Eight Principles

for Teaching and

Learning English

Willy A Renandya  
 Eight Principles for Teaching and Learning English

ABSTRACT

There are many factors that a ect the success or failure of foreign language learning. Some
of these factors have more to do with cognitive, a ective and social dimensions of language
learning, while others are related to curricular issues (e.g., curricular contents and how
these are selected, organized and sequenced), teacher factors (e.g., their prior training and
their mastery of the subject matter) or learner factors (e.g., their motivation, attitudes and
strategies) and a whole host of situational factors (e.g., class size, availability of learning
resources and support from the government and community). In this ebook, I focus on eight
key factors (i.e., roles of input, ouput, uency, formulaic expressions, motivation, grammar,
vocabulary, amount and intensity
of instruction), and formulated
these as eight core  principles that
can guide our language teaching
and learning practices. I argue that
when each of these principles are
given su cient attention by
teachers, school administrators
and other key stakeholders, there
is more than a fair chance that we might be able to raise the pro ciency level of our
students.

This revised paper was previously published in Renandya, W.A. (2013). Essential
Factors A ecting EFL Learning Outcomes. English Teaching, 68(4), 23-41.

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I N TRO D U CTI O N

For many years I have been intrigued by a classic question of why some learners of English as
a foreign language (EFL) achieve a high level of pro ciency while many others are not as
successful. After some six years of formal English instruction in high schools, many students
continue to have di culty expressing themselves in English both in speech and writing. They
may have accumulated a rather large stock of vocabulary and learned numerous
grammatical structures, but they don’t seem to be able to put this knowledge into practical
use. Many of the teachers that I have met in the course of my work as a language teacher
educator have largely con rmed my observation.

What could be some the key factors that can account for this lack of success in learning
English? For the past 25 years or so I have been re ecting on this question and have had
numerous discussions with ELT colleagues at academic conferences and with classroom
teachers at seminars and workshops that I conducted. I have discussed factors that relate to
cognitive, a ective and social dimensions of language learning and how they might impact
instructed classroom learning in EFL contexts; I have also re ected on teacher factors (e.g.,
teacher’s content and pedagogical knowledge), curricular factors (e.g., types of curricula and
how the curricular contents are organized and sequenced, ), learner factors (e.g., learning
styles and strategies) and situational factors (e.g., class size and availability of learning
resources). There are indeed numerous factors that can have signi cant impact on language
learning; but in this ebook, I focus on eight SLA-inspired factors (i.e., roles of input, ouput,
uency, formulaic expressions, motivation, grammar, vocabulary, intensity of instruction)
that in my opinion deserve serious consideration. These factors are presented as core
principles that can guide the teaching and learning of language in diverse contexts.

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P RI N CI P L E 1 : THE P RI MA CY O F I N P U T

Input is arguably one of the most important elements in language learning. It does not
matter whether we are talking about children learning their mother tongue or adults
learning a second or foreign language, they need a large amount of language input. Gass and
Mackey (2015) for
example maintain that
"Input is the sine qua
non of acquisition.
Quite simply it refers
to the language that a
learner is exposed to
in a communicative
context (i.e., from
reading or listening or,
in the case of sign
language, from visual language) (p. 181). 

They go on to say that "input is an essential component for learning in that it provides the
crucial evidence from which learners can form linguistic hypotheses" (p. 182). And yet, in EFL
situations, students normally receive minimal amounts of input, which come largely from the
teachers (if they happen to use English regularly) and the course materials. In other words,
input is generally quite scarce both in and out of the classroom.

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Among the most well-known L2 researchers is Stephen Krashen who claims that input is a
necessary and su cient condition for language learning (Krashen, 1982; 2004; Krashen, Lee
& Lao, 2017). Although other L2 researchers do not fully agree with Krashen’s position, no
one disagrees with him that input is a necessary condition for language learning. In other
words, the general consensus seems to be that learners need to hear and see a lot of English
in and outside the classroom, but that input alone is not the only factor that is responsible
for the language pro ciency development of the learners.

In the language classroom, input essentially refers to oral or written language that a learner
receives. However, not all input is useful for language learning. If our students are exposed
to language that they cannot comprehend, they will not learn much from it. Research has
shown that for input to be
bene cial for language
development, it has to be
highly comprehensible,
abundantly and reliably
available in the classroom as
well as outside the classroom
and it has to be meaningful
and interesting so as to
engage students’ attention
(Renandya, 2007; 2011; 2012; Renandya, Krashen & Jacobs, 2018). 

There is now ample evidence to show that learners who receive a lot of interesting and
meaningful comprehensible language input through extensive reading/listening tend to have
a stronger mastery of the grammar of the language, a larger vocabulary size and achieve a
higher level of pro ciency in English (Day and Bamford, 1998; Jeon & Day, 2016; Renandya,
2007, 2011; Renandya & Jacobs, 2016).

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Given the central role of input in language acquisition, in particular in the early phase of
learning, it appears reasonable to suggest the following two points when we try to provide
rich input in the classroom. First, we should strive to use more English in the classroom as in
many EFL classrooms, teacher talk often serves as the main source of language input. We
should use language that is pitched at the right level, and that is rich enough to expose
students to a full range of features commonly observed in authentic communicative
settings. 

Second, we should provide opportunities for students to read and listen to a lot of highly
interesting and comprehensible language. This can be done by implementing an extensive
reading/listening programme, where students are given a large amount of comprehensible
and compelling materials to read/listen on a regular basis.

P RI N CI P L E 2 : MEA N I N G -F O CU SED O U TP U T I S I MP O RTA N T

Ellis (2005, p 218) writes: ‘Contrary to Krashen’s belief that acquisition is dependent
entirely on comprehensible input, most researchers now acknowledge that learner output
also plays a part’. L2 researchers (e.g., Ellis, 2005; Swain, 1999) agree that learner output is
useful for learners’ language development. It can make learners pay more attention to
grammar, thus enabling them to produce
more accurate language; it can provide them
with an opportunity to try out newly learned
grammatical points; it can facilitate faster
access and retrieval to existing linguistic
knowledge which through repeated use
improves learners’ uency; and nally, it
enables them to develop their ability to
produce longer stretches of speech, thus enhancing their discourse skills.

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Because of these bene ts, EFL teachers are often too eager to introduce output-based
activities in the classroom. However, a word of caution is in order. If we force learners to
speak or write too early, they are likely to produce language that is grammatically
unacceptable. If this continues for a period of time (which often happens in communicatively
oriented classrooms), their communicative skills may increase (e.g., they become more
uent) but their grammatical system remains stagnant and shows no sign of developments.
Richards (2010, p. 8) aptly describes two key characteristics of learners whose uency may
have developed at the expense of accuracy and complexity:

1. Learners’ language may be both relatively uent and accurate but shows little
evidence of appropriate grammatical development.

2. Complexity of the learners’ language does not match his or her pro ciency level.

Where learner output is concerned, the following two points are important to note when we
design speaking or writing tasks. First, we need to design tasks that link input with output
based practice. This often
means giving students
opportunities to read and
listen a number of texts to
help them become familiar
with the language that
they will later need for
production. Second,
uency-based speaking or
writing activities should involve the students practicing familiar or known materials. This
would ensure that their oral and written production is both uent and accurate.

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A note of caution regarding output-based activities is in order. Swain’s (1999)

comprehensible output hypothesis is often used to justify the introduction of speaking and
writing activities in the classroom. It is worth noting that Swain talked about the
comprehensible output idea in the context of French immersion students in Canada. These
students are (1) already exposed to massive amounts of comprehensible input and (2)
already uent in French. Hence, providing opportunities for her students to produce the
language makes sense and in fact serves a good purpose. For these students, pushing them
to produce more language, Swain (1985) argues, is a good way of noticing a gap in their
language knowledge and of stretching their current level of competence.

Typical EFL students, however, are still at the lower end of the pro ciency continuum, have
not developed a su cient linguistic base, and still struggle with basic language
comprehension and production. Pushing them to speak and write too early would be
pedagogically indefensible. Many teachers
know too well that lower pro ciency
learners often nd speaking one of the
most (if not the most) anxiety-causing
activities. Indeed, for some foreign
language students, speaking in front of
the whole class could be the greatest
source of stress and anxiety (Price, 1991,
cited in Krashen, 1998). 

This is not to say that they should be

forbidden to produce language. They should indeed be allowed or even encouraged to
produce language, but it is probably not a good idea to force them to express themselves
using grammatical constructions or vocabulary words that they have not learned well.

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P RI N CI P L E 3 : D O N O T O VERTEA CH G RA MMA R

The role of grammar in language teaching is less controversial than it used to be. People now
agree that grammar is an essential part language learning and teaching (Richards & Reppen,
2014). We can’t learn a language without learning its grammar. As Richards and Renandya
(2002) point out ‘... without a good knowledge of grammar, learners’ language development
will be severely constrained’ (p. 145). What continues to be an unresolved issue concerns
questions such as: how much grammar do learners need? Which grammar items do learners
need most? How do we teach grammar e ectively? Should it be taught explicitly or
implicitly?

On the question of how much and which grammar and our students need most, I would agree
with Swan (2002) that we tend to teach too much grammar and many of the grammar items
we teach are often not immediately useful for our students. Instead of trying to teach the
entire grammar of the English language, he suggests that we should select those grammar
items based on two considerations: comprehensibility and acceptability.

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Learners need basic grammatical structures to communicate common types of meaning

successfully, i.e., to produce comprehensible language. Swan (2002) points out that we don’t
know precisely what these structures are, but they are likely to include basic sentence
structures (e.g., SVO structure and interrogative structures), basic verb forms, the main
tenses (present, past, progressive and perfective) and the use of modals (e.g., can, could,
should, must). If our learners do not know how to use these basic structures, they will have a
hard time making themselves understood. The following text produced by an EFL student
illustrates this point. He simply put words together to form a text that is largely
incomprehensible.

The teacher can reading book and searching in internet, how to teach English Language to
the teacher? For example: The teacher can reading book about, how to the other people can
understand English Language very fast or the teacher can searching in internet or the
teacher can write in Facebook or email, how to teach English Language to other countries.

Being able to produce comprehensible language is not enough. Swan contends that “...
students need a higher level of grammatical correctness than is required for mere
comprehensibility” (2002, p. 152). Their speech will have to be socially acceptable, because
society often demands that we speak with a certain degree of grammatical sophistication.
Employers, for example, often consider people who speak with unacceptable grammar to be
socially undesirable individuals, labelling them with such negative adjectives as sloppy,
careless, unreliable, and untrustworthy. One important thing to remember here is that we
don’t need to demand an unreasonably high level of grammar to produce socially acceptable
language.

For a more comprehensive set of principles for teaching grammar as a resource for meaning
making, see Richards & Reppen (2014).

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Thus the current thinking is that grammar is too important to be ignored and it should
continue to become an important part of our teaching, keeping in mind that our students
need to learn just enough grammar so that their language becomes linguistically
comprehensible and socially acceptable. Complex grammatical structures such as the
subjunctives, complex conditional clauses, and the future perfect tense which are commonly
taught in school and tested in the examination should perhaps not be included in the
curriculum.

The twin criteria of comprehensibility and acceptability are also well-aligned with recent
thinking in the eld, in particular with respect to the emerging status of English as the
world’s lingua franca. Mckay (2003, 2012) and others (e.g., Llurda, 2009) for example have
suggested that we need to reconceptualize the goals of English language teaching. The
traditional goals of achieving native-like competence does not re ect the current reality
that our students are more likely to use English with other users of English from expanding
circle countries such as China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. They argue
that language teaching goals that prepare students to speak and be understood by other
users of English are more appropriate in today’s ELT. In other words, our students’ language
should be internationally comprehensible and acceptable in the global community.

One last point about grammar relates to the familiar advice given by proponents of the
communicative approach, i.e., we should not worry too much over grammatical accuracy as
long as the students are able to communicate their ideas in the foreign language. Language
errors, we are told, are not important as long as they do not interfere with the intended
message of our communication (Littlewood, 1981). While this advice can be useful in some
contexts, we should not take it to the extreme and ignore the importance of linguistic
accuracy. 

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Indeed, what often distinguishes between instructed and uninstructed learning situations is
that the former can provide nourishing linguistic environments in which our learners can
learn to speak the language with a reasonable degree of uency, accuracy and complexity. In
contrast, untutored learners in the US like Wes, a Japanese immigrant (Schmidt, 1984) and
Alex, a Turkish immigrant (Polat and Kim, 2013) were both very uent users of English but
their ability to produce accurate and complex language remained severely limited. Thus, one
distinct advantaged of an instructed learning situation is that it can provide learners with
the opportunity to develop all three components of language pro ciency, i.e., uency,
accuracy and complexity.

P RI N CI P L E 4 : F O CU S O N HI G H F REQ U EN CY W O RD S

Grammar is important; vocabulary is even more important. Wilkin (1972, p. 111) writes:
‘Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed’.
Intuitively, we know all along that words are the most important building blocks of language;
without words, language cannot exist. We also know that we need a lot of words in order to
communicate our thoughts, feelings, and ideas with precision. Foreign language learners
often recount how they have di culty expressing themselves in a foreign language not
because they don’t have ideas, but because they lack the vocabulary to express these ideas.

Empirical evidence supporting our observation is currently available. Research has shown
that there is a strong and reliable correlation between vocabulary size and language skills
such as reading, writing, listening. Alderson (2005) reports the following correlations
between vocabulary size and language skills.

 Vocabulary and Grammar: r = .64

 Vocabulary and Listening: r = .61 - .65
 Vocabulary and Reading: r = .64
 Vocabulary and Writing: r = .70 - .79

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Given these strong relationships, Alderson (2005) concludes that “the size of one’s
vocabulary is relevant to one’s performance on any language test; in other words, language
ability is to quite a large extent a function of vocabulary size ” (p.88).

But how many words do our students need? A general response to this would be ‘many, the
more the better’. But for pedagogical purposes, we can be a bit more precise, at least in
terms of the number of words required for good comprehension. According to Cobb (2007),

"... after decades of guesswork, there is now widespread agreement among researchers that
text comprehension depends heavily on detailed knowledge of most of the words in a text ...
“(p. 38)

“... the minimum number of word families needed for non-specialist reading of materials
designed for nonnative speakers to be between 3000 (Laufer, 1989) and 5000 word families
(Hirsch & Nation, 1992) ..." (p. 41)

How about EFL high school students? Do they need 3,000-5,000 words? Ideally yes, but
except for those highly motivated students, this would be a hard-to-achieve target. I would
estimate that EFL students would need an active vocabulary of at least 2,000 high frequency
words to read familiar, non-technical texts on the internet, to write a variety of non-
specialist texts for various di erent purposes. These 2,000 high frequency words are
important for listening and speaking too, as they “serve as an essential base needed for
daily interaction and speaking, ...” (Hinkle, 2006, p. 122).

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The key thing to remember is that our students need to develop an in-depth knowledge of
what these words mean and how to use them appropriately in a variety of contexts. Many
would agree with me that our students’ level of word knowledge is often rather super cial.
They probably know the most basic meaning of the words, but not their variant or expanded
meanings. For
example, many
students know the
word give (to o er
something to
someone) and can
perhaps use the
word in following
sentences:

 She gave me a nice present for my birthday.

 Give my regards to your brother and everyone in the family.

But we rarely, if ever, see them use the word give in the following sentences:

 I gave you my word that it won’t happen again in the future.

 He gave his last breath peacefully.
 They gave their all to their noble cause.
 The boy gave everyone in class the u.
 Do give it a try even if your chance of getting it right is slim.

Vocabulary researchers (e.g., Nation, 2001; Schmitt, 2010) agree that there are di erent
levels of vocabulary knowledge and learners seem to go through these levels incrementally:

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Level 1 I don’t know what the word means (I have not seen or heard the word before).

Level 2 I have seen/heard the word but only have a vague idea of what it means.

Level 3 I know what the word means and can use it in limited contexts.

Level 4 I know what the word means really well and can use it in a variety of contexts.

Repeated observations indicate that our students seem capable of reaching Level 3, but only
a few are able to get to Level 4. Level 4, as described by Nation (2001), involves knowing (1)
the form of the word (e.g., how it is pronounced and spelled, its morphological composition),
(2) the meaning (e.g., its referential and pragmatic meanings), (3) the use (e.g., its
collocation and grammatical functions). It is this level of knowledge that would enable our
learners to use the 2,000 high frequency words referred to above exibly and creatively for
diverse communicative situations and purposes.

This section is not complete without a brief commentary on a vocabulary teaching technique
called guessing from contexts. This is a popular technique among EFL teachers, but its
e ectiveness is largely based on untested theories and assumptions. The meaning of an
unfamiliar word found in a text, so the argument goes, can be successfully inferred if one
knows how to make use of the contextual clues that surround the word. On the surface, this
suggestion makes a lot of sense. But upon closer scrutiny, guessing word meanings from
context is anything but straightforward. Relevant contextual clues are not always available
in authentic texts; in fact some of the clues can be downright misleading, that is, if we make
use of the clues, they might actually lead us an incorrect guess of the meaning of the word
(Folse, 2004). 

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In addition, recent research has demonstrated clearly that successful guessing is possible
when learners know 98% or more of the words in the text (Nation, 2001; Schmitt, 2010). We
know only too well that the majority of our students often know much fewer words, which
makes guessing an extremely di cult, if not impossible, task. This guessing technique,
according to Folse (2004), is based more on unfounded myths than on strong empirical
evidence. Folse (2004) and others have suggested that we abandon this guessing from
context method and instead explore other more productive and evidence-based vocabulary
teaching techniques.

P RI N CI P L E 5 : TEA CH W O RD S I N MEA N I N G F U L CHU N K S

Set expressions are also known as xed expressions, lexical chunks or formulaic language.
According to Wood (2002), “ … formulaic language units refer to multiword or multiform
strings produced and recalled as a chunk, like a single lexical item, rather than being
generated from individual items and rules” (p. 3). Examples of formulaic language include the
following familiar phrases and sentences:

 No kidding! Long time no see

 O the top of my head; If I recall correctly, etc.
 Come and go; bread and butter; sh and chip
 On the other hand; to make a long story short; to tell you the truth
 I am on it; I'm on top of things.
 Do you really mean that? Seriously?
 You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
 I’m afraid I can't help you. Sorry about that.
 And many others.

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Competent users of English have thousands of these expressions stored as single units in
their heads. There is ample evidence showing that the use of formulaic language enables
people to speak uently. Wood (2002, p 12) says that ‘Studies of speech uency show that
formulas are essential to maintain smoothness and speed of real-time speech, and they play
an important role in written expression as well, especially as regards the development of
textual cohesion’.

How is this formulaic language acquired? It appears that children acquire xed phrases and
expressions through massive amounts of exposure to the language since young. They acquire
these as wholes, use them as whole units as well in appropriate situations during their
interactions with other people. It is very much later that they break these chunks into
smaller parts, and discover the rules that govern the structures of sentences. Wood (2002, p
12) notes: ‘First, they appear to be acquired as wholes, then they become segmented and
analyzed into component parts, while retaining their original status as formulas’.

We don’t learn language by rst learning the rules and then apply these rules when we use
the language. Research into the development of formulaic expressions indicate that
language is rst learned as chunks or unanalyzed wholes. In the early stage, children use
these chunks to communicate ideas, express their needs and wants, and later start using the
di erent parts of the chunks in creative combinations as they acquire the ‘grammar’ of the
language. 

Unfortunately, this is not what is happening in instructed language learning situations,

where language is rst broken up into smaller units which are then presented to the
students as discrete units. Students get to see the parts, but rarely see the wholes. Thus one
implication is that we would need to give our students opportunities to see and hear these
xed expressions repeatedly, as often as possible, at the early stage of learning. This, again,
can be done by encouraging our students to read and listen extensively in the language.
Multiple exposures to formulaic expressions found in ction as well as non- ction texts
would gradually enable learners to internalize these xed language chunks. For other
teaching ideas, see Selivan (2018).

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P RI N CI P L ES 6: F O CU S O N F L U EN CY D EVEL O P MEN T

Fluency is often de ned as the ability to process language with ease and accuracy. In the
area of reading, uency can be de ned as “the ability to read rapidly with ease and accuracy,
and to read with appropriate expression and phrasing. It involves a long incremental process
and text comprehension is the expected outcome” (Grabe, 2009, p. 291). According to Grabe
(2010), uency in reading is often associated with the development essential sub-skills such
as word recognition and syntactic processing skills. The development of these skills is
incremental and requires a long period of time. Extensive practice through extensive
exposure to reading materials is needed to develop automaticity in these skills.

Unlike in reading, research into uency in listening is not as extensive. However, available
research evidence seems to suggest that
uency is also a key component to
listening comprehension (Chang, Millet &
Renanda, 2019; Renandya & Farrell, 2011).
Lower pro ciency learners for example
often report having di culty in
understanding spoken language because
they can’t cope with normal speech rate
and have problems recognizing words in connected speech. The extract below shows a
common ‘ uency’ problem that lower pro ciency foreign language learners often encounter
when listening to spoken text. They can't process the spoken language smoothly due to word
recognition problems.  

Sometimes I hear a word that sounds very familiar in a sentence, but I cannot realize its
meaning. I am very annoyed by this…when I check against the transcript, I often wonder how
come I cannot recognize such a simple word. (Wang, 2010: 91-92)

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Although L2 researchers have begun to acknowledge the important role of uency in

language acquisition, it has not received due attention in L2 curriculum. Nation (2009, p2)
laments that “Fluency development is often neglected in courses, partly because teachers
and learners feel that they should always be learning something new. Fluency development,
[in contrast], involves making the best use of what is already known (cited in Grabe, 2010, p.
71)”. 

Fortunately, ELT researchers have begun to heed the call for more research into uency
development among EFL students. One promising line of research looks at how reading and
listening uency can be simultaneously developed through a familiar classroom activity
known as reading-while-listening activity (Chang, 2011). Chang’s research shows that this
activity improved her students’ listening ‘ uency’ in that they were more able to listen to
spoken texts dictated to them with greater ease and accuracy.

Another practical activity in which learners can develop uency is to encourage them to do a
lot of extensive reading and listening. In extensive reading and listening, learners read/listen
to a lot of interesting materials pitched at their independent level. By doing this, they will
repeatedly encounter language items that they have already known in a variety of contexts,
and gradually develop faster and automatic language processing skills.

P RI N CI P L E 7 : MO TI VATI O N I S K EY TO L A N G U A G E L EA RN I N G

Terrell H Bell, former Secretary of Education during President Ronald Reagan’s

administration, once said, “There are three things to remember about education. The rst
one is motivation. The second one is motivation. The third one is motivation” (quoted in
McInerney and Liem, 2008:11).

That motivation plays a key role in learning is something that every teacher would readily
acknowledge. Motivated learners are more enthusiastic, goal-oriented, committed,
persistent and con dent in their learning. They are willing to work hard to achieve their goal
and do not easily give up until they achieve that goal. 

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The key research ndings on the role of motivation in second language learning have largely
echoed those in general education. A prominent L2 motivation researcher, Zoltán DÖrnyei,
for example, in his seminal book Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom writes
that “... during the lengthy and often tedious process of mastering a foreign/second
language (L2), the learner’s enthusiasm, commitment and persistence are key determinants
of success or failure” (DÖrnyei, 2001, p 5). DÖrnyei further points out that given the vital
role of motivation in the L2 learning, “teacher skills in motivating learners should be seen as
central to teaching e ectiveness” (2001:116).

What can teachers do to foster motivation in the foreign language classroom? There are 5
areas that teachers can work on to increase student motivation. I shall call these the 5 Ts
of motivation: Teacher, Teaching methods, Tasks, Text and Test. Each of these is described
brie y in the table below.

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Table 1: The 5 Ts of Motivation

T1 Teacher A teacher who is caring, supportive, humorous, helpful and committed,

who has a genuine interest in their students’ learning and general well-
being and who has good rapport with them, is more likely to be able to
create a motivating classroom atmosphere and provide on-going support
to student learning.

T2 Teaching A teacher who uses a variety of teaching methods, customized to the

individual needs of the students will be more successful in engaging them
method towards achieving the L2 learning targets.

T3 Task Tasks that fall within students’ comfort and stretch zones tend to be more
motivating than those that are too demanding. Also, tasks that allow
students to experience more success rather than failure are a great boost
to student motivation.

T4 Text Both oral and written texts used as classroom materials should be
interesting and relevant to the students. They should also be pitched at or
slightly above their current level of pro ciency. In other words, materials
should be interesting and comprehensible, and also engaging cognitively
and a ectively.

T5 Test Tests that serve as a learning tool, one that helps students to see their
progress in a non-threatening manner can drive students to work harder
to achieve their learning goals. Focus more on assessment for learning
than assessment of learning. The former is more informative and learning-
friendly than the latter.

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There are three points to note about motivation in language education. First, it’s widely
accepted that the responsibility to motivate students and to keep them motivated during
the tenure of their studies rests with the teacher. Second, research has shown us that
everything we do in the classroom (e.g.,the way we speak, the way we relate to our students
etc) can have a powerful impact on motivation. Finally, research by DÖrnyei (2001) has
demonstrated that ‘the best motivational intervention is simply to improve the quality of our
teaching’ (p. 26). In other words, good teaching can often lead to high student motivation,
which in turns drives students to become more enthusiastic, more engaged and more
committed to their learning. The 5 Ts of motivation in Table 1 above are re ective of these
three points.

P RI N CI P L E 8 : A MO U N T A N D I N TEN SI TY O F I N STRU CTI O N G O HA N D

I N HA N D

One of the reasons our students are not successful in learning English in school is probably
due to the way the English curriculum is designed. In terms of amount of instruction, our
students seem to get enough hours of English lessons. In high school, English is taught about
3-4 hours per week for 6 years, for a total of approximately 1,200 hours. In theory this
amount should enable the students to have a working knowledge of the language. The reality
however is that many, if not most, of our high school students are unable to converse in
simple English and their reading level is often close to non-functional, despite the fact that
reading, a key objective in the curriculum, is given a substantial curriculum time.

While amount of instruction is important, intensity of instruction is no less important in

language learning. Research has shown that instruction that is distributed over a longer
stretch of time is less e ective than one that is taught more intensively. Lightbown’s (2000)
research in Canada with the French immersion programmes is exemplary and shows that
“students who have intensive exposure to the second language near the end of elementary
school have an advantage over those whose instruction was thinly spread out over a longer
period of time.” (p. 499). 

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Thus, it appears that the impact of teaching becomes diluted when instruction is o ered
over a longer stretch of time, which is exactly what we see happening in high school where
English is taught over six years, instead of intensively over say one year or two years.

An analogy may help drive the message

home more strongly. Let us say that it
normally takes approximately 90 hours
of driving lessons to learn how to drive
a car. Let’s further assume that most
people can do this successfully in three
months. This comes to approximately
60 minutes of driving practice per day.
But instead of three months, they have
to take the driving lessons over a
period of three years, for a ve-minute
lesson per day. Would they be able to drive a car at the end of the three years? They might
be able to get the car out of the garage and reverse it back in, but they would probably not
have enough con dence to drive the car on the street!

Another dimension of intensity refers to the utilization of classroom time. Teachers often
report how classroom time is often not optimally utilized because they have to deal with a
multitude of classroom routines (e.g., taking attendance and rearranging furniture) or with
classroom management issues (e.g., dealing with student o task behavior and other
disciplinary problems). These can take up a substantial amount of time, often reducing the
intensity of instruction in a given lesson. 

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Although 100% utilization may not be possible, we could try to reduce the amount of
downtime and aim for an optimal use of classroom time by engaging students in meaningful
learning activities. Data from classroom observations with primary school teachers show
that highly e ective rst grade teachers di er from their less e ective counterparts in that
they are able to put into practice the 90/90 rule, i.e., they strive to ensure that 90% of the
students are on-task and engaged in meaningful activities 90% of the time (Pressley,
Rankin and Yokoi, 1996).

It appears then that increasing instructional and curricular intensity could have more
positive e ects of our students’ learning outcome than increasing the amount of instruction.
Unfortunately, the latter (increasing amount of instruction) is a more popular solution with
policy makers and ministry o cials. Today English is o ered at increasingly earlier years
than ever, with some schools in some EFL countries making English a compulsory school
subject starting in Grade 1. This well-meaning, but empirically unsupported, initiative
however may not result in meaningful improvements in our students' pro ciency of the
language.

Conclusion

There are certainly many other factors that can in uence the outcomes of foreign language
learning. Indeed, if we look at the professional literature, L2 researchers have investigated
L2 acquisition from various theoretical perspectives (e.g., cognitive and socio-cultural) and
methodological traditions (e.g., language-oriented methodology and communicative
approaches), within various language learning contexts (e.g., instructed vs naturalistic, ESL
vs EFL), and with learners of various age groups and pro ciency levels. They have as a result
come up with a long list of factors that can contribute to language learning.

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Unfortunately, for those new in the eld of English language teaching, it is not always easy
to sieve through the many proposals, suggestions and recommendations that have been put
forward by ELT experts. It is really a jungle out there and it is very easy for the less
experienced practitioners to be lost in the complex web of inter-related factors that L2
researchers believe to be important in language learning.

The eight core principles I discuss in this paper are rmly based on my reading of the current
literature in ELT and my own experience teaching language skills and also working with pre-
and in-service teachers from various places in the region. I have carefully selected these
eight principles because they form the foundation of language learning. When these
principles are used systematically to plan and deliver lessons, we can expect our students to
develop a working pro ciency in the language, be able to express most of their
communicative needs in the English language. In IELTS terms, when these principles are fully
operationalized in the curriculum, there is a good chance that our students might be able to
reach somewhere between IELTS Band 5 or 6 (see below for descriptors), with some of them
perhaps achieving a higher pro ciency level.

Band 5: Modest user

Has partial command of the language, coping with overall meaning in most situations,
though is likely to make many mistakes. Should be able to handle basic communication
in own eld.

Band 6: Competent user

Has generally e ective command of the language despite some inaccuracies,
inappropriacies and misunderstandings. Can use and understand fairly complex
language, particularly in familiar situations.

The eight factors are neatly summarized in the mnemonic: FLAMINGOS in Table 2 below. The
questions that come with each factor can be used to re ect on the extent to which we have
given the attention that it deserves.

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 Eight Core Principles for Teaching and Learning English

Table 2: FLAMINGOS

F Fluency Do we provide su cient and balanced uency activities in both the

receptive (reading and listening) and productive (speaking and writing)
skills?

L Lexis Have we done our utmost in helping our students develop a deeper
knowledge of the 2,000 or so high frequency words to the extent they
can use them with ease, accuracy and exibility in varied communicative
contexts?

A Amount Keeping the amount of instruction constant, can we possibly add the
and intensity dimension to our teaching? Is it possible to teach more hours
Intensity within a shorter period of time? Can we make sure that there is little
downtime as possible in our lesson and that the majority of the students
are engaged in meaningful activities most of the time (the 90/90 rule)?

M Motivation Have we done our utmost to make sure that we have good rapport with
the students, that our teaching methods, the text, task and test that we
use are geared towards motivating our students to learn?

I Input Do our students receive su cient amounts of oral and written language
input that is highly interesting and comprehensible? Are suitable
N reading and listening/viewing materials available and easily accessible?

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G Grammar Do we teach too much grammar? Can we reduce the amount of grammar
teaching and focus instead on the kind of grammar that is more
communicatively useful for our students?

O Output Do we provide su cient opportunities for students to try out and use
previously learned language in meaningful situations?

S Set Do we provide su cient learning opportunities for our students to

expressions accumulate a large number of set expressions?

This and many other ebooks on topics related to ELT and TESOL are available in
Willy's ELT Corner: https://www.willyrenandya.com 

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 Eight Core Principles for Teaching and Learning English

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