TEACHING METHOD

AFFECTIVE PRINCIPLE

As human beings learn to use a second language, they also develop a new mode of thinking, feeling, and acting a second identity. The new “language ego,” intertwined with the second language, can easily create within the learner a sense of fragility, a defensiveness, and a raising of inhibitions.

Language Ego

The language Ego Principle can be summarized in a well- recognized claim :

1. Overly display a supportive attitude to your students. Your “warm and fuzzy” patience and emphaty need to be openly and clearly communicated, for fragile language egos have a way of misinterpreting intended input.2. On a more mechanical, lesson-planning level, your choice of techniques and sequences of techniques needs to be cognitively challenging but not over-whelming at an affective level.

Here are some possibilities :

who to call on who to ask to volunteer information how much to explain something how structured and planned and activity should be who to place in which be with a student how “tough” you can be with a student

4. If your students are learning English as a second language (in the cultural milieu of an English-speaking country), they are likely to experience a moderate identity crisis as they develop a “second self”.

3. Considering learner’s language ego states will probably help you to determine

Self-Confidence

Learners’ belief that they indeed are fully capable of accomplishing a task is at least partially a factor in their eventual success in attaining the task.

Risk-Taking

Successful language learners, in their realistic appraisal of themselves as a vurnerable beings yet capable of accomplishing tasks, must be willing to become “gamblers” in the game of language, to attempt to produce and interpret language that is a bit beyond their absolute certainty.

1. Create an atmosphere in the classroom that encourages students to try ou language, to vwnture a response, and not to wait for someone else to volunteer language. 2. Provide reasonable challenges in your techniques-make them neither too easy nor too hard.3. Help your students to understand what calculated risk- taking is, lest some feel that they must blurt out any old response. 4.Respond to students’ risky attempts with positive affirmation, praising them for trying while at the same time warmly bet firmly attending to their language.

The Language-Culture Connection

Whenever you teach a language, you also teach a complex system of cultural

customs, values, and ways of thinking, feelings, and acting.

Classroom applications include the following :

1. Discuss cross-cultural differences with your students, emphasizing that no culture is “better” than another,

but that cross-cultural understanding is an important facet of learning a

language.

2. Include among your techniques certain activities and materials that illustrate the connection between

language and culture.

3. Teach your students the cultural connotations, especially the

sosiolinguistic aspect, of language.

4. Screen your techniques for material that may be culturally offensive.

5. Make explicit to your students what you may take for granted in your own

culture.

Thank you&

Have a nice day(^_^)