INTRODUCTION

1. CONTRIBUTIONS OF HUMANISTIC APPROACH TO ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING PELİN DULDA MURAT BORAZAN Mersin University ppeliinn_88@hotmail.com murat-borazan@hotmail.com Carl RODGERS • INTRODUCTION • Humanismis a psychological approach and it puts emphasis on the study of the whole person. Also, it referstouniqueness of each individual .Humanistic psychologists see the human behaviour not only from the eyes of the observer, but alsofromthe eyes of the person acting the behavior. • Humanistic approach first appeared in 1970s as a reaction to the general lack of effective consideration in both audiolingualism and cognitive code. Carl Rogers's humanistic psychology led the way to humanistic approach and a humanistic language teaching. Humanistic psychology developed as an alternative to psycho analysis and behaviorism during 1950s and especially 1960s. Humanistic approaches to personality as individual active creative forces or self that seeks expression, development and growth. Thus the aim of psychologist should not be searched for unconscious processes or environmental factors but to understand how individuals experience themselves, others and the world and also to help them actualize their potential. • The personal worth of the individual, the centrality of human values, and the creative, active nature of human beings are the main focuses ofHumanistic Approach. The approach is optimistic and focuses on noble human capacity to overcome hardship, pain and despair. • The Humanistic Approach belongs to hypothetical mode in which the teacher and the students are in a cooporativeposition. It views learning as a ways of creating a climate of acceptance among students who are the main actors in the complex activity of learning a foreign language. • Humanistic approach is based on these principles: • Respect is emphasized for the individual and for his or her feelings. • Communication that s meaningful to the learner is emphasized • Instruction includes much work in pairs and small groups • Class atmosphere is viewed as more important than materials or methods. • Peer support and interaction are needed for learning. • Learning a foreign language is viewed as a self-realization experience. • The teacher is viewed as a counselor or facilitator. • The teacher should be proficient enough both in the target language and the native language since translation may be used heavily in the initial stages to help students feel at ease; later it is gradually phased out. (Early, 1982: 8-9) CONCLUSION Humanistic approach has an undeniable place in language teaching and learning. With the humanistic approach, students enable to produce meaningful and authentic utterances in the presentation or practice stages of the lesson. Learners also get the opportunities to try out their own acquired input in a context outside the real life situations performed in the classroom. Thanks to the humanistic approach,one can observe the determined progress both on teachers and students. Teachers have opportunities to listen to the students and observe their feeling, attitudes, concerns, fear and interests. Therefore, he or she takes these into consideration while designing syllabus and teaching materials. The teacher creates such an atmosphere that learners feel themselves relaxed and comfortable and they trust their teacher. They foster an atmosphere in which they are free from failure, criticism, competition and punishment. In classes where humanistic approach is applied students get the feeling of freedom. The aim of the teacher is to support the positive feelings of the students and to convert negative into positive. The students are also responsible for their own evaluations by self-evaluation technique. They also learn that they should be in a cooperative manner rather than competitive one with their friends. In humanistic classes, students act creative role plays, game-like activities and meaningful exercises which creates stress-free environment which lead to reducing barriers to learning. Humanistic approach also contributed to Silent Way, Suggestopedia, TPR, CLL. In conclusion, Humanistic Approach can increase students’ facility in expressing themselves by using both colloquial and formal speech. It is also helpful tool for the teacher to stimulate the learners to write in a meaningful way by involving students in various situations. Learners have the ability to bring their minds, vocabulary items and structures whenever they need them. Thus they avoid frustration. This approach also plays a significant role concerning the establishing of students’ self confidence while communicating in L2, which seems to be the main targets of all teachers. • LITERATURE REVIEW • Rogers’s humanistic theory is based on person-centered approach. His studies were not only human behavior in general, but also on the learning process. He studied the ‘’whole person’’ as a physical and cognitive, however especially emotional being. ‘’The ‘fully functioning person’, according to Rogers, lives at peace with all his feelings and reactions; he is able to what he potentially is; he exists as a process of being and becoming himself.’’ (Brown, 1994: 85) This kind of person becomes fully opened to his experience and he becomes his defensiveness in his self knowledge. He also creates himself again whenever he takes an action and makes a decision. According to Rogers, learners only need real facilitators of learning and the teacher can only facilitate by establishing an interpersonal relationship with the learners. • Earl Stevick, Curran, Gattegno, Maslow and Lazanov are main proponents of humanistic approach. They were interested in applying principles of humanistic psychology to language learning and teaching after they became dissatisfied with both audiolingual habit theory and cognitive code learning. Theyfelt existing (psychodynamic) theories failed to adequately address issues like the meaning of behavior, and the nature of healthy growth. • AccordingtoRogers and Maslow, each person, in different ways, seeks to grow psychologically and continuously toenhance themselves. This has been captured by the term ‘’self-actualization’’ which emphasizes developing fulfilling relationships, recognizing interdependence, expressing one’s feelings, achieving one’s potential, sharing oneself, and giving and receiving support. • Humanisticlanguageteachingmethods • Humanistic approach was applied in these methods in ELT: • Silent Way • Suggestopedia • Total Physical Response • Community Language Learning • Whole Language • Techniques in Humanistic Approach • In humanistic approach all of the techniques are used to facilitate the achievement of the full potential of the students. Students’ emotions are taken into consideration as well as their intellect. • Peer Correction • Students are offered to help each other when they face difficulty. The main aim is to encourage students to be cooperative manner not a competitive one. Another technique used by humanistic teachers for error correction is counseling learning. When a student has a problem, he or she goes to the office of the teacher and talks to him individually. A teacher never tells the students’ misbehaviors in public since he or she may harm their emotions and demoralize them. • Self Evaluation • Students take responsibility for evaluating their own performance and they examine their progress. • Creative role plays, game like activities, meaningful exercises are mostly experienced in classes. Also as an effective technique, teacher uses feedback sheets with open ended questions or completion type questions. • The main points in all techniques are their giving priority to the emotions and concerns of the learners since humanistic approach is learner-centered. REFERANCES Brown, H.D. (1994). Princple of languagelearneingandteaching. EnglewoodCliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall Early, P. (1982). Humanisticapproaches: An empricalview. London: TheBritishCouncil Richards, J.C. ,Rodgers.T.S, (2002). Approachesandmethods in languageteaching . New york: Cambridge UniversityPress,2001.