This document provides an overview of a teaching methodology course that will begin on October 14th, 2023 and be instructed by Ngin Sovann. It covers various topics related to describing learners including age and its impact on learning, cognitive development stages, characteristics of different age groups, individual differences in aptitude and intelligence, motivation, and defining levels of language proficiency.

1. Teaching Methodology
Semester 1
Course commencement: 14 October 2023
Instructed by: Ngin Sovann, MA in TESOL

2.  Yy u r yy u b
 Too wise you are, too wise you be.
 I c u r yy 4 me.
 I see you are too wise for me.
 What begins with T, ends with T, and has the T in it?
 teapot

3.  Can you read the following?
Yy u r yy u b
I c u r yy 4 me
Too wise you are, too wise you be.
I see you are too wise for me.
- What begins with T, ends with T, and has the T in it?
- Teapot
- What always goes up and down but doesn’t move?
- Staircase
- It’s black before we use it, red while using it, and grey after
it is used. What is it?
- Charcoal

4. UNIT 1: DESCRIBING
LEARNERS
Instructor: Ngin Sovann, MA in TESOL

5. A. Age:
The age of our students is a major factor in our
decision about how and what to teach.
People in different ages have different needs,
competence and cognitive skills; we might expect
children of primary age to acquire much of a foreign
language through play, for example, whereas for adults
we can reasonably expect a greater abstract thought.

6.  Four stages of learners’ cognitive development (Piaget’s
theory)
- Sensori-motor stage or Preoperational Stage: refers to
the infants from birth to two years old and that are busy
discovering relationships between their bodies and the
environment.

7. - Intuitive stage : usually occurs between 2 to 7 years of age,
in which a child's thought processes are determined by the
most prominent aspects of the stimuli to which he or she is
exposed, rather than by some form of logical thought.

8.  Concrete-operational stage: ages 7 to 11
- During this stage, children begin to think logically about
concrete events.
- Their thinking becomes more logical and organized, but
still very concrete.
- Children begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from
specific information to a general principle.

9.  Formal operational stage: ages 12 and up
- At this stage, the adolescent or young adult begins to think
abstractly and reason about hypothetical problems.
- Abstract thought emerges.
- Teens begin to think more about moral, philosophical, ethical,
social, and political issues that require theoretical and abstract
reasoning.
- Begin to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general
principle to specific information.

10. A1. Young children (ages of 9 to 10):
Young children learn differently from children,
adolescents and adults in the following ways:
- They respond to the meaning even if they do not understand
individual words.
- They often learn indirectly rather than directly.
- Their understanding comes not just from explanation, but
also from what they see and hear and, crucially, have a
chance to touch and interact with.

11. - They find abstract concepts such as grammar rules difficult
to grasp.
- They generally display an enthusiasm for learning and a
curiosity about the world around them.
- They have a limited attention span; unless activities are
extremely engaging, they can get easily bored, losing
interest after ten minutes or so.

12. A2: Adolescents/ teenagers (12 to 17 years of age)
- Adolescents are often seen as problem students.
- Adolescents may be the most exciting students of all while
they get engaged to what they are doing.
- Most of them understand the needs for learning and, with the
right goals, can be responsible enough to do what is asked of
them.

13.  Adult learners (18 over)
Adult language learners are notable for a number of special
characteristics:
- They can engage with abstract thought.
- They have a whole range of life experiences to draw on.
- They have expectations about the learning process, and they
already have their own set patterns of learning.
- Adult tend to be more disciplined than other age group, and
crucially, they are often prepared to struggle on despite
boredom.

14. - They come into classroom with a rich range of experiences
which allow teachers to use a wide range of activities with
them.
- Unlike young children and teenagers, adult learners often
have a clear understanding of why they are learning and what
they want to get out of it.

15.  However, adults are never entirely problem-free learners,
they have a number of characteristics which can sometimes
make learning and teaching problematic.
- They can be critical of teaching methods. Their previous
learning experiences may have predisposed them to one
particular methodological style which makes them
uncomfortable with unfamiliar teaching patterns.

16. - They may have experience failure or criticism at school
which makes them anxious and under-confident about
learning a language.
- Many older adults worry that their intellectual powers may
be diminishing with age.

17. B1. Aptitude and intelligence
The term Intelligence refers to the person's ability to gain and
use knowledge, but not what knowledge they already have.
Aptitude: An aptitude is directly connected to intelligence,
but is commonly believed to be a specific set of skills where
intelligence is a broad generalization.

18.  Good learners characteristics (Lightbown and Spada
2006: 55)
A good language learner:
- is a willing and accurate guesser.
- tries to get a message across even if specific language
knowledge is lacking.
- is willing to make mistakes.
- constantly looks for patterns in the language
- Practices as often as possible

19. - analyses his or her speech and the speech of the others.
- attends to whether his or her performance meets the
standards he or she has learned
- enjoys grammar exercises
- begins learning in childhood
- has an above-average IQ
- has good academic skills
- has a good self-image and lots of confidence

20. Learning styles based on Willing (1987) who suggested four
learner categories:
- Convergers: these are students who are by nature solitary,
prefer to avoid groups, and who are independent and
confident in their own abilities.

21. - Conformists: these are students who prefer to emphasize
learning ‘about language over learning to use it. They tend to
be dependent on those are in authority and are perfectly happy
to work in non-communicative classrooms, doing what they
are told.

22. - Concrete learners: though they are like conformists, they also
enjoy the social aspects of learning and like to learn from
direct experience. They like games and groups work in class.
- Communicative learners: these are language use oriented.
They are comfortable out of class and show a degree of
confidence and a willingness to take risks which their
colleagues may lack.

23.  Silly Questions
- What three words do students usually use the most?
- I don’t know
- What belongs to you but used most by the others?
- Your name
- What grows bigger, the more you get from it?
- A hole
- What always goes up but never comes down?
- Your age
- It’s black before we use it, red while using it, and grey after it
is used. What is it?
- Charcoal

24.  Nought and Cross
beautiful famous lazy excited curious
happy crazy busy handsome tall
short interested nasty confident ashamed
cruel important naughty popular rude
modern sophisticated nice brave smart
Note: Create the sentences by using superlative degree.

25. If some people are better at some things than others – better
at analyzing, for example – this would indicate that there
are differences in the ways individual brains work.
 Neuro – Linguistic Programming: according to
practitioners of Neuro – Linguistic Programming (NLP),
we use a number of “primary representation systems’ to
experience the world.

26. These systems are described in the acronym ‘VAKOG’
which stands for Visual (we look and see), Auditory (we
hear and listen), Kinaesthetic (we feel externally,
internally or through movement), Olfactory (we smell
things) and Gustatory (we taste things).

27.  MI theory: MI stands for Multiple Intelligences, a
concept introduced by Harvard psychologist Howard
Gardner.
- In his book, Frame of Mind, he suggested that we do not
posses a single of intelligence, but a range of intelligences
(Gardner, 1983).

28. - Gardner listed seven of these:
oMusical/ rhythmical/ auditory
o Verbal/ linguistic
o Visual/ spatial
o Bodily/ kinesthetic
o Logical/ mathematic
o Intrapersonal/ Solitary and
oInterpersonal/ Social

30. Students are generally described in three levels, beginner,
intermediate and advanced.
Advanced
Upper intermediate
Mid-intermediate
Lower intermediate/ pre-intermediate
Elementary
Real beginner false beginner

31. Teachers should give students more support when they
are at beginner or intermediate levels than we need to do
when they are more advanced.

32. Students acquire language partly as a result of the
comprehensible input they receive – especially from their
teachers.
We have to adjust the language we use to the level of the
students we are teaching.
- Students’ Norm:

33. D1. Defining motivation
Marion Williams and Robert Burden suggest that
motivation is a ‘state of cognitive arousal’ which
provokes a ‘decision to act’, as a result of which there is
‘sustained intellectual and/ or physical efforts’ so that the
person can achieve some ‘previously set goal’ (Williams
and Burden 1997: 120).

34.  In discussion of motivation an accepted distinction is made
between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, that is
motivation which comes from ‘outside’ and from ‘inside’.
- Extrinsic motivation = External motivation
- Intrinsic motivation = internal motivation

35. • Extrinsic motivation is the result of any number of outside
factors, for example the need to pass an exam, the hope of
financial reward or the possibility of future travel.
• Intrinsic motivation comes from within the individual.
Thus a person might be motivated by the enjoyment of the
learning process itself or by a desire to make themselves feel
better.

36.  The goal: one of the strongest outside sources of
motivation is the goal which students perceive themselves
to be learning for.
 The society they live in: Outside any classroom there are
attitudes to language learning and English language in
particular.

37.  The people around us: in addition to the culture of the
world around them, students’ attitudes to language
learning will be greatly influenced by the people who
are close to them. The attitude of parents and older
siblings will be crucial.
 Curiosity: At the beginning of a term or semester, most
students have at least a mild interest in who their new
teacher is and what it will be like to be in his or her
lessons.

38. - Teachers need to be able to build our own ‘motivation
angel’ to keep students engaged and involved as lesson
succeeds lesson, week succeeds week.
- The angel needs to be built on the solid base of the
extrinsic motivation which the students bring with them
to class. And on this base we will build our statue in
five distinct stages:

39.  Affect: is concerned with students’ feelings, and here we
as teachers can have dramatic effect. Students are far more
likely to stay motivated over a period of time if they think
that the teacher cares about them. This can be by building
good teacher- student rapport.

40. - Achievement: nothing motivates like success. Nothing
demotivates like continual failure. Part of a teacher’s job is
to set an appropriate level of challenge for the students in
learning tasks they can succeed in.

41.  Attitude: Students need to believe that we know what we
are doing. They also need to feel that we know about the
subject we are teaching. In addition, they also need to feel
that we are prepared to teach them. Even the way we dress,
where we stand and the way we walk to the class are all a
bearing.

42.  Activities: our students’ motivation is far more likely to
remain healthy if they are doing things they enjoy
doing, and which they can see the point of.
 Agency: agency is a term borrowed from social
sciences which means a person or thing ‘that does’ or
the ‘doer’.