Multiple Intelligences as Strategy for Teaching EFL to high school graduates

Basic Categories Of Methodology

The methodology of TEFL seems to embody such basic categories on which there is general agreement among those who have studied the subject: methods, principles, techniques, aims and means of instruction.There is no unanimity regarding the term method either. In G. Rogova’s et. al. view “method is a technological operation, structural and functional component of the teacher’s and learner’s activity, realized in techniques and principles of instruction. A method is a model of instruction based on definite theoretical provision, principle, techniques and aims of instruction.

A method is also a specific set of teaching techniques and materials generally backed by stated principles.

A method determines what and how much taught (selection), the order in which it is taught (gradation), and how the meaning and form are conveyed (presentation). Since presentation, drill and repetition may also be the concern of the teacher, the analysis of the teaching/leaning process must first determine how much is done by the method and how much by the teacher.

Aim is a direction or guidance to establish a course or procedure to be followed. The teacher should formulate long-term goals, interim aims and short-term objectives. What changes he can bring about in his pupils at the end of the week, month, year, course, and each particular lesson. Hence, aims are planned results for pupils learning a FL. The aims are stipulated by syllabus and other official directives. They are: practical, instructional, educational and developing (formative).

Practical aims cover habits and skills which pupils acquire in using a foreign language. A habit is an automatic response to specific situation, acquired normally as a result of repetition and learning.

A skill is a combination of useful habits serving a definite purpose and requiring application of certain knowledge.

Instructional aims developed the pupils mental capacities and intelligence in the process of FLL (foreign language learning).

Educational aims help the pupils extend their knowledge of the world in which they live.

Formative or developing aims help develop in learns sensual perception, motor, kinesthetic, emotional and motivating spheres.

Principles are basic underlying theoretical provisions which determine the choice of methods, techniques and others means of instruction.

Technique in the methodology of TEFL is the manner of presentation, demonstration, consolidation and repetition.

Means is something by the use or help of which a desired goal is attained or made more likely.

1.1.1. Present-day issues of TEFL

A critical review of methods currently employed in TEFL/TESL has shown no consensus on the effective way to facilitate and accelerate English learning. A shift has been made from teacher-centered activity to student-centered, some methodologists even claim that learning is more important than teaching (Michael West, Humanistic Approach, Silent Way).

Though many young teachers still teach the way they had been taught, it can’t be denied that current thinking in methodology constitutes a challenge to convention thinking about language teaching.

One of the conventional methods of TEFL is the Grammar-Translation method

(G-TM):

The goal of foreign language (FL) study, using this method, is to learn a language in order to read its literature or to benefit from the mental discipline and intellectual development that result from FL study. G-TM is a way of studying language that approaches the language first through detailed analysis of its grammar rules, followed by application of the knowledge to the task of translating sentences and texts into and out of the target language. The first language is maintained as the reference system in the acquisition of the second language.

Reading and writing are the major focus: little or no systematic attention is paid to speaking or listening.

In a typical G-T text, the grammar rules are presented and illustrated, a list of vocabulary items is presented with their translation equivalents, and translation exercise a prescribed.