12 principles form the theoretical basis of language learning and teaching

8/13/2019 12 Principles Form the Theoretical Basis of Language Learning and Teaching

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12 principles form the theoretical basis of

language learning and Teaching (PLLT).

Teaching by principles

Cognitive

1. Automaticity

2. Meaningful learning3. Anticipation of Reward

4. Intrinsic motivation

5. Strategic investment

6. Autonomy

Socio-affective

1. Language ego

2. Willingness to communicate (WTC)

3. Language-culture connection

Linguistic

1. The native language effect2. Interlanguage

3. Communicative competence (CC)

III Socio-cultural Factors

We tend to perceive reality within the context

of our own culture, and we have a tendency to

believe that our own reality is the correct

perception, but perception is always

subjective. Context influences teaching and

learning because language is a part of a

culture, and culture is a part of a language,

they are intrinsically interwoven. Culture is

very important for SLA because SLA is also the

acquisition of a second culture

Having a positive attitudetoward self, the

native language group, and the target

language group enhances proficiency. SL

learners benefit from positive attitudes.

Negative attitudes can deteriorate motivation

for learning a second language. Teachers

should be aware that everyone can have both

positive and negative attitudes, which can be

changed. We are also very prone to

stereotypesand generalizations toward a

certain culture, and learners and teachers of

SL should try to understand cultural

differences, and be aware of the fact that

people are not all the same, and that culturaldifferences are a treasure.

Many students of FL learn the language with

little or no sense of the depth of cultural

norms, but, culture learning is a process that

continues over the years and eventually SLA

can lead to the acquisition of a new identity

and acculturation. Learners can in that case

experience culture shockwhen an intrusion of

more and more cultural differences occurs

and the learner feels homeless lost. Seeks

help with fellow countrymen, but after that

full recovery follows.

Social distancerefers to the cognitive and the

affective proximity of two cultures that come

into contact. Schuman hypothesisstates that

the greater the social distance between the 2

cultures, the greater is the difficulty the

learner have in learning the second language.

(Social distance consists of dominancel2

group is more economically, politically

dominant than Tl, Integration, Cohesivenes

the size of L2 group, Congruenceare the

cultures of two groups similar in their value

system, Permanencewhat is the L2 grop's

intendend lenght of residence in TL area)Criticism of this theory states that Actual

social distance is perceived!, Learners can

achieve proficiency if they learn how to

balance their critical attitudes.

Teachers in teaching SL should use techniques

that promote cultural understanding (the use

of role play, reading, films, simulation games

Teachers should be aware of 4 conceptual

categories to study cultural norms withintheir classroom: 1. Individualism vs.

Collectivism (students that belong to

collectivist societies speak in class only when

they are called upon, or in small groups, more

closed as opposed to members of individualist

societies, collectivist societies tightly

integrated, individualist society loosely

integrated) 2. Power distance (it refers to how

much one culture tolerates the inequality in

power of the other and consider it normal), 3.

Uncertainty avoidance (a characteristic of


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culture which shows the extent to which

people within a culture are made nervous by

situations which they perceive as

unpredictablestrong uncertainty avoidance

cultures are active, aggressive, emotional,

intolerantweakless aggressive, more

tolerant) 4. Masculinity vs. Femininity

Language policy and politics

Language and society are affected by the

political ramifications of language and

language policy. Every country has some form

of explicit official, or implicit unofficial

policy affecting the status of its native

language and foreign languages.

Internal and external language policy factors:

Language-in-education policy, Access policy,

Personnel policy, Curriculum policy,

Methodology and material policy,Resource

policy ,Community policy,Evaluation policy

Institutional factors

Educational culture, Institutional constraints

World Englishes and EILThere are controversies about the status of

English and its varieties, eg. Learning English in

India really does not involve taking on a new

culture since one is acquiring Indian English

which has very few British cultural attributes,

if any. This is called

indianization/nativization of English and it

has spread to an OUTER CIRCLE of countries

that includes India, Singapore, Nigeria.. (

English is commonly learned by children at

school age and is a medium for most of their

education)

The traditional dichotomy NS/NNSis

linguistically questionable particularly when

discussing the functions of English in

multilingual societies. Instead oft his

distinction, we Should view English in terms of

a broad range of functions and the degree of

its penetration into a countrys society.

There has been a global spread of English and

the propagation of English as medium of

education, commerce, government. The result

of this is the issue of Linguistic imperialism-

Linguiscismwhich refers to the criticism that

English is devaluing native languages through

its colonial spread. Teachers should have the

highest respect for the languages and cultures

of their students. There should be a

preservation of diversity. Linguistic

imperialism and language rights: 1988

European Charter for Regional and Minority

Languages. UN - Universal Declaration of

Linguistic rights.

Language - context

Degree of willingness of students to

participate

(collectivism/individualism).,Uncertainty

avoidance and the comfort zone. Gender

issues. Background experiences of the teacher

and students. Institutional constraints.

Expectations of parents. Expectations of the

broader context.

PERSONALITY FACTORS

There is an importance of examining

personality factors in building a theory of SLA

because Sociocultural factors impact language

learning in various aspects

1. Self esteemno successful cognitive or

affective activity can be carried out without

some degree of self esteem, self-confidence

or belief in own capacities. It can occur on 3

levels: globally. sitational and task. Self

esteem appears to be an important variable in

SLA particularly in view of cross-cultural

factors of SL learning. Self-esteem enables

willingness to communicate which is very

important for SL. Self Esteem and language

success are both interacting factors andteachers can have a positive and influential


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effect on both the linguistic performance and

self-esteem in students.

2.Inhibitionset of defenses to protect one's

ego, language egovery potential, egoistic

nature of SLA, learners take on a new identityas they learn language, an adaptive language

ego may lower the inhibitions that impede

success. There is a direct relationship between

inhibition and pronunciation ability in SL.

Teachers should create a context in which

students are made to feel free to take risks, SL

learning presupposes the making of mistakes

we test our language by trial and errors.

3. Risktakingimportant characteristic ofsuccessful learning of SL, learners have to be

able to gamble a bit, willing to try out hunches

about the language, Risk- taking can be

impeded because of a bad grade, fail on the

exam, reproach from the teacher, fear of

looking ridiculous.. To impede these fears,

learners should feel comfortable while using

SL in the classroom, teachers should create a

climate of acceptance and self-confidence.

4. Anxietyfeeling of uneasiness, frustration..

Components of foreign language anxiety are

the learners inability to adequately express

mature thoughts and ideas, fear of negative

social evaluation, test anxiety. There is a

distinction between Debilitative anxiety

(harmful), and Facilitative anxiety (helpful

some concern over a task to be accomplished

is a positive factor, a key to success

5. Empathyputting yourself into someone

else's shoesvery important for cross

cultural empathy

6. Extroversionin classroom teachers

usually admire the talkative student who

participates freely in discussions, whereas

introverts are sometimes thought as not being

as bright as extroverts, extroverts actually

need other people in order to feel good, they

can be shy also, and introverts can have an

inner strength that extroverts don't have.

Teachers need to consider cultural norms in

their assessment of a student's presumed

passivity in the classroom.

MyersBriggs character types:1.Introversion vs. Extroversion, 2. Sensing vs.

Intuition (how we perceive the world around

us, 3. Thinking vs. Feeling (ways of arriving at

conclusions) 4. Judging vs. Perceivingone's

attitude towards the outer world

7. Motivationthe fulfillment of needs is

rewarding, typically examined in terms of the

intrinsic and extrinsic motives. Intrinsic

motivationno apparent reward except theactivity itself, more powerful motivation.

Extrinsic motivationfor a reward from the

outside world (money, prizes, grades) This

motivation are applicable to a foreign

language classrooms around the world. We

challenge the situations (Krashen i+1) In SLA:

Instrumental orientation/motivationrefers

to the acquiring language as a means for

attaining instrumental goals (furthering a

career) Integrative orientation/motivation

describes learners who wish to integrate

themselves into the culture of SL group

What are learning strategies?

Specific actions, behaviours, steps or

techniques that students use to improve their

progress in developing L2. Frequently used

techniques for assessing students' L2

strategiesinclude informal or formal

interviews, group discussions, language

learning diaries, dialogue journals between

student and teacher, open-ended surveys.

Observational methods are difficult because

many strategies are internal and cannot be

observed.Learning strategies represent the

learner's input, processing of the language

and communication strategies represent the

outputhow we express meaning. Strategies

contribute tu the communicative competence.


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While using strategies learners develeop self-

direction. L2 learners use: Affective strategies

(anxiety reduction through laughter,

mediation, self-encouragement),Social

(asking questions, cooperating with the native

speakers of the language), Metacognitive

(paying attention, planning language tasks,

monitoring errors) Memory related(grouping,

imagery, rhyming), General cognitive

(reasoning, analyzing, summarizing,

practicing), Compensatory( quessing

meanings from the context, usnig synonyms,

gestures to convey meaning). Some of the

benefits o using strategies are that learnes are

willing to guess accurately, want tocommunicate, are unhibited about mistakes,

monitor their own speech. less successful

learners use translation, memorization and

repetition, and although both less successful

and successful learners use the same amount

of strategies, less successful learners apply

them in a random manner without connecting

strategies and task. ESL teachers can help their

students to recognize the power of

consciously using language learning strategies

to make learning quicker, easier and more

effective and fun. They can do it by means of

diaries, surveys or interviews. Strategy training

can help students make effective use of

multiple strategies.teachers can help

students to become aware of their own style

preferences through checklists, tests,

interviews, teachers use techniques such as

communicative games, rapid reading, fluency

exercises and in this way help their students

to practice successful strategies. Strategic

techniqueslower inhibitions (playing guessing

games, role plays..), encourage risk taking

(fluency exercises where errors are not

corrected) build student's self conidence (tell

students that you do believe in them, a list of

their strenghts, positive use of the language),

help develop intrinsic motivation (remind

learners about the rewards for learningenglish), promote coooperative learning(direct

students to share their knowledge,

competition games)help them to use

intuition, help them to set their own goals.

Learning styles

How we learn a set of facts from a unique

perspective. Every person, student and

teacher alike, has a learning style and learning

strengths and weaknesses. We can divide

them according to:perceptual learnig styles:

Sensory preferences: Visual (prefer lectures,

oral instructions, conversations), Auditory

(working with tapes), Kinesthetic(movement

oriented) Tactile(touch oriented).

Field independet styleability to perceice a

particular, relevant item in a field of

distracting items, enables you to distinguish

parts from whole, to concentrate on sth, too

much FI is not good, we have to be able to see

the relationships also: Field dependent style,

the ability to get the big picture. Both FI and

FD are necessary for most of the cognitice and

effective problems we face.

Field-independent learnersare:task-oriented,

set their own paths in life cool in their

interaction with othersmore analytical and

need less teacher directioncompetitive and

self-confident, concentrate on the details of

language, such as grammar rules, and enjoy

playing with words and sentences, attention

to its parts, they are sometimes unable to see

the big picture.

Field-dependent learnersare: dependent on

external structure, favoring interpersonal

relations. socialized, empathic and sensitive to

the feelings of other people, more interested

in conveying an idea than is grammatical

correctness, focus on the whole picture and

do not care so much about the details,

successful at learning the communicative

aspect of a second language (may neglect

accuracy).


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Left brain/Right Brain: Left Brain

intellectual, remembers names, responds to

verbal instructions, experiments

systematically, makes objective judgements,

reliance on language in thinking, prefers

talking and writing, controles feelings. Right

brainIntuitive, remembers aces, responds to

illustrated instructions, makes subjective

judgements, reliance on image sin thinking,

prefers drawing and manipulating objects

Ambiguity toleranceopen minded, close

minded, SL learner needs tolerance of

ambiguities such as words that differ from the

natice language, inconsistent rules, whole

diferent cultural systems

Reflective vs. impulsive learners

Impulsive quickly and impulsively, come to a

decision quickly or provide a response

spontaneously and intuitively may seem to be

better learners.the impulsive learner will

take more risks and guess at answers more

readilylearners with impulsive learning styles

pass through various semigrammatical stages

of interlanguage

Reflective- slowly after considerable

reflection,arrive at decisions after careful

deliberation,wrongly labeled as insecure and

slow. will answer a question only after careful

thought,teacher needs to give reflective

students enough time,feel insecure and raise

the affective filter,reflective learners remain

longer at a particular stage and take larger

leaps from one stage to another.

Personality types: introverted vs.

extroverted, intuitive vs. sensing, thinking vs

feeling, judging vs. open, Global/ Holistic

studentslike socially interactive,

communicative events in which they can

emphasize the main idea, avoid grammar,

Analytic studentstend to concentrate on

grammar. Biological differences(Biorhytms,

sustenance(food), location

Learnes must extend themselves beyond

their preferences,By providing a wide range

of classroom activities, teachers can help L2

students develop beyond the comfort zone

dictated by their nature style preferences.

Teachers can actively help their students

stretch their learning styles by trying some

strategies that are outside of their primary

style preferences. Intentionally used,

controlled strategies can improve movement

toward a language goal. Nunan: language

classrooms should have a dual focus:a) teach

language content but also b) develop learning

processes

Course book evaluation

A course book can help the teacher by

providing: Clearly thought out

program,Sequenced and structured revisio,

Wide range of materials and

activities,Security,Economy of preparation

time, Source of practical teaching ideas, Work

that the learners can do on their own, A basis

for homework, A basis for comparison with

other teachers

Reasons for and against using a course book

3: A course book can help the learner by

providing : 1.A secure teacher because of all

the above 2. A sense of purpose and progress

3.Scope for independent study and

autonomous learning 4. A reference for

checking and revising

The things a teacher can do better than the

course book: 1.Provide comprehensible input

of spoken language 2. Adjust work in reaction

to the learners 3.Use communication other

than words and pictures 4. Set up learner

activities which encourage learners to talk and

profit from each other, 5. Cater to different

learning styles and learner levels

Against using a coursebook

Inadequacy - different learning needs,

different levels


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Context,Teacher, Students,Number of

students,Hours,Level,Needs,Institutional

constraints, Requirements, Learning

outcomes, Assessment

Modes of curriculum designThe content model: Classical humanism

The objectives model: Reconstructionism

The process model: Progressivism

New pragmatisma mixed focus curriculum

Curriculum policy: needs of learners,

institution, needs of society, needs of

teachers, needs of implementers of

curriculum.

Needs analysis:

Syllabus design: course content and

procedures will be expressed in the form of

goals of learning objectives within

language teaching

Syllabus design influence:

How languages are learnedstructure based

syllabus

View of how language is acquiredprocess

based syllabus

View of how language is usedfunction basedsyllabus

Methodology: syllabus depends on

interaction: teacher- learner - classroom

Evaluation: must take place at all stages of

curriculum planning and implementation and

involve all participants. To determine whether

curriculum goals have been met.

Course design -Defining thecontext,Articulating beliefs, Conceptualizing

content, Formulating goals and objectives,

Assessing needs, Organizing the course,

Developing materials, Adapting a textbook,

Designing an assessment plan

Course in which everything is pre-planned is

doomed to fail

Courses are work in progress which will

change once the course is under wayNever complete, never perfect,Students are

not machines, If everything is so defined then

we are creating a teacher-centered

environment in which the learners are just

pawns to be moved on the game-board

Plan the course-teach it-evaluate it- re-plan it

based on the evaluation- teach it again in the

replanned version

It must be emphasized that course design is

not a linear process, but a flow chart, in which

there is no hierarchy in the process, and no

sequence in their accomplishment (Graves,

2000, p.3).

12 principles form the theoretical basis of language learning and teaching

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