DIDACTICS AND MAIN SKILLS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

The first unit seeks to provide an overview of current approaches, issues, and
practices in the teaching of English. This unit provides a particular focus on issues
related to the teaching of English, also it offers a source of teaching
principles and classroom activities which teachers can refer to in their work.

Teaching and learning are processes which have happened from ancient
times. One of the disciplines in charged of the description of these processes, and the
relation of them to different elements in the classroom is didactics.

According to Gutiérrez (2001), didactics is a discipline which studies the

relationship between teaching and learning. Pansza (1986) also comments that
didactics approaches differently to the classroom work.

It can be said that didactics may be defined in two ways, as the art of
teaching or as the discipline about teaching. In the first sense, it is the teacher’s
ability to communicate knowledge to others, to make easier for students to
understand the content they are learning. In the second sense, didactics as the
science refers to “clear, ordered and supported concept in theory” (Gutiérrez, 2001).

From this perspective, it can be stated that this discipline has two objects of study
•The teaching – learning process
•The teaching – learning techniques and methods herefore, didactics studies the teaching –
learning phenomena related with the formal aspects of teaching, methodology and all
elements that interact within the classroom.

Chapter 1. The Language Teaching The language teaching can be conceived in many
different ways – for example, as a science, a technology, a craft, or an art. Different views
of language teaching lead to different views as to what the essential skills of teaching are,
and to different approaches to the preparation of teachers. The purpose of this chapter is to
examine conceptualizations of teaching and to consider the implications of
different views of teaching for language teacher education. In order to reach the goal
and to clarify some aspects about the didactics and its impact in the classroom
interaction it is necessary to consider the following topics:

Theories of Teaching in Language Teaching Science-research conceptions of language

teaching are derived from research and are supported by experimention and empirical
investigation. Zahorik includes operationalizing learning principles, following a tested
model. This approach involves developing teaching principles from research on
memory, transfer, motivation, and other factors believed to be important in
learning. From this perspective we are also able to review the history of language teaching
methods and to see different innovations that have prompted modern methods as the
recent example of attempts to develop a teaching methodology from learning research
is referred. In an important paper on the relationship between theories of teaching and
teaching skills, Zahorik (1986) classifies conceptions of teaching into three main
categories: science-research conceptions, theory-philosophy conceptions, and art-craft
conceptions. It will examine how each conception of teaching leads to differences in
our understanding of what the essential skills of teaching are.