Multiple Intelligences as Strategy for Teaching EFL to high school graduates

Страница 2

The scholars’ve considered the relation of methodology of FLT to other sciences ( supplement 1).

The objective of the present research is integrating some aspects of knowledge of English, didactics, psychology, linguistics to formulate basic professional and pedagogical habits and skills. In G. Rogova’s opinion, methodology covers three main points:

aims of TEFL;

content of TEFL;

methods ( supplement 2), principles and techniques of TEFL.

But it becomes evident that the three components do not constitute the whole teaching/learning process. The activities of learners and teachers, their interaction (symmetrical or assymetrical) and the role of instruction materials are the outstanding constituents. The task of methodology is to integrate the relationships among them and to draft requirements for each of them.

Teaching a subject is viewed here not simply as the delivery of prescribed formulate, imparting a certain amount of knowledge, but also developing habits and skills, but also as activity.

To attain these aims in the most effective way constitutes the main subject of any methodology. The methodology determines the laws, principles, aims, content, methods, techniques and means (media) of teaching. The actual teaching of a language may differ in the analysis of what is to taught, in the planning of lessons, in the teaching techniques used, in the type and amount of teaching done thought mechanical means and finally, in the testing of what has been learned.

Basic Categories Of Methodology

The methodology of TEFL seems to embody such basic categories on which there is general agreement among those who have studied the subject: methods, principles, techniques, aims and means of instruction.

There is no unanimity regarding the term method either. In G. Rogova’s et. al. view “method is a technological operation, structural and functional component of the teacher’s and learner’s activity, realized in techniques and principles of instruction. A method is a model of instruction based on definite theoretical provision, principle, techniques and aims of instruction.

A method is also a specific set of teaching techniques and materials generally backed by stated principles.

A method determines what and how much taught (selection), the order in which it is taught (gradation), and how the meaning and form are conveyed (presentation). Since presentation, drill and repetition may also be the concern of the teacher, the analysis of the teaching/leaning process must first determine how much is done by the method and how much by the teacher.

Aim is a direction or guidance to establish a course or procedure to be followed. The teacher should formulate long-term goals, interim aims and short-term objectives. What changes he can bring about in his pupils at the end of the week, month, year, course, and each particular lesson. Hence, aims are planned results for pupils learning a FL. The aims are stipulated by syllabus and other official directives. They are: practical, instructional, educational and developing (formative).

Practical aims cover habits and skills which pupils acquire in using a foreign language. A habit is an automatic response to specific situation, acquired normally as a result of repetition and learning.

A skill is a combination of useful habits serving a definite purpose and requiring application of certain knowledge.

Instructional aims developed the pupils mental capacities and intelligence in the process of FLL (foreign language learning).

Educational aims help the pupils extend their knowledge of the world in which they live.

Formative or developing aims help develop in learns sensual perception, motor, kinesthetic, emotional and motivating spheres.

Principles are basic underlying theoretical provisions which determine the choice of methods, techniques and others means of instruction.

Technique in the methodology of TEFL is the manner of presentation, demonstration, consolidation and repetition.

Means is something by the use or help of which a desired goal is attained or made more likely.

1.1.1. Present-day issues of TEFL

A critical review of methods currently employed in TEFL/TESL has shown no consensus on the effective way to facilitate and accelerate English learning. A shift has been made from teacher-centered activity to student-centered, some methodologists even claim that learning is more important than teaching (Michael West, Humanistic Approach, Silent Way).

Though many young teachers still teach the way they had been taught, it can’t be denied that current thinking in methodology constitutes a challenge to convention thinking about language teaching.

One of the conventional methods of TEFL is the Grammar-Translation method (G-TM):

The goal of foreign language (FL) study, using this method, is to learn a language in order to read its literature or to benefit from the mental discipline and intellectual development that result from FL study. G-TM is a way of studying language that approaches the language first through detailed analysis of its grammar rules, followed by application of the knowledge to the task of translating sentences and texts into and out of the target language. The first language is maintained as the reference system in the acquisition of the second language.

Reading and writing are the major focus: little or no systematic attention is paid to speaking or listening.

In a typical G-T text, the grammar rules are presented and illustrated, a list of vocabulary items is presented with their translation equivalents, and translation exercise a prescribed.

the sentence is the basic unit of teaching and language practice. Much of the lesson is devoted to translating sentences into and out of the target language, and it is this focus on the sentence that is a distinctive feature of the method.

of grammar rules, which are then practised through translation Accuracy is emphasized. Students are expected to attain high standarts in translation, because of “the high priority attached to meticulous standards of accuracywhich was a prerequisite for passing the increasing numberof formal written examinations that grew up during the century"

Grammar is taught deductively, that is, by presentation and study exercises.

The student's native language is the medium of instruction. It is used to explain new items and to enable comparisons to be made between the FL and the student's mother tongue. (G-TM dominated in FLT from the 1840s to the 1940s, and in modified form it continues to be widely used in some parts of the world today).

In the mid- and late nineteenth centuries opposition to G- TM gradually developed in several European countries. This Reform Movement, as it was referred to, laid the foundations for the development of a new way of language teaching and raised controversies that have continued to the present day.

From the 1880s, however, practically minded linguists like Henry Sweet in England, Wilhelm Victor in Germany and Paul Passy in France began to promote their intellectual leadership needed to give reformist ideas greater credibility and acceptance.

The main principles of their theory were:

the study of the spoken language;

phonetic training;

an inductive approach to the teaching of grammar;

teaching new meanings through establishing associationswithinthe target language rather than by establishing associations with the mother tongue;

translation should be avoided, although the mother tongue could be used in order to explain new words orto check comprehension.

The idea put forward by members of the Reform Movement had a role to play in developing principles of FLT out of naturalistic approach to language learning. This led to what has been termed 'natural method' and ultimately led to the development of what came to be known as the Direct Method.

In the 1920s and 1930s H.E.Palmer, A.S.Hornby and other British linguists developed an approach to methodology that involved systematic principles of selection (the procedures by which lexical and grammatical content was chosen), gradation (principles by which the organization and sequencing of content were determined), and presentation (techniques used for presentation and practice of items in a course). Their general principles were referred to as the oral approach to language teaching. The characteristic feature of the approach was that new language points were introduced and practised situationally.