Reconceptualizing language teaching: an in-service teacher education course in uzbekistan

Principle
Name
Explanation
Principle 11
Interlan-
guage
Second language learners tend to go through 
a systematic or quasi-systematic development 
process as they progress to full competence in 
the target language. Successful interlanguage 
development is partially a result of utilizing 
feedback from others.
Principle 12
Communica-
tive Compe-
tence
Since it is the goal of a language classroom, in-
struction needs to point toward all its compo-
nents: organizational, pragmatic, strategic, and 
psychomotor. Communicative goals are best 
achieved by giving due attention to language 
use and not just usage, to fluency, and not just 
accuracy, to authentic language and con-
texts, and to students’ eventual need to apply 
classroom learning to previously unrehearsed 
contexts in the real world
ACTION 
Based on the three linguistic principles above…
1. Please rank order what you think is the most to least important lin-
guistic principle above. Then, provide a rationale for your rank order.
2. Provide a classroom example from your life about how you have 
incorporated your most important linguistic principle? 
TASK
Looking back at the three questions in the Introduction and Over-
view part, think about the following.
Will you answer those questions differently now?
Can you formulate your personal theory of teaching? 
How can knowing how to relate theory to practice can help you 
teach better?
SUMMARY
The twelve language teaching principles proposed by Brown (2000) 
are not exhaustive but can serve as corner - stones for building and enlight-
ening your teaching path. The principles can help you and other teachers 
reflect on your teaching practice and get insights into successes and fail-

---

67
CHAPTER TWO: LANGUAGE TEACHING
ures we face in our professional life. Teaching by principles will empower 
you as a professional: being able to justify your choice of certain techniques 
appropriate for your students, monitor yourself while implementing them 
and evaluating their effectiveness, and making decisions on how to im-
prove or adapt them to address your students’ needs.
HOMEWORK TASK SIX
The goal of this homework task is for you to compose your own lan-
guage teaching statement and use one or more of the 12 principles to 
support what you do in your language classroom. Look at your Homework 
Task One lesson plan and then discern your teaching principles from that 
lesson. To accomplish this task, you may do the following two steps: