Multiple Intelligences as Strategy for Teaching EFL to high school graduates
3.methods and techniques of teaching, i.e. how to teach a foreign language to attain the aims in the most effective way.
Methods of foreign language teaching is closely related to other sciences such as pedagogies, psychology, physiology, linguistics and some others.
Pedagogics is the science concerned with the teaching and education of the younger generation. Since Methods also deals with the problems of teaching and education, it is most closely related to pedagogics. To study foreign language teaching one must know pedagogics. One branch of pedagogics is called didactics. Didactics studies general ways of teaching in schools. Methods, as compared to didactics, studies the specific ways of teaching a definite subject. Thus, it may be considered special didactics. In the foreign language teaching, as well as in the teaching of mathematics, history and other subjects taught in schools, general principles of didactics are applied and, in their turn, influence and enrich didactics. For example, the so-called “principle of visualization" was first introduced in teaching foreign languages. Now it has become one of the fundamental prin¬ciples of didactics and is used in teaching all school subjects without exception. Programmed instruction was first ap¬plied to teaching mathematics. Now through didactics it is used in teaching many subjects, including foreign lan¬guages.
Teaching a foreign language means first and foremost the formation and development of pupils' habits and skills in hearing, speaking, reading, and writing. We cannot ex¬pect to develop such habits and skills of our pupils effec¬tively if we do not know and take into account the p s y c h o l o g y of habits and skills, the ways of forming them, the influence of formerly acquired habits 'on the formation of new ones, and many other necessary factors that psychology can supply us with. At present we have much material in the field of psychology which can be applied to teaching a foreign language. For example, N. I. Zhinkin, in his investigation of the mecha¬nisms of speech came to the conclusion that words and rules of combining them are most probably dormant in the kinetic center of the brain. When the ear receives a signal it reaches the brain, its hearing center and then passes to the kinetic center. Thus, if a teacher wants his pupils to speak English he must use all the opportunities he has to make them hear and speak it. Furthermore, to master a sec¬ond language is to acquire another code, another way of receiving and transmitting information. To create this new code in the most effective way one must take into consid¬eration certain psychological factors.
Effective learning of a foreign language depends to a great extent on the pupils' memory. That is why a teacher must know how he can help his pupils to successfully memorize and retain in memory the language material they learn. Here again psychological investigations are significant. In learning a subject both voluntary and in¬voluntary memory is of great importance. In his investigation of involuntary memory P. K. Zinchenko came to the con¬clusion that this memory is retentive. Consequently, in teaching a foreign language we should create favourable conditions for involuntary memorizing. P. K. Zinchenko showed that involuntary memorizing is possible only whenpupils attention is concentrated not on fixing the material in their memory through numerous repetitions, but on solv¬ing some mental problems which deal with this material. To prove this the following experiment was carried out. Students of group A were given a list of words to memorize (voluntary memorizing). Students of group B did not re¬ceive a list of words to memorize. Instead, they got an English text and some assignments which made them work with these words, use them in answering various questions. Dur¬ing the next lesson a vocabulary test was given to the stu¬dents of both groups. The results were approximately the same. A test given a fortnight later proved, however, that the students of group B retained the words in their memory much better than the students of group A. This shows that involuntary memorizing may be more retentive under certain circumstances. Experiments by prominent scientists show that psychology helps Methods to determine the role of the mother tongue in different stages of teaching; the amount of material for pupils to assimilate at every stage of instruc¬tion; the sequence and ways in which various habits and skills should be developed; the methods and techniques which are more suitable for presenting the material and for ensuring its retention by the pupils, and so on.
Methods of foreign language teaching has a definite relation to p h y s i o 1 o g y of the higher nervous system. Pavlov's theories of "conditioned reflexes", of the "second signaling system" and of "dynamic stereotype" are the examples. Each of these interrelated theories bears a direct relation to the teaching of a foreign language.
According to Pavlov habits are conditioned reflexes, and a conditioned reflex is an action performed automatically in response to a definite stimulus as a result of previ- ous frequent repetitions of the same action. If we, thoroughly study the theory of conditioned reflexes we shall see that it explains and confirms the necessity for frequent repetitions and revision of material pupils study as one of the means of inculcating habits. Pavlov showed that man's higher nervous activities — speaking and thinking — are the func¬tions of a special system of organic structures within the nervous system. This system is developed only in man. It enables the brain to respond to inner stimuli as it responds to outer stimuli or signals perceived through the sense or¬gans. Pavlov named this the second signaling system.
Consequently one of the forms of human behaviour is language behaviour, i. e., speech response to different communica¬tion situations. Therefore in teaching a foreign language we must bear in mind that pupils should acquire the language they study as a behaviour, as something that helps people to communicate with each other in various real situations of intercourse. Hence a foreign language should be taught through such situations.
Pavlov's theory of "dynamic stereotype" also furnishes the physiological base for many important principles of language teaching, e. g., for the topical vocabulary ar¬rangement.
Methods of foreign language teaching is most closely related to linguistics, since linguistics deals with the problems which are of paramount importance to Meth¬ods, with language and thinking, grammar and vocabulary, the relationship between grammar and vocabulary, and many others. Methods successfully uses, for example, the results of linguistic investigation in the selection and arrangement of language material for teaching. It is known that structur¬al linguistics has had a great impact on language teach¬ing. Teaching materials have 'been prepared by linguists and methodologists of the structural school. Many prom¬inent linguists have not only developed the theory of lin¬guistics, but tried to apply it to language teaching. The following quotation may serve as a proof of this:
"It has occurred to the linguist as well a s to the psycholo¬gist that the foreign language classroom should be an excel¬lent laboratory in which to test new theories of language acquisition."
Methods of foreign language teaching like any other sci¬ence, has definite ways of investigating the problems which may arise. They are: