DIDACTICS I

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Newsletter 12 23rd November 2001

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Universidad Tecnológica Nacional

Instituto Nacional Superior del Profesorado Técnico

Cátedra de Didáctica Especial del Primer y Segundo Ciclo de la EGB

Profesores:  Omar Villarreal, Fernando Armesto, Claudia Alvarez.

& Adriana Lauri.

Instituto Superior de Formación Docente Nro 41 – Adrogué.

Profesor : Omar Villarreal

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"Start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible."
Saint Francis of Assisi

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Dear All,

This is our last issue this year. The second parcial is over and today we will have our make-up (there might be those who will be playing hard risking everything in a February make-up). Still there are a few summaries to publish. So here we are again.

This has been a tough year. But it was not so bad after all… we had you, our families and friends and our blessed job to make it better.

A big hug to you all

Omar Villarreal

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Campolonghi, Laureana

Activity-based teaching

Topic centred learning

Through a topic the children are guaranteed interesting content, a share context and emphasis on meaning. These provides a genuine purpose for learning. Language becomes a passport to finding out, to increasing their knowledge. If a topic chosen is directly relevant to children´s experiences or interests, topic centred learning can be made more meaningful to them.

Activity-based learning

Children are irrepressible doers. It´s by doing that they learn. Various forces stimulate children into activity, most evident among them play, creativity and curiosity. In play, children are active symbol-makers, imitators or actors. Within the safety of the play situation they try things out in their fantasy and imagination. Children want to make things for themselves. They are also curious, they want to experiment, find out. In the language classroom, the teacher can exploit what children naturally do. Activity-based learning is focus on the language skills to be learned. The activities within their language curriculum should enhance their cognitive and manual skills as well as to develop their target language skills.

Planning the topic

The teacher first needs to choose a topic that is appropriate for her group of pupils. The topic needs to be wide enough to appeal to varying interests and levels of ability and perhaps both boys and girls.

Having decided a topic we have to produce a topic web, it´s a free exploration of ideas expected to cover, identifying language structures, activities, and so on. There are several different kinds of activities. Activities can include one or more cognitive skills such as describing, identifying, matching, classifying, and so on. Children finds tasks which are challenging more interesting than those with obvious solutions. The most challenging learning activities are open-ended activities, where the outcome or answers are not known. The children become real learners, where they have to think rather than simply remember. The open-ended activities tend to allow for greater creativity and responsability. With closed activities the solutions are known. They are used to check their own work.

The teacher´s role

The teacher have to introduce new language and provide practice with repetition in order to consolidate what is learned. The teacher needs to consider the following issues: preparing the children, language support, strategies for managing the classroom and a system of feedback and assessment. The children need to be prepared linguistically to give them confidence to use English. This involves initial input and ongoing support and feedback. The teacher creates learning situations where children must use the target language structure but also are challenged. Activity-centred learning frequently involves group work. The teacher may need to interrupt and activity to teach and reinforce a language point. By creating the opportunity for groups to share their tasks and end-results, the teacher enables the children to provide feedback for each other. In closed activities, the children can assess their own achievement by matching their results with predicted outcome, while the teacher keeps the overview of pupil´s competence and progress

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De Felice, María José

The role of fun and games activities in teaching young learners

It´s common place that young children learn better through play or at least can be induced to go along with teaching that is tempered by fun activities. We might all take care about exactly what the children are absorbed in.

Fun should have the role in rather than just be feature of children´s education.

Here are some pitfalls:

- Aboard game whose rules are not complicated that the children are more absorbed in its mechanics than in the language comprehension or production work that was originally designed to stimulte little English and a lot of native language will be heard.

- Some teachers are afraid of playing because they feel that children may be out of control. For these cases there are two messages to the teacher:

First, we need to monitor what is actually going on the class.

Second, we need to develop a clear understanding of the mechanics and effects of different activity types.

Fun activities should form part of the skills, conceptual and cultural, social development of the child.

Rigorous grammatical analysis does not seem to be appropiate to all the children, though discovery of the rules may be useful pay-off of pleasant informal activities.

Language pay-off is one of the most obvious parameters to consider.

Some games can promote general educational benefits like concentration, close listening and memory strategies.

Picture dominoes

This is a game which demands both lateral and logical thinking together with an expression of that thinking in English.

Students have to put a set of different pictures cards into a chain in which each card has some link with the one next to it . The links may be obvious or it can be the products of an individual child´s imagination or opinion.

The main point is that the link must be expressed in English before the move can be made. This game can be played using the normal rules of dominoes ( one dominoes per turn, the first player to finish is the winner) but its works just as well even better if the students co-operate in building up the most satisfying chain, helping each other with ideas and language.

Dot-to-dot puzzle

This game where the numbers are given as words or as letters of the alphabet can provide useful reinforcement for number and letter work. There is an additional language pay-off if the child then has to write under the solved puzzle: “ This is a …”

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Analía Alvarado

1 What is good primary practice?

Jean Brewster, Ealing College, England

Nunan (1988) writes of the benefits to be derived from applying general educational theory and research to language teaching:

Although theoretical linguistics is an important base discipline, it is not the only discipline which has anything of value to contribute to decision-making on what, how and when to teach.

There are other features which all contribute to our understanding of good educational practice in the teaching of English to young children.

How do children think and learn?

Primary education has been influenced by attempts to discover the ways in which people think and learn, in Britain.

Piaget (1967)	Bruner (1962)	Vygotsky (1966)
The three stages: (ascertained by means of cognitive tasks) sensori-motor’ (birth to 18 months approx.) ‘concrete operational’ (18 months to 11 years approx.) It’s subdivided into two periods: -the ‘pre-operational’ which lasts until around the age of seven : the ‘concrete operations are being prepared for; and –the ‘operational’: They are established and consolidated. ‘formal operation’ period (11 years onwards) Piaget was primarily interested in the structure of mature thinking. Both Piaget and Bruner, emphasise the importance of action and problem- solving in learning and believe that abstract thinking should grow out of and be abstracted from material actions. Piaget and Vygotsky differed in their views on the nature of language and its effect on intellectual development. Piaget argued that language exerts no formative effects on the structure of thinking: mental actions and operations are derived from action, not talk.	Concept of Language Acquisition Support System (LASS). Bruner: ‘For language development there needs to be a child component , incorporating an innate propensity for active social interaction and language learning, together with an adult support and help component.’ The interactional partner provides a structure or framework which Bruner calls ‘scaffolding’. While Bruner sought to describe the different Processes that are implicated in problem-solving. From both, Piaget’s and Bruner’s perspectives, teaching that teaches children only how to manipulate abstract procedureswithout first establishing the deep connections between such procedures and the activities involved in the solution of concrete problems is bound to fail. Bruner and Vygotsky place a greater emphasis than Piaget on role of language, communication and instruction in the development of knowledge and understanding . Bruner’s view: ‘Children’s language and learning development takes place through the processes of social interaction.’	Vygotsky argued that in the beginning speech serves a communicative function; later it transforms the way in which children think, learn and understand. It becomes an instrument of thought, providing the means by which planning and self-regulation to achieve goals takes place. Thus speech forms the highest mental processes, including the ablility to plan, evaluate, memorise and reason. These processes are culturally formed in social interaction. Language gives structure to and directs the processes of thinking and concept formation themselves. Vygotsky:’ intelligence’ is the capacity to learn through instruction. The ‘ zone of proximal development’ (ZPD) is the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem-solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance. This theory emphasises the social nature of knowledge acquisition.

How have these theories influenced primary classrooms?

These are the main features of primary practice in Britain between the 1960s and 1980s:

a) Teacher autonomy.

b) A child-centred curriculum and methodology. This led to a concern for the education of the whole child, including his/her moral, physical, emotional and intellectual growth.

c) Individualised learning, where children were free to work at their own level and pace.

d) A topic-based approach, developed out of child-centredness and emphasising the integration of different aspects of the curriculum.

e) A methodology whose emphasis was ‘learning by doing’ and problem-solving, involving frequent use of work in small groups.

Today primary practice in Britain is undergoing enourmous change following the introduction of the National Curriculum. In the recent past Britain has been proud of its tradition of ‘child-centred’ primary education based on a flexible curriculum which was not assessment-driven.

There are now real fears that child-centred education may become a thing of the past as teaching falls under the grip of national testing.

The Department of Education and Science (DES) document (1989) lists the features which, in the teaching of English, are held to represent good primary practice, a term which is frequently used but rarely defined.

1 Using language to make, receive and communicate meaning, in purposeful contexts.

2 An ‘apprenticeship’ approach to acquiring written and oral language, in which the adult represents the ‘success’ the child seeks and yet offers endless help.

3 Maximum encouragement and support whilst errors are mastered; the

appreciation that mistakes are necessary to learning.

4 Working on tasks which the children have chosen and which they direct for themselves.

5 Employing a variety of forms with a clear awareness of audience.

6 Working with teachers who are themselves involved in the process- talkers, listeners, readers.

7 Reading literature for enjoyment, responding to it critically and using that reading for learning.

Many EFL teachers would probably agree with most of these points. Points 1 to 5 in line with the Communicative approach to ELT and views on process writing.

Points 2 and 3 state that risk-taking is important in children’s learning and that the making of mistakes can reveal the evidence of learning rather than being detrimental to learning. As Mayor writes, ‘the important thing is that a

child should be given the space to experiment and take risks with the language, on the principle that fluency is more likely to lead to accuracy than vice versa.’

Point 4 is more controversial and probably represents the kind of classroom activity which is viewed as typically British, but not always! Point 6 has emerged from the teaching of literacy: if children see teachers reading with enjoyment, they are more motivated to develop their own literacy. Point 7 is related to the importance of stories and rhymes in children’s learning and their frequent use I

primary EFL classrooms.

The DES report includes a note on classroom organisation: ‘Effective English teaching may occur where a whole class listens attentively or engages in a lively question and answer session; in small group teaching in which a high degree of interaction is possible; and in one-to-one setting where a child may receive individual help and support.’

How do children learn a foreign language?

Ellis suggests that there are eight features of classroom discourse which may be important in SLD

(Second language development). These features can be grouped thus:

The teacher’s use of language

1 Quantity of intake

2 An input rich in directives

3 An input rich in ‘extending’ utterances

Types of activity used and support provided

4 A need to communicate

5 Adherence to the ‘here and now’ principle

The learner’s use of language

6 Independent control of the propositional content

7 The performance of a range of speech acts

8 Uninhibited practice

The first three features concern the nature of the language input. Qualitative and quantitive aspects of the speech addressed to a child are important in both FLD (first language development ) and SLD. We have seen how theories of children’s learning require that young learners be supported by moving from the concrete to the abstract and through being involved in activity.

Point 2 is useful since it requires a non-verbal response and refers to concrete features of the Environment which makes decoding of the propositional content easier. Many primary EFL classrooms use the approach to ELT called ‘total physical response’ (TPR), which is one means of providing an input rich in directives.

The second group of features with the types of language activity in which the learner is engaged.

Point 4 refers to the need for language teaching to be based on purposeful communication.

Point 5 refers to the need to move from the concrete to the abstract in order to support children’s understanding of the propositional content of a message.

The third group of features concerns the types of language used by the learner. Ellis suggest that SLD is likely to be more successful if children are free in the foreign language learning context to initiate interaction as well as respond to others’ use of language.

To ensure that children have the opportunity to use a wide range of language, teachers must include a variety of task types based on games, stories, collaborative problem-solving of information-gap activities which will provide wherever possible a context and audience for the production of spoken

and written language.

How can children be helped to learn a foreign language?

Wood (1988) explains the ways in which younger children are more ‘distractable’ than older ones,

Writing that the ability to keep on task and to ignore distractions is a symptom of the child’s intellect, and changes in concentration span are related to intellectual development.

Vygotsky argued that mature mental activity involves adaptive ‘self-regulation’ which develops through social interaction. Wood writes: ‘Attending, concentrating and memorising are activities.

Simply asking a child aged five or six to pay attention, concentrate, study, learn or remenber is unlikely to bear fruit. Unless we embody the material to be learned and remembered in a task that makes sense to the child, one that involves objectives (he/she) can realise that draws (his/her) attention ‘naturally’ to the elements we wish (him/her) to take in, our imperatives to concentrate,

memorise or learn are almost bound to fail.

Wood gives an example of children being asked to memorise the names of toy animals. If they are asked to point to and verbally label each animal, they are more likely to be able to remember the names than when simply asked to remember the names without accompanying actions.

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Laura Capararo

GAMES FOR CHILDREN. Lewis, Gordon and Bedson, Gunther

WHY USE GAMES IN THE EFL (English as a Foreign Language) CLASSROOM?

Through games children experiment, discover, and interact with their environment. Games add variation to a lesson and increase motivation by providing an incentive to use the TARGET LANGUAGE.

WHAT IS A LANGUAGE GAME?

What differentiates language games from other activities in the EFL classroom is the presence of a set of rules which guide the children´s actions, and an element of strategy (children must successfully apply their language skills). Children are required to make individual choices based on a specific language crieria which form part of the rules.

THE KEY TO A SUCCESSFUL LANGUAGE: the rules must be clear and the game must be fun but always KEEP THE LANGUAGE COMPONENT AT THE FOREFRONT OF YOUR PLANNING.

INTEGRATING GAMES INTO THE SYLLABUS: games can supplement the core material or replace activities you dislike.

USES OF LANGUAGE GAMES:

1) to introduce new material

2) to practise recently learnt language items

3) to relax or energize a class: ROUSERS wake up a class (movement games and competitive games). SETTLERS calm a class down (craft activities and games focus on listening)

PLAY DIFFERENT GAMES FROM LESSON TO LESSON : do not overdo a game

VARY THE ORDER IN WHICH YOU PLAY GAMES: avoid repetitive routines (song-drill-game-craft, song-drill-game-craft) You can INSERT THE GAME WHEN ENERGY AND UNDERSTANDING ARE AT THEIR BEST.

THINK AHEAD: the best designed game will backfire if you are not fullu sure about all aspects of the activity.

MAKING GAMES INTO PART OF THE SYLLABUS: games creation involves many skills as well as active decision making on the part of the children. It is a rich field in which to practise some basic English.

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Karina V. La Banca(morning shift) Didactics I

English as a foreign language in primary level: the search for content

Ray Tongue compares:

TRADITIONAL METHOD ENGLISH LANGUAGE

TEACHING FROM A

COMMUNICATIVE

APPORACH

Learners have to

know about the language Know the language

Forma of the target language Language as means of

METHODS: communication

Audio lingual

Oral - structural

Structural-situational

They take the sentence as a unit of

Instruction

Exemplification and practice of the

Grammatical system through isolated

and uncontextualised sentences

Difficulty in 2nd language learners with

some features: article system, anaphoric

reference, sequence, tenses, connectives,

stylistic choices "intersentential features",

they belong to the whole text and not to

the individual sentence, they cannot be

taught by an approach which focuses

exclusively on the sentence.

They pay little attention to the language Language used to communicate

function and equally little to the purposes

for which the language is being learnt

Meaning subordinated to form Meaning is the main point

Programmes: language being used for the Specify what the learner should

purpose of teaching language be able to do with target language

"Children are asked to speak speaking" at different stages "Children

Focuses on language ignoring the learner speak something to some purpose.

“pupils are picking up small parts of the

language machinery”

TENOR: teaching English for not specific

reason

Difficulty of establishing credible performance Objectives: specific and precisely defined objectives

He proposes four approaches to primary English

Problem of content rather than objectives

Cophinathan of Singapore pointed, "Content of language courses has to be organized in relation to the functional range of the language in question in society concerned, which it is not easy to determine (in the case Hong Kong)

Worldwide English is the language of Science and Technology

So Science for example is likely to be taught in English many of the scientific vocabulary has borrowed widely from English.

Language items: have/ has Can/cannot

Examples

"This is a cat

It is brown

It has 4 legs

"Peter, can you touch the floor? Yes. I can"

Tom, can you touch the ceiling? No, I can't"

Content-based extracts offer material of greater interest

This is a balsam plant

It is red

It has leaves

Magnets

Can a magnet attract paper clip?

Can it attract pencils?

The 2 first extracts demonstrate how in language work, the second ones, do the same but tells the learner something he didn’t know before.

2) To scan primary curriculum for appropriate English teaching

Learners explore through their mother tongue (integrative parts) the world and use English to have a second look at appropriate parts of their world (the instrumental parts). So certain topics of the syllabus are suitable:

public transport, clothing worn in other lands, countries of the world, postal and telephone services, newspaper and TV.

Put the English into a "language and other arts"

With concentration on games, puzzles, verses, stories, competitions, dramatizations, quizzes together with songs and music, coloring, tracing, composing pictures, and other artistic activities of various kinds

"The excessive control of language, otherwise is the main reason for the dull of primary language teaching material

A combination of all approaches

The ones sketched above might offer an attractive body of content for primary English- " It id the language that determines the content of the lesson and not vise versa.

Learner interest, enjoyment and successful use of language for particular communicative tasks should have priority over structural grading and other matters related to linguistic forms.

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Graciela Bilbao

A COURSE IN LANGUAGE TEACHING PRACTICE AND THEORY BY PENNY UR

MODULE 5 TEACHING VOCABULARY

UNIT 1 WHAT IS VOCABULARY?

Words we teach in the foreign language BUT a new item may be more than a single word (Post‑office) SO it's better to talk about Vocabulary 'ITEMS' instead OF 'WORDS'.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE TAUGHT?

. Form

• Grammar

• Collocation

• Aspects of meaning * Denotation

• Connotation

• Appropriateness

• Word formation

UNIT 2 WAYS OF PRESENTING NEW VOCABULARY

Concise definition

Detailed description

Examples

Illustration

Demonstration

Context

Synonyms

Antonyms

Translation

Associated ideas, collocations

UNIT 4 IDEAS FOR VOCABULARY WORK IN THE CLASSROOM

BRAINSTORMING IDENTIFYING WORDS

ROUND AN IDEA WE KNOW

MODULE 6 TEACHING GRAMMAR

UNIT 1 WHAT IS GRAMMAR?

In general: A set of rules that define how words are combined or changed to form acceptable units of meaning within a language.

Grammatical Structures: A specific instance of grammar is usually called a 'structure'. (The Past Tense, Noun Plurals, etc.) Grammar does not only affect how units of language are combined to 'look right', it also affects their meaning.

UNIT 4 PRESENTING AND EXPLAINING GRAMMAR

GUIDE

Include both oral and written forms, form and meaning. Provide enough examples. A simple generalization rather than a detailed grammar‑book definition. Speak and write clearly. Appropriate speed. Decide whether a rule would be helpful or not.

UNIT 5 TYPES OF GRAMMAR PRACTICE ACTIVITIES

Awareness

Controlled drills

Meaningful drills

Guided, meaningful practice

Free sentence composition

Discourse composition

Free discourse

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MODULE 8 TEACHING LISTENING

UNIT 1 WHAT DOES REAL‑LIFE LISTENING INVOLVE?

LISTENING SITUATIONS

Interview Theatre show

Instructions

Telephone chat

Loudspeaker announcements

Lesson, lecture

Radio news

Conversation, gossip

Committee meeting

Watching television

Shopping

Story‑ telling

CHARACTERISTICS OF REAL‑LIFE LISTENING SITUATIONS

1 Informal Spoken Discourse:

FEATURES

Brevity of 'chunks'

Pronunciation

Vocabulary

Grammar

'Noise'

Redundancy

Non‑repetition

2 LISTENER EXPECTATIONS AND PURPOSE

3 LOOKING AS WELL AS LISTENING

4 ONGOING, PURPOSEFUL LISTENER RESPONSE

5 SPEAKER ATTENTION

UNIT 2 REAL‑LIFE LISTENING IN THE CLASSROOM

Classroom listening is not real life listening but it's useful to provide students with training in listening

comprehension. Listening activities based] on simulated real‑life situations are more motivating and

interesting.

GUIDELINES

1 Listening Texts

Informal talk

Speaker visibility, direct speaker‑listener interaction

2 Listening Tasks:

Single exposure

Expectations

Purpose

Ongoing listener response

UNIT 4 TYPES OF ACTIVITIES

1 NO OVERT RESPONSE: Stories, Songs and Entertainment (film, videos, theatre)

2 SHORT RESPONSES

Obeying instructions

Ticking off items

True/ False

Detecting mistakes

Cloze

Guessing definitions

Skimming and Scanning

3 LONGER RESPONSES

Answering questions

Note‑ taking

Paraphrasing translating

Summarizing

Long gap‑filling

4 EXTENDED RESPONSES

• Problem ‑ solving

•Interpretation

MODULE 9 TEACHING SPEAKING

UNIT 1 SUCCESSFUL ORAL FLUENCY PRACTICE

CHARACTERISTICS

Learners talk a lot

Participation is even

Motivation is high

Language is of an acceptable level

PROBLEMS WITH SPEAKING ACTIVITIES

• Inhibition

• Nothing to say

• Low or uneven participation

• Mother‑tongue use

WHAT TO DO TO AVOID THESE PROBLEMS?

• Use group work

• Base the activity on easy language

• Careful choice of topic and task to stimulate interest

• Give some instruction or training in discussion skills

• Keep students speaking the target language

UNIT 2 THE FUNCTIONS OF TOPIC AND TASK

TOPIC: A good topic is one to which learners can relate using ideas from their own experience and

Knowledge.

TASK: A task is essentially goal ‑oriented.

UNIT 3 DISCUSSION ACTIVITIES

• Describing pictures

• Picture differences

• Things in common

• Shopping list

• Solving a problem

MODULE 10 TEACHING READING

UNIT 1 HOW DO WE READ?

SOME ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE NATURE OF READING

We need to perceive and decode letters in order to read words

We need to understand all the words in order to understand the meaning of a text. The more symbols (letters or words) there are in a text, the longer it will take to read it. We gather meaning from what we read. Our understanding of a text comes from understanding the words of which it is composed.

UNIT 3 TYPES OF READING ACTIVITIES

IDEAS FOR READING ACTIVITIES

Pre‑question

Do‑it‑yourself questions

Provide a title

Summarize

Continue

Preface

Gapped text

Mistakes in the text

Comparison

Responding

Representation of content

UNIT 4 IMPROVING READING SKILLS

Getting learners to understand a simple text is only the beginning. Reading skills need to be fostered so that they can cope with more and more sophisticated texts and tasks, and deal with them efficiently.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Let your students choose their own simplified readers and give them time to read them. The vocabulary must be familiar. Words unknown can he either easily guessed or safely ignored. Give interesting tasks before asking learners to read. The task must encourage selective, intelligent reading for the main meaning (not trivial details). Allow students to manage without understanding every word. Provide variety of texts and tasks.

MODULE 11 TEACHING WRITING

UNIT 2 TEACHING PROCEDURES

The purpose of writing is the expression of ideas but the writer needs also to pay some attention to formal aspects: handwriting, spelling, punctuation and of course, acceptable grammar and vocabulary. One of the problems in teaching writing is to maintain a fair balance between content and form but this 'fair balance' depends on our own teaching situation and opinion.

CLASSIFYING WRITING ACTIVITIES

WRITING:

AS AN END IN ITSELF

AS MEANS AND END

AS A MEANS

UNIT 3 TASKS THAT STIMULATE WRITING

Some textbook writing activities are:

Write a report or a review of a book. Write an instruction sheet. (Prepare food) Write a narrative or a personal story Describe a view / someone / people. Answer a letter. Job application, etc.

Sometimes tasks given in textbooks do Not always stimulate writing effectively. That's why it's useful to take into account these CRITERIAS.

SOME CRITERIA FOR THE EVALUATION OF TEXTBOOK WRITING ACTIVITIES

• Is the activity motivating, stimulating and interesting to do?

• Is it of an appropriate level for them? (easy ‑‑ difficult / childish – sophisticated)

• Is the kind of writing relevant to their needs?

• Is it necessary to do some preliminary teaching in preparation for this activity?

• Do I like this activity? Would I use it?

UNIT 5 GIVING FEEDBACK ON WRITING

PROBLEMS: 1) WHAT SHOULD FEEDBACK BE MAINLY ON:

LANGUAGE? CONTENT? ORGANIZATION?

We should correct language mistakes without conveying the message that these are the main basis for evaluation. We may correct mistakes and make suggestions as to content and organization, but not evaluate, and give the evaluation only on the basis of the rewritten, polished version.

2) SHOULD ALL MISTAKES BE CORRECTED?

The correcting of mistakes is part of the language instruction but too much of it can be discouraging and demoralizing. We might correct only mistakes that actually affect meaning.

3) SHOULD LEARNERS REWRITE, INCORPORATING CORRECTIONS?

Rewriting is very important because it reinforces learning and it's an integral part of the writing process as a whole, BUT if we demand rewriting we must reread and value what they have done; so it's better to consider the first version as provisional and regard the final one as ' THE' assignment.

4) SHOULD WE LET STUDENTS CORRECT OR GIVE FEEDBACK ON EACH OTHER'S WRITTEN WORK?

In general , peer correction can be useful but it doesn't release us from tile duty of checking and evaluating student writing. They can work together on their first drafts and then rewrite and give the final version to the teacher but the question of personal relationships is not a problem that can be solved by particular teaching techniques. It depends on the general classroom climate.

VOCABULARY GRAMMAR PRACTICE ACTIVITIES

*Awareness

read an article. find and underline examples

*Controlled drills write statements about John. follow the example:

John drinks tea but he doesn't drink coffee

*Meaningful drills

choose someone you know very well and write true statements

about them according to the following example

he/ she likes ice cream

he/ she doesn't like ice cream

*Guided, meaningful practice

write sentences according to a set pattern using your own words

if 1 had a million dollars... what would you do?

*(structure based) free sentence composition

Describe a picture using the appropriate tense

*(structure based) discourse composition

give a dilemma situation and ask to recommend a solution. they are

directed to include modals

*Free discourse

they are given no specific direction to use the structure. they don't

receive the final direction

LISTENING ACTIVITIES

follow instructions

listen to a recorded talk and then answer the multiple choice

questions below

SPEAKING ACTIVITIES.

describing pictures

picture differences

things in common

shopping list

solving a problem

READING ACTIVITIES.

answering comprehension questions (after reading a text)

answer questions before reading the text and then check

try to find mistakes

fill in the gaps

provide a title

continue the story

summarize

WRITING ACTIVITIES.

write:

a report of a book

a letter

an instruction sheet (how to prepare a meal)

about a personal experience

about your favourite pop star

about your best friend

imagine your ideal school

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Gabriela Marzochi

The role of informal interaction in teaching English to young learners

v What do we mean by informal interaction?

By informal interaction we mean the exchange of ideas, using spoken English between teachers and learners and among learners themselves.

Besides that, in informal interaction the language is used for functions, which are labelled social functions such as greetings, discussing health, attendance, the weather and so on.

According to Fanselow, there are four main content areas in most lessons.

1. Language: this area covers the part of the lesson in which the teacher is explaining or illustrating the language and the pupils are asking questions about the language or practising pronunciation or structures.

2. Procedure: this part of the lesson is when the teacher is managing the class, explaining what to do next, how to do it and so on.

3. Subject –Matter: it is when the language is being used to convey some specific topic as part of the lesson. For example: if the teacher tells the story of “The very hungry caterpillar”, the subject-matter might be food or the past tense but the content area of language is not the food or the past tense, but the story of a caterpillar which at the end of the story turns into a beautiful butterfly.

4. Life: this area concerns about real life matters not directly about the lesson. For instance: the teacher can ask a pupil who has nothing to write on.: where is your notebook?

v Why should we encourage informal interaction in English?

There are four main arguments for this question:

1. Children learn languages best in situations where their attention is focussed on meaning rather than on language.

2. Teachers must provide their pupils with opportunities to use the language in real situations.

3. Meaning is communicated more directly in informal settings, so unfamiliar vocabulary is more easily understood when the objects under discussion are present in the surroundings. For instance: the use of realia in the classroom.

4. If we want English to come naturally we must demonstrate to the children that English is a means of communication in the same way that their mother tongue.

The interaction hypothesis proposed by Allwright states that “the nature of the linguistic interaction a learner engages in, will affect the speed and quality of the learning.

We have to take into account that different learners require different types of interaction to succeed; however, engaging in spoken interaction is a necessary stage for all learners who hope to use language for speaking outside the classroom.

v How can we encourage informal interaction?

There are some strategies that a teacher can do to achieve this.

1. Opportunities for interaction

In the absence of regular meetings with English speakers, it is the teacher who has to use the target language to communicate so the children would be likely to use the language freely in real interaction.

If the teacher uses language freely in informal situations, learners will have the advantage of a proper model of language use.

The types of events that are suitable for informal interaction depend very much on the age and interests of the children, but there are certain principles, which can be applied with children of any age.

Ø One principle is that informal interaction is incidental, that is to say that is not central to the lesson

Ø Another principle to take into account is that is not necessary for all children to be involved in the interaction. Remarks addressed to individuals or small groups can be just as useful as remarks addressed to the whole class.

Ø These remarks should be made meaningful by context; these can be achieved by using gestures, mime, facial expressions and so on.

There are a number of topics, which are particularly appropriate for informal interaction. For instance: life events such as birthdays, festivals. holidays, etc.

2. Extending language classroom

This is another strategy that a teacher can take to encourage informal interaction. By extending language classroom we mean that the English teacher can work in close relation with other teachers.

3. Interaction between the children

Teachers have to promote role play as a classroom activity. The principle behind role play is clear: to provide children with the chance to use language in specific situations, for example: in a shop, at the dentist’s

4. The maintenance of communication between teachers and pupils

Many teachers use what is known about interaction in order to help maintain communication with the class. It can be very helpful if teachers train learners early in the use of such expressions as: I’m sorry, I don’t understand, What’s the English for...? and so on

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PETRONCZAK FLORENCIA

USING VIDEO IN THE PRIMARY CLASSROOM

Video can be used for a wide variety of purposes. It presents language in context and can show the meaning of words. It can bring fun and added motivation to language learning.

It can do this because video combines sound and vision. And all the elements of sound and vision can and should be exploited for the young learner. On the visual side, there are people, objects and their characteristics; there is movement, colour, shape. On the soundtrack, we have music and effects, as well as language. In the cartoon form, all of these things are particularly strong and clear. The situations, gestures and intonation are naturally exaggerated and are therefore clearer and easier to understand.

Finally, the content is more memorable, and so what is being taught should be more effectively learnt.

v HOW SHOULD WE USE IT ?

Show short extracts. Something between one and five minutes can generate at least one or two lessons.

Show whole of extract first. It would seem that children do not respond well to stop-start techniques, they like to see what is going to happen, so go back and practise rather than stop and practise.

View actively. Set a task

v HOW CAN VIDEO BE USED FOR ?

Some of the tasks one might use with the video are:

COMPREHENSION

(1)_ Gist questions. Set one or two gist questions before they watch

(2)_ Recognising emotions. Get the children to concentrate on the emotions expressed by what the characters say and the way they say it. Before they watch ask them to find out for example: “ Who is angry?, Who is sad ?

(3)_ Sentence re-ordering. Write sentences and make sure the children understand them, before they watch. Then they watch the scene and have to put the events (sentences) in the right order.

(4)_ Prediction. You explain that you are going to show them a short scene and they must guess what happens next.

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

You might want to develop the ways of expressing likes and dislikes, to revise colour words or to develop the description of the characteristics, perhaps trough comparatives.

PRESENTATION

Video is a very effective way of presenting new items of language because of its combination of sound and vision.

USING VIDEO AS A MODEL

(1)_ Repetition

(2)_ Imitation

(3)_ Chanting

(4)_ Singing

(5)_ Re-enactment

GETTING THEN TO TALK

In getting children to talk by using video, two techniques can be useful.

Sound only: As well as asking children to describe people, you may ask “ What is happening ?

Silent viewing: This is the opposite technique: you show the picture without the sound and ask the children to work out what is happening or who the characters are.

SPRINGBOARD FOR ACTIVITIES

Video can provide a model and be a good springboard for a whole range of activities: Drawing, Writing, Role-play and Models.

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