On Theories
Theories and Approaches to ESL/EFL Teaching & Learning
1. CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING (CLIL)
CLIL refers to situations where subjects,
or parts of subjects, are taught through a foreign language with dual-focussed
aims, namely the learning of content, and the simultaneous learning of a foreign
language'. (Marsh, 1994)
This approach involves learning subjects such
as history, geography or others, through an additional language. It can be very
successful in enhancing the learning of languages and other subjects, and developing
in the youngsters a positive ‘can do’ attitude towards themselves as language
learners. (Marsh, 2000)
2. THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH TO LANGUAGE TEACHING
The
communicative
approach arose as the product of educators and
linguists who had grown dissatisfied with the audiolingual and
grammar-translation methods of foreign language
instruction. They felt that students were not learning enough
realistic language and did not know how to communicate using the
appropriate social code. Interest in and development of
communicative-style teaching mushroomed in the 1970s which promoted
authentic language use and classroom exchanges where students engaged
in real communication with one another. Thus, the communicative
language teaching makes use of real-life situations that necessitate
communication and the role of the teacher is to set up a situation
that students are likely to encounter in real life.
3. COMPETENCY-BASED EDUCATION (CBE) & COMPETENCY-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING (CBLT)
Competency-Based
Education (CBE) is an educational movement which emerged in the United
States in the 1970s. This movement focuses on the outputs to learning
in contrast to previous approaches which focus primarily on the inputs
to language learning by assuming that an improvement of the syllabuses,
materials, and activities or by changing the role of teachers and
learners, more effective language learning will take place. In contrast
to such methods and approaches, the CBE emphasizes the outcomes of
learning and addresses what learners are expected to do with the
language. Such a view to learning is central to the competencies
perspective where competencies describe the strudents' ability to apply
basic and other skills in situations that are commonly encountered in
everyday life (Schenck 1978). Thus, the CBE defines the goals and
objectives to be reached in such a way that students´ knowledge, skills
and behaviors could be easily measured. Besides, students are expected
to develop the ability to use their knowledge in real life situations.
The competency approach has many advantages for learners such as: (i)
competencies are precise, well-defined and useful and can be related to
what students need and to what is appealing to them; (ii) competencies
can be constructively criticized by students, since they can judge
whether they are pertinent and helpful in their learning process; (iii)
competencies need to be socialized with students, so that they can
specifically know what they need to learn and what is going to be tested
in the course. In this way, students become aware of their learning
process and the goals they need to achieve, and (iv) competencies can
be gradually developed in different stages of the learning process, so
that learners discern what they have learned and what they still need to
learn to achieve the set of competencies of the course.
4. THEORY OF MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES
The
Theory of Multiple Intelligencies was proposed by Howard Gardner in
1983 as a model of intelligence that differentiates intelligence into
various specific (primarily sensory) modalities, rather than seeing it
as dominated by a single general ability. Gardner argues that there is a
wide range of cognitive abilities, and that there are only very weak
correlations between them, which implies that a child who learns to
multiply easily is not necessarily generally more intelligent than a
child who has more difficulty on this task. According to Gardner, there
are several criteria for a behavior to be an intelligence (e.g. (i)
Potential for brain isolation by brain damage; (ii) Place in
evolutionary history; (iii) Presence of core operations; (iv)
Susceptibility to encoding (symbolic expression); (v) A distinct
developmental progression; (vi) The existence of savants, prodigies and
other exceptional people, and (vii) Support from experimental psychology
and psychometric findings). For Gardner, there are eight abilities that
meet these criteria, wchich correspond to eigth basic competencies: 1)
Spatial; 2) Linguistic; 3) Logical-mathematical; 4) Bodily-kinesthetic;
5) Musical; 6) Interpersonal; 7) Intrapersonal, and 8) Naturalistic.
Furthermore, he considers that existential and moral intelligence may
also be worthy of inclusion. Thus, an intelligence can be defined as
‘‘biopsychological potential to process information that can be
activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products
that are of value in a culture’’ (Gardner 1999: 33–34). According to
Garder, there are more ways to do this than just through logical and
linguistic intelligence. Therefore, when applied to education, the
purpose of schooling "should be to develop intelligences and to help
people reach vocational and avocational goals that are appropriate to
their particular spectrum of intelligences. In this way, people feel
more engaged and competent and therefore more inclined to serve society
in a constructive way.
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