For the SLA module, apart from keeping a Teaching Diary, I have also been writing a Learning Diary describing my experience learning Chinese. Last semester I wrote a couple of posts that discuss how psychological and social factors may influence success in language learning. One was the affect of Foreign Language Anxiety and the other…
For the SLA module, we are keeping a Teaching Diary, where we note down what has and has not been working in our lessons. From this we will focus on one particular issue that we would like to resolve, or one thing that is going well, but would like to improve further, to create a…
Positive Reinforcement Schulze also draws to our attention the terminology employed for reinforcement. Terms such as “brilliant” and “excellent” are good, but if they are overly used they will become redundant. It’s hard for me to say now, how much praise I give. I see myself as a strict teacher – no playing until what…
Grammatical Errors and Feedback: Some Theoretical Insights by Mathias Schulze discusses different variables that influence the quality of feedback in Computer Assisted Language Learning: psychology and learning theories, second language acquisition and human-computer interface design. Reinforcement He puts forward the concept of reinforcement: the assumption is that feedback of a certain kind can act…
In order to develop a reflective approach to my language teaching, I’d like to share details of two of my weekly classes – Class 1: two 40 minute lessons per week About the Student: 121 with bubbly, 8 year Chinese girl. Course: Trinity 4 preparation (exam apparently booked some time in March) Issues (i) fatigue…
Revisiting the Gap between SLA Researchers and Language Teachers by David Block discusses gap or a mismatch between theories of SLA and practices, whereby the way in which we teach languages is often un- or ill – related to the findings of researchers in Second Language Acquisition. This topic resonates with me now as, just…
How do Learners acquire their Second Language? On our Forum this week, my classmate Victoria started us off by sharing her beliefs about how learners go about picking up a new language. I agreed with her view that there is a fundamental difference between second language learning, which is formal, and ‘by the book’, and,…