Core Dimensions of Good Language Teaching Practice

Core Dimensions of Good Language Teaching Practice

• Good language teaching practice encompasses six core dimensions:
  • Language proficiency
  • Content knowledge
  • Teaching skills
  • Contextual knowledge
  • Language teacher's identity
  • Learner-focused teaching

Language Proficiency

• Providing good language models
• Maintaining use of the target language in the classroom
• Providing examples of words and grammatical structures
• Giving correct feedback on learner language
• Providing input at an appropriate level of difficulty
• Providing language-enrichment experiences for learners

Content Knowledge

• Understanding learners' needs
• Diagnosing learners' learning problems
• Planning suitable instructional goals for lessons
• Selecting and designing learning tasks
• Evaluating students' learning
• Designing and adapting tests
• Evaluating and choosing materials
• Making appropriate use of technology
• Reflecting on one's lessons

Teaching Skills

• Introducing and explaining tasks
• Setting up learning arrangements
• Checking students' understanding
• Guiding student practice
• Monitoring students' language use

Contextual Knowledge

• Understanding the values, norms of practice, and patterns of social participation of a particular school
• Understanding the dynamics and relationships within the classroom

Language Teacher's Identity

• Being aware of one's role as a teacher of English
• Enacting different social and cultural roles as a teacher of English

Learner-Focused Teaching

• Being familiar with typical student behavior
• Adapting one's lessons to the learners' needs and preferences
• Maintaining active student involvement (also in processes of planning and/or decision making)
• Connecting with the learners' life experiences

Pedagogical Reasoning Skills

• Analysing potential lesson content
• Identifying ways in which it could be used as teaching resources
• Identifying linguistic goals that could be developed from the chosen content
• Anticipating problems that might occur and ways of resolving them
• Making appropriate decisions about time, sequencing, and grouping

Theorising from Practice

• Developing experiential knowledge
• Reflecting on teaching experiences to explain, hypothesise about or generalise aspects of foreign language teaching
• Evaluating one's teaching
• Developing principles and a personal teaching philosophy

Membership of a Community of Practice

• Collaborating with fellow teachers, university colleagues, or other school staff
• Exploring and resolving issues related to workplace practices
• Achieving shared goals

Professionalism

• Becoming familiar with the standards of the profession
• Developing professional competence
• Attaining high standards
• Continuously and systematically reflecting one's teaching practices

Models of Teacher Education

• Craft model: Training on the job (observing and imitating a role model)
• Applied science model: Applying academic knowledge in teaching practice
• Reflective model: Reflecting on one's own work helps to develop one's teaching style

Reflective Practice Model of Professional Development

• Stage 1 (Pre-Training): Existing conceptual schemata or mental constructs
• Stage 2 (Professional education/development): Experiential knowledge and reflection
• Goal: Achieving professional competence

This quiz covers the six core dimensions of good language teaching practice, including language proficiency, content knowledge, and more. Test your understanding of effective language teaching methods.