and coddled in a cocoon of mist. Before six o’clock, thuds of drums echoed in the distance, and from my balcony I watched silent processions of saffron-swaddled monks, wooden bowls cradled in their palms, pad toward the town center on their morning alms rounds….”

Luang Prabang, the ancient royal capitol of Laos, is situated on a peninsula at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers. It is astonishingly beautiful, and rather otherworldly.

Phu si, a ‘sacred mountain’ three hundred meters high, dominates the town. Shrouded in palm trees, bougainvillea and a riot of other tropical flowers, it is adorned with Buddhist shrines and surmounted by a wat (temple) with commanding views of the surrounding hills and rivers. Down below, next to the broad and muddy Mekong, is the former Royal Palace, set amid venerable, teak-built wats of jewel-like perfection, intricately painted in red and gold. The famous "floating roofs" of these buildings give the illusion of hovering - almost as though they do not touch the temple walls.

The City.... Luang Prabang has been designated a world heritage site by UNESCO. It is reputed to be the best-preserved city in South East Asia. There is an overwhelming sense here of anachronism; of a place out of time, in which seventeenth century wats easily and gracefully commingle with French colonial architecture.

The present impinges, of course, in certain things. I began writing this from an Internet cafe, a twenty-first century phenomenon. However, the two adjoining computer stations were occupied by orange robed Buddhist monks with shaven heads, identical in every respect to their sangha predecessors of the far distant past.

UNESCO has been responsible for a simple and quite clever improvement to this city. Since my last visit, many of the sidewalks and gutters have been replaced with brick pavements. In the rest of South East Asia, the pedestrian is condemned to walk along the roads, which is dangerous because of traffic. In Luang Prabang one can stroll along the riverbanks on wide brick walkways, enjoying diverse and beautiful prospects, and let the mind wander. On a crisp, cool January morning, this place is a walker’s paradise.

Unlike other cities in Southeast Asia, traffic has not taken over. Laos is one of the poorest countries on the planet, and while Luang Prabang is a prosperous enclave, affluence here runs to motorcycles, not SUVs. The humble bicycle is still commonplace in Luang Prabang.

....And its Story: Laos was a bit player in the ‘American War’, as it is called here – the Vietnam War, as it is known in the west. The country received its (massive) quota of B52 bombing runs, but mostly in the east of the country in the Plain of Jars and along the Ho Chi Minh trail. Few people know how relentlessly American bombers pounded Laos during the American War. In sheer tonnage, the explosive power of bombs dropped on Laos (2.092,900 tons) was greater than that of all the bombs the Americans hurled at Europe and Japan during world war two.

Luang Prabang was spared. Now and then, however, you may see a piece of old US ordinance – a bomb or an artillery shell – used as a planter or set out as decoration. This is almost like smiling at the horrors of the war. What other people could be so forgiving?

Following the American defeat, and inspired by the mindless fanaticism of China's Cultural Revolution (which was then just ending) the new Pathet Lao (communist) government made an effort to ban Buddhism. Their efforts failed utterly.

In the morning you can watch the monks, eyes lowered, on their alms rounds. Now and again one will see an alms giving beneath a red flag with the yellow hammer and sickle, the banner of the Lao communist party. It is as though the Laos have managed a harmonious fusion of Gotama’s ‘middle way’ with the classless society of the communist international. The net result is a sufficiency of things (just), and a remarkable degree of contentment. Despite the incompetence of one of the world's most secretive governments, everyone seems to have enough, and people appear to be happy.

The former Royal Palace has been converted into the National Museum. It contains the regalia of the Lao monarchy, and also, Buddha statues -- by the hundreds. Case after case displays Buddhas in gold, in silver, in rock crystal and bronze, some ancient, and many exquisite as works of art.

In a curious way the Laos calculate their national net worth in Buddhas. It is okay to export antiques from Laos, with the single exception of antique Buddhas. And one of the standard day trips out of Luang Prabang is the two-hour boat trip along the Mekong to the Pak Ou caves, in which for 500 years or more old or worn household Buddhas have been deposited. Now they stand in serried ranks by the thousands, gazing silently out at those who come to look and to wonder.

In the west we store our wealth in vaults (as at Fort Knox) to back our currencies; in Laos they store their wealth of Buddhas in natural caves to conserve the nation’s ‘good karma’.

An interesting exhibit at the National Museum is displayed in a case full of gifts from the United States to the Lao monarchy. It is a Lyndon Bains Johnson Presidential silver medal, presented to King Savang Vatthana in 1965 or so. It was Richard Nixon, four or five years later, who began the US bombing campaign against the ‘Viet Cong’ in Laos and Cambodia. With the triumph of the Pathet Lao in 1975, the king abdicated his throne, and that was the end of the monarchy. The new government later secretly (and savagely) executed the royal family.

Many French nationals visit Luang Prabang -- more, perhaps than from any other western country. This small city on the Mekong has enjoyed a special place in the French psyche ever since the glory days of French Indochina. Luang Prabang was a place for French colonial officials short on drive and ambition to secure a government posting and then disappear, often marrying Laos and ‘going native’. I think Luang Prabang conjures visions for the French that are comparable to their images of Gauguin’s Tahiti.

Lingua Franca: Sadly for the French visiting now, they have to place their restaurant orders in English. Even in this storied outpost of French Indochina, few Laotians speak French. A Lao taxi driver I met, fluent in both English and French, was snickering over an exchange he had with some French passengers. While speaking with them he pretended to understand only English. And he understood perfectly when they expressed their outrage in French over his unbecoming and historically bizarre ignorance of la belle langue.

Unlike in neighbouring countries, there is no sex tourism in Laos. I understand that this kind of ‘fraternisation’ is illegal here, and certainly no one has offered me a woman (or child). A waiter practicing his English yesterday expressed his pride that Lao women are becomingly modest, wearing, for example, decently long skirts. But then, officially communist countries do tend to exhibit a puritan streak.

To see in practice the active steps taken by the Lao Government to combat sex tourism, one need look no further than the back of the door of any guesthouse room, where a midnight curfew is prominently posted on a highly official, stamped and sealed document. This directive is posted on government authority. It includes other regulations promoting austerity. Some are directed at discouraging sex tourism; others at prohibiting other forms of immoral behaviour. Examples:

• “Disallow to apply another dopes and betting in the guest house.”

• “Awesome received or lead the guests in to your room before you get allowed from the staff.”

• “If ay one to perform this regulation will get pendalty to put on trial by the law.”

Imagine being a French visitor to this outpost of France’s glorious past, and, by way of having insult added to injury, having to decipher such English as this!

Glossary of Language Teaching Terms and Ideas

• Accuracy: Producing language with few errors.
• Achievement test: A test to measure what students have learned or achieved from a program of study; should be part of every language program and be specific to the goals and objectives of a specific language course. These tests must be flexible to respond to the particular goals and needs of the students in a language program.
• Activate: The phase in a lesson where students have the opportunity to practice language forms. See “controlled practice”, “guided practice”, and “free practice”.
• Active listening: A technique whereby the listener repeats (often in other words) what the speaker has said to demonstrate his or her understanding. Active listening is an especially useful alternative to directly correcting a student error.
• Active vocabulary: Vocabulary that students actually use in speaking and writing.
• Active: Related to student engagement and participation. For example, listening is perceived to be a passive skill, but is actually active because it involves students in decoding meaning.
• Alphabet: A complete standardized set of letters – basic written symbols – each of which roughly represents a phoneme of a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it may have been in the past. English uses the Roman or Latin alphabet, which consists of vowels and consonants.
o Vowel: A sound in spoken language characterized by an open configuration of the voice tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure above the vocal chords. The Roman vowels include the letters “a”, “e”, “i”, “o”, “u” and sometimes “y”. In all languages, vowels form the nucleus of a syllable. A vowel also completes a syllable.
o Semivowel: A sound that is much like the vowel, but is not the key (nuclear) sound in a syllable. Examples: the opening sounds in the words “yet” and “wet”.
o Consonant: An alphabetic character which represents a sound created by a constriction or closure at one or more points along the vocal tract. Consonants form the onset or end of a syllable, or both.
• Aptitude: The rate at which a student can learn a language, based on raw talent. Aptitude does not seem to be related to attitude; a gifted student can have a poor attitude.
• Attitude: A complex mental state involving beliefs, feelings, values and dispositions to act in certain ways. Attitude affects a student’s ability to learn, but is unrelated to aptitude.
• Audiolingualism: A form of language learning based on behaviourist psychology. It stresses the following: listening and speaking before reading and writing; activities such as dialogues and drills, formation of good habits and automatic language use through much repetition; use of target language only in the classroom.
• Audio-visual aids: Teaching aids such as audio, video, overhead projection, posters, and various other displays of pictures and graphics.
• Aural: Related to listening.
• Authentic text: Natural or real teaching material; often this material is taken from newspapers, magazines, radio, TV or podcasts.
• Automaticity: A learner’s ability to recover a word automatically, without straining to fetch it from memory.
• Behavioural psychology: Also called behaviourism, the belief that learning should be based on psychological study of observable and measurable psychology only; psychological theory based on stimulus-response influenced audiolingualism.
• Bottom-up information processing: Students learn partially through bottom-up information processing, or processing based on information present in the language presented. For example, in reading bottom-up processing involves understanding letters, words, and sentence structure rather than making use of the students’ previous knowledge.
• Brainstorming: A group activity where students freely contribute their ideas to a topic to generate ideas.
• Burn-out: Fatigue usually based on either the stress of overwork or boredom with the same task.
• Chomsky, Noam: The ideas of the great American linguistic theorist Noam Chomsky can be very abstract, while communicative language teaching is wildly practical. Chomsky’s theories of knowledge of language and language acquisition relate as much to the study of human nature as to language teaching. As Steven Pinker explains,
Chomsky’s claim that…all humans speak a single language is based on the discovery that the same symbol-manipulating machinery, without exception, underlies the world’s languages. Linguists have long known that the basic design features of language are found everywhere… A common grammatical code, neutral between production and comprehension, allows speakers to produce any linguistic message they can understand, and vice versa. Words have stable meanings, linked to them by arbitrary convention….Languages can convey meanings that are abstract and remote in time or space from the speaker, (and) linguistic forms are infinite in number.
Please see “Chomsky’s Black Box”.
• Chorus: Speaking together as a group; used in choral speaking and jazz chants.
• Classroom climate: Environment created in the classroom by factors such as the physical environment and also the interrelationship between the teacher and the students, and among the students.
• Classroom management: The management of classroom processes such as haw the teacher sets up the classroom and organizes teaching and learning to facilitate instruction. Includes classroom procedures, groupings, how instructions for activities are given, and management of student behaviour.
• Cloze: A technique usually used to assess students’ reading comprehension. Cloze can also be used as a practice activity. Teacher blanks out certain words from a written text and students fill in the missing words based on their understanding from context.
• Collocation: The way words are often used together. For example, “do the dishes” and “do homework”, but “make the bed” and “make noise”.
• Colloquialism: A word or phrase used in conversation – usually in small regions of the English-speaking world – but not in formal speech or writing: “Like, this dude came onto her real bad.”
• Communicative Competence: The role of language learning is to achieve communicative competence. Communicative competence has four parts, which we call language competencies.
1. Grammatical competence is how well a person has learned that features and rules of the language. This includes vocabulary, pronunciation, and sentence formation. The main question is: How well does a person understand English grammar?
2. Sociolinguistic competence is how well a person speaks and is understood in various social contexts. This depends on factors such as status of those speaking to each other, the purpose of the interaction, and the expectations of the interaction. The main question is: how socially acceptable is the person’s use of English in different settings?
3. Discourse competence is how well a person can combine grammatical forms and meanings to achieve different types (genres) of speaking or writing. The main question is: How well does one properly combine all the languages elements to speak or write in English?
4. Strategic competence is how well the person uses both verbal forms and non-verbal communication to compensate for lack of knowledge in the other three competencies. The main question is: Can a person find ways to communicate when he or she is lacking some knowledge of English?
• Communicative Language Teaching: Communicative language teaching (CLT) is an approach to foreign or second language learning which emphasizes that the goal of language learning is communicative competence. The communicative approach has been developed particularly by British applied linguists as a reaction away from grammar-based approaches such as the aural-oral (audio-lingual) approach. Teaching materials used with a communicative approach teach the language needed to express and understand different kinds of functions, such as requesting, describing, expressing likes and dislikes, etc. Also, they emphasize the processes of communication, such as using language appropriately in different types of situations; using language to perform different kinds of tasks, e.g. to solve puzzles, to get information, etc.; using language for social interaction with other people.
• Competence learning model: Especially when we take specialized courses, learning seems to take place in four stages. We begin with unconscious incompetence: we do not know how much we do not know. Once we begin our course of studies, we become consciously incompetent: we know how much we do not know. From there we proceed to conscious competence: we have functional knowledge and can perform competently, but we have to think about what we are doing. Finally, after we have had enough experience, we become unconsciously competent: we know it and we can do it, and we do not much have to think about it. This model applies to a great deal of language learning, to TEFL training and to many other areas of study.
• Comprehensible input: Language that is understandable to learners.
• Content words: Words that carry meaning; usually nouns, verbs and sometimes adjectives and adverbs.
• Context clues: Clues used when guessing word meanings; clues that provide students with meaning or comprehension based on the environment in which a word is found.
• Contrastive analysis: Comparing two languages to predict where learning will be facilitated and hindered.
• Controlled practice: Practice of language forms in a way that is controlled by the teacher.
• Creative construction hypothesis: Hypothesis in language acquisition which states that learners gradually develop their own rule systems for language.
• Culture: The sum of the beliefs, attitudes, behaviours, habits and customs of a group of people.
• Deductive teaching: Also known as deduction, from the verb “to deduce”; a teaching technique in which the teacher presents language rules and the students then practice those rules in activities. Deductive teaching is usually based on grammar-based methodology and proceeds from generalizations about the language to specifics. (See “Inductive teaching”.)
• Delayed copying: The teacher writes a short familiar sentence on the board, gives students time to look at it, erases it, and then they see if they can write it.
• Descriptive grammar: Grammar that is described in terms of what people actually say or write, rather than what grammar books say tho grammar of the language should be. See “prescriptive grammar”.
• Diagnostic test: A test to diagnose or discover what language students know and what they need to develop to improve their language abilities; may be used before a course of study and combined with placement test.
• Dictation: A technique in which the teacher reads a short passage out loud and students write down what the teacher reads; the teacher reads phrases slowly, giving students time to write what they hear; the technique is used for practice as well as testing.
• Discourse: See “communicative competence”.
• Facilitator: A concept related to a teacher’s approach to interaction with students. Particularly in communicative classrooms, teachers tend to work in partnership with students to develop their language skills. A teacher who is a facilitator tends to be more student-centred and less dominant in the classroom than in other approaches. The facilitator may also take the role of mentor or coach rather than director.
• Feedback: Reporting back or giving information back, usually to the teacher; feedback can be verbal, written or nonverbal in the form of facial expressions, gestures, behaviours; teachers can use feedback to discover whether a student understands, is learning, and likes an activity.
• Fluency: Natural, normal, native-like speech characterized by appropriate pauses, intonation, stress, register, word choice, interjections and interruptions.
• Form-focused instruction: The teaching of specific language content (lexis, structure, phonology). See “language content”.
• Free practice: Practice activities that involve progressively less control by the teacher.
• Function words: Also known as form words, empty words, structure or structural words and grammar words; these words connect content words grammatically; function words have little or no meaning by themselves. Examples include articles, prepositions and conjunctions.
• Functional syllabus: Syllabus based on communicative acts such as making introductions, making requests, expressing opinions, requesting information, refusing, apologising, giving advice, persuading; this type of syllabus is often used in communicative language teaching.
• Gesture: A facial or body movement that communicates meaning; examples include a smile, a frown, a shrug, a shake or no of the head. Gestures often accompany verbal communication.
• Grammar: See “descriptive grammar” and “prescriptive grammar”. Also, see “communicative competence”.
• Graded reader: Reading material that has been simplified for language students. The readers are usually graded according to difficulty of grammar, vocabulary, or amount of information presented.
• Grammar translation: A method of language teaching characterized by translation and the study of grammar rules. Involves presentation of grammatical rules, vocabulary lists, and translation. Emphasizes reading rather than communicative competence.
• Grammatical syllabus: A syllabus based on the grammar or structure of a language; often part of the grammar translation method.
• Guided practice: Intermediate step in teaching between controlled and free practice activities; there is still some teacher guidance at this stage.
• Idiom: A group of words whose meaning is different from the meanings of the individual words: “She let the cat out of the bag” or “He was caught red-handed.”
• Inductive teaching: Also known as induction, from the verb “to induce”; a facilitative, student-centred teaching technique where the students discover language rules through extensive use of the language and exposure to many examples. This is the preferred technique in communicative language teaching. (See “ Deductive teaching”.)
• Input hypothesis: Hypothesis that states that learners learn language through exposure to language that is just beyond their level of comprehension. See “Krashen, Stephen”.
• Interference: A phenomenon in language learning where the first language interferes with learning the target or foreign language.
• Interlanguage: The language a learner uses before mastering the foreign language; it may contain features of the first language and the target language as well as non-standard features.
• Interlocutor: In a conversation, this refers to the person you are speaking to.
• Intonation: How we change the pitch and sound of our voice when speaking. See “language content”.
• Krashen, Stephen: Krashen’s Theory of Second Language Acquisition is a highly practical theory for communicative language learning. This notion of second language acquisition consists of five main hypotheses: the Acquisition-Learning hypothesis; the Monitor hypothesis; the Natural Order hypothesis; the Input hypothesis; and the Affective Filter hypothesis. These hypotheses represent practical interpretations of what happens in language acquisition, and they form the basis of a system of language teaching called “The Natural Method.” Please see “The Krashen Revolution”.
• Language Content: Language has three components, which are commonly taught as language items.
1. “Structural items” are grammatical points about the language. CL teachers frequently introduce these as examples or model sentences, and they are often called “patterns”.
2. “Phonological items” are features of the sound system of the language, including intonation, word stress, rhythm and register. A common way to teach phonology is simply to have students repeat vocabulary using proper stress and pronunciation.
3. A “lexical item” is a new bit of vocabulary. It is sometimes difficult to decide whether an item is structural or lexical. For example, the teacher could teach phrasal verbs like “chop down” and “stand up” as lexis or structure.
• Language experience approach: An approach based on teaching first language reading to young children, but adapted for use with adults. Students use vocabulary and concepts already learned to tell a story or describe an event. The teacher writes down the information they provide, and then uses the account to teach language, especially to develop reading skills.
• Language learning requirements: To learn language, students have four needs: They must be exposed to the language. They must understand its meaning and structure. And they must practice it. Teachers should hold their students as able. They should not over-explain or make things too easy. Learning comes through discovery.
• Language skills: In language teaching, this refers to the mode or manner in which language is used. Listening, speaking, reading and writing are generally called the four language skills. Speaking and writing are the productive skills, while reading and listening are the receptive skills. Often the skills are divided into sub-skills, such as discriminating sounds in connected speech, or understanding relationships within a sentence.
• Learning burden: These are the features of the word that the teacher actually needs to be taught, and can differ dramatically from word to word. Especially in lexis, the teacher needs to reduce learning burden by, for example, reducing the number of definitions and uses presented.
• Learning factors: For EFL teachers, four factors outside aptitude and attitude affect the rate at which a student learns a second language. These are (1) the student’s motivation, including whether it is instrumental or integrative; (2) the amount of time the student spends in class and practicing the language outside class; (3) the teacher’s approach to teaching; and (4) the teacher’s effectiveness and teaching style. The most important of these motivators are the first two, which are also the two the teacher has least control over. See also “aptitude”, “attitude” and “TEFL vs. TEFL”.
• Lesson plan: An outline or plan that guides teaching of a lesson; includes the following: pre-assessment of class; aims and objectives; warm-up and review; engagement, study, activation of language (controlled, guided and free practice); and assessment of lesson. A good lesson plan describes procedures for student motivation and practice activities, and includes alternative ideas in case the lesson is not long enough or is too difficult. It also notes materials needed.
• Lexis: See “language content”, and “vocabulary”.
• Listening: See “language skills”.
• Look and say: Also called the whole-word method, a method to teach reading to children, usually in their first language; has been adapted for second-language reading; words are taught in association with visuals or objects; students must always say the word so the teacher can monitor and correct pronunciation.
• Metalanguage: Language used to describe, analyse or explain another language. Metalanguage includes, for example, grammatical terms and the rules of syntax. The term is sometimes used to mean the language used in class to give instructions, explain things, etc. – in essence, to refer to all teacher talk that does not specifically include the “target language”.
• Model/modelling: To teach by example; for example, a teacher who wants students to do an activity may first demonstrate the activity, often with a student volunteer.
• Motivation: In language instruction, the desire to learn. See “TEFL vs. TESL”.
• Motivation paradox: Students’ main motivators are factors the teacher has little control over (integrated vs. instrumental motivation, which heavily influence time on task), yet motivation is critical to learning.
• Native speakers: Those who speak English as their mother tongue.
• Needs assessment: Measurement of what students need in order to learn language and achieve their language learning goals; also may include consideration of the school syllabus.
• Non-native speakers: Those who speak English as an additional language. English is not their mother tongue.
• Objectives: Also called lesson objectives or aims; statements of student learning outcomes based on student needs; objectives state specifically what the students will be able to do in a specified time period; objectives are measurable and therefore involve specific and discrete language skills.
• Oral: Related to speaking.
• Over-correction: Correcting so much that students become reluctant to try out what they have learned.
• Paradox of language acquisition: The limited amount of comprehensible input that children receive is mathematically insufficient for them to determine grammatical principles, yet somehow they are still able to do so.
• Passive vocabulary: Vocabulary that students have heard and can understand, but do not necessarily use when they speak or write.
• Passive: Opposite of active; the false assumption that the language skills of reading and listening do not involve students in doing anything but receiving information.
• Peer correction: Also known as peer review, peer editing, or peer feedback; in writing, an activity whereby students help each other with the editing of a composition by giving each other feedback, making comments or suggestions; can be done in pairs or small groups.
• Phonemic awareness: Awareness of the sounds of English and their correspondence to written forms.
• Phonology: See “language content”.
• Placement tests: Tests used to place students in a specific language program; such tests should reflect program levels and expectations for students at each proficiency level offered by the language program.
• Prescriptive grammar: Grammar that is described in terms of grammar rules of what is considered the best usage, often by grammarians; prescriptive grammar may not agree with what people actually say or write.
• Proficiency level: Describes how well a student can use the language (often categorized as beginner, intermediate or advanced).
• Proficiency tests: General tests that provide overall information on a student’s language proficiency level or ability; can be used to determine entry and exit levels of a language program or to adjust the curriculum according to the abilities of the students.
• Rapport: Relationship, usually a harmonious one, established within a classroom between teacher and students and among students.
• Realia: Real or actual objects used as teaching aids to make learning more natural; can include forms, pictures, tickets, schedules, souvenirs, advertisements and articles from English magazines or newspapers, and so on.
• Recycling or spiralling: Sometimes called the cyclical approach; the purpose is to repeat language items throughout the syllabus; each time a language item is encountered more detail about it is added; this allows students to build on prior knowledge.
• Register: Level of formality in speech with others; register depends on the situation, location, topic discussed, and other factors.
• Scan: To read quickly for specific information; a reading stratagem.
• Skim: To read quickly for main idea or general information; a reading stratagem.
• Social context: The environment in which meanings are exchanged; can be analysed in terms of the field of discourse, which refers to what is happening, including what is being talked about; the tenor of discourse, which refers to the participants taking part in the exchange of meaning, including who they are and their relationships with each other (for example, teacher and students); and the mode of discourse, which refers to what part the language is playing in the particular situation and what “channel” (writing, speaking or a combination of the two) is being used.
• Sociolinguistics: Aspects of culture that affect communication with others; examples: social class, education level, age, gender, ethnicity. Also, see “communicative competence”.
• Strategic competence: See “communicative competence”.
• Student and teacher: Teachers have eight roles in the classroom. They are authorities and sources of knowledge; entertainers; caregivers; role models; counsellors and sometimes friends; classroom disciplinarians; directors and managers; facilitators, coaches and guides.
The most important person in the classroom is the student. The teacher’s primary focus must be on effective ways to have the student practice using his or her language. Classes should be planned so they enable the student to use just a little more language than they are comfortable with. This is known as “i+1” – an idea popularized by Stephen Krashen. This formula is short for “comprehensible input plus one.” Comprehensible input is language the students can understand.
• Student feedback: Information solicited from students by the teacher to assess the effectiveness of the teaching-learning process.
• Student-centred: Also called learner-centred, a way of teaching that centres on the goals, needs, interests and existing knowledge of the students. Students actively participate in such classrooms and may even be involved in setting learning outcomes. Teachers in student-centred classrooms ask students for input on their goals, needs and interests and on wat they know before providing them with study topics or answers to questions (for example, grammar rules). They may also ask students to generate (help produce) materials. The teacher is seen more as a facilitator or helper than the dominant figure in the classroom.
• Structure: See “language content”.
• Student-generated material: Teaching material to which the students have made a major contribution; the language experience approach, for example, uses student-generated material.
• Survey: To quickly read the headlines, subheads, opening and closing paragraphs, photo captions, pull quotes and other key materials in an article to get a sense of meaning; a reading stratagem.
• Syllabus or curriculum: The longer-term teaching plan; includes topics that will be covered and the order in which they will be covered in a course or program of studies.
• Syntax: Sometimes called word order; how words combine to form sentences and the rules governing sentence formation.
• Tape script: A written text which accompanies listening material; may be used to make cloze passages or for student review.
• Task-based syllabus: A syllabus organized around a sect of real, purposeful tasks that students are expected to carry out; tasks may include telephone use, making charts or maps, following instructions, and so on; task-based learning is purposeful and a natural way to learn language.
• Teachable moments: Times in a language class in which the teacher realizes that a point of information not in the lesson plan will help students understand a language point; teachable moments digress for a brief time from the lesson plan and can be valuable in helping student learning and keeping students engaged.
• Teacher talk: The language teachers use when teaching; involves simplifying speech for students; it may be detrimental to learning if it is childish or not close to the natural production of the target language.
• TEFL vs. TESL: TEFL is an acronym for Teaching English as a Foreign Language; TESL, for Teaching English as a Second Language. TEFL usually takes place in non-English-speaking countries, while TESL takes place in the English-speaking world.
When we speak of English as a foreign language (EFL), we are referring to the role of English for learners in a country where English is not spoken by the majority. English as a second language (ESL) refers to the role of English for learners in an English-speaking country. This difference is very important, because it strongly affects student motivation. In particular, it affects their motivation to learn.

In non-English speaking countries, students have instrumental motivation, the desire to learn English to accomplish a goal. They may want to improve their job prospects, for example, or to speak to tourists. They
1. Attend English classes with other non-native speakers.
2. Can find reasonable work without English; have less economic incentive to learn English.
3. Do not need English in daily life.
4. Have both primary and secondary support networks that function in their native language.
5. Have fewer opportunities to practice using their English.
They are learning, and their instructors are teaching, English as a foreign language.

In English-speaking countries, they have integrative motivation, the desire to learn the language to fit into an English-language culture. They are more likely to want to integrate because they
1. Generally have more friends and family with English language skills.
2. Have immediate financial and economic incentives to learn English.
3. Have more opportunities to practice English.
4. Need it in daily life; often require it for work.
5. Often attend English classes with students who speak a wide range of mother tongues.
They are learning, and their instructors are teaching, English as a second language.
• Technique: A way of presenting language.
• Thematic syllabus: Syllabus based on themes or topics of interest to the students.
• Top-down information processing: Students learn partially through top-down information processing, or processing based on how students make sense of language input – for example, through using students’ previous knowledge or schema.
• Uninterrupted sustained silent writing: A technique in writing whereby a specified, relatively short period of time is set aside in class for students to practice their writing without being interrupted. This helps build writing fluency.
• Vocabulary, importance of: Core vocabulary (the most common 2000-3000 English words) needs to be heavily stressed in language teaching. There is no point in presenting exotic vocabulary until students have mastered basic, high-frequency words. Learners should be tested on high-frequency word lists for passive knowledge, active production and listening comprehension. Learners cannot comprehend or speak at a high level without these words as a foundation.
Learners need to spend time practicing these words until they are automatic; this is known as building automaticity. Since there is often not enough class time for much word practice, teachers need to present their students with strategies for developing automaticity outside the classroom.
• Vocabulary-based syllabus: Syllabus built around vocabulary; often associated with the grammatical syllabus and the grammar translation method.
• Worksheets: Teacher-developed, paper-based activities to help students comprehend, use, and learn language; can be used in association with all skill levels and in individual and group work.

Jack Tafari

By Kevin Brown and Peter McKenzie-Brown

Jack Tafari (born October 31, 1946 in Gravesend, Kent, United Kingdom), is a Rastafari and an activist who has worked to improve the conditions of the homeless in the developed world. Tafari has devised and applied a system that harnesses Internet technologies, activism and traditional public relations techniques to advance the interests of the homeless. He has successfully used this approach to promote "sanctioned tent cities" as transitional housing for homeless people.

Homeless Front of the UK: Tafari currently lives in London, where he is coordinating the activities of the Homeless Front of the UK, HFUK.

The Homeless Front UK is a collective of homeless Londoners who seek to create a tent city as a sanctuary for themselves and for other Londoners without shelter. The ‘tent city’ they envisage will be drug and alcohol free; a safe and secure place where homeless people can live while they seek work and make the transition to more permanent housing. Unlike the common urban model of government- or charity-provided overnight shelter for the homeless, this model provides the dispossessed with the sense that they have a home.

In the UK there are an estimated 400,000 ‘hidden homeless’ without a roof over their heads. In December 2006 the Homeless Front UK initiated its Out of the Doorways Campaign to empower and house some of these. As of December 15, 2006, the nascent HFUK has so far housed 11 of London’s ‘rough sleepers’.

Jack Tafari pioneered the concept of the sanctioned tent city in Portland, USA, between 2000 and 2004 by spearheading the creation of Dignity Village. Now Tafari and his group want to “replicate dignity” in London, creating a flagship, eco-friendly tent city as a model for other UK cities where homelessness is a problem.

The Portland, Oregon ‘Out of the Doorways Campaign’: In December 2000 Tafari was a ‘rough sleeper’, living under bridges and in doorways in Portland, USA. There weren’t enough shelter spaces for all of Portland’s homeless, and Tafari found himself sharing the streets with others - including, for example, legless, wheelchair-bound Vietnam veteran John Reese. Tafari decided that something needed to be done.

With seven others Tafari began occupying city properties and pitching tents. “Confronted by police for their unlicensed use of public land, the initial group of eight men and women had the benefit of a forceful voice in the person of homeless activist Jack Tafari, and the early support of a few local politicians and associated coverage in the local media. The Portland police department eventually realized that the group, then calling themselves Camp Dignity, was engaged in complicated Constitutional issues of redress of grievance, and deferred the political issue to the local political authority: The Portland City Council and Mayor.”

While living on Portland’s streets, Tafari had become the protector of a sixteen-year old boy who went by the ‘street name’ of Field Mouse. Field Mouse had been evicted from a hostel for runaways for violating curfew. As his ‘street father’, Tafari helped him to forage for food and protected him from ‘chicken hawks’, or sexual predators. At a Portland public library, Field Mouse taught Tafari how to use computers and email.

In early confrontations with the Portland police, Tafari used his newfound technological prowess to advance his cause by combining Internet communications and traditional public relations techniques. To ‘sweep’ Camp Dignity, the police were required to serve twenty-four hours notice. Tafari started writing press releases and distributing them by email, using the Internet facilities of city libraries. His group put their things in shopping carts and, led by their wheelchair cases, they were ‘moved on’ by the police from place to place. John Reese was appointed as ‘Grand Marshall’, and as a result of extensive media coverage their ‘shopping cart parades’ became internationally celebrated.

The most famous shopping cart parade, which took place on Martin Luther King Day, 2001, included 35 shopping carts and was headed up by a disabled pair in wheelchairs, Grand Marshall John Reese and "Granma Coyote", Jada Mae Langloss. It attracted nation-wide media coverage, and the spectacle of armed policemen herding a group of the indigent made for compelling viewing.

As a consequence of the Martin Luther King Day Parade, Camp Dignity lasted for a space of about six months underneath Portland's Fremont Bridge. The Mayor and Council granted the camp the status of a city "pilot project" and offered them a site seven miles from Portland at the Sunderland Recycling Yard. As a negotiating tactic Tafari distributed another press release headlined "We're Having a Big Parade". Faced with the prospect of another highly publicised parade of the indigent, Portland backed down, and allowed the campers two more months at the Fremont Bridge site. Calling off the planned parade, Tafari sent out another press release, "Correkshan". After protracted negotiations, Camp Dignity accepted Portland's offered site at the Sunderland Recycling Yard.

Street Roots: Throughout the ‘Out of the Doorways Campaign’ years, Tafari was a staff writer and submissions editor for the Portland street newspaper Street Roots, and he used this position to publicise his cause among the homeless. The following passage, from an article in the December 2000 issue, is an example of the agitprop Tafari wrote to rally Portland’s homeless to his cause. In an article titled "The Future", he said,

"Today we live in a time of social transformation… a new informational age and a time of economic globalization. It is a time of social dislocation. Today the economy is booming and so is the homeless population. What we see around us now in the downtown core of our cities is homeless people wall-to-wall. Many of the jobs that paid anything have gone south or elsewhere or are now done by machine. Today the cost of space in our cities to live in is climbing beyond the reach of many low-income people. And today homeless people are harried and harassed, run from here to there, taxed by fines, commodified and used as a resource, sometimes brutalized, occasionally felonized and often used as slave labour by the prison industry. You know what they say: the good can't rest and the wicked never sleep. Not, of course, that ev'ry one of we is good. But we are human beings and we do not deserve the treatment we receive at the hands of wicked men.

"Very soon now we shall pitch the tents of Joshua on various sites around the city. We are blessed here in Oregon with ample public land and so there is space if not a place for us to go. We must build that place for ourselves. Know that the kernel of the future lies buried in the present. It is important for the future how we set up and govern our camps now. We have many friends. There are those who would fight against we, workers of iniquity who profit from our situation and would rather things remain the way they are. It is time to be of good courage, brothers and sisters. We may wander for a time in the wilderness. But as surely as night follows day, one day we shall reach a land flowing with milk and honey."

From ‘Out of the Doorways’ to Dignity Village: Dignity Village began as a group of tents pitched in a leaf-composting yard in 2001. It has evolved since into a ‘green’ eco-friendly village housing 60 formerly homeless people in a safe and secure environment. The tents are gone, replaced by a variety of ‘not to code’ buildings.

In April 2003, in partnership with the City Repair Project, Portland’s first straw-bale dwelling prototype was built at Dignity Village. This was followed in 2004 by the construction of five straw/clay, passive solar houses. In 2004, Dignity Village and the City Repair Project were awarded a Lewis Mumford development award by Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR), in part for these projects.

A donated bus serves as a library, a windmill provides electricity and the villagers grow their own organic vegetables. The village is self-governed, drug and alcohol free, and built around principals of love and respect for self and others.

Dignity Village is set up as a self-governing entity, and residents are bound by these rules of behavior, contained in their membership agreement.
1. No violence toward yourself or others.
2. No illegal substances or alcohol or paraphernalia on the premises or within a one-block radius.
3. No stealing.
4. Everyone contributes to the upkeep and welfare of the village and works to become a productive member of the community.
5. No disruptive behavior of any kind that disturbs the general peace and welfare of the village.

Dignity Village has been imitated elsewhere by other homeless people, notably in Osaka, Japan.

Incorporated in Oregon as a 501(c)(3) membership-based non-profit organization, Dignity Village is governed by bylaws and a board of directors with an elected chairman and other corporate officers. Tafari was chairman of Dignity Village Inc. from 2002 until 2005. The community has generated considerable international interest as a possible means of ameliorating the problem of developed world homelessness. In 2004 Tafari was invited to London to address the Crisis Innovations Fair on the subject of homelessness and possible solutions. He shared the podium with Dr. Michael Woolcock, senior social scientist with the World Bank.

Dignity Village has been featured in articles in London’s The Guardian, in The New York Times, and in other publications and media. The LA Times captured Tafari's vision for Dignity Village in a whimsical, idyllic quotation. "Essentially, we will create housing for ourselves....The housing will be solar-powered, wind-driven. We'll eat from our garden, on our own table, and rest under our own fig trees when our labors are done."

A fluent speaker of English, Dutch and several creole languages and dialects, Tafari is also a poet in Jamaican creole: Some of his poems are on the Dignity Village website. Like much of his poetry, his life is testament to the power of the powerless. By combining charisma, ingenuity and dedication while cleaving to the moral high ground, Jack Tafari has created ideas - absurd in the context of conventional wisdom - that offer hope for the homeless.

Note: I helped prepare this article for Wikipedia. The main author was Kevin Brown.