Teaching by Principles Chapter 6: Teaching across Age Levels

Teaching by Principles Chapter 6: Teaching across Age Levels

Teaching Children

-The child’s spontaneous, peripheral attention to language forms and the adult’s overt, focal awareness of and attention to forms (PLLT, Ch.10, pp.282-284)

-There are cases when adults are superior in language acquisition: vocabulary, grammatical concept, faster learning

-Six- to twelve year-old children’s difficulty in language acquisition

1. Intellectual Development

-Children (up to the age of about eleven) are still in an intellectual stage of “concrete operation” (PLLT, Ch3, P.61)

-Don’t explain grammar and rules using abstract terms.

-Patterns and examples

-Repetition

2. Attention Span

-Immediate interest

-A variety of activities

-Animated

-A sense of humor

-Curiosity

3. Sensory Input (appeal to the right hemisphere of the brain)

-Physical

-Hands-on activities (task-based activities)    

-Sensory aids (feeling, touching, tasting, smelling, listening) (right hemisphere: space, fine arts)

-Nonverbal language

4. Affective Factors

-Help to laugh.

-Be patient and supportive to build self-esteem.

-Elicit as much oral participation as possible

5. Authentic, Meaningful Language 

-Authentic

-Context embedded (Isolated sentences are meaningless.)

-A whole language approach (Listening, speaking, writing and reading are integrated in a task.)

-Teachers’ intuition with increasing months and years of experience

Teaching Adults

-Abstract rules and concepts with caution

-Longer attention spans

-Multiple senses

-Self-confidence

-Context-reduced segment of language

-Some “do’s” and “don’ts”

Teaching Teens

-Linguistic metalanguage can, theoretically, have some impact; complex problems can be solved with logical thinking.

-Attention spans are lengthening.

-Varieties of sensory input

-Factors surrounding ego, self-image, self-esteem

 ˙Avoiding embarrassment of students

 ˙Affirming each person’s talents and strength

 ˙Allowing mistakes and other errors (PLLT, P217-218)

 ˙De-emphasizing competition

 ˙Small-group work (Cooperative learningà the ego will not be threatened.)

-Adultlike in dwelling on a grammar point or vocabulary item

Further Readings

-PLLT, Ch2, 3, 10