1. Escuela de Post Grado
Unidad de Maestría en Educación de la Facultad de
Ciencias Histórico Sociales y Educación
MAESTRIA EN EDUCACION
Mención Didácticas del Idioma Inglés
CURSO: THEORIES AND APPROACHES IN THE
SECOND LANGUAGE
TEMA : ESSAY Nº 3
Maestrante: Lupe Amelia Rivera Gonzáles
Docente del Curso: Dr. Arthur Ide
LAMBAYEQUE - PERU
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2. Summary
The following essay will expose for the different focuses in that it
has evolutioned English's teaching through professional
practices . Important they have been the contributions that each
one of the philosophical and psychological currents has toasted
to the educational chore and the society in general. Each
current in a moment historical matter has nurtured and guided
the educational practices with derived methods of the reining
educational paradigm.
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3. STRATEGIES AND EDUCATIONAL FOCUS IN
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Development
1. - Evolution and development of the focuses in English's teaching in the
Pedagogical Practice.
To establish a dividing line between a paradigm and another is almost
impossible. However, some of these paradigms can be located inside contexts
that correspond to characteristic specific of the modernity or the postmodernity.
Since the horizons of the postmodernity and the postmodern thing extend to all
the sciences of the knowledge, to be related with the form how the individuals
acquire (or they build) the knowledge, the education doesn't escape to these
horizons. The educational practices reflect the tendencies of the philosophical
paradigms of this period. It is as well as the teaching modern conductist-
mechanic is gradually substituted, in first instance, for cognitive methods that
exalt the structures and the mental processes, and then for integrative
methodologies of holistic character that incorporate ethical and affective factors
in the mark of a philosophy constructivist.
The education, then, carries out a protagonistic list in a society that pursues the
development of the potentialities of the individuals with the last end of achieving
the development global human for the improvement of the quality of life (Forest,
2000). One of the roads to this development is the communication, especially
that settles down for via electronic and that it is referred to the last scientific
advances. Through her it is feasible the almost instantaneous exchange of
information, that which guarantees the immediate popularization and
globalization of the knowledge.
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4. The objective of the present essay is the one of enlarging the general vision as
for the focuses, methods and techniques used in the teaching of this language
during the years of our professional practices.
To explain the strategies and educational focuses professional practices , they
are important the focuses and methods that have been developed starting from
the average conduct’s, cognitive and constructivist.
The conduct’s has been classified as the first learning theory that arises in
opposition to the methods subjetivistas and introspective effective until the first
decade of the XX century. This reactionary wave is leadership for Watson and
Skinner who lean on in the pioneer works of Pavlov on reflection conditioned in
animals. However, inside the conductism two big currents can differ. That
driven by Watson and well-known as classic-associative conductism that
makes emphasis in the associations Stimulus-answer (E-R), and the other one,
directed by Skinner and denominated conduct’s that conceives the
reinforcement of the associations like decisive factor of the learning. Both
currents pursue a psychology objective antimentalist, based on the behavior
observed.
The central paradigm of the conductism is, then, the association E-R. This
asociacionismo based on the behaviors would constitute, in terms of Lakatos,
the central nucleus of the program of investigation conductist. Equally, they
would be part of this nucleus the principle of correspondence between the
learning and the external reality and the principle of the equipotenciality. This
last one sustains that all learning is carried out in the same way, in all the
contexts and for all the fellows by means of association processes.
Next some of the focuses and methods are exposed used in professional of the
English language he practices it, in the mark of the theory conduct’s:
The Oral Focus or the Situational Teaching of the Language
The origins of the Oral Focus are located in the decade of the years twenty
and their validity is prolonged until the years sixty. The oral aspect of the
language the one is emphasized which is developed through the situational
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5. practice. The reading and the writing are considered secondary aspects and
they are only approached once the student has acquired enough competition
lexical and grammatical in the oral means. It is characterized by systematic
principles of vocabulary selection and gradual and progressive presentation of
grammatical structures. Because it is centered in the particular situations in
which the language, this focus is acquired it is also known as Situational
Teaching of the Language. It is the educational one the one in charge of
modeling the ejercitation, controlling the presentation of the content gradually.
The student is faithful imitator of the received oral stimuli. Their progress
depends on the precision in its imitative ability.
- The Method Audiolingual
The Method Audiolingual fifty emerge in the years. It is based in the structural
linguistic theory, the contrastive analysis, audio-oral procedures and the
psychology conductista. It portions of the premise that the language is, in
essence, verbal behavior. It pursues the understanding and automatic
production of the language. It promotes the audio-oral training, that is to say,
precision in the auditory discrimination and in the pronunciation.
The training, in charge of the professor, happens sequentially and it includes
the following stages: recognition, discrimination, imitation, repetition and
memorization. The student, on the other hand follows these stages rigorously.
Cognitive theory: Two exist the positions about the emergence of the cognitive
theory. On one hand it is affirmed that their birth takes place September of
1956, 11 in the Second Symposium it has more than enough Theory of the
Information, taken place in the Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT)
with the works presented by Chomsky, Newell, Miller and Simón. While it exists
another version that assumes the appearance of this theory much before, to the
other side of the ocean, in Europe. The representatives of this second version
are: Piaget, the members of the school Gestalt (Wertheimer, Koffka, Köhler),
Vygotsky, Bruner, Bartlet, among others. Anyone that has been the date of their
emergence, both positions coincide in the fact of incorporating the concept
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6. mentalist to explain the multiple anomalies that they suffered to the conductism
whose postulates derived of investigations developed with animals.
The central nucleus of this theory would conform it the mental representations
and the decomposition recursiva of the mental processes in significant
elements.
Between the methods and derived more prominent focuses of the cognitive
theory they are:
- The Code Cognitive
The Code Cognitive is developed starting from the central supposition that the
apprentice is an active processor of information (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987).
The learning takes place when the fellow tries to create interpretations or
meanings on the base of the analysis of a certain situation or a group of data to
discover or to infer the rules or underlying patterns. To learn a rule and then to
apply it to new situations implies a series of mental operations. In other words,
he memorizes when it is to give sense to what you leave, what feels and what is
listened. The main teaching technique associated to this focus is the solution of
problems.
- The Comunicative Focus
Although it had begun to be gestated in the decade of the seventy, the
Comunicative Focus consolidates in the eighty. The central premise of this
focus is that the language is communication, therefore, to learn a language is to
learn how to communicate efficiently. The object of teaching a second language
is to develop the grammatical competition balanced, sociolinguistics, discursive
and strategic of the communication. For this reason the development of the four
abilities of the language is promoted making emphasis in the functional
character more than in grammatical and situational aspects. The student is the
center of the process teaching-learning in the sense that the necessities of the
students determine the organization and design of the courses.
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7. 2. - The theory constructivist.
The anomalies presented by the cognitive theory based on a program of
prosecution of information, began to feel quickly. This opened step to a new
focus based in the idea that the knowledge is built. This theory considers that
the learning is always an interior construction that depends on the fellow's
previous experiences, organized in outlines cognitivos. These last ones are
susceptible of being reorganized, to adapt or of being secured starting from the
new processed information. If these premises are completed, it can be spoken
of the notion of significant learning promoted by Ausubel.
Under the theory constructivist the Natural Focus and the Integral Focus of
Language can be located for the teaching of foreign languages. Just as it
outlines it the constructivism, both focuses suggest to leave of the necessities
and the students' interests to achieve that the learned language has a
significant character.
- The Natural Focus
The Natural Focus is based in the Theory of acquisition/learning of the
language proposed by Krashen (1987) which a hypothesis series that they
sustain the acquisition of the language leaving of the cognitive structures that
the apprentice possesses in his language settles down. Of the hypotheses
proposed by Krashen it suits to highlight that referred to the quality of the
linguistic input (Hypothesis of the i + 1) to keep correspondence with the
concept vigotskyano of Area of Next Development, expert this as the distance
between the level of real development and the level of possible development. In
simple terms, the hypothesis of the i + 1 of Krashen consist on taking into
account what the student already knows (represented by i, and linked to what
Vygotsky denominates Area of Real Development) to prepare the material
instruccional whose level of difficulty is lightly superior (+1, comparable to the
concept of Area of Possible Development) at the level of the apprentice's
competition.
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8. - Focus Integral
The Integral Focus developed by Goodman (1989) it establishes that to learn
the language implies to learn of him and through him, with the help of authentic
contexts. The integral aspect that Goodman proposes embraces the functional
use of the language guided by the apprentice's personal purposes to satisfy its
own necessities.
In these focuses the educational one is visualized as a monitor of the
construction of the knowledge leaving of the mental outlines of each one of their
students. It prepares direct or indirectly the setting in game of the necessary
information in the constructive process and funge like mediator of the process.
The student, as central axis of the process participates sharing his experiences
with the mediator actively and with his partners. The construction is then view
as a dynamic process that begins with the interaction of the subject with the
means and with its fellow men.
The achievement of significant learnings would be subject, then, to the student's
ability to link its previous mental outlines referred to the linguistic competition in
the language puts, as well as to its general knowledge about the topics and
treated topics.
On the base of the analysis of the most excellent features in the theories
conductista, cognitive and constructivista is possible to finish general way that
some aspects of the three theories show in the processes used at the present
time for the teaching of foreign languages. In such a way, it can be affirmed that
central aspects of the three theories coexist in different proportions and they
fuse in dynamic and coherent processes for the contemporary teaching of
foreign languages
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9. BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.-ALBA, A. (1995). La Postmodernidad y Educación. México:
Grupo Editorial Miguel A. Porrúa.
2. FLOREZ OCHOA, R. (1999). Evaluación Pedagógica y
Cognición. Bogotá: Mc Graw-Hill Interamericana S.A.
3. HODSON, D. (1988). “Filosofía de la Ciencia y Educación
Científica”. En R. Porlán, J.E. García y P. Cañal (Compiladores):
Constructivismo y Enseñanza de las Ciencias. Sevilla: Diada
Editoras:5-21.
4. HUTCHINSON, T. y WATERS, A. (1987). English for Specific
Purposes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
5. KRASHEN, S. (1987). Principles and Practice in Second
Language Acquisition. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall International.
6. RICHARDS, J.C. RODGERS, T.S. (1986). Approaches and
Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
7.CHUNK, D.H. (1997). Teorías del Aprendizaje. México: Prentice-
Hill Hispanoamericana, S.A.
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