english pedagogy by: yu yueqing email:[email protected]
TRANSCRIPT
Introduction of the course
• Understanding of teacher professional
• Why do we set up English Pedagogy?• What can we learn from this course? • How do we learn this course?• How can I evaluate the students?
Unit 1
Language and Language Learning
Aims of the Unit
--to get to know the common views on language
-- to get to know the common views on language learning
--to know the qualities of a good language teacher
--to understand the model on the development of professional competence for a language teacher
How do we learn languages?
Discussion
• Do you focus on knowledge or skills? Why?• Do you find it interesting to learn the foreign
language?• What difficulties have you experienced in learning? • What are your most common learning activities?• Which skills do you find more difficult to learn?• Do you like the way you learn the foreign language?• Do you consider yourself a successful learner?
Why?
Views on Language
• Structural view It sees language as a linguistic system made up of
various subsystems: the sound system (phonology); the discrete unit of meaning produced by sound combination (morphology); and the system of combining units of meaning for communication (syntax). Each language has a finite number of such structural items. So it considers to learn a language means to learn these structural items so as to be able to understand and produce language.
Influence on language teaching and learning:
• English teaching and learning focuses on language knowledge such as sounds, words, grammar, sentence structure .
• Teachers teach English by explaining and students take notes silently.
• A lot of learning activities focus on learning by rote (word,text.dialogue )and written exercises and listening and speaking are neglected.As a result, students can not create their own sentences.
• Language learning is monotonous and gradually students loose interests.
• Functional view It sees language as a linguistic system but also a
means for doing things. It focuses on how to use the rules and vocabulary to do things to perform the functions of the language. such as offering, suggesting, advising, apologizing, etc.
Influence on language teaching and learning:
• Development of the students' language ability is the main learning aims.
• English teachers always ask students to use what they learn based on the understanding of the language knowledge ,to provide the all kinds of chances for their students to use language to express their mind and feelings creatively.
• Interactional view It considers language as 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 the vocabulary of the language, but also importantly they need to know the rules of using them in a whole range of communicative contexts.
Influence on language teaching and learning:
• Communicative competence is the main aims of language teaching and learning.
• Teachers teach English in communicative teaching methods as what we use language in real life. That is, teachers usually provide some real language situations for students to practice language.
• Teachers always ask students to learn a language by using the language
• Students feel interested in learning the language
Views on language Learning
Behaviorist theory• Watson : you can train an animal to do anything if y
ou follow a certain procedure which has three major stages---stimulus, response, and reinforcement .
• Skinner :Language is also a form of behavior. It can be learned the same way as an animal is trained to respond to stimuli. language is learned by constant repetition and reinforcement of the teacher.
Influence to English teaching:
• English teachers pay more attention to the repeated work of the texts and dialogues.
• Students' main learning activities focus on rote leaning.
• Although students can recite all they have learned,they still can not express themselves.
•Cognitive theory Chomsky claims that infants universal
ly possess an innate “grammar template”, or universal grammar, which will allow them to select out many grammatical rules of the language they hear around them, as they gradually construct the grammar of their mother tongue.
According to Chomsky, 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. There are a finite number of grammatical rules in the system and with knowledge of these rules an infinite number of sentences can be produced.
Influence on the English teaching:
• ask student to understand the grammar rules.• to make students to use the grammar to produce s
entences freely.• Students still focus on the learning of grammatic r
ules.
Constructivist theory
• It believes that learning is a process in which the learner construct meaning based on his or her own experiences and what she or he already knows and that education is used to develop learners mind, interests, curiosity for learning and good habits, characteristics, personalities of individual learners, but not to make students rote what is given by the teachers.
Influence on the English teaching:
• Teachers pay more attention to students language ability and emotional qualities. In English lanrning.
• Teachers usually provide chance for students’ langauge use and make students engage in the learning ancivities.
• Teachers usually develop environment and foster inventive,creative,critical ability of languaege.
Socio-constructivist theory• Socio-constructivist theory is presented by Vygotsky
who emphasizes interaction and engagement with the target language in the social contexts .
• In other words, learning is best achieved through the dynamic interaction between teacher and learner and between the learners. With the teachers’questions and explanations ,or with a more capable peers’ support, the learners can move to a higher level of understanding and extend his or her skills and knowledge to the fullest potential.
•Language is not taught by teachers but learned by students themselves in the language use, not by rote-remembering, but by an active participant in the language activates. In the process, they construct their knowledge structure and develop the language competence.
What makes a good language teaher?
Qualities of A Good Language Teacher
• Ethic devotion
• Professional qualities • Personal style
• Ethic devotion is the attitude to students and work, such as fair, kind, warm-hearted, enthusiastic, caring, well-prepared, responsible, disciplined, devoted, conscientious, serious, strict, ready to help students, hard-working, willing to improve their teaching, willing to do research on their teaching, etc.
• Professional qualities are professional knowledge and skills, such as creative, resourceful, authoritative, well-informed, accurate, know the subject well; linguistic competence; good command of English; large vocabulary; correct pronunciation; speak clearly, naturally and fluently; knowledge of the target culture; professional trained, etc.
• Personal style is personalities and characters such as flexible, dynamic, patient, attentive, intuitive, humorous, amiable, charming, active, optimistic, easy to communicate, easy-going, influential, beautiful, cheerful, approachable, empathetic, etc.
• Professional competence is the state or quality of being adequately qualified for the profession, which is armed with a specific range of skills, strategies, knowledge, and ability, and it is the most important and most difficult part of making a good language teacher.
Model on the development of professional competence of a language teacher
• Stage1: Language training. All the teachers are supposed to have a sound command of English.
• Stage2: In involves three sub-stages: learning, practice, and reflection.
• Goal: After some period of practice and reflection, a teacher matures and approaches the goal----to achieve the professional competence.
• The learning stages is actually the specific preparation that a language teacher should make before they go to practice. This preparation includes:
• Learn from others’ experience(empirical knowledge gained through reading and observations of classrooms and listen to a talk);
• Learn received knowledge(such as language theories, psycholinguistics, socio-linguistics, educational psychology, language teaching methodology, etc.)
• Learn from one’s own experience.
• The practice stage includes two senses:
• In one sense, it is a short period of time assigned for student teachers to do teaching practice as part of their education, usually under the supervision of their instructors. This practiced is called pseudo practice.
• In other sense, it is real work that the teacher undertakes when he finish his education.
• The reflection stage: The teacher benefit from practice if they keep on reflecting on that they have been doing(Stanley,1999).But it should be noted that teachers reflect on their work not only after they finish a certain period of practice, but also while they are doing the practice.
Key points of unit 1• Three views on language and their influence on
language teaching • Four views on language learning and their influence
on language learning• Qualities of a good language teacher• What’ s professional competence ?• Model on the development of professional
competence for a language teacher (How do a language teacher develop his or her professional competence ?