在职教育硕士英语教学论讲义.doc

英语教学论Unit 1 The Context of Foreign Language Learning1. Why do we need to study Foreign Language Teaching Methodology?It is not easy to learn a foreign language, and it is more difficult to teach a foreign language. The teacher has to not only make his students understand the language, he must also develop their communicative competence so that they can use the language they have learned correctly, appropriately and expressively in real situations. In order to do well this complicated job, the teacher needs to know, apart from a comprehensive knowledge of the language and the ability to use it, as many teaching methods and techniques as possible, and understand the underlying theories and principles, therefore he not only knows what to teach and how to do it, but also why he should do it in a certain way and how to solve problems when they arise. In this way he will have full confidence in doing his job well.Foreign language teachers understand that knowing a language does not necessarily mean that you can teach the language well. Teaching is an art as well as a science. If you do not know the theories, principles, methods or techniques of teaching, you might be able to teach a foreign language based on your experience, but you cannot hope to achieve good results, nor can you give your or your colleagues teaching a rational evaluation or a critical appraisal. There are surely limitations in teaching by drawing only on experience, though experience is important. The theory you learnt from the methodology course can guide, support and conceptualize practice. New insights you get by sharing ideas of other people will bring you great benefit. As the old saying goes: “Travel broadens the mind”， in the same way learning Foreign Language Teaching Methodology will surely broaden the mind of teachers.2. What is methodology?Defining methodologyLongman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics defines methodology as 1. the study of the practices and procedures used in teaching, and the principles and beliefs that underlie them.Methodology includes:a. study of the nature of language skills (e.g., reading, writing, speaking, listening) and procedures for teaching them.b. study of the preparation of lesson plans, materials, and textbooks for teaching language skillsc. the evaluation and comparison of language teaching methods (e.g., the audiolingual method)2. such practices, procedures, principles, and beliefs themselves.How methodology is related to curriculum development and syllabus designCurriculum DevelopmentFocusDefining QuestionsSyllabus designContentWhat content should we teach?In what order should we teach this content?What is the justification for selecting this content?MethodologyClassroom techniques and proceduresWhat exercise, tasks, and activities should we use in the classroom?How should we sequence and integrate these?EvaluationLearning outcomesHow well have our students done?How well has our program served our students needs?3. What disciplines contribute to foreign language teaching?To find out the theory and skills in teaching, we have to deal with some basic principles derived from the interaction of aspects of those fields of study which contribute to the theory and practice of foreign language teaching. Language teaching involves three main disciplines: linguistics, psychology and pedagogy. Linguistics provides information about language in general and about the specific language being taught; psychology describes how learning takes place; and pedagogy blends the information from linguistics and psychology into a compatible “method” of presentation in the classroom. Linguistics is the study of language as a system of human communication. It covers a wide field with different approaches and different areas of investigation, for example sound system, sentence structure, and meaning system. Linguistics has drawn on ideas from sociology to establish the place and role of language in the sociology of human behavior, and from psychology to investigate (among other things) how language is learned. The result is two new disciplines: sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics, which, together with linguistics proper, form the central area of applied linguistics. Sociolinguistics is the study of language in relation to social factors, that is, social class, educational level and type of education, age, sex, ethic origin, etc. Linguists differ as to what they include under sociolinguistics. Many would include the detailed study of interpersonal communication, and also those investigations which relate variation in the language used by a group of people to social factors.Psycholinguistics is the study of the mental processes that a person uses in producing and understanding language, and how humans learn language. Psycholinguistics includes the study of speech perception, the role of memory, concepts and other processes in language use, and how social and psychological factors affect the use of language.Applied linguistics is the study of second and foreign language learning and teaching. It also studies language and linguistics in relation to practical problems, such as lexicography, translation, speech phonology, etc. Applied linguistics uses information from sociology, psychology, anthropology, and information theory as well as from linguistics in order to develop its own theoretical models of language and language use, and then uses this information and theory in practical areas such as syllabus design, speech therapy, language planning, stylistics, etc. This last field is concerned with many activities involving language, eg. speech pathology, machine translation, mother tongue acquisition, literary analysis, etc. But for the present purpose its chief relevance is to language teaching. See the following diagram: linguistics sociolinguistics applied linguistics psycholinguistics sociology theory and practice psychology of ELT pedagogyThe conjunction of sociology and psychology with the theory and practice box is a reminder that teaching of any kind draws upon knowledge from these fields quite apart from language considerations: group interaction, the status of the teacher and the school in the local culture, the social role of education as a whole - from sociology; and facts about memory span, motivation, cognitive development relating to the process of learning, understanding and representing knowledge, mental process of knowing - from psychology. Pedagogy is concerned with class management, questioning techniques, lesson planning and teaching strategies, etc. Language teaching presupposes a theory of language, and this is supplied by applied linguistics.4. What factors influence foreign language teaching?Teaching and learning a foreign language inevitably involves relationships between different aspects of life, and teaching English successfully is not just a question of method. Other things influence English language teaching (ELT) greatly. It is worth trying to examine some of the underlying factors which can indirectly affect both the learner and the teacher at a macro level.Contexts of educational language use (Leo van Lier, 1995: 99)The study of foreign language teaching and learning reveals that it is a complex process involving many variables. More specifically, or at a micro level, the following variables are related to this field of study:a. The goal of foreign language educationIn order to proceed foreign language education more systematically and avoid the waste of money and resources, we need to set a goal in foreign language education for long-term and short-term needs. Different goals are set for different learners, for example, the goals for secondary education are different from those for higher education; foreign language education goals for foreign language majors are different from those of non-majors; goals for teacher-training are different from those who learn a foreign language for specific purposes.b. LearnersLearners are an important variable in foreign language teaching. The learners motivation, intelligence, language aptitude, educational level, age, sex, learning strategies, individual difference, etc. all play a part in foreign language teaching and influence their learning result.c. TeachersThere are differences in teachers which definitely influence foreign language teaching. Their attitudes towards their job, language expertise, professionalism, teaching experiences, specialist training in foreign language teaching, their flexibility in teaching, their age, sex, etc. contribute to the success or failure of their work.d. SyllabusSyllabus determines teaching aims, objectives, contents and methods. The aims might be teaching a dead language for academic research or a living language for communication; training abilities of reading and writing or abilities of listening and speaking; teaching a foreign language for specific purpose or for general proficiency.According to the writers views of language and views of language teaching and learning, syllabus describes the contents of a language course and the order in which they are to be taught. Language teaching syllabus may be based on grammatical items and vocabulary, then it is a structural syllabus; it may be based on the language needed for different types of situations, then it is a structural-situational syllabus; if it is based on the meanings and communicative functions which the learner needs to express in the foreign language, then it is a notional-functional syllabus.e. Teaching methodTeaching method, the way of teaching a foreign language, is determined by syllabus. You might use Grammar Translation Method, Audiolingual Method, Cognitive-code Learning, Communicative Approach and so on according to your views of language and language learning. According to the specific course you teach and your learners, you may choose to use a deductive method, or an inductive method, or a mixture of the two. In addition, method is affected by the size of the class (big or small), type of class (intensive or regular), in class teaching or out-class activity, target learners (children, teenagers or adults), etc. The course book you use also determines to a certain extent your teaching method.f. Teaching materialTeaching material (or the course books) generally agrees with or reflects the teaching principles, teaching aims and objectives, and teaching methods. However, it has its own principles in the selection and gradation of materials, the design of exercises and activities, coordination of words and pictures, layout, etc.g. Teaching aidsForeign language teaching is constrained or facilitated by the economic situation of the country, the community, and the school. School with better financial support may have language laboratory, video player, OHP, tape recorder, computer, multi-media, etc. while some schools may only afford pictures, the blackboard, chalk and so on. This difference will surely lead to differences in teaching and learning outcomes.h. Assessment and evaluationThe form of assessment and evaluation has great backwash effects on foreign language teaching and learning. Whether to use summative assessment or formative assessment, discreet-point test or integrative test, subjective or objective test, or a combination of both, will have great bearings on the teachers and students.These nine variables are interrelated to each other, and restrict and influence each other. The success or failure of foreign language teaching is the result of the interaction of all these factors. However, of the nine, learners are the central factor, of which people have realized its importance. Therefore the study of foreign language teaching has shifted from “how to teach” to “how to learn”.5. Four key concepts In foreign language teaching we have to operate with four key concepts: language, learning, teaching, and context. Any particular language teaching theory can be regarded as an expression of these four key concepts. 1. Language teaching requires a concept of the nature of language. Implicitly or explicitly the teacher works with a theory of language. Therefore, one of the central questions to ask of a language teaching theory is: what is the view of language in this language teaching theory? The main disciplines that can be drawn upon to deal with this question are linguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and the study of the particular language in question.2. Language teaching demands a view of the learner and of the nature of language learning. The fundamental questions are: what language learner does this theory envisage, and how does it view language learning? The disciplines which most directly related to this question are psychology, particularly educational psychology, and psycholinguistics for language learning and language use. 3. Language teaching implies a view of the language teacher and language teaching. The question to ask is: how does the theory interpret teaching? What role and function does it assign to the teacher? How can teaching be described or analyzed? The discipline that most directly related to this concept is the study of education.4. Finally, language teaching occurs in a given context. The interpretation of context is an essential part of a theory. Language, learning and teaching must be viewed in a context, setting, or background. Accordingly there are three sets of questions:a. The language context:The learners first language (L1) and the target language manifest themselves in certain social, cultural, and political contexts which have bearings on language learning. In developing a language teaching theory a question to ask is: what is the place of language and language learning in this society? What is the sociolinguistic context in which a foreign language is to be taught? The social sciences - sociology, sociolinguistics, social psychology, and cultural anthropology - enable us to study these questions.b. The educational setting.Here the question is: what is the place of language in the educational setting, and how is foreign language teaching fitted into the specific educational context? These questions require an educational analysis, backed by the sociological or sociolinguistic analysis under the language context.c. The language teaching background. Language teaching has evolved against a background of existing and past developments in language pedagogy. They lead to such questions as: what are the historical antecedents of the theory, and what is its place in the historical development of language teaching? The history of language teaching, educational theory, and the interpretation of the current “state of the art” are the studies underlying any analysis in response to these questions.By asking these questions and by attempting to answer them we can develop, refine, probe, and evaluate language teaching theories more scientifically, and our foreign language teaching practice is better guided and oriented.Unit 2 Views on Language and Language Learning1. Different views on language. In the past century, language teaching and learning practices have been influenced by three different views of language, namely, the structural view, the functional view and the interactional view. Different views on language generate different teaching methodologies. Structural View: It sees language as a linguistic system made up of various subsystem: from phonological, morphological, lexical, etc. to sentence. Each language has a finite number of such structural items. To learn a language means to learn these structural items so as to be able to understand and produce language. Functional View: it sees language as a linguistic system but also as a means for doing things. Most of our day-to-day language use involves functional activities: offering, suggesting, advising, apologizing, etc. Therefore, learners learn a language in order to do things with it. To perform functions, learners need to know how to combine the grammatical rules and the vocabulary to express notions that perform the functions. Interactional view: It considers language as a communicative tool, whose main use is to build up and maintain social relations between people. Therefore, learners not only need to know the grammar and vocabulary of the language, but also need to know the rules for using them in a whole range of communicative context. The understanding of the nature of language may provide the basis for a particular teaching method, and it is also closely related to the understanding of language learning. If language is considered to have a finite number of structural items, learning the language means learning these items. If language is more than just a system of structure, it is more importantly a tool, then to learn the language means to use it, rather than just to study what it is and how it is formed. 2. Views on language learning. The language learning theory underlying an approach or method usually answers two questions: 1) What are the psycholinguistic and cognitive process involved in language learning? 2) What are the conditions that need to be met in order for these learning processes to be activated? The research into the answers fall into process-oriented theories and condition-oriented theories. Process-oriented theories are concerned with how the mind processes new information, such as habit formation, induction, making inference, hypothesis testing and generalization.Condition-oriented theories emphasize the nature of the human and