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

      Principle of:

     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

     1) of Scientific Approach.

     This principle implies careful determination of what and how to teach to achieve the aims set by the syllabus. The texts in the textbook & for supplementary reading, the sentences in exercises must be meaningful & of educative value. In selecting or composing the material the teacher should be thoughtful & remember to strengthen the connection between the instruction & life.(e.g. Theme “Family”- Have you a brother?/Have you a father? Don’t demand positive answer if he/she doesn’t have him)   

     2) of Educative Instructions.

     Not to teach only the subject but to treat his/her learner as a person. To help learners to develop themselves as people, their personalities & to encourage their positive feelings. The teacher provides a number of activities to make learners feel good & remember happy times & events.

     3)  of Consciousness.

     To make a distinguish between acquisition and learning consciously. The acquisition is a subconscious process which results in the knowledge of a language whereas the learning results in “knowing about” the language. Acquiring a language is more successful and longer lasting than learning. A child becomes competent user of native language by acquiring. Children hear and experience a considerable amount of the language in situation, in communication with adults. It happens as a result of the input they receive and the experience which accompany this input. So the learners’ input should contain language of a slightly higher level than they are able to produce but they are able to understand. Krashen compared it to the way adults speak to children; they tend to simplify the language as foreigners do. According to Krashen students can acquire the language on their own respect when they get a great deal of comprehensible input. In conscious learning students receive precisely selected structures & learning tasks that were carefully worked out by the teacher (monitor).

     Experience of the British linguist Allwright at the University of Essex. “If the language teacher’s management activities are directed exclusively at involving the learners in solving communication problems in the target language then the language learning will take care of itself”. There is no need for formal instructions (e.g. grammatical point); instead students are asked to perform communicative activity in FL.

     Experience of the Indian teacher Prabhu. Tasks with problem solving element on the basis of the given model (dialogues, cue-cards).

     Disadvantages of acquisition. The result of acquisition is not evident. To understand doesn’t mean to produce the target language yourself. Impossible to control. The limited time of school syllabus. Students must be involved into the target language community: to hear the language and to produce themselves more frequently.

     Conscious learning does speed the process of learning. Clearly explained language work and drill exercises give students opportunity to create a new piece of language and learn it successfully. The conscious approach and the use of communicative tasks can satisfactorily co-exist.

     4) of Activity.

     The direct method requires activity both on the part of the teacher and of the learners. This principle is realized in some specific methods for FLT:

     a) The learners should be taught from the beginning sentences and living speech, not sounds and separate words.

     b) The learners should be taught from the beginning to think in the target language but not in the mother tongue.(foreign language is active, mother tongue is passive)

     c) To cultivate in learners the power of guessing and constantly control it. (not to use the grammar-translation method for introducing a new material )In so doing learners are active acquirers but not passive recipients.

     d) In the early stages the teaching should be based on speech. New material is introduced and activated orally. Reading and writing must be taught on the material previously assimilated orally.

     e) The learners should be double active: linguistically and dramatically. They must speak and act what they speak, perform serious of actions and pronounce simultaneously.

     f)  Practice must precede theory. Applied practice intensify the activity and acquisition of the language.

     g) Use of chorus work. Imitation of the teacher’s intonation and pronunciation ensure learners productive work (all of them should try the new piece of language aloud).

     h) The use of Pair-, Group-work. More than one student is actively engaged in productive oral work at a time. This work encourages learners’ cooperation and increases their participation in language use.

   General methods of activity:

1. Not correct a student’s mistake that the student can correct him/herself, but call upon him by interrogative intonation or surprised mimic.
2. Not correct a student’s mistake that he/she can’t correct him/herself but that the other students can correct and call upon them to do so.
3. During the individual interrogation ensure the active participation of all the class in the work.
4. Keep the whole class on the alert by addressing the question not to individual student but to the whole class, by interrogating in any order that they can’t foresee, by accustoming students to listen to their classmates’ answers and correct their mistakes.
5. Comment on the students’ marks and reason them.
6. Encourage students to address questions to him/ herself .
7. Prepare them for individual work at the subject out of the class and in later life.
8. Activity is related to students’ interest and their motivation factor. Teacher should use different active forms varying them to avoid monotony.

   Common criteria of Activity:

The relative duration of the part of the lesson taken up by speech in FL by students

The relation between speech of the learners and of the teacher.(the less the teacher speaks the better the teacher)

The readiness and the quality of the learners’ answers to the teacher’s questions.

The use of the power of guessing by learners.

The number and the content of the questions asked by the learners.

Correction by the learners of their own and of their classmates’ mistakes.

     5) of Visuality.

     Visuality is defined as specially organized demonstration of linguistic material. The purpose of this principle is to help learners in understanding, assimilating the new material. It allows teachers to create natural conditions for oral practice and in free conversation.

Classification of visual material:

Objective and subjective

Syntactical and analytical

Artificial and cinematographical

     The use of visual material makes FL lesson emotionally colored gets the learners interested and awakes their thoughts. It creates natural conditions in the classroom.

     6) of Consecutiveness.

In FLT the sequence must be observed from the known material to the unknown one, from the simpler to more complex, from the proximate to more distant. It should be realized with respect to the native language. Reading and writing in Russian and Kazakh ; Grammar material of these languages must have been taught before the learners are set with the corresponding tasks in the target language(e.g. parts of speech, tenses of the verb). The Past Perfect can only be explained and further trained on the basis of the Present Perfect.

     The sequence from more proximate to more distant is observed in the order of topical material, e.g. we study the theme “My Biography” first, then “Biography of Famous People” at the senior stage.

     We trace the vertical direction of the same theme throughout the whole course.

     7) of Systematicness.

     The teaching of every subject must be systematic, carefully planned. The whole course of every school for each year, term and lesson must be conducted according to a general program.

     The didactic principle of systematicness demands not only systematic work by the teacher but also the acquisition of systematic knowledge by the learners.

     It implies relative completeness, generalization and classification of the knowledge. Knowledge should be first systematically imparted step by step to the learners, then generalized and systematized for them. Systematizing the learners knowledge must help them to form valuable associations for better memorizing.

     e.g. We may group and tabulate reading of interrogative pronouns.

[w]   [h]

what  who

which  whose

when   whom

why 

The use  of tables, wall-charts, diagrams facilitates the acquisition learners’ knowledge.

8) of Accessibility.

This principle is realized through conformity with the following requirements:

The subject matter of the instruction must:

1. correspond to the age & mental abilities of the learners: neither too easy nor too difficult, too childish for them;
2. be rightly dosed: be neither over-abundant nor scarce;
3. be properly graded; each stage should be prepared by & followed logically from the preceding stages without gaps in the previous instruction;
4. be so presented that the learners have to meet only with one difficulty at a time; gradation of

difficulties is a condition of accessibility;

9. of Durability.

This principle determines the assimilation of the instruction. Durable assimilation is ensured by the didactic principles: consciousness, activity, visuality.

Durable or lasting instruction can be ensured systematic revision of the knowledge acquired, drill in proper habits, exercise of skills.

Interest, attention & motivation are positive factors of durable knowledge.

10) of Individualization. 

A teacher should take into account the personality of every learner to provide cognitive aims of education. Every learner should acquire & learn language in accordance with his/her psychological & mental abilities.

The teacher should assess the progress of every individual & find the way how to manage the classroom activity not to depress the slowest learners & not to frustrate the fastest ones by being held back.

Individualization is achieved through individual cards, tasks of different levels(for bright, average, poor students), additional materials, pair-, group-work where every learner presents his/her own abilities. 

Control questions:

What can you tell about principles of foreign language teaching?

     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

Recommended literature: 

1. Гальскова Н.Д. Современная методика обучения иностранным языкам., М., 2000.

2. Зимняя И.А. Психология обучения иностранным языкам в школе. - М., 1991.

3. Колкер Я.М., Устинова Е.С., Еналиева Г.М. Практическая методика обучения иностранному языку, М., 2000. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

    Lecture 8, 9 

TEACHING AIDS AND TEACHING MATERIALS. 

Plan: 

1. Teaching aids.
2. Teaching materials.
3. Programmed materials.
4. Visual materials.
5. Audio materials.
6. Audio- visual materials

 

     To master a foreign language pupil must be engaged in activities which are characteristic of the language; they should hear the language spoken, speak, read, and write it. Classroom practices, which are restricted to teacher’s presentation of linguistic material (vocabulary, grammar) and the testing of pupils’ knowledge cannot provide good learning. The teacher covers “content” but does not instruct pupils. The majority of pupils remains passive, and work only to memorize what the teacher emphasizes. We cannot but agree with the following words: “... most of the changes we have come to think of as ‘classroom learning’ typically may not occur in the presence of a teacher. Perhaps it is during seatwork and homework sessions and other forms of solitary study that the major forms of any learning are laid down.”  Nor can the teacher ensure pupils learning a foreign language if he uses only a textbook, a piece of chalk, and a blackboard.

     To achieve effective classroom learning under the conditions of compulsory secondary education, the teacher must use all the accessories he has at his disposal in order to arouse the interest of his pupils and retain it throughout the lesson which is possible only if the pupils are actively involved in the very process of classroom learning.

     To teach a foreign language effectively the teacher needs teaching aids and teaching materials. During the last few years important developments have taken place in this field. As a result there is a great variety of teaching aids and teaching materials at the teacher’s disposal. 
 
 
 

TEACHING AIDS 

     By teaching aids we mean various devices which can help the foreign language teacher in presenting linguistic material to his pupils and fixing it in their memory; in testing pupils’ knowledge of words, phrases, and grammar items, their habits and skills in using them.

     Teaching aids which are at teachers’ disposal in contemporary schools may be grouped into (1) non-mechanical aids and (2) mechanical aids.

     Non-mechanical   aids   are:

     a blackboard, the oldest aid in the classroom; the teacher turns to the blackboard whenever he needs to write something while explaining some new linguistic material to his pupils, correcting pupils’ mistakes, or arranging the class to work at some words and sentence patterns, etc:; the blackboard can also be used for quick drawing to supply pupils with “objects” to speak about;

     a flannelboard (a board covered with flannel or other soft fabric for sticking pictures on its surface), it is used for creating vivid situations which would stimulate pupils’ oral language; the teacher can have a flannelboard made in a workshop or buy one in a specialized shop; the use of a flannelboard with cut-outs prepared by the teacher or pupils leads to active participation in the use of the target language,- as each pupil makes his contribution to working out “a scene” on the flannelboard;

     a magnet board (a board which has the properties of a magnet, i.e., can attract special cards with letters, words, phrases or pictures on it) used with the same purpose as a flannelboard;

     a lantern which is used for throwing pictures onto a screen.

     Mechanical   aids   are:

     tape recorder (ordinary and twin-track); the same tape may be played back as many times as is necessary, the twin-track tape recorder allows the pupil to play back the tape listening to the speaker’s voice and recording his own on the second track, the lower one, without erasing the first track with the voice of the speaker, the tape recorder is considered to be the most important aid in teaching and learning a foreign language;

     a gramophone or record player is also an audio equipment available in every school; the record player is an indispensable supplement to contemporary textbooks and other teaching materials as they are designed to be used with the long-playing records which accompany them;

     an opaque projector or epidiascope used for projection of illustrations and photographs;

     a filmstrip projector which can be used in a partially darkened  room  (the Soviet filmstrip projector ЛЭТИ does not require a darkened room);

     an overhead projector used for projection of a table, a scheme, a chart, a plan, a map or a text for everyone to see on a screen;

     television and radio equipment: television would make it possible to demonstrate the language in increasingly varied everyday situations; pupils are invited to look, listen, and speak; television and radio programmes are broadcast, but it is not always easy for teachers using these programmes to synchronize their lesson time with the time of the television or radio transmissions;