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It’s not just for academics

Explore the importance of motivation, communicative language teaching, and interaction in the modern language classroom. Discover research-based strategies for creating a positive and engaging learning environment.

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It’s not just for academics

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  1. It’s not just for academics Dr Hazel Crichton The University of Glasgow

  2. ‘… teachers are concerned with what works in their own particular teaching contexts. [C]lassroom research …is still remote from actual practice’. (Ellis, 2005:52)

  3. Three areas of research relevant to the ML classroom • Motivation • Communicative language teaching • Interaction

  4. Motivation ZoltanDörnyei ‘Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom’ (2001) • Appropriate teacher behaviours: enthusiasm, commitment, relationships, creation of group norms, motivational strategies

  5. Teacher enthusiasm and commitment ‘If enthusiastic teachers appear to have a positive attitude toward the content being taught, students may …associate more positive feelings toward the subject, and consequently achieve more. (Brigham, Scruggs, & Mastropieri, 1992: 73)

  6. P4: [Teacher]’s really enthusiastic. • P14: She keeps you awake. [Teacher]’s quite like interested in French and likes her languages, so that sort of comes across and it’s like her enthusiasm that wakes everyone up. (S3 pupils from two different Edinburgh schools)

  7. Relationships and the creation of a group norm • Teacher expectations (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968)

  8. P1: …there’s lots of questions, but they can be like simple questions and the, in the next question will be a complex one which actually means you’ve got to think of a response that’s quite, harder to say. • P3: If you just give like quite eh, the shortest ones like oui or something like that, she’ll go (makes a ‘continue’ gesture) and she makes you like, makes you like, it’s a big speech, which is quite good.

  9. Expectations of behaviour • Pupil 9: No one would laugh [at someone’s mistake] in our class. • Pupil 7: [Teacher] would chase them. • P5: … people don’t take you seriously then if you don’t have good discipline. We take her seriously. • P4: Yeah, you can’t teach … unless you’ve got good discipline.

  10. Pupils’ expectations of teachers • Teachers have the ultimate responsibility for maintaining an orderly productive environment (Pomeroy 1999, Wragg et al. 2000). • Pupils prefer teachers who are relatively strict (Wragg, 2001), a ‘benign dictator’ (Exley & Dennick, 2004),

  11. P7: I don’t know, I’ve never really thought about that before. It might be the dynamic of things – like you’re always on the go and you’re always kept busy. P8: She’s not like a, she’s not a soft teacher, but I don’t know how to put it, she’s sort of … P9: She’s like disciplined when she needs to be.

  12. Motivational Strategies: ensure success by … • making the curriculum and teaching materials relevant to the pupils • making the success criteria as clear as possible • providing sufficient preparation • offering assistance • letting pupils help each other • making learning stimulating by involving the pupils actively • teaching learning strategies • avoiding face-threatening situations. • Making sure grades reflect effort and improvement, not just attainment

  13. Communicative Language Teaching • In order to benefit from the communicative approach, learners should be exposed to extensive input in the TL (Ellis, 2005b) • The importance of ‘comprehensible input’ (Krashen, 1985) • Teacher language should reflect ‘the real world’ (Dörnyei & Murphey, 2003)

  14. P4: It’s like, she’s like teaching us what to say, like if you were in Germany, what you use, she teaches us stuff that would be useful, not just the grammar. P9: Yeah, [teacher] sometimes makes up the sheets himself, so it’s what he thinks is important for us to learn.

  15. Use of the mother tongue • To introduce and discuss grammatical concepts (Cook, 2001; Pachler & Field, 2001) • Use as a meta-language to help make connections and relate to previous learning • ‘Judicious’ use (Cook, 2001; Macaro, 2000; Butzkamm, 2003)

  16. Pupil 3: [Teacher] would definitely use English for something really complicated. Pupil 5: It’s good, it helps you understand more. Pupil 3: [Teacher] explains them and we look at, like, examples and then we practise using them.

  17. Teacher/pupil interaction • Teachers who have a ‘more interactive style’ appear to be more effective (Smith et al., 2004) • IRF (initiation, response, follow-up) (Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975)

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