TEACHING BY

PRINCIPLES

LINGUISTIC

AutomaticityMeaningful learningThe anticipation of

rewardIntrinsic motivationStrategic investmentLanguage egoSelf-confidenceRisk-takingLanguage-culture

The native language effectInterlanguageCommunicative competence

MENTAL AND INTELLECTUAL

EMOTIONAL

LANGUAGE

AFFECTIVE

COGNITIVE

COGNITIVE PRINCIPLES

Principle 1: Automaticity

It is the ability to do things without occupying the mind with the low-level details required, allowing it to become an automatic response pattern or habit. It is usually the result of learning, repetition, and practice.

Walk Drive a bicycle

Examples:

Subconscious absorption of language through meaningful use.

Efficient and rapid movement away from a focus on the forms of language to a focus on the purpose to which language is used,

Resistance to the temptation to analyze language forms.

This principle includes:

You need to have your lessons are focused on the “use” of language for purposes that are as genuine as classroom context will permit.

You need to exercise patience with students as you slowly help them to achieve fluency.

Some possible application of the principle to adult instruction:

Principle 2: Meaningful Learning

Meaningful learning refers to a learning way where the new knowledge to acquire is related with previous knowledge.

1. Capitalize on the power of meaningful learning by appealing to students’ interests, academic goals, and career goals.

2. When a new topic is introduced, you can try that your students can associate this topic with something they already know.

3. Avoid the pitfalls of rote learning:

Too much grammar explanation.

Too many abstract principles and theories.

Some classroom implications of the principle:

Principle 3: The Anticipation of Reward

Human beings are universally driven to act, or “behave,” by the anticipation of some sort of reward—tangible or intangible, short term or long term– that will ensue as a result of the behavior.

Provide an optimal degree of immediate verbal praise and encouragement to students as a form of short-term reward.

Display enthusiasm and excitement yourself in the classroom. If you are dull, lifeless, bored, and have low energy, you can be almost sure that it will be contagious.

Encourage students to reward each other with compliments and supportive action.

Constructive classroom implications:

It refers to motivation that comes from inside an individual rather than from any external or outside rewards, such as money or grades.

Principle 4: Intrinsic Motivation

Learners perform task because it is fun, interesting, useful, or challenging, and not because they anticipate some cognitive or affective rewards from the teacher.

Investment of time, effort, and attention to the second language to help you to can be comprehend and produce the language.

Principle 5: Strategic Investment

Successful mastery of the foreign language will depend to a great extent on learner’s autonomous ability both to take initiative in the classroom and to continue their journey to success beyond the classroom and the teacher.

Principle 6: Autonomy

Some classroom implications of the principle:

Using pair and group word as interactive activities in your classroom.

In oral and written production in the classroom, encourage creativity and praise students for trying language that`s a little beyond their present capacity.

Suggest opportunities for students to use their language outside of class. Examples: TV, the Internet, books, magazines, practicing with each others.

AFFECTIVE PRINCIPLESPrinciple 7: Language Ego

It creates within the learners a sense of fragility, a defensiveness, and a raising of inhibitions.

All second language learners need to be

treated with affective tender loving care because it will help you to be fine although they do not understand all the lessons.

Learners believe in themselves and in their capacity to accomplish communicative tasks, and are therefore willing risk takers in their attempts to produce and to interpret language that is a bit beyond their absolute certainly.

Principle 8: Willingness to Communicate

Give ample verbal and nonverbal assurances to students, affirming your belief in the student`s ability.

Create an atmosphere in the classroom that encourages students to try out language, to venture a response, and not to wait for someone else to volunteer language.

Help your students to understand what risk-taking is, lest some feel that they must blurt out any old response.

How can your classrooms reflect the Principle of WTC?

Whenever you teach a language, you also teach a complex system of cultural customs, values, and ways of thinking.

Principle 9: The Language-Culture Connection

Discuss cross-cultural differences with your students, emphasizing that no culture is “better” than another, but that cross-cultural understanding is an important facet of learning a language. Teach your students the culture connotations, especially the sociolinguistic aspects, of language.

Some classroom applications :

LINGUISTIC PRINCIPLESPrinciple 10: The 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, the interfering effects are likely to be the most salient.

1.Regard learners’ errors as important windows to their underlying system and provide appropriate feedback on them. Errors of native language interference may be repaired by acquainting the learner with the native language cause of the error.

2.Ideally every successful learner will hold on to the facilitating effects of the native language and discard the interference.

Some classroom suggestions stemming from the Native Language Effect are as follows:

Second language learners tend to go through a systematic or quasi--systematic developmental process as they progress to full competence in the target language. Successful interlanguage development is partially a result of utilizing feedback from others.

Principle 11: Interlanguage

Try to distinguish between the student’s systematic inter-language errors (stemming from the native language or target language) and other errors; the former will probably have a logical source that the student can become aware of.

Teachers need to exercise some tolerance for certain inter-language forms that may arise out of student’s logical development process.

Classroom implications that deserve the teachers’ attention:

Pragmatic Competence

Strategic Competence

Psycomotor SkillsCompetence

Organizational Competence

Principle 12: Communicative Competence

Some components of Communicative Competence:

Communicative Competence is the goal of a language classroom.

Communicative goals are best achieved by giving due attention to language use and not just usage, to fluency and not just accuracy, to authentic language and contexts, and to students’ eventual need to apply classroom learning to previously unrehearsed contexts in the real world.

Liz