LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGIES

ACC4300-2 Learning unit

OVERVIEW

In this unit we will look at different types of Language Learning

Methodologies in the TESOL context.

Generally when an ESL teacher contracts out to an Asian school ,

State, or Private, the syllabus has already been decided upon by

the school principal and is already in place. The ESL teacher has to

quickly gather all the information to start participating in teaching

the ESL syllabus. Sometimes, his could be the next day after

landing in the contracting Asian nation with little, or no

preparation.

ORIENTATION PROCEDURES:

One of the constants for all ESL teaching positions is that the

first lesson in any teaching syllabus is the Orientation class, that

is defined by standard procedures, facilitated by the ESL

teachers. The opportunity to fully implement the Orientation

lesson procedures is more likely when the ESL teacher is in a

private school situation and has absolute control of the ESL

classroom , These procedures are:

have general hand-out messages on hand that

relate to aspects of the Orientation class

procedures.

making an attendance register

AT

TEN

DA

NC

E R

EG

ISTER

In China and Korea attendance registers are

usually drawn up with national given names.

During orientation the ESL teacher discusses with the

students whether or not they would like to adopt

English names for the duration of the course, inviting

the students to choose an English name for lesson

purposes.

Useful

At the same time, is to circulate a form with a column of

male and female English names, a column for the

student's native names, and a column for the student's

adoptive English name, the ESL Teacher can then enter

the English names in the roll register. In some ESL

situations students decline to use English names

presenting the ESL teacher with the task of learning

many foreign names. In this case asking students to

wear name tags is not unreasonable.

ORIENTATION

Orientation can then proceed with student introductions by getting the

students to introduce themselves by name, city, (country, if a

multinational classroom), and the school attend, and how they travel to

school each day, e.g. bus, train, bicycle or car.

If the class level is Beginner, a readable handout, or speech prompts

written up on the whiteboard, modelled by the ESL teacher, will help

students introduce themselves to the rest of the class. The value here is

that the ESL teacher learns a little about each student through their

response to the roll call, and a little about the student's personal language

ability profile, e.g. speech ability, comprehension of what they have been

asked to do by the teacher, personal mannerisms, attitude, and

deportment (each student is required to stand up before speaking).

ORIENTATION

For the Orientation class the ESL teacher will have acquired

a lesson timetable, and will be able to give students general

information about the course time frame, how the general

coursework syllabus will run, the lesson time table, and any

different classroom room locations such as language

laboratory and library.

The ESL teacher will inform the students of:

Any ESL prerequisites required by students to be enrol in the

particular being started

room number and free S-T contact times

teacher phone number, and email address

TEACHERS IN ORIENTATIONS

The ESL/TESOL teacher will issue a mission

statement to the students that tell the students

of the teacher's requirements of the students

during the course. This first part of the mission

statement will talk about homework, essays, and

project drafts being returned on the due date,

and late submission penalties, e.g.10% deduction

from final course work mark.

Project drafts (1500 words, UI, and A levels) are

prerequisite for the final examination's oral

presentation, which will not be permitted if drafts

1st, 2nd and the final draft have not been

completed, submitted to the teacher for

feedback, and signed off by the teacher. Failure

not to fulfil the project prerequisites will result is

a course failure.

TESOL Teachers

TEACHERS IN ORIENTATIONS The ESL teacher also informs the students of teacher

commitments to the students, which will include the following:

to be on time and prepared for all lessons

to make sure that the lesson material is presented clearly

to listen to, and encourage students who have difficulty with

any aspect of the course work or with reading, writing,

speaking. comprehension of texts and, or grammar material

to set time aside, and be available for individual T-S tutorials

prompt marking of practice tests,

to give students test feedback

to give students classroom aid on request

to administer practise tests before the end of course final

testing

make sure all classroom resources are available to students at

all limes

to moderate an solve any student problems that may arise

ESL Teachers

DU

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RIE

NTA

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During Orientation the teacher shows the students a weekly time table and explains that a weekly update will be found posted on the students notice board, on display somewhere in the classroom

.

The aims and objects of the ESL course are

defined for each student level (B,I.A), and the

ESL coursework books are discussed. For

private schools these are likely to be a

classroom text book and a student homework

book. The teacher will have a teacher's book

with lesson guidelines, tests and answer keys.

Any free time near the end of the Orientation

can be used in playing vocabulary games

(hangman), or by asking for, and writing up on

the whiteboard, vocabulary from the word set

used during the orientation, or asking for

knowledge about word classes, etc..

LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY

The actual Language Teaching Methodologies for delivering

ESL course work are many and various, and are often

characterised by an individual ESL teacher's own teaching

personality. For the prospective new ESL teacher, good

policy would be to discover if they have a particular

teaching bias in their personal approach to language

teaching, and most beneficial would be to for a new ESL

teacher to research each of the most prominent styles of

Language Teaching Methodology.

ACC MATERIALS

Australia City College (ACC) has a

comprehensive, three part, Language Teaching

Methodology teaching unit component to both

their ACCTESOL 111, and ACCTESOL 1V,

teacher training courses. In either of these

ACC TESOL courses trainee ESL teachers learn

to contrast different teaching methodologies

and elucidate the effects that they have on

the student's learning environment.

PUTATIVE AUDIO-LINGUAL LANGUAGE TEACHING METHOD

An example of a Language Teaching Method in use, is the

putative Audio-lingual Language Teaching Method, where an

ESL teacher predominantly presents lessons that underpin

the phonemic, morphological and syntactical elements of

English language grammar that are biased towards

language modelling, text, and vocabulary drills, where the

students are asked to practice language use through

repetitions of phrases, whole sentences, pronunciation and

intonation drills and choral vocabulary drills, for accuracy of

learning.

TEACHING METHODOLOGIES

Several other Language Teaching Methodologies are shown in Table 1

taken

from the ACC TESOL 1V teacher training course workbook (2004). This

comprehensive ACC TESOL 1V unit is in three parts:

1. Part one is a history of Teacher Training Methodologies, that compares

and contrasts two common teaching methodologies and evaluates

their effectiveness.

2. Part two identifies various communicative teaching strategies,

encourages implementation of those communicative teaching

strategies in TESOL environments or simulations, and evaluates the

strength/weaknesses of effective communicative teaching.

3. Part three identifies and describes the various styles of teaching,

identifies the weakness and strengths, of particular styles in relation to

the learners in the TESOL context, and identifies the weaknesses of

trainee teacher's own teaching style.

In part two TESOL trainee ESL teachers will learn

how to evaluate the stages learning acquisition,

and use language promoters to stimulate speaking

activities in the ESL classroom, and further

promotes the use of various given examples of

communicative activity that encourage

communication.

These activities take the form of Pairs Interviews

e.g. conducting role play interviews between

two students and presenting to the rest of the

class, Pairs comparison, e.g. comparing a selection

of picture taken from a pictorial resource, and

placed in a grid pattern for comparison by the

active pa.ir. Picture differences, a self evident

activity, etc. there are sections on fluency and

communication, as well as Drama and role play

In part three teacher trainee will

evaluate four teaching styles:

formal authority ~ the teaching is focused

on content, the teacher provides and

controls the flow of information, the student

is expected to receive and internalise the

content

demonstrator or personal model ~ teacher

centred, with a lot of demonstrations and

modelling

facilitator ~ teacher is focused on activities

with the emphasis on student learning,

student initiative to accomplished given

tasks.

Derogatory ~ focused on developing

students ability to design and compliment

Part Two Part Three

Theses four styles can become nebulous when teaching in the ESL as they tend to overlap style

depending on the student body, or the particular teaching format prevalent in the ESL classroom

at anyone time.

The ESL teacher needs to undertake: classroom control organise be a capable assessor of student performance be able to prompt a student who is lost for words or chokes up when

asked a question, in the classroom the ESL teacher needs to be able to become integral with student activities

or roll play in the classroom, but not in the teacher's position and without being dominant

in certain activities the ESL teacher may only be required to be the student's resource, and not participate in any part or of their activities.

to be tutor an to be an observer in order to provide feed back on their endeavours

These roles are constantly interchanging in the ESL teaching environment and

improve with ESL teaching experience.

TEACHING METHODS AND TEACHER & Lear Nerd ROLES

Method Teacher Roles Learner Roles

Situational Language Teaching environment

Context setterError Corrector

ImitatorMemoriser

Audio-lingualism Language ModellerDrill Leader

Pattern PracticianAccuracyEnthusiast

To dedicated Communicative LanguageTeaching

Needs AnalystTask Designer

ImproviserNegotiator

Total Physical Response Commander Action Monitor

Order Taker Performer

Community Language Learning

Councillor Paraphraser

Collaborator Whole Person

The Natural Approach Actor Props User

GuesserImmerser

Suggestopedia Auto-hypnotistAuthority Figure

RelaxerTrue-Believer

Table 1

(http://www.wordhistory.com/language.htm) from ACC TESOL 1V teacher training course work book, 2004

Well, that ends this very brief introductory overview of ACC's TESOL full on Teacher Learning Methodologies unit. I hope that you have enjoyed the journey through this introductory ACC4300-2 Learning unit: Teacher Training Methodologies overview of the topic, and I will see in the next unit, ACC4300-3 Learning unit Teacher training.

Bye for now!