PRINCIPLES of
LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING
By H. Douglas
Brown
Critique on Chapter
1 – LANGUAGE, LEARNING, AND TEACHING
By Pablo Rojas-Mena
Pre-Service Teacher, School of English
Faculty of Social Sciences
Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Post 282
PRINCIPLES of LANGUAGE LEARNING AND
TEACHING is a book written by H. Douglas Brown, which is divided into several
chapters, and in this case, the first one is the one being taken into
consideration. Basically, the Chapter 1 focuses on the acquisition of a second language; it explains significant elements,
factors, issues and variables involved in such acquisition, and, besides that,
such chapter also deals with language, learning and teaching, especially with the
different methods utilized in all of those areas. The main purpose of this
chapter is to let the reader know how the acquisition of a second language can
get affected, in a good or in a bad way, depending on the way each person works
in those areas.
Based on the information provided by
Brown (200) in this book, it is possible to find different topics, which are
very meaningful when teaching and learning a second language. Most of the
information from the first chapter is related not only to how those areas,
mentioned above, used to be developed in past, but also how they continue being
developed nowadays. On the other hand, it is important to pay attention to all
of the ideas presented in this chapter; however, there are some that are more
relevant than others, among them, we can include the following:
1) The
issues in second language acquisition, that based on questions that are being
asked about this complex process, part of those questions are: who?, what?,
how?, when?, where? and why?.
2) Also,
the idea of having a clear definition for the terms, “language”, “learning” and
“teaching” and knowing the differences among them.
3) Another
one is the necessity to be aware of the diverse schools of thought that have
existed since a long time ago, such as, the structuralism and behaviorism (
based on observable performance, reinforcement, the structure of a language and
scientific methods), the rationalism and cognitive psychology (it is about
generative linguistics acquisition, the innateness, using the adequate grammar
of a language and it looks for a deeper explanation of the structure of a
language) and the constructivism (it explains the base of acquiring knowledge,
focuses on socialization, it’s to say by interacting with people around us);
these types of schools of thought help the person become more successful in the
learning and teaching processes.
4) Moreover,
it is also meaningful, to make sure there is a good relationship between the
individuals involved in these processes, in this case the student and the
teacher; it is recommendable that both know very well their personal skills.
The last main or more relevant idea, is to try to get familiar a little more
with the communicative approach in learning and teaching processes and so to
work less in the grammatical part, due to, unfortunately the oral skills are
not put in practice very often.
In
my personal opinion, I agree with the information presented by Brown (200) in
this chapter, because it is totally important and true. Actually we must pay
more attention to all of the factors involved in learning and teaching a second
language; there are different methodologies to be successful in those areas. It
is just about choosing the correct designs and techniques. On the other hand,
it is significant to know the good and bad skills of a person when getting
involved in these kind processes and we always have to keep in mind that every
learner, every teacher, every learner-teacher relationship and every context is
unique.
However,
when I take a look at the experiences I have had in these areas, I can say,
they have not been developed properly, based on what this chapter states. One of
those special facts is knowing the person’s skills before starting with a
process, due to, in many cases people do not care so much about the
difficulties someone can present, which should be taken more into consideration.
Besides, the focus on a communicative approach is important because actually
very few institutions explore a person’s oral skills rightly, and also the fact
that in many cases, some teachers’ methodologies do not work efficiently, and
even though, they realize about it, some of them do not make any effort in
order to improve that area.
Finally,
to conclude, it seems to me, that the content of this chapter is very important
and useful for anyone who has to get involved in the areas of learning and
teaching a second language. Actually, this book is totally recommendable, as
long as the reader does not only read the information, but also to put into
practice properly according to his/her abilities.
References
Brown, H. D. (2000). Principles of language learning and
teaching. In H. D. Brown, Language, learning, and teaching (pp. p. 1 -
p. 19). San Francisco: Longman.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
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