Language Teaching Came into its Own as a Profession in the Last Century

by Monique Barb - Language teaching came into its own as a profession in the last century. Central to this phenomenon was the emergence of the concept of "methods" of language teaching. The method concept in language teaching – the notion of a systematic set of teaching practices based on a particular theory of language and language learning - is a powerful one, and the quest for better...

Language Teaching : The Grammar Translation Method

by Monique Barb - Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching by Richards and Rogers (2002), classifies language teaching methods as the “dominant language of education, commerce, religion and government in the Western world”. Latin was once the most widely studied foreign language. Even after French, Italian and English took over its place. The study of classical Latin and an analysis of its...

Language Teaching : Class Management and Atmosphere

by Monique Barb - The major difficulty which most teachers face, consciously or not, is how to transform the classroom from a space which is inherently inimical to learning into one where learning can take place. Therefore the teacher can hang posters, calendars, pupil’s drawings on the walls and have all kind of interesting objects that can personalize the classroom. Also there has to be...

Why Should We Encourage Informal Interaction in English?

by Monique Barb - There are four main arguments for encouraging informal interaction in English as part of the language teaching process: 1. Children learn languages best in situations where their attention is focused on meaning rather than on language. This argument is based on research into the way in which infants learn their mother tongue and the ways in which foreign language learning...

Language Teaching : Opportunities for Interaction

by Monique Barb - Children naturally use their mother tongue with any other person who knows it. When children find themselves in the company of others, particularly their peers, who speak other languages (or other dialects of their qwn language) then they will make an effort to understand and use the new language. In an ideal world, we would be able to arrange regular meetings between our...