Our last lessons were about approaches to educational psychology and humanistic

approaches. There have been some fashions and changes that have had a particular influence
over approaches to language learning. A short looking at the history of how these theories
emerged and what the connections and conflicts with each other were help us to evaluate our
own contributions to language teaching. As a first issue we talked about is The positivist school.
They didn’t care of the human mind, they concerned the human’s acts. They tried to find a
theory of human learning by analyzing the behavior of animals under defined conditions.
According to them; facts, informations, awareness and so on exist in the real world can be
observed trough experiments which are settled up and controlled carefully. Then we talked about
Behaviorism. It has its roots in positivism and has had great influence on language teaching all
over the world. Skiner is the founder of modern behaviorism and he says that learning is the
result of environmental rather than genetic factors. He emphasized the importance of
reinforcement. The way to acquire the patterns of the language is through conditioning, helping
learners to respond correctly to stimuli through reinforcement. Positive reinforcement helps a
leaner to develop correct habits. For Skinner, there are 4 simple procedures(ı think there is no
need to mention them here bec there are on the book). ALM has been influenced by this
approach. Pattern drills, memorization of dialoges, choral repetition are so important in this
approach. In contrast to behaviorism, Conginitve Pschology deals with how the mind works. CP
tries to discover underlying motivation and deep structures of human behavior. It focus on
psychological principle of organization and functioning. For CP; meaning, understanding and
knowledge are essential parts for psychology study so there are 3 ways in which human thougt
that has been analyzed. Information processing, memory and intelligence-intelligence testing.
Information processing helps which information is important than others. There are lots of
information that we face. Attention, Perception and Memory are the basics of the information
processing. In Memory part, new information is put into existence. Complex knowledge can be
broken down pieces before being sent to long term memory. Memory is very important in
learning a language. As a teacher we need to know how we send new knowledge to the long
term memory and how students sent information within short memory to long memory. Choice
brings motivation. We can get help from some activities, techniques. Intellegince is the
fundamental element of understanding success or failure in school. Intellegence tests can explain
the failure in school. We can help learners to develop strategies to learn better through
appropriate teaching for them. What students know is important for us. Finally, According to
Constructivism, we construct our own understanding of the world we live in. Piaget is one of the
people of consructivism. According to him, everyone makes their own sense of the world and
experiences surronding them. There are 4 different stages of our lives. We pass through these 4
stages. Accordig to Bruner, the process of education is important as its product. We need to learn
how to learn. Learning in school must have a purpose. We should see students as whole person.
Drama, use of pictures, words in color is important. For George Kelly, it is important how you
make sense of information. People make their own experiments and construct hypothesis/make
generalization related to their experiences. Learners are active and make comments. Learners
are involved in an active process of making sense of creating their own understanding of the
world.

The last one we have learned about is humanistic approaches. HA emphasizes the importance of
inner world of the learner. Human being is the centered of the HA. According to Erik Ericson, we are
surrounded by challenges and every person proceeds through 8 stages from birth to old age. Our
psychological development depends on how we pass through these stage. Each stage has its own
challenge or crisis. After a challange, other challange emerges, so it helps us to see that real life
learning involves challenging. For, Maslow there were two distinct categories of needs. Deficiency
and Being. Being needs is the top of the pyramid and Deficiet needs is the bottom of it. There are
important stages between deficient and being needs. Each stage of needs of the pyrimad is as a
stepping stone for further learning and successing and at the end you will reach the self-actualization
part, which helps the learners to develop their own right. If learners’ basic needs aren’t met, they face
difficulties with learning and thus the process learning cannot be completed properly. Carl Rogers is
the founder of humanistic approaches. There is experiential learning. For him, human beings have a
natural potential for learning. Personal revelance and active participant are the most important issues
for him. Students are motivated by their personal involvement. They participate the lesson with their
social life, bringing social needs. Independence, Creativity, Self-reliance are so important. Criticism is
kept to a minimum and self-evaluation is encouraged. Teacher should see their learners as clients with
specific needs to be met.

What I get aware that I didn’t take the notes about bruner during the lesson.I am thinking asking
questions about bruner and memory. I suppose I need to focus not to forget these information. In my
teaching, I may break tasks down small steps for some situations. These task can be learnt via songs
with the help of imitations. Morever if I want to encourage my students to think, ı can give some
vocabularies and I want them to make a story by using these words with the help of their social
life,needs and so on. As a teacher firstly I need to figure out my students’basic needs and problems. If
I do not care of their needs, there is no importance of what I am telling during the lesson. For
example, primary students are so active and it is impossible to keep quiet,calm in 40 minunites. They
generally need to walk, go to restroom or canteen so I can give a break during the lesson and break
down the lesson as 15+10+15.. Their motivation, concentration to the lessons can easily be distracted.
Walking activities to learn in the classroom can be developed.I can get help from Drama, role play. If
ı see one of my students that could not pass through one of the ericson’s 8 stages or have problems
related this issue, ı can help him/her to overcome his/her problems by encouraging him/her to make
decisions for himself/herself.