The primary problem that must be investigated in this component is a careful analysis of the phenomenon “didactic” as it shows itself in educating. The aim is to disclose didactic categories and criteria. To the extent that insight into the didactic is considered in this component, it is important to investigate the meaning of pedagogic categories in the context of didactic theory. In addition, the systematizing and ordering that are relevant to describing didactic categories and criteria can reveal didactic principles. Within this framework, an aspect that must be focused on is the significance of the teaching contents because they primarily influence the didactic form and therefore have particular relevance for theoretical didactic statements.

 

1.1 Pedagogic categories and their significance for Didactic theory

It was indicated that this relationship between learner and adult is a primordial one and, therefore, is not reducible to one or another explanatory basis. It is given with being human. It also is emphasized that educating is actualized in terms of contents; these contents serve the aim of gradually, and to the degree that a learner is ready, realizing a particular life view image of proper adult-period. These contents are brought about by teaching and serve as the boundary and point of orientation within which an adult directs a learner’s movement to adult-period. As boundary and point of orientation these contents serve both adult and learner on the latter’s path to adult-period.

These contents that primarily are typified as norms and values especially are directed to forming a learner emotionally. A learner must create his own life world in terms of them. However, this does not mean that the phenomenon of educating is to be described in terms of the structure of the contents, as such. To describe the phenomenon of educating in a scientifically accountable way, the investigator must make the categories of the phenomenon knowable. The categories, as essences, used to investigate the phenomenon and that lead to valid descriptions, provide the beacons or focal points in terms of which educating ought to be reflected on if one does not want to abandon the field of pedagogics and its findings [3, 20 p.].

Also, the categories and structure of reflecting on the phenomenon are seen as a specific-pedagogic matter that clarifies the possibility of a phenomenon such as educating. In this component there is not so much a detailed explanation of the pedagogic categories, as such; they are only drawn into the discussion to answer the question of whether pedagogic categories, from the nature of the matter, also have validity in the didactic situation and, if so, what is the nature of such validity.

Some of the pedagogic categories that are relevant here are futurity, normatively, freedom, responsibility, expectation, security, adult-period and authority. The question that must be answered is whether the phenomenon of educating can appear in its essentials if these categories are not disclosed. A thorough description of all of these categories is not a realistic aim here and, therefore, futurity is briefly handled as an example for reflecting on the others [2, 15 p.].

A learner is not yet where he must and can be. This means that he cannot yet live his own adultness but this is where the path he is on is going. Therefore, adult life is in his future. Now it is true that a learner is someone who wants to become someone and for this reason he wants one day to be a grownup. In this sense he is future directed and he also is futurity; the educating by an adult must provide help so that one day he will reach his adult-period. If the adult’s intervention with a learner does not show that he continually orients him so he can realize himself in the future, then there is no educating. This means that an adult’s intervention in such a case does not help a learner give meaning to particular values and norms and that these values and norms have no meaning for his future adult-period. In this way, the phenomenon of educating is knowable and describable in terms of the category of futurity [1, 122 p.].

Now the question is: Is this category necessarily valid in a formally established didactic situation such as is found in a school? For the sake of clarity, it is justified to use the pedagogic category of futurity also as an example for testing and evaluating the course of the didactic event. This category implies that a learner is dynamically on the path to adult - period. That is, he is involved in exploring and trying to acquire a future and also the world of the adult.

A summary of the above possibly can bring the matter of didactic categories in didactic theory building more clearly to light.

1) The didactic assumes that reality, irrespective of its nature, must be thrown open (unlocked) or presented by an adult.

2) This presenting or unlocking of reality for a learner can occur only on the basis of the fact that a learner, because he is a learner, is attuned to learning. This means that each learner shows an intention directed to learning. Therefore, all teaching is directed to helping a learner with the aim that he can reach his destination (adult-period) as a person.

3) The indissoluble unity between educating and teaching means that it only is possible to show a distinction between them.

Considering that educating emphasizes more the emotional forming of a learner and teaching stresses more consciousness forming, there also is mention of forming as such. Therefore, educating, teaching and forming are a unity and always have a coordinated relationship to each other.

4) The educating in the educative intervention with a learner eventually falls aside when a learner can properly command reality himself as an adult. This means that the formative teaching of an adult has its own autonomous identity that, although it cannot be radically different from childhood teaching, still is different because the moral moment is not unconditionally involved there.

5) The essential relationship between teaching and forming also must show an essential relationship between the categories of forming and teaching. This implies that the didactic categories necessarily must have validity in the formative situation in the same way that the pedagogic categories have validity in the pedagogic-didactic situation. This means that the didactic categories obviously or necessarily also must be categories of the forming of adults. The implication of this is that there are pure didactic categories that have validity outside of the educative categories simply because teaching and forming still occur long after educating has become superfluous [2, 3, 6].

 

1.2 Didactic categories

Didactic categories are much more than didactic characteristics. Didactic categories must describe the totality of facts such that the activity (situation) emanating from them can be understood and expressed in words. This means that didactic categories are more fundamental than didactic characteristics. In thinking through the didactic-pedagogic situation, however, it is conspicuous that many of the so-called didactic “characteristics” also really do refer back to the original pedagogic-didactic situation as we find it in the home. They refer back in the sense that they do not only have a connection with the secondary, formal didactic situation (school) but they also qualify as didactic categories.

The parent’s spontaneous creation of a learning situation is naive in the sense that the parent does not necessarily have formal training in didactics. Therefore, didactic categories must be relevant to this spontaneous, naive and original situation. They must be essences of the human life world. This implies that didactic categories must describe the essences of the profession that we know as didactics

Unlocking (presenting) reality. The explanation of categorical forming stresses the importance of unlocking (presenting) reality that is fundamental to teaching.

Unlocking reality implies that a person who knows and commands certain aspects of the life world unlocks the contents for the benefit of one who does not yet know and cannot command the contents. This activity underlies the teaching intervention of an adult with a learner. The aim is to aid a learner to achieve a firmer grasp of reality so that he feels secure in exploring reality on his own.

Learning. The didactician’s primary role in the lesson situation is in his unlocking reality. However, if a learner does not learn, then the language foreign language teachers’ unlocking of reality is meaningless. When the original didactic situation is examined, it is conspicuous that a parent only unlocks contents for his learner that he can understand and for which he is ready [4, 12 p.].

This category is not concerned with the ways a learner learns but with the fact that a learner learns. A learner’s studying activity in the lesson situation is of primary importance in the course of the situation and, as such, it is a category of teaching structure. A learner studies because he is a human being and because the learning activity is a spontaneous mode of existence for him. This is why it is meaningful for an adult to direct a learner’s spontaneous learning toward his eventual adult-period eventual destination. The fact is that a learner also studies outside of the didactic situation and, therefore, teaching is not a condition for him to learn. The learning intention is given as an original aspect of human existence. An adult uses a learner’s study as an opportunity for a learner to achieve greater independence and adult-period [4, 18 p.].

Forming. Unlocking reality is the help an adult offers a learner with the aim that a learner will reach adult-period. In this respect, the learner’s relationship to reality is formed. This implies that the teaching offered a learner primarily must be formative. In its essence and effect, teaching is formative in nature for the following reasons: the help that an adult provides a learner in the didactic situation eliminates the learner’s irresoluteness and reservations about a given aspect of reality. The effect of forming, namely, being formed, means that a learner emancipates himself with respect to reality and that he can establish his own position in it.

Furthermore, there is mention of the creation of a new, comprehensive interiority (inner life) that results in a broader and deeper experiencing. This amounts to the didactic situation providing a learner with the opportunity to acquire broader experiences and in this way to expand them. These two aspects of the category of forming increase and progressively realize a learner’s potentiality to become acquainted with a larger and broader reality. To the degree that a learner is formed in the didactic situation, his relationship to reality changes. This change is evident in a broader (more encompassing) and deeper relationship to reality. In this respect, there is a more adequate relationship to reality.

Orienting. It is not possible that reality can be unlocked for a learner without him simultaneously becoming oriented to it. It is obvious that an adult cannot unlock the broad and encompassing reality if a learner does not have fixed points in terms of which he can determine his position in the new reality unlocked. Therefore, the didactic meaning of orienting is that a learner must determine his own position with respect to known fixed points. These fixed points normally are the contents in the didactic situation. The didactician presents aspects of reality in his unlocking of it that a learner can understand on the basis of his readiness. A learner uses the unlocked reality to orient himself in it. This orienting provides him with the opportunity to enhance and enlarge his mobility and familiarity with reality. Without this orienting, reality remains chaotic and undifferentiated for him [4, 27 p.].

Without orientation, it is not possible for the didactician to guarantee a learner’s passage to adult - period. If orienting is not in the situation it cannot be typified as didactic and it is not a situation within which a learner’s path reaches to adult – period.

Accompanying (guiding). During the unlocking of reality and the related giving direction to a learner’s learning, the didactician does not leave a learner to his own devices. The didactician is continually involved with the learner; he indicates direction, checks mistakes, tests insights, repeats aspects of his unlocking, allows a learner to rehearse certain activities, etc. He does all of this to insure that he is steadily improving. This accompanying is central to the course of the didactic activity because it emphasizes that the didactician is continually trying to meet a learner in the situation. Didactic activity cannot exist without this category.

Objectifying or distancing. Unlocking reality, learning, forming, orienting and accompanying imply that in the course of didactic activities a certain distancing or objectifying arises between person and reality. Without this distancing or objectifying one cannot acquire a proper perspective on reality. Since parents and teachers are adults, they already have established a particular standpoint or perspective on reality.

This means that one has distanced oneself from reality to the extent that one can now view it objectively. The fact that a person can talk about a reality means that he is not stuck affectively in it. This objectifying or distancing is necessary before a language foreign language teacher can properly teach a learner about reality. The aim is that a learner must attain the same objectivity about it. Objectifying reality by a learner is of cardinal importance to the teachers because it is a precondition for an impartial judgment of it.

Imperativity (demanding). The didactic always is concerned with progress. In the didactic situation certain demands are made of a learner that he cannot ignore. This does not mean that these demands always are met. The fact that demands are made in the didactic situation cannot be ignored. When the expected level is not reached the adult repeats the situation until he is satisfied that a learner has properly met the demands. The unlocking by a teacher is never diffuse or uncertain; it is specific and direct. In this respect, specific demands are made of a learner and the adult expects him to improve in certain ways in order to respond to the imperative (unavoidable demands).

Anticipating. It was clearly stated previously that the future is continually realized in the teaching situation. In this context it is clear that the didactic activity always is directed to realizing the future; it is a human involvement directed to the future. If the future must be realized in the present there necessarily is anticipation. In this sense the relationship between the categories of anticipation and imperativity is clear. The demands made of a learner in the didactic situation have a strong bearing on the structures of his future activities with respect to reality. If a teacher anticipates a learner’s future in the classroom, this implies that he has a concept of this future that he considers to be important.

Formalizing. The didactic activity is aimed at realizing certain competences and a learner’s mobility regarding specific aspects of reality. Competences and mobility culminate in better insight, greater efficiency and more independence. However, because these qualities of a learner’s study are not necessarily achieved with the first unlocking, the teachers must repeat the didactic situation in order to present the essences of the learning contents again. This means that he restructures a certain didactic situation so a learner can demonstrate his insights and competences with respect to a particular reality, exercise them or even have a new opportunity to acquire the contents.

Therefore, a teacher must formalize the situation in order to be able to repeat it in its essentials.

In this context it is important to differentiate between “formalizing” and “formalism”. In this context, formalism implies that a teacher casts his lessons in only one form (and no other) this leads to a rigid use of recipes.

Socializing. The didactic situation is essentially a social situation in both the spontaneous, naive family situation and in the more formal school situation because in each there is involvement with reality in which an adult and a learner are present. The quality of their joint presence in reality speaks of a particular interpersonal involvement that specifically is social in nature. Thus, there always is a specific social relationship between them in a didactic situation. The learning activity of a learner in the course of his studying involvement in reality is a matter of social intercourse, of norms (codes) and of activities (behaviors) that insure the positive direction of his learning.

Delimiting (demarcating). Demarcating and reducing, the following category, are closely intertwined but they are distinguished because delimiting primarily involves time and form. In the family situation where educating is originally experienced, a parent sets particular limits regarding the time to be used for the teaching activity and also to the form in which the situation is cast.

Reducing. Where demarcating primarily involves time and form, reducing is concerned with the contents involved in the didactic situation. This involves reducing the contents to what is important and absolutely essential. In a learner-parent relationship in the spontaneous life world it is obvious that the adult strips certain contents of everything that is secondary or incidental. The essences that remain are the point of departure for constructing an initial framework within which a learner can move with reasonable security. By reducing the contents, a parent recognizes his learner’s tendency to become lost in details. This has the danger that a learner will not be able to arrive at the essences if he is left on his own. Reducing contents to essences offers a learner the opportunity to simplify complex structures. This enables him to explore reality with the necessary security. Reducing to essences implies that an adult must be able to account for the ways in which he systematizes (the essences of) the contents and for what he views as essences.

Achieving. In discussing the category of “imperativity” it was noted that the didactic situation essentially has a demanding and progressive character. Achieving is also mentioned because an adult expects a certain level of attainment from a learner regarding the reality unlocked.

Thus, it is obvious that an adult will control and evaluate a learner’s achievements in the didactic situation. If the adult does not do this, then this means that he ignores the demands placed on him by the category of “accompanying”. Controlling and evaluating are essential aspects of the “forming” that he has aimed for and to which he directs himself in his didactic intervention. At the same time, this puts a learner in a position to judge and criticize his own participation. This underlies the possibility that a learner can taste the fruits of success or experience the disappointment of inadequate participation. Both of these aspects can be positively employed to motivate a learner in later learning activities. Controlling and evaluating are used for the greater and more responsible participation of a learner in the didactic situation. It is obvious that controlling and evaluating qualify as such only if they are paired with sympathy and are orienting in nature. They only have meaning if they support a learner with security on his way through reality.

Progressing. There is an ascending and continuous line that indicates didactic progress. The simplicity of a learner’s world relationship must make room for the complex world relationship of an adult. Thus, the exposition of the contents must be progressive with respect to an increasing complexity and scope of learning material. The previous categories each have a progressive character regarding the quality and nature of a learner’s progress and advancement in the didactic situation    [2, 3, 4].

The progressive character of the didactic is closely related to the increasing differentiation of the aims that an adult has in view in creating a particular didactic practice. A learner’s role in the didactic situations must be progressive otherwise eventual adult-period cannot be attained.

At this stage it must be clear that these categories (separately and together) retain their validity in every situation that can be described as didactic; they also apply to situations where only adults are involved in didactic activities, i.e., where educating, as such, in no way is implied.

 

1.3 Didactic criteria

Didactic categories must provide an answer to the question: What is or what constitutes the didactic situation? Therefore, didactic categories provide the beacons or points of departure for thinking about the didactic phenomenon as well as the beacons in terms of which a didactician can describe the didactic. However, when designing didactic criteria the aim is different in that they have to do with determining the requirements for constituting a situation as a didactic one; the didactician knows that, as a type of situation, it must be realized through repeating it.

This also involves determining how such a situation can be assessed and evaluated. Evaluating the didactic situation implies that the contribution of the didactician in the situation must be clearly identified in terms of criteria. In addition, didactic criteria must determine how a desired didactic situation can be effectively repeated.

It is clear that there is a close relationship among didactic categories, didactic criteria and didactic principles. It is obvious that most didactic categories directly give rise to particular didactic criteria and in this respect it is difficult to think about didactic criteria without didactic categories. However it must be borne in mind that didactic criteria are not primarily used to evaluate the people involved in the situation; they must serve to recognize, evaluate and, when necessary, repeat the activities in the didactic situation.

Perspective. Perspective involves placing particular matters in their prominence within the landscape of insights. Experience and scientific examination of the didactic situation show that no one can determine the priorities of reality for another person-each person must decide this for himself. This means that each person in accordance with his insights, conceptions, value-judgments and intuitive feelings furnish his own experiential and knowing horizon and views certain things as more important and more prominent than others regarding specific content. The educator can, however, aid and support a learner in this deciding by placing his own insights, conceptions, etc. at the learner’s disposal with the aim of aiding him to orient himself. Any new knowledge that a person encounters will change his perspective on it in one way or another. Qualities and values that are contained in the contents such as truth, beauty and utility will change the emphasis and prominence of these contents in a learner’s horizon of knowledge.

Constituting. If a didactic activity has progressed formatively, a learner necessarily has constituted or created a new reality for himself. No person is born with a full mastery of reality. The meaning of the didactic activity, indeed, is that a learning person will establish or create a unique reality for himself. If it is determined that the learning person in a didactic situation has benefited from the activity, constituting obviously is of importance here. a teacher who uses constituting as a didactic criterion in the first place searches for the fact of the constituting and not necessarily its scope.

Relationality. In a learner’s relationship to reality, also in a social relationship, this deals with an “introduction” to reality. This introduction is observable in a changed relationship to reality. A person’s life progresses in a solidary way (i.e., a person establishes a particular relationship with the reality outside of himself) and a solitary way (a person establishes a relationship with himself) and, therefore, the task of the individual establishing a relationship to reality is an important didactic criterion. Thus, the didactic act is focused on helping a learner establish a relationship with the reality outside of himself and with himself. These relationships that he establishes result in his being in a changed relationship to reality and to himself. In this sense, relationality is present and is closely related to the category of orienting that refers to a person in the teaching situation arriving at particular and also valid determination of his own standpoint in life. Relationality as a didactic criterion focuses a teacher’s attention on the need to evaluate continuously a learner’s growing and changing relationship to reality [5, 30 p.].

Self-discovery. The fact that the didactic activity realizes itself in the solitariness of a learner implies that he discovers himself in the situation. A learner must exceed his limits, break down resistances, solve problems and attain certain levels of achievement. To be able to do this he needs the help of adults.

If there is no evidence of self-discovery this means that categories such as anticipating and futurity are not adequately realized in the didactic situation. The didactic situation also is aimed at a learner eventually discovering a unique disposition and position in reality and the life world. Thus, a teachers’ task is to help him to discover his dispositions because he must help him to become what he can and ought to be.

Emancipation. If there does evidence of a learner constitute a personal world, changing his relationship to reality and self-discovery there also is evidence that the adult increasingly is made superfluous because a learner is increasingly capable of making his own decisions and willing to accept full responsibility for his decisions. A learner explores reality from a position of security in the educative situation to the extent that he is emancipated from the adult in that the adult’s aid and support become unnecessary.

A learner who learns effectively also emancipates himself from the learning contents. There are qualitative changes apparent in the way a learner is involved in reality (the learning contents). Essentially, this qualitative change includes a greater self-reliance and willingness to approach a problem himself [5, 43 p.].

The basic attitude that makes emancipation possible is a learner’s ability and willingness to venture into and be exposed to situations, even new ones, in order adequately to meet the demands of such situations himself. One notices this at an early age when a learner insists on dressing himself and later on tying his own shoes.

During puberty and adolescence the willingness to accept responsibility is sufficient proof that a learner is prepared to act in accordance with his conscience. Therefore, emancipation is always concerned with discovering and accepting values, norms and judgments in terms of which one lives as he ought to because he chooses to unconditionally subjugate himself to the authority of norms and values.

Expectation. In the discussion of futurity, as a pedagogical category, and anticipating reality, in a didactic connection, it was indicated that the future must be met. Because a learner is someone who wants to become someone himself, the criterion of expectation can be raised. In teaching the unknown, the evocative, the adventurous, the beautiful, rights and similar perspectives continually are presented.

The appeal that goes out to a learner from these contents is primarily directed to his spontaneous and natural eagerness to learn. A teaching situation shows itself particularly in that a teacher continually awakens expectations in a learner regarding contents that are still beyond his reach. In this way a teacher uses the contents to appeal to a learner to participate in the teaching situation.

A learner is continually and cumulatively enlarging his experience because an adult continually confronts him with important and meaningful aspects of reality. Within this frame of reference, confronting a learner with learning content fulfills his expectations. In this regard, the adult is involved in helping a learner make a future and this future that they create together evokes a particular expectation in a learner with regard to it.

Rationality (rational command of reality). It is only reasonable to expect that an adult’s systematic reduction of content in the teaching situation should elicit a learner’s rationality as his contribution. Therefore, rationality involves a learner’s more objective (clearer) insight into his own situation in his involvement with the world and the things within it.

This means that a learner’s intellectual insight enables him to view reality with greater clarity. This does not mean that the intellectual ability of a learner is the most important or only aspect to be considered in teaching; the teaching aim is to create a harmony between a learner’s emotional and intellectual command of reality. A learner’s rational control of reality greatly elevates his spontaneity in this regard and strengthens his grasp of reality.  

Security. A learner must be encountered in an atmosphere of stability, security, safety and acceptance in a didactic situation before he can really venture in the situation. Here security especially means bringing a learner to rest and stabilizing his affective disposition.

Thus, from time to time a learner must be brought to rest and given the opportunity to reflect on what is being taught. This is not a choice but an imperative. Security in the teaching situation is a fundamental pre-condition for a learner to realize the teaching aims by mastering. Without stability and an atmosphere of safety, a learner becomes uncertain and doubtful; his desire to venture into the unknown is diminished to the extent that the quality of his involvement with the learning contents is seriously impaired.

Transcending. When a human being involves himself in reality, in one way or another he transcends that reality. Transcending literally means overcoming the physical and visual and entering the realm of the metaphysical and abstract. In this sense, metaphysical means the realm of what is more than the physical. In the teaching situation, transcending means that the life-and world-view of the educator provide a bridge for a learner spanning, his own life world and the world above and beyond being human. A learner must transcend the physical world in order to recognize the hand of the Creator in the life world.

This is surely the final meaning of the reality a learner is confronted with in his education. A learner’s deepest convictions, his most fundamental experience of meaning and his greatest appreciation of reality are formed in transcending that reality. Where transcending does not occur, experience can easily lead to skepticism and even nihilism. Neither is a positive educational influence or aim. Teaching that does not help a learner transcend reality is not really educative in its effect.

As mentioned previously, a teacher must be able to repeat the teaching situation. A learner is not always intensively involved in the teaching situation; he does not necessarily reach the desired level of competence after his first exposure to new learning contents. Didactic criteria must enable the foreign language teachers to evaluate the quality of a teaching situation he has designed, as well as the quality of the learner’s involvement. His aim is to improve his teaching [15, 21, 28, 31, 35 p.].

 

1.4 Didactic principles

Sympathy. The word sympathy literally means to feel together. In everyday usage, sympathy means to share someone’s feelings. It has a wider meaning in the didactic situation. Here it means that the parents or teachers will have the insight to look for a learner where he is and not where one thinks he ought to be. An adult does this because the aim of the didactic situation is to help the learner.

Sympathy here involves a particular attitude, a way of approaching and entering the situation. He places himself at the disposal of a learner.

At the same time, sympathy requires a particular stake or attitude of the learner. The difference, however, is that an adult is accountable and remains responsible for initiating or establishing the didactic situation. The fact that in the didactic situation a teacher takes initiative, but from time to time expects a learner to take the initiative, confirms and describes the real nature of initiative as a didactic principle.

That is, an adult has the primary responsibility for initiating or establishing a climate or atmosphere in the teaching situation in which mutual trust and acceptance are evident. A teacher’s design of a didactic situation means that he places certain contents at the disposal of a learner in such a way that it reflects his sympathetic initiative.

A learner’s welfare is a teacher’s primary concern, whether a learner understands and appreciates the foreign language teacher’s educative aims or not. Where there is no sympathetic initiative the teaching practice is without exception rigid and formalistic.

By its nature, such a teaching-style will inhibit the smooth development of the situation and, at the same time, a learner will experience insecurity. In its turn, the quality of the demands made of a learner and the quality of the support given by teachers are determined by sympathy. Where sympathy is absent, the teaching practice can hardly form a learner adequately. It must be stressed that sympathy does not mean an undisciplined, loose association between adult and learner. Where the teaching situation is undisciplined, in that the adult has no authority, educating and its aims cannot be achieved and the situation degenerates into an arbitrary and chaotic one.

Clarity. The didactic situation always is directed at aims. Irrespective of the immediacy of the contents, adult and learner in the situation are jointly involved in creating a future. If the situation must be repeated to acquire a firmer and better grasp of reality, the principle of clarity cannot be omitted. A teacher must be able to state clearly where he will go, precisely what he aims for, how he is going to attain particular aims, what he expects of a learner in a particular situation, how he is going to evaluate the results of the didactic situation, etc.

Tempo. The principle of clarity implies clarity of purpose: a teacher knows what he wants a learner to achieve.

Wherever movement (from a position of childhood to a position of adult-period) is of the essence, there is always tempo. Tempo is of particular importance in the didactic situation because a learner can so easily fall behind. Each human being has his own tempo, for example in eating, reading and walking and also in learning. It is also generally accepted that each person has his own life tempo. It is therefore only logical that a learner will reflect his life tempo in his learning activities. As in everyday life, the tempo of teaching will also partly determine the speed and rhythm of the progress of teaching. [12, 55p]

Tempo is one of the most important and difficult problems facing a   teacher: he must try to maintain a balanced tempo in order to ensure that the quicker learner are not bored and, at the same time, that the slower learner are not left behind. A number of aspects are important in this context: firstly, we know that a learner must reach a certain level of achievement within a certain period. This is clearly illustrated by the finality of examinations at the end of the academic year. The tempo or pacea teacher sets has a general as well as a specific aspect. On the one hand, it has a bearing on his teaching as a whole; on the other, it has a direct bearing on the particular lesson. The tempo a teacher maintains has an important influence on the life tempo of a learner as well as on his eventual lifestyle as an adult. In this sense, tempo is closely related to the attitude toward life, especially where a learner is expected to learn to live in accordance with the demands the adult world will one day make on him. This is something very few teachers think of and which is generally underestimated when planning and assessing teaching tempo. If tempo is not realized harmoniously in the teaching situation, a learner become bewildered, dismayed, discouraged or bored; one can even expect frustration and aggression as a reaction.

Dynamism. The didactic situation is preeminently one of movement. Dynamism, in didactic terms, is more concerned with the quality of the attitude, the enthusiasm and the zeal of the participants. It gives the movement in the situation the character one expects of effective and enriching teaching, a character of dynamism.

A teacher’s enthusiasm and attitude directly influence the quality of a learner’s enthusiasm and attitude. a teacher expects a learner to take part in the teaching situation according to his ability with enthusiasm and dedication; these attitudes and qualities of participation are of decisive importance. For this reason the dynamism of teachers qualifies as a principle of teaching to achieve good results.

If a teacher is not dynamic the class soon becomes listless and bored and the effect of teaching is not what it should be.

Balance. Because formal teaching must follow a precise timetable, a teacher is often tempted to over emphasize a certain didactic or pedagogic aspect to the detriment of other equally important aspects. This kind of teaching is unbalanced and inharmonious. a teacher who subjects everything in his teaching to discipline or to freedom creates an unbalanced or inharmonious situation. Furthermore, it is important for a teacher to ensure balance as far as time is concerned (its effective use), as far as form is concerned (its variation) and as far as contents are concerned (their choice). Balance ensures the harmony without which an accountable and meaningful dialogue between teachers and learner (each according to his rightful participation) cannot take place. Without balance, neither a teacher nor a learner can contribute meaningfully to the teaching situation [21, 15, 17 p.].

The meaning of the general principles is found in planning the course of activities in the didactic situation as a whole, i.e., over a long period of time, in order to draw guidelines for an accountable practice. They especially serve an important aim in constituting a desired practice.

Particular principles. Stating and formulating the problem. The general experience of teaching indicates that learning is activated and directed by a meaningful problem.

Psychopedagogic research supports this everyday experience. As far as a learner is concerned, this statement is particularly true. Because a teacher plans a specific learning activity in the teaching situation, he tries to formulate the problem in such a way that a learner can’t help being absorbed by it. This does not mean that a teacher merely announces the problem. Announcing a problem does not mean that a learner will experience it as a problem or that he considers the problem as his to solve. The problem should evolve out of the actualization of a learner’s prior knowledge concerning the subject.

A teacher must, therefore, question a learner’s relevant prior knowledge in such a way that a learner starts asking questions to try to rectify his inadequate knowledge by solving the problem. In this way a climate is created conducive to accepting and solving problems.

It is clear that this aspect of teaching requires special competence: the implication is that a teacher must effectively involve a learner with the contents, but in such a way that a learner experiences the contents as a worthwhile challenge. Stating the problem, therefore, serves as a functional introduction to the teaching activity as well as an examination of the circumstances in which to effectively launch the lesson.

Planning. The formal teaching activity is seldom, if ever, the result of intuitive or spontaneous activities by a teacher. A teacher must plan every lesson because the activities in the school are formalized to the extent that careful planning is a precondition for success. It is clear that stating the problem and planning are closely related. Planning includes such aspects as selecting learning contents, introducing teaching and learning aids, choosing and using certain teaching methods, to mention only a few. Planning also includes the total of a teacher’s preparation because in his planning he intends to identify a structure in terms of which he can anticipate teaching situations.

This is of central importance: the design a teacher makes in his planning is literally a preview of what is to happen in a particular lesson. a teacher certainly does not allow the situation to develop incidentally. Consequently, he does not plan only the form of the lesson but also its development and the course it must take as well as the way in which the learners must master the contents. His planning also includes provision for possible learning difficulties and problems.

Illustrating. All teachers know from experience that illustrating contents (reality) in the didactic situation is of exceptional importance to ensure its effective progress. Illustrating does not mean only the introduction of visual materials in the didactic situation. In fact, illustrating is the medium for realizing a learner’s perceptual ability, as a form of study. This means that the contents must be made accessible to a learner’s perception; especially because of the very important role that perceiving plays in learning. Because the presentation of contents to ensure effective perceiving is of decisive importance, it is clear that inefficiency in this regard hampers the progress of the lesson to the extent that any success or learning effect is quite incidental.

Systematizing and ordering In the first place, systematizing and ordering refer to a teacher and the quality of his activity in the class; in this respect systematizing refers to a teacher’s attitude and ordering to his competencefulness. A teacher’s attitude and competences are related factors that largely determine the fluency of the didactic situation. This holds true for the form (method) as well as the contents (learning contents).

At the same time, this also is a matter of delimiting the situation in so far as using the time available to teachers and the role of a learner is concerned, which influence the rhythm of the lesson’s progress. Systematizing and ordering are guarantees against aimless teaching, careless designs, inaccurate evaluation and listless participation by the learner. Systematizing and ordering are conspicuously related to the didactic principles of planning and illustrating.

Survey ability. If a teacher does not have a survey able (comprehensive) and objective view of the didactic situation the possibility of repeating the situation in its essences is not realizable. Survey ability concerning the structure of teaching is a precondition for effective preparation and meaningful reflection. a teacher must be able to give a survey able account of the teaching situation he has prepared and put into motion. A learner must also achieve a survey able command of the contents otherwise he remains immersed in detail and finds it very difficult to synthesize the various aspects of the contents. This influences the quality of his objective judgment; only if a learner has a survey able view of the contents is there mention of successful learning.

The scientific character. A teacher’s responsibility in establishing a didactic situation is mainly two-fold: on the one hand he must be able to be accountable for his didactic design, i.e., for matters such as methodological principles, the particular methods and ground-forms that he is going to select in order to establish a particular situation and secondly he must be able to be accountable for the contents that he has in view for this situation. The scientific quality of his didactic design is visible in the way he reduces contents to their essences (elementals) and the way he assesses and helps a learner reach the same level of command of the contents. The reduction of contents to their essences is discussed fully in a later component.

At this stage a few introductory remarks are important. The contents have their own nature because they must reflect the nature of the subject from which they are taken. This nature refers to a scientific structure, e.g., physics, history, linguistics, geography, mathematics, etc. that as sciences contain their own methods in terms of which they can be unlocked. a teacher must account for this scientific nature of the different school subjects and he must be able to harmonize them with his teaching methods. An understanding of the harmony between the nature of the subject and the method of teaching determines the harmony between contents and form in the lesson design. If there is no harmony between form and contents the learning effect is endangered.

A teacher can either treat the various topics theoretically by using textbooks or he can vitalize his teaching by providing the learners with the opportunity to carry out experiments which will inevitably lead a learner to a clearer understanding of the nature and scientific methods of chemistry.

Controlling (monitoring) the meaning and importance of guiding and controlling in the didactic situation have been touched on generally in the description of didactic categories. Without guiding and controlling there is no accounting or responsibility for teaching activities; also there is no evaluating or basis for identifying a learner’s problems in the learning situation. In addition, without control a teacher cannot critically assess his teaching and therefore he will not be in a position to improve it [12, 20, 21].

Often a teacher will proceed with his teaching activities for quite a long time without actually controlling or assessing the quality of the learner’s participation and achievement. Also he quite often carries on his teaching activities without taking stock of himself or the way his teaching is developing. It is for these reasons that the didactic categories emphasize the importance of control. No teachers should ignore or minimize the importance of control. If it is lacking teaching is carried on without criticism and, therefore, without accountability; this kind of teaching is unacceptable under all circumstances.

In terms of the above description of the didactic principles, it is important to note that their function is to focus mainly on two aspects of teaching. Firstly, the totality of the course of the didactic activity is brought into view with the aim of designing consecutive teaching situations. Secondly, these situations must be assessed in order to determine their effectiveness so that, if necessary, they can be repeated as specific types of situations. The means and aids of a teacher introduces in these situations must be evaluated in terms of their own criteria, for example, by means of a teacher uses, his attitude in front of the class, his attitude toward individual learners and the class as a group, etc.

 

1.5 Factors that primarily influence the didactic form

In the theoretical discussion of the didactic offered in this component it is repeatedly said that the didactic situation primarily is involved with the help that an adult offers a learner to find his way to adult-period. It also was repeatedly stressed that this help or teaching offered by the adult must take a particular form otherwise the teaching is left to haphazard success that is unacceptable and unsatisfactory. Because teaching is a purposeful intervention, the didactic situation cannot be realized haphazardly. At least a teacher must be able to account for his management of the course of the situation. Because it is his task to account for his practice, he must plan the didactic situation accountably.

To be able do this he continually concentrates on various factors that provide possibilities and means to organize and consciously channel the help he offers a learner, to enlarge and simplify his teaching, to increase or decrease his teaching tempo, to assess and evaluate, etc., all in terms of a learner’s actions in the situation.

It is obvious that a wide variety of factors are involved in these considerations. The aim is not to deal with each one fully at this stage. Only certain aspects are discussed in order to place the problem of didactic form (which is fundamental to the design a teacher is to make) in perspective. The other aspects will be dealt with in the component on the structure of teaching [13, 15 p.].

Language. Insofar as language is an intrinsic aspect of the form of teaching, it is seen primarily as a determining factor of perceiving, experiencing and objectifying to which a learner is attuned in the life world. In the original experience of educating parents concentrate on language and use language as a factor regarding the form of educating.

One notices this in a wide variety of teaching situations common to all educating. Examples are naming objects; questions adults answer and ask of learner; characteristics of objects, matters and persons the adult systematizes; materials that an adult places at the disposal of a learner and arranges by means of language; stories that are repeatedly read or told to a learner; events from various aspects of the life world that a parent dramatizes for his learner; the clarification of phenomena, especially in nature; instructions given and explained in language; concepts, names, characteristics, etc. that an adult continually repeats for a learner’s benefit.

These important activities cannot occur without language. An adult also expects a learner to follow him in each one of these specific structures; for example, a learner must repeat the words after the adult, must be able to act after the adult, must be able to follow the adult’s actions in playing, etc. All of this is done with the intention that a learner will eventually master these facts of the life world independently. Each one of these activities reveals or discloses the reality surrounding a learner and ensures his active involvement in life. They also enable him to take note of each of these aspects of reality and to provide evidence that he is capable of mastering reality in these terms.

Competences. In the didactic situation, a teacher continually concentrates on the competences a learner must master to become independent in the life world. In this concentration on competences an adult seeks to create a harmony between a learner’s spontaneous, activity-directed life attunement and the demands that the surrounding world place on him in this regard. For this reason an adult encourages a small learner to carry out certain activities, knowing well that these activities are important for the acquisition of later competences such as reading and writing. It is also for this reason that parents encourage and stimulate the competences their learner should master in the course of their educative involvement. They also try to integrate these competences in, for example, a learner’s perceiving and attending. a teacher continues these activities of the parents in the school in a highly systematized manner.

Competences are considered to be very important in the school and they are one of the most important aspects of a teacher’s involvement with a learner until the day he leaves school. These competences are refined and differentiated in a wide variety of learning situations provided for in science laboratories, art classes, manual work centers, domestic science centers, etc. It is important for a teacher that a learner possesses certain competences because they are the basis for him to eventually arrive at self-realization. Where competences are ignored in the teaching situation, the learning event is distorted. In this context, one must realize that a teacher is particularly interested in the quality and level of a learner’s competences when assessing and evaluating his progress.

Although competences are not necessarily the primary focus in the didactic situation, a learner’s insight into and thinking about the contents is largely carried or mobilized by the competences related to specific school subjects. It is also true that the majority of learners in the secondary school will eventually find employment in the technological culture outside of the school where specialized competences are of decisive importance. This means that the school must literally undertake pre-vocational training in order to equip this learner adequately for the vocational world. For this reason the focus of vocationally directed schooling is on the harmony between knowledge and competences that are directed to a learner’s eventual independence. Generally speaking, didactic form cannot be considered in isolation from the conscious and direct planning for improving competences in the didactic situation.

Social discipline. A learner exists and lives as a person and a human being among other people.

In this sense he finds himself in a social situation from the day of his birth. As he becomes older and larger his social world expands and in addition to family members other persons also are in his experiential world. The social or societal factors which in time become more prominent in his life world are subject to a certain hierarchy or order. It is expected of the members of a certain society to obey its norms and values to preserve the order of the community.

The implication of the above for a learner is that he is a human being who lives with other people who have the same rights and for this reason his actions may not harm other members of the group, including in the family or classroom. This means that a learner, on his way to adult - period, is continually confronted with the norms of the community that he eventually will obey unconditionally. During the course of a learner’s education the adult continually confronts him with religious-moral, social-cultural, and judicial-economic norms. However, because he moves outside of these norms during his childhood (he has not yet attained adult - period), it is the task ofa teacher, and adults generally, to orient him in terms of the demands of these norms. Because the school really represents the life world outside of the home, the demands of the norms are especially valid in the school.

Expression. It is essential that in the didactic situation a learner is given the opportunity for self-realization. This means that he must have the opportunity for self-expression. In terms of what was said above about social discipline, a learner must be able to express his knowledge, experiences, perceptions and objective point of view without overstepping the boundaries (demands) of social discipline. In this way he broadens and deepens his relationship to reality and both qualities become evident in his expression.

Where a teacher creates opportunities for expression, he in fact closely relates his teaching to a learner’s lifestyle as well as to his spontaneous tendencies to act. Because a teacher chooses specific forms of teaching to give a learner the opportunity to express himself, the circumstances are created for variations in teaching for vitalizing the situation and especially for providing a learner with the opportunity for direct experience. Teaching activities in the school are aimed at the eventual self-realization of the learner; it is obvious that this is important. To offer a learner the opportunity to express himself in a didactic form means to close the distance between him and a teacher that all too often exists in the classroom.

One must understand that the form in which expression is realized does not only manifest itself in forms of activity: language is always the most important form of expression.

However, one must guard against using language as the only form of expression (for example the narrative method). Over-use leads to a soul-destroying practice that offers a learner only a limited opportunity to express himself. The very real danger is that a teacher can give too much prominence to the forms of expression in the adult world. The usual result is that a teacher’s presentation becomes rigid and that his presentation, furthermore, is beyond the learner’s understanding. The implication is that a teacher must identify forms intrinsic to a learner’s life world that are capable of conveying the learner’s expression.

Intentionality. A learner’s directedness to study that is awakened and directed by the parents in the home is purposefully striven for and refined in the school. As far as this is concerned, forms of teaching must be designed for the didactic situation that will help a learner realize his eagerness to learn as well as give direction to his learning intention (directedness to learn). For this reason, a teacher chooses certain forms of teaching that will strongly appeal to a learner’s eagerness to learn. When a teacher uses didactic criteria at the end of the lesson or at the end of a series of lessons to evaluate a learner’s achievements, the quality of his teaching also is evaluated by the didactic criteria. However, when it happens that a teacher does not evaluate his didactic forms in terms of didactic criteria and where self-criticism in this regard is absent, he repeats a particular form of teaching throughout his entire career. Such a teacher at his retirement has had only one year of teaching experience [repeated numerous times]. This means that a teacher continually evaluates and chooses particular contents to present to a learner in such a way that his intentionality to achieve can thereby be stimulated and directed. A learner’s study intentionality should be the basis for a teachers’ lesson design because (taking the nature of the learning subjects into account) it is the most important single factor that will help determine his progress in the teaching situation.

The five factors mentioned above are not the only ones that influence the form of teaching. Because the other factors have been extensively described in the didactic literature, these five have been chosen as examples of what a teacher considers when choosing specific forms of teaching.

This component provides an overview of the primary aspects of didactic theory. It was indicated that the point of departure for such a theory is of decisive significance since the pronouncements made from such a theory must satisfy the demand of universality. This point of departure is the original experience of educating. A view of the essences of this original experience discloses categories that describe didactic practice in its essences. The didactic categories bring to light the essences of the didactic situation. Because the point of departure is the original experience of educating, the relationships of the pedagogic categories with the didactic ones are indicated. However, if the didactic situation must be repeated, a necessity, especially of the formal didactic situation, is that it must be evaluated so that it can be. From the didactic categories certain yardsticks are derived that can be used to evaluate the situation. In this way, didactic criteria are brought to the fore.

The didactic categories express what is constitutive of (essential to) the didactic situation while didactic criteria evaluate its course and effect. Irrespective of the didactic categories and criteria, a penetration of the original experience of educating shows that with respect to activities, as such, there are particular principles that can somewhat guarantee their quality. The principles that are disclosed in this way are offered as examples and are called didactic principles.

Ordering and classifying the didactic principles discussed here can be done in terms of the broader concepts of activity, individualizing, socializing and tempo differentiation. In this respect, the accent of the didactic principles is on establishing a harmony between a learner and reality in terms of a particular course of teaching. Because contents are continually mentioned theoretically, the question of learning material is merely mentioned in this component. During this discussion there was continual reference to the relationship and harmony between form and contents and there also was reference to the immediate function of the contents in the teaching situation whose ultimate meaning is in the pedagogical. [13, 22, 24, 29 p.]

Because the form is an aspect of the harmony mentioned, the factors that primarily influence the didactic form also were briefly broached in this theoretical discussion.