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10 principles of language teaching

Gianfranco and I have been in the language teaching game a long time, but we are both learning all the time as we read more, talk with teachers and refine our thinking about a very complex matter - teaching and learning additional languages in schools. Our thinking is also bound to be heavily influenced by the settings in which we have taught - largely secondary level students in high schools often doing compulsory language courses. Since writing the first edition of The Language Teacher Toolkit we have both therefore adjusted our beliefs about classroom language teaching. The set of principles below, taken from the second edition of The Language Teacher Toolkit, resemble the ones we included in the first edition of our handbook, but have changed in subtle ways.

See if these chime with your own beliefs.

1.    Comprehensible input. Comprehension of meaningful language is the foundation of language acquisition. When listening and reading input are understood by students, implicit (unconscious) learning mechanisms come into play and the input contributes to long-term acquisition. Language is comprehensible when students already know the words and grammar, and can work out the meaning in other ways, e.g. by inferring meaning, through images, gesture or translation.

2.   Communication. Comprehension alone is not enough. Promote interaction with input in a structured and less controlled fashion, led by the teacher and via communication between students. Through interaction with the input and opportunities to produce output language (speech and writing), students can further develop their proficiency and communicative skill.

3.   Multi-mode teaching. Use an integrated combination of the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, but with a greater emphasis on listening and speaking. By exploiting all the skills, students gain a deeper understanding of vocabulary, grammar and phonology. Activities in each skill reinforce each other.

4.   Receptive to productive. Proceed from modelling receptive listening and reading input, via controlled practice towards spontaneous production. Allow students to hear and see plenty of examples of input language before they are asked to produce language themselves. Tightly controlled output activities should usually precede free tasks requiring unrehearsed, spontaneous language. Fluency is developed in all the skills along the way.

5.   Meaning and form. Acquisition involves associating meanings with linguistic forms (words, sounds, grammar). The main focus should be on meaningful communication, but time needs to be spent on making students aware of the formal properties of the language (grammar, morphology, phonics), especially aspects they may not naturally notice.

6.    Grammar. Select the grammar students encounter and practise, while keeping in mind what is learnable and whether they are developmentally ready to acquire it. Anticipate which areas are most likely to cause confusion. This means being selective about what is taught. It may not mean basing a curriculum on a step-by-step grammatical sequence, but focusing on the grammar which is most useful for students’ communicative goals.

7.     Vocabulary. Select vocabulary based on frequency and relevance to students’ needs, including the requirements of the assessment regime. Focus both on words and multi-word units. Remember that ‘knowing a word’ is complex and involves sounds, spellings, meanings, the different grammatical forms of words and how words function with other words.

8.   Implicit and explicit learning. Prioritise implicit (unconscious) learning and communication, supported by explicit teaching of vocabulary, grammar and phonics. Implicit learning is ‘unconscious’ and is more likely to occur when meaningful language is recycled and memorable. Explicit learning occurs when students are consciously thinking about the form of the language. It can support implicit learning.

9.   Self-efficacy. Place a strong emphasis on developing students’ self-efficacy or feeling of competence – their sense that they can be successful at learning the language. When they can understand language at every stage and have opportunities to enjoy using it, they are more likely to feel confident and thus be more highly motivated.

10.  Intercultural understanding. One of the unique aspects of a languages curriculum is the opportunity it affords for students to better understand other cultures and their own. Incorporating strong elements of intercultural understanding is both valuable in its own right and motivational. A language teacher has a duty to foster positive attitudes to difference and diversity.

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