Research into/through my major project

Hello,

In today's post I will focus on research into/through my major project. Here is what I have gone through this time.

Research into my major project:

I will research into Language Teaching Methods in the historical order, therefore I am interested in the various techniques, which I can use to finalise my major project, which is 'Virtual class for younger students on English grammar'. I will look at history of Teaching Methods and see how this evolved and how is it still used in today's approach to general education. 

I will research into my major project using different websites and academic ebooks, such as teach.com, sutori.com , esl.fis.edu and novaconcursos.com

Language Teaching Methods - A Historical Timeline 

The Grammar Translation approach, the 16th-19th centuries

- teaching classical languages to modern languages 

- taught in student's native language

- learning is largely by translation to and from  the target language

- grammar rulers needs to be learnt by heart

- memorized extented vocabulary 

- no little empasis on an oral-ability

The Direct Approach - The Natural Method - The Berlitz Method - Early 20th Century
- A reaction to the Grammar-Translation Approach
- No use of the student's native language is allowed
- Lessons include conversational situations
- Images and miming are use to cement understanding
- Grammar is learned with exposure as is the culture
- The teacher must be a native (inner circle) speaker or be proficient in target language

1930s The Reading Approach
- focused on grammar specifically connected with detailed
understanding of the complex texts and reading comprehension.
- development of principles of vocabulary,
which is monitored at first and then expanded
- Reading comprehension is a key point
- Grammar content as the major part of a teaching guide

The Situational Approach: 1940s - 1960s (UK)
- Spoken language is dominant
- Choral repetition
- All material is first presented orally, and then, presented in other variations
- Monolingual environment
- The complexity of grammar is scaled
- Common lexical items are taught
- New concepts are introduced via scenes (at a doctor's office, etc.)

The Audiolingual Approach - The Audiolingual Method 1940s - 1960s (USA)

- Lessons begin with a scene
- Mimicry and memorization play a role
- Skills are ordered thusly: listening, speaking-reading, and writing is often delayed
- Pronunciation is a focal point from the inception
- Mitigation of learner errors occurs
- Language taken out of context

The Cognitive Approach 1960s-1970s 

- Rules will help a student acquire a language
- Learners are responsible for their own learning
- Grammar can be taught before or after introducing examples
- Perfection in pronunciation is unrealistic
- Reading, writing, speaking, and listening are equally important
- Vocabulary expansion is emphasized at higher levels
- Errors are a part of learning
- Example: The Silent Way method

source: Video 1: Back in Time: The Cognitive Approach

The Affective-Humanist Approach (Community Language Learning): late 1960s - 1970s

-Emotions are recognized and respected
-Meaningful communication is dominant
-Classroom atmosphere > methods or materials
-Peer support and interactions occurs through pair or group work
-Learning another language is about personal growth
-The teacher is viewed as a counselor or facilitator
- Translation may be used greatly at the beginning to create a welcoming atmosphere

The Comprehension-Based Approach : 1970s

-Listening comprehension is emphasized as a basic skill
-This comprehension can be reinforced through nonverbal methods (Total Physical Response) - pointing at objects as they are named, etc.
-Students should only speak when they feel ready
-Exposure to items one step above their level
Understanding is valued over error correction
-Rules are de-emphasized

The Communicative Approach - Communicative Language Teaching (CLT): 1970s
- The main goal is to communicate in the target language
- The content of the course will feature not just linguistic structures but social functions as well
- Students often work in groups or in pairs to aid one another
- Students often role-play or dramatize various social situations
- Classroom activities and materials are from the real world
- All the skills are touched upon from the beginning
- The teacher's role is to ease communication in class, rather than solely correct errors

source: What is the communicative approach ?

Critical response:

The term teaching method refers to the general principles, pedagogy and management strategies used for classroom instruction. The choice of a particular teaching method depends on a teacher's educational philosophy, the classroom demographic, subject area(s) and school mission statement. The variety of methods developed in a last centuries has proved that any of these methods is allowed to be called the greatest, what is supported by the fact that they all were superseded by the innovative teaching approaches and then considered as 'outdated' and 'off the table'. Displayed here right above techniques have both advantages and disadvantages which should be discussed separately and compared to the requirements for a group of learners that this technique should work for. 

However, it can be said that methodology used in the 19th century filled demands of then students and tutors, what explains the conflict in understanding of the major distinction in teaching now and back then. We can assume that the demographic of a classroom in the past might need a support in diverse language sections, such as: speaking and reading, when in the these days the tendency changed and lessons are focused on a proper grammar and listening skills.

Research through my major project:

I will research through my major project with  Lucidpress software in order to test it out and create 'My Self-Study Log' for my students to write down the time they spend on studying after the class.

On a Lucipress website I will experiment with available templates, layouts, design and colour schemes, to decide if that software will be an useful digital tool for my project and how can I push the limits of its possibilities.

LUCIDPRESS TEST

First I have set up my account on Lucidpress with my course Google account and log into the website.

I clicked the '+ New' button and chose option 'from Template' to start working on an actual document.

I have gone through a wide range of quite interesting and attention grabbing templates, but finally I clicked in section ' Education', (as my project is related to education and teaching methods) and chose the template you can see down below.

'Weekly Reading Log' template

In the next step I opened a new file ans started customising it in the way I like it.

I deleted the initial title and change it for ' My Self-Study Log', I replaced the headlines in the columns with my own as you can see...

In the last step I changed the colour scheme of a template to cheerful, fair  colours, which I associate with Spring and friendly classrooms decor adapted to younger students. 

In the end I saved the project and converted it to PNG format (like an image) to add it later to my presentation and PDF Accessible file in case I would like give some information in there.

Here you can see the final results I will use for my major project:

Reference list:

International Frankfurt School (n.d.) Language Teaching Methodologies [WWW] Available from: http://esl.fis.edu/teachers/support/method.htm [Accessed 10/11/20]

Sutori (n.d.) Language Teaching Methodies [WWW] Available from: https://www.sutori.com/story/language-teaching-methods-a-historical-timeline--y9P4UknHd2b8FRem1YpbNsho [Accessed 10/11/20]

Teach.com (n.d.) Teaching Methods [WWW] Available from: https://teach.com/what/teachers-know/teaching-methods/ [Accessed 10/11/20]

Video 1: Back in Time: The Cognitive Approach - Teach English Now! Theories of Second Language (2020) Video Published by Arizona State University. USA: (n.d.)

What is the communicative approach? (2016) Video Published by Fiona Sloane. (n.d.): (n.d.)