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Teaching problem how to teach a foreign language to pre-school children.
A distinguish between teaching pre-school children in the kindergarten and teaching children in primary grades in the elementary school.
Aims of teaching.
Content of teaching.
The foreign language should be used for all common classroom activities; the teacher manages the class activities by giving directions in the foreign language. He stimulates pupils’ participation by asking questions, praises and encourages pupils from time to time, and he may also criticize the behavior of a pupil or a class.
2. There should be a variety of activities at every lesson, including pronunciation drill, oral activities, reading and writing. The success of activity is measured by attention, enthusiasm, and involvement on the part of the pupils.
3. The lesson should be conducted at a high speed when oral drill exercises are performed. Pupils should not stand up to say a word, a phrase, or a sentence.
4. The lesson should provide a certain sequence in pupils’ assimilating language material and developing habits and skills from perception, comprehension, and memorizing, through the usage in a similar situation following a model, to the usage of the material received in new situations that require thinking on the part of the learner.
5. The lesson should provide time for the activity of every pupil in the class. They must be active participants of the procedure and not the teacher as is often the case when the teacher talks more than all the pupils.
6. The lesson should provide conditions for pupils to learn. “Language is a skill so it must be learnt, it cannot be taught” (M. West). A certain amount of time should be devoted to seatwork as opposed to activities involving the class as a whole. During seatwork and other forms of solitary study pupils learn to learn for themselves. The use of language laboratories, teaching machines, and programmed instruction creates necessary conditions for each pupil to learn for himself.
7. The work done during the lesson should prepare pupils for their independent work at home. It is generally accepted as good practice not to assign exercises that have not been covered in class; this especially refers to early stages of language learning.
8.
The lesson should be well equipped with teaching aids and teaching materials
which allow the teacher to create natural situations for developing
pupils’ hearing and speaking skills in a foreign language.
Control
questions:
Recommended
literature:
Lecture
6
AIMS OF TEACHING.
Plan:
Aims are the first and most important consideration in any teaching.
“Процесс обучения представляет собой переход учащихся из одного состояния в другое... Задачи обучения состоят в том, чтобы переместить обучающихся из их начального состояния в определенное состояние (или, точнее, во множество состояний), означающее наличие у них определенных знаний, навыков и умений”.
Hence the teacher should know exactly what his pupils are expected to achieve in learning his subject, what changes he can bring about in his pupils at the end of the course, at the end of the year, term, month, week, and each particular lesson, i. e., he should know the aims and objectives of foreign language teaching in schools.
The terms “aims” and “objectives” are clearly distinguished in this work in accordance with the suggestion given by R. Roberts. Here is what he writes: "The term “aims” be reserved for long-term goals such as provide the justification or reason for teaching second languages ... the term “objectives” be used only for short-term goals (immediate lesson goal), such as may reasonably be achieved in a classroom lesson or sequence of lessons. In this chapter we shall deal with long-term goals, that is, with the aims of foreign language teaching which dictate the teacher’s approach to this subject.
The
changes the teacher must bring about in his pupils may be threefold:
practical - pupils acquire habits - and skills in using a foreign language;
educational - they develop their mental abilities and intelligence in
the process of learning the foreign language; cultural - pupils extend
their knowledge of the world in which they live. Therefore there are
three aims, at least, which should be achieved in foreign language teaching:
practical, educational, and cultural.
Practical aims. The foreign language as a school subject differs from other subjects of the school curriculum. Whereas the teaching, for instance, of history is mostly connected with the imparting of historical laws and facts which pupils are to learn and the teaching of the mother tongue leads to the mastery of the language as a system (which is already used for exchanging thoughts and feelings) so that pupils will be able to use it more effectively in oral and written language, the teaching of a foreign language should result in the pupil's gaining one more code for receiving and conveying information; that is, in acquiring a second language for the same purpose as the native language: to use it as a means of communication. In this connection we should like to quote G. Perren : “Whatever a new language is being taught as a curricular extra ... or as an essential medium for education it will be learned by the young child only if it obviously makes-possible some purposeful activity other than language learning. If it does not do this, attempts to teach it may be largely a waste of time”.
In modern society language is used in two ways: directly or orally, and. indirectly or in written form. Thus we distinguish oral language and written language. Direct communication implies a speaker and a hearer, indirect communication implies a writer and a reader. Hence the practical aims in teaching a foreign language are four in number: hearing, speaking, reading, and writing.
When adopting the practical aims for a secondary school course the following factors are usually taken into consideration: the economic and political conditions of society, the requirements of the state; the general goals of secondary school education; the nature of the subject, and the conditions for instruction.
The Soviet Union is establishing closer economic, political, scientific, and cultural relations with various peoples of the world. International relations are extended and strengthened through the exchange of delegations as well as scientific, technical, and cultural information. The peoples of the Soviet Union want to know what is going on in the world in all spheres of human activity: science, engineering, culture, politics, etc. They also want to acquaint other peoples with their life and achievements. In this situation foreign language teaching is a matter of state significance. The Council of Ministers of the USSR in its decision “On Improving Foreign Language Learning” has obliged educational boards to ensure that school-leavers master a foreign language as a means of communication in its two forms - oral and written, therefore, proficiency in speaking and reading are the desired skills. They are both of great importance, since oral language, though opportunities for conversation are rare for most of the school-leavers, creates favourable conditions for language learning. Besides, practical aims as they are understood here; correspond to the idea of secondary school education - to provide pupils with the fundamentals of the subject. Hearing, speaking, reading, and writing within carefully selected linguistic material will constitute the fundamentals of the language.
The nature of the language should also be taken into consideration in determining the aims of language teaching. Learning a living language implies using the language of sounds that is, speaking. Scientific research gives a more profound insight into the problem. It is not so much the ability to speak that is meant here but rather the oral treatment; in other words, the language of sounds, not of graphic signs (which is usually the case when a dead language is studied) should serve as basic means of teaching.
The length of the course, the frequency of the lessons, the size of groups should also be taken into consideration in adopting practical aims. The amount of time for language learning is one of the most decisive factors in mastering and maintaining language proficiency since learners need practice. The more time is available for pupils’ practice in the target language, the better results can be achieved. Moreover, for the formation of speech habits frequency of lessons is a more essential condition than the length of the course. It is not necessary to prove (it has already been proved) that intensive courses are more effective than extensive ones, for example, six periods a week for three years are more effective for language learning than three periods a week for six years. In our secondary schools, however, we cannot afford an intensive course because school curriculum includes a lot of essential
subjects and the foreign language is one of many which should be taught. The time which can be allotted to foreign language learning is distributed throughout the six years with the following frequency of lessons: V - 4; VI-VII – 3; VII 1-Х - 2 periods a week. As to the size of groups, large forms are divided into two groups for foreign language lessons so that a group should not exceed 20-25 pupils. Proceeding from these considerations the school syllabus emphasizes reading and speaking as the chief practical aims of language teaching. Writing is restricted to teaching the ability to compose simple letters on everyday topics. Thus the syllabus sets out to teach pupils to carry on a conversation in a foreign language and to read texts with complete comprehension.
The syllabus for the eight-year school concentrates on the development of speech proficiency. Pupils should be able:
1 - to give a short talk and carry on a conversation on the topics included in the programme;
2 - to read without a dictionary texts containing familiar grammar material and no more than 4-6 unfamiliar words (per 100 words) the meaning of which, as a rule, should be clear from the context or due to familiar word-building elements.
The syllabus for the ten-year school requires that school-leavers should:
1 - read and understand a foreign text both with and without a dictionary;
2 - understand oral language arid speak within the topics and material required by the syllabus;
3 - write a letter.
In foreign language learning all forms of work must be in close interrelation, otherwise it is impossible to master the language. However, attention should be given mainly to practice in hearing, speaking, and reading. Thus pupils must achieve a level in their knowledge of the language which will enable them to further develop it at an institute or in their practical work.
At the present time, however, foreign language teaching in school does not quite meet the demands of our society; better results are desirable. In this connection we should welcome O. I. Moskalskaya’s proposal to investigate the aims of foreign language teaching to be able to establish what can really be achieved under school conditions.
In
conclusion it should be said that the achievement of practical aims
in foreign language teaching makes possible the achievement of educational
and cultural aims.
Educational aims. Learning a second language is of great educational value. Through a new language we can gain an insight into the way in which words express thoughts, and so achieve greater clarity and precision in our own communications. Even at the most elementary level learning a second language teaches the cognizance of meaning, furnishes a term of comparison that gives us an insight" into the quality of language. When learning a foreign language the pupil understands better how language functions and this brings him to a greater awareness of the functioning of his own language.
Since language is connected with thinking, through foreign language study we can develop the pupil's intellect. Teaching a foreign language helps the teacher develop the pupils' voluntary and involuntary memory, his imaginative abilities, and will power. Indeed, in learning a new language the pupil should memorize words, idioms, sentence patterns, structures, and keep them in long-term memory ready to be used whenever he needs them in auding, speaking, reading, and writing. Teaching a foreign language under conditions when this is the only foreign language environment, is practically impossible without appealing to pupils’ imagination. The lack of real communication forces the teacher to create imaginary situations for pupils, to speak about making each pupil determine his language behaviour as if he were in such situations.
Teaching
a foreign language contributes to the linguistic education of the pupil,
the latter extends his knowledge of phonic, graphic, structural, and
semantic aspects of language as it is through contrastive analysis of
language phenomena.
Cultural aims. Learning a foreign language makes the pupil acquainted with the life, customs and traditions of the people whose language he studies through visual material (such as post cards with the views of towns, countryside, and people; filmstrips, for example, “Great Britain”, “What Tourists Can See in London”, “Disney Land” films) and reading material dealing with the countries where the target language is spoken. Foreign language teaching should promote pupils’ general educational and cultural growth by increasing their knowledge about foreign countries, and by acquainting them with progressive traditions of the people whose language they study- Through learning a second language the pupil gains a deeper insight into the nature and functioning of language as a social phenomenon.
In
conclusion it should be said that practical, educational, and cultural
aims are intimately related and form an inseparable unity. The leading
role belongs to practical aims, for the others can only be achieved
through the practical command of the foreign language.
CONTENT
OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING
The content of foreign language teaching or what to teach is one of the main problems the Methods deals with. In this chapter an attempt is made to touch on the chief components which, we think, should constitute the content of foreign language teaching in schools; a more detailed consideration will be given in appropriate chapters dealing with teaching various aspects of the language and language skills.
The first component of “what to teach” is habits and skills which pupils should acquire while learning a foreign language. According to the aims of learning this subject they are: hearing (listening comprehension), speaking, reading, and writing. The level of habits and skills is determined by the syllabus for each form. However, quantitative and qualitative characteristics of skills, or the so-called terminal behaviour, are not defined yet for different types of schools and stages of instruction. This is one of the problems for methodologists to investigate and solve. Nevertheless, some attempts have been made in this respect. Thus in school syllabi we can find some directions as to the level of skills that should be reached in each particular form and their development from form to form. For example, the requirements for hearing and reading skills differ in the 9th and 10th forms. In the 9th form pupils should be able to understand oral language on the basis of the material previously learned and within the topics covered, while in the 10th form the material for hearing should include 1-2 unfamiliar words for pupils to guess their meaning, and to understand a text received by ear, based on the material learned and on a topic close to those pupils have worked at. This is a new “qualitative step” for pupils in understanding oral language. If in the 9th form pupils should read with the speed of 1 000 signs per academic hour, in the 10th form the speed of reading is 1 300.
The second component of “what to teach” is language (textual) material, arranged in topics and serving as starting points for the development of oral language and written language, which allows the teacher to reach the practical, educational, and cultural aims set by the syllabus. For example, in the junior stage (the 5th and 6th forms) pupils should speak and read about school, home, town and countryside, nature, physical training and sports. In the senior stage the textual material should cover the following topics: the life of the youth in the USSR and abroad; sport in the USSR and abroad; industry, agriculture, and science in the USSR and abroad; history and geography of the country whose language pupils study, art and literature in the USSR and abroad. Topics for speaking and reading are developed from form to form, i. e., the pupil’s ability to read and speak on a certain topic is widened as his vocabulary and grammar is enriched.
The third component of the content of foreign language teaching is linguistic material, i. e., phonology, grammar, and vocabulary carefully selected for the purpose. The selection of linguistic material, the compiling of the so-called minima, for instance, minimum vocabulary and minimum grammar, has always been one of the most important and difficult problems to be solved and, although a great deal of work has been done in this respect, we are still on the way to its solution. A limited body of linguistic material is required by pupils who have about 600 class hours at their disposal spread over six years (extensive course), and at the same time it must be large enough to serve as a sound basis for developing pupils’ language skills.
To sum up what has been said above, the content of foreign language teaching involves:
1 - language skills: hearing, speaking, reading, and writing;
2 - language (textual) material;
3 - linguistic material; vocabulary; grammar, phonological minima.
In conclusion
it should be said that the content of teaching in our schools is laid
down in the syllabus and realized in teaching materials and in the teacher’s
own speech.
Control
questions:
Recommended literature:
1. Пассов Е.И.
Основы коммуникативной
2. Поляков О.Г. Профильно-ориентированное обучение английскому языку//ИЯШ. № 2 – 2004.стр.6
3. Гальковская
Н.Д., Никитенко З.Н. Теория и
практика обучения ИЯ. Начальная
школа. Методическое пособие.
М., 2004.
Lecture 7
PRINCIPLES
OF FOREIGN
LANGUAGE TEACHING
Plan:
1 - scientific approach
2 - of consciousness
3 - of educative instructions
4 - of activity
5 - of visuality
6 - of consecutiveness
7 - of systematicness
8 - of accessibility
9 - of durability
10
- of individualization
Methods of foreign language teaching are based on the fundamental principles of didactics; among them, a conscious approach to language learning, activity, visualization, and others. However, in foreign language teaching, due to the specific features of the subject in which means and ends are equally essential, these principles are used in a particular way.
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