Methods as a science of foreign language teaching

Chapter I
Methods as a science of foreign language teaching

1.1 The definition of methods
For ancient times people had ability to learn language but not until the twentieth century theory of language acquisition has been elaborated. That theory treating
of children being born with a specific set of principles connected with language is called by Noam Chomsky as the “Universal Grammar”. The two parts of UG are Nativist Approach and LAD is a basis on which the science of how to teach language, inter alia foreign language. In the linguistics the process of teaching students is called a methods. That practical discipline deals with methods of teaching selected contents, “a framework of organization for language teaching which relates linguistic theory to pedagogical principles and techniques” (Halliday, McIntosh and Strevens 1964: 201). The word method is widely known in all European languages and has its origin in Greek word ‘methodos’ which is derived from the word “hodos”, meaning “way”, and prefix “meta”, meaning “with” or ”after”.
It is necessary to distinguish methods and methodology. Methodology seems to be synonym to methods but in fact it is not. As Ronald Carter refers it:
Methodology refers to the range of teaching methods, procedures and strategies adopted by a teacher in order to help learners to acquire
a language. Methodologies do not have to be influenced by applied linguistics but they are likely to be sounder and more successful if they draw on insights into processes of language development provided by applied linguistic research. It is also likely that the more teachers understand about the structure and organisation of language, the more principled and systematic can be their choices and design of language learning activities.(1993:50)

Like mentioned above, methodology is not the same as methods. Methodology is
a study of methods which gives a basis ground to it, a science which deals with supposition: what to do to teach a student a foreign language, while methods deals with supposition: how to do that.
It is proved that to achieve the goal which is teaching students foreign language, in that case English, there is needed to satisfy some requirements and obey some rules. Douglas Brown distinguishes 12 teaching principles grouped into 3 major principle categories: cognitive, affective and linguistic ones.

1.2 Cognitive principles of English teaching
Cognitive principles, which are related with intellectual and mental factors, include: Automaticity, Meaningful Learning, The Anticipation of Reward, Intrinsic Motivation and Strategic Investment.

1.2.1 Automaticity
The Principle of Automaticity says that children learning language starts with learning step by step, word by word, unit by unit and then creates/built the whole language. Sooner or later together with children growing up the situation changes from learning piece by piece into learning language automatically, without considering every single feature like word order, suffixes, affixes and others, in form of its high-speed. The same situation is with adults learning language- they have to change the language transforming but that is much slower that in the case of children. Automaticity has some important matters to satisfy:
• language should be absorbed subconsciously throughout meaningful usage;
• efficacious and rapid movement should be taken away from a focus on language form to a focus on purposes of language, as well as from capacity limited control of some pieces and units to a relatively limitless automatic mode of language forms’ transforming language forms;
• refusal to the enticement to analysis of language forms.
All above factors when satisfied should help teaching students language. Concentrating more on functional purposes than formal aspects of language helps achieving fluency and teachers should start motivating students to use language. That should help stop blocking students against achieving automatic fluency of spoken language.

1.2.2 Meaningful Learning
According to Brown, the Principle of Meaningful Learning is closely related
to the previous one, “convincingly argue the strength of meaningful as opposed to rote learning”. (2000:56) Rote learning, considering single pieces of information, has rather little opportunity to creat permanent retention while meaningful learning creats strong retention by involving and linking new information with those existing before into memory systems and structures. That principle gives an information about the needed some aural-oral exercises. Chosen phonological components, such as stress, rhythm, phonemes and intonation, can help teach effectively using repetition system. As every principle Meaningful Learning has implications in classroom teaching, to which could be included:
• alluring to students’ interests, hobbies, carrer or academic goals to capitalise the power of meaningful learning;
• connecting new concepts or topics with students’ existing knowledge to make
it easier to aquire;
• elude the rote learning pitfalls, such as too much explanation of grammar, principles, theories, too much memorising, issues that are not clear enough, techniques and activities being not appropriate and not stricly conencted with achieving the goal of lesson.

1.2.3 The Anticipation of Reward
The next teaching principles is called The Principle of the Anticipation
of Reward and deals with rewarding students in public, by using such expressions as for example “very good” or “great job”, against indicating their success, even if they only correctly pronounced word or sentence, to motivate them to learn more. Like every principle, also that one is not a perfect one and has some shortcomings. It is proved that by using rewarding system, students in learning language may be dependent on those rewards, would get used to rewards and learn only to get them, for their own benefits and may help development of instrinsic system of rewarding- but confidentially administrated by students, not teachers. As well some implication of the Anticipation
of Reward principle should be mentioned:
• long verbal stream of reward should not be used to encourage students to believe in their ability to learn more effective, just optimal, short verbal praise
is enough;
• making reward in not ordinary way, such as in case of younger children gold stars could help, make students more open to perceive their personal development in learning language and make them more motivated;
• teacher showing his/her excitement or enthusiasm and showing them benefits connected with knowing English, such as for example ability to travel around the world, to have better job, make students behave in similar way,
so enthusaistically learning that language.

1.2.4 Intrinsic Motivation
As The Anticipation of Reward principle was connected with rewarding students, that the same is with Intrinsic Motivation principle which deals with rewards innately motivated within the student. The motivation and success of that principle is based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in which self-actualisation is on the top. People whose the most basic needs are not sated cannot concentrate on satisfying higher needs. Properly motivated person learn more effective which helps teacher to thrive.

1.2.5 Strategic Investment
To learn second language, the learner needs to invest his/her own effort, time and attention in order to make own way to acquire, learn and then use language.
As shown before, also student’s input into language learning is very important. The role of teacher here is to reach to every single student to motivate him/her to attend classes and improve his/her knowledge of language. That task is much more difficult because
of diversity of students’ characters, personalities and ways of learning language. Some students need to learn individually in silence, while others prefer active using communicative skills. Only choosing appropriate teaching method concerning either easier exercises, individual work and visual techniques or more difficult exercises, group work and auditory techniques is better teaching technique in bigger classes.

1.3 Affective principles of English teaching
Cognitive principles are connected with intellectual and mental factors while affective one are closely connected with emotions, both internal, learners’ relationships and emotional connection between culture and language. To affective principles are included: Language Ego, Self-Confidence, Risk-Taking and The Language-Culture Connection.

1.3.1 Language Ego
As Brown claims, person together with learning second language create second identity, so-called “language ego” or “warm and fuzzy” principle. On the one hand, Strategic Investment renders to mix different teaching techniques as a good solution to teaching students with different personalities. On the other hand, person starting learn second language may have problems with face-to-face communication because of lacking words or whole structures in language he/she learns. Those situations make them feel totally defenseless and some affective support is needed, such as:
• overtly manifested patience in correcting students’ mistakes and empathy with understanding that learners has just started struggle with laboriousness of aquiring second language;
• relevant selection of techniques proper to students’ level;
• pondering students’ language ego states could help to specify such things as, for example, asking someone to volunteer information or which students match to work in pairs or groups.

1.3.2 Self-Confidence
The second affective principle is connected with Language Ego and is called not only Self-Confidence but also “I can do it!” or the self-esteem principle and deals with student’s belief in an ability to achieve the goal, in that case to accomplish the task.
To achieve it students need nonverbal and verbal assurance from teacher, which
is helping to believe in his/her abilities and demolition of emotional walls between teacher and student.
As was mentioned above with Strategic Investment principle, teaching techniques should be chosen appropriately to level of students, sequencing them from those easier, starting from easier concepts and tasks, getting on those more difficult.

1.3.3 Risk-Taking
If the two previous principles properly satisfied, gives the basic ground to the third one of affective principles, called Risk-Taking Principle. Students having identified with their new ego fragility and developed language confidence can undertake risk involved into language learning. Risk includes, inter alia, asking questions, answer questions, trying use newly acquired language and to assert themselves. To make the task easier for learners, teacher should satisfy some needs:
• creating atmosphere conducive to students to practice speaking language before someone else would do that before them;
• choosing teaching teachniques appropriate to students’ level;
• helping students in understanding why is it worth to undertake risk in learning;
• responding students’ for undertaking risk, showing them positive affirmation and praising them while slightly interacting into their language.

1.3.4 The Language-Culture Connection
The last one of affective principles is The Language-Culture Connection. Language and culture has been always linked to each other and while learning language is not plausible to not learn anything about the culture connected with that language. That principle is divided by Douglad Brown into two aspects: the complex interconnection of culture and language and the extent of students’ affection into language by process called acculturation.
According to the first aspect handling with the complex interconnection of culture and language, Brown in his book Teaching by Principles. An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy claims:
Whenever you teach a language, you also teach a complex system of cultural customes, values, and ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. (2000: 64)

To help students deal with the problem of not accepting the culture of speakers of language they learn, teacher should for example:
• discuss cross-cultural differences as important impact of learning language, stressing that every culture is equal;
• include materials and activities helping illustrate connection between culture and language, teach cultural connotations including sociolinguistic aspects of that connection and connotations.
According to the second aspect of The Language-Culture Connection principle, which is the extent of students’ affection into language by process called acculturation , modifying learning context and goals. Using some teachniques of English, such as ESL in the United States, learners are impelled to realise their potential in circumstances of reality and make a stand against living language. In those circumstances learners also have to deal with such factors as psychological adjustment, acculturation and social distance. This aspect of The Language-Culture Connection principle is a good way to connect language learning with culture learning in a foreign country.

1.4. Linguistic principles of English teaching
Having described two previous categories of teaching principles, it is worth to describe the last group, which are called linguistic principles, including: The Native Language Effect principle, Interlanguage principle and Communicative Competence principle.

1.4.1 The Native Language Effect
The first principle from Linguistic principles group is called The Native Language Effect. To make further assumptions to that principle there is needed to say that the learner’s native language is the most significant and important factor in second language acquisition. Very often learner starting learn second language make
an assumption that all the targets in foreign language operates in the same way like in his/her native language. That phenomenon is called interfering effect.
The next one effect is called facilitating effect and is connected with the previous one. Student learning foreign language very often makes a copy from his/her native language which results in making mistakes, especially those grammatical ones.

1.4.2 Interlanguage
The second of linguistic principles, called Interlanguage principle, deals with systematic stages and proggres in aquiring second language. As child acquire language step by step with systematic progress, the same adults acquire it with specific systematic schema. Linguists distinguish both nonsystematic and nonsystematic linguistic forms and rules. Not always that what is correct in learner’s opinion has to be correct for native speaker beacuse only while talking with person who has real-live contact with that language, the correctness of learner’s spoken language may be examined properly. To teach a student use language correctly there is need to give him/her a positive affective feedback and certainty if his/her language is clear and has no ambiguity. To achieve it needed is to:
• distinguish learner’s systematic interlanguage mistakes from those of another range;
• be tolerant for using by learner certain interlanguage forms produced in a way of logical and developmental process;
• empathise in learner’s situation and try to understand errors he/she makes and try to correct him/her gently;
• help learner’s to self-correct his/her mistakes;
• encourage learner to speak.

1.4.3 Communicative Competence
The last one principle is called Communicative Competence (CC) principle. CC consists of four comptence components:
• organisational
• pragmatic
• strategic
• psychomotor skills
As Douglas Brown claims, it is proved that Communicative Competence is the most important of linguistic principles:
Given that communicative competence is a goal of language classroom, instruction needs to point toward all its components: organizational, pragmatic, strategic and psychomotor. Communicative goals are best achieved by giving due attention to language use and not just usage, to fluency and not just accuracy, to authentic language and contexts, and to students’ eventual need to apply classroom learning to previously unrehearsed contexts in the real world. (2000:69)

To achieve what quoted above, six teaching rules have to be obeyed:
• Grammatical explanations and exercises are only a part of the whole lesson and other components of CC are also important so should not be omitted, such as pronunciation being a part of every communicative competence components.
• The aim of teaching is subtly explaining difficult pragmatic aspects of language.
• Students should be motivated to gain fluency in speaking- without being corrected with every small mistake.
• Teaching techniques should be used as very authetnic- using language which would be used by students in the real life while examining their speaking skills.

All the twelve principles described above create a major theoretical insight, which helps teachers to deal with problems and mistakes, happening in the process of teaching, and make teaching more effective.