Teaching By Principles

Chapter 4
What do you think?
• “Effective teaching is not about a method. It is
about understanding and implementing
principles of learning.”
 Principles?
Many of teacher’s choices are established by
perceiving and internalizing connections
between practice (choices in classroom) and
theory ( principles derived from research)
(Principled Approach)
These principles of learning that teachers should
use as the basis of the experiences they plan for
their students.
Teaching by Principles (Brown)

• 3 types of principles that form the

core to language teaching:
• Cognitive
• Socio-Affective
 • Linguistic

• How can your classroom reflect these

principles?

Cognitive Principles
How can your classroom reflect this principle?
Automaticity
• The principle says both adults and children
must move from processing the bits and
pieces of language and move to a more
automatic, fluent grasp of the language
• using language in authentic contexts for
genuine, meaningful purposes.
 How can your classroom reflect this
principle?
Meaningful learning
• ensure that students are invited to build on
prior knowledge,
• integrating new understandings with existing
understandings
• provide learners with experiences that actively
involve them and are personally meaningful
 How can your classroom reflect this
principle?
Anticipation of reward
• This could mean establishing a system of
rewards that give tangible recognition to all
students who meet expectations and achieve
excellence.
principle?
 How can your classroom reflect this
Intrinsic motivation
➢This could mean establishing a system of rewards
that give tangible recognition to all students who
meet expectations and achieve excellence.
➢motivation plays a critical role in guiding the
direction, intensity, persistence, and quality of the
learning behaviors in which they engage. When
students find positive value in a learning goal or
activity, expect to successfully achieve a desired
learning outcome, and perceive support from their
environment, they are likely to be strongly
motivated to learn.
How can your classroom reflect this
principle?
Strategic investment Ask your students to
think about the ways they successfully learn!
1. Is anything confusing to me?
2. What should I do first ?
3. Can I explain what I have learned?
4. Should I ask for extra help?
5. Why did I get this answer wrong?
6. Can I apply this in different contexts?
7. How can I do better next time?
 How can your classroom reflect this
principle?
Autonomy (autonomy over what, when, and how
they study and learn)
➢Learners may engage in a variety of
metacognitive processes to monitor and control
their learning—assessing the task at hand,
evaluating their own strengths and weaknesses,
planning their approach, applying and monitoring
various strategies, and reflecting on the degree to
which their current approach is working
 Socio-Affective Principles
How can your classroom reflect this principle?
Language Ego all second language learners need to be
treated with affective tender living care
• display a supportive attitude to your students.
• Your choice of techniques and sequences of
techniques needs to be cognitively challenging but not
overwhelming at an affective level.
• If your students are learning English as a second
language, they are likely to experience a moderate
identity crisis as they develop a “second self”. Help
them see that this is a normal and natural process.
• Provide learning opportunities that develop selfesteem
How can your classroom reflect this
principle?
Willingness to communicate
• encourage risk taking in learning
• value questions over answers
• structure frequent opportunities for students
to use various art forms drama, visual arts,
movement, crafts—as a means of exploring,
formulating, and expressing ideas
 How can your classroom reflect this
principle?
Language-culture connection
• Whenever you teach a language, you also teach a
complex system of cultural customs, values, and ways
of thinking, feeling, and acting
• Discuss cross-cultural differences with your students,
emphasizing that no culture is “better” than
• another.
• Include certain activities and materials that illustrate
the connection between language and culture.
• Teach them the cultural connotations of language.
• Don’t use material that is culturally offensive
Linguistic Principles
How can your classroom reflect this principle?
Native Language Effect
• The native language of learners exerts a strong
influence on the acquisition of the target
language system. While that native system will
exercise both facilitating and interfering effects
on the production and comprehension of the
new language.
• Regard learners’ errors as important windows to
their underlying system and provide appropriate
feedback on them.
How can your classroom reflect this
principle?
Interlanguage
Interlanguage is usefully viewed as a transitional linguistic
system (at all levels: phonology, morphology, syntax,
semantics, pragmatics) that is different from the target
language (TL) system and also different from the learner's
native language (NL) system
e.g. overgeneralization – inappropriate transfer of L1
pattern
• In verb using the word comed instead of came.
• In noun use using the word tooths instead of teeth
How can your classroom reflect this
principle?
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 no just accuracy, to authentic language
and contexts, and to students’ eventual need to apply
classroom learning to previously unrehearsed contexts
in the real world.