Chapter One

Views of Teaching and Learning

Introduction
Relationship between methodology (education) and psychology (cognitive and
social psychology).
 Introduction
Relationship between methodology (education) and psychology (cognitive and social
psychology).
• Education and psychology are interdependent.
• Psychology is the study of human behavior while Education is the process of
modifying human behavior. Both deal with human behaviour, but in different ways.
• Educational psychology deals with educational problems.
• Psychology has changed the spirit of education and given new meaning to learning
in the classroom.
• Psychology changed the old concept of education where only upper class had the
ability and right to learn.
• Psychology has given education the theory of individual differences which postulates
that every child has different mental ability and learns at a different pace.
• Today, education psychology is considered the foundation of education.
 Introduction
Relationship between methodology (education) and psychology (cognitive and
social psychology).
Psychology helps education in the following ways:
• Psychology suggests use of different methods in teaching/ learning process to
achieve better results.
• Psychology gives emphasis to motivation and readiness in classroom.
• Psychology has introduced new theories of learning in education.
• Psychology emphasizes activity–based teaching/ learning process.
• Psychology encourages the use of audio-visual aids in teaching/ learning
process.
 Introduction
Relationship between methodology (education) and psychology (cognitive and social psychology).
Psychology and the Teacher:
• Psychology enhances the vision of the teacher to understand the mental status of his
students.
• Psychology helps the teacher to evaluate his student, to measure his achievements.
• With the help of psychology, the teacher understands the weakness of his students and
finds solutions for the problems.
• Psychology brings about change in the attitude of the teacher toward his students.
• Psychology introduces new mental tests through which the teacher evaluates the students.
• Psychology produces new theories of learning for better education.
• With the help of psychology, the teacher learns to modify the behavior of the students.
• Psychology teaches the teacher why an individual behaves in a certain situation differently
than others.
• Psychology teaches the teacher what needs to be done to change negative behavior into
positive behaviour.
Introduction

The theories that have the greatest impact on the educational

processes are:

1. Behaviourism
2. Humanism
3. Cognitivism
4. Interactionism
5. Metacognition
 (1) Behaviourism
• Early founders are Ivan Pavlov and John Watson though it is usually associated
with B.F. Skinner.
• Behaviorism focuses on the idea that all behaviors are learned through
interaction with the environment. This learning theory states that behaviors
are learned from the environment, and says that innate or inherited factors
have very little influence on behavior.
• According to the theory learning happens due to conditioning
• In classical conditioning, an animal or human learns to associate two stimuli
with each other. This type of conditioning involves involuntary responses, such
as biological responses or emotional ones.
• In operant conditioning, an animal or human learns a behavior by associating
it with consequences. This can be done through positive or negative
reinforcement, or punishment.
• Operant conditioning is still seen in classrooms today, though behaviorism is
no longer the dominant way of thinking in psychology.
Behaviourism
Behaviourism
 Behaviourism
Most important principles:
1. Conditioning:
It is creating a relation between events; connecting a stimulus and a
response.
2. Habit formation:
It is the repetition of the response till it leads to a habit.
3. Reinforcement:
It means receiving a reward or a punishment leading to the formation of the
habit or stopping it.
4. Environment effect:
Learning is not genetic but environmental. Humans are born a clean slate that
we can write on.
 Behaviourism
Behaviourism created two main FLL approaches:
• Audio-Visual. (AV)
• Audio-Lingual. (AL)
Principles of Behaviourism in FLL:
• Speech is the primary skill that should be focused on.
• Order of skills acquisition is “Listening and Speaking then Reading and Writing”.
• Learners learn the language in small sequential steps (structures, then sentences, etc.)
• Presenting a small part of the language as a stimulus, then students give responses by
drilling (repetition and substitution).
• Reinforcement comes after that from the teacher.
• Students repetition creates a habit.
• Mistakes are bad habits.
• Language is mechanical/ habit formation not problem solving.
• Teacher’s role is to develop good habits.
• Explanation comes at the end after the habit formation when the item has been
practiced enough.
 (2) Cognitivism
• Contrasted to the mentalist (rationalist) views presented by Chomsky.
• Mentalists Innate capacity of human beings.
• Cognitivists Empirical view (environment).

• It is concerned with the mental faculties of human beings.

• Learning is not an accumulation of facts or development of skills.
• It is a body of ideas that we have through education and socialization.
• It is an awareness people develop about what things are, how they function
and their effect.
• Learning is a life long process.
• Minds keep a balance about what is known and what is being learned.
Cognitivism
Main principles:
• Students should understand how the language works to show
meaning.
• Teachers have to explain meaning, form and use to allow students
to use the language.
• Language learning is both deductive and inductive.
• Importance of practice.
• Learning is basically linear.
• Have to move from easy to difficult.
(2) Cognitivism
(2) Cognitivism
 (3) Humanism
• Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective that emphasizes the study
of the whole person.
• Humanistic psychologists look at human behavior not only through the eyes of
the observer, but through the eyes of the person behaving.
• Humanistic psychologists believe that an individual's behavior is connected to his
inner feelings and self-image.
• Unlike the behaviorists, humanistic psychologists believe that humans are not
solely the product of their environment.
• Rather humanistic psychologists study human meanings, understandings, and
experiences involved in growing, teaching, and learning.
• They emphasize characteristics that are shared by all human beings such as love,
grief, caring, and self-worth.
 (3) Humanism
• Humanistic psychologists study how people are influenced by their self-
perceptions and the personal meanings attached to their experiences.
• Humanistic psychologists are not primarily concerned with instinctual drives,
responses to external stimuli, or past experiences.
• Rather, they consider conscious choices, responses to internal needs, and current
circumstances to be important in shaping human behavior.

Humanistic psychologists believe that:

An individual's behavior is primarily determined by his perception of the world
around him.
Individuals are not solely the product of their environment.
Individuals are internally directed and motivated to fulfill their human potential.
 (3) Humanism
• There are five basic principles of humanistic education:
1. Students should be able to choose what they want to learn. Humanistic teachers
believe that students will be motivated to learn a subject if it's something they need
and want to know.
2. The goal of education should be to foster students' desire to learn and teach them
how to learn. Students should be self-motivated in their studies and desire to learn
on their own.
3. Humanistic educators believe that grades are irrelevant and that only self-
evaluation is meaningful. Grading encourages students to work for a grade and not
for personal satisfaction. In addition, humanistic educators are opposed to objective
tests because they test a student's ability to memorize and do not provide sufficient
educational feedback to the teacher and student.
4. Humanistic educators believe that both feelings and knowledge are important to
the learning process. Unlike traditional educators, humanistic teachers do not
separate the cognitive and affective domains.
5. Humanistic educators insist that schools need to provide students with a non-
threatening environment so that they will feel secure to learn. Once students feel
secure, learning becomes easier and more meaningful.
 (3) Humanism

• Summary:
• The basic principles of humanistic education can be summarized as follows:
1. Students' learning should be self-directed.
2. Schools should produce students who want and know how to learn.
3. The only form of meaningful evaluation is self-evaluation.
4. Feelings, as well as knowledge, are important in the learning process.
5. Students learn best in a nonthreatening environment.
 (3) Humanism
An explosion of new and radical approaches to learning a language came to light
in the 1970s. These approaches are often grouped under the title of Humanistic
Approaches due to their method of concentration, touching on the innate ability
and capacity that all learners are presumed to possess.
1. Suggestopedia
• This method is based on the idea that the mind has great potential and can
retain information by the power of suggestion. This teaching method uses
relaxation as a means of retaining new knowledge.
• In their initial lessons learners receive large quantities of information in the new
language. The text is translated and then read aloud with classical music in the
background.
• The scope is to supply an atmosphere of total relaxation where understanding
is purely accidental and subliminal. Using large quantities of linguistic material
introduces the idea that language understanding is easy and natural.
 (3) Humanism
2. Total Physical Response (TPR)
• This method draws on the basic principles of how young children learn their first
language. Developed by James Asher, this teaching method involves a wide range of
physical activities and a lot of listening and comprehension, as well as an emphasis
on learning as fun and stimulating.
• Total Physical Response has limitations, especially when teaching abstract language
and tasks, but is widely considered to be effective for beginners and is still the
standard approach for young learners.

3. Community Language Learning

• This technique was relatively short-lived. Seeing the student as a ‘whole’ person, the
method involved students sitting in a circle and encouraging them to use their
feelings, intellect, relationships and reactions.
 (3) Humanism
4. The Silent Way
• Another example of a method categorized under the Humanistic Approaches,
with this technique the teacher is supposed to be practically silent – hence the
name of the method – and avoids explaining everything to the students.
• This method is based on a problem-solving approach to learning, whereby the
students’ learning becomes autonomous and co-operative.
• The scope is to help students select the appropriate phrases and know how to
control them, with good intonation and rhythm. The teacher does not repeat
the material nor supplies the phrases that the student has to imitate, and there
is no use of the learner’s native language.
• Patterns contain vocabulary, and coloured guides for pronunciation are used to
assist the teacher in guiding the students’ understanding while saying the least
amount possible.
 (3) Humanism
Advantages
1) It offered a new set of values for approaching an understanding of human
nature and the human condition.
2) It offered an expanded horizon of methods of inquiry in the study of human
behavior.
3) It offered a broader range of more effective methods in the professional
practice of psychotherapy.
4) It emphasizes individual choice and responsibility.
5) Humanistic psychology satisfies most people’s idea of what being human
means because it values personal ideals and self-fulfillment.
 (3) Humanism

Disadvantages
• It is too positive when regarding human behaviour- this means that it assumes
individuals are instrinsically good and will choose positive paths for their lives-
however free will and choice is limited for some individuals.

• There is too much emphasis on subjective experience- Hard to study.

 (4) Interactionism
• Dick Allwright and Michael Long are the main founders.
• Interactionist theory "is based on the idea that human beings, as they interact
with one another, give meanings to themselves, others, and the world around
them, and use those meanings as a basis for making decisions and taking
action in their everyday lives" (Coakley 47).
• Interactionists believe that society and culture and our own identities are
produced from the bottom up: from patterns of interaction and behavior over
time.
• Is concerned with the personal capacity.
• Learners are actively involved in constructing their own personal
understanding of things.
• Learners make sense of the world in a social context through social
interaction.
 (4) Interactionism
• Learners differ from each other totally.

• The language is learned when learners interact, negotiate and convey

meaning in a social situation.

• The Interactionist approach claims that if our language ability develops out
of a desire to communicate, then language is dependent upon whom we
want to communicate with.

• This means the environment you grow up in will heavily affect how well and
how quickly you learn to talk.
 (4) Interactionism
How does the Interactionist Theory fit in with ESL in a classroom?
• When faced with learning English as a second language, the student is
essentially an infant.

• They cannot communicate with the teacher except through non-verbal

communication.

• Therefore, it is up to the teacher to act as the adult in the infant-adult

relationship.

• He or she is responsible for leading all interaction at first, and as the student
becomes more familiar with the English language and able to communicate,
the control of the interaction can be decreased a bit and the students can take
more control of their own language learning.
 (4) Interactionism
• Also, if students are encouraged to experiment with the language and learn
that it is okay to make mistakes, they will be able to discover for themselves
how to combine words and phrases to form full sentences and dialogues.

• The communicative approach is based on the idea that learning language

successfully comes through having to communicate real meaning.

• When learners are involved in real communication, their natural strategies for
language acquisition will be used, and this will allow them to learn to use the
language.
 (4) Interactionism
Main principles:

• Classroom environment should be similar to real life situations.

• Students should contribute in the whole process including selection of
topics.
• Exchange of information both ways between the teacher and students.
• Activities should have a communicative purpose.
• Information gap activities are used.
• Motivating students by allowing them to select and initiate conversations.
• Students contribution are appreciated to motivate them
 (4) Interactionism

Advantages:
• Focuses on the individuals rather that categorizing us into groups of society.
• Allows us to compare the way we act with different people.
• Helps us understand the social construction of the world.
 (4) Interactionism

Disadvantages:
• They don't take into consideration every individual. Some people are unable to
make choices and have little free will.
• We don't get to choose consequences for actions.
• Underestimates the power of structure.
 (5) Metacognition
• It is an awareness of one's own thought processes and an understanding of
the patterns behind them.
• The term comes from the root word meta, meaning "beyond", or "on top of".
• Metacognition can take many forms, such as reflecting on one's own ways of
thinking and knowing when and how to use particular strategies for problem-
solving.
• There are generally two components of metacognition:
1. knowledge about cognition and
2. regulation of cognition.

• The term metacognition literally means 'above cognition', and is used to

indicate cognition about cognition, or more informally, thinking about
thinking.
 (5) Metacognition
• Flavell defined metacognition as knowledge about cognition and control of
cognition.
For example, a person is engaging in metacognition if they notice that they
are having more trouble learning A than B, or if it strikes them
that they should double-check C before accepting it as fact.

• The term hyper-cognition refers to self-monitoring, self-representation, and

self-regulation processes, which are regarded as integral components of the
human mind.

• Metacognition also involves thinking about one's own thinking process such
as study skills, memory capabilities, and the ability to monitor learning. This
concept needs to be explicitly taught along with content instruction.
 (5) Metacognition
Some types of metacognitive knowledge would include:
1. Content knowledge (declarative knowledge):
• It is understanding one's own capabilities, such as a student evaluating their
own knowledge of a subject in a class.

• It is notable that not all metacognition is accurate.

• Studies have shown that students often mistake lack of effort with
understanding in evaluating themselves and their overall knowledge of a
concept.

• Also, greater confidence in having performed well is associated with less

accurate metacognitive judgment of the performance.
 (5) Metacognition
2. Task knowledge (procedural knowledge):
• It is how one perceives the difficulty of a task which is the content, length, and
the type of assignment.

• It is also the person's ability to evaluate the difficulty of a task related to their
overall performance on the task.

• Again, the accuracy of this knowledge was skewed as students who thought
their way was better/easier also seemed to perform worse on evaluations.

• On the other hand, students who were rigorously and continually evaluated
reported to not be as confident but still did better on initial evaluations.
 (5) Metacognition

3. Strategic knowledge (conditional knowledge):

• It is one's own capability for using strategies to learn information.

• Young children are not particularly good at this; it is not until students are in
upper elementary school that they begin to develop an understanding of
effective strategies.
 (5) Metacognition
Advantages:
• It increases student motivation because students feel more in control of their
own learning.
• Students who learn metacognitive strategies are more aware of their own
thinking and more likely to be active learners who learn more deeply.
• It enhances and enriches the learning experience.
• Applying metacognitive strategies such as self-awareness and self monitoring
is to develop independent learners who can control their own learning and
learn how to learn for life.
• It provides self-monitoring, which is a step-by-step process of evaluation
during the learning process.
• It develops higher learning and problem solving skills.
 (5) Metacognition
Disadvantages:
• Metacognition may sometimes actively interfere with task performance.
• The costs of engaging in metacognitive strategies may under certain circumstances
outweigh its benefits.
• Metacognitive judgments or feelings involving a negative self-evaluation may detract
from psychological well-being.

Disadvantages of poor metacognition:

• Poor self-esteem
• Difficulty in problem solving
• Poor reading comprehension
• Poor language and communication skills
• Difficulty in obtaining success in society
 Autonomy
• Learner autonomy is when students take control and responsibility for their own
learning, both in terms of what they learn and how they learn it. It takes as its starting
point the idea that students are capable of self-direction and are able to develop an
independent, proactive approach to their studies.
Characteristics of the autonomous learner:
• methodical/disciplined
• logical/analytical
• reflective/self-aware
• motivated/curious
• flexible
• interdependent/inter-personally competent
• responsible/persistent
• venturesome/creative
• creative/have positive self-concept
• independent/self-sufficient
• skilled in seeking/retrieving information
• knowledgeable about/skilled in learning
• able to develop/use evaluation criteria
 How to develop Autonomy

• Set a learning path

With every unit of instruction, start with a simple goal-setting task using ‘can-
do’ statements. For each learning outcome, have learners indicate which
they can do, need to do, and want to learn. Identifying those areas they most
need and want to learn about allows them to prioritize those elements in a
lesson.
• Self-assess progress
At the same time, learners need to go back to those goals and assess their
progress. Ongoing goal-setting and self-monitoring are great ways to build a
sense of self-efficacy and increase learners’ belief in their ability to reach a
particular goal.
 How to develop Autonomy
• Give learners options
Confidence in oneself as a learner is a great way to build learner autonomy. We can
help by elevating learner strengths in our instruction and assessments. Keeping
overall learning outcomes in mind, adjust the content and learning processes of a
lesson in keeping with learners’ abilities and needs.
In a unit on how different people are affected during the pandemic, let learners
choose online readings, videos, or podcasts that explore the topic. Starting with
images alone, allows those learners with limited literacy skills to have a voice as
they ‘read’ the images and make claims based on evidence.
• Use learner-generated content
With beginner-level learners, have them generate the content of a lesson by first
having them contribute ideas on the lesson theme using a tool such as Jamboard (a
free Google tool). Here, learners start a lesson on likes and dislikes by sharing a few
words, a photo, or a drawing of a favorite weekend activity. Rather than relying on
the themes in a set curriculum, learners can now use their own content as they
practice new language in a lesson.
 How to develop Autonomy
• Take responsibility for learning
Start each term (and revisit frequently) with a ‘My role as a learner is to…’ activity.
First, invite learners to finish that statement individually; then have the class
combine their ideas. Making those statements public may help learners feel a
sense of commitment to others, and they may learn about possible learner roles
they hadn’t considered before.
Here’s a sample class list:
My role as a learner is to….
• ask for help when I need it
• take an active role in class
• prepare for my learning each day
• listen actively to others in class.
 How to develop Autonomy
• Strategies for independent learning
Working in small groups (or breakout rooms online), have students generate a list
of positive study habits they have. By sharing with others, everyone may find new
routines that work for them, for example:
• practicing language outside of class (watching YouTube, listening to podcasts,
following a blog on a topic of interest)
• keeping a learning log of new vocabulary encountered both inside and outside of
class
• reading short stories, novels, magazines of interest and keeping a reading log
(what did I read and what would I share with others?).
 How to develop Autonomy
• Get learners to take risks
Talk with learners about how mistakes are normal. How did you learn to ride a
bicycle? With adults, how did you learn to do your job? Understanding that
mistakes are a natural part of learning may lead learners to take more risks and
discover new capabilities.

Giving learners choice and voice can go a long way to building learner autonomy!

Thank you