英语学科教学
名词解释
FLTM: foreign language teaching methodology is a science which studies the processes and patterns of foreign language teaching, aiming at revealing the natural and laws of foreign languages.
Major approaches in FLT:
Grammar-translation method (deductive演绎法)
Direct method (inductive归纳法)
Audio-lingual method
Humanistic approaches: that emphasize the development of human values, growth in self-awareness and in the understanding of others, sensitivity to human feelings and emotions, and active student involvement in learning and in the way human learning takes palace
The silent way
Suggestopedia
Community language learning (CLL)
Total physical response method (TPR)
? The natural approach(NA)
? The communicative approach(CA )
An approach is a set of correlative assumptions dealing with the nature of language teaching ad leaning. Approach is axiomatic. It describes the nature of the subject matter to b taught.
Method is an overall plan for the orderly presentation of language material, no part of which contradicts, and all of which is based upon, the selected approach. An approach is axiomatic, a method is procedural. Within one approach, there can be many methods.
A technique is implementation---that which actually takes place in a classroom. It is a particular trick, stratagem, or contrivance used to accomplish an immediate objective. Techniques must b consistent with a method, and therefore I harmony with an approach as well.
Views on language:
Structural view: the structural view of language sees language as a linguistic system made up of various subsystems: the sound system (phonology); the discrete units of meaning produced by sound combinations (morphology); and the system of combining units of meaning for communication (syntax).
Functional view: the functional view not only sees language as a linguistic system but also means for doing things. Functional activities: offering, suggesting, advising, apologizing, etc.
International view: considers language to be a communicative tool, whose main use is to build up and maintain social relations between people. Therefore, learners not only need to know the grammar and vocabulary of the language but as importantly they need to know the rules for using them in a whole range of communicative contexts.
Process-oriented theories: are concerned with how the mind organizes new information such as habit formation, induction, making inference, hypothesis testing and generalization.
Condition-oriented theories: emphasize the nature of the human and physical context in which language learning takes place, such as the number of students, the kind of input learners receives, and the atmosphere.
Behaviorist theory, the idea of this method is that language is learned by constant repletion and the reinforcement of the teacher. Mistakes were immediately corrected, and correct utterances
were immediately praised.
Cognitive theory, language is not a form of behavior, it is an intricate rule-based system and a large part of language acquisition is the learning of this system.
Constructivist theory, believes that learning is a process in which the learner constructs meaning based on his/her own experiences and what he/she already knows.
Socio-constructivist theory, similar to constructivist theory, socio-constructivist theory emphasizes interaction and engagement with the target language in a social context based on the concept of “Zone of Proximal Development” (ZPD) and scaffolding.
Ethic devotion, professional qualities and personal styles
CLT: communicative language teaching
TBLT: task-based language teaching
The goal of CLT is to develop students’ communicative competence, which includes both the knowledge about the language and the knowledge about how to use the language appropriately in communicative situations. P16
Hedge discusses five main components of communicative competence: linguistic competence, pragmatic competence, discourse competence, strategic competence, and fluency.
Howatt proposes a weak and a strong version of CLT.
Weak version: learners first acquire language as a structural system and then learn how to use it in communication. --- the weak version regards overt teaching of language forms and functions as necessary means for helping learners to develop the ability to use them for communication.
Strong version: language is acquired through communication. The learners discover the structural system in the process of leaning how to communicate.---regards experiences of using the language as the main means or necessary conditions for learning a language as they provide the experience for learners to see how language is used in communication.
Communicative activities: P24
Tasks are activities where the target language is used by the leaner for a communicative purpose (goal) in order to achieve an outcome.
Four components of a task: a purpose, a context, a process, and a product
Tasks focus on the complete act of communication. (Purposeful & contextualized communication). Exercises focus the students’ attention on the individual aspects of language, such as vocabulary, grammar or individual skills. (Focus on individual language items) Exercise-task comes halfway between tasks and exercises, consists of contextualized practice of language item.
PPP: for teaching a new structure-based lesson, content lesson, presentation (introduces new vocabulary and grammatical structures), practice (the lesson moves from controlled practice to guided practice and exploitation of the texts when necessary) and production (the students are encouraged to use what they are learned and practiced to perform communicative tasks)
The importance of lesson planning: 1. an unprepared teacher begins of a disastrous lesson.2. An unprepared teacher receives less trust and cooperation from the students. 3. The students are different, the time is different, and the mood is different.
Lesson Planning: is a framework of a lesson in which teachers make advance decisions about what they hope to achieve and how they would like to achieve it. In other words, teachers need to
think about the aims to be achieved, materials to be covered, activities to be organized, and techniques and resources to be used in order to achieve the aims of the lesson.
Principles for good lesson planning: aim, variety, flexibility, learnability, and linkage.
Variety: planning a number of different types of activities and where possible, introducing students to a wide selection of materials so that learning is always interesting, motivating and never monotonous for the students.
Flexibility: preparing some extra and alternative tasks and activities at the class does not always go according to the plan so that teachers always have the option to cope with the unexpected situations rather than being the slaves of written plans or one methodology.
Learnability: within capability of the students, not be too easy or beyond or below the students’ coping ability.
Linkage: easy task followed by a comparatively difficult one, or do a series of language-focused activities to get the students prepared linguistically.
Components of a lesson planning: background information, teaching aims, language content and skills, stages and procedures, teaching aids, assignments, and teacher’s after-lesson reflection.
For skill-oriented lesson, focusing on developing skills, the model is applicable---pre-(reading), while-, post-. (Pre-step, while-step, post-step)
Classroom management is the way teachers organize what goes on in the classroom.
The role of the teacher: controller, assessor (evaluator, correcting mistakes and organizing feedback), organizer (organize and design task that students can perform in the class), prompter推动者 (give appropriate prompts and give hints), participant, resource-provider, teacher’s new roles.
There are rules to follow for making instructions effective.
? The first is to use simple instructions and make them suit the comprehensive level of the
students.
? The second rule is to use the mother-tongue only when it is necessary.
? Give students time to get used to listening to English instructions and help the make an effort
to understand them.
? Use body language to assist understanding and stick to it each time you teach the class.
Student grouping: whole class group—same activity at the same rhythm and pace, lockstep, pair work, group work, individual study
Discipline: refers to a code of conduct which binds a teacher and a group of students together so that learning can be more effective.
Questioning in the classroom:
Classification of question types: 1.closed questions and open questions 2.display questions and genuine questions 3.lower-order questions and higher-order questions 4.taxonomy
Closed questions refer to those with only one single correct answer while open questions may invite many different answers. Display questions are those that the answers are already known to the teacher and they are used for checking if students know the answer, too. Genuine questions are questions which are used to find out new information and since they often reflect real context, they are more communicative. Lower-order questions refer to those that simple require recalling of information or memorization of facts while higher order questions require more reasoning, analysis, and evaluation.
Simple question and difficult question
A mistake refers to a performance error that is either a random guess or an “a slip of tongue”, it’s a failure performance to a known system.
An error has direct relation with the learners’ language competence. Results from Lack of knowledge in the target language. Language error cannot be self-corrected no matter how much attention is paid
Dealing with spoken errors: tasks or activities are focusing on accuracy or fluency. Balance between accuracy-based activities and fluency-based activities..
When to correct: fluency work---not to interrupt, after the student’s performance; accuracy work---need to intervene more
How to correct: direct teacher correction, indirect teacher correction, self-correction, peer correction, whole class correction.
Goal of teaching pronunciation:
Consistency: the pronunciation should be smooth and natural
Intelligibility: the pronunciation should be understandable to the listeners
Communicative efficiency: the pronunciation should help convey the meaning that is intended by the speaker.
Aspects of pronunciation: besides sounds and phonetic symbols, such as stress (strong and weak form, word stress and sentence stress), intonation and rhythm (variation).
Perception practice: using minimal pairs, which order, same or different? Odd and out, Completion.
Production practice: listen and repeat, fill the blanks, make up sentences, use meaningful context, use picture, use tongue twisters.
Grammar presentation: The deductive method, the inductive method, the guided discovery method
Grammar practice: mechanical practice and meaningful/ communicative practice.
Mechanical practice: involves activities that are aimed at form accuracy. Students pay repeated attention to a key element in a structure. Substitution drill and transformation drills.
Meaningful practice: focus on the production, comprehension or exchange of meaning though the students keep an eye on the way newly learned structures are used in the process. It comes after mechanical practice. (Comparatives and superlatives). Using picture prompts, using mimes or gestures as prompts, using information sheet as prompts, using key phrases or key words as prompts, using chained phrases for story telling, using created situations.
What does knowing a word involve? Denotative meaning; connotative meaning; chunk/collocations; synonyms, antonyms and hyponyms; receptive and productive vocabulary.
Denotative meaning of a word or a lexical item refers to those words that we use to label things as regards real objects, such as a name or a sign, etc. in the physical world. Primary meaning of a word.
A connotative meaning of a word refers to the attitudes or emotions of a language user in choosing a word and the influence of these on the listener or reader’s interpretation of the word. Collocations refer to words that co-occur with high frequency and have been accepted as ways for the use of words. For instance, see, look at, watch.
Hyponyms refer to words which can be grounded together under the same superordinate concept. Receptive/passive vocabulary refers to words that one is able to recognize and comprehend in reading or listening but unable to use automatically in speaking or writing. Those words that one is not only able to recognize but also able to use in speech and writing are considered as one’s productive/active vocabulary.
Ways of presenting vocabulary: inductive and deductive.
Ways of consolidating vocabulary: labeling; spot the difference; describe and draw; play a game; use words series; word bingo; word association; finding synonyms and antonyms; categories; using word net-work; using the internet resources for more ideas.
Developing vocabulary learning strategies: review regularly, guess meaning from context, organize vocabulary effectively, use a dictionary, and manage strategy use.
Principles and models for teaching listening: focus on process, combine listening with other skills (listening can be practice with not-taking, and answers, role plays, retelling, interviewing, discussions, or a writing task), focus on the comprehension of meaning, grade difficulty level appropriately, principles for selecting and using listening activities.
Two approaches are frequently used to describe different processes of listening.
Bottom-up model and Top-down model.
Bottom-up model: 从细节入手start with sound and meaning recognitions. Listeners construct meaning of what they hear based on the sound they hear, expect the listeners have a very effective short-term memory as they have to make sense of every sound in order to figure out the meaning of words, phrase, and structures. If there are unfamiliar sounds, listeners will find it very difficult to keep up with speaker. ---recognizing sounds of words, phrases or structures.
Top-down model: 着重概要 listening for gist and making use of the contextual clues and background knowledge to construct meaning are emphasized. Listeners can understand better if they already have some knowledge in their mind about the topic. Such knowledge is also termed as prior knowledge or schematic knowledge---mental frameworks for various things and experience we hold in our long-term memory. ---referring meaning from broad contextual clues and background knowledge.
Three teaching stages: pre-listening—warming up; while-listening---listening comprehension; post-listening---checking answers.
Teaching speaking
Less complex syntax, short cuts, incomplete sentences, devices such as fillers, hesitation device to give time to thinking before speaking, false start, spontaneous, time-constraint.
Types of speaking: pre-communicative activities—mechanical activities; communicative activities---meaningful activities.
Controlled activities, semi-controlled activities, communicative activities:
Information-gap activities; dialogues and role-plays; activities using pictures; problem-solving activities; change the story; human scrabble
Organizing speaking tasks: use small group work
Teaching reading
The construction of meaning from a printed or written message.
Two broad levels in the act reading.
1). A recognition task of perceiving visual signals from the printed page through the eyes.
2). A cognitive task of interpreting the visual information revealing the received information with the reader’s own general knowledge, and reconstructing the meaning that the writer had meant to convey.
For teaching: intensive/extensive reading
In terms of methods: skimming/scanning/predicting
For reading practice: reading aloud/silent reading
The role of vocabulary in reading: sight vocabulary: words that one is able to recognize immediately are often referred to as sight vocabulary.
Principles and models for teaching reading: bottom-up model; top-down model; interactive model
Pre-reading activities: predicting (predicting based on the tile/ based on vocabulary/based on the T/F questions) setting the scene, skimming, and scanning
While-reading activities: TD (a transition device)
Reading comprehension questions: 1. questions of literal comprehension 2. Questions involving reorganization or reinterpretation 3. Questions for inference (what is implied but not explicitly stated) 4. questions for evaluation or appreciation (making judgment about what the writer is trying to do and how successful he/she is in achieving his/her purpose) 5. Questions for personal response
Intensive reading is an accuracy-oriented activity involving reading for detail; the main purpose is to learn language embedded in the reading texts, which are usually short. Extensive reading is a fluency activity. The main purpose is to achieve global understanding. Te reading texts usually contains less new vocabulary and is longer than those intended for intensive reading.
Teaching writing
Writing for consolidating language, writing for communication, between writing for learning and writing for communication, imagination
Not have a real communicative purpose; for language skill; a little bit communicative; communicative approach; neither restrictions in contents nor in word limit; more communicative; more motivated
CA: communication approach
A Productive approach to writing 成果法/a prose model approach---fruitless
A Process approach to writing 过程法: The teacher provides to guide students through the process that they undergo when they are writing. This kind of guidance should be gradually withdrawn so that the students can finally become independent writers.
Main procedures of process writing include: creating a motivation to write, brainstorming, mapping, freewriting, outlining, drafting, editing, revising, proofreading and conferencing.