Notes: Teaching Methods & Assessments | English Language & Pedagogy for CTET & TET Exams - CTET & State TET PDF Download

Introduction

The term teaching method refers to the general principles, pedagogy and management strategies used for classroom instruction. The choice of the teaching method will depend on what fits one’s educational philosophy and classroom demographic. It is the philosophy of one’s teaching task and instruction and should be directed at modifying and improving opportunities of acquiring the language, in a natural way. Different learners learn the same things in different ways and methods should, therefore, reflect both inductive and deductive learning styles. The methods employed to teach English must try to emulate closely the real world of the learner and create a classroom environment in which genuine communication takes place, provides active practice and learner participation. A multiplicity of modes of organisation and presentation of language tasks is required. The methods should take cognisance of the learners’ cultural milieu, providing a great deal of active learner participation. While choosing methods, the teacher should keep in mind the usage, practical application, age appropriateness, the syllabus and the learning outcomes.

Different Teaching Methods

• Teaching theories, primarily, fall into two categories or approaches: teacher- centered and student-centered. The different methods to teach English are as follows:
  • In the Grammar-translation Method, also called the Classical method, learning is largely by doing translation exercises and drilled to and from the target language. Grammar rules are memorized, long lists of vocabulary learned. The content is not so important and most attention is paid to the form of the sentences. It is a rigid method and since there is no emphasis placed on developing oral ability, learn- ers lack the skills required for holding a conversation. They may understand the written language well, but have absolutely no working knowledge of English. It removes creativity from the class, rendering language learning as boring and dull. 
  • The Direct Method is sometimes called the Natural method, where the teaching is done entirely in the target language. It was developed as a response to the Grammar Translation method. The learner is not allowed to use his or her mother tongue, grammar rules are avoided and the emphasis is on good pronunciation. The weakness in the Direct Method is its assumption that a second language can be learnt in exactly the same way as a first, whereas the conditions under which a second language is learnt are very different. Aspects of the Direct Method are still evident in many ELT classrooms, such as the emphasis on listening and speaking, the use of the target language for all class instructions, and the use of visuals and realia to illustrate meaning. 
  • The Audio-lingual Method, also called the Army method, is based on linguistic theory and behavioural psychology. Learning a language is done through exten- sive drills and pattern repetition of the grammar in the target language. The method’s insistence on repetition and memorization of standard phrases ignored the role of context and knowledge in language learning. As the study of linguis- tics developed, it was discovered that language was not acquired through a pro- cess of habit formation, and that errors were not necessarily bad. 
  • The Structural approach stresses on the learning of the essential structures of English. It sees language as a complex of grammatical rules which are to be learned one at a time in a set order. Teaching is done in situations. Speech is mainly stressed, but reading and writing are not neglected. 
  • The Oral Approach or Situational Language Teaching is based on a structural view of language. Speech, structure and a focus on a set of basic vocabulary are seen as the basis of language teaching. Situational Language Teaching involves situational presentation of new sentence patterns and drills of vocabulary items and grammar rules in order to achieve a practical mastery of the four basic skills. The criticism is that this approach does not explain the fundamental feature of language learning, which is the ability to create novel and unique sentences.
  • The Suggestopedia approach (from the words ‘suggestion’ and ‘pedagogy’) was based on the power of suggestion in learning, the notion being that positive suggestion would make the learner more receptive and, in turn, stimulate learning. It is one of the few methodologies working with relaxation. The theory underlying this method is that a language can be acquired only when the learner is receptive and has no mental blocks. The main features of suggestopedia are the use of music to relax learners, the furniture the arrangement of the classroom and the teacher’s central role. It is suggested to the learner that the language is easy and this helps to remove the mental blocks to learning. Suggestopedia encourages learners to apply language more independently, take more personal responsibil- ity for their own learning and feel comfortable and relaxed. The main disadvantages of suggestopedia are environment limitation and a child like situation, as some learners may not enjoy background music.
  • The Total Physical Response (TPR) as an approach to teaching a second language, is based upon the way that children learn their mother tongue. It is based on listening and this is linked to physical actions which are designed to reinforce comprehension of particular basic items. TPR works by having the learner respond to simple commands such as stand up, open the window. The method stresses the importance of aural comprehension. Short TPR activities integrated with other activities can be both highly motivating and linguistically purposeful. Careful choice of useful and communicative language at beginner level can make TPR activities valid. However, it is suitable only for beginner lev- els, not everything can be taught by it and it is not suitable in classes that have a large number of learners.
  • The Communicative language teaching (CLT) method enables the learner to com- municate effectively and appropriately in the various situations she/he would be likely to find herself/himself in. The communicative approach is based on the idea that learning language successfully comes through having to communicate real meaning. When learners are involved in real communication, they learn to use the language. The content of CLT courses are functions such as inviting, suggesting, complaining or notions such as the expression of time, quantity and location. Classroom activities guided by the communicative approach are characterised by trying to produce meaningful and real communication, at all levels. There is more emphasis on skills, lessons are more learner-centred and there is use of authentic materials. The teacher acts as a facilitator and learners are active participants in the construction of knowledge, rather than passive recipients of information pro-vided by the teacher or the textbook.
  • The Silent Way, founded by Caleb Gattegno, focuses on discovery, creativity, problem solving and the use of accompanying materials. No use is made of the mother tongue. In this approach, teaching is subordinated to learning. The aim of the teacher is to say as little as possible in order that the learner can be in control of what he wants to say. The teacher is silent most of the time, playing an indirect role, leaving the learner to struggle in figuring out and testing the hypotheses about how language works. The learner is an active contributor to the learning process as the learning is facilitated by problem solving which fosters creativity, discovery and long term memory. The material includes colorful charts and rods (cuisenaire rods) of varying length, used to introduce vocabulary related to colors, numbers, adjectives, verbs and syntax related to tense, comparatives, plurals and word order. However, it has been criticized for lack of communication, as the learner works in isolation and with little help from the teacher, learning itself could be at risk. The material used ( the rods and the charts) are insufficient to introduce all aspects of language and other materials would be required.
  • Community Language Learning (or CLL) was founded by Charles Curran. In this method attempts are made to build strong, personal links between the teacher and leaner, so that there are no blocks to learning. There is much talk in the mother tongue which is translated by the teacher for repetition by the student. One of the key ideas is that it is the learners who determine what is to be learned, so that the role of the teacher is that of a facilitator and support. In the basic form of CLL, 8-10 learners sit in a circle, with a small portable tape recorder inside the circle. The teacher, referred to as Knower, stands outside the circle. When a learner has decided on something he/she calls the Knower over and whispers what he/she wants to say in his mother tongue. The teacher whispers the equiva- lent utterance in English, which the leaner attempts to repeat, with the rest of the group listening. When the Knower is satisfied, the learner records the utter- ance. This process is repeated by other learners, till a kind of dialogue is recorded. The Knower replays the recording and transcribes it on the board. This is followed by analysis and questions from the learners. In a subsequent session, the Knower may suggest activities springing from the dialogue. This approach has been criti- cized as it can involve only a few students, the teacher has to be non-judgemental and highly proficient in the target language and the approach is more suitable for adult learners, than children.
  • The Immersion Method (immersion means being submerged or surrounded by something) is a direct language learning approach that has no bilingual support and believes that either one should learn the language properly or not at all. The successful acquisition of a foreign language depends primarily on three factors: the intensity of contact, the duration of teaching and the type of teaching method and the immersion method has proved to be the successful in all three areas. It is mainly a second language learning approach to help learners focus towards the target language by exposing them to real life situations, wherein the learners can choose formal or informal language as required. In this approach, technology helps in providing for direct language learning and listening to English songs and watching English movies, helps learners get accustomed to the English language including the use of words in sentences, structuring sentences, using body lan- guage and pronouncing accurately.
  • Task-based language learning (TBL) gives learners the opportunity to use English in the classroom, just as they use their own languages in everyday life. The focus of the teaching is on the completion of a task which is interesting to the learn- ers. They use the language they already possess to complete the task and there is little correction of errors. Task-based learning is based on three stages. At the pre- task stage, the topic is introduced by the teacher and the learners engage in activities that either help them to recall words and phrases that will be useful dur- ing the performance of the main task or to learn new words and phrases that are essential to the task. At the next stage, the learners, in pairs or groups, plan and perform the task, (such as a reading task, a listening task, or a problem-solving task,) prepare a detailed report and present their findings to the class in spoken or written form. Language focus and feedback is the final stage.
  • The Natural Approach developed by Tracy Terrell and supported by Stephen Krashen, is a language teaching approach which stresses the similarities between learning the first and second languages. Learners are initially exposed to meaningful language, not forced to speak until they are ready to and not corrected or given explicit grammar instruction. The approach is designed to develop basic communication skills, with more emphasis given to comprehension rather than production. Learning takes place by giving learners continued exposure to meaningful language and the learners perform the tasks as best as they can.
  • The Lexical Approach was put forward by Michael Lewis and focuses on the learn- ing and teaching of vocabulary items, which are described as word chunks or word combinations. The basic principle of the lexical approach is that lexis is cen- tral in creating meaning and grammar plays a subservient managerial role. More time, therefore, should be spent in helping learners develop their vocabulary and less time on grammatical structures.
• This approach is based on a computer analysis of language which identifies the most common, useful words in the language and their various uses. The syllabus teaches these words in broadly the order of their frequency, with emphasis on the use of authentic materials.

Assessment

• Assessment is the systematic basis for making inferences about the learning and development of the learners. It is the process of defining, selecting, designing, collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and using information to increase the learners’ learning and development. Assessment is used when placing learners into courses, diagnosing their needs, determining when learning goals are met, evaluating teaching methods, as well as providing learners with self-evaluative information. Good assessment features means that the test must be valid, which means directly reflect the learning outcome being assessed; reliable, especially regarding inter-rater reliability when subjective judgments are made); actionable to help teachers identify what their learners are learning well and what requires more attention; efficient and cost-effective in time and money; engaging for learners to demonstrate the extent of their learning; interesting to teachers so that they care about and act on the results and have triangulation, which is multiple evidence pointing to the same conclusion. 
• Language assessment can be an integral part of learning in the language class. A question teachers should first consider when developing assessment is, why are the learners being assessed. To design good assessment, teachers should pay attention to validity, reliability, practicality, authenticity, and washback. Several things that must be considered in making an authentic test is that the test must represent the real world, the language used should be natural, the items contextual and the topics meaningful, interesting and organized thematically.

Direct and Indirect Assessment

Language is a skill based subject and because the language skills are to be developed spirally, the learner’s competence in developing these skills are to be evaluated continuously. To this end, assessment would include different types of questions. There are many ways to talk about methods of assessing language. Both the indirect and direct methods, common in language testing, are used for different skills or in different kinds of classes.

• Indirect Assessment tries to measure language through means that are not directly productive. For example, indirect assessment might ask learners to recognize the correct verb form, but not actually measure their ability to produce it or use it. Indirect methods may be more common in assessing reading, listening, vocabulary or grammar and in classes that are large. Selected -response items are test questions in which learners choose a correct answer from a list of provided options. The common kind of question used in indirect assessment is multiple- choice or True/False questions. Multiple choice questions are common selected- response items. These are usually considered objective as there should be one correct answer. Multiple choice tests have some advantages which include that they are easy to score, increase reliability, may lower test anxiety, requires little instruction, and manageable for beginning learners who can’t produce a lot.
  But, there are a number of problems in using multiple choice questions, as they only assesses recognition of language, have limited inferences about language possible, are inauthentic to real language use, learners can guess the answers and writing successful multiple choice questions is difficult. Another common type of question is the fill-in-the blank questions. This is often found in assessment of grammar and vocabulary. While it does require learners to produce language, which is different from a multiple-choice question, it is rather inauthentic in terms of language use. Some of the advantages of fill-in-the-blank questions is that they have high reliability, are easier to write and limit guessing. Some of the disadvantages with this kind of question is that it is harder to score, numerous possible correct answers may exist, what is being measured is hard to define, takes more time for learners to complete and are not communicative.
• Direct Assessment attempts to evaluate language in use, to measure what a learner is doing as a sample of productive language. For example, having learners discuss a topic, while the teacher observers and rates their performances would be a direct assessment. Another example is recording short spoken answers to questions about daily life. Direct assessment works well for productive skills such as writing or speaking and provides a better picture of what learners can do with the language. Examples of direct assessment might include presentations, interviews, writing summaries, or portfolios. Direct assessment is often preferred for assessing language for a number of reasons, such as increased potential for communicative interaction, better evidence for language use, more motivating for learners and more authenticity. Some problems with direct assessment include performance anxiety, conducting and scoring them is time- consuming. Also, there is the challenge in using direct assessment with low proficiency learners because they find the tasks complex and confusing to complete, as producing the language can be difficult and limiting for them. Some solutions to help these learners and ensure that the scores from direct assessment are about language performance, can be done by using L1 in instructions and feedback, writing clear and familiar tasks, limiting time pressure, giving choices where possible, piloting tasks carefully, and allowing learners to practice Another challenge in direct assessment is scoring and giving meaningful feedback on the learners’ performance. The teacher needs a clear idea of what they are measuring in the performance and give feedback learners can understand. Some ways to provide better feedback in direct assessment is by using a scoring rubric and sharing the rubric with the learners before the test, having them use the rubric to rate their own or others’ performance and rating the learners selectively, rather than providing feedback on everything. Another challenge in direct assessment is that as this method requires language use, many factors such as creativity, nervousness, or personality traits can impact the learners’ performance that the teacher is not trying to measure.