12 Principles in language teaching

[Iranian English Language Professors]

I would like to suggest that viable current approaches to language
teaching are “principled,” in that there is perhaps a finite number
of
general research-based principles on which classroom practice is
grounded. The twelve principles that I list and define in this
section
(see Brown, 1994a, for a complete discussion with definitions and
examples) are an inexhaustive number of what I would assert to be
relatively widely accepted thoretical assumptions about second
language acquisition. There is sometimes disagreement in their
interpretation and their application in the classroom, but they
nevertheless comprise a body of constructs which few would dispute as
central to most language acquisition contexts. They are briefly
summarized here.
I. AUTOMAJICITY
Efficient second language learning involves a timely movement of the
control of a few language forms into the automatic processing of a
relatively unlimited number of language forms. Overanalyzing
language,
thinking too much about its forms, and consciously lingering on rules
of language all tend to impede this graduation to automaticity.
2. MEANINGFUL LEARNING
Meaningful learning will lead toward better long-term retention than
rote learning. One among many examples of meaningful learning is
found
in content-centered approaches to language teaching.
3. THE ANTICIPATION OF REWARD
Human beings are universally driven to act, or “behave,” by the
anticipation of some sort of reward — tangible or intangible, short-
term or long-term — that will ensue as a result of the behavior.
Although long-term success in language learning requires a more
intrinsic motive (see 4 below), the power of immediate rewards in a
language class is undeniable. One of the tasks of the teacher is to
create opportunities for those moment-by-moment rewards that can keep
classrooms interesting, if not exciting.
4. INTRINSIC MOTIVATION
Sometimes, reward-driven behavior is dependent on extrinsic
(externally administered by someone else) motivation. But a more
powerful category of reward is one which is intrinsically driven
within the learner. When behavior stems from needs, wants, or desires
within oneself, the behavior itself has the potential to be self-
rewarding. In such a context, externally administered rewards are
unnecessary; learners are likely to maintain the behavior beyond the
immediate presence of teachers, parents, and other tutors.
S. STRATEGIC INVESTMENT
Successful mastery of the second language will be, to a large extent,
the result of a learner’s own personal “investment” of time, effort,
and attention to the second language in the form of an individualized
battery of strategies for comprehending and producing the language.
6. LANGUAGE EGO
As human beings learn to use a second language, they develop a new
mode of thinking, feeling, and acting — a second identity. The new
“language ego,” intertwined with the second language, can easily
create within the learner a sense of fragility, defensiveness, and a
raising of inhibitions.
7. SELF-CONFIDENCE
The eventual success that learners attain in a task is partially a
factor of their belief that they indeed are fuily capable of
accomplishing the task. Self-esteem, at least global self-esteem,
lies
at the roots of eventual attainment.
8. RISK TAKING
Successful language learners, in their realistic appraisal of
themselves as vulnerable beings yet capable of accomplishing tasks,
must be willing to become “gamblers” in the game of language, to
attempt to produce and to interpret language that is a bit beyond
their absolute certainty.
9. THE LANGUAGE—CULTURE CONNECTION
Whenever you teach a language, you also teach a complex system of
cultural customs, values, and ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.
10. THE NATWE LANGUAGE EFFECT
The native language of learners will be a highly significant system
on
which learners will rely to predict the target-language system.
Although that native system will exercise both facilitating and
interfering (positive and negative transfer) effects on the
production
and comprehension of the new language, the interfering effects are
likely to be the most salient.
11. INTERLANGUAGE
Second language learners tend to go through a systematic or quasi-
systematic developmental process as they progress to full competence
in the target language. Successful interlanguage development is
partially a factor of utilizing feedback from others. Teachers in
language classrooms can provide such feedback, but more important,
can
help learners to generate their own feedback outside of the language
classroom.
12. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE
Given that communicative competence is the goal of a language
classroom, instruction needs to point toward all of its components:
organizational, pragmatic, strategic, and psychomotoric.
Communicative
goals are best achieved by giving due attention to language use and
not just usage, to fluency and not just accuracy, to authentic
language and contexts, and to students’ eventual need to apply
classroom learning to heretofore unrehearsed contexts in the real
world.