English Teaching Methodology Package
By Claire Chia-hsing Pan
Department of Applied Foreign Languages,
Shu-te University
Fall, 2005
Introduction to English Teaching Methodology
Syllabus
Part I: a general picture of English teaching/learning
1. Why learning, why English, and why learning English?
2. What makes a good learner/teacher of English?
3. How to describe learning and teaching
4. Recent issues concerning English teaching and learning
Part II: Theories of language acquisition
1. Human learning
2. First Language Acquisition
3. Second Language Acquisition
4. Factors of learning success: neuro-linguistic, cognitive, linguistic, affective, and socio-cultural considerations
Part III: Practice
1. Introduction of important terminology of TESOL
2. Development of English Teaching Methodology
3. Curriculum design
4. Teaching the four and sub-skills
5. Language testing
Reference books:(1, 2, 3 & 4 有中譯本; 1-4 a must)
1. Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching, Diane Larsen-Freeman, Oxford University Press.(英語教學法大全 敦煌代理)
2. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, H. Douglas Brown, Prentice Hall Regents.（第二與教學最高指導原則 東華代理）
3. Teaching by Principles, H. Douglas Brown, Prentice Hall Regents.（原則導向教學法 東華代理）
4. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, Jack C. Richards & Theordore S. Rodgers, Cambridge University Press.
5. An introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research. Diane Larsen-Freeman & Michael H. Long
6. The Practice of English Language Teaching, Jeremy Harmer, Longman, Ltd.
7. Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language.Celce-Murcia, M. H&H
8. Second Language Teaching & Learning. David Nunan. (1995). H& H.
9. Teaching Language in Context. Alice Omaggio Hadley (2001) Hieinle & Heinle.
10. How Languages are Learned.(1999) Patsy M. Lightbown & Nina Spada. Oxford University Press.
Contact me just in case you have any problems:
my website: home.kimo.com.tw/chiahsingpan
(ESL glossary) http://bogglesworld.com/glossary.htm
(Definition) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Part I: A general picture of English teaching/learning
1. Why learning, why learning a second/foreign language, and why English?
1.1 (1) a behavioristic view: focus on external rewards to reinforce behaviors (the M& M theory); motivation as the anticipation of reinforcement
(2) a cognitive view: drive theory (motivation stems from basic innate drives); Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (from low to high levels) (Book 3 p.74)
Physiological-< safety-> love (belongingness)-> esteem (self-esteem and attention from others)-> self-actualization (to become everything that one is capable of becoming); human beings are motivated by unsatisfied needs, and that certain lower needs need to be satisfied before higher needs can be satisfied. People are basically trustworthy, self-protecting, and self-governing. Humans tend toward growth and love. Humans are motivated to satisfy those deficiency needs toward growth and self-actualization; self-control theory (focus on the importance of people deciding for themselves what to think or feel or do-> the need for autonomy)
1.2 English as a global language: cultural imperialism or intermixing? (Book 6)
the place of English: as a lingua franca
the number of English speakers: 600-700 million speak English; in Asia alone, 100 million children are learning English.
How English got there: a colonial history, economics (globalization), travel, information exchange (academic discourse; the Internet), popular culture (music, movies)
Varieties of English: inner circle, outer circle, and expanding circle; for specific or general purposes
1.3 Reasons of learning a 2nd/foreign language and what goals of it
1.3.1 Academic: to pursue degrees or certificates (* only a small portion in fact)
1.3.2 Non-academic:
(a) to survive in Target Language community e.g. talking to neighbors, helping children at school, or carrying out daily functions effectively
(b) English for specific purpose (ESP): to learning the lg as to apply in work
(c) Culture: to know about the target community
1.3.3 Miscellaneous: to learn for pleasure, for integrating into a culture or to be forced to
* To understand students’ need and motivation of learning a language is crucial for successful learning and teaching.
1.4 Goals of learning
1.4.1 Performance-oriented goals: to look smart
1.4.2 Mastery-oriented goals: to become smart
1.4.3 Short-term goals: extrinsic goals (immediate needs)
1.4.4 Long-term goals: intrinsically motivated; to get a better job, higher social status, a more successful life
2. What makes a good learner/teacher of English?
2.1 A Good learner of English is
2.1.1 Willing to experiment
2.1.2 Willing to listen
2.1.3 Willing to ask questions
2.1.4 Willing to think about how to learn
2.1.5 Independent/responsible
Neil Naman included a tolerance of ambiguity as a feature of good learning as well as positive task orientation (being prepared to approach tasks in a positive fashion), ego involvement (where success is important for a students’ self-image), high aspirations, goal orientations, and perseverance.
J.Rubin and I. Thompson also listed the following characteristics.
2.2 good language learners are (Rubin, 1975)
2.1.1 willing and accurate guesser
2.1.2 willing to communicate
2.1.3 not inhibited
2.1.4 prepared to attend to form
2.1.5 practicing
2.1.6 monitoring their own and others’ speech
2.1.7 attending to meaning
Different cultures however value different learning behaviors. Teachers should demand students act in class in certain ways, whatever their learning background. Besides, learner personalities and styles also have a place. Understanding them is virtually important to optimize learning effect. Learners styles according to Tony Wright include the enthusiast, the oracular, the participator, and the rebel.(Book 6, p.42). Keith Willing described learner styles as convergers, conformists, concrete learners and communicative learners.
2.3 nine characteristics of good ESL teachers by Harold B. Allen, 1980
2.3.1 competent preparation leading to a degree in TESL
2.3.2 a love of the English language
2.3.3 critical thinking
2.3.4 the persistent urge to upgrade oneself
2.3.5 self-subordination
2.3.6 readiness to go the extra mile
2.3.7 cultural adaptability
2.3.8 professional citizenship
2.3.9 a feeling of excitement about one’s work
*good language-teaching characteristics (Teaching by Principles, p.430) in terms of technical knowledge, pedagogical skills, interpersonal skills, and personal qualities
2.4 A good teacher of English:
2.4.1 An ability to give interesting classes
2.4.2 Using the full range of their personality
2.4.3 The desire to empathize with students
2.4.4 Treating them all equally
2.4.5 Knowing their names
2.4.6 Giving staged and comprehensible input
2.4.7 Providing the need for variety within a secure setting
2.4.8 Responding flexibly
2.5 elements for successful language learning in classrooms: exposure, practice and use; elements for successful language learning in general: exposure, motivation and opportunities for use
* a common classroom procedure: 3P (influenced by Audiolingualism) (Book 6 78-84)
Presentation: The teacher introduces a situation which contextualizes the language to be taught and then present the language.
Practice: The students then practice the language using accurate reproduction techniques such as choral repetition, individual repetition, and cue-response drills.
Production: The students use the new language and make sentences of their own.
3 What is learning and what is teaching? (Book 2, p.7)
3.1 Learning is acquisition or getting,
Learning is retention of information or skill.
Retention implies storage systems, memory, cognitive organization.
Learning involves active, conscious focus on and acting upon events outside or inside the organism.
Learning is relatively permanent but subject to forgetting.
Learning involves some form of practice, perhaps reinforced practice.
Learning is a change in behavior.
3.2 Teaching is guiding and facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learn, setting the conditions for learning. Your understanding of how the learner learns will determine your philosophy of education, your teaching style, your approach, methods and classroom techniques. Your theory of teaching is your theory of learning stood on its head.
4.Current related issues of TESOL (Refer to a CET article by Richards, 2004)
http://cet.cavesbooks.com.tw/htm/m0520111.htm
Related issues of Children English Learning
(1) Current situations of a nine-year consecutive curriculum of primary and secondary education;
(2) Advantages children benefit from in learning a foreign language:
(a )children’s greater potential for developing accurate pronunciation, accent and fluency before puberty
(b )children’s favorable attitude towards a language and its culture, either their mother tongue or a second language.
(c) Children’s less mental barriers of learning than adults
(d) Children’s learning two languages simultaneously without suffering from inter-lingual interference
(e) Listening along with speaking, a preliminary and preferable role in the natural order of language acquisition for children
But “learners of different ages have different characteristics” is more preferable than the critical hypothesis. Besides, accurate pronunciation is not the most important goal of language learning but a necessary or desirable goal. There are also other factors that determine the effectiveness of one’s language learning such as teacher’s language competence, the learning environment and so on.
Part II: Theories of language acquisition
1. Human Learning (Book 2, Chapter 4): (1) and (2) representing a behavioristic viewpoint, (3) for a rational/cognitive stance, and (4) for a constructivist school of thought
1.1 Classical Behaviorism by Pavlov: respondent conditioning that is concerned with respondent behavior that is elicited by a preceding stimulus
1.2 Operant Conditioning by Skinner: operant behavior is one in which one operates on the environment; a concern about the consequences that follow the response; the operant is emitted by the consequence of itself.
1.3 Meaningful Learning Theory by David Ausubel: learning takes place in a meaningful process of relating new events or items to already existing cognitive concepts
1.3.1 any learning situation can be meaningful if learners have a meaningful learning set and the learning task itself is potentially meaningful to the learners
1.3.2 a meaningfully learned, subsumed item has greater potential for retention
1.3.3 forgetting is a second stage of subsumption (納入整合過程) for
an economical reason through cognitive pruning （刪除） where a single inclusive/global (廣泛全面的) concept than a large number of more specific items is retained （記憶）
language attrition （語言削弱）to focus on the possible causes for the loss of second language skills: the strength and conditions of initial learning; lack of an integrative orientation; rare use of a L2
subtractive bilingualism (減弱性雙語政策): members of a minority group learn the language of the majority group and the latter group downgrades speakers of the minority language(see additive bilingualism)
1.3.4 strengths of the subsumption theory: the disadvantage of rote memory in language learning; systematic forgetting; shift of the goal to communicative competence
1.4 Humanistic Psychology mainly by Rogers: constructivism by highlighting the social and interactive nature of learning in the affective domain
1.4.1 the whole person as a physical, cognitive, but primarily emotional being
1.4.2 learning how to learn-> fully functioning persons
1.4.3 teachers as facilitators of learning through the establishment of interpersonal relationships with learners and genuine trust and empathy
1.4.4 establishment of a climate of nondefensive learning
1.4.5 empowerment of students (students are allowed to negotiate learning
outcomes, to cooperate with teachers and other learners, to engage in critical thinking, and to relate everything they do in the school to their reality outside the classroom), not banking (filling students by making deposits of information) (by Paolo Freire)
Behavioristic / Cognitive / Constructivistclassical: (Pavlov)
respondent conditioning
elicited response
S->R
operant: (Skinner)
governed by consequences （由結果主宰）
emitted response (發出回應)
R-> S (reward)
No punishment
Programmed instruction (編序教學) / (Ausubel)
meaningful=powerful
rote=weak
subsumption （歸入） of new items under a more inclusive conceptual system
association （聯結） and retention
systematic forgetting （系統性的遺忘）
cognitive pruning （認知性的刪除） / (Rogers)
fully functioning person （全功能的人）
learn how to learn
community of learners （學習者的共同生活）
empowerment（權力的賦予）
1.5 Transfer, interference, and overgeneralization
1.5.1 A more correct explication: The interaction of previously learned material with a present learning event
1.5.2 Transfer: positive transfer and negative transfer (interference, usually L1-> L2, & overgeneralization L1-> L1 or L2 -> L2)
1.5.3 All generalizing involves transfer and all transfer involves generalizing.
Transfer is a general term describing the carryover of previous performance or knowledge to subsequent learning. Positive transfer occurs when the prior knowledge benefits the learning task--that is, when a previous item is correctly applied to present subject matter. Negative transfer occurs when previous performance disrupts the performance of a second task. The latter can be referred to as interference, in that previously learned material interferes with subsequent material--a previous item is incorrectly transferred or incorrectly associated with an item to be learned (Brown 2000). Over-generalization takes place within L1 or L2 or between the two.
1.6 Inductive and deductive reasoning
1.6.1 Inductive reasoning: one stores a number of specific instances and induces a general rule or conclusion that governs the specific instances (e.g. classroom learning)
1.6.2 Deductive reasoning: a movement from a generalization to specific instances
1.6.3 Gestalt learning: perception of the whole before the parts (against structuralism)
完形」心理學認為人類對於任何視覺圖像的認知，是一種經過知覺系統組織後的形態與輪廓，而並非所有各自獨立部份的集合。易言之，「完形」心理學的基本理論認為：「部份之總和不等於整體，因此整體不能分割；整體是由各部份所決定。反之，各部份也由整體所決定」。由此一觀念推論，人們在欣賞一幅圖畫或一張攝影作品時，畫面裡的每一個部份形成了各自獨立之視覺元素，如果想讓觀者留下深刻的視覺認知，元素與元素之間必須彼此產生某種形式之關連。人類的認知系統，如何把原本各自獨立的局部訊息串聯整合成一個整體概念，正是「完形」心理學派主要的研究課題。
1.8 Aptitude and intelligence
2. L1 Acquisition
2.1 Introduction to Language Acquisition
Interests in L1 competence for many centuries
(1) beginning of analyzing child language systematically and its psychological process in the second half of the 20th century
(2) analogies between L1 and L2 acquisition especially the differences in the case of adult SL learning in terms of cognitive and affective contrasts
(3)three theoretical positions of first language acquisition
2.2 Theories of L1 acquisition
2.2.1 Behaviorism (Say What I Say): a psychological theory of learning claiming lg learning is the result of imitation, practice, consistent feedback (reinforcement) on success and habit formation (in the 1940s-50s in the U.S.)
(a) assumptions: “Behaviorism” deriving from Pavlov and Watson first and extended by Skinner.
Children come into the world with a tabula rasa, a clean slate bearing no preconceived notions about the world or about language as to be shaped by their environment and slowing conditioned through reinforcement
Effective language behavior is the production of correct responses to stimuli. If a particular response is reinforced, it then becomes habitual or conditioned.
(b) Verbal Behavior by B.F. Skinner (1957): an experimental behavioristic model of linguistic behavior extended from operant conditioning as the dominant paradigm of psychology in the U.S. from the 1920s to 1970s.
*Assumption: more emphasis on the consequences of a stimulus than on the stimulus itself