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TEMA 1: LOS LLAMADOS MÉTODOS HUMANÍSTICOS
1.- THE SILENT WAY
In the early 1960s, Chomsky reasoned that language must not be considered a product of habit formation, but rather of rule formation. The emphasis on human cognition led to the establishment of the Cognitive Approach, in which learners are seen as much more responsible of their own learning. Gattegno’s Silent Way shares a certain principles with the Cognitive Approach. Gattegno looked at language learning from the perspective of the learner by studying the way babies and young children learn. He concluded that learning is a process that we initiate by ourselves.
1.1.- PRINCIPLES OF THE SILENT WAY
- (^) Goal: students should be able to use the language for self-expression. They need to develop independence from the teacher to develop their own inner criteria for correctness.
- Roles: the teacher is a technician or an engineer. He or she can give what help is necessary, focus students’ perceptions… The role of the students is to make use of what they know, to free themselves of any obstacles that would interfere in giving their utterance attention to the learning task, and to actively engage in exploring the language.
- Interaction: in most of the teacher-student interaction the teacher is silent. He or she is still very active, however. Student-student verbal interaction is desirable and encouraged. The teacher’s silent is one way to do this.
- Students’ feelings: the teacher constantly observes the students. When their feelings interfere, the teacher tries to find ways for students to overcome them. Also, through feedback sessions at the end of lessons, students have an opportunity to express how they feel. Thus, it is hoped that a relaxed, enjoyable learning environment will be created.
- Language and culture: languages of the world share a number of features, but each language has its own unique reality, or spirit, since it is he expression of a particular group of people. Their culture is inseparable from their language.
- Emphasized language skills: pronunciation is worked on from the beginning. There is also a focus on the structures of the language, although explicit grammar rules may never be given. Vocabulary is somewhat restricted at first. All four skills are worked on from the beginning of the course, although there is a sequence in that students learn to read and write what they have already produced orally.
- Students’ native language: the students’ native language can be used to give instructions when necessary. It can also be used during feedback sessions. Knowledge students already have of their native language can be exploited by the teacher of the target language.
- Evaluation: although the teacher may never give a formal test, he or she assesses student learning all the time. Since “teaching is subordinated to leaning”, the teacher must be responsive to immediate learning needs. The teacher’s silence frees him or her to attend to his or her students and to be aware of these needs. A criterion of whether or not students have learnt is their ability to transfer what they have been studying to other contexts. The teacher does not praise or criticize student behaviour since this would interfere with students’ developing of their own inner criteria. The teacher expects the students to learn at different rates. He or she looks for steady progress, not for perfection.
- Students’ errors: students’ errors are seen as a natural, indispensable part of the learning process. The teacher uses them as a basis for deciding where further work is necessary. The teacher tries to get students to self-correct. If they are not able to self-correct and peers cannot help, then the teacher can supply the correct language, but only as a last resort.
1.2.- TECHNIQUES AND MATERIALS OF THE SILENT WAY
- Sound-colour charts
- (^) Teacher’s silence
- Peer correction
- Rods
- Self-correction gestures
- Word charts
- Fidel charts
- Structured feedback
2.- DESUGGESTOPEDIA
The originator of this method, Lozanov, believes that language learning can occur at a much faster rate than ordinarily transpires. Dessugestopedia, the application of the study of suggestion to pedagogy, has been developed to help students eliminate the feeling that they cannot be successful and the negative association they may have towards studying and, thus, to help them overcome the barriers to learning.
2.1.- PRINCIPLES OF DESUGGESTOPEDIA
- Goal: to accelerate the process by which students learn to use a foreign language for everyday communication.
- Roles: the teacher is the authority in the classroom. The students must trust and respect him or her. Thus, they will retain information better and can feel more secure and be more spontaneous and less inhibited.
- Interaction: the teacher initiates interaction with the whole group of students and with individuals. Initially, the students can only respond nonverbally. Later, they can respond more appropriately and even initiate interaction themselves.
- Students’ feelings: a great deal of attention is given to students’ feelings. If they are relaxed and confident, they will not need to try hard to learn the language. It will just come easily and naturally. It is important that the psychological barriers children bring with them are desuggested. A new identity makes students feel more secure and more open to learning.
- Language and culture: language is the first of two planes in the process of communication. In the second plane are the factors which influence the linguistic message. The culture students learn concerns with the everyday lifestyle of people who speak the language. The use of the fine arts is also important.
- Emphasized language skills: vocabulary is emphasized. Grammar is dealt with explicitly but minimally. Speaking communicatively is emphasized. Students also read and write in the target language.
- Students’ native language: native-language translation is used to make the dialogue clear. The teacher also uses the native language when necessary.
- Evaluation: it is conducted on the students’ normal in class performance, and not through formal tests.
- Errors: errors are corrected gently, with the teacher using a soft voice.
2.2.- TECHNIQUES AND CLASSROOM SET-UP OF DESUGGESTOPEDIA
- Evaluation: a teacher-made classroom test would likely be more of an integrative test than a discrete-point one. Students would be asked to write a paragraph or be given an oral interview. Teachers encourage their students to self-evaluate.
- Errors: teachers should work with what the learner has produced in a nonthreatening way. The teacher might repeat correctly what the student has said incorrectly, without calling further attention to the error.
3.2.- TECHNIQUES OF COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING
- (^) Tape recording student conversation
- Transcription
- Reflection on experience
- Reflective listening
- Human Computer
- Small group tasks
4.- TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE (TPR)
The Comprehension Approach is a general approach to foreign language instruction which gives much importance to listening comprehension. It says that language learning should start first with understanding and later proceed to production. Asher’s Total Physical Response (TPR) says that the fastest, least stressful way to achieve understanding of any target language is to follow directions uttered by the instructor without native language translation.
4.1.- PRINCIPLES OF TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE
- Goal: the goal of teachers who use TPR is having their students enjoy their experience in learning to communicate in a foreign language. TPR bases foreign language learning upon the way children learn their native language.
- Roles: initially, the teacher is the director of all student behaviour. The students are imitators of his or her nonverbal model. At some point, some students will be “ready to speak” and there will be a role reversal with individual students directing the teachers and the other students.
- Interaction: the teacher interacts with the whole group of students and with individual students. Initially he or she speaks and the students respond nonverbally. Later on, they become more verbal and the teacher responds nonverbally. Students perform the actions together, so they can learn by watching each other. As students begin to speak, they issue commands to one another as well as to the teacher.
- Students’ feelings: one of the main reasons TPR was developed was to reduce the stress people feel when studying foreign languages. Learners must only speak when they are ready and, when they begin to speak, perfection should not be expected. Another way to relieve anxiety is to make language learning as enjoyable as possible.
- Language and culture: just as with the acquisition of the native language, the oral modality is primary. Culture is the lifestyle of people who speak the language natively.
- Emphasized language skills: vocabulary and grammar are emphasized and embedded within imperatives. The spoken language is emphasized over written language.
- Students’ native language: TPR is usually introduced in the students’ native language, but later it is very rarely used. Meaning is made clear through body movements.
- Evaluation: teachers will know immediately if students understand by observing their actions. Formal evaluation can be conducted by commanding individual students to perform a series of actions.
- Errors: teachers should be tolerant of student errors and only correct major errors.
4.2.- TECHNIQUES OF TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE
- Using commands to direct behaviour
- (^) Role reversal
- Action sequence
TEMA 2: LA COMPRENSIÓN AUDITIVA Y LA COMPRENSIÓN
LECTORA
1.- LEARNING ENGLISH GRAMMAR
Over the last fifty years, publishers have brought out a number of attractive grammar activity books for children which present grammar through topics and meaningful contexts and provide activities which offer both controlled practice and creative language use.
1.1.- WHAT GRAMMAR TO TEACH?
- About Me books/Language Files, in which they review and record the main language items of each unit and use the structures they have practised.
- Self/peer-testing
- Coloured pens
- Pupils can look for patterns and create their own My Pattern Book of English Grammar.
- Pupils can compare grammar structures in English and in their language.
- Encourage pupils to learn from their mistakes by keeping a list of their errors and writing out a self-corrected version for each one.
2.- COMMUNICATIVE APPROACHES: NO GRAMMAR NEEDED
Being able to talk about the language is very different from being able to talk in the language. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) was developed in the late 1970s and 1980s. A central tenet of CLT was that learners would learns the language by using it to communicate with others. In its strongest form, the process of foreign language learning was supposed to resemble child first language acquisition, where it all just happens without any direct or explicit teaching. What certainly happened to grammar teaching was a downgrading of its importance in foreign language classrooms. A form of CLT that is based entirely on listening to comprehensible input is Total Physical Response (TPR). Along with other “no grammar” approaches, however, there seem to be limits to what can be achieved without some attention to output and to grammar.
3.- FOCUS ON FORM: THE REVIVAL OF GRAMMAR TEACHING
In terms of grammar, children taught through the second language do not develop the same levels of accuracy as native speakers and, without this attention to the form of the language, problems with basic structures continue. In subject classrooms, where communicating meaning is the central aim, learners seem to bypass aspects of grammar, both in listening and in speaking. Furthermore, if all pupils in a class are second language learners, the language that they use with each other can contain and reinforce inaccuracies in grammar. Communicating through a language and learning a language can actually conflict with each other. The development of the grammar of a foreign language requires skilled planning of tasks and lessons, and explicit teaching. Attention to form is vital, and learners need to be helped to notice the grammatical patterns of the foreign language, before they can make those patterns part of their internal grammar. Learners need to be helped to focus on the accuracy and precision of their language use. The potential of collaborative work in pairs and groups for grammar work is also being increasingly recognised. Batstone suggests a sequence of grammar learning activities around particular patterns or structures:
- Noticing is an active process in which learners become aware of the structure, notice connections between form and meaning, but do not themselves manipulate language. Successful noticing activities will usually: - support meaning as well as form - present the form in isolation, as well as in context - contrast the form with other, already known forms - require active participation by the learner - be at a level of detail appropriate to the learners - lead into, but not include, activities that manipulate language
- Structuring involves bringing the new grammar pattern into the learner’s internal grammar and, if necessary, reorganising the internal grammar (in processes like
accommodation and assimilation). It usually requires controlled practice around form and meanings, and the learner must be actively involved in constructing language to convey precise meanings. In structuring activities:
- learners should manipulate the language, changing form in order to express meaning
- learners must be given choices in content that require adjustments in grammar to express meaning
- there will be limited impact on spontaneous use
- (^) Proceduralizing: proceduralisation is the stage of making the new grammar ready for instant and fluent use in communication, and requires practice in choosing and using the form to express meaning. Tasks used in proceduralisation must require attention to grammar as well as effective communication.
4.- PRINCIPLES FOR LEARNING-CENTRED GRAMMAR TEACHING
It is important for teachers to have an awareness of grammar issues, and to have a range of form-focusing techniques, so that they can take advantage of learning opportunities that arise when learners need grammar to take their language learning forwards and can bring grammatical features of stories, dialogues, songs, etc. to the attention of even the youngest children in non-formal ways. Good learning-centred grammar teaching will be meaningful and interesting, require active participation from learners, and will work with how children learns and what they are capable of learning. The socio-cultural context of foreign language lessons will strongly influence what actually happens in classrooms, buy some general principles for learning-centred grammar teaching can be summarised:
- The need for grammar
- grammatical accuracy and precision matter for meaning
- without attention to form, form will not be learnt accurately
- form-focused instruction is particularly relevant for those features of the foreign language grammar that are different from the first language or are not very noticeable
- Potential conflict between meaning and grammar
- if learners’ attention is directed to expressing meaning, they may neglect attention to accuracy and precision
- Importance of attention in the learning process
- teaching can help learners notice and attend to features of grammar in the language they hear and read, or speak and write
- noticing an aspect of form is the first stage of learning it; it then needs to become part of the learner’s internal grammar, and to become part of the learner’s language resources ready for use in a range of situations
- Learning grammar as the development of internal grammar
- the learner has to do the learning; just teaching grammar does not make it happens
- grammar learning can work outwards from participation in discourse, form vocabulary and from learnt chunks
- learner’s errors can give teachers useful information about their learning processes and their internal grammars
- The role of explicit teaching of grammar rules
- teaching grammar explicitly requires the learner to think about language in very abstract, formal ways that some enjoy and some find difficult
- metalanguage can be a useful tool if it is well taught
each finger they wrote one sentence. Finally the paper cut-outs are displayed on the wall.
- Drills and chants: drills are a useful way of giving all children some speaking practice when the class is too large. They also offer language and involvement support to children because they can listen to others to pick up bits that she or he is unsure about, and drills can be lively and fun if the pace is kept up. The dangers of over-using drills occur mostly if the children do not understand the content, and drills are then a mechanical exercise. Substitution drills are the ones that offer more for grammar structuring.
5.4.- PROCEDURALISING ACTIVITIES At this point, task design must ensure that grammar is essential for achieving task goals and that some attention to accuracy is required, but the idea is that attention to accuracy can gradually be relaxed as it becomes automatic.
- Polar animal description re-visited: doing a description does need some grammatical knowledge that has already entered the internal grammar through noticing and structuring. The production of a description to the whole class might then be a useful proceduralising activity for those items of grammar. Because it is a public performance, it will justify attention to getting forms exactly right through rehearsing and perhaps writing down a text. There is practice in using the grammatical patterns, with attention to accuracy but with increasing automaticity leading to increasing fluency as well.
- Dictogloss: it offers many possibilities once reading and writing are established. The teacher reads out a text several times, the pupils listen and make notes between readings, and then reconstruct the text in pairs or small groups, aiming to be as close as possible to the original. Learners will talk to each other about the language and the content. If the text is carefully chosen, learners will be working in their zones of potential development (ZPD).
5.5.- INTRODUCING METALANGUAGE
- Explicit teacher talk: it is both useful and quite possible to talk about language without using technical terms, but these might be usefully introduced to them.
- Cloze activities for word class: this kind of activity focuses attention on word classes and how they contribute to discourse, without going into any heavy grammar.
TEMA 3: LA COMPRENSIÓN AUDITIVA Y LA COMPRENSIÓN
LECTORA
1.- TEACHING RECEPTIVE SKILLS
Receptive skills are the ways in which people extract meaning from the discourse they see or hear. There are generalities about this kind of processing which apply to both reading and listening but there are also significant differences between reading and listening processes too, and in the ways we can teach these skills in the classroom. When we read a story, listen to the news, or take part in conversation we employ our previous knowledge as we approach the process of comprehension, and we deploy a range of receptive skills determined by our reading or listening purpose.
1.1.- WHAT WE BRING TO THE TASK
Understanding a piece of discourse involves much more than just knowing the language. In order to make sense of any text we need to have “pre-existent knowledge of the world”, which is often referred to as schema. When we see a written text our schematic knowledge may first tell us what kind of text genre we are dealing with. In a conversation a knowledge of typical interactions helps participants to communicate efficiently. As the conversation continues, they draw upon various schemata to help them make sense of what they are hearing. Shared schemata make spoken and written communication efficient. Our use of different skills will frequently depend on what we are reading or listenint for:
When children do “listen and identify” activities they are practising a basic language skill-listening, making sense of English words and phrases, developing their vocabulary and acquiring meaning and sound together.
- For vocabulary development: for “listen and identify” activities you can use the classroom and all the things the children can see, and objects that children draw or make from any material. There are generally two stages to “listen and identify” activities: talk to the children about the things you want them to learn the names of and ask them to pint or to show you the things when you name them.
- (^) For grammatical awareness: you do not teach grammar to very young learners but you can help them discover meanings. By doing activities that focus on basic concepts, children unconsciously begin to acquire a feeling for what is grammatically accurate.
2.3.- LISTENING AND DOING - TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE
TPR is when children listen and follow a whole sequence of instructions, doing what the teacher says. It is a good way to start using English for communication in the classroom. The teacher tells the pupils what to do using clear pronunciation and natural intonation and helps them understand by gestures or by doing the actions. The pupils have to listen carefully to the instructions, enjoy doing the actions, can do the actions all together or on their own, do not have to speak (but often do) and understand because the movement and language go together. Some TPR activities are follow the leader, topic- based TPR, TPR routines and TPR for arranging the class.
2.4.- LISTENING AND PERFORMING – MIMING
- Revising and consolidating topic words through mime: when children are familiar with the vocabulary used for a particular topic, you can introduce mime, which gives them more freedom to be creative. Mime is very suitable for stories: as you read, ask the children to mime the key actions.
- Miming to rhymes and chants: all children love rhymes and chants. Before they begin to say the words in rhymes and chants, they should understand what they mean.
2.5.- LISTENING AND RESPONDING GAMES Playing games that demand careful listening helps children have fun and make them listen while you are speaking English.
- Right or wrong: ask children to listen carefully and explain that you are going to tell them something that might be right or wrong. If you are wrong, they must clap twice and if you are right, they must clap once.
- Simon says: tell the children that they can only move when you say “Simon says” and that if they move when you do not say “Simon says” they are out and have to sit and wait for the next game.
3.- LISTEN AND MAKE
“Listening and making” involves children in a more creative process: the children have to make decisions; there is more time to think and comment; there are opportunities for co-operation between learners and the children have something to take home at the end of the class. When children are making things, the language that you use is the reason for the lesson. So, before the lesson:
- prepare what to tell the class about the topic or theme
- collect the things you need so you can show children what to do
- think of gestures and actions that will help them understand more clearly How to set up “Listen and make” activities:
- Begin by introducing the topic and talking a little about it.
- Explain to the class in English (as far as possible) and show them what they are going to do or make. Use gestures and actions to help children understand.
- Repeat you instruction to the whole class and then later to small groups or to individual children.
- (^) While they are making their things, go round and comment in English on what they are doing.
3.1.- LISTEN AND COLOUR Before you begin, make sure that all the children have colours. Then, prepare your learners for the activity by doing some “Listen and identify” activities in order to revise the colours they will need and the names of what they are about to colour. Give out a picture to each child. They have to listen to your instructions. You are going to tell them what colours to use and what to colour.
3.2.- LISTEN AND DRAW
You can describe a very simple picture of a familiar scene, with objects children know. They listen and draw what they hear you describe.
3.3.- LISTEN AND MAKE
There are many things that children can make in class: greeting cards, Easter cards… Use this opportunities to talk in English about the things children bring in and tell them what happens during celebrations in other countries.
4.- READING IN ENGLISH
4.1.- BEGINNING READING
There are two main approaches to teaching reading in English:
- Look and say: when children learn to say a new word they learn to read it. You can help them with whole word recognition by using printed material as much as you can in your classroom. The new words are learnt in context.
- Phonics: letters used to make sounds. English spelling is difficult. Children need to learn how to recognize sounds and letters. When you use phonics, you are teaching children the way the letter sounds, not the name of the letter. Young learners can learn obvious letter patterns that help with sound recognition and help them predict words. They will not need to know the formal names of the letters until thy start to write and spell. Another way to help children with sounds is to let them play with the sounds as they repeat a word they are reading on a card or in their book. This also helps them remember the word. Many teachers use both “look and say” and phonics.
4.2.- SPEAKING TO READING – HELPING SOUND AND WORD RECOGNITION
You can use “word reading”:
- when teaching new vocabulary
- when you want to revise or go over vocabulary the children learnt before
- before children read a story or say a rhyme which includes these words. In pre-reading activities you can:
- focus on new words in context
- teach sound and letter/word recognition at the same time
make them want to read the text. One way to introduce the text is just to give a simple sentence that could be in English or in the students’ own language. A more interesting way would be to have a short discussion, to start students thinking about the topic. Teachers should not say too much when introducing a topic, or thy will “give away” what it has to say, and kill the students’ interest.
- Guiding questions: before the students read the text, the teacher can give one or two guiding questions for students to think about as they read. The purpose of this questions is to give the students a reason to read, by giving them something to look for as they read the text, and to lead them towards the main points of the text, so that after the first reading they should have a good general idea of what it is about. Guiding questions should be concerned with the general meaning or with the most important points of a text, and not focus on minor details; they should be fairly easy to answer and not too long.
5.3.- CHECKING COMPREHENSION Texts are usually used in English classes for two main purposes: as a way of developing reading comprehension – by looking at the text and trying to understand its message – and as a way of learning new language – by looking at the text and focussing on particular words and expressions. Often, these two aims are combined in a single lesson. First, students read the text and try to understand it. After they have understood its general meaning, the teacher goes through the text again, checking detailed comprehension and also focussing on important new vocabulary. The main purpose of asking comprehension questions should be to lead students to look closely at the main points of the text, and to help them understand it. To achieve this:
- It is best to ask a series of short, simple questions which make the text easier to understand.
- (^) Students should only be required to give short answers.
- Students should keep their books open, so that they can refer to the text to answer the questions.
- Even if the textbook contains good comprehension questions, it is often a good idea for the teacher to ask his or her own questions first.
5.4.- FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITIES If texts are fairly short and simple, and contain language which is useful for students to produce as well as understand, they can be used as a basis for language practice after the students have understood the text completely.
6.- READING ACTIVITIES
6.1.- PRE-READING ACTIVITIES
In real life, we do not normally read because we have to but because we want to. We usually have a purpose in reading: there is something we want to find out, some information we want to check. We do not usually begin reading with a completely empty mind – we have some idea of what we are going to read about. We will usually have certain questions in our mind, and we may also be able to make a number of predictions or guesses. In English classes the situation is often very different. Usually students read a text not because they want to, but because the teacher tells them to. So to help them to read, it is important to give the students some reason for reading and to give them information they want to find the answer to. This can be done in two ways:
- By giving a few questions for students to think about as they read, and discussing the answers afterwards (“guiding questions”).
- By organising an activity before students read the text, which arouses their interest in the topic and makes them want to read (“pre-reading activities”).
6.2.- READING THE TEXT
- Using questions on a text: there are two main aims in asking questions on a text:
- To check comprehension – to show the teacher (and the students themselves) how well the students have understood the text, and what needs to be more fully explained.
- To help the students read the text. If the questions are good ones, they should focus students’ attention on the main pints and lead them to think about the meaning of the text. To achieve these aims, the teacher must make sure that the whole class is involved in answering the questions and that students know why answers are right or wrong.
- (^) Completing a table: one of the simplest kinds of reading task is for students to read a text and note down the main information in the form of a table or chart; this helps students to organise the information in a text in a clear and logical way. Completing the table does not replace asking questions, which are still necessary to check detailed comprehension, as students could fill the table in without fully understanding the text.
7.- LISTENING ACTIVITIES
If the teacher uses English as much as possible in class, students will also have an opportunity to listen to English as part of other activities. We can not develop speaking skills unless we also develop listening skills; to have a successful conversation, students must understand what is said to them. Listening to spoken English is an important way of acquiring the language, so we need to give the learners as much opportunity to listen to spoken English as possible. In real life, there are two ways in which we often listen:
- “Casual” listening: it is when we listen with no particular purpose in mind, and often without much concentration.
- “Focussed” listening: it is when we listen for a particular purpose, to find out information we need to know. In class, we are usually concerned with the second kind of listening; we expect the students to listen closely and remember afterwards what they heard.
7.1.- HELPING STUDENTS TO LISTEN: USING A DIALOGUE FOR LISTENING To help the students to listen and so improve their listening skills, the teacher could follow this procedure for using the dialogue:
- Introduce the topic before getting the class to listen to the dialogue. This would help the students to predict what the dialogue would be about. If necessary, the teacher could also present new vocabulary at this point.
- Give guiding questions before the listening stage. This would help focus students’ attention on the main points of the dialogue.
- Read the dialogue. Students listen for the main idea and answer the guiding questions.
- Read the first part again, and ask questions to check detailed comprehension. Do the same with the second part.
- Copy out class lists and the names of children you commonly put into groups.
- If you call a register, look at the children as they respond.
- Ask the children to write their names clearly on a piece of card which they place on their desks.
- Keep a seating plan of the class. You will need to decide what you consider acceptable behaviour. The number of rules you make should be kept to the minimum and the reason for having them should always be explained to the children.
- Getting the pupils’ attention: with young pupils you may need to establish a signal for getting the pupils’ attention. When you want to gain their attention you can also try these steps:
- Firmly name the children still talking and maintain eye contact.
- Start a well-known activity or routine or give instructions for a new activity.
- Wait for quiet before beginning a new activity.
- Finding an acceptable noise level: if the noise level rises too much, pick out the noisiest group, name one of the children in the group and gesture them to quieten down. Remember that the noisier the teacher is, the noisier the children will become. Sometimes the noise levels rise because the tasks you have chosen are not clear, are too easy or too difficult.
- Giving praise: you can quickly establish good relationships with your pupils by praising good behaviour, commenting on good work, making helpful suggestions and encouraging pupils’ efforts. This is important in setting the right atmosphere, providing a good model for your pupils to follow and boosting your pupils’ confidence and self-esteem. However, if you constantly over-praise pupils, it may become valueless. The kind of English to praise young learners will have to be quite simple, especially in the early phases.
1.3.- ORGANIZING LEARNING ACTIVITIES
Ask about hobbies, clubs your pupils may be in, their favourite games, toys, sports, TV programmes, music, and films. This will help you to build up a picture of topics and activities that you can draw upon in your lessons to make them interesting or to supplement the textbook. Teachers must determine an appropriate balance between teaching to the tests and other language learning.
- Dealing with bilingual pupils: some pupils in your class may already speak English well and have more advanced levels of English than the rest of the class. Use strategies for encouraging these children to “show and tell” some of their experiences in the country of the target language; explain the instructions for games, help others in groups, etc. It generally means making higher demands on and having higher expectations of these pupils and not allowing their work to become sloppy.
- Managing pair and group work: Berman suggests that very young learners prefer working alone. Imposing pair or group work can sometimes have a negative effect. For some activities it is often easier and more fruitful to organize work in pairs than in groups. There are several ways of organizing groups to work together. You will have to be careful about determining how well the members of the groups will work together. It is also important that groups do not always
remain the same. The group members you select may either mix or match the ability level in a pair or group. Pupils need training in how to work in pairs or groups.
- The effects of different kinds of classroom activities: teachers need to anticipate the effects on their pupils of different kinds of activities. Activities which usually engage and stir pupils are those where the learners are physically or mentally active, and thus more involved in their learning. On the other hand, there are activities which usually clam and settle pupils. Here are some general principles for using stir an settle activities: - Start a lesson with a settling activity to calm pupils down if they seem very lively or restless if they seem very tired or lethargic they may need waking up with a lively , stirring activity. - Make sure lively, stirring work returns to something calmer and more settling. - Make sure everyone has something to do. - Avoid activities which are emotionally or intellectually “empty” or meaningless. - Try not to have a sequence of only settling or stirring activities throughout the whole class.
- The mixed ability class: the average classroom is normally of very mixed ability. In each lesson there should be a core of the most important concepts, skills and language that should be straightforward enough for everyone to do. You may then need extension activities to challenge the more able pupils and more support activities for the less able. Teachers can organize differentiated learning activities by considering seven key factors: - The text used - The task used - The support provided - (^) The outcome demanded - The ability group used - The range of activities used - The choice of activity Kinds of scaffolding:
- breaking down the learning sequence into smaller steps
- simplifying the language
- using more spoken language before moving onto written language
- translating abstract concepts into more concrete ones
- using physical movement
- (^) using more audio-visual support
- providing a greater variety of activities
- Time management: it is very useful to train yourself to plot realistic timings for the completion of certain activities; this avoids having to rush. On the other hand, you may be left with time to spare at the end of the lesson, so you need to have some activities “up the sleeve”. When ending a lesson, here are several points to bear in mind:
- Plan.
- Finish work on the main teaching point a little early rather than late.
- If you want to give out homework, take time to explain it beforehand and give an example.
- Plan a teacher-led review session at the end of each class. Try to give praise and encouragement about what the children have achieved during the class.
