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suggests some teaching principles that should be taken into account by the teachers. The principles are organized into three parts as explained below.
a. Cognitive Principles
1. Automaticity
Children learn certain language subconsciously without analyzing the forms of language themselves. They learn languages without thinking about them.
McLaughlin in Brown 2001:55 called this automatic processing with peripheral attention to language forms. That is, children and adults must move
away from processing language little by little to a form of automatic processing. Children usually make this transition faster than adults.
Overanalyzing language, thinking too much about it forms, and consciously lingering on rules of language tend to obstruct the transition to automatic
processing. Adults can use language in authentic contexts for meaningful purposes to build automaticity more efficiently.
2. Meaningful Learning
Meaningful learning is a process of relating and anchoring new materials to relevant established elements in cognitive structure. Meaningful learning will
make the knowledge last longer in memory systems. Meaningful learning cannot be accomplished in regular language classroom. However, in the classroom, new
ideas and knowledge can be introduced in such a way that the students will be interested and appealed by fitting with t
he students’ needs and goals.
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3. The Anticipation of Reward
Skinner 1938, in Brown 2001:57-58 investigated that the anticipation of reward is the most powerful
cause to humans’ behaviour. People tend to be more motivated to do something when there is a purpose or a goal. In the classroom,
reward can be given as praise for correct responses, appropriate grades or scores, or other public recognition. However, the teacher should be careful in giving
rewards to the students because it can lead students to become dependent on short-term rewards only. It could also prevent students to develop their internal
motivation.
4. Intrinsic Motivation
Brown 2001:59 states that the most powerful rewards are those that intrinsically motivate the learners. If learners are intrinsically motivated in
learning, the teacher can design classroom tasks that fit into those intrinsic motivations. The learners perform the tasks not because they anticipate some
rewards from the teacher, but because it is interesting, useful, or challenging.
5. Strategic Investment
