Unit One Language and Language Learning

1. Unit One Language and Language Learning Xu Zhijian 龙岩学院省级精品课程—英语教学法

2. Unit 1 Language and learning • How do we learn language ? 1 How do we learn our own language ? 2 How do we learn foreign language ? Task 1

3. Unit 1 Language and learning How do we learn foreign language ? 1.People start learning a foreign language at different ages. 2.People have different experiences in learning a foreign language 3.People learn language for different reasons. 4.People learn language in different ways.

4. Unit 1 Language and learning 2 ) How do we learn foreign language ? 5.People have different understanding about language learning. 6.People have different capacities in language learning 7.Learning can be affected by the way how language is taught. 8.Learning is affected by the done is expected to achieve.

5. II. View on language. 1 What is language ? • Language is a system of arbitrary, verbal symbols which permit all people in a given culture, or other people who have learn the system of that culture, to communicate or interact. ( Finocchiaro,1964:8)

6. Definition of Language • Language is any set or system of linguistic symbols as used in a more or less uniform fashion by a number of people who are thus enabled to communicate intelligibly with one another.

7. Definition of Language • Language is a system of arbitrary verbal symbols used for human communication.(Wardhaugh,1972:3) • Language is a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings.

8. Definition of Language • Language is a system of communication consisting of a set of small parts and a set of rules which decide the way in which these can be combined to produce messages that have meaning.

9. II. View on language. Different views on language

10. 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 a s to be able to understand and produce language .

11. Functional View: • It sees language as a linguistic system but also as a means for doing things. • Functional activities : offering , suggesting , advising, apologizing, etc. • To perform functions , learners need to know how to combine the grammatical rules and the vocabulary to express notions that perform the functions.

12. Interactional View : • Language is a communicative tool , the use of which is to build up and maintain social relations between people. • 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.

13. III. Views on language learning • What are the psycholinguistic and cognitive process involved in language learning ? • What are the conditions that need to be met in order for these learning process to be activated ? Questions:

14. Process-oriented theories How the mind processes new information, such as habit formation, induction, making inference, hypothesis testing and generalization.

15. 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.

16. Behaviourist theory : • Proposed by behavioural psychologist Skinner, he suggested that language is also a form of behaviour. • Language can be learned the same way as an animal is trained to respond to stimuli. • This theory of learning is referred to as behaviourism.

17. Behaviourist theory : • One influential result is the audio-lingual method, which involves the “ listen and repeat ” drilling activities. • The idea of this method: • language is learned by constant repetition and the reinforcement of the teacher. • Mistakes are immediately corrected, and correct utterances are immediately praised

18. Cognitive theory : • The term cognitivism is often used to describe method in which students are asked to think rather than simply repeat. • Noam Chomsky’ question: If all language is a learned behaviour, how can a child produce a sentence that has never been said by others before?

19. Noam Chomsky’ theory • 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 .

20. Noam Chomsky’ theory • Students should be allowed to create their own sentences based on their understanding of certain rules.

21. Consructivist theory: • The constructivist theory believes that learning is a process in which the learner constructs meaning based on his/her own experiences and what he/she already knows. • It is believed that education is used to develop the mind, not just to rote recall what is learned.

22. Consructivist theory: • Therefore, teachers must balance an understanding of the habits, characteristics as well as personalities of individual learners with an understanding of the means of arousing learners’ interests and curiosity for learning.

23. Socio-constructivist theory: • similar to constructivist theory, social-constructivist theory emphasizes interaction and engagement with the target language in a social context based on the concept of “Zone of Proximal Development”(ZPD) and scaffolding. • In other words, learning is best achieved through the dynamic interaction between the teacher and the learner and between learners.

24. IV. What is a good language teacher? A good language teacher should: • Enable the students to communicate in English inside and outside class. Practice more than explanation. • Have a goal in teaching, that is, enable students to use English effectively. • Establish English as the main classroom

25. A good language teacher should: • Create conditions for learning, provide more opportunities for students to participate in classroom activities, and create the atmosphere in which students feel motivated to learn • Do all he/ she can to stimulate the students’ motivation to learn.

26. A good language teacher should: • Set appropriate goal and objectives in learning; • Carefully plan the activities; choose topics for personal interest; have a fair attitude to all students.

27. V. How to be a good language teacher? 1.Teachers’ qualifications:

28. V. How to be a good language teacher? • The most important and most difficult part of the making of a good language teacher is the development of professional competence, which is the state or quality of being qualified for the profession, and armed with a specific range of skills, strategies, knowledge and ability. 2. How to become a good language teacher

29. Good language teacher • According to Paul Davis , a successful teacher has the following qualities: • Have a practical command of English, not just knowledge of grammar rules. • Use English most of the time in every class, including beginners’ class.

30. Good language teacher • Think mostly in term of learner practice, not teacher explanation. • Find time for really communicative activities, not just practice of language forms. • Focus their teaching on learner’s needs, not just on finish the syllabus or course books.

31. 3.Teacher’s development

32. Stage I: language training. All English teachers are supposed to have a good command of English Stage II: It can be divided into three sub-stages: learning; practice and reflection..

33. The learning stage involves: • learn from other’s experience (empirical knowledge) • learn received knowledge ( such as language theories, psycholinguistics; sociolinguistics; educational psychology, etc.) • learn from one’s own experience

34. The term “ practice” can be used in two senses: • A short period of time assigned for students to do teaching practice as part of their education. • The real work that the teachers would undertake when they finish their education

35. Stanley pointed out that teachers benefit from practice if they keep on reflecting on what they have been doing. • After some period of practice and reflection, a teacher matures and approaches the goal. But this goal is “ a moving target or horizon, toward which professionals travel all their professional life but which is never finally attained.

36. Homework • Finish reading 1.6 on page 11. • Prepare a mini-teaching: Class begins.

37. That’s all for today. Thank you Goodbye

38. Zone of Proximal Development(近侧发展区间,简称ZPD）:前苏联发展心理学家利维·维谷斯基(Vygotsky) 提出的学习理论.指学习者现时及实际可达到的发展的差距。这个差距是由学习者的独立解题能力及其潜在发展水平而决定的。换句话说，就是学习者的学习能力以内，但暂时未能理解的知识。 • 维高斯基认为，人的发展有两种层次：实际发展层次与潜在发展层次。实际发展层次就是皮亚杰所谓的儿童发展阶段，什么样的阶段有什么样的能力；潜在发展层次则是在大人或同伴的合作下，能够解决问题的能力。这两者之间的差距，维高斯基称之为「近侧发展区间」。每个个体的基本能力（实际发展层次）和近侧发展区间都不同， 最好的教育应该要考虑到个体的差异，而这也是学校教育所要达到的目标。 • Scaffolding Instruction:(鹰架理论，又名支架式教学)，指学生在学习一项新的概念或技巧时，透过提供足够的支援来提及学生的学习能力的教学方法。