Current Methods in English Language Teaching
COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING
Principles
Techniques
Questions
TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING
Principles
- The class activities have a perceived purpose and a clear outcome because students
are going to follow instructions given by the teacher, and they should be clear and
perfectly explained.
- A pre-task is very important because students need to work it in groups to work on
it individually later, in this way a pre-task is a helpful way that students be able to
assimilate something that will be required differently in the future or someway that they
understand a little bit of something as a kind of introduction.
- The teacher breaks down into smaller steps the logical thinking necessary to
complete the task, so they need to analyze the task and identify the mental steps a
learner needs to go through to complete it. Another important point is that the task
should be challenging but not too hard due to it should be adapted to their current
level.
- The teacher should be actively watching how students are during the task, how
they are feeling about the task and if they are ready for the task, and if the teacher
obtains negative answers, then teachers should adapt the task to them by giving more
support or more challenging and making adjustments considering the learners.
- The teacher should naturally adjust their language during instruction, especially in
the pre-task phase therefore the goal is to help students understand the task, not to test
their grammar so the teacher uses whatever language works best in the moment.
- Teachers supplies the correct target form by reforming or recasting what the
students have said, so if there is a student that says something wrong, the teacher must
reform/recast what student said correctly.
- The teacher provides good models of the target language by speaking in front of his
students correctly.
- The interaction among students will be done during the moment of completing a
task since each student is giving some of the information in order to complete it.
- Teachers shouldn’t interrupt students when they are making mistakes instead, he
just writes them down.
- At the end of the task, teachers must provide feedback to the students so that they are
able to know their level of success in completing the task.
- Students need to feel more invested in the task because this increases their
motivation and engagement, and also students have the opportunity to express their
ideas about the creation of task by means of choosing the topic of the task, deciding
how they want to complete it (in pairs, groups) and suggesting what kind of outcome
they want (poster, presentation, video).
- A public presentation encourages students to work on accuracy and organization,
as well as meaning. Since they need to show the teacher that they can perform a well-
done presentation in order to demonstrate how they could organize each other.
- Accordingly, in their reports or presentations, students use the language they have been
working on so it shows learners what they can and what they can’t yet do.
- “Listen and do” tasks promote acquisition of new vocabulary so this task of “follow-
up” can enhance/improve the learning that took place earlier.
Techniques
INFORMATION-GASP TASK
It involves the exchange of information among students in order to complete a task, as
discussed above, students had to exchange information within their groups in order to
complete the schedule. Other examples: One student is given a picture and describes the
picture for another student to draw
OPINION-GASP TASK
It requires that students express their personal preferences, feelings, or attitudes in
order to complete the task. First the students are given in a situation or topic, then they
must express their personal views, preferences or beliefs and finally they share and
compare their opinions with each other. It will help them to have authentic conversations
that people have in daily life.
REASONING-GAP TASK
First, they need to use logical thinking or deduction, combine given information in new
ways and communicate their reasoning to complete the task. At the previous
information, we saw that students worked in groups and recollected different information
among themselves, with that information they needed to use logical thinking in order to
find out which were the three most popular and the least popular subjects.
UNFOCUSED TASK
They are tasks designed to promote general language development, encouraging
natural communication and it doesn’t follow a specific grammatical structure, in
summary tasks provide learners with opportunities for communicating generally. (They use
their own language resources)
FOCUSED TASKS
Tasks are designed to provide opportunities for communicating using some specific
linguistics item, typically a grammar structure. (They need to use specific language
resources)
INPUT-PROVIDING TASKS
These tasks engage learners with the receptive skills of listening and reading
OUTPUT-PROVIDING TASKS
They stimulate the students to write or speak meaningfully.
Questions
TEACHER’S GOAL
To facilitate students’ language learning through a variety of tasks that have a specific
outcome.
TEACHER AND STUDENTS’ ROLE
Teacher must choose tasks, based on an analysis of students needs that are appropriate to
the level of students and to create “pre-tasks” and tasks “follow up” phases that are in line
with abilities and needs of the students. The teacher must be also observing all the time
searching for any problem that could arise.
The role of students is to communicate with their peers to complete the task.
CHARACTERISTICS
A pre-task is the first step before beginning a task sequence, during this phase teacher
will introduce the language that students will need to complete the task. They are relevant
because students need to see the importance of doing that task and how it can relate to
possible situations in the future or daily life situations.
STUDENT-TEACHER AND STUDENT-STUDENT INTERACTION
The teacher is the input provider during the initial phase of the lesson; he also sets the
tasks for students to perform and finally observes while making notes about where
language should be focused on and provides feedback. In addition, students work closely
together to help each other in order to complete the task.
STUDENTS’ FEELINGS
Students are motivated by doing tasks that prepare them for the real world
AREAS EMPHASIZED
All of them begin with listening and reading and then they will be able to speak and write.
ERRORS MADE BY STUDENTS
Error connection is done through recast or modeling or by giving brief grammar
explanations
CONTENT BASED INSTRUCTION
Principles
Techniques
Questions
LEARNING STRATEGY TRAINING, COOPERATIVE LEARNING AND
MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES
Principles
Techniques
Questions
EMERGING USES OF TECHNOLOGY
Principles
- Students find online tasks to be motivating, for example they can talk lively about the
assignments that the students have been working on.
- Learning takes place in social interactions, seeing each other face to face.
- Students are autonomous in what they share, because they can choose comments
from their blogs to share.
- Students work on authentic language which comes from interactions with other
through online or virtual communities, when we talk about authentic language, it is
referring to real-world English, not simplified textbooks dialogues and it also refer to
use natural grammar and the way people speak or write in real life.
- Students work together to understand confusing messages in case of need.
- Students can use their native language in order to discuss a response or in order to
aid comprehension
- There is less interest in linguistic structure and more interest in helping students to
deal with specific communicative situations
- Students construct their online identities in a way that is comfortable for them, in that
way they can express themselves using, for example social media such as Facebook.
- Students can express how they know how to do it, it is not necessarily they are able to
speak in the same way as a native speaker because they are not, instead, it is ok if the
message is grammatically accurate
- Reflecting on language and developing language awareness are important since
students are taught to use the tools that technology provides.
- Students should figure out the variety of patterns, including collocations, or words
that go together in order to find out new grammar structures and then reply to
them.
- Students must know if there are certain words that are not used frequently, because
they are learning even more every day.
- Students can learn from each other through responses or mistakes
- By learning a language people should learn about how language is evolving currently,
because sometimes some phrases are correct grammatically but some of them are not
used by native speakers of the language.
- Students have a good deal of freedom in choosing what they will engage with in and out
of class
- Teachers use archives of online student work to evaluate and to guide them.
Techniques
Blogs
They can be thought of as online diaries or journals, they also can be private and
controlled with passwords, or public. Its principal function is to post comments since blogs
are written by people remarking on their travels, daily life, and current events. They
are a rich source of authentic material for reading, discussion and study.
Computer-assisted Language Learning Software
Some of the call programs are open source, which means that they are free and can easily
be downloaded onto individual computers. Some of the CALL programs focus on
vocabulary or grammar practice, reading comprehension and improving
pronunciation as well.
Digital Portfolio
The teacher compiled a digital archive or portfolio of student work in order to have a file
of student work.
Distance Education
It provides access to languages that might not be available otherwise, and it also is
better than total distance education, obviously distance education is better than having no
opportunity to study a language at all.
Electronic Chatting
At least 2 people must be online simultaneously in order to chat. While the great
majority of chats are in writing, there is also a fast-growing number that also offer voice or
video communication. Skype is the best option; it allows for real spoken communication
across countries and continents.
E-pen Pals
They are like emails and students are encouraged to share in writing about themselves, their
lives, and their cultures in the target language. In general, they have to describe their
environment around them.
Electronic Presentations
Microsoft power point is the best tool for presenting, they can be multimedia, using text,
images, sounds, animations or videos.
Electronic Text Corpora
They are collections of language texts, most often written, but sometimes spoken texts in
transcript form. By entering a word or a phrase into a website, a concordance, a list with the
target item as it used in limited contexts. Knowing the distribution and frequency of
linguistic forms can be very helpful to language learners.
Cell Phone-based Applications: Text Messaging and Twitter
Twitter is an instant messaging system that lets people send brief text messages to a set of
interested people on any activity or event in which they are participating or opinion
they wish to offer. The language used is typically informal.
Podcast
They are digital audio and visual recordings that can be created and downloaded.
Social Networking
The purpose of such sites is for participants to share thoughts, activities, photos, videos
and links to websites with others whom they’re connected to through their social
network site. Through the network provided at the site, one can share a key event or idea
with many other participants simultaneously.
Questions
TEACHER’S GOAL
The teacher seeks to provide students with access to authentic language. It should be
used in interaction with others and in relation to knowledge creation. Learning using
technology is important because it makes students more autonomous learners.
TEACHER AND STUDENTS’ ROLE
The teacher’s role is to plan activities that students accomplish via technological means.
The student’s role is to be actively involved in using the language, in taking risks with
the language by connecting with others
CHARACTERISTICS
Learning a language while you use technology brings students into contact with
authentic language use because it is a non-linear process, there is not a set of steps to
follow, language is emergent, dynamic and continually evolving.
STUDENT-TEACHER AND STUDENT-STUDENT INTERACTION
The teacher guides the process while students enjoy a great deal of autonomy (buen trato
de autonomia) over what is focused on. In another hand students interact with each other in
many ways such as working together on websites or blogs, editing one another’s writing
and participating in online discussions.
STUDENTS’ FEELINGS
They are motivated by online tasks; they can choose how to represent themselves in their
profiles on social networks and in online communities.
AREAS EMPHASIZED
Personal statements, sharing of opinion or facts, reporting and reflecting are
emphasized. Computer use naturally requires the skills of reading and writing. Speaking
and listening are also used but the previous ones are the most used.
CULTURE AND LANGUAGE
Language is seen as a tool for social interaction, relationship building, and for knowledge
creation. Students learn about everyday life or culture of speakers of the target language
through their online interactions, for example they can visit virtually about different parts of
the world.
ERRORS MADE BY STUDENTS
Errors are not a preoccupation of the teacher since students are in a dynamic
environment where people interact with each other all the time editing one’s own work, so
they correct by themselves.
