Teaching English to Pre-School Children and Children in a Primary School

     3 - read text “...”silently to be able to answer before-questions (explain what they should do and how to work at the text to understand it);

     4 - answer the questions.

Version В

     Objective: To teach pupils to read the words. … (they have assimilated orally), sentences (in which they occur) and text “...” aloud.

     Activities. Pupils

     1 - read the words aloud from flash cards (or from the textbook);  read word combinations and sentences first silently, then aloud, ex. ... , p. ... ;

     2 - read  text  “...” first silently,  then  aloud  (give pupils time for looking through the reading material before they start reading aloud. Then they pass through 
diagnostic and instructive reading. Use the record for instructive reading. Pupils listen to the text with their books open and read it in a low voice.   Then partially choral and individual reading follows).

     5. Writing. (3—8 min.)

Version A

     Activity. Pupils write down the answers to the questions on the text.

Version В

     Activity. Pupils copy out topical sentences from the text they read silently.

Version C

     Objective: To teach pupils to write the words ... (assimilated orally).

     Activity. Pupils copy the words and sentences from the blackboard. Ask pupils to spell the words ... and recollect other words which have similar and different spelling (chair — air, write — right).

Version D

     Objective: To check pupils' ability to write the words ....

     Activity. Pupils write a dictation. (Dictate the text from Teacher's Guide, p )

     6. Homework (1 min.).  Read ...;

     write ex. ...;

     compose 3—4 sentences about ....

     Note: The content of homework depends fully on the work done in the classroom. 
 

     Control questions: 

1. What’s the necessity for planning?
2. What approach to the problem do you know?
3. What general outline of a daily lesson have you learnt?

 
 

     Recommended literature: 

1. Поляков  О.Г. Профильно-ориентированное обучение  английскому языку//ИЯШ. № 2 –  2004.стр.6

2.  Гальковская  Н.Д., Никитенко З.Н. Теория и  практика обучения ИЯ. Начальная  школа. Методическое пособие. М., 2004. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

    Lecture 5 

UNIT PLANNING 

Plan: 

1. Number of class-periods allotted to the lesson in the calendar plan.
2. Unit plan.
3. Planning a class-period.

 

     The teacher needs two kinds of plans to work successfully: the plan of a series of class-periods for a lesson or unit of the textbook or a unit plan, and the daily plan or the lesson plan for a particular class-period.

     In compiling a unit plan, i. e., in planning the lesson of the textbook, the teacher determines the difficulties of the lesson, namely, phonetic difficulties (sounds, stress, intonation); grammar difficulties (grammar items, their character and amount), and vocabulary difficulties (the amount of new words, their character).

     He then distributes these difficulties evenly over the number of class-periods allotted to the lesson in the calendar plan.

     1. The teacher starts by stating the objective or objectives of each class-period, that is, what can be achieved in a classroom lesson. Of course the long-term aims of the course help the teacher to ensure that every particular lesson is pulling in the right direction and is another step towards gaining the ultimate goals of the course. “To help the class to speak English better”, “To teach pupils to aud” or “To develop pupils’ proficiency in reading” cannot be the objectives of the lesson because they are too abstract to be clear to the learners. The lesson objectives should be stated as precisely as possible. Pupils coming to the lesson should know what they are, to do during the lesson, what performance level is required of them, and how it can be achieved. Here are a few examples:

     - Teach pupils to understand the following words ... when hearing and to use them in sentences orally.

     - Teach pupils to form new words with the help of the following suffixes ... and to use them in the situations, given.

     - Teach pupils to consult a dictionary to look up the meaning of the following words ....

     - Teach pupils to recognize the international words ... when hearing (or reading).

     - Teach pupils to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from the context while reading text “...”.

     - Teach pupils to understand the statements in the Present Perfect and to use them in the following situations……………   

     - Teach pupils to ask and answer questions in the Present Perfect and to make up   dialogues following the models ………………

     - Teach pupils to find the logical predicate in the sentences ... while reading following the structural signals.

     - Teach pupils to speak about the following objects   on utterance level (in a few sentences).

     - Teach pupils to use the words and grammar covered in speaking about the places of interest in our town.

     - Teach pupils to find topical sentences while reading text “...” silently.

     - Teach pupils to get the main information while reading text “...”.

     - Teach pupils to write an annotation on text “...”.

     - Check pupils’ skill in reading and understanding an unfamiliar text using a dictionary.

     - Check pupils’ ability in using the words covered in the following situations ....

     The teacher can state no more than three concrete objectives for a particular class-period depending on the stage of instruction, the material of the lesson, and some other factors.

     2. The teacher distributes the linguistic material (sounds, words, grammar, etc.) throughout the class-periods according to the objectives of each period, trying to teach new vocabulary on the grammatical material familiar to pupils, and to teach a new grammar item within   the vocabulary   assimilated by pupils; or he first teaches pupils hearing and speaking on the new material presented, and then pupils use this in reading and writing.

     3. The teacher selects and distributes exercises for class and homework using various teaching aids and teaching materials depending on the objectives of each class-period. For example, for developing his pupils’ skill in dialogic speech within the material covered the teacher needs- a record with a pattern dialogue, word cards for changing the semantic-meaning of the pattern dialogue to make the structure of 
the dialogue fit new situations.

     In distributing exercises throughout the class-periods the teacher should involve his pupils in oral practice and speech, in oral and silent reading, and in writing. Exercises which are difficult for pupils should be done under the teacher's supervision, i. e., in class. Those exercises which pupils can easily perform independently are left for homework. In other words, new techniques, exercises, and skills should be practised in class before the pupil attempts them at home. The homework done, the pupils return to class for perfecting, polishing, expanding, and varying what they have practised at home, they learn to use the new words, the new structures in varied situations.

     When the teacher determines the pupil’s homework he should take into account that the subject he is teaching though important and difficult is not the only one the pupil learns at school. The realities of schools militate against more than 20 - 30 minutes of everyday homework in a foreign language. This requires the teacher to teach in class rather than test. Practice proves that pupils do their homework provided they know exactly what to do, how it should be done, and that their work will be evaluated. Besides, pupils should know that six twenty-minutes’ work at their English on consecutive days is more effective than two hours at a stretch.

     The unit plan, therefore, involves everything the teacher needs for the detailed planning of   a lesson (class-period), namely: the objective (objectives) of each lesson, the material to work at, and the exercises which should be done both during the class-period and at home to develop pupils’ habits and skills in the target language.

     All this should be done by the teacher if there are no teacher’s books (guides) to the textbooks, for example, if he works in a specialized or an evening school. If there are such books, the teacher's planning should deal with (1) the study of the author’s recommendations and tabling the material so that he can see how hearing, speaking, reading, and writing should be developed, and (2) the development of these recommendations according to his pupils’ abilities.

     The teacher starts by studying the authors’ recommendations. He takes the textbook and the teacher’s guide and table the material. Let us take Lesson 22, Fifth Form English by S. K. Folomkina and E. I. Kaar for illustration.

     The unit plan includes nine columns:

     1.The number of class-periods. The authors plan four periods for Lesson 22.

     2. The   objectives of each period.

     3. Language material. By language material we mean words, word combinations, phrases, and sentence patterns. In Lesson 22 there are six new words (April, May, June, speak, learn, chess), four word combinations (in the evening, that's right, that's not right, go swimming), and the following sentence patterns: Where do you go ...? Where does he (she) go ...? When do you go? When does he (she) go ...? What do you do? What does he (she) do ...? I can't read English. I can't (don't) skate either.

     4 - 7. Language skills. In developing each language skill the authors observe the main didactic principles. For instance, they develop pupils’ speaking (monologue) gradually, starting with the sentence level (1^st period), then passing to the utterance level (2nd period), and finally, to the speech level both prepared (3^rd period) and unprepared (4th period) within the material covered. Pupils develop writing habits and skills independently at home. They write only once in class; it is a dictation drill,

     8. Accessories. While working at Lesson 22 the authors propose to use records twice (2^nd and 3^rd periods) for developing listening comprehension.

     9. Homework. The authors plan pupils’ independent work at home after every class-period. It is connected mainly with copying and writing. (By the latter we mean creative work on the part of the learner as in exercise 5: What your friend does at the English lesson? Write five sentences.) Besides, pupils read what they have read in class.

     If we fill in all the columns of the table, we can see that Lesson 22 was well compiled. This allows the teacher to enrich pupils' knowledge and develop habits and skills in the target language. It also shows that recommendations given in the teacher's guide can ensure the gradual development of pupils' skills in speaking and reading and, therefore, their progress in language learning.

     The teacher tries to adapt the unit plan to his pupils. He may either take it as it is and strictly follow the authors’ recommendations, or he may change it a bit. For instance, if he has a group of bright pupils who can easily assimilate the material, the teacher may include some additional material or stimuli (pictures or objects) for the pupils’ use in speaking within the same four class-periods. This can be shown in column “Accessories”. If the teacher has a group of slow pupils, he needs at least one more period to cover the material, since special questions with do, does are difficult for his pupils, he may use writing during the lesson and make pupils write down the questions in their exercise-books. Writing may help them in keeping the words and sentence patterns in memory. He may also increase the number of oral drill exercises and give pupils special cards to work on individually and in pairs. Thus the teacher includes word and sentence cards in column “Accessories”.

     The importance of unit plans cannot be overestimated since unit planning permits the teacher to direct the development of all language skills on the basis of the new linguistic material the lesson involves. He can lead his pupils from reception through pattern practice to creative exercises, and in this way perfect their proficiency in hearing, speaking, reading, and writing. He can vary teaching aids and teaching materials within the class-periods allotted to the lesson. Unit planning allows the teacher to concentrate pupils’ attention on one or two language skills during the lesson; in this case the class hour is divided into two main parts: a period of 20 - 25 minutes, during which he takes his pupils through a series of structural drills or other exercises supplied by the textbook, and a period of 20 - 25 minutes during which the teacher engages the class in creative exercises 218 when they use the target language as a means of communication. The teacher should bear in mind that pupils lose all interest in a language that is presented to them by means of endless repetitions, pattern practices, substitutions, and so on, and which they cannot use in its main function of exchange of information through hearing or reading. That is why, whenever possible, the teacher should make his pupils aware of the immediate values of his lessons if he hopes to keep and stimulate their interest in language learning which is very important in itself. When a pupil is convinced that learning is vital, he is usually willing to work hard to acquire a good knowledge of the target language. It is well known that some pupils see little value in much of their school work in a foreign language and feel no enthusiasm for their work at the language. Careful unit planning helps the teacher to keep pupils’ progress in language learning under constant control and use teaching aids and teaching materials more effectively and, in this way, make his classes worthwhile to all of his pupils. 
 
 
 

Planning a class-period 

     The unit plan completed the teacher may more into planning a class-period or a daily plan which, in addition to what has been determined by the unit plan, indicates the ways the teacher will follow to organize his class to work during the lesson. Therefore the daily plan includes (1) what should be achieved during this particular lesson, (2) what material is used for achieving the objectives, and (3) how the objectives should be achieved.

     Since almost every teacher has several classes of one level he usually makes preparations for each level although, ideally, a separate plan is needed for each class because classes proceeded at different speed, thus he must make adaptations in his plans to compensate for varying speeds of progress in the classes of the same level.

     The teacher should write his daily plans if he strives for effective and reasonable use of time allotted to his pupils’ learning a foreign language. However some teachers, including novice teachers, do not prepare written plans. They claim that they can teach “off the top of their heads”, and they really can, but their teaching usually results in poor pupils’ language skills because in this case we have “teacher-dominated” classes when the teacher works hard during the lesson while his pupils remain mere “observes” of the procedure. Indeed, when the teacher is standing in front of pupils he does not have much time to think how to organize his pupils’ activity. This should be done before the lesson for the teacher to be able to stimulate and direct pupils’ learning the language. We may state that the effectiveness of pupils desired learning is fully dependent on the teacher’s preparation for the lessons. If the teacher is talking, reading, and writing a great deal himself during the lesson, he is not ready for it. And vice versa, if the teacher gets his pupils to talk or read with communicative assignments while he listens, or to write while he moves about the class, giving a helping hand to every one who needs it, he has thoroughly thought over the plan of the lesson beforehand. Therefore we may conclude: to provide necessary conditions for pupils’ learning a foreign language, the teacher should thoroughly plan their work during the lesson which is possible if he writes his daily plan in advance.

     There are teachers who strictly follow the textbook and accept plans that others have made for them without any changing. In doing this they overlook the unique capacities of their particular classes. They race through the textbook covering the ground regardless of whether pupils master each section.

     Some experienced teachers assume that the content of foreign language teaching is constant and as they have worked for many years they do not need daily plans; they have them in their minds. In reality, however, the content changes continuously as well as the methods and techniques of teaching. Moreover, the old plans which are in their minds may not suit the needs of a particular class, since each group of pupils is unique, or they may no longer be applicable because better and more effective teaching aids and teaching materials have appeared. Consequently, proceeding from these considerations the teacher needs a daily plan to provide a high level of language learning of his pupils.

     One lesson may require a detailed plan; for another lesson a brief outline will suffice. In any case, a workable form for a daily plan should state the objectives, specify the activities (oral practice, reading, writing, etc.), include evaluation techniques, indicate the assignment, and determine teaching aids and teaching materials. The plan itself should (1) be brief, but with sufficient detail to be precise; (2) assign a definite number of minutes to each activity; (3) indicate exactly what words, phrases, facts, items are to be learnt and how; (4) make use of variety of classroom activity for every pupil.

     In the organization and conduct of a foreign language lesson there is always a wide range of possibilities. No two teachers will treat the same topic in the same way. There are, however, certain basic principles of teaching and learning, which should be observed:

     1. Every lesson should begin with a greeting in the foreign language and a brief talk between the teacher and the pupils. Through this conversation the lesson may be motivated. The conversation may take place between:

Teacher – Class

Teacher – Pupil on duty

Pupil on duty – Class

Two Pupils on duty