Lesson 2: The Context of Second Language Teaching

Lesson 2 The Context of Second Language Teaching
Objectives:
 Explain the various views of Secondary Language;
 Define terms and concepts on the Language Teaching
perspectives
 Write a reflection on the challenges of languages teachers to
rethink strategy to be applied in the lesson.
Introduction
In this part you will be exploring the context of Secondary Language. This gives you
a clear perspective and an idea on different perspective of language and its important theories
that should be applied in teaching Grammar as part of the scope of Language Teaching and
Learning. The next lesson will answer your questions about second language teaching.
Word Association: When you hear about these LANGUAGE VIEWS

specifically Syntactocentric Perspective and Communicative perspective.
What comes into your mind? You may associate words that you think it
belongs to Syntactocentric and Communicative Perspective.
Analysis:
Take time to think, and answer the given questions below.
1. What do you think is the focus of Communicative Perspective? How
about Syntactocentric?
2. Does effective communication is perceived as a function of linguistic
accuracy? Why?
The Context of Second
Language Teaching
Abstraction
Read the relevant information given in the table presents the General
Approaches to Language Views, Syntactocentric perspectives of the language,
Corpus linguistics and the Theories of Communication.
(GENERAL APPROACHESLANGUAGE VIEWS
Syntactocentric It is predominantly concerned with the structure of

Perspective clauses and sentences. This view defines
“Grammar” as a systematic way of counting for and
predicting an “ideal” speaker or hearer’s knowledge
of the language
Communicative It focuses more on the overall message being
Perspective communicated and the interpretations that this
message invoke. “Grammar” is treated as on way of
the many resources for accomplishing something
with language.
Traditional It is based on a set of prescriptive rules along with

Syntactocentric perspectives of the
grammar the exceptions. It is criticized for its inability to

provide descriptions of the language that could
adequately incorporate the exceptions into the
framework and for its lack of generalizability to
language
other languages.
Structural It describes the structure of the language in terms of

grammar both its morphology and its syntax, in which each
word in a given sentence is categorized according to
its use and the “patterns” or “structures” are said to
constitute a unique system for that language.
Transformational It provides a “universal” description of language
Generative behavior revealing the internal linguistic system for
grammar which all humans are predisposed. Underlying
properties of any individual language system can be
uncovered by means of a detailed sentence-level
analysis. This Universal Grammar (UG) has been
criticized for failing to account for meaning or
language use in social contexts.
 The most common practice of compiling Katz and Fodor (1963) found
linguistic corpora, or large and principled that in addition to encoding
collections of natural, authentic spoken semantic features and
and written texts. It shows how often and restrictions, a word also contains
Corpus linguistics
where a linguistic form occurs in spoken a number of syntactic features

or written text. including the part of speech
 It provides information on patters of (noun, verb, adjective),
variation in language use, language countability (singular, plural),
change, and varieties of language. It also gender (masculine, feminine),
provides information on the different and it can mark prepositional co-
semantic functions of lexical items, occurrence restrictions such as
distributional and frequency information when the word think is followed
by a preposition (about, of, over)
Theories of Communication
Systemic- Context and meaning take precedence

functional over linguistic form. It typically
grammar describes features of grammatical form Both have had a
that are used to express meaning considerable
beyond a single, context-free utterance. impact on L2
Rather, grammatical form is seen as syllabus design,
having a symbiotic relationship with teaching and
meaning and pragmatic use, where each testing, and are
influences and shapes the other within credited for
and across utterances. shifting the
Speech act theory Effective communication is not simply emphasis of
perceived as a function of linguistic language
accuracy or acceptable grammar to classrooms
convey literal and intended meaning. from a formal
Communication must be appropriate for grammatical
the context, i.e. speakers must have focus to a
both ‘linguistic competence’ and communication-
‘communicative competence’ based one.
APPLICATION:
Reflect and write in your journal the points you understand as a student.
Then also, as a Student-Teacher reflect on what is the best way you can
teach to promote communicative/grammatical competence.
What I know before ___________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
I understand now that ______________ __________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
Thus, in teaching the language to the learners I must__________
____________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________

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Lesson 2 The Context of Second Language Teaching

Word Association: When you hear about these LANGUAGE VIEWS

Syntactocentric It is predominantly concerned with the structure of

Traditional It is based on a set of prescriptive rules along with

grammar the exceptions. It is criticized for its inability to

Structural It describes the structure of the language in terms of

where a linguistic form occurs in spoken a number of syntactic features

Systemic- Context and meaning take precedence

What I know before ___________________________________

I understand now that ____

Thus, in teaching the language to the learners I must__________

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