English Language Teaching Methodology

27 Third, contextual knowledge: the knowledge that has something to do with the school or institutional context, school norms, and knowledge of the learners, including cultural and other relevant information. This understanding might lead the teachers to take into account the knowledge of the mother or first languages learners may already possess and help them to build on this knowledge when learning English language. Fourth, pedagogical knowledge: the ability to restructure content knowledge for teaching purposes, and to plan, adapt, and improve. Teachers have to be able to identify and investigate specific pedagogical or didactic issues related to their learners or their teaching process in order to make a plan for improvement. Fifth, p ersonal knowledge: it deals with the teachers‘ personal beliefs and principles and his or her individual approach to teaching. This will critically assess the teachers‘ teaching process in relation to the theoretical principles. Sixth, reflective knowledge: it covers the teachers‘ capacity to reflect on and assess their teaching practice.

b. English Language Teaching Methodology

One of the most crucial aspects in teaching English as second or foreign language learning is the teaching methodology. Teaching methodology basically addresses issues related to English language teaching that are closely related to both theory and practice. According to Richards and Renandya 2002, classroom practitioners show not only how theory can inform classroom practice, but also how the practical realities of teaching inform theory and research. As an English language teacher, exploring personal understanding on every issue in language 28 teaching is significant as it will engage teacher in critical reflection as well as improve better application to teaching practice. Richards and Renandya 2002 have included several topics of issues related to teaching English as second or foreign language; 1 the nature of teaching, constituting methods, teaching skills; 2 classroom interaction and management, involving lesson planning, grouping, classroom dynamics; 3 teaching the skills, covering reading, writing, listening, speaking; 4 understanding learner variables, including learning strategies, motivation, age; 5 addressing linguistic competence, covering grammar and vocabulary; 6 curriculum factors, involving syllabus design and materials development; 7 assessment of learning, covering alternative assessment and proficiency tests; 8 the role of technology, including video, computers, the Internet; and 9 teacher development, covering evaluating teaching, classroom research, action research. The nine established topics are believed to help English language teacher to explore some of the background knowledge, beliefs, and practical experience that teacher possess. In this section, ‗teaching the skills‘ and ‗addressing linguistic competence‘ topics will be discussed further. 1 Teaching Speaking Richards and Renandya 2002 state that learning to speak a foreign language requires more than knowing its grammatical and semantic rules. Learners must also acquire the knowledge of how native speakers use the language in the context of structured interpersonal change, in which many factors interact. In teaching speaking, there are several aims that underline spoken 29 language in classroom activity Hughes, 2002, such as helping the student to gain awareness of or to practice some aspect of linguistic knowledge whether a grammatical rule, or application of a phonemic regularity to which they have been introduced. The other deals with developing production skills, for example rhythm, intonation or vowel-to vowel linking, another one focuses on raising the learners‘ awareness of some socio-linguistic or pragmatic point for instance how to interrupt politely, respond to a compliment appropriately, or show that one has understood. Figure 2.2: Levels and fields of research into speech and conversation Hughes, 2002 Initially, English language teacher is required to be able to evaluate and select meaningful speaking and interactional activities to encourage learners of diverse abilities to participate in the speaking class. It is also the teacher‘s decision to specify whether the learners are going to be focused on the speaking 30 organization and behavior, the structure, or the sound. Richards 2008 suggests that designing speaking activities or instructional materials for foreign-language teaching needs attempt to recognize the very different functions speaking performs in daily communication and the different purposes for which students need speaking skills. Evaluating and selecting various activities to help learners to identify and use typical features of spoken language are therefore significant to be considered by the teachers. Moreover, Brown and Yule 1983 made a useful distinction between the interactional functions of speaking, in which it serves to establish and maintain social relations, and the transactional functions, which focus on the exchange of information as cited in Richards, 2008. Richards 2008 asserts that there are three kinds of speech activities with different form and function required in teaching speaking, namely talk as interaction ; talk as transaction; talk as performance. Talk as interaction refers to what we normally mean by ―conversation‖ and describes interaction that serves a primarily social function. Talk as transaction refers to situations where the focus is on what is said or done. Talk as performance refers to public talk, that is, talk that transmits information before an audience, such as classroom presentations, public announcements, and speeches. In this case, it is important that English language teacher maintain to help learners to use communication strategies, such as asking for clarifications or looking forward to attaining an effective conversation when learners are engaged in spoken interaction. Additionally, it is also the role of the teacher who evaluates and selects activities that help learners to participate in ongoing spoken exchanges. 31 Related to the levels of teaching speech and conversation as it is suggested by Hughes 2002, the level of ‗structure‘ and ‗sound‘ is another significant aspect to include in the teaching process. English language teachers are in responsible for evaluating and selecting a variety of techniques to make learners aware of, discriminate and help them to pronounce sounds in English, including stress, rhythm, and intonation. 2 Teaching Listening Teaching learners specific strategies that can help understand the process underlying listening will create empowerment towards the learners in controlling their own learning. Richards and Renandya 2002 state that there are several key strategies that can be taught in listening, namely selective listening, listening for different purposes, inferencing, and personalizing. Since listening strategies play a big role in the process of teaching and learning listening, teachers have to appropriately manage the learners to be engaged in some structured plans to help them learn to listen more effectively. Buck 2001, as cited in Richards, 2008 identifies two kinds of strategies in listening, cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Cognitive strategies refer to mental activities related to comprehending and storing input in working memory or long-term memory for later retrieval. Meanwhile, Metacognitive strategies deals with conscious or unconscious mental activities that perform an executive function in the management of cognitive strategies. 32 Table 2.2: Metacognitive Strategies for Self-Regulation in Learner Listening Goh, 1998, as cited in Richards, 2008 Metacognitive Strategies for Self-Regulation in Learner Listening Planning This is a strategy for determining learning objectives and deciding the means by which the objectives can be achieved General listening development  Identify learning objectives for listening development.  Determine ways to achieve these objectives.  Set realistic short-term and long-term goals.  Seek opportunities for listening practice. Specific listening task  Preview main ideas before listening.  Rehearse language e.g., pronunciation necessary for the task.  Decide in advance which aspects of the text to concentrate on. Monitoring This is a strategy for checking on the progress in the course of learning or carrying out a learning task. General listening development  Consider progress against a set of predetermined criteria.  Determine how close it is to achieving short-term or long‑term goals.  Check and see if the same mistakes are still being made. Specific listening task  Check understanding during listening.  Check the appropriateness and the accuracy of what is  understood and compare it with new information.  Identify the source of difficulty. Evaluating This is a strategy for determining the success of the outcome of an attempt to learn or complete a learning task. General listening development  Assess listening progress against a set of predetermined criteria.  Assess the effectiveness of learning and practice strategies.  Assess the appropriateness of learning goals and objectives set. Specific listening task  Check the appropriateness and the accuracy of what has been understood.  Determine the effectiveness of strategies used in the task.  Assess overall comprehension of the text. Based on the metacognitive strategies, English language teachers should make sure that they provide a set of pre-listening activities that help learners to orientate themselves to a text. It means that teachers are also responsible to encourage learners to use their knowledge of a topic and their expectations about a text when listening. Designing, selecting, and evaluating different activities in order to practice and develop different listening strategies will play a big role as 33 well. Rost 2002 emphasizes that selective listening tasks encourage learners to approach genuine spoken texts by adopting a strategy of focusing of specific information rather than trying to understand and recall everything‘. He adds that the activities of the listening class are specific to the subject matter being taught, and activities are geared to stimulate students to think and learn through use of the target language. In relation to teaching listening, teachers should take into account on selecting texts appropriate to the needs, interests and language level of the learners. 3 Teaching Reading Reading skill is basically an ability that every foreign language learner ever want to acquire. In English language, reading skill is instructed in the classroom so that learners are successful to either specifically acquiring the ability to read for pleasure or to read for pedagogical purpose. Furthermore, Richards and Renandya 2002 explain that good reading texts also provide good models for writing, and provide opportunities to introduce new topics, to stimulate discussion, and to study language e.g., vocabulary, grammar, and idioms. Thus, teachers are expected to teach according to the principles derived from teaching reading theories as well as research findings. According to Mikulecky 2008, Reading is a conscious and unconscious thinking process. The reader applies many strategies to reconstruct the meaning that the author is assumed to have intended. The reader does this by comparing information in the text to his or her background knowledge and prior experience. In order to be able to develop this strategy, English language teacher plays 34 important role in evaluating and selecting texts appropriate to the needs, interests and language level of the learners. Mikulecky 2008 has proposed an approach to teaching reading skills. First, teachers should focus on one skill at a time. Second, teachers should explain the purpose of working on this skill, and convince the students of its importance in reading effectively. Third, teachers work on an example of using the skill with the whole class. Fourth, teachers assign students to work in pairs on an exercise where they practice using the same skill. Require them to explain their thinking to each other as they work. Fifth, teachers encourage to have discussion among students‘ answers with the whole class. Ask them to explain how they got their answers. Encourage polite disagreement, and require explanations of any differences in their answers. Sixth, in the same class, and also in the next few classes, teachers assign individuals to work on more exercises that focus on the same skill with increasing complexity. Instruct students to work in pairs whenever feasible. Seventh, teachers ask individual students to complete an exercise using the skill to check their own ability and confidence in using it. Lastly, in future lessons, teachers lead the students to apply the skill, as well as previously mastered skills, to a variety of texts. In its relation to intensive reading, teachers are responsible in providing a range of pre-reading activities to help learners to orientate themselves to a text. As Mikulecky 2008 suggests, the learners should be encouraged to perform a critical thinking before starting reading a text. Teachers therefore have to encourage the learners to use their knowledge of a topic and their expectations 35 about a text when reading. Gibbons 2002, through his argument related to ‗reader as a text participant‘, asserts that the reader connects the text with his or her own background knowledge of the world, cultural knowledge, and knowledge of the generic structure. Mikulecky 2008 also proposes several important reading skills that are expected to be accomplished by learners. One of them is about scanning and recognizing topics. Scanning helps learners to look through a text very rapidly for specific information, meanwhile recognizing topics skill will lead the learners to find out what the text is about. The other skills related to guessing and skimming. Guessing encourages the learners to predict the meaning of unknown words from the context. Using such clues as knowledge of word parts, syntax, and relationship patterns. Skimming helps the learners in quickly getting the gist or overview of a passage or book. Overall strategies in reading will not be experienced by learners as the readers if the teachers do not take them into account. In terms of the ways of teaching the reading materials, teachers should take decision in selecting appropriate ways of reading a text in classroom, whether to order the learners to read text aloud or to read text in the form of group. In relation to reading skills, teachers should also determine different activities in order to practice and develop different reading strategies according to the purpose of reading, such as skimming, scanning, and the other skills, including guessing difficult vocabulary. Successful reading class will also deal with the te acher‘s treatment in encouraging the learners to read extensively. Carell and Carson 1997, as cited in 36 Richards and Renandya, 2002 mention that extensive reading generally involves rapid reading of large quantities of material or longer readings e.g. whole books for general understanding, with the focus generally on the meaning of what is being read. Grabe and Stoller 2002 emphasizes that the primary way to develop fluent reading comprehension, based on a wide range of research, is extended practice in reading. They add that certainly reading outside the class, such as reading at home or free reading time in the labs or library need to be encouraged, and interesting texts need to be available for that purpose. Thus, it is a great challenge for an English language teacher to encourage their learners to practice reading extensively. Teachers are also responsible to recommend books appropriate to the needs, interests and language level of the learners. 4 Teaching Writing Writing is considered to be a difficult skill for a foreign language learners to master. In fact, it would be much even difficult for English language teachers to plan and teach writing materials to their learners. Richards and Renandya 2002 argue that learners have to pay attention to higher level skills of planning and organizing as well as lower level skills of spelling, punctuation, word choice, and many more. Therefore, teacher should consider various conflicting theories and practices in teaching writing even more seriously. Hyland 2002 has come up with several elements that a teacher needs to consider in teaching writing. 1. the writer – it elaborates the writer‘s in this case the learners‘ proficiency, first language background, and prior experien ce. The learners‘ cognitive and motivational factors are also involved in the writer‘s elements. 37 2. the text – It focuses on the authenticity or purposes and writing tasks; number and variety of writing assignments; genre modeling and exploration; and rhetorical and lexico-grammatical consciousness raising. 3. the reader – It deals with the orientation to specific target discourse communities; need for real and multiple audiences; awareness of appropriate levels of involvement and interactional strategy; and importance of feedback and audience response. Like the other teaching skills in language learning, teaching writing requires strategic plans to carry out in the teaching and learning process. Teachers have to be fully aware that taking the wrong plans in teaching writing may lead the learners into a less successful writing process. Richards and Renandya 2002 propose ten steps that underline teaching writing plans. 1. Ascertaining Goals and Institutional Constraints Institutional constraints, such as assigned curriculum, approved textbooks, and designated proficiency examinations will result in an expectation where learners are supposed to write something that is not pretty much based on their interests. The curriculum or textbook may focus too much on rhetorical form or grammatical accuracy. In this case, teachers have to be encouraged to adjust themselves to the needs and interests of the learners. 2. Deciding on Theoretical Principles Teachers need to confront their ideological position and recognize their perceptions of the relationship between the type of writing they teach and the roles they are preparing the students for in academia and the wider world for 38 work. What the teachers decide to emphasize in the classroom is not just a practical matter of choosing an activity to fill the next day‘s lesson plan. 3. Planning Content Teachers have to encourage the learners to use writing as a tool for learning and for communication and to become engaged enough with their writing to have an investment in examining it, improving it, and eventually revising it for readers. Learners need topics that allow them to generate ideas, find the forms to fit the ideas, and invite risk taking. 4. Weighing the Elements Writing consists of many constituent parts and it needs to be considered which ones will be the most important for a course: content, organization, originality, style, fluency, accuracy, or using appropriate rhetorical forms of discourse. This step should foster the teachers to develop variety of techniques to help learners to develop awareness of the structure, coherence and cohesion of a text and produce texts accordingly, including make sure the learners aware of using spelling patterns and irregular spelling. When the learners are writing, it is obvious that the learners also acquire the chance to learn grammar and vocabularies. 5. Drawing up a Syllabus Teachers need to organize the contents of the writing elements that will be taught to the students. The designed syllabus will depend on the learners, goals, theoretical principles, and institutional constraints. 39 6. Selecting Materials The writing materials carried out to the learning process have to fit as far as possible with the goals, principles, content, and weighting that teachers already decided on. Teachers are responsible in evaluating and selecting meaningful activities to help learners to develop their creative potential. Learners also need to be encouraged to be aware using appropriate language for different text types when it comes to writing letters, stories, reports, for instance. The materials chosen should stimulate the learners even more. Visual aids or authentic materials can be used to stimulate the learners in writing. Teachers also need to give the learners opportunities to collaborate with their friends, to revise their works, and to edit as well as proofread. It is the teachers‘ duty to help learners monitor, reflect on, edit and improve their own writing. 7. Preparing Activities and Roles Teachers need to think about what they will be doing in the classroom. This can be done by presenting a lesson on paragraph organization, leading a class discussion on editing a student paper, and so on. It is better to approach on what the students will be doing and learning in the classroom than to deliver the comprehensiveness of information that teacher would like to transfer. 8. Choosing Types and Methods of Feedback Not every piece of writing has to be corrected or ever seen by the teacher. Teachers can provide the learners with feedback in the form of comments, such as audiotaped response or written response. 40 9. Evaluating the Course One form of evaluation that is becoming increasingly popular in writing courses that helps to combine student evaluation and course evaluation is using portfolios. The instructor in the program who assigns a grade can evaluate the portfolio. The portfolios can lead the learners to revise their works so that it provides a valuable ongoing teacher training tool. 10. Reflecting the Teacher’s Experience Goals, theories, content, focus, syllabus, materials, activities, feedback, and course evaluation are substantive matters that teacher has to address whenever designing a writing course. Teachers and students should learn and experience as they work together by reflecting on the learners‘ writing results as well as responses that the teacher acquires from the learners. 5 Teaching Grammar Apart from being proficient to know grammatical system of English language, an English teacher is required to lead the students into using the language rules to be used in real communication. No matter how complex it is to teach grammar to language learners, grammar is still playing a role in language curriculum. Without good knowledge of grammar, learners‘ language development will be severely constrained Richards and Renandya, 2002. Larsen-Freeman 2003 has proposed several important ideas about the pedagogical practices for grammar teaching. 41 1. Promoting Noticing Larsen-Freeman 2003 argues that second language acquisition researchers acknowledge the value of promoting noticing e.g. awareness, consciousness, detection, attention, some even considering it is a necessary condition to convert input into intake in order for learning to take place. Teacher can promote the concept of promoting noticing to the learners by simply presenting the learners with a traditional explanation of some grammar structure, by which it would underpin the learners‘ noticing. Additionally, teachers should provide the learners with grammatical item and help learners to practice it through meaningful contexts and appropriate texts. Teachers might also use the linguistic terminology metalanguage with the students. Teachers can do this by labeling specific English structures, such as the structure of simple present tense, if and when appropriate to the learners ‘ needs. 2. Consciousness-Raising Tasks This concept will involve the language learners to be given a task where they have to work individual or interactively in small groups to solve grammatical problems in English as the target language. By doing this, learners are more likely figuring out the rules of the language structure. Learners become more aware of specific features of English language by exploring out for themselves the properties of the English features. It is therefore the teachers‘ duty to introduce and help students to deal with new or unknown items of grammar in a variety of ways, such as teacher presentation, awareness raising tasks, and so on. 42 3. Input Processing In input processing, language learners are guided to pay particular attention to a feature in English language input that is likely to cause a processing problem, thereby increasing the chances of the feature is becoming intake. Input processing tasks seek to alter the way in which learners perceive and process the input by pushing learners to attend to form differently than they would with their first language. In other words, teachers need to introduce how the first language‘s grammatical structure differ from the English grammatical structure. 4. Collaborative Dialogues Language learners need to produce the language in order to produce the language in order to notice the gap between what they want to say and what they are able to say. Production forces learners to pay attention to the form of intended messages. By doing so learners will recognize the areas where they have problems and will seek out relevant input in a more focused way. Therefore, teachers should decide on selecting grammatical exercises and activities that support learning and encourage oral and written communication.

c. Conducting a Lesson