DESCRIBING LEARNING & TEACHING

Children and Language

Almost all children acquire a language, apparently

without effort.

Acquisition seems to be almost for children up to about of six years, they seem to be able to learn

languages with incredible facility

The ease or acquisition becomes gradually less noticeable as children move towards puberty, and after that, language acquisition became more difficult.

Acquisition is; the way in which people

get language without conscious effort, without thinking

about grammar or vocabulary

Children need to hear a lot of Language. Such exposure is absolutely vital, but is obviously, the

nature of the language they hear matters too. Matters in the tone voice, when parents simplify

what they say, they don’t use complex sentences or technical vocabulary.

•They also have a strong motivational , Urge to communicate in order to be fed and understood.

•Together with their parents, they make language together, and then, they try it out and use it.

•This “try out” is show by the way children repeat words and phrases, talk to themselves, and generally play with language.

ACQUISITION AND LEARNING,

•Stephen Karshen in the 1980’s suggested that we can make a distinction between acquisition and learning.

•Karshen, among others, suggested that teachers should concentrate on acquisition rather than learning and that the role of language should be provide the right kind of language exposure

•The principal function of learnt language is to monitor what is coming from the acquisition learners win.

•We have to notice that the ability of acquire language deteriorated with the age.

•Teenagers and adults have perfectly good reasoning powers and may want to think consciously about how language works

Perhaps, plain exposure to comprehensible input is not enough, even for older children or adults, as some claim, they should have their

attention drawn to aspects of language so they can notice these aspects; as a result they

will recognize them when they come across them again, and this recognition will be the first stage in their knowing of the language.

Different times, different methods

• Both abstract theory and practical techniques have influenced what was and is included in classrooms and teaching materials.

• Some methods used years ago are:• Lexical Approach• Silent Way• Community Language Learning

Grammar-translation

• A total concentration on grammar-translation stops students from getting the kind of natural language input that will help them acquire language.

• The danger with Grammar-translation is that it teaches people about language but doesn´t really help them to communicate effectively with it.

Audio-lingualism• The audio-lingual method originated in army

in the 1940s. It states that if we describe the grammatical patterns of English, we can have

students repeat and learn them.• Audio-lingualism marries behaviourist

theories of learning; result of habit-formation.

• Constant repetition of stimulus by response makes the response automatic. This is called

conditioning.• Students were not exposed to real or

realistic language.

Presentation, Practice and Production 1)The teacher presents the context and explains. 2) The students practise. Controlled practice. 3) Production with real world. PPP takes no account of other ways of learning

and understanding; takes little account of students´acquisition abilities.

PPP

COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT)

CTL has two main guiding principles: Involves language functions which students

should learn how to perfomr using variety language exponents. Students also need to be aware of the need for appropriacy.

If students get enough exposure to language, and opportunities for language use then language learning will take care of itself.

Many communcative activities.

TASK-BASED LEARNING (TBL) TBL is a natural extension of communicative

language teaching. Instead of language study leading to a task, the

task itself is the main focus and jumping-off point for subsequent study later.

A typical TBL sequence starts with a pre-task. This is followed by a task cycle and finally language focus phase.

Production at the starting point.