"Cherry picking" teaching methods in the language learning class:
Chia Suan Chong's (2012) video - A Trip Down the Memory Lane of Methodology was a perfect overlap to the course text readings regarding teaching methods.
I appreciated the visual way Chong explained and demonstrated some of the principles under review. For example, how Chia acted out the 'frustrated student struggling to get their words out' - as a way of showing language acquisition. When I finished the video and chapter readings, it was clear there has been a long evolution of opinions and research specific to how we can best learn language.
There are numerous theorists/practitioners/researchers who have discovered select methods that work for some students and not others. No one approach seems to have it all. The biggest take-away for me is to (as Chia says) "cherry pick" favoured approaches and be able to justify the purpose for using those approaches in your lesson plans.
If I cannot explain how the method and purpose of my approach supports my student's learning, I should learn more about the method so it can be justified. Teachers should stay open minded and continue learning along with our students. We all want to avoid Penny Ur's reference in Chia's video where we become 20 year teachers who have simply repeated the same approach 20 times.
I appreciated the visual way Chong explained and demonstrated some of the principles under review. For example, how Chia acted out the 'frustrated student struggling to get their words out' - as a way of showing language acquisition. When I finished the video and chapter readings, it was clear there has been a long evolution of opinions and research specific to how we can best learn language.
There are numerous theorists/practitioners/researchers who have discovered select methods that work for some students and not others. No one approach seems to have it all. The biggest take-away for me is to (as Chia says) "cherry pick" favoured approaches and be able to justify the purpose for using those approaches in your lesson plans.
If I cannot explain how the method and purpose of my approach supports my student's learning, I should learn more about the method so it can be justified. Teachers should stay open minded and continue learning along with our students. We all want to avoid Penny Ur's reference in Chia's video where we become 20 year teachers who have simply repeated the same approach 20 times.
Teaching methods seem as diverse as types of learners and teachers. Mixing and matching the best of methods seems to be appropriate if you are going to effect your purpose as a teacher. For example, some students may appreciate a short 5-10 minute overview of a grammar chart to reference, while other students may prefer the direct method and learning collocations. Given this is a fundamentals course, I found this section overwhelming. I'm looking for a baseline approach from which to build. As I completed the readings (and a long week), I forced myself to consider favoured approaches...the ability to learn via suggestopedia did "sound" very relaxing...and I really am a huge fan of any role-play in learning. The take-away is mix it up!
A personal story that ties in with this unit involves an experience where through a series of circumstances, I (as an English only speaker) moved into predominantly French community in Ottawa, Ontario and was placed into an all-French school. The results were what you might expect. After 3 years, I did however, become fairly fluent in basic French. When I moved to a northern Manitoba community a few years later, I expected the French would be easy - nope! The classes were primarily grammar focussed and I struggled incredibly. It was a curious circumstance - I could speak quite fluently but couldn't explain the grammar and the teacher who knew grammar - struggled to speak (robotic) when I tried to engage in conversation. I believe more varied teaching approaches would have been of benefit to both of us. The language learning value in that particular class emphasized what Chia referred to as the exercise in "mental gymnastics". In the end, no other students in class could speak more than a sentence or two of French - but in fairness, those few sentences were grammatically correct.
One of my favourite parts in these readings involved Francois Gouin's (Brown, 2015, p.19) ideas with the "Series method". Some of you might view his language learning approach as too linear, but I really like how easy it is to associate words together for easy recall and context to real life applications. I think this most closely reflects how "I think". Without knowing it - I have repeatedly used this method in some of my Russian language learning and am predisposed to same.
REFERENCES
Brown, D. & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (4th ed. revised).
Chong, C.S. (2012, November 29). A trip down the memory lane of methodology [Video file]. British Council.Retrieved from https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/chia-suan-chong-a-trip-down-memory-lane-methodology
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