Language learning and teaching principles

1. Language Learning and
Teaching Principles-Brown and
Lee Model
Dr. VMS

2. Basic Principles of Language
Learning
 1. Language is a tool for
communication
 2. learning a language involves
mastery of both skill and knowledge
 3. learners need to give serious
consideration to the impact of feelings
on language study
 4. learners vary considerably in their
preferred approaches to learning

3. Learning and Teaching
 Learning is “acquiring knowledge of a subject
or a skill by study, experience, or instruction.”
Oddly, an educational psychologist would
define learning even more succinctly as “a
change in an individual caused by
experience” ( Slavin, 2003 , p. 138 ).
 Similarly, teaching, which is implied in the first
definition of learning, may be defined as
“showing or helping someone to learn how to
do something, giving instructions, guiding in
the study of something, providing with
knowledge, causing to know or understand.

4. Douglas Brown’s Model-2014
 Learners Characteristics
 Linguistic Factors
 Learning Processes
 Age and Acquisition
 Classroom Instruction
 Context
 Purpose

5. Learner Characteristics
 Who are the learners that you are
teaching? What is their ethnic, linguistic,
and religious heritage? What are their
native languages, levels of education,
and socioeconomic characteristics?
What life experiences have they had that
might affect their learning? What are
their intellectual capacities, abilities, and
strengths and weaknesses? How would
you describe the personality of a student
of yours? You can no doubt think of more
questions, but these will suffice for
starters.-

6. Linguistic Factors
 What is language? What is communication?
What does it mean when we say someone
knows how to use a language? What are the
relevant differences (and similarities)
between a learner’s first language (L1) and
L2? What properties of the L2 might be
difficult for a learner to master? These
questions are, of course, central to the
discipline of linguistics. Language teachers
need to understand something about the
linguistic system of the L2 and some of the
possible difficulties a learner might encounter.

7. Learning Processes
 How does learning take place? Are
there specific steps to successful
learning? What mental or intellectual
processes are involved in SLA? What
kinds of strategies are available to a
learner, and which ones are optimal?
What is the optimal interrelationship of
mental, emotional, and physical
processes for successful SLA?

8. Age and Acquisition
 One of the key issues in L2 research and
teaching is a cluster of questions about
differences between children and adults.
Does the age of learning make a
difference? Common observation tells us
that children are “better” language
learners than adults. Are they, really?
What does the research show? How do
developmental changes that occur
between childhood and adulthood affect
SLA?

9. Classroom Instruction
 A good deal of SLA successfully takes place
outside of any educational context or
classroom. In such “natural” environments,
do all people learn a language equally
successfully? In what has come to be called
“instructed” SLA, many questions arise. What
are the effects of varying methodological
approaches, textbooks, materials, teacher
styles, and institutional factors? Is there an
optimal length of time required for successful
mastery? How can a student best put
classroom instruction into action in the “real”
world?

10. Context
 Are the learners attempting to acquire the
second language within the cultural and
linguistic milieu of the second language, that
is, in a “second” language situation in the
technical sense of the term? Or are they
focusing on a “foreign” language context in
which the L2 is heard and spoken only in an
artificial environment, such as in a language
classroom, or an instructional video? How
might the sociopolitical conditions of a
particular country or its language policy affect
the outcome of a learner’s mastery of a
language? How do intercultural contrasts and
similarities affect the learning process?

11. Purpose
 Finally, the most encompassing of all
questions: Why are learners
attempting to acquire the second
language? Are they motivated by the
achievement of a successful career, or
by passing a foreign language
requirement, or by wishing to identify
closely with the culture and people of
the target language?

12. Brown and Lee, 2015
 Automaticity
 Transfer
 Reward
 Self-regulation
 Interaction
 Identity and investment
 Language- culture connection

13. Automaticity
 (Brown and Lee, 2015)Efficient second language
learning involves learners’ progressing from
controlled, limited language practice to automatic
language processing.
 Students move toward fluency and “think” about
language less as they progress. Children learn
L1 inductively through exposure to the language.
It is “automatic” for them.
 L2 learners, though, begin with learning little
pieces of the language. But L2 learners must
eventually move toward more automatic
processing of the TL.Fluency is developed
through extensive long term practice – which
focuses primarily on meaning…with an optimal
amount of attention to form.

14. Automaticity in the classroom
 Mechanical
 Manipulative
 Communicative
 Teacher-controlled
 Student-controlled

15. Mechanical Activities
 Mechanical activities are activities learners do
which are not meaningful but which may be
necessary in order to have the tools to use
language. The move away from mechanical to
communicative activity has been emphasized
and prioritized for many years.
 Example
Learners thinking about the position of the
tongue in the pronunciation of certain sounds, or
learning how to write in Roman script are doing
mechanical but necessary activities.
 In the classroom
Drills, substitution exercises, and using prompts
to produce structures are common mechanical
activities.
 Further links:

16. Manipulative activities
 Controlled conversation: Dialogues are often presented to
language reamers as model conversations. Trainees can be
asked to memorize the conversation. The instructor then
provides guidelines for what the language reamer should say
during the conversation. In many cases the controlled
conversation will provide practice in using formulaic
expressions in performing certain speech acts in the
language such as greetings, leave taking expressions or
apologies.
 Translation: The reamer is asked to translate an expression
or word from the mother tongue to the target language.
 Repetition drills: These drills provide the opportunity for the
language reamer to practice elements of pronunciation in the
target language.
 Substitution drills: One element of the sentence is changed,
requiring the reamer to substitute the new element into a
sentence and make additional necessary changes.
Conjugation of verb forms is a common substitution drill (e.g.,
I walk to school. HE. He walks to school. THEY. They walk to
school.)

17. Communicative Activities
 Role play: A situation is provided to the reamers. No roles
are assigned by the instructor nor guidelines as to what
should be said., though students may brainstorm these with
the instructor assisting at the beginning.
 Contact assignment: Learners are given an assignment to
contact individuals in the community to get information. They
may prepare for the contact assignment by first carrying out a
role-play in the classroom. The information can be combined
during the next class with each reamer providing input based
on what they reamed from the contact assignment.
 Interviews: Learners are asked to conduct interviews with
members of the community. A survey in which all reamers are
asking the same questions of people of the community would
be appropriate.
 Oral presentations / reports: Learners can be asked to give
an oral report in class based on information they have
selected and researched.

18. Transfer
 Learners naturally seek to transfer
existing knowledge and abilities to
new knowledge or skills.
 Help learners make meaningful
connections between their existing
knowledge and skills and the new
material.

19. Reward
 Reward = Better performance. The most
powerful rewards are those that are intrinsically
motivated.
 Human beings are universally driven to act, or
“behave” by the anticipation of some sort of
reward.
 Intrinsic motivation is built when the rewards that
are linked to their own needs, wants, and desires
for language learning.
 This is the most powerful type of motivation for
learning anything.
 Help to see what is done in the classroom that
has relevance to their long-term language
learning goals.

20. Rewards
 Use verbal praise, encouragement,
compliments, enthusiasm, and
cooperative activities.
 Remind students of long-term
rewards; help students see why they
should want to study language.

21. Self-regulation
 Successful learners take a pro-active approach
to their learning. They set learning goals and
strive toward autonomy with the teacher as a
facilitator.
 They are most successful when they take control
of their own language learning and view the
teacher and the classroom as tools in their
learning process.
 They are responsible for their learning both in
and out of the classroom.
 In the beginning stages, a learner is more
dependent on the teacher, but becomes more
and more independent as they progress in the
language.
 Using pair and group work and activities that
require meaningful language exchange and

22. Identity & investment
 A learner’s sense of self-worth is tied to
their linguistic ability and students may
feel awkward or threatened in the
language learning environment.
 Good teachers compensate.
 To develop proficiency in a second
language, learners must invest their
personal time and energy in the process.
 Successful mastery of the second
language will be due to a large extent to
a learner’s own personal “investment” of
time, effort, and attention to the second
language.”

23. Identity & investment
 Support your students by choosing
activities that challenge but don’t
overwhelm.
 Be patient, positive and sympathetic.
 Give students choice in what / how
they learn so that they don’t feel
powerless.

24. Language-Culture Connection
 Successfully learning a language means
learning about the culture too.
 Whenever you teach a language, you also
teach a complex system of cultural customs,
values, and ways of thinking, feeling, and
acting.
 Help your students understand cultural
customs, values, and ways of thinking,
feeling, and acting.
 Whenever you teach a language, you also
teach a complex system of cultural customs,
values, and ways of thinking, feeling, and
acting.