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English as a global language English as a global language: the place of English: as a lingua franca the number of English speakers: million speak English; in Asia alone, 100 million children are learning English. How English got there: a colonial history, economics (globalization), travel, information exchange (academic discourse; the Internet), popular culture (music, movies) Varieties of English: inner circle, outer circle, and expanding circle; for specific or general purposes 3

Reasons of learning a second/foreign language Academic: to pursue degrees or certificates (* only a small portion in fact) Non-academic: (a) to survive in Target Language community e.g. talking to neighbors, helping children at school, or carrying out daily functions effectively (b) English for specific purpose (ESP): as to apply in work (c) Culture: to know about the target community Miscellaneous: to learn for pleasure, for integrating into a culture or to be forced to  To understand students ’ need and motivation of learning a language is crucial for successful learning and teaching. 4

Advantages children benefit from learning a foreign language: Children ’ s greater potential for developing accurate pronunciation, accent and fluency. Children ’ s favorable attitude towards a language and its culture, either their mother tongue or a second language. Children ’ s less mental barriers of learning than adults Children ’ s learning two languages simultaneously without suffering from inter-lingual interference 5

But “ learners of different ages have different characteristics ” is more preferable than the critical hypothesis. Besides, accurate pronunciation is not the most important goal of language learning but a necessary or desirable goal. There are also other factors that determine the effectiveness of one ’ s language learning such as teacher ’ s language competence, the learning environment and so on. 6

What is a good English learner/teacher? A Good learner of English is Willing to experiment Willing to listen Willing to ask questions Willing to think about how to learn Independent/responsible 7

What is a good English teacher? According to Brown (2001), a good language teacher is characterized by i) technical knowledge — understanding linguistics; grasping basic principles of language learning and teaching; language proficiencies in speaking, reading, writing and listening; knowledge about language learning process through one ’ s own experience; understanding the relationship between culture and language and knowledge of latest development of language teaching and learning. 8

ii) Pedagogical skills---well-informed language teaching approaches; teaching techniques; ability in lesson plan design and other classroom behavior management skills. iii) Interpersonal skills. iv) Personal qualities. 9

Important terms in TESOL TESOL—an acronym for teaching English to speakers of other languages, used, particularly in the USA, to describe the teaching of English in situations where it is either a second language or a foreign language. TEFL—an acronym for teaching English as a foreign language, used to describe the teaching of English in situations where it is a foreign language. TESL—an acronym for teaching English as a second language, used either to describe the teaching of English in situations where it is a second language or to refer to any situation where English is taught to speakers of other languages. 10

ESL — an abbreviation for English as a second language such as in Singapore EFL — an abbreviation for English as a foreign language such as Japan 11

Deductive learning of grammar— is an approach to language learning in which learners are taught rules and given specific information about a language. They then apply these rules when they use the language. it is widely used in EFL contexts where exposure to the target language is limited and the length of instruction time is short. (e.g. GTM, adult learners, FI/analytic learners, EFL contexts) 12

Inductive learning— is an approach to language learning in which learners are not taught grammatical or other types of rules directly but are left to discover or induce rules from their experience of using the language. It is time-consuming and applicable to young learners in natural settings such as ESL contexts. 13

Performance and competence Performance-- a person’s actual use of language; how a person uses his knowledge of a language in producing and understanding sentences. Competence-- a person’s knowledge of a language. 14

Acquisition vs. learning Acquisition--the processes by which people naturally develop proficiency in a language Learning-- the processes by which people formally develop language proficiency. 15 the Acquisition-learning hypothesis by Stephen Krashen- (1941-)

Bottom-up processing vs. Top-down processing Top-down processing — a way in which humans analyze and process language as part of the process of comprehension and learning by making use of previous knowledge (higher-level knowledge) in analyzing and processing information which is received such as one ’ s expectations, experience, schemata in reading the text. Bottom-up processing — a way making use principally of information which is already present in the data (words, sentences, etc.) such as understanding a text mainly by analyzing the words and sentences in the text itself. 16

Teacher-centered vs. learner-centered teaching Teacher-centered (fronted) teaching— a teaching style in which instruction is closely managed and controlled by the teacher, where students often respond in unison to teacher questions, and where whole-class instruction is preferred to other methods. Learner-centered teaching— methods of teaching which emphasizes the active role of students in learning, tries to give learners more control over what and how they learn and encourages learners to take more responsibility for their own learning. It is encouraged by many current teaching approaches. 17

Target language vs. native language Target language—the language which a person is Learning Native language— a first language or mother tongue which is acquired first. 18

Summary: Pair work Activity 19

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