Tikrit University

College of Education for Humanities

English Department

PhD (First Course) 2023-2024

New Trends in Methodology

Teaching by Principles
(Automaticity, Transfer and Reward)

Asst.Prof. Dunia Tahir (PhD)

Principle
Principle is a kind of rule, belief, or idea that guides you. You can
also say a good , ethical person has a lot of principles. In general, a
principle is some kind of basic truth that helps you with your life.
The definition of principle in science
Principles are ideas based on scientific rules and laws that are
generally accepted by scientists. They are fundamental truths that are the
foundation for other studies.
Principles of SLA
A service –level agreement (SLA) defines the level of service you
expect from a vendor, laying out the metrics by which service is measured
, as well as remedies or penalties should agreed –on service levels not be
achieved. It is a critical component of any technology vender contract.
Teaching by Principles
The following eight principles are some of the major foundation stones
for teaching practice , they can act for you as major theoretical insights on
which your methodology can be based.
You as a teacher with these eight principles you should be able to
a-evaluate a course
b-a text book
c-a group of students
d-and an educational context
e-and to determine solutions to pedagogical issues in the classroom.
f-you should be able to assess the strengths and weaknesses of lessons you
have observed or lessons you plan to teach.
g-you should be able to frame your own approach by considering the
extent to which the eight principles inform your understanding of how
languages are successfully learned and taught.
The principles are:
1-Automaticity 2-Transfer 3Reward 4-Self-regulation
5-Identity and investment 6-Interaction 7-Language culture 8-Agency
1-Automaticity
Automaticity the act of processing input and giving output without
deliberation or hesitation in real-time speed.
Learning music and learning language have much in common and both
require the development of automaticity for successful learning.
- Children learning additional languages are classic examples of
developing automatic skills in natural way in untutored contexts with little
or no analysis of the forms(ex. grammar, phonology, vocabulary)of
language.
-Through an inductive process of exposure to language input and
opportunity to experiment interactively with output, they appear to learn
languages without overtly noticing language forms. They do focus very
effectively on the function(meaning)of their linguistic input and output.
-For adults automatic is sometimes impeded by over analysis of language
forms, which become too focal, too much the center of attention.
-For L2 learning, the principle for automaticity highlights the importance
of meaningful use of the new language through communicative interaction
, efficient movement away from a capacity-limited control of a few bits
and pieces to a relatively unlimited automatic mode of processing
language, often referred to as fluency; and an optimal degree of focusing
on forms of language that encourages learners to notice errors in their
output, utilize a teacher's feedback and when appropriate to respond in
some way.
Fluency the unfettered flow of language production or comprehension ,
usually without focal attention on language forms.
Noticing the learner's paying attention to specific linguistic features in
input.
Guidelines for maintaining automaticity in L2 classrooms
1-The major proportion of classroom activity is focused on the use of
language for purposes that are authentic as a classroom context will
permit.
2-Practice exercises and explanations dealing with grammar, vocabulary,
phonology , discourse, and other forms have a place in the adult
classroom.
3-Error correction is more effective if students are made aware of an error
and /or are encouraged to self-correct.
4-Fluency activities, may help students to attend to meaning or to
accomplishing a task , and to unblock their over attention to form.
5-Do not expect your students to become chatterboxes overnight in their
new language.
2-Transfer
The definitions of the important terms:
-Transfer the carryover of previous performance or knowledge to
previous or subsequent learning.
-Interlingual transfer the effect of one language on another.
-Interference negative transfer in which a previous item is incorrectly
transferred or incorrectly associated with an item to be learned.
- Cross-linguistic influence is a concept that recognizes the significance
of the role of the L1 and subsequent languages in learning an additional
language, but with an emphasis on both the facilitating and interfering
effects the two languages have on each other.
The principle of transfer plays a dominant role in learning an
additional language. The transfer from first to second language known as
Interlingual transfer or Interference. Any difficulty in learning L2
could be equated to the differences between a learner's first and second
languages.
The SLA field has been using Cross-linguistic influence as a more
appropriate term to capture the relationship of two or more languages in
contact. In 1960s and 1970s Interlingual transfer (within L2)also known
as Overgeneralization , become a hot topic , especially in analyzing
sources of errors in learners' output and in describing Interlanguage of
learners. But linguistic transfer is only a small piece of the psychology of
learning an L2.Transfer is an all-encompassing principle that reaches
across physical, cognitive, affective and socio cultural domains. Virtually
all learning is the product of transfer. Transfer is the application of
knowledge, skill, or emotion acquired in one situation to new situations.
Transfer can be positive (advancing toward an objective ) or negative
(interfering with such advancement)
Closely related to the principle of transfer is a recent emphasis in
cognitive psychology on what has come to be known an embodied
cognition from this perspective :
a-an organism's sensorimotor capacities, b-body and c-environment, play
crucial roles in the development of cognitive and linguistic abilities. In
other words Embodied cognition offers an enlightening refocus on the
physical abilities that so preoccupied behavioral psychologists back at the
turn the twentieth century.
James(2006-2010-2012) demonstrated the importance of transfer in a
number of academic contexts:
-general language skills
-certain skills
-earlier language courses to specific subject matter areas
-transfer from classroom to real world contexts. Likewise Content –based
Instruction
Snow (2014)explain that Content-based Instruction is successful
because students are immersed in tasks and skills that are relevant to their
lives and for livelihood.
Research on dynamic systems Theory (DST) reminds teachers of
the many , complex interconnections that learners make as their language
abilities grow. All the result of transfer as learners connect one learning
moment with another.
Cognitive psychologists revolutionized educational psychology by
stressing the importance of meaningful learning as opposed to rote
learning for long term retention. That is new material to be learned that is
attached to existing cognitive structure (associated) will be more
efficiently lodged. Transfer underlies all meaningful learning , ex: if a task
in a group activity puts learners into familiar contexts (such as the
movies), new grammatical, lexical, and discourse forms will be more
easily embedded into students' L2 competence. And in learning to read
and write, schema theory encourages students to relate existing knowledge
, of both content and skills , to new material.
Guidelines for maintaining Transfer in L2 classrooms
1-Become acquainted with your students' backgrounds, interests , hobbies
and dislike and ground classroom activities on those individual
characteristics.
2-When introducing new grammar….use graphic organizers e.g. charts,
diagrams…to help students see the relevance to the new material.
3-Avoid the pitfalls of rote learning.
3-Reward
Skinner (1938) and others demonstrated the strength of rewards in both
animal and human behavior . Virtually everything we do is predicated on
the anticipation of a reward, whether physical, mental, emotional or
social.

Psychologists and linguists have for many decades acknowledged not

only the power of reward ,but also the power of intrinsically driven
behavior. Classroom techniques have a much greater chance for success
if they are self-rewarding in the perception of the learner. The learners
perform the task because it is fun, interesting, useful or challenging and
only secondarily because they anticipate some cognitive or affective
rewards from the teacher.

The implications of intrinsically and extrinsically driven behavior for

the classroom are more complex than they might seem. At one end of the
spectrum is the effectiveness of a teacher's praise for correct
responses(very good , Nice job) grades or gold stars to indicate success,
smiles and affirmation from classmates and other public recognition. At
the other end students need to see clearly why they are performing
something along with its relevance to their long-term goals in learning, so
that they are not dependent on external rewards.

The ultimate goal is for students to engage in self-determination to

choose to make an effort because of what they will gain in either the short
or long run.

The reward principle can be stated as follows:"Human beings are

universally driven to act, or behave in anticipation of a reward. The most
powerful rewards are those that are intrinsically motivated: the behavior
stems from needs, wants, or desires within oneself and is self-rewarding.

The key to making the reward principle work in the language classroom
is to create an optimal bend of extrinsic (teacher administrated) rewards
especially for the minute-by-minute routine of a classroom , and
intrinsically-driven rewards that become embedded in a student's journey
toward language proficiency.

‫دكتوراه طرائق تدريس اللغة االنكليزية‬/‫االستاذ المساعد الدكتورة دنيا طاهر حميد‬