Download - Language teaching methodologies
LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGIES
ACC4300-2 Learning unit
OVERVIEW
In this unit we will look at different types of Language Learning
Methodologies in the TESOL context.
Generally when an ESL teacher contracts out to an Asian school ,
State, or Private, the syllabus has already been decided upon by
the school principal and is already in place. The ESL teacher has to
quickly gather all the information to start participating in teaching
the ESL syllabus. Sometimes, his could be the next day after
landing in the contracting Asian nation with little, or no
preparation.
ORIENTATION PROCEDURES:
One of the constants for all ESL teaching positions is that the
first lesson in any teaching syllabus is the Orientation class, that
is defined by standard procedures, facilitated by the ESL
teachers. The opportunity to fully implement the Orientation
lesson procedures is more likely when the ESL teacher is in a
private school situation and has absolute control of the ESL
classroom , These procedures are:
have general hand-out messages on hand that
relate to aspects of the Orientation class
procedures.
making an attendance register
AT
TEN
DA
NC
E R
EG
ISTER
In China and Korea attendance registers are
usually drawn up with national given names.
During orientation the ESL teacher discusses with the
students whether or not they would like to adopt
English names for the duration of the course, inviting
the students to choose an English name for lesson
purposes.
Useful
At the same time, is to circulate a form with a column of
male and female English names, a column for the
student's native names, and a column for the student's
adoptive English name, the ESL Teacher can then enter
the English names in the roll register. In some ESL
situations students decline to use English names
presenting the ESL teacher with the task of learning
many foreign names. In this case asking students to
wear name tags is not unreasonable.
ORIENTATION
Orientation can then proceed with student introductions by getting the
students to introduce themselves by name, city, (country, if a
multinational classroom), and the school attend, and how they travel to
school each day, e.g. bus, train, bicycle or car.
If the class level is Beginner, a readable handout, or speech prompts
written up on the whiteboard, modelled by the ESL teacher, will help
students introduce themselves to the rest of the class. The value here is
that the ESL teacher learns a little about each student through their
response to the roll call, and a little about the student's personal language
ability profile, e.g. speech ability, comprehension of what they have been
asked to do by the teacher, personal mannerisms, attitude, and
deportment (each student is required to stand up before speaking).
ORIENTATION
For the Orientation class the ESL teacher will have acquired
a lesson timetable, and will be able to give students general
information about the course time frame, how the general
coursework syllabus will run, the lesson time table, and any
different classroom room locations such as language
laboratory and library.
The ESL teacher will inform the students of:
Any ESL prerequisites required by students to be enrol in the
particular being started
room number and free S-T contact times
teacher phone number, and email address
TEACHERS IN ORIENTATIONS
The ESL/TESOL teacher will issue a mission
statement to the students that tell the students
of the teacher's requirements of the students
during the course. This first part of the mission
statement will talk about homework, essays, and
project drafts being returned on the due date,
and late submission penalties, e.g.10% deduction
from final course work mark.
Project drafts (1500 words, UI, and A levels) are
prerequisite for the final examination's oral
presentation, which will not be permitted if drafts
1st, 2nd and the final draft have not been
completed, submitted to the teacher for
feedback, and signed off by the teacher. Failure
not to fulfil the project prerequisites will result is
a course failure.
TESOL Teachers
TEACHERS IN ORIENTATIONS The ESL teacher also informs the students of teacher
commitments to the students, which will include the following:
to be on time and prepared for all lessons
to make sure that the lesson material is presented clearly
to listen to, and encourage students who have difficulty with
any aspect of the course work or with reading, writing,
speaking. comprehension of texts and, or grammar material
to set time aside, and be available for individual T-S tutorials
prompt marking of practice tests,
to give students test feedback
to give students classroom aid on request
to administer practise tests before the end of course final
testing
make sure all classroom resources are available to students at
all limes
to moderate an solve any student problems that may arise
ESL Teachers
DU
RIN
G O
RIE
NTA
TIO
N
During Orientation the teacher shows the students a weekly time table and explains that a weekly update will be found posted on the students notice board, on display somewhere in the classroom
.
The aims and objects of the ESL course are
defined for each student level (B,I.A), and the
ESL coursework books are discussed. For
private schools these are likely to be a
classroom text book and a student homework
book. The teacher will have a teacher's book
with lesson guidelines, tests and answer keys.
Any free time near the end of the Orientation
can be used in playing vocabulary games
(hangman), or by asking for, and writing up on
the whiteboard, vocabulary from the word set
used during the orientation, or asking for
knowledge about word classes, etc..
LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY
The actual Language Teaching Methodologies for delivering
ESL course work are many and various, and are often
characterised by an individual ESL teacher's own teaching
personality. For the prospective new ESL teacher, good
policy would be to discover if they have a particular
teaching bias in their personal approach to language
teaching, and most beneficial would be to for a new ESL
teacher to research each of the most prominent styles of
Language Teaching Methodology.
ACC MATERIALS
Australia City College (ACC) has a
comprehensive, three part, Language Teaching
Methodology teaching unit component to both
their ACCTESOL 111, and ACCTESOL 1V,
teacher training courses. In either of these
ACC TESOL courses trainee ESL teachers learn
to contrast different teaching methodologies
and elucidate the effects that they have on
the student's learning environment.
PUTATIVE AUDIO-LINGUAL LANGUAGE TEACHING METHOD
An example of a Language Teaching Method in use, is the
putative Audio-lingual Language Teaching Method, where an
ESL teacher predominantly presents lessons that underpin
the phonemic, morphological and syntactical elements of
English language grammar that are biased towards
language modelling, text, and vocabulary drills, where the
students are asked to practice language use through
repetitions of phrases, whole sentences, pronunciation and
intonation drills and choral vocabulary drills, for accuracy of
learning.
TEACHING METHODOLOGIES
Several other Language Teaching Methodologies are shown in Table 1
taken
from the ACC TESOL 1V teacher training course workbook (2004). This
comprehensive ACC TESOL 1V unit is in three parts:
1. Part one is a history of Teacher Training Methodologies, that compares
and contrasts two common teaching methodologies and evaluates
their effectiveness.
2. Part two identifies various communicative teaching strategies,
encourages implementation of those communicative teaching
strategies in TESOL environments or simulations, and evaluates the
strength/weaknesses of effective communicative teaching.
3. Part three identifies and describes the various styles of teaching,
identifies the weakness and strengths, of particular styles in relation to
the learners in the TESOL context, and identifies the weaknesses of
trainee teacher's own teaching style.
In part two TESOL trainee ESL teachers will learn
how to evaluate the stages learning acquisition,
and use language promoters to stimulate speaking
activities in the ESL classroom, and further
promotes the use of various given examples of
communicative activity that encourage
communication.
These activities take the form of Pairs Interviews
e.g. conducting role play interviews between
two students and presenting to the rest of the
class, Pairs comparison, e.g. comparing a selection
of picture taken from a pictorial resource, and
placed in a grid pattern for comparison by the
active pa.ir. Picture differences, a self evident
activity, etc. there are sections on fluency and
communication, as well as Drama and role play
In part three teacher trainee will
evaluate four teaching styles:
formal authority ~ the teaching is focused
on content, the teacher provides and
controls the flow of information, the student
is expected to receive and internalise the
content
demonstrator or personal model ~ teacher
centred, with a lot of demonstrations and
modelling
facilitator ~ teacher is focused on activities
with the emphasis on student learning,
student initiative to accomplished given
tasks.
Derogatory ~ focused on developing
students ability to design and compliment
Part Two Part Three
Theses four styles can become nebulous when teaching in the ESL as they tend to overlap style
depending on the student body, or the particular teaching format prevalent in the ESL classroom
at anyone time.
The ESL teacher needs to undertake: classroom control organise be a capable assessor of student performance be able to prompt a student who is lost for words or chokes up when
asked a question, in the classroom the ESL teacher needs to be able to become integral with student activities
or roll play in the classroom, but not in the teacher's position and without being dominant
in certain activities the ESL teacher may only be required to be the student's resource, and not participate in any part or of their activities.
to be tutor an to be an observer in order to provide feed back on their endeavours
These roles are constantly interchanging in the ESL teaching environment and
improve with ESL teaching experience.
TEACHING METHODS AND TEACHER & Lear Nerd ROLES
Method Teacher Roles Learner Roles
Situational Language Teaching environment
Context setterError Corrector
ImitatorMemoriser
Audio-lingualism Language ModellerDrill Leader
Pattern PracticianAccuracyEnthusiast
To dedicated Communicative LanguageTeaching
Needs AnalystTask Designer
ImproviserNegotiator
Total Physical Response Commander Action Monitor
Order Taker Performer
Community Language Learning
Councillor Paraphraser
Collaborator Whole Person
The Natural Approach Actor Props User
GuesserImmerser
Suggestopedia Auto-hypnotistAuthority Figure
RelaxerTrue-Believer
Table 1
(http://www.wordhistory.com/language.htm) from ACC TESOL 1V teacher training course work book, 2004
Well, that ends this very brief introductory overview of ACC's TESOL full on Teacher Learning Methodologies unit. I hope that you have enjoyed the journey through this introductory ACC4300-2 Learning unit: Teacher Training Methodologies overview of the topic, and I will see in the next unit, ACC4300-3 Learning unit Teacher training.
Bye for now!