LESSON 4: BASIC PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING AND TEACHING

2.1 Basic Principles 1.
Students and teacher
1. Learning is more important than teaching
2. Teach the students not the book
3. Involve the students in the learning process
4. Don't tell students what they can tell you
5. Show your reaction to what students say
6. Students need practice not you
7. Don’t Emphasize Difficulties.
8. Vary what you do and how you do it.
9. Select
10. Activities and relationships in the classroom Change
11. Students need to Learn How to learn
12. Useful and fun is better than either alone

Some useful ways the teacher can elicit knowledge from the students
a) Start the new day's lesson by asking questions from the previous lesson. This will remind the students of what was done in the last lesson and set them in the mood for the day's lesson, so it should be introduced with question rather than teacher presentation.
b) After studying a text, ask definition question instead of explaining the words.
c) The teacher should always ask the students to contribute alternative language of their own- for example, another phrase which has the same functions, synonyms or associated vocabulary items.
d) Student should be encouraged to provide some contents of a lesson.

Ways in which Teachers can help the students to practice
 Don’t explain when you need not to
 Don’t repeat unnecessarily
 Don’t answer for students, without waiting long enough
 Correcting too much and too quickly
 Don’t talk about something which does not interest the students
 Don’t talk unnecessarily about the process of the lesson.

If the teacher always does the same thing in the same way the students will be bored.

Way the teacher can use vary the teaching methods
- Teach the unit in a different order
• Use dialogue for listening before the students see the text
• Use taped dialogue after reading the printed text
- Use different ways of reading texts
• Listen to recorded text in tapes
• Prepared reading
• Dramatic reading
• Silent reading
• Teacher reading
- Vary who performs the task
• Teacher or student
• Teacher to student
• Student to student
- Introduce alternative activities from time to time
 Examples: you can use games, pair work, group work, problem solving project work.

Basic Methods for activities in the classroom:
1. T = Teacher present the phrases: this means the teacher introduces the target item for the lesson before they are formally presented so when the students get to know the item they wouldn’t be unfamiliar with it.

2. TT= Teacher talk to himself by giving examples: In this case, the teacher draws specific attention to a particular language point in the formal presentation. It may be in the form of asking and answering questions to himself.

3. TC = Teacher questions the Whole class and invite choral response or response from a volunteer within the group to indicate understanding.

4. TS/ST = Teacher to student or Student to teacher; at this stage, the teacher questions chosen individual. It's helpful to ask both the brilliant students and less intelligent student. Starting with the less intelligent and then to the brilliant could be a motivation to the students. In some cases, the role can be reversed with the students asking the teacher.

5. SS = Student work with each other: this stage is very important as it gives the students to practice and develop confidence. They work with each other by asking and replying to each other in more or less controlled pair work. In general the lesson the lesson develops from a strictly controlled pair work to a less pair work where individual students have a wider range.

6. Group Work: On a frequent basis, the lesson then develops into a stage where the students do individual written enforcement, or group work activities. In both cases this phase involves the teacher not directly dominating the activity. The emphasis is either on working in small groups, or on the whole group working without direct involvement.

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