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UNIT 1
CHAPTER 4
COGNITIVE PRINCIPLES
The first set of principles is called “cognitive” because they relate mainly to
mental and intellectual functions.
Principle 1: Automaticity
Through an inductive process of exposure to language input and opportunity
to experiment with output, children appear to learn languages without “thinking”
about them.
The Principle of Automaticity includes the importance of:
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 purposes to which language is put,
Efficient and rapid movement away from capacity-limited control of a few
bits and pieces to a relatively unlimited automatic mode of processing
language forms, and
Resistance to the temptation to analyze language forms.
The principle says that adults can take a lesson from children by speedily
overcoming our propensity to pay too much focal attention to the bits and pieces of
language and to move language forms quickly to the periphery by using language in
authentic contexts for meaningful purposes.
In classroom:
1. Being too heavily centered on the formal aspects of language can block
pathways to fluency.
2. A large proportion of your lessons should be focused on the “use” of
language for purposes that are genuine.
3. Be patient with students to help them achieve fluency.
In classroom:
1. Appeal to students’ interests, academic goals and career goals.
2. When introducing a new topic, attempt to anchor it in students’ existing
knowledge and background.
3. Avoid the pitfalls of rote learning:
a. too much grammar explanations
b. too much abstract principles and theories
c. too much drilling and/or memorization
d. unclear activities
e. activities that don’t contribute to accomplishing the goals of the
lesson, unit or course
f. techniques too mechanic and tricky
In classroom:
1. Provide an optimal degree of immediate verbal praise and encouragement to
them as a form of short-term reward.
2. Encourage students to reward each other with compliments and supportive
action.
3. In classes with very low motivation, short-term reminders of progress may
help students. (Gold stars and stickers, privileges for good work, progress
charts and graphs, etc.).
4. Display enthusiasm and excitement yourself.
5. Try to get learners to see the long-term rewards in learning English.
In classroom:
1. A variety of techniques in your lessons will ensure that you’ll rich a maximum
number of students. Choose a mixture of group work and individual work, of
visual and auditory techniques, of easy and difficult exercises.
2. Pay as much attention as you can to each individual.
AFFECTIVE PRINCIPLES
Principle 6: Language Ego
The Language Ego Principle can be summarized in this claim:
As human beings learn to use a second language, they also develop a new
mode of thinking, feeling, and acting – a second identity. The new “language
ego”, intertwined with the second language, can easily create within the
learner a sense of fragility, a defensiveness, and a raising of inhibitions
The Language Ego Principle also called “warm and fuzzy” principles: all second
language learners need to be treated with affective tender living care.
In classroom:
1. Overtly display a supportive attitude to your students.
2. Your choice of techniques and sequences of techniques needs to be
cognitively challenging but not overwhelming at an affective level.
3. 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.
Principle 7: Self-Confidence
This Principle emphasizes the importance of the learner’s self-assessment,
regardless of the degree of language-ego involvement. It states:
Learners’ belief that they indeed are fully capable of accomplishing a task is
at least partially a factor in their eventual success in attaining the task.
In classroom:
1. Give ample verbal and nonverbal assurances to students. It helps students
to hear a teacher affirm a belief in the student’s ability.
2. Sequence techniques from easier to more difficult.
Principle 8: Risk-Taking
The previous 2 principles, if satisfied, by the groundwork for risk-taking.
Learners are ready to try out their newly acquired language, to useit for
meaningful purposes, to ask questions, and to assert themselves.
It states:
Successful language learners, in their realistic appraisal of themselves as
vulnerable beings yet capable of accomplishing tasks, must be willing to
become “gamblers” in the game of language, to attempt to produce and
interpret language that is a bit beyond their absolute certainty.
In classroom:
1. Create an atmosphere in the classroom hat encourages students to try out
language to venture a response, and not to wait for someone else to
volunteer language.
2. Provide reasonable challenges in your techniques.
3. Respond to students’ risky attempts with positive affirmations.
In classroom:
1. Discuss cross-cultural differences with your students, emphasizing that no
culture is “better” than another.
2. Include certain activities and materials that illustrate the connection
between language and culture.
3. Teach them the cultural connotations of language.
4. Don’t use material that is culturally offensive.
In classroom:
1. Help students to be aware of acculturation and its stages.
2. Stress the importance of the second language as a powerful tool for
adjustment in the new culture.
3. Be sensitive to any students who appear to be discouraged.
LINGUISTIC PRINCIPLES
In classroom:
1. Regard learners’ errors as important windows to their underlying system
and provide appropriate feedback on them.
2. To understand that not everything about their native language sustem
will cause error.
3. Try to coax students into thinking in the second language instead of
resorting to translation as they comprehend and produce language.
In classroom:
1. Distinguish between a student’s systematic Interlanguage errors and other
errors.
2. Exercise some tolerance for certain Interlanguage forms may arise out of
students’ logical development process.
3. Don’t make student feel stupid because of an Interlanguage error.
4. Classroom feedback message that mistakes are not “bad”. Mistakes are
often indicators of aspects of the new language that are still developing.
5. Try to get student to self-correct selected errors.
6. Ample affective feedback (verbal or nonverbal).
7. Kindness and empathy.
In classroom:
1. Give grammar some attention, but don’t neglect the other important
components.
2. Some of the pragmatic aspects of language are very subtle and therefore
very difficult. Make sure your lessons aim to teach such subtlety.
3. When teaching functional and sociolinguistic aspects of language, don’t
forget that the psychomotor skills are an important components of both.
4. Give them opportunities to gain some fluency in English without having ti be
constantly wary of little mistakes.
5. Try to keep every technique that you use as authentic is possible: use
language from the real world.
CHAPTER 5
DEFINING MOTIVATION
Motivation is the extent to which you make choice about (a) goals to pursue
and (b) the effort you will devote to that pursuit. We can look at theories of
motivation in terms of two opposing camps: one of them is a traditional view of
motivation that accounts for human behaviour through a behaviouristic paradigm
that stresses the importance of rewards and reinforcements. In the other camp
are cognitive psychological viewpoints that explain motivation through deeper, less
observable phenomena.
1. A Behaviouristic Definition
A behaviouristic psychologist like Skinner or Watson would stress the role
of rewards (and punishments) in motivating behaviour. In Skinner’s operant
conditioning model, human beings will pursue a goal because they perceive a reward
for doing so. This reward serves to reinforce behaviour (M&M theory of
behaviour).
A behaviourist would define motivation as “the anticipation of
reinforcement”.
Reinforcement theory is a powerful concept for the classroom. Learners
pursue goals in order to receive externally administered rewards: praise, gold
stars, etc.
2. Cognitive Definitions
There 3 different theories:
A. Drive theory: those who see human drives as fundamental to human
behaviour claim that motivation stems from basic innate drives. Ausubel created 6
different drives:
Exploration
Manipulation
Activity
Stimulation
Knowledge
Ego enhancement
All of these drives act not much as reinforces but as innate
predispositions, compelling us to probe the unknown, to control our
environment, to be physically active, to be receptive to mental, emotional, or
physical stimulation, to yearn for answers to questions, and to build ou own
self-esteem.
B. Hierarchy of needs theory: Maslow describes a system of needs within
each human being that propel us to higher attainment. Maslow’s hierarchy is best
viewed metaphorically as a pyramid of needs, progressing from the satisfaction of
purely physical needs up through safety and communal needs, to needs of esteem,
and finally to “self-actualization”.
A key importance here is that a person is not adequately energized to pursue
some of the higher needs until the lower foundations of the pyramid have been
satisfied.
For an activity in the classroom to be motivating, it does not need to
outstandingly striking, innovative, or inspirational.
C. Self-control theory: the importance of people deciding for themselves
what to think or feel or do. Motivation is highest when one can make one’s own
choices, wheter they are in short-term or long term-contexts.
INTRINSIC AND EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION
Two important points:
1. Orientation means a context or purpose for learning; motivation refers to
the intensity one’s impetus to learn. An integrative orientation means that
the learner is pursuing a second language for social and/or cultural purposes
where the learner could be driven by a high level of motivation or a low level.
In an instrumental orientation, learners are studying a language in order to
further a career or academic goal.
2. Integrative and instrumental orientations are not to be confused with
intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Integrative/Instrumental orientation is a
true dichotomy and refers only to the context of learning.
Intrinsic/extrinsic motivation designates a continuum of possibilities of
intensity of feeling or drive, from deeply internal, self-generated rewards to
strong, externally administered rewards
There are activities that capitalize on the intrinsic by appealing to learners’ self-
determination and autonomy:
Teaching writing as a thinking process to develop own ideas.
Strategies of reading that enable them to bring their information to the
written word.
Language experience approaches to create own reading materials for others
in class.
Oral fluency exercises to talk about their interests.
Listening to an academic lecture in one’s own field of study.
Communicative language teaching to enable them to accomplish specific
functions.
Grammatical explanations.
Learner characteristics
All second language learners have at least one language. The learner has an idea of
how languages work. Knowledge of other languages can also make learners to make
incorrect guesses about how the second language works and this may cause errors.
The first language learner does not have the same cognitive maturity,
metalinguistic, awareness, or world knowledge as older second language learners.
Second language learners, they will still have far to go in these areas, world
knowledge.
Most child learners do not feel about attempting to use the language, but adults
and adolescents often find it very stressful when they are unable to express
themselves clearly and correctly.
Learning conditions
Behaviourism
The impact of behaviourism on our understanding of the second language learning.
Behaviourism was often linked to the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH). The
CAH predicts that where there are similarities between the first language and the
target language, the learner will acquire target-language structures with ease;
where there are differences, the learner will have difficulty.
Learners are reluctant to transfer certain features of their first language to the
second language. All this suggests that the influence of the learner’s first language
may not simply be a matter of the transfer of habits, but a more subtle and
complex process of identifying points of similarity, weighing the evidence and even
reflecting about whether a certain features seems to belong in the structure of
the target language.
Innatism
Universal Grammar
Do not all agree on how UG works in second language development. Even if second
language learners begin learning the second language after the end of the critical
period and even if many fail to achieve complete mastery acquisition: learners
eventually know more about the language than they could reasonably have learned
if they had to depend entirely on the input they are exposed to. They infer from
this that UG must be available to second language learners as well as to firs
language learners.
Researchers working within the UG differ in their hypotheseses about how formal
instruction or error correction will affect the learner’s knowledge of the second
language. Adult second language learners neither need nor benefit from error
correction and metalinguistic information. These change only the superficial
appearance of language performance and do not affect the knowledge of the new
language. Other UG linguists, suggest that second language learners may need to be
given some explicit information about what is not grammatical in the second
language.
Researchers who study SLA from the UG perspective are interested in the
language competence (knowledge) of advanced learners rather than in the simple
language of early stages learners. Thus their investigations involve the judgements
of grammaticality, rather than observations of actual speaking. They hope to gain
insight into what learners actually know about the language, using a task which
avoids at least some of the many things which affect the way we ordinarily use
language.
Information processing
Everything we come to know about the language was first noticed consciously
(Schmidt).
There are changes in skill and knowledge which are due to restructuring. Sometime
things which we know and use automatically may not be explainable in terms of a
gradual build-up of automatically through practice. They seem to be based on the
interaction of knowledge weal ready have or on the acquisition of new knowledge
which somehow fits into an existing system and causes it to be transformed or
restructured.
Connectionism
Some interactionist theorists have argued that much second language acquisition
takes places through conversational interaction. Comprehensible input is necessary
for language acquisition. Michael Long is more concerned with the question of how
input is made comprehensible. What learners need is not necessarily simplification
of the linguistic forms but rather an opportunity to interact with other speakers,
in ways which lead them to adapt what they are saying until the learner shows sings
of understanding. Research show that native speakers consistently modify their
speech in sustained conversation with non-native speakers.
Modified interaction may include elaboration, slower speech rate gesture, or the
provision of additional contextual cues.
1- Comprehension checks – to ensure that the learners has understood
2- Clarification requests
3- Self-repetition or paraphrase
Summary
In the end, what all theories of language acquisition are meant account for is the
working of the human mind.
Many claims from behaviourist theory were based on experiments with animals
learning a variety of responses to laboratory stimuli. Their applicability to the
natural learning of language was strongly challenged because of the inadequacy
behaviourist models.
The innatists draw much of their evidence from studies of the complexities of the
proficient speaker’s language knowledge and performance and from analysis of
their own intuitions about language. Critics argue that it is not enough to know what
the final state of knowledge.
Some people have a much easier time of learning than others. Rate of development
varies widely among first language learners. In second language learning, some
students progress rapidly through the initial stages of learning a new language
while others struggle along making very slow progress. Some learners never achieve
native-like command of a second language.
When researchers are interested in finding out whether motivation affects second
language learning, they select a group of learners and give them a questionnaire to
measure the type and degree of their motivation. The learners are then given a
test to measure their second language proficiency. The test and the questionnaire
are scored and the researcher performs a correlation on the two measures, to see
whether learners with high scores on the proficiency test are also more likely to
have high scores on the motivation questionnaire. If this is the case, the
researcher concludes that high levels of motivation are correlated with success in
language learning.
The first problem is that is not possible to directly observe and measure qualities
such as motivation, extroversion, or even intelligence. These are just labels of
behaviours and characteristics. Different researchers have often used the same
labels to describe different sets of behavioural traits.
Another factor which makes it difficult to reach conclusions about relationships
between individual learner characteristics and second language learning is how
language proficiency is defined and measured.
Finally, there is the problem of interpreting the correlation of two factors as
being due to causal relationship between them. The fact that two things tend to
occur together does not necessarily mean that one caused the other. Learners who
are successful may indeed be highly motivated.
Intelligence
This term has traditionally been used to refer to performance on certain kinds of
tests. These tests are often associated with success in school, and a link between
intelligence and second language learning has sometimes been reported. Over the
years, many studies have found that IQ scores were a good means of predicting
how successful a learner would be. Recent studies have shown that these measures
may be more strongly related to certain kinds of second language abilities than to
others. Intelligence may be a strong factor when it comes to learning. It may play a
less important role in classrooms where the instruction focuses more on
communication and interaction.
It is complex. Individuals have many kinds of abilities and strengths, not all of
which are measured by traditional IQ tests. Many students whose academic
performance has been experienced considerably success in second language
learning.
Aptitude
Some individuals have an exceptional “aptitude” for language learning. Learning
quickly is the distinguishing feature of aptitude. The most widely used aptitude
tests are the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) and the Pimsleur Language
Aptitude Battery (PLAB). Both based on the view that aptitude is composed of
different types of abilities: 1- the ability to identify and memorize new sounds; 2-
the ability to understand the function of particular words in sentences; 3- the
ability to figure out grammatical rules from language samples; 4- memory for new
words.
Successful language learners may not be strong in all of the components of
aptitude. Teachers may find that knowing the aptitude profile of their students
will help them in selecting appropriate classroom activities for particular groups of
students.
Personality
A number of personality characteristics have been proposed as likely to affect
second language learning, but it has not been easy to demonstrate their effects in
empirical studies. As with other research investigating the effects of individual
characteristics on second language learning, different studies measuring a similar
personality trait produce different results. An extroverted person is well suited to
language learning. Success is correlated with learners’ scores on characteristics
often associated with extroversion such as assertiveness and adventurousness;
others have found many successful language learners do not get high scores on
measures of extroversion.
Another aspect studied is inhibition which discourages risk- taking. It’s a problem
of adolescents, who are more self-conscious than younger learners. Inhibition is a
negative force for second language pronunciation performance.
Several other personality characteristics such as self-esteem, empathy,
dominance, talkativeness, and responsiveness have also been studied. The major
difficulty in investigating personality characteristics is that of identification and
measurement.
Many researchers believe that personality will be shown to have an important
influence on success in language learning. Probably not personality alone, but the
way it combines with other factors, that contributes to second language learning.
There has been a great deal of research on the role of attitudes and motivation in
second language learning. Positive attitudes and motivation are related to success
in second language learning. The question is, are learners more highly motivated
because the are successful, or they are successful because they are highly
motivated?
Motivation can be defined in terms of two factors: learners’ communicative needs
and their attitudes towards the second language community. If learners need to
speak the second language in a wide range of social situations they will perceive the
communicative value of the second language and therefore be motivated to acquire
proficiency in it. The terms integrative motivation refer to language learning for
personal growth and cultural enrichment, and instrumental motivation for language
learning for more immediate or practical goals.
Depending on the learner’s attitudes, learning a second language can be a source of
enrichment or a source of resentment. If the reason for learning the second
language is external pressure, internal motivation may be minimal and general
attitudes towards learning may be negative.
One factor which affects motivation is the social dynamic or power relationship
between the languages. That is, members of a minority group learning the language
of a majority group have different attitudes and motivation from majority group
members learning a minority language.
Learner preferences
Learners have clear preferences for how they go about learning new material
(learning style). People cannot learn something until they have seen it. Such
learners would fall into the group called visual learners. Other people, may be
called aural learners, need only to hear something once or twice before they know
it. Others are kinaesthetic learners, need to add a physical action to the learning
process. In contrast considerably research has focused on a cognitive learning
style distinction between field independent and field dependent learners. An
individual tends to separate details from the general background or to see thing
holistically. Another category is based on the individual’s temperament or
personality.
When learners express a preference for seeing something written or for
memorizing material, we should not assume that the ways of working are wrong. We
should encourage them to use all means available.
Learners beliefs
All the learners, have strong beliefs and opinions about how their instruction
should be delivered. Usually based on previous learning experiences and the
assumption that a particular type o instruction is the best way for them to learn.
Learners beliefs can be strong mediating factors in the experience in the
classroom.
Learners’ preferences for learning, will influence the kind of strategies they use in
order to learn new material.
Age of acquisition
A learner characteristic: age. It’s easier to define and measure than personality,
aptitude and motivation.
Children from immigrant families eventually speak the language of their new
community with native-like fluency. Many adults second language learners become
capable of communicating very successfully in the language but, difference of
accent, word choice or grammatical features distinguish them from native speakers
and second language speakers.
In first language acquisition, there is a critical period for second language
acquisition. There is a time in human development when the brain is predisposed to
succeed in language learning. Changes in the brain affect the nature of language
acquisition. According to this view, language learning which occurs after the end of
a critical period may not be based on the innate biological structures to contribute
to first language acquisition or second lang acquisition in early childhood. The
critical period ends somewhere around puberty, some even earlier.
Younger learners (Critical period Hypothesis) have more time to devote to learning
a language. They have more opportunities to hear and use the language in
environments where they do not experience pressure to speak fluently. Older
learners are in situations which demand more complex language. Adults are often
embarrassed with their lack of mastery of the language and must develop a sense
of inadequacy after experiences of frustration in trying to say exactly what they
mean.
Some studies of older and younger learners have shown that older learners are
more efficient than younger students. In educational research, learners who began
learning a second language at the primary school level did not fare better in the
long run than those who began in early adolescence.
Intuition of grammaticality
Jaqueline Johnson and Elissa Newport conducted a study of 46 Chinese and Korean
speakers who had begun to learn English at different ages.
They found that there was a strong relationship between an early start to language
learning and better performance in the second language. Those who began before
the age of 15, especially before the age of 10, there were few individual
differences in second language ability. Those who began later did not have native-
like language abilities and were more likely to differ from one another in ultimate
attainment.
This study, supports the hypothesis that there is a critical period for attaining full
native-like mastery of a second language.
MOTIVATION
6.1 Introduction:
It is one of the most powerful influences on learning and is sometimes used as a
blanket term to signify that someone has a general disposition to learn. The term
“motivation” is composed of many different and overlapping factors such as
interest, curiosity or a desire to achieve. It is also subject to various external
influences such as parents, teachers and exams. We’ll focus on a cognitive approach
where the emphasis is placed upon ways in which individuals make sense of their
learning experiences and are seen as being motivated by their conscious thoughts
and feelings.
Murray identified a large number of human needs as causing inner tensions which
had to be released. Motivation was defined in terms of the “press” the urge to
release the tension and satisfy.
For many years such drive reduction theories dominated theory and research on
motivation.
However, in its early form, achievement theory placed little emphasis upon how
people made sense of the tasks with which they were presented. The drive to
achieve was viewed as unconscious and as a simple cancelling out of conflicting
forces – a kind of approach/avoidance ratio.
Early approaches were not satisfactory because they were too simplistic and based
on the principle of homeostasis, which does not always apply even to animal
behaviour and they presented a view of individuals at they mercy of forces beyond
their control.
The learning of a foreign language involves far more than simply learning skills, or a
system of rules or a grammar; it involves an alteration in self-image, the adoption
of a new social and cultural behaviours and ways of being and therefore has a
significant impact on the social nature of the learner. (Learning a second language
is learning to be another social person - Crookall)
He defines motivation as the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal
of learning the language plus favourable attitudes towards learning the language.
Garner also makes a distinction between integrative and instrumental orientations.
Orientation is not the same as motivation but represents reasons for studying
language.
Integrative orientation: occurs when the learner is studying a language because of
a wish to identify with the culture of speakers of that language.
Language level
Learner level
Learning situational level
Course-specific motivational components
Teacher- specific motivational components
Group-specific motivational components
The central factor from the cognitive perspective is choice. People have choice
over the way in which they behave and have control over their actions. This is in
marked contrast to a behaviourist view which sees our actions as at the mercy of
external forces such as rewards. Motivation is concerned with issues as why people
decide to act in certain ways and what factors influence the choices they make, it
also involves decisions as to the amount of effort people are prepared to expend.
The role of the teacher becomes one of helping and enabling learners to make
suitable choices.
A constructivist view centres around the premise that each individual is motivated
differently. People will make their own sense of the various external influences
that surround them in ways that are personal to them therefore, what motivates
one person to learn a foreign language and keeps that person going until he or she
has achieved a level of proficiency with which he or she is satisfied will differ
from individual to individual.
Motivation
٭A state of cognitive and emotional arousal
٭Which leads to a conscious decision to act, and
٭Which gives rise to a period of sustained intellectual and/or physical effort
٭In order to attain a previously set goal (or goals)
The initial arousal may be triggered by internal causes (interest, curiosity) or
external (another person or event). Enthusiasm is activated leading to make a
conscious decision o act in certain ways in order to achieve a particular goal. Once
the activity has begun, the individual needs to sustain the effort needed to achieve
the goal, to persist. All this is influenced by the context and situation, and will be
personal to the individual.
This will take place within a social context and culture which will influence choices
made at each stage. The fist two stages may be concerned with initiating
motivation while the last one involves sustaining motivation.
Extrinsic: when the reason for performing an act is to gain something outside the
activity itself, such as passing an exam or obtaining financial reward.
In reality this distinction is not watertight and many of our actions are prompted
by a mixture of both reasons. Susan Harter views them as the opposite ends of a
continuum. She distinguishes 5 separate dimensions that are considered to
comprise motivation.
Intrinsic Extrinsic
Preference for challenge Vs Preference for easy work
Curiosity/interest Vs Pleasing teacher/getting grades
Independent mastery Vs Dependence of teacher in figuring out
problems
Independent judgement Vs Reliance on teacher’s judgement about
what to do
Internal criteria for success Vs External criteria for success
It is more realistic to suggest that one form of motivation influences another or to
see all the factors interacting to affect each other.
Te first two dimensions are concerned with reasons for acting while the last two
are more concerned with acting in a motivated way or sustaining the effort.
When people are involved in activities considered highly motivating, the following
conditions are likely to apply:
٭Mind and body are involved
٭Deep concentration
٭They know what they want to do
٭They know how well they are doing
٭They are not worried about failing
٭Time passes quickly
٭Lose of ordinary sense of self-conscious gnawing worry that characterises much
of daily life.
The term coined to describe the total involvement is called “flow experience”.
The discovery that someone else wants me to act in a way so much tat they are
prepared to reward me for my actions, they my feelings of personal responsibility
and freedom of choice may be diminished.
Locus of control
It involves their perception of whether they are subsequently in control of their
actions. The extent to which learners are in control of their learning will have an
effect upon their motivation to be continually involved in learning the language. In
contrast, learned helplessness, refers to learners that feel they lack control over
what happens.
Effectiveness motivation
Individuals possess an inner drive towards mastery which differs from the need to
achieve. Mastery involves succeeding in a task for its own sake while achieving
entails succeeding in order to be better than other people.
The concept of mastery oriented explains failure in terms of lack of effort and
seek clues in their mistakes for ways of improving their subsequent performance.
Self-worth concern: people with high self-worth concern will seek situations wehre
they enhance their feelings and avoid situations in which they may fail or where a
great deal of effort is involved.
The implication for teachers is that their learners’ interpretations of how their
parents, peers and teachers perceive them exerts a critical influence on their
motivational style this their motivation to learn a language.
People’s choices for goals reflect both their beliefs about intelligence and ability
and their typical behaviour patterns in achievement situations. The ones who
choose performance view intelligence as something fixed and unchangeable. If
their confidence is low they won’t improve their performance, if it is high they will
account for success in terms of fixed intelligence.
Those who pursue learning goals (mastery) will believe that intelligence or ability is
malleable and that effort is worthwhile.
If the goal is set by someone else, teachers will need to ensure that learners are
ready, willing and able to achieve these goals in a focused and self-directed way.
The term “effort-avoidance motivation” describes the behaviour of people who
were motivated not to work to achieve goals set by others.
The teacher should focus on redirecting the energy put into effort-avoidance in
creative rather than controlling ways. The attunement strategy involves the
teacher negotiating with the learner all aspects of the work. The teacher is a
mediator.
6.13.1 Feedback
EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Schools of thought
Positivist Cognitive
Behaviourism on Language teaching
Info-processing Constructivism
education method
approach
UNIT 3
That is why games are so important. The fun element creates a desire to communicate
and create unpredictability.
In fact, if children are impatient to communicate they probably will make more not
fewer mistakes.
3) Being realistic
Language classrooms are potentially noisy and demanding places. We need to be
realistic in our expectations of ourselves and the learners. On the contrary, being realistic
should mean taking realities into account in such a way that good things can still happen.
3.1 Knowing which activities ‘stir’ a class and which ‘settle’ them
In a positive sense, ‘stir’ means that the activities wake them up, stimulate them. In
a negative sense, it may be that the activities over-excite them or allow them to become
unconstructively restless. Meanwhile, there are other activities that seem to settle
children. To put it positively, that means they will calm a class down. The negative side of
this is to say that some activities will bore the class into inertia.
It is useful to make your own list from experience of your particular class:
3.2 Knowing which activities engage children’s minds and which keep them physically
occupied
At the risk again of oversimplifying for the sake of clarity, we can identify 2 main
types of involvement which could be described as:
Mental engagement,
Actual occupation.
If the teacher has five prompt cards showing well-known places (Eg: parks,
supermarket, etc.), children are already familiar with the words and they are now able to
produce the words by themselves. This activity makes them think, it engages their
emotions, it is fun and they are eager to choose right. In this form then, the activity is
mentally engaging in several ways. That is why children respond to it so well and why similar
activities are very effective and popular.
This kind of mental and emotional engagement contrasts with actual occupation
Again it helps to make a list:
We are going to consider the ages of five to seven and the eight to ten
years old.
Five to seven years old
What five to seven year olds can do at their own level:
They can talk about what they are doing
About what they have done or heard
Plan activities
Argue
Use logical reasoning
Use imaginations
Use a wide range of intonation patterns
Understand direct human interaction
Language development
Language as language
Becoming aware of language as something separate from the events taking place takes
time. Spoken world is often accompanied by the other clues to meaning-facial expression,
movement, etc.
Reading and writing are important for the child’s growing awareness of language and for
their own growth in the language.
Routines
Children benefit from knowing the rules and being familiar with the situation. They have
systems and routines. They use familiar situations, familiar activities. They repeat stories,
rhymes, etc.
Grammar
How good they are in a foreign language is not dependent on whether they have learnt the
grammar rules or not. Few are able to cope with grammar; they are not usually mature
enough to talk about it. Include the barest minimum of grammar, the best time to
introduce simple grammar is when a pupil asks for an explanation or when you think a pupil
will benefit from learning some grammar.
Correcting written work might or not be appropriate to compare what happens in the
mother tongue in the same situation. Explanations should be given on a individual-group
basis when the pupils themselves are asking the questions.
Assessment
It is useful for the teacher to make regular notes about each child’s progress, talking to
children regularly about their work and encouraging, stressing the positive side of things
and playing.
Not all pairs will finish at the same time. Don’t be tempted to let the pair work
continue until everyone has finished
Be on the look out for pupils who simply do not like each other
Go through what you want pupils to do before you put them into their pairs
Group work
Introducing group work
If your pupils are not used to work in groups, you can introduce them
gradually to group work.
1. Having teaching groups – groups which you teach separately from the rest of
the class
3. Start with just one group. Tell them clearly what the purpose is
4. Go through this process with all the groups before you let the whole class
work in groups at the same time
Numbers
Limit numbers in the group to between three and five.
Who works with whom?
Children should not be allowed to choose their groups because this takes a lot of
time and usually someone is left out. Sometimes group them according to ability.
Classroom language
If cooperation and communication are to be part of the process of learning a
language as well as part of the process of growing up, then the sooner the pupils
learn simple, meaningful expressions in English, the easier it will be.
Here are some faces which all your pupils should learn as soon as possible. Note
that they should be taught as phrases not as words or structures.
Do remember “please” and “thank you”. So do the words for all the things in the
classroom.
Try to speak English as much of the time as you can, using mime, acting, puppets
and any other means you can think of. Your pupils are unlikely to have the
opportunity to hear English all day, keep your language simple but natural, and keep
it at their level.
You will have to decide for yourself how much mother tongue you use – it depends
very largely on your own individual class. You can always convey the meaning of what
you are saying by the tone of voice and body language – you don’t always have to
switch languages.
Background
In 1977 Tracy Terrell (teacher of Spanish in California) outlined “a proposal for a
‘new’ philosophy of language teaching called Natural Approach”. This was an attempt to
develop a language teaching proposal that incorporated the “naturalistic” principles
researchers had identified in studies of second language acquisition. The Natural Approach
grew out of Terrell’s experiences teaching Spanish classes, in elementary – to advanced-
level classes and with other languages. Terrell joined forces with Stephen Krashen (applied
linguist at the University of Southern California) in elaborating a theoretical rationale for
the Natural Approach.
Krashen and Terrell identified the Natural Approach with what they call
“traditional” approaches (defined as “based on the use of language in communicative
situations without recourse to the native language” and grammatical drilling, or a particular
theory of grammar) to language teaching. They noted that such “approaches have been
called natural, psychological, phonetic, new, reform, direct, analytic, imitative and so
forth”. There are important differences between the Natural Approach and the older
Natural Method.
The Natural Method is another term for what by 1900 was the Direct Method: the
method consisted of a series of monologues by the teacher with exchanges of question and
answer with the pupil in the foreign language. With gesticulation, attentive listening and
repetition the learner came to associate certain acts and objects with certain
combinations of the sounds and finally he reproduced the foreign words or phrases.
The term natural emphasized that the principles underlying the method were
believed to conform to the principles of naturalistic language learning in young children.
Similarly, the Natural Approach is believed to conform to the naturalistic principles found
in successful second language acquisition. Unlike the Direct Method it places less emphasis
on teacher monologues, direct repetition and formal questions and answers, and less focus
on accurate production of target-language sentences. In the Natural Approach there is an
emphasis on exposure, or input, rather than practice.
Approach
Theory of language
Krashen and Terrell see communication as the primary function of language and they
refer to the Natural Approach as an example of a communicative approach. The Natural
Approach “is similar to other communicative approaches being developed today”. They
reject earlier methods of language teaching, such as the Audiolingual Method, which
viewed grammar as the central component of language. The major problem with these
methods was that they were built not around “actual theories of language acquisition, but
theories of something else (ex.: the structure of language)”. What Krashen and Terrell do
describe about the nature of language emphasizes the primacy of meaning. The importance
of the vocabulary is stressed (ex. : a language is essentially its lexicon and only
inconsequently the grammar that determines how the lexicon is exploited to produce
messages).
Language is viewed as a vehicle for communicating meanings and messages. Krashen
and Terrell stated that “acquisition can take place only when people understand messages
in the target language”. They view language learning, as do audiolinguists, as mastery of
structures by stages. “The input hypothesis states that in order for acquires to progress
to the next stage in the acquisition of the target language, they need to understand input
language that includes a structure that is part of the next stage (Krashen’s formula ‘I ┼
1’)”. The Natural Approach thus assumes a linguistic hierarchy of structural complexity
that one masters through encounters with “input” containing structures at the ‘I ┼ 1’ level.
Theory of learning
Krashen and Terrell make continuing reference to the theoretical and reearch base
claimed to underlie the Natural Approach and that the method is unique in having such a
base. “it is based on an empirically grounded theory of second language acquisition
supported by scientific studies ina variety of language acquisition and learning contexts”.
The principal tenets on which the Natural Approach theory is based are:
The Acquisition/Learning Hypothesis: it claims that there are 2 distinctive ways of
developing competence in a second or foreign language. Acquisition refers to an
unconscious process that involves the naturalistic development of language
proficiency through understanding language and through using language for
meaningful communication. Learning, by contrast, refers to a process in which
conscious rules about a language are developed. It results in explicit knowledge
about the forms of a language and the ability to verbalize this knowledge. Formal
teaching is necessary for “learning” to occur, and correction of errors helps with
the development of learned rules. Learning cannot lead to acquisition.
The Monitor Hypothesis: it claims that we may call upon learned knowledge to
correct ourselves when we communicate, but that conscious learning has only this
function. 3 conditions limit the use of the monitor:
1. Time: sufficient time to choose and apply a learned rule.
2. Focus on form: focus on correctness or on the form of the output
3. Knowledge of rules: they must be simple to describe and not require
complex movements and rearrangements.
The Affective Filter Hypothesis: Krashen sees the learner’s emotional state or
attitudes as an adjustable filter that freely passes, impedes, or blocks input
necessary to acquisition. A low affective filter is desirable (it impedes or blocks
less the input). The hypothesis is built on research in second language acquisition,
which has identified 3 kinds of affective or attitudinal variables:
1. Motivation
2. Self-confidence
3. Anxiety
This hypothesis states that acquirers with low affective filter seek and receive
more input, interact, and are more receptive to the input they receive. Anxious acquirers
have a high affective filter, which prevents acquisition.
To sum:
Design
Objectives
The Natural Approach “is for beginners and is designed to help them become
intermediates”. Students will be able to function adequately in the target situation. They
will understand the speaker of the target language, and will be able to convey their
requests and ideas. They need not know every word nor need the syntax and vocabulary to
be flawless. They should be able to make meaning clear but not necessarily be accurate.
However, specific objectives depend on learner needs and the skill (reading, writing,
listening, or speaking) and level being taught.
Krashen and Terrell believe that it is important to communicate to learners what they can
expect of a course as well as what they should not expect.
The syllabus
Krashen and Terrell approach course organization from 2 points of view. First, they
list some typical goals for language courses and suggest which of them are the ones at
which the Natural Approach aims. The goals are in 4 areas:
1. Basic personal communication skills: oral.
2. Basic personal communication skills: written.
3. Academic learning skills: oral.
4. Academic learning skills: written.
Content selection should aim to create a low affective filter by being interesting
and fostering a friendly, relaxed atmosphere, a wide exposure to vocabulary and resist any
focus on grammatical structures.
Learner roles
The Natural Approach teacher has 3 roles. First, the teacher is the primary source
of comprehensible input in the target language. The teacher is required to generate a
constant flow of language input while providing a multiplicity of non-linguistic clues to
assist students in interpreting the input. There is a center-stage role for the teacher.
Second, the teacher creates a classroom atmosphere that is interesting, friendly
and in which there is low affective filter. This is achieved in part through such Natural
Approach techniques as not demanding speech from the students before they are ready,
not correcting their errors and providing subject of high interest to students.
Finally, the teacher must choose and orchestrate a rich mix of classroom activities,
involving a variety of group sizes, content and contexts. The teacher is seen as responsible
for collecting materials and using them.
The Natural Approach teacher has to communicate clearly and compellingly to
students the assumptions, organization, and expectations of the method.
Procedure
To illustrate procedural aspects of the Natural Approach, there are some classroom
activities that provide comprehensible input, without requiring production of responses or
minimal responses in the target language:
1. Start with TPR (Total Physical Response) commands. At first the commands
are simple.
2. Use TPR to teach names of body parts and to introduce numbers and
sequence.
3. Introduce classroom terms and props into commands. Any item which can be
brought to the class can be incorporated.
4. Use names of physical characteristics and clothing to identify members of
the class by name. Using mime, pointing and context to ensure
comprehension.
5. Use visuals, typically magazine pictures, to introduce new vocabulary and to
continue with activities requiring only student names as response.
6. Combine use of pictures with TPR.
7. Combine conversations about the pictures with commands and conditionals.
8. Using several pictures, ask students to point to the pictures being described.
In all the activities, the instructor maintains a constant flow of “comprehensive
input”, using key vocabulary items, gestures, context, repetition and paraphrase to ensure
the comprehensibility of the input.
Conclusion