2.3 Strategies and techniques in teaching songs and
games
The innovators of the TEFL approach (Thorpe, Bunker, &
Almond, 1986) suggested that game appreciation and the development of tactical
awareness should precede the development of motor skills. In other words,
teaching what to do should precede teaching how to do it. The adoption of this
innovation, simple as it is in essence, could in my opinion transform games
education by linking it to that groundswell of change that appears to be taking
education into a constructivist millennium.
The technical model favours the learning of motor skills, in
the hope that they will automatically be implemented in game play. The teacher
is usually the chief decision maker where tactics or strategies are concerned,
and to be successful, students must demonstrate their acquisition of skills.
This approach is the most efficient if the goal of the lesson is for students
to execute skills.
Here are some responses for teachers who are exposed to the
TEFL approach
Factors Influencing the Choice of L2 Learning Strategies
Oxford (1990a) synthesized existing research on how the following factors
influence the choice of strategies used among students learning a second
language.
Motivation. More motivated
students tend to use more strategies than less motivated students, and the
particular reason for studying the language (motivational orientation,
especially as related to career field) was important in the choice of
strategies.
Gender. Females
report greater overall strategy use than males in many studies (although
sometimes males surpassed females in the use of a particular strategy).
Cultural background.
Rote memorization and other forms of memorization are more prevalent among some
Senegalese students than among students from other cultural backgrounds.
Certain other cultures also appear to encourage this strategy among
learners.
Attitudes and
beliefs. These are reported to have a profound
effect on the strategies learners choose, with negative attitudes and beliefs
often causing poor strategy use or lack of orchestration of strategies.
Type of task. The
nature of the task helped determine the strategies naturally employed to carry
out the task.
Age and l2 stage. Students of
different ages and stages of L2 learning used different strategies, with
certain strategies often being employed by older or more advanced students.
Learning style.
Learning style (general approach to language learning) often determined the
choice of L2 learning strategies. For example, analytic-style students
preferred strategies such as contrastive analysis, rule-learning, and
dissecting words and phrases, while global students used strategies to find
meaning (guessing, scanning, predicting) and to converse without knowing all
the words (paraphrasing, gesturing).
Tolerance of ambiguity.
Students who are more tolerant of ambiguity use significantly different
learning strategies in some instances than do students who are less tolerant of
ambiguity.
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