What is language teaching?

vishal bhadani

The aim of Language Teaching is “to open up” the “resources” of any given language “to the learner” to help him/her “find the right words and sentences to convey the meaning intended” (Verma and Krishnaswamy 1989).

Goals in language teaching are “defined within the sociocultural contexts in which teaching and learning are carried out” (Verma and Krishnaswamy 1989).

Language teaching is successful if and only if the learners engaged in it have learnt how to listen, understand, and use the language that is taught. Listening and speaking are natural processes, which reading and writing are not.

 

Three major interacting components in language teaching: linguistic, pedagogical, and organisational.

1. Language Teaching is used to fit language teaching activity into policy, administration, and society as the “glue” that binds the other two components together (Krishnaswamy, Verma and Nagarajan 1992).

 

2. The pedagogical component draws support from psychology, sociology, technology (ie audio, visual, video, and other teaching aids), and different language skills and sub-skills (Krishnaswamy, Verma and Nagarajan 1992).

3. Physical and administrative facilities: size of the class(es), status of the language (L1, SL, FL), educational and linguistic policies, facilities for research and development, information about language teaching, and coordination of language teaching.

-vishal bhadani

Open to correction and discussion