Language Acquisition and Teaching Methods
Reform Method (RM)
Developed language teaching out of naturalistic principles. Language teaching should be based on a sound scientific analysis of language. The spoken language is primary and should be reflected in an oral-based approach.
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
Goal
Effective communication.
Teacher’s Role
The teacher’s role is mainly as a facilitator to guide the learners in the interaction that takes place in the classroom. The activities are learner-centered, and the learners focus on their own learning process. Language should be used productively and receptively.
Disadvantages
It pays insufficient attention to the context in which teaching and learning take place. The CLT approach focuses on fluency but not accuracy in grammar and pronunciation. The CLT approach is great for intermediate and advanced students, but not beginners.
Resource
The teacher is a kind of walking resource center ready to offer help if needed, or provide learners with whatever language they lack when performing communicative activities. The teacher must make her/himself available so that learners can consult her/him when (and only when) it is absolutely necessary.
Boomerang Lesson
This lesson dives straight into the activate phase before the study phase, then finishing by reactivating the students. During the initial activate phase, students will most likely be unable to use the language correctly. They will make mistakes with grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, which will reveal gaps in the students’ knowledge. Once the students have learned the new topic, they will then do the activity again, filling in any gaps they may have had at the beginning of the lesson.
Learner Characteristics
Children (C)
- Curious about almost everything.
- Respond well to individual attention.
- Respond well to involving activities.
- Have an unlimited acquisition potential (like sponges, depending on age).
- Shortest attention span (listening time is short).
- Inability to deal with abstract thought.
- Ability to forget languages as quickly as they acquire them (depending on age).
Adolescents (A)
- Developing capacity for abstract thought.
- Understand the need for learning.
- Largely creative potential.
- Passionate commitment.
- Search for identity can make them awkward.
- Need for self-esteem can make them awkward.
- Peer groups are highly influential.
Adults (A)
- Wide range of life experiences to draw on.
- Good at application to learning.
- Clear understanding of learning purposes.
- Disciplined.
- Fear of failure.
- Previous (negative) learning experiences.
- (Sometimes) Out of habit of classroom learning.
Acquisition vs. Learning
Acquisition is the product of a subconscious process very similar to the process children undergo when they acquire their first language. It requires meaningful interaction in the target language – natural communication – in which speakers are concentrated in the communicative act. Learning is the product of formal instruction and it comprises a conscious process which results in conscious knowledge ‘about’ the language, for example, knowledge of grammar rules. A deductive approach in a teacher-centered setting produces “learning”, while an inductive approach in a student-centered setting leads to “acquisition”.