UNIT 4- DESCRIBING LEARNING AND TEACHING

Brenda Carolina Venegas Garza 645184

Stephanie Montse Lozano

Children and language

Language acquisition is almost guaranteed for children up to age 6 since they learn with incredible facility but also forget as easily.

At fisrt they will begin with one word and two words utterances and will then begin to make complete sentences.

Acquisition and learning In order to obtain language

acquisition, some conditions must be met. Children must be exposed to the language a lot, it is the most vital element.

Secondly, it is important to keep the language as simple as possible and avoid technical vocabulary or complex structure of sentences; this is called rough-tuning. With this exposure, children are motivated to communicate in order to be understood and fed.

Acquisiton and learning

In the teaching of a second language, teacher must be able to give the learner comprehensible input, this means, language students can more or less understand but are not able to reproduce.

The principal function of learnt language is to monitor what is coming from our aquired store to check that it is OK.

Acquisiton and learning

Learning in the classroom will not only expose students to the language but also activate their language knowledge.

It will also offer them chances to study the language and learn the way it works and is used.

Different times, different methods There are different methods of teaching

a second language. The Lexical Approach suggested we

should structure the curriculum around language chunks.

Different times, different methods Silent Way: the

teachers spoke very little and all the responsability fell in the student.

Community Language Learning, the teacher helps students to translate what they want to say from their native language to the one they are learning.

Different times, different methods The Grammar translation

method was introduced in Germany, it presented short grammar rules and word lists and then translation exercises in which they had to make use of the same rules and words.

This method has advantages and disadvantages since we can learn a lot from comparing parts of the second language with our mother tongue.

Different times, different methods In the audio-lingualism method, it

emphasises on gramatical patterns w/behaviorist theories of learning. There is a response to the stimuli of the teacher which means that a reward is given. This porcedure is referred as conditioning.

Some of the exercises in this method consist in giving cue-response drills and obviously doing any type of drill.

Different times, different methods

PPP Presentation Practice Production The teacher presents the

context of the situation for the language, explains and demonstrates the meaning and form of a new lnguage.

The students then practice using the same structure in the controlled practice.

Different times, different methods The Communicative

Language Teaching method states that language is not just patterns but also involves language functions which students should learn using a variety of language exponents.

There is a lot of use and exposure of the language

And communicative activities are the principal ones from this method..

Different times, different methods

Task-based Learning It starts with a pre-task where students

are introduced to the topic. Followed by a task cycle where students

plan the task, gather language infromation and produce a piece of writting or oral performance.

Elements for succesfull language learning (ESA)

The three main ingredients are: ENGAGE- students are really

interested in what you have to say in class, ask them to make predictions, relate the topics with real life situations.

Elements for succesfull language learning (ESA)

STUDY- Give them cues, discover activities, ask students to do all intelectual work instead of doing it the teacher his/herself.

Elements for succesfull language learning (ESA)

ACTIVATE- Personalization of the activities, what do your student’s like to do, how it can be helpful in the future (debate, role play, etc.)