Developing Teaching Skills: REFLECTION ON TEACHING METHODS

By Miamo Lydie
22nd October 2021
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REFLECTTION ON METHODS
I have been teaching for the past 16 years as a private tutor and as a full-time class
teacher, without any formal training as an educator, besides the 3 pedagogical regional seminars
that my former Head Master registered me to with my colleagues. Today I am actually shocked
and impressed to discover all the teaching techniques, methods, and approaches (I am yet to
understand the differences between them) governing the educational field. In fact, if some
employers go through my resume to assess if I qualify to teach in their schools just by checking
my academic profile and seeing “Bachelor’s Degree in Law”, I will never or will hardly get the
job. However, many parents and colleagues who discovered this fact about me, always wondered
how I could manage my way into this completely strange career so successfully, without passing
through a teacher’s training school! My reply has always been “well, I just follow my instinct”.
Hitherto, teaching has never been in my list of professions, but I discovered this passion while
giving private classes to prepare some secondary school students who were backward for their
public exams. Their success was the click that brought a U-turn in my career, and after my LL.B
I eventually embraced the teaching field. From my experience, I have confidently selected the
following 10 theories behind some teaching techniques, which I think may underlie "the perfect
teaching", because I realized that I was already applying them unconsciously, and today I am
happy to be able to attach names to them, and they are as follows:

1) The Grammar Translation Method (1466-1536):

Prof. Karl Plotz believed that foreign language can be best taught or learned by translating
texts from the target language into the learner’s mother tongue. This method is very practical
where the learner is a complete novice in the target language. Contrary to others’ opinion, I think
this method is to an extent learner-based because from the onset, it essentially takes into account
the learner’s status, his or her “previous knowledge”, meaning “zero knowledge”. For example,
when I was giving French private lessons to an English native secondary school student, she
appreciated my approach of translating words, and explaining rules in her mother tongue. She
complained of her French teacher in school who would just come, as she put it, ‘speak all her
bla-bla-bla and leave, and she would go and take her salary, that she has taught French”. No
body understood what the teacher said. She told me that most of them managed to pass because
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they were spying from their friends, until one of them did not even realize he copied the friend’s
name, just because he was and remained totally blank even after the lessons! It was really boring
to them because of lack of communication.
Besides translation, this method implies that reading, listening and vocabulary are indirectly
taken care of, and eventually, speaking will automatically be achieved once the learner must
have mastered some basic grammatical rules and acquired rich vocabulary. Additionally, to
effectively apply this method I can easily involve elements of Task-Based Method -filling the
gap with missing words, with reading comprehension questions to enhance critical thinking and
assess understanding; Content-Based approach-reading text with carefully chosen themes;
Lexical Approach- get synonyms or antonyms of words in the text, or use words to construct
sentences; Audiolingual Method – voice emission and repeated articulation during reading.
Therefore, I can respect the motto “teach the language not about the language” (Bashir, 2013) in
the Grammar Translation Method.

2) The Audiolingual Method (Brooks, 1964, p. 263)

To understand the rationale of this method, is it important to recall the circumstances that
forced it into existence. It was formerly called the Aural-oral Approach and dubbed
“Audiolingual Method” by Nelson Brooks who supported the 1942 U.S. Government‘s Army
Specialized Training Program, designed to urgently train the army in the emergency context of
the World War II, in order to overcome the challenges of language barrier faced by the soldiers
on the foreign battle fields. It involved intensive oral drilling of grammatical patterns and
pronunciation. So according to this method “a language is first of all a system of sounds for
social communication; writing is a secondary derivative system for the recording of spoken
language” (Carroll, p.1963).
I think this habit formation enhances language acquisition with active listening and
speaking, very useful in foreign language teaching. We can reap huge rewards from performing
consistent actions repeatedly over time, if I consider Darren Hardy’s theory of Compound Effect.
Whether their performance appears at the beginning, during or at the end of a lesson, I think that
this stage is inevitable in all second language teaching processes. It is one of the methods that
makes room for immediate use of the language, especially in learning language for specific
purposes. The learner’s communicative competence is developed through effective repetition of
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dialogues pattern drills to form habits that will allow them to perform what they have learnt in
real life context.

3) The Neuro-linguistic Programming (1970)

It was developed by a team of scientists among whom John Grinder and Richard Bandler
who assert that neurological processes (neuro), language (linguistic) and behavioral patterns
are connected and learned through experience (programming), and that these can be changed to
achieve specific goals in life.  Practically, if a learner understands how the teacher performs a
specific task, he can easily imitate and also perform the same task, thereby learning from
experience, using all five sensorial organs. I would say that this method can be used with very
young learners who are hyperactive, to engage all their senses in order to control and canalize
their energy. Just like the Audiolingual Approach and the Total Physical Response, It is
important to develop habit in learning languages.

4) The Total Physical Response (1970s)

This theory was developed by Dr. James J Asher who resolved that we can learn
language the same way that children learn their mother tongue. It is a fact that children naturally
understand their parents’ instructions when accompanied by a body language conversation with
them. The parents instruct and the children watch, listen and physically respond without
necessarily needing any translation or whatsoever external realia. This method is a good way for
any beginner to discover language practically, and for a slow learner suffering from dyslexia
who finds it difficult to retain words. Making them thespians- as recommended in a recent study-
by acting the words, will ease understand and help them memorize. This focuses on
comprehension and giving learners time to process language before having to speak.

5) The Multiple intelligence (2016)

Howard Gardener sees intelligence as the “biopsychological potential to process information
in certain ways, in order to solve problems or fashion products that are valued in a culture or
community…severally independent computers, not a single all-purpose one”. Practically,
Howard recommends two things: first, that we should individualize teaching, learning and
assessing as much as possible, such that each learner chooses the way (s)he wants to learn same
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topic with others; second, that we should pluralize- presenting important ideas in several ways ,
for example, teaching history using videos, books, photographs, varying moods with jokes or
dramatization.
I can imagine this approach absolutely suitable at the very tender age where the learner’s
talent can early be identified, and creativity unleashed and developed in order to lead him or her
into a career (s)he was born for. This helps to personalize learning and set realistic goals for each
learner. With this approach, the learner does not feel that (s)he is competing with others. A
rapport between teacher and learner is achieved because the former gets to know the latter’s
strengths, weaknesses, interests, dreams and hobbies, that will easily serve as starters to motivate
and engage the learner into conversations. This method can also be used to remedy and redirect
the education of desperate cases where a learner’s performance is deplorable, to give the chance
to do what (s)he truly cares about, instead of forcing other people’s dream into him or her.

6) Lexical Approach (1993)

Michael Lewis advocating for a grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar alleged that
learning a language largely involves the understanding and production of sets of words as
chunks. In 2000, Norbert Schmitt, a Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of
Nottingham in the United Kingdom, supporting the lexical approach stated that "the mind stores
and processes these chunks as individual wholes."
In my opinion, if a learner develops a rich vocabulary, it will reduce their blockages when
speaking because they will easily find the words that will faithfully express their thoughts. For
instance, I am currently giving French lessons online to a Chinese lady in Australia who got
married to a French native. Her worry was that she couldn’t communicate fluently with her
husband and kids because she has to search for the right word to say what she actually meant,
and it was difficult for her. It is on now that I discovered I am unconsciously using the lexical
approach-among other-, to develop her vocabulary with words connected to her immediate
environment. They include objects in the kitchen, or at her job site, and I ask her to describe her
work or activities performed in the kitchen for example, using such words or expressions. Then
we watch videos on these activities and discuss about them, and I give her tasks to construct her
own sentences, fill gabs with the new words she learnt, and write short essays on specific daily
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events. So, I have no stress using this method in her situation because she already had some
previous knowledge in French.

7) Suggestopedia (1966)
Here, Dr. Georgi Lozanov relies on the power of suggestion for acquiring language
knowledge. The belief is that if students feel secure and comfortable in the learning
environment, they’ll be more receptive to learning new information. I feel that this is suitable to
teach language as mother tongue, with no need for translation as in grammar translation, instead
of foreign language, as he intended it to be. The learner acquires reading, listening, speaking
skills and a rich vocabulary. The student is also expected to perform, as roles are interchanged to
enable learners act the various stages described in the text. I can see elements of Total Physical
Response, audiolingual, Task-Based and Cooperative methods and approaches. Taking home to
school by creating a familiar environment with music and visual decorations, to get learner feel
contented and relaxed enough to let knowledge sink into him or her through his or her various
sense, is really innovative.

8) Content-Based Instruction (1989)

Brinton, Snow, and Wesche came up with this method with the belief that language
teaching is effective when we focus on what is being taught than the language itself such that it
becomes the medium through which something new is learned. I share the view that people don’t
learn language and then use them, but they learn language by using them. This method can be
appropriate for students who have specific purposes for learning the language such as academic,
professional, or to interact with their environment, and so their background experiences is
exploited to enrich the lessons’ contents. They feel at ease, motivated and confident talking about
something they are familiar with, and they learn faster. I think it is quite similar to the new
Content and Language Integrated Learning that is being adopted in the educational field
nowadays.

9) Cooperative Learning (1989)

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Dr. Robert Slavin shares the theory according to which students learn in groups in a
much better way that they do it individually and I am of the opinion that cooperating provides a
very wide variety of research items and analysis that helps in molding and teaching students,
both as L1 and L2. This method is the perfect fit for a mixed class of students from various
sociocultural background, or in a class of normal and physically impaired students, where the
latter will not feel isolated or marginalized, and will gain self-confidence. According to Slavin,
disabled students learn in a more productive and skillful manner when they work in mainstream
and heterogeneous environments, therefore appropriate for special eduction. Likewise, this
method will help in situations where only a particular set of learners respond to questions or are
active in class, while others don’t even feel challenged to participate.

10) Task-Based Language Teaching

Richard and Rogers (2001, p.227-229) advocate for “the use of authentic language and on
asking students to do meaningful tasks using the target language.” All I have to say here is that
practice makes perfect. Irrespective of the method we adopt, getting the learners perform task to
apply what they learn helps them assimilate information better. It’s useless for a learner to
acquire knowledge if (s)he can’t be given opportunity to use it and prove himself or herself, and
it is through tasks that we evaluate comprehension and progress, in order to amend, improvise or
anticipate.
Therefore, my conclusion is that each of these methods only vary according to which
need is considered to be more pressing as opposed to the others. While some give priority to
receptive skills such as listening and reading, others focus on productive skills like speaking and
writing, and they all prove effective and efficient in particular individual contexts, though short-
lived. But to actually come out with the “perfect teaching” theory, we need to incorporate
components of the above beliefs into a “revised edition” of the Grammar Translation Method.
Grammar is the backbone of any language, and practically, it is always indirectly and inductively
introduced, or actively present in the teaching process, of different languages, in varying degrees,
at different levels, with different learners, and in different contexts. As such, the ideal woudl be
to design a Grammar Translation Method that will consider and “explicitly” encompass all the
other beliefs as I earlier explained, especially if we want to avoid beguiling effective language
teaching. We can’t learn what we don’t understand, and transferring knowledge from the
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unknown into the known is much more practical, efficient and effective. It is always comforting
to leave “for” home, and not “from” home. In other words, it’s easier to explain to an English
native speaker learning French, that “un corossol” – (s)he will be curious to know- is “a sour
sop”- (s)he will be relieved to know-, if the child already knows what it is in his or her own
mother tongue. In a nutshell, once all this setting is put in place, we can reliably trust the
Compound Effect to do its job over time, for effective language acquisition to ensue.
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References
1. Course notes
2. METHOD OF TEACHING: Content based instruction method
(syarifahalmahdi.blogspot.com)
3. https://hlr.byu.edu/methods/content/text/audio-lingual-text.htm#:~:text=which Yale
professor Nelson Brooks dubbed audio-lingual%28Brooks%2C 1964%2C,served as the
principal approach to foreign language
4. (3) (PDF) The Compound Effect By darren Hardy | Ilias Khezour - Academia.edu
5. To Teach Vocabulary, Let Students Be Thespians | Edutopia
6. Howard Gardner Discusses Multiple Intelligences - Blackboard BbWorld 2016 HD - YouTube
7. Key concepts in ELT | Request PDF (researchgate.net)
8. The Brain on NLP and Why is NLP so Essential to HR? | by Bia I | Bia’s World (biaionescu.com)
9. Suggestopedia - Wikipedia