4.1 Didactic perspective on learning

The task of teachers with respect to learning is to systematically create formal situations within which it can occur. Starting with this premise, this component is not involved with a comprehensive and detailed explication of the phenomenon of learning. Learning, as such, is not described. Rather, the aim is to view learning as an activity that necessarily has to be actualized by the didactic act.

In the usual practice of educating and teaching it is conspicuous that when a learner is following his educator's didactic guidance, there are few reasons that this will lead to troubled educating. Consequently, there also should not be much difficulty regarding the learner’s future. This is understandable if it is noted that through teaching a learner acquires knowledge about reality.

When a learner can not master these contents (reality), forming a disposition regarding them becomes impossible. Without undue repetition, it is important to stress that educating without teaching is impossible because the educator expects a learner to acquire appropriate knowledge but also particular dispositions and attitudes in connection with these contents. Dispositions or attitudes ultimately give an indication of the learner's judgment and points of view which, in their turn, provide the opportunity for self-actualization in subsequent life situations (teaching situations) which give a learner the opportunity to create a reality for himself. It is on this basis that teaching, as such, guarantees the progress of the educative event.

The possibility of the educative event, and therefore the teaching event, lies in Langeveld's pronouncement that a learner is someone who wants to be somebody himself. In this regard, a learner's task is to direct his intentionality (consciousness) to the surrounding reality. The learner’s intentional directedness to this reality is expressed in his learning activities and this implies that if he will become somebody, he has to learn. The adults guide these learning activities because, ultimately, the adults are responsible for the learner. The learner's learning activities are meaningful because they stem from his life situations and especially from the pedagogic situation that is of decisive significance for his progressing to adult-period. In learning a learner is continually involved in creating a life world for himself.

A learner has to step out of himself to be able to become involved in reality (on the basis of his intentional directedness to reality), essentially learning is a matter of Dasein, i.e., it is an existential matter in the sense that a learner enters the world. The fact that a learner necessarily is going to enter reality (exist) implies that he is going to change with regard to reality. It is in this necessary change that the adult sees his educative and teaching responsibilities. On the basis of educative teaching the adults now have to give particular form to this necessary change in the learner.  

 

4.2 Intentionality in the course of motivated learning

If a teacher is to understand the significance of intentionality for the learning activity in the teaching situation, it is important for him to know that learning is a matter of intentionality in the sense that it is a form of existence on the basis of which a person is conscious of things around him. A learner who is attuned to learning (intentionally directed to learn) is aware of a reality that at this particular stage he has not yet meaningfully penetrated to its essentials. In this respect, intentionality, as the activity of the learning, can generally be described as consciousness (i.e., being-conscious). For this reason the total structure of consciousness has to be understood to grasp the essence of intentionality: consciousness (being conscious) always means to be conscious of something-there is always something (contents) of which a person is conscious. Being conscious does not mean that a person only is conscious cognitively (intellectually).

Being conscious is much more than a purely intellectual awareness. That is, a person does not learn to know reality only on the basis of being conscious intellectually. A person also can be emotionally (affectively) conscious of something as well as bodily (somatically) conscious of a particular aspect of reality.

Therefore, being conscious is a complex concept of "being". This means that a human being is involved as a total being or person in a matter, object or event. From this it is concluded that a person becomes or is conscious of particular contents of the life world that surround him and that he acts in the situation he finds himself in and that always directs a particular appeal to him to act.

Conscious activities are the basis for the origin and meaning of intentionality. Just as consciousness can be differentiated into intellectual, affective or bodily being conscious, so can intentionality be differentiated into an intellectual affective or somatic aspect. This means that no human activity can be described as purely intellectual, affective or bodily. Because a person is involved in reality as a totality, each of these aspects shows itself in his actions.

The question the didactician now has to answer is what is the essence of intentionality?

Existential philosophy describes it in terms of a person's conscious activities. To the extent that a person is conscious of reality, he directs himself to reality and learns to know and master it.

If the essence of intentionality is conscious activities, it is also important to know what the ground is of consciousness itself. The essence of consciousness is its synthesizing (compiling or constituting) function regarding all aspects of the reality a learner studies to know. That is, the results or achievements of the synthesizing or constituting are an essential feature of consciousness.

For teachers, a very important conclusion can be reached from this: intentionality (as an essence of consciousness) is always directed to the meaning of a particular structure.

Further, consciousness assumes (intends) that the structure of the contents have a particular sense or meaning when it directs itself to that particular structure, whether an object, or a matter, etc. In other words, consciousness directs itself to the sense and meaning of contents that are pointed out in the life world. Stated otherwise, consciousness goes spontaneously to the matters or objects at hand to sort out and order the meanings in them. It is for this reason that attributing meaning is so important in the teaching situation. It is also to be understood that intentionality has an achieving and, therefore, a learning character because the learner's intentional study activities are directed to achievement.

Intentionality is so particularly important in the course of the learning and thus for constituting and establishing learning situations, it is important to summarize briefly the points made above: The ground or essence of intentionality is in a person's activities of consciousness. Activities of consciousness are characterized as having a synthesizing and constituting function. On this basis, a person's conscious activities are directed to the meaning of a particular structure and it assumes that the life world has intrinsic and immanent meaning that consciousness then sorts out and orders. Because giving meaning is so important in learning, a brief discussion of this topic is important if the foreign language teacher is to establish formal teaching situations in which a learner can participate by giving meaning [16, 19].

 

4.3 Giving meaning as a precondition for and as a result of learning

A teacher now knows that intentionality, through acts of consciousness, seeks the meaning of reality. Activities of consciousness are, therefore, directed to sorting out and ordering the meaning of the contents in the didactic situation. In this respect, the meaning of a particular structure of reality is the inspiration of intentionality that the acts of consciousness place strongly or weakly in the foreground. In other words, if a teacher is to allow a learner to participate meaningfully in the lesson situation, he has to guide and help him attribute meaning himself to the learning contents. When the contents then are not meaningful, intentional consciousness cannot easily proceed to construct a personal, unique knowledge of this reality-in other words, then a learner cannot achieve regarding reality by his intentional directedness.

This also means that the reality outside of the meaning giving function of consciousness (which is directed to constituting or constructing) will have little significance. Hence, the meaning structure of or the conscious attribution of meaning to reality (learning contents) is a precondition for purposive learning. To the degree that his intentional consciousness can discover, systematize, order, etc. the sense of a particular structure of reality (learning content), to that extent a learner is able to attribute meaning to it. For a teacher, it means that sense and meaning are identical concepts.

In addition, giving meaning is a comprehensive or aggregate matter that carries the interaction between reality and intentionality directed learning. In this framework, the learner's activity is to give meaning to particular learning contents that had remained unknown until this stage. In the learning situation, giving meaning also shows itself in the learner's life as a conscious striving to achieve the meaning of his own involvement with reality. This meaning giving involvement in reality is observable in a learner's study continual search for a synthesis of the contents that are unlocked for him; that is, contents that direct an appeal to him that he cannot avoid. When intentional consciousness discovers the sense and meaning of this appeal, a learner constructs a personally individual disposition and lifestyle that directly brings about his self-actualization.  

Therefore, it is important for teachers to remember that a learner's activities are an inherent part and even a decisive factor for his disposition toward life and his lifestyle. It also is important for teachers to note that when he makes learning contents available that appeal to the learner's intentional consciousness, he has to realize that the learner's giving meaning first should show that there is an implicit sense to the content itself. That is, the sense or meaning that lies in the content itself is presupposed by the learner's achieving consciousness whenever he intentionally goes to the content.

Briefly, the learner's achieving consciousness is directed to the sense of the contents at hand because he believes and knows that they are not meaningless. This means that his achieving consciousness simply accepts that the contents presented to him are meaningful so that he can set for himself the aim of discovering, systematizing and ordering the sense locked within them.

There also is an explicit sense in the contents presented to the learner. In this respect, explicit sense means the sense a learner himself attributes to the matter as a result of the ordering and meaning which achieving consciousness has already accomplished. This aspect of giving meaning is observable in the didactic situation when a learner deepens, appreciates, assimilates, criticizes, restates, etc. the contents. The didactic implication of this is that the learner's giving meaning to the totality of contents is closely and inseparably related to the lived experienced aspect of its implicit and explicit meanings. Thus, a learner is continually disposed to experience and deepen the sense of the teaching situation that largely determines his attitude, interpretation and command of such situations in the future. This means that the discovery of the sense or meaning of particular learning contents really serve as an inspiration by which intentionality enters the foreground more strongly and learning consciousness, as achieving consciousness, acquires more mobility and suppleness in the life world.  

The most important consequence of giving sense and meaning in the lesson situation is that a learner also is actualizing himself in reality; in other words, he is creating a world for himself or a personally meaningful world. It is by giving meaning that a bridge is built between the lives contents a learner goes out to and the form of living or lifestyle he eventually shows in his relationship to reality. The question that is now important for teachers is where or how does the learner's study intention show itself and in what forms can teachers cast the achievement character of intentional consciousness so that the learning intention in it can be awakened and directed? To be able to answer this question it is necessary to first become cognizant of the ways the learning activities show themselves in the original, spontaneous and naive life situation of educating (teaching) [16].

 

4.4 Motivated learning as a way of being in the original experience of educating (teaching)

The question that a teacher has to ask in this regard is how a learner acts in a spontaneous life situation so that an adult can say without any doubt that in one way or another he has learned something in this situation? A teacher also remembers that the parent is continually involved in the learner's life world by providing guidance and protection; in other words, he is continually creating a secure space where his learner can learn without all sorts of risks. This clearly means that teacher has to recognize that the adults are always present in the situation when their learner studies, i.e., the adults are always present when their learner spontaneously engages in the learning activity. They want to protect him because reality is not without its dangers.

The point of this discussion is that the forms achieving consciousness takes (the ways it is observable for description) emanate from the activities of a learner himself. Hence these forms, as a primary factor, are introduced so that it can be verified to what extent they are allowed to function in various spontaneous life situations.

By penetrating to the forms of the learner's study intention, the focus of the discussion is on the activities themselves.

In this discussion learning continually is viewed as a person's way of being. For this reason, a person is involved in the learning activity as a totality and this totality also must make itself observable in the forms the learning intention takes. In an introduction of this nature, the idea is not to discuss each of these forms in detail. Consequently, the forms are very simply typified and systematized to serve as an introduction to possible categories (essences) of learning.  

The typification of the forms of the learning intention is established merely to focus on essential information. The aim is that in this way eventual gaps in the discussion of the categories possibly can be avoided.

In this regard, this first discussion is simple in the sense that the learning activity shows itself in these ways in the life world. Each adult can observe and order these forms in his interventions with a learner without necessarily accounting for his observations and findings in a formal, scientific way. Scientific findings regarding the constituents of the learning activity (its categories) cannot be avoided in an introduction of this nature and are offered next.

Observing (perceiving). A person has particular sense organs at his disposal that he can use while learning to discover aspects of reality such as temporal duration, form, color, size, weight, distance, sound and taste. Thus, it is in terms of these sensory abilities that a person can explore and learn to know the reality surrounding him. Hence, a person's ways of learning are possible because he can see, hear, feel, smell and taste and that these senses enable him to systematize and order the reality around him. At first, for a small learner, this reality is certainly undifferentiated and diffuse. However, later he learns, according to his own experiences, preferences or anticipations, to relate to this diffuse or unstable structure and its aspects in particular ways and in doing so he is able to master it.

Eventually a learner can recognize particular structures and in the recurrence of certain situations he can repeat an activity that he had carried out before and which, depending on the demands of the situation, is evidence of greater insight and proficiency.

A learner uses all of the senses to perceive the reality around him. This perceiving, as an aspect of the learning act as it spontaneously manifests itself in the learner's life world, is especially important because a learner is forced to interpret reality and to differentiate the sense or meaning of the contents of reality and remember them. In perceiving it also is clear that a learner forms his own likes and dislikes that are particularly important for his education.

Playing. For any parent or adult who has anything to do with learner it is obvious that they play and in playing they also learn. For a very long time, prominent pedagogues have described play as a way of being. The most important aspect of this description is summarized briefly. A learner lives spontaneously and completely in his play. In this way he casts himself to reality and in playing he continually creates new realities for himself. It is especially exploration that appears clearly in his play activities and is of particular significance for teachers. During this exploratory (play) activity a learner unhesitatingly turns to his field of perception and the ordered identities (characteristics) that he has discovered about reality through perceiving, further investigates and learns to know them better.

Even the smallest details captivate a learner in his play and can keep him involved for a long time. The fact that a learner surrenders himself in spontaneous and affective (emotional) ways to the theme or object of his play is of particular didactic significance.

Talking. Various pedagogues have indicated that a learner's greatest single achievement is acquiring language. Acquiring language places the whole of reality in a learner's potential grasp so that by controlling his language he also controls reality. On the other hand, language certainly is the most important factor that brings about good progress in the learner's learning activities in the spontaneous life world. An additional aspect of language in learning is that the learner's possessed learning can be judged in terms of his language.

In the spontaneous learning activity, the use of language is conspicuous in two ways: first, by means of language, a learner asks questions by which he places the whole of reality in his field of consciousness; second, he names things that appear in his field of vision. Giving names that occurs by means of language does not have to do only with naming but also with a learner giving reality a particular identity by means of language. When a learner gives identity to reality by means of language, it becomes meaningful for him.

The function of language has a further particular didactic meaning because when a learner names reality, he objectifies it or distances himself from it. This means that language makes possible the distancing and objectifying tendency of achieving consciousness.

Imitating. Each parent or adult who deals with a learner is aware that a learner imitates reality and the adult's activities in reality. To the extent that the world in its outward form and its contents has changed, to that degree the learner's imitations change in order to keep up with the changed reality.

It is understandable and correct that the adult support a learner in his imitating merely because he really is being gradually steered in the direction of the adult life world. Even a perfunctory look shows that there is no aspect of the adult life world that is not taken up in the learner's imitating. In this respect, imitating also is a matter of the learner's achieving consciousness. Accordingly, as themes of his imitations, one thinks of religion, social customs, sports and recreation, economic activities and transactions, death, sickness and marriage. The learner's imitation of the adult life world is really evident in his play. On the other hand, it also is true that in his imitating, he attempts, in practical and in meaningful ways, to apply to his everyday situations his experiences of what he has seen his parents and other adults practice. For this reason, his imitating also shows a truly creative aspect.

In his imitating a learner experiences the enjoyment of success as well as the disappointment of failure. When he fails he looks for tools and implements for creating a reality that is in harmony with his original perceptions. Since his imitating is rather a fantasized creation of reality, in this respect this reality is not dangerous to him. It is clear that imitating gives a learner the opportunity to learn and achieve and, in this respect, it is one of the most important forms of his spontaneous learning intention. Because of its nature, imitating, which a learner does so spontaneously, is of particular importance to teachers, even in formal situations.

Fantasizing. Achieving consciousness also is realized by means of the learner's fantasy (however naive it might be) in order to establish a unique life world. Because fantasy usually functions naively and spontaneously, the learning activities that spring from it do not provide a learner with a particular perspective on the matter. This also is understandable in light of the foundation of fantasy, as such.

On the other hand, however, it is true that by fantasizing, a learner makes representations for himself of particular aspects of reality and in this way he anticipates the future, however unrealistic this also might be. What is of particular significance for teachers is that this tendency to anticipation is so clearly observable in the learner's spontaneous learning activities and they are the basis for teachers guiding him in order to better and more clearly deal logically with the anticipated reality.

In this respect it is important to note that the work a learner is led to in his imitating has the effect of accumulating and broadening the achievements as aspects of his spontaneous learning.

These ways of acting in the learner's form of living give the adult the opportunity to eventually give him tasks or assignments and engage him as a person in full-fledged ways in the family's course of living. When this spontaneous learning is lacking, these simple acts of work cannot be actualized. And a learner knows this intuitively. It is for this reason that he exerts himself in spontaneous ways by throwing himself into reality as a learner and in doing so he achieves as a person himself.

Repeating. In the spontaneous being together of adult and learner in the original experience of educating, it is conspicuous that types of situations are continually repeated. For example, a learner repeats the activity of tying his shoes, there continually is attention to table manners, clothing, cleanliness, etc. Repetition is peculiar to a learner's life situation and, therefore, he also orients himself to reality in this way. In this respect, the learner's task is that, by virtue of his involvement in life situations, he has to be disposed to achieve with respect to this tendency to repeat that he shows so particularly in the educative situation.

Achievements such as competencefulness and judgment are refined by repetition and in this way it offers him greater suppleness regarding the demands of reality. This tendency to repeat clearly is a matter of practicing and drilling without which the spontaneous learning intention simply will not develop further and will stagnate on an inadequate level. It is interesting and important to note that repeating types of situations in which the learner's competences are improved are not boring to him. The reason probably is that repeating the particular types of situations provides the opportunity for his competences to be put on a higher level. On the other hand, repeating the situations gives a learner the opportunity to demonstrate his particular achievements. In this regard, then, he shows his independence with respect to the particular activity.

This discussion of the forms of the spontaneous learning intention is not necessarily complete. What is important though is that they certainly are basic or primary when one observes a learner in spontaneous life situations. When the categories of learning are described later in this component, each of these spontaneous learning intentions will be brought up again.

Before viewing the learning categories more closely and describing them in more detail, it is important to quickly view the parents' spontaneous teaching activities correlated with the learner's spontaneous learning activities. The reason for this is that it is important in a didactic introduction of this nature to try to gauge the didactic implications of these activities [16, 19].

 

4.5 The categories of the motivated learning activity

Perceiving. Achieving consciousness, as discussed above, cannot achieve anything without perceiving. A person lives in a particular reality that directs an appeal so that it becomes available to him. A person becomes aware of surrounding reality through perceiving it. Here perceiving is viewed as a particular form of being directed (Intentionality). A person's being-directed concerns his consciousness and, as such, it is focused on the reality that appears to him. Through perceiving it is possible that total impressions are constituted into meaningful details. It is important to note that perceiving, in itself, is a primordial given, i.e., perceiving cannot lead back to or be reduced to a particular cause.

An additional aspect that perceiving makes possible, other than, e.g., its fantasy character is that it is a particular judgment of reality (a judgment grounded in the reality at hand). Also, perceiving is not a purely physiological "process". In this respect, it has to be indicated that even other important factors in the learning activity, e.g., a person's previous experiences, cannot restrict the sensing that stands out in perceiving. The reason is that perceiving is an intentional act of achieving consciousness. For this reason it is focused on the question of giving meaning which necessarily is present in each act of perception.

Giving meaning is not the result of a physiological process. A person lived experiences particular sensations when he perceives, irrespective of the quality of his knowledge about the matter previously acquired. The perceiver is focused on meaningfully clarifying his perceiving, itself, to the extent that he can place what he perceives in a meaningful field and order it. Perceiving also cannot merely be reduced to conceptualizing the conceptual, regarding the perceived, arises formally when language is implemented as a system of ordering the perceived piece of reality. This is distilled out by verbally describing a structure of the particular nature brought about by thinking.

It is in this way that perceiving brings about a particular order and classification out of the total surrounding reality and gives meaning to it. The fact that reality is ordered by perceiving means, on the one hand, that a particular object's place in the whole is indicated and, on the other hand, that the essence of an object is brought to the surface.

The question that now can be asked is how perceiving shows itself in a person's learning. This is really a question of the forms of perceiving as they manifest themselves in the life world. Before the essential forms of perceiving can be described, it is important to indicate the ways perceiving functions in learning.

Four functions of perceiving are considered briefly. Because a person also is present in perceiving as a totality, it is not strange that it has a strong subjective-dynamic character. That is, perceiving does not deal only with establishing the factuality of an object. Because of the totality of the perceptual act, a person is involved with the object perceived. Each person sees a particular object differently and in this sense it is subjective. Consequently, perceiving leads to a unique assimilating and broadening of a perceivable reality. Further, perceiving continually offers details that are compiled into meaningful totalities by achieving consciousness, especially in their functional connections and relations. This is of particular didactic significance because the entire principle of object teaching rests on this in the sense that the presentation itself presumes an analysis of these meaningful connections. In the learning activity, that which is lifted out by the analysis is compiled into a synthesis or a structure or insight into the essence of the matter.  

Perceiving is focused on analyzing the perceived into its essentials, finding essentials makes it possible for the perceiver to know the greater reality represented by the object. In this respect perceiving is exemplary or categorical in nature. In this way it is possible that an analysis that occurs in perceiving a concrete matter has validity in a general sense for the perceiver because the concrete is a representative illustration (exemplar) of an aspect of reality. To illustrate this matter, one can look at a stool, a palm tree, a bulbous plant, etc. Each of these objects is, in itself, an example of stools, palm trees and bulbous plants so that an exhaustive knowledge of all possible particular stools, etc. is unnecessary.

For teachers this is an extremely important matter. Because perceiving has an exemplary or categorical character, it is possible to reduce the contents to their essentials for teaching. In the learning activity, these essentials can be built up into a synthesis, structure or insight into the essence of what is being perceived.

Closely connected with its exemplary and categorical character, perceiving also is developmental in nature. The perceiving person searches for the first way or form of appearance of a particular object in order to understand its essence as it develops in time. The idea here is that a learner's perceiving moves progressively from the simple appearance of an object to the more complex. From a model of the workings of an internal combustion engine, a learner can acquire an understanding of the complex machinery that exists today. In this regard, perceiving searches the simplest or earliest form of the internal combustion engine.

Pre-objective perceiving. This form of perceiving is described well by the old expression, "He looks, but he doesn't see". Everyone stares at one time or another without truly seeing something. When he does this, in fact he looks "through" an object or person that is before him merely because his thoughts are elsewhere.

With this kind of perceiving he cannot give an account of what he is observing. Indeed, he can say what he thinks about it and possibly his course of thinking is involved in the object before him. However, this means he does not "see" but "thinks" reality. If pre-objective perceiving has to become focused, something has to happen to focus consciousness. That is, something has to occur to focus the looking, hearing, tasting, feeling, etc. before there can perceive, as such. Only if there is a focus is there a field of perception.

Perfunctory perceiving. On the basis of perfunctory perceiving a person orients himself in a familiar setting or regarding something he knows or presumes that it has to be of a certain nature. Here there is no detail. Matters are viewed, ordered and integrated in their general totality.

Here perceiving is directed to acquiring an overview of things in the field of vision by which the sense of the synoptic perception is eventually established. Perfunctory perceiving is implemented to search for meaningful relationships of the things as they thrust themselves into awareness. Perfunctory perceiving goes beyond the factual immediacy (imminence) of the things in his visual field. In this transcending, what is perceived is perceived as a whole in anticipation of a situation that must follow, a situation that possibly has to be brought about and within which perceiving will occur in a more refined way. Through perfunctory perceiving the connection of reality and the possibilities within one's reach are established and, for this reason, it brings about a reliable association between a person and the things around him in reality.

As far as teaching is concerned, this is particularly important because perfunctory perceiving has a high orientation value. It also has unusual significance in the sense that it establishes a constant reality and the constant possibilities of it. What appears in a person's field of vision is immediately recognized or known, as such, while the truly unique activity structure is immediately determined by it thus one can act with firmness. Two important actions follow from this perfunctory perceiving that is particularly important for teachers: here there is mention of verification and of schematization. Since a person's learning activity is continually moving from the known to the unknown, he reaches back to what he knows to be able to grasp what is not yet in his horizon of knowledge. In this regard, verification and schematization have particular didactic significance.

Objective perceiving. Objective perceiving is linked to the perceiver's aim. In objective perception, the intention is directed to a particular matter and it is possible that other relevant matters are shifted to the background. This means the perceptual intention (consciousness as intentionality) takes the object out of the background and makes it available for special and penetrating perception. It is for this reason that objective perceiving is so important for teaching.

In a teaching situation the object of perception has to summons attending so the object or matter will be of such a nature that the perceiver can place it in his experiential field as familiar. The quality of the appeal from the object also can be of such a nature that it awakens the perceiver's curiosity so that he wants to know what the nature of this object or matter is.

To satisfy this quality, the act of perceiving has to insure the perceiver that what he perceives is meaningful. As far as teaching is concerned, the object used in teaching has to appear such that a clarification of its particular ways of appearing is or will be necessary or desirable or enjoyable.

If this must be reached, again, there is mention of differentiating, ordering and integrating. When a perceiver differentiates orders and integrates, the structure perceived is obscured because the perceiver considers the qualities, judgments, choices, etc. regarding the matter as important. These qualities, judgments and choices are evidence that he has attributed sense and meaning to the object. In this way, perceiving is a link in the total chain of learning activities. Therefore, this creates a unity with what is learned and which now has to be kept in view regarding what the person has yet to learn in the future.

One cannot talk of perceiving without taking into account thinking and language. The reason is that what is perceived, in the first place, has to be ordered. Ordering implies that important aspects of perceived reality have to be differentiated from less important aspects, and what belongs together has to be united. This differentiation also is a matter of perspective in that what is important is more prominent in the landscape than what is less important. What is less important is not unimportant for the object, as such, because it provides the atmosphere within which more meaning can be allocated to the object perceived. Perceiving, therefore, perceives in a particular situation. In this situation, meaning is given to what is perceived that leads to perceiving as an event being exceeded in the interpretation that necessarily flows from it.

In this regard, the close connection between perceiving and thinking is clearly noted. The thoughtful ordering of the perceived object and field of perception is possible because language is available to a person to accomplish an ordering of reality. This is important to a teacher: he has to realize that language is the immediate companion of perceiving. Language is the means by which ordering neutralizes meaningless and chaotic perceiving. This guarantees that the learning learner will form concepts and integrate them regarding a particular perceived reality.

The conclusion to be drawn from this is that perceiving, language and thinking are an inseparable trinity, a unity, a harmony that presents itself, as such, in the original form of the event of learning in the life world. When a learning person gives sense to reality this is permeated by his perceiving and the interactions among perceiving, thinking and language clearly are shown.

Meaningful learning cannot occur without perceiving. Perceiving, simultaneously, leads to a broadening of and a broadened experiencing of what is in the learning learner's reach. For a teacher, this guarantees the involvement of teaching, as such, in reality.

Furthermore, a teacher has to be mindful that the totality of perceiving at the learner's disposal and what he brings with him to school, for a long time will be the basis of his learning activities. If perceiving in school is not recognized for its particular significance in learning, an unnatural separation is made between the learner's learning activities and the schools learning aims. Such a separation has the effect that the learning activities will have an artificial and a foreign-to-life character. A further consequence is that the classroom is not true to reality. For teachers, the implication is that the reality to be made available to the learner's perceiving has to be prepared.

The fact is that because perceiving is so subjective, a learner sees the contents from his own life world and in this way he perceives the learning contents. Thus, he concentrates his attention on matters that to him seem important and interesting. However, there also is the possibility that a learner will only perceive perfunctorily and will leave the classroom without really having constructed his own perspective on the perceived aspects about which the lesson was concerned. A teacher has to remember that a learner will base his perceiving on the fundamental activity of collecting and ordering similarities and differences. This ordering of similarities and differences directs two tasks to teachers. To collect and order the lesson contents, a learner has to analyze them.

He also has to compare the immediately preceding perceptions and experiences to be able to integrate the presented learning contents with them. Here the ultimate didactic aim is to use anticipation and to help a learner in terms of both aspects with the prospect of ordering future contents and problems of the matter that arise. It is only then that previous experiences as well as immediate perceptions are of real significance for the learning activity.

Experiencing Aristotle had already noticed and typified, as categories of learning, the relationship and connection between learning and experiencing with the pronouncement that experiencing is the foundation of the phenomenon of learning. According to this, experiencing is the necessary beginning of learning because the perceived particulars are generalized in experiencing and, in this way, are affirmed as valid. From the nature of teaching, as such, as a category of learning, experiencing is of particular significance just because the learning activity that is so peculiar to teaching makes possible new experiences for a learner.

A person's experiencing is not the sum total of his separate daily life realities. It cannot be understood apart from the theory of intentionality. The relationship between intentionality (achieving consciousness) and experiencing is that there is a unity between learning and experiencing. It is for this reason that one cannot obtain a grasp of reality without experiencing. This has particularly important implications for didactics because experiencing enables a person to interrogate unknown reality. Experiencing also is a person's possibility for being with reality. In this respect it is a matter that stimulates a person's original interest in reality and, therefore, is responsible for the fact that a particular relationship between person and reality continually increases in breadth and depth.

For a learner, experiencing means an initial and penetrating grasp of the matters appearing in his life horizon. Simultaneously, it provides the primary and fundamental possibility for a relationship between him and the things surrounding him. The fact that experiencing makes it possible for a person to interrogate reality is just as important for teaching because, on the basis of a person's experiencing, reality can be anticipated. When a person experiences reality, particular data about that reality are made available to him. For example, a learner perceives that rain comes from the sky. This perception places certain aspects of reality in his relationships in the foreground as obvious or conspicuous; for example, a learner perceives that rainwater flows into little streams and later into the river.

The perception of this piece of reality is, as far as rain is concerned, really incomplete because various other aspects of this reality cannot be seen but this can be presumed or hypothesized by the learner.

An aspect he cannot perceive but that he can presume to be is known as anticipation. To discuss perceiving, as a category of learning, the meaning of anticipation is broached to some extent. However, what is of particular importance is that anticipating is an inseparable and essential part of experiencing. In experiencing, anticipating works in a complimentary way in the sense that it gives rise to pre-understandings and consequences that are not necessarily denotable. In this way perceiving is transcended in experiencing and a person is able to gain insights by anticipating what cannot be found in direct perceiving. Anticipating from experiencing and the transcending of direct perceiving are of particular didactic significance because, in the first place, this is a matter of achievement.

The connection between learning and experiencing is recognized everywhere. The usual explanation of this connection is that the learning activity is to be understood from its achievement (learning effect) and that learning makes itself available to evaluation in the learning achievement. This approach is logical and also acceptable. However, when the phenomenon of learning is itself examined (i.e, viewed categorically) it is important to ask the question whether or not the learning achievement can be understood from the learning activity. The conclusion from this question is that learning is not merely the consequence of experiencing. It is possible that experiencing is also the result or consequence of learning. This means that the learning activity, in the sense of possessed learning, is not only a possible consequence of experiencing but that it is a necessary consequence of it. It follows necessarily from experiencing that new or qualified learning activities will enter the foreground. In this respect, learning is a consequence of experiencing.

This implies that each experience necessarily has learning consequences. This conclusion means, further, that as far as learning is concerned, experiencing is not merely "learning to know" but also "a moving toward something new". As a consequence of learning, the insights and concepts a learner had constructed on the basis of previous experience are qualified or changed by his being able to investigate, penetrate and understand the new reality presented to him in the classroom. In the spontaneous life world, a learner's experiences provide him with his first acquaintance with the world.  

Two meanings can be attributed to the concept experience in so far as learning is a matter of experiencing.

On the one hand, experiencing means a simple, first acquaintance with something, i.e., a matter about which one acquires knowledge. On the other hand, experiencing grows and increases and enables one to acquire something new on the basis of previous experiences.

In this sense, experiencing continually turns back on itself, especially to judge the possibilities of the new experience and to give it meaning. This retrospective nature of experiencing is of particular didactic importance because it is in this way that formal learning occurs. Without the first acquaintance with something this retrospective return to itself is not possible. For this reason the act of learning is strongly attuned to particular foreknowledge and the learning person continually is confronted with his foreknowledge when he learns via experiencing.

Objectifying. Learning is a matter of communication because the relations among language, thinking and learning in the learning activity form a solid unity. It is in the learner’s communicating with others, especially adults, that it becomes clear whether a learner has learned. However, communicating is equally important in that a conversation is always about “something”. In each conversation there is always talk of objects, matters or persons. It is clear that in these conversations the speaker talks “about” something; the conversational partners’ talks about one or another aspect of life reality. A conversation about things indicates that the conversational partners already know the matters about which they speak because these matters have been encountered before and also they have a particular attitude toward them.

The fact that persons talk “about” reality means that they have distanced themselves from that reality; that is, they remain “objective” about the matter. The fact that people talk about things means that the things have become objects for them; this is a product of understanding. In conversing about them, the “objects” are purely abstract concepts and for this reason abstract concepts really belong to the scientific thinking of persons.

However, it also is the case that irrespective of the so-called “objects”, there also are “things” that loom up in a person’s life world that really have a pre-scientific meaning; i.e., the person has not yet rendered a predication or judgment about the so-called thing. As far as the life world of a learner is concerned, in his prescientific world there is little mention that objects really exist in an abstract or purely scientific sense. Things in a learner’s pre-scientific world are concrete. The question now is how “things” in a learner’s pre-scientific world find a place in his life world.

Before this question can be answered it is necessary to take three aspects into account.

In the first instance, a “thing” in a learner’s pre-scientific world is something about which he can talk but which he cannot talk to and where the thing also does not join in the conversation. Secondly, a “thing” is a matter of daily practice. It is something with which one can act in the sense that it possibly can be a tool, but it cannot act itself. Third, especially in the learner’s life world, there is talk of things because they have a particular identity that can be talked about. As an example, a fork is something about which a person can talk, that does not join in the conversation and does not itself speak. Irrespective of the fact that one eats with a fork, it can appear to a person in other ways. For example, he can use a fork to remove a cap from a bottle, etc.

In this way, things are disclosed as objects, practices and identities in one’s life world and it is especially important to indicate that when one talks about these things, at the least there must be a particular objectivity regarding them that amounts to a definite distance between the person and the things with which he is involved.

The fact that there is a distance between a person and the things that appear in his life world means that he consciously directs himself to things and, by this reasoning, it follows that objectifying is a question of an intentional achievement. The question of importance here is how this minimum objectivity arises. In other words, mindful that objectivity also is a question of achievement, what intentional achievement realizes this distance between person and things.

Regarding this question, there are at least three aspects of a person’s intentional achievement required to accomplish minimum objectivity. One must first isolate the objects from himself, then identify them and finally he must name them. The intentional achievement (conscious directedness) exists in that one can distinguish a particular person from other persons, a particular thing from other things and also a particular situation from other situations. The distinctions can be made perceptually or by practical actions. In other words, the learning person can make these distinctions in his perceiving a particular person, object or matter or he can do so in his everyday actions and especially in the way he handles objects. The otherness of a person, matter or activity makes isolating possible because one person is not another, one thing is not another and one activity is not the same as another.

Therefore, it is clear that if there is no isolating it is not possible for achieving consciousness to be able to objectify something. This means that consciousness cannot be fixated on one matter or another. Where isolating is absent, things among other things or persons among other persons cannot be brought to the fore.

The deduction is that isolating, as activity, is a precondition for the fact that a particular person or thing can be ascribed a particular identity; for example, “This person is my son” or “This thing is a motor”.

It also is important to indicate that identifying must not be confused with isolating. Identifying is primarily directed at determining the nature or character of something with the aim that thereafter this matter or thing can be recognized. Where the learner’s achieving consciousness is involved in learning, isolating and identifying are clearly there such that he can talk about the things. In his discussion of the matter or thing a learner must name it and because the matter has a particular nature or character, and therefore an identity, the naming is consistent because the same thing is indicated with that name. In this way, naming is an essential activity and is observable in language. Because the thing is named it is possible to be able to talk about it without the thing itself having to be present. In this way, the thing becomes a concept and is added to the learner’s possessed concepts. For example, if one calls to awareness the concept “hammer”, it is a thing that one can strike something with, but one also knows that it is made of steel and is heavy.

If there isn’t an objective attitude, this means that achieving or intentional consciousness remains stuck in concrete experience and stagnates. Consequently, the learning learner will be held fast by concrete things in such a way that, in their presence, he can only learn in terms of them. This also means that his perceiving and experiencing without distancing merely have immediate value for learning and there will be no transferability to or recognition in other situations. Really, the matter is much worse a learner will not learn because he is so totally lost and locked up in the concrete things that they only can have any meaning for him in the same sorts of situations. Thus a learner must learn to know each possible variation of the matter separately so that he can master the situation.

But since a learner continually is involved in distancing (objectifying) himself from reality (by isolating, identifying and naming objects) it is now possible for him to know an object such as, e.g., a “table” without learning to know it in all possible situations it can be involved in. The fact is that the table was isolated, identified and named long before, and when a learner is asked to say what a table really is, he can handle the concept, as such, although he possibly thinks of a particular table. A person’s objectivity makes it possible for objects to “arise” for him. This means that a learner gives the matter or objects its objectivity and not the other way around nothing is objective for a learner without him declaring it as such.

Objectivity makes it possible for a person to consciously take into view the surrounding reality. Objectivity has the additional effect of putting the totality of one’s experiencing and perceiving functionally within his grasp in order to reach things and look further, anticipate, order and finally learn about them.

Objectivity is not the same as an objectivistic attitude. As a category of learning, objectivity is especially a matter of ordering. The objective ordering of surrounding reality does not mean that these things can be placed alongside each other on the same level. In the learning situation, as it does in the spontaneous life world, the learner’s objective attitude has rather more to do with perspective.

This means that certain things, matters or events are placed in the learner’s conceptual landscape where certain ones are more important than the others. In his activity of objectifying, a learner gives significance and meaning to the total reality that surrounds him precisely because he has isolated, identified and named its separate characteristics. For this reason, it is not possible to talk of learning without the objective attitude of the learning person also being there. The learning person’s perceiving in the learning situation confirms this statement.

Constituting. The concept constituting means that a person, to the extent that he is involved with reality, goes out to it and on the basis of its available structures, creates or builds up or brings about his own insights, relationships, appraisals regarding that particular reality. In this light it is clear that perceiving, experiencing and objectifying, as categories of learning, really culminate in this act of constituting. In spite of this, it also is true that there can be little mention of “achieving consciousness” or of “intentionality” because the achievement of the achieving consciousness is visible in the fact that a person creates reality for himself. The quality of the created reality refers to the quality of the achievement.

Now, it must be understood that the creation of a personal reality by a learner is not obvious. The fact is that in order to create reality, it must already be known. And this means that there must have been previous learning. It is in the category of constituting that the interactive course of “knowing” and “learning” is most clearly evident.

For teachers this means that a learner, by means of his achieving consciousness, continually creates a new reality for himself. If he does not constitute a reality for himself, there is no learning. Now, it is important to indicate that this activity of creating (constituting) a personal reality shows itself in everyday life in terms of five facets.

These five facets (communicating, synthesizing, transforming, life styling and emancipating) are of exceptional significance and are discussed further.

Communicating with reality. By means of language a learner can isolate, identify and name aspects of reality or things in it. In the previous discussion of language it is stated that a learner’s acquisition of language certainly is one of his greatest achievements.

It is almost obvious that this first aspect, namely language acquisition, is of primary importance in constituting a personal reality. It is also logical that the naming that a learner does in learning also must be further broadened in order to bring about distinctions and relationships with respect to things. The distinctions and relationships of the things a learner encounters in learning also require that he must acquire an increasing notion of time. For example, a learner must acquire and master concepts such as the days of the week, the months of the year, yesterday and tomorrow, early and late because he also must create a reality for himself with respect to them.

The fact is that a learner not only creates reality for himself in space but also in time. Therefore, he comes to all communicating with a particular notion of time. However, this notion of time remains isolated unless he also learns to broaden his communicating with reality into a spatial orientation. In his communicating with reality he experiences things as near or far, high or low, flat or deep, etc. These examples are given merely to indicate that in his communicating with reality he is compelled to talk about these matters and through language, notions of time and concepts of space to proceed to order the things with deliberation. For example, there are types of food that he must be able to distinguish in his world of ideas and in talking about them. Eventually, he must be able to talk about the cloths he wears in terms of the materials they are made of and for what part of the body they are intended.

However, a learner cannot communicate with or question reality if he cannot distinguish forms from each other. In his life world, for example, there are objects that are round, flat and thick but there also are such things as circles, triangles, squares, etc. that are given particular meaning that often emphasizes their function in the everyday life world. A learner’s acquisition of language, notion of time, orientation and differentiation of forms eventually lead him in his communicating to create his own life world and to make particular judgments. The learner’s judgments involve matters such as beautiful or ugly, better or worse, etc. The fact that a learner has acquired language, has a notion of time, can orient himself in the world, can distinguish forms from each other and can make judgments are evidence to the adult that he has acquired specific insight into a particular reality. When a learner’s manifested changed relationship to reality and also to time is examined, it is clear that the great scope of the everyday life world and his making it his own by means of his achieving consciousness, it is largely done by actualizing these aspects individually and collectively.

Concerning the didactic implications of this, it is obvious that the school subjects are organized in such a way that the constituting communication of a teacher’s presentation of them serves to help a learner actualize his relationship to reality. In this regard, teaching is conspicuous. In history and related subjects a learner is oriented to time. Subjects such as arithmetic, physics, music and literature greatly promote his ability to order and distinguish various forms from each other. Finally, subjects such as religious teaching, guidance and literature help him to decide what is beautiful, ugly, right or wrong.

Synthesizing. A learner’s communication with and about reality cannot be realized if he also is not able to synthesize or summarize particular information.

In the discussion of objectifying as a category of learning it became clear that the things surrounding a learner have a separate identity and particular meaning for him. However, he must be able to synthesize the things around him in order to be able to classify them according to everyday experience. Synthesis leads to concepts that make him much more flexible regarding that reality. A simple example of this is a concept such as “path”. “Path” in a learner’s life world is not merely limited to paved paths; they also are dirt paths, gravel paths, footpaths or little animal paths. The most important aspect of learning in this respect is that the summary or synthesis leads to new insights into and mastery of reality. The synthesis that a learner arrives at eliminates his initial naivete: to the extent that what he learns is in time, he will not be satisfied so easily.

Syntheses that let a learner consciously work through the surrounding reality force him to fathom the essence of the things that appear in his landscape and to add this to his already available knowledge. It does not matter if this occurs perceptually or experientially. What is important is that in these ways he eventually creates a life world.

Synthesis also has a progressive or even prospective character in the sense that it enables a learner to unite two experiences such that a third possibility can be constructed from the synthesis.

Revising/changing. To the extent that a learner is involved in creating a personal life world for himself, he is involved in changing. This change shows itself in that now he manifests a different outlook, attitude or behavior toward reality. The changes in a learner during the learning act are matters of revision because he continually is involved in changing or revising the image of reality that he has acquired. The revision that he arrives at on the basis of his own insights, relationships, involvements, etc. can be a radical turn about that affects his religious knowledge and conduct and social normative actions. On the other hand, this revision brings about a differentiation in already existing insights; this means that they are refined and assimilated in order to establish a changed view of a particular reality. As far as the didactic is concerned, the revision that a learner arrives at in learning is of particular significance for the simple reason that if he has learned, he no longer is the same-the reality that he has learned does not leave him untouched.

Lifestyling. When a learner changes and his relationship to reality has been revised, in constituting his own life world he acquires his own lifestyle. The revision that he arrives at is unique because this is an enlargement and amplification of his own life world. His personality is expressed in his own lifestyle and also is manifested in his act of learning. Quality in his going out to reality is particularly clear in his personal lifestyle: caution, hesitation, forwardness, self-confidence, recklessness, etc. all are tendencies in his own lifestyle without which his learning could not be realized. In this respect, factors such as character, temperament, social background, etc., and their relationships are strongly emphasized in constituting as a category of learning.

Emancipating. Elsewhere it was stated that the younger a learner is, the more “open” he is to reality. A little learner naively accepts what an adult presents to him. It also was said that possibly a learner never learns as much as in the first six years of life. His open relationship to life is narrowly limited by his achieving consciousness. During the course of time and to the extent that he learns it also is the case that he shows a more closed attitude toward life by which it is clear that he has become more formed and shows better judgment. In this way learning really is a matter of attributing meaning and of progressing to responsible judgments and this assumes that he eventually can make independent choices and decisions.

In this respect learning is emancipating. In this context, emancipating refers to a learner purposefully, but also spontaneously, proceeding to more closely delimit reality and at the same time determine more closely his participation in it.

Emancipating in the sense of constituting refers to giving an account of reality and taking a standpoint with respect to it. Ultimately, emancipating refers to a learner himself giving an account of and taking responsibility for his actions and relationships to reality.

If one now examines constituting as a category of learning along with its different aspects discussed above, it is clear the a learner in his achieving directedness to reality eventually is able to give an account of and take responsibility for his actions. Educationally, this means that with respect to the life world he has created or constituted for himself, he is in a position to responsibly answer the demands of the norms that speak in this reality. Where a learner can himself answer the demands of norms it is evident that he must be able to judge and criticize himself in his relationship to reality. Thus, the whole question of self-criticism is the grindstone of learning. For this reason it deserves a brief discussion.

Criticizing. A learner grows up in a milieu where norms are central in educating him. For this reason exercising criticism is obvious in educating, teaching and also in learning. To the extent that criticism is involved in educating it is important to indicate that learning is a matter of drawing distinctions and making decisions. For this reason, learning is a matter of making choices so that in this way learning comes under criticism.

The core of the matter is the learner’s disposition-disposition is the basis of a learner’s activities and, therefore, it is the first aspect for judging them. Concerning the didactic, the learner’s disposition in the learning event and how it shows itself there are exceptionally important.

Criticizing comes to the foreground early in a learner’s life. However, it becomes clear in the form of self-criticism when a learner is involved in justifying his own actions in connection with the moral authority and judgment of his parents who he imitates in his actions. A learner is continually involved in making judgments about his learning activities.

Self-criticism of his own learning activities is important to understand because learning is a matter of ordering reality and, as such, it is by its nature a question of norms and values.

The yardsticks or criteria inferred from these norms and values do not automatically find their way into a learner’s judging. A criterion functions in learning only if it is explained to and accepted by the learning person. This means a learner himself must appropriate the criterion, as such, and apply it in his own judging. For this reason, it is important to understand that a learner, where his own critical attitude is not yet possible, continually and readily asks for criticism and judgment from adults. In the course of learning, criticism is exceptionally important because when it does not exist in the learner, or outside of him (in the adults), learning stagnates and he cannot progress.

However, in the act of learning intentionality or achieving consciousness cannot direct itself against the voice of conscience or against the norms of the milieu in which a learner lives.

The yardsticks and criteria inferred from norms offer achieving consciousness a particular security because a learner feels that he is free to investigate the things he experiences in the life world without fear that a moral account is going to be required. This means that, in a moral sense, the achievement is guaranteed by the prevailing criticism so that the learning activity in other terrains, such as practice, can proceed relatively freely. Without this guarantee offered by criticism in this sense, judgments (objectifications) in learning are not possible for a learner because his perspective does not arise without considering already existing norms. Here it does not matter whether these are ethical or material norms. A learner intensifies the criticism in the learning event by adopting for himself the norms that prevail with respect to things (contents). When this happens it implies that a learner uses criticism to give direction to his intention to learn in order to help direct its course. In this context, when criticism is accepted the total human being does so, but a decline is seen in the learner’s emotional (affective) experiences that are closely connected with the role of criticism in the course of learning.

The role of the affective (pathic, emotional) in the progress of the learning event is nowhere clearer than here. The reason is that, in this respect, there also is an inner learning attunement, i.e., an emotional surrender to the appeal of reality in the situation. Surrender is possible because it creates a safe distance from criticism for a learner and for achieving consciousness. Once again, here there is harmony between the external climate for learning and the inner attunement to learning. The adult sees this harmony as the learner’s intense directedness to learning.

However, it is important to indicate that the criticism unique to the learning person creates tension in the intentional act and, therefore, also in the learning activity. The reason is that these two matters enter the foreground, namely reality and the possibilities of the situation, and the learner relates them to each other. In this regard, learning always is a matter of evaluating reality and anticipating possibilities.

However, neither evaluating nor anticipating is possible if criticism is not part of the learning. It is obvious that criteria or judgments are necessary for both. Without criticism, the earlier experiences and perceptions of a learner are largely isolated and for this reason cannot really contribute to learning. It is important for a teacher to note that the significance of this discussion for the classroom situation is that without criticism the accomplishments of a learner and the quality of his activities fade away. For this reason, criticism has two aims in a formal teaching situation: first, it prevents complacency by a learner and, second, it maintains a balance of learning with respect to meaningful achievement. Thus, here criticism serves the aim of elevating the level on which achieving consciousness moves. Teachers must take note that criticism is only valuable if it is timely, in accord with the learner’s readiness, and is clear and distinct. A learner cannot intensify or accept vague criticism.

A teacher also must be selective in his criticism and direct it in accordance with the aim stated for the learning activity. Irrespective of the conciseness of criticism, a teacher must always remember that a learner experiences the criticism as criticism of him as a total person.

The progress and course of purposive and directed learning become clearer if it is remembered that early in a learner’s life he experiences that he must comply with certain norms and, therefore, must be subjected to particular criticism. This means that what a learner studies to do must be learned and carried out in accordance with certain norms or pronouncements; otherwise there is little learning in a positive sense.

Learning activities not directed by norms limit a learner instead of providing him room. The aspects, among others, that really are open to criticism are the direction of the learning activities, the meaning of the things that he learns to know, the relationship of the contents that he encounters and the images of reality that he constructs. A learner’s study achievement remains provisional and tentative until he has subjected it to criticism. This verifies the achievement, as such, and he then can be accountable for it.

The aim of distinguishing and describing these five categories of learning is to provide a more formal explication of the spontaneous, everyday learning acts and activities of a learner. A learner objectifies the reality surrounding him through perceiving and experiencing, and via implementing language and thinking. However, objectifying reality, as such, is inadequate if a learner does not immediately create a new reality for himself. This constituting also is not really valid until he verifies that it is real and valid through criticism. This means that criticism of the spontaneous learning act indicates that the adult shows a formal approach to the spontaneous learning that forces a learner to give up his naive activity structure and learn in a purposeful (conscious) way.

The five categories of learning taken up in this component, namely perceiving, experiencing, objectifying, constituting and criticizing are not necessarily all of the categories there are. It is important for the foreign language teachers to be aware of the findings of a general pedagogical-psychological nature and even findings from the psychology of learning because they also can influence the form of planning a lesson. For this reason, categories from these domains are briefly indicated.