Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy

H. Douglas Brown

Chapter 4: Teaching by Principles

This chapter points out how research in language pedagogy has led to useful
discoveries about how to best teach a second language in a classroom. It recommends
teachers to perceive and internalize connections between practice and theory to be able to
recognize why do they use a particular technique, and how to evaluate its utility.

The author then goes on to present twelve principles of second language learning,
separated into three —sometimes overlapping— categories: cognitive principles, those that
relate mainly to mental and intellectual functions; affective principles, characterized by a
strong emotional involvement (feelings about self, about relationships in a community of
learners, and about the emotional ties between language and culture); and linguistic
principles, centered on language itself and on how learners deal with these complex
linguistic systems.

Cognitive principles

Principle 1: Automaticity

Automatic processing with peripheral attention to language forms is how Barry

McLaughlin called the tendency to subconsciously acquire language: that means, the ability
to acquire it without “thinking” about them, through an inductive process of exposure to
language input and opportunity to experiment with output. Overanalyzing language unit by
unit, thinking too much about its forms, and consciously lingering on rules of language all
tend to impede high-speed automatic processing of a relatively unlimited number of language
forms.
 Principle 2: Meaningful Learning

The role of meaningful learning is emphasized: new information is incorporated into

existing structures and memory systems, and the resulting associative links create stronger
retention (unlike rote learning, in which the learner mostly memorizes rules).

To apply this principle in the classroom teachers must capitalize on the power of
meaningful learning by appealing to students’ interests and academic goals, attempting to
anchor new concepts in students’ existing knowledge and background, and avoiding actions
like too much grammar explanation, too much memorization, or the use of mechanical
techniques.

Principle 3: The Anticipation of Reward

Skinner affirmed that everything we do is inspired and driven by a sense of purpose or

goal: the anticipation of reward is the most powerful factor in directing one’s behavior.

In an educational setting, this can be adjusted by providing an optimal degree of

immediate verbal praise and encouragement, encouraging students to reward each other with
compliments and supportive action; displaying enthusiasm and excitement in the classroom,
and trying to get learners to see the long-term rewards in learning English.

Principle 4: Intrinsic Motivation

This principle explains that the most powerful rewards are those that are intrinsically
motivated within the learner because the behavior stems from needs, wants, or desires within
oneself, the behavior itself is self-rewarding.

Classroom techniques have a much greater chance for success if they are
self-rewarding in the perception of the learner, so teachers could consider the intrinsic
motives of their students and then design classroom tasks that best suit them.

Principle 5: Strategic Investment

It’s stated here that successful mastery of the second language will be due to a large
extent to a learner’s own personal “investment” of time, effort, and attention to the second
language.
Affective principles

Principle 6: Language Ego.

This principle refers to the development of a new way of thinking, feeling and acting
that second language learners go through, experiencing it as the birth of a second identity.

A sense of fragility, defensiveness and inhibition might arise, and it’s the teacher’s job
to help them understand that the confusion of developing that second self in the second
culture is a normal and natural process, to adjust the choice of techniques so they are
cognitively challenging but not overwhelming at an affective level, and to overtly display a
supportive attitude to their students.

Principle 7: Self-Confidence

Also called “the self-esteem principle”, it argues that while self-confidence can be
linked to the Language Ego principle, the learner’s self-assessment is also fundamental.
Learners’ belief that they indeed are fully capable of accomplishing a task is a factor in their
eventual success in attaining the task.

Principle 8: Risk-Taking

If learners recognize their own ego fragility and develop the firm belief that they can
indeed do it, then they are ready to take the necessary risks needed to use the language for
meaningful purposes, both productively and receptively .

Principle 9: The Language-Culture Connection

Language and culture are intricately intertwined, so any time you successfully learn a
language, you will also learn something of the culture of the speakers of that language.

To teach about the complex system of cultural customs, values, and ways of thinking,
feeling, and acting of the second culture, classroom activities with the students should include
the discussion of cross-cultural differences, emphasizing that no culture is “better” than
another, and incorporate certain activities and materials that illustrate the connection between
language and culture.
Linguistic principles

Principle 10: The Native Language Effect

The native language of learners has a strong influence on the acquisition of the target
language system. While that native system will both facilitate and interfere with the
production and comprehension of the new language, the interfering effects are likely to be the
most salient.

The majority of a learner’s errors when producing in the second language, especially
in the beginning levels, arises from the learner’s assumption that the target language operates
like the native one.

Principle 11: Interlanguage

Second language learners tend to go through a systematic or quasi-systematic

developmental process as they progress to full competence in the target language. Successful
interlanguage development is partially a result of utilizing feedback from others.

Principle 12: Communicative Competence

Given that communicative competence is the goal of a language classroom,

instruction needs to point toward all its components: organizational, pragmatic, strategic, and
psychomotor. Communicative goals are best achieved by giving due attention to language use
and not just usage, to fluency and not just accuracy, to authentic language and contexts, and
to students’ eventual need to apply classroom learning to previously unrehearsed contexts in
the real world.

Teachers should highlight that although grammatical explanations and exercises are
unquestionably an important part of a lesson, you shouldn’t neglect other components. Some
of the pragmatic aspects of language are very subtle and very difficult, so students must feel
free to take risks in order to gain fluency without having to be constantly wary of little
mistakes.