TEFL 2 – EVEN SEMESTER 2009/2010

LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLGY:

WHAT IS IT?

Some Historical Background

 People began to do language teaching in the last century.

 Central to this phenomenon was the emergence of the
concept of "methods“ of language teaching.
 The method = the notion of a systematic set of teaching
practices based on a particular theory of language and
language learning.
 The concept of method in language teaching is a powerful
one, and the quest for better methods was a preoccupation
of teachers and applied linguists throughout the 20th
century.
 TEFL 2 – EVEN SEMESTER 2009/2010
LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLGY:
WHAT IS IT?

What is meant by “methodology”?

 Methodology is the links between theory and practice

Theories of the Instructi-

Nature of
Observed
Language; onal Teaching
Theories of Design Practices
Learning Features
approach method techniques
principle design procedures
LANGUAGE TEACHING
METHODOLOGY
 A set of correlative assumptions dealing
with the nature of language teaching
APPROAC and learning. An approach is axiomatic.
It describes the nature of the subject
H matter to be taught.

an overall plan for the orderly

presentation of language
METHOD material…………… An approach is
axiomatic, a method is procedural.
Within one approach there can be many
methods.

implementational –that which happens

TECHNIQU in the classroom.
E
 BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGY
 Watson & Raynor (1920) : Theory of
Conditioning
 Theory of conditioning (experiments on human baby
and rats)
 Stimulus-response-reinforcement model
 B.F. Skinner (1957): This theory of conditioning can
be applied to the way humans acquire their first
language.
 Language is a form of behaviour in much the same

way as the rat pressing the bar exhibits a form of

behaviour
 The same model of stimulus-response-reinforcement
INNATIST THEORIES & COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

 Psychological theory, influenced much by a

linguist Noam Chomsky, who strongly rejects
the behaviourists view of language acquisition
(how a baby learns a language)
Chomsky (1959): if all language is learnt behaviour,
how is it that young children can say things that they have
never said before?
How is it possible that adults all through their lives say
things they have never said before?
How is it possible that a new sentence in the mouth of a
four-year-old is the result of conditioning?
INNATIST THEORIES & COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Chomsky’s theory of Language Acquisition

Device (LAD)

 According to Chomsky (1959) every human

has a Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
which allow children to acquire language and
to be creative as language users (e.g.
experimenting and saying things they have
not said before)
 INNATIST THEORIES & COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
Stephen Krashen’s Theory of
Acquisition & Learning
 Acquisition = a subconscious process which results in the knowledge
of a language
 Learning = the latter results only in 'knowing about' the language.
 Acquiring a language is more successful and longer lasting than
learning.
 Krashen suggests that second (or foreign) language learning needs to
be more like the child's acquisition of its native language.
 Successful acquisition depends very much on the nature of the
language input which the students receive. Input is a term used to
mean the language that the students hear or see.
 INTERACTIVIST THEORIES OF LEARNING &
SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

“Language learning will take care of itself”

Allwright
 “... if the 'language teacher's' management activities are directed

exclusively at involving the learners in solving communication

problems in the target language, then language learning will take
care of itself ... “ (1977b: 5)
 Three necessary elements:
1. Exposure
2. Motivation,
3. Opportunities to use the language
 In other words there is no need for formal instruction (e.g. the teaching of a
grammatical point).
 Instead students are simply asked to perform communicative activities in which
they have to use the foreign language.
 The more they do this the better they become at using the language.
 INTERACTIVIST THEORIES OF LEARNING &
SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Prabhu (1987) Task-based Learning

 if the emphasis in class was on meaning, the
language would be learnt incidentally.
 The way this was to come about was through a
series of tasks which had a problem-solving
element;
 in solving the problems the students naturally came
into contact with language, but this contact
happened because the students were actively
involved in reaching solutions to tasks.
 HUMANISTIC APPROACH
 Language teaching is not just about teaching
language, it is also about helping students to
develop themselves as people.
 the experience of the student is what counts and the
development of their personality and the
encouragement of positjve feelings are seen to be as
important as their learning of a language.
 HUMANISTIC APPROACH
 Getrude Moscowitz (provides a number of
interactive activities designed to make students feel
good and (often) remember happy times and events
whilst at the same time practising language
 Other writers have used similar student-centred
activities (where the topic is frequently the students
themselves, their lives and their relationships) to
practise grammar or vocabulary.
 HUMANISTIC APPROACH
 Others, based on the educational movement of counselling, attempts
to give students only the language they need.
 Lozanov develops a methodolody in which students must be
comfortably relaxed. This frequently means comfortable furniture and
(baroque) music. In this setting students are given new names and
listen to extended dialogues. The contention is that the general ease,
of the situation, the adoption of a new identity and the dependence on
listening to the dialogues will help the students to acquire the
language.
 Caleb Gattegno develops a methodology the teacher gives a very
limited amount of input, modelling the language to be learnt once
only and then indicating what the students should do through pointing
and other silent means. The teacher will not criticise or praise but
simply keeps indicating that the student should try again until success
is achieved.
 HUMANISTIC APPROACH
 Getrude Moscowitz (provides a number of
interactive activities designed to make students feel
good and (often) remember happy times and events
whilst at the same time practising language
 Other writers have used similar student-centred
activities (where the topic is frequently the students
themselves, their lives and their relationships) to
practise grammar or vocabulary.
 POPULAR METHODS
1. The Grammar-Translation Method
2. The Direct Method
3. The Audio-Lingual Method
4. The Silent Way
5. Suggestopedia
6. Community Language Learning
7. Total Physical Response
8. Communicative Language Teaching
9. Content-Based, Task-Based, and Participatory
Approaches
10.Natural Approach
 THE END

That’s all for

today !!