Essay n º 3
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This document discusses strategies and educational focuses used in professional English language teaching practices. It examines the evolution of approaches from behaviorist/conductist theories, which emphasized stimulus-response associations and imitation, to cognitive theories focusing on mental representations and problem-solving. Later, constructivist theories viewed learning as an internal construction based on students' prior experiences. Key methods discussed include the oral/situational approach, audiolingual method, cognitive code, communicative approach, natural method, and whole language approach. The conclusion is that while theories have progressed, aspects of behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism co-exist in contemporary second language teaching.
Essay n º 3
- 1. Escuela de Post Grado Unidad de Maestría en Educación de la Facultad de Ciencias Histórico Sociales y Educación MAESTRIA EN EDUCACION Mención Didácticas del Idioma Inglés CURSO: THEORIES AND APPROACHES IN THE SECOND LANGUAGE TEMA : ESSAY Nº 3 Maestrante: Lupe Amelia Rivera Gonzáles Docente del Curso: Dr. Arthur Ide LAMBAYEQUE - PERU 1
- 2. Summary The following essay will expose for the different focuses in that it has evolutioned English's teaching through professional practices . Important they have been the contributions that each one of the philosophical and psychological currents has toasted to the educational chore and the society in general. Each current in a moment historical matter has nurtured and guided the educational practices with derived methods of the reining educational paradigm. 2
- 3. STRATEGIES AND EDUCATIONAL FOCUS IN PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE Development 1. - Evolution and development of the focuses in English's teaching in the Pedagogical Practice. To establish a dividing line between a paradigm and another is almost impossible. However, some of these paradigms can be located inside contexts that correspond to characteristic specific of the modernity or the postmodernity. Since the horizons of the postmodernity and the postmodern thing extend to all the sciences of the knowledge, to be related with the form how the individuals acquire (or they build) the knowledge, the education doesn't escape to these horizons. The educational practices reflect the tendencies of the philosophical paradigms of this period. It is as well as the teaching modern conductist- mechanic is gradually substituted, in first instance, for cognitive methods that exalt the structures and the mental processes, and then for integrative methodologies of holistic character that incorporate ethical and affective factors in the mark of a philosophy constructivist. The education, then, carries out a protagonistic list in a society that pursues the development of the potentialities of the individuals with the last end of achieving the development global human for the improvement of the quality of life (Forest, 2000). One of the roads to this development is the communication, especially that settles down for via electronic and that it is referred to the last scientific advances. Through her it is feasible the almost instantaneous exchange of information, that which guarantees the immediate popularization and globalization of the knowledge. 3
- 4. The objective of the present essay is the one of enlarging the general vision as for the focuses, methods and techniques used in the teaching of this language during the years of our professional practices. To explain the strategies and educational focuses professional practices , they are important the focuses and methods that have been developed starting from the average conduct’s, cognitive and constructivist. The conduct’s has been classified as the first learning theory that arises in opposition to the methods subjetivistas and introspective effective until the first decade of the XX century. This reactionary wave is leadership for Watson and Skinner who lean on in the pioneer works of Pavlov on reflection conditioned in animals. However, inside the conductism two big currents can differ. That driven by Watson and well-known as classic-associative conductism that makes emphasis in the associations Stimulus-answer (E-R), and the other one, directed by Skinner and denominated conduct’s that conceives the reinforcement of the associations like decisive factor of the learning. Both currents pursue a psychology objective antimentalist, based on the behavior observed. The central paradigm of the conductism is, then, the association E-R. This asociacionismo based on the behaviors would constitute, in terms of Lakatos, the central nucleus of the program of investigation conductist. Equally, they would be part of this nucleus the principle of correspondence between the learning and the external reality and the principle of the equipotenciality. This last one sustains that all learning is carried out in the same way, in all the contexts and for all the fellows by means of association processes. Next some of the focuses and methods are exposed used in professional of the English language he practices it, in the mark of the theory conduct’s: The Oral Focus or the Situational Teaching of the Language The origins of the Oral Focus are located in the decade of the years twenty and their validity is prolonged until the years sixty. The oral aspect of the language the one is emphasized which is developed through the situational 4
- 5. practice. The reading and the writing are considered secondary aspects and they are only approached once the student has acquired enough competition lexical and grammatical in the oral means. It is characterized by systematic principles of vocabulary selection and gradual and progressive presentation of grammatical structures. Because it is centered in the particular situations in which the language, this focus is acquired it is also known as Situational Teaching of the Language. It is the educational one the one in charge of modeling the ejercitation, controlling the presentation of the content gradually. The student is faithful imitator of the received oral stimuli. Their progress depends on the precision in its imitative ability. - The Method Audiolingual The Method Audiolingual fifty emerge in the years. It is based in the structural linguistic theory, the contrastive analysis, audio-oral procedures and the psychology conductista. It portions of the premise that the language is, in essence, verbal behavior. It pursues the understanding and automatic production of the language. It promotes the audio-oral training, that is to say, precision in the auditory discrimination and in the pronunciation. The training, in charge of the professor, happens sequentially and it includes the following stages: recognition, discrimination, imitation, repetition and memorization. The student, on the other hand follows these stages rigorously. Cognitive theory: Two exist the positions about the emergence of the cognitive theory. On one hand it is affirmed that their birth takes place September of 1956, 11 in the Second Symposium it has more than enough Theory of the Information, taken place in the Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT) with the works presented by Chomsky, Newell, Miller and Simón. While it exists another version that assumes the appearance of this theory much before, to the other side of the ocean, in Europe. The representatives of this second version are: Piaget, the members of the school Gestalt (Wertheimer, Koffka, Köhler), Vygotsky, Bruner, Bartlet, among others. Anyone that has been the date of their emergence, both positions coincide in the fact of incorporating the concept 5
- 6. mentalist to explain the multiple anomalies that they suffered to the conductism whose postulates derived of investigations developed with animals. The central nucleus of this theory would conform it the mental representations and the decomposition recursiva of the mental processes in significant elements. Between the methods and derived more prominent focuses of the cognitive theory they are: - The Code Cognitive The Code Cognitive is developed starting from the central supposition that the apprentice is an active processor of information (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987). The learning takes place when the fellow tries to create interpretations or meanings on the base of the analysis of a certain situation or a group of data to discover or to infer the rules or underlying patterns. To learn a rule and then to apply it to new situations implies a series of mental operations. In other words, he memorizes when it is to give sense to what you leave, what feels and what is listened. The main teaching technique associated to this focus is the solution of problems. - The Comunicative Focus Although it had begun to be gestated in the decade of the seventy, the Comunicative Focus consolidates in the eighty. The central premise of this focus is that the language is communication, therefore, to learn a language is to learn how to communicate efficiently. The object of teaching a second language is to develop the grammatical competition balanced, sociolinguistics, discursive and strategic of the communication. For this reason the development of the four abilities of the language is promoted making emphasis in the functional character more than in grammatical and situational aspects. The student is the center of the process teaching-learning in the sense that the necessities of the students determine the organization and design of the courses. 6
- 7. 2. - The theory constructivist. The anomalies presented by the cognitive theory based on a program of prosecution of information, began to feel quickly. This opened step to a new focus based in the idea that the knowledge is built. This theory considers that the learning is always an interior construction that depends on the fellow's previous experiences, organized in outlines cognitivos. These last ones are susceptible of being reorganized, to adapt or of being secured starting from the new processed information. If these premises are completed, it can be spoken of the notion of significant learning promoted by Ausubel. Under the theory constructivist the Natural Focus and the Integral Focus of Language can be located for the teaching of foreign languages. Just as it outlines it the constructivism, both focuses suggest to leave of the necessities and the students' interests to achieve that the learned language has a significant character. - The Natural Focus The Natural Focus is based in the Theory of acquisition/learning of the language proposed by Krashen (1987) which a hypothesis series that they sustain the acquisition of the language leaving of the cognitive structures that the apprentice possesses in his language settles down. Of the hypotheses proposed by Krashen it suits to highlight that referred to the quality of the linguistic input (Hypothesis of the i + 1) to keep correspondence with the concept vigotskyano of Area of Next Development, expert this as the distance between the level of real development and the level of possible development. In simple terms, the hypothesis of the i + 1 of Krashen consist on taking into account what the student already knows (represented by i, and linked to what Vygotsky denominates Area of Real Development) to prepare the material instruccional whose level of difficulty is lightly superior (+1, comparable to the concept of Area of Possible Development) at the level of the apprentice's competition. 7
- 8. - Focus Integral The Integral Focus developed by Goodman (1989) it establishes that to learn the language implies to learn of him and through him, with the help of authentic contexts. The integral aspect that Goodman proposes embraces the functional use of the language guided by the apprentice's personal purposes to satisfy its own necessities. In these focuses the educational one is visualized as a monitor of the construction of the knowledge leaving of the mental outlines of each one of their students. It prepares direct or indirectly the setting in game of the necessary information in the constructive process and funge like mediator of the process. The student, as central axis of the process participates sharing his experiences with the mediator actively and with his partners. The construction is then view as a dynamic process that begins with the interaction of the subject with the means and with its fellow men. The achievement of significant learnings would be subject, then, to the student's ability to link its previous mental outlines referred to the linguistic competition in the language puts, as well as to its general knowledge about the topics and treated topics. On the base of the analysis of the most excellent features in the theories conductista, cognitive and constructivista is possible to finish general way that some aspects of the three theories show in the processes used at the present time for the teaching of foreign languages. In such a way, it can be affirmed that central aspects of the three theories coexist in different proportions and they fuse in dynamic and coherent processes for the contemporary teaching of foreign languages 8
- 9. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1.-ALBA, A. (1995). La Postmodernidad y Educación. México: Grupo Editorial Miguel A. Porrúa. 2. FLOREZ OCHOA, R. (1999). Evaluación Pedagógica y Cognición. Bogotá: Mc Graw-Hill Interamericana S.A. 3. HODSON, D. (1988). “Filosofía de la Ciencia y Educación Científica”. En R. Porlán, J.E. García y P. Cañal (Compiladores): Constructivismo y Enseñanza de las Ciencias. Sevilla: Diada Editoras:5-21. 4. HUTCHINSON, T. y WATERS, A. (1987). English for Specific Purposes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 5. KRASHEN, S. (1987). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall International. 6. RICHARDS, J.C. RODGERS, T.S. (1986). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 7.CHUNK, D.H. (1997). Teorías del Aprendizaje. México: Prentice- Hill Hispanoamericana, S.A. 9