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Theories, Methods & Techniques of Teaching - Nature vs. Nurture

 

This presentation is going to focus on the theories, methods and techniques of teaching and we're going to start with a quote. This is an interesting quotation because it contains within it a philosophical argument and it's a philosophical argument in the way in which we learn. Basically, this one is saying that the intelligence of their own children comes about due to a natural process. So this one could be said to be due to nature. This is exactly the opposite of this one, which is saying that they're teaching the environment that we create, creates that intelligence. So this one can be said to be due to nurture and this argument 'nature versus nurture' has been going on for thousands of years. These two viewpoints are two ends of a scale, or a continuum if you like, and every teaching methodology that's ever been created has its starting point somewhere on this scale. For example, if a particular methodology has its starting point here, then that would be fifty percent due to nature and fifty percent is due to nurture.


Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next.

I am teaching a course based on the TOEFL exam, and reading, writing, speaking and listening are the main focuses for our course. Reading and listening are hard to isolate when teaching as we often use the other skills while focusing on receptive ones. This unit helps focus my teaching on receptive skills as opposed to just one skill at a time.This unit showed me the importance of testing students on diffrent levels of an English course. What kind of test we use and for what purpose. Also how to create effective tools for students evaluation and how to use the process of the evaluation for improving the teachers workshop. I learn about different tests on English language proficiency.

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