Unit 1: Notes

Know Your Learner:

Before teaching, one should research on the following aspects about their learners:
1. What factors affect students’/ learners’ engagement and motivation?
2. What type of learners might be present in your class?
3. Identify if the students have become disengaged or unmotivated.
If there is harmony between (a) the student and (b) the instructional methodology and
materials, then the student is likely to perform well, feel confident, and experience low anxiety.
If clashes occur between (a) and (b), the student often performs poorly, lacks confidence, and
experiences significant anxiety. Sometimes such clashes lead to serious breakdowns in
teacher-student interaction. These conflicts may also lead to the dispirited students’ outright
rejection of the teaching methodology, the teacher, or the subject matter.
7 principles of second language learning have been identified as critical to successfully
teaching ESL students.
1) Know your students and their motivation to learn the second language
2) Create a welcoming classroom environment
3) Build Background Knowledge
4) Provide Comprehensible Input by building vocabulary
5) Include frequent opportunities for Interaction and Discussion
6) Use Multiple Modalities during instruction
7) Conduct ongoing review and assessment

Learner Variables
Factors affect/ influence learner or learning experience are:

Age: Adults are faster than children in the process; more competent cognitively; they tend to
have little patience with classes which they view are not furthering their educational goals;
voluntary learners; MT influence in pronunciation. Children on the other hand, are curious by
nature; flexible; power to imitate sounds and words; less conscious etc. Other than age, the
time spent in learning matters in SL proficiency.

Gender: Girls display better abilities; they are more enthusiastic to learn a second language;
have positive attitude towards it; they outperform males; more cooperative and less
competitive; more vocal and verbal…

Learning and Participation Styles: distinct for all; preferred approach to learning varies per
individual, abilities and skills available, previous experience etc.

Learning Disabilities: anxiety, fear, not able to challenge risks like facing shame of mistake,
being conscious and lack of awareness, low intellect etc
Multiple intelligences:

Basic category: visual learning, auditory learning, and kinesthetic learning

Howard Gardner’s classification of multiple intelligence:

1. Logical-mathematical intelligence (ability to think conceptually and abstractly, and

capacity to discern logical and numerical patterns)
2. Spatial-visual intelligence (capacity to think in images and pictures, to visualize
accurately and abstractly)
3. Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (ability to control one’s body movements and to
handle objects skillfully)
4. Musical intelligences (ability to produce and appreciate rhythm, pitch and timber)
5. Interpersonal intelligence (capacity to detect and respond appropriately to the
moods, motivations and desires of others)
6. Intrapersonal (capacity to be self-aware and in tune with inner feelings, values,
beliefs and thinking processes)
7. Naturalist intelligence (ability to recognize and categorize plants, animals and other
objects in nature)
8. Existential intelligence (sensitivity and capacity to tackle deep questions about
human existence such as, “What is the meaning of life? Why do we die? How did we
get here?”

Socio economic and cultural background: family, religion, tradition, relationships, caste,
class, money etc

Motivation: sources of motivation- intrinsic (motivated by self, or from within or inside) and
extrinsic (from external sources like parents, teachers, or public also from situations of various
sort).
Gardner (1979:193- 220) proposed that motivation is strongly influenced by two
orientations to language learning: instrumental motivation refers to motivation to acquire a
language as a means for attaining instrumental goals (e.g. furthering a career, reading technical
material, translation, etc.), and integrative motivation is employed when a learner wishes to
integrate himself within the culture of the second language group, to identify himself with and
become a part of that society.
Levels of proficiency:
The term ‘proficiency’ consists of the following:
1. the intuitive mastery of the forms of the language,
2. the intuitive mastery of the linguistic, cognitive, affective and sociocultural meanings,
expressed by the language forms,
3. the capacity to use the language with maximum attention to communication and
minimum attention to form, and
4. the creativity of language use.