EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

What I learned was the use of Educational Psychology in language

teaching.

Each student brings his own thoughts, beliefs, feelings into the
classroom. We, as teachers, should know the students’ psychology
because effective teacher is the one who understands the complexities of
teaching / learning process and tries to find ways to overcome this. One
way is to deal with the psychology of the students. The teacher should not
only transmit the knowledge but also guide the students. She should
maintain personal reflection, know the theories, adjust the teaching
according to these theories and she should realize that each student is
unique. Furthermore, the teacher should use scaffolding techniques
because it is important life-long learning. Also, education should be
educative because it is no need to teach something that doesn’t have any
contribution to students’ life.

I also learned the approaches to EP. For instance, according to

positivist school , human learning can be understood by invstigating the
behaviour of animals and by setting up experiments but to do this ,
conditions must be carefully controlled. Behaviourists give their
importance to stimuli-response relationship to explain learning in terms of
some form of conditioning. (e.g. Pavlov’s dog) According to behaviourist
Skinner, human behaviour is observable , so learning is the result of
environment. He thinks that if the behaviour is reinforced , that behaviour
will be increased or decreased. However, I learned that reinforcement
should be to some extent. If the reinforcement is more than necessary , it
will be a habit for students and in the end they may not do anything
without reinforcement.

I learned Skinner’s suggestions for teachers. For instance, teacher

should clearly explain in advance what she is going to teach. The teacher
should try to make the students autonomous learners from the beginning.
To do this, she should encourage the students to work on their own.
However, I learned that ALM fails to explain function. There is no real
interaction, so students are passive . There is no meaning , so students
cannot understand and create novel utterances when they go outside.
Furthermore, there is no tolerance for making mistakes. However, I
learned that making mistakes is good. It shows that students are trying
and taking risk.

I learned that , in contrast to behaviourism , cognitive psychology is

concerned with the way in which the human mind thinks and learns, so
they give importance to mental processes. There are 3 approaches to CP.
Information processing is the way in which people take in information. This
can be avhieved by the help of attention, perception and memory.
Attention means selecting out only those stimuli which are important.
With high attention, we keep the information in our short-term memory.
By breaking down complex material into chunks or by using linkword or by
the help of rehersal , we can keep the information in our long-term
memory.

Moreover I learned that Howard Gardner thinks that there are

different kinds of intelligences. This is called multiple intelligence. I also
learned that when there is appropriate teaching , all learners can be better
at language learning no matter what their IQ level is.

What I had difficulty in figuring out was Carroll , Sapon and Vernon’s
opinions about intelligence.

I suppose I need to focus more on the subject -‘intelligence’

I believe I may use techniques of each theory when I become a

teacher because I believe that even ALM may have useful techniques in
language teaching. Also, while teaching , to call the students’ attention
I’m going to carry energizer and cooler activities. When a student of mine
comes and askes to me how she can learn vocabulary , I will suggest
him/her that she should write a diary or write a story related to that words
or hang some vocabulary posters among her room or read English books
etc. Finally, as a teacher I won’t forget that each student has different
intelligence. I’m going to adjust my teaching according to students’
intelligence, so I’m gonig to benefit from visual, sensual …. aids while
teaching when I become a teacher .