Faculty of Language Arts & Foreign Languages Department of Foreign Languages

Faculty of Language Arts & Foreign Languages Department of Foreign Languages

Branch of English Language Arts & Education 3 Year (Grad) Course Program

(Major) Language Arts & Education (Instructor) Mr. BASHAR, Ahmed.

Introduction to Language Teaching Methodology

Objectives: By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to:

1.  Define some key concepts;

2.  Outline their characteristics;

3.  Set the interdisciplinary nature of being a teacher;

4.  Identify the roles of different disciplines in promoting the profession of teaching.

Terminology Used in the Tutorial:

Andragogy- education- curriculum- didactics- instruction- learning-pedagogy- school-school climate- syllabus-teaching.

Food-for-Thought Questions:

1.  What is education?

2.  What is the difference between pedagogy and andragogy?

3.  In what way is the difference intructive and instrumental?

4.  What are the similarities and differences between learning and teaching?

5.  Why can teachers make a difference in the lives of the learners?

6.  Why do we ‘‘school’’ schoolchildren in Algeria, but we don’t’’ educate’’ them ?

Introduction:

Formal education is at the heart of nations’ preservation of identity, democratic institutions, economic prosperity, and international standing. According to the World Bank, ‘‘education is a powerful driver of the development of individuals and societies. By investing in people, education (becomes) a powerful driver of development and one of the strongest instruments for reducing poverty and improving health, gender equality, peace, and stability’’. Schooling is a short term investment; education is a long term investment. Hence, Algerian teachers need to be made aware that the future of the younger generations and the country depends heavily on their commitment to their mission.

Tutorial One concerns itself with the identification of some key concepts that you can encounter in a variety of disciplines such as didactics, pedagogy, and educational psychology. The concepts have been alphabetically re-arranged to facilitate your revision. In the oral presentation of the tutorial, the concepts are presented in dichotomies such as (Pedagogy vs. Andragogy), (Pedagogy vs. Didactics), (Curriculum vs. Syllabus), (Instruction vs. Teaching), (Teaching vs. Learning), and (School vs. Education).

Academic Discipline:

An academic discipline is a branch of knowledge which is formally taught, either at the university, or via some other such method. Each discipline usually has several sub-disciplines or branches, and distinguishing lines are often both arbitrary and ambiguous. Examples of broad areas of academic disciplines include the natural sciences, mathematics, computer science, social sciences, humanities and applied sciences.

Andragogy:

The practice of teaching and educating adults. This is often done in the workplace, or through 'extension' or 'continuing education' courses at secondary schools, or at a College or University. The practice is also often referred to as 'Training and Development'. It has also been referred to as andragogy (to distinguish it from pedagogy). A theory of adult education proposed by the American educator Malcolm Knowles (April 24, 1913—November 27, 1997). Knowles held that andragogy (from the Greek words meaning "man-leading") should be distinguished from the more commonly taught pedagogy (Greek: "child-leading").

Curriculum: (pl. Curricula or curriculums)

In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults. A curriculum is prescriptive, and is based on a more general syllabus which merely specifies what topics must be understood and to what level to achieve a particular grade or standard. Curriculum means two things: (i) the range of courses from which students choose what subject matters to study, and (ii) a specific learning program. In the latter case, the curriculum collectively describes the teaching, learning, and assessment materials available for a given course of study.

School subjects are classified according to their importance to the cognitive (i.e., mental ‘'الذهني) abilities of the learners. Some subjects are labeled core curriculum, and others foundation curriculum.

1.  Core Curriculum:

A core curriculum is a curriculum, or course of study, which is deemed central and usually made mandatory for all students of a school or school system. However, this is not always the case. For example, a school might mandate a music appreciation class, but students may opt out if they take a performing musical class, such as orchestra, band, chorus, etc. Core curricula are often instituted, at the primary and secondary levels, by school boards, Departments of Education, or other administrative agencies charged with overseeing education.

The three Rs (as in the letter R) are the foundations of a basic skills-orientated education program within schools: Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic. The phrase 'the three Rs' is used because each word in the phrase has a strong R phoneme (sound) at the beginning. The term is ironic, since someone with a firm education in the subjects would know that two of the original words do not actually begin with an R. The third R was more probably Reckoning, not as is more usually stated 'Rithmetic. Reckoning was a Victorian term for mental arithmetic and had been in use as such since the 14th Century. Newer versions of the three Rs include Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - which is a popular theme in environmentalism (alternatively, there is a fourth "R" in environmentalism, which is Repair) - and Read, Write, Recite. The educationalist Louis P. Bénézet preferred "to read", "to reason", "to recite", adding, "by reciting I did not mean giving back, verbatim, the words of the teacher or of the textbook. I meant speaking the English language."

2.  Foundation Curriculum:

A subject is a curriculum, or a course, which is deemed complementary to the core curriculum.

Basic Types of Curriculum:

There are three basic types of curriculum: explicit, implicit, and null.

1.  Explicit

This type of curriculum is what appears in documents and teachers' plans.

2.  Implicit (or Hidden)

This type of curriculum has to do with how particular assumptions about schooling and learning manifest in practice. For example, when a teacher has her or his desk at the front of the classroom and "teaches" from this area, the message that is being learned by students is that the teacher is in control, including being the knowledge authority, and is the center of attention. The teacher is also of central importance. Another example involves the value of particular topics that is communicated implicitly. Such values can be communicated by time spent, by tone of voice, or by how the topic is treated (e.g., trivialized or marginalized).

3.  Null

The null curriculum is what is not taught. Not teaching some particular idea or sets of ideas may be due to mandates from higher authorities, to a teacher’s lack of knowledge, or to deeply ingrained assumptions and biases. Teachers and schools may not teach that Christopher Columbus slaughtered many of the native peoples he encountered when he "discovered" the Americas. Many teachers are under pressure not to teach evolution. In Algerian history classes, the harkis are rarely mentioned.

Didactics:

According to Galton (2007:9), didactics in Continental European understanding refers is used to refer to that branch of pedagogy which deals specifically with what is to be taught and how; it concentrates on different approaches across subjects (e.g., foreign language didactics, mathematics didactics, and biology didactics, etc.). A didactic method (Greek: didáskein, to teach; lore of teaching) is a teaching method that follows a consistent scientific approach or educational style to engage the student’s mind.

Education:

In its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts. In its narrow, technical sense, education is the formal process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills, customs and values from one generation to another, e.g., instruction in schools.

Bill Clinton defines education as “what we know, and what we can learn” (qtd in Clintonomics p217). In the 21st c. Econmic security is synonymous with learning.

The word education is derived from the Latin ēducātiō (“a breeding, a bringing up, a rearing) from ēdūcō (“I educate, I train”) which is related to the homonym ēdūcō (“I lead forth, I take out; I raise up, I erect”) from ē- (“from, out of”) and dūcō (“I lead, I conduct”).

1.  Indigeneous Education:

Indigeneous Education refers to the inclusion of indigenous knowledge, models, methods and content within formal and non-formal educational systems. Often in a post-colonial context, the growing recognition and use of indigenous education methods can be a response to the erosion and loss of indigenous knowledge and language through the processes of colonialism. Furthermore, it can enable indigenous communities to “reclaim and revalue their languages and cultures, and in so doing, improve the educational success of indigenous students

2.  Alternative Education:

Alternative Education (also known as non-traditional education or educational alternative) is a broad term that may be used to refer to all forms of education outside of traditional education (for all age groups and levels of education). This may include not only forms of education designed for students with special needs (ranging from teenage pregnancy to intellectual disability), but also forms of education designed for a general audience and employing alternative educational philosophies and methods.

Interdisciplinary Nature of Education:

Education is part and parcel of other disciplines that aim to study ‘‘Man’’ and what affects his thinking and behavior.

1.  Educational Psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Educational psychology is concerned with how students learn and develop, often focusing on subgroups such as gifted children and those subject to specific disabilities. Researchers and theorists are likely to be identified in the US and Canada as educational psychologists, whereas practitioners in schools or school-related settings are identified as school psychologists. This distinction is however not made in the UK, where the generic term for practitioners is "educational psychologist."

2.  Sociology of Education is the study of how social institutions and forces affect educational processes and outcomes, and vice versa. By many, education is understood to be a means of overcoming handicaps, achieving greater equality and acquiring wealth and status for all (Sargent 1994). Learners may be motivated by aspirations for progress and betterment. Education is perceived as a place where children can develop according to their unique needs and potentialities. The purpose of education can be to develop every individual to their full potential. The understanding of the goals and means of educational socialization processes differs according to the sociological paradigm used.

Instruction:

Instruction is the facilitation of another's learning. Instructors in primary and secondary institutions are often called teachers, and they direct the education of students and might draw on many subjects like reading, writing, mathematics, science and history. According to Fullan et al. (2006:29) instruction ‘‘consists of interactions between teachers and students around content in (formal) environments ..’’. Instruction means therefore the actual communication that takes place between teachers and students.

Learning:

Gordon (1989:6) defines learning as ‘‘A relatively permanent change in an organism’s potential for responding that results from prior experience or practice’’. If you teach your students the passive voice as an alternative to active voice, and you notice that your students have started using the passive voice structures in their oral and written discourses, then you can say that the learning of the passive voice has occurred.

Pedagogy:

It is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction. Galton (2007:9) acknowledges the differences between the perception of Anglo-American (AA) and Continental European (CE) perceptions of pedagogy. For CE, pedagogy is a general term which encompasses both theoretical and practical aspects of teaching and learning, and therefore, they are universally applicable. In AA, this encompasses the what and how to implement content in classrooms.

The word comes from the Greek παιδαγωγέω (paidagōgeō); in which παῖς (país, genitive παιδός, paidos) means "child" and άγω (ágō) means "lead"; so it literally means "to lead the child". In Ancient Greece, παιδαγωγός was (usually) a slave who supervised the instruction of his master’s son (girls were not publicly taught). This involved taking him to school (διδασκαλεῖον) or a gym (γυμναστήριον), looking after him and carrying his equipment (e.g. music instruments).

School:

It is an institution designed for the teaching of students (or "pupils") under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In North America, the term school can refer to any educational institution at any level, and covers all of the following: preschool (for toddlers), kindergarten, elementary school, middle school (also called intermediate school or junior high school, depending on specific age groups and geographic region), senior high school, college, university, and graduate school.

The word school is from Greek σχολή (scholē), originally meaning "leisure", and also "that in which leisure is employed.

Syllabus: (pl. syllabi or syllabuses)

Syllabus, from Latin syllabus "list", in turn from Greek σίλλυβος or σίττυβος sillybos/sittybos "parchment label, table of contents"), is an outline and summary of topics to be covered in an education or training course. It is descriptive (unlike the prescriptive or specific curriculum). A syllabus is often either set out by an exam board, or prepared by the professor who supervises or controls the course quality. A syllabus usually contains specific information about the course, such as information on how, where and when to contact the lecturer and teaching assistants; an outline of what will be covered in the course; a schedule of test dates and the due dates for assignments; the grading policy for the course; specific classroom rules; etc.

The syllabus serves many purposes for the students and the teacher such as ensuring a fair and impartial understanding between the instructor and students such that there is minimal confusion on policies relating to the course, setting clear expectations of material to be learned, behavior in the classroom, and effort on student's behalf to be put into the course, providing a roadmap of course organization/direction relaying the instructor's teaching philosophy to the students, and providing a marketing angle of the course such that students may choose early in the course whether the subject material is attractive