May 2008 Zrna Agacevic

Univerzitet u Zenici
Pedagoški fakultet
Odsjek za engleski jezik i književnost

Methodology of teaching English language

Book Report
Principles of Language Learning and Teaching
by H. Douglas Brown

Mentor: Kasumagić Larisa, MA

Student: Agačević Zrna

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May 2008 Zrna Agacevic

Principles of Language Learning and Teaching is accessible, easy to read, and does a
good job of bringing theory and classroom practice together. The book is organised into four
main parts: Age Factors, Psychological Factors, Sociocultural Factors and Linguistic Factors.
The first chapter deals with language, language learners and teaching. It raises some
intereseting questions such as the age, ethnic, religious characteristics of language learners.It
gives definitions of basic terms such as learning and teaching. There is a historical overview
of teaching language at the end of the first chapter.
Part one, Age Factors, presents the first language acquisition and its significance.
Mediation theory is introduced as well as the Nativist approach.different issues concernig
competence and performance are given and described in detail. In this chapter the distinction
between comprehension and production is also made. Age and Acquisition is one of the
interesting chapters where the author gives a list of second language teaching methods abd
procedures on the basis of first language acquisition.
Part two of the book deals with psychological factors where a number of theories are
introduced such as Pavlov’s classical behaviourism, Ausubel’s subsumption theory and
Roger’s humanistic psychology. An overview of multiple inteligences is given also in this
part. There is a detailed description and classification of language learning strategies and a
brief test for identifying learner’s styles nad strategies. One chapter is dedicated to motivation
and personality factors.
Part three has focus on the sociocultural factors. It gives definitions of culture and
society while showing how these two ar connected. There is an interesting term used here
“World Englishes“ which stands for the English language with its varieties accros the globe.
The book furher describes differences between ESL and EFL and introduces the Whorfian
Hypothesis. This hypothesis argues that language shapes our worldveiw. The chapter about
communicative competence comes next where the author gives definitions, approaches,
analysis and a list of different discourse styles.
The last part of the book is part four ,which deals with Linguistic factors. There is a
number of different figures and tables describing linguistic factors. The ecology of language
acquisition is presented in a very interesting and simplified way. For example, here are
described: Climate of Context, Seeds of Predisposition, Soil of Style, Germination Strategies,
Roots of Competence and Inferred Competence Intake.
This book ends with a large bibliography, where some future references can be found.
At the very end there is glossary, which gives definitions of imporant terms. Principles of
Language and Learning and Teaching is easily read because the language used is not difficult
and topics are very interesting.

Glossary:
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May 2008 Zrna Agacevic

1. Affective filter- a condition of low anxiety and nondefensiveness that permits

one to acquire a language
2. Classical Method – a language teaching method in which the focus is on
grammatical rules, memorization of vocabulary and other language forms,
translation of texts and performing written exercises
3. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) – an approach to language
teaching methodology that emphasizes authenticity, interaction, student-
centered learning, task-based activities, and communication for real-world,
meaningful purposes
4. Error analysis – the study of learner’s ill-formed production in an effort to
discover systematicity
5. Induced errors – errors caused ba something in the learner’s environment,
such as the teacher, a textbook or a classroom methodology
6. Instrumental orientation – acquiring a language as a means for attaining
instrumental goals, such as acquiring a degree or a certificate in an academic
institution, furthering a career, etc
7. Integrative orientation – learning a language in order to integrate oneself into
the culture of a second language group and become involved in social
interchange in that group
8. Interlingual transfer- the effect of one language (usually the first) on another
(usually the second)
9. Rote learning – the process of mentaly storing facts, ideas or feelings having
little or no association with existing cognitive structure
10. Task-based instruction – an approach to language teaching that focuses on
tasks

I think that this book can be very helpful in ESL classroom. I believe it would be a
great thing to use this book not only in ESL classrooms, but in all classrooms. This book
shows to us that it is important to know how to teach the Englishlanguage to people of all
ages.
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May 2008 Zrna Agacevic

What I like the most about this book is that you do not have to have detailed
knowledge of linguistics or psychology in order to understand this book. The historical
overview of language teaching is particularly interesting. The best part of this book is the first
part and the first chapter- Age and Acquisition.

In this chapter the author explains the ability of children to vocally or nonvocally send
an extraordinary number of messages and receive messages as well. The four theories are
described in this chapter: Behaviorist, Mediation Theory, Nativist and Functional Theory.
They all deal with how children acquire language. The next part is my favourite because I like
the way competence and performance are described. There is an interesting example from the
real-life situation, a conversation between a tecaher and a child.

The following example is a speech delivered by a small girl and a speech made by a
man. We can see the similarity in style, fluency, only the choice of words is different. There
are many wonderful examples throughout the book and after reading them you will get the
feeling that you actually experienced that particular situation.

One of the amazing chapters is the chapter about personality types and language
acquisition. It has a table describing Myers-Briggs character types. For example, it lists all the
character types and gives their characteristics. The four main categories are given here: 1.
Intoversion vs. extroversion, 2. Sensing vs. intuition, 3. Thinking vs. feeling, 4. Judging vs.
perceiving. There is an interesting link between these charater types and strategies they use
while learning.

This book has a great feature that I find very helpful. At the end of each chapter there
is a list of topics and questions for study and discussion, as well as list of suggested readings.
These topics and questions can be used as an activity in ESL classrooms. I strongly
recommend this bookto both students and teachers because they can benefit from it. It will be
a great progress if this book becomes the regular literature for ESL students.