A new technique for language learning:

In classroom 301, a teacher is lecturing to students from B in language A. Next door, in 302, students who speak A are struggling with language B. What if we could just put them in the same class?

Brian Krueger - instructor

Middle East Technical University, TURKEY

What is mutual instruction?
Called Mutual Instruction because paired students teach each other rather than learning from a teacher, it is a technique for teaching and learning spoken language which simultaneously allows two people to each learn their partner's language. It requires a pair or pairs of native speakers of two different languages who each want to learn the other's tongue. In groups, the facilitator (who must be bilingual in both goal languages) pairs up the students and provides material and topics for discussion, but the lesson content is provided by the students themselves. Everyone is both student of the language they are trying to learn AND teacher of their own language, and in this way they express themselves fully throughout the learning process. It can be the main method of learning conversational language or it can be used as part of a larger program, including classroom instruction.

Mutual Instruction thus may be of particular interest to schools in communities where groups of two different native speakers both live, and the technique may turn what is often seen as a "language problem" into an asset for both groups.

Mutual instruction is NOT a technique to teach English as a Second Language. Two languages must be taught by this technique, and if English is to be one of the goal languages, then a native English speaker must also be found who sincerely intends to learn the other's language.

Obviously, mutual instruction is NOT for use in all settings where language is taught, as a speaker of each goal language is required, and yes; TWO languages must be used, both of which are spoken in the same conversation. Each participant learns the language of their partner. In a class, TWO groups are required that speak different native languages and the goal of the class for each group is to interact with the other group in order to learn their language.

Mutual Instruction is a new and unproven technique² and should NOT be confused with Bilingual Education. Bilingual Education, in use successfully for decades, seeks to teach native speakers of one language in their own language as well as that of another, based on the sound principle that a person will learn more if they understand more of what is going on around them.

If two native speakers of two different languages each want to learn the other's tongue they may find that the method is fast, relaxing and pain-free. It seems that it probably will work best when the speakers' levels in the goal languages are similar. Another key factor to mutual instruction's success is the development of a relationship between the two of communication, respect, and patience.

Suppose an American living in Moscow decides to improve her Russian, dismayed that she has made little progress and is surrounded by english speakers all of the time. She complains that she wants to learn Russian, but as soon as she begins to try and speak, her level is so basic that the whole experience leaves her exhausted.

To begin mutual instruction, our American merely needs to find one Russian who wants to improve their own limited English. That is to say that the Russian's English and her Russian should be of the same level. Then they can begin. For individual pairs, the technique is simple:

Two people work to hold a conversation in two languages at once. Each person speaks their native language. One person asks questions and speaks one language and the other responds and asks questions of their own, speaking a different language.

As some will recognize, the process is similar to language swapping, where people trade language lessons simultaneously. Two people learn two languages, and each is the other's teacher. However, in mutual instruction, both languages are used at the same time, the emphasis is on conversational language, and there is no rigid switching into the different roles of teacher and student.

In the first stage of the process, the students should strongly encourage each other to speak only their own languages. It's important to realise that it is for the benefit of the other person and that one person's rapid success in mutual learning depends on the rapid success of the other. There is no need to struggle to speak the other's language, as it will actually slow down the learning process. The goal of each conversation and session is simply to understand and be understood.

In the beginning this requires discipline. It seems strange to always speak the language that the other is NOT speaking, but after a short time, the feeling that such a mix of languages is "wrong" will fade and conversation will come naturally to both.

The fact that two languages are used simultaneously should not mislead one to thinking that there is any simultaneous translation³; in fact, this tendency to repeat what the other person has just said should be strictly avoided by novices to mutual instruction. Instead, the person should respond to what has been said.

In order to help each other progress well in mutual instruction, the partners must each begin to think a bit like a language teacher. In the classroom, language teachers use a modified or simplified form of their own language in order to be more readily understood. This is something like what parents do when speaking to young children, except that parents use "small" ideas as well as "small" words - calling upon their memory of childhood language. Mutual instruction is basically real conversation, and conversation is an art to which no formula can be applied. Just as their training can only roughly prepare students of pedagogy effectively for the moment they step into a class as a teacher, one simply has to plunge into mutual instruction and make it work, with patience and persistence. But as some situations are better than others to create a conversation, certain conversation-starters may be used.

Students should ask questions and listen to each other rather than talk AT the other person. Sometimes an enthusiastic novice will get the feeling that the other person will learn faster if they talk faster or that the other person needs to be exposed to as much language as possible. When this happens the other person has to be very clear in saying that they do not understand, stop the other person's monologue and ask for clarification of a word or the main idea.

To help the conversation flow, each in the pair should come to class with a bit of preparation. If the language is very basic, activities together can be planned which require talking by both parties. A dictionary should NOT be used any more than one would recommend its use in a language class, as it stops the discussion entirely. The discussion should simply continue using simpler words, or if the word is absolutely essential, move on.

If there is a common third language that both in the pair speak or have some knowledge of, then they should not be discouraged from using it when they wish to clarify something difficult to explain, as long as they only use one word or stock phrase of it ("good evening", "in the X", "without X") inside a native sentence so the rhythm of the language is not broken.

Students who have a visual memory will benefit greatly from writing words down and should have paper handy at all times. One common method of making communication flow easier in the beginning when there is little knowledge on either side is to draw pictures and use gestures to get a concept across. If one jots things down for the other to explain it can later be referenced to reinforce important words and concepts.

Other examples of people for whom mutual instruction may work are couples, roommates, or people living together without a common language. Although each want to learn the others language, it often occurs that one person makes progress in the language faster than the other. After a time, the distance between one person's knowledge and the other's grows. Thus the common complaint: "I want to learn, but he never teaches me." Or "We just seem to always speak my language so I never get a chance to learn hers." Once they have discarded the assumption that conversation must be in either one language or another, couples can use the method, thus equalizing their pace. Mutual instruction can also naturally help the person with less knowledge catch up to the other.

"Language swappers" who are already exchanging language lessons - one hour of instruction in one language followed by one hour of instruction in the other may find this technique to be of use for developing conversational skill, especially if the persons are not experienced teachers trained to provide comprehensible input.

When you are working together, it's useful to have a program and some materials or a text for each goal language . Some of the discussions may thus revolve around grammatical points in one language or the other. There may even be specific grammar points to cover each day, and they may correspond if the languages are grammatically similar. Even if the languages are different, there should still be an attempt to cover both within the same time period. For example, if one person's lesson includes the past tense, then the other's should also, so that when one person speaks about an event in the past the other may also without a danger of little or nothing being understood.

Because both people are speaking their native language, mutual instruction initially leads simply to understanding conversational language without providing practice in reproduction. As is the case for all language learning techniques, when combined with other methods, such as traditional classroom instruction, it will more probably be successful. Once students feel comfortable conversing, and able to understand even difficult or complex speech, then mutual instruction is of no further use to them. They need to reproduce the language. At this point, the technique may be abandoned for a more traditional approach - both can exchange lessons in the two goal languages, using only one language at a time.

In the past, students were expected to learn passively, especially in the language classroom. The theory was that if one doesn't know what one is talking about, one should listen. Of course, this was proven to be inaccurate, as learning is an active process, and only those students with enough imagination to project themselves into the subject learned. Recently, language teachers have emphasized trying to get students to speak as much as possible in classrooms, and get the teacher to talk less. But at the same time, linguistics theory tells us that language learning occurs when there is comprehensible input at or just beyond our level of understanding.

Mutual instruction for groups varies little from the technique for pairs. The first step is to find two equal-size groups of students willing to learn and teach each other. The facilitator explains the above pair technique to each group in their own language and then the facilitator pairs up⁴ the students and provides them with conversation starters. Each pair should concentrate on the other’s speech, and sometimes it will be best to have them work in separate rooms so they can find some time and a place away from the others to chat in. Pairs can rotate each class period, each week, or even several times in a class depending on the activity.

In a traditional classroom environment the entire class usually shares a language in common and even if they speak to each other in class in the goal language, when the teacher steps out they will revert to this language amongst themselves - real communication allowing full capability of expression being preferable to partial or simulated communication . This even happens with groups with a very good level of language, because they recognise that communication in the target language is simulated and there is a release when someone slips into another language - "finally - REAL COMMUNICATION!" Because the students outnumber the teacher, teachers in traditional monolingual classes have little choice but to encouraging communication as much as possible in the target language(and to discourage it in the native language) for when an entire class babbles happily in their own language they will learn little. In mutual method, real communication is the normal state of affairs between the pair - as the problem of group polarization is prevented by pairing up the students:

Patience and careful attention should be observed, especially in the beginning, to keep the group from polarizing into two groups along language lines and effectively learning little. Not understanding is uncomfortable, and there must be rewards for activities completed. Topics for discussion should be chosen to keep them interacting so they don't break into factions. Activities should encourage the participation of both students to prevent monologues.

Facilitators should be bilingual, and speak both languages in class, but not as simultaneous translation. When the teacher speaks, she talks in language Z to the natives of language Y and to the natives of language Z she uses language Y. Obviously, she doesn't say the same thing twice, because then the students will merely listen for their native language to come along. Instead, the "teacher" and the student with the question are having a conversation, and the others must follow. When a student has a question to ask, the teacher merely does as the other students do, and shifts into the language the student is trying to learn. The facilitator should always address one group or student at a time, occasionally asking for help in explaining from the others. Thus the language used will always be the goal language of the student or group that the facilitator is talking to.⁵

As always, dictionaries should be avoided. Of course, if the facilitator is within shouting distance it may help to ask them to clarify the meaning of a word. At that point the facilitator makes a judgement call - if the word can be explained in the goal language, she should try. It will be good for the students to see it explained with skill. Only after abandoning an attempt to make the concept understood should a literal translation be offered.⁶

One of the problems in a traditional setting is that students feel their ability to express themselves checked and will begin to talk with other students rather than the teacher (although obviously the teacher's time is harder to get). In mutual instruction the advantage is that students are paired individually - the teachers goal is to provide them with something interesting to communicate to the other and the skills to do the teaching themselves. The only limit to expression is that the students must speak carefully and explain things slowly so that they may be understood.

Remember, the actual lesson content is provided by the students themselves. Don't lecture! It is crucial that the facilitator be much like a normal member of the group as possible, talking with individual students, asking and answering questions to help clarify. The class is full of experts. (They themselves may lecture, if needed!) As always, the teacher will use the language that that individual student is trying to learn. The others listening will hear a conversation in two languages, putting them in the situation of once again being pushed to understand.

When learning a language, most people try to speak in the target language right away. Some have suggested that this is not the way to learn a language, as children understand what they hear long before they try to speak. Some methods have encouraged giving students a grace period that allows them to simply listen to their professor for a few weeks or months before actually beginning to try to speak. Of course, students are then forced into a situation of passivity.⁷

The mutual method combines the advantages of this "grace period" approach of allowing the speaker to understand before having to speak while allowing then the feasibility of expression in their own language. Students are active and interacting with each other. At the same time, because of the nature of one-on-one contact, it is difficult to lose one's attention.

If we look at children who already speak one language, they often use their first language to express themselves while understanding the second.⁸ Mutual instruction may be a natural way to learn to communicate which would often occur were there not a feeling that there's something wrong ⁹ with "mixing" languages when the goal is to learn. Mixing languages is also a necessary part of language learning, certainly encountered by translation and interpretation.

Linguistics theory tells us that although communication involves both understanding and expression, we seem to acquire language- to learn to speak without thinking about the rules - by understanding. An important task for language teachers is to facilitate acquisition of the goal language by making input, the things they hear or read, more understandable. Linguists have been trying to develop approaches that lead to a maximum of comprehensible input in a simulated language environment. Simplified language is one way to do this. So techniques for language instruction focus on the input that the student receives. But students' output in the first stages of conversational language learning may then be undervalued, as it’s only value to the learning process is seen to be that of checking to see that the input has been properly understood. Teachers often feel that because the student's attempts to communicate are basic and full of errors or barely meaningful, it's best if the students hears the model.

At the same time, much of the material currently in use today encourages output by the students. The reason for this is based on pedagogic research that shows that students need to be actively involved in the class in order to learn - teachers should try to create some possibility of real communication in a simulated setting.

In mutual instruction, the output is the input. Students are able to express ideas as complex as those that will be understood. This process quickly shows just how much of the input is being received and allows them to discuss as difficult a topic as they themselves can understand. Thus, the limits of conversation themselves create a maximum of the desired level of comprehensible input.

The communication in mutual instruction is REAL. The partner is a native speaker, there is a need to communicate and the opportunity to do so without the stress of "sink or swim". Obviously, each is speaking their own language in reply, so this takes on a somewhat different form from the real communication of immersion in the language in a country. But the bulk of language learning and the bulk of communication rest on correct understanding and it seems to an excellent technique to get the learner further toward a knowledge of the practical use of a spoken language

Because of the nature of the pair relationship involved, mutual instruction naturally maintains students at the same level of conversational skill, a level that limits itself at the perfect threshhold: that of maximum comprehensible input - without the need for the other person to be a language teacher.

It provides a maximum of actual communication - the partner is a native speaker, so their culture and actions will command attention, similar to the way that living in another country forces one to understand the language out of need.

Students are free to talk without worrying about making mistakes in their own language. Students have unlimited freedom of expression of any ideas they they feel they make understood. All the agony and stress in a traditional classroom of feeling oneself to be an idiot for not speaking the language is gone. In mutual instruction the partner is always before them, at times struggling with something that to them seems easy - their own language - so there is a constant reminder that their own struggle to understand is normal and that they’re "in it together", so there’s no need for panic. Another thing that sometimes happens in traditional methods is that the student themselves say something that has a meaning other that which they believe it to be, so the response may also be wrongly understood and a lot of time may be lost. Thus, the method helps the student because the students know exactly what they have said to elicit the given response.

In Mutual Instruction for groups, the students - not the teacher - are the center of the class.
The advantage for instructors is that there is no need to talk the entire lesson. In fact, one must merely guide the group to teach themselves, providing activities to encourage conversation. There is less boredom than in a traditional classroom for both students and teacher, as the need to communicate and the ability to express oneself are balanced on both sides.
The advantage for the students is that they are learning from each other, which allows them the attention of individual, native-speaker, peer instruction with the added dynamics of a group and group activities: feedback, role-playing, games, etc. Because the students themselves are teachers and the facilitator’s job is only to provide direction when needed, there are no power relationships or academic or intellectual hierarchy. It puts students and teachers on the same level.

A side effect of the method is that it requires students to develop patience with each other, and gives them the experience of teaching. Once we learn to teach we find out a great deal about other people and ourselves: we learn how to effectively explain things, we learn patience. Mutual instruction put students in this role in a situation where solidarity forces them to learn these skills while providing them the confidence of a one-on-one discussion. Thus it is an anxiety-free introduction to some of the basic life-skills that all can acquire by teaching.

Students also learn that all languages are really the same, that there are no "rich" languages, just as there are no poor ones. By putting both languages on the same level, it teaches minority speakers pride for their own language and helps speakers of imperialist languages gain respect for the other.

Throughout the whole process students watch each other learn. The progress of their partner and solidarity encourage them to continue. The speed of one’s progression depends in part on the speed of the other pair member. Thus students have a common interest¹⁰ - to teach the other well.

For more information about mutual instruction or to get help developing a stategy for its use in your university, bilingual school, or language program, please email me: brian_krueger@hotmail.com

Notes:
¹ Linguists often refer to what I am calling learning as acquisition, the ability (not as yet understood) of the brain to understand grammatical structures and use them with or without conscious knowledge of the intricacies of the rule. See pgs 10-11 in Krashen's Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition or read Stephen Krashen's Theory of Second Language Acquisition.: at: <http://america.viavale.com.br/english/sk-krash.html>
²Mutual instruction needs to be more thoroughly evaluated in controlled studies to determine if the technique boosts conversational skills, learning speed, motivation, etc. A study demonstrating success may also be a powerful tool to demonstrate whether Krashen's input i+1 is indeed the most important factor in language acquisition and to determine what role output plays, if any!
³One danger that teachers have always sensed with two languages being used simultaneously is that if a person knows the required information will come in their own language, they tune out the other language and it becomes mere noise.
⁴Threes and fours are also possible, the only danger is that students will talk to their fellow group members and abandon the goal language, or that one will become the other’s translator. However, this is less likely if the activity encourages interaction.
⁵Facilitators, when speaking to groups with experience, may also experiment with language switching, speaking a mixture of the two languages in one sentence.
⁶Many teachers feel that any use of a non-goal language in a language class is disastrous, because it breaks the concentration of the class. The fact that mutual instruction works demonstrates that it’s not the presence of the non-goal language that prevents learning, but instead the lack of continuous input of the target language. Acquiring the structure and the vocabulary is the most important aspect, and words with direct equivalents may at times be translated. But first, every attempt should be made to communicate in the goal language. When it’s something that the student wants to know, her memory is more likely to be active.
⁷Remember, the situation is considerably different from that of a mutual instruction classroom. The professor cannot in such a situation have the students speaking their native language. The situation is this: there are 30 people in the class and only one teacher. Any communication between the students will result in them ignoring the teacher. This is why a professor MUST dominate the traditional language classroom, at least to the extent of preventing the students' native language from being spoken. If the professor and students do not share a common language this even works to advantage by preventing students from reverting to the “easy way out".
⁸The fact that it comes naturally to children to mix languages is a clue that the mixing of languages may not lead to slower acquisition, but in fact may actually speed it up. Currently it is discouraged. If mutual instruction is proven as a technique, and most learners are able to find a time when it feels right for them to move into expressing themselves in the goal language, then perhaps we should reconsider our position.
9The idea of "language purity" is a myth that was created by nationalist and statist forces. The distinction between mutually comprehensible dialects is as much a socially created concept as that of the "black race" or "white race", but state policies and social strategies of standardization in language have hardened these distinctions into rigid walls.
10The term mutual instruction comes from the Peter Kropotkin's 1905 book "Mutual Aid", which was a biological study reacting to misinterpretation of Darwin's work. Kropotkin refuted the Social Darwinist's notion that competition is the rule of nature and argued that cooperation does occur between species and is as common as competition. He was a champion of

For more information about mutual instruction or further research using the technique, or to get help developing a stategy for its use in your university, bilingual school, or language program, please email me: brian_krueger@hotmail.com