Nation and Macalister's List

For Curriculum and Program Administration class, we are reading Nation and Macalister's (2010) Language Curriculum Design. They proposed the following list as principles for language teaching. These are things I want to keep at the forefront of my mind as I continue my language teaching career:

1. Frequency: teach what occurs frequently
2. Strategies and autonomy: learners should be aware of and monitor their own learning
3. Spaced retrieval: recycle and revisit wanted items
4. Language system: generalizible features of the language.
5. Keep moving forward: progressively cover material, skills, and strategies
6. Teachability: teach material when learners are ready
7. Learning burden: make effective use of previously learned information
8. Interference: teach material so that learners are least confused (i.e., master hot before introducing cold).
9. Motivation: get learners interested and excited
10. Four-strands: balance between meaning-focused input, language-focused learning, meaning-focused output, and fluency activities
11. Comprehensible input: substantial extensive input for receptive practice
12. Fluency: activities where learners can use what they know, both receptively and productively.
13. Output: push learners to produce in a range of discourse types
14. Deliberate learning: include language-focused learning in sound system, spelling, vocabulary, grammar and discourse areas
15. Time on task: use and focus on the target language.
16. Depth of processing: learners should  process material deeply and thoughtfully
17. Integrative motivation: cultivate favorable attitudes to target language, culture, teacher, etc.
18. Learning style: provide opportunities for learns to work in ways that suit their individual style
19. On-going needs and environment analysis: the course should be based on continuing assessment and consideration of the learners and their needs, as well as available resources
20. Feedback:  feedback helps learners improve their language use.

This is a great list because it is comprehensive, yet manageable with 20 items.