Linguistics and Language Teaching

Lecture 9

Approaches to Language Teaching

Language teaching usually refers to the teaching of any language, either as a first language, second language or as a foreign language. In order to improve the efficiency of language teaching, many approaches have been used.

Approaches to Language Teaching

Language teaching has experienced great changes in the world. The 20th century witnessed a dramatic transformation of the role of the English language in the world.

Approaches to Language Teaching

Changes in language teaching methods throughout history have reflected the development of linguistic theories. From the 17th to the 19th centuries, linguistics was characterized by traditional grammar. Correspondingly, the grammar-translation method was widely used in the teaching of Latin in European schools. In the grammar-translation method, priority was given to reading and translation of written language.

Approaches to Language Teaching

Due to the political, economic and technical changes, English has obtained a new role and is widely taught as an official language in the newly independent countries, as a second language to new immigrants in English-speaking countries, and as a foreign language in many non-English-speaking countries.

Approaches to Language Teaching

The new role of the language teaching has brought about different approaches to language. While the traditional grammartranslation method and its various variations are still used in English-teaching classes, applied linguists and teachers have formulated many "new" approaches.

Approaches to Language Teaching

The natural method (also called the direct method) of language teaching was quite successfully used in the various language schools in the USA and Europe in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. In the post-World War I decades, the direct method was adopted into English language teaching (ELT) and laid a solid intellectual and practical foundation for the development of ELT as an autonomous profession.

Approaches to Language Teaching

In the decades during and after the Second World War, a structural approach was formulated with behaviorist psychology as its psychological basis and structural linguistics as its linguistic basis. Behavioral psychology views language learning as one of human behaviors that can be explained by the Stimulus-Response model. Systematic reinforcements can lead to the establishment of a connection between a stimulus or stimulus situation (s) and the organism's response (R).

Approaches to Language Teaching

In the late 1950s and the 1960s Chomsky formulated the mentalistic approach to language acquisition, which considered human behavior much more complex than animal behavior. According to Chomsky, everyone is born with a Language Acquisition Device (LAD), which enables the child to make hypotheses about the structure of language in general, and the structure of the language being learned in particular.

Approaches to Language Teaching

Later, applied linguists brought about the situational approach and the notional/functional method. Meanwhile, based on a broader framework for the description of language use called communicative competence proposed by Hymes, the communicative approach to language teaching came into being.

The Relation of Linguistics to Language Teaching

Both linguistics and language teaching takes language as their subject. Linguistics aims at exploring the general principles upon which all languages are constructed and operate as systems of communication in the societies in which they are used. The achievements of linguistic inquiry can be utilized for effective language teaching. The bridge between linguistics and language teaching is applied linguistics.

The Relation of Linguistics to Language Teaching

In the broad sense, applied linguistics refers to the application of linguistic knowledge to the solution of various problems in other domains of science from the invention of language for a certain minority nationality to machine translation. In the narrow sense, this term is used to refer to language teaching, particularly the teaching of a second language or a foreign language.

Syllabus Design

Syllabus refers to the description of the planning and framework for a course of study, and may list the learning goals, objectives, contents, processes, resources and means of evaluation planned for students. Syllabus is fundamental to language teaching. Before any course is started, and before any materials are written, a decision has to be taken about what the students are going to learn. Once a syllabus exists, materials can be written and teachers can decide how long they need to spend on various parts of the syllabus and how long they will need in class to complete it.

Grammatical Syllabus

Grammatical syllabus takes grammar as the basis for (foreign) language teaching. To the advocates of this syllabus, grammar is primary in the study of a foreign language, and the study of grammar is not only beneficial to the learner's comprehension and translation of the target language but also to the development of the learner's intelligence.

Grammatical Syllabus

In grammatical syllabus, units of learning are determined by the grammatical categories of the language. The items to be learned are labeled in grammatical terms such as the definite article, adjectives, past tense, conditionals, comparative and superlative, and so on. The grammatical rules and vocabulary are carefully ordered according to factors such as frequency, complexity and usefulness. (a) Stress is laid on the written language rather than the spoken language. (b) The instruction of grammar not only focuses on what is regular but also on what is irregular. (c) The classroom instructions are presented in the native language. (d) The major teaching method is translation and the mastery of the learned grammatical rules is checked through large quantities of written translation and writing practice.

Grammatical Syllabus

(a) Stress is laid on the written language rather than the spoken language. (b) The instruction of grammar not only focuses on what is regular but also on what is irregular. (c) The classroom instructions are presented in the native language. (d) The major teaching method is translation and the mastery of the learned grammatical rules is checked through large quantities of written translation and writing practice.

Situational Syllabus

Situational syllabus refers to a syllabus in which the instruction of language teaching is planned around the situations in which the linguistic forms to be taught are normally used. Situational syllabus has sociolinguistics as its theoretical basis. Its assumption is that language always occurs in a social context and should not be separated from its context when it is being taught. In any case, our choice of linguistic forms is frequently restricted by the nature of the situation in which we are using language.

Situational Syllabus

A lesson written in the situational syllabus generally starts with a conversation in a certain situation (e.g. at the airport, in a shop, or talking about the weather). Then typical vocabulary and structures used in this situation are presented for the learner to bear in mind, and put into practice and, above all, into application in future real communication. The resulting materials will, of course, be linguistically heterogeneous, since natural situations do not contain language of the uniformity of structure which characterizes the grammatical syllabus.

Communicative Syllabus

Communicative syllabus focuses language teaching on the development of the learner's communicative competence. The communicative syllabus is based on the assumption that language is used for communication, and that learning a language is learning to communicate.

Communicative Syllabus

The communicative syllabus emphasizes the simultaneous development of the learners' linguistic competence and pragmatic competence. The linguistic items to be studied are dependent upon the learners' purposes of the communication he expects to participant in. Before designing a syllabus, the teacher should try to find out the learner's needs and then may proceed to decide what vocabulary, structures and function the learners should master and to what degree they should master these items. These structures and functions form the basis for a communicative syllabus, the teaching goal of which should be the development of the learners' ability to use the structures and functions to realize their communicative goals.

Language Testing

a) The Feedback Function Language tests can provide teachers and students with feedback information so that they can improve their teaching and learning. The results of the test can help them to adapt their behaviors according to the teaching goals. They can also help to foster the students' motive to learn the language well. This function lays stress on the process rather than the result of teaching and thus is of greater pedagogical significance.

Language Testing

b) The Assessment Function Tests are often used to assess students' achievements in language learning. Since students are normally scored at the end of a course, this function focuses on the result of language teaching and is widely used by the teachers and educational administers.

Language Testing

c) The Backwash Function Language testing can function as a "backwash" for the other aspects of language teaching. The results of language testing can help us to assess whether the teaching goal is appropriate, valid and to what degree it has been achieved. Moreover, the results of language testing also provide feedback for the language teaching activities.

validity Validity refers to the degree to which a test measures what it is intended to measure. This is the most important index for the quality of a test. The notion of validity can be approached from content validity, construct validity, face validity, washback validity, and criterion-related validity.

Content validity refers to whether the test adequately covers the syllabus area to be tested, or in other words. Content relevance and content coverage are often taken into consideration. Construct validity concerns what theoretical construct on which the test is based. Face validity deals with not what the test actually measures, but to what it appears superficially to measure. It is determined by the impression of the testees who takes the test, the administrative personnel who decide on its use, and other technically untrained observers.

Washback validity refers to whether the test can reflect the result of the teaching and learning that precedes it and throw light on future teaching and learning. Criterion-related validity is also called the "statistic validity". It refers to the validity represented by the relation between the test scores and the criterion scores.

Reliability Reliability refers to whether a test produces the consistent results when given to the same candidates twice in succession or marked be different people. This means how far we can depend on the results that a test produces or, in other words, how far the results could be produced consistently. If their scores vary significantly between this time and another, then the test is not quite reliable.

Efficiency The third important criterion for test assessment is efficiency. This involves questions of economy, ease of administration, scoring, and interpretation of results. The longer it takes to construct, administer and score, and the more skilled personnel and equipment are involved. Today, many tests are administered online. Efficiency is also related to financial viability.

Types of Language Tests

The discrete point test In a discrete point test, language is segmented into many small linguistic points and the four language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Test questions are designed to test these skills and linguistic points. A discrete point test consists of many questions on a large number of linguistic points, but each question tests only one linguistic point. Objective questions are widely used in the discrete point test. Thus the scoring is objective and the results are quite reliable and easy to be analyzed statistically. TOEFL is a typical discrete point test.

Types of Language Tests

The Integrative Test This kind of test is also called the "pragmatic test". Contrary to the discrete point test, the integrative test envisages human linguistic competence as an integrative whole and thus emphasizes the simultaneous testing of the testee's multiple linguistic competence from various perspectives.

Types of Language Tests

a. Cloze dictation: This is a combination of cloze test and dictation. The testees are required to fill in the blanks in a passage while they are listening to the same material. The deleted part may be a single word, or a sentence, or a larger unit. b. Oral cloze test: The testees are required to provide what is deleted in a passage orally during the pause while listening to the material. The blanks are usually at the end of a sentence. c. Paraphrase recognition: The testees are required to read a passage and then choose from the given options the sentence which best summarizes the main idea of the passage. In another form, the testees are required to listen to a sentence and choose from the options provided the one that best retains the meaning of that sentence. d. Questions & Answers: The testees are required to listen to a dialogue first and then choose from the options provided the best answer to the question they hear.

Types of Language Tests

The Communicative Test This kind of test takes the theory of sociolinguistics and the communicative approach to language teaching as its theoretical bases. Accordingly, the communicative test aims at testing the testee's mastery of the target language through accomplishing certain tasks in real or nearly-real situation. In this sense, it is a "task-based test." The skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing are tested comprehensively.

Types of Language Tests

The Achievement Test The Proficiency Test The Aptitude Test The Diagnosis Test

Language Test Development

Designing the test blueprint the objectives of the test the type of the test

the contents of the test the question types of the test the proportion of each section in the test paper the specification form for the test Writing the test paper

Error Analysis

Interlingual transfer Intralingual transfer