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As children, we adapt to our surroundings quickly and with this we also adapt to our native language. For instance, if we were born in Germany, as children we will adapt the language German and this would be referred to as our first language or L1. This adaptation of language does not derive from books but through our surroundings and through speaking with one another, we formulate the wrong from right in the grammar part of the language. In this unit therefore, we learn various techniques and methods of teaching.
Grammar-translation is a method of teaching foreign languages however the drawback on this method. The danger here that students may face is that they would just learn about the language rather than learning the language. This method would require the teacher to know the students’ native language, for instance, if a teacher is teaching in Germany, then the teacher would need to understand German as it is the students’ first language.
Present, practice and production proved to be extremely effective in teaching simple language at lower levels. It is less effective with higher level students who already know a lot of language, and therefore do not need such a marked production stage. In this method, you teach your students the grammatical concept you want them to learn. Then you show them the language used in context.
The silent way method, is the behaviour of the teacher who says as little as possible. This is because it was believed that if the students had to ‘discover’ the language for themselves, learning will be better facilitated rather than just remembering and repeating what had been taught.
Students need to be motivated, be exposed to the language and these factors would need to be used in the classroom. This is to ensure growth in students and the teachers. As teachers are given the option to involve the students as much as they possibly can in classrooms, a few examples or methods that can be used by using, flashcards, drawings, gap-fill, lists, follow up questions, mimes and etc. These methods are known as elicitation.
Engage-study-activate (ESA), is said to be the most effective and logical method for new teachers to be used and applied in classrooms. The engage method is where the teacher will try to instigate the students’ interest and this would allow the student to be more involved during lessons. When students get interested in the lesson, they would automatically find the lesson to be more interesting and activities that be sought out by the teacher are games, music, pictures and stories. For the study method, students will focus on the language and how it is formulated. In activate, the students are encouraged to use the language they know.
