Methods of Teaching PDF

Theories about how language is learned (which, as already briefly mentioned in an earlier Unit, have informed different approaches and methods of foreign language teaching) have developed in the broader field of Psychology and specifically in the areas of Cognitive and Social Psychology. Their conce...

Theories about how language is learned (which, as already briefly mentioned in an earlier Unit, have informed different approaches and methods of foreign language teaching) have developed in the broader field of Psychology and specifically in the areas of Cognitive and Social Psychology. Their concerns include studies which attempt to answer questions regarding how people learn and/or how they develop knowledge. The psychological theories that have had the most decisive impact in FLD are Behaviorist, Cognitivist, Humanist, and Interactionist learning theories. Behaviorism and ELT The name most associated with Behaviorist Psychology is B.F. Skinner (1957), though the fathers of behaviorist theory about how learning takes place are Ivan Pavlov, a Russian, and another American, John Watson. The theory‘s main principles are in the Table 1: 2  Table 1: The basic principles of Behaviorism. Principle Description Conditioning Learning is seen as a process of developing connections between events; connections between a stimulus and a response. This process is called conditioning. Habit An individual responds to a stimulus by behaving in formation a particular way. If the behavior is reinforced (i.e. rewards or punishment) then the likelihood of that behavior occurring on a subsequent occasion will be increased or decreased. As the behavior is reinforced, habits are formed. Importance Learning is a result of environmental rather than of the genetic factors. The child is born as a clean slate environment and the environment writes its messages on this clean slate. Behaviorist learning theory is at the basis of the Audio-lingual (AL) and the Audio-visual (AV) approaches to foreign language teaching and learning, whose main principles are listed below. Table 2: Main principles of Behaviorist approaches to foreign language teaching. Principle Description Primacy of AL considers speech as primary partly because speech it is the first medium that the child masters. Skills are taught in a specific order: Listening and speaking then reading/writing Stimulus- Learners are taught the language in small, response- sequential steps (structures and then sentence reinforcement patterns). A small part of the language is presented as a stimulus, to which the learner responds by repeating or by substituting. This is followed by reinforcement by the teacher. By repeating the learner develops habits. Learning a language is seen as acquiring a set of appropriate mechanical habits and errors are frowned upon because they lead to the 3  development of ―bad‖ habits. The role of the teacher is to develop in learners good language habits. Inductive Because learning is a question of habit learning formation rather than problem solving, any type of explanation is consistently avoided. It is a last resort and always occurs in the final stage, when the language item has been well practiced and the appropriate habit acquired. Cognitivism and ELT Frequently, mentalist (or, otherwise, rationalist) views about language, language acquisition and knowledge come in sharp contrast with views developed in cognitive studies, despite the fact that they are both concerned with the mental faculties of humans. The mentalist movement in Linguistics found expression in views expressed by Noam Chomsky (1957, 1966) about the innate capacity that human beings have to learn language. The mentalists‘ stress on one‘s innate capacity to learn comes in conflict with empirical views, which are an important part of cognitive studies, cognitive psychology in particular. Cognitivist views often stress the importance of the social environment or individuals‘ experiences and present knowledge and learning not as the accumulation of facts, nor as the development of skills, but as a body of ideas that we come to have through socialization and education, as an awareness people develop about what something is, how it operates and to what effect. Learning occurs as a life-long process. Our mind is constantly seeking a balance between what is already known and experienced and what is currently being learned and experienced. 4 Table 3: Main principles of Cognitivist approaches to foreign language teaching. Principle Description Understanding how It is of utmost importance to understand language works how language works to convey or create meaning(s) in speech and writing – whether meaning is understood as autonomous or socially situated. When the language learner knows about the language (form, meaning [and use]), s/he will be able to use it meaningfully. Learning is both By working with language, coming into inductive and deductive contact with texts and exercising with particular elements of language to be taught and learnt (i.e., experiencing them), the learner comes to understand how it works and may be asked to articulate that understanding or simply to exhibit the knowledge acquired by putting it into practice. However, since knowledge is linguistically mediated and is frequently passed on by others, the learning process requires the transmission of knowledge about how the language operates; therefore, rules of language use and/or usage are explained, before or after language practice. Sequential learning Since learning is often considered to be a linear process, teaching is usually organized so as to move from easy to difficult; i.e., from that which is linguistically and cognitively easier to understand, to that which is considered harder. Spiral learning processes, however, are not excluded in which case the organization of knowledge to be transmitted is based on other factors. Humanism and ELT 5 Humanist psychology emphasizes the importance of the inner world of individuals, of their thoughts but especially of their feelings and emotions. These are aspects of the learning process which are considered of immense importance in human learning which, in order to be effective, must involve all our cognitive faculties (right and left hemisphere brain operations) and the person as a whole – mind, body and soul. If learning is to be effective, according to humanist theories, it must involve all five senses of the learner: sight, touch, hearing, smell, even taste. Furthermore, as Carl Rogers, one of the fathers of humanist psychology argued, significant learning will take place only when the subject matter is perceived to be of personal relevance to learners and it involves their active participation. Promoting a type of experiential learning, Rogers and other humanists rightfully claim that learning which involves feelings as well as cognition is more likely to be lasting and pervasive. The humanist movement of the modern era, a cultural product of individualist social structures, claiming coherence and construing the human subject as a unified whole, has come to an end in a postmodernist era that has emphasized human beings‘ multiple subjectivities. However, the search for a unified self is still a dominant social pursuit and humanist concepts – especially those associated with the work of another humanist psychologist Jerome Bruner, i.e., discovery-learning – are still important pursuits in general and foreign language education. Humanistic methods that developed for foreign language teaching and learning are:  The Silent Way, where the learner remains silent most of the times and the teacher motivates the learner into progressively greater production 6   Community language learning, where a parallel is made between teaching and psychotherapeutic counseling, attention given to translation from L1 and syllabus development occurs as teaching progresses.  Total physical response, where a strong link is made between physical actions and learning  Suggestopedia, where music therapy plays a central role in the learning process and where the teacher has an authority role. Beyond the particular methods referred to above, a humanistic approach to language teaching and learning means, according to J.T. Roberts (1998: 158), ―language teaching respecting the integrity of learners, Suggestopedia, where music therapy plays a central role in allowing for personal growth and responsibility,thetaking psychological learning process and where the teacher has an authority and affective factors into account, and representing role. ‗whole person learning‘.‖ Much earlier, Gertrude Moskovitz (1978) had published a book promoting ‗humanistic‘ language teaching and learning in the foreign language class. The basic characteristics of such approach are listed below: Table 4: Main characteristics of Humanistic teaching.  Facilitating achievement to learners‘ full potential.  Recognizing the importance of learners‘ feelings for the learning process and outcome.  Recognizing the importance of establishing positive relationships with all members of the class.  Striving for learners‘ affective and cognitive growth.  Recognizing the importance of discovering things about oneself during the learning process and developing a growing self-esteem. 7 In some of the humanist approaches as well as the Natural Approach the teacher‘s discourse is supposed to be accommodating to learners and therefore have all the characteristics of what we know as ‗teacher talk‘. Intentionally sounding like adults who care about their children improving their linguistic competence, language teachers should provide input to learners with what is often called caretaker talk –a feature of teaching which is discouraged by many other approaches to foreign language teaching and learning. Here are some features of caretaker talk:  A slower rate of speech, high pitched voice, carefully pronounced words and exaggerated intonation.  Shorter simpler sentence patterns and frequent repetitions and paraphrase.  Topics of discussion are limited to the learner‘s immediate environment (the here and now).  Error correction is limited to correction of meaning including errors in vocabulary choice (like when children are acquiring their mother tongue and adults repeat the content of their utterances but with grammatically correct sentences). Interactionism and ELT Those in favor of the Interactionist movement in psychology –the movement in which proposed group therapy as an antidote to individual support therapy and psychoanalysis– argued that people learn (language or anything else) by carrying out their own personal experiments, constructing hypotheses and actively seeking to confirm or disconfirm them. Learners are actively involved in constructing their own personal understanding of things and this understanding will be different for 8 different people. Learners make sense of the world within a social context, through social interaction. Dick Allwright (1984) and Michael Long (1983) were supporters of the Interactionist approach, claiming that it is in the interaction process that the process of language acquisition/learning occurs. It is through the use of language and through what is a negotiation of meaning process that learning of language in particular is successful. Whether it is L1 or any additional language, Interactionist claim, learners acquire it by interacting, negotiating and conveying meanings purposefully in social situations. Some important features of the Interactionist approach to language teaching and are tightly relevant to the Communicative Approach.  Table 7: Main principles of Interactionist approaches to FL teaching.  The teacher must try to create a classroom atmosphere which is conducive to real communication.  Real communication involves learners who have a say in what is to be learnt (and how), during classroom interaction to which they have the right to make basic contributions.  In order for interactional modifications to occur in the classroom there must be a two-way flow of information where both the teacher and the learner have unknown information to exchange.  It is important to use activities that involve an information gap and have an obvious communicative purpose so that learners feel the need to communicate.  In order for learners to feel motivated to communicate they must be involved and interested in what is being talked about, in the activities being carried out. Furthermore, they should be given opportunities to initiate class activities. 9   Teachers must utilize contributions made by the learners. This will create in learners a feeling that their personality and what they have to say is accepted. Metacognition One more trend which is seen as important in enhancing the quality of student learning in foreign language education is the broad area of metacognition. Two areas of metacognition—metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive strategies have been extensively discussed in the literature on language learning in recent times. Brown sees an important role for teachers in enhancing metacognition. This is reflected in his call for ―explicit encouragement and support for reflection upon learning processes‖ (Brown 1994, 147). A better understanding of the concept of metacognitive knowledge, i.e. knowledge about learning, emerges from the work of Flavell (1979); Victori (1999); Victori and Lockhart (1995); and Wenden (1986, 1991, 1998, 1999). Learner beliefs, a subset of their metacognitive knowledge, has been a prominent theme in work done by Cotterall (1995, 1999) and Horwitz (1985, 1987, 1988), Carter (1999), Kern (1995), and Yang (1992). Raising learners‘ metacognitive awareness, by helping learners gain insight into what learning involves and insight into their own learning style is a pre-condition to the teaching of metacognitive strategies. Broady (1996), for example, contends that by helping raise learners‘ metacognitive awareness, teachers can help them learn how to use different learning resources and environments. It is also argued that many learners do not deploy metacognitive strategies because teachers often assume responsibility for managing their learning. In the following quotation, Weinstein and Rogers (1985, 10 cited in Wenden 1991, 13) discuss the implications of the teacher‘s management of the process of learning: "Teachers try to stay in tune with their students’ level of understanding by watching for subtle clues (e.g. facial expressions) and by stopping at appropriate times to ask questions in order to ascertain students’ weak spots". In other words, teachers are very often much more active in the learning process than are students. While this may result in very effective teaching strategies, these teaching behaviors do not necessarily help students gain independence by developing effective comprehension- monitoring strategies of their own. Successful students, however, learn to adopt active strategies for themselves, incorporating monitoring behaviors into their repertoire of learning skills. Less successful students apparently do not, continuing to rely on teachers for this function. Teaching learners to assume more responsibility for their learning must imply helping learners learn how to plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning. Learners who do not know how to deploy metacognitive strategies risk remaining dependent on their teachers to manage their learning. In teaching learners strategies to oversee and manage their learning, teachers act as facilitators of learning, becoming less ―sage on the stage‖ and more ―guide on the side‖ (Tella, 1996 cited in Warschauer 1997, 478). Learner Autonomy As important as each of these trends might be individually, it is their integration into an approach to language learning premised on making learners more autonomous that is likely to have a far greater impact on 11 method of teaching Greek and Latin. In grammar–translation classes, students learn grammatical rules and then apply those rules by translating sentences between the target language and the native language. Advanced students may be required to translate whole texts word-for-word. The method has two main goals: to enable students to read and translate literature written in the source language, and to further students' general intellectual development. It originated from the practice of teaching Latin; in the early 1500s, students learned Latin for communication, but after the language died out it was studied purely as an academic discipline. When teachers started teaching other foreign languages in the 19th century, they used the same translation-based approach as had been used for teaching Latin. The method has been rejected by scholars, and has no theoretical basis. The overall concept of grammar-translation has been criticized due to a lack of verifiable sources that supported the existence of such a method in the nineteenth century, or earlier. Aims There are two main goals to grammar–translation classes. One is to develop students' reading ability to a level where they can read literature in the target language. The other is to develop students' general mental discipline. Principles The users of foreign language wanted simply to note things of their interest in the literature of foreign languages. Therefore, this method focuses on reading and writing and has developed techniques which 15 facilitate more or less the learning of reading and writing only. As a result, speaking and listening are overlooked. Method Grammar–translation classes are usually conducted in the students' native language. Grammar rules are learned deductively; students learn grammar rules by rote, and then practice the rules by doing grammar drills and translating sentences to and from the target language. More attention is paid to the form of the sentences being translated than to their content. When students reach more advanced levels of achievement, they may translate entire texts from the target language. Tests often consist of the translation of classical texts. There is not usually any listening or speaking practice, and very little attention is placed on pronunciation or any communicative aspects of the language. The skill exercised is reading, and then only in the context of translation. Materials The mainstay of classroom materials for the grammar–translation method is the textbook. Textbooks in the 19th century attempted to codify the grammar of the target language into discrete rules for students to learn and memorize. Conclusion The method by definition has a very limited scope. Because speaking or any kind of spontaneous creative output was missing from the curriculum, students would often fail at speaking or even letter writing in the target language. 16 According to Richards and Rodgers, the grammar–translation has been rejected as a legitimate language teaching method by modern scholars. Though it may be true to say that the Grammar-Translation Method is still widely practiced, it has no advocates. It is a method for which there is no theory. There is no literature that offers a rationale or justification for it or that attempts to relate it to issues in linguistics, psychology, or educational theory. Despite all of these drawbacks, the grammar–translation method is still the most used method all over the world in language teaching. This is not surprising as most language proficiency books and tests are in the format of grammar–translation method; and hence the use of the method continues. The Direct Method The direct method of teaching, which is sometimes called the natural method, and is often (but not exclusively) used in teaching foreign languages, refrains from using the learners' native language and uses only the target language. The direct method was an answer to the dissatisfaction with the older grammar translation method, which teaches students grammar and vocabulary through direct translations and thus focuses on the written language. The direct method was established 17 in Germany and France around 1900 and contrasts with the grammar– translation method and other traditional approaches, as well as with C.J.Dodson's bilingual method. Direct method is a method of teaching language directly establishing a direct or immediate association between experience and expression, between the English word, phrase or idiom and its meaning through demonstration, dramatization without the use of the mother tongue Aims  Building a direct relation between experience and language, word and idea, thought and expression  Learning how to communicate in the target language  Experiencing the new language in the same way as one experiences his/her mother tongue Principles  Classroom instructions are conducted exclusively in the target language.  Only everyday vocabulary and sentences are taught during the initial phase; grammar, reading and writing are introduced in intermediate phase.  Oral communication skills are built up in a carefully graded progression organized around question-and-answer exchanges between teachers and students in small, intensive classes.  Grammar is taught inductively.  New teaching points are introduced orally. 18  Concrete vocabulary is taught through demonstration, objects, and pictures; abstract vocabulary is taught by association of ideas. Techniques  Question/answer exercise – the teacher asks questions of any type and the student answers.  Dictation – the teacher chooses a grade-appropriate passage and reads it aloud.  Reading aloud – the students take turn reading sections of a passage, play or a dialogue aloud.  Student self-correction – when a student makes a mistake the teacher offers him/her a second chance by giving a choice.  Conversation practice – the students are given an opportunity to ask their own questions to the other students or to the teacher. This enables both a teacher-learner interaction as well as a learner-learner interaction.  Paragraph writing – the students write a passage in their own words Merits  Facilitating understanding of language – understanding of the target language becomes easier due to the inhibition of the linguistic interferences from the mother tongue, it establishes a direct bond between contexts, and helps in understanding directly what is heard and read  Improving fluency of speech – fluency of speech results in easier writing, it tends to improve expression, expression in writing, and it is a quick way of learning and expanding vocabulary  Developing listening, speaking, reading and writing 19  Helping in bringing words from passive vocabulary into active vocabulary  Helping in proceeding the English language from particular to general, it bridges the gap between practice and theory Demerits  Ignoring systematic written work and reading activities  Failing to meet the needs of higher-level classes where the translation method is more suitable  Ignoring reading and writing aspects of language learning  Disregarding the teaching of grammar systematically  Time-consuming in creating real life situations  Less suitable for slow learners, who struggle with this method The Reading Method This method is selected for practical and academic reasons. The approach is for people who do not travel abroad for whom reading is the one usable skill in a foreign language. The priority in studying the target language is first, reading ability and second, current and/or historical knowledge of the country where the target language is spoken. Only the grammar necessary for reading 20