1 2 English as a global language English as a global language: the place of English: as a lingua franca the number of English speakers: 600-700 million.

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English as a global language:

the place of English: as a lingua franca

the number of English speakers: 600-700 million speak

English; in Asia alone, 100 million children are learning

English.

How English got there: a colonial history, economics

(globalization), travel, information exchange (academic

discourse; the Internet), popular culture (music, movies)

Varieties of English: inner circle, outer circle, and

expanding circle; for specific or general purposes

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Reasons of learning a second/foreign language

Academic: to pursue degrees or certificates (* only a small portion in fact)

Non-academic:

(a) to survive in Target Language community e.g. talking to

neighbors, helping children at school, or carrying out daily functions

effectively

(b) English for specific purpose (ESP): as to apply in work

(c) Culture: to know about the target community

Miscellaneous: to learn for pleasure, for integrating into a culture or to be forced to

To understand students’ need and motivation of learning a language is crucial for successful learning and teaching.

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Advantages children benefit from learning a foreign language:Children’s greater potential for developing accurate

pronunciation, accent and fluency.

Children’s favorable attitude towards a language and

its culture, either their mother tongue or a second

language.

Children’s less mental barriers of learning than adults

Children’s learning two languages simultaneously

without suffering from inter-lingual interference

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But “learners of different ages have different

characteristics” is more preferable than the critical

hypothesis. Besides, accurate pronunciation is not

the most important goal of language learning but a

necessary or desirable goal. There are also other

factors that determine the effectiveness of one’s

language learning such as teacher’s language

competence, the learning environment and so on.

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What is a good English learner/teacher?

A Good learner of English isWilling to experimentWilling to listenWilling to ask questionsWilling to think about how to learnIndependent/responsible

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What is a good English teacher?According to Brown (2001), a good language

teacher is characterized by

i) technical knowledge—understanding linguistics; grasping basic principles of language learning and teaching; language proficiencies in speaking, reading, writing and listening; knowledge about language learning process through one’s own experience; understanding the relationship between culture and language and knowledge of latest development of language teaching and learning.

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ii) Pedagogical skills---well-informed language teaching approaches; teaching techniques; ability in lesson plan design and other classroom behavior management skills.

iii) Interpersonal skills.

iv) Personal qualities.

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Important terms in TESOLTESOL—an acronym for teaching English to speakers

of other languages, used, particularly in the USA, to describe the teaching of English in situations where it is either a second language or a foreign language.

TEFL—an acronym for teaching English as a foreign language, used to describe the teaching of English in situations where it is a foreign language.

TESL—an acronym for teaching English as a second language, used either to describe the teaching of English in situations where it is a second language or to refer to any situation where English is taught to speakers of other languages.

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ESL—an abbreviation for English as a second language such as in Singapore

EFL— an abbreviation for English as a foreign language such as Japan

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Deductive learning of grammar— is an

approach to language learning in which

learners are taught rules and given specific

information about a language. They then apply

these rules when they use the language.

it is widely used in EFL contexts where

exposure to the target language is limited and

the length of instruction time is short. (e.g.

GTM, adult learners, FI/analytic learners, EFL

contexts)12

Inductive learning— is an approach to language

learning in which learners are not taught

grammatical or other types of rules directly but

are left to discover or induce rules from their

experience of using the language.

It is time-consuming and applicable to young

learners in natural settings such as ESL contexts.

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Performance and competence

Performance-- a person’s actual use of language; how a person uses his knowledge of a language in producing and understanding sentences.

Competence-- a person’s knowledge of a language.

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Acquisition vs. learning

Acquisition--the processes by which people naturally develop proficiency in a language

Learning-- the processes by which people formally develop language proficiency.

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the Acquisition-learning hypothesis by Stephen Krashen-(1941-)

Bottom-up processing vs. Top-down processing

Top-down processing—a way in which humans

analyze and process language as part of the process of

comprehension and learning by making use of previous

knowledge (higher-level knowledge) in analyzing and

processing information which is received such as one’s

expectations, experience, schemata in reading the text.

Bottom-up processing— a way making use

principally of information which is already present in the

data (words, sentences, etc.) such as understanding a text

mainly by analyzing the words and sentences in the text

itself.16

Teacher-centered vs. learner-centered teaching

Teacher-centered (fronted) teaching— a teaching style in which instruction is closely managed and controlled by the teacher, where students often respond in unison to teacher questions, and where whole-class instruction is preferred to other methods.

Learner-centered teaching— methods of teaching which emphasizes the active role of students in learning, tries to give learners more control over what and how they learn and encourages learners to take more responsibility for their own learning. It is encouraged by many current teaching approaches.

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Target language vs. native language

Target language—the language which a person is Learning

Native language— a first language or mother tongue which is acquired first .

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Summary:

Pair work Activity

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