Linguistics andLanguage Teaching

Lecture 9

Approaches to Language Teaching

• In order to improve the efficiency of language teaching, many approaches have been used.

• 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

• The natural method (also called the direct method) of language teaching 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

• Applied linguists also 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.

• The bridge between linguistics and language teaching is applied linguistics.

Syllabus Design • Syllabus is fundamental to language teaching. • 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.

Grammatical Syllabus

• Grammatical syllabus takes grammar as the basis for (foreign) language teaching. In this syllabus, grammar is primary.

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.

Communicative Syllabus • Communicative syllabus focuses language

teaching on the development of the learner's communicative competence.

• Assumption: Language is used for communication; learning a language is learning to communicate.

• 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.

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.

• b) The Assessment Function• Tests are often used to assess students'

achievements in language learning.

Language Testing

• c) The Backwash Function• 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.

• validity• Validity refers to the degree to which a test

measures what it is intended to measure.• content validity, construct validity, face

validity, washback validity, criterion-related validity.

• Content validity refers to whether the test adequately covers the syllabus area to be tested, or in other words.

• 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.

• 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.

• Efficiency• This involves questions of economy, ease of

administration, scoring, and interpretation of results. Efficiency is also related to financial viability.

Types of Language Tests • The discrete point test• 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.

Types of Language Tests

• The Integrative Test• This kind of test is also called the "pragmatic

test". • simultaneous testing of the testee's multiple

linguistic competence from various perspectives.

Types of Language Tests • a. Cloze dictation

• b. Oral cloze test

• c. Paraphrase recognition

• d. Questions & Answers

Types of Language Tests

• The Communicative Test• It aims at testing the testee's mastery of the target

language through accomplishing certain tasks in real or nearly-real situations. 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