The Macrostrategies And The 12 Principles

MACROSTRATEGIES

          Strategy, is a word of military origin and refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal (win a battle or a war). But over time,  the word strategy has been extended beyond its traditional field to business, economics, game theory and other fields. One of these “other fields” has been the teaching of a second language. The strategy on this field has the target to make that a person speak a second language in a fluent way. To attain this Kumaravadivelu, a linguistic professor, expose the next ten strategies that I explain in a few words

1.      Maximize learning opportunities: This macrostrategy is related to do little things in classroom to learn and practice the second language (LINGUISTIC).

2.      Minimize perceptual mismatches: The teacher has to plan exercises to minimize these mismatches and get a good comprehension (LINGUISTIC).

3.      Facilitate negotiated interaction: To attain this the teacher has to ask questions related to the topic of the day; discuss a theme; show or teach students how to make questions and give explanations as well as descriptions (COGNITIVE).

4.      Promote learner autonomy: This macrostrategy it has to do with help learners to learn the second language outside of the classroom. To achive this the teacher has to promote strategies like sing songs, solve acronyms, reading books and magazines, watching TV in English, labeled things on home, mimics, body language, and things like that (COGNITIVE).

5.      Foster language awareness: This strategy is regarded to teach formal issues as grammar in informal ways (COGNITIVE).

6.      Activate intuitive heuristics: It has to do with teach grammar with examples instead than rules (COGNITIVE).

7.      Contextualize linguistic input: This macrostrategy shows the need to contextualize the second language. In other words, the teacher has to teach through a meaningful context (AFFECTIVE).

8.      Integrate language skills: This principle shows the need to integrate the basic skills as listening, speaking, reading and writing (COGNITIVE).

9.      Ensure social relevance: learners have to be aware that a second language it’s a kind of tool to serve to the society. Therefore, the teachers have to teach doing something for it (AFFECTIVE). it has to do with their feelings over the society which they belong.

10.  Raise cultural consciousness: The students of a second language are like ambassadors of their own countries, hence they have to know about them and this is also a teacher’s responsibility (AFFECTIVE).

TWELVE PRINCIPLES

          A principle is a kind of law or rule that has an universal application and it has to be followed to achieve a goal. On a second language teaching, the goal is to make that a person become a bilingual one. To accomplish this, Brown proposes twelve principles which I summarized below:

1.      Automaticity. Refers to teaching certain forms of a second language that will be useful for its practice and for its automatic development. This is with the intention to avoid the overanalyzing language and too much thinking, which impede the fluency (COGNITIVE).

2.      Meaningful Learning. Teachers must be careful that what they teach is of interest to students, in so doing the learning process is easier as well the long term retention (COGNITIVE).

3.      The Anticipation of Reward. This principle shows the importance of the reward to the student. The reward is always a motivation for do something and learning it´s not the exception. So, if we want that a student learn, we have to give him some sort of reward (AFFECTIVE).

4.      Intrinsic Motivation. Of course, the best motivation comes from the interior of a person. Considering this, the teacher needs sensitize their students about the importance of the second language in their lives and in their personal success (AFFECTIVE).

5.      Strategic Investment. Learning a second language requires a personal investment of time, effort and attention. Without this, it´s practically impossible to learn it. So, every person who wants to learn a second language has to be willing to spend time for study and practice the language. He or she will have to plan strategies for comprehending and producing the language during the whole week (COGNITIVE).

6.      Language Ego. This principle refers to the fact that a person who learns another language develops a second identity. That’s because he or she develops a new way of thinking, feeling and acting. In a positive way, this is something good that may help to the person to feel more confident and secure from himself. But, in a negative way, this also could be something that makes him feel insecure, silly and ashamed, especially if he is having problems to learn it. So, this is something to pay attention (AFFECTIVE).

7.      Self Confidence. This way of feel usually comes when the student is having progress in his learning. The self-esteem of a person is linked to their personal attainments. A good second language teacher helps to his students to experiment this kind of feeling and he will be part of their success (AFFECTIVE).

8.      Risk Taking. The students of a second language must be willing to take certain risks in order to learn. Some of these risks have to do it with the decision to practice in public despite his bad pronunciation and mistakes (AFFECTIVE).

9.      The Language-Culture Connection. Teaching or learning another language is not only teach and learn words and meanings. It´s also teach and learn about other culture and it´s for share ours with other persons in other parts of the world (AFFECTIVE).

10.  The Native Language Effect. This principle has to do with the proper use of the native language in learning a second one. The experts recommend to only use the second language in order to learn it but, sometimes, we need to use our native language to give some explanations and make the second language meaningful and more comprehensive. Anyway, we need to be very careful about its use (LINGUISTIC).

11.  Interlanguage. To learn a second language is necessary to practice with other students or with other persons who they know the language. The teacher should encourage students to generate their own feedback outside of the language classroom. Because, if the student practices continuously, he will learn easier and faster (LINGUISTIC).

12.  Communicative Competence. This is the goal of a language teaching and it’s the result of many hours of teaching, learning and practicing. The person has to be able of use correctly the four basic skills of a language which are: hearing, reading, writing and speaking (LINGUISTIC).

          Another important issue to consider about these macrostrategies and principles is that each of these is related to one of the following areas of the learners:

• The Affective Area which involves their emotions.
• The Linguistic Area that concerns to their need to communicate with people of other countries.
• The Cognitive Area which has to do with their knowledge of the second language.

          That’s why, at the end of each macrostrategy or principle, I wrote in parenthesis (with capital letters) the area which is attended.

My Personal Conclusion.

          To me, the macrostrategies and the twelve principles are a sort of map that all the teachers have to keep in mind at the moment of devise a teaching plan because all of them consider important issues to make the learning process complete and succesful. They complement each other and give to the teacher a grounding for his labor. So, every time I have the opportunity to give an English class, I have to take a look of them to see if they are involved on my teaching plan and, if they are not, then include them on my lessons. In so doing, I will make learning a pleasant and rewarding experience for my students and I think I'm going to enjoy this experience too.