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UNIT 3 – Theories, Methods, and Techniques
This unit covered several different teaching techniques, ranging from heavily-used ones such as Grammar-Translation, to less common yet still used approaches such as The Silent Way. The positive and negative aspects of each were discussed, which will be helpful for future lesson planning. This section of the chapter stimulated intense desire to learn much more about the topics outlined. When learning about the nine most common EFL methodologies, the descriptions of clearly useful methods such as Grammar Translation, PPP, and Audio-Lingualism were interesting. However, the descriptions of the other, seemingly stranger methods (such as The Silent Way and Suggestopaedia) were the parts that stimulated me personally to discover why on earth these methods became popular in the first place. After further research these techniques still seem quite odd (simply because I have never seen these in action before and I imagine they would be met with some dubious reactions of the students at first), but given the variety of students’ learning styles and attitudes, I can see that they could be useful in certain situations.
This unit is also packed full of useful and interesting games and activities that can me modified to use in different lesson structures.
Finally, the in-depth description of the ESA lesson plans (and variations such as the straight-arrow plan, boomerang, and patchwork ESA lessons) were invaluable for the planning of varied and interesting lessons in the future. The necessity of each of the Engage, Study, and Activate blocks were well-described, with several specific activities suggested for each.
The lesson also included a few paragraphs on correction techniques and the importance of identifying errors vs. mistakes made by the students. Furthermore, corrections must be made both at the most opportune time, as well as at an acceptable frequency (i.e. not too often, as the student may become discouraged, and not too infrequently as this can reinforce bad habits and mistakes or errors).
