The Challenge Principle in Language Teaching: Form, Meaning, Use

The Three Dimensions of Language Learning

The author believes that the three dimensions of language are learned differently, and therefore they must be taught differently. Sometimes we can make strong semantic bonds that help items stick, but that alone is not sufficient to learn a lexical item. Learning use requires that learners develop a sensitivity to context. Certain teaching techniques lend themselves more effectively to teaching one dimension rather than the others.

The Importance of All Three Dimensions

In Linguistics

Knowing that there are three dimensions enriches our understanding of language in communication.

In Language Teaching

Methods of language teaching commonly emphasize one or the other of these three dimensions. Analyzing language according to the three dimensions by no means obligates teachers to present all this information to students. We cannot and should not teach everything there is to know about the language we are teaching. It is important to be selective, but do not ignore an entire dimension. In order for teachers to know what to select, they need a sense of the whole of what there is to teach.

Defining the Learning Challenge

Teachers must be judicious about what they choose to work on with their students.

The Challenge Principle

This principle states that one of the three dimensions almost always affords the greatest long-term challenge to language students. With any piece of language, all three dimensions are present; it is impossible to separate form from meaning from use. However, for pedagogical reasons, it is possible to focus student attention on one of these dimensions within the whole. It is important to anticipate which dimension is likely to afford the greatest long-term challenge for all students, as clarity about the overall challenge will give the teacher a starting point and suggest an approach consistent with the long-term challenge.

Example: The Passive Voice

• Form: Auxiliary verb (BE or GET), followed by the past participle, adding "by" before the agent.
• Meaning: Focus construction (defocuses the agent).
• Use: (Often the most difficult dimension to teach)
  • Agent is unknown.
  • Agent is redundant.
  • Agent should be concealed.
  • Agent is new information (thematic).
  • To provide objectivity.

A Linguistic Heuristic Principle

A difference in form always spells a difference in meaning or use. The system is holistic, which is what the double-headed arrows connecting the wedges in the pie are meant to depict. As grammar is a dynamical system, the parts of a system mutually interact. Mutual interaction implies that they influence and co-determine each other's changes over time.