structural linguistics. The key point of Chomsky?s theory is reflected in his most famous question: if all language is a learned behavior, how can a child produce a sentence that never been said by others before?
According to Chomsky, language is not a form of behavior, it is an intricate rule-based system and a large part of language acquisition is the learning of this system. There are a finite number of grammatical rules in the system and with a knowledge of these an infinite number of sentences can be produced. A language learner acquires language competence which enables him to produce language.
Though Chomsky?s theory is not directly applied in language teaching, it has had a great impact on the profession. One influential idea is that students should be allowed to create their own sentences based on their understanding of certain rules. This idea is clearly in opposition to the audio-lingual method.
Although people are pretty much still in the dark as to what language is and how language is learned, it is believed that general knowledge about language and language learning will help language teachers do a better job.
Constructivist theory
The constructivist theory believes that learning is a process in which the learner constructs meaning based on his/her own experiences and what he/she already knows. Although constructivist theory was not developed for the understanding of language learning, it is widely applicable to learning in general. It is believed that education is used to develop the mind, not just to rote recall what is learned. John Dewey provided a foundation for constructivism. He believed that teaching should be built based on what learners already knew and engage learners in learning activities. Teachers need to design environments and interact with learners to foster inventive, creative, critical learners. Therefore, teachers must balance an understanding of the habits, characteristics as well as personalities of individual learners with an understanding of the means of arousing learner?s interests and curiosity for learning (Archambault, 1964).
Socio-constructivist theory
Similar to constructivist theory, socio-constructivist theory represented by Vygotsky (1978) emphasizes interaction and engagement with the target language in a social context based on the concept of ?Zone of Proximal Development? (ZPD) and scaffolding. In other words, learning is best achieved through the dynamic interaction between the teacher and the learner and between learners. With the teacher?s scaffolding through questions and explanations, or with a more capable peer?s support, the learner can move to a higher level of understanding and extend his/her skills and knowledge and knowledge to the fullest potential.
1.4 What makes a good language teacher?
Some people with an excellent command of a foreign language may not be able to teach the language well while others with a general command of the language can teach it very effectively. What do you think might account for this phenomenon?
Task 4
Work in groups. Reflect on your own learning experience from early school years to the university. Have you had an excellent English teacher? Try to identify as many qualities as possible of your best English teacher(s). Note down all the qualities that you think are important for a good English teacher. It is clear that whether someone can become a good foreign language teacher does not solely depend on his\\her command of the language. There are a variety of elements that contributes to the qualities of a good language teacher. These elements can be categorized into three groups: ethic devotion, professional qualities and personal styles (Parrot, 1993).
Task 5
Ethic devotion, professional qualities and personal styles jointly contribute to the making of a good English teacher. All the adjectives in the box below could be used to characterize these three aspects.
1. Work in groups of 4 and decide which adjectives describe ethic devotion, which describe personal styles and which describe professional qualities. Please write your answers on a separate piece of paper.
2. Add any adjectives to the list which describe further qualities that you feel are missing.
3. These adjectives are intended to describe positive qualities or styles. Do you feel that any of them could have a negative side as well? If yes, in what way? For example, an authoritative teacher may make the students feel assured, but may also make the student less free to disagree with him\\her.
kind dynamic authoritative hardworking creative patient well-informed fair resourceful attentive warm-hearted reflective well-prepared flexible intuitive accurate enthusiastic humorous caring disciplined professionally-trained (Adapted from Tasks for Language Teachers, Martin Parrot, 1993)
From the above activities we can see that a good English teacher should have ethic
devotion, certain desirable personal styles, and more importantly, he or she should have necessary professional qualities. These three aspects constitute the professional competence of a good English teacher. A person who has a good command of English is not necessarily a good teacher because he has only one of the elements of professional competence.
It is assumed that all responsible English teachers have ethic devotion, and they are supposed to make their personal styles compatible with their work. These two aspects, which are beyond the scope of this book, can be achieved as long as the teacher himself\\herself has the willingness to do so.
A question that many teachers often ask is: I like my job, and I love the students, but how can I become a good English teacher? Our answer is that they need professional competence, which we are going to discuss in the next section.
1.5 How can one become a good language teacher?
The most important and most difficult part of the making of a good language teacher is the development of professional competence, which is the state or quality of being adequately qualified for the profession, and armed with a specific range of skills, strategies, knowledge, and ability.
Task 6
Work in pairs and discuss how one can become a professionally competent teacher of English. For example, we have to develop our English proficiency first and also we may need to learn from experienced teachers through observations. What else can you think of? Make a list and then pool all your ideas together to find out about your common beliefs.
A language teacher?s professional competence is much more difficult than a driver?s skill to handle a car, and is more complicated than a student?s competence of speaking foreign language. It involves more factors and longer learning time, and may never be finished.
Some people think teaching is a craft; that is, a novice teacher can learn the profession by imitating the experts? techniques, just like an apprentice. Others hold the view that teaching is an applied science, based on scientific knowledge and experimentation. By making a compromise between these two views, Wallace (1991) uses a “reflective model” to demonstrate the development of professional competence. The following model is an adapted version to illustrate the process of becoming a professionally competent teacher.
Figure 1.1 Teacher?s professional development (Adapted from Wallace, 1991:15)
From the above model, we can see the development of professional competence for a language teacher involves Stage 1, Stage 2 and Goal. The first stage is language development. All English teachers are supposed to have a sound command of English. As language is the subject matter for language teachers and also because language is always changing, language development can never come to an end.
The second stage is the most crucial stage and it is more complicated because it involves three sub-stages: learning, practice, and reflection. The learning stage is actually the purposeful preparation that a language teacher normally receives before he\\she starts the practice of teaching. This preparation can include:
1. learning from others? experiences (empirical knowledge gained through reading and observations)
2. learning the received knowledge (language learning theories, educational psychology, language teaching methodology, etc.) 3. learning from one?s own experiences as a learner
Both experiential knowledge (others? and one?s own) and received knowledge are useful when a teacher goes to practice. This is the combination of ?craft? and ?applied science? knowledge. The learning stage is followed by practice. The term ?practice? can be used in two senses. In one sense, it is a short period of time assigned to do teaching practice as part of one?s pre-service education, usually under the supervision of instructors. This practice is also called pseudo practice. The other sense of ?practice? is the real classroom teaching that a teacher undertakes after he/she finishes
