Education is a one of the fast evolving spheres of knowledge in the world. Ever since the ancient times there have been multiple educators who practiced and promoted different approaches to teaching and learning. These days, language learning practice is undergoing a variety of changes and innovations. However, the theory of it is based on the works of psychologists and educators who worked in the 20th century such as Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and Jerome Bruner.
As a result, the modern education is a complex and carefully crafted mixture of the wisdom of generations and the latest technologies. At the first sight, the theories of the educators and psychologists of the 20th century are very different in their bases and seem impossible to combine.
However, regardless of some noticeable differences, their overall focus was to deliver a learner-centered, diverse, and flexible approach that allows creating a comfortable and encouraging environment for the student. This paper serves to demonstrate how the approaches of the well-known psychologists of the past can be applied in the contemporary classroom of language learners using various activities and integrating modern technologies.
The paper was written as a reference for the teachers and covers such issues as the concept of discourse and its types, listening and speaking as the activities in language learning, the meaning of communication and personal involvement, and the importance of the use of technologies in the modern classroom.
The questions I attempted to answer using the presented activities in the classroom concerned the comprehensibility of the language input, the encouragement of the students’ enthusiasm for learning, and the best strategies to facilitate the language learning among the young students.
Theories and Activities
Learning a foreign language can be divided into tasks targeting literacy skills (written language) and oral skills (spoken language). The theory of language learning is based on the approaches of several outstanding educational psychologists of the past – Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and Jerome Bruner. The approach promoted by Piaget relied on the belief that children are learners by nature and are capable of active learning independently (Cameron, 2001).
According to Piaget’s constructivist approach knowledge is a subjective rather than objective concept, and it is constructed individually by each learner (Reusser, 2000). In the theory developed by Vygotsky, social interaction plays the most crucial role in learning (Cameron, 2001). In one of her works, DeVries (2000) noted that the application of Vygotsky’s approach has created both constructivist and behaviorist implications in the modern teaching practices.
The works of Bruner rely on the term “scaffolding” as an activity that allows a child to take care of the tasks and concepts they are able to comprehend and solve, while the teacher is responsible for all the aspects and knowledge that are at that moment beyond a child’s understanding (Puntambekar & Hübscher, 2005).
Learning the spoken language relies on such concepts as discourse and vocabulary. The latter refers to the learner’s knowledge of words and phrases for the grammatically correct speech, and the former is developed by means of the activities that facilitate conversation and dialogue along with all the skills involved (comprehension, listening, building and expressing opinions). As a result, it becomes obvious that learning spoken language cannot happen in isolation and requires the participation of several people (Cameron, 2001).
Guiding Principles for Teaching
The two main guiding principles for teaching a spoken language are meaning and discourse (Cameron, 2001). The success of the spoken language learning process relies heavily on the meaning. In other words, without understanding what is communicated, the children would not be able to learn the language. As for the discourse skills, the children are to participate is it to develop discourse skills and build up knowledge (Cameron, 2001).
As a concept, discourse can be used in two ways – in contrast with a sentence or with a text. In the former case, discourse refers to a passage longer than a sentence, and in the latter case, it stands for the use of a language. That way, discourse event characterizes a naturally bounded use of a language of any length (Cameron, 2001).
A teacher’s participation in discourse and discourse events is rather important as it allows the learners to build and practice proper sentence structure and phrasing, but also leaves some space for creativity so that a child could develop spoken language applicable in practical environments outside the classroom walls (Tools and Tips for Using ELT Materials: Drills, Dialogues, and Role Plays, n. d.).
Fortunately for the educators, the children have a natural drive to learn, and due to that, a teacher can use the children’s thrive for development to benefit their practice. To ensure a successful learning of the spoken language a teacher is to facilitate communication between the learners and employ social knowledge as the moving forwards for a better understanding of the language.
Throughout this process, the teacher is to make sure that the learners’ comprehension of their tasks is full because children have a tendency to go on with the activities without having any understanding. The problem is that such action does not result in learning, so the teacher’s responsibility is to make the meaning as accessible as possible.
Comprehensible Teaching
One of the main concerns of a successful language teacher is how to make language input comprehensible for the young learners and promote their enthusiasm about learning.
In order to achieve these goals, a teacher is to make the learning experience enjoyable and meaningful for the children by integrating the elements of target and local cultures; support the learning with purposeful and relevant classroom activities, and ensure the practice of macro and micro language skills by means of social interactions with peers and teacher-student oral exchanges (Teaching Young Learners with the Use of Contextualized Language Instruction, n. d.).
As an activity, speaking requires more effort from a child and, therefore, is more demanding. Using spoken language, a child practices their comprehension and develops discourse skills that consist of conversation skills and repertoires (use of vocabulary and context). The students’ enthusiasm towards learning can be supported by means of using subjects interesting for the children, application of purposeful tasks, and employment of language practice in dialogues and texts.
The use of contextualized text materials instead of isolated words and phrases is the key element of successful teaching of the spoken language (Teaching Young Learners with the Use of Contextualized Language Instruction, n. d.). In other words, all the linguistic components provided by the teacher are to be accurately integrated in various scenarios applicable to practical situations a child may experience in their day-to-day life.
The activities with higher efficiency are those where the children are required to use their spoken language skills in combinations (for instance, listen and tell, listen and select). Dialogues are a good example of an activity targeting both listening and speaking skills such as grammar, comprehension, pronunciation, and spontaneous responses.
Reflection
The information above was collected for the purpose to apply all the described principles and techniques in a real classroom. My practical experience showed that dialogues and activities that require the generation of spontaneous speech facilitate active learning in a rather effective way as they push the learners to find solutions independently using the materials and knowledge they have to respond to new situations or generate discourse of descriptive or narrative character.
Besides, I also crafted my follow up activities to have practical purposes and match the main strategies of effective language learning such as task, theme, and story-based teaching as well as communicative language teaching.
In addition, I found the use of modern technologies a very helpful strategy in spoken languages teaching as it includes a variety of tasks and activities and also connects learning to the children’s everyday life. In my opinion, applications of an iPad need to be used in class to enhance the practice, optimize the work, and maintain the children’s interest towards learning.
Conclusion
As language is a creative process, it requires a lot of space for the learners’ creativity while teaching it. As a result, as stated by DeVries (n. d.) and taught by Piaget, the teacher’s role is to help the learners to shape and build their own minds and a set of views but not to fill in the blanks with already existent knowledge and harshly coach them to repeat and learn by heart word combinations. Besides, contextualized information plays a crucial role in the learning of spoken language as it is tightly connected to practice.
That way, all the knowledge the children receive in the classroom is to be applicable to the real life situations. Finally, the students’ willingness to learn plays an important role in the overall success of the teaching process, and this is why the teacher is to facilitate and maintain the children’s interest in the course using relevant topics.
Reference List
Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
DeVries, R. (n. d.). Piaget’s Theory and Education: Forming the Mind, Not Just Furnishing It. Web.
Puntambekar, S., & Hübscher, R. (2005). Tools for Scaffolding Students in a Complex Learning Environment: What Have We Gained and What Have We Missed? Educational Psychologist 40(1), 1–12.
Reusser, K. (2000). Co-constructivism in Educational Theory and Practice. Web.
Teaching Young Learners with the Use of Contextualized Language Instruction. (n.d.). Web.
Tools and Tips for Using ELT Materials: Drills, Dialogues, and Role Plays. (n. d.). Web.