Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

Teaching English Language and Literature for Secondary Schools

Barbora Křivánková

A Study of Popular Natural Teaching Methods in the Czech Republic Master’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Nikola Fořtová, B.A., M.A.

2016

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I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

…………………………………………….. Author’s signature

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I would like to thank my supervisor Nikola Fořtová, B.A, M.A. for her valuable advice and comments on my work. I would also like to thank my parents and my husband for their support and encouragement during my studies and the process of writing this thesis. 3

Table of contents

Introduction ...... 6

1. History of the Natural Methods of Language Teaching ...... 8

1.1 Grammar Translation Method ...... 9 1.2 Reform Movement ...... 12 1.3 The Natural Methods ...... 15 2. Current Natural Methods’ Language Schools in the Czech Republic ...... 20

2.1 Direct Method for English ...... 21 2.2 Berlitz Method ...... 25 2.3 Callan Method ...... 27 2.4 Effective English ...... 29 3. Discussion of the Natural Methods of Language Teaching ...... 31

3.1 The Principle of Monolingualism...... 31 3.2 Naturalism and Thinking in the Target Language ...... 32 3.3 Effectiveness and Feelings of Students ...... 34 4. Research Methodology ...... 37

4.1 The Research Questions ...... 37 4.2 Data collection ...... 39 4.3 Limitations...... 41 4.4 The Questionnaires ...... 42 4.4.1 Types of Questinnaire Items ...... 42 4.4.2 Questionnaires for Students of the Natural Methods’ Language Schools ...... 45 4.4.3 Questionnaires for Teachers of the Natural Methods’ Language Schools ...... 47 5. Research Results ...... 49

5.1 Results of Questionnaires for Students of the Natural Methods’ Language Schools 50 5.2 Results of Questionnaires for Teachers of the Natural Methods’ Language Schools 56 5.2.1 Results of Questionnares for Teachers of the Natural Methods’ Language Schools ...... 56 5.2.2 Differences in Beliefs of Former and Current Teachers of the Natural Methods’ Language Schools ...... 66 6. Discussion ...... 69 4

7. Conclusion ...... 73

8. Bibliography ...... 76

9. Appendices ...... 80

9.1 Questionnaires for Students of the Natural Methods’ Language Schools ...... 80 9.2 Questionnaire for Current Teachers of the Natural Methods’ Language Schools ..... 87 9.3 Questionnaire for Former Teachers of the Natural Methods’ Language Schools ...... 93 9.4 Results of the Questionnaires for Students of the Natural Methods’ Language Schools 99 9.5 Results of the Questionnaires for Teachers of the Natural Methods’ Language Schools 104 10. English Resumé ...... 109

11. Czech Resumé ...... 110

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Introduction

In today’s world the topic of speaking English has become an issue for almost everybody as English surrounds us and people of all ages and social backgrounds have started to learn it.

As a reaction to the students’ needs and preferences a large number of language schools using different methodologies and teaching styles has emerged. Being an owner of a language school myself I have always been interested in English language teaching (ELT) methodologies.

Therefore, I regularly attend ELT conferences and events and try to follow the trends in ELT.

As one of my primary concerns is the use of translation and students’ first language (L1) in language teaching, I also dealt with this topic in my bachelor’s diploma thesis named Use of

Translation in Teaching English as a Second Language (Kratochvílová, 2013). In the thesis I arrived at the conclusion that the use of L1 in a classroom “has proven to be a beneficial resource for foreign language learning, although . . . L1 should not dominate the class”

(Kratochvílová, 2013, p. 42) and that “the abandonment of translation has not been pedagogically justified and . . . its use in the classroom should be reconsidered (Kratochvílová,

2013, p. 43).

Based on my knowledge of the topic of using L1 in language teaching, I have wondered why language schools that use natural methods of language teaching, which are strictly monolingual, have become popular among learners of English. There is a great offer of these natural methods’ schools in the Czech Republic, even though their methodologies do not correspond to ELT experts’ current beliefs about how a second language is learnt. As I am deeply interested in teaching methodology and always trying to find the best methods for my students, I have set a goal to find out why these language schools based on the natural methods’ beliefs have been attracting so many students and what students and teachers appreciate about these methods.

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For the sake of the thesis I am going to use the term “natural methods” for all methods which share the naturalistic belief that the learning of a foreign language (L2) can happen similarly to the way the L1 is acquired. Even though the classroom practices of these methods may differ slightly, they share a common background and philosophy. According to Richards and Rodgers (1986) “the most widely known of the natural methods” is the Direct Method (p.

9). The term direct method is thus often used to mean the natural methods in general. I have, however, decided to avoid using the name direct method in this way as today the Direct Method for English is a registered trademark which, since September 2009, has been offering its license to language schools in the Czech Republic (2010 – rok nejrychlejšího růstu jazykových center

DME, 2010).

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1. History of the Natural Methods of Language Teaching

For a better understanding of the natural methods I find it important provide a short insight into the history of language teaching methods, as our current views on ELT methodology are based on a long history of language teaching during which a number of different methodologies has evolved. As Richards and Rodgers state in their book Approaches and Methods in Language

Teaching (1986), “. . . throughout history foreign language learning has always been an important practical concern” (p.1).

However, although the interest in language learning has remained a constant feature, the languages in the centre of attention have been changing. According to Richards and Rodgers ,

“five hundred years ago . . . Latin . . . was the dominant language . . .” (1986, p. 1), later the focus of language teaching shifted to teaching “French, Italian and English . . . as a result of political changes in Europe, . . .” (Richards & Rodgers, 1986, p. 1). As the status of different languages has been changing for various reasons, so have the “Changes in language teaching methods throughout history . . . reflected recognition of changes in the kind of proficiency learners need, such as a move toward oral proficiency rather than reading comprehension as a goal of language study” (Richards & Rodgers, 1986, p. 1).

For obvious reasons when Latin was no longer used “as a language of spoken or written communication” (Richards & Rodgers, 1986, p. 1) the focus of its study shifted to reading comprehension of classical Latin which enabled students to study classical Latin texts, analyse grammar and rhetoric (Richards & Rodgers, 1986, p. 1). The way in which Latin was taught for these purposes was, however, obviously inappropriate for teaching of living languages to which were focused on later. The methods of language teaching based on the long history of teaching

Latin needed to be changed to suit the needs of teaching modern languages and focus more on the actual use of the language learnt.

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1.1 Grammar Translation Method

The Grammar Translation started at the end of the 18th century in Prussia out of the need to find a method appropriate for teaching languages to secondary school children (Howatt,

2004, p. 151), because “Nothing of the kind was available at the time” (Howatt, 2004, p. 151).

Guy Cook (2010) in his book Translation in Language Teaching explains that:

Grammar Translation was the dominant way of teaching modern languages

in European secondary schools at the end of the 19th century – and continued

. . . long into the 20th century. It had inherited from the teaching of Latin and

Ancient Greek . . . an emphasis on writing, on grammar, on accuracy, and on

the ultimate aim or enabling its students to read the literary classics of the

language they were learning (p. 9).

The Grammar Translation indeed was not intended to teach students to use the foreign language actively as it would be expected today. In fact “it was recognized that students would probably never use the target language” (Larsen-Freeman, 2000, p. 11). It was, however, believed that “. . . the mental exercise of learning it [a language] would be beneficial. . .”

(Larsen-Freeman, 2000, p. 11) even though the language was not used in practice. In other words, in the times of the Grammar Translation its propagators would say that: “The goal of foreign language study is to learn a language in order to read its literature or in order to benefit from the mental discipline and intellectual development that result from foreign-language study. . .” (Richards & Rodgers, 1986, p. 3).

The main principles the Grammar Translation used to achieve its goals according to

Richards and Rodgers (1986) were: 1. Focus on reading and writing, 2. Selection of vocabulary

“based solely on the reading texts used, and words are taught through bilingual word lists, dictionary study, and memorization” (Richards & Rodgers, 1986, p. 4), 3. Use of the sentence

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as the basic unit of teaching, 4. Emphasis on accuracy, 5. Deductive teaching of grammar, 7.

Use of students’ first language (L1) for instructions (p. 4). Rather than using traditional texts, used in previous language teaching methods, the teaching revolved around exemplificatory sentences which became a central feature of the method. Compared to the texts the sentences were hoped to give a better example of the grammar and also to provide practice (Howatt, 2004, p. 152).

Even though the principles of the Grammar Translation clearly do not correspond to our todays’ ideas about language teaching the method deserved its popularity as in fact “Its principle aim . . . was to make language learning easier” (Howatt, 2004, p. 151-2). The grammar rules taught in a Grammar Translation course were “graded for difficulty and presented a few at a time, starting with the ‘easiest’ and ‘most important’ first” (Cook, 2010, p. 10) The new rules were presented to students using their L1, memorised and “practised and tested through exercises involving the translation of single invented sentences exemplifying the rules currently in focus” (Cook, 2010, p. 10).

Although grammar rules were taught using “appropriate examples, and specially devised sentences,” in order to make learning easier (Howatt, 2004, p. 152), the ideas of the Grammar

Translation later developed into “excesses” which were mainly “the stress on accuracy . . . and the neglect of spoken language” (Howatt, 2004, p. 153). The critics of the method especially disliked “the teaching of grammar in isolation from texts and the excessive use of translation both in the teaching of grammar in isolation form texts and the excessive use of translation both in the teaching of meaning and in practice exercises” (Howatt, 2004, p.151).

The excesses of the later stages of the Grammar Translation, however, do not mean that the original ideas of the method were wrong. As Howatt (2004) explains, what “started out as a simple approach to language learning for young schoolchildren . . . was grossly distorted . .

.” and “. . . eventually grew into a jungle of obscure rules, endless lists of gender classes . . . 10

and a total loss of genuine feeling for living language” (Howatt, 2004, p. 156). The abandonment of the Grammar Translation was necessary as its later excesses made the method impossible to be used for teaching of modern languages. Its rejection, however, should not also mean a rejection of the use of translation and students’ L1 in the classroom, as it happened with approaches following the Grammar Translation.

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1.2 Reform Movement

The reaction to the excesses of the Grammar Translation came at the end of the 19th century in the form of the Reform Movement. Even though individual reformers had tried to propose changes in foreign teaching even before the Reform Movement emerged, they never achieved to cause any general changes in the attitude to language teaching of that time (Richards

& Rodgers, 1986, p.7). The main principles of the Reform Movement opposed the weakest points of the Grammar Translation, so the Reform Movement believed in these basic ideas: “the primacy of speech, the centrality of the connected text as the kernel of the teaching-learning process, and the absolute priority of an oral classroom methodology” (Howatt, 2004, p. 189).

The ideas of the Reform Movement were formulated by influential 19th century phoneticians and linguists like “Wilhelm Viëtor and Hermann Klinghardt in Germany, Otto

Jespersen in Denmark, and Henry Sweet in Britain” and “were based upon the latest linguistics and psychology of the time” (Cook, 2010, p. 4). Howatt (2004) claims that there is something remarkable about the way the Reform Movement connected the disciplines of teaching and phonetics (p. 187). Phonetics as a new linguistic discipline therefore found its use in the classrooms and the newly designed International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was being taught to language students. (Richards & Rodgers, 1986, p. 7).

Not only were the teachers interested in the new ideas of phonetics which they then applied in the classroom, but also the International Phonetic Association (founded in 1886) took interest in the situation in language teaching and the improvement in language teaching was among its first goals (Richards & Rodgers, 1986, p. 7). The ideas for language classrooms that the International Phonetic Association presented were in accordance with the general beliefs of the Reform Movement and they included the demand for inductive teaching of grammar, focus

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on spoken language and pronunciation and “teaching meaning through establishing associations within the target language” (Richards & Rodgers, 1986, p. 7).

The principles of the Reform Movement were a result of the works of scholars involved in the Movement. The first work to be published was a pamphlet by Wilhelm Viëtor (who published the pamphlet under a pseudonym) Der Sprachunterricht muss umkehren! (Language teaching must start afresh!), which meant a sudden start of the Movement in 1882 (Howatt,

2004, p. 188). Influenced by the suggested changes in language teaching, Hermann Klinghardt ran what is now called the “Klinghardt experiment”, in which he applied the new ideas with one class in his school in Silesia. The original experiment lasted one year in 1887, but it was followed by a further three-year study (Howatt, 2004, p. 188).

The final statement of the “aims, principles and practical classroom methods” (Howatt,

2004, p. 188) of the Reform Movement was provided by two works at the turn of the century.

The two works were: The Practical Study of Languages published by Henry Sweet in 1899 and

Otto Jespersen’s How to Teach a Foreign Language (1904). With their publishing the Reform

Movement “reached its climax” (Howatt, 2004, p. 188) and its views were finalized.

According to Richards and Rodgers (1986) the reformers generally believed that:

1. the spoken language is primary and this should be reflected in an oral-based

methodology;

2. the findings of phonetics should be applied to teaching and to teacher

training;

3. learners should hear the language first, before seeing it in written form;

4. words should be presented in sentences, and sentences should be practiced

in meaningful contexts and not be taught as isolated, disconnected elements;

5. the rules of grammar should be . . . taught inductively;

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6. translation should be avoided, although the mother tongue could be used in

order to explain new words or to check comprehension (p. 8);

These principles show that the findings of contemporary science were taken into account by the reformers when forming their view on language teaching. They particularly drew upon the ideas of phonetics, which has already been mentioned above, and psychology. Howatt (2004) explains that they used the psychological idea of “‘associationism’ . . . which claimed that information in connected texts is more likely to be retained than that in isolated sentences and that memorization is aided by links made between texts and events” (as cited in Cook, 2010, p.

4-5).

Even though the target language was primary in the Reform Movement classrooms and

“The teacher was expected to speak the foreign language as the normal means of classroom communication, retaining the mother tongue only for glossing new words and explaining new grammar points” (Howatt, 1991. p. 173), the use of the L1 was not completely ignored or even forbidden. “Most of the fuss about ‘no translation’ came from the Direct Method . . . The

Reform Movement consisted of non-native teachers who accepted the basic sense of monolingual principle, but did not see any advantage in an extremist view” (Howatt, 1991. p.

173).

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1.3 The Natural Methods

At about the same time the Reform Movement was formulating its ideas, the views of what is now referred to as the Direct Method were also being developed (Cook, 2010, p. 7).

Even though the ideas of the Direct Method “have been known by a variety of labels (Natural

Method, . . ., Direct Method, . . .) the underlying philosophy has remained constant” (Howatt,

2004, p. 210). The basic thought of the method was that: “Learning how to speak a new language . . . is not a rational process which can be organized in a step-by step manner” but it rather claimed that language learning “is an intuitive process for which human beings have a natural capacity that can be awakened provided only that the proper conditions exist” (Howatt,

2004, p. 210).

The person who “initiated the revival of interest that led eventually to the Direct Method”

(Howatt, 2004, p. 210) was Lambert Sauveur who “opened a language school in Boston in the late 1860s, and his method soon became referred to as the Natural Method” (Richards &

Rodgers, 1986, p. 9). Although Sauveur did not open the School of Modern Languages in

Boston alone but together with Gottlieb Heness, who had run a successful experiment testing the new technique (Howatt, 2004, p. 217), it is usually Lambert Sauveur’s name which is connected with the success of the school and the beginnings of the method. In 1874 Sauveur published his book An Introduction to the Teaching of Living Languages without Grammar or

Dictionary which “was intended as a kind of ‘teacher’s manual’” (Howatt, 2004, p. 218).

According to Howatt (2004) Sauveur was “a gifted and immensely enthusiastic language teacher, utterly committed to his vocation and possessed with boundless energy” (p. 219). The fact that he possessed “a gift that not many people possess” (Howatt, 2004, p. 219) is then what probably made his teaching so successful. As Howatt (2004) says, Lauveur’s “boundless self- confidence obviously communicated itself to his learners. He expected them to understand, so

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they did” (p. 219). Sauveur’s gift enabled him to lead fully monolingual classes for his unique talent to “talk to his students in such a way that they did not fail to understand what he was getting at, even if perhaps they did not understand ‘every word’. He had an intuitive knowledge of his students’ ‘internalized competence’ and succeeded in organizing and controlling his own discourse in such a way that it ‘matched’ the interpretive capacities of his learners” (Howatt,

2004, p. 220).

Sauveur’s method of language teaching certainly attracted a lot of attention. It became well known in the US and also a respected contribution to the theories of language learning

(Howatt, 2004, p. 220-221). Nevertheless, the method did not find its way into ordinary schools and Sauveur was unable to provide the “theoretical foundation” that was needed and it might have failed completely if it was not supported by the authority of the Reform Movement ideas

(Howatt, 2004, p. 221).

The Reform Movement, however, focused its attention on secondary school language teaching, unlike the Direct Method, which found its place in the newly developing field of private language schools (Cook, 2010, p. 6). As Howatt (2004) claims “The ordinary schools .

. . would never have adopted ‘natural methods’. . . Natural methods required schools of their own” (p. 223). The natural methods soon had the opportunity to find their customers. At the time when immigrants from Europe speaking different languages were coming to the US in large numbers a method was needed which would help these people quickly learn everyday

English to “survive in their new environment” (Howatt, 2004, p. 223).

This was an opportunity for the natural methods, which also found the man it needed

“with the feel for business” who managed to “grasp the opportunity that was on offer” (Howatt,

2004, p. 223). That man was Maximilian Berlitz, himself also an immigrant from Germany, who came from a teaching background. Berlitz managed to create “a system of language teaching that made no appeal to traditional scholastic knowledge but concentrated on what was 16

actually wanted” which brought him a sure success (Howatt, 2004, p. 223). Berlitz schools were established in 1878 in the US and soon a chain of language schools was created which “rapidly expanded both there and in Europe” (Cook, 2010, p. 6).

Even though the courses by Berlitz were described as using the Direct Method of teaching

(Howatt, 2004, p. 227), Berlitz himself “never used the term; he referred to the method used in his schools as the Berlitz Method” (Richards & Rodgers, 1986, p. 9). Before turning attention towards the principles of the Direct or Natural Method of language teaching, the use of these terms should first be explained. As Howatt (2004) admits, there is an “apparent confusion surrounding the use of the term ‘Direct Method’” (p. 226). Howatt (2004) tries to explain the term “Direct Method”:

In some contexts it seems to be narrowly synonymous with the Berlitz Method

and its ‘conversational’ objectives, but in others it is understood in a much wider

sense as encompassing all the techniques and principles of the Reform

Movement. What appears to have happened is an interesting example of . . .

consequences of translation . . . In English the phrase direct method was used

almost exclusively to describe Berlitz courses. . . In French, on the other hand,

méthode directe was adopted by the government as the name for the new

approach as a whole (p. 227).

Another part of the confusion in terms is the relationship between the term Direct Method and Natural Method. According to Richards and Rodgers (1986) the supporters of “naturalistic principles of language learning” who believed that second language learning is similar to first language acquisition “are sometimes referred to as advocates of a ‘natural’ method”(p. 9). The original principle of the Natural Method as proposed by Sauveur is the argument “that a foreign language could be taught without translation or the use of the learner’s native tongue if meaning was conveyed directly through demonstration and action” (Richards & Rodgers, 1986, p. 9). 17

Richards and Rodgers (1986) then claim that: “These natural language learning principles provided the foundation for what came to be known as the Direct Method, which refers to the most widely known of the natural methods” (p. 9).

Unfortunately, it is difficult to completely avoid the confusion of the terms as in fact different authors deal with the terms differently and so do the language schools which use the methods, as we will see later. For the sake of this thesis I shall use the terms in Direct Method and Berlitz Method in the narrow sense describing the teaching certified for the terms by company names, the term the Natural Method shall be used to describe the original teaching ideas of Sauveur and his supporters. As, however, the “ideas have been known by a variety of labels . . . But the underlying philosophy has remained constant” (Howatt, 2004, p. 210), I shall use the umbrella term of “the natural methods” to mean strictly monolingual methods of language teaching which, among other common things, compare second language learning to first language acquisition, just like Howatt (2004) does in his chapter on “‘Natural methods of language teaching’ from Montaigne to Berlitz” (p. 210-228).

The basic principle of the natural methods is the idea of making “second language learning more like first language learning” (Richards & Rodgers, 1986, p. 9). L. Sauveur in his lessons “tried to apply natural principles” by using “intensive oral interaction in the target language, employing questions as a way of presenting and eliciting language” (Richards &

Rodgers, 1986, p. 9). The system of questions and answers is still a central feature of today’s natural methods, as shall be discussed later in this thesis. The general principles and procedures of the natural methods at the time of Berlitz according to Richards and Rodgers (1968) were the following:

1. Classroom instruction was conducted exclusively in the target language.

2. Only everyday vocabulary and sentences were taught

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3. Oral communication skills were built up in a carefully graded progression

organized around question-and-answer exchanges between teachers and

students in small, intensive classes.

4. Grammar was taught inductively

5. New teaching points were introduced orally.

6. Concrete vocabulary was taught through demonstration, objects, and

pictures; abstract vocabulary was taught by association of ideas.

7. Both speech and listening comprehension were taught.

8. Correct pronunciation and grammar were emphasized (p. 9-10).

These rules are generally still effective for the current natural methods of language teaching, but the principles of each method shall be studied in more detail in the following chapter.

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2. Current Natural Methods’ Language Schools in the Czech

Republic

Even though this thesis focuses on the view of natural methods of English language

teaching in general, in this chapter some of the most popular methods that are taught in the

Czech Republic are listed. The individual presentation of the methods should provide an

example of the specific principles of the methods and a better idea of the current offers of

methods on the market. This chapter shall prove that although each of the methods has some

of its own specifics, they share a common background and more common beliefs and

principles than just the basic idea of naturalism.

The natural methods generally focus on speaking and communicating in the target

language. Conversation in the lessons is mostly based on controlled dialogue principle

where an exchange of questions and answers between the teacher and students is essential.

All conversation takes place in the target language and in a rather high speed so that the

students need to react as quickly as possible without thinking about how to form the answer.

The immediate answer should help automatize the use of the target language and enable

students to learn to think in the language.

During the controlled dialogue attention is paid to revising previously studied material.

Thanks to constant revision students remember what has been taught during the lessons and do not need to spend much time on home preparation and homework writing. This makes the methods suitable for busy students who need to minimise the time spent on studying. The methods also take pride in making their students always fully concentrate during the lesson which makes the lessons more effective. Generally the natural methods promise to their students to teach target language faster than other methods of language teaching would.

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2.1 Direct Method for English

As it has already been mentioned, the Direct Method of English (DME) is a registered trademark. Therefore the principles of DME mentioned in this chapter may not correspond entirely to the principles or pillars of the direct method as given in various methodology books, which deal with a more general idea of the methodology. The principles listed in this chapter are based on information presented on the DME official websites - http://cz.directmethod.eu/ or http://www.dllab.eu/ - and the presentation of their licenced school which are listed on the official website of the DME (Direct Method, Seznam skol 2009).

The Direct Method for English has been an international registered trademark since 20th

October 2009 (WIPO, n. d.) and it is based on the Direct English Publishers publishing house which “was established in 2008 . . . offering language schools ‘DIRECT Method for English’

– a modern coursebook for learning English by means of the direct method” (DLL, Language

Lab 2016). Recently, the Direct English Publishers has changed into Direct Language Lab

(DLL), which still publishes “coursebooks for teaching foreign language using the direct method” (DLL, Language Lab [video file] 2016).

According to the Direct Language Lab website, the Direct Method for English is different from other direct methods (DLL, Method 2016). It claims that while “The basic methodological guidelines of the direct method are over 100 years old” the DLL has “set new standards, thanks to which the direct method successfully enters the 21st century” (DLL, Language Lab 2016).

The DLL coursebooks are “updated on a regular basis,” they contain “up-to-date vocabulary” and “questions relating to current topics” (DLL, Method 2016). It also offers its students

“additional grammar lessons facilitating better understanding and consolidation of grammar material which is first introduced in an oral form” and “exercises and communication sections

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thanks to which students learn how to ask questions and practise vocabulary and structures which are useful in terms of communication” (DLL, Method 2016).

The Direct Method for English claims to be able to teach its students communicate in a foreign language much faster and more easily. It promises to its students dynamic classes, where they get the chance to talk 5-6 times more often (Direct Method, Metoda a jazykové kurzy

2009). “The main emphasis is placed on students to communicate. . . Teachers are specially trained to help students get rid of the fear to speak the English language, and then together create a real English speaking environment” (Direct Method, Media 2010). Students therefore become more confident as speakers of a foreign language (See You, Direct Method for English n. d.).

Speaking is essential for the method and students speak the target language from the very first lesson (Aqap, n. d.). “About 80 % of the lesson is speaking in the form of a controlled dialogue between the teacher and the student” (DLL, Method [video file] 2016). The use of a controlled dialogue and the system of questions and answers is an important principle of the method: “An intensive exchange of questions and answers between the teacher and the student serves the objective of mastering linguistic habits. The student gains automaticity of answers thanks to the imitation of full phrases and sentences” (DLL, Method 2016). The students are asked to react to the teacher’s questions quickly, which makes the lessons dynamic and keeps students concentrated all the time (See You, Direct Method for English n. d.).

The controlled dialogue, however, does not have the same form for all levels. It is structured according to the students’ level of language knowledge moving from more controlled practice to freer use of the language:

Questions and answers in the first stages of learning are pre-defined and neither

the teacher, nor the student should diverge from the pattern. The student practises

the exact words and grammar structures which are incorporated into the 22

questions and answers. In further stages of learning, elements of independent

creation by the student are introduced, and the student can create more and more

independent answers (DLL, Method 2016).

As the question-answer system of the controlled dialogue forces students to answer immediately, without thinking of the answer for a long time, it helps the students get rid of their fear of speaking (Direct Method, Metoda a jazykové kurzy 2009).

One of the main principles of the Direct Method for English is the pillar of naturalism. The lessons of the Direct Method of English aim to simulate real foreign language environment

(Methodic, n. d.) and the use of mother tongue is minimised (DLL, Method [video file] 2016).

The naturalistic principle of the Direct Method for English claims that its students learn the language in a natural way, similarly to how little children do. By first only repeating words and sentences, later understanding them and at last being able to use them themselves (Einstein,

2011). There is not so much focus on grammar as it is also learnt in a natural way. The students do not learn the theory, but they learn to feel how to use the grammar correctly - just like in their mother tongue (Einstein, 2011).

To make sure that students do not forget what has been taught, a lot of attention is paid to revision. It is believed that “Extensive revision is the secret of success in learning a foreign language” (DLL, Method 2016). For this reason, “In the Direct Method significant amount of lesson time is devoted to strictly organised revision of material allowing students to remember vocabulary and grammar items fast and for longer” (DLL, Method [video file] 2016). The purpose of the frequent revision is to train fast reflexes in the use of language “similar to those used in typing or playing the piano” (DLL, Method 2016).

Thanks to revision learning with the DME is very effective and it is not necessary for the students to do a lot of home preparation (Centrum Star, 2016). According to the promotional video of the Direct Method for English: “There is little or no homework and the lesson time is 23

maximised” (DLL, Method [video file] 2016). The method is therefore suitable for students who do not have time for homework or studying (Anglicky Rychleji, 2010). Overall the Direct

Method for English “is not only fast, but also very efficient allowing practically everyone to achieve very good results (DLL, Language Lab 2016).

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2.2 Berlitz Method

The Berlitz Method was founded by Maxmilian D. Berlitz an immigrant to the US from

Germany. Maxmilian Berlitz decided to open his own school in Providence, Rhode Island and he advertised for a French-speaking assistant (Howatt, 2004, p. 223). He hired “a young

Frenchman named Joly” (Berlitz, The Berlitz Method 2016), who, however, could not yet speak any English (Berlitz, The Berlitz Method 2016). At that time “Berlitz, overworked by the exertion of getting the school going, fell ill and left the students at the mercies of the ‘untried’

Joly” (Howatt, 2004, p. 223). When he returned, he was surprised to find how well his students were doing at Joly’s classes (Berlitz, The Berlitz Method 2016). Based on this experience

“Berlitz came to a significant conclusion: the "emergency solution" had formed the basis for a completely new method of teaching” (Berlitz, The Berlitz Method 2016).

Berlitz “was an excellent systematizer of basic language teaching materials organized on

‘direct method’ lines” (Howatt. 2004, p. 224). The basic directions for teaching by the Berlitz

Method that Berlitz set to his teachers were: “no translation under any circumstances . . ., a strong emphasis on oral work, avoidance of grammatical explanations until late in the course, and the maximum use of question-and-answer techniques” (Howatt, 2004, p. 224). As the teaching with Berlitz Method was to be strictly monolingual with no use of students’ L1, the

Berlitz schools’ teachers “were all native speakers” (Howatt, 2004, p. 224). According to

Howatt (2004) the teachers were not given very much training, but were expected to follow the directions for teachers in Berlitz Method books (p. 224-5).

The Berlitz method today revolves around 5 basic pillars:

1. Goal-oriented instruction – this means that the student’s objectives

are focused on at all times . . .

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2. Maximum student participation – every opportunity possible is given

to the student so that he/she can practice the language . . .

3. Exclusive use of the target language . . .

4. Students learn through listening and speaking . . .

5. Students learn grammar as a means of communication . . . (Berlitz

Oxford, 2015)

According to an official video presentation of the Berlitz Method the method is natural, fast and effective (Berlitz, The Berlitz Method [video file] 2016). The students of the method learn the foreign language in the same way they learned their mother tongue, “by listening, repeating and speaking” (Berlitz, The Berlitz Method [video file] 2016). The lessons are taught exclusively in the target language from the very first lesson and “Since translation is eliminated, you [students] learn to think in your new language” (Berlitz, The Berlitz Method [video file]

2016). Unlike in the past, the teachers of the Berlitz Method are not any more only native speakers of the target language, but the method now promises “Native-fluent instructors”

(Berlitz, The Berlitz Method [video file] 2016).

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2.3 Callan Method

The Callan Method “was invented by a man named Robin Callan in England in the

1960s” and now “more than 300 schools use the Callan Method across Europe, Asia and South

America” (Jet English, 2016). The Callan Method is one of the “direct methods” of language teaching which are based on the assumption that language learning is a reflexive process

(Amigas, n. d.). The basic principles of the Callan Method are quite similar to the principles of the Direct Method for English. As Callan Method is “fast, practical and ‘speaking based’”

(Englishouse, 2008). It is divided into 12 levels, so it is suitable “for all learners, from total beginner to advanced” (Callan, 2016).

The Callan Method also makes use of directed conversation where the teacher asks questions and students answer those (Ideal English, 2016). An important part of the question- answer exchange is speed:

Callan Method lessons are fast, with the teacher delivering questions at slightly

above natural conversational speed. This means that Callan Method students

quickly learn to understand English without translating first. The Method helps

them, right from the start, to think in English (Callan, 2016).

The teacher’s questions, however, are not only fast but also “carefully structured” and students answer them in “the form of full sentences” so the students are not only practicing speaking in the target language, but “at the same time revising material students have met earlier” (Callan,

2016).

There is a focus on revision in the Callan Method lessons, each lesson is divided into 4 parts – revision, reading, dictation writing and studying new material (Top School, n. d.). The revision part can take up to 60 % of the lesson time (Amigas, n. d.). The advantage of frequent revision is that it allows students to remember the language material during the lessons and they

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do not need to spend time on home preparation. Therefore the Callan Method is especially convenient for students who are very busy (Lexis, 2012).

The Callan Method is popular among students who want to make a progress fast and without time spent on doing homework. The Callan Method schools believe that students of English “want to learn English for business or professional purposes, and they need to acquire a good working knowledge of the language as quickly as possible” (Callan, 2016). The Callan

Method lessons provide for intensive learning as “Students are constantly involved” during the lessons (Callan, 2016). The method focuses on “efficiency, the practical syllabus, and the fact that they[students] can make very rapid progress” (Callan, 2016). The method claims that thanks to its effectivity the Callan Method students learn the language 4 times faster than students of other methods (Top School, n. d.).

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2.4 Effective English

Effective English is a registered trademark for another “direct method” of language teaching, held by Orange Academy s. r. o. (Kurzy, n. d.). The main idea of the method is similar to other direct methods’ beliefs. Effective English claims to be a highly efficient method thanks to which students learn to actively use English in the shortest time possible. The method promises to use the students’ time, money and motivation effectively (Orange, O nás n. d.). As

Effective English is a direct method of learning the whole teaching happens in the target language (Orange, O nás n. d.).

According to its website the method teaches English in a natural way, similarly to how children acquire their L1. Students are taught to think in the foreign language and not translate into their mother tongue. They do not think about how to create a sentence, but they say the sentence under their teacher’s guidance (Orange, Anglický jazyk n. d.). Children also do not know the correct pronunciation and intonation at first, but learn it by using the words again and again, Effective English works on the same principle (Orange, Anglický jazyk n. d.).

The method is said to be based on constant conversation of the teacher and students where the teacher asks questions which the students answer, at the beginning with the teacher’s help

(Orange, Anglický jazyk n. d.). The whole conversation takes place in English from the very beginning, starting with simple sentences and moving on to more complicated ones. Grammar is either explained in English or incorporated in the conversation (Orange, Anglický jazyk n. d.).

Based on the information on the Effective English website, the method practices all 4 aspects of language: speaking, reading, writing and listening. More than one third of the lesson is spent by listening to the teacher’s questions and more than a third by giving answers to the questions. In the rest of the lesson students read sentences from the coursebook, write dictations

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and communicate with other students (Orange, Anglický jazyk n. d.). Great emphasis is also put on constant revision which helps students learn the language (Orange, Anglický jazyk n. d.).

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3. Discussion of the Natural Methods of Language Teaching

3.1 The Principle of Monolingualism

Historically probably the most significant principle of the natural methods of language learning is the principle of monolingualism. At the beginning of the development of the natural methods the rejection of students’ L1 came as a reaction to the overuse of translation by the grammar-translation method, the same excess the Reform Movement opposed. The attitude of the Reform Movement towards the use of L1 in the classroom, however, was not the same as that of the natural methods.

Unlike the natural methods, the Reform Movement, which helped provide theoretical background for the development of natural methods’ ideas, never suggested a complete rejection of students’ L1. The Reformers emphasised the use of the target language in the classroom, but they believed the L1 had its place in the classroom when used judiciously (Cook,

2010, p. 5). However, according to Cook (2010), with the Berlitz Method came “the first true hard-line rejection of translation” (p. 6) and now the idea of monolingualism and rejection of the target language in the classroom is the reality for all natural methods of language teaching.

Even though the monolingual principle developed for valid reasons, nowadays it does not really correspond to the beliefs about foreign language teaching of the language teaching experts and the results of current research. Elsa Robert Auerbach (1993) claims that “inclusion of L1 has been theoretically justified, verified by research, and pedagogically accepted, while its exclusion has been based on unexamined assumptions” (as cited in Brooks-Lewis, 1993, p.

217). The attitude towards the use of the L1 has changed and “. . . the focus of the debate now tends to be not if, but how, when, how much learner L1 should be encouraged” (Samson, 2011. p. 294). According to Fatih Yavuz (2012) “‘Always English’ has become ‘Teach English in

English but do not ignore the mother tongue’” (p. 4340). 31

3.2 Naturalism and Thinking in the Target Language

As it has been proven in previous chapters, the natural methods of language learning believe that students can learn the L2 naturally, in the same way that children acquire their mother tongue. The methods attempt to simulate the situation of L1 acquisition and by strictly monolingual teaching and the directed conversation with no grammar explanations try to make their students start thinking in the target language without translating into their L1.

The principle of naturalism is, however, doubted by ELT experts, who do not think it is possible to simulate the situation of mother tongue acquisition in the foreign language classroom. Among those who comment on the problems with naturalism is Henry Sweet (1938) who speaks about the supporters of naturalism claiming that: “These enthusiasts forget that the process of learning one’s native language is carried on under peculiarly favourable circumstances, which cannot be even approximately reproduced in the later study of foreign languages” (p. 75).

Other researchers that I find it useful to cite here are Angeles Carreres and Vivian Cook.

Carrerres in her paper about translation in language teaching says that: “It is naïve and simply inaccurate to imagine that learners who only have one or two contact hours of language teaching per week can learn a language by immersion in the same way as children learn their mother tongue” (Carreres, 2006, p. 6). Just like Carreres, Vivian Cook points that the processes of adult language learning and L1 acquisition cannot be compared because:

The presence of another language in the mind of the L2 speaker is an unalterable

difference from first language acquisition: there is no way in which the two

processes can be equated. If the first language is to be avoided in teaching, this

ban must be based on other reasons than the way in which children learn their

first language (V. Cook, 2008, p. 182)

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On the other hand, the knowledge of their mother tongue is an advantage the adult learners have compared to children. Learners can rely on their knowledge of L1 and use it to make L2 learning easier. As Henry Sweet says in his book The Practical study of Languages, the knowledge of a mother tongue is a “preparation for the study of a foreign language” (Sweet,

1938, p. 194). Rather than avoiding the use of L1 and ignoring the comparison of the L1 and

L2, pointing out the similarities of the two languages would be useful for students, as shown by the research of K. A. Brooks-Lewis (2009). The learners who participated in her research appreciated the comparison of their L1 and L2 reported that it helped raise their consciousness of their L2 knowledge (Brooks-Lewis, 2009, p. 228, 230).

Not only is associating the L2 to the mother tongue useful, but it is also unavoidable.

Henry Sweet (1938) claims that: “cross-associations cannot be got rid of by ignoring them . . . every idea is indissolubly associated with some word or phrase in our own language” (p. 200).

This opinion is supported by Calis and Dikilas (2012) according to whose research: “It seems that learners connect knowledge of foreign language to that of their L1 through comparison and contrast, which is inevitable” (p. 5079).

Thinking in the target language therefore cannot be assured by monolingual teaching or simulating the mother tongue acquisition. Students translate naturally to check their comprehension and relate the new information to what they already know (Calis, 2012. p.

5083). The ability to think in the foreign language comes later with its thorough knowledge

(Sweet, 1938, p. 198).

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3.3 Effectiveness and Feelings of Students

The natural methods of language teaching claim that their lessons are more effective than the lessons of other methods. The question is if a monolingual class really is more effective than a class where the L1 is used for practical reasons. Vivian Cook offers a list of reasons why teachers use the mother tongue in the foreign language lesson. Among other reason teachers used the mother tongue for “Translating and checking comprehension” because they “felt the

L1 speeded things up” or “for giving instructions about activities . . . after they have tried in vain to get the activity going in the second language” (V. Cook, 2008, p. 182).

Using translation for the simple tasks of checking of meaning and instructions has been discussed since the beginnings of the natural methods. According to Howatt, the question of glossing unfamiliar items of vocabulary was a point for discussion during the Reform

Movement times. While direct method teachers tended to avoid glossing, others, “including most of the Reform Movement teachers” considered it “a sensible technique which allowed the lesson to move on to more important activities” (Howatt, 2004, p. 191).

Carreres (2006) claims that: “offering students a literal, even awkward-sounding translation solves in two seconds a problem that longwinded explanations in the foreign language would probably not clarify half as effectively” (p. 14). Personally, I can imagine the situation where a teacher strives to provide an L2 explanation of an unknown piece of vocabulary until, after minutes of explaining and miming, one of the students understands and provides the translation of the word into students’ L1. Notwithstanding the teacher’s effort to avoid the use of L1, the students employ their mother tongue anyway, if not aloud, then at least translating for themselves.

It is hard to check the students’ correct understanding of the teachers’ monolingual explanation as “definitions, like pictures, can be ambiguous” (Sweet, 1938, p. 200) and

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therefore translation into the mother tongue is “the most obvious and convenient way of explaining . . . meaning” (Sweet, 1938, p. 199). Even though the ability to describe a word using the target language and avoiding translation or to understand an L2 explanation of meaning is certainly important for the students of a language, judicious use of glossing can make the lesson move on and make sure the students understand the correct meaning.

The uncertainty of students in monolingual lessons where they are not allowed to check their understanding using their L1 may also affect the atmosphere in the classroom and the feelings of students. The absolute rejection of L1 can cause the students a great amount of stress as they are deprived of their most natural tool of communication. The stress that rejection of L1 causes to students is a main argument in the work of Brooks-Lewis (2009), who comments on her very own experience of studying Spanish in a Spanish-only class:

I learned no reasonable Spanish, and worse yet, I came to doubt my ability to

learn at all. This began the very first day of class when the teacher spoke only

Spanish. I felt I had . . . gone into the wrong classroom. I had enrolled in a

beginning class because I wanted to learn the language, so of course I could

not understand anything the teacher was saying, and wondering why she acted

as if I should was worrisome, making an already stressful situation even more

so (p. 217).

Being a teacher of courses of English for adults myself I realize that adult students may feel pressured during a language lesson because they are often not used to being in a learner’s position and being exposed to completely new material. I therefore find it important to lower the pressure put on students by all means possible, which includes enabling them to use their mother tongue when they need it. Knowing that their L1 is there to help makes students feel more relaxed and helps liven communication in the classroom. Ban of L1 may discourage students from joining a discussion as Carless (2008) says, “if you force them to use English, no 35

one will speak” (p. 333). I personally believe that students should be encouraged to communicate in the target language and avoid unnecessary use of L1 but never pressured.

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4. Research Methodology

4.1 The Research Questions

The aim of this thesis is to find reasons why language schools using a natural method of teaching English are getting more and more popular in the Czech Republic despite current research showing evidence against the use of the natural methods and strictly monolingual teaching. The research questions this thesis is going to try to answer are:

1. Why do students choose to study English using a natural method of teaching?

- Do students choose the method and continue studying with it:

a) for practical reasons such as price of the courses and location of the school?

b) for its advertising strategies?

c) because they believe that the method is suitable for them?

d) because it is less demanding on home preparation?

e) because they feel that the method helps them make a progress and be more

confident users of the English language?

f) because they enjoy the lessons?

2. Why do teachers choose to teach English using a natural method of language teaching?

- Do teachers choose the method and continue teaching it:

a) for their professional beliefs in the methodology?

b) because they believe the method helps their students’ make a better progress?

c) for lack of professional knowledge and experience?

d) because the method is less demanding on teacher preparation?

3. What is the motivation of students of natural method language schools to learn the language?

- Do they actually use English outside the classroom?

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- Is the main reason they attend language lessons that they want to educate themselves

and enjoy learning something new?

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4.2 Data collection

To answer the research questions qualitative research was conducted in the form of questionnaires for both students and teachers of natural methods of language learning.

Qualitative research was chosen because its aim was to find out about the participants’ experience and opinions. The research was interested in personal attitudes of individual participants, which is why the questionnaires included open-ended questions and space for participants’ individual comments. Five of the questionnaires were handed out to students of one of the natural methods during a lesson observation and were filled in a paper form. The rest of the questionnaires were filled in electronically by anonymous students and teachers of the methods.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to obtain answers from more than five of the participants in personal contact, even though it would have allowed to expand on the research by interviews with the participants. This is because participants were found using social networking sites and their answers were strictly anonymous. Apart from the five students addressed in person during the lesson observation, which was offered by one of the natural method language schools, no direct contact with the participants could be ensured. Because of the expectation that current teachers of the natural methods would not find it comfortable to openly answer questions about their opinions on the methods, other than anonymous type of questioning was also not considered appropriate.

Two types of questionnaires were created for teachers of the natural methods, taking into consideration whether they were currently teaching English using one of the methods or not anymore. This was done based on the assumption that attitudes of current teachers of the methods might be different from those of teachers who have decided to abandon natural methods of teaching. The questions in the two types of questionnaires for teachers did not differ,

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but they were distributed separatedly to make it possible to compare the answers of the two groups of teachers. For students of the natural methods only one version of the questionnaire was created. Even though students were asked if they were currently studying English using a natural method of language learning, the primal concern of the research was their experience so the questionnaires did not need to differ for current and former students of the methods.

Overall, there were four respondents of the questionnaire for former teachers of the natural methods, eleven respondents of the questionnaire for current teachers of the method and eleven respondens of the questionnaire for students.

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4.3 Limitations

The limitations of this research mostly arise from the fact that the research could not be done in cooperation with the natural methods’ language schools. It was not made possible by more than one of the schools to observe a lesson and question its students. Questioning students of one language school only would not provide a wide enough sample and it would limit the research to only one of the natural methods. For that reason the questionnaires could not be supported by interviews with the participants or testing of the students.

It is also necessary to bear in mind that the answers of participants can be rather subjective because they are asked about their personal believes and opinions. As with questionnaires in general the participants’ answers may be affected by “social desirability (or prestige) bias” and

“self-deception” which might cause participants to provide untrue answers either consciously or unconsciously (Dörnyei, 2003, p. 12-13). Especially the problem of self-deception may be of importance in this research when students are asked to evaluate their own ability to use the target language and their motivation for studying languages while teachers are asked how happy they are with their students’ progress. Presumably, the participants will have the tendency to overestimate their achievements so the answers to these questions need to be regarded with some reservations.

Another weakness which may be applicable to this research is the relatively low number of participants. This is rather typical for qualitative research, which is often criticised for “the small participant samples” (Dörnyei, 2007, p. 41). As for the sample of participants it was also impossible to make sure that students and teachers of different natural methods of language teaching took part in the research. It might be assumed that answers of students and teachers of the method which offered cooperation in the research might dominate in the research.

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4.4 The Questionnaires

4.4.1 Types of Questinnaire Items

The questinnaires designed for this research consisted of different types of both closed- ended and open-ended items.

Closed-ended questions

Closed-ended questions are a type of questionnaire items where “the respondent is provided with ready-made response options to choose from” and they “do not require the respondents to produce any free writing” (Dörney, 2003, p. 35). The advantage of closed-ended type of questions “is that their coding and tabulation is straightforward and leaves no room for rater subjectivity” (Dörney, 2003, p. 35) From the types of closed-ended questions, the Likert scales, multiple-choice and rank order items were chosen as appropriate for the questionnaire.

The Likert scale is a type of rating scales, which “require the respondent to make an evaluative judgement of the target by marking one of a series of categories organized into a scale” (Dörney, 2003, p. 36). Among the rating scales, the Likert scale is “The most commonly used scaling technique” because it is “simple, versatile, and reliable” (Dörney, 2003, p. 36). In a Likert scale question items “respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with these items by marking (e. g., circling) one of the responses ranging from

'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree” (Dörney, 2003, p. 37). The Likert scales designed for this research had five research options each, which gave the respondents a chance to use the middle cathegory “Don’t know.”

The questionnaires’ results were processed according to Dörney (2003), so “each response option is [was] assigned a number for scoring purposes,” (p. 37) the scoring used in this research was: “Strongly agree” = 1, “Strongly disagree” = 5. Dörney (2003) also explains that “Finally, the scores for the items addressing the same target are summed up or averaged”

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(p. 37). For the sake of this research the scores were averaged. The arithmetic means counted from the Likert scales answers show if the respondents mostly agreed or disagreed with the statements. The lower the score, the more respondents agreed and the higher the score, the more they disagreed with the statement.

Another type of closed-ended questions used in the questionnaire were multiple-choice questions in which respondents are “asked to mark . . . one or more options” (Dörney, 2003, p.

43). In most of the question items included an extra option “Other” was included, in case none of the other items fits the respondent. The “Other” option was “followed by an open-ended question of the ‘Please specify’ sort” (Dörney, 2003, p. 43). Only in a few multiple choice questions where the “Other” option was not regarded necessary, it was not included.

One of the questions of the questionnaire was designed in the form of a rank order item.

“As the name suggests, these items contain some sort of a list and respondents are asked to order the items by assigning a number to them according to their preferences,” says Dörney

(2003, p. 44-45). Dörney (2003) explains that he has “tended to avoid rank order items because it is not easy to process them statistically” and points out that “they are only an easy technical method to indicate order rather than the extent of endorsement” (p. 45). However, as the aim of this question is to find out which items students tend to at the highest ranks and which at the lowest ranks, the rank order item served the purpose perfectly well.

Open-ended questions

Dörney (2003) defines open-ended questions by saying that: “Open-ended questions include items where the actual question is not followed by response options for the respondent to choose from but rather by some blank space (e. g., dotted lines) for the respondent to fill” (p.

47). Although the respondents’ answers are limited by both space and the questions, compared to closed-ended items “open-format items can provide a far greater "richness" than fully quantitative data” (Dörney, 2003, p. 47). At the end of the questionnaires “truly open questions” 43

(Dörney, 2003, p. 48) were placed to provide respondents with the chance to add any comment to the topic they might want to include.

The open-ended questions can be further devided into “specific open questions”,

“clarification questions” and “short-answer questions” (Dörney, 2003, p. 48-9). In specific open questions, respondents are asked to provide “concrete pieces of information, such as facts about the respondent, past activities, or preferences” (Dörney, 2003, p. 48). An example of the specific open question from the questionnaire for teachers is question number two: “How long have you been teaching using a monolingual teaching method?”

Clarification questions ask respondents to provide more information about something or explain why they have chosen a certain answer. The last type of open-ended questions that appeared in the questionnaires is short answer questions, which “involve a real exploratory enquiry about an issue” (Dörney, 2003, p. 49). Short answer questions were, for instance, used at the end of the questionnaires for teachers where they were asked what they think the strengths and weaknesses of the natural methods are.

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4.4.2 Questionnaires for Students of the Natural Methods’ Language Schools

The aim of the questionnaires distributed to students of the natural methods’ language schools was to answer the research questions of why students choose the natural methods’ schools and what their motivation to study English is. The questionnaire contains thirty-seven question. Thirty-one of these questions were closed-ended, out of which twenty-two questions were to be answered by choosing a suitable Likert scale item. The rest of the questionnaire was constituted by six open-ended questions.

The introductory questions of the questionnaire were meant to learn some basic information about the students - their age, sex and highest level of education reached. Questions one to six were included to find out about the students’ experience with studying English using the natural methods or other methods of language learning and their level of knowledge of the language.

Acquiring this type of information about the participants was believed to help understand who the students of the natural methods are and what their relationship to English and English learning is.

The first research question “Why do students choose to study English using a natural method of teaching?” was broken down to more specific questions based on expected reasons for the students’ choice. The first of the six supplementary questions suggested that students could choose the methods for practical reasons such as prices and location of the schools. In questions thirteen and fourteen of the questionnaire, students were asked to evaluate on a Likert scale how much the price of courses and proximity of the school affected their choice.

Questions eight to twelve of the questionnaire were designed to show if students were influenced by advertising strategies of the schools to choose their courses. Question nine of the questionnaire also answered another supplementary research question, which was intended to discover if students chose the natural method because they knew its principles and believed the

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method was suitable for them. To answer this research question and to find out how students perceive the principles of the methods, questions twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-nine and thirty of the questionnaire inquired if students felt the teacher reacted to their needs, if they were forced to quickly react to teacher’s questions and how they felt about the principle of monolingualism.

As some of the natural methods’ schools recommend their methods to busy students with limited time for home preparation, the questionnaire included three questions, questions fifteen to seventeen, to learn how much time students actually spent studying at home and if they were happy about it. Five of the questionnaire questions (questions number eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-seven and twenty-eight) asked the participants to evaluate their progress in the ability to use English. Question twenty-four is then concerned with the feelings of students of the natural methods and asks whether they feel stressed during the monolingual lessons.

The questionnaire also included questions to answer the third research question of this study, which was interested in the motivation of the students of the natural methods’ language schools to learn English. Do the students actually need to use English outside the classroom or do they rather attend the lessons for other reasons such as the enjoyment of learning something new? Questions number seven, twenty-one to twenty-three and thirty-one to thirty-five of the questionnaire are meant to help answer the problem.

The final questions, number thirty-six and thirty-seven, allowed the students to provide an overall evaluation of the method they use to learn English. In question thirty-six by saying if they would recommend the method to their friends and family and in question thirty-seven participants could add any comment on the method. Overall, the questionnaire consisted of thirty-seven questions and it was designed to provide in-depth understanding of the students’ motivation to study English and their experience with studying the language using a natural method of language learning. 46

4.4.3 Questionnaires for Teachers of the Natural Methods’ Language Schools

As it has already been mentioned, the questionnaires for current and former teachers of the natural methods of language teaching were distributed separately to provide for a clear distinction between the answers of the two groups. The questionnaires themselves, however, only differed in the use of the past and present tenses in the questions, otherwise they inquired about the same information from both current and former teachers. Therefore, the questionnaires for teachers shall be analysed together and afterwards the differences in the two groups’ answers compared. Both questionnaires consisted of thirty-three questions altogether.

Twenty-eight of the questions were of a closed-ended type, out of which twenty-four items used the Likert scales for answering, five questions were of an open-ended type.

The main research questions the questionnaires were aimed to answer were: “Why do teachers choose to teach English using a natural method of language teaching?” and “What is the motivation of students of natural methods’ language schools to learn the language?”

Although the students’ motivation for language learning was mostly in the focus of the students’ questionnaires, the teachers’ views on whether their students use the target language in real life should help support the research question. That is why in question twenty-nine the teachers were asked whether they believe their students actually use English in real life.

The former research question of why teachers choose a natural teaching method was supported by four supplementary research questions. The first of these questions inquired if the teachers’ choice was based on their professional beliefs about the methodology. Questions six, seven and seventeen to twenty eight of the questionnaire dealt with the teachers’ attitude to the methodology. A large part of the questionnaire was devoted to questions about how teachers perceived their students’ progress, supposing that it would affect the teachers’ choice greatly.

Questions eight to sixteen, twenty-four and thirty in the questionnaires dealt with the problem

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of how teachers evaluate their students’ progress when using a natural method for language teaching.

Questions one to five of the questionnaires were designed to find out who the teachers of the natural methods’ language schools were and what their education was. The questions also inquired if the teachers held any teaching qualifications and what their knowledge of teaching methodology was. There was an assumption that natural methods’ teacher lack the professional knowledge, based on the fact that teachers of the natural methods are mostly asked to follow the method’s guidelines for teachers and the lessons are run following the teaching materials of the respective method. This makes the methods less demanding on teacher preparation. The teachers’ views on teacher preparation were covered by questions twenty-six and twenty-seven of the questionnaire.

Similarly to the questionnaire for students, teachers of the natural metods were asked to provide some basic personal information such as their age, sex and the highest level of education reached, at the beginning of the questionnaires. In final part of the questionnaires respondents were then asked what they thought the strengths and weaknesses of the natural methods were and if they would recommend studying using a natural method to their friends and family members.

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5. Research Results

The results of questionnaires for both students and teachers of the natural methods’ language schools are described in this chapter. The most significant results and all respondents’ answers to Likert scales questions are presented in graphic forms in the appendices of this thesis.

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5.1 Results of Questionnaires for Students of the Natural Methods’

Language Schools

There were eleven respondents of the questionnaire for students of natural methods of language learning, three of them were men and eight were women. Four respondents did not state their age in the questionnaire, the rest of them were divided into age groups which showed that four of the respondents were between the ages of twenty-one to thirty, one between thirty- one to fourty and two of them were in the age group between fifty-one to sixty. Six of the respondents held a master degree, one a bachelor degree and four had secondary school education. Six of the respondents were currently studying English using a natural method of language teaching, while five were former students of the method. Most of the respondents were student of lower levels of English up to B1 of Common European Framework of

Reference, but there were also two respondets who said they had reached levels B2 and C1.

Most of the students have not studied English using the natural methods for more than two years. Three respondents had less than one year’s experience studying using a natural method, five between one to two years, two respondents between two to three years and one between four to five years. Six out of eleven respondents answered that they had experience with other methods of language learning. The amount of these respondents’ experience with other teaching methods varried greatly, from a few months to eleven years of studying. It also seems that the way these respondents studied English using other than a natural learning method differed as one of the respondents mentioned he or she studied English for eleven years at primary and secondary school, while another respondent only studied for half a year in an online

English course.

Four of the six respondents who were asked to compare the methods and say which of them they preferred answered that they prefered the natural methods. One of them was 50

comparing the natural method lessons to studying in an online course which is why he preferred the natural method lesson as it gave him a chance to be in contact with other people. Another two respondents answered that they preferred the natural method for its emphasis on speaking.

Another two respondents did not choose any of the methods. One respondent believed that the teacher’s attitude is more important than the method as such and mentioned a bad experience he or she had had in an English course which was advertised for beginners but in reality many of its participants were of a much higher level of English. The sixth respondent preferred individual classes with an emphasis on speaking and playing games, which does not clearly show a preference for one of the methods.

In question seven students were asked why they decided to start studying English. Some of the students chose more than one of the options and the most common reason was that they wanted to be able to use English for travelling, which was an answer seven respondents chose.

Two other common reasons were that the respondents needed to use English at work and that they wanted to learn something new as each of these options was chosen by four respondents.

Two students answered that they started studying English to learn something new.

The subsequent part of the questionnaire dealt with the motivation of respondents to choose a natural method of language learning for their English studies. Some of the respondents again chose more than one option and according to their answers six of the eleven resondents chose a natural method of language learning because they had known the method and believed it was suitable for them. Three respondents also answered that they chose the method based on somebody’s recommendation and three chose the method based on advertisement. Four of the eleven respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that they knew the principles of the method before they started taking natural method lessons. Two respondents answered that they did not know the principles beforehand and five respondents were not sure. The average score of their Likert scale answers was 2.7 which suggests that the respondents tended 51

to agree with the statement even though the tendency was not very strong. According to the questionnaire, five respondents learnt about the principles from an acquaintance, three from the language school website, three from the teacher, two from advertising materials and one from the internet.

According to questions eleven and twelve of the questionnaire, the respondents mostly knew the advertising materials of the school they were studying in, while they were not sure if the advertisement influenced their choice of the school. The respondents mostly agreed with the first statement that they knew what the materials looked like as the arithmetic mean of their

Likert scale answers was 2.6, their answers to statement in number twelve that they were influenced by the advertising materials was 3.1.

The price of the course does not seem to significantly influence the respondents’ choice as none of them agreed with the statement that the price of the course was essential for them when choosing the language school. The average score of their answers was 3.6. On the contrary, the arithmetic mean of 2.2 suggests that the location of the school was an important factor for the respondents’ choice. Only two respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement while nine respondents agreed or strongly agreed. As for time spent on home preparation, most students claimed to spend more than one hour a week preparing for the lessons.

According to answers to question sixteen, the respondents were mostly happy about the amount of homework and the time they spent on home preparation with which nine respondents agreed or strongly agreed. There was not such a strong agreement in question number seventeen which inquired if the respondents considered the time spent on preparation sufficient. While the arithmetic mean of answers to question sixteen was 1.9, for question seventeen it was 2.9, which shows that respondents agreed with the statement even though their agreement was somewhat ambiguous. 52

All respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they were happy using a natural method and they also believed they have made progress using the method. The average score for respondents’ agreement with both these statemets was 1.6. The respondents believed the biggest progress they made thanks to the natural method was in communication, which was followed by the knowledge of vocabulary and ability to pronounce correctly, which were evaluated similarly. On the other end of the scale students put the knowledge of grammar and written communication which suggests that students felt to have made the least progress in these two areas.

The respondents mostly claimed to have had the chance to use what they have learned in the lessons in real life with which they agreed with reaching an average score of 2.3 as two respondents disagreed, two were not sure and seven agreed or strongly agreed. However, seven of the eleven respondents disagreed with the statement that they often used English outside the classroom, only three respondents strongly agreed with the statement and chose the answer

“Don’t know.” The arithmetic mean of answers to this question was 3.1 which shows that the respondents were inclined to disagree with the statement. They said that when they used

English, it was mostly for travelling, which was an answer seven respondents chose, at work, for communication with friends or on the internet. Two respondents answered they did not use

English outside the classroom at all.

The following questions of the questionnaire were interested in how the respondents felt in the classroom and what their attitudes towards the method’s principles were. By an average score of 3.8 students disagreed with the statement that they sometimes felt uncomfortable or stressed during the lesson. They also seemed to feel that the teacher reacted to their needs during the lesson with which nine respondents agreed or strongly agreed and the arithmetic mean of only 1.9 was reached. Likewise, the respondents were convinced that they were forced to react

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quickly to the teacher’s questions where their agreement was expressed by an arithmetic mean of 1.8.

Based on question twenty-seven the respondents were convinced that thanks to the natural method they were not afraid to speak English during the lesson, with which none of the respondents expressed disagreement and the average score reached 1.9. On the other hand, the respondents’ belief that, based on their classroom experience, they were not afraid to communicate in English outside the classroom was less strong. Only five out of eleven respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, one disagreed and five did not know.

The arithmetic mean reached 2.5 which showed a slightly ambiguous tendency of the respondents to agree.

Similarly unclear were the respondents’ attitudes to the statement that the teacher never used Czech during the lesson with which four respondents disagreed, four agreed or strongly agreed and the arithmetic mean score was also 2.5. Almost all respondents, however, disagreed with the statement that they would prefer their teacher to use Czech more often. Their attitude was expressed by an average score of 4.1 as nine respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement, only one agreed and one did not know.

Except for one respondent who disagreed and one who was not sure, all other respondents confirmed that they usually looked forward to their lessons. An absolute majority of students then claimed to look forward to learning something new, which is an option ten out of eleven student chose, while only one said to look forward to meeting classmates. None of the respondents answered that they looked forward to the atmosphere in the lesson or relaxing in the class. Even though none of the respondents answered that they looked forward to relaxing and having some “my time” before the lessons, a large majority of them agreed with the following statement that the time spent in the English lesson was relaxing for them, because it was time they had for themselves. Eight respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the 54

statement while only two disagreed. Thus the average score of 2.9 was reached in the answers to this statement. All of the respondents agreed that they believed speaking English is important today.

Seven out of eleven respondents agreed that they found taking English lessons good for them because they were learning something new, but they did not use English in their real life.

Three respondents strongly disagreed and one disagreed, so the arithmetic mean for this statement was 2.6. All eleven respondents answered that they would recommend the method to their family members and friends. In the additional comments one respondent stated that he experienced the method in two different courses. While he was not happy with the first course because he felt he could not follow the pace and also because there were more than fifteen students in the class, he liked the second natural method course with only three students in the class. Not only the method itself but also the specific situation in the classroom therefore clearly affects the students’ experience.

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5.2 Results of Questionnaires for Teachers of the Natural Methods’

Language Schools

5.2.1 Results of Questionnares for Teachers of the Natural Methods’ Language Schools

There were fifteen respondents of the questionnaires for teachers, a majority of them were women with thirteen of the respondents being female and only two of them male. All of the respondents held a university degree. Four of them had a bachelor degree, seven of them had a master degree and one respondent did not specify what level of university education he or she has reached. None of the respondents was a native speaker of English. The respondents were of different age groups but none of them was older than fourty-five.

As for the teaching qualifications of the teachers who participated in the research, seven of them had no teaching qualifications, four were graduated teachers, out of which only two were graduated teachers of English. Three respondents held a teaching certificate – two of them a Teacher Knowledge Test (TKT) certificate and one a Teaching English as a Foreign Language

(TEFL) certificate. One respondent refused to answer the question and commented on it saying:

“A bit too curious question, isn’t it?” A pie chart showing the teaching qualification of respondents is to be found in the appendices of this thesis. More than a half of the teachers had over five years of experience teaching English using a natural method of language teaching and three of them even more than ten years. A vast majority of the teachers, ten teachers out of fifteen, had some experience teaching English using other than a natural method of teaching.

Five of the ten who had experience with another method have used it for more than seven years.

Two teachers did not specify how long their experience was.

In question five the respondents were asked to name any other teaching methods they know or have heard of. Three of the respondents mentioned “TPR” in their answers,

“grammar-translation” was mentioned twice, while one respondent listed “grammar based” 56

method and one “grammatical approach”. Also the answer “Callan method” appeared three times in the answers and “Nepustil” method twice. Other answers which were repeated were

“communicative” method which appeared three times, “audio-lingual.” Other answers which appeared in the questionnaires were: “CLIL, PPP, task-based method, humanistic approach, eclectic approach, reading approach, silent approach, structural approach, superlearning method, scaffolding method, drilling and direct method.”

Two of the teachers’ answers, which were: “teaching by game, teaching through listening and repeating over and overagain after a native speaker or tutor (memorizing), debates, presentation” and “the typical school methods” were not considered relevant as they do not really name any language teaching methods. One teacher answered he or she is “not interested in other ones.” Overall, only seven of the fifteen answers contained more than one teaching method. In four answers only one method was named, which were CLIL, Nepustil and Callan

Method, and in four other cases there were no answers at all or an irrelevant answer was given.

From previous answers, it is clear that the teachers of the natural methods who took part in the research were mostly teachers with long experience in the field, though only twenty- seven percent of them were actually graduated teachers. Subsequently, their motivation to start teaching English using a natural teaching method was questioned in the research. Out of the fifteen respondents, seven answered that they chose the method because they believed it was the best for their students, seven started teaching it because they were offered a job by a natural method school and one participant claimed that he or she “was happy to teach for a school that has its own method.” One respondent wrote an additional comment saying: “The language school that taught the method replied to my CV. None other did.”

Surprisingly, although seven out of fifteen respondents claimed to have chosen the method for their beliefs in it, in the following questions only two respondents said they knew a lot about the method before they started teaching it. In question seven respondents were asked 57

to mark an item on a Likert scale to show how much they agreed or disagreed with the statement that they knew a lot about the method before they started using it. The arithmetic mean of answers to the question is 3.6 which shows a tendency of respondents to disagree with the statement. In fact the Likert scales average of this question’s answers is the highest of all Likert scale questions in the questionnaires. This shows rather clearly that teachers mostly started using the method without knowing much about it.

Despite a lack of knowledge about the method, teachers had expectations of what the method will bring to their students even before they started to use the method. In questions eight to eleven respondents were asked if, before they started using it, they thought the method would help their students make a better progress in specified areas of language learning. Ten out of fifteen teachers agreed that they believed the method would help their students learn the language more easily.The arithmetic mean counted from answers to this question was 2, which shows the tendency of the participants to agree with the statement. Likewise, the respondents mostly agreed with the statement that they believed a natural teaching method would help their students communicate in English better than other methods. Twelve of the fifteen respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, two of them were not sure and only one disagreed, which made for an average value of their answers being 1.8.

The highest arithmetic mean of answers to questions eight to eleven was reached in question ten which inquired if teachers believed the method would help students learn English grammar better than other methods. The arithmetic mean here was 3.1 which suggests that teachers were rather uncertain about the strengths or weaknesses of the methods when teaching grammar. The answers to this question were distributed rather evenly with five respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement, six respondents disagreeing or strongly disagreeing and four respondents choosing the option “I don’t know.”

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Similarly ambiguous were the answers to question eleven which dealt with the merits of teaching vocabulary using a natural method of teaching. There was no significant tendency of respondents to agree or disagree with the statement that they believed that, thanks to the natural method of teaching, their students would acquire more vocabulary than using other methods. The arithmetic mean of the answers here was 2.5 with nine respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing, five agreeing or strongly agreeing and one choosing the middle option. It shows that the respondents rather agreed with the statement but the tendency here was not as strong as in questions eight and nine. As future teachers of the method, the respondents were thus most optimistic about how the method would help their students communicate in English and least optimistic about how it would help them with learning English grammar.

The subsequent questions of the questionnaire were meant to show how the respondents’ attitudes towards the methods’ merits changed after their experience with the method they were using. Therefore, in questions thirteen to sixteen of the questionnaire respondents were asked to evaluate the same statements as in the previous questions, with the difference that now the statements were perceived from the respondents’current perspective. Overall, the answers to these two sets of questions were rather similar. After having used a natural method of teaching, respondents were slightly less convinced that students are learning the language more easily compared to their previous expectations. The number of respondents who agreed or strongly agreed with the statement was now eleven instead of ten, but one participant now strongly disagreed. Thus the arithmetic mean for this question shifted from 2 to 2.1 suggesting a higher tendency to disagree with the statement.

The respondents’ attitudes to how the natural methods help students communicate in

English did not change at all after their experience with using the method so it seems their previous expectations were fulfilled at this point. As for how the respondets perceived the learning of grammar, their answers were as ambiguous as in question ten. The arithmetic mean 59

of their answers shifted from 3.1 to 3, which would mean a slightly more positive attitude. The answers were again evenly distributed as six respondents agreed or strongly agreed and five disagreed or strongly disagreed. The answers to question sixteen which dealt with the learning of vocabulary were counted into an arithmetic mean of 2.1 which suggest that respondents were slightly more optimistic about how vocabulary is learned using a natural method of language teaching. However, still only nine respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement.

The shift was caused by the fact that a lower number of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed while more respondents were not sure and chose the option “Don’t know.”

As it has already been mentioned, the two sets of questions number eight to eleven and thirteen to sixteen were designed to find out if the respondents believed the natural methods help students learn certain aspects of the language better or more easily than other methods.

The aim was also to see how their attitudes changed after they have used the method compared to what they expected before they started using it. When the previously discussed answers to these questions are put together and compared as a whole, it is clear that the respondents generally believed the natural methods were generally helping their students achieve better results than other methods would. The biggest positive of the methods seems to be their ability to help students communicate in English as the respondents evaluated that most positively both before and after they have used the methods in their teaching. On the contrary, respondents were most reserved about teaching grammar using a natural method, but even here they were not completely negative.

The respondents’ answers about what they believed before they started using the methods and after that did not differ greatly. The arithmetic means counted from their answers were slightly lower in the second set of questions, with the exception of the statement that the respondents believed the methods help students learn the language more easily. Here the

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arithmetic mean was higher in the second set of questions, so the respondents seemed to be less convinced that learning English using a natural method is easier than using other methods.

Similarly to the previously discussed questions, the respondents were mostly positive about the natural methods in the remaining questions. They tended to agree that their lesson plans fit their students’ needs as only two respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement and two did not know. Almost all of the participating teachers believed that their students enjoyed the natural method lessons as fourteen out of fifteen respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement and only one did not know.

The respondents were, however, not so sure that their students did not feel stressed during lessons. The general tendency of the respondents was to rather disagree with the statement that students sometimes feel stressed, insecure or frustrated during the lesson as the arithmetic means 3.3 suggests. Nevertheless, four respondents agreed with the statement and five were not sure. The problem of stress in the natural method lesson might therefore be an issue for some of them.

According to the research, the teachers of natural method lessons mostly believed that the use of Czech during the lesson would have a detrimental effect on their students’ progress.

The tendency to agree with the statement was represented by the arithmetic mean of 2.1.

Contrary to this belief, only nine respondents agreed that they never used Czech during the lessons and the arithmetic mean was counted to be 2.7. This suggests that some of the teachers use Czech during their lessons, even though it is against their beliefs.

Respondents also tended to agree with the principle of natural methods claiming that students can learn English in the same way children acquire their first language, even though their answers showed some uncertainity about the statement. While seven respondents strongly agreed or agreed with the belief (out of which only two strongly agreed), six respondents were not sure about their attitude and chose the option “Don’t know” on the Likert scale and two 61

respondents disagreed. Most respondents also believed that their students were actively creating their own sentences during the lessons, but three respondents disagreed with the statement and three were unsure. Though the overall tendency is then to agree with the statement, a few teachers thought that their students were mostly just repeating teachers’ sentences during the lessons.

Compared to the previous questions, the answers to the following ones were much more convincing. The teachers clearly believed that students are gaining more confidence in communicating in English thanks to the natural methods’ lessons. A vast majority of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, only one was not sure and no respondent disagreed. According to the respondents’ answers most of the teachers also thought that the natural method lessons were practical and helped students use English in real life, even though two respondents disagreed with that.

The following statement which claimed that the natural methods are easy to teach for the teacher, was agreed with by eleven respondents while no respondent disagreed. This statement showed the most convincing agreement of respondents of all Likert scale questions in the teachers’ questionnaires with its arithmetic mean 1.4 being the lowest of all. Not only do the methods come out to be easy to teach for the teacher, but they also do not seem to demanding in terms of teacher preparation. According to question twenty-seven in the questionnaire, only two respondents agreed that the methods required a lot of teacher preparation, while seven respondents disagreed with the statement.

Not only are the methods not demaning on teachers’ work and preparation, but, according to the teachers’ responses, studying using a natural method is also not very time- consuming for students as only one teacher disagreed with that. Seven respondents then agreed or strongly agreed that their students did not need to do a lot of homework and seven were not sure about the statement. A bit less straightforward were the answers to questions twenty-nine 62

which asked the respondents if they think that their students often use English outside the classroom. Seven respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, four of them disagreed or strongly disagreed and four did not know. The arithmetic mean counted of these answers was 2.7 and the answers were distributed among all the Likert scale items.

Overall, most of the respondents were happy with their students’ progress with the arithmetic mean being 2.2 for this question. Ten respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, three disagreed and two were not sure. Even more respondents confirmed that they were happy teaching using a natural method and wanted to continue using it or would like to use it again in reaction to question number twelve. The arithmetic mean of anwers to this question was 1.9 as twelve out of fifteen respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, one did not know, one disagreed and one strongly disagreed. These numbers showed that the respondents were generally optimistic about the natural methods of language teaching.

In question thirty-one the respondents were asked to name what they think the positives of the natural methods are. The respondents mostly saw the advantages of the methods in how they help the students communicate, gain more confidence in speaking and learn more quickly.

The issue of confidence appeared in a lot of the respondents’ answers: “A lot of communication, it helps the students to be more confident,” “They are not afraid of talking . . .,” “Less problems with speaking outside the classroom,” “. . . less afraid of using the language.” The teachers also appreciated that “Students speak in English all the time,” they get “better fluency” and the method is good “for gaining new vocabulary.”

Teacher also regarded positively how grammar is learned using the natural methods.

One of the respondents commented that: “the students can effectively acquire the ‘feel’ of

English with lots of speaking. It makes them aware of certain language structures and provides good language input,” while others believed that: “Students stop worrying about grammar too

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much they gain naturally basics of language” or that: “The learners grasp the basics (including correct grammar but without being aware of it) faster . . .”

The method helping students to learn faster was a recurrent topic in the respondents’ comments. The teachers who believed that a natural method is a “Quick method for learning how to communicate,” it provides for “quick learning” and students “are able to communicate faster.” One of the teachers answered that he or she believed that thanks to a lot of practice, students “don't have to spend much time preparing for the lessons at home” and also that “the teacher has to prepare very little for the lesson once he/she already knows the book.”

On the contrary, the weaknesses of the natural methods that the respondents named were the belief that: “students just repeat and sometimes do not know what they are saying,” and there is “not enough grammar, slow progress in more advanced stages.” Respondents also mentioned that: “Some tiny notions of vocabulary might be overseen” and “there is not a lot of writing.” One of the respondents disagreed with the principle of naturalism claiming that: “The method can never immitate the children's process of acquiring language successfully, because the language input during lessons is simply too little,” which another respondent supported saying: “I believe this method could be only fully successful in a long-term total immersion programme, which is nearly impossible to create or to attend for most of the adult students.”

Five of the respondents were convinced that “the method doesn´t work for everybody.”

In additional comments the respondents recommended combining the natural methods with other methods of language teaching, “Because of the limited language input, it is actually quite useful to use other methods too, combine them to achieve the maximum possible learning progress.” “A direct method makes a great base for a teaching approach,” commented another respondent, “but I do not think it's good to rigidly teach using one method only. Personally, I prefer eclectic approach which allows one to combine the best from all the methods in order to adapt the best to different needs of different students.” The natural methods also seem to be 64

suitable for low level students rather than higher level, which is confirmed by a respondent who says: “I find it good for beginners and pre-intermediate students, but I wouldn't use it for higher levels” and another believing that the method is “Perfect for beginners.”

Overall the teachers were optimistic about the natural methods of language teaching and believed the methods are good for their students’ learning. They evaluated teaching communication as a major advantage of the natural methods, while they were quite hesitant about the way grammar is learnt. A vast majority of them would recommend studying English using the method to their family members or friends and only three out of fifteen respondents answered that they would not.

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5.2.2 Differences in Beliefs of Former and Current Teachers of the Natural Methods’

Language Schools

As it had been expected before the questionnaires were designed, the results of the two types of questionnaires for former and current teachers of the natural methods’ language schools showed some differences in opinions of the two groups. Despite the low number of respondents of the questionnaire for former teachers of the natural methods, I found some of the differences worth commenting on as there seemed to be an obvious tendency in the respondents’ answers.

In the Likert scale questions of the questionnaire, the former teachers of the methods generally showed a tendency to be more negative about the methods. In twenty out of twenty- three Likert scale questions the arithmetic mean counted from the former natural methods’ teachers’ answers was higher than the arithmetic mean of answers of current teachers of the methods. The three questions in which the tendency was reversed were questions nineteen, twenty and twenty-two. In question twenty-two, the difference between the two arithmethic means was, however, only 0.1, which is too low to be significant for the research. The answers to questions nineteen and twenty showed that former teachers of the method agreed more with the statement that they think students sometimes feel stressed, insecure or frustrated during natural method lessons. According to the respondents’ answers to question twenty, the former teachers used less Czech during the lesson as more of them agreed with the statement compared to current natural methods’ teachers.

The differences between the arithmetic mean values of the two groups of teachers were counted to see how significantly their answers differed. In five questions the two arithmetic means differed by more than 1.0 while the average score of the former teachers’ answers was higher in all of these five questions. In questions number nine and fourteen the respondents were asked if before or after they have used the natural methods in their teaching they believed

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the methods helped their students communicate in English better than other methods. In both these questions the anwers of either group stayed the same. In the questionnaire for current teachers six respondents strongly agreed with the statement, four respondents agreed and one did not know. The former teachers’ answers were distributed evenly to options strongly agree, agree, don’t know and disagree with one vote for each of these four. These results show that current teachers agreed with the statement much more strongly than the former teachers.

The most significant disagreement in the answers of former and current teachers of the natural methods’ language schools was in question seventeen, in which respondents were asked whether they believed that their lesson plans fitted their students’ needs and if they could react to students’ problems flexibly. While none of the current teachers disagreed with the statement and the arithmetic mean of their anwers was only 1.6, two of the former teachers disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement and two agreed or strongly agreed, which was expressed by an arithmetic mean of their answers being 3.0. Unlike the current teachers of the methods, who were all positive about their lesson planning, the former teachers’ answers did not show a unified attitude towards the statement.

The former teachers of the natural methods were also considerably more pessimistic about the statement that students actively create their own sentences during a natural methods’ lesson rather than just repeat the teacher’s sentences. While current teachers of the method mostly agreed with the statement and only one disagreed, so the arithmetic mean reached 2.3, the former teachers of the methods had a tendency to disagree with the statement, reaching the arithmetic mean of 3.3. Finally, the former teachers were not as sure as the current teachers of the natural methods that the natural method lessons were practical and helped students use

English in real-life situations. Two of the former natural methods’ teachers disagreed with the statement, while none of the current teachers did.

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There was also a difference in the education of the respondents from the two groups, as all four of the former natural methods’ teachers had some kind of teaching qualifications. Three of them were graduated teachers and one held a TKT certificate. On the other hand, only three out of eleven respondents of the questionnaire for current teachers of natural methods had teaching qualifications, one of them was a graduated teacher, one held a TKT certificate and one a TEFL certificate. Only half of the former natural methods’ teachers would recommend the methods to their friends and family, while fifty percent of current teachers of the methods would do so.

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6. Discussion

The research conducted for this thesis answered the three research questions which were interested in the reasons why students and teachers of the natural method schools chose the methods and what the motivation of natural methods’ students to study English was. As it had been expected, the research indicated that most of the students of the natural methods’ language schools do not use English in their real life, but attend the courses because they want to learn something new. Even though students were also motivated to learn the language to be able to use it for travelling, they did not seem to use the language on a regular basis.

The research was aimed to find out if the students’ choice of a natural method school was influenced by practical reasons such as price and location of the school or by advertisement.

The research results show that while the students regarded the location of the school as a rather important aspect of their choice, the price of the course was not essential for them. It is not clear how much the respondents’ choice of language school was influenced by the advertisement of the school. Even though most of the respondents agreed that they knew the advertising materials of the school they studied at, they had a slight tendency to disagree that they were affected by the advertisement when choosing the language school.

A part of the advertising strategies of the natural methods’language schools is the claim that their methods are more effective compared to other methods and students are not required to spend time on home preparation. Therefore the schools recommend their methods to those who do not have time to do homework (Anglicky Rychleji, 2010). Surprisingly, according to their questionnaire answers, most of the students spend more than one hour a week preparing for the lessons. It is, however, possible that the results at this point could be affected by the fact that most of the respondents were expected to be students of a language school which, unlike other natural methods’ schools, does not make a claim regarding homework in its official materials.

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The reasons for the respondents’ choice of the natural methods’ language schools were not completely clarified by the research. More than a half of the respondents claimed to have chosen the natural methods for their studying because they had known the method and believed that it was suitable for them. However, only four respondents agreed that they knew the principles of the method before they started taking the lessons. It seems that their choice could have been affected by advertisement more than the respondents are aware of. As it had been expected and mentioned in the limitations of this research, the respondents’ answers might have been affected by self-deception, which causes the respondents to unintentionally answer the questions about the effect advertisement has on them untruly.

The research was also interested in the reasons why teachers choose to teach English using a natural method. The research results indicated that their choice was motivated by other reasons than their professional beliefs in the merits of the methods. This conclusion was drawn from two facts. Firstly, eight of the fifteen teachers who participated in the research answered that they started teaching English using a natural teaching method because they were offered a teaching position by a natural method language school. Secondly, even though seven respondents claimed to have chosen the natural methods for their beliefs in them, in the following question it was discovered that only two of the respondents believed they knew a lot about the natural method before they started using it. This discrepancy in answers indicates that the teachers could not have decided to start teaching using the natural methods based on their profound professional beliefs in the methods if they admit that they did not know much about the methods beforehand.

Moreover, the research showed that almost a half of all the questioned teachers did not hold any teaching qualifications and only four of them were graduated teachers. There was also a difference in the professional education of the current and former teachers of the methods as all four of the former natural methods’ teachers had teaching qualifications, while out of eleven 70

current teachers of the methods who participated in the research, only three had any teaching qualifications. Both groups of teachers who participated in the research, however, agreed that they find the natural methods’ lessons easy to teach for the teacher and not requiring a lot of teacher preparation.

It was discovered that both the students and teachers who participated in the research were happy using a natural method of English teaching and would recommend the method to their family and friends. According to the research, students believed to have achieved progress in their language knowledge thanks to the method, which was confirmed by the teachers who mostly answered that they were happy with their students’ progress. Both groups of responents also agreed that the biggest strength of the methods was teaching communicating in English and believed that the methods were helping students become more confident users of the language.

The respondents of the questionnaires for teachers of natural methods were asked about their attitude towards the principles of the methods. One of the main principles of the methods is the idea that natural methods’ students can learn English in the same way children acquire their mother tongue. Even though this belief has been criticised by English language teaching experts such as Henry Sweet (1938, p. 75), Angeles Carreres (2006, p. 6) and Vivian Cook

(2008, p. 182), who agree that it is imposible to simulate the situation of L1 acqusition in a language classroom, the research results showed that the teachers were inclined to agree with the naturalistic principle.

The participants of the research also seemed to agree with the monolingual principle of the natural methods, event though current research does not support absolute rejection of L1 which, according to Elsa Robert Auerbach (1993), “has been based on unexamined assumptions” (as cited in Brooks-Lewis, 1993, p. 217). Most teachers confirmed that they avoided using Czech in the lessons as they believed it would have a detrimental effect on their students’ learning. 71

The students of the natural methods’ schools had a tendency to agree that the teacher did not use Czech during the lessons. Based on the research results students appreciated the monolingual teaching as their answers showed they would not like the teacher to use more

Czech during the lessons. The research, however, also indicates that Czech is occasionally used in the classroom based on how the respondents’ answers to statements regarding the use of L1 are distributed among the Likert scale items. It seems that despite the teachers’ and students’ preferences, the L1 cannot be avoided completely.

A part of the research was to find out if students felt stressed during natural methods’ lessons as it had beed expected based on research of Brooks-Lewis (2009). The assumption was not confirmed by this research, because the questionnaires showed that most students did not feel stressed or insecure in the lessons, nor did the teachers agree that their students felt uncomfortable during the lessons. Moreover, students confirmed that they enjoyed the time spent in language lessons as it was relaxing and provided them with some time for themselves.

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7. Conclusion

This thesis discussed the use of natural methods of language teaching and the reasons why students and teachers choose to use these methods. Even though the language schools which use a natural method of language teaching have become popular not only in the Czech Republic, their methodologies are not supported by current beliefs about language teaching. The principles of the natural methods such as the pillars of naturalism, total abandonment of the students’ L1 and the claim that these principles help to learn the target language faster are disclaimed by language teaching expers, among others Guy Cook (2010), Angeles Carreres

(2006) and Vivian Cook (2008).

To provide for a better understanding of the natural methods’ principles this thesis tried to place the methods in the historical context, which showed how their ideas developed and what they were based on. The historical development of the methods indicated that they appeared as a reaction to previous methods, which lacked focus on real use of the target language and communication. Today, however, the naturalistic principles are used by many different schools and have developed into a number of separate methods based on similar beliefs. This is why the natural methods which are most commonly used in the Czech Republic were presented in the thesis and it was shown that they share the principle of monolingualism, naturalism and the belief that the natural methods are more effective and help students learn the target language faster than other methods.

Research conducted for the purposes of this thesis was based on questionnaires which were distributed to both teachers and students of the natural methods’ language schools. The questionnaires were aimed to answer research questions which were derived from the discrepances between the principles of the natural methods’ schools and current language teaching beliefs. This thesis therefore attempted to find out why the students and teachers of

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the natural methods’ language schools chose these methods for their language learning or teaching and what the motivation of the students of these school to learn English was. The research questions were answered by questionnaires for students and teachers of the natural methods which were filled in by twenty-six respondents.

The research indicated that the students of natural methods of English language teaching are mostly people who do not use English on a regular basis in their real life and take language classes rather in order to learn something new. The reasons for their choice of a natural method of language teaching, however, were not clarified by this research as their answers to different questions regarding why they decided to use a natural method were mutually inconsistent. It can be expected that their choice was affected by advertisement of the natural methods’ language schools more than the respondents realized. Further research on the effect of advertisement of the natural methods’ language schools and its role in their students’ decision to study English at these schools can be recommended, in ordert to clarify the students’ motivation to choose the natural methods’ schools.

Furthermore, the research showed that only two out of the fifteen respondents of the questionnaires for teachers of natural methods were graduated teachers of English while almost a half of the respondents admitted to have no teaching qualifications at all. Moreover, even though most of the respondents were rather experienced teachers with more than five years of teaching experience, more than half of the respondents were not able to name more than one relevant method of language teaching. This was believed to indicate lack of professional knowledge about teaching methodology, which experienced teachers of English were expected to have.

As the research showed, both teachers and students of the natural methods were happy using a natural method of language teaching and happy with the progress students make thanks to the method, especially in spoken communication in English. Further research which would allow 74

for testing of the students of natural methods’ language schools would be appropriate to find out if the students’ progress was such as the students and teachers believed it to be. Ideally, the progress of students of natural methods of English language teaching could be compared with progress of students of other common method to see if the natural methods were really more effective than other methods of language teaching than other methods and if the natural methods’ students achieved better result in the same time.

The assumption that students of the natural methods of language teaching feel stressed during the natural methods’ lesson, which was based on the research of Brooks-Lewis (2009), was disproved by the research. Even though Brooks-Lewis (2009) claimed that the abandonement of L1 makes students feel insecure in the lessons, the students who participated in this research answered that they would not want their teacher to use more Czech during the lessons. I would suggest more research to be done on this topic, which would be based on classroom observations focused on the use of L1 in natural methods’ lessons. This kind of further research would provide more data on how much the L1 is actually used in natural methods’ classrooms and in what situations.

In conclusion, the research conducted for this thesis showed that both students and teachers of the natural methods of English language teaching are happy using the natural methods. Not only do the students enjoy the lessons but they are also satisfied with the progress they have made and they claim to feel more confident as users of English thanks to the natural methods.

As the research showed that the students who participated in this research mostly do not use

English outside the classroom, the fact that they feel good about studying English using a natural method is crucial. It therefore seems that as long as the methods fit both the teachers and the students, who are happy with their results, the natural methods are able to fulfil the students’ needs.

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8. Bibliography

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Aqap jazyková škola (n. d.). Retrieved April 2, 2016 from http://www.aqap-skola.cz/

Berlitz (2016). The Berlitz Method [video file]. Retrieved April 4, 2016 from

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Berlitz Oxford (2015). The Berlitz Method. Retrieved April 4, 2016 from

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Brook-Lewis, K. A. (2009). Adult Learners’ Perceptions of the Incorporation of their L1 in

Foreign Language Teaching and Learning. Applied Linguistics, 30 (2), 216-235.

doi:10.1093/applin/amn051

Calis, E. & Dikilas, K. (2012). The use of translation in EFL classes as L2 learning practice.

Procedia- Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 46, 5079-5084.

Callan Method Organisation (2016). The Callan Method – For Teachers. Retrieved April 4,

2016 from https://www.callan.co.uk/the-callan-method/for-teachers/

Carless, D. (2008). Student use of the mother tongue in the task-based classroom. English

Language Teaching Journal, 62 (4), 331-338. doi: 10.1093/elt/ccm090

Carreres, A. (December 2006). Strange bedfellows: Translation and language teaching, the

teaching of translation into L2 in in modern languages degree; Uses and limitations. In

Sixth Symposium on Translation, Terminology and Interpretation in Cuba and Canada.

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Centrum Star (2016). O výuce. Retrieved April 2. 2016 from

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Cook, G. (2010). Translation in language teaching: An argument for reassessment.

Oxford: OUP.

Cook, V. (2008). Second language learning and language teaching. London: Hodder

Education.

Direct Language Lab (2016). Direct Method Advantages [video file]. Retrieved April 2. 2016

from http://www.dllab.eu/direct-method

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http://www.directmethod.eu/media-4/business-with-languages

Direct Method (2009). Metoda a jazykové kurzy. Retrieved April 2. 2016 from

http://cz.directmethod.eu/o-metode-direct-english-1/

Direct Method (2009). Seznam škol. Retrieved April 2. 2016 from

http://cz.directmethod.eu/seznam-skol/

Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research methods in applied linguistics: quantitative, qualitative, and

mixed methodologies. Oxford: OUP.

Dörnyei, Z. (2003). Questionnaires in second language research: Construction,

administration, and processing. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Einstein English (2011). Metoda. Retrieved April 2. 2016 from 77

http://www.einstein-english.cz/metoda

Englishouse (2008). The Callan Method. Retrieved April 4, 2016 from

http://www.englishousewimbledon.com/callan_method.htm

Howatt, A. P. R. (1991). A history of English language teaching. Oxford: OUP.

Howatt, A. P. R., & Widdowson H. G. (2004). A history of English language teaching.

Oxford: OUP

Ideal English (2016). Callanova metoda. Retrieved April 4, 2016 from

http://www.idealenglish.cz/?callanova-metoda-vyuka-anglictiny

Jet English College (2016). What is the Callan Method. Retrieved April 4, 2016 from

http://www.jetenglish.com/about/callan

Kratochvílová, B. (2013). Use of translation in teaching English as a second language

(Unpublished bachelor’s diploma thesis). Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.

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OUP.

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http://orangeacademy.cz/jazykove-kurzy/anglicky-jazyk-zacatecnici

Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. S. (1986). Approaches and methods in language teaching:

A description and analysis. Cambridge: CUP. 78

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Sweet, H. (1938). A practical study of languages. London: J. M. Dent.

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December 10). Retrieved March 31, 2016, from http://cz.directmethod.eu/media-

1/2010-rok-nejrychlejsiho-rustu-jazykovych-center

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9. Appendices

9.1 Questionnaires for Students of the Natural Methods’ Language

Schools

Vážení respondenti, ráda bych Vás požádala vyplnění dotazníku, který je součástí výzkumu pro moji magisterskou diplomovou práci na Katedře anglistiky a amerikanistiky Filozofické fakulty Masarykovy univerzity v Brně. Tato diplomová práce se zabývá jazykovými školami, které vyučují za použití přirozených metod výuky angličtiny a motivací jejich studentů i učitelů k volbě některé z těchto metod.

Tento dotazník je určen pro současné i bývalé studenty některé z přirozených metod výuky angličtiny. Přirozené metody výuky jsou založeny na přesvědčení, že studenti se mohou učit druhý jazyk stejným způsobem jakým si děti osvojují svoji mateřštinu a výuka probíhá pouze v angličtině. Jazykové školy často označují svoji metodu jako jednu z tzv. "přímých metod" výuky ("direct method").

Vyplnění dotazníku Vám zabere 5-10 minut.

Děkuji za Vaši účast v tomto výzkumu. Barbora Křivánková

Věk: Pohlaví: Žena/Muž Nejvyšší dosažené vzdělání: …………………………………………………………………….

1. Docházíte v současné době na výuku angličtiny přirozenou metodou výuky? a) ano – Jak dlouho již pomocí této metody studujete? ……………………………… b) ne – Jak dlouho jste pomocí této metody studovali? ………………………………

2. Máte zkušenosti s výukou pomocí jiné metody? a) ano – Jděte prosím na otázku č. 3 b) ne – Jděte prosím na otázku č. 5

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3. Jak dlouho jste studovali/studujete pomocí jiné než přirozené metody výuky? ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

4. Která z metod Vám více vyhovuje a proč? ………………………………………………...…………………….……..……………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

5. Na jaké úrovni angličtiny jste začínal(a) se studiem angličtiny pomocí přirozené výukové metody? …………………………………………………………………………………………………

6. Jaké úrovně jste během studia dosáhl(a)?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

7. Na výuku angličtiny jsem se přihlásil(a): a) Protože potřebuji používat angličtinu v práci b) Protože potřebuji používat angličtinu při cestování c) Protože potřebuji angličtinu ke studiu d) Protože jsem se chtěl(a) naučit něco nového e) Jiný důvod: ………………………………………………………………….………………………………………

8. Proč jste se rozhodl(a) studovat angličtinu přirozenou metodou výuky? a) Na základě doporučení někoho známého b) Na základě reklamy c) Metodu jsem znal (a) a věřil (a), že je pro mě vhodná d) Jiný důvod. Prosím vysvětlete: ………………………………………………………………………………………………

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9. Před začátkem výuky jsem věděl(a) v čem metoda spočívá. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

10. Odkud jste se dozvěděl(a) o principech monolingvní metody pomocí které studujete/studoval(a) jste? a) z reklamních materiálů jazykové školy b) z webových stránek jazykové školy c) od lektora/lektorky d) od někoho známého e) principy této metody neznám f) jinde, kde? …………………………………………………………………………………………………………

11. Vím, jak vypadají reklamní materiály jazykové školy ve které studuji/studoval(a) jsem. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

12. Reklamní prezentace jazykové školy, ve které studuji/studoval(a) jsem ovlivnila můj výběr této školy. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

13. Při výběru jazykové školy ke studiu angličtiny pro mě byla rozhodujícím faktorem nízká cena kurzovného. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

14. Při výběru jazykové školy ke studiu angličtiny pro mě byla rozhodující blízkost a dostupnost jazykové školy. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

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15. Kolik času trávíte/jste trávili domácí přípravou na výuku? a. Doma se na výuku vůbec nepřipravuji b. Méně než půl hodiny za týden c. Méně než jednu hodinu za týden d. Více než jednu hodinu za týden e. Více než dvě hodiny za týden

16. Množství domácí práce a doba nutná domácí přípravě na výuku mi vyhovuje/vyhovovalo. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

17. Považuji čas, který trávím/trávil(a) jsem přípravou na výuku za dostatečný. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

18. S výukou pomocí monoligvní metody jsem (byl/a) spokojený/á. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

19. Díky této metodě jsem dosáhl(a) pokroku ve znalosti angličtiny. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

20. Za největší pozitiva studia touto metodou považuji pokrok ve: (prosím očíslujte od největšího pokroku -1 po nejmenší – 7) ……… Schopnosti komunikovat ……… Znalosti slovní zásoby ……… Znalosti gramatiky ……… Schopnosti porozumět psanému textu ……… Schopnosti písemné komunikace ……… Schopnosti správně vyslovovat ……… Schopnosti porozumět mluvené angličtině 83

21. Angličtinu často používám mimo výuku v jazykové škole. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

22. Znalosti nabyté ve výuce monolingvní metodou jsme měl(a) možnost si ověřit/použít v reálném životě. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

23. Angličtinu používám: a) v práci b) při cestování c) při komunikaci s kamarády d) nepoužívám e) jindy: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

24. V průběhu výuky se někdy cítím/cítil(a) jsem se nepříjemně a ve stresu. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

25. Lektor(ka) během výuky reaguje/reagoval(a) na potřeby studentů a přizpůsobuje jim výuku. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

26. V průběhu lekce jsem (byl(a)) nucen(a) rychle reagovat na otázky lektora/lektorky. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

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27. Díky této metodě jsem se zbavil(a) strachu v průběhu lekce mluvit anglicky. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

28. Na základě zkušeností z výuky nemám strach komunikovat v angličtině i v reálném životě (mimo výuku). Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

29. Lektor(ka) při výuce nikdy nepoužívá/nepoužíval(a) češtinu. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

30. Preferoval(a) bych, kdyby lektork(a) častěji používal(a) při výuce český jazyk. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

31. Na hodiny angličtiny se obvykle těším/jsem se obvykle těšila. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

32. Na co se nejvíce těšíte před lekcí angličtiny?/Na co jste se nejvíc těšil(a) před lekcí angličtiny? a) kolektiv spolužáků b) příjemnou atmosféru ve výuce c) získání nových znalostí d) odpočinek a čas „pro sebe“

33. Čas strávený ve výuce angličtiny je/byl pro mě příjemným odpočinkem, protože je to čas, který věnuji/věnoval(a) jsem sobě. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

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34. Věřím, že znalost angličtiny je v současné době důležitá. Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

35. Angličtinu v běžném životě aktivně nepoužívám, ale věřím, že je pro mě dobré účastnit se výuky angličtiny, abych se rozvíjel(a). Naprosto Naprosto Souhlasím Nevím Nesouhlasím souhlasím nesouhlasím

36. Doporučil(a) byste tuto metodu svým přátelům a známým? a) Ano b) Ne

37. Zde můžete přidat vlastní poznámku nebo komentář. …………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Děkuji za Váš čas. Přeji hezký den! 

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9.2 Questionnaire for Current Teachers of the Natural Methods’

Language Schools

Dear respondent, the questionnaire, which I would like to kindly ask you to fill in, is a part of research for my master diploma thesis at the Department of English and American Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University in Brno. The master diploma thesis deals with current natural method language schools in the Czech Republic and the motivation of both their teachers and students to choose one of these methods.

This questionnaire is aimed at former teachers of any natural method of English. The natural methods of language teaching are methods which believe that the second language can be learnt in a similar way the mother tongue is acquired and are usually strictly natural (the teacher speaks only English). Often the language schools using a natural method of English refer to their methodology as a direct method of language teaching. Please answer the questions honestly, based on your beliefs. The questionnaire is anonymous.

The questionnaire takes 5-10 minutes to complete.

Thank you for your participation.

Barbora Křivánková

Age: Sex: Male/Female Highest level of education reached:

1. Do you have any teaching qualifications? If yes, please name them.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

2. Are you a native speaker of English? a) Yes b) No

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3. How long have you been teaching using a natural method of language teaching?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

4. Have you taught English by any other method than a natural method of language teaching? a) Yes. – For how long? …….…………………………………..…………………………………………………………… b) No.

5. What other teaching methods do you know? Name any methods you have heard of.

………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………

6. What was your motivation to start teaching English using a natural teaching method? a) Belief that this method is the best for my students. b) I was offered a job by a natural language school. c) Other (please explain): …………………………………………………………………………………………………

Before you started teaching using a natural teaching method 7. I knew a lot about the method before I started teaching it. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

8. I chose to teach English using a natural teaching method because I believed that it would help my students learn the language more easily than other methods. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

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9. I chose to teach English using a natural teaching method because I believed that it would help my students communicate in English better than other methods. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

10. I chose to teach English using a natural teaching method because I believed that it would help my students learn English grammar better than other methods. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

11. I chose to teach English using a natural teaching method because I believed that it would help my students acquire more vocabulary than other methods. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

Now, after you have been teaching using a natural teaching method 12. I am happy teaching using a natural method and I want to continue using it. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

13. I believe that thanks to the natural teaching method my students are learning the language more easily than they would using other methods. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

14. I believe that thanks to the natural teaching method my students can communicate in English better than they would using other methods. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

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15. I believe that thanks to the natural teaching method my students are learning English grammar better than they would using other methods. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

16. I believe that thanks to the natural teaching method my students are acquiring more vocabulary than they would using other methods. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

17. I believe that my lesson plans fit my students’ needs and I can react to their needs and problems flexibly. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

18. I believe that my students enjoy the lessons. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

19. I think that sometimes my students feel stressed, insecure or frustrated during the natural lesson. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

20. I never use Czech during the lesson. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

21. I avoid using Czech during the lesson because I believe it would have a detrimental effect on my students’ progress. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

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22. I believe that my students can learn English in the same way children acquire their first language. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

23. I believe that my students actively create their own sentences during the lesson rather than repeat the teacher’s sentences. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

24. I believe that thanks to the natural method my students are gaining more confidence in communicating in English. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

25. I believe the lessons are practical and help my students use English in real-life situations. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

26. I find the method easy to teach for the teacher. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

27. Teaching using a natural teaching method requires a lot of teacher preparation. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

28. Studying English using a natural teaching method is not very time-consuming for my students as they do not have to do a lot of homework. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

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29. I know that many of my students often use English outside the classroom (for work, studies, travelling, etc.). Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

30. I am happy with my students’ progress. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

31. What do you think the positives of the method are? ……………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………

32. What do you think the weaknesses of the method are?

……………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………

33. Would you recommend the method to your family members or friends? a) Yes b) No

Thank you for your time spent on this questionnaire. Have a nice day! 

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9.3 Questionnaire for Former Teachers of the Natural Methods’

Language Schools

Dear respondent, the questionnaire, which I would like to kindly ask you to fill in, is a part of research for my master diploma thesis at the Department of English and American Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University in Brno. The master diploma thesis deals with current natural method language schools in the Czech Republic and the motivation of both their teachers and students to choose one of these methods.

This questionnaire is aimed at former teachers of any natural method of English. The natural methods of language teaching are methods which believe that the second language can be learnt in a similar way the mother tongue is acquired and are usually strictly monolingual (the teacher speaks only English). Often the language schools using a natural method of English refer to their methodology as a direct method of language teaching. Please answer the questions honestly, based on your beliefs. The questionnaire is anonymous.

The questionnaire takes 5-10 minutes to complete.

Thank you for your participation.

Barbora Křivánková

Age: Sex: Male/Female Highest level of education reached: 1. Do you have any teaching qualifications? If yes, please name them.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

2. Are you a native speaker of English? c) Yes d) No

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3. How long did you teach using a natural method of language teaching?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

4. Have you taught English by any other method than a natural method? a) Yes. – For how long? …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… b) No.

5. What other teaching methods do you know? Name any methods you have heard of. ………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………

6. What was your motivation to start teaching English using a natural method of teaching? a) Belief that this method is the best for my students. b) I was offered a job by a natural method language school. c) Other (please explain): ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Before you started teaching using a natural method 7. I knew a lot about the method before I started teaching it. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

8. I chose to teach English using a natural teaching method because I believed that it would help my students learn the language more easily than other methods. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

9. I chose to teach English using a natural teaching method because I believed that it would help my students communicate in English better than other methods. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

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10. I chose to teach English using a natural teaching method because I believed that it would help my students learn English grammar better than other methods. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

11. I chose to teach English using a natural teaching method because I believed that it would help my students acquire more vocabulary than other methods. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

Now, after you have taught using a natural teaching method 12. I was happy teaching using the natural method and would be happy to use it again. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

13. I believe that thanks to the natural teaching method my students were learning the language more easily than they would using other methods. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

14. I believe that thanks to the natural teaching method my students can communicate in English better than they would using other methods. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

15. I believe that thanks to the natural teaching method my students were learning English grammar better than they would using other methods. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

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16. I believe that thanks to the natural teaching method my students were acquiring more vocabulary than they would using other methods. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

17. I believe that my lesson plans fitted my students’ needs and I could react to their needs and problems flexibly. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

18. I believe that my students enjoyed the lessons. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

19. I think that sometimes my students felt stressed, insecure of frustrated during a natural method lesson. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

20. I never used Czech during the lesson. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

21. I avoided using Czech during the lesson because I believed it would have a detrimental effect on my students’ progress. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

22. I believe that my students could learn English in the same way children acquire their first language. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

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23. I believe that my students were actively creating their own sentences during the lesson rather than repeating the teacher’s sentences. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

24. I believe that thanks to the natural method my students were gaining more confidence in communicating in English. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

25. I believe the lessons were practical and helped my students use English in real-life situations. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

26. I find the method easy to teach for the teacher. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

27. Teaching by a natural teaching method requires a lot of teacher preparation. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

28. Studying English using a natural teaching method was not very time-consuming for my students as they did not have to do a lot of homework. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

29. I know that many of my students often used English outside the classroom (for work, studies, travelling, etc.). Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

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30. I was happy with my students’ progress. Strongly Strongly Agree Don’t know Disagree agree disagree

31. What do you think the positives of the method are? ………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………

32. What do you think the weaknesses of the method are?

………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………

33. Would you recommend the method to your family members or friends? c) Yes d) No

Thank you for your time spent on this questionnaire.

Have a nice day! :)

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9.4 Results of the Questionnaires for Students of the Natural Methods’

Language Schools

HOW OLD ARE YOU?

Unanswered 21-30 36% 37%

31-40 51-60 9% 18%

Figure 1

HOW LONG HAVE YOU STUDIED/DID YOU STUDY USING A NATURAL METHOD OF LANGUAGE TEACHING? less than 5 years 9% less than 4 years less than 1 year 0% 27%

less than 3 years 18%

less than 2 years 46%

Figure 2

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HOW LONG HAVE YOU STUDIED/DID YOU STUDY ENGLISH USING OTHER THAN A NATURAL METHOD OF LANGUAGE LEARNING? 0,5 year 16% 11 years 33%

2 years 17%

10 years 4 years 17% 17%

Figure 3

WHY DID YOU START LEARNING ENGLISH?

Because I need to Because I wanted to use English at work learn something new 23% 24%

Because I need to use English for studying Because I need to use 12% English for travelling 41%

Figure 4

WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO STUDY ENGLISH USING A NATURAL METHOD?

Based on recommendation 25% I had known the method and believed it was suitable for me 50% Based on an advertisement 25%

Figure 5

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WHERE DID YOU LEARN ABOUT THE PRINCIPLES OF THE NATURAL METHOD?

on the internet 7% from advertising materials of the language school 14%

from an from the language acquaintance school website 36% 22%

from the teacher 21%

Figure 6

HOW MUCH TIME DO/DID YOU SPEND PREPARING FOR THE LESSONS?

More than 2 hours a week Less than 1/2 hour a week 18% 0%

Less than 1 hour a week 27% More than 1 hour a week 55%

Figure 7

I USE ENGLISH: On the internet 7% At work I do not use it 20% 13%

For communication with friends 13% For travelling 47%

Figure 8

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WHAT DO/DID YOU MOST LOOK FORWARD TO BEFORE THE LESSONS? Classmates Relaxing and having 9% some "my time" Friendly atmosphere 0% during the lesson 0%

Learning something new 91%

Figure 9

QUESTION 1 2 3 4 5 MEAN

7. I knew the principles of the method 1 3 5 2 0 2.7 before I started studying using it. 9. I know what the advertising materials 1 5 3 1 1 2.6 of the school I study/studied at look like. 10. The advertising materials of the 1 2 4 3 1 3.1 school I study/studied in influenced my choice of the school. 11. Price of the course was essential for 0 0 5 5 1 3.6 me when choosing the language school. 12. Location of the school was essential 3 6 0 1 1 2.2 for me when choosing it. 14. I am/was happy about the amount of 4 5 1 1 0 1.9 homework and time I need(ed) to spend preparing for the lesson. 15. I consider the time I spend/spent 2 2 3 3 1 2.9 preparing for the lesson sufficient. 16. I am/was happy with studying using a 5 6 0 0 0 1.5 natural teaching method. 17. I have made a progress using this 5 6 0 0 0 1.5 method. 19. I often use English outside the 3 0 1 7 0 3.1 classroom.

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20. I have had a chance to use what I 3 4 2 2 0 2.3 have learned in the lessons in real life.

22. I sometimes feel/felt uncomfortable 0 2 1 5 3 3.8 or stressed during the lesson. 23. The teacher reacts/reacted to the 4 5 1 1 0 1.9 students’ needs during the lesson.

24. I am/was forced to react quickly to 4 5 2 0 0 1.8 the teacher’s questions. 25. Thanks to the method I am/was not 3 6 2 0 0 1.9 afraid to speak English during the lesson. 26. Based on my classroom experience I 2 3 5 1 0 2.5 am not afraid to communicate in English outside the classroom. 27. The teacher never uses/used English 4 2 1 4 0 2.5 during the lesson. 28. I would prefer the teacher to use 0 1 1 5 4 4.1 Czech more often. 29. I usually look(ed) forward to the 6 3 1 1 0 1.7 lesson. 31. The time spent in the English lesson 4 4 1 2 0 2.9 is/was a nice relax for me, because it was time for myself 32. I believe that speaking English is 10 1 0 0 0 1.1 important today. 33. I do not use English in my real life but 5 2 0 1 3 2.6 I find taking an English course good for me because I am/was learning something new. Figure 10: Answers of students to the Likert scales questions of the questionnaires.

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9.5 Results of the Questionnaires for Teachers of the Natural Methods’

Language Schools

HOW OLD ARE YOU?

41-45 21-25 20% 13%

26-30 36-40 27% 20%

31-35 20%

Figure 11

DO YOU HAVE ANY TEACHING QUALIFICATIONS? IF YES, PLEASE NAME THEM. No answer 7% TEFL certificate 7%

TKT certificate No qualifications 13% 46%

Graduated teacher 27%

Figure 12

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HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN/WERE YOU TEACHING ENGLISH USING OTHER THAN A NATURAL METHOD OF LANGUAGE TEACHING? no response 0-2 years 20% 20%

3-4 years 10%

7-8 years 9 and more 10% 40%

Figure 13

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN/WERE YOU TEACHING ENGLISH USING A NATURAL METHOD OF

LANGUAGE TEACHING? 0-2 years no response 13% 27% 3-4 years 7%

9 and more 13% 5-6 years 7-8 years 33% 7%

Figure 14

WHAT OTHER TEACHING METHODS DO YOU KNOW? NAME ANY METHODS YOU HAVE HEARD OF.

No or irrelevant answer 27% More than one method 46%

One method 27%

Figure 15 105

No. Question Status 1 2 3 4 5 MEAN

Former 0 0 1 1 2 4.3 Before I started teaching using a natural method of language teaching, I knew a lot 7. Current 2 0 3 3 3 3.5 about the method (1-strongly agree, 5- strongly disagree). Together 2 0 4 4 5 3.6 I chose to teach English using a natural Former 2 0 0 2 0 2.5 teaching method because I believed that it would help my students learn the 8. Current 5 3 3 0 0 1.8 language MORE EASILY than other methods (1-strongly agree, 5-strongly Together 7 3 3 2 0 2 disagree). I chose to teach English using a natural Former 1 1 1 1 0 2.5 teaching method because I believed that it would help my students 9. Current 6 4 1 0 0 1.5 COMMUNICATE in English better than other methods (1-strongly agree, 5- Together 7 5 2 1 0 1.8 strongly disagree). I chose to teach English using a natural Former 0 1 1 1 1 3.5 teaching method because I believed that 10. it would help my students learn English Current 3 1 3 2 2 2.9 GRAMMAR better than other methods (1- strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree). Together 3 2 4 3 3 3.1

I chose to teach English using a natural Former 0 2 1 1 0 2.8 teaching method because I believed that 11. it would help my students acquire more Current 4 3 0 3 0 2.5 VOCABULARY than other methods (1- strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree). Together 4 5 1 4 1 2.5

Former 2 0 1 0 1 2.5 Now, after I have been teaching using a natural method, I am happy teaching 12. Current 5 5 0 1 0 1.7 using it and I want to continue using it (1- strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree). Together 7 5 1 1 1 1.9

I believe that thanks to the natural Former 2 0 0 1 1 2.8 teaching method my students are learning 13. the language MORE EASILY than they Current 4 5 1 1 0 1.9 would using other methods (1-strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree). Together 6 5 1 2 1 2.1

I believe that thanks to the natural Former 1 1 1 1 0 2.5 teaching method my students can 14. COMMUNICATE in English better than Current 6 4 1 0 0 1.5 they would using other methods (1- strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree). Together 7 5 2 1 0 1.8 106

I believe that thanks to the natural Former 1 1 0 0 2 3.3 teaching method my students are learning 15. English GRAMMAR better than they Current 2 2 4 1 2 2.9 would using other methods (1-strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree). Together 3 3 4 1 4 3

I believe that thanks to the natural Former 1 1 1 1 0 2.5 teaching method my students are 16. acquiring more VOCABULARY than they Current 4 3 2 2 0 2.2 would using other methods (1-strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree). Together 5 4 3 3 0 2.1

Former 1 1 0 1 1 3 I believe that my lesson plans fit my students’ needs and I can react to their 17. Current 6 3 2 0 0 1.6 needs and problems flexibly (1-strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree). Together 7 4 2 1 1 2

Former 0 3 1 0 0 2.3 I believe that my students enjoy the 18. lessons (1-strongly agree, 5-strongly Current 5 6 0 0 0 1.5 disagree). Together 5 9 1 0 0 1.7

Former 0 1 2 1 0 3 I think that sometimes my students feel stressed, insecure or frustrated during a 19. Current 0 3 3 3 2 3.4 natural method lesson (1-strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree). Together 0 4 5 4 2 3.3

Former 0 3 1 0 0 2.3 I never use Czech during the lesson (1- 20. Current 0 6 2 2 1 2.8 strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree). Together 0 9 3 2 1 2.6

I avoid using Czech during the lesson Former 2 0 1 1 0 2.3 because I believe it would have a 21. detrimental effect on my students’ Current 4 4 2 0 1 2.1 progress (1-strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree). Together 6 4 3 1 1 2.1

Former 0 2 2 0 0 2.5 I believe that my students can learn English in the same way children acquire 22. Current 2 3 4 1 1 2.6 their first language (1-strongly agree, 5- strongly disagree). Together 2 5 6 1 1 2.6

I believe that my students actively create Former 1 0 1 1 1 3.3 23. their own sentences during the lesson rather than repeat the teacher's Current 1 7 2 1 0 2.3 107

sentences (1-strongly agree, 5-strongly Together 2 7 3 2 1 2.5 disagree). Former 2 1 1 0 0 1.8 I believe that thanks to the natural method my students are gaining more 24. Current 7 4 0 0 0 1.4 confidence in communicating in English (1-strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree). Together 9 5 1 0 0 1.5

Former 2 0 0 2 0 2.5 I believe the natural method lessons are practical and help my students use English 25. Current 6 4 1 0 0 1.5 in real-life situations (1-strongly agree, 5- strongly disagree). Together 8 4 1 2 0 1.8

Former 2 1 1 0 0 1.8 I find the method easy to teach for the 26. teacher (1-strongly agree, 5-strongly Current 9 1 1 0 0 1.3 disagree). Together 11 2 2 0 0 1.4

Former 0 2 0 0 2 3.5 Teaching using a natural teaching method 27. requires a lot of teacher preparation (1- Current 0 2 4 3 2 3.5 strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree). Together 0 4 4 3 4 3.5

Studying English using a natural teaching Former 0 2 2 0 0 2.5 method is not very time-consuming for 28. my students as they do not have to do a Current 2 3 5 1 0 2.5 lot of homework (1-strongly agree, 5- strongly disagree). Together 2 5 7 1 0 2.5

Former 0 2 2 0 0 2.5 I know that many of my students often use English outside the classroom (for 29. Current 3 2 2 3 1 2.7 work, studies, travelling, etc.) (1-strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree). Together 3 4 4 3 1 2.6

Former 1 1 0 0 0 2.8 I am happy with my students’ progress (1- 30. Current 4 4 2 1 0 2 strongly agree, 5-strongly disagree). Together 5 5 2 3 0 2.2 Figure 16: Answers of teachers to the Likert scales questions of the questionnaires (Former = Former teachers of natural methods, Current = Current teachers of natural methods, Together = Both groups of natural methods’ teachers).

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10. English Resumé

This thesis studies popular natural methods of English language teaching in the Czech

Republic which are currently rather popular despite the fact that their methodologies are criticised by today’s teaching methodologists and language teaching researchers. The thesis aims to answer the research questions of why students and teachers choose a natural method of

English language teaching and what the motivation of students of natural methods’ language schools to learn English is.

The thesis provides a historical outline of teaching methodologies from Grammar

Translation to the natural methods of language teaching which helps understand the background of the development of the natural methods. Current natural methods’ schools in the Czech

Republic and their principles are listed in the thesis to show that even though nowadays more natural methods of language teaching exist, they still share the same basic principles. These principles are then discussed in terms of current language teaching research.

Research has been done for this thesis in the form of questionnaires for both teachers and students of the natural methods’ schools. The research showed that the teachers of the natural methods’ schools seemed to lack adequate teaching qualifications and that the students of these schools mostly did not use English outside the classroom. However, both teachers and students were happy using the natural methods and would recommend the natural methods to their family or friends, which suggests that the methods’ manage to meet the students’ needs and expectations.

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11. Czech Resumé

Tato diplomová práce studuje moderní přirozené výukové metody angličtiny v České republice, které jsou v současné době oblíbené, přestože jsou jejich metodiky kritizovány současnými metodiky výuky a výzkumníky v oblasti výuky jazyků. Tato práce si klade za cíl zodpovědět otázky, proč si studenti a učitelé přirozených metod výuky angličtiny tyto metody volí a jaká je motivace studentů těchto metod učit se anglický jazyk.

Součástí této práce je historický přehled výukových metod od metody gramatického překladu po přirozené výukové metody. Tento přehled umožní lepší pochopení původu a vývoje přirozených metod výuky jazyků. Do práce je zahrnut seznam současných jazykových škol užívajících přirozené metody výuky jazyků v České repulice a principy výuky těchto škol dokazující, že ačkoliv v současné době existuje vice přirozených metod výuky jazyků, sdílí tyto metody stejné principy. Tyto principy jsou následně srovnány se výsledky současných výzkumů o výuce jazyků.

Pro potřeby této práce byl proveden výzkum formou dotazníků pro učitele a studenty jazykových škol, které využívají přirozené metody výuky jazyků. Výzkum ukázal, že učitelé těchto method postrádají odpovídající učitelské kvalifikace a také, že studenti těchto škol většinou nepoužívají anglický jazyk mimo výuku. Na druhou stranu, učitelé i studenti jsou s prací za pomoci přirozených metod výuky spokojeni a doporučili by tyto metody svým přátelům a členům rodiny, z čehož lze vyvodit, že přirozené metody výuky naplňují potřeby a očekávání svých studentů.

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