Evey--Week 2
Declarative and Procedural knowledge—different teaching approaches should be applied
Declarative knowledge is objective. It cannot be undistorted by emotion or personal bias, so it is either true or false. For example, ‘The capital city of China is Beijing’is declarative knowledge.
However, Procedural knowledge is usually combined with what a person already knew. It is not as general as declarative knowledge and is usually an act of task. For example, computer drawing is procedural knowledge. It requires the skills of manipulating the computer software and the skills of drawing. People need to practice a lot to gain such kind of knowledge.
As far as I am concerned, English language teaching procedure includes both declarative and procedural knowledge. Speaking, writing and listening skills are procedure knowledge; grammar and word-formation are declarative knowledge. It is impossible for students to obtain speaking and writing skills without any practice. That is the reason why students spends hours learning grammar, but still have difficulty communicating. That is because grammar is declarative while communication is procedural.
Therefore a teacher should not only focus on ‘delivering knowledge’, but also provide many chances to let students speak, write and listen; and allow them to make mistakes. Only by doing this, students can gain these abilities.
Reference: Teaching Collocations Further developments in the lexical approach Michael Lewis (2000) Language Teaching Publications
Reference: Teaching Collocations Further developments in the lexical approach Michael Lewis (2000) Language Teaching Publications
Hi Evey, I found your post really interesting. You mentioned that speaking, writing, and listening skills are procedural knowledge, and that grammar and word-formation are declarative knowledge. I am interested to know what you think about reading as a skill: do you think it is procedural or declarative? I agree that grammar and vocabulary are declarative knowledge, but what about the specific skill of reading? Do you think there is any procedural knowledge required beyond the basic 'components' of understanding what is written? For example, if I am reading a book and I do not recognise one word in a sentence, I am missing that word in my declarative knowledge. However, depending on how well I have developed my procedural reading skills, I may or may not be able to deduce the meaning. Or, I can easily read a novel and analyse the meaning, but when it comes to, say, a dissertation on engineering, my skills are sorely lacking. What I mean to say is, do you think that the 'way' we read could be procedural?
ReplyDeleteI think the knowledge of reading skill is declarative, however, the speed of reading and the ability to practice the knowledge of the skills is procedural. Declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge cannot be separated totally. That is to say, declarative knowledge can be a guidance, meanwhile, when we are gaining procedural knowledge we sum up the experience and form new declarative knowledge.
Delete(For example, if I am reading a book and I do not recognise one word in a sentence, I am missing that word in my declarative knowledge. However, depending on how well I have developed my procedural reading skills, I may or may not be able to deduce the meaning.)
As you mentioned if you don’t know the meaning of a word in your declarative knowledge you can still deduce the meaning by procedural reading skills. Actually this kind of procedural skill can also be formed into new declarative knowledge on ‘how to guess the word meaning through context’.