From Theories to Practice

 

From Theories to Practice

How can the language teaching methodologies and approaches be applied to fulfill the English curriculum guidelines in Taiwan?

🤡 Choose the English curriculum guidelines you would examine: Junior High School

🤩 It’s crazy if you cover all of the language teaching methodologies and approaches in your writing, so check those that you want to explore and discuss.

• Grammar translation method
  (traditional)
• Direct teaching (only teach in L2, no L1 allowed, contrast to Grammar translation method)
• Structural method
  (all about grammar, learn by sequence)
• Audiolingual method
  (focus on listening and speaking, use dialogs and drills, based on Behaviorism)
• Situational method
  (focus on speaking, structures, and basic vocabulary, repetition, no errors and grammar pattern)
• Communicative approach
  (Communicative Language Teaching, CLT, real communication, eg, ask students personal questions: stimulates meaningful communication, student-centered, teacher as facilitator: fluency and accuracy)
• Silent way
  (based on Constructivism: cognition, visual representation, use color represented sounds, teacher says as little as possible)
• Suggestopedia/Desuggestipedia
  (playful environment, steps: deciphering, music, production stage)
• Community language learning
  (Communicative Language Teaching, CLT, interaction, stimulate the real communication, true communication: information, choice and feedback, mastering linguistic structures not equal to mastering communication)
• Total physical response TPR (body movement, learning styles: visual, auditory and kinesthetic, use actions, break sentences(words) into words(syllabes))
• Participatory approach
  (allow learners to set the agenda and talk about issues important to them, more complex content)

• 
  
• Translanguaging
  (use multiple languages in classroom, can be used in bilingual classroom, input-processing-output)

• (see p.33-34)

• Forward design 

• Backward design 

• (see p.35)

• Curriculum as product

• Curriculum as process

In this assignment, think about these questions: “Based on our curriculum guidelines, are those language teaching methodologies and approaches going to work? In what ways are they going to work?” 

😡Start writing here:

Based on our curriculum guidelines, I want to share my insights on the possibility of adopting these two teaching methods, direct teaching and translanguaging.

Firstly, direct teaching cannot be adopted well in Taiwan’s learning environment. Direct teaching requires native teachers and an environment that only uses target language. According to the curriculum guidelines, it might be great to improve students’ communication skills, like Core Competency Dimension B, Interactive Communication, because it provides the environment for them to use English and practice it in many different situations. However, our government cannot fulfill these requirements well. For example, when I was doing the homework last week, my teacher told me that there was a new foreign teacher distributed to her school by the government. He came from Africa, and told her that he had many teaching experiences. But then, they found out that he didn’t have any materials and was not willing to prepare the materials. He even left the school without hanging back those items his colleagues lent him. As a result, I would say that direct teaching is a great way to teach languages; however, the conditions of Taiwan cannot apply it well. We don’t have enough qualified teachers to do so.

The other method I want to discuss is translanguaging, which can work in our curriculum guidelines. Translanguaging method allows students to use multiple languages in class, including different native languages, which is often done by task-based learning. Connected to our curriculum guidelines, the international communication skills and global worldview it wants to train students can be linked to the Core Competency Dimension C, Social Participation, especially, C2 Interpersonal Relationships and Teamwork and C3 Cultural and Global Understanding. Also, task-based learning is perfect for students to learn the value of the Core Competency Dimension A. It helps them to improve their skills in A2 Logical Thinking and Problem Solving and A3 Planning, Execution, Innovation, and Adaptation. To accomplish a task, they should practice logical thinking, analyzing, organizing, changing and finally solving the problem by exploring themselves. As for myself, when I was in vocational senior high school, I was also given some tasks to learn. For example, tutoring my hometown, Hsinchu city, to the international students in English. To me, it was a difficult and complicated task, since I needed to think about the routes, content, translation and my guests’ needs. I would look for the information in Mandarin, not only because it is my native language but also because most of the historical content is written in Mandarin. Then, try to adapt the content to English, and organize the whole tour guide. Finally, introduce my hometown to them in English. I have to say that it is a complicated task, and I got really anxious at the beginning. However, after completing the task, I felt proud of myself and learned a lot from the experience which other written homework cannot provide. As a result, I think translanguaging can be adopted based on our curriculum guidelines as long as teachers can provide students with affordable and suitable tasks according to their ability.