W ebster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines pedagogy as “the function or work of a teacher, the art or science of teaching, and instructional method.” (Barnes and Noble, 1996) This popular source weighs its definition of pedagogy toward the more mechanical aspects of teaching.

The field of second language education views pedagogy in similar ways. In their Teacher’s Handbook, Judith Shrun and Eileen Gilson refer to pedagogy as “teaching methods” or “classroom activities” (Heinle, 2009), and Helena Curtain and Carol Ann Dahlberg call it “classroom applications” (Languages and Children, Pearson, 2010). Others, such as Timothy Regan and Terry Osborn, label a teacher’s actions within the classroom “classroom strategies” (The Foreign Language Educator in Society, LEA, 2002).

Common to the above definitions are references to the mechanical aspects of the profession, about which teachers tend to be principally concerned. Language teachers are apt to view their lessons through the lens of their classroom activities, becoming anxious and insecure when their list of activities is insufficiently rich. In my experience as a teacher trainer, I have witnessed time and again how teachers become impatient in professional development sessions when they are not presented with enough ideas for activities that they can immediately apply in upcoming lessons.

This concern has translated itself into an enormous market for educational companies that sell readymade materials for classroom activities, in addition to the myriad of books and websites serving a similar function. The field is literally flooded with resources available to all language teachers in every area, including second-language acquisition.

Resources for second-language pedagogy include two types of teaching activities. The first emerged as a result of research derived from disciplines such as psychology, linguistics, education and neurology. The famous Audio Lingual Method (ALM), for example, is based on research into the behaviorist model that explains learning as the relationship between stimuli and response; the Grammar Translation method relies on Noam Chomsky’s theory of Universal Grammar; James J. Asher’s Total Physical Response method (TPR) uses studies about the brain; and the Krashen Monitor Theory has inspired practitioners to find ways of creating an anxiety-free learning environment which provides comprehensible input to its learners, teaches the language in a specific order and encourages students to monitor their language development. The second type of resources are those created by experienced, successful practitioners, using their intuition and creativity.

While the challenge of finding sources for activities is now easily met, it remains for us to empower our teachers with the expertise to identify the best and most suitable activities and to use them wisely in their classrooms. Well-chosen and aptly executed classroom activities will maximize the learner’s efforts to achieve language goals faster and better. If we further enhance our teachers’ abilities, coaching them to develop their own tools and pedagogy, they will succeed in catering their activities specifically to their learners’ needs.

What we have learned, however, is that language educators can develop the above skills only when they are functioning within the appropriate professional environment. Donald Freeman articulated three different models for the language-teaching profession (D. Freeman, in R. Ellis, “SLA and Language Pedagogy,” Cambridge University Press, 1997).

The first and most commonly adopted model in Jewish education today is called “teaching as doing.” This approach reflects the behavioral view, which requires teachers to master a prescribed set of behaviors along with a set of actions. In this context, the underlying assumption is that a teacher’s learned behavior can lead to the desired student outcome. This behavioral approach fits when teachers are viewed as the operators who implement a readymade curriculum in which the materials and classroom activities have been dictated by the creators of the curriculum. This is the approach preferred by teachers and institutions that do not want to undertake the responsibility of investing in designing a curriculum or teaching a pedagogy of their own. Adopting this stance, however, will not lead to results in which language learning is maximized. Language acquisition is a dynamic process influenced by the many variables of learners and learning contexts that result in learners progressing in the language at different rates. Teachers need to constantly modify learning materials and classroom actions in order to meet the different needs of their learners. In the behavioral view of the profession, allowance is not made for such accommodation.

In order to make use of the right pedagogies, the field needs to embrace the other two ideal framework models defined by Freeman for fostering the growth of second-language educators. The second model outlined by Freeman perceives language teaching as a “cognition.” This approach requires teachers not only to become experts in the available canon of teaching activities but also to be knowledgeable about the research that supports them. This research relates to both second-language development and to learner variables, such as learner’s age, motivation, learning style, strategy, other language learning experiences and so on. Such knowledge can help teachers select the most appropriate classroom activities for their learners and also transform the teachers so that they consider themselves able to access infinite resources to create their own classroom activities. When a teacher understands these theories, he/she can also understand the rationales behind methodologies and thus make educated decisions about which methodology to use and when, all the while accommodating learners with the process that will be most effective in helping them to make progress and to retain the target language. Such a teacher would use this understanding of the research to create original activities that reflect language-acquisition processes.

Freeman’s third model, which should also be adopted by the profession, views teaching as “interpretive.” This model recognizes the fact that not all learning environments are similar. Because each educational setting has its own characteristics and demands, teachers need to rely not only on their knowledge about the needs of their learners, but also on how the particular conditions of the learning environment can impact learning. These conditions may include the school’s mission, the number of contact hours, the number of students in the classroom and many other aspects of a given environment, which must be interpreted in order to make expert adjustments to the language curriculum and to the classroom activities.

The best classroom activity: