ENG 345: Week 5

             In Brown chapter 4, he talks about teaching by principles. He talks about the three different types: cognitive, socioaffective, and linguistic. With there being so many different approaches he combined and shortened the list into twelve approaches, each one fitting into the three different types. He then talks about each approach within the three different types. For cognitive principles he discusses automaticity, meaningful learning, the anticipation of reward, intrinsic motivation, strategic investment, and autonomy. All of these approaches relate mainly to mental and intellectual functions and they focus on the meaning of learning language. For socioaffective principles he discusses language ego, willingness to communicate, and the language-culture connection. These three approaches involve more of an emotional feel with oneself and with others. It also focuses on communicating with others in a community and relating the language to self, others, and world. The last category he talks about is linguistic principles, which are the native language effect, interlanguage, and communicative competence. The focus on these three is the language itself and the learning of complex linguistic systems. This list of approaches seems like it is too short and that there are methods that are missing from the list. However, it also seems like there are too many methods and that some of them could be combined.

            In Brown chapter 16, he talks about strategies-based instruction (SBI). He defines SBI as “how your language classroom techniques can encourage, build, and sustain effective language-learning strategies in your students”. He also talks about how it is important to know the different styles of learning of your students in order to provide different strategies that work best for them. One of the major points of the chapter is the “ten commandments” for good language learning: lower inhibitions, encourage risk taking, build self-confidence, develop intrinsic motivation, engage in cooperative learning, use right-brain processes, promote ambiguity tolerance, practice intuition, process error feedback, and set personal goals. A teachers’ role is very important is SBI and it is extremely important to get students strategically invested in their language-learning process. Brown also talks about the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL), which can be used for developing awareness of strategies.

            The two chapters in Brown talked about the different strategies and approaches to language learning. Both chapters talked about the importance of autonomy and getting the students to invest in their learning of a second language. The role of the teacher is to know the style of learning of their students and to encourage, motivate, and provide feedback in almost all of the approaches. This makes the teacher as a guide and a coach rather than the all-knowing facilitator. 

ENG 345: Week 4

            In the Skehan article it talks about task-based instruction. Skehan defines a task as “an activity which requires learners to use language, with emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective”. He then talks about the four different approaches to task-based instruction: a psycholinguistic approach to interaction, a social interactive approach, a cognitive perspective and a concern for structure-focused tasks. In the psycholinguistic approach, he talks about the feature of recast. According to Long et al. (1998) recasts were really effective in short-term language learning, and according to Lyster (1997) recasts are not frequent, not noticed by learners, and it does not get incorporated into the learner’s speech. Recasts are a controversial topic in the approaches of task-based learning. Are they effective for teaching pragmatically appropriate and grammatically correct responses, or just one over the other? Do they boost learners’ confidence or make them afraid to speak out again in fear of being wrong? Recasts can be used for many different purposes and I think it is important for teachers to know that if they use recasts why they are using them and for what purpose. I think it is also important for teachers to analyze the growth caused by recasts each year and make a decision based on that year whether to include recasts or not.

            In the Hu article, it talks about the CLT approach and China. Hu talks about what China had before CLT and how CLT has fit in with China. The article mainly talks about how the CLT goes against a lot of the culture of China. I think that the CLT overall is not really the best approach for China, but that does not mean it could never work in China. I think you could take some of the characteristics of CLT and combine them with another method, perhaps audiolingual, and that could be beneficial for certain students in China. I definitely think the ideology viewpoint is the way to go because there is no one universal method that works for everyone. “An ‘autonomous’ attitude assumes that a pedagogy which is effective and appropriate in one social and cultural context also works in a different one, whereas an ‘ideological’ attitude recognizes culturally embedded diversity and rejects the notion of universally appropriate ways of teaching and learning” (Coleman, 1996; Hinkel, 1999).

            In the Bax article, it talks about how the CLT approach needs to end and that a Context approach needs to take over. Bax talks about how context is a part of a lot of different approaches, but it always takes second place to methodology. He advocates that context should be first and then methodology should follow. I think context is really important and should definitely be apart of a teacher’s philosophy. I think that the context approach might be hard for novice teachers to have a grasp on a bunch of different methodologies based on the student’s context. I also think that it would be hard if the students needed multiple different methods especially if you taught English to students that are not from the same cultural background. Overall, the context approach would be hard to have a plan and it would definitely differ from year to year, but it would be beneficial to the students and it would meet their needs. 

ENG 345: Week 3

            In chapter 3 of Teaching by Principles it was about the postmethod era. It really helped to explain where we are now in the TESOL world after all of the methods were introduced, especially in the 1970’s. The book talked about CLT and TBLT as well as other approaches that we could use with all of the methods that we have. The author also talks about how there is not one catchall method that is yet to be discovered. I think this is a myth that a lot of people believe to be true. I think another myth that was proven false from the book was the fact that if it is a good method then it will always work. The method depends on the students, the teacher, the place, the time and many other different variables.

            In the article TESOL Methods: Changing Tracks, Challenging Trends it talks about the trends of TESOL since 1991. Kumaravadivelu talks about how the first period (before 1990) is a period of awareness and that the second period (after 1990) is a period of awakening. He also defines method as being used indiscriminately to refer to what theorists propose and to what teachers practice. I liked how simple this definition is and how it seems pretty practical. The article also goes into great depth talking about Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and how that becomes Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT).  CLT is an approach that seems like a catch-all method and is not very accurate in the results. The outcomes that were supposed to happen were not happening and there was a lot of dislike from different countries throughout the world on TESOL with the CLT approach. TBLT is a gradual erosion from CLT that focuses on the tasks of language learning. Some people view it as CLT by another name. He also describes a task as a curricular content rather than a methodological construct.

            Both of the readings were very similar and related to the postmethod area of TESOL. One thing I really agreed with is Bell (2003) stated, “by deconstructing methods, postmethod pedagogy has tended to cut teachers off from their sense of plausibility, their passion and involvement” (p. 333). I think this is so true and sometimes we can get so caught up in methods and approaches and anti-methods that we miss the point of language learning or why we wanted to be a teacher to begin with. I liked the way that Kumaravadivelu ended the article with saying that admirable intentions need to be translated into attainable goals and then from there into action. With all of this information on methods and postmethods now it is time to come up with some goals for future teaching and then teach to those goals using the method that works best for the certain circumstances that we are in.

ENG 345: Week 2

            In the book Beyond Methods in chapter 1 it talks about the meaning of being a teacher. According to Kumaravadivelu, “Teaching is basically a subjective activity carried out in an organized way.” (p. 5) He then goes on to explain the difference between a job, vocation, work, career, occupation, and profession. He explains the role of the teacher and how there are three distinct roles: passive technicians, reflective practitioners, and transformative intellectuals. There are many different pros and cons between the three roles and usually one teacher does not fit all the characteristics of one role. I think a good teacher needs to have some of the qualities of each of the roles.

            In chapter 2 of the book he goes even further as he talks about understanding postmethod pedagogy.  He talks about his definition of method and how it has been around so long that the word has lost some of its meaning. He talks about three types of methods which are language-centered methods, learner-centered methods, and learning-centered methods. He also spends a lot of time talking about the dissatisfaction of method and the issues of dealing with methods. I really agree with what Kumaravadivelu said and I think the teachers can both get caught up in too many methods as well as not focus enough on the methods used in the classroom.  

            The two chapters did a really good job at explaining teaching and method and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the book as he continues to focus on methods and the meaning of being a teacher. I think it is important to focus on methods, but not get caught up in methods. The balance is important and a teacher who ignores methods is in a sense their own method. There is no such thing as a teacher with no method. If they have no method then that is their method that they follow. That is why every teacher should think about methods and what methods they use. Every teacher should have a foundation of beliefs that they teach by so that they can also be held accountable as a teacher.