REFLECTION ON METHODS

M1 - Developing teaching skills 2300-GPTE-M1-DTS: Reflection on Teaching Methods

Miamo Lydie

University of Warsaw

22^nd October 2021

Supervised by Prof Malgorzagorzatar Matysik

REFLECTTION ON METHODS

I have been teaching for the past 16 years as a private tutor and as a full-time class teacher, without any formal training as an educator, besides the 3 pedagogical regional seminars that my former Head Master registered me to with my colleagues. Today I am actually shocked and impressed to discover all the teaching techniques, methods, and approaches (I am yet to understand the differences between them) governing the educational field. In fact, if some employers go through my resume to assess if I qualify to teach in their schools just by checking my academic profile and seeing “Bachelor’s Degree in Law”, I will never or will hardly get the job. However, many parents and colleagues who discovered this fact about me, always wondered how I could manage my way into this completely strange career so successfully, without passing through a teacher’s training school! My reply has always been “well, I just follow my instinct”. Hitherto, teaching has never been in my list of professions, but I discovered this passion while giving private classes to prepare some secondary school students who were backward for their public exams. Their success was the click that brought a U-turn in my career, and after my LL.B I eventually embraced the teaching field. From my experience, I have confidently selected the following 10 theories behind some teaching techniques, which I think may underlie "the perfect teaching", because I realized that I was already applying them unconsciously, and today I am happy to be able to attach names to them, and they are as follows:

1) The Grammar Translation Method (1466-1536):

Prof. Karl Plotz believed that foreign language can be best taught or learned by translating texts from the target language into the learner’s mother tongue. This method is very practical where the learner is a complete novice in the target language. Contrary to others’ opinion, I think this method is to an extent learner-based because from the onset, it essentially takes into account the learner’s status, his or her “previous knowledge”, meaning “zero knowledge”. For example, when I was giving French private lessons to an English native secondary school student, she appreciated my approach of translating words, and explaining rules in her mother tongue. She complained of her French teacher in school who would just come, as she put it, ‘speak all her bla-bla-bla and leave, and she would go and take her salary, that she has taught French”. No body understood what the teacher said. She told me that most of them managed to pass because they were spying from their friends, until one of them did not even realize he copied the friend’s name, just because he was and remained totally blank even after the lessons! It was really boring to them because of lack of communication.

Besides translation, this method implies that reading, listening and vocabulary are indirectly taken care of, and eventually, speaking will automatically be achieved once the learner must have mastered some basic grammatical rules and acquired rich vocabulary. Additionally, to effectively apply this method I can easily involve elements of Task-Based Method -filling the gap with missing words, with reading comprehension questions to enhance critical thinking and assess understanding; Content-Based approach-reading text with carefully chosen themes; Lexical Approach- get synonyms or antonyms of words in the text, or use words to construct sentences; Audiolingual Method – voice emission and repeated articulation during reading. Therefore, I can respect the motto “teach the language not about the language” (Bashir, 2013) in the Grammar Translation Method.

2) The Audiolingual Method (Brooks, 1964, p. 263)

To understand the rationale of this method, is it important to recall the circumstances that forced it into existence. It was formerly called the Aural-oral Approach and dubbed “Audiolingual Method” by Nelson Brooks who supported the 1942 U.S. Government‘s Army Specialized Training Program, designed to urgently train the army in the emergency context of the World War II, in order to overcome the challenges of language barrier faced by the soldiers on the foreign battle fields. It involved intensive oral drilling of grammatical patterns and pronunciation. So according to this method “a language is first of all a system of sounds for social communication; writing is a secondary derivative system for the recording of spoken language” (Carroll, p.1963).

I think this habit formation enhances language acquisition with active listening and speaking, very useful in foreign language teaching. We can reap huge rewards from performing consistent actions repeatedly over time, if I consider Darren Hardy’s theory of Compound Effect. Whether their performance appears at the beginning, during or at the end of a lesson, I think that this stage is inevitable in all second language teaching processes. It is one of the methods that makes room for immediate use of the language, especially in learning language for specific purposes. The learner’s communicative competence is developed through effective repetition of dialogues pattern drills to form habits that will allow them to perform what they have learnt in real life context.

3) The Neuro-linguistic Programming (1970)

It was developed by a team of scientists among whom John Grinder and Richard Bandler who assert that neurological processes (neuro), language (linguistic) and behavioral patterns are connected and learned through experience (programming), and that these can be changed to achieve specific goals in life. Practically, if a learner understands how the teacher performs a specific task, he can easily imitate and also perform the same task, thereby learning from experience, using all five sensorial organs. I would say that this method can be used with very young learners who are hyperactive, to engage all their senses in order to control and canalize their energy. Just like the Audiolingual Approach and the Total Physical Response, It is important to develop habit in learning languages.

4) The Total Physical Response (1970s)

This theory was developed by Dr. James J Asher who resolved that we can learn language the same way that children learn their mother tongue. It is a fact that children naturally understand their parents’ instructions when accompanied by a body language conversation with them. The parents instruct and the children watch, listen and physically respond without necessarily needing any translation or whatsoever external realia. This method is a good way for any beginner to discover language practically, and for a slow learner suffering from dyslexia who finds it difficult to retain words. Making them thespians- as recommended in a recent study- by acting the words, will ease understand and help them memorize. This focuses on comprehension and giving learners time to process language before having to speak.

5) The Multiple intelligence (2016)

Howard Gardener sees intelligence as the “biopsychological potential to process information in certain ways, in order to solve problems or fashion products that are valued in a culture or community…severally independent computers, not a single all-purpose one”. Practically, Howard recommends two things: first, that we should individualize teaching, learning and assessing as much as possible, such that each learner chooses the way (s)he wants to learn same topic with others; second, that we should pluralize- presenting important ideas in several ways , for example, teaching history using videos, books, photographs, varying moods with jokes or dramatization.

I can imagine this approach absolutely suitable at the very tender age where the learner’s talent can early be identified, and creativity unleashed and developed in order to lead him or her into a career (s)he was born for. This helps to personalize learning and set realistic goals for each learner. With this approach, the learner does not feel that (s)he is competing with others. A rapport between teacher and learner is achieved because the former gets to know the latter’s strengths, weaknesses, interests, dreams and hobbies, that will easily serve as starters to motivate and engage the learner into conversations. This method can also be used to remedy and redirect the education of desperate cases where a learner’s performance is deplorable, to give the chance to do what (s)he truly cares about, instead of forcing other people’s dream into him or her.

6) Lexical Approach (1993)

Michael Lewis advocating for a grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar alleged that

learning a language largely involves the understanding and production of sets of words as chunks. In 2000, Norbert Schmitt, a Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, supporting the lexical approach stated that "the mind stores and processes these chunks as individual wholes."

In my opinion, if a learner develops a rich vocabulary, it will reduce their blockages when speaking because they will easily find the words that will faithfully express their thoughts. For instance, I am currently giving French lessons online to a Chinese lady in Australia who got married to a French native. Her worry was that she couldn’t communicate fluently with her husband and kids because she has to search for the right word to say what she actually meant, and it was difficult for her. It is on now that I discovered I am unconsciously using the lexical approach-among other-, to develop her vocabulary with words connected to her immediate environment. They include objects in the kitchen, or at her job site, and I ask her to describe her work or activities performed in the kitchen for example, using such words or expressions. Then we watch videos on these activities and discuss about them, and I give her tasks to construct her own sentences, fill gabs with the new words she learnt, and write short essays on specific daily events. So, I have no stress using this method in her situation because she already had some previous knowledge in French.

7) Suggestopedia (1966)

Here, Dr. Georgi Lozanov relies on the power of suggestion for acquiring language knowledge. The belief is that if students feel secure and comfortable in the learning environment, they’ll be more receptive to learning new information. I feel that this is suitable to teach language as mother tongue, with no need for translation as in grammar translation, instead of foreign language, as he intended it to be. The learner acquires reading, listening, speaking skills and a rich vocabulary. The student is also expected to perform, as roles are interchanged to enable learners act the various stages described in the text. I can see elements of Total Physical Response, audiolingual, Task-Based and Cooperative methods and approaches. Taking home to school by creating a familiar environment with music and visual decorations, to get learner feel contented and relaxed enough to let knowledge sink into him or her through his or her various sense, is really innovative.

8) Content-Based Instruction (1989)

Brinton, Snow, and Wesche came up with this method with the belief that language teaching is effective when we focus on what is being taught than the language itself such that it becomes the medium through which something new is learned. I share the view that people don’t learn language and then use them, but they learn language by using them. This method can be appropriate for students who have specific purposes for learning the language such as academic, professional, or to interact with their environment, and so their background experiences is exploited to enrich the lessons’ contents. They feel at ease, motivated and confident talking about something they are familiar with, and they learn faster. I think it is quite similar to the new Content and Language Integrated Learning that is being adopted in the educational field nowadays.

9) Cooperative Learning (1989)

Dr. Robert Slavin shares the theory according to which students learn in groups in a much better way that they do it individually and I am of the opinion that cooperating provides a very wide variety of research items and analysis that helps in molding and teaching students, both as L1 and L2. This method is the perfect fit for a mixed class of students from various sociocultural background, or in a class of normal and physically impaired students, where the latter will not feel isolated or marginalized, and will gain self-confidence. According to Slavin, disabled students learn in a more productive and skillful manner when they work in mainstream and heterogeneous environments, therefore appropriate for special eduction. Likewise, this method will help in situations where only a particular set of learners respond to questions or are active in class, while others don’t even feel challenged to participate.

10) Task-Based Language Teaching

Richard and Rogers (2001, p.227-229) advocate for “the use of authentic language and on asking students to do meaningful tasks using the target language.” All I have to say here is that practice makes perfect. Irrespective of the method we adopt, getting the learners perform task to apply what they learn helps them assimilate information better. It’s useless for a learner to acquire knowledge if (s)he can’t be given opportunity to use it and prove himself or herself, and it is through tasks that we evaluate comprehension and progress, in order to amend, improvise or anticipate.

Therefore, my conclusion is that each of these methods only vary according to which need is considered to be more pressing as opposed to the others. While some give priority to receptive skills such as listening and reading, others focus on productive skills like speaking and writing, and they all prove effective and efficient in particular individual contexts, though short-lived. But to actually come out with the “perfect teaching” theory, we need to incorporate components of the above beliefs into a “revised edition” of the Grammar Translation Method. Grammar is the backbone of any language, and practically, it is always indirectly and inductively introduced, or actively present in the teaching process, of different languages, in varying degrees, at different levels, with different learners, and in different contexts. As such, the ideal woudl be to design a Grammar Translation Method that will consider and “explicitly” encompass all the other beliefs as I earlier explained, especially if we want to avoid beguiling effective language teaching. We can’t learn what we don’t understand, and transferring knowledge from the unknown into the known is much more practical, efficient and effective. It is always comforting to leave “for” home, and not “from” home. In other words, it’s easier to explain to an English native speaker learning French, that “un corossol” – (s)he will be curious to know- is “a sour sop”- (s)he will be relieved to know-, if the child already knows what it is in his or her own mother tongue. In a nutshell, once all this setting is put in place, we can reliably trust the Compound Effect to do its job over time, for effective language acquisition to ensue.