TSLB3033

Week 1

Overview of language
learning and language
teaching

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 TUTORIAL:

• Reflect on own language learning experience

• - 1st 3 years
• - pre-school years
• - school years

• Reflect on experiences in teaching young learners

thus far.

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 Teacher Awareness:

• Roles of a Teacher
• Brown, H. Douglas (2007) mentions that
“teachers can play many roles in the
course of teaching and this might facilitate
learning. Their ability to carry these out
effectively will depend to a large extent on
the rapport they establish with their
students, and of course, on their own level
of knowledge and skills.”

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 TRADITIONAL ROLE OF THE TEACHER

• Model of Language
• Lesson Planner and Director
• Presenter of new language material
• Controller/Monitor of Student Practice-Checking
and Correcting
• Assessor of Student Knowledge and
Performance
• Classroom Manager

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Roles of a Teacher
• Model of Language

• The transmission of a linguistic system, native-like

proficiency is the desired paradigm
• teacher provides the model to which students aspire,
usually in terms of knowledge of syntax and lexis, and
possibly accurate pronunciation
• Correct form and accuracy are more important than
the content of messages, and students often compare
their performance against that of the teacher.

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Roles of a Teacher
• Lesson Planner and Director

• The content of courses is usually decided by some

higher authority than teachers. Decisions may be
made at the department level, or at the school or
college level.
• However, the planned events and classroom text to be
used are generally decided by teachers. In this
capacity it is the teacher's role to prepare materials
that are stimulating for the students or to amend/revise
published materials which are inappropriate.

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Roles of a Teacher
• Presenter of New Language
• The teacher assumes responsibility for introducing the
language.
• The teacher should be sensitive as to what and how
much information to give and should also consider
appropriateness of level.
• According to Byrne (1986, p. 2), the teacher is the
center of activity at this point.
• Cranmer (in Matthews, Spratt and Dangerfield, 1985)
sees the motivation arising from the teacher's qualities
as crucial to learners' performance, and discusses
"sensitivity, sympathy, flexibility ...avoidance of
sarcasm and ridicule ... Appropriate
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(paternal, maternal, fraternal)." Where he places
Roles of a Teacher
The Controller:
• Complete charge of the class, what students do, what
they say and how they say it.
• assumes this role when new language is being
introduced and accurate reproduction and drilling
techniques are needed.
• mostly the center of focus,
• may have the gift of instruction, and can inspire
through their own knowledge and expertise,

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 Roles of a Teacher
The Prompter:
• encourages students to participate and makes
suggestions about how students may proceed in
an activity.
• should be helping students only when necessary.
• When literally ‘lost for words’, the prompter can
encourage by discreetly nudging students.
• Sometimes lose the thread or become unsure
how to proceed; the prompter in this regard can
prompt but always in a supportive way.

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Roles of a Teacher

The Resource:
• A walking resource person ready to offer help if
needed, or provide learners with the language they
lack when performing communicative activities.
• must make her/himself available so that learners
can consult when (and only when) it is absolutely
necessary.
• can guide learners to use available resources such
as the internet, for themselves. Not necessary to
spoon-feed learners to avoid learners reliant on the
teacher.

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Roles of a Teacher

The Assessor:

• see how well students are performing or how well

they performed. Feedback and correction is
organized and carried out.
• A variety of ways we can grade learners, the role
of an assessor gives teachers an opportunity to
correct learners. However, if it is not
communicated with sensitivity and support it could
prove counter-productive to a student’s self-
esteem and confidence in learning the target
language.
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Roles of a Teacher

The Organizer:

• Perhaps the most difficult and important role the

teacher has to play.
• The success of many activities depends on good
organization and on the students knowing exactly
what they are to do next.
• Giving instructions is vital in this role as well as
setting up activities.
• The organizer can also serve as a demonstrator,
- allows a teacher to get involved and engaged
with learners.
- serves to openPowerpoint
and neatly close activities and
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also give content feedback.
Roles of a Teacher
Classroom Manager

Wright (1987) defines management as "teaching or

learning behaviour aimed at organizing learning and
learning activities" (p. 157).

In common with Byrne, as aforementioned (in the

section on Lesson Planner and Director), Wright further
deems "motivation" a key management role and lists
several sub-components (p. 53) of this:
projecting a positive attitude to learners, providing
interesting tasks, maintaining discipline, arranging and
adjusting group configurations, providing self-appraisal
opportunities, etc. Powerpoint Templates Page 13
Roles of a Teacher

The Participant:

• takes part in an activity. However, the teacher takes

a risk of dominating the activity when performing it.
• can enliven a class; if a teacher is able to stand
back and not become the center of attention
• can interact with learners without being too
overpowering.

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Roles of a Teacher

The Tutor:

• acts as a coach when students are involved

in project work or self-study.
• provides advice and guidance and helps
students clarify ideas and limit tasks.
• can pay individual attention to a student.
• can tailor make a course to fit specific student
needs. However, it can also lead to a student
becoming too dependent or even too
comfortable with one teacher and one method
or style of teachin g
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Now let’s see how we can adopt these roles into a real
classroom activity/task:
HOW THE TEACHER
ACTIVITY/TASK SHOULD BEHAVE
energetic, clear, fair,
Team game encouraging
supportive, retiring, clear,
Role Play encouraging
Teacher reading dramatic, interesting
aloud commanding

Whole class listing efficient, clear, supportive

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Roles of a Teacher
21st century classroom
• created on the premise that students experience what
they require to enter the 21st century workplace and
live in the global environment.
• collaboration is the thread for all student learning. Eg.
the collaborative project-based approach ensures that
the curriculum used in this classroom develops:
• Higher order thinking skills
• Effective communication skills
• Knowledge of technology that students will need for
21st century careers and the increased globalized
environment.
• new teaching strategies - must become more relevant
to what students willPowerpoint Templates
be exposed to in the 21stcentury
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Roles of a Teacher
An interactive teacher is by definition one that is fully
aware of the group dynamics of a classroom. As
Dörnyei and Murphey (2003) explained, the success of
classroom learning is very much dependent on:
How students relate to each other and their teacher
What the classroom environment is
How effectively students cooperate and communicate
with each other
The roles not only the teacher plays but the learners
engage in

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The Facilitator
• According to Harmer, J. (2007), the term
‘facilitator’ is used by many authors to describe a
particular kind of teacher, one who is democratic
(where the teacher shares some of the leadership
with the students) rather than autocratic (where
the teacher is in control of everything that goes
on in the classroom), and one who fosters learner
autonomy (where students not only learn on their
own, but also take responsibility for that learning)
through the use of group and pair work and by
acting as more of a resource than a transmitter of
knowledge.
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Facilitating learning is empowering for both the learner
and the teacher and frees the teacher from many of the
burdens that having to be an ‘expert’ might entail.
• Traditionally, it has been seen as a weakness for a
teacher to say ‘I don’t know, let’s find out’ or ‘I don’t
know, do any of you students know the answer?’ But,
times have changed and so must the role of the ELS
teacher.

• Making the shift from teacher as expert to facilitator is

sometimes seen as diminishing a teacher’s power
and authority

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ESL Teachers’ Roles That Most Effectively

• ESL teachers’ roles need to change.

• must be redefined as experts, advocates, and
consultants, and that the roles of principals and
administrators also need to shift to support ESL
teachers’ new responsibilities.
• help content teachers analyze the academic
language demands of their content areas, design
lessons that teach academic language and content
simultaneously

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CONTEMPORARY CHANGES IN THE SECOND
LANGUAGE CLASSROOM
• Learner-centredness
• Learner autonomy

THINK-PAIR-SHARE
DISCUSS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO

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Learner – centredness
• the use of student input and feedback in the
structuring and ongoing modification of the
curriculum.
• Nunan defines a learner-centred curriculum as one
which "will contain similar components to those
contained in traditional curricula. However, the key
difference is that in a learner-centred curriculum, key
decisions ... be made with reference to the learner“
(p. 134).
• maintains the learner as an individual capable of
designing his or her own program of study, not as one
who simply adds an opinion to a majority rule
decision on syllabus or class content.
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Learner Autonomy

• What began with an increased awareness of the

importance of learner input in creating a curriculum
and materials has now evolved to enable learners to
have a greater say in every aspect of their learning

• This not only entails the student conferring with the

teacher in order to allow the teacher to make more
informed decisions about the directions the programs
and materials should take, but should also allow the
students to design their own programs of study as
the managers and directors of their own learning.

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A Good Language Learner

• thinks about how he/she is learning. Tries to find out

what works for him/her and what doesn't. If he/she
doesn't understand the purpose of a particular
exercise, he/she asks the teacher.
• willing to experiment and take risks - will try out
different ways of learning vocabulary until he/she
finds the way that suits him/her best.
• not afraid of making mistakes - knows that these will
help her.
• realistic - knows that it will take time and effort to
become proficient in English, and that there will
periods where there seem not to be making much
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Learner Autonomy

• The teacher also has an important role as the one

who must train students, in how to become
autonomous, since students come to learning often
unaware of how to take an active role (Allwright,
1981).

• The teacher may at times need to sit back and allow

the students to make choices which seem to be
unbeneficial in order to allow them, possibly through
"failure“ in a learning activity, to learn how to really
manage their own learning and make their own
decisions (Sturtridge, 1992).
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• independent - does not expect to learn English just by
sitting in the classroom, and does not rely on the
teacher
• organized and active - uses time to learn English
sensibly, and is always looking for opportunities to
develop language both inside and outside of the
classroom.
• has a balanced concern for communication and
accuracy. Some students are experts at
communicating their thoughts but do not care that
they make many mistakes in doing so. The good
language learner, on the other hand, is concerned
with both communicating and doing so as accurately
as possible.
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Although these are the qualities that have
been found in the most efficient
language learners, there are still many other
factors that influence how quickly a
child will learn English.

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Factors that influence learning among
young learners

Factors that motivate / demotivate young

learners

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ATTENTION AND AWARENESS

• Motivation
• Learning styles and Strategies

DISCUSS AND PRESENT IN GROUPS

IS LEARNING STYLES RELATED TO MOTIVATION?

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Learning Styles
• global or analytic, auditory or visual –that students
use in acquiring a new language or in learning any
other subject. These styles are “the overall patterns
that give general direction to learning
behaviour”(Cornett,1983, p.9).

• “Learning style is the biologically and developmentally

imposed set of characteristics that make the same
teaching method wonderful for some and terrible for
others”(Dunn&Griggs,1988,p.3)

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Learning strategies

• related to learning styles but are far more specific.

learning strategies are specific behaviours or thought
processes that students use to enhance their own L2
learning.

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MOTIVATION

FROM A BEHAVIORIST PERSPECTIVE:

Motivation in this school is anticipation of reward
driven by positive reinforcement.

FROM A COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE:

Motivation is related to a person’s choice and goals.

FROM A SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE:

Motivation is related to a person’s choice, and affected
by the social surrounding.

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 MOTIVATION ORIENTATIONS

INSTRUMENTAL INTEGRATIVE
MOTIVATION MOTIVATION

• Language learning to • learning to integrate into

achieve instrumental the second language
goals. Such as, career, culture and groups.
translation, reading,…

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INTRINSIC MOTIVATION
• Is motivation to perform a
task for its own sake.
• The reward is the task
itself.
INTRINSIC MOTIVATION
• Motivation to perform a
task for a reward from
outside.
• Grades, money, positive
feedback.

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Thinking Question

HOW CAN A STUDENT LEARNING THE SECOND

LANGUAGE FOR INSTRUMENTAL REASONS BE
INTRINSICLY MOTIVATED? AND HOW CAN HE BE
EXTRINSICLY MOTIVATED?

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What makes language teaching successful
and how young learners learn? What
makes language teaching successful and
how young learners learn?

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Factors affecting language learning

• stem from the learner’s own mind (internal factors) or

from the environment he/she lives in (external
factors).
• Internal factors are those that the individual
language learner brings to the particular learning
situation, eg, age of the learner, personality,
motivation, experiences, cognition abilities and
his/her native language.
• External factors are those that characterise the
particular language learning situation, some of which
include the curriculum in use, mode of instruction,
and the opportunity to interact with native speakers
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 THANK YOU

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