New Approaches in English Language Teaching (Continued)

1.WHOLE LANGUAGE APPROACH: 1980's, US, originally intended to encourage young students to read. It focuses on reading, writing and communication. Language is taught as a 'whole' entity.

Principles: authentic literature, focus on real and natural events, reading for comprehension and for a real purpose, writing for a real audience, use of student-produced texts, integration of skills, students have a choice of reading and writing topics

Procedure: the use of literature, the use of process writing, cooperative learning, concern for students' attitudes

Activities: individual and small-group reading and writing, ungraded dialogue journals, writing portfolios, student-made books, story writing

2.MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES: Howard Gardner, Harvard U. 1993. This method is based on the notion that people have "multiple" intelligences and language teaching should reflect the variety of ways people learn—individualized instruction. The multiple intelligences are: linguistic, logical, mathematical, spatial, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist(ability to understand and organize the patterns of nature) All of us have different strengths and weaknesses in these intelligences.

Design: individualized learning through projects (multiple-intelligence projects, curriculum-based projects, thematic-based projects, resource-based projects, student-choice projects.

3.THE LEXICAL APPROACH: 1970's (and still under development), multi-word chunks or units of language form most of the speech in everyday English. This approach uses collocation and computer-based corpus to aid language study. The 700-most common words account for 70% of all text. Inputs-Intake via noticing similarities, differences, restrictions and examples, probably not via formal description of rules. Learners make provisional generalizations on the above, which becomes acquisition. Production is based on these examples, not formal rules.

Basic exercise types: identifying chunks, matching, completing, Allegorizing, sequencing, deleting.

4.TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING: 1980's, a logical extension of CLT because it uses many of the same principles, such as:

- Activities that involve real communication are essential for language learning.

-Activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning. -Language that is meaningful to the learner supports the learning process. (Richards&Rodgers, Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching 2nd Ed, 2001)

Tasks are: listing, ordering and sorting, comparing, problem solving, sharing personal experiences, creative activities. Authentic materials are used when possible.

Kathleen Bailey suggests some principles which are rather more generic than any one approach or method:(1996, Voices from the-Language Classroom, CUP)

- engage all learners in the lesson by addressing learner needs and interests

- make learners, not the teacher, the focus of the lesson

- provide maximum opportunities for student participation

- develop learner responsibility and confidence

- be tolerant of learners' mistakes

- teach learning strategies

- respond to learners' difficulties and build on them

- use a maximum amount of student-to-student activities

- promote cooperation among learners

- practice both fluency and accuracy

5.Krashen's Theory on Second Language Acquisition

Stephen Krashen, a linguist who taught at the University of California, has done extensive research in the area of language acquisition. As a result of his research, he, along with Tracy Terrell, developed a theory known as "The Natural Approach". The Natural Approach aims at developing communication for everyday situations It focuses on meaning, not the form. Part of this theory encourages a silent period m which the learner listens to language Once they feel more confident, they begin to speak. The teacher's role is to provide input and encouragement and create interesting and stimulating activities that eventually develop fluency. Because only the target language is spoken in class, the students absorb the language and respond to the input.

Krashen's ideas have not been universally accepted. However, his five hypotheses have practical applications for language teachers. The five hypotheses are "Acquisition vs. Learning", "Natural Order", "Monitor", "Comprehensible input', and "Affective Filter".