What matters in teaching a second language

What matters in
the second
language
classroom?

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) is the
national association for language education professionals from all levels of
instruction and representing all languages. With more than 12,300 active
members, ACTFL provides innovative professional development
opportunities, acclaimed training and certification programs, and widely cited
books, publications, scholarly journals, research studies and language education
resources, including Foreign Language Annals and The Language Educator
magazine. As part of its mission and vision, the organization provides guidance to
the profession and to the general public regarding issues, policies, and best
practices related to the teaching and learning of languages and cultures. ACTFL is
a leading national voice among language educators and administrators and is
guided by a responsibility to set standards and expectations that will result in high
quality language programs. For more information, visit the website at
www.actfl.org.

http://www.actfl.org/files/public/guidelines.pdf
Rubric ACTFL proficiency guidelines-speaking-

References:
Krashen, Stephen D. Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Prentice-Hall International, 1987.
Krashen, Stephen D. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Prentice-Hall International, 1988.

Acquisition vs. Learning
The distinction between acquisition and learning is one of the hypotheses (the
most important) established by the American Stephen Krashen in his highly
regarded theory of foreign language acquisition known as the Natural Approach.

Language acquisition refers to The concept of language learning
the process of natural is linked to the traditional
assimilation, involving approach to the study of
intuition and subconscious languages and today is still
learning, which is the product generally practiced in high
of real interactions between schools worldwide. Attention is
people where the learner is focused on the language in its
an active participant. written form and the objective is
Teaching and learning are for the student to understand the
viewed as activities that structure and rules of the
happen in a personal language through the application
psychological plane. The of intellect and logical deductive
acquisition approach praises reasoning. The form is of greater
the communicative act and importance than communication.
develops self-confidence in It seeks to transmit to the student
the learner. knowledge about the
language, its functioning and
grammatical structure with its
irregularities.
http://easypractice.blogspot.com/2009/07/language- This effort of accumulating
knowledge becomes frustrating
learning-vs-language_07.html because of the lack of familiarity
with the language.

Allegory of the cave
• The Allegory is related to Plato's
Forms, according to which the "Forms" (or
"Ideas"), and not the material world of change
known to us through sensation, possess the
highest and most fundamental kind of reality.
Only knowledge of the Forms constitutes real
knowledge. In addition, the Allegory of the
Cave is an attempt to explain the
philosopher's place in society: to attempt to
enlighten the "prisoners".

Analogy

• In "The Republic," Plato sums up his views in
an image of ignorant humanity, trapped in the
depths and not even aware of its own limited
perspective. The rare individual escapes the
limitations of that cave and, through a
long, tortuous intellectual journey, discovers a
higher realm, a true reality, with a
final, almost mystical awareness of Goodness
as the origin of everything that exists. Such a
person is then the best equipped to govern in
society, having a knowledge of what is
ultimately most worthwhile in life and not
just a knowledge of techniques; but that
person will frequently be misunderstood by
those ordinary folks back in the cave who
haven't shared in the intellectual insight.

Shadowy representation of the
reality. Who are the enlightened?
• If he were living today, Plato might replace his
rather awkward cave metaphor with a movie
theater, with the projector replacing the fire, the film
replacing the objects which cast shadows, the
shadows on the cave wall with the projected movie
on the screen, and the echo with the loudspeakers
behind the screen. The essential point is that the
prisoners in the cave are not seeing reality, but only a
shadowy representation of it. The importance of the
allegory lies in Plato's belief that there are invisible
truths lying under the apparent surface of things
which only the most enlightened can grasp. Used to
the world of illusion in the cave, the prisoners at first
resist enlightenment, as students resist education.
But those who can achieve enlightenment deserve to
be the leaders and rulers of all the rest. At the end of
the passage, Plato expresses another of his favorite
ideas: that education is not a process
of putting knowledge into empty
minds, but of making people realize
that which they already know.

What matters in teaching a second language

.
The Brain research in the foreign language classroom
Teachers need to build a bridge from current neuroscience research to
engaging classroom practice. Students need to envision their brain as
a muscle that gains power over time as much as any other muscle
does : by stretching. Learning is stretching their thinking muscle.

• Human brains are as unique as faces.
• All brains are not equal because context and ability
influence learning.
• The brain is changed by experience.
• The brain is highly plastic.
• The brain connects new information to old.

As neurologist turned teacher Judy Willis, MD explains, “When you
provide students with opportunities to apply learning, especially through
authentic, personally meaningful activities with formative assessments
and corrective feedback throughout a unit, facts move from rote memory
to become consolidated into related memory bank, instead of being
pruned away from disuse.”

http://www.flbrain.org/research.htm
http://brainconnection.positscience.com/topics/?main=fa/second-language3
http://www.edutopia.org/brain-based-learning-strategies-resource-guide
http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el200912_willis.pdf

Six Tips for Brain-Based Learning

1. Create a Safe Climate for Learning
2. Encourage a Growth Mind-set
3. Emphasize Feedback
4. Get Bodies and Brains in Gear
5. Start Early
6. Embrace the Power of Novelty

http://www.edutopia.org/

Brain research and its implications for education

Principles: Implications
• The brain performs many simultaneous • The teacher is like an orchestra conductor in
functions. Processes for order to encompass all the variations of the
thoughts, emotions, imagination and human brain.
predispositions are on all the time.
• Learning is as natural as breathing and it is • Brain based teaching must fully incorporate
possible to either inhibit or facilitate it. Stress stress management, nutrition, exercise and other
and threat affect the brain. facets of health into the learning process.

“WHEN WE ENCOUNTER NEW
information, the brain quickly
goes into pattern-recognition
mode. If it reminds us of
something we’ve encountered
before, we know how to respond.
But what happens when the new
information doesn’t “fit” with
existing understanding?

Comprehensible input to learn
practical verbal responses

Drama=creating contexts=specific uses of language

Drama is inevitably learner-centred because it can only operate
through active cooperation. It is therefore a social activity and
thus embodies much of the theory that has emphasized the
social and communal, as opposed to the purely
individual, aspects of learning. With regard to the learning of
language, the value of drama is often attributed to the fact that
it allows the creation of contexts for different language uses. In
both language teaching and drama, context is often thought to
be everything. There is a long tradition, influenced by
sociolinguistics, from a conception of language learning as the
acquisition of vocabulary and grammar independent of context
to a greater focus on language in use. 'context' to refer to the
way words can be explained in relation to their function in
specific uses of language e.g. in particular sentences

http://www.hltmag.co.uk/jul06/mart01.htm

Fluency
Fluency is the ability to read, speak, or write easily, smoothly, and expressively. In other
words, the speaker can read, understand and respond in a language clearly and concisely
while relating meaning and context.
Fluency generally increases as learners progress from beginning to advanced readers and
writers.
Language teachers who concentrate on fluency help their students to express
themselves in fluent target language. They pay more attention to meaning and context
and are less concerned with grammatical errors.
Typical fluency activities are: role plays, speeches, communicative activities, games.

Should We Teach Grammar?
Explicit grammar instruction

Accuracy
Accuracy is the ability to produce correct sentences using correct grammar and vocabulary.
Accuracy is relative. A child in early primary isn't capable of the same level of accuracy as an adult.
Teachers who concentrate on accuracy help their students to produce grammatically correct written and spoken English.
Typical accuracy activities are: grammar presentations, gap-fill exercises, frame dialogues.

Three elements in any face-to-face communication

Body language: from boredom to engagement

The Tower of Babel in
the Old Testament was
a tower built by a
united humanity to
reach the heavens.

http://joseph_berrigan.tripod.com/ancientbabylon/id17.html

M.C. Escher - Tower of Babel

According to the Quran (28:38) and the
Bible (Genesis 11:1-9), a tower was
erected in Babylonia with the intention
to reach to heaven and God. Their
presumption, however, angered God
who interrupted the construction by
causing among them a previously
unknown confusion of languages and
scattered them over the face of the
earth.

Digital divide
“We have no idea, now, of who or what the
inhabitants of our future might be. In that
sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that
our grandparents had a future, or thought they
did. Fully imagined cultural futures were the
luxury of another day, one in which ‘now’ was
of some greater duration. For us, of
course, things can change so abruptly, so
violently, so profoundly, that futures like our
grandparents’ have insufficient ‘now’ to stand
on. We have no future because our present is
too volatile. We have only risk management.
The spinning of the given moment’s scenario.
Pattern Recognition.” (57, Pattern Recognition)

"The unexamined life is not worth living for a
human being."

Motivation

strategies to improve long-term memory, how
to inspire more creative thinking, how to be
smart about taking risks,

What matters in teaching a second language

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