DIDACTICS I

UNIT 3: What a Language student should learn?

Syllabus
It is the framework for a course of a study listing all the content of that course.  Before any teaching is done in a
classroom, and before any materials are written, a decision  has to be taken about what the students are going to
learn. The list of content we are going to teach ranges from the easiest to the most complex. The list may
contain grammatical terms, items of language, different situations or language functions. There are factors that
influence the content of the syllabus:

● NEEDS: one of the things a syllabus designer should consider is what the students need.  We will also be
able to decide on the themes and topics of the teaching material, and the things we ask the students to do
in class. The problem arises where groups are not homogenous. When they contain different
occupations, interests, and different needs.
● SITUATION:  the learning teaching situation will be very important when planning syllabus, and is good
for the prosperous language institute may not be ideal for the disadvantaged secondary school
● STUDENTS:  when we talked about motivation we referred to the student’s previous learning experience
as being a significant factor. The syllabus designer will want to consider, too, the educational
background of his students. An important factor in our decision about how and what to teach that
influences this process is the age of our students.  People of different ages have different needs,
competences and cognitive skills.
Type of Language
This special language is related to what these people have to do in their jobs. This lang. of “doing” has been
seen as different from the structures that make up the grammar of the lang. The items of lang. of “doing” have
been called “Functions”. The idea of  a lang.function is that it describes what is done with the lang: Inviting is a
lang.function, offering is another, for every function there are a number of different ways in which the function
can be expressed. Functions are areas of lang. where the lang. is actually used to do things.
Communicative Efficiency- Hymes 
We expect our students to be able to express what they wish to say. We can take an English standard and teach
students how to convey their thoughts and purposes efficiently. We teach them to use the tool of the English
lang. to communicate. In terms of the 4 skills means that we expect  our students to be able to perform at their
given level of English and be efficient in this performance. It is precisely this purpose that the teacher will
encourage in his treatment of the lang. skills for his students. 
Students at different levels at an early stage of the learning process students will have only a limited amount of
English, but the job of a teacher is to make sure that students can communicate with this limited amount of
English. This doesn't mean that he can't communicate efficiently with the lang.he knows. The lower his level is,
the less he will be an experienced lang. user, but he can be expected to use the lang he knows for the purpose of
communication. Our long-term goal has to be seen in terms of students who have achieved a high standard of
lang. 
Situation and context because lang. occurs in certain situations and in order to be able to use, students should
realise in what context some pieces of lang are used. Our teaching for communicative efficiency should take
place in such a way that students learn the lang and the situations it occurs in at the same time. 
Pronunciation and accent there are many teachers or students who feel that the only goal of lang learning is to
sound exactly like Americans or Englishman, but the fact is that a student learning English in classes outside
England will rarely have good models of the lang throughout his learning life for such proficiency to be
achieved. The older the student is, the more difficult it will be for him to break down pronunciation habits of his
own native lang. Communicative efficiency supposes that a student can say (and be understood) what he wishes
to communicate. Teachers and students should insist on a level of pronunciation that ensures communicative
efficiency. 
Skills in a general english course we will attempt to give students an education over the 4 skills: reading,
writing, speaking and listening, that's why we will ask them to carry out the 4 skills within the student's lang
capability. For a beginner, it may be something not too complicated, but necessary. Communicative efficiency in
terms of the 4 skills means that we will expect our students to be able to perform at their given level of English
and be efficient in this performance.

Language Variety
As we already know, English has many varieties. This situation becomes complex when we take into account a
specific country, because there exists a great difference between northern and southern English, and moreover
between Scottish and Irish English. However, the variety we will teach is called the “Southern English
Standard”. In England, this variety of English is considered superior to all others, despite the fact that it is
spoken by a minority of the population. It is considered the lang. of culture, and of British broadcasting.

UNIT 4: Language learning and language teaching

Acquisition and Learning
Krashen characterises ACQUISITION as a subconscious process which results in the knowledge of a lang., and
LEARNING as a conscious process which results only in “knowing about” the lang. Acquiring a language is
more successful and longer lasting than learning. What is being suggested is that 2nd lang. learning needs to be
more like the child's acquisition of his native lang. His gradual ability to use the lang. is the result of many
subconscious processes, based on the experiences in which he began to acquire, without consciously setting out
to do so, the ability to enter linguistically into the communication.  
Krashen sees successful acquisition as being very bound up with the nature of the lang. INPUT the students
receive, it means the lang that the students hear or read. This input should be at a slightly higher level than the
student is capable of using, but at a level he is capable of understanding, Krashen calls it: ROUGH-TUNING.
It's the simplification of the lang which teachers make in order to be understood, they need to adjust their
language. 
Krashen suggests that students can acquire language on their own provided they get comprehensible input
(that is, roughly-tuned, meaning understandable for the listener). Allwright sees lang learning taking place most
successfully when students are put in communicative situations in their target language.
Foreign Language Learning
Comprehensible input helps the acquisition process. This type shows students how lang is used and gives them
examples of new lang. Allright says that “the more a lang learner communicates, the better he becomes at
communicating. There are many worries about comprehensible input: 1) that it's difficult to predict when a lang
will be acquired subconsciously or when consciously learnt, that depends on the learner individually. 2) may be
that adults learning a foreign language are not like children doing it; it takes adults some more time to acquire
the lang, and its process is slow. A major reason for formal instruction is that adult students expect it and want
it, but this doesn't mean that lang learnt in this way, and practised, becomes part of the acquired store. 
We should give the students the opportunity to use their reasoning powers when learning a new lang in the
classroom, and also allow them to “create'' lang on the basis of the rules we introduce them to. Scholars will be
encouraged to use their new knowledge of grammar rules to make their own sentences and lang.
A Language Learning and Teaching Model
Input and Output: We can divide the classroom into 2 main categories: those that give the students lang input,
and those which encourage them to perform output. Lang is put into the students´ brain. It is when the students
are asked to produce and use the lang. that they are forced to assess the lang they have stored in their brains.
The ability to “rescue” this stored lang is principal for lang users: he/she will have to combine these items in
order to communicate efficiently. Output may be divided into 2 categories: 1) PRACTICE: students are asked to
use new lang in different contexts, and 2) COMMUNICATION OUTPUT: the aim is to put students in situations in
which they have to select appropriate lang from the total lang stored.  The aim here is to encourage
communicative efficiency. Input may be divided into 2 types: 1) Roughly-tuned input, and 2) Finely-tuned
input.
Roughly-tuned input
It is at the students level, and it allows them to understand the message. It focuses on authentic use of language
in listening or reading passages. This kind of input is highly recommended because it helps students to acquire a
new language. We will make sure that we include a great variety of such input. The training of students in
receptive skills serves both the training function, and at the same time promotes lang acquisition. Roughly tuned
input is the input which is more complex than learners' current proficiency and stretches the boundaries of their
current knowledge.
Finely-tuned input
It's carefully controlled from the moment that the teacher selects the language that the students have to learn. It
focuses on the practise. When we present the stage, where students receive this kind of input, is a time when the
teacher is in control of the accurate reproduction of pre-selected new language. It is the material which is
organised in a skilled manner and it has a goal to achieve. It is matched to learners' present understanding
level and associated with what they are already familiar with.
Signification and Value (Widdowson)
“Look, I´m opening the door”, this is an example of Signification (It is the Function, for example to play Simon
says). The teacher shows one meaning through the action of opening the door. 
The teaching of communicative Value (explain the use, the Form), means the teaching of language as it is used
in real life, and we will try to make sure that this value is clearly displayed. 
Practice output
It´s a way of encouraging students to use specific language they have been taught recently. 
Communication output
It refers to the students' own productions, where they use the language as “a vehicle of communication” and
where the students main purpose is to fulfill some kind of communication task.
A balanced activities approach
It goes from the simple to the complex, and our job is to ensure that students get a variety of activities which
promote acquisition and learning. Here, we should take into account the multiple intelligences, exploit them,
and organise balanced activities that include the 4 skills.

UNIT 21: Syllabuses and Coursebooks

Syllabus Design
It covers the selection of items to be learnt and the grading into suitable sequences. Every syllabus needs to be
developed on the basis of certain criteria.
Learnability some structural or lexical aspects are easier for students to learn than others. We tend to teach first
easier things and then increase the level of difficulty at the same time their level rises. (Am, is, are- Was-Were)
Frequency includes the items which are more frequent in the language, and not the ones that are used only
occasionally by native speakers (see is more common than understand).
Coverage some words and structures have greater coverage than other items.(scope for use) (going to before the
present continuous)
Usefulness we concentrate a lot on classroom vocabulary. We should think of usefulness in terms of what
students are linguistically able to talk to.
Different syllabuses
● Grammar Syllabus: grammar is the main organising principle for the syllabus. (grammatical structures)
● Lexical Syllabus: based on vocabulary/lexis. 
● Functional Syllabus: the syllabus designer has to choose a wide spectrum of exponents (ways of
expressing) for each function. The teaching and learning of  functions is an important part of a wider
syllabus. For example: for offering we may choose from Would you like me to..? Do you want some
help?
● Situational Syllabus: selecting and sequencing different real-life situations. (At the bank, at the airport,
at the park)
● Topic-based Syllabus:  topics provide a welcome organising principle because they are based on what
students will be interested in. (the weather, sports, business, music, literature)
● Task-based Syllabus: lists a series of tasks, and may later list some or all the language to be used on
those tasks. “Procedural Syllabus”, was called by Prabhu. Willis provides 6 main task types: Listing,
Ordering, Comparing, Problem solving, Sharing personal experience, and Creative tasks. 
 The Multi-functional syllabus
This is the approach most often used. “Map of the book”. Grammar, Vocabulary, Pronunciation, Functions and
Macro Skills. None of the elements predominates, they all have to shift to accommodate the other. 

Uº 16: Teaching language skills

Receptive skills is a term used for reading and listening, skills where meaning is extracted from the discourse.
Productive skills is the term for speaking and writing, skills where students actually have to produce language
themselves. 
Skills together: We can’t talk about the 4 skills in isolation. When we speak, we listen as well, writing or
reading is rarely done in isolation too. So if skills go all together like this, it would make no sense to teach them
in isolation.
Input and output: receptive and productive skills constantly feed each other, what we say or write is influenced
by what we hear and see. In this way, the more we see and listen to comprehensible input the more English we
acquire. When a student produces a piece of language and see how it turned out, that comes back into the
acquisition process, this way the output becomes input. Feedback can be provided not only from teachers but
from different situations too. 
● Integrating skills: This integrating skills process is more like the Patchwork model than following a
straight arrows type.
● Speaking as preparation and stimulus: speaking sessions allow students to investigate their
thoughts about a topic and engage into a topic.
● Texts as models: students are helped by being exposed to examples that can guide them.
● Texts as preparation and stimulus: we can use a written or spoken text to stimulate the students
into some other type of work
● Integrated tasks: when students are involved in a project work which may involve researching,
with speaking and writing all together.

● Language skills, language construction: We can use a single text to work with several facts about
language.
● Integrating skill and language work: The sequence type of work, provides students study and activation,
and involves the student in reading, writing, speaking and listening, and as a result they will be able to
practice a wide range of language abilities.
● Top down and bottom up: Sometimes it is the individual items that help us understand the whole
(bottom-up) and sometimes it is our overview that allow us to understand the details (top down).
Without the bottom up approach we may find difficult finding out a clear general picture of what a text is
about, and without the top down approach, this is, without a general understanding of the topic, the
details may be hard to understand too.

Receptive skills:
● Basic methodological model for teaching: they involve type 1 and 2 tasks, where in type 1 they get to
read to have a general understanding of the text or listening, and in type 2, they look at the text with
more detail. This allows students to get a feel first of what they are going to work with.
All of us have this pre-existing knowledge that we bring with us, the job of the receptive skills teacher is
to provoke students to get in touch with that knowledge. We can provoke them with the lead-in, with a
picture or topic to be discussed. The teacher sets a kind of a comprehension tasks which they will read
or listen to while the teacher directs feedback. The students may go through this in pairs so as not to
feel exposed.
● The language issue: Sentence length and the percentage of unknown words can play their part in the
comprehension of a text.
● Pre-teaching vocabulary: is a way of helping the students to remove some of the barriers to
understand in a reading or listening of a text, so they know what they will encounter. 
● Extensive reading and listening: This takes place when students are on their own, whereas
intensive reading or listening is often done with the intervention of a teacher. Extensive reading
is the best way for students to develop automaticity (the automatic recognition of a word when
they see it)
 ● Authenticity: authentic material is a natural language used by native or competent speakers. It's
what our students encounter in real life if they come into contact with target language speakers.
● Comprehension tasks: Sometimes tasks appear to be testing the students instead of helping them. We
need to use comprehension tasks that promote understanding and we need to match text and task
appropriately.
● Testing and teaching: the best kind of tasks are those which raise students’ expectations, help
them tease out meanings and provoke an examination of the reading or listening passage,
these tasks bring them to a greater understanding of language and text construction. If students
are encouraged to try to predict the answer to questions before they read or listen, expectations
are created in their minds, which help them focus their reading or listening. In both cases we
have turned a potential test task into a creative tool for receptive skill training. A lot will depend
on the conditions in which students are asked to perform that task. Even the most formal
test-like items can be answered to help students rather than frighten them
● Appropriate challenge: we want to avoid texts and task that are either far too easy or too
difficult. We want to get the level of challenge right, to make the tasks achievable. Getting the
level right depends on the right match between text and task. Thus where a text is difficult, we
can still use it but only if the task is appropriate.

Productive skills:
● Basic methodological model for teaching: When we set the task, we explain exactly what students are
going to do. At This stage we may need to demonstrate the activity in some way. We can show the
class how the activity works so that everyone sees the procedure in action. Once the students have
started, we will monitor the task. When the activity has finished, we give task feedback, we will show
positive aspects of what they have achieved and not concentrate solely on their failings.
● Structuring discourse: But in order for writing to be successful, it has to be both coherent and cohesive.
Coherent writing makes sense because you can follow the sequence of ideas and points. Cohesion is a
more technical matter since it is here that we concentrate on the various linguistic ways of connecting
ideas across phrases and sentences. Conversational discourse, on the other hand, often appears
considerably more chaotic. This is partly because it is jointly constructed. Successful communication,
both in writing and in speech, depends, to some extent,on knowing the rules. And there are more
general sociocultural rules, too, such as how men and women address each other, whether there is any
difference between talking to people of the same age or people who are considerably older, etc.
● Interacting with an audience: Our speaking proficiency depends on the way we absorb the reactions of
an audience and respond to them. Part of our writing skills depends on our ability to change our style
and structure to suit the person we are writing for. We are constantly alert of the reactions of the people
we interact with so as to make our communication better.
● Dealing with difficulty: when speakers or writers don’t know a word or can’t remember it they employ
some of the following strategies:
● Improvising.
● discarding: they might abandon the idea
● foreignizing: speakers of a foreign language may opt to foreignize a word and try to find a
equivalent in their language
● paraphrasing: when speakers explain the word in their own words.
Paraphrasing and improvising are way more useful than the others from a teacher’s perspective.
● The language issue: sometimes learners can’t find the grammar to express what they want to say, there
are some steps that can help:
● Supply key language: before the students take part in a taks we may help them with the
questions or phrases that will be useful for the task.  
● Plan activities in advance: we need to plan production activities that will provoke the use of
language that they’ve had a chance to learn at an earlier stage.

Projects:
Teachers may ask their students to work on assignments that last more than 45 minutes and more than one
class. To complete the project the students will consult books, websites, videos, in this way the project
becomes a perfect way of integrating skills and gathering information. They demand more research and time
than a regular task.
● Managing projects: they generally follow the same sequence:
● The briefing/the choice: the teacher or students decide on a topic, then they decide the aim of
the project, and discuss how to gather data and what stages it will go through. 
● Idea/language generator: students have to decide what is going into the project
● Data gathering: from a number of resources
● Planning: this is where they can start making a plan on how the project will be set out, if in a
debate or orally...
● Drafting and editing: 
● The result: the final result, the goal
● Consultation/tutorial: throughout the whole project the teacher will be available as tutors on how
the project is progressing.

● Webquest project:  it allows students to do research from their homes. Teachers can decide various
websites they can gather information from and can design different stages they can go through. It is a
good example of a multi-skill project.

UNIT 4 - POPULAR METHODOLOGY

APPROACHES, METHODS, PROCEDURES AND TECHNIQUES

Approaches: An approach describes how language is used and how its constituent parts interlock- it offers a
model of language of language competence.

Method: It´s the practical realization of an approach. Methods include various procedures and techniques as
part of their standard fare. When methods have fixed procedures, informed by a clearly articulated approach,
they are easy to describe.

Procedure: it´s an ordered sequence of techniques. For example, a popular dictation procedure starts when
students are put in small groups.

Technique: “Silent viewing” is a common technique, when the teacher plays a video with no sound. It's an
activity rather than a sequence, and as such is a technique rather than a whole procedure.

A1. GRAMMAR TRANSLATION, DIRECT METHOD AND AUDIOLINGUALISM

Grammar translation method did exactly what they said. Students are given explanations of individual points of
grammar. These sentences had to be translated from the target language back to students´ first
language and vice versa.

The direct method: translation was abandoned in favor of the teacher and the students speaking together,
relating the grammatical forms they were studying to objects and pictures in order to establish their
meaning.

Audiolingualism: In this model, the drill is heavily emphasized to form the students’ habit and constantly
learning to banish mistakes.

 
A2. PRESENTATION, PRACTICE AND PRODUCTION

The students are given situation contextualized the language to be taught. The students also practice the
language using techniques, such as choral repetition, individual repetition, and cue-response drill. Then,
the students are able to make their own sentence as production.

A3. PPP AND ALTERNATIVES TO PPP

There are several models in PPP for training purposes as a teaching procedure for teachers to employ rather
than to make a good teaching. And the achievement is not exact, but flexible. A different trilogy of
teaching sequence elements is ESA: Engage, Study and Activate.

          Engage: Arousal and affect are important for successful learning. Unless students are emotionally
engaged with what is going on, the learning will be less effective.

         Study: Any teaching and learning element where the focus is on ho something is constructed, whether it
is relative clauses, specific pronunciation patterns, etc.

         Activate: Any stage at which students are encouraged to use all and/or any of the language they know.

A4 FOUR METHODS

They are frequently described, together, as humanistic approaches because in three out of the four cases at
least, the designers are primarily concerned to lower the students’ affective filter, and so remove a
psychological barrier to learning.
·         Community Language Learning, students are gather in a circle and discuss something. The rule of teacher
is as a counselor.
·         The Silent Way, teacher must be quiet or says as little as possible in the class, and the students must be
active.
·         Suggestopaedia, the students must be made as comfort as possible in class, must be relax, to make
students study happily.
·         Total Physical Response (TPR), students must do an action as a respond of every single command or
language they hear.
 

A5 COMMUNITY LANGUAGE TEACHING

The Communicative Approach or Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is the name which was given to a
set of beliefs which included not only a re-examination of what aspect of language to teach, but also a
shift in emphasis in how to teach. It is used to make students are able to use language properly in
variety contexts and purposes. Using this, the students should have a strong will and desire to
communicate. Students also will get many realistic communications to k now the students’
achievement such as role play and simulation. So, it will improve the students’ skill and knowledge.
 
A6 TASK-BASED LEARNING (TBL)
Students are given a task, then after the task completed, teacher gives correction and discusses the language
which the students’ performance. It will make a good direct correction based on the task. Willis (1996)
suggests three basic stages:

·         Pre- task: Introduction to topic and task.

·         Task cycle: Task planning report.
·         Language focus: Analysis practice.

 
A7 THE LEXICAL APPROACH

Lexical approach is based on the assertion that “language consists not of traditional grammar and vocabulary
but often of multi-word prefabricated chunks”. Students have to read a text and then underline the noun they
can find and also the verb. It must follow the pedagogic principles and syllabus specifications.

A8 TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN DIALOGUE TOGETHER

Thornbury suggests that ELT needed a return to a materials- and technology- free classroom in which
language emerges as teachers and students engage in a dialogic relationship. They reasoned that language is
co-constructed between teachers and students, where it emerges (as it is scaffolded by the teacher) rather
than being acquired. In this return to a “pedagogy of bare essentials” students learn because they get to
express what they want to say, instead of taking their cue from coursebooks and school syllabuses.  

B WHAT METHODOLOGY?

B1 METHODS AND CULTURE

In teaching language should applied culture in linguistics. Our language reflects our attitude and behavior or
culture in the way we communicate and teach. Like in class, students’ behavior describes their culture where
they are from, active or not active, etc. Teaching and learning must be agreed in one way. Even the students
and teachers come from the same country or cities, must be remembered that they may come from different
culture. So, in teaching, teachers must pay attention of this.

B2 BARGAINS, POSTMETHOD AND CONTEXT-SENSITIVITY

One approach for context-sensitive teachers is to try to create a bridge between their methodological beliefs
and the students´ preferences. An important skill for students is listening for gist (general understanding)
without getting hung up on the meaning of every single word. Thorp´s solution was to make a bargain, a result
of negotiation between teacher and students. 

B3 MAKING CHOICES
Kumaravadivelu attempted that what is important in methodological terms, especially if we concede that a
choice of one method alone may not be right in many situations. We have to be able to extract the key
components of the various methods we have been describing.
It is not easy to make a decision what method and techniques used in teaching language because basically it
depends on how language is learnt. Teachers should consider about the students culture, character, type, age,
and level, not to mention the teachers background and beliefs. Yet certain conclusions can be drawn: Affect
(that students learn better if they are engaged with what is happening), Input (students need constant exposure
to the language to learn how to use it), Output (students need chances to activate their language knowledge
through meaning-focused tasks), Cognitive effort (students should be encouraged to think about language as
they work with it), Grammar and lexis (lexis is as important as grammar), How, why and where (the actual way
we do things depends not on the choice of a method, but rather on why and where we are teaching).