Theory Into Practice

        THEORY INTO PRACTICE 

A Behaviourist Lesson

According to Skinner who is one of the most known behaviourist , the most substantial procesess in language developments are imitations, practice and positive / negative reinforcement. Children acquire the language by imitating the environment. They practice the behaviours of adults, sounds coming from environment. In this way, it becomes  a habit for children after a while. As they are learning, they affect from the external factors. If they get positive reinforcement, children will be encouraged so learning will take place at the highest level. However, children may have errors and make mistakes. If the teacher gives negative reinforcement, it may cause children to lose their motivation.

For instance;

Teacher explains the daily routine thorough a dialogue. Firstly, teacher reads the dialogue aloud and then wants students to read it aloud. Students try to imitate the pronunciation of the teacher; they do it more than one time to practice. Then, the teacher asks students about what’s going on in the dialogue by making some sentences like;

–teacher: Mike goes shopping, right.

–that’s right, Mike goes shopping.

–Teacher: Very good, Mike goes shopping and buys coffee, right.

–That’s right; Mike goes shopping and buys coffee

–Teacher: Mike goes shopping and buys coffee every day.....................

In the example, students learn the subject through repetitions, imitation, and reinforcement. But there are also limitations. One of them is overgeneralization which is when students learn a rule, they can imply the rule for all of the cases. As an example, students may use the present tense which is used in the example above for past or future event, too.

An Innatist Lesson

In the Innatist  Perspective, there are five hypothesis in Krashen’s monitor model. I would like to explain them in an example ;

Teacher would like to teach colours with some colourful cards, and she shows cards to students just by speaking in target language. Through this way, students can understand the message that is wanted to be learned. This is called input hypothesis in Krashen’s monitor mode. Also the affective filter hypothesis is efficient in learning, students should be motivated. If they aren’t motivated enough, they can have difficulty in learning

At the end of lesson, teacher shows some colourful things in the class and asks them the colour of the things. Students answer in target language. Thus, students become aware of their learning , which is given name the monitor hypothesis. Students try to explain the colours by using their grammatical knowledge and that is called  the natural order hypothesis.  The students learn the language consciously/ unconsciously  and this  is called the acquisition-learning hypothesis. But it also has some limitations, the teacher gives priority to fluency rather than accuracy.

A Socio-cultural Lesson

Socio-cultural Perspective is a theory in which students learn from interaction, environment and experiences. We will explain the perspective with an example that is a classroom activity;

The topic that the teacher teaches is how to order something in a restaurant. Teacher makes groups of two students. One student will have the knowledge that provides him/her to support him/her partner so that zone of proximal development can occur. Zone of proximal development is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can do with help. Teacher gives instruction and asks students to create a dialogue about the topic. When students need a help while creating the dialogue, the teacher helps them. Students read and try to dramatize the dialogue in front of the class. It becomes an experience for them, which gives a chance to students to be able to imply it to their real life. 

My comment;

English has different parts like vocabulary, grammar, translation, pronunciation that’s why I think I need different perspectives of teaching. As a future English teacher I think, all of the perspectives can be useful in some situations and I will use a mix of these perspectives. However, I would like to use socio-cultural perspective mostly.