Reflecting on strategies/principles for Teaching

One main task:

This option consists of one task. The word count for this task should be approximately ~1800 words.

Purpose:

To reflect on three underlying aspects of teaching and to critically evaluate them in light of your teaching experience.

Learning outcome being assessed:

Identify and critically reflect on teaching principles

Task: Reflecting on strategies/principles for Teaching

For this assignment option we offer you a choice of how you would like to reflect on your teaching, using a cognitive perspective.

Ellis ten principles, from a cognitive perspective, focus more on the language system itself and the nature of the exposure to it that learners need in order to acquire it as part of their mental repertoire. Have a look at both and choose whichever interests you most. Choose either:

• Three of the ten principles of instructed second language acquisition which Ellis (2005) has derived from a wide literature on the topic.

My chosen three principles of instruction second language acquisition are:

Principle 1: Instruction needs to ensure that learners develop both a rich repertoire of formulaic expressions and a rule-based competence Principle 6: Successful instructed language learning requires extensive second language input

Principle 9: Instruction needs to take account of individual differences in learners

Complete the following task:

• Briefly explain the meaning of the principles that you have chosen and evaluate how applicable they are to your own experience of teaching and In order to make sure that you understand the principles correctly, make sure that you read more about them, in the longer Ellis report

Illustrate the points you make with actual examples. These may be a description of a lesson showing how a principle operates (or doesnt) within it, examples from a unit of work, a pattern of events that you recognise over your teaching etc. To stimulate your thinking, you should do wider reading from the literature, either through some of the works in the reading lists provided for this paper, or through electronic sources. This will be an important part of your preparation, but should not dominate the assignment itself. We would like your main focus to be on your critical evaluation of the principles themselves and how they fit into the particular context (early childhood) in which you are teaching.

Starting points for your critical evaluation can include:

• Points of agreement or


• Indications of how your own observations have led you to those


• Points (if there are any) which you do not think have been taken into


• Examples of your practice which support or refute the principles you are


• Changes in your perspectives on your teaching as a result of the reflection you have done for this