Learning And Teaching Challenges For Romanian Students And Teachers

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION p. 3

I

THEORETICAL ASPECTS p.4

2.1 IDENTIFYING THE PROBLEM

2.2 SHORT INTRODUCTION INTO THE CEFR

2.2.1 THE ROLE OF EVALUATION

2.2.2 COORDINATING EVALUATION

2.3 OLD/NEW STYLES OF EVALUATION

2.4 TESTED LEVELS

2.5 EVALUATING CONTENTS

II. 1 CHALLENGES IN TEACHING SPEAKING

1.1 PRONOUNCIATION-RELATED ISSUES

TEACHING PRONOUNCIATION

FLUENCY VS ACCURACY

AMOUNT OF SPEAKING (EMOTIONAL)

EFFICIENT ACTIVITIES/ LESS EFFICIENT ACTIVITIES- EXAMPLES

LISTENING- RELATED ISSUES

TEACHING LISTENING

TYPES OF TASKS

ACCENT

RATE OF SPEECH

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

EFFICIENT ACTIVITIES/ LESS EFFICIENT ACTIVITIES- EXAMPLES

READING- RELATED ISSUES

TEACHING READING

SPELLING

EFFICIENT ACTIVITIES/ LESS EFFICIENT ACTIVITIES- EXAMPLES

WRITING- RELATED ISSUES

TEACHING WRITING

SPELLING

EFFICIENT ACTIVITIES/ LESS EFFICIENT ACTIVITIES- EXAMPLES

VOCABULARY – RELATED ISSUES

TEACHING VOCABULARY

FALSE FRIENDS

HOMOPHONES- HOMOGRAPHS

EFFICIENT ACTIVITIES/ LESS EFFICIENT ACTIVITIES- EXAMPLES

GRAMMAR-RELATED ISSUES

TEACHING GRAMMAR

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE ROMANIAN AND ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL SYSTEM

NOUNS

TENSES

WORD ORDER

OTHER ISSUES

1.7.1 CONFUSING SITUATIONS/ PHRASES

III. CHALLENGES

THE ROLE AND COMPETENCES OF CLASSICAL TEACHER/ THE MANY ROLES OF THE MODERN TEACHER (5PGS+)

METHODOLOGICAL RESEARCH

3.1 ABOUT THE RESEARCH

3.1.1. OBJECTIVES OF RESEARCH

3.1.2 HYPOTHESIS OF RESEARCH

3.1.3 TYPE OF RESEARCH

CHOOSING THE SKILLS TO CHECK

3.2. METHODS OF INVESTIGATION

PROCEDURES FOR GATHERING DATA

PRE-TEST, MODERN+CLASSICAL METHODS

QUESTIONNAIRE-FOR TEACHERS

CONTEXT OF THE RESEARCH

3rd AND 4TH GRADES

HOW TO OVERCOME CHALLENGES USING CERTAIN METHODS

RESULTS OF THE RESEARCH

CONCLUSIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

APPENDIX

3rd grade research – Activity plans using interactive methods (6-10) (TPR, learning through songs, role plays etc)

4th grade research- Activity plans mixing interactive and classical ( gramamar translation etc vs the above ones)

Listening test

Speaking test (needs recordings attached, I’ll try to get that)

Questionnaire and results

Learning and teaching challenges for Romanian students and teachers

INTRODUCTION

MOTTO:

Education is the most powerful weapon

which you can use to change the world.

(Nelson Mandela)

Nelson Mandela was one of the most prominent figures when it comes to revolution, human rights and, why not, education. His visionary nature inspired many people around the world even now, years after his passing.

Just like he said, we are now in the middle of a revolution: one in education, as well as in understanding life and humanity.

World is revolving, generations of children change dramatically as compared to the ones from 10-20 years ago and we need to move along and find solutions that work out best for them the way they are now.

It is known that most of the methods used in state school nowadays are still the “classical” “old fashioned” methods we actually grew up with. Why? Maybe because part of the teachers working in the system right now spent the last 20-30 years of their lives working this way and because the younger teachers from the system grew up with them and remember them from school as being good methods. What was successful 30 years ago is now too slow or discriminative while education nowadays needs to be interactive and inclusive. We still have a difficult time finding the sparkle in kids who fail in maths and languages but they usually are brilliant in sports, arts and handicrafts so this is certainly one thing to work on.

Will the newbies change this system, since they are educated in this new spirit and are taught these new methods during their college or university years? I don’t think so, they don’t yet have a style of their own and don’t yet have a leader voice to make older colleagues follow them. I think this is the big challenge here: changing the system with every one of us. We as teachers need to reflect more upon the status of our job and the way students react during educational activities and after seeing the feedback we have to make a change and adjust ourselves, our methods and our speech to this reality.

This is the big revolution that needs to be done and unless we do it sooner I believe these smart and impatient children will feel so bored and disappointed by school that they will end up turning against it.

Throughout my EFL teacher experience, I've managed to teach students aged 3-14/15, working both on a national curricullum basis and on private one. During the activities I attended and carried out myself, I could notice that the 2 ways of teaching and handling a lesson differ dramatically when we reffer to the amount of oral interaction a teacher is supposed to have with young children, 3-7 years old. In state schools, where until 2012, only children aged 10-14 studied English language, this oral interaction was very new at the moment when English language became compulsory for all students, starting from Prep Grade once they were introduced in the national curricullum.

I could say one of the greatest challenges Romanian teachers and students meet during EFL classes is overcoming old school views and infrastructure. Back in 2002, using audio – video materials was not very common in school when teaching 3rd -8th grades.

As technology and sets of textbooks changed, every teacher would be able to gather loads of audio cassetes (that came with the teacher's books) and then CDs, followed by video materials such as DVDs. Then, during the last years more and more schools were provided with free access to internet in some (if not all) of the clasrooms, which means teachers can now use multimedia materials during classes without having to buy special DVDs for them. The best change, in this matter, would be the appearance of multimedia (or digital) student books, where some of the DVDs traditionally offered at a relatively high price before, were made free and available to all teachers, students and parents on the Ministry of Education online platform, www.manuale.edu.ro .

Of course, we still need to have videoprojectors, computers and audio sets in all classrooms in order to freely use technology while teaching our students. Right now we do have some of these but not available for all classrooms.

Then, another big challenge would be the lack of competences some teachers face when handling such devices.

Moving further, I believe that introducing English classes to prep grade students is a great step forward towards the aquisition of the foreign language. First of all, this is one way to ensure students with a foreign language exposure and use before they start reading and writing so they can first be introduced to the new language orally, in a natural way, increasing their chances for a greater language aquisition.

Being in the middle of school curriculum reform, during the previous school years (more specifically, in the school year 2013-2014) Romanian teachers had the chance to teach 3 starter grades in every school: the prep grade and 1st grade as being the ones starting EFL study together following the new curricullum and the ones starting EFL after the older curriculum, the 3rd grade students.

I could easily choose the winners of this- they were the prep grade students, the yougest ones who had the chance of starting fresh, in a more informal way. The ones in the 1st grade had to make up for the "missed" year first, since their workbooks looked a bit more difficult than the ones prep grade students used. Plus, they had to deal with writing and reading tasks more than the younger ones. Teachers usually enjoy using additional audio-video materials with both classes and watching them starting to communicate in English in a natural way. This seems to be more attractive than the way it is done with the 4th grade starter level students. They do have attractive materials accompanied by audio and video materials and feel very happy to learn the new language but to them, it is a bit more difficult to learn in a natural way because they need to stick up to the common curriculum, the books and lessons available there.

THEORETICAL ASPECTS

(Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment

Structured overview of all, CFR: All scales and skills)

Language use, embracing language learning, comprises the actions performed by persons who as individuals and as social agents develop a range of competences, both general and in particular communicative language competences. They draw on the competences at their disposal in various contexts under various conditions and under various constraints to engage in language activities involving language processes to produce and/or receive texts in relation to themes in specific domains, activating those strategies which seem most appropriate for carrying out the tasks to be accomplished. The monitoring of these actions by the participants leads to the reinforcement or modification of their competences.

2.1 IDENTIFYING THE PROBLEM

Some of the main "roots" of the most important difficulties and challenges Romanian teachers and pupils have to deal with, come from one (or more) of the following situations:

-traditional/modern teaching approaches and techniques (CLT, TBL, CLIL)

-inadequate or insufficient implementation of the CEFR

-synchronizing national or local exams with the CEFR levels

-evaluation – summative vs formative evaluation

Evaluation

Role of evaluation (Bocos, Evaluarea in invatamantul primar)

Traditional methods used in Romanian educational system

Modern interactive methods and strategies studied and implemented by Romanian teachers during reform years

-different language structures on phonetic /word order/ morphological/semanthic/syntactic/ pragmatic levels leading to confusions between the 2 languages

– lack of dynamics throughout the teaching process (minimizing speaking activities in favour of writing)

2.2 SHORT INTRODUCTION INTO THE EFR

Traditionally, when students in the rural area wanted to go to a highschool with intensive/bilingual English classes, they had difficulties resulting from the difference of knowledge and practice when compared to the students who had studied in the city. Well, this is not just a problem related to EFL teaching, but talking about this specifically, the high level student from the country school would be the lower level student in the city class.

The same problem came up during LLP activities, where students and teachers from different European countries had international meetings hosted by schools or training centers with the common aim of communicating on various educational topics. The most used language among them was usually English. This could be a moment when students of quite similar ages could notice how different their English language aquisition could be.. or how helpful this foreign language was to them. Of course, differences would come from each people’s own language, phonological system, culture and civilization.

These differences and many more were roughly caused by the fact that each school, each individual teacher, basically, taught the language in their own way, starting from the same curricula (within one country’s educational system) or from the same recommendations made by the British Council (in different countries). This is normal, taking into consideration that each person is unique, not all students learn in the same way, and the teachers‘ personality influences the teaching and learning style substantially from one school to another. And the same teacher can teach in diferent ways, using diferent methods and tasks when he/she meets different groups of students or in different educational environmnents.

So, yes, teaching and learning are known to be very subjective activities.

But still, there were more situations in which difference in language levels was (and can still be, maybe): students trying to enroll in foreign/international schools where a certain level of English language aquisition was required. Some of the best students in their schools or even regions would not pass the language tests. Another situation, related to the labour market, came to almost similar results, well trained people not getting the targeted job because of failing the language level test. All these were part of the greatest challenges faced by teachers of English around the world: the lack of a common grading scale for all schools. Even now, when the Council of Europe adopted the CEFR to be used on an international regular basis, many teachers forget to refer to it when evaluating their students, leading to situations like the ones presented above.

Trying to answer the question „What exactly does the CEFR do?“, we can reffer to the definitions given by the Council of Europe when releasing this Common European Framework of Refference:

The Common European Framework is intended to overcome the barriers to communication among professionals working in the field of modern languages arising from the different educational systems in Europe. It provides the means for educational administrators, course designers, teachers, teacher trainers, examining bodies, etc., to reflect on their current practice, with a view to situating and co-ordinating their efforts and to ensuring that they meet the real needs of the learners for whom they are responsible. By providing a common basis for the explicit description of objectives, content and methods, the Framework will enhance the transparency of courses, syllabuses and qualifications, thus promoting international co-operation in the field of modern languages. The provision of objective criteria for describing language proficiency will facilitate the mutual recognition of qualifications gained in different learning contexts, and accordingly will aid European mobility. ( http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Framework_EN.pdf)

Together with the definitions and rationale of adopting such a laborious framework, the European Council states a series of political objectives aimed at by the CEFR, when it comes to modern languages teaching.

To equip all Europeans for the challenges of intensified international mobility and closer co-operation not only in education, culture and science but also in trade and industry.

To promote mutual understanding and tolerance, respect for identities and cultural diversity through more effective international communication.

To maintain and further develop the richness and diversity of European cultural life through greater mutual knowledge of national and regional languages, including those less widely taught.

To meet the needs of a multilingual and multicultural Europe by appreciably developing the ability of Europeans to communicate with each other across linguistic and cultural boundaries, which requires a sustained, lifelong effort to be encouraged, put on an organised footing and financed at all levels of education by the competent bodies.

To avert the dangers that might result from the marginalisation of those lacking the skills necessary to communicate in an interactive Europe. ( http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Framework_EN.pdf)

It is very clear, reading the fragments cited above, that using the CEFR in a proper way can provide all teacher and students of modern languages in Europe with unitary scales for language learning and evaluating one‘s level of „language aquisition“.

Even so, many Romanian teachers and students don’t seem to be too familiar with it and are still struggling with old-fashioned teaching methods and techniques.

2.2.1 THE ROLE OF EVALUATION

Checking the objectives of the CEFR above, one can also see some of the real functions of evaluation.

The term “evaluation” is of French origin, “valoir” meaning “to be worth”.

The everyday meaning of the word 'evaluate' is quite simple: to judge the worth of something. This is a long-established usage, and it is hardly surprising that many people assume that the task of the educational evaluator is to judge. Some evaluators do in fact share this assumption, and a few would even argue that the evaluator has a right to expect that his judgements would be reflected in resulting grades or measures. But there are others who believe that the proper position of judgements of worth, and the responsibility for taking them into account lie elsewhere.

Teachers' observations, students' experiences, and the review of related literature indicate that language anxiety is a significant factor adversely affecting the language learning process. Unlike the old ideas, that evaluation is the most stressful part of the process of teaching, or that it can even be punnitive and an efficient discipline tool, it is now the time to face the real role of evaluation.

In modern society, increasing emphasis on children‘s personal and social education, as well as their academic results, have influenced the development of a range of techniques for assessing all phases of child growth and development, of student achievement, of behaviour and of the teaching-learning processes.

Due to the large number of factors that enter into teaching and learning including such instructional variables as objectives, methods and techniques, and subject-matter on the one hand; and such human variables as pupils and teachers, on the other, it has been difficult to appraise the validity of the pupil’s achievement.

There is, therefore, a comparatively large subjective factor in the evaluation of teaching and learning that needs to be taken into account together with its objective features.

It cannot be denied that the evaluation of teaching and learning is an exceedingly complex activity. However, the efficiency of the teacher and the growth and achievement of the pupil can be evaluated through the use of such devices as check lists, rating scales, and tests of different aspects of teaching ability, interview, and questionnaires.

Through the use of such devices much valuable data may be gathered relative to many of the important aspects of teaching and learning.

In the Glossaire de termes relatifs à l'évaluation et termes connexes (1987, pag. 3), there is a „correcting“ definition of the evaluation process as "the operation aimed to objectively and systematically determining the impact, efficiency and pertinance of activities in relation to their objectives in order to improve the current activities on the one hand and, on the other hand, to plan, program and decide future activities“.

A more pragmatical definition of evaluation (M.Q. Patton, 1987, pag. 15) states that “The evaluation practise implies systematically collecting great deal of information regarding the activities, characteristics and objectives of the programs, and have them used by cretain specialists in order to reduce their degree of relativity, improve their efficiency and decide on what these programs bring up and the realities they affect“.

From an instructional point of view, evaluation is "the action of collecting a pertinent, valid, reliable information set related to learning and training activities, and also the action of examining the degree of appropriateness between this set and a pertinent set of criteria established in relation to the previously stated objectives of the training. Evaluating means comparing a set of information with a set or pertinent criteria in order to make a decision" (M. Bocoș, 2002, pag. 96).

As a whole actively part of the curriculum, evaluation gets a special importance in building and re-building the curriculum; it can have a short term, middle term and long term effect and impact on evaluated, evaluators and other educational agents, as well as decision-makers.

Any evaluation activity ends up with a judgement on the evaluated, who can be at the moment on various points in his/her educational track. The gathered information can be of various types, structured in various ways or shapes, and have various uses. Analysing it can help us define 2 types of effects of the curriculum-evaluation, such as the feed-back effect and the backwash effect.(A, Stoica, coord. 2001))

Self evaluation

Peer evaluation

Students‘ feedback

Summative- product evaluation

Formative –evaluation of the process

Traditional – tests

Alternative – portfolio, observation, project, investigation

Talking about the role of evaluation, I should make some short refference to the functions of evaluation as well, since

III. CHALLENGES

SPEAKING

Challenges in learning vocabulary

Introduction

Vocabulary has an important role in language learning, it represents an essential skill for learning to read, speak, write and listen. Without an efficient vocabulary, people cannot communicate and express their feelings both in form of spoken and written form effectively. Vocabulary plays an important role in learning a foreign language because it will be impossible to speak up without a diversity of words.Therefore, people- especially students- who learn English often find learning vocabulary quite challenging.

A Theoretical Foundation

1.The definition of Vocabulary

Learning a new language means to know vocabulary. According to Richards and Renadya, ”vocabulary is a core component af language proficiency and provides much of the basis for how learners speak, listen, read and write. Without an extensive vocabulary and strategies for acquiring new vocabulary, learners often achieve their potential and may be descouraged from making use of language learning opportunities around them such as listening to a native speaker”.

Another deffinition is the one who belongs to Hach and Brown. According to them, vocabulary reffers to a list of words that individual speakers of language might use.

Ur also defines vocabulary and he reffers to the words we teach in the foreign language.

Based on these definitions,it can be assumed that vocabulary is a list of words as a basic component of language proficiency which has a form or expression.

2.The importance of Vocabulary

Vocabulary has an important role for those who learn English both as a foreign language and as second language.

Grauberg consideres that the process of learning vocabulary involves four steps:

Discrimination

This is a basic stage wich means the capacity to distinguish sounds, letters from those next to them, to keep distinct whean speaking and writing.

Understandig meaning

This suppose knowing the concept of the foreign word or phrase. Often this is straightforward because the word can be related to its referent by direct association or cause of its equivalent word in English.

Remembering

The next stage reffers to retention. Once students have found out the sense of a certain word, they have no reason to attend to it any more, and it will be forgotten.

Consolidation and extension of meanig

Involves the idea that learning new words is not an instant process and needs to be relearned.

3. Types of Vocabulary

Hiebert and Kamil sustained the idea that aword has two forms: oral vocabulary and it reffers to the words we recognize when we speak or read and second vocabulary which are the words of whom meaning is known when we write or read silently.They also include:

Productive vocabulary

Productive vocabulary is a set of words the students are familiar with and they are using them frequently.

Receptive or recognition vocabulary

Receptive or recognition vocabulary is a set of words the students are not so familiar with and less frequent use.

4. The Aspect of Vocabulary

There are few aspects of lexis that need to be taken into consideration when we talk about vocabulary.The next list is based on the work of Gairns and Redman in Moras and includes:

a. Boundaries between conceptual meaning.

b. Polysemy: knowing the various meaning of a single word.

c. Synonymy: knowing the different shades of sense that synonimous words have.

d. Style, register, dialect which means knowing the effect of different contexts and topics.

e. Translation reffers to certain differences and similarities between the native and the foreign language.

f. Prononciation reffers to capacity to identify and reproduce items in speech.

5. Difficulties in Vocabulary

The most important step in teaching vocabulary is to identify the difficultties that are faced by the students in general. Thornbury proposes a list of some factor that make some words more difficult as follows:

Pronounciation

Involves the idea that words that are difficult to pronounce are harder to learn.

Spelling

Sound-spelling mismatches can contribute to a word s difficulty.Words that includes letters are problematic.

Lenght and complexity

It seems to be no problem in learning long words than the short ones, the student is likely to meet them more often, a factor favouring their learnability.

Grammar

Another problem seems to be the grammar associated with the word,”especially if this differs from that of its L1 equivalent. Remembering whearher a verb like enjoy,love, or hope is faloweed by an infinitive( to swim) or an- ing form( swimming) can add to its difficulty.

Meaning

When two words overlap in sense , learners tends to confuse them. Make and do is an sustenable exemple: you make breakfast and make an appointment, but you do your homework and do a questionnaire.

According to Gower, Philips and Walter, what makes a vocabulary easy or problematic depends on :

Similarity

A great problem of a vocabulary item ocurres when depends on how similar the items is in the form and sense to the students first language. Words beeing similar in the first language and English may be misleading rather than helpul.

Connotation

A problematic aspect is the connotation of a word. A word may have positive or negative connotation, such as the words skinny and slim could be used to caracterise someone who is thin – but the respective words are very different in connotation and by choosing one of them the speaker conveys a particular attitude.

Spelling and prononciation

The spelling of a variety of English words can produce difficulties for students who speak languages with very regular spellin g systems. Several spelling patterns can produce confusion when pronunciation is concerned. It is easy to constate why students confuse the meaning, pronunciation and spelling of these words: through, though, tough.

Appropriate use

Using appropriately vocabulary is also difficult. Many words and expression are restricted to use in particular context, for exemple, we can use pushing to mean almost in He is pushing fifty. But pushing is only used in this way with older people – we do not say he is pushing there!

By the aspect presented , we can observe that almost all of the students have problems in pronouncing the words, how to use the words in grammatical pattern correctly, hoe to write and spell.

New vocab

Some successful activities through which new vocabulary can be introduced.
– Showing pictures or flashcards
– Substitution (synonyms or antonyms)
– Naming the scene
– Miming or TPR
– Bringing real life objects

GRAMMAR

Teaching grammar has to be one of toughest tasks a teacher faces. We all know that grammar skills are essential to students' success on standardized tests and college entrance exams, in their ability to communicate orally and in writing, and in nearly all other areas of life! So the more fun we can have with grammar—and the more varied approaches we can use to teach it—the more likely our students are to 'get it.'

Grammar should be taught in order to enable students to communicate properly, but if we see language as a set of rules there will be disconnections between knowing the rules of grammar and being able to apply them. On the other hand students should be aware of the fact that grammar affects meaning ,so incorrect grammar can lead to confusion. That is why a teacher needs to give clear examples and explanations, and must find a balance between accuracy and simplicity.

Difficulties in teaching grammar

A . DEFINING GRAMMAR TEACHING

Grammar is the study of what structures or forms are possible in a language.

Tradionally, grammar reffers to the analysis at the level of the sentence.Thus a grammar is a presentation of the rules that govern how a languages sentences are formed.

In a conventional way, grammar reffers to the study of the syntax and morphology of senteces.Also is concerned with the study of linguistic chains and slots. Many languages have differents constraints on the way chaines and ordered and slots are filled.Various second language students errors results from overgeneralising rules from their language.So theat from a students perspective,the capacity both to identify and to produce well-formed sentences is an considerable part of learning a second language.But there are many problems, first, is concerned with how this capacity is best developed.Second, it is not very clear what well-formed really mean when many of naturally occuring speach seems to violate a stict grammatical rules.Third,”an exclusive focus on sentences,rather than on texts or on words risks under equipping the learner for real language use”.(Thornbury).

Grammar and meaning

The types of meanings realised by grammar are:

representational- reffers to the fact that grammar enables us to use language topresnt the world in terms of how, when and where things happen;

iterpersonal-involves the idea that grammar makes easier the way we interact with people when we need to get things down using language.

b) Grammar and function

According to Thornbury, there is no match between grammatical form and communicative function and contextual informative has an important role in our interpretation of what a speaker means.

Spoken grammar and written grammar

Traditional grammar is focused on the written forms on the language and spoken language has its own distinctive grammar.

Grammar syllabuses

From the teaching perspective, we can constate that grammar can be clasified into a teaching syllabus according to a such criteria as complexity, learneability and tcheability.

B. How to teach grammar from rules

There are two important aspects in theaching grammar from rules:

a deductive approach to grammar wich reffers to the fact the rule is given and used to exemples;

a inductive approach to grammar wich means that the rule is found by generalising from examples.

Advantages of using a deductive approach are: can be efficient, respects students intelligence and learning process.

Dangers of using a deductive approach are: can be demotivating for the students or they may react negativelly.

1.Rule and explanations

Michael Swan,the author of teachers and students grammar gives us the next criteria:

Truth- that is rules should be true,it must bear some resemblance to the reality it is describing.

Limitation- rules should indicate with accuracy what the limits are on the use of a given structure.

Clarity- rules needs to be clear.Lack of clarity is otfen produced by ambiguity.

Familiarity- a clarification is necessary to the learner to make a concept already familiar.

Relevance- a rule must corresponde only those questions that thea learner needs answered.

It is necessary to understand the fact that rules are only a part of an explanation.The fallowing example given by Thornbury reveals in the right-hand column the different stages of the explanation are identified.

T: Right. The past perfect. (cueing)

T: The past perfect is formed from the pastof the auxiliary 'have', plus the past participle.( rule of form).

T: For example, 'everyone had left', 'the film had started'.(examples)

T: So, what's the past perfect of 'they go?(check)

ST: 'They had gone.'

T: Good.

It is used when you are talking about the past, and you want to refer to an earlier point in the past.( rule of use)

T: For example, ”We were late. When we got to the cinema, the film had already started.”(example)

T: Did the film start after we arrived, at the same time as we arrived, or before we arrived? ( check)

T: Before.

T :" Right.

T :" So, it's like this. (draws)

T: We arrived at this point in time (a). But I need to refer to an earlier point in the past,when the film started, here (b).

It is necessary to notice the explanation is divided in two parts: the rule of form being dealt with the rule of use.

Here is an example propose by Thornbury of a different approche to rule-led teaching.

2.Teaching word order using a self-study grammar( intermmediary)

”Many students have access to self-study grammars that is, grammar reference book which also include exercises and a key. These grammars are potential sources of learner-directed grammar learning, both in the classroom (as should be apparent from Sample lesson 3) and out of the classroom. In this sample lesson, the teacher exploits the self and peer instruction potential of grammar practice books to target a feature of syntax.

Step 1

The teacher has identifted a common problem in the classroom – the tendency to put advcrbials between subject and object, as in I like very much techno music (The adverbial in this case is very much.) So he directs learners to Unit 108 in English Grammar in Use by Raymond Murphy (see opposite).The teacher tells thcm to study fhe grammar rules for homework, to do the exercise on the facing page (see 108.1 below), and to check it by reference to the answers in the back of the book. They are also asked to design – as a homework task – their own exercise along similar lines, by writing twelve original sentences, some of which are correct and some of which are

Is the word order right or wrong? Correct the ones are wrong.

1 Everybody enjoyed the party very much. RIGHT

2 .Tom walks every morning to work. WRONG-to work every morning

3.Jim doesn′t like very much football.

4.Are you going to invite to the party a lot of people?

5.Did you go late to the bad last night:

The teacher reminds the learners that the sentences should be designed to test their classmates' grasp of the word order rules they are to study.

Step 2

In the next Jesson, the wilcher puts the students in pairs, and they cach exchange the exercises they have prepared. Each does the exercise they have been given. That is, they read their partner's sentences and decide which are grammatically correct. They also correct the ones that are incorrect. They then return them to their partner for checking. The teacher is available for consultation and will attempt to resolve any problems that arise – where, example, there are two possible correct answers.

Step3

The teacher then rounds off this part of the lesson by eliciting the word order rules from the class.

Discussion

This is another example of 'helping the learners to help themselves'. By encouraging them to take advantage of self-study resources, the teacher is instilling habits of self-directed learning. ).Moreover by setting the grammar study to do as a homework activity the teacher frees up valuable class time that might be put to more productive use, such as practice. Virtually any grammar area that is covered in the self-study books is appropriate for this kind of task. It is particularly useful for dealing with problem areas that arise in class, but that are not dealt with in the students' current syllabus. Having the students design their own exercise is a particularly important task, since this helps them to engage with the rule at a productive, not merely receptive, level. By personalising the exercise, it is made more memorable,and certainly more interesting for other students to do. It also allows for the possibility of some discussion of the content of the sentences (Is it true that you don't like Chines food, Nicole?). Most self-study materials – including the'workbooks usually p·ublished along with course books – are suitable as a basis for studcnt-deslgned exercises. Exercise types that arc common in these kinds of materials are gap-filling tasks (as in the sample lesson above) using both sentences and texts, ordering tasks such as correcting the order of words in a sentence, expansion tasks which involve producing whole sentences or texts from prompt words, and transformation tasks which might involve transforning direct speech into reported speech, or activeinto passive sentences.

Evaluation

The E-factor: By having the students study the grammar as a homework task, the saving in class time makes this approach maximally efficient. The exercise-writing task acts as an incentive to study the grammar. At the sametime, this exercise-writing task requires students to engage with the rules at a deeper level than conventional self-tudy exercises normally require, thus increasing the efficacy of this approach. Finally, the pair work activity in the subsequent lesson provides an opportunity forpeer-teaching so that even the student who hasn't done his or her homework has a chance of benefiting, As for the ease of this approach, it assumes th,lt students have access to self-study grammars.In the absence of these, the grammar reference pages now found in most course books would serve equally well. Relying on students to take some responsibility for thei!' own learning fa the extent of purting free time aside to study grammar rules and design exercises may be ask.ing a lot of certain students, especially those who would prefer the teacher to be the source of all grammar input. To work well, this, kind of,activity need to be introduced to the students gradually, with the exercise-writing activity taking place initially in class, in pairs or groups, and under the close supervision of the teacher.Neverthless,with motivated groups of adult students who appreciate the value of freeing class time for language practice rather than for language study, this approach has a lot in its favour.”

On the other hand, the inductive approach presents advantages such as: rules students discover from themselves are more likely to fit their existing mental structures than rules they have been presented with.This, in turn will make the rules more meaningful.Students are involved in the learning activity rather than just being a passive recipients.Also it makes easier problem-solving and so that students get the chance for extra language practice.

The disadvantages of an inductive approach includes: ”the time and energy spent in working out rules my mislead students into believing that rules are the objective of language learnig, rather than means”(Thornbury).Also the time spent in working out a rule may be at the expense of time used in putting the rule to sime type of productive practice.

C . How to deal with grammar errors

Many errors are developmental,they may occur in the process of language aquisition, irrespective of the students mother tongue.

Language students oftenmake mistakes at the level of individual words, that is they put the sentences toghether or at the level of whole texts.If we reffer to the word level, students make errors either because they have selected the wrong word for the sense they want to express.( My brother was stopping in the door instead of standing) ,or they have chosen the incorrect form of the word( lower instead of lawyer).These mistakes are called lexical errors.They also includes errors in the way words are combined( Saturday night past instead of last Saturday night).

Grammar errors reffers to mistakes in verb form and tense ( we spoked), and in sentence structure: was tehe four o′clock,where the subject of the close ( it) has been left out.

There is also a category called discourse errors wich reffers to the way ssentences are organised and linked in order to make whole texts.

THE ROLE AND COMPETENCES OF CLASSICAL TEACHER/ THE MANY ROLES OF THE MODERN TEACHER (5PGS+)

lecturer

facilitator

role model

planner

information provider

resource developer

assessor

METHODOLOGICAL RESEARCH

RESEARCH

A1 – A2 levels

Global scales- according to the CEFR, A1 level students should prove the following abilities and skills:

Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. Can introduce him/herself and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, people

he/she knows and things he/she has. Can interact in a simple way provided the other

person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.

Listening: can recognise familiar words and very basic phrases concerning myself, my family and immediate concret surroundings when people speak slowly and clearly.

Reading: can understand familiar names, words and very simple sentences, for example on notices and posters or in catalogues.

Spoken interaction: can interact in a simple way provided the other person is prepared to repeat or rephrase things at a slower rate of speech and help me formulate what I'm trying to say. I can ask and answer simple questions in areas of immediate need or on very familiar topics.

Can make an introduction and use basic greeting and leave-taking expressions.

Can ask how people are and react to news.

Can understand everyday expressions aimed at the satisfaction of simple needs of a concrete type, delivered directly

to him/her in clear, slow and repeated speech by a sympathetic speaker.

Written interraction: can write a short, simple postcard, for examples sending holiday greetings. I can fill in forms with personal details, for

example entering my name, nationality and address on a hotel registration form.

Spoken production: can use simple phrases and sentences to describe where I live and people I know.

Written production: can write simple isolated phrases and sentences.

Right now in Romanian primary schools there are two ongoing national policies and curricula:

– for the 4th graders (who have been studying English for 2 years), the curriculum from 2005 and

– for the 3rd graders (who have been studying for 3 years- 1 class/week for the first 2 years and 2 classes/week for this school year)- the one from 2014.

The old 2005 curricula has as main/framing objectives:

Developing the ability of recepting an oral message

Developing the ability of oral production

Developing the ability to recept a written message

Developing the ability to produce a written message

Developing some cultural representations and the interest for studying English language and British civilization.

Action research

Questions (puzzle area)

What are the main EFL (difficulties and) challenges for Romanian students and teachers?

How can these be minimized?

CHALLENGES

PRONUNCIATION

th – f

paw-cow

LISTENING

not understanding all words they hear (Set sail4, Revision and assessment- the listening exercise asking them to draw lines showing where some objects would be placed in a room: being related to the newly taught vocabulary- objects in a house, prepositions of place- the most common mistake is confusing under/between

SPEAKING

lack of vocabulary

shyness

conversations- prep grade – 2nd grade students have used conversational dialogues almost every week during their classes and can now interract esily, while 4th grade students are not as easygoing when it comes to producing oral messages. They need more exercising

ORTHOGRAPHY

students often write the word as they hear it, finding it difficult to follow English rules

mother- madar

READING- PHONOLOGY

different phonetic systems- students often read following Romanian phonetic rules

VOCABULARY

isolated words and phrases- can't ake up for a more consistent oral interaction

GRAMMAR

word order: they frequantly misplace adjectives after nouns

number- use the plural form for adjective

cathegories : "-s/es" ending – confusing plural nouns with 3rd person singular of verbs

Hypothesis: (refined thinking about the puzzle area)

Using modern interactive techniques in teaching and evaluating students might minimize the impact that difficulties and challenges have on EFL teaching and learning

Context (particular aspect to focus on)

Students in our school studying English as a foreign language at a beginner's level in 3rd grade and 4th grade are all in the first years of study and still there are differences between their language aquisition, because of the curriculum they follow, materials and techniques used in class.

I undertook the action research study on 2 student groups: 10 students in the 3rd grade (9 years old) and 10 students in the 4th grade (aged 10-11), in order to observe and compare their evolution using different course books, a different methodological routine at different ages.

All students involved in this research come from the same area- Negoiesti village, situated 15 km far from the city of Ploiesti and 50 km from Bucharest. They have almost similar social backgrounds-parents with medium studies (highschool) most of them working in the industrial field (tailoring and/or oil). Each group has got an equal number of male and female students(5+5).

pretesting – all students in the target groups were equally tested following a YLE Cambridge exam pattern, and then the results were collected and interpreted. (Brown, Language assessment- Principles and Classroom Practice)

listening test:

Students had to place items around the room by drawing lines from their image to the specific place described on the track.

LISTENING

A1

Speaking test:

Speak about your pet or an animal you would like to have as a pet.

Speaking –

Analytical scales

1) Discourse management 40 marks – relevance if ideas 10 marks – coherence and cohesion 10 marks – time constraints 10 marks – fluency 10 marks

2) Grammatical resource 20 marks – accuracy 10 marks – range of structures 10 marks

3) Vocabulary resource 20 marks – appropriacy 10 marks – range 10 marks

4) Pronunciation 20 marks – pronunciation and intonation 10 marks – stress and rhythm 10 marks

Total 100 marks

(use them in class)

for the students in the 3rd grade, I implemented more active-participative methods and activities (TPR- use a variety of realia, posters, and props, TBL- drills, NLP- modeling, CLT -Role-play

Interviews

Games

Surveys

Pair-work

Learning by teaching

The students in the 4th grade were taught using interactive methods and, some of the traditional grammar – translation techniques

RESULTS OF RESEARCH

Postresearch testing (interpret the outcomes)- all students in the target groups will be equally tested following a YLE Cambridge exam pattern, and then the results will be collected and interpreted. (Brown, Language assessment- Principles and Classroom Practice)

CONCLUSIONS

Conclusions (decide on their implications and plan accordingly) – after comparing the 2 sets of tests, I will conclude whether the chosen methods were helpful or not and to what extent they helped students improve their knowledge and communicative skills.