Principles for teaching speaking and listening
This course is a learning-centered approach and its purpose is to build students’ basic interpersonal communicative skills and confidence. It is my hope that students discover that what they have learned in the past has paid off as a reward. English is not just a piece of knowledge that is learned from textbooks, but a valuable tool that can be used with a clear defined purpose in a meaningful way. I would not rely on the lecturing approach, unless I am introducing a very new content, topic, or learning strategies. I like to engage with students in class. Therefore, students need to come to class well prepared so that they are able to participate fully and know learning objectives well before each class. For this class, I would integrate and utilize multimedia mainly for their homework assignments. It is good for the students to listen to not only me as a non-native English speaker, but also to familiarize themselves with world Englishes. Second, it would be suitable for visual and auditory learners.
Brown listed 12 principles of language learning and teaching under three categories (Brown, 2007, p. 81). I identity some teaching principles which are underlined base on the context and the nature of this course.
Brown listed 12 principles of language learning and teaching under three categories (Brown, 2007, p. 81). I identity some teaching principles which are underlined base on the context and the nature of this course.
Adults who come to this course have their own intrinsic motivation already and are willing to communicate. They are very important principles that I value. However, for this context, my role would be not so much to introduce these two principles through my teaching, but to constantly examine my teaching so that students may keep what they have already had in them.
Under cognitive principles, automaticity is good to enhance students’ fluency in speaking and listening through an inductive process. This might be very challenging for them since they are used to learning through a deductive process. Meaningful approach is definitely a principle that I would use. This allows student to associate with their background knowledge before learning new content and make their learning more enjoyable. Strategies in learning speaking and listening skills would also be covered. I would guide students to make their own strategic inventory. Appendix C is an example. Once they are able to use those strategies they have learned, they would be less frustrated down the path. Through this inventory, students can do a self-evaluation weekly to see how many strategies they have learned and improved on, or examine what strategy works well for them and what does not. Students may use the strategic inventory to demonstrate their autonomous ability to take charge of their own learning.
I modified slightly what Brown listed under the socioaffective principles and came up with the language-culture-identity formation principle. This principle is able to guide me as I select subjects and activities for the class, which should be culturally sensitive, valuing both target and native languages and cultures, helping the process of identity formation. Identity is a very complex topic, and is normally under addressed.
Communicative competence under linguistic principles is the overall goal for this course. I would make the following quote and the communicative competence diagram (Pierson, 2015, p. 109) as posters and put them on the wall of the classroom. I will also add one more element in the communicative competence diagram, showed in appendix D, since there is a significant connection between how a person perceives oneself in second language acquisition.
Under cognitive principles, automaticity is good to enhance students’ fluency in speaking and listening through an inductive process. This might be very challenging for them since they are used to learning through a deductive process. Meaningful approach is definitely a principle that I would use. This allows student to associate with their background knowledge before learning new content and make their learning more enjoyable. Strategies in learning speaking and listening skills would also be covered. I would guide students to make their own strategic inventory. Appendix C is an example. Once they are able to use those strategies they have learned, they would be less frustrated down the path. Through this inventory, students can do a self-evaluation weekly to see how many strategies they have learned and improved on, or examine what strategy works well for them and what does not. Students may use the strategic inventory to demonstrate their autonomous ability to take charge of their own learning.
I modified slightly what Brown listed under the socioaffective principles and came up with the language-culture-identity formation principle. This principle is able to guide me as I select subjects and activities for the class, which should be culturally sensitive, valuing both target and native languages and cultures, helping the process of identity formation. Identity is a very complex topic, and is normally under addressed.
Communicative competence under linguistic principles is the overall goal for this course. I would make the following quote and the communicative competence diagram (Pierson, 2015, p. 109) as posters and put them on the wall of the classroom. I will also add one more element in the communicative competence diagram, showed in appendix D, since there is a significant connection between how a person perceives oneself in second language acquisition.
It is helpful for the teacher and the students to look at these two and evaluate how their teaching and learning are going from time to time. I would encourage students to set a reachable goal towards the end each course, one step at a time, to improve their English proficiency. These are the six teaching principles that I will apply for this particular teaching context: automaticity, meaningful learning, strategic investment, autonomy, the language-culture-identity formation, and communicative competence. The following is the ten-hour lesson plans with annotation.