(Note: this outline is provisional) June 1999
French/German/Russ/Spanish/Ukr 555: Teaching Strategies for College and University Teachers
Tuesday: 8-9:20AM
Principal Instructor: Terry Nadasdi
Individual instructors: H. Grabois (Spanish), J. Dailey-O'Cain (German), E. Le (French), T. Priestly (Slavics)
tel
.: 492-1195office: 218 D Arts (Old Arts building)
office hours: TBA
e-mail: terry.nadasdi@ualberta.ca
Course component weights:
Term paper/project: 30% (student chooses with whom s/he wants to write the paper), two reports: 20% each (Nadasdi marks), discussion: 30% (15% each awarded by Nadasdi and lg. specific instructor).
Textbook: H. Douglas Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. 3rd ed. Prentice Hall, 1994.
Objectives: This course is designed to introduce critical issues in second and foreign language teaching and to provide opportunities for controlled acquisition of appropriate teaching strategies. Areas covered are theories of second and foreign language teaching and learning, characteristics of successful second language learners, characteristics of effective teaching, diagnosing student strengths and weaknesses, learning and teaching strategies, and testing methodologies. The presentations, readings and discussions will orient themselves by the needs of beginning TA's.
The purpose of meeting separately with language specific instructors is to allow for the application of theoretical knowledge to current classroom work and the discussion of specific strategies for dealing with certain issues arising in the lesson ahead and some practice teaching of ideas.
Week 1:
Tuesday, Sept 8 in Arts 303
Introduction to the course. Administrative: Class lists, announcements; brief introduction to course objectives; Departmental regulations; marking practices; quizzes, assignments, office hours etc.
Week 2:
Tuesday, Sept 15 at 8:00 in Arts 303
Overview of Second Language Teaching Methods (Brown: Chapters 1 and 11; pp. 16-17; 42-45; 70-71; 95-100).
Week 3:
Tuesday, Sept 22 at 8:00 in Arts 303
First and second language acquisition: Similarities and differences (Brown: Chapters 2 and 3)
Week 4:
Tuesday, Sept 29
Characteristics of "good (second language) teaching": Personal experiences and research perspectives.
Oral presentations (4)
Week 5:
Tuesday, October 6
Human learning (Brown: Chapter 4)
Oral presentations (4)
Week 6:
Tuesday, Oct 13
What does it mean to "know" a language? Communicative competence. Brown: Chapter 9
Oral presentations (4), 1st written report due
Week 7:
Tuesday, Oct 20
Principles for second language testing: Written and oral exams. Validity and reliability as criteria for marking oral and essays exams. Replicability. Marking systems. (Brown: Chapter 10)
Week 8:
Tuesday, Oct 27
Errors and "error analysis" (Brown: Chapter 8)
Week 9:
Tuesday, Nov 3
Post-mortem of the Mid-Term Exams: Diagnosing student weaknesses: why can't everyone get 100%? Student factors in learning second languages: aptitudes and cognitive skills, attitudes, motivation, personality correlates, perseverance, study habits (Brown: Chapters 6 and 7)
2nd written report due
Week 10:
Tuesday, Nov 10
Learning styles and learning strategies (Brown: Chapter 5)
Week 11:
Tuesday, Nov 17
Project/paper presentations
Week 12:
Tuesday, Nov 24
Project/paper presentations
Week 13:
Tuesday, Dec 1
Looking back: A critical analysis of our successes and failures as teachers