Conceptual Basis of

Second Language
Teaching and Learning
Humanistic Education and
Experiential Learning
 A. Competing Concepts of Education
The function of an Education is a matter of
educational system is the making meaning for the
transmission of a received learner.
body of facts, values and
procedures for
conceptualizing and adding The function of
to that body of knowledge. education is to facilitate
 The function of educational the process whereby
sytem is to create the learners make their own
conditions whereby learners
might generate their own
meaning, on the other.
skills and knowledge
All cultures have their
own concepts of
teaching, learning and
education.
 B. Humanism and experiential psychology
• Experiential learning
- learning is a process of self-discovery
- the learner’s immediate personal experiences are
taken as the point of departure for deciding how
to organize the learning process.
-is the process of learning through experience, and
is more specifically defined as "learning through
reflection on doing".
According to Kohonen (1992), experiential learning
has diverse origins, being, derived from John Dewey’s
progressive philosophy of education, Lewin’s social
psychology, Piaget’s model of development
psychology, Kelley’s cognitive theory of education,
and the work of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers in
the field of humanistic psychology.
Kolb (1984) suggests that, through experiential
learning the learner moves from the known to
the new through a process of making sense of
immediate experience, and then going beyond
the immediate experience through a process of
transformation
 The proponents of humanistic education have
broadened our concept of learning by emphasising
that meaningful learning has to be self-initiated. Even
if the stimulus comes from outside, the sense of
discovery, however, and the motivation which that
brings has to come from inside driven by the basic
human desire for self-realization, well being and
growth…

(Underhill 1989, 252 as cited in Legutke and Thomas 1991:269)

Humanistic Psychology - is a psychological
perspective that emphasizes the study of the whole
person. Humanistic psychologists look at human
behavior not only through the eyes of the observer,
but through the eyes of the person doingthe
behaving. Humanistic psychologists believe that an
individual's behavior is connected to his inner
feelings and self-image. humanistic psychologists
study human meanings, understandings, and
experiences involved in growing,teaching, and
learning.
(http://web.cortland.edu/andersmd/HUMAN/WHAT.HTML)
For Nunan, D. (1999) the most to articulate
examination of humanism and experiential learning
and relation to language education is provided by
Kohonen (1992), who argues that the experiential
model offers, “potential for a learning atmosphere
of shared partnership, a common purpose, and a
joint management of learning” (p.31).
Contrast between traditional
and experiential models on
education in ten key
dimension.
Dimension Traditional Model: Behaviorism Experiential Model: Constructivism
1. View of learning Transmission of knowledge Transformation of knowledge
2. Power relation Emphasis on teacher’s authority Teacher as “learner among learners”
3. Teacher’s role Providing mainly frontal instruction; Facilitating learning(largely in small
professionalism as individual autonomy groups); collaborative professionalism
4. Learner’s role Relatively passive recipient of Active participation, largely in
information; mainly individual work collaborative small groups
5. View of knowledge Presented as “certain”; application Construction of personal knowledge;
problem-solving identification of problems
6. View of curriculum Static; hierarchical grading of subject Dynamic; looser organization of subject
matter, predefined content and product matter, including open parts and
integration
7. Learning experiences Knowledge of facts, concepts and skills; Emphasis on process; learning skills, self-
focus on content and product inquiry, social and communication skills
8. Control of process Mainly teacher-structured Emphasis on learner; self-directed
learning
9. Motivation Mainly extrinsic Mainly intrinsic
10. Evaluation Product-oriented: achievement testing; Process-oriented: reflection on process,
criterion-referencing (and norm- self-assessment; criterion-referencing
referencing
 C. Inductive and deductive learning
Deductive learning - is a process of adding to our knowledge by
working, from principles to examples. According to Cohen and
Manion (1980), deductive reasoning went unchallenged from the
time of Aristotle to the middle Ages, when the philosopher Francis
Bacon turned the process of working from principles on its head.

Bacon argued for induction as a way of adding to our knowledge of

the words. In induction, one works from examples to principles,
rules, and generalizations.
Communicative
Language Teaching
(CTL)
 Reconceptualizing Language
1960 - Language was generally seen as a
system of rules, and the task for language
learners, was to internalize these rules by
whatever means were at their disposal
(informal contexts, at the disposal of the
teacher or teaching institution).
•1970 - Linguists began to analyze
language as a system for the
expression of meaning, rather than
a system of abstract syntactic rules.
 Tailoring courses to learners
In terms of methodology, this new view of
language also had an important effect. If the
aim of the language teaching is to help the
learners develop skills for expressing different
communicative meanings, then surely these
out to be reflected in classroom tasks and
activities.
 Learner involvement in the learning process
A learning-centered classroom is designed to enable the learner to
make critical pedagogical decisions by systematically training them
in the skills they need to make such decision.

Learner-centeredness is therefore not an all-or-nothing concept.

Learner-centered instruction is not a matter of handing over rights

and powers to learners in a unilateral way. Nor does it involve
devaluing teaching the teacher. Rather, it is a matter of educating
learners so that they can gradually assume greater responsibility for
their own learning.
 Learners-centeredness: another dimension

Another sense of learner-centered is when it refers

to classroom, not in which learners are actively
involved in making choices about what and how to
learn but in which learners are actively involved in
the learning process, classroom in which the focus is
on the learner in the sense in which they do all the
work.
 Principles of adult learner
Adults who value their own experience as a resource for
further learning or whose experience is valued by others are
better learners.
Adults learn best when they are involved in developing
learning objectives for themselves that are congruent with
their current and idealized self-concept.
Adults have already have already developed organized ways
of focusing on, taking in and processing information.
The learner reacts to all experience as he/she perceives it, not
as the teacher present it .
Adult enter into learning activities with an organizedset of
descriptions and feelings about themselves that influences the
learning process.
 Adults are more concerned with whether they are changing in direction
of their own idealized self-concept than whether they are meeting
standards and objectives set for them by others.
Adults do not learn when over stimulated or when experiencing extreme
stress or anxiety.
Those adults who can process information through multiple channels
and have learnt how to learn are the most productive learners.
Adults learn best when the content is personally relevant to past
experience or present concerns and the learning process is relevant to life
experiences.
Adults learn best when novel information is presented through a variety
of sensory modes and experienceswith sufficient repetitions and
variations on themes to allow distinctions in patterns to emerge.
 Negotiated curricula
The philosophy of learner-centeredness has
been given practical effect in the form of negotiated
curricula in which the views of the learners as well
as pedagogical agenda of the teacher are satisfied
through a process of give-and-take. What gets
taught and how it is learned, are arrived at
discussion and compromise.
 The contributions of Learner to the
learning process

Negotiation is a variable commodity

within the pedagogical transactions of the
classroom.
 Moving learners along the negotiation
continuum
Step 1: Make instruction goals clear to learners
Steps 2: Allow learners to create their own goals
Steps 3: Encourage learners to use their second language outside
the classroom
Steps 4: Raise awareness of learning process
Steps 5: Help learners identify their own proffered and strategist
Steps 6: Encourage learner choice
Steps 7: Allow learners to generate their own tasks
Steps 8: Encourage learners to become teachers
Steps 9: Encourage learners to become researchers
 Task-based Language Teaching
Also known as task-based instruction (TBI), focuses
on the use of authentic language and on asking students
to do meaningful tasks using the target language. Such
tasks can include visiting a doctor, conducting an
interview, or calling customer service for help. Assessment
is primarily based on task outcome (in other words the
appropriate completion of real world tasks) rather than on
accuracy of prescribed language forms. This makes TBLT
especially popular for developing target language fluency
and student confidence.
(Retrieve from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task-
based_language_learning)
Task-based language teaching - is an
approach to the design of language
courses in which the point of departure
is not an ordered list of linguistic items,
but a collection of tasks.
 Defining Task
Task is a piece of work undertaken for
oneself or for others, freely or for some
reward. Thus examples of tasks include
dressing a child, buying a pair of shoes,
making an airline reservation, writing a letter
and etc. (Long 1985: 89)
Richards, Platt and Weber (1986:289) suggest that a
task is an activity or action which is carried out as the
result of processing or understanding language, For
example, drawing a map while listening to a tape.
Using a variety of different kinds of tasks in language
teaching is said to make language teaching more
communicative.
Nunan, D. (1989:10) defined pedagogical tasks as a
piece of classroom work that involves learners in
comprehending, manipulating, producing, or
interacting in the target language while their
intention is focused on on mobilizing their
grammatical knowledge in order to express
meaning, and in which the intention is to convey
meaning rather than to manipulate form.
 Task Versus Exercise
The essential difference between a task and
an exercise is that a task has a nonlinguistic
outcome, while an exercise has a linguistic
outcome. Success will be measured in
nonlinguistic terms (whether the person is too
hot, too cold, or comfortable). In contrast, the
following is an exercise; the outcome will be a set
of structures. Success will be decided in linguistic
terms.
 There are three important
principles of task design:

The authenticity principle;

The form / function principle;
The task dependency principle.
 The Authenticity Principle
Task: Study the following extracts. One is a piece o genuine conversation, the other is taken from a
language teaching textbook. What differences can you see between the two extracts? What
language do you think the non authentic conversation is trying to teach?What grammar would you
need in order to take part in the authentic conversation?
Text 1 Text 2
A: Excuse me, please. Do you know the nearest A: How do I get to Kensington Road?
bank is? B: Well you go down to Fullarton road. . .
B: Well, the City Bank isn't far from here. Do you A: . . . what, down Old Belair, and around . . .?
know where the main post office is? B: Yeah. And then you go straight. . .
A: No, not really. I'm just passing through. A: . . . past the hospital?
B: Well, firsst go down this street to the traffic B: Yeah, keep goiong straight, past the racecourse
light. to the roundabout. You know the big
A: Ok. roundabout?
B: Then turn left and go west on Sunset Boulevard A: Yeah.
for about two blocks. The bank is on your right, B: And Kensingston Road's off to the right.
just past the post office. A: What, off the roundabout?
A: All right. Thanks! B: Yeah.
B: You're welcome. A: Right
The Form-Function Principle
• Answer the following:

1. a. The rains have just brought hope to the starving of Africa.

b. The rains just brought hope to the starving but no solution.
Which adverbs can replace just in (a) and (b)?

2. a. Great swarm of locusts have been reported in Cape Verde.

b. Great swarm of locusts were reported in Cape Verde.
To which sentence can the word two days ago be added?
3. a. Other countries are waiting until international
meetings have been held in two months' time.
b. Other countries are waiting until international
meetings are held in two months' time.

Are these countries waiting until the meetings

are over or until they begin in (a), in (b)?
The Task-dependency Principle