Saturday, October 27, 2012


Remember. Test 2 Monday 29th 9:50 p.m.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Planning an English lesson

Here you have the model for your planning. In class we're going to improve it!

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Constructivism: A Holistic Approach to Teaching and Learning


A definition of constructivism
Fundamentally, constructivism says that people construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world through experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences.


Constructivism is a learning theory

  • Learning is an active process
  • Knowledge is constructed from (and shaped by) experience
  • Learning is a personal interpretation of the world
  • Emphasizes problem solving and understanding
  • Uses authentic tasks, experiences, settings, assessments
  • Content presented holistically –not in separate smaller parts



Constructivism is a process –the instructor

  • Adapt curriculum to address students’ suppositions
  • Help negotiate goals and objectives with learners
  • Pose problems of emerging relevance to students
  • Emphasize hands‐on, real‐world experiences
  • Seek and value students’ points of view 
  • Use the social context of content
  • Provide multiple modes of representations / perspectives on content
  • Create new understandings via coaching, moderating , suggesting
  • Testing should be integrated with the task and not a separate activity
  • Use errors to inform students of progress to understanding and changes in ideas



Constructivism is a process –the student

  • Help develop own goals and assessments
  • Create new understandings (via coaching, moderating, suggesting)
  • Control learning (reflecting)
  • Member of community of learners
  • Collaborate among fellow students
  • Learn in a social experience –appreciate different perspectives
  • Take ownership and voice in learning process


  


Constructivism is an instructional strategy
  • Involves collaboration between instructors, students and others (community members)
  • Tailored to needs and purposes of individual learners
  • Features active, challenging, authentic and multidisciplinary learning
  • Constructivism can help students
            – Pursue personal interests and purposes
            – Use and develop his or her abilities
            – Build on his or her prior knowledge and experiences
            – Develop life‐long learning




  • Constructivism encourages instructors to provide for each student’s

           – Preferred learning style
           – Rate of learning
           – Personal interactions with other learners



Applying constructivism in the classroom

  •  Pose problems that are or will be relevant to students
  • Structure learning around essential concepts
  • Be aware that students’ points of view are windows into their reasoning
  • Adapt teaching to address students’ suppositions and development
  • Assess student learning in context of teaching








Constructivism summary

  • Shifts emphasis from teaching to learning
  • Individualizes and contextualizes students’ learning experiences
  • Helps students develop processes, skills and attitudes
  • Considers students’ learning styles
  • Focuses on knowledge construction, not reproduction
  • Uses authentic tasks to engage learners
  • Provides for meaningful, problem‐based thinking
  • Requires negotiation of meaning
  • Requires reflection of prior and new knowledge
  • Extends students beyond content presented to them





















Tuesday, October 2, 2012

For you to prepare the test.


Write T (true) or F (false) according to the statement.

1.- ______The method concept in language teaching is the notion of a systematic set of teaching practices based on a particular theory of language and language learning.
2.- ______ According to Vygotsky, children construct knowledge from actively interacting with the physical environment in developmental  stages.
3.- ______ Parents who scaffolded effectively kept child “on task” by reminding him of the purpose or goal.
4.- ______ Very young learners are not able to organize their learning.
5.- ______ Young learners can not work with others and learn from others.
6.- ______ An approach is an ordered sequence of techniques.
7.- ______ In PPP, the teacher introduces a situation which contextualizes the language to be taught.
8.- ______ In communicative activities there is no teacher intervention.
9.- ______ Three basic stages of Task based learning are pre production, early production and speech emergence.
10.- ______ According to Asher, 2nd language learning could have similar developmental patterns to that of child acquisition.
11.- ______ Communicative Language Teaching advocates that learners learn a language through using it to communicate.
12.- ______ The teacher’s role in TPR is being a commander and action monitor.
13.- ______ Communicative competence is the progressive acquisition of the ability to use a language to achieve one's communicative purpose.
14.- ______ During the step 2 in TPR, the teacher says the command as both the teacher and the students then perform the action.
15.- ______ In a communicative classroom the instructor corrects speech errors directly.
16.- ______ Single/two-word answers are an example of speech emergence.
17.- ______ L1 is acquired and L2 is learned.
18.- ______ Pre production is the silent period.
19.- ______ In early production, children have a limited vocabulary and respond in short phrases or sentences.
20.- ______ If a teacher presents the language orally; the child reads.
21.- ______ The lexical approach says that language doesn't consist of phrases, collocations, and idioms, but also  traditional grammar and vocabulary.
22.- ______  One of the principles of TPR states that feelings of success and low anxiety facilitate learning.
23.- ______ Bruner focused on the importance of language in a child’s cognitive  development
24.- ______ The best material in the Natural Approach is realia.

More Finger Puppets


 

Finger Puppets by Ruben Ramírez




Finger Puppets by Lucía Núñez




 Finger Puppets by Marcelo Álvarez



 Finger Puppets by Marjorie Sánchez



Finger Puppets by Roberto Aros

Finger Puppets by Michael Ponce

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Test: September, 28th.

Preparing the test:
1.- Distinction made between mother tongue, second language and foreign language.
2.- Order of language acquisition
3.- Stages in language acquisition (examples)
4.- Mind maps of language learning and language acquisition
5.- Definitions of Approach method, procedure, and technique
6.- How children learn. Differences between very young learners and young learners
7.- Theories about learning and teaching languages.
8.- Teaching methods and teacher and learners roles
9.- Importance of the Communicative Language Teaching
10.- Steps used when teaching through TPR

Bring answered the questions above to our next class (Monday 24th) We´ll discuss them. 

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Read this paper.








Mind maps

Dear Students:
While surfing the net I found something very interesting written by María Francisca Sáez, a teacher from Concepción. It will be a very useful tool for your first test.

Language Acquisition:
 Language Learning:


Friday, September 14, 2012

What kind of approach should we take in a young learner classroom?

How children learn: 


Children are active learners and thinkers. (Piaget, 1970) 
Children construct knowledge from actively interacting with the physical environment in developmental  stages. They learn through their own individual actions and exploration.  


Children learn through social interaction. (Vygotsky, 1962) 

Children construct knowledge through other people, through interaction with adults.  Adults/teachers work 
actively with children in the Zone of Proximal  Development (ZPD). 
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) 
difference between the child's capacity to solve problems on his own and his capacity to solve them with assistance



Children learn effectively through scaffolding by adults. (Bruner, 1983)

The adult’s role is very important in a child’s learning process. Like Vygotsky, Bruner focused on the 
importance of language in a child’s cognitive  development. He shows how the adult uses “scaffolding” 
to guide a child’s language learning through finely-tuned  talk. (Cameron, 2001)

Effective Scaffolding (Bruner, 1983)
Parents who scaffolded effectively 
• created interest in the task; 
• broke the task down into smaller steps; 
• kept child “on task” by reminding him of the purpose or goal; 
• pointed out the important parts of the task; 
• controlled the child’s frustration during the task; 
• modeled the task, including different ways to do the task. 



VYLs (under 7)
- acquire through hearing and experiencing lots of English, in much the same way they acquire L1 
-  learn things through playing; they are not consciously trying to learn new words or phrases – for them it’s incidental 
-  love playing with language sounds, imitating, and making funny noises 
-  are not able to organize their learning 
-  not able to read or write in L1; important to recycle language through talk and play 
-  their grammar will develop gradually on its own when exposed to lots of English in context


YLs (7-12) 

-  are learning to read and write in L1 
-  are developing as thinkers 
-  understand the difference between the real and the imaginary 
-  can plan and organize how best to carry out an activity 
-  can work with others and learn from others 
-  can be reliable and take responsibility for class activities and routines 







Thursday, September 13, 2012

More finger puppets



Finger Puppets by Karen San Martín





Finger Puppets by Lucía Núñez

Finger Puppets by Paola Balcázar

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Let's see some finger puppets

 Finger Puppets by Ana Pérez
  Finger Puppets by Daniela Soto
  Finger Puppets by Marjorie Sánchez
Finger Puppets by María Bustamante
 Finger Puppets by Bernardo Martínez

Thursday, September 6, 2012


Storytelling with Puppets 

Using a puppet to tell a story is a wonderful technique that can lead children to discover the joy of literature and learning. Puppets can be used “anyway, anywhere, and anytime” to bring stories to life and to spark young imaginations. 
It doesn’t take a professional puppeteer or an expensive puppet to make storytelling with puppets “work.” Puppets can be made out of anything from catalogs to paper cups, and from envelopes to plastic straws. If you use your imagination, the possibilities are almost endless. Even the simplest, hand-made puppet can be thrilling for a young child. 
Telling stories with puppets can also be a terrific technique for new storytellers. Knowing that the audience is focusing on the puppet can help a beginning storyteller to relax and have more fun with their stories. The art of storytelling is about bringing stories to life, and puppets provide us with a great way to do just that. 
Jack and the Beanstalk

The Little Red Ridinghood  

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Educational Gameplay for Kids "Hedbanz"



KIDS JUST LOVE TO PLAY HEDBANZ
·         - Kids love to ask questions
·         - Kids love to get together and play
·         - Kids love the mystery behind trying to figure out what's on your forehead.
·         - Great game to take with you on your class.

Hedbanz is not only fun, but inherently educational. Many speech-language pathologists uses the Hedbanz Game. It is great for teaching categorization skills and how to ask questions
Kids will flex their deductive reasoning skills with the game's simple question-and-answer premise. By making connections and coming up with questions that will lead to answers, kids will also practice creative critical thinking skills.  

 Hedbanz Rules:
1. Divide the class into small groups
2. Each group needs one Hedbanz and a set of cards
3. One person wears the Hedbanz with a vocabulary card in it (no peeking!).
4. Each other member of the group answers a yes/no question to assist the wearer in guessing the referent
5. Each person gets a chance to be the guesser
6. Each group member must answer before the wearer can attempt a guess
7. The questions and answers continue until the wearer guesses or gives up.
8. The focus is verbal only, but it can be modified to include non-verbal strategies

Remember:
1. Make 6 headbands by cutting out strips of construction paper. This forms the base of the headband. Adjust the headband to fit your head by trying the headband on, adjusting the size and marking the correct size. Fasten the headband with glue or a stapler.
2.- Prepare vocabulary cards divided into four different categories.
3.- Prepare "Sample Questions” cards like "Am I an animal?", "Am I food?", "Am I red?", "Am I big? ", "Do I have a tail?", "Do I have feathers?", "Am I a fruit?"
5.- Prepare 6 cards with the allowable answers to the questions: "Yes", "No", "Could be", "I don’t know"
To be checked September, 3rd. You will get a mark!  

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Prepare to learn



Methods and approaches in the teaching English as a foreign language. 

Approaches, methods, procedures, and techniques

Approach:  this refers to “theories about the nature of language and language learning that serve as the source of practices and principles in language teaching”. It offers a model of language competence. An approach describes how people acquire their knowledge of the language and makes statements about conditions which will promote successful language learning.

Method: a method is the practical realization of an approach. Methods include various procedures and techniques as part of their standard fare.

Procedure: a procedure is an ordered sequence of techniques. A procedure is a sequence which can be described in terms such as first you do this, then you do that… Smaller than a method and bigger than technique.

Technique: a common technique when using video material is called “silent viewing”. This is where the teacher plays the video with no sound. Silent viewing is a single activity rather than a sequence, and as such is a technique rather than a whole procedure.
A term that is also used in discussions about teaching is “model” – used to describe typical procedures, usually for teachers in training. Such models offer abstractions of these procedures, designed to guide teaching practice.

The Grammar – Translation Method
  • This is a method that has been used by language teachers for many years. 
  • At one time it was called Classical Method, since it was first used in the teaching of the classical languages, Latin and Greek.
  • Earlier in this century, it was used for the purpose of helping students read and appreciate foreign language literature.
  • Classes are taught in the students’ mother tongue, with little active use of the target language;
  • Vocabulary is taught in the form of isolated word lists;
  • Elaborate explanations of grammar are always provided;
  • Reading of difficult text is begun early in the course of study;
  • Little attention is paid to the content of text, which are treated as exercises in grammatical analysis.

Audio-lingualism
  • Audio-lingual methodology owes its existence to the Behaviorist models of learning using the Stimulus-Response-Reinforcement model, it attempted, through a continuous process of such positive reinforcement, to engender good habits in language learners.
  • Audio-lingualism relied heavily on drills like substitution to form these habits.
  • Habit-forming drills have remained popular among teachers and students, and teachers who feel confident with the linguistic restriction of such procedures

Presentation, Practice, and Production

A variation on Audio-lingualism in British-based teaching and elsewhere is the procedure most often referred to as PPP, which stands for Presentation, Practice, and Production. In this procedure the teacher introduces a situation which contextualizes the language to be taught. The students now practice the language using accurate reproduction techniques such as choral repetition, individual repetition, and cue-response drills

PPP and alternatives to PPP
  • The PPP procedure came under a sustained attack in the 1990s.
  • Michael Lewis suggested that PPP was inadequate because it reflected neither the nature of language nor the nature of learning.
  • Jim Scrivener advanced what is perhaps the most worrying aspect of PPP, the fact that it only describes one kind of lesson; it is inadequate as a general proposal concerning approaches to language in the classroom. PPP and alternatives to PPP
  • The PPP procedure came under a sustained attack in the 1990s.
  • Michael Lewis suggested that PPP was inadequate because it reflected neither the nature of language nor the nature of learning.
  • Jim Scrivener advanced what is perhaps the most worrying aspect of PPP, the fact that it only describes one kind of lesson; it is inadequate as a general proposal concerning approaches to language in the classroom.
  • In response to these criticism many people have offered variations on PPP and alternative to it: ARC, OHE/III, ESA.

ARC
  • Put forward by Jim Scrivener.
  • Stands for Authentic use, Restricted use and Clarification and focus.
  • Communicative activity will demonstrate authentic use; elicited dialogue or guided writing will provoke restricted use of language by students; finally clarification language is that which the teacher and students use to explain grammar, give examples, analyze errors, elicit or repeat things.

OHE/III

Michael Lewis claims that students should be allowed to Observe (read or listen to language) which will then provoke them to Hypothesize about how the language works before going on to the Experiment on the basis of that hypothesis.

ESA
  • In the ESA model three components will usually be present in any teaching sequence, whether of five, fifty or a hundred minutes  
  • E stands for Engage - students have to be engaged emotionally
  • S stands for Study
  • A stands for Activate - any stage at which students are encouraged to use all and/or any of the language they know

The Communicative Approach

The communicative approach or Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is the name which was given to a set of beliefs which included not only a re-examination of what aspects of language to teach but also a shift in emphasis on how to teach!

Non-communicative activities
Communicative activities
No communicative desire
A desire to communicate
No communicative purpose
A communicative purpose
Form not content
Content not form
One language item only
Variety of language
Teacher intervention
No teacher intervention
Materials control
No materials control
                                            The communication continuum

Task-based learning (TBL)
  • Popularized by prof. Prabhu, who speculated that students were likely to learn language if they were thinking about a non-linguistic problem.
  • Three basic stages of TBL according to Jane Willis:
o   Pre task (introduction to topic and task)
o   Task cycle (task, planning and report)
o   Language focus (analysis, practice).

Four methods

These methods developed in the 1970s and 1980s as humanistic approaches to remove psychological barrier is to learning.

1. Community Language Learning

This methodology is not based on the usual methods by which languages are taught. Rather the approach is patterned upon counseling techniques and adapted to the peculiar anxiety and threat as well as the personal and language problems a person encounters in the learning of foreign languages. Consequently, the learner is not thought of as a student but as a client. The native instructors of the language are not considered teachers but, rather are trained in counseling skills adapted to their roles as language counselors.
The language-counseling relationship begins with the client's linguistic confusion and conflict. The aim of the language counselor's skill is first to communicate empathy for the client's threatened inadequate state and to aid him linguistically. Then slowly the teacher-counselor strives to enable him to arrive at his own increasingly independent language adequacy. This process is furthered by the language counselor's ability to establish a warm, understanding, and accepting relationship, thus becoming an "other-language self" for the client. The process involves five stages of adaptation:
  • students sitting in a circle
  • a counselor or a knower
  • making the utterance

2. The Silent Way

This method begins by using a set of colored rods and verbal commands in order to achieve the following:
To avoid the use of the vernacular. To create simple linguistic situations that remain under the complete control of the teacher To pass on to the learners the responsibility for the utterances of the descriptions of the objects shown or the actions performed. To let the teacher concentrate on what the students say and how they are saying it, drawing their attention to the differences in pronunciation and the flow of words. To generate a serious game-like situation in which the rules are implicitly agreed upon by giving meaning to the gestures of the teacher and his mime. To permit almost from the start a switch from the lone voice of the teacher using the foreign language to a number of voices using it. This introduces components of pitch, timbre and intensity that will constantly reduce the impact of one voice and hence reduce imitation and encourage personal production of one's own brand of the sounds.
To provide the support of perception and action to the intellectual guess of what the noises mean, thus bring in the arsenal of the usual criteria of experience already developed and automatic in one's use of the mother tongue. To provide a duration of spontaneous speech upon which the teacher and the students can work to obtain a similarity of melody to the one heard, thus providing melodic integrative schemata from the start.
The complete set of materials utilized as the language learning progresses include: A set of colored wooden rods A set of wall charts containing words of a "functional" vocabulary and some additional ones; a pointer for use with the charts in Visual Dictation A color coded phonic chart(s) Tapes or discs, as required; films Drawings and pictures, and a set of accompanying worksheets Transparencies, three texts, a Book of Stories, worksheets
  • the teacher says as little as possible
  • interacting with physical objects, especially with Cuisenaire rods
  • pointing to a phonemic chart

3. Suggestopedia
  • Georgi Lozanov
  • physical surroundings and atmosphere of the classroom are of a vital importance;
  • the reason for our inefficiency is that we set up psychological barriers to learning: we fear that we will be unable to perform, that we will be limited in our ability to learn, that we will fail;
  • one result is that we do not use the full mental powers that we have and according to Lozanov, we may be using only 5 – 10% of our mental capacity
  • In order to make better use of our reserved capacity, the limitations we think we have need to be ‘desuggested’
  • parent-children (teacher-student) relationship
  • three main parts: oral review, presentation and discussion, concert session (listening to classic music)
  • Desuggestopedia/suggestopedia, the application of suggestion to pedagogy, has been developed to help students eliminate the feeling that they cannot be successful or the negative association they may have toward studying and, thus, help them overcome the barriers to learning.
  • One of the ways the students’ mental capacities are stimulated is through integration of the fine arts.

Techniques

CLASSROOM SET-UP – the challenge for the teacher is to create a classroom environment which is bright and cheerful. (The teacher should try to provide as positive environment as possible.)

PERIPHERAL LEARNING – this technique is based upon that we perceive much more in our environment than that to which we consciously attend. It is claimed that, by putting poster containing grammatical information about the target language on the classroom walls, students will absorb the necessary facts effortlessly.

POSITIVE SUGGESTION – it’s the teacher responsibility to orchestrate the suggestive factors in a learning situation, thereby helping students break down the barriers to learning that they bring with them. Teachers can do this through direct and indirect means.

BAROQUE MUSIC – it has a specific rhythm and a pattern of 60 beats per minute, and Lozanov believed it created a level of relaxed concentration that facilitated the intake and retention of huge quantities of material.

4. Total Physical Response (TPR)


  • The originator of TPR, James Asher, worked from the premise that adult second language learning could have similar developmental patterns to that of child acquisition.
  • Children learn language from their speech through the forms of commands, and then adults will learn best in that way too.
  • In responding to commands students get a lot of comprehensible input, and in performing physical actions they seem to echo the claims of Neuro-linguistic programming that certain people benefit greatly from kinesthetic activity.
  • This method is developed to reduce stress people feel while studying foreign languages. Learners are allowed to speak when they are ready.
o   Using commands to direct behavior
o   Role reversal
o   Action sequence

Principles
  1. The students' understanding of the target language should be developed before speaking.
  2. Students can initially learn one part of the language rapidly by moving their bodies.
  3. Feelings of success and low anxiety facilitate learning.
  4. Language learning is more effective when it is fun.
  5. Students are expected to make errors when they first begin speaking. Teachers should be tolerant of them. Work on the fine details of the language should be postponed until students have become somewhat proficient.
Technique 
  • Step I The teacher says the commands as he himself performs the action.
  • Step 2 The teacher says the command as both the teacher and the students then perform the action.
  • Step 3 The teacher says the command but only students perform the action
  • Step 4 The teacher tells one student at a time to do commands
  • Step 5 The roles of teacher and student are reversed. Students give commands to teacher and to other students.
  • Step 6 The teacher and student allow for command expansion or produces new sentences.


Humanistic teaching

  • Humanistic teaching has found a greater acceptance at the level of procedures and activities, in which students are encouraged to make use of their own lives and feelings in the classroom.
  • Such exercises have a long history and owe much to a work from 1970s called Caring and Sharing in the Foreign Language Classroom by Gertrude Moscowitz in which many activities are designed to make students feel good and remember happy times while, at the same time, they practice grammar items.
  • When I was a child my favorite food was hamburger, or When I was a child my favorite relative was my uncle. I was shown how to crawl. I pushed out of my mother’s womb.


The Lexical Approach
  • The lexical approach, discussed by Dave Willis and popularized by the writer Michael Lewis is based on the assertion that language doesn't consist of traditional grammar and vocabulary, but also of phrases, collocations, and idioms.
  • A lexical approach would steer us towards the teaching of phrases which show words in combination. Thus, instead of teaching will for the future, we might instead have students focus on its use in a series of archetypical utterances such as I'll give you a ring.

The Communicative Approach
What is communicative competence?
  • Communicative competence is the progressive acquisition of the ability to use a language to achieve one's communicative purpose.
  • Communicative competence involves the negotiation of meaning between meaning and two or more persons sharing the same symbolic system.
  • Communicative competence applies to both spoken and written language.
  • Communicative competence is context specific based on the situation, the role of the participants and the appropriate choices of register and style.  For example:  The variation of language used by persons in different jobs or professions can be either formal or informal.  The use of jargon or slang may or may not be appropriate.
  • Communicative competence represents a shift in focus from the grammatical to the communicative properties of the language; i.e. the functions of language and the process of discourse.
  • Communicative competence requires the mastery of the production and comprehension of communicative acts or speech acts that are relevant to the needs of the L2 learner.

Characteristics of the Communicative Classroom 
  • The classroom is devoted primarily to activities that foster acquisition of L2.  Learning activities involving practice and drill are assigned as homework.
  • The instructor does not correct speech errors directly.
  • Students are allowed to respond in the target language, their native language, or a mixture of the two.
  • The focus of all learning and speaking activities is on the interchange of a message that the acquirer understands and wishes to transmit, i.e. meaningful communication.
  • The students receive comprehensible input in a low-anxiety environment and are personally involved in class activities. Comprehensible input has the following major components:
  • a.       a context
  • b.      gestures and other body language cues
  • c.       a message to be comprehended
  • d.      a knowledge of the meaning of key lexical items in the utterance

Stages of language acquisition in the communicative approach
 1. Comprehension or pre-production
a.       Total physical response
b.      Answer with names--objects, students, pictures
 2. Early speech production
a.       Yes-no questions
b.      Either-or questions
c.       Single/two-word answers
d.      Open-ended questions
e.      Open dialogs
f.        Interviews
3. Speech emerges
a.       Games and recreational activities
b.      Content activities
c.       Humanistic-affective activities
d.      Information-problem-solving activities

 The Natural Approach: Theoretical Base
The Natural Approach and the Communicative Approach share a common theoretical and philosophical base. The Natural Approach to L2 teaching is based on the following hypotheses:
1. The acquisition-learning distinction hypothesis: Adults can "get" a second language much as they learn their first language, through informal, implicit, subconscious learning.  The conscious, explicit, formal linguistic knowledge of a language is a different, and often non-essential process.
2. The natural order of acquisition hypothesis:  L2 learners acquire forms in a predictable order.  This order very closely parallels the acquisition of grammatical and syntactic structures in the first language.
3. The monitor hypothesis: Fluency in L2 comes from the acquisition process.  Learning produces a "monitoring" or editor of performance. The application of the monitor function requires time, focus on form and knowledge of the rule.
4. The input hypothesis: Language is acquired through comprehensible input.  If an L2 learner is at a certain stage in language acquisition and he/she understands something that includes a structure at the next stage, this helps him/her to acquire that structure.  Thus, the i+1 concept, where i= the stage of acquisition.
5. The affective hypothesis: People with certain personalities and certain motivations perform better in L2 acquisition.  Learners with high self-esteem and high levels of self-confidence acquire L2 faster. Also, certain low-anxiety pleasant situations are more conducive to L2 acquisition.
6. The filter hypothesis:  There exists an affective filter or "mental block" that can prevent input from "getting in."  Pedagogically, the more that is done to lower the filter, the more acquisition can take place.  A low filter is achieved through low-anxiety, relaxation, non-defensiveness.
7. The aptitude hypothesis: There is such a thing as a language learning aptitude.  This aptitude can be measured and is highly correlated with general learning aptitude.  However, aptitude relates more to learning while attitude relates more to acquisition.
8.  The first language hypothesis:  The L2 learner will naturally substitute competence in L1 for competence in L2.  Learners should not be forced to use the L1 to generate L2 performance.  A silent period and insertion of L1 into L2 utterances should be expected and tolerated.
9. The textuality hypothesis: The event-structures of experience are textual in nature and will be easier to produce, understand, and recall to the extent that discourse or text is motivated and structured episodically.  Consequently, L2 teaching materials are more successful when they incorporate principles of good story writing along with sound linguistic analysis.
10.  The expectancy hypothesis: Discourse has a type of "cognitive momentum."  The activation of correct expectancies will enhance the processing of textual structures.  Consequently, L2 learners must be guided to develop the sort of native-speaker "intuitions" that make discourse predictable.


Making choices


  • Exposure to language: students need constant exposure to language since this is a key component of language acquisition
  • Input: students need comprehensible input but this is not enough in itself, they need some opportunity for noticing or consciousness–raising to help students remember language facts.
  • CLT: communicative activities and task-based teaching offer real learning benefits
  • The affective variable: anxiety needs to be lowered for learning to take place.
  • Discovery: where culturally appropriate, students should be encouraged to discover things for themselves.
  • Grammar and lexis: showing how words combine together and behave both semantically and grammatically is an important part of any language learning program.
  • Methodology and culture: teaching methodology is rooted in popular culture. Therefore, compromise may be necessary.
  • Pragmatic eclecticism does not just mean that “anything goes“. On the contrary, students have a right to expect that they are being asked to do things for a reason, and that their teacher has some aim in mind which he or she can, if asked, articulate clearly. Teaching plans should always be designed to meet an aim or aims.

Pair work- closure
What seems to work in English classes will depend upon the age and character-type of learners, their cultural backgrounds, and the level they are studying at – not to mention the teacher's own beliefs and preferences!