M e t h o d o l ogy for Teaching English-2

M e t h o d o l ogy for Teaching English-2

Organising student practice

There are many ways to organise student practice of new language.
Amongst them are:

Open class

All students listen to the teacher or to the contributions of individual students. This is particularly appropriate when the teacher is introducing new topics before pair/group work and also when getting students to report back after closed pairs/group practice.

Open pairs

Two students are chosen by the teacher to ask and answer while the rest of the class listen. It is often a good idea to choose students from very different parts of the class so that the rest of the class can hear what is happening and feel included. This often provides a good model and clarifies instructions before a ‘closed pairs’ activity.

Closed pairs

All students work with a partner. This encourages maximum practice and is particularly appropriate for dialogue work. It is important that the teacher monitors the different pairs as they are working and doesn't spend too long with any individual pair.

Group work

This is best for activities which involve the collection or discussion of ideas. Students work in small groups and usually report back ‘open class’ to share their ideas with the class as a whole.

‘Mingle’ activities

These allow constant repetition of a particular question or collection of the opinions of many students. Students stand up and walk from one student to another, asking and answering as required - they ‘mingle’! These activities are effective with classes where furniture can be moved out of the way to allow for free movement around the room. Clearly, activities like this (especially with a large class) need to be set up carefully with clear instructions given.

Giving examples

It is always a good idea to give students an example of any exercise or practice activity that you want them to do. It is much easier to understand a practical example than a verbal one. If, for example, you want them to do an exercise where they have to choose the correct tense in a series of sentences then ask students to look at the first one and say which tense they think is correct. Confirm the correct answer and then let them continue.

Classroom management

If your class is large and mingling is not possible, put students in groups of four or five. They take it in turns to ask the question while the others listen and write the answers, or they ask:
• the student on their right.
• the student on their left.
• the student behind them.
• the student in front of them.
If you are setting up a pairwork activity and you have an odd number of students in your class, put three students together where possible. This will leave you free to monitor the other students. It may, however, sometimes be more appropriate for you to act as a student's partner, in order to balance the numbers and help that student with particular problems.

Exploiting listening and reading texts

When you are going to use an extended listening or reading text rather than a few individual words, there is a basic procedure which it can be helpful to refer to and follow if appropriate. This is a model procedure which can obviously be adapted if necessary but it does provide a generally sensible starting point.

Establish context

In real life, whenever we listen or read anything, we know what the context is, we are aware of the situation, the location, the kind of conversation, for example. These factors affect our ability to understand and make sense of what we hear and read. In class, it’s necessary to introduce the students to the context before they listen or read. The context can be elicited or prompted from earlier work, the course book, pictures, discussions and so on. Without ‘setting the scene’ like this, the tasks can become unnecessarily difficult.

Pre-teach vocabulary

It is useful to teach certain key items of vocabulary before students begin a listening or reading activity. For example, if they are going to listen to a conversation about people smoking, it may be necessary to pre-teach ‘to smoke’, ‘a cigarette’, ‘to give up’ and so on.
When pre-teaching language it is important to establish the meaning clearly.  students via prompts such as mime, pictures, definitions or whatever seems most appropriate. If no students are able to
provide the new word then, of course, you will need to supply it. Having supplied it, write it on the blackboard for students to make a note of.

However, be careful not to swamp the students with new vocabulary. There may be many words the students don’t know, but focus only on those that they will need to complete the task you are going to give them. Seven or eight new vocabulary items is probably more than enough for a pre-teach stage.

Set gist questions

We need to give students a reason to listen or read. There is little point in asking the students just to read a text, for example. When native speakers read, they know what they are reading and why. There are different kinds of reading. For example, the way you find a number in a telephone book is very different from the way you read a newspaper. So the students need to be given some purpose for their reading or listening.

This can simply be done through the setting of gist questions. Gist questions are general questions that refer to the overall meaning of the text. They are usually not too difficult. The students listen or read only for that information.

If you don’t set gist questions, students may try and read all of the text in detail, focussing on trying to understand every word. It is worth letting the students know that they do not need to understand everything because:
• That is not how we listen/read in real life.
• It is extremely difficult to do and can, consequently, be quite demotivating.

Play tape/read

For a reading text, set a short time limit. This again will encourage the students not to try to understand everything.

Check in pairs

After the tape has finished or the time limit is up, let the students check with each other to see if they have the same answers. This gives the students the opportunity to speak. Also, if they have confirmed the answers with their partner, then they will be more confident if asked to answer in front of the whole class.

Check answer in class

Elicit and confirm the answers in open class. Set more detailed questions
Now that the students are familiar with both the context and text, they can be given more detailed comprehension questions to answer. These questions will require the students to identify specific pieces of information and can be different types. For example:

• Comprehension Where did Jim go?
• True or False Jim went to Russia
• Multiple choice Jim went to a) Russia b) China c) Canada d) Romania

Play tape/read again

For a reading, set a longer time limit at this stage. Because the questions are more detailed than gist questions, they will require more careful reading.

Check in pair s

Again, after the tape or time limit, let the students compare their answers with a partner. Monitoring carefully will let you know whether the students need to listen again or have more time for reading.

Check answers in class

Elicit and confirm answers in open class. In this stage, be prepared to play or focus on passages in the text which apply to the particular questions you set............................

M e t h o d o l ogy for Teaching English-1

M e t h o d o l ogy for Teaching English-1

There is no single correct way to teach English. There are different theories as to how students learn, so there are different ideas as to what can and should be done in the classroom. In this section you will find some basic ideas which are common in modern communicative methodology. We consider the following areas:

• Use of the mother tongue
• Eliciting
• Board work
• Drilling
• Pronunciation
• Organising student practice
• Exploiting listening and reading texts

Use of the mother tongue

Everyone has a different opinion about when, how and how often a teacher should use the mother tongue of her/his students. It clearly makes sense to use English as much as possible in the classroom if we want our students to progress rapidly. It is surprising how little the mother tongue needs to be used if we keep our classroom language to a minimum and use plenty of non-spoken devices such as gesture, mime and pictures.

You may find it necessary to give instructions or explain certain items of grammar in the mother tongue. However, think carefully about how and when you use it and take every opportunity to expose your students to English. Make it clear to students when you expect them to use English and encourage and praise them at all times when they make serious effort to practise their English in class.

Eliciting

This is a popular technique which encourages the learners to become active participants in language production. It involves the teacher encouraging the students to produce the target language rather than supplying it her/himself. If, for example, you were aiming to teach the word ‘chair’, you could point to a chair in the classroom and ask students to say if they think they know the English word. You may well find that one or two students already know the word or have a rough idea.

Approaching the new language like this, rather than immediately telling students, focuses their attention on the item, gets them thinking to see if they know the word in English and motivates them to learn the word when it is finally established. If no students know the word, this is not a problem. You can supply it and students will be equally ready and motivated to learn it.

Eliciting can be done through a variety of techniques depending on the type of language you are teaching.
For example:

• you can draw on the board or use pictures to elicit such things as rooms, methods of transport, etc.
• you can use mime to elicit such things as sports, everyday activities, etc.
• you can work backwards from answers to elicit question forms. e.g. Write ‘She's a doctor’ on the board to elicit ‘What does she do?’

Eliciting is particularly good for keeping students involved in their own learning process and for showing the teacher what the class already knows. Board work

It is generally helpful for students to have a written record of new grammar or vocabulary that is being taught. However, this is often best done after students have been drilled with correct pronunciation as English spelling can be an unhelpful

distractor.

It is important that the teacher doesn’t spend too long writing on the board with their back to the class during the lesson, otherwise the students will lose interest. If possible, have any longer pieces of information for students on a prepared handout, on an OHT, or written, in advance, on the blackboard and covered.

When writing new vocabulary on the board, try to make it clear what part of speech the word is. If you only write single words, students may not remember whether it’s a verb or a noun, for example.
So, instead of writing ‘play’, write ‘to play (with something/someone)’. Then the student can tell that is a verb and also that it can be transiti ve and uses the preposition ‘with’. In the same way you can add articles to nouns that are written on the board. Write ‘a house’ instead of just ‘house’, for instance. Although only a very small thing to remember it does provide far more useful records for the student.

Drilling

‘Drilling’ is a basic technique whereby we can give students the opportunity to practise saying a new word, phrase or structure in a highly controlled environment. Students should always understand the meaning of the target language before they are drilled and at this stage the aim is that they should achieve the best possible pronunciation.

Choral drilling

Having taught the meaning of the new language, it can often be appropriate to drill the students chorally.

1. The teacher ‘models’ the target language or plays the relevant part of the cassette. The students in the class listen
carefully to the correct pronunciation. The teacher should say or play this language at least three or four times.
2. The teacher then asks the students to repeat the target language together. By doing it all together, the students are able to try out the new language without fear of embarrassment at being singled out in front of their peers. Three or four times is probably enough to help build up the students' confidence. (You should not worry about trying to hear the pronunciation of individual students at this stage; that will come during the individual drilling that follows.)

Individual drilling

After the new language has been chorally drilled to build students’ confidence, it should then be individually drilled to enable you to check that each student can pronounce the new language clearly and accurately.

The teacher should ask as many students as possible to repeat the target language. You will need to pay attention to the pronunciation of sounds and word stress of individual words and to the sounds, stress and intonation of longer phrases or sentences. It is generally a good idea NOT to go round the class in order, so that students are all encouraged to remain alert and attentive. It is also important not to spend too much time on one student otherwise the rest of the class will get bored and stop paying attention.

Correction

If a student makes a mistake during the individual drilling stage, it is important that this is highlighted and corrected.

Ideally the student will be able to correct their own mistake.

If a student cannot cor rect their own mistake after encouragement and guidance from the teacher, then other students should be given the opportunity to help the original student and correct the mistake.

Substitution drill
Correction

If a student makes a mistake during the individual drilling stage, it is important that this is highlighted and corrected.
Ideally the student will be able to correct their own mistake.

Pronunciation

When new language is introduced, the meaning must be established. This can generally be done by ‘eliciting’ If students are expected to use the new language, it is essential that the correct pronunciation is taught. This will usually involve ‘modelling’ the pronunciation of new language for students to imitate in the drilling stage. The modelling can either be done by you, the teacher - remember to check the correct pronunciation of words yourself before attempting to teach them - or by playing the course book cassette.

There are different elements of pronunciation which will need to be considered depending on the type of language being taught. When teaching individual words or small words and phrases, the sounds and word stress will require attention. ...........................

Complexity of community

Complexity of community

To answer this question, it is important to move away from the traditional one-culture-one language
model and consider instead a more complex picture of culture. A social-action model of culture shows us a creative dialogue between individuals and the structures of their societies. While different
societies and communities do have specific contexts and particular features that make us, our cultural
practices and our languages different, they do not necessarily prevent individuals from moving
creatively beyond their boundaries. Our daily manipulation of social rules, in our on-going struggle to
be ourselves and succeed in our agendas is something we share across nations and communities.
There is a broad and significant domain of underlying universal cultural processes which enables all of us to read and engage creatively with culture and language, wherever we find it. This is evidenced by the way in which we can read each other’s literatures. One does not have to go to a foreign country or into a foreign language to find unfamiliar behaviour and expression. We find this in the family next door; and young people face it every day as they engage with the diverse worlds of family, school, classrooms, sports groups and so on. We can also make huge sense of other cultural realities if we open our minds to them

There are several important implications here. Underlying universal cultural processes give language
learners the potential to apply the experience of how language and culture operate in their own
communities to new language. This enables them to stamp their own cultural identity on the language.
However, for them to be motivated to do this, the content with which they are presented has to be
sufficiently meaningful to resonate with and activate this experience. It is this authentic relationship,
between where they come from and new domains, which encourages language learners to be
cosmopolitan and to claim the world through new language experience.

It is hard to stop young people from learning creatively. This learning can, however, be inhibited or
diverted into less productive areas by powerful and popular ways of thinking about things in everyday life and within the ELT profession. These ways of thinking seduce us with the false, modernist certainty that relationships between language, culture and types of speakers are fixed, neat and measurable. For this reason, teachers everywhere, even in India, are still telling their students that the only correct forms of English are British or American and that to learn them they have somehow to leave behind the cultural realities of their communities. Our major task is to overturn these ways of thinking and move on to a new paradigm . Because these discourses have pushed the rich contribution of students and their communities to the margins, it is from the margins that we must learn

FALLING TONE AND RAISING TONES IN PRONUNCIATION

FALLING TONE AND RAISING TONES IN PRONUNCIATION

 words that are important for meaning are generally
stressed in a sentence and those that are not important for meaning are
weakened and said quickly. Of the words that are stressed or said with extra
breath force one word stands out as more prominent than the others because
the pitch of the voice either moves from high to low or low to high on that
word. The movement of the pitch of the voice from high to low is called the
falling tone. A movement of the pitch of the voice from low to high is called
the rising tone.

The Falling Tone

We use the falling tone in:
i statements
ii wh-questions
iii exclamatory sentences
iv commands
v tag questions

Listen to the following sentences with the falling tone

1 They’re ar'riving this `evening.
2 What a 'beautiful `dress!
3 'Where have all the 'pencils `gone?
4 It’s 'rather 'hot in `May, `isn’t it?
5 'Draw the `curtains.
6 How ex`traordinary!
7 'Come and 'see me to`morrow.

The Rising Tone
When we use a rising tone, our pitch starts at a lower level and then goes up
to a higher level.
a Yes/No questions
b Wh- questions asked warmly
c incomplete utterances
d polite requests
Take care to use the rising
tone in each case.

a Yes/No Questions
A Yes/No question is one which can be answered in ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

1 Is 'father at home?
2 Can I 'see the Dean for a minute?
3 Can you 'buy me an ice-cream, mummy?
4 Will you 'show me your 'new atlas?
5 Can I 'borrow your record player?
6 Can you drive?
7 Can you cook?
8 Would it be 'possible to 'spend the night here?
9 Is the 'Ahmedabad Ex'press ar'riving on time?
10 'Is there any re cording to day?

b Wh-questions asked warmly


1 'What is your father?
2 'Where do you live?
3 'How is mother?
4 'Where did you 'leave your book?

5 'How old are you?

6 'Which is yours?

7 'When did you come?

8 'Where are you going?

9 'Who did you talk to?

c Incomplete Utterances

All the examples cited below have two tone-groups each. The end of the

first tone-group is marked /. See how the first of the two tone-groups in

each sentence is said with a rising tone.

1 If you 'go to Delhi/ 'please 'meet my `aunt.

2 I 'went to the 'market this morning / and 'bought a 'lot of

`vegetables.

3 As 'soon as you 'reach London/ 'give this 'letter to the 'High

Co'mmissioner.

4 When my 'father died, / I was 'only 'five years `old.

5 'If I see him/ I shall 'give him a 'piece of my `mind.

6 The 'moment you are ready,/ 'please `phone `me.

7 I 'don’t mind 'eating anywhere,/ pro'vided the 'place is `clean.

8 If you get 'drenched in the rain, / you’re 'likely to 'fall `ill.

9 I was 'terribly hurt/ when my 'father 'called me a `fool.

10 If at 'all it’s possible, / I shall 'meet you at the `station.

d Polite Requests

1 'Pass the salt.

2 'Close that window.

3 'Lend me a ru pee.

4 'Shut the door.

5 'Please 'carry my bag.

6 'Buy me some flowers.

7 'Bring some lunch for me.

8 'Give me some water.

9 'Fetch me an um brella.

10 'Buy me a 'new pen, daddy.

Phonetics

Phonetics

Languages can basically be thought of as systems - highly complicated ones - which enable us to express our thoughts by means of “vocal noises”, and to extract meaning from the “noises” (speech sounds from now on!) that are made by other people. Linguistics is the study of the nature and properties of these systems, and its various branches focus on different aspects of the communication process.

Phonetics is the branch concerned with human speech sounds, and itself has three different aspects:
• Articulatory Phonetics (the most anatomical and physiological division) describes how vowels
and consonants are produced or “articulated” in various parts of the mouth and throat.
• Acoustic Phonetics (the branch that has the closest afnities with physics) studies the sound
waves that transmit the vowels and consonants through the air from the speaker to the hearer
• Auditory Phonetics (the branch of most interest to psychologists) looks at the way in which the hearer’s brain decodes the sound waves back into the vowels and consonants originally intended by the speaker.

Closely associated with Phonetics is another branch of linguistics known as Phonology. This focuses on the way languages use differences between sounds in order to convey differences of meaning between words, and how each language has its own unique sound pattern. Phonology is really the link between Phonetics and the rest of Linguistics.