Alternative Instructional Strategies_Week 12

Implementation of Alternative Instructional Strategies started long ago and many titles
were given under its umbrella. Second language acquisition instructors adapted different
teaching strategies to facilitate language learning, starting with the traditional memorization
instruction and advancing toward the new approaches and new pedagogical strategies. Where I
teach, the institute held a seminar and it was under the title Advanced Language Academy
(ALA), it was a two-week seminar aiming at the best practices in higher-level language learning
and to share ideas. The title ALA is the umbrella that includes all the -based teaching-learning
strategies, of these, are the Task-based, Scenario-based, Project-based, Content-based and others.
When going into the description of some of them, we, as teachers, recognized that we are already
implementing this or that instructional strategy in a way or another without using a special title.

One of the earliest strategies I was trained on and implemented in the classroom is the
RAP (Research, Analyze, and Produce), where the student is given a topic to go and do research
on that topic and prepare a sort of presentation to the class. This strategy resembles in a way the
Discovery Learning Model. The students usually select topics pertaining to the theme of the
subject being studied thus; students have basic knowledge about the material they are
researching (scaffolding). One of the alternative instructional strategies that facilitate the learning
process is the LIFT (Learner In Front Teaching), where the students, in turn, will prepare to
teach a lesson using their own strategies and implementing the technology they prefer.

Prince,(2006) mentioned Traditional engineering instruction is deductive, beginning

with theories and progressing to the applications of those theories. Alternative teaching
approaches are more inductive(p.123). This description reflects the E&L cognitive learning
styles where the inductive (synoptic) form a hypothesis and test it, while the deductive (ectinic)
study the rule and practice its application. Therefore, we can recognize that inductive
instructional strategy facilitates learning higher-level and problem-solving strategies. Nowadays,
and through the implementation of the differentiated instructions, we are implementing a
combination of these strategies to enhance learning in the classroom with diversity.

Prince, M., Felder, R.(2006). Inductive Teaching and Learning Methods: Definitions,
Comparisons, and Research Bases. Journal of Engineering Education.95 (2), pp.123-138