The 4th postgraduate conference on issues in English language teaching and literature

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

The 4th postgraduate conference on issues in English language teaching and

literature is going to be held on May (Ordibehesht) this year in

Tehran university.

Here you can download the forms for registration.

Basic information

Conference Registration Form

Workshop registeration form

دوستان عزیز

چهارمین کنفرانس مسایل آموزش و ادبیات انگلیسی در اردیبهشت ماه جاری

در دانشگاه تهران برگزار می گردد. لینک های بالا جهت دانلود اطلاعات بیشتر

و نحوه ثیت نام در کنفرانس می باشد.

سه مشکل اصلي پيش روي يک زبان آموز

سه مشکل اصلي پيش روي يک زبان آموز
 

1- ايجاد شور و هيجان در فراگيري زبان

همه زبان‌آموزان دوست دارند که به خوبي انگليسي صحبت کنند. آنها از اين فکر که قادر باشند «روان» صحبت کنند و با ديگران به انگليسي ارتباط برقرار کنند به هيجان مي‌آيند. اما آنها معمولاً توجهي به خود فرآيند آموزش ندارند. در نظر بيشتر زبان‌آموزان، فراگيري زبان انگليسي يک اجبار است - چيـزي که مجبور به انجام آن هستنـد، ولي ميلي به آن ندارنـد. آنهـا در فراگيري زبان انگليسي هيچ لذتي نمي‌بينند. بطور خلاصه، بيشتر زبان‌آموزان دوست دارند که انگليسي صحبت کنند ولي دوست ندارند به فراگيري زبان انگليسي مشغول باشند. اين اولين و مهمترين مشکلي است که پيش روي يک زبان آموز قرار دارد، زيرا کسي که تمايلي به فراگيري يک زبان خارجي نـدارد، آن را بـه خوبي فرا نخواهـد گـرفت. اگـر شما «انگليسي» را دوست نداشتـه باشيـد، «انگليسي» هم شما را دوست نخواهد داشت!

اگر مي‌خواهيد که زبان‌آموز موفقي باشيد، لازم است که خود فرآيند آموزش را هم دوست داشته باشيد. لازم است که زماني را که صرف فراگيري انگليسي مي‌کنيد، به عنوان وقت تفريح يا استراحت خود به حساب آوريد. به عنوان مثال، شما بايد از موارد زير لذت ببريد:

• خواندن جملات انگليسي و فکر کردن درباره ساختار آنها
• فراگيري لغات جديد از يک ديکشنري
• نوشتن يک جمله انگليسي صحيح با کمک گرفتن از ديکشنري، کتاب گرامر و اينترنت
• تمرين تلفظ اصوات و کلمات انگليسي

به طور آرماني، فراگيري زبان بايستي براي شما يک تفريح به حساب بيايد. شما بايد خود را يک «زبان‌آموز» قلمداد کنيد - کسي که فراگيري زبان انگليسي را به عنوان يکي از فعاليت‌هاي مورد علاقه‌اش انتخاب کرده است.

 

2- ايجاد اولين تغيير در زندگي

تصميم براي فراگيري زبان انگليسي نيازمند ايجاد تغييراتي در زندگي‌تان مي‌باشد. به عنوان مثال تصميم مي‌گيريد که هر روز 30 دقيقه براي خواندن يک کتاب انگليسي وقت بگذاريد و بر اين تصميم پافشاري مي‌کنيد. ايجاد يک تغيير کوچک ولي دائمي در زندگي راحت نيست، مخصوصاً اگر فراگيري زبان «سرگرم کننده» به نظر نرسد. به هر حال، زبان‌آموزان بايد به خاطر داشته باشند که اگر روزي 15 دقيقه به مطالعه انگليسي بپردازند، نتيجه بهتري مي‌گيرند تا اينکه مثلاً هر يک ماه يکبار، يک روز کامل را به اين کار اختصاص دهند.

 

3- ايجاد تغييرات ديگر در زندگي

اگر چه ايجاد اولين تغيير، خود کار دشواري است، ايجـاد تغييرات بعدي نيـز سخت است. بسياري از زبان‌آموزان اولين گام را برمي‌دارند (مثلاً مطالعه روزانه يک کتاب بـه زبان انگليسي) و همانجا متوقف مي‌شوند. آنها خود را درگير فعاليت‌هاي «انگليسي ساز» نمي‌کنند.

يک زبان‌آموز خوب مجموعه‌اي از فعاليتها (خواندن متن، تماشاي برنامه‌هاي زبان اصلي، تمرين تلفظ و ...) را در اختيار دارد و هر کدام را بر اساس حال و هواي خود انتخاب مي‌کند. يک فعاليت به خودي خود کافي نيست، زيرا اولاً شما زودتر خسته مي‌شويد و ثانياً به شما طيفي از مهارتهاي زبان ارائه مي‌دهد که نوعاً بسيار محدود است. به عنوان مثال خواندن متون انگليسي نمي‌تواند تلفظ شما را تقويت کند، اگر چه مي‌تواند گرامر، دايره لغت و مهارتهاي نوشتاري و درک مطلب شما را تقويت کند.

منبع: www.zabanamoozan.com

 

Another Way to Look at Teaching Grammar

Another Way to Look at Teaching Grammar                Teaching grammar is quite often a thankless job.  Many students consider learning grammar useless, a colossal waste of time, and quite hateful; similarly, many teachers, even though they may lament the poor writing skills of students in general, claim grammar instruction is worthless as it does not lead to better writing.  These students and educators share the notion it is not how a student expresses him- or herself that matters but what he or she has to say about a subject.  In short, they argue for a focus on content not grammar.                Where one stands in debates about grammar locates him or her in the historical dialectic continuum of composition teaching pedagogy: the decade in which one was instructed and its particular language teaching methodology reflects his or her beliefs about language learning and, in turn, how much he or she esteems grammar.  You can see this by looking at foreign language (FL) teaching pedagogy in general and English-as-a-second-language (ESL) teaching in specific over the past 100 years.  The latter has been informed and shaped by some of the same linguistic and cognitive learning principles that have shaped most American public school English composition classes over the century.  What follows is a quick sketch of grammar's up-and-down role in FL and ESL language classrooms from the late 1980s to the present.                For eons grammar was unquestionably an intrinsic part of language and writing pedagogy--to separate it out would have been unthinkable.   Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy^1 informs me that to learn a language was to learn its grammatical rules and memorize its vocabulary and verb structures, which one did through various writing exercises and by translating literary texts.   With little to no emphasis on content or the communication of ideas, the focus of this Classical Method was on grammar.  In the 1800s this classical pedagogy took its current name of Grammar Translation and its first challengers, François Gouin and Charles Berlitz.                By memorizing not only an entire grammar book but also 248 irregular verbs, Gouin valiantly tried but failed to teach himself German using the Classical Method.  Observing how toddlers learned first languages and deducing second language learning might be similar, he developed what he called the Series Method, which he presented in The Art of Learning and Studying Foreign Languages.  He essentially argued people learn languages by using them for communicative purposes and talking about the real things and situations around them, not by memorizing rules.  By not focusing on grammatical forms, you could say Gouin shifted the focus in language teaching to content and meaning.  Although first, Gouin's work never gained the prestige of Berlitz's work.                Still with us today, the Berlitz Method was for the early 20^th century a popular way to learn a foreign language. That it subordinated the role of grammar is clear in my grandmother's old French textbook, Méthode Berlitz: 1^er Livre.^2 Explaining his method, Berlitz aims to teach "in a novel and attractive way….To avoid the dry instruction in theoretical grammar, we have presented the subject in the garb of practical and entertaining illustrations, closely connected with object teaching.  The student, through in reality studying grammar, does not perceive that he is familiarized with the rules of that dreaded wearisome science, but enjoys the exercises as an attractive and useful conversation" (p. 7).  Evidently, a general antipathy towards grammar is not new, so learning it inductively would be a great plus.                 Berlitz's method and those of Gouin and others are known as the Direct Method. Although popular, this method was superseded in the 1920s by the old, classical, form-emphasizing Grammar Translation Method, which held reign until the 1950s when it was supplanted by the Audiolingual Method (ALM), a method morphed out of, you guessed it, the Direct Method.  In a kind of behavioral conditioning, students did language drills, memorized set phrases and patterns, learned vocabulary in context, and focused on correct form and the production of error-free sentences, but they did not receive explicit grammar instruction.  Once again, it turns out learning grammar happens inductively.                 By the 1960s, however, Chomsky's linguistic theories and the recognition ALM students weren't proficient speakers put grammar in the spotlight again.  Also, a definite split in educators' beliefs about the efficacy of teaching grammar in FL and ESL classes appeared, and this split is still with us.  Painting it broadly, one camp believes grammar is learned inductively while the other believes it has to be learned deductively.  From the 1970s through the early 1980s, we see a great variety in methods, ranging from the grammar-based Total Physical Response Method to the meaning-focused Natural Way.  The 1980s presented a shift from method-based pedagogy to a broader approach, communicative language teaching (CLT) which, rightfully so I think, focuses on the expressive use of language for communicating and interacting meaningfully with others. Unfortunately, however, CLT's breadth has resulted in broad misinterpretations of its concepts, and under fuzzy terms such as "whole language" and the belief that grammar is learned inductively, grammar instruction disappeared from many language classrooms, FL, ESL, and regular English composition alike.  But not forever.                 Yes, since the 1990s many are calling for explicit grammar instruction.  Students and educators shaped by a particular decade's methodology will pick a seat at one end or the other of this meaning/content-grammar/form seesaw.  For me, the obvious seat is the fulcrum.  I just cannot divorce the one from the other.  To talk about a student's meaning, her content, is to talk about her form, the grammar through which she expresses herself, from the overall structure down to individual morphemes.  And our trip through the century tells us the obvious: grammar is both inductively and deductively learned.                Rather than seeing grammar and meaning as linear opposites, we might envision them as the circular uroborus, the snake eating its tail.  This would remind us that they are both necessary, critical parts not only of the whole communicative process but also of language pedagogy.  It also recognizes that the "dreaded wearisome science" grammar is difficult to swallow.Brown, H. D. (2001). A "methodical" history of language teaching.  In Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (2^rd ed.).   New York:  Longman Press.                  Berlitz, M. D. (1889).  Méthode Berlitz: 1^er Livre.  New York: M. J. Pendergast.

http://www.siue.edu/IS/WRITING/NewsletterC/Issue%204/page3.html

The changing winds and shifting sands of the history of English Language Teaching

Dimitrios Thanasoulas

Introduction

As the title implies, the English language teaching tradition has been subjected to a tremendous change, especially throughout the twentieth century. Perhaps more than any other discipline, this tradition has been practiced, in various adaptations, in language classrooms all around the world for centuries. While the teaching of Maths or Physics, that is, the methodology of teaching Maths or Physics, has, to a greater or lesser extent, remained the same, this is hardly the case with English or language teaching in general. As will become evident in this short paper, there are some milestones in the development of this tradition, which we will briefly touch upon, in an attempt to reveal the importance of research in the selection and implementation of the optimal methods and techniques for language teaching and learning.

The Classical Method

In the Western world back in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, foreign language learning was associated with the learning of Latin and Greek, both supposed to promote their speakers' intellectuality. At the time, it was of vital importance to focus on grammatical rules, syntactic structures, along with rote memorisation of vocabulary and translation of literary texts. There was no provision for the oral use of the languages under study; after all, both Latin and Greek were not being taught for oral communication but for the sake of their speakers' becoming "scholarly?" or creating an illusion of "erudition." Late in the nineteenth century, the Classical Method came to be known as the Grammar Translation Method, which offered very little beyond an insight into the grammatical rules attending the process of translating from the second to the native language.

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