ADVANCED METHODOLOGY

FOR LANGUAGE TEACHING

Week 1
PRINCIPLES OF LANGUAGE
TEACHING

1
AGENDA
Week 1 - Teaching by Principles

❖ Introduction
❖ Teaching by principles
❖ Strategy based instruction and
motivation

2
 Terminology
(Harmer, chap. 1)

■ ESL/EFL/EAP/EALD/ESP
■ TESOL/ELT/ELF
English for Academic Purposes
English as a Second Language
English for Specific Purposes
English as a Foreign Language
English as an Additional Language
or Dialect
Teaching English to Speakers of
Other Languages English Language Teaching

English as a Lingua Franca

3
Definitions

➢ ESL - English as a Second Language

▪ English instruction to L2 learners in countries where English
is the official language (e.g., Australia, USA, Canada)

➢ EFL - English as a Foreign Language

▪ English instruction to L2 learners in countries where English
is NOT the official language (e.g., Japan, China, Mexico,
Vietnam)

4
 Definitions

➢ EAP - English for Academic Purposes

▪ Courses are taught to help L2 learners cope with subject
matter content and academically related language (e.g.,
academic writing)

➢ ESP - English for Specific Purposes

▪ Courses/Programs targeting professional fields, such as
Business English or English for Engineering

5
 Definitions

➢ EALD - English as an Additional Language or Dialect

▪ Australia-specific term that refers to the fact that
English may be a 3rd or 4th language & Aboriginal
English may be the “native” dialect

➢ TESOL – Teaching English to Speakers of Other languages

▪ An umbrella term that encompasses ESOL-related
areas (e.g., ESL/EFL)

6
 Definitions

➢ ELT - English Language Teaching

▪ A term (similar to TESOL) that is widely used in the
UK

➢ ELF – English as a Lingua Franca

▪ English is used as a global/world language between
two people who don’t share the same mother tongue
(i.e., English)

7
 WHAT DO WE LEARN FROM
THE OBSERVATION?
❖ Receptive vs. Productive skills?
R: reading/listening; P: speaking/writing

❖ Deductive vs. Inductive approach?

D: grammar rules taught first and learners practice afterwards
I: learners generate the rules from examples and demonstrations
in meaningful contexts
❖ When and how to correct errors?
Draw student attention to the “hot spot” as a class without
singling him/her out; correct without interrupting their language
production especially in speaking.

8
WHAT DO WE LEARN FROM THE
OBSERVATION?

■ A good TESOL teacher constantly makes “choices” and

keeps reflecting on why s/he made such a choice and
what other alternative decisions could have been made.

■ Each learning activity/approach has to be backed up by

solid teaching principles stemmed from a well-sounding
SLA theory/research

■ ESOL teaching is not just “teaching a language”, but also

has to take into account many learner factors (e.g.,
motivation)
9
TEACHING BY PRINCIPLES

10
11
Jeremy P. H. Harmer is a
popular ELT author, practitioner
and trainer. Prof. Harmer was
educated in the UK and graduated
from the University of East Anglia
with a BA Hons in English and
American Studies. He then
pursued his MA in Applied
Linguistics at the University of
Reading. Harmer has taught in
Mexico and the UK, where he is
currently an occasional lecturer at
Anglia Ruskin University. He has
trained teachers and offered
seminars all over the world. A
writer of both course material and
methodology,
12
 TEACHING BY PRINCIPLES
(Brown, chap. 4)

➢ Teaching practices are supported by SLA

theory/research/principles
➢ 3 major categories:
❖ Cognitive: automaticity, meaningful learning,
anticipation of reward, intrinsic
motivation, strategic investment
❖ Affective: language ego, self-confidence, risk-
tasking, language-culture
❖ Linguistic: native language effect, interlanguage,
communicative competence

13
TEACHING BY PRINCIPLES:
Cognitive
■ Automaticity
➢ Focus on the use (rather than on forms) of the target language; resistance
to the temptation of overanalyzing the forms
■ Meaningful learning
➢ Avoid rote learning but tailor instruction to learners’ interests, needs and
goals
■ Anticipation of reward
➢ Provide both short-term and long-term rewards (praise, learning goal)
■ Intrinsic motivation
➢ Self-rewarding from the learner (e.g., making foreign friends of the target
language) vs. anticipating rewards from the teacher
■ Strategic investment
➢ Good learners know how to use different learning strategies to maximize
their learning outcomes

14
TEACHING BY PRINCIPLES:
Affective
■ Language ego
➢ Self-defensiveness (or second identity) about learning a new language

■ Self-confidence
➢ Self-efficacy and confidence in accomplishing a task

■ Risk-taking
➢ Good L2 learners are like gamblers, not afraid of making mistakes to
try out the target language forms/use

■ Language-culture connection
➢ Language learning is not isolated from culture; they are interrelated

15
TEACHING BY PRINCIPLES:
Linguistic
■ Native language effect
➢ Learners’ L1 may have both facilitating and interfering effects on
their language production

■ Interlanguage
➢ A developmental process in L2 acquisition where learners make
“systematic” errors due to overgeneralizing the rules or L1
interference

■ Communicative competence
➢ Linguistic (grammar), sociolinguistic (pragmatic), discourse, and
strategic

16
STRATEGIES – BASED INSTRUCTION

What are strategies?

➢ ‘Learners’ techniques for capitalizing on the
principles of successful learning.’ (Brown, 2007,
pg.208)

Why SBI?

17
Strategies-based Instruction (SBI)

Why SBI?
■ Learning strategies make language
learning efficient/effective
■ Self-regulation: autonomous and
responsible learners
■ Success in language learning in turn
boosts their intrinsic motivation to
reinforce strategy use

18
How to Implement SBI?
■ Raise learners’ awareness of their current use of
strategies (e.g., survey)
■ Help learners identify strategies they’ve not explored
and which strategies work for them
■ Assist them to use strategies automatically

■ Encourage them to evaluate the

learning outcome of a new strategy
use and make adjustment

19
 Typical Style Conflicts

❖ Introverted student vs. extroverted

teacher

❖ Kinesthetic or visual student vs. auditory

teacher who lectures constantly

❖ Concrete-sequential student vs. intuitive-

random teacher (or vice versa)

20
Example of “Style Wars”

I have problems with teachers who teach the

whole picture, rather than the details. I have to
connect the little details….I have found that if I
miss, forget or don’t understand one detail, I will
not learn how it fits into the big picture. I get very
frustrated and start self-defeating myself by not
studying so I can say, oh well, its not that I am
stupid that I failed, but rather I didn’t try. It hurts a
lot when You try and fail.

21
How to Avoid/Handle Style
Conflicts
➢ Give a style survey
➢ Know your style
➢ Let students know their styles
➢ Talk about the conflict
➢ Stretch your style with new strategies
➢ Help students stretch their styles so that
they welcome diversity in learning styles
➢ Teach with intentional variety to meet style
needs

22
 MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES (MI)

➢ According to Gardner, intelligence is the ability

to
▪ solve problems that one encounters in real life
▪ generate new problems
▪ make something or offer a service that is valued
within one’s culture

➢ We all have all eight intelligences but in

different proportions

23
MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES
(Gardner, 1983)

24
Which intelligence?

■ Folk dancing ■ Reading maps

■ Create songs ■ Practice worksheets
■ Find cause and effect ■ TPR
■ Debates ■ Graphic organizers
■ Surveys/polls ■ Self-evaluation
■ Photography project ■ Peer teaching
■ Learning logs

25
 Implementing MI
❖ Lesson Design: Using different intelligences and asking
students for opinions on them.
❖ Student Projects: Students can learn to "initiate and
manage complex projects" when they are creating
student projects.
❖ Assessments: Devise which allow students to show
what they have learned. Sometimes this takes the form
of allowing each student to devise the way he or she will
be assessed, while meeting the teacher's criteria for
quality.
❖ Misuses: Trying to teach all concepts or subjects using
all intelligences, direct evaluation or grading of
intelligences without regard to context.
26
 Your MI Result
■ What are your 2 or 3 more dominant intelligences?
Do they also speak for our learning/teaching
styles?

■ Do you think that knowing your students’ MI will

help you tailor your lessons to their individual
“smarts”? How?

27