ENG519 20 Principles by Nimma Malik

“Twenty Principles”

The principles have been divided into three groups. These three groups represent the three major divisions.

1) content and sequencing 2) format and presentation 3) monitoring and assessment

First Group of Twenty Principles: Content and Sequencing

These principles are concerned with what goes into a language course and the order in which language items appear in the course. The aim of these principles is to make sure that the learners are gaining something useful from the course. It is possible to run a language course which is full of interesting activities and introduces the learners to new language items, but provides a very poor return for the time invested in it.

Principle 1:

Frequency

A language course should provide the best possible coverage of language in use through the inclusion of items that occur frequently in the language so that learners get the best return for their learning effort.

Principle 2: Strategies

and autonomy

A language course should train learners how to learn a language so that they can become effective and independent language learners.

Principle 3: Spaced

retrieval

Learners should have increasingly spaced, repeated opportunity to give attention to wanted items in a variety of contexts.

Principle 4: Language

System

The language focus of a course needs to be on generalizable features of the language system.

Principle · 5: · Keep · moving forward

A language course should progressively cover useful language items, skills and strategies.

Principle 6: Teach-

ability

The teaching of language items should take account of the most favorable sequencing of these items and should take account of when the learners are most ready to learn them.

Burden

The course should help the learners to make the most effective use of previous knowledge.

Principle · 8: · Interference

he items in a language course should be sequenced so that items which are learned together have a positive effect on each other for learning, and so that interference effects are avoided.

Second Group of Twenty Principles: Format and Presentation

The second group of principles deals with format and presentation. These principles are concerned with what actually happens in the classroom and during the learning. Most practically, they relate to the kinds of activities used in the course and the ways in which learners’ process the course material. It is in this aspect of curriculum design that teachers may have their greatest influence on the course.

Principle 1: Motivation

As much as possible, the learners should be interested and excited about learning the language and they should come to value this learning.

Principle · 2: · Four · Strands

A course should include a roughly even balance of the four strands of meaning-focused input, languagefocused learning, meaning-focused output and fluency activities.

Principle · 3: · Comprehensible input

There should be substantial quantities of interesting comprehensible receptive activity in both listening and reading.

Principle 4: Fluency

A language course should provide activities aimed at increasing the fluency with which the learners can use the language they already know, both receptively and productively.

Principle 5: Output

The learners should be pushed to produce the language in both speaking and writing over a range of discourse types

Principle 6: Deliberate

Learning

The course should include language-focused learning in the sound system, vocabulary, grammar and discourse areas.

Principle 7: Time on

Task

As much time as possible should be spent on using and focusing on the second language.

Principle 8: Depth of

Processing

Learners should process the items to be learned as deeply and as thoughtfully as possible.

Principle 9: Integrative

Motivation

The course should be presented so that the learners have the most favorable attitudes to the language, users of the language, use of the language, the teacher’s skill in teaching the language and their chances of success in learning the language

Style

There should be opportunity for learners to work with the learning material in ways that most suit their individual learning style.

Third Group of Twenty Principles: Monitoring and Assessment

The third group of principles deals with monitoring and assessment and to some degree evaluation. In each of these groups, the principles have been ranked in order of their importance i.e. the first principle in the group is the most important of that group; the second principle is the next most important and so on.

Principle 1: Ongoing Needs

and Environment Analysis

The selection, gradation, presentation and assessment of the material in a language course should be based on a careful consideration of the learners and their needs, the teaching conditions, and the time and resources available.