The learning alliance: conscious and unconscious aspects of the second language teacher's role

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System 26 (1998) 93±106

The learning alliance: conscious and unconscious aspects of the second language teacher's role Madeline Ehrman Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State, 4000 Arlington Blvd., Arlington, VA 22204-1500, U.S.A.

Abstract The nature of the relationship established between teacher and student is the center of such approaches to teaching and learning as counseling±learning and the community language learning methodology associated with it. Counseling±learning is one of many instances of the in¯uence of humanistic psychology on teaching in general and on second language teaching in particular. Less well known in the world of education is the tradition of psychoanalytic psychology, with its emphasis on unconscious personal and interpersonal processes. In this article some important and useful concepts from this domain are introduced, including the learning alliance driven by mutual commitment to the task by teacher and student, issues of ``holding'', boundary maintenance, idealization, identi®cation, narcissistic vulnerability, teacher ``abstinence'' and e€ects of stages of learning readiness. Some of the concepts parallel the betterknown ones from the humanistic tradition, whereas others re¯ect a di€erent but potentially very helpful point of view. # 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Many programs ask students to evaluate the instruction at the program's end. At the Foreign Service Institute, in response to the question ``What aspects of your language training program helped your learning?'' departing students regularly write comments such as these: The professionalism and dedication of all the teachers made learning a pleasure. Instructors were always willing to spend extra time providing guidance and counseling. I was fortunate enough to have excellent, professional instructors, who seemed to take a personal interest in each student. I was most impressed with how the instructors' enthusiasm was contagious. The sta€ obviously feels passionately about their language and they appeared to relish our accomplishments. This 0346-251X/98/$19.00 # 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PI I: S0346-251X (9 7)0 0066-3

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was a strong motivational tool. I was most happy with Mr A's ¯exibility and how he encouraged input and took his evaluations of the students seriously and personally. His ¯exibility allowed us to not be locked into a rigid method of learning. Within given parameters he gave each of us the freedom to learn in our own way. I was pleasantly surprised to ®nd a cheerful, almost community-like ambiance, something I had never before encountered [in similar programs]. The friendliness of the instructors, and their unfailing encouragement certainly made a di€erence to me. I was also glad to become involved in a project under the supervision of one instructor, Ms B, which allowed me to make my own forays into the language and added greatly to my understanding of it. I found that in class the instructors were always well prepared, yet they were open to suggestion and tried hard to meet the expressed needs of the students. I and my classmates were completely taken with our experience as students of Mr T, who is one of the best teachers I have had and one of the most conscientious. We learned quickly because he inspired us with his simple expectation that we would, and through his expert use of a solid textbook. The overall atmosphere was one of seriousness in the accomplishment of a goal punctuated by humor and allowance for student creativity. These are typical comments made by adult students who have completed intensive foreign language training of 6±10 months duration, during which they achieve Interagency Language Roundtable speaking and reading ratings of 2+ to 3 in preparation for foreign a€airs work at overseas missions and consulates. Although they often mention as positive forces well-designed textbooks and a suitable curriculum, their true enthusiasm is reserved for their teachers and the relationships the teachers establish with them. It is a rare end-of-training program evaluation that does not mention the teachers in terms such as those already described. Comments such as these suggest that students recognize the contribution of the teachers' relationships with them to their success in learning. What do the relationships fostered by these successful teachers have in common? In this article, I propose that it is a combination of conscious and unconscious phenomena that often re¯ect what is done by e€ective parents, especially tuning teaching interventions appropriately to the emotional and developmental state of the learner.1FOOTNOTE 2. Two approaches to psychology Language teaching has been in¯uenced by humanistic psychology, whereas the psychoanalytic tradition is little known and often dismissed as ``Freudian'' and 1 This article concentrates on relationships that usually take place between teachers and individual students. Much of its content is also relevant to teachers as group leaders, a subject that is treated at length in Ehrman and DoÈrnyei (in press).

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old-fashioned. There are certainly di€erences between the two traditions. Humanists focus on human potential and on where the individual is now, whereas psychoanalysis concentrates on the historically determined ``scripts'' that drive much of an individual's behavior, seeking the origins of behavioral patterns, because behaviors that are now dysfunctional might once have made sense in a very di€erent context. Humanism attends to positive potential and puts the negative in second place, whereas psychoanalysis never loses sight of the impact of the primitive a€ective core (the ``id'') that drives much of human behavior, though psychoanalytic psychotherapy also promotes positive personality development. In fact, however, both approaches have much in common as ways to help people lead more satisfying lives, but they apply di€erent lenses to the same material. Both emphasize interpersonal relations as cause and cure. Both approaches rely heavily on empathy and the therapist's reliable, accepting presence. For both, achievement of insight and appropriate application of the insight to one's life are important goals. Despite di€erences in techniques, feelings are crucial in both approaches as the route to alteration of cognitions about self and others. 2.1. Humanistic psychology According to the humanistic tradition, of which Curran (1972, 1978) is a part, people are rational, responsive to socialization, inherently motivated in positive ways and capable of determining their own destiny. Humanistic psychology says that a successful change agent makes use of empathy, unconditional positive regard (or acceptance) and congruence (Rogers, 1961, 1969, 1989). These qualities promote an environment that reduces a€ective risks so that all a person's resources are available for self-disclosure, growth and personal development (Ivey, 1986), including learning. Empathy is at the core of most psychotherapeutic processes, but it is especially fundamental to Rogers' work. The term refers to having a sense of what it is like to be another person. Unconditional positive regard is the presence not only of suspension of judgment but acceptance of the person no matter what his/her ¯aws. Congruence is acceptance and appropriate expression of one's own real feelings and thoughts; one's behavior is ``congruent'' with one's feelings. A teacher's congruence models the process for students and gives a kind of ``permission'' for students to be congruent as learners and as individuals, too. Congruence can lead to confrontation, but confrontation in the context of empathy and unconditional positive regard can be feedback rather than hostility. 2.2. Psychoanalytic psychology Although psychoanalytic constructs have been applied widely beyond clinical settings, especially in literary criticism and organizational development, they have seldom been used in education, especially second language education. Among the works on psychoanalytic education in general are Field et al. (1989), M. R. Gardner (1994), Kaley (1993, 1994), Mishne (1996), Salzberger-Wittenberg et al. (1983) and

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Yalof (1996). Psychoanalytic constructs have reached second language education in Ehrman (1993, 1996, in press), Ehrman and DoÈrnyei (in press) and Guiora (1981, 1984). Because they are relatively unfamiliar in second language education, these constructs receive considerable space below. Psychoanalytic psychology is properly called ``Freudian'', because it originated, along with many other forms of psychological inquiry, in the work of Sigmund Freud, himself in¯uenced by the philosophical and sociological trends of his time (Munich, 1993). Psychoanalysis is a system of metaphors used to understand individuals (e.g. S. Freud, 1933) and groups (S. Freud, 1921) that resulted from Freud's work. His work also spawned a variety of derivative approaches sometimes grouped as ``Neo-Freudian'', all based on the assumptions listed in the next paragraph. Among these are ``ego psychology'', from which came much of the early work on cognitive styles, and ``object relations theory'' which originated in the work of Melanie Klein (1957) and her followers, relating to profound, interpersonally driven psychological phenomena. Concepts from object relations are used extensively in this article. Psychoanalytic theory, and the clinical practice based on the theory, is based on the following assumptions (Auld and Hyman, 1991; Ehrman and DoÈrnyei, in press): 1. Behavior is the result of unconscious processes and motivations which are at least as powerful as conscious will and the e€ects of the immediate environment, a stance called ``psychic determinism''. 2. Determinism implies that behavior is not accidental or random but is meaningful and can be interpreted systematically. (Note that such interpretations are inferences, not facts.) 3. Behavior is often a form of communication of messages, often metaphoric and analogic, of which both sender and receiver are consciously unaware. Psychoanalytic theory holds that behaviors that originated in the individual's e€orts to cope with external events and internal interpretations of those events develop into patterns of action and reaction that characterized an individual, often without regard to the realities of the current situation. Thus, for example, traits such as emotionality or hyper-conscientiousness, become part of a person's character as habitual frames of mind. People of all ages ``recreate the archaic con¯ict in [their] later life situation[s], hoping this time to make the con¯ict come out di€erent'' (Auld and Hyman, 1991, p. 242, emphasis in original), much like children playing at a classroom, in order to gain a sense of control. Because it is driven by unconscious feelings and perceptions, individuals seem to have little control over manifestations of this need to repeat experience; it is therefore referred to as the repetition compulsion. (The classroom e€ects of the repetition compulsion are among the phenomena addressed in Ehrman and DoÈrnyei, in press.) For example, a student who constantly challenges the program, even when it is not to the student's advantage to do so, may well be acting out ``un®nished business'' from his/her own history. Similarly, a teacher who constantly puts the need to be liked over the students' need for learning space, despite knowing better, may well be re-enacting e€orts to master unsatis®ed attachment needs from much earlier.

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Behavior that can be interpreted by the repetition compulsion appears constantly between students and teachers. So does a phenomenon called ego mechanisms of defense or, for short, defense mechanisms or defenses. Originated by Sigmund Freud (1894, 1923, 1926) and systematized by his daughter Anna Freud (1966), they can be operationally de®ned as perceptual distortions that result in behaviors that protect an individual's self-image and self-esteem against internal and external con¯ict. Everyone makes use of defense mechanisms all the time: they can be both adaptive and unadaptive (Vaillant, 1993). An example of a defense mechanism commonly seen in classrooms is avoidance, where students are late, cut class, let their minds wander, resist focusing their attention on the course content. Another is displacement, often appearing in student e€orts to blame the language program for the student's failures. Ehrman (1996) and Ehrman and DoÈrnyei (in press) discuss the role of defense mechanisms in the classroom in some detail. The repetition compulsion takes shape interpersonally in the form of transference and countertransference. Transference is an unconsciously generated reaction to another person based on an individual's previous experience that may be inappropriate to present reality though experienced by the individual him/herself as justi®ed and reality-based. Often, but not necessarily, transference occurs with respect to authority ®gures. Ehrman and DoÈrnyei (in press) suggest: . . . transference happens every day among people like us: it is a common source of attributions. When your student has diculty closing o€ a conversation with you and seems to cling, you could guess, for example, that you are no longer only ``you'' or even the teacher. Instead, your student may have projected onto you a parent with whom she wished for more of an attachment. (section 3.3.1) The teacher has a reaction to the student's clinging, both in the form of feelings, such as irritation, and probably of some kind of interpretation (e.g. ``This is just the way it was when I was 16, and my mother never left me alone''). This, too, is transference, but as a reaction to a transference coming from another person, it is distinguished as countertransference. Countertransference can interfere with e€ective helping by therapists or by teachers because it can distort our perceptions of current reality and elicit defenses that prevent awareness of the teacher's own unconscious processes or lead to ``pursuit of grati®cations of [the teacher's] own needs, such as being well liked, that are irrelevant to the professional task'' (Ehrman and DoÈrnyei, in press, section 3.3.1). These authors o€er other examples: when students unconsciously expect parenting behavior, they often elicit parent-like behavior based on the teacher's experience of his/her own parents. Tacit or overt student expectations may cause countertransferential anxiety if the teacher feels unable to meet them. Teacher responses to anxiety tend to re¯ect their usual anxiety management and defensive tactics, such as imposition of so much external classroom structure that interpersonal relations are impossible, ``people pleasing'' with unreliable interpersonal boundary maintenance or provocation of classroom con¯ict. Classrooms often entail events that are family-like. In as much as transferential reactions usually

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originate through family dynamics, we should not be surprised when they appear in students Ð and teachers Ð repeatedly in situations that arouse feelings similar to those from one's original family. Transference and countertransference occur in classrooms all the time. Relationships with teachers are almost always transferential. For most students, there is probably an unconscious hope that the teacher will enact the role of a good, nurturing, protective parent. Some individuals may enter a classroom with transferential expectations of hostility and act accordingly. 3. E€ective teacher student relations There is no question that empathy, unconditional positive regard and congruence are key factors in many successful classroom outcomes. The student evaluation quotes that begin this article represent a number of approaches to teaching, ranging from the very structured, with extensive teacher preparation, to great ¯exibility and promotion of early student autonomy. We could say that there was a fortunate match of student learning style and teaching approach (Ehrman, 1996), and this may be at least in part true. However, the fact that such comments occur so regularly among students of widely varying learning styles in the same language programs suggests that there is something more generalizable going on in the relationships established in these classrooms. The end-of-training quotes certainly suggest empathy and unconditional regard; the quote about teachers' passion for their language may well indicate an important form of congruence. Another concept that these quotes represent well is that of the teaching alliance (Wool, 1989), a concept modeled on the therapeutic alliance (Greenson, 1967). The latter is a relationship that emerges from the mutual commitment of teacher and student (or therapist and client) to undertake and accomplish a job. Wool (1989) says that the teacher's role in the learning alliance is to (a) help students manage their feelings, especially those related to being ignorant or wrong, (b) manage student identi®cation with teachers and teacher hope for students and (c) make use of their own cognitive skills (organizing, synthesizing, etc.) to help learners make sense of their learning experiences. How do e€ective teachers accomplish this vast task, and what are some of the pitfalls? Let us look at each part of the teacher's role in the learning alliance. 3.1. Helping students manage their feelings: the holding function Transference was mentioned above as occurring frequently toward authority ®gures, whereby the individual reacts to the authority as if the authority were his/her own parents. Ehrman and DoÈrnyei (in press) point out that, in addition to the distortion entailed, there is also some reality to the reaction, because mentoring and guidance of the sort teachers provide also occasion nurturance, support and limit setting, which are important parental functions. In the background of all e€ective mentoring and teaching is a parental function called holding. Originated by Winnicott (1960, 1972) in the context of child psy-

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chiatry, this concept represents the least level of support required for healthy development. The holder, whether caretaker of an infant or teacher of adults, must be reliable, provide soothing for infants and attention to self-esteem issues for adults, and protect developing learners from infringements of their psychological or physical welfare beyond their coping ability. These behaviors lead to a sense of security, which can be both literally and metaphorically conceived of as being held. Adults can provide the holding function for each other (e.g. through attentive listening, indicating that one remembers something important about another and, of course, empathy). Holding by a teacher (or other learners in cooperative learning classrooms) provides a safe place to explore, make mistakes and learn. E€ective holding also appears in the provision of what psychoanalytic therapists call the frame, that is, a safe and reliable environment in which risks can be taken (Langs, 1982). It represents a way of maintaining boundaries and therefore safety. Langs (1992) applies the frame to a classroom setting by listing among his ``ground rules'': con®dentiality, privacy, regular meeting times and places, standards of classroom performance, clear topics and no physical contact. Yalof (1996) indicates that breaches of the frame can bring about inappropriate manifestations of transference by students (Yalof, 1996), including what appears to be regressive childishness or classroom con¯icts. In addition to frame-related holding, teachers may use even-handed treatment of students, availability outside class, and appropriate intervention depending on student need for support or freedom. Humanistic empathy and unconditional positive regard seem to be important manifestations of the holding function. Ehrman and DoÈrnyei (in press) point out ``There are thus a variety of ways to `hold'. Teachers may use some more than others, consistent with their own personality and teaching styles. Expert teachers probably use di€erent ways of holding consistent with what their students appear to need, in combination with their own styles'' (section 9.2.1). Failure to ``hold'' can show up in a variety of ways. Teachers may forget agreements they have made with students about the curriculum or assignments. They may indicate that students do not matter to them by acting in ways that seem disrespectful. Indi€erence to student attendance or even teacher illness may seem like psychological abandonment. Failure to keep commitments not because of agreed-on changes, but because of a teacher's inability to restrain his/her impulsive changes in topic are also lapses in the holding function.2FOOTNOTE 3.2. Managing student identi®cations and teacher hopes 3.2.1. Idealization and identi®cation Among the most powerful factors promoting learning is student desire to be like the teacher, which Curran (1972, 1978) called mimesis. Identi®cation with teachers 2 Supervisors, administrators and other sta€ of a school also have a holding function for teachers, which enables them in turn to be more e€ective at holding their students. Yalof (1996) lists functions ful®lled by an e€ective holding institution: physical and psychological; management of anxiety management; fair, open limit setting with clear consequences; quick, empathic response to distress and ¯exible adaptation to student and sta€ needs.

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or with target language speakers is a major motivational factor, one which plays a role in the well-known integrative motivation construct (R. C. Gardner, 1985; R. C. Gardner et al., 1997). Identi®cation can also be conceived of as a transferential function, in that students unconsciously react to their teachers as if the latter were parents. Much as they did as children, the students unconsciously seek to be like their teachers. Adults can bene®t from this kind of process and often do, especially when receptive to ``osmotic'' input (Allwright and Bailey, 1991; Ehrman, 1993, 1996, in press). Identi®cation that promotes learning usually comes from positive experiences with teachers and representatives of the target culture, but it can also result from a defensive function called identi®cation with the aggressor (A. Freud, 1966); that is, one way of coping with bad experiences is to wish to be like those who impose them. Such students may learn, but at the same time become bullies, or as teachers they may behave like the teachers who gave them a dicult time. Positive feelings and identi®cation with a teacher can also involve a process of idealization, through which the teacher is imbued with great virtue. Such idealization plays a very important role in motivating mimetic learning, but it can also have detrimental e€ects, as a result of a fundamental defensive operation called splitting. What is meant by this is experiencing a thing, person or event as all good or all bad, all white or all black. Splitting often accompanies projection, in which unwanted characteristics of the self are attributed to others, so that they can rid themselves of something they dislike about themselves and experience it as external to themselves. The classroom can be profoundly a€ected by this phenomenon, when both students and teachers ``split'' and project competence. Ehrman and DoÈrnyei (in press) state: In order to maintain a comforting idealization of their teacher, students may project all their self-regulation abilities onto the teacher. The teacher, in turn, may accept those projections because of his or her own narcissistic vulnerabilities. Both sides thus achieve a certain kind of satisfaction: student dependency needs are grati®ed, and teacher needs for control and importance are addressed. It is no wonder that it is sometimes so dicult for both sides to give up traditional student±teacher relations in favor of shared responsibility for classroom events and outcomes or developing student ability to work independently of a teacher. (section 8.2.2) When students and teachers ``split'' and project competence so that the teachers have it all, and the students have little or none, it becomes dicult for both parties to promote autonomous learning by students. When teachers and students can share competence or establish separate but complementary domains of competence, students are free to become self-regulating without threat to their image of the teacher or to the teacher's sense of being needed. 3.2.2. Narcissistic vulnerability and devaluation Awareness of one's own competence leads to a sense of self-ecacy by both teachers and students. It is based on realistic assessments of self in a given learning

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or performing context. Less based in reality is grandiosity that stems from anxieties about one's adequacy and psychic integrity that are referred to as narcissistic vulnerability. The term ``narcissism'' is usually thought of as self-admiration, but in current clinical usage, it often means the opposite. A narcissistic person is one who has diculty with the regulation of self-esteem, self-comforting and sense of wholeness in the face of inevitable life diculties. ``Narcissistic issues, like defense mechanisms, are characteristic of everyone's functioning; narcissistic dysfunction is more a matter of degree and frequency than it is something that a€ects only some people'' (Ehrman and DoÈrnyei, in press, section 8.3.2). When students are narcissistically vulnerable (i.e. susceptible to loss of self-esteem and to being interpersonally hurt), or have been narcissistically injured (e.g. through excessive shaming), they may be especially derailed by academic frustrations, show limited resilience in the face of disappointments and display inappropriate exhibitionism in order to receive external validation (Yalof, 1996). Narcissistic injury can also be the source of inhibition, underachievement and avoidance, in defense of selfmaintenance. Narcissistic injury can also lead to cynicism and devaluation of teachers and programs by disappointed students. Devaluation is the opposite of idealization. ``Students who are harshly critical of a teacher, a program, or of classmates may be tormented by a feeling that they cannot measure up and thus attempt to destroy what makes them feel inadequate'' (Ehrman and DoÈrnyei, in press, section 8.3.2). Teachers are often very uncomfortable with student idealization, because they are aware, consciously or unconsciously, that disappointment may lead the pendulum to swing to devaluation and even hostility, much as adolescents react to disappointment with their parents as childhood idealization wears o€. Nevertheless, as Wool (1989) points out, the learning alliance requires that teachers tolerate appropriate student idealization of them for as long as it is motivationally needed. At the same time, teachers should not encourage undue idealization or attempt to prolong it beyond its time, in order to address their own (inevitable) narcissistic vulnerabilities. Teachers or other counselors can often help narcissistically injured students through empathy and attentive listening. Individuals who have particularly frequent narcissistic distress may be referred to as requiring ``high maintenance'' and elicit guilt because of the desire of those around them to reject them. Teachers and others who must work with such individuals do well to avail themselves of social and professional support and maintain their own interpersonal boundaries. 3.2.3. Abstinence Because teachers have needs of their own, including narcissistic pressures of the sort already described, they may have to take extra care not to seek grati®cation at the expense of their students, much as responsible parents do not use their children for grati®cation inappropriate to the children's development. The term for avoidance of behavior that is primarily (or only) for the grati®cation of a therapist or a teacher's needs is abstinence. Characteristic of psychoanalytic therapy, it is a form of frame-maintenance and seems applicable to student±teacher relations, too. Examples of violation of the principle of abstinence include gossiping with students (or

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others) about other teachers, sharing inappropriate aspects of the teacher's personal life, seeking comfort from students in the face of narcissistic injuries, promoting overdependence in students, abandoning students, playing favorites and other such boundary violations. Socializing with students thus falls into something of a questionable area. Ehrman and DoÈrnyei (in press) suggest that a ``good rule of thumb is probably that social activities done as part of the curriculum, such as ®eld trips and parties on school premises that include the whole class, are generally appropriate. Those that are strictly social and include only selected students are probably less so'' (section 9.2.2). 3.3. Application of teachers' cognitive skills to develop those of students It has become increasingly evident that the purpose of classroom learning is not only to convey content information. Educational goals increasingly include the development of autonomous, self-regulating learners who can function outside and after the classroom (Corno, 1995; Winne, 1995; Zimmerman, 1994, 1995), and second language learning is no exception to this trend. It is only an apparent paradox that development of learning autonomy is usually an intensely interpersonal process between knower and learner. Humanistic educators have long been aware that autonomous learning develops through relationships; relatively recently, socioconstructivist approaches have built on the work of Vygotsky and Leontiev to root learning ®rmly in a social matrix through sca€olding and levels of support appropriate to the learner's current ability in the learning task and subject (Hickey, 1997; Williams and Burden, 1997). Cooperative learning (DoÈrnyei, in press; Ehrman and DoÈrnyei, in press; Kagan and McGroarty, 1993; McGroarty, 1993; Nyikos and Oxford, in press) and situated learning mechanisms such as apprenticeship models (Lave, 1991; Lave and Wenger, 1991; Rogo€, 1991) are also viewed as means to promote learner autonomy through the interpersonal. Many of the mechanisms that drive this interpersonal process are unconscious interactions of the sort that this article addresses. Ehrman and DoÈrnyei (in press) remark ``Through conscious strategies and unconscious communications, teachers liberate learners to take increasing responsibility for their own learning'' (section 8.3.3). These strategies and communications are functions of the learning alliance. In fact, almost no learners work in complete isolation, and few can do so. As Mishne (1996) points out, even gifted learners need supportive teachers or mentors. Few people, including adults, can undertake self-directed learning without encouragement and feedback. Teachers do far more than execute a curriculum and design and apply lesson plans. Like good parents, they address unconscious a€ective needs of the sort described in the earlier sections through conversation, encouragement, alleviating narcissistic distress, promoting special talents and responding to each student's style and needs. Ehrman and DoÈrnyei (in press) point out ``that teachers can enhance intrinsic motivation by letting themselves be idealized and accepting student attachment behavior and idealization, even when it is uncomfortable for them'' (section 8.3.3). Similar to children who begin by working because they care about a parent and then

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develop love of the work for its own sake (Mishne, 1996), older learners can use the teacher as a kind of idealized transferential ``parent,'' so that they may eventually develop intrinsic motivation for the subject in its own right. Winnicott (1941/1975) indicates that the right to make choices is essential to autonomy and to learning, even if the choice is to reject what is o€ered. Teachers thus need to be able to ``let go'' of their students, even when they are making mistakes, and the teacher knows she could help the learning become more ecient. Both humanistic psychology and psychoanalytic psychology address stages in student learning. Curran (1972, 1978) and his followers promote a stage model of learning that begins with the need for the teacher to provide a secure learning environment for the almost completely dependent learner. Stage 2 involves some experimentation and assertion by the learner. Stage 3 is stronger assertion of independence by the learner, often including rejection of the teacher and the curriculum. In Stage 4 there is a movement to greater equilibrium, in which the learner becomes sensitive to the knower's vulnerabilities about being needed no longer. At Stage 5, the knower and learner are emotionally and functionally equivalent. This stage is recursive: that is, students may oscillate among stages and are likely to begin the cycle when they meet new and challenging material. The analogue in psychoanalytic psychology is the process of personality development that Mahler et al. (1975) developed as they observed countless children and their mothers. The developmental process they infer begins with an ``autistic'' position, in which the infant is minimally aware of separate others. It is followed by a ``symbiotic'' relationship, in which the infant experiences itself as part of a single system with the primary caretaker (usually the mother). As the infant develops cognitively and emotionally, he/she starts to ``hatch'' into a more psychologically separate being. The child, now a toddler, enters the ``practicing'' stage, becoming aware of his/her abilities and feeling increasing mastery. Because the infant is still undeveloped, however, inevitable failures and frustrations lead him/her to seek attachment to the caretaker and to undo separateness from her (``rapprochement''). The last phase is the beginning of ``emotional object constancy'', in which the important other is increasingly experienced as a whole human being with needs and feelings. Curran's (1972, 1978) Stage 1 seems in some ways analogous to the symbiotic phase of Mahler et al. (1975). Similarly, the increasing assertion of Curran's Stage 2 corresponds to ``hatching'', as does the almost aggressive Stage 3 to ``practicing''. The increased sensitivity of Curran's Stage 4 seems much like ``rapprochement'', and the relative maturity of Stage 5 can be compared to ``emotional object constancy''. Whichever model is used, this is a useful way to conceive of di€erent learner states, whether among children or adults. It is the role of the teacher to accept a kind of initial ``symbiosis'', in which the student may not be ready for autonomy, and assist the learner through increasing self-assertion and autonomy. The principle of abstinence may mean that the teacher tolerates some aggression from a ``practicing'' (or Stage 3) learner, is alert to manifestations of rapprochement and manages the sense of loss (of feeling needed as a leader of learning) that Stages 3 and 4 may entail. Instead, teachers do well to focus on the richer range of relationships with learners

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that Stages 4 and 5, or rapprochement and emotional object constancy, can bring. Another implication of stage metaphors is that teachers need to provide di€erent interventions (e.g. amount of sca€olding) at di€erent times, depending on the currently active learner state. This is because the developmental state of students varies with the amount of challenge in the material to be learned, the degree of match of their learning styles with the curriculum and school norms, and the students' own emotional states. The task is made more complex by the fact that not only do individuals have di€erent states of learning maturity, so do classroom groups. Awareness of current stage of learning maturity and of learner di€erences: enables teachers to diagnose needs, apply the proper level of learning support (``sca€olding'') at any given time, and withdraw it at the right time. There can be too little or too much support. Abandonment of a learner not ready to set goals, self-evaluate, design activities, or manage feelings can produce learners who are convinced that they cannot learn foreign languages (or another subject). On the other hand, excessive supportive structure sti¯es learners who are already on their way to expertise as learners or who possess such expertise. (Ehrman and DoÈrnyei, in press, section 8.3.3) 4. Conclusion It should be clear from all the material discussed that the interaction between students and teachers is far from a one-way proposition. Certainly teachers motivate students to learn and support the process in the ways described. At the same time, teachers are greatly a€ected by their relationships and motivated by them. A ®nal and not atypical quote from a Foreign Service Institute end-of-training report implies this e€ect: I remain amazed that the teachers can withstand 10 months of brutalizing their language (at least in my case), and do it year after year, staying genuinely interested in our learning to speak their language. Similar to students, teachers are motivated by the interpersonal satisfactions of teaching, as well as those more related to task accomplishment. Language teaching requires patience and willingness to promote slow but steady development of pro®ciency. It is made rewarding through many of the psychological processes described in this article. References Allwright, D., Bailey, K., 1991. Focus on the Language Classroom: An Introduction To Language Classroom Research for Language Teachers. Cambridge, New York. Auld, F., Hyman, M., 1991. Resolution of Inner Con¯ict: An Introduction to Psychoanalytic Therapy. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.

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