Week 6

As a pre-service teacher, one of my biggest and main concerns is how the theories that I've learned in my methods classes will affect my teaching practices. The readings this week emphasize the importance of maximizing learning opportunities for the learners in our classrooms. As teachers, we need to create the best environment/conditions that are absolutely vital for learning to happen. 
Brown discusses twelve principles of language learning: automaticity, meaningful learning, willingness to communicate, language-culture anticipation of reward, language ego, intrinsic motivation, strategic investment, autonomy, interlanguage, communicative competence. All these principles are important factors in getting students to learn.  All these principles concentrate on the individualistic aspect of the learner. All these factors can mean the difference between great learning or not at all. That being said, I'm sure many of us (myself included), have been in classrooms where the structure is extremely rigid and solely based on the agenda of the teacher. In the past classrooms that I have been in a classroom where a teacher teaches based on their preferences and learning was very limited for me. There really was no room to learn the way I was comfortable with. Instead of adapting and being flexible, the teacher applied the same view of a student to all students. So of course, learning may occur for those who are on the same page as that teacher, but not all students will necessarily will benefit from the teacher's attitudes toward his/her students. 
With these principles and my own personal experience, I ask myself: "How can I tailor my lessons to each student individually?" "Is there a way to accommodate every single student?" As much as I would like to reach every student, I wonder at the practicality and efficiency of actually being able to do this. 
In regards to language learning, one of the principles that struck me was language ego. Many language learners are so focused on not making mistakes that they are often hindered in participating and going out on a limb to learn. As teachers, not only do we need to make students comfortable, but communicate to our students that it is perfectly okay to make mistakes; that mistakes help us learn. It also helps the teacher to understand where students are at and where the teacher need to put more focus on in the lesson. 
Both the students and teacher has to work together to create the right conditions in which learning will be most effective and that students will be able to take what they learn in the classroom beyond to the world outside of academics.