Competence and Performance in Language Teaching
CRITIQUE PAPER
I. Background Information Author | Jack C. Richards - Regional Language Centre, Singapore. | Title | Competence and Performance in Language Teaching | SourceYear | Rel.sagepud.com at Victoria Univ of Wellington on January 3, 2011RELC Journal2010 |
II. Summary and responses
This article on the nature of competence and performance in language teaching is about the knowledge, beliefs and skills that language teachers make use of in their practice. A language teacher must master and combine certain dimensions of teaching knowledge and skills which are the language proficiency, the role of content knowledge, teaching skills, contextual knowledge, language teacher’s identity, learner-focused teaching, pedagogical reasoning skills, the membership of a community of practice, and professionalism. 1. The language proficiency factor
The more proficient on the knowledge and discourse skills, the more confident the teachers are regardless of whether they are native-speaker teachers or not.
In this article, the author said that it is not necessary for a non-native speaker teacher to meet the native-like command of a language so that he or she can teach effectively. Non-native-speaker and native-speaker teachers have both strengths and weaknesses (Flores, 1997; Hertel & Sunderman, 2009; Medgyes, 1992; Pasternak &Bailey, 2001). The language proficiency factor does not depend on the teacher’s mother tongue, but the ability to achieve the knowledge.
It is obvious that a language teacher must be proficient on the knowledge and discourse skills so that he or she can teach effectively. The teacher will not have to pay much attention and time to study the language which is going to be taught. He or she will have more time for the techniques used in his or her teaching instead. He or she just think about what is going to be taught, not how to teach well or enlarge the knowledge in the lesson, which destroys the creativity in teaching. A teacher who has not
I. Background Information Author | Jack C. Richards - Regional Language Centre, Singapore. | Title | Competence and Performance in Language Teaching | SourceYear | Rel.sagepud.com at Victoria Univ of Wellington on January 3, 2011RELC Journal2010 |
II. Summary and responses
This article on the nature of competence and performance in language teaching is about the knowledge, beliefs and skills that language teachers make use of in their practice. A language teacher must master and combine certain dimensions of teaching knowledge and skills which are the language proficiency, the role of content knowledge, teaching skills, contextual knowledge, language teacher’s identity, learner-focused teaching, pedagogical reasoning skills, the membership of a community of practice, and professionalism. 1. The language proficiency factor
The more proficient on the knowledge and discourse skills, the more confident the teachers are regardless of whether they are native-speaker teachers or not.
In this article, the author said that it is not necessary for a non-native speaker teacher to meet the native-like command of a language so that he or she can teach effectively. Non-native-speaker and native-speaker teachers have both strengths and weaknesses (Flores, 1997; Hertel & Sunderman, 2009; Medgyes, 1992; Pasternak &Bailey, 2001). The language proficiency factor does not depend on the teacher’s mother tongue, but the ability to achieve the knowledge.
It is obvious that a language teacher must be proficient on the knowledge and discourse skills so that he or she can teach effectively. The teacher will not have to pay much attention and time to study the language which is going to be taught. He or she will have more time for the techniques used in his or her teaching instead. He or she just think about what is going to be taught, not how to teach well or enlarge the knowledge in the lesson, which destroys the creativity in teaching. A teacher who has not
References: Anna Burns and Jack C. Richards (2009). The Cambridge Guide to Second Language Teacher Education. The United States of America: Cambridge University Press. Briony Beaven (2010). IATEFL 2009: Cardiff Conference Selections. New York: IATEFL. Ronald Carter and David Nunan (2001). The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scott Thornbury (2006). An A-Z of ELT. Thailand: Macmillan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_Pedagogical_Content_Knowledge http://my.ilstu.edu/~rshivel/actfl2009.pdf