El Enfoque Humanista Como Alternativa Educativa Durante El Proceso De Enseñanza Aprendizaje

Humanistic language teaching
Submitted by TE Editor on 12 October, 2005 - 13:00
'Humanism' is one of those constructs that people argue about passionately. Instead of attempting to define it, perhaps it makes more sense to focus on some commonly agreed characteristics of humanism. These are: problem-solving, reasoning, free will, self-development, and co-operation.
* Humanism and learningtheory
* The humanistic teacher
* Humanism in practice
* Teaching language items
* Teaching skills
* The teacher's status
* Flexibility
* Conclusion
 
Humanism and learning theory
Perhaps the most well-known applications of humanism in ELT are those of Curran (1976) and Gattegno (1972).
* The former advocated the use of 'Counselling-Learning'. Inthis practice, teachers sit outside a circle of learners and help them to talk about their personal and linguistic problems. The students decide the 'curriculum', while the teacher is more of a facilitator, who fosters an emotionally secure environment.
* Meanwhile, Gattegno advocated the Silent Way approach. In this, he presented challenges for learners. These challenges developed the students'awareness and encouraged their independence.
 
It's my view that it's possible to apply the characteristics of humanism to ELT in a less radical way than described in the practices above. In a way that might be more appealing for students, more practicable for teachers, and more plausible for education inspectors.

The humanistic teacher
The humanistic teacher should have a good grasp oflanguage learning theories. They will realise the importance of change, which is implicit in all learning.
* They will be aware of the individual learners' 'developmental readiness' (Piaget, 1970), which will determine when and how to teach each student something.
* They will offer their students problems to solve, as, according to cognitivists, this is precisely how we learn things.
*Above all, the successful humanistic teacher will probably be a pragmatist - allowing a combination of language learning theories and their own experience to interact with each other to produce effective language lessons.
 
The humanistic teacher also needs to be aware of what motivates their students. Some will probably want to learn English because they have to (e.g. for their job), while otherswant to simply for the sake of it. The former is called 'extrinsic motivation', while the latter is called 'intrinsic motivation'.
* Those students who are more extrinsically motivated will be more goal-oriented and might want, for example, a lot of tests and exams.
* Students who are intrinsically motivated will derive a lot of satisfaction from solving language problems - the solutionwill be a reward in itself.
 
In reality, of course, students can be both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated. They may be learning English for a specific purpose (e.g. to be accepted into a speech community or to get promotion), but they might also really enjoy the process of learning.
* Teachers need to be aware of this mix and need to use this information to determine issues like:* How much testing to do
* How much fun can be had
* Should the target language be representative of one particular speech community or not?
Humanism in practice 
Teaching 'language items'
In an attempt to be a humanistic language teacher myself, I introduce every new language item at the optimum time of readiness for my class.
* I firstly elicit the target language.This fosters a sense of co-operation between the students and me.
* Then I try to make the meaning of the language items as clear as possible by using a number of techniques (e.g. pictures, mime, or a mini-explanation). Such work on the concept of the target language needs to be repeated later in a way that is appropriate to the abilities and progress of the group.
* At the appropriate...