Teaching by Principles

H. Douglas Brown

The 12 Principles
• Part of every language lesson
• Foundation for good, strong pedagogy
• Preliminary guides to inform your observations

#1 – Automaticity
• Efficient 2nd language learning involves a timely movement of the control of a few
language forms into the automatic processing of a relatively unlimited number of
language forms.
• Automaticity – the road to fluency

#2 – Meaningful Learning
• Meaningful learning will lead toward better long-term retention than rote learning.
• Appeals to student interests
• Connects new info to old info (good schemata building)

Meaningful Learning – Don’ts

• Too much grammar explanation
• Abstract principles and theories
• Too many drills and memories
• Activities with unclear purposes
• Extraneous activities
• Distractions that take the focus off of meaning

#3 – The Anticipation of Reward

• Human beings are universally driven to act, or “behave,” by the anticipation of some sort
of reward – tangible or intangible, short term or long term – that will ensue as a result of
the behavior
• Anticipation of Reward
• Encourage for confidence, not an Oscar
• Encourage students to encourage students
• Be excited and enthusiastic!!
• It’s a long and winding road – keep an eye on the end rewards – get your students to look
there, too

#4 – Intrinsic Motivation Principle

• The most powerful rewards are those that are intrinsically motivated within the learner.
• What is motivation?
o It is the extent to which you make choices about (a) goals to pursue and (b) the
effort you will devote to that pursuit
• Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic
o Intrinsic brings feeling of competence and self-determination
o Extrinsic is all about gaining an award or avoiding punishment
#5 – Strategic Investment
• Successful mastery of the 2nd language will be due to a large extent to a learner’s own
personal “investment” of time, effort, and attention to the 2nd language.
• Strategic Investment
• Strategic Investment
• Multiplicity of learning styles and strategies = multiplicity of techniques
• Group and individual; oral, written, bubbles, maps, graphics, etc
• Not everyone has to comfortable at every single moment of every lesson, so push people!

#6 – Language Ego
• As human beings learn to use a 2nd language, they also develop a new mode of thinking,
feeling, and acting – a 2nd identity.
• Language Ego – Student TLC
• Be supportive because adult learners often feel stupid!
• Be challenging but kind in activities
• Think about LEs in planning class logistics (who to call on, correct, “volunteer”, how to
pair or group etc)

#7 – Self-Confidence
• The eventual success that learners attain in a task is at least partially a factor of their
belief that they indeed are fully capable of accomplishing the task.
• Self- Confidence
• Build/sequence activities to build confidence.
• Encourage students – let them know that you know they can do the work
• You should have it, too!

#8 -- Risk-Taking
• Successful language learners, in their realistic appraisal of themselves as vulnerable
beings yet capable of accomplishing tasks, must be willing to gamble.
o Ashima in The Namesake!
• Create an atmosphere in the classroom that encourages students to try out language,
venture a response
• Provide reasonable challenges
• Return students’ risky attempts with positive affirmation

#9 -- The Language-Culture Connection

• Whenever you teach a language, you also teach a complex system of cultural customs,
values, and ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.
• Discuss cultural differences without being judgmental
• Consciously connect culture and language
• Don’t be culturally offensive in the class – that’s so easy!
• Be ready to discuss your cultural blind spots and assumptions
• Pay attention to possible culture shock

#10 – The Native Language Effect

 • The NL of learners will be a highly significant system on which learners will rely to
predict the target language system.
• Errors are windows to interlanguage; is it the native language?!?!
• Help students to hold onto the helpful aspects of their NL
• Stop translation in its tracks! Think in the target language!!!

#11 -- Interlanguage
• 2nd language learners tend to go through a systematic or quasi-systematic developmental
process as they progress to full competence in the TL.
• Distinguish between interlanguage errors and all others
• Tolerate interlanguage forms that make sense and show learning
• Don’t make the Ss feel stupid
• Treat mistakes like an oil dipstick
• Encourage self-correction
• Don’t let your corrections make students afraid of speaking

#12 -- Communicative Competence

• Since CC is the goal of a language class, instruction needs to point toward all of its
components: organizational, pragmatic, and psychomotor.
• Communicative goals are best achieved by giving due attention to:
o language use and not just usage
o fluency and not just accuracy
o authentic language and contexts
o students’ eventual need to apply classroom learning to unrehearsed contexts in the
real world.

• Communicative Competence is:

 A combo plate of:
o Organizational competence = grammatical and discourse
o Pragmatic competence = functional and sociolinguistic
o Psychomotor skills (pronunciation, intonation)

 Grammar is just one part of a lesson

 Functional & sociolinguistic aspects of language are fun, but don’t forget the
psychomotor skills
 Allow students to become fluent
 Be real – in your materials
 Help students become independent learners and users of language