Thursday 9 August 2012

Brown's 12 Principles - An Interactive Approach to Learning Pedagogy

#1 – Automaticity

  • Efficient 2nd language learning involves a timely movement of the control of a few language forms into the automatic processing of a relatively unlimited number of language forms.
  • Automaticity – the road to fluency

#2 – Meaningful Learning

  • Meaningful learning will lead toward better long-term retention than rote learning.
  • Appeals to student interests
  • Connects new info to old info (good schemata building)
Meaningful Learning – Don’ts
  • Too much grammar explanation
  • Abstract principles and theories
  • Too many drills and memories
  • Activities with unclear purposes
  • Extraneous activities
  • Distractions that take the focus off of meaning


#3 – The Anticipation of Reward

  • Human beings are universally driven to act, or “behave,” by the anticipation of some sort of reward – tangible or intangible, short term or long term – that will ensue as a result of the behavior
  • Anticipation of Reward
  • Encourage for confidence, not an Oscar
  • Encourage students to encourage students
  • Be excited and enthusiastic!!
  • It’s a long and winding road – keep an eye on the end rewards – get your students to look there, too

#4 – Intrinsic Motivation Principle

  • The most powerful rewards are those that are intrinsically motivated within the learner.
  • What is motivation?
    • It is the extent to which you make choices about (a) goals to pursue and (b) the effort you will devote to that pursuit
  • Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic
    • Intrinsic brings feeling of competence and self-determination
    • Extrinsic is all about gaining an award or avoiding punishment

#5 – Strategic Investment

  • Successful mastery of the 2nd language will be due to a large extent to a learner’s own personal “investment” of time, effort, and attention to the 2nd language.
  • Strategic Investment
  • Strategic Investment
  • Multiplicity of learning styles and strategies = multiplicity of techniques
  • Group and individual; oral, written, bubbles, maps, graphics, etc
  • Not everyone has to comfortable at every single moment of every lesson, so push people!

#6 – Language Ego

  • As human beings learn to use a 2nd language, they also develop a new mode of thinking, feeling, and acting – a 2 nd identity.
  • Language Ego – Student TLC
  • Be supportive because adult learners often feel stupid!
  • Be challenging but kind in activities
  • Think about LEs in planning class logistics (who to call on, correct, “volunteer”, how to pair or group etc)

#7 – Self-Confidence

  • The eventual success that learners attain in a task is at least partially a factor of their belief that they indeed are fully capable of accomplishing the task.
  • Self- Confidence
  • Build/sequence activities to build confidence.
  • Encourage students – let them know that you know they can do the work
  • You should have it, too!

#8 -- Risk-Taking

  • Successful language learners, in their realistic appraisal of themselves as vulnerable beings yet capable of accomplishing tasks, must be willing to gamble.
    • Ashima in The Namesake!
  • Create an atmosphere in the classroom that encourages students to try out language, venture a response
  • Provide reasonable challenges
  • Return students’ risky attempts with positive affirmation

#9 -- The Language-Culture Connection

  • Whenever you teach a language, you also teach a complex system of cultural customs, values, and ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.
  • Discuss cultural differences without being judgmental
  • Consciously connect culture and language
  • Don’t be culturally offensive in the class – that’s so easy!
  • Be ready to discuss your cultural blind spots and assumptions
  • Pay attention to possible culture shock

#10 – The Native Language Effect

  • The NL of learners will be a highly significant system on which learners will rely to predict the target language system.
  • Errors are windows to interlanguage; is it the native language?!?!
  • Help students to hold onto the helpful aspects of their NL
  • Stop translation in its tracks! Think in the target language!!!

#11 -- Interlanguage

  • 2nd language learners tend to go through a systematic or quasi-systematic developmental process as they progress to full competence in the TL.
  • Distinguish between interlanguage errors and all others
  • Tolerate interlanguage forms that make sense and show learning
  • Don’t make the Ss feel stupid
  • Treat mistakes like an oil dipstick
  • Encourage self-correction
  • Don’t let your corrections make students afraid of speaking

#12 -- Communicative Competence

    • Since CC is the goal of a language class, instruction needs to point toward all of its components: organizational, pragmatic, and psychomotor.
    • Communicative goals are best achieved by giving due attention to:
      • language use and not just usage
      • fluency and not just accuracy
      • authentic language and contexts
      • students’ eventual need to apply classroom learning to unrehearsed contexts in the real world
    • Communicative Competence is:
    • A combo plate of:
      • Organizational competence = grammatical and discourse
      • Pragmatic competence = functional and sociolinguistic
      • Psychomotor skills (pronunciation, intonation
  • Grammar is just one part of a lesson
  • Functional & sociolinguistic aspects of language are fun, but don’t forget the psychomotor skills
  • Allow students to become fluent
  • Be real – in your materials
  • Help students become independent learners and users of language
 

Why the 12?

  • Keep your lessons honest
  • Keep your lessons about student learning and not teacher entertainment
  • Provide a form of evaluation that allows you to assess a lesson, adapt it and be ready for a better next-go-round

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