Teaching elements of ecology to intermediate students in Grammar school

 

 

 

„Nature is full of questions and answers, wonderfull dreams and unsual stories. It can paint, compose music, prite poems. It is the best plilosopher and sage but also the simplest wisdom. Standing aside it laughs at our countless mistakes. Nature can shout, dance, cry and it can be hard on you. Everything depends on your sensibility, ability to listen and look. Nature contains everything, without any exceptions.”

 

Jerzy Oszela.

 

 

The diploma paper deals with the issue of ecology in Poland and abroad, in the process of teaching English as a foreign language. Teaching elements of ecology will make students aware of the implications of cutting out forests by Mitsubishi Syndicate, poisoming seas and rivers by textile industry, polluting the air by power stations, etc.

According to the report of Wonderwatch Institute we still can save our Mother - Earth for ourselves and for our children. The author's aim is to broaden students' konwledge about the countries which face difficulties trying to preserve their natural environment from extinction. The famous Swedish research worker and biologist - Hakan Pleijelsuggests teaching the way of explaining nature in order to stop the environmental crisis. It can be done through understanding natural processes and words related with them.

 

Many handbooks used in Polish schools treat on the question of ecology. The author considers „English is fun” as an example of such books. In part II, Lesson eight the authors : Anna Zawadzka And Elżbieta Moszczak deal with the advantages and disadvantages fo living in the city and in the country. They present the beauty of the world in aspects of fashion, industry and people's relations. The ways of preserving the „beauty” are hardly to be found there. Very often, in primary and grammar schools students know more car makes than names of popular birds, flowers or animals. Ecological konwledge seems to be scare. Walking in the woods young people shous to frighten, destroy flowers, throw rubbish. It happens so, because the students konwledge of nature is often limited to listening papers on ecology. They should be presuaded to do their own simple research works and recommended themselves to look for ways of preserving the environment. Students should be allowed to make their own suggestions, to predict, share konwledge of ecology, write for advice to foreign agencies, organize ecological walks, paint ecological posters, etc. All this will probably make students sensitive to the question of environment and ecology.

 

What is ecology ? Michael Allaby in „ Oxford Dictionary of Ecology”, gives the following definition : „ The scientific study of the interrelationships awrong organisms and between organisms and all aspects, living and non - living, of their environment.”

Through teaching English language the author wants to make it easier for the students to understand the relationships between organisms and the effect of human activities on the natural environment.

 

The paper consist of eight seperate lessons and one consecutive block. The author plans to teach the lessons during two years time. It should be noted that students are taught elements of ecelogy during some other lessons like geografhy, biology or chemistry. They will be given enough time to think the material over, prepare questions, suggestions and their ways of practical solutions. Such is the author's assumption.

 

The target group is intermediate students who have been learning English for four years. Their konwledge of Engilsh allows them to communicate with other speakers of English. They can talk about the weather using basic vocabulary like : snow, rain, fog, thunderstorm, wind, pressure, temperature. They know the names of popular plants, birds and animals. They can recognize the words in the text as well as write them down. They can look up information in reference books and use it to write essays or complete exercises.

 

The students are fourteen and fifteen years old which is the age of second and third grade of Grammar School. The number of dtud

In the group should not be more than fifteen.

 

At the begining of the paper the author assumes the students' konwledge of English to be at the intermediate level. This means that the students should be able to preform well in the following areas :

-         understanding every day vocabulary

-         understanding past events and activities

-         describing and commenting on pictures

-         asking questions ans giving information connected with daily activities and past events

-         paricipating in discussions

-         makings offers

 

by the end of the paper, the students should be able to :

-         live with respect to nature

-         understand some specific terms from meteorology, animal behaviour, plants and animal physiology, hydrology, etc.

-         Act in the area of ecology by : writing protests against using fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture, preparing their own solutions to the question of ecology ( by giving ideas to farmers how to use seaweeds as fertilizers, for insuance ), taking care about the air by drawing the factories' , power stations' , and coal mines' attension to the necessity of using filtres, etc.

-         See ecology as a new scientific discipline

-         Accuately use the vocabulary connected with natural environment by talking about ecological problems during lessons, reading thematic articles and reprts of foreign agencies.

 

 

In teaching elements of ecology the author uses different techniques such as :

-         synonyms - antonyms

-         definitions of ecological terms

-         describing pictures and discussing schemes

-         finding equivalents of ecological terms of native speakers' language in English.

 

The author has consulted the following educational materials :

„ Understanding Our Environment „: edited in co - operation with :

-         Prof. George M. Dunnet, Reguis Proffessor of Natural History, Department of Zoology, University of Aberdeen

-         Prof. John Elliot, University of East Anglia

-         Queen's University, Environmental Science and Technology Research Centre, Belfast and many othres.

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