New Teaching Philosophy: Whole Language

“Okay, this is the end of today’s class. Every Student should memorize all the labels in “KK” system. Besides, there will be a sentence pattern test. So, pay attention to that!” Perhaps you were familiar with these orders before entering the college. Your teachers might strongly focus on the importance of grammar, sentence patterns, and spelling. If you ask them why, they might answer you, “it is a good way to learn English!” However, from my point of view, their answers are questionable. They just asked students to be book worms! Now, we do not discuss the differences of languages here because every language has their own beauty. I think that the good way to learning language is enforcing “Whole Language”! Here are definition of Whole Language and the reasons why I support it.

You may wonder what Whole Language is. To tell the truth, the words “Whole Language” are hardly defined. As you can see, some people may mistakenly say that Whole Language is a language teaching method. But, that kind of statements are wrong. Yetta Goodman, who is one of major Whole Language experts, said that Whole Language is a teaching philosophy that “teaching as a whole”. Teaching as a whole means that instructors should respect learners’ quality, interests, cultural experience, and everything related to teaching and learning. At the same time, on the “whole” condition, language teaching should cover all the things of learning and learn the whole content of language.

Whole Language can be extended to the definition of literacy and orality, which is a controversial issue. From Whole Language’s viewpoint, the former is the behavior that is eager to realize every writing form, including pictures, signals, and so on. For example, you walk on the street and read the traffic signals. At that time, you make use of literacy. The focus of literacy consists in the acceptance of meaning and realization. The latter refers to the expression of meaning, inclusive of writing and speaking. That is, learners can choose one or more kinds of symbol systems to represent people, places, things, concepts, and so on. The focus of orality lies in expression. For example, when you draw pictures on a blank paper, you make use of orality.

Whole Language has clearly pointed out the quality of language. From Whole Language viewpoint, language is considered undivided, systematic, and inclusive. K. Goodman, a Whole Language expert, says that every language has its inner system. Orality is in one of the elements in language system. So is literacy. If we subtract one of the elements from this system, a language is no longer a language and can not be used. For example, we know that we should pay an attention to intonation when reading and speaking sentences. If we ignore the importance of intonation, the sentences seem to be boring and divided. By this example, we can see that language should not be divided into small elements to be analyzed. We do not have to divide language into four language skills, which are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Then, according to this idea, the principle of Whole Language lessons is to combine not only so-called four language skills, but language experience and language learning. Whole Language courses focus on learners’ chances to make learners to decide what they want to study.

Here, I would like to introduce “representative” techniques, which includes “guided” and “post-reading”, extended from the spirit of Whole Language.

“Guided strategies” include group echoic reading, reading aloud, silent reading, chunking stories, and say something. Here I introduce these techniques one by one precisely and concisely.

First, Group echoic reading means that teachers lead students to read the texts out loud in order to lessen students’ speaking anxiety because mistakes are less found. Second, Reading aloud means that teachers ask students to read essays frequently to practice reading fast and grasping the idea automatically. Third, Silent reading means that students who can learn fast can begin silent reading and immerse themselves in the beauty of reading! Chunk stories means that teachers divide one article into big chunks, containing one or two paragraph, and students try to ask questions to know the interaction between readers and writers. Last, say something means that teachers should encourage students to express their own ideas and to associate them with their lives.

Then, let us talk about “Post-reading” strategies. One is Retelling stories, which refers to students should try to create a story or situation and to negotiate with others orally after reading. In the process of that, a new idea can be used in original knowledge system. Besides, the other is character journal, which refers to students can choose one central character to discuss characteristics and plots.
We see that the purpose of these methods is to respect learners and learning everything as a whole. The second-language learners can not only learn the content of language, but develop the ability to gaining confidence and expressing thoughts. However, some people mistakenly think that Whole Language is just a teaching method, and others state that Whole Language is only an activity using chunk reading, aloud reading, writing of process, and so on. Seeing their views, I would like to clarify their “misconception”. For one thing, I have mentioned that Whole Language is a teaching philosophy, not teaching methods. The methods I have referred to are “representative methods”. The practical methods can be modified depending on instructors and learners. For another, some activities are the elements of Whole Language, but we can not regard parts as the whole idea of it.
In recent years, some instructors, who are used to teaching in a traditional teaching way, called Phonics, strongly argue against Whole Language. There are following two reasons that they are opposed to Whole Language. For one thing, they think that Whole Language will make students more stupid because Whole Language ignored the importance of grammar, sentence patterns, and other basic foundations of languages. Those who support Phonics show some statistics that many students do not get good grades on standardized tests and experts’ researches after Whole Language is enforced. For another, they think that Whole Language will cause the degradation of reading ability. They accuse that Whole Language supporters ask their students to regard words as symbols. Also, they think that only by Phonics, language can learn languages systematically. So, those who advocate Phonics strongly state that Whole Language should be got rid of in language teaching methods.

However, from my point of view, those who are against Whole Language misunderstand the idea and content of Whole Language. I would like to refute their statements. First, I have mentioned that Whole Language is a teaching philosophy, not one of the teaching methods. So, Whole Language is hardly compared with Phonics because it is not a teaching method. Second, I think that we can say that students got bad grades on standardized tests due to Whole Language. We can not simply judge students’ Intelligence Quotient (IQ). Many factors can control the statistics. For example, interviewees are possibly mentally-challenged. Or, interviewees do not pay attention to their academic study and tests. Therefore, Whole Language is not the only reason leading students’ language ability to degrade. Third, Whole Language teachers do not use the techniques that students should read symbols. They just encourage their students to read. Perhaps in the process of basic reading, Whole Language teachers may suggest that students should not be afraid of reading, so words can be “temporarily” viewed as symbols. But, that teaching strategies do not come from the spirit of Whole Language. Fourth, in Whole Language, grammar, sentence patterns, and some basic elements indeed are less emphasized. However, it does not mean that Whole Language does not pay attention to them. Whole Language focuses on learn language as a whole, not merely basic language elements. Everything related to language should be learned, such as gaining confidence while you are reading. Last, Phonic supporters state that language should be learned languages systematically. However, their teachings are comparatively trivial. If the ideas of essay are less referred to, the whole essay will be less vivid and specific. Even though students finish his “grammatical” writing, his writing will make readers bored at reading it. Therefore, basic language elements are very important, but at the same time, thesis of the essay is important as well.

In conclusion, I think Whole Language can lead learners to learn not only the content of language, but also the beauty of language. Whole Language has been enforced for many years; nevertheless, there are some disadvantages of it. For example, if the students do not have memorized enough words or they are lazy to study, that will be a problem. In the process of developing Whole Language, Whole Language instructors continue to modify the techniques, including the combination of Phonics and so on, but the basic thesis does not allowed to be changed. I hope that Whole Language can really provide a new teaching philosophy in not only language learning but also other subject learning.

Work Cited
Goodman，K（1986）。What’s whole in whole languages？Portsmouth,NH：Heinemann。
Foster, H.M.(1994).Crossing over：Whole language for secondary English teachers.USA：Harcourt Brace.
Froese, Victor(ED.)（1991）.Whole language： Practice and Theory, Boston：Allyn & Bacon.
Norris,J.A&Damico, J.S.(1990).Whole language in theory and practice. Implications for language intervention. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 21(4)212-220.
Waston, D.J.(1989).Defining and describing whole language. The Elementary School Journal,90（2）,129-142.
Weaver,C.（1990）Understanding whole language：from principles to practice.Portsouth,NH：Heinemann.
Liang ju, Lee. (2006) Whole Language Education, Taipei: National Books