1.

MAXIMS OF TEACHING

Introduction

Every teacher wants to make maximum involvement and participation of the learners in
the learning process.
Teachers use different methods, rules, principles etc in order to make his lesson
effective and purposeful.
Teacher uses a general rule or formula and applies it to a particular example in
order to make the teaching learning process easy and up to the understandable level
of students.
These settled principles, tenets, working rules or general truth through which
teaching becomes interesting, easy and effective are called the Maxims of teaching.

Types of maxims of teaching:

The philosopher Grice (1967) described maxims as an injunction to speakers

as to how they should participate in conversational interactions. He identified four maxims.
Which are as follows:

1.MAXIM OF QUANTITY: Make your contribution as information as is required, but

not more informative. Then required.

2.MAXIM OF QUALITY: Try to make your contribution one that is true. That is do not
say anything you believe to be false or lack adequate evidence for.

3.MAXIM OF RELATION: Make your contribution relevant to the aims of the ongoing
conversation.

4.MAXIM OF MANNER: Be clear. Try to avoid obscurity and disorderliness in your

age of language. Following are some maxims which teachers generally use in their
teaching learning process.

1. From known to unknown;

2. From simple to complex;
3. From concrete to abstract;
4. From analysis to synthesis;
5. From seen to unseen/from direct to indirect
6. From particular to general;
7. From psychological to logical;
8. From empirical to rational;
9. Follow nature;
10. From whole to part;
 11. From induction to deduction.

1. Known to unknown:
Every time a teacher introduces a new concept which is unknown to a learner
by linking it with their previous knowledge (known concept). Hence it uses maxim from
known to unknown.

Ex: knowledge of alphabets can be given by linking it to any object which is already
known to them. ‘A’ for apple

2. Simple complex:
❖ Here, the words simple and complex are to be seen from the view of the child’s
cognitive level, not from the teacher.
❖ When organising content, a teacher should tell simple concepts first to generate
interest among the students and complex or difficult concepts, later.
❖ Easy concepts can be understood by the students very easily.

Ex: In a mathematics class, if a teacher wants to teach compound interest, she

should start with simple interest.

3.Concrete to abstract:
❖ A child has curiosity to know about objects and things which are around him.
❖ The learning of a child is done from perception and experience about the object.
❖ After conception, concepts are formed which are partially,concrete and partially
abstract in nature.
❖ Teacher should try to present his concrete in concrete form then its abstract form.

Ex: At primary stage letters and numbers are presented in concrete form then
proceed in its abstract form. Concepts of plants and leaves also introduce the object then its
abstract form.

4. Analysis to synthesis:
❖ When we divide a thing into easy parts or separate elements in order to understand
it easily is called analysis.
❖ It is the process which helps in understanding the hidden elements of a thing or the
cause of some incident or behaviour.
❖ In this way, even a very difficult thing can be easily understood.
❖ Synthesis is just the opposite of analysis. fThe process of analysis is easier than
synthesis for understanding a thing.
❖ This process develops the analytical power of the students. It is the best method of
starting the teaching process.

For example, while teaching the digestive system, we should first analyse the
different parts of the digestive system one by one and then give the synthetic view of it.
5. From seen to unseen/from direct to indirect:
❖ The awareness of certain thighs and events can not be provided directly and
sometimes difficult.
❖ A teacher should take help of things and events which are directly related or in
contact.
❖ New terms and concepts can be easily taught by relating to their experiences.

Example: For Jean Paiget cognitive development theory teacher first introduces the
concept of schema, assimilation and accommodation with example. First introduced then
students will be familiarised with the concept of schema and other.

6..Particular to General:
❖ A teacher should always proceed from particular to general statements.
❖ General facts, principles and ideas are difficult to understand and hence the teacher
should always first present particular things and then lead to general things.
❖ Suppose the teacher is teaching continuous tense while teaching English, he should
first of all give a few examples and then on the basis of those make them generalise
that this tense is used to denote an action that is going on at the time of speaking.
❖ Hence a teacher should proceed from particular to general.

7..Psychological to logical
❖ A content and teaching aids should be selected and arranged according to age,
interest, capacity, need and maturity of the child.
❖ These are all psychological concepts used by teachers while selecting the content,
teaching methods and teaching aids.
❖ Selected content should be arranged logically and presented to students one by one.

Example : A teacher explains parts of a flower with a demonstration method where a

china rose flower is used by a teacher. During explaining the different parts of flower teacher
use charts with real flower

8.Empirical to rationale:
❖ In education system empirical and logical both type of knowledge is essential.
❖ Child learns with experiences and observation by learning by doing activities.
❖ Here teaching activities should be organized that can provide new experience
through observation, then teacher should proceed logical aspect of it.

Example: A teacher explains properties of chemical and physical change by

performing activities. In Physics concept of convection, conduction and radiation
explained with help of activities that are observed by students.
9. Follow nature:
❖ This maxim is based upon the naturalism philosophy and Rousseau has given the
concept of follow nature.
❖ According to him, a student learns better when learning is student centred.
❖ Role of the teacher is passive. And the process of learning should be based
according to the nature of child, that is, according to the need and interest of child. In
his words, “The individual is an entity in himself infinitely, precious, and should never
be sacrificed to fit the needs of society”.
❖ “To Rousseau, the heart of education is the study of the nature of the child and to
provide opportunities for the perfect physical, mental and moral developments in
terms of his nature.

10. Whole Part:

A teacher should organize his teaching activities is such a way that student can
perceive whole then its parts because whole attract first.

Example: In language teaching sentence function as an unit. The words,letters and spellings
are its parts. Definitions are introduced first then its examples are given. Computers
introduced first then its different part introduced.

11.Induction to deduction:
❖ The process of deriving general laws, rules or formulae from particular examples is
called induction.
❖ While using this process in teaching, a teacher has to present particular examples or
experiences and tell about the similarity of their attributes.
❖ Deduction is just opposite of induction. In it, we derive a certain particular
conclusion from general laws, rules or principles.

For example language teaching, before giving the definition of noun the
students are acquainted with the example of non like man, chair, Delhi etc and then they are
led to general definition of non. So a good teacher always proceeds from induction and
finishes at deduction.

Benefits of Maxims of teaching:

• Simplify the process of teaching

• Joyful teaching & learning environment

• Purposeful teaching

• To create creativity among students

• To analysis & synthesis by students

• To develop scientific attitude

• Learning by doing

• To develop critical thinking