An old Chineese proverb says: "I have heard-I have forgetten, I have
seen- have
remembered, I have done- I know”. Therefore, in foreign language,
teaching the main
thing is to involve all the pupils in activities and exersices, but for
it we need some
good planning principles. The two main problems between two daily
planning are variety and
flexibility. Variety means involving pupils in a number of different
types of activities
and introducing them to a wide selection of materials. It meansplanning
sothat learning is
interesting and never monatenous for pupils. Flexibility comeswhen the
teacher has to
change the plan in particular situation. I want to speak about some
hints for lesson
managment.
- Prepare more than you need. It is advisable to prepare an easy
activity, ready in case
of extra time.
- Make sure you’re aware of how the time is going relatively to your
programme
- Do not leave the home task to the last moment. At the end of the
lesson, the learner’s
atention is at the lowest level and you may run out of time before
you finish explaining.
Explain it earlier and then give a quick reminder at the end. Write
your homework on the
blackboard.
- If you have papers to distribute to a large class, do not try to
give every paper
yourself to every student.
- If you are doing group work, give instructions and make sure these
are understood before
handing out materials.
I want to mention some types of the lessons that are more resultful
in foreign language
teaching.
Fantasy lesson. Pupils sit in a circle, make up a story
according to the theme, and
draw a picture to it.
Integral lesson. Pupils are given the words, which have
been taken from English
dictionary and try to explain their meaning by finding synonyms or using
them in the
context. This activity gives an opportunity to students to show their
skills in language
learning.
In planning daily lessons, I try to use different activities and
exercises. Zhaunbay
Karaev’s level tasks are useful for arising interests in
learning. It consists of
four levels:
1. Common (pupil’s) level.
At this stage, pupils are given simple and easy tasks, such as:
Fill in the missing letters: weat_er, wh_t, Brit_ in,
We_nesday, etc.
These tasks vary according to the students’ level and they help to
revise all learned
materials
2. Algorithmic level. At this stage, pupils do
various tasks, which
make students to think a lot. These tasks may include the new grammar
structures, which
has just been explained or it may be in the form of revising. I prefer
such exercises as
comparing and choosing the tense forms for 7th, 8th
grades , making
up the sentences in Subjunctive Mood or changing direct speech into
indirect speech for 9th
and 10th grades. There are some examples given below:
Past Perfect or Past Continuous?
Omar had written/ was writing when I came. Jane had
cleaned/ was cleaning
the room by 6 o’clock. Victor said that he had translated/ was
translating the
article at that time.
Past Perfect Passive or Past Continuous Passive?
The secretary announced that the letters had been written / were
being written
at that moment.
The teacher informed that the dictations had been checked / were
being checked
before the lesson started.
3. Creative level. It is the most interesting stage
for pupils, as I
have remarked. This level gives them to show their talents and abilities
in poetry and
drama. E.g. after reading the text, I give to the pupils a task to make
up a short poem
according to the text they have just read. In this case, I give them a
structure to which
they will refer:
_________________________________ fox,
_________________________________box.
_________________________________clever
_________________________________never.
Some of the pupils made up such poems: A red fox,
Was sitting in a box
It was so clever,
Eat hares never or
I have a fox,
It is a toy in the box.
I think it is very clever,
I will leave it alone never.
May be in some cases it will be alike more to nonsense than to poems,
but it helps a
lot in practicing the vocabulary and grammar.
The last level is search level. It involves students into research
works and projects.
For example, by finding the neutral words in the text a pupil may become
interested in the
formation of neutral words, such as flight attendant instead of stuardess
, shop
assistant instead of sales woman, so on. But this level can
not be done during
the lesson, as it needs much time.
John Sores’ method of critical thinking is very useful in teaching
foreign language.
I always use "Group strategy”, "Have learnt strategy” and Venn diagram.
Let us
take one of the lessons from home reading. The text is about wild
animals, especially
wolves.
1. "Group strategy”. What can you say when you hear the word "wild
animal
wolf”?
2. Presenting the new words by means of pictures, translation,
synonyms and jestures.
3. Reading the text about the wolf. Answering questions.
4. "Have learnt” strategy. What did you know about wolves before
reading the text?
What have you learnt from the text? What do you want know further?
What are you interested in?
There are some possible answers of pupils:
I know that wolves live in forests; they are meat-eating
animal.
I have learnt from the text that wolves try not to attack
the sheep of neighbor
farms.
I want to know about their habitat and ways of living, why
they are called "the
sanitary of the nature”.
Then students draw a diagram about differences and similarities of
wolves and dogs.
Wolves |
Both |
Dogs |
Grey |
Meat-eating |
Various |
wild |
|
Domestic |
Sometimes I give them a task to make their own album of animals and
plants. They must
write stories using the new words and word combinations. The result of
this task will
astonish you because everyone tries to make his book or album better
than others do.
They will find a lot of new information and share it with their
classmates. These
albums and books will help you next year in explaining this theme to the
next grade.
The next interesting activity for pupils is making a project work on
the theme. For
example, in the sixth form the pupils had studied a unit connected with
education and
schools. At the last lesson, they prepared the project "My Ideal
School”. They drew
the pictures of their dream schools and wrote descriptions for them. The
result was
exciting, though they were the sixth form pupils; they had so big ideas
and plans. Their
dream schools were great and even I wanted to be accepted to these
schools as pupil or
work at them as a teacher.
Children are our treasure, our future, and, we, teachers, must bring
up them with great
sense of love for Mother-earth and nature. The great Kazakh scholar and
teacher Ahmet
Baitursunov said: "The education must be given with up-bringing, because
the education
given without up-bringing is dangerous for society”.
At the end, I want to say that wherever we are, whatever we teach, we
must remember one
thipg: we must bring up a deep love for humanity in our children .
With great love from Kazakhstan, Iskendirova Saniya Amanzholkizi. |