LANG40315: LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY

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• at the end of this module, students will:
• have acquired an up-to-date understanding of the principles currently considered relevant to (English) language teaching methodology
• have developed a principled, theoretically supportable rationale to guide decisions about syllabus design, materials development and language teaching practice
• be able to make an effective contribution as new and early stage English language teaching professionals, where appropriate, rethink existing practice and methodological stance

• the content of this module is designed to raise awareness of major issues in language teaching and learning, including how practice is informed by linguistic and second language acquisition theory and how the methods and approaches as well as the materials teachers use need to reflect this knowledge
• this will involve studying established methods principles and analysing their appropriateness in view of new knowledge about language and the changing role of English in the world, as well as considering radical alternatives such as the postmethod hypothesis
• it will also involve considering the extent to which both cognitively and affectively motivated contemporary mainstream approaches and instruction procedures are theoretically supportable and whether current pedagogy has found the right balance between learning language and learning to learn

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• a developed understanding of the major issues of debate in language teaching methodology and the implications of these for intending and early-stage language teachers and their learners, leading to a principled understanding of current approaches to language teaching and an assessment of their relevance to the students' future professional practice and teaching context

Subject-specific Skills:

• the ability to contribute to identify and reflect on language teaching practice and show they can take principled decisions about (English) language teaching practice drawing on key literature to justify their methodological position or educational rationale
• the ability to identify new trends as they emerge in the future and to evaluate their relevance to English language teaching

Key Skills:

• ability to read, understand and evaluate primary texts in language teaching methodology
• ability to contribute to debate in areas relevant to professional practice and the rationale on which it draws

• the teaching modes may include pre-class study of recorded powerpoint-based tutor presentations, tutor-fronted sessions, student-led seminars, discussions, debates, workshops, mini-conferences and experiential activities designed to raise awareness of methodological issues in ELT
• as well as engaging actively with the reading required for the classes, the students will be expected to formulate positions and argue over them in class. There will be advance reading and study for some classes and follow up reading for others, much of it drawn from research and professional journals
• Students will be asked to prepare for classes through reading and associated tasks, which includes preparatory work that comes in various forms (ppt presentations, written reflections, mind maps etc)
• the assessment will be 'continuous' in the sense that the students will have tasks whose relevance will be increasingly clear as their learning progresses and which will therefore require ongoing revision as a calculated part of the writing task

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