Questions tagged [teaching-methods]

Questions about methods that are used to help teach a target language to other people.

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What is the anticipated usage of this Chinese textbook's long lists of questions and answers?

The Chinese HSK6 textbook series 《HSK规范教程 6上》 by 王璕 has many pages like the following wherein there are many listed questions and answers, such as 最近一年你身边有什么灾难发生吗? In the previous year, has a ...
Rebecca J. Stones's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
86 views

What topics should I have knowledge of when teaching ESL?

I am someone who's been learning English as a second language from a very young age, through consuming A LOT of American media, as a result, I grew up to be very fluent in it, and because I pretty ...
The Riser's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
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Why is "fluency development" so commonly overlooked?

Prof. Paul Nation in Learning Vocabulary in Another Language (2001) put forward his idea of four strands to learning/teaching languages: (a) meaning-focused input, (b) meaning-focused output, (c), ...
Rebecca J. Stones's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
115 views

Are native English speakers explicitly aware of the difference between "a/an" and "the"?

I know that native English speakers can use "a/an" and "the" correctly by the age of 3, but how do they explicitly learn the grammar of articles in their grammar classes? I'm not ...
naruto's user avatar
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4 votes
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Details of Pair-teaching system with untrained teachers

I am trying to find details of a teaching system which I believe comes from one of the universities in Quebec, for teaching English and French. It's an exchange technique: the students are organised ...
jonathanjo's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
52 views

What is the impact of Large Language Models on language assessment?

How can the use of large language models like ChatGPT change the assessment of language learning, and what implications does this have for teaching and learning? Considering the impact that computers ...
Lerner Zhang's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
24 views

Is it best practice for a L2 textbook passage to re-use vocabulary from previous passages?

Almost all L2 textbooks contain passages which use new vocabulary. There seems to be two ways to go about this (both with pros and cons): The vocabulary of every passage is independent of previous ...
Rebecca J. Stones's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
24 views

Teaching Methods

What are the features, pros and cons, and procedures of the different methods of teaching language, such as direct method, grammar-translation, task-based, and audiolingualism, etc?
Maralaa Ok's user avatar
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What research is there on the effectiveness of teaching languages without explicit grammar instruction, compared to other teaching methods?

I found that learning a language without explicit grammar instruction works very well (for me at least, and a few other people I know). The people that I have seen being taught in this way seem to ...
ApplePiePoodle's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
80 views

Is there any research on "natural" language learning methods?

All the language learning material I see seems to follow the school example of just throwing information at you. Sure it works but I have seen something that works better. What I mean by better is ...
ApplePiePoodle's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
293 views

Constructivism Learning Theory for English language teaching

Constructivism is a theory of learning to help the learners to construct something based on their own understanding. it implies that learners are encouraged to construct their own knowledge instead of ...
melkorCba's user avatar
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1 answer
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How to help a beginner with speaking?

I am going to help a student with speaking in my native language who is at beginner level. How would we have the conversation such that the student can take the most out of it? Some points I made up ...
A-V Labs's user avatar
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4 votes
2 answers
81 views

Usefulness of Literacy concept in Language Learning and Teaching

I have been struggling with literacy, both as a concept and theory. The literature on literacy is very broad, it seems quite all-encompassing, so I am struggling to make sense of literacy in any ...
Poidah's user avatar
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-1 votes
2 answers
123 views

Struggling with learning, especially without outputting

I'm trying to learn Japanese, and I know quite a bit already (I used rtk to learn the meaning/ stroke order or about 2200 kanji, know over 1700 vocab, listen and watch a lot of videos constantly ...
Hinata_Minoko's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
98 views

Best teaching method for student with minor Aphasia

What would be the best way to teach a student a secondary language if they have minor aphasia? The aphasia isn't bad enough that they are losing their first language, but it's making standard learning ...
Qiangong2's user avatar
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5 votes
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87 views

Based on research, is it better to learn a new language in your mother tongue?

I live in a multilingual country and often people that visit a language course will have the class in one of the languages spoken here, let's say French. But most of these people do not speak a lot of ...
Pit R.'s user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
84 views

Which methodology is inspired by Chomsky's innatist theory?

I know that the Drilling/Audiolongual method was inspired by the Behaviorist theory. I also know that communicative approach was inspired by Piaget's social-interactionist theory. Which methodology is ...
user366312's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
114 views

Which activities are appropriate for which age group?

When preparing for an ESL lesson various activities are included in various stages of a lesson plan. For instance, milling, drilling, info Gap, Gap filling, text-matching, multiple-choice, true/false,...
user366312's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
102 views

Why Is Pronunciation Not Mastered First?

Almost all of the language teachers I've seen place perfect, native-level pronunciation pretty low on the priority list, yet this is the most straightforward thing to learn and will save someone a lot ...
KRM's user avatar
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5 votes
0 answers
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Is the number of exposures required for retaining new words related to the teaching method?

Recently, Rebecca J. Stones asked, Does it take “about 50 exposures for most words to be retained in long term memory”? The question was about a claim by Terry Waltz that classroom learners need a few ...
Tsundoku's user avatar
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7 votes
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Does it take "about 50 exposures for most words to be retained in long term memory"?

...per Chinese teacher Terry Waltz, it takes about 50 exposures for most words to be retained in long term memory... The kind of beginner content I'd like to see, u/Elevenxiansheng, Reddit r/...
Rebecca J. Stones's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
81 views

A different way of teaching, via cognates & etymology?

Is there an existing method—published in a book or an article—for teaching languages with cognates and/or etymology? I'm primarily interested in the Indo-European language family, but any of such ...
Quidam's user avatar
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0 votes
0 answers
33 views

Steps for using the natural method/direct method to make a course, how to use it to teach effectively

If I wanted to write a book or a course using the direct method/natural method, how to do it scientifically? Which methodology to use? My question focus about the use of linguistics theories to teach,...
Quidam's user avatar
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2 votes
2 answers
123 views

What are some of the most useful methods of teaching English grammar?

As a practising English teacher I have observed that teaching of grammar does not help the learners to speak or write fluently or even correctly especially in speech.only a few ...
Jvlnarasimharao's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
65 views

The greatness of a teacher lies in respecting the child [closed]

The greatness of a teacher lies in respecting the child I think the concept of Emerson's is similar to the concept of the present teaching scenorio which claims that learnimng is ...
Jvlnarasimharao's user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
185 views

Must we start teaching reading and writing with the Alphabet?

It is common practice to start with the Alphabet of a language while teaching reading and writing. But some linguists I know say that we need not begin with the Alphabet but ...
Jvlnarasimharao's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
109 views

Is indirect negative evidence better than direct negative evidence?

It is a tendency among teachers to correct students' mistakes directly. For example, when a student says, My father goed to the office, the teacher blames the student. Since it is a sign of ...
Jvlnarasimharao's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
49 views

Is it right to call it Communicative Language Teaching?

Language is primarily spoken or written for communication. Even literature is not without communication, even though it is primarily for writing. All language teaching methods must focus on ...
Jvlnarasimharao's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
251 views

Is the use of mother-tongue in the English class a boon or a bane?

I teach English in a government school where the medium of instruction is both English and the regional medium Telugu. The slow learners opt for Telugu medium and they are not able to follow my ...
Jvlnarasimharao's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
105 views

Is it difficult for the low proficiency learner to learn a second language like English?

As a teacher of English I have observed that any child acquires the first language naturally. But learning a second language like English seems to be very difficult for the low proficiency learners. ...
Jvlnarasimharao's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
92 views

Helping a Chinese native improve her advanced-level English

I'm helping a middle-aged, college-educated woman from mainland China improve her English. This is a hard-working, well-educated, highly-self-motivated student. She has lived in the USA for many years....
lsusr's user avatar
  • 171
3 votes
1 answer
148 views

How can the natural approach to language acquisition work for L2?

So, I was seeing a video today where the narrator brought this approach as the best for L2 acquisition. I believe it can be useful, that's how we all learned our L1 after all, but I wonder how it can ...
Duarte Alfonso Martin's user avatar
5 votes
0 answers
46 views

Is there any evidence that correcting a learner's oral mistakes in class has a negative impact?

In a comment on the question Is there a scientific evidence of class / teacher importance for adult learners? Gavenkoa makes the following claim: There is evidence that certain teaching activities ...
Tsundoku's user avatar
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5 votes
0 answers
23 views

About Inductive-Contextual method [duplicate]

I am currently reading Lingva Latina per se illustrata, by Oerberg. It follows the Inductive-Contextual method, which I find quite pleasant and effective. I have not found, however, books using this ...
Qwertuy's user avatar
  • 208
6 votes
2 answers
101 views

Are there any methods for teaching English as a "means" not an "end"?

What I mean by such a method, is when the purpose of teaching is not to teach English but to use English to teach something else. Something (let us assume) student is genuinely interested in, and is ...
Razmik Badalyan's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
145 views

What techniques do accent coaches use?

What exactly do accent coaches do to help with your accent? For the sake of this question, let's assume the L2 is English, and the learner wants to sound like a native speaker (or as close as possible)...
AML's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
43 views

How does one design a language course for people in a specific profession?

I remember in my time as an undergraduate (philosophy and french) that there were at various times language workshops such as "German for philosophers". I have been teaching French and Philosophy in ...
Petrisor Ivan's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
74 views

How does flow relate to language competency? Can it be taught/learned?

Psychological flow is kind of like going on autopilot, or being completely immersed in an activity, and is also related to high performance levels. I was reading about flow in music, but it reminded ...
kGdmioT's user avatar
  • 193
6 votes
1 answer
994 views

Efficient way to teach English singular/plurals and verb tenses to Chinese students

Chinese mandarin nouns have no singular/plural forms. Also, the concept of time in mandarin is not expressed by changing verb forms, and other mechanisms are used for this purpose, such as adding '...
ccpizza's user avatar
  • 253
8 votes
4 answers
238 views

How can I progress from A1 to B2 on listening skills?

My written Mandarin Chinese is likely B2 while speaking and listening are practically useless, likely A1 on CEFR scale. I'm now trying to improve the listening and speaking fluency, but for me it is ...
Blaszard's user avatar
  • 1,253
7 votes
1 answer
279 views

How to teach someone to correctly pronounce unaspirated t and p in Standard Chinese?

Some languages, such an English and German, make a distinction between the aspirated voiced consonants pʰ and tʰ on the one hand and the unaspirated voiced b and d on the other. Standard Chinese by ...
Tsundoku's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
54 views

What are some tactics to incentivising my friend to learn my native language? [closed]

My bestfriend doesn't like learning languages because, well, a lot of it doesn't make sense to her. I've been occasionally sneaking in little mini-lessons to subtly teach her, but she doesn't quite ...
Dieter Johann's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
72 views

Book or other resources on activities for teaching Chinese grammar?

I am looking for a book or other resources about tasks and activities for teaching Chinese grammar. There are book on teaching English grammar, e.g. Task-based grammar teaching of English by Susanne ...
Tsundoku's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
62 views

Do any teaching methods explicitly rely on the role of the subconscious in language acquisition? [closed]

It seems like language functions best when it is subconscious, like how people use their native languages. Are there any teaching methods that address this?
Ubu English's user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
242 views

How to teach someone to correctly pronounce tones in tonal languages such as Standard Chinese?

I regularly meet with a small group of other learners of Standard Chinese. They have been learning Chinese for several years, though not as long as me. One of their problems is pronunciation, ...
Tsundoku's user avatar
  • 19.7k
5 votes
1 answer
186 views

How are the Pimsleur courses and Michel Thomas courses different?

Pimsleur method and Michel Thomas's method are quite similar, based on their descriptions. What are the differences between them?
Tommi's user avatar
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11 votes
2 answers
9k views

What is the Pimsleur method?

I have trouble finding a good explanation of what the Pimsleur method is and why it works, if it does. So: What is the method and why does it work?
Tommi's user avatar
  • 3,492
3 votes
1 answer
35 views

Evaluating incorrect answers in a language learning app

I'm currently working on developing a language learning web app that provides the user with better feedback. One of the things that I'm looking into right now is evaluating wrong answers. I'd like ...
Seth Killian's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
1k views

Teaching the Present Continuous before the Simple Present?

What would be the pros and cons of teaching the Present Continuous before the Simple Present of main verbs? As every teacher and foreign learner of English knows, courses and course books usually ...
user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
43 views

Are there any L2-acquisition pedagogies based on the structure of L1-learning?

The L2 classes I've experienced seem to be pragmatically focused on giving the student a combination of useful phrases, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and even contextual/cultural information. ...
hamilton.julius's user avatar