22.02.2010
The course lasts 2 semesters.
Grade at the end of the second semester depends on the quality of the portfolio and on the detailed project (prepared during whole course).
At the end of this semester the grade depends on the quality of the portfolio.
COMMON SENSE
Quality of the portfolio:
Notes
Type the notes neatly
Articles on every topic:
Download and read the given article
Find a similar article and read it
Teacher: T. Zasadny good: YES
interesting lessons
really wanted to teach
knew how to make students respect him without threatening them
Why are most teachers bad?
Because they cannot or do not want to teach.
RESPONSIBILITY - the most important word in the world if you want to be a teacher.
HW 1
Write a list of qualities that make a good teacher
Write a few sentences: “Am I a good student.”
Choose a course book at pre-intermediate or intermediate level and bring it to every lesson. Part of each lesson will be a workshop.
HW 1
A good teacher:
Patient
Open-minded
Really wants to teach
Has big knowledge
Likes working with people
Pays sufficient attention to individual needs of students
Knows how to make students interested
Knows how to make students respect him/her without threatening them
Changes styles of teaching depending on the topic of the lesson.
Constantly extends his/her pedagogical knowledge.
Does not show too much that he/she has power over the students.
Am I a good student? I think I am a good student but not a perfect one. I have some qualities I consider to be good, such as: I am never late unless something serious happens on the way with public transport; I always am prepared for the lessons and I never talk during lectures. I also have some qualities that I consider to be slightly negative. These are: I am not active when we are supposed to be; I do not like group work and I tend to “turn off” when I find something obvious or boring. All this makes me a rather good student.
01.03.2010
The language we speak has to be passed by to the next generation through music, film, education. Up until the half of XIXth century it wasn't obvious how to teach a language. People thought of teaching a national language like Latin was taught. The importance of speaking wasn't present in education until the beginning of the XIXth century. Most of development happened during the XIXth century. Before that, very little happened. People learning in a traditional way have very good grammar; those who learned in a modern, communicative way have very poor grammar.
1902-1903 - politicians interfered in language teaching, beginning in UK. The problem with education is that nobody wants to take full responsibility. The situation with education is that there is a period of stability and then somebody has an idea, there is a change, a mess and somebody has to clean everything up.
A hundred years ago we had an innovation period.
In education we sometimes have periods of stagnation. The problem in education is that people get excited too easily with new ideas. The other thing is that most of the teachers don't want to teach and most of the students don't want to be in a classroom. Before the 1970s most of the language lessons was grammar, there was no time for speaking. The communicative approach was invented to encourage less communicative people to communicate.
In 1997 statistics showed that 60% of people are multilingual and 70% of them are bilingual.
Nowadays native speakers control the way English is taught but in 20 years it can change so that Polish people will write books and the role of native speakers will limit to the role of language consultants.
Few hundred years ago Latin was the most important language, when the Church lost power, Latin also lost its importance. The power came to kings and queens and national languages, especially English.
Oxford and Cambridge started as Church Universities. Cambridge didn't do B.A. in English until 1923.
Latin became an “occasional language”. It was taught more as an intellectual challenge than a grammar challenge. “It's one thing to use language but it's an other to understand how it works.” English was taught the way Latin has been taught. Roger Asham and Montague were the first to write an English syllabus in XVIth century. In XVIIIth century specific rules about teaching language were made: Each lesson should last 60 minutes and consist of 3 parts: grammar, translation, vocabulary. It was written that speaking was to be discouraged, only a teacher could speak. Grammar was the key to teach.
Sedienstücker Plots - Grammar Translation Method became the worldwide method of teaching English. English people call it “Prussian method.”
Reading and writing should be the main point of every language lesson. Learning grammar should be didactic. The teacher should always speak the language of the country.
Task 1
Look through unit 1 and tell how much space for grammar teaching was provided,
What is the importance of grammar in the book?
Task 1
The firs unit is an introductory one and there is very little grammar. There are no exercises strictly on grammar. In all other units grammar seems to be very important. Every exercise deals with a problem. On margins it is written what problems a certain exercise covers, for example: exercise 1 deals with past simple and continuous, and exercise 2 with social language. In nearly every unit there is at least a bit of grammar.
22.03.2010
Characteristics of the Prussian Method:
Literature for mental discipline
Reading and writing
Vocabulary for reading
Accuracy
Didactic Method is the Prussian Method. Grammar was taught in native languages. It was used in UK until 1944. Since 1950 it is criticised for using native languages.
XIXth century:
Extension of the British Empire - the Empire needed clerks to work for it
Industrial revolution - people had to count and communicate properly.
The way language was taught was “failing the society.”
Prentergast in England and Marcel in France came across TPR (Total Physical Response) by an accident. In TPR the child is active. Prentergas and Dickens say that the thing that should be emphasised in teaching and learning language is the word spoken. The Reform Movement was a group of people all around Europe saying that learners should be allowed to speak during lessons. In 1886 IPA was formed. IPA means the International Phonetic Association. They formed the IPA - International Phonetic Alphabet. Before that people from different part of the world spoke different dialects. If you wanted to be a teacher, you had to do a phonetic course. Learners should be made to speak during lessons.
Henry Sweet - a phonetician who helped to form the IPA. He was the first one to call on methodology in language teaching. He said that 4 things should happen during a lesson:
The teacher should very carefully select the material,
Limits of what a teacher is going to say,
The lesson must include:
Speaking
Listening
Reading
Writing
The materials should be from simple to complex. A variety of materials.
Vieltor, a linguist, wrote a letter in which he said: “Teaching phonetics produces better teachers.” “Speech patterns are more important than grammar.”
In 1882 an article was published: “Teaching language must start afresh.” This article said:
Spoken language is primary,
Phonetics is vital,
Get the learners to hear the language as much as possible,
Grammar should be learned in context.
The Direct Method is the first idea of teaching a language.
The complete lesson should be taught in English.
No translation - if a child doesn't understand something, it has to deduce.
Teach a child everyday vocabulary.
Teaching done orally with no blackboard.
This method worked only with very intelligent people. In 1923 the Coleman Report was published on English language teaching. It attacked the Direct Method, it said there must not be only one method. It has to depend on the level of learners, on a teacher, on the age of learners, etc. It said that every teacher should find their own way of teaching, It asked the teachers:
What should the goal of language teaching be?
Where should the balance between the reading, writing, grammar, etc. be? What should be the focus?
How do you select the language level?
How do you organise your lesson? Material, content points of view.
How much English will I use in the lesson?
The Method Era is the result of the Direct Method and the Coleman Report.
HW 2
Find one method / approach and write something about it, for example: audio-lingual. Circa ½ page. “Methods and Approaches in English language teaching” by Jack Richards.
HW 2
Total Physical Response is a language learning method based on the coordination of speech and action. It was developed by James Asher, a professor of psychology at San Jose State University, California. It is linked to the trace theory of memory, which says that the more often or intensively a memory connection is used, the stronger the memory will be.
Asher does not directly address his view of language, but it is stated that classroom activities seem to be built on the structural view of language.
Asher's language learning theories seem similar to other behavioural theories. He elaborated many principles, here are some of them:
Once listening comprehension has been developed, speech develops naturally and effortlessly out of it,
Second language learning is parallel to the first language learning and should reflect the same naturalistic processes,
Delaying speech reduces stress,
Children respond physically to spoken language, and adult learners learn better if they do that too,
Listening should develop before speaking.
Here are some of the objectives of Total Physical Response
Using action-based drills in the imperative form,
Using comprehension as a means to speaking,
Teaching oral proficiency at a beginning level.
Total Physical Response uses a sentence-based grammatical syllabus.
The main activities in the TPR are these, where a command is given in the imperative and the students obey the command.
Blaine Ray, a Spanish language teacher, added stories to TPR to help students acquire non-physical language. He created the foundation of the method known as Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling, in contraction TPRS. It was built on Stephen Krashen's theories of language acquisition.
In my course book the only exercises this method be used in are listening comprehensions and class discussions.
29.03.2010
That's when the term “method” was first used. A method is no more than an idea. During one lesson a good teacher uses several teaching methods.
After the Direct Method the Method Era began and lasted until 1960s. A method is a theory.
A method is an idea, a theory, no more.
If you know a lot of methods, you'll have a disposal, variety of varieties.
If you've got a variety of approaches and you know how to use them, the students benefit from it, the language benefits.
A good teacher has to find a third way between training and learning.
A method has to be tested on students to see if it works. A method called “Summer Hill” is forbidden in Poland but it's used in UK. In this method students can decide about the length of the lesson and its content.
If you want to use a method you have to ask yourself: “Why?” How you manage a situation and people - is a method. You have to ask yourself: “Does this method fit my students?” You have to find the centre of gravity - dominating people in a group. You have how you'll deal with a situation. You can either use or avoid confrontation.
ADVICE: Never use confrontation.
HW 3
Look through as many approaches as possible
Read 3 properly
Which ones would be best for your Practical English on first year? Are teachers using them? If you would teach Practical English, would you use them?
HW 3
In my opinion generally the best set of rules for Practical English is Communicative language teaching (CLT) because without the rules which are the basis of this approach there would be no Practical English. I also find 2 other methods good for teaching Practical English - the audio-lingual method and the oral approach.
Rules in communicative language teaching that I find vital for Practical English are: an emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language; the introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation; an attempt to link classroom language learning with language activities outside the classroom. These features of the approach are very important and every language teacher should keep them in mind.
In audio-lingual method the focus on grammar is important because recently teachers tend to neglect grammar and concentrate on speaking and generally communicating. Students learn grammar in structures not in formulas which in my opinion helps them not to confuse them which each other. A very good thing about this method is that only the learned language is used during lessons, which only helps learners to improve their grammar and pronunciation.
In oral approach a great role plays vocabulary learned through reading authentic texts and grammar in spoken language. It is easier for learners to learn language on the basis of situations because it helps them to combine the usage of some structures with them. I also like the organisation of the lesson which is logical. New material is introduced, then students do exercises with the interference of a teacher and then they practise with less control of a teacher - I think that it is the best way to organise a lesson with students on many levels of intelligence and language skills.
During Practical English lessons teachers do not use the oral approach because we rarely are taught for example grammar in situations, the only substitute of situations could be dialogues used sometimes by few teachers. We are made to read authentic English texts to learn new vocabulary from them so I think this could also be treated as the oral approach to some point. I have a feeling that teachers implement parts of audio-lingual method by speaking only English. We are also corrected when we make grammar mistakes and we are assessed for grammar we use. Most methods which my teachers use fit the communicative language teaching but as I have mentioned there are only rules so it is hard to call CLT a method itself.
I chose only these methods which I find appropriate for teaching Practical English so I would definitely use them as a teacher but only parts of them. I think that each of methods I presented has good and bad sites and I would try to make my own method out of these I mentioned and more. I consider CLT to be a combination of most methods introduced in the Method Era and probably I would mostly use CLT during my classes.
12.04.2010
There are about 40 methods and approaches but about10 are good. You have to ask yourself: “Is it practical?”
Does it work with students?
Do you have enough materials?
Do you have enough abilities?
When you are using a method ask experienced teachers which methods work best with students. “Why use a method or approach?” is the first thing to think of before using a method.
Not all of us have the same abilities.
Ask yourself: “Who am I?” before you start a lesson.
Effective teaching - is it effective, does it work?
Never say: “Do you understand?” or “You will do this.”
Analyse how effective learning is. The best way to asses your method is to see how the learners progress. If your method is good, the learning activities are successful.
When you are using a method or approach you have to:
engage all the learners in a lesson
Education isn't democratic. All young learners are at different levels and we can't expect them to be at one level.
accept that children are very different from each other
treat everybody the same
The thing is not how you start but how you finish up.
When you teach Practical English subject, the learners are the focus!!!
OPPORTUNITY
You always give students maximum opportunity to speak, write, read.
RESPONSIBILITY
You have to be able to develop learners' responsibility.
CONFIDENCE
You have to teach students what they really need!!!
ACCURACY AND FLUENCY
You have to be aware of your weaknesses and strengths. If you are bad at something you have NO right to punish them for making mistakes.
DIFFERENT WAYS OF TEACHING
AUDIO-LINGUAL
Communication is the key to the lesson. Everybody gets involved in talking. Students copy you. The teacher leads form the front. Teacher provides situations and examples, and involves all the learners. After such lesson you have introduced 6 or 7 structures which students know how to use. In audio-lingual the teacher is the focus. Audio-lingual will take only about 10 minutes. There is nothing better than repetition. If you repeat something it becomes a habit.
Another thing is to drill the students. When you read something backwards you have to concentrate more and it helps you to remember the structure or spelling. Learning back and forward makes it smoother. With audio-lingual praise your students to make them confident and to move forward.
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