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
2 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
3 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 learnerteacher 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
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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.