Didaktická propedeutika - přednášky

Social strategies

• Asking questions

• Cooperating with others

• Empathizing with others

Motivation

• What drives the learner to achieve a goal

• One of the key factors determining the success in LT/LL

• Many models; basic division:

  • Intrinsic motivation – from within the individual – love of the subject matter, enjoyment, desire to feel better

  • Extrinsic motivation – requirements, pay rise, travel, grades, passing exams

• Integrative – the desire to identify with and integrate into the target-language culture

• Instrumental – learn for purposes of study or career promotion

Recommendation

DO

• Diagnose learner’s need, interests, learning styles

• Provide a range of different activity types, topics

• Offer choices, involve learners in making decisions

• Help learners make best of their learning styles

• Teach specific strategies to improve learning

DON’T

• Treat learners as if they were all the same

• Use the same approach all the time, e.g. to teaching grammar or practising vocabulary

• Use course book all the time

• Expect learners to work comfortably at the same place and rhythm

• Everyone learns the same way as you do

Age

Young children (up to 9-10)

• Simplify my language

• Play games

• Learn by practising, without abstracting

• Physical activity – things like to touch things

• They are not self-conscious

• Critical age = critical period

  • Original assumption: there is a biologically determined period in which it is easier to acquire a language. After this age period the acquisition becomes more and more difficult.

  • It has been empirically proved that native-like pronunciation is best achieved if the child starts learning L2 before the age of 6 and worst if the child starts after the age of 13

• Respond to meaning even if they do not understand individual word

• They like to talk about themselves

• Have a limited attention span (10 minutes)

• Learn indirectly rather than directly – take in information from all sides; imitate, memorize

• Their understanding also comes from what they see and hear, touch, interact with

• Display enthusiasm for learning and curiosity

• Are keen to talk themselves

• Advice:

  • Change the activities to provide a variety of sources, work with pupils individually and in groups, adjust the look of the classroom to fit the needs of the learners

  • As children like discovering things and have imagination, get them involved in puzzle-like activities, games, physical movement and songs, pictures, stories, rhymes

  • Have more than one student at the board at the same time

  • Use choral work – the whole class should speak (some nervous kid doesn’t have to be heard when everybody is speaking)

  • Do plays

  • Read loud student compositions

  • Prepare video clips in advance

Adolescents/teenagers

• Opinion differ, adolescents making difficult learners x being the best language learners (the L1 – a well comprehended system, both imaginative + abstract thinking, great, potential for creativity, passionate commitment to things which interest them, speed, humour…

• Possible problems – peer approval important, sometimes problems with discipline, motivation

• Advice:

  • Bolster your students’ self-esteem and be conscious of their need for identity – praise them, don’t criticise them

  • To provoke students’ engagement with material which is relevant and involving