A Madness to Our Methods

What is the best way to learn a 2nd/foreign language? Well what do we mean by “learn” a foreign language? What is the purpose of language? Why are you talking? To communicate? Communicative competence – -Ability to interpret and enact appropriate social behaviors, requires the active involvement of the learner in the production of the target language. What about accuracy?????

What are some of the methods that were discussed in the reading? Watch video

How long does it take? How long does it take a child to be able to produce grammatically correct speech consistently in the L1? How long does it take big people to learn a foreign language?

Small group activity….. Group 1: Let’s calculate, How many hours students in Spanish 101 have by the time they finish a semester, a year, and two years? Group 2: Ok, how about missionaries how many hours per day per week per month per year? Group 3: Study abroad students for 3 months taking 6 credit hours of Spanish. --Now, Where would you place your L2 skills on the ACTFL scale? Where do you think most students fall after a year of high school Spanish? Where do you think most returned missionaries fall? What does this tell us about taking a language in high school and/or college? For last question, click on link and look at number 4 last sentence, The Chancellor of the Defense Language Institute recently emphasized a similar point about DLI's students when he said: "The single most significant factor in language acquisition is time on task.

Behaviorism What is behaviorism? Pavlov’s dog and pigeon’s How does this apply to language learning? Parent, or interlocuter rewards correct utterances by child, incorrect utterances not rewarded. What’s the problem? Kids don’t repeat exactly what adults say!??!? Kids use and apply rules that are not taught.

Chomsky, Innatism What did Noam Chomsky suggest about language learning? LAD, Language Acquisition Device Kids, and adults hear language, Computer in the box decodes it Computer creates rules and sets parameters Computer can generate limitless combinations of grammatically correct utterances based on these rules.

Chomsky, Innatism What is the evidence for and against this theory? + Groups of people spontaneously form languages without overt planning, i.e. creoles + Brain damage to certain areas causes specific language problems with structure + Feral children - language must be directed at child for them to learn, watching TV alone won’t work!!!!???

Eight Great Principles of Comm. Lang. teaching Use Tasks as an Organizational Principle Promote Learning By Doing Input Needs to Be Rich Input Needs to Be Meaningful Comprehensible and Elaborated Promote Cooperative and Collaborative Learning Focus on Form Provide Error Corrective Feedback Recognize and Respect Affective Factors of Learning

Principles of Communicative/Task TeachinG Principle 1: Use Tasks as an organizing principle Get out a piece of paper Write down everything you did yesterday Share a little . . . Real World Tasks Preparation or Pedagogical Tasks

What is a task? Long (1985 p. 89) frames his approach to task-based language teaching in terms of target tasks, arguing that… a task is a piece of work undertaken, freely or for some reward. examples of tasks, painting a fence, dressing a child, filling out a form, . . . .taking a hotel reservation, writing a cheque, finding a street destination and helping someone across a road. 'task' = the hundred and one things people do in everyday life, at work, at play, and in between.

Principles of Communicative/Task TeachinG 1. Will the activity engage learners' interest? 2. Is there a primary focus on meaning? 3. Is there a goal or an outcome? 4. Is success judged in terms of outcome? 5. Is completion a priority? 6. Does the activity relate to real world activities? -And duh, Interaction-Do they have to talk to complete the objective? Which of the things on your list might be a language learning task?

Example Task Call the airline and reconfirm a reservation you have. Provide personal details such as name, flight number and date. Check other details, such as terminal, time of departure, and time you have to be at the airport and seating preference.

Eight Great Principles of Comm. Lang. teaching 3. Input needs to be rich So input needs to have a lot of money?????? What’s input????? and What do we mean by rich????? Is it ok for students not to understand everything??? Authentic v. Inauthentic Examples:

Eight Great Principles of Comm. Lang. teaching 3. Input needs to be rich So input needs to have a lot of money?????? What’s input????? and What do we mean by rich????? Is it ok for students not to understand everything??? Authentic v. Inauthentic, with a partner examine a text and determine which parts provide authentic or inauthentic input

Eight Great Principles of Comm. Lang. teaching 4. Input needs to be meaningful, comprehensible and elaborated What is comprehensible input? Ask a partner: How could you make this video more comprehensible? -Play it in smaller bits -repeat -give more background How about when speaking to your class?

Eight Great Principles of Comm. Lang. teaching 5. Promote cooperative and collaborative learning What is it???? What’s the difference between cooperative and collaborative? Why should we do either????? Especially important in language learning -fosters practice = automaticity, fluency -negotiation of meaning = provides feedback and input

Eight Great Principles of Comm. Lang. teaching 6. Focus on form Diff ‘tween focus on form and focus on formS ???? Contrast these two statements that a teacher could make at the beginning of the class: -Today we are going to learn the imperfect, which helps us talk about the past v. -By the end of class today you will be able to tell Spanish speakers about all those funny, sad and interesting things you did as a kid. To do that we need to learn about the imperfect… What is different about these two? How would you react as a student to each of these???

Eight Great Principles of Comm. Lang. teaching 7. Provide Error Corrective Feedback Does correcting students help???? Yes, but mostly over time, noticing Here are some common ways of correcting students’ speech: Recasting Telling students “You said it wrong, say it like this…” Hinting that something is wrong and asking for clarification. Let’s practice, Practice with each other -

Eight Great Principles of Comm. Lang. teaching 8. Recognize and Respect Affective Factors of Learning What’s more important in successful language learning motivation or aptitude(talent)?

Eight Great Principles of Comm. Lang. teaching Hola, ¿Cómo te llamas? No, preferiría que el presidente utilizara su poder de otro modo, por ejemplo With whom do you feel the most comfortable or uncomfortable speaking your second language? Affective filter What is affect? Acquisition can only occur when the affective filter is lowered, i.e. low anxiety Input LAD output El País, BBC Mundo, La voz de tu maestra