A Psychological Approach to Language Teaching

Abstract

Psychology, language and teaching are inextricably intertwined as far as language teaching in particular is concerned. Understanding and application of these three disciplines in language teaching actually has a huge impact on the learners. For a meaningful and successful language teaching, it is better to have a profound understanding of all the three: psychology, language and teaching. The argument of the present research paper is to show that in a second language context like that of India and the whole South Asia, a psychological approach is an urgent requirement at present. Applying psychology in a language class means to be aware of different factors like the role of personality traits, emphatic approach, motivation, consistency, coping with stress and anxiety etc.  More importantly, the idea of the paper is that usually the learners in a second/foreign language context get stressed/anxious easily and no effort is made by the teachers to assuage or mitigate this level of stress as a result of which a good learning environment is not created and language learning does not materialise. In majority of these situations, only ten or twenty percent students succeed in breaking the ice and hone their communicative competence while as majority of them remain tongue tied even towards the end of the course. The discredit goes to depressive language teaching environment created by teachers in these classrooms. There is too much anxiety and seriousness in the classrooms which again impede the teaching/learning process. The present paper highlights the impediments like stress and anxiety which obstruct the smooth development of this skill and the role which the teachers can play in keeping these factors under control so that all the students are benefitted in terms of the development of communicative faculty in a second language as it is a quintessential part of one’s personality.