英语教学法
By Wang Jin
Foreign Languages School, STU
2016/3/17
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
Purpose
to prepare you for a professional language teacher

Contents
language teaching theories
skills for teaching language
strategies and methods on teaching knowledge
strategies and methods on training skills

Assessment
 Attendance + homework assignments + a final check
= 20% + 30% + 50%
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Views on language
II. Views on language learning and learning in
general
III.To be a good language teacher
I.
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I. Views on language
1.1 What is language?
 Language is a means for cultural transmission.
 Language is what people use to talk about the
things that are important to them, for
example, occurrences in their everyday lives.
 Language is a set of sound and sentence
patterns that express meaning.
 Language is a set of rules through which
humans can create and understand novel
utterances, ones that they have never before
articulated or encountered.
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 Language is a means of interaction between and
among people.
 Language is a means for doing things ---accomplishing some purpose, for example, agreeing
on a plan of action for handling a conflict.
 Language is a medium through which one can learn
other things.
 ……
Corresponding syllabus units and teaching practices
Definitions of
Language
Corresponding Syllabus
Associating Teaching Practices
(what to teach)
(how to teach it)
1
Cultural
transmission
Works of literature, poetry, history, and the vocabulary
and structures that constitute language
Translation exercises
2
Everyday life
Talking about family, daily routines, situations (e.g.,
shopping, going to the post office
Situational dialogues
3
Sound and sentence
patterns
Fixed and semi-fixed sentence patterns and sequences such
as statements, questions, and negative statements, and
sound contrasts, intonation, rhythm, stress patterns that
result in differences in meaning
Sentence pattern practice and
minimal pair discrimination drills
4
Rules
Rules of sentence construction related to permissible
word combinations and word orders, for example, forming
sentences, question, negative sentences
Inductive/deductive grammar
exercises
5
Means of interaction
International language, that is, choosing and using
appropriate language within a social context
Role plays
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Means of doing
something
Functions such as agreeing, disagreeing, proposing,
clarifying, expressing preferences
Communicative activities and tasks
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Medium
Content such as geography (learning about latitude and
longitude, topographical features, climates), along with
language leaning strategies such as reading a passage for
its gist, editing one’s own writing, guessing word
meaning from context
Content-based activities
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…
…
…
1.2 Different views on language
 Structural view: （结构观）
It sees language as a linguistic system made up of various subsystems,
the sound system (phonology), the discrete units of meaning produced by
sound combinations (morphology), and the system of combining units of
meaning for communication (syntax). Each langualge 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.
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Functional view:（功能观）
In the 1960s, Bristish liguists developed a system of categories based
on communicative needs of the learner and proposed a syllabus
based on communicative functions. the functional view not only sees
language as a linguistic system but also as a means for doing things.
People learn a language in order to do things with it, in other words,
to perform functions.
In order to perform functions, learners need to know how to combine
the grammatical rules and the vocabulary of the language to express
notions that perform the functions .
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function: purpose or intention ( greeting, inviting, proposing,
apologizing, expressing gratitude, leave-taking, etc.)
notion: contents/ideas (the concept of present, past and future time;
the expressions of certainty and possibility, the roles of agent,
instrument and patient within a sentence; and spatial relationships
between people or objects.
e.g. I am sorry that I was late last night.
Function = apology
Notions = past and present time; speaker as agent
e.g. where is the nearest bank?
Function = asking for information
Notions = spatial relationships between the speaker and the place
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Interactional view: （交互观）
It sees language as a communicative tool, whose main use is to build
up and maintain social relations between people.
To learn a language, learners not only need to know the grammar and
vocabulary, but as importantly, they need to know the rules for using
them in the whole range of communicative contexts.
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II. Views on language learning and
learning in general
2.1 A broad division ---Process-oriented theories & conditionoriented 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
physical context in which language learning takes place, such as the
number of students, what kind of input learners receive, and the learning
atmosphere.

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2.2 Typical views on language learning and
learning in general

Behaviorist theory
Proposed by behavioral psychologist Skinner. He suggested that
language is also is a form of behavior. It can be learned the same way
as an animal is trained to respond to stimuli. This theory of learning is
referred to as behaviorism.
One influential result is the audio-lingual method, which involves the “
listen and repeat” drilling activities. The idea of this method is that
language is learned by constant repetition and the reinforcement of
the teacher. Mistakes are immediately corrected, and correct
utterances are immediately praised.
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
Cognitive theory:
According to Noam Chomsky , language is not a form of behaviour, it
is an intricate rule-based system and a large part of language
acquisition is the learning of this system.
There are a finite number of grammatical rules in the system and with
a knowledge of these rules an infinite number of sentences can be
produced. A language learner acquires language competence which
enables him to produce language.
One influential idea of this theory is that students should be allowed
to create their own sentences based on their understanding of certain
rules.

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2.3 Views on learning ---- new
developments

Constructivist theory ( John Dewey)
Learning is a process in which the learner construct
meaning based on his/her own experiences and what he
/she already knows.

Socio-constructivist theory (Lev Semenovich
Vygotsky)
Learners learn best with the dynamic interaction
between the teacher and the learner and between
Learners.
ZPD and Scaffolding
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John Dewey (1859-1952)


An American psychologist, philosopher, educator, social critic and
political activist, whose writings and teachings have had profound
influences on education in the United States.
John Dewey is considered to be a pragmatist. Dewey's philosophy of
education focused on learning-by-doing rather than rote learning
and dogmatic instruction, the current practice of his day. He
believed that the way people learn center largely on interaction
(between people and also people and environment), reflection and
experience.
Lev Semenovich
Vygotsky
(1896-1934)


Soviet psychologist and educator. His most famous
work Thought and Language were published after his
death in 1934 and suppressed in 1936 and were not
known in the West until 1958.
The major theme of Vygotsky's theoretical framework
is that social interaction plays a fundamental role in
the development of cognition.
Zone of Proximal Development

The potential for cognitive development is limited to a certain
time span which he calls the "zone of proximal development"
(ZPD). He defined as(1978):
The distance between the actual developmental level as
determined by independent problem solving and the level of
potential development as determined through problem
solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more
capable peers.
Scaffolding

Instructional scaffolding could refer to the same processes that should occur in the
zone of proximal development during instruction.

In a learning situation, a teacher or tutor initially might do most of the work, after
which the teacher and the learner share responsibility. As learners become more
competent, the teacher gradually withdraws the scaffolding so learners can perform
independently.The key is to ensure that the scaffolding keeps learners in the ZPD.

It refers to the gradual withdrawal of adult control and support as a function of
children’s increasing mastery of a given task.
III. To be a good language teacher
Things you are
good at
3.1 Use your best qualities
Think about the things that you are
good at and write a list of all the
qualities and abilities that are
necessary for each of them.
Talk about how you could use your
good qualities and abilities to
improve your teaching.
Necessary
qualities or
abilities
1
2
3
… ……
……

Teachers’ professional development
---- a reflective model (Wallace,1993)
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
Views on language
Structural view
Functional view
Interactional view

Views on language learning and learning in general
Behaviorist theory
Cognitive theory
Constructivist theory
Socio-constructivist theory

To be a good language teacher
Use your best qualities
Teachers’ professional development ---- a reflective model
(Wallace,1993)
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