Chapter 4

 No matter which approach you use, your

teaching must have some principles in order
to be effective.

 These principles are deeply rooted in SLA

theory.

 Practice must always be connected to theory.

1. Automaticity
2. Transfer
3. Reward
4. Self-regulation
5. Identity and investment
6. Interaction
7. Languaculture
8. Agency
 Automaticity is the ability to do things
without occupying the mind with the low
level details that are required.

Discuss
 Can you thing of skills or abilities in which
automaticity is noticeable and achievable?
 Automaticity is processing and producing
language with little or no analysis of the form
(grammar, phonology, vocabulary), but
focusing effectively on the function
(meaning) of their input and output.
 So it requires moving from focal to peripheral
attention.
 (+) Attention -------------> Attention (-)
 For adults, automaticity is sometimes impeded
by overanalysis of language forms, which
become too focal.
 In order to cognitively manage the incredible
complexity and quantity of language systems,
adults need to develop strategies of high-speed,
automatic processing in which language forms
are on the periphery of attention.
Discuss What strategies do you think the previous
paragraph refers to?
 Efficient L2 learning involves a timely
progression from control of a few language
forms to fluid and error-free automatic
processing (in both production and
comprehension) of a relatively unlimited
number of language forms.
 Development of fluency –usually through
extensive practice- is aided by a primary focus
on meaning, purpose, and interaction, and a
secondary but optimal amount of attention to
language forms.
Discuss

 As a teacher how can you help your adults

students to achieve automaticity?

 Does this principle mean that a focus on forms

are a no-no in language teaching?
1) Focus on authentic language/ materials/
situations.
2) Instruction on form is important but not the
ultimate goal of language teaching.
3) During form instruction, your goal is to help
your students notice forms and to correct/
modify errors, and ultimately to incorporate
that information to their language use.
4) Fluency activities (focused on meaning) may
help students to “unblock” overattention to
form.
5) Automaticity is a gradual process.
 The principle of transfer plays a dominant
role in learning an additional language.

 Transfer research:
20th century – interlingual transfer
60’s and 70’s – intralingual transfer
Nowadays – cross-linguistic influence
 Interlingual transfer/ + -
interference
L1………………………………………………………L2

L2
Intralingual
L2
transfer

Crosslinguistic influence
L1………………………………………………………L2
 Is the application of knowledge, skill, or
emotion acquired in one situation to new
situations.
 Virtually all learning is the product of transfer.
 Transfer underlies all meaningful learning.
 Because L2 learners naturally seek to transfer
existing knowledge/ability to new knowledge or
ability, efficient (and successful) learning will
result from a process of making meaningful
associations between learner’s existing
knowledge, skills, and emotions and the new
material to be learned.

Discuss What can you do as a teacher to make sure

this principle is present?
Anchor new material to Ss’ existing knowledge
and ability:
1. Get familiar with your Ss backgrounds,
interests, personalities, occupations, hobbies,
likes & dislikes, and plan your class
accordingly.
2. When introducing new material, review
previously learned material on which the new
one is based.
3. As you teach one skills area, connect what
your Ss are learning to other skills.
4. Don’t overdo grammar drills, avoid activities
that have no clear purpose, make sure your
students understand the purpose of a
lesson/activity. Base your teaching as much as
possible on content that learners can identify
with, as opposed to grammar-driven teaching.
 Classroom techniques have a much greater
chance for success if they are self-rewarding in
the perception of the learner: the learners
perform a task because it is fun, interesting,
useful or challenging, and only secondarily
because they anticipate a cognitive or
affective reward.
 But the implications of intrinsically and
extrinsically driven behaviors of the classroom
are more complex.
Extrinsic motives Intrinsic motives
Praise, recognition Understanding
why they are doing
something along
with their goals in
learning
 The ultimate goal is for students to engage in
self-determination: to choose to make an
effort because of what they will gain, in either
the short or long run.
 Human beings are universally driven to act, or
to “behave”, in anticipation of a reward. The
most powerful rewards are those that are
intrinsically motivated: the behavior stems
from needs, wants, or desires withing oneself
and is self-rewarding.
 The key is to create an optimal blend of
extinsic (teacher-administered) rewards, and
intrinsically-driven rewards.

Discuss
What can you do as a teacher to
promote this principle in your class?
1. Immediate praise and encouragement and
acknowledgement.
2. Capitalize on the energy of cooperative
group work.
3. Be enthusiastic and energetic
4. Encourage learners to see the intrinsic, long-
term rewards in learning an L2.
5. Give your Ss some choices so they feel some
“ownership” of their language development.
 An important factor of successful language
learning is self-regulation.
 S-R is deliberate goal-directed attempts to
manage and control efforts to learn the L2.
 L2 classes should promote autonomy.
 Self-regulation is a key ingredient of
autonomy.
 This includes helping learners to use
language outside of the classroom.
1. Help beginner Ss move gradually from
dependency to autonomy.
2. Implement activities that allow creativity
3. Encourage Ss to set some goals
4. Help your Ss become aware of their own
preferences, styles, strengths and
weaknesses, so they can use the appropriate
strategies.
5. Share with your Ss some strategies to
successful L2 learning.
6. Use interactive activities that are focused on
tasks.
7. Provide (balanced) feedback on their
speech.
8. Suggest opportunities for Ss to use their
language outside the class.
 “You are what you speak”…so who am I in
English?
 Language ego is “the identity a person develops
in reference to the language he or she speaks”.
 Oneself-identity is bound up with one’s
language, for it is in the communicative
process…that such identities are confirmed,
shaped, and reshaped.
 One’s linguistic ability was intertwined with one’s
sense of worth, self-esteem, and self-efficacy
 Identity is the extent to which L2 learners do not
perceive themselves merely as individual entities
but, more importantly, as “an integral and
constituive part” of the social world to which they
are connected.
 While language ego viewed the “real me” as
possessing a unique, fixed, constant core, the
identity concept “depicts the individual as diverse,
contradictory, dynamic, and changing over
historical time and social space”.
 A continuum

Understand themselves Members of society who

as individuals appropriate the
practices of a given
community
 Investment involves commitment and
motivation in the traditional sense, more
importantly, learners are seeking to increase
the value of their cultural capital.
 Learning to think, feel, act, and communicate
in an L2 is a complex socio-affective process
of perceiving yourself as an integral part of a
social community. The process involves self-
awareness, investment, agency, and
determination, amidst a host of power issues,
to frame your own identity within the social
relationships of a community.
1. Be supportive, patient and empathetic.
Remember that even if your Ss are not
proficient, they are intelligent human beings.
2. Try to incorporate your Ss skills and talents
into your teaching. That will help to build self-
confidence and worthiness.
3. Consider Ss identity development in your
decisions.
4. Give Ss opportunities to make choices so they
are more apt to be invested in their learning.
 A state of readiness to engage in the L2.
 Unwillingness to communicate reasons
include anxiety and fear.
 Provide a safe environment and encourage Ss
to “come out of their shells”.
 Help Ss take risks with language
 As Ss progress in their development, they
gradually acquire communicative
competence.
 Interactive communication is not merely a
component of language learning, but rather
the very basis for L2 development
 ZDP
 Learners are led, through the scaffolding
support of teacher, materials, and curriculum,
to construct the new language through
socially mediated interaction.
 Give ample verbal and nonverbal assurances
to Ss to encourage them
 Sequence (scaffold) techniques from easier to
more difficult.
 Create an atmosphere that encourages Ss to
try out language and venture a response
 Provide reasonable challenges
 Help Ss understand what calculated risk-
taking is
 Balance assurance and corrective feedback
 Whenever you teach a language, you also
teach culture.
 The “langua” is about discourse, not just
about words and sentences. And the
“culture” is about meanings that include, but
go beyond, what the dictionary and grammar
offer.
  The interaction principle involves connecting
language and culture.

Discuss
Can learners be taught to be
interculturally competent? How?
 Customs Grasp on:
 Attitudes  Politeness
 Values  Humor
 Norms  Slang
 Beliefs  Dialect
Views on: Specifically:
 Individualism  Books
 Power  Music
 Gender roles  Movies
 Religion  Sports teams
 Time orientation  Celebrities
 Whenever you teach a language, you also
teach a complex system of cultural customs,
values, and ways of thinking, feeling, and
acting.
 As learners redefine their identities as they
learn an L2, they can be aided by direct
approach to acknowledging cultural
differences, an open affirmation of learners’
struggles, of the value of their “home”
culture, and of their self-worth.
 Discuss cross-cultural differences. Illustrate
intercultural misunderstandings.
 Include activities and materials that illustrate
the language-culture connection.
 Teach cultural connotations that will enable
them to increase their interactive use of the
L2: humor, slang, small talk…
 Refers to people’s ability to make choices,
take control, self-regulate, and thereby
pursue their goals as individuals, leading
potentially to personal or social
transformation.
 Vygotsky reminded us that children gain
agency as they acquire cognitive and
linguistic abilities that enable them
eventually to function autonomously .
 At the core of motivation is agency: the act of
making choices in acts of self-determination.
 Self-efficacy theory emphasizes the
importance of a learner’s self-appraisal, a
foundation stone of agency.