They are: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning.
While the last adjourning doesn't apply for language studies (it's about disbanding the team), the first four can be used in the concept of joining a linguistic group (also known as learning a language).
Forming occurs in business when the team forms around a central concept or purpose. Basic timeframes, goals, and milestones are set out in this phase.
Storming is short for brainstorming. It is about gathering collective ideas from the team about how to best proceed. This information is then used to set initial tasks, responsibilities, and rules.
Norming occurs some weeks or months later after sufficient experience working together. The team discovers the interpersonal dynamics of the group and the most fluid and efficient way of working together.
Performing is a result of these established norms. It is the stage at which the team performs at optimum functionality and starts to focus on achieving the goals of the team.
In regard to language learning, the list might look a little like this:
- Forming - establish purpose of learning, set milestones and communicate expectations for the language methodology, outcomes and common difficulties.
- Storming - establish a set of classroom conduct and curriculum structure based on needs analysis of students (what they want to learn, to what level, why they want to learn, etc)
- Norming - large levels of native target language input to establish linguistic norms and notice examples of most common usage of language, e.g. terms and phrases used in specific social situations and with specific subject matter.
- Performing - production phase of language. When the students have adequately established norms of the language and can focus on achieving the goals set out in the forming stage.
Of these four stages, it is only in the fourth stage that production of the language (speaking and writing) is recommended.
In modern business it is usually accepted that a team needs to be taken through the first three stages as quickly yet comprehensively as possible in order to enable to team to function at a high level. Without the establishment of adequate norms, business research shows that teams operate less efficiently and have unforeseen problems, often due to miscommunication.
Most successful adult language learners do so with large quantities of input. Not all of these learners focus on this as the first thing, but at one stage or another they do. My observations of these people (and my own experience) tell me that to know how to appropriately use a language, students must have sufficient exposure to the language in order to establish norms. Only then can they start to learn to produce the language accurately.
