The Principles of Teaching English

THE PRINCIPLES OF TEACHING ENGLISH

by : Abdullah Farih, M.Pd

The principles of teaching are very important of English environment. They also influence of succeeding English learners. By implementing and understanding of principles of teaching English, the learners will understand and master English well. According to brown (2010) there are twelve kinds of principles on teaching English that are include in three categories, they are: (a) Cognitive Principles; (b) Affective Principles, and (c) Linguistic Principles.

Cognitive Principles

The cognitive principle relate to five kinds of principles, they are: (1) automaticity, (2) meaningful learning, (3) the anticipation of reward, (4) intrinsic motivation, and (5) strategic investment.

First principle is automaticity. Principle of automaticity include under this rubric the importance of subconscious absorption of language through meaningful use, efficient and rapid movement away from a focus on the forms of language to a focus on the purpose to which language is put, efficient and rapid movement away from a capacity-limited control of a few bits and pieces to relatively unlimited automatic mode of processing language forms, and resistance to the attemption to analyze language forms.

Second principle is meaningful learning. It “subsumes” new information into existing structures and memory systems, and the resulting associative links create longer retention. Meaningful learning will lead toward better long-term retention than rote learning.

Third principle is anticipation of reward. The anticipation of reward can be stated human being 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.

The fourth principle is intrinsic motivation. The most powerful rewards are those that are intrinsically motivated within the learner. Because the behavior stems from needs, wants, or desires within oneself, the behavior itself is self-rewarding: therefore, no externally administered reward is necessary. If all learners were intrinsically motivated to perform all classroom tasks, we might not even need teachers! but you can perform a great service to learners and to the overall learning process by the first considering carefully the intrinsic motives of your students and then designing classroom tasks that feed into those intrinsic drives.

The fifth is strategic investment. Successful mastery of the second language will be due to a large extent to a learner’s own personal “investment” of time, effort, and attention to the second language in the form of and individualized battery of strategic for comprehending and producing the language.

Affective Principles

The affective principles relate to four kinds of principles, they are: (6) Language ego, (7) Self confidence, (8) Risk taking, and (9) The language culture connection.

The language ago principle might also be effectionally called the “warm and fuzzy” principle: all second language learners need to be treated with affective tender loving care. As human beings learn to use a second language, they also 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, a defensiveness, and rising of inhibitions.

Self confidence is learners’ belief to themselves or self-esteem. The other word I can do it! Principle. Learners’ belief that they indeed are fully capable of accomplishing a task is at least partially a factor in their eventual success in attaining the task.

The next principle of affective principle is 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.

The Language and culture are intricately intertwined. Whenever you teach a language, you also teach a complex system of cultural customs, values, and ways of thinking, feeling and acting. 

Linguistic Principles

The last category of principles of language learning and teaching centers on language itself and how learners deal with these complex linguistic systems. The linguistic principle consists of three kinds of principles, they are: (10) The native language effect, (11) Interlanguage, and (12) communicative competence.

The native language of learners exerts a strong influence on the acquisition of the target language system. While that native system will exercise both facilitating and interfering effects on the production and comprehension of the new language, the interfering effects are likely to be the most salient.

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 result of utilizing feedback from others.

Communicative competence is the goal of a language classroom, instruction needs to point toward all its components: Organizational, pragmatic, strategic, and psychomotor. 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 previously unrehearsed contexts in the real world.

In conclusion, there are twelve principles of teaching English that is divided three categories. The cognitive principle: (1) automaticity, (2) meaningful learning, (3) the anticipation of reward, (4) intrinsic motivation, and (5) strategic investment. The affective principles: (6) Language ego, (7) Self confidence, (8) Risk taking, and (9) The language culture connection. The last is linguistic principle: (10) The native language effect, (11) Interlanguage, and (l2) communicative competence.