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Лекция 5:

Overview of ESOL issues

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RELATIONSHIPS

Over the years there have been many varied approaches to teaching English eg 'structural', 'notional', 'communicative' etc. and each promises to be the best, the new way to faster success. None will work in isolation. Successful English teaching is not only a question of method, but also of student/teacher relationships. You must be interested in your students. The student must need/want to learn AND the teacher must also need/want the student to learn. Encouragement is of great importance. Students need to feel they are progressing; this feeling comes, on the whole, from the teacher. (More about this later in this module.)

LOOK AFTER YOUR STUDENTS

Self-esteem is very important in language learning.

In order to achieve our aim of ensuring that our students are happy and feeling secure (and therefore able to learn), we not only teach them and give them opportunities to learn, we must also look after them.

Students need to feel at ease

Students need to feel comfortable

Students need to feel welcome

We, as teachers, need to settle them in and while doing so try to 'suss out' any 'hang-ups' they have which will prevent them from learning. For example they may have old family prejudices against our race; they may have been convinced that they will find English too difficult; they may panic at an unfamiliar accent; they may have met untrained teachers who turned them off classes almost for life!

Behind all these possible attitudes to lessons there may be other things that have nothing to do with you, such as whether a family member is sick or whether they have lost their front door key or crashed the car, that are interfering with their learning.

Now they are your students - you must help them over these barriers and make them feel relaxed and happy enough to succeed in your classroom leaving their troubles behind them for an hour or two.

ARE YOU A CARING PERSON?

Throughout the course you will be shown how to prepare for a career in TESOL. This will involve:- planning lessons; preparing materials; getting to grips with grammar; setting out your classroom; understanding the students' problems. We hope to make you a fully-prepared professional who can bring about success in any ESOL situation. We cannot make you a caring person, but if you are not going to care about your students' success, you will not succeed as a teacher. If you are not going to be concerned about their happiness you will not be happy and neither you nor your students will be successful.

From now on we assume that you are a caring person who wants to bring about success.

HOW DO WE BRING ABOUT SUCCESS? INVOLVING THE STUDENT- PERSONALISING LESSONS

The teacher shows interest in his/her students by getting to know about their interests and backgrounds and by allowing them to express their opinions about their own environment and about their experiences in England, USA. etc. Get to know the area the students come from so that relevant discussions can be set up.

Everyone likes to talk about him/herself. Likewise students like to hear about their classmates/fellow students. When this is allowed in class you will find that your students involve themselves far more than if they are talking about a fictional character from a coursebook.

If all your students are desperately putting their hands up to tell you something, you have achieved your aim of involving them.

SELF-CHECK 3:1 1

Make notes on personalised activities that you could do for each of these topics in a course book. An example is given.

The weather

Have students research the weather in different locations that are very hot and very cold. They choose the place.

Have students present the weather in the country they come from if they are studying outside of their own country

Let students devise and present a weather forecast.

Have students research a weather disaster (if their language is developed enough) such as a hurricane or flood.

Link weather to clothes and chat about their favourite thing to wear when it is cold or hot.

Now try these:

Health and fitness

Entertainment and TV

Food and drink

GIVING THE STUDENT CONFIDENCE

Role-play, dialogues, sketches - however you do it, acting out involves both the performing students and the listeners. They will be less self-conscious about the English as they concentrate on the character or acting role which they are required to carry out. They may be embarrassed or nervous at first, but hopefully when they have got through that they will be assured that they can also get over the 'fear' of speaking English. Watch carefully to find out who is shy/confident etc and assign roles they can manage at first, gradually getting everyone confident.

Building up the students' confidence in any situation means encouraging them at every opportunity and never 'putting them down'.

USING REALISTIC LANGUAGE

In most schools in the world, gone are the days of courses which taught useless language

"Does your grandmother wear a red dress?"

"Is this a pen? Yes, this is a pen."

are not phrases which students will often need, if at all.

Real situations and examples which the student will meet outside the classroom should be used as much as possible; equally the language should be taught in context. Modern course books are getting better and better at including real speech on recordings and using real texts for reading comprehensions. But you can easily find your own. Make sure that you have your students do real pieces of writing too, such as letters, articles and so on rather than ‘essays’ or ‘fill the blanks’ exercises.

What is a ‘realsituation or example? Get into the habit of chatting to your students at the beginning or end of a lesson in a natural way. You will be giving them the chance to listen to and take part in natural conversation.

Try a few of these ideas:

Comment on something ‘cool’ that someone is wearing. Ask them where they got it and what shops the rest of the class like.

Ask learners for advice about a real or imaginary problem that you have. If you are living in their country they will be delighted to help. Ask what to buy someone as a present, the best route to a place nearby, a good place to eat, how to say something in their language.

Say: Did you hear about …(the flood, accident, parrot that escaped etc.)

Tell them the story and invite them to add details you didn’t know.

Don’t just ask the learners what they are going to do at the weekend. Tell them about what you are going to do and invite comment. It makes for a good chat the next week too as you give feedback to each other on the trip to the seaside or the rock concert….

Tell them you are thinking of taking up a new hobby/want to play music/want to find a sports team. You may have an expert in your class.

SHORTENED FORMS

Use them! I'd, she's, weren't etc. are normal spoken English. In their full form they are used only for writing. This means you should introduce them right from the start in your speech. Novice teachers often make the mistake of speaking extremely slowly to their classes so they sound like robots. This helps no-one! In Unit 2 Module 2 we looked at stress patterns in spoken English. Shortened forms help to keep a regular stress pattern that students recognized as their ears become tuned to English so we say:

Where’ve you been? I’ve bin waitin’ for ages.

We would sound strange and be hard to understand if we said precisely:

Where have you been? I have been waiting for ages. Try it!!

Be a good model for your students. Speak clearly with normal stress patterns and intonation.

ACCENT

Teachers of ESOL do not all have the same accent. On the whole students will expect this and readily accept British regional accents as well as those from different parts of America, Canada and Australia and so on. Most language schools’ teachers come from all over the world.

Do not be afraid to use your normal accent; trying to change it and being inconsistent can be confusing. But DO be aware of what words you pronounce differently from what the students might expect. If they complain about the way you speak, don’t get offended but make your accent and how it is ‘special’ the focus of a lesson. Find out about colloquialisms and transatlantic differences such as faucet and tap, trunk and boot (of a car) so that you can help students with international recordings and texts. So long as you do not use very colloquial English or colloquialisms which are grammatically unacceptable, relax in the knowledge that you can be a model in the classroom whether you come from Glasgow or Oxford.

However, it is essential that your students are given the opportunity to hear as many different accents as you can bring into the classroom. This way they will deal better with other accents outside the classroom, and they will not find themselves unable to understand anyone but you.

Remember, there is no ‘correctaccent in spoken English. Being pedantic helps no-one so find out as much as you can about accents and dialects!

KEEPING THE STUDENTS' INTEREST

So you've involved the students, they are gaining confidence and desperately wanting to join in the lesson. How do you keep this level of interest?

Varying the activities is imperative. Monotony will send your students to sleep. Change the activity regularly, even if you are teaching the same language point. During the course you will learn many different ways to teach and exploit a language point, remember to use them. Don't be known as 'the teacher who always does a reading passage' or 'the one who always uses the coursebook’ - this makes for disinterested students even before they have reached the lesson. So begin your lesson by telling the students what you are going to do. That way they feel secure and have a feeling of planning and organization - but don’t make it the same thing every time!

SELF-CHECK 3:1 2

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Лилия Громова
Лилия Громова
1 октября отправила на проверку первое задание, до сих пор не проверено, по этой причине не могу пройти последующие тесты.
Светлана Носкова
Светлана Носкова