CHAPTER 3

From the Traditional to

the Contemporary in
Second Language
Teaching and Learning
 INTRODUCTION
This chapter will show how contemporary
trends have added value to practice, or
have prompted a reassessment and
reevaluation of practice in the areas of
syllabus design, approaches to teaching,
the role of the learner, approaches to
language, the role of texts, resources, and
approaches to learning, classroom
organization and assessment.
STIMULI FOR
CHANGE
 Ineffectiveness of
Traditional Approaches
 Relevance of Language
Learning
SYLLABUS DESIGN
 Difficulty of Separating
Content and Process in a
 A syllabus consists ofSyllabus
Communicative lists of content to
be taught through a course of study.
 Linguistic Specification as
Second-order Activity
APPROACH TO
TEACHING
 Transmission Versus Interpretation
Models of Learning
 High-Structure Versus Low-Structure
Teaching
 High-structure teaching situations
are those in which the teacher is
very much in control of the
instructional process.
 Low-structure situations provide
learners with numerous options and
ROLE OF LEARNERS
 Passive Versus Active
Language Roles
 Reproductive Language
Tasks
 Creative language use
 Encouraging
involves the Creative
recombination of
familiar elements
Language Use in new ways
to produce utterances that have
been produced before by that
APPROACH TO LANGUAGE
 Shortcomings of Grammar-
Translation and
Audiolingualism
 In grammar-translation classrooms,
grammar was taught as a set of
rules to be memorized and
repeated.
 In audiolingual classrooms, learners
were expected to come to an
inductive understanding of the rule
TWO KEY CONTRIBUTIONS of
AUDIOLINGUALISM
1.Language learning is a process of habit
formation.
2.Teachers should teach the language, they
should not teach about the language.
 Teaching Grammar
Communicatively
USING LANGUAGE TEXTS
 Authenticity
 Authentic texts are those that have
been produced in the course of
genuine communication, not
especially written for purposes of
language teaching.
 Student-Generated
DataSpoken Data Written Data
Casual Invitations
conversations
Telephone Airline tickets
Conversations
Answering
machine Postcards
messages
Office Enrollment forms
FACILITIES FOR LEARNING

 Textbooks and Support

Resources
 Information Technology and
the Internet
APPROACH TO LEARNING

 Learning Styles and

Strategies
 Adding a Process Dimension
CLASSROOM
ORGANIZATION
 Teacher-Fronted Versus
Small Group Classrooms
 Communication in the
Workplace
 Group work is essential to any
classroom that is based on
principles of experiential
learning.
ASSESSMENT
 Shortcomings of
Standardized
Assessment andTests
Evaluation
 Assessment refers to the tools,
techniques, and procedures for
collecting and interpreting information
about what learners can and cannot
do. In evaluating one’s teaching, it is
obviously important to include
assessment data.
 Student Self-
LANGUAGE OUT OF CLASS
 Strategies for Activating
Language Out of Class
Out-of-class tasks include:
 engaging in peer review sessions, in
which they collaborate with a fellow
student to review projects and
assignments:
 conducting dialogue journals with me
via the internet;
 taking part in conversation
exchanges with foreigners who
want to practice their Chinese
 projects and surveys
 doing language improvement
projects in the independent learning
center
THANK YOU
FOR
LISTENING