Techniques and Practices used in Contemporary Language Teaching

Teaching and Assessing Second Language Skills
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The second language is the language taught in school apart from the initial language they grew up knowing. The second language varies in different states and nations; however, English is the common second language in many schools worldwide. The essential skills used in teaching a second language or any language are; listening, reading, speaking, and writing. These four major skills are critical to ensuring that the student learns the language effectively. Teaching and assessing second language skills is essential to ensure that the students are taught what is expected. Through assessment, the learner is trained well and gains more from the teacher than when the teaching process is not assessed. Through inspection, the system produced an exemplary learner. Teaching the second language is also moved to a personal level.
Contemporary language teaching is the primary method of how children learn a second language. The modern approach is based on adapting the old way and modernization of the whole process to make it suitable for the current students. Learning the second language is done naturally through experience, realistic utterance, and emphasis on communication. Teaching techniques are used to ensure that the objective of the lesson and the goals are achieved (Grave, 2016, p.79-94). Teaching the second language includes grammar-translation, the silent way, total physical response, communicative approach, suggestopedia, community language learning, and audiolingual. Assessments are done in the following ways: reading, listening, speaking, diagnostic tests, proficiency tests, placement tests, and aptitude tests.
Second language teaching should be different from how other languages are taught. The second language is an official language in the trained country and is used in public communication. Students need to learn the language because they would use the language. The possibility of students using foreign languages is minimal, hence the difference in teaching.
Techniques and Practices used in Contemporary Language Teaching
The second language should be taught more contemporary to ensure that the students gain more in classes. Techniques and practices used in preparing a second language include the direct method or the natural method of teaching the second language. The direct method is used in teaching a second language, where the second language taught is what is used during the class. Indirect method oral skills are mostly practiced (Brown, 2004, p.9-17). Verbal skills are done through several repetitions of words, and they are repetitively drilled. The inductive method is used to teach grammar, and students are expected to gain from the teacher's oral presentation. The direct approach incorporates one of the basic skills of learning a second language, speaking. The teacher talks in class and the students are expected to learn from the oral lessons and practice the exact words orally.
The other teaching technique is the grammar-translation method. As the process suggests, grammar is translated into a second language. The technique relies mainly on translatin...