Dear FLE 404 members,
In this assignment, as a prospective English teacher, you need to describe your approach to teaching English grammar and teaching language skills (i.e., how you prefer to present grammar points, how you prefer to teach language skills, your difficulties in teaching grammar points and language skills while teaching English,your students' difficulties in learning grammar and skills). Please give examples from your experiences in the practice teaching schools.
My approach to teach English grammar and language skills as a prospective English teacher can be described in this way that,I mostly prefer to teach the grammar functions and the language skills according to the level and the understanding of the class that I am teaching.I don't want to teach the rules firstly to all of the classes because all of the classes have different kinds of learning styles and ways.For example,in my practice school during all of my teaching tasks I preferred to teach the grammar by giving examples and sample sentences.The students also have much more difficulties when there are two or more similar grammar structures in the same sentence.Also they can have difficulties when there is included similar time expressions in the same sentence.
ReplyDeleteI will teach grammar inductively but still give the rule in the end. Of course it depends on the level, class, and age; but in general the grammar points should be discovered by the students first. After that the meaning should be taught. What does that specific grammar rule mean. What does it reffering to, these should be emphasized to the children. There should be many many examples to show the grammar point. Later on the students still be given the specific rule because in general the Turkish students are longing for the rules, that is because they are so used to formulate things in their classes. They are learning the points easier with the structures. However, as I said, I think that they first should discover it first.
ReplyDeleteAs a prospective teacher, my approach to grammar is Inductive Teaching.
ReplyDeleteSince I believe that the classical teaching techniques do not enrich the level of the students, the creativity and the imagination of the students are needed in order to reach an effective level of English. For instance, while I was teaching "Relative Clauses", I paid attention not to confuse my learners with the rules or the grammatical formats. On the contrary, I tried to give as many examples as I could. Eventually, one of the learners turned out to say the exact sentence of the relative pronouns. I was very amazed with his sentence. At this point, I realized that Inductive Approach worked very well with the 9th graders.However, there should always be a B-plan in case the plan does not work.
I believe that the approach might change according to the profile and the age of the learners. However, I support the Inductive Approach to keep my learners creative and active.
My main aim as a prospective teacher is teaching grammar and structure with using appropriate materials according to students' level, age, and interest. Especially when the students' interest is realized by the teacher, it gets much more easier to grab their attention with proper, authentic materials. For instance, in Ataturk Anatolian High School, I realized that 10-A and 10-B was really into celebrities-most probably because of their age- since they were always talking about Rihanna or Lady Gaga and listen to their songs during the breaks. Therefore, I prepared my lesson plan with using flashcards of celebrities in order to teach 'strong adjectives' like 'stunning', 'thrilling', 'fascinating' etc. The information of their interest really helped me and my practice teaching was found fun and interesting by the students.
ReplyDeleteOther grammar structures or vocabulary items can be taught effectively only if the teacher can infer what their interest is and make a combination between this information and their level of English.
I prefer to teach grammar inductively, and learning from specific examples to general rules is helpful to analyze the sentences effectively, so students discover the rules on their own. I think question-answer is a good way to teach the grammar inductively. In my practice teaching, I tried question and answer way while I was teaching the differences between the past continous and simple past tense. It worked well to reveal the subject.
ReplyDeleteI prefer to use fill in the blanks exercises for the grammar practice, and then there should be production activity. Production activity is very important to indicate students’ communication in English.
In my practice teaching, I didn’t see that students had difficulty in learning grammar. I was lucky and my mentor teacher motivated them to learn grammar well and inform them about its necessity. Students had the consious about the importance of grammar. They listened to me carefully, and did their task without creating any problem.
I value teaching skills more than teaching grammar. I find teaching and learning grammar very boring. On the other hand, when teaching skills I can incorporate creativity in the process. When teaching input skill (listening & reading) I want to use texts that will lead my students to think, rather than texts that will contribute nothing to their personality. When teaching output skills (writing & speaking) I do not want my students to produce language like robots and say the same thing, but I want them to produce language in order for them to convey the thoughts they have created. I plan on squeezing grammar somewhere on the way not referring to it explicitly unless I have no other choice.
ReplyDeleteTeaching grammar has always been an issue for me. However, I always try to be creative while teaching it as most of the students find grammar boring. For a little bit I give them the rule, then I have them listen to a song about it. If I could not find a song,I find other enjoyable listening activites in order to point out the grammar points. As another point, I prefer enjoyable reading texts that point out grammar points and have my students practice through it. In Ataturk Anadolu Lisesi, I had them listen to a song which had indirect and direct sentences (which was our grammar subject of the day). They have circled the direct and the indirect sentences while listening to the song. This way they enjoyed while learning grammar.
ReplyDeleteContrary to common belief, I really love teaching grammar. First, I create a scene for students to understand the point that I want to teach. I tell a story using the grammar tense. After some time, when the students get the time reference, I show the grammar structure and go on with the exercises. I tried this way and I had no difficulties. I love teaching grammar and I believe I can teach effectively.
ReplyDelete