My last holiday [306237]

TRADITIONAL AND NEW METHODS IN TEACHING VERB TENSES TO SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

CONTENTS

“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; [anonimizat].”

PLATO

ARGUMENT

The reason why I chose this subject for my paper is that I was all the time fascinated by how language works and how the four skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking complete each other. I also realized that these skills cannot be used properly without a [anonimizat] I discovered how important grammar is and how important is to know how to use certain aspects in a variety of situations that make language flexible.

Grammar has a very important role in developing the acquisition of the four language skills. The main purpose of a [anonimizat] I think that it is also important to use it correctly and to feel confident while using it. Pupils don’t [anonimizat], taking information from whatever is going on around them. [anonimizat]. [anonimizat], touching are just as important for understanding as the teacher’s explanation.

If students are currently learning English in a school, [anonimizat]. However, [anonimizat], they may wonder why they are learning the language in the first place. [anonimizat], and is the native language of more than 350 million people. More people speak English than those who speak the Arabic and French languages combined. Moreover, [anonimizat], science, technology, banking, computing, medicine, aviation, UN & [anonimizat], tourism, Hollywood films and arguably the best pop and rock music in the world.

This grammar work is structured in 5 chapters:

The 1st one refers to theoretical aspects of the verb: definition, types, tense, aspect, modality, etc…

The 2[anonimizat]; here, my intention is to present some advantages and disadvantages of using these methods in the classroom.

The 3[anonimizat], and I will also write some opinions about how they should be used during the process of teaching.

The 4th chapter describes classroom management in the process of learning the verb tenses: [anonimizat], [anonimizat].

The 5th chapter is devoted to research, a [anonimizat]. Its purpose is to show how I tried to apply the information I have found and what were the strong and weak points of the students.

This paper ends with the final conclusions to the study I have done.

The Importance of English language in the context of Globalization

“Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.”

WALT WHITMAN

English is spoken by at least a quarter of the world's population. How did English get where it is today? How do languages become truly global? There are a number of factors which have ensured the widespread use of English. (http://www.arcos.org.br/artigos/the-english-language-and-the-globalization/)

A colonial history: the Pilgrim Fathers brought with them not just a set of religious beliefs, but also their language.

Economics: a major factor in the growth of English has been the spread of global commerce, pushed on by the dominance of the United States as a world economic power. The English language travelled in the wake of this success, so that now, whatever countries are involved, it is one of the main mediating languages of international business.

Information exchange: a great deal of academic discourse around the world takes place in English. The first years of the Internet as a major channel for information exchange also saw a marked predominance of English.

Travel: much travel and tourism is carried on, around the world, in English. So far, English is the preferred language of air traffic control in many countries and is used widely in sea travel communication.

Popular culture.

I think that there are many reasons why somebody should learn English; it is a foreign language and it can be used for personal, study or work-related purposes. I will expose some of them as follows:

English eases communication

If you travel around the world, you’ll notice that English is the most commonly used foreign language, being used by people of different nationalities. Speaking English will enable us to contact people all around the world and communicate.

English as “business language”

English knowledge can pop up our career by opening up opportunities of working in multinational companies, where we can apply for jobs requiring a good knowledge of English. That is why I believe that it is very important to speak English if you want to be hired and make a career, because it makes you more employable in every country in the world.

Limitless access to information

The Internet is today the most accessed source of information; almost 90% of the sites which can be found on the Internet are in English…Many books about technology, science, health, research are written in English, so English knowledge provides us unlimited opportunities to learning.

English the language of world culture and art

The music and movie industry around the world is based on the English language; producers of different nationalities use English as a universal language of art; knowing English enables us to enjoy more the movies and songs. I encourage my students to watch movies without subtitles and listen to lyrics thinking that it is a good listening practice for a language learner.

Learning English can change somebody’s life into better because it will always give you advantages you had never thought about.

“One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.”
Frank Smith

“To have another language is to possess a second soul.”
Charlemagne

Conceptual Delimitations

The following terms are frequently used in this paper. In my opinion these are key words in the process of teaching the VERB TENSES and I consider it is important to know their definition:

The verb: “A word that characteristically is the grammatical center of a predicate and expresses an act, occurrence, or mode of being, that in various languages is inflected for agreement with the subject, for tense, for voice, for mood, or for aspect, and that typically has rather full descriptive meaning and characterizing quality but is sometimes nearly devoid of these especially when used as an auxiliary or linking verb.” Merriam Webster

Approach: Theoretical positions and beliefs about the nature of language and language learning; it describes how people acquire their knowledge of the language and makes statements about the conditions which will promote a successful language learning. Language teaching is sometimes discussed in terms of 3 related aspects: approach, method and technique.

Method: In order to accomplish linguistic objectives during language teaching we use this generalized set of classroom specifications commonly known as method. A teaching method comprises the principles and methods used for instruction to be implemented by teachers to achieve the desired learning by students. It involves decisions about types of activities, roles of learners and teachers, material resources that need to be helpful for both teachers and students in the syllabus organization.

Curriculum/Syllabus: A curriculum is a particular language program designed for a group of learners in a defined context. Features include a primary concern with the specification of linguistic and subject matter, objectives, sequencing and materials which fulfill the needs of the group of learners.

Technique: In order to realize the objectives of the lesson we use activities, exercises and devices.

Communicative Approach: During this approach the focus of all classroom activities is language usage and meaningful communication; the communicative competence is the goal of language learning. It is a commonly used approach to teach a foreign language.

Skills: We have two kinds of skills in the English language. Productive skills, speaking and writing, and receptive skills: reading and listening. They refer to the manner in which the language is used.

Task: When we want to achieve a particular learning goal, we need to design a specific activity which helps us to do that: this is what we call a task. When teaching English we use a variety of tasks, which determines learning goals, how learning is to take place, and how the result of learning will be demonstrated.

Pair work: It is a learning activity during which the students work in pairs, two by two.

Individual work: It is a learning activity which involves individual work, students work by themselves.

Group work: It is a learning activity which involves a small group of learners working together. The class is divided into equal numbered groups (4-5 members each). During the activity we can give different tasks to each member of the group, or we can give different tasks to each group. It is a good opportunity to imply each student in the learning process.

Role play: It is a learning activity during which students can take roles and act out different situations.

Assessment: It is a process during which the teacher becomes eager of what his or her students know, understand and can do with their knowledge. Assessment can be done using tests, interviews, observation, questionnaire, etc. Students may be tested at the beginning and at the end of a course to be aware of they have acquired during that period, how they developed their knowledge.

CHAPTER I: Theoretical Aspects of the Verb

“If you know how to handle the verbs, you know how to handle the language. Everything else is just vocabulary.”

Michel Thomas

A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word (part of speech) that in syntax conveys an action (bring, read, walk, run, learn), an occurrence (happen, become), or a state of being (be, exist, stand).

Verbs are a word class found in all languages and they have traditionally been called “doing words”.

According to Bantaș (1997: 113-114) a verb is a member of syntactic class of words that:

Typically signals events and definitions;

Govern the number and types of other constituents which may occur in the clause;

In inflectional languages may be inflected for: tense, aspect, voice, modality and agreement with other constituents in: person, number, grammatical gender.

Verbs can be fully or not fully inflected for these categories and according to this criteria we can classify them as:

Finite verbs

Non-finite verbs

In the following part of the work I will present some theoretical aspects related to these types of verbs, as they are discussed in Thomson A. J. and Marinet A. V. (1986: 100-107, 212-280)

Finite Verbs

A finite verb is a form of a verb that has a subject (expressed or implied) and can function as the root of an independent clause; an independent clause can, in turn, stand alone as a complete sentence. In many languages, finite verbs are the locus of grammatical information of gender, person, number, tense, aspect, mood, and/or voice. At an elementary level, a finite verb is the verb in a sentence which determines the tense. Finite verbs are distinguished from non-finite verbs, such as infinitives, participles, etc., which generally mark these grammatical categories to a lesser degree or not at all, and which appear below the finite verb in the hierarchy of syntactic structure.

Finite verbs are words that indicate being or doing on the part of the person or thing denoted by the subject of the sentence or clause. Every sentence or clause must contain a verb (expressed or understood) as part of the predicate.

These verbs can denote:

GRAMMATICAL CATHEGORIES OF THE FINITE VERBS

I would like to start this part of my work with a rhetorical question: What is an English Grammatical Category? Such a grammatical category is defined as being a class of units ( such as verb and adverb) or features such as (person and gender) that share a common set of grammatical properties.

R. L. Trask (1996: 72) considers that the presence of the term category in linguistics “is so varied that no general definition is possible; in practice a category is simply any class of related grammatical objects which someone wants to consider.”

A short schematic representation of these categories:

The first three categories (gender, person and number) represent agreement information that the finite verb gets from its subject (by way of subject–verb agreement). The following four categories serve to situate the clause content according to time in relation to the speaker (tense), extent to which the action, occurrence, or state is complete (aspect), assessment of reality or desired reality (mood), and relation of the subject to the action or state (voice).

Person and gender: Who or What is the Subject of the Verb?

Person refers to the relationship between the subject of the verb and whoever is speaking. The category of gender has little importance. There are three types of grammatical person:

First Person: The person(s) who is the subject of the verb is the same one who is speaking ("I play", "We sing").

Second Person: The person speaking is referring to another person(s), assumed to be present, who is the subject of the verb ("You are wrong”).

Third Person: The subject of the verb is not directly related to the speaker; the subject is not assumed to be present as "part of the conversation" ("He drinks", "She seeks", "It eats", "They sleep").

Number: How Many People are the Subject?
Grammatical number refers to how many people are the subject of a verb. In English, this is represented by either singular ("He sees", “She learns”, “it plays”) or plural (“We listen”, “You wait”, "They see") verb forms.

Tense: When is the Verb's Action Occurring?
Tense is the time in which a verb takes place. Languages distinguish between past, present, and future, but subdivide these three major categories in different ways.

Aspect: Is the Verbal Action Complete or Ongoing?

Aspect refers to the duration of a verb's action. It is usually simple (a completed action) or progressive (continuing action). I have to mention that English tolerates less precision regarding aspect than other languages.

Mood: What is the Verb's Expression of Fact?
Grammatical mood refers to the type of expression a verb is making. It comes in three main categories in English. Bantaș (1997: 132)

Indicative: verbs in the indicative mood express matters of fact ("You are eating an ice-cream now," "They were well"). This is the most common grammatical mood.

Subjunctive: this mood can express an indirect command, wish, or contrary-to-fact situation ("You may stand up now," "If I were a bit taller …"). English has many ways of expressing the subjunctive, although it is often done imprecisely. Auxiliary verbs such as may, might, should, could, and ought are often part of subjunctive verb forms.

Imperative: this mood expresses a direct command ("Keep the door closed!" "Be careful!"). It is by definition addressed to a second person.

Voice: Is the Subject Performing the Verbal Action?

Voice describes the relationship between the action or state described by a verb and the verb's subject. When the action is being performed by the subject, the verb is in the active voice. When something else is performing the action upon the subject of the verb, it is in the passive voice.
For instance, in the sentence "I read the book," the verb to read is in the active voice. In the sentence "The book is read by me," the verb to read is in the passive voice. Bantaș (1997: 129)
Without an understanding of verbal forms that indicate person, number, tense, aspect, mood, and voice, it is very difficult to explain how verbs work or to discuss grammatical problems.

Non-Finite Verbs

A non-finite verb is any of several verb forms that are not finite verbs; they cannot serve as the root of an independent clause.

Non-finite verbs are verbs that are not fully inflected for categories that are marked inflectionally in a language such as aspect, tense, modality, number and person.

In English we call non-finite verb forms: verbals. A verbal is a verb form that does not serve as adverb in the sentence. Instead it functions as a noun, adjective or adverb. Verbals retain the qualities of a verb even while acting as a noun, adjective or adverb.

Three types of verbals are known: Infinitive, Gerund and Participle.

These verbals helped by any objects or modifiers form verb phrases. A phrase is a group of words that have a function in a sentence, but do not have a subject and verb. If it had a subject and a verb, it would be a clause.

Phrases can function in the sentence like nouns, adverbs, or adjectives.

Three of the main kinds of phrases are infinitive, participle, and gerund. Here are definitions and examples.

Infinitive- These phrases start with an infinitive plus a simple form of a verb. They can act like a noun, adjective, or adverb. Here is an example: She wanted to show off her new dress. The whole phrase is what she wanted, so it is acting like a noun.

Participle – This phrase will act as an adjective and begins with a participle. A participle is an adjective that has been made from a verb, like talked or swimming. Here’s an example: We have to replace the window broken by the hail. The phrase modifies the noun “window”, so it is functioning like an adjective.

Gerund – These phrases act like a noun and start with a verb ending with an “ing”. They can be subjects or objects. An example is: Lying to the IRS is never a good idea. The phrase acts as the subject in this sentence.

The reason why they are called verbal phrases is that the main element of these phrases is a verb form. What this means is that:

All the words within a verbal phrase relate to the verbal in the same way that all the words within a clause relate to its verb ( that is the verbals are modified by adverbs, they can have direct objects and other noun completers, and they can even have so-called subjects – although because the verbals are not true verbs, they cannot form clauses)

Like dependent clauses, they function as units within other constructions as either nouns, adjectives or adverbs

They are essentially reduced relative clauses.

CHAPTER II: Traditional Methods of Teaching English as a Foreign Language

Is Grammar Important Nowadays?

Nowadays there are endless opportunities to learn a foreign language, in our case English. One can learn it during a formal instruction (in the classroom), or under some types of informal ways such as travelling, media, internet. You can choose to be an autodidact, but worldwide there is a huge need of quality education. The main aim of the learners is to acquire good communication skills and a good level of accuracy and fluency. An important part of the communicative competence is the grammatical competence. There are a few reasons which demonstrate why people should be careful when learning grammar to improve communicative skills:

* Without good grammar, clear communication is nearly impossible. Proper grammar keeps you from being misunderstood while expressing your thoughts and ideas.

* Writing and speaking correctly gives you the appearance of credibility. If you're attempting to build a reputation as an expert in your profession, this is extremely important.

* Other people consider good grammar to be a mark of intelligence and education. Don't allow strangers to form a negative impression of you based on your poor communication skills.

I think that when a person has learnt grammar, he will easily acquire other grammar rules, because he will be able to organize and express his ideas easily. As a result he will be able to read, write or speak in a foreign language in a skillful way becoming thus more fluent.

These days I have to mention that it is not possible to teach a language properly without teaching its grammatical structures. I consider it very important to choose the best method which fits the students needs to make teaching a pleasant way of acquiring knowledge.

I think that the choice of the student’s book is very important although I haven’t found a student’s book or an auxiliary which covers the curricula and the learner’s needs. You can have a successful learning process and some interesting follow-up activities if you use personalized lessons and work sheets during your classes.

Many teachers might think that they can teach grammar by writing some rules on the blackboard, explaining them and practice drills. However the teacher must plan his lessons, having some very important questions in his mind, and being able to answer them.

What are the available teaching resources and materials?

What are the objectives of the class?

What are the students’ learning habits?

What type of learning background do these learners have?

In my opinion it is very important to teach students to use grammar in real life situations, our purpose being communication rather than mastering some grammar structures without knowing how to use them properly. Usually students get bored of leaning rules, so we need to use a new approach to teaching grammar.

TRADITIONAL METHODS OF TEACHING

“More important than the curriculum is the question of methods of teaching and the spirit in which the teaching is given.”

Bertran Russell

A QUICK CHRONOLOGICAL REVIEW OF THE ELT METHODS

The Grammar Translation Method

The Direct Method

The Audio-Lingual Method

Silent Way

Suggestopedia

Community Language Learning

Total Physical Response

The period from the 1950’s to the 1980’s is known as "The Age of Methods", during which a number of quite detailed prescriptions for language teaching emerged. Situational Language Teaching evolved in the United Kingdom while a parallel method, Audio- Lingualism, emerged in the United States. In the middle-methods period, a variety of methods were proclaimed as successors to the then prevailing Situational Language Teaching and Audio-Lingual methods. These alternatives were promoted under such titles as Silent Way, Suggestopedia, Community Language Learning, and Total Physical Response. In the 1980s’, with the evolution of more interactive views of language teaching, these methods got overshadowed by Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach.

As follows I will describe and write a short summary of these methods presenting who started to use them, how were they used during the instruction process, what was the role of the learner and the teacher during the activity set up using these methods. Many important writers like Harmer J., Scrivener J., Richards, J. and Rodgers, T. discussed these methods in their writings, making detailed descriptions and presenting the advantages and disadvantages of these methods.

THE GRAMMAR TRANSLATION METHOD

As Chastain K. said (1998: 15-27) this method was originally used to teach Latin and Greek, and it was used by language teachers to read and appreciate foreign language literature. The Grammar–Translation Method was the standard way languages were taught in schools from the 17th to the 19th century. It was believed that through the study of the grammar of the target language, students would have a complete command of the native language and that it would be easier for them to write and speak in their mother tongue.

While using this method, classes are taught in the learners’ mother tongue, without using properly the target language. The vocabulary is taught as a list of isolated words. Reading is introduced through difficult text from the very beginning, but little attention is paid to the content of the text and pronunciation; the only thing what matters is grammar. Grammar is explained elaborately, grammar provides the rules for putting words together and instruction focuses on the form and the inflection of the words.

The key techniques associated with this Grammar Translation Method, according to Larsen- Freeman D. (2000: 12-21) are:

Translation of a literary passage (translating from target language to native language)

Reading comprehension questions (finding information in a passage, making inferences and relating to personal experience)

Fill-in-the-blanks (filling in gaps in sentences with new words or items of a particular grammar type)

Memorization (memorizing grammatical rules, paradigms or vocabulary lists)

Deductive application of rule (understanding grammar rules and their exceptions, than applying them in new examples.

I tried to use this method to teach Simple Past Tense. My students are in the 5th grade, so it was the first time they heard about the past tense and its usage. During the class I used the students’ native language to give them instructions. I could notice that they were pretty confident because they understood everything. I think that it is more challenging and instructive to use the target language during the English class because it is a good chance to practice listening comprehension. The usage of the native language is in my opinion a disadvantage of this method. I started the lesson by asking the students to read a text entitled “Two sisters and a cat”. They had to read and translate in their native language each sentence of the text. The students found the worksheet interesting and funny. It is very important to find a proper teaching material for the students which meets their interest and age, too.

Two sisters and the cat

Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Smith are sisters. Mrs. Wilson lives in a house in Duncan and Mrs. Smith lives in a condominium in Victoria. One day Mrs. Wilson visited her sister. When her sister answered the door, Mrs. Wilson saw tears in her eyes. "What's the matter?" she asked. Mrs. Smith said "My cat Sammy died last night and I have no place to bury him".

She began to cry again. Mrs. Wilson was very sad because she knew her sister loved the cat very much. Suddenly Mrs. Wilson said "I can bury your cat in my garden in Duncan and you can come and visit him sometimes." Mrs. Smith stopped crying and the two sisters had tea together and a nice visit.

It was now five o'clock and Mrs. Wilson said it was time for her to go home. She put on her hat, coat and gloves and Mrs. Smith put the dead Sammy into a shopping bag. Mrs. Wilson took the shopping bag and walked to the bus stop. She waited a long time for the bus so she bought a newspaper. When the bus arrived, she got on the bus, sat down and put the shopping bag on the floor beside her feet. She then began to read the newspaper. When the bus arrived at her bus stop, she got off the bus and walked for about two minutes. Suddenly she remembered she had left the shopping bag on the bus. [Story by Laurie Buchanan]

During this activity I helped the students with those vocabulary items which they didn’t understand. When the students finished reading and translating the passage I asked them in their native language if they have any questions, and answered them by giving clear explanations through their native language. Each time we found an unknown word, we wrote it both on the blackboard and in the copybooks. The following step was to ask the students to answer the questions related to the text. The questions were in English and I asked them to write the answers using English language, too. First I made sure that they understood the meaning of the questions.

1. Where did Mrs. Smith live?

2. What did Mrs. Wilson do?

3. Who did Sammy the cat live with?

4. What time did Mrs. Wilson go home?

5. What did Mrs. Wilson forget?

The students solved their task, and wrote the answers. My next objective was to explain the students that there are regular and irregular verbs in the English language. I explained how we form the past tense of these verbs and the fact that we cannot notice a difference between them when we meet their base forms. I put down a table on the blackboard to write the regular and irregular verbs from the text both in their present and past forms.

The students copied the table in their notebooks.

The next step was to teach my students the rules according to which we form the past simple tense. Based on the text I told them the usage of this tense, and put down the rules on the blackboard by writing one example under each rule:

AFFIRMATIVE: Subject + past simple of irregular verbs/ regular verb + ed

My cousin visited us last weekend.

Our teacher began her lesson with a short revision yesterday.

NEGATIVE: Subject + did not/ didn’t + base form of regular/ irregular verbs

My cousin didn’t visit us last Sunday.

Our teacher didn’t begin her lesson with a short revision last Monday.

INTERROGATIVE: Did + Subject + base form of regular/ irregular verbs

Did your cousin visit you last Sunday?

Did you teacher begin her lesson with a short revision yesterday?

SHORT ANSWERS: Yes + Subject + did/ No + subject+ didn’t.

Yes, he did./ no, he didn’t.

Yes, she did./ no, she didn’t.

I explained as many times as they asked me to do it. There were some questions related to the usage of the base form in the negative and interrogative sentences. This is why I considered that the best solution is to use the same sentences, turning them from positive to negative and interrogative form. As a follow up, I asked them to use the rules to form new sentences using the verbs from the text. The students performed their task I corrected the sentences whenever it was necessary. I think that students enjoyed the activity because they were involved in it and their feedback was a positive one. What I consider to be a week point is that too much native language is used during this Grammar Translation Method. What I also do not like is that I think that everything is automatic and the students do not face any challenge; they are not asked to think, they just get the information and using drills, they have to use it. It does not imply communication or using real life situations. After some more activities of this kind I think that they would consider it to be boring.

THE DIRECT METHOD

Teachers, frustrated by the limits of Grammar Translation Method, in terms of its inability to create communicative competence in students, began to experiment with new ways of teaching language like this direct method in post war and depression era classrooms. It was also called the Natural Method as it is based on the way children learn their native language. While using this method only the target language is used in the class and the students are encouraged to think in the target language. Grammar does not mean rules, but it is taught inductively. We are not going to find word lists as vocabulary should be learnt in full sentences, through demonstration, objects, pictures and association of ideas.

The key techniques of this method are listed by Gatenby E.V. (1958: 34-42) as it follows:

Lesson begin using the target language and a modern conversational style

Using picture and different helping aid, the material is first presented orally

Based on these materials, the most frequent exercise type is a series of questions in the target language

No translation takes place during the class so the mother tongue is never used

Grammar is taught inductively, rules are generalized from the practice, and experienced with the target language

Literary text are usually read by the advanced level students, and these text are never analyzed grammatically

Students are also taught inductively about the culture associated with the target language

In spite of its achievements, the Direct Method fell short from fulfilling the needs of the educational systems. After a short popularity at the beginning of the 20th century it soon began to lose its appeal. It then paved the way to the Audio-Lingual Method.

I can say that I like this method as it can be easily used in nowadays classrooms. I experienced it trying to teach the present simple tense to 5th graders. I began my lesson by showing them some pictures of everyday activities “reading” the pictures by making up sentences: “I wash my face every morning. I eat breakfast. I go to school.”

As I used the target language during the whole class, I tried to help them as well as I could explaining the new vocabulary items using visual aids. I made up a verb list based on the pictures I provided to the class, trying to write the activities in a table in their chronological order.

After some practice I asked the students to help me to figure out the rules according to which we can form the present simple tense. Students were very cooperative and involved in this activity showing great interest in this activity. I wrote the rules on the blackboard and asked them to do the same in their copybook. I used other picture to exemplify actions for the negative and interrogative forms.

As a follow up activity I asked them to make sentences using the same tense and rules. During this activity the focus was on speaking and listening, I tried to teach my students only useful, everyday vocabulary.

The goal of this Direct Method activity is to make the students learn how to communicate using the target language, think in the target language as the teacher avoids native language emerged during the teaching learning activities.

I like to use the Direct Method because I consider that it keeps the students always active. The use of the target language is challenging and if I use different materials and activities during the lessons they will always show interest.

I asked some of my student how could they describe our lessons and they compared it to a puzzle which need to be solved, or a treasure hunt because you never know what to expect.

During Direct Method activities students are exposed to real language and they are forced somehow to use it as well as they can in real life situations. This method encourages cooperation and communication. I think that unlike the Grammar Translation Method it is more interesting and entertaining for the students.

THE AUDIO- LINGUAL METHOD

This teaching technique initially called the Army Method appeared as a solution to the needs of the armies during the World War II as they needed to become orally proficient in the languages of their allies and enemies as quickly as possible. This was the first method based on behavioral psychology and linguistic theory.

This method widely used in the 1950s and 1960s was based on Skinner’s Behaviorism theory, which assumed that a human being can be trained using a system of reinforcement Skinner (1957: 74-81). The emphasis was on the acquisition of structures and patterns in every day dialogues. These patterns are elicited, repeated and tested until the response given by the student in the target language is automatic. Vocabulary is strictly limited and learned in context. During these classes, only the teacher was allowed to use the mother tongue, the students were encouraged to use the target language, and a great importance is given to pronunciation and error correction. Little importance is given to grammar which is taught inductively.

There is another version of this method called the Audio-Visual Method, which is based on the same principles as the former one. The teaching aids are replaced by movies and teacher uses these to ask questions by pointing to pictures in it. The final stage of the study is dialogue memorization.

The techniques of this method are the following:

The teacher must teach the skills in a certain order: listening, speaking, reading, writing

Using a repetition of phrases and sentences, a dialogue should be learned first by the whole class, then by smaller groups and finally individually. The drill material should always be meaningful. Teacher should conduct these drills as rapidly as possible to ensure automaticity. These drills should be arranged in an order of increasing complexity: imitation first, single slot substitution next, then free response last.

The teacher should introduce learning and writing as a second stage of a lesson, the reading material being the previous oral lesson.

Writing should be used in early stages just as transcriptions of structures and dialogues learned earlier; after the students learned well the basic structures, teacher may ask them to write compositions based on oral lessons.

The problem with this method was that students found it difficult to transfer the habits they have earned and mastered in the classroom, to be used with a communicative purpose outside it. So, the well known linguist Noam Chomski had a different view of language learning. It would no longer be a product of habit formation but rather a rule formation. According to these ideas, language acquisition is a procedure during which people use their own cognition to discover the rules of the target language. As a result on this emphasis of human thinking process, the Cognitive Approach appeared.

Here is an example which I used to teach my students Simple Past Tense through the Audio-Lingual Method: My students were in the 6th grade, having some previous knowledge of this tense.

I presented my students a dialogue, a conversation between two people; I gave all the instructions using the target language.

Ian: Good morning, Jane!

Jane: Good morning, Ian!

Ian: How are things?

Jane: Fine, thanks! How about you?

Ian: Fine! By the way, where did you go last week?

Jane: I went to the seaside. I visited Copacabana Beach!

Ian: Did you see many tourists?

Jane: Yes, I did! I saw many people there!

Ian: Could you invite me to go there next holiday?

Jane: Sur!

Ian: Thank you, Jane!

First, I acted out the dialogue, and then I asked my students to repeat each line after the model. When the class had to repeat the line “I went to the seaside. I visited Copacabana Beach!” the found difficulties in repeating it. At this point I tried to use an expansion drill. The purpose of this kind of drill is to break down the troublesome sentences into smaller parts. After I let the students to repeat the dialogue several times, I gave them the chance to perform a role play. Before the class actually said each line, I read it as a model. In effect the class experienced a repetition drill where the task was to listen carefully and attempt to mimic the teacher’s model as accurately as possible. At this point they were already pretty bored.

The following step was to initiate a chain drill with four lines from the dialogue. This chain drill gives students the opportunity to speak individually. Finally I asked some students to perform the dialogues in front of the class. During the activity I tried to guide my students through questions like: “When do the actions happen?; What types of sentences can we find in the dialogue?”

I found it pretty difficult to explain the Past Tense Simple through this method but maybe if my students would get used to it I would get better results. The students did not really understand what they have to do; they also considered the lesson boring as they had to work with the same dialogue, and they were not let to speak freely, to practice conversation. With all these I consider the modern methods easier to apply during grammar teaching classes.

I also taught the Past Tense Simple using the Grammar Translation Method. I think that it was easier to present the given tense using that method as it gave the students clearer instructions about what they have to do. Rule presentation was more efficient and the level of understanding among the students was higher than in the case of the Audio Lingual Method. Both methods are old fashioned but if I had to choose between the to teach a tense I would choose the Grammar Translation Method.

THE SILENT WAY

The Silent way originated in the early 1970s was introduced by Caleb Gattegno (1976: 33-44) an European educator. This method shares the same principles with the cognitive approach being well known for the use of colored sticks called Cuisenaire rods and for teaching the initial reading using sounds represented by colors. Teacher should remain silent and encourage the students to talk and produce as much language as possible. The purpose of the method is to create simple linguistic situations that remain under the complete control of the teacher. During the learning process the teacher should concentrate on what the learners say and on how they do it, making them focus on pronunciation and fluency.

Descriptions of some teaching techniques used during classes in which this method is applied are provided by Larsen-Freeman D. (2000).

Teacher’s silence – teacher remains silent and gives guidance only when it is absolutely necessary.

Self- correction gestures – teachers use a set of gestures to let the learner be aware of the fact that something is incorrect and needs to be corrected.

Peer correction – the students are encouraged to work in a cooperative spirit, helping each other, not in a competitive one.

Rods – which can symbolize the taught words; these can be manipulated abstractly or directly, in order to create sentences.

Word chart – words are depicted on charts, the sounds in each word corresponding in color to the Sound- Color)

I tried to use this method to teach abilities (can and cannot) to 3rd grade students. It was a tough experience as the students were confused during the activity. They are used to the fact that I explain them the tasks, and I answer all the questions.

I started my activity by telling them that we will play “a game”, a silent game, a kind of mime. They were very curious at the beginning. As I took my role seriously I tried to talk as less as possible. I decided to use coloured blocks. Red blocks for the subject of the sentence, blue blocks for the word which expresses the ability and green blocks for the action. I asked them to pretend as if they were a band and I also told them that they would perform in a concert and that I would be their bandmaster. I divided the class in three groups: the red group, the blue group and the green group. I let them know what they had to do: the red band had to say such words which name animals, people, objects, in other words, nouns which can be subjects. The green band’s job was the easiest because they had to choose between the two words which show ability or the lack of it, and the green band had to think about actions which they are or aren’t able to perform. It was very interesting and we didn’t have any difficulties to form the negative form as the students paid attention and talked when they were asked to do it.

They seemed very implied and liked the idea of setting up a scenery and act in it. When our “concert” began, I pointed to one student at a time. They did their task well but I still consider that the activity is hard and difficult as today the emphasis is on communication not on drilling on and on. I used gestures to correct them and also asked them to raise their hands when they hear a mistake. One of the mistakes which they made was to use verbs which do not express abilities like: eat, drink, sleep and dream. I used gestures to let them know that something is wrong, and when I finished the activity I explained them why they were not allowed to use those verbs. I still think that it is difficult to use the Silent Way to teach grammar issues. In my opinion it is important to give explanation and to use communication during the language classes.

SUGGESTOPEDIA

This teaching method was originally developed in the 1970s by the Bulgarian psychotherapist Georgi Lozanov. Suggestopedia has its roots in his early 1960s study of suggestion which is called “suggestology”. It is based on the idea how the human brain works and how we learn more effectively. It includes a rich sensory learning, a positive expectation of success and a use of a varied range of methods like dramatised texts, music, active participation in songs and games. The learning environment has to be very comfortable in order to facilitate the process. Soft music is played in the background to increase mental relaxation, music drama and arts being integrated in the learning process as often as possible. Teacher controls the classroom assuming a complete authority; he tolerates errors emphasizing content not structures; homework is limited.

Larsen-Freeman D. (2000: 84-86) writes about some techniques closely associated with Suggestopedia.

Peripheral learning – information should be perceived effortlessly by the students as part of the environment

Visualization – students are asked to keep their eyes closed in order to be able to visualize scenes and events; this helps them relax and facilitate positive suggestion and encourage creativity.

Role Play – students pretend to be someone else and present themselves using the target language.

Secondary activation – students engage in various activities designed to help them learn the material and use it spontaneously – activities include singing, dancing, dramatization, games.

Using Suggestopedia is very interesting but challenging to do. It can be seen from some considerations. In one side it has some benefits, but on the other side it also has some weaknesses.

COMMUNITY LANGUAGE LEARNING

We can say that this is not a common teaching method, as it is patterned on counselling-learning techniques Charles A. Curran a Jesuit priest, professor of psychology at Loyola University Chicago, and counseling specialist. Students work together to develop aspects of a language they would like to learn. The teacher acts a counsellor and a paraphrase, while the learner is seen as a client and collaborator.

Curran mentions five key principles in Community Language Learning.

Language is a behavior of a learner that is directed towards others. The learner has the freedom to talk about those things he is interested in, or about things and situations he has experienced.

Learners must not be interrupted during the learning process so that he would be able to learn a new behaviour fast. Teacher has to assure many opportunities for practicing knowledge.

The counsellor should all the time give assistance in a certain way to his clients.

The counsellor should give the client the chance to talk as much as possible, develop their language productivity and assure evaluation.

The counselor should choose easy learning materials for the classes which are suitable for the level of the clients and the goal to be accomplished.

Some teaching techniques used during this Community Language Learning classes are:

The teacher reads aloud a story in front of the class being followed by the students who have a copy of the reading material.

The teacher organises the class arranging them in a circle so that he can have a good vision of them all.

Clients listen to a recorded material, and after listening, the teacher writes some sentences from it on the blackboard in order to discuss some elements of grammar, spelling and capitalization. Students are encouraged to copy the sentences with the notes and ask questions.

TOTAL PHISYCAL RESPONSE

This language learning method based on the coordination of speech and action was developed by James Asher a professor of psychology at San Jose State University, California. James J. Asher (1996: 18) defines the Total Physical Response Method as one that combines information and skills through the use of kinesthetic sensory system. This combination of skills allows the student to assimilate information and skills at a rapid rate. As a result this success leads to a high degree of motivation. The basic tenet is expected to be the understanding of the spoken language before developing speaking skills. The student is not forced to speak but is allowed an individual readiness period. The students begin to speak when they feel comfortable and confident in understanding and producing the utterances. Students are expected to make error when they first begin to speak but teachers should tolerate these errors.

There are some key techniques used during these TPR classes:

The teacher says a command and in the same time he himself performs it.

The teacher says the command and performs is together with the students.

The teacher says a command and only the students perform it.

The teacher and the students switch roles: the student says a command which would be performed by the teacher and the other students.

I tried to apply this type of teaching method at my class involving my 4th grade students while I taught them the Imperative. I used Simon Says with a Twist. It is a very popular game which can be used to teach commands and parts of the body too. I organized my class into two groups: boys and girls as it always works! Each group sends a representative for every round. They stand at the back of the class, near the wall, looking at me.

We played the game giving creative commands and actions which my students had to perform. Some of the tasks to be performed were: Jump!; Wave your hands!; Turn around! The student who gives the correct response gets to take a step forward towards the “Finish Line.” Reaching the finish line first wins 1 point for the team. The team who gets 5 points first wins the game. Not everyone gets to play each time, but spectators will not only get to cheer their team, they’ll also learn the target language in the process. Play this game often and you will have natural rivalries arise. And that’s also when the learning really heats up.

It was a very joyful activity and the students enjoyed it a lot. They said that they felt like they had a Physical Education class. A huge disadvantage of this method is that it lacks communication. The students had to prove that they understand the spoken words, but they did not get the opportunity to practice speaking, writing or reading. It was a very limited lesson, it didn’t ask the students to think or to use the target language. I think that it is not recommended to use Total Physical Response Method because it has the same scenario on and on and it can be boring after a time. And what’s more, it is not a rewarding activity for both the students and the teacher as it does not use the four skills, so the teacher can’t have a clear view of the students’ knowledge.

All the presented methods had a “period of glory” but these are nowadays replaced by other ones, modern methods which use technology as we are living in the 21st century. These traditional methods focus and emphasize mainly on grammar rules and vocabulary without implying speaking and writing. Today’s children are different. They are curious all the time, they like to be up to date with modern technology and they need something new all the time to catch their interest. This fact is also a big challenge for the teachers this is why I think that these old methods are less entertaining than the modern ones. But I still think that there is not a specific method to teach a specific grammar structure. We have to adopt these methods and find the perfect combination for each class we teach.

CHAPTER III: Modern Methods of Teaching English as a Foreign Language

In this chapter I will mention and describe some current teaching methods which are in use in today’s classrooms. The focus changed a little bit it is no longer on learning rules, memorizing word lists, but on using the language to communicate. We, as teachers, have many choices, but we have to adapt our teaching style to the learners’ needs. Teachers who want to motivate their students have to be aware of certain ways of arousing interest in task. Appropriately selected tasks and methods can generate students’ motivation. These methods should be selected according to the students’ learning style. We can speak about two main approaches of teaching grammar: the deductive approach and the inductive approach.

THE DEDUCTIVE APPROACH

A deductive approach is when a rule is presented (by the teacher) and the language is produced based on the rule. As we talk about grammar teaching, this approach can also be called rule driven learning. When using this approach, teacher presents explicitly a rule to the students, and makes follow-up activities practicing the appliance of the rule. Once the learners understand rules, they are asked to use them in a series of sentences.

Michael Swan (cited in Thornbury S., 1999: 32) outlines some guidelines for when the rule is presented.

the presented rules should be true, simple and clear

the rules should show clearly what limits are on the use of a given form

the rules need to make use of concepts already familiar to the learners

the rules ought to be relevant

As in case of each teaching method, the deductive method has both advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

this type of approach can be time-saving

explanation of a rule can be simple and clear, instead of being elicited from examples

practice can be given immediately

this approach respects the maturity and intelligence of the adult learners and acknowledges the role of cognitive process in language acquisition

Disadvantages:

the younger learners might not find rule presentation at the beginning of the lesson interesting

younger learners might have difficulties in understanding concepts and the given grammar terminology

the learners might not be fully involved in the learning process as the teacher has the main role of the explainer

the deductive approach encourages the belief that learning a language means simply learning a rule.

To avoid boredom and make sure that the lesson will be a success, teacher should be careful when presenting the rules: the presentation should be illustrated with examples, it should be clear, short, and it should involve student’s comprehension and allow them to personalize the rule.

I applied this activity when I taught my 3rd grade students how to express ability. I also tried to teach this aspect of the English grammar using the Silent Way to another class. In order to facilitate learning, and regarding the young age of my students, I showed them pictures with some people performing certain actions. I made sure that they understand the meaning of the words presented on the worksheet. Although the students were not used to be taught using this deductive method, they seemed a little bit confused by the simplicity of the lesson; it was like “That’s all?” they considered the activity too simple as no conversation was included. They looked at the worksheet carefully and paid attention to the meaning of the words.

At this point, I simply gave them the rules according to which they had to make up sentences which express ability and some examples.

Example: SUBJECT + CAN + VERB.

My brother can swim.

Iza can sing.

Superwoman can fly.

When I was sure that there were no questions regarding sentence formation, I asked the students to work in pairs and try to produce new sentences by telling each other about their abilities. The students understood the concept of the ability, not like in the case of teaching the same subject using the silent way, so they did not make the same mistakes as the other class. After they have practiced for a while, I asked them to tell loudly each other the sentences, making the necessary corrections and giving feedback.

Students performed their task but they confessed that they found this activity pretty boring as they just practiced automatically some rules. I think that such an activity might become boring at a certain point. But if we add a speaking activity, or a role play which imply for example an interview with a superhero, we can have a successful and entertaining activity. So as a next step to avoid boredom, I presented my students the following activity.

I designed some cards like the following ones:

I asked my students to choose a card each and to come in front of the class and present themselves by telling who they are, and what they can/ can’t do. They enjoyed this activity a lot, and I used it to encourage them to use the new language and to raise their self confidence. I think that if we are able to adapt this method to the necessity of our classes and we use well chosen follow up activities, we will have a successful activity. In my opinion one of the disadvantages of this method is that it uses too much theory and emphasizes the usage of the rule; it does not directly exposes the learners to real communication or to challenge them to discover the language by themselves.

THE INDUCTIVE APPROACH

We can talk about an inductive approach when the rule is inferred through some form of guided discovery. The teacher encourages the students to discover the rule by themselves; the students are actively involved in their own instruction. In addition this approach also encourages the learner to develop personalized mental set of strategies for dealing with tasks.

As it follows I will mention some advantages and disadvantages of this method.

Advantages:

The learner has an active role during the learning process and usually shows interest in this challenge

The rule discovery becomes familiar to the learner through these activities

Pattern recognition and problem solving abilities of the learners are involved in this process

Learner’s greater degree of cognitive depth is exploited.

Disadvantages:

This is a time and energy consuming approach

Learners might be led to a wrong concept of the rule

There can appear situations when this method becomes frustrating for the learners because it does not match their own learning style; in this situation they might simply prefer to be told the rule

Of course that there are learners who prefer deductive instruction (also known as top-down strategy) where the grammatical rules are clearly presented by the teacher, while many others like inductive instruction (bottom-up strategy), as they want an active role through the process of the instruction, and like to discover grammatical rules by themselves. Discovery activities are typically very short and simple tasks.

The principles of the guided discovery approach were originally intended for self-instruction as a part of the kind of programs which were used in language laboratories. They were soon adapted for classroom use, and course books promoting an inductive approach to language learning are now more or less standard.

An example of an inductive presentation of the present simple from New Wave 1 (Longman 1988) is shown below.

(from Maple, R. New Wave 1, Longman, 1988)

I applied the same activity as I did in the case of the Deductive Method to another class of the same level doing it this time inductively. I started my lesson by showing them some pictures of some superheroes like Spiderman, Mickey Mouse, Superman, Cat woman. I initiated a conversation about their powers, and I made up some sentences using the structure which I intended to teach.

Spiderman can climb.

Mickey Mouse can speak.

Superman can fly.

The students were very interested as the subject was proper for their age and they listened carefully. After this phase, I showed them the same pictures as during the other method and asked them to try to express what they are able to do. Students made up nice sentences.

I can ride a horse.

I can skate.

I can ride my bike.

I can play the violin.

I can play football.

This was the point when I decided that it is time to figure out the rule. Together we succeeded to write down the rule, the scheme of the sentence on the blackboard.

RULE: SUBJECT+CAN+VERB – I also asked them to write it in their notebooks.

As a follow up activity, the students were given some short texts about other superheroes describing their abilities. I asked them to solve these sentences in pairs. After reading the text they were asked to complete some sentences using the new grammatical structure. While reading the text I made sure that they understand all the words. I did not focus on pronunciation too much, but I corrected the eventual mistakes.

WORKSHEET:

I’m a superhero! My name is Black Wild Cat! I can make metals fall apart. I can cut through any metal. I can run very fast. I can save a lot of energy and use it as a weapon. I look like a big black cat, and it is very beautiful. I like my superhero costume. I have superhero gadgets. I can jump from roof to roof. I am not friendly.

I’m a superhero! My name is Captain America! I am very strong! I am very fast! I have great stamina! I can fight, I can run very fast and very far. I can shoot very well. I can plan a battle. I am a great team-worker. I have a good team of fighters. I can lead my team and control my battles. I have many friends and many enemies.

Follow up activity:

Black Wild Cat………..run fast.

Black Wild Cat ………save energy.

Captain America………….fight.

Captain America…………shoot well.

Although I taught the same structure in a different way, I noticed that the Inductive way gained more popularity as the students considered it entertaining and challenging. Students felt that they are directly involved in the process of rule discovering. They were very excited to have an active role in it and practice their communicative skills. I like this method because it implies all the four skills.

PRESENTATION, PRACTICE, PRODUCTION (PPP) APPROACH

The PPP method could be characterized as a common-sense approach to teaching as it consists of 3 stages that most people who have learnt how to do anything will be familiar with.

The first stage is the presentation of an aspect of language in a context that students are familiar with, much the same way that a swimming instructor would demonstrate a stroke outside the pool to beginners.

The second stage is practice, where students will be given an activity that gives them plenty of opportunities to practice the new aspect of language and become familiar with it whilst receiving limited and appropriate assistance from the teacher. To continue with the analogy, the swimming instructor allowing the children to rehearse the stroke in the pool whilst being close enough to give any support required and plenty of encouragement.

The final stage is production where the students will use the language in context, in an activity set up by the teacher who will be giving minimal assistance, like the swimming instructor allowing his young charges to take their first few tentative strokes on their own.

According to Jeremy Harmer (2009), the PPP is a method that is widely used in teaching simple language at lower levels. PPP, in Thornbury’ s (1999) view, it has a logic that is appealing to teachers and learners in that it reflects a notion of practice makes perfect, common in many skills. Furthermore, many modern course books contain examples of PPP lessons which have retained elements of structural-situation methodology and audio- lingualism. Harmer adds that there is a general consensus that PPP is just one method among many, not taking into consideration other ways of learning. It is very learning-based and takes little account of students’ acquisition abilities. However, I strongly believe that once the lesson is finished and your students have actually achieved its aim, having been able to produce language in a meaningful way, it means that the method applied was successful and effective, and only then will the teacher feel that learning has really taken place. Reading some articles about this method, we have to admit that we can easily identify some problems with this method:

Students can give the impression that they are comfortable with the new language as they are producing it accurately in the class. Often though a few lessons later, students will either not be able to produce the language correctly or even won't produce it at all.

Students will often produce the language but overuse the target structure so that it sounds completely unnatural.

Students may not produce the target language during the free practice stage because they find they are able to use existing language resources to complete the task.

I designed an activity following these stages; the lesson was intended to teach some 7th grade students the main aspects of the Indirect Speech. The students were interested in the topic and they cooperated well during the lesson, fulfilling their tasks.

ACTIVITY:

Structures: I am- I was;

I was – I had been;

I have been – I had been;

I will be – I would be etc.

Vocabulary: actions

Competences: At the end of the lesson the students will be able to:

1. Recognize patterns of indirect speech

2. Use correctly the verbs in indirect speech

3. Make the necessary transformations from direct to indirect speech

Aims:

1. To develop students’ ability to recognize different tenses

2. To raise students’ awareness of the transformations involved in indirect speech

3. To develop students; imagination by creating their own sentences

Teaching aids: blackboard, flashcards with tenses, textbooks

Teaching techniques: conversation, explanation, exercises, discussion, dialogue

Methods: brainstorming, direct method, pattern practice

Stages of the lesson

1. ORGANISATION OF THE CLASS

The teacher greets the pupils and asks them a few ordinary questions: How are you today? Who is on duty today?

INTERACTION: T-Ss

TIMING: 3’

2. WARM-UP: Asking children about the previous lesson

INTERACTION: S-s

TIMING: 5’

3. HOMEWORK:

PROCEDURE: The teacher verifies if all children have done their homework; writing on the blackboard the sentences

INTERACTION: T-Ss

TIMING: 7’

4. LEAD-IN:

The teacher asks a student what she did during the break and then she transforms the sentence into indirect speech, without specifying exactly what she did.

Example:

Q: What did you do during the break?

A: I ate my sandwich.

The teacher reports to the students: Your classmate had eaten her sandwich last break.

Let’s see another student, etc.

5. ANNOUNCING OBJECTIVES:

PROCEDURE: The teacher says that today they are going to learn how to report other people’s sentences. Also, she announces the main steps to be followed in the lesson: presentation, practice, production.

INTERACTION: T-Ss

TIMING: 3’

PRESENTATION

AIM: To develop students’ ability to recognize different tenses

PROCEDURE:

1. The teacher makes a table on the blackboard writing “Direct / Indirect speech”. She explains the difference between them and gives examples which she writes on the blackboard.

2. Brainstorming the tenses they already know (writing them in short sentences in the Direct column)

3. Making the transformations (by the teacher), writing in the Indirect column in the same sentences.

4. The teacher also explains the other transformations that need to be made besides tense: time, persons, using additional words like “ask, say, explain”, and the usage of “that”.

Note: Students pay attention and write only after the teacher has finished explaining.

SKILL: Listening

INTERACTION: T-Ss,

TIMING: 10’

PRACTICE

AIM: To raise students’ awareness of the transformations involved in indirect speech

PROCEDURE: The teacher instructs students regarding the exercises that they have to solve. These exercises are the following:

1. Make the necessary transformations for the following sentences

a. Mark says that he is watching TV now.

b. “Are you studying?” asked Mary.

c. John told me ”will you be there tomorrow?”

d. She was at the countryside last summer.

e. “You must shut down the TV!” shouted my mother.

2. Fill in the gaps with the correct tense transformation.

3. Transform the verbs into indirect speech tense.

SKILL: Writing

INTERACTION: S-Ss,

TIMING: 1’

PRODUCTION

AIM: To develop students’ imagination by creating their own sentences

PROCEDURE:

1. The students are asked to write five sentences, they choose the topic. They are required to use different tenses. (Individual work)

2. Students practice by reporting to the other classmate what the sentence was about. (Student a reads the sentence; student b – reports; student c – listens); they take turns.

SKILL: Writing, Speaking, Listening, Reading

INTERACTION: T-Ss; Individual, S-S, Group work

TIMING: 5’

ENDING THE LESSON:

PROCEDURE: The teacher revises the important aspects of the new lesson together with the students

INTERACTION: T-S

TIMING: 2’

FEED-BACK:

PROCEDURE: The teacher makes remarks regarding the pupils’ activity during the lesson, gives “+”s for the active students.

TIMING: 1’

HOMEWORK:

The teacher assigns the homework ex 4, page 103 and explains it.

TIMING: 2’

TASK- BASED LEARNING APPROACH (TBL)

In this approach the aim of the lesson is a task to be completed by the students, an activity during which the students have to communicate, trying to achieve something real. Usually the teacher starts holding a discussion on the topic of the lesson. After this discussion he gives tasks to the students. The problematic language needed for the task is discussed between the teacher and the learners. Finally an exercise on the new language is given to be solved.

Sprat (2007: 63) says that in a TBL approach, the teacher gives students to do tasks, presents new language after students have need to use it, and only presents language that he/she or the students have identified as needed.

A TBL approach allows students to find new language when they want to, and to use language experimentally and creatively for real communication. In this way it puts second language learners in a situation which is quite similar to the one in which children learn their first language.

The major criticism to TBL concerns its applicability to lower learning levels. However there are many tasks which are appropriate to young level or beginner learners. Another point of criticism is about restricted patterns of language that are usually used in the TBL. Language patterns that are used in discussion, debate or social interaction of any kind fail to be included in the task-based interaction.

A task-based lesson should follow these stages:

Pre-task: The teacher introduces the topic and gives the students clear instructions on what they will have to do at the task stage and might help the students to recall some language that may be useful for the task. The pre-task stage can also often include playing a recording of people doing the task. This gives the students a clear model of what will be expected of them. The students can take notes and spend time preparing for the task.

Task: The students complete a task in pairs or groups using the language resources that they have as the teacher monitors and offers encouragement.

Planning: Students prepare a short oral or written report to tell the class what happened during their task. They then practise what they are going to say in their groups. Meanwhile the teacher is available for the students to ask for advice to clear up any language questions they may have.

Report: Students then report back to the class orally or read the written report. The teacher chooses the order of when students will present their reports and may give the students some quick feedback on the content. At this stage the teacher may also play a recording of others doing the same task for the students to compare.

Analysis: The teacher then highlights relevant parts from the text of the recording for the students to analyse. They may ask students to notice interesting features within this text. The teacher can also highlight the language that the students used during the report phase for analysis.

Practice: Finally, the teacher selects language areas to practise based upon the needs of the students and what emerged from the task and report phases. The students then do practice activities to increase their confidence and make a note of useful language.

I applied Task Based Learning during a lesson taught to 5th grade students in order to teach them Present Simple Tense. I put an accent on daily routines.

I started the activity with a conversation based on worksheet seen on the other page which presents some daily routines. We discussed together the vocabulary issues. It is important for me as a teacher to make my students confident in their abilities, to support them and to give them all the time the necessary explanations. They are more productive when they feel comfortable and familiar with the topic of the lesson.

Then I started to give some examples of sentences using the Present Simple Tense.

EXAMPLES: I wake up every morning at 7 o’clock.

I have breakfast at 8 o’clock.

I watch TV in the evenings.

I do the cleaning every Saturday morning.

The students paid attention to the explanations.

I gave them a task: they had to practice in pairs the sentences using the pictures. I carefully monitored them helping them and giving further explanations where it was necessary.

As a further practice, I divided the class into 5 groups, each of them having to write a famous story character’s daily program: Snow-White, Little Red Riding Hood, Spiderman, Garfield and Mickey Mouse.

The students found the activity entertaining and funny. Of course that I helped them during the activity as many times as it was necessary.

When they finished, the students presented their work in front of the class. I asked all of them to “hunt” mistakes setting up a little competition among the groups. I was happy to discover how ingenious they were and how nicely they succeeded their task.

I think that TBL is a good way to teach English tenses. It is very important to give clear explanations and clear instructions to the students. This way it would be very easy for them to solve the tasks successfully. It is more challenging than the Deductive Approach where the students are simply given the rules which they have to practice.

A GENERAL FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHING GRAMMAR

“Grammar, which knows how to control even kings.”

MOLIERE

Penny Ur (2007:7-10) in “Grammar Practice Activities” suggests a general framework which includes four stages. A wide variety of teaching techniques will fit these stages:

Presentation; isolation and explanation; practice; test

PRESENTATION

Teachers should present students a text in which a grammatical structure can be found. The purpose is to enable students realize the form and meaning of grammatical structure in both spoken and written form and it will bring it into students’ short-term memory. Ur (2007, p 82) also suggested that example of the structure should be presented in meaningful context and visual material may be helpful. Teachers often use a story or a short dialogue; the students get a printed copy of it but it is also read aloud by the teacher and/or by the students. As a follow up activity, students may be asked to read aloud, repeat, reproduce from memory, or copy out instances of the use of the structure within the text. When there is a very simple structure, the presentation text might be a simple sentence, which serves as a model for immediate practice.

ISOLATION AND EXPLANATION

Grammatical structure is isolated from its context. The teacher temporarily discusses the rules govern the structures: form, meaning and function of the structure. If the structure is complicated, it may take some time for explanation. But teacher may spend less time to explain simple structure, or the one that is close to students’ native language. The purpose is to ensure students understand the rules of the structure.

According to Ur (2007, p.82), teachers should made the decision if grammatical terminology should be used and which language – student’s native language or target language – should be adopted to explain the grammatical structure.

Moreover, they should provide the explanation of the structure at the right level – maintain balance between accuracy and details of grammatical structure. Then, they have to consider whether grammatical rule is necessary; then, to select method for explanation – inductive or deductive.

In more academic classes, or where the structure is particularly different for the students to grasp, this stage may take some time. However, where the structure is very simple or very close to the parallel in the native language, or when the students tend to learn the language intuitively rather than intellectually, or it may take only a minute to be entirely committed.

PRACTICE

A series of various exercises which is done as classroom exercise and for homework should be provided to students. Its purpose is to enable students to understand the structure fully and transfer the knowledge of structure from short-term memory to long-term memory. Three types of practices are suggested.

First, form-based practice in spoken or written form helps students focus mainly on form and formal rules. When students do a series of this type of exercise, they will have clear understanding of the rules of the structure. Eventually, students will be able to produce correctly pattern. Examples of this type of practice include slot-fillers (student supplies appropriate item into a blank), and transformation (student changes the structure according to the instruction, e.g. change a structure into the plural). However, lacking practice the meaning of the structure is the limitation of this exercise.

Second, when students understand rules of the structure and its application, meaning-based exercises should be given to them. This type of exercise encourages students to produce and perceive both correct forms and meaning of the structure. Some examples include translation a language to or from the native language, slot filling or multiple exercise which is based on meaning, slot-filling in which alternative of answer not provided, and matching words to make correct sentence that convey meaning.

The third type of exercise emphasizes the production and comprehension of meanings for non-linguistic purpose. The exercises use information-gap communication techniques or expressing ideas activities. Students may discuss situations or make up stories using language structure provided. During the communicative activity we may notice that the students are making considerable mistakes in a certain structure and decide to return temporarily to an exercise that focuses on correct forms. Or it may be found in some cases to do only the kind of practice if the structure is easily mastered.

Considering four grammar teaching stages, Ur suggested that practice stage is the most important since it helps students learn the structure thoroughly and permanently.

She also recommended that good language-practice activities should have a clear objective and encourage active language use. Two types of objectives in language practice are common. The first one is language-based objective. The focus of the practice is to produce correct form of language. For example, students might do exercise that ask them to transform sentences into past tense. However, it is sometimes rather boring and meaningless.

Another type is non-linguistic objective which is more interesting. The students have to use the grammar studied to achieve the objective of the task. For example, students may be asked to solve problems or ask someone to do something. In some cases, two types of objectives are integrated. The non-linguistic objective is the main focus; at the same time students and teacher are aware of linguistic form that should be use in order to achieve the task. It is suggested the objective of a language task should be simple, for example, to narrate the story or find out the solution of the puzzle. It helps students have clear idea what they are going to do.

The teacher should ensure that the tasks are language base; students do not have to spend too much time on making gesture or imagination. It is noticed that students who enjoys doing activities do not always learn the language. Thus, the teacher should ensure that the tasks maximize the use of language during the process of accomplishing the task.

Ur (2007: 83 – 84) advised a variety of grammar practice activities that enable students become familiar with the form and communicative meaning of structure in context so that they are able to produce the structures correctly and communicatively. The activities vary from controlled and accuracy-oriented exercise at the beginning of learning to the ones focusing on fluency in the use of grammar in context.

A series of grammar practice activities varied from form-oriented to meaning oriented are as follows:

1. Awareness

After teachers introduce the structure, the students should have opportunities to notice that structure which appears in the discourse level and focus on form and/or meaning of the structure.

For example, students are asked to underline examples of past tense in the extracts from newspaper article.

2. Controlled drills

Students are asked to produce examples of the structure using cues arranged by the teacher or text book.

For example:

Use the given cues and make statement about John. You should use the model structure provided.

‘John drinks tea but he doesn’t drink coffee.’

3. Meaningful drills

Students are provided of limited choices of vocabulary to produce controlled structure which is meaningful.

For example:

Write true statements about person you know well and using the model provided.

He/ She likes ice cream; or He/ She doesn’t like ice cream.

4. Guided, meaningful practice

Students use a set pattern to produce their own sentences, but they have opportunities to use their own vocabulary.

For example, students are given the cue ‘if you had a million dollars,’ and suggest what they would like to do.

5. (Structure-based) free sentence composition

Teacher provides visual or situational cues and asks students to make their own sentences to describe them. However, teacher still directs students to use the structure.

For example, students are asked to use appropriate tense to describe a picture of people doing different things.

6. (Structure-based) discourse composition

Students are given chance to run discussion or write passage on a given tasks. They are also instructed to use some structure in their spoken or written discourse.

For example, teacher gives a class a situation ‘your good friend cheated in an important exam.’ Students are instructed to use modals (e.g. might, should, must, can, could) to discuss solution.

7. Free discourse

The students do activity which is similar in structure-based discourse composition but specific direction to use structure is not provided. However, the task itself is likely to enable students use the structure required.

TEST

The tests are provided in order to get feedback from students, i.e. to check how well students understand the structure that they have studied.

Ur (2007: 9) considers that formal examinations, usually provided by revision on the part of the learners, and followed by written evaluation on the part of the teacher, are only one kind of testing, arguably, the least useful for immediate teaching purposes. Most testing, however, is done automatically and almost unconsciously by teacher and learners as the course proceeds, the most valuable feedback on learning being supplied by learners’ current performance in class and in home assignments. Often, practice exercises may function as a test. Whether you like them or not, tests are a way of checking your knowledge or comprehension. They are the main instrument used to evaluate your learning by most educational institutions. According to research studies, tests have another benefit: they make you learn and remember more than you might have otherwise. Although it may seem that all tests are the same, many different types of tests exist and each has a different purpose and style. Harmer J. (2001: 221-231) mentions that the tests should have two things in common. They have to be valid: which means that they should test what they are supposed to test, and they have to be reliable, this means that they should give consistent results.

In my opinion a discrete item test is very useful when it comes to test a grammar structure. A discrete item approach to teaching language isolates the language and enables teachers and learners to focus on the item itself. Discrete point tests respond to the assumption that language can be broken down into its component parts, and those parts tested in turn.

Examples of Discrete Item test:

Multiple choice – is a form of assessment in which respondents are asked to select the best possible answer out of the choices from a list.

Example: Paul…………coffee every morning.

is drinking b) drinks c) drinkes d) drank

Mother………a letter in her office now.

writes b) is writing c) are writing d) write

Completion Item – requires the student to answer a question or to finish an incomplete statement by filling in a blank with a correct word or phrase.

Example: John……….to work every weekday at 8 o’clock. (goes)

We…………football in the yard every afternoon. (play)

Listen! Tom……..the piano, (is playing)

Yes/ No; True/ False – a true/ false question is a specialized form of the multiple choice format in which there are only two possible alternatives; these questions can be used when the test designer wishes to measure the students’ ability to identify whether statement or facts are accurate or not.

Example: In the present simple tense we use did to make questions and negatives.

True b) False

We use the Present Simple to express habitual actions.

True b) False

The present Continuous can be used to express a future planned action.

True b) False

The test of this approach can cover a wide range of scope of materials to be put in it; the test allows quantification on the students’ responses. In the terms of scoring it is reliable and efficient because of its objectivity. Although among the weaknesses of these tests we can mention that constructing discrete point test items is potentially energy and time consuming and success in doing the test is not readily inferably to the ability of the test taker to communicate in real life circumstances.

Tests of this sort make up a significant proportion of grammar testing. According to the purpose of the test I can mention three types of tests:

Placement Tests – these tests are used to place students in the appropriate class or level. For example, in language schools, placement tests are used to check a student’s language level through grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, writing, and speaking questions. After establishing the student’s level, the student is placed in the appropriate class to suit his/her needs.

Progress or Achievement Tests – these tests measure the student’s improvement in relation to their syllabus. These tests only contain items which the students have been taught in class. There are two types of progress tests: short-term and long-term. Short-term progress tests check how well students have understood or learned material covered in specific units or chapters. They enable the teacher to decide if remedial or consolidation work is required. Long-term progress tests are also called Course Tests because they check the learners’ progress over the entire course. They enable the students to judge how well they have progressed. Administratively, they are often the sole basis of decisions to promote to a higher level.

These tests are practical, they have what we call face validity and they are reliable, too. As tests of overall language proficiency, however, such tests do not really provide the kind of information necessary to make a rounded assessment of the learner’s abilities. For example, they do not give any information as to the learner’s ability to communicate, including how well the learner can cope in situations of real life language use. They only test knowledge or competence, without testing the ability to use that knowledge. (Vizental, 2007: 68). This is why, in my opinion we need a performance test too.

We can give a few reasons why should we incorporate the performance tests in our teaching program, and also why should we stick to discrete-item competence tests. We should use both kind of tests at different stages of the learning cycle. For example, I think that a discrete- item test could be given immediately after the introduction of a new grammar item. Later, in order to find out how well the students have integrated the newly learnt item, and how readily and accurately they can use it, a performance test would be appropriate.

FACTORS INVOLVED IN PRACTICING GRAMMAR SUCCESSFULLY

Out of the four stages of language teaching, the practice stage is the most important; it comes after the initial stages, presentation and explanation, when the learner is assumed to have perceived the material and taken into short term memory, but cannot be said to have really mastered it yet. (Ur, 2007: 11) Practice is meant to consolidate learning and it is defined as any kind of engaging with the language on the part of the learner done under supervision. During this stage, the long term memory absorbs the material and the learner succeeds to understand and produce examples, without teacher’s support. A practice technique may involve reception, ”passive” exposure to spoken or written input or “active” production of language items. Here are the factors which definitively contribute to a successful practice:

Presenting, practicing and producing grammar structures correctly

The teaching process of grammar is achieved through different stages. They are: presentation, which comprises the introduction and explanation of the grammar; practising, which includes the various activities which help to learn the grammar structures and practise them; and production, where learners are provided with as many possibilities to produce their own sentences and ideas as possible. Richards and Rodgers (1986: 15) call these three stages approach, method, and technique, while Harmer (Harmer, 1998: 25, 26) uses engage, study, and activate for these three stages. All agree, however, on the content of these three stages. In comparison, Ur uses presentation, isolation and explanation, practice, and test (Ur, 1988: 7, 9). It can be seen here that in addition to the three basic stages, one more is added, where “learners do tests in order to demonstrate…how well they mastered the material they have been learning” (Ur, 1988: 9). Other authors also use a testing stage but not as part of three-stage teaching. Nevertheless, before proceeding to description of the three stages individually, it is necessary to explain what the terms accuracy and fluency are. These two terms are typical for grammar activities in the practice stage and they differ in the level of control from the side of teachers.

Accuracy

Accuracy is also called “precision” (Thornbury, 1999: 91), and fluency “automation”. Thornbury (1999: 92) states that if learners want to achieve accuracy, they need to focus mainly on the form and less so on meaning. Consequently, it is best to practice accuracy activities when learners are already familiar with the meaning of what they are practising. Bartram and Walton (1991: 32) claim that accuracy activities are those which encourage learners to imitate native speakers as much as possible while being watched over by a teacher who is able to give correction where necessary.

As far as accuracy is concerned, according to Thornbury (1999: 92), a good accuracy activity should include:

attention to form

familiarity

thinking time

feedback.

In terms of feedback and error correction, there are ways of correcting mistakes during an accuracy activity: “repeating, echoing, statement and question, expression, hinting, and reformulation (Harmer, 2001: 106).

Fluency

Fluency is “the ability to process language speedily and easily” (Thornbury, 1999: 93) which means that learners are able to use the language automatically. In comparison with accuracy and focusing on form, fluency activities are focused on meaning, placing less emphasis on correction if learners make mistakes in the form. As Bartram and Walton (1991: 32) explain, fluency activities focus on communication being free of correction from teachers.

According to Thornbury (1999: 93), a good fluency activity involves:

attention to meaning

authenticity

communicative purpose

chunking

repetition

In terms of feedback and error correction, a fluency activity should involve “gentle correction, recording mistakes, and after the event (Harmer, 2001: 107-109).

Presentation

Presentation is “the stage when students are introduced to the form, meaning and use of a new piece of language” (Harmer, 1987: 17). What teachers need to know before they start explaining grammar is not only the structure, but also how it is written, what difficulties learners can encounter, the best way of presenting the grammar so that everyone understands it, and the meaning itself (Ur, 1991: 81).

What is typical for this stage is that either learners read from a course book or teachers stand in front of the board, talking and explaining (Scrivener, 1994: 129). However, this can be very boring as was stated when describing the disadvantages of the deductive approach (chapter 4.2.2). Therefore teachers have to find a balance between explaining and practising, bearing in mind that the more practice students get, the better. Ur (1991: 82-83) gives some characteristics of what should be included in an effective presentation stage:

both oral and written forms should be involved;

both form and meaning;

many examples put into context, not without a context;

appropriate amount of terminology, depending on the level of learners;

appropriate structure and level of the classroom language.

Introductory activities involve the teacher in selecting interesting and relevant warmers and lead-ins. The warmers make the students feel comfortable and ready for the lesson, and the lead-ins introduce the topic of the lesson and main language points needed by the learners to complete the main tasks of the lesson.

The ways I present language or introduce lessons will depend on my learners’ level, interests, age, their already known language, weaknesses and strengths in English and learning styles. They will also depend on the resources available to me in my school, and the approach to presentation used in the course book.

For example when I taught the 7th grade students the Present Perfect Continuous Tense, I started by giving them a worksheet with the following dialogue, a conversation in which the context is a date at a movie theater and one person has arrived late.

Scott: Sorry I'm late. Have you been waiting long?

Rachel: Not really. I was a little late myself.

Rachel: I've really been looking forward to this movie. It's supposed to be hilarious. Gee, its crowded here.

Scott: Yeah. Well, at least the movie hasn't started. I think there are two seats over there.

Scott: Excuse me. Would you mind taking off your hat?

Woman with hat: What was that?

Scott: Could you please take off your hat?

Woman with hat: Oh, of course. Sorry.

Rachel (whispering): Can you believe that hair? (The woman has a big hairdo.) Let's move.

Scott: Where?

Rachel: Aren't there two seats over there in the third row?

Rachel: Excuse me.

Scott: Pardon me.

Rachel: Oh no. (A tall man is moving to the empty seat in front of her.)

Scott: I guess this is my fault. Sorry I was late.

Rachel: That's OK. It's no big deal.

I asked the students to read it carefully. I also asked them some comprehension questions, but I did not say anything about the present perfect continuous tense at that point. It is passively retained – students probably understand it but are not yet able to use it. Then I thought about giving them an exercise like the following, designed to help them understand vocabulary from context:

Find a sentence in the conversation having a similar meaning to each sentence below:

Excuse me. (Pardon me.)

They say the movie is funny.

Could you please take off your hat?

That's a strange hairdo.

It's not that important.

Having performed their task successfully I begin to focus on the real purpose of the lesson: Present Perfect Continuous. When I am satisfied that my students understood the form and the meaning, I move on to the practice stage of the lesson.

Practice

Some authors, such as Ur (1991), Harmer (1987), and Thornbury (1999), agree that knowing grammar does not necessarily mean that it is able to be used well in practise. Therefore, teachers need learners to practise. “The aim of grammar practice is to get students to learn the structures so thoroughly that they will be able to produce them correctly on their own (Ur, 1991: 83). Harmer (1998: 25) says that this stage “means any stage at which the construction of language is the main focus” .Ur (1988: 11) uses the definition of this stage that “the function of a practice procedure is to familiarize learners with the material, not to introduce it.” There are many activities which help learners to practice newly learnt structures and forms. They vary in the level of control – from very controlled, focused on accuracy where teachers are necessary, to activities that focus on fluency and conveying the student’s ideas and thoughts without the need of teachers. Practice is the middle step in the process. We cannot expect students to be able to use the language freely unless we have given them sufficient practice in how to do so. Practice should do at least three things:

It should give students the chance to use the target structure or vocabulary without feeling as if they are in a specific testing situation.

It should spiral and reintegrate previously taught material.

It should be safe. That is, students should feel that they are investigating, discovering the language in question without having too much riding on the outcome. If they make some mistakes in a grammar exercise, for example, there will be no harm done; they will learn from their mistakes but will not fail the class. Four common types of safe practice are Pair Practice, Grammar in Context, Grammar with a Partner, and Interactive activities such as Info gaps and games.

Let's consider examples of two kinds of activities which will help our students practice the present perfect continuous structures.

Once I have presented the Present Perfect Continuous in a context in which it naturally occurs and have given other models such as grammar rules and charts, the next step might involve having the students complete a grammar-in-a-context activity similar to the following. By this point students know at least passively the form of the present perfect continuous. They also know that, while the simple present perfect can be used to express completed action, the present perfect continuous form cannot. In this exercise, the context is a line outside a movie theater, with four people waiting for the line to move.

Complete the conversation with the correct verb for each numbered item.

Greg: (comes up) Hi, everybody. Sorry I'm late. ___________ (Are you waiting/Have you been waiting) long?

Jeanette: About 20 minutes. What _______, Greg? (happens/happened)?

Greg: Well, I _______(m/was) stuck in traffic for half an hour on the freeway. __________ (Are you getting/Did you get) the tickets?

Andy: Yeah. Here they are. Man, I sure hope this movie _________ (was/is) as good as the reviews ___________ (say/will say) it is.

Greg: It is. _____________ (I've seen/I've been seeing) it twice already.

Laura: You have? And you ___________ (ll want/want) to see it again?

Greg: Sure. I bet I _________ (ll like/liked) it even better this time.

Jeanette: Guys, you __________ (have to/had to) remember that Greg __________ (was/is) a movie addict. He ________ (sees/saw) every movie that _________ (came/comes) out.

Laura: Well, I just hope this line _____________ (starts/started) moving soon.

Pair Practice

After we have done an exercise of this type, we might want to have the students do pair practice with the same structure, so we could present a short conversation like this one:

(In a video store)

A: What are you looking for?

B: I've been trying to find a really good video. Do you suggest me anything?

A: Have you seen My Left Foot? It's supposed to be very good.

B: OK. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try it.

When students have worked with this a bit, we can delete some of the items and have students replace them with their own examples:

A: What are you looking for?

B: I've been trying to find a really good _______. Do you suggest me anything?
(Students could say comedy/drama/musical, etc.)

A: Have you seen ___________? It's supposed to be very _____________.
(Students could say exciting/interesting/moving, etc.)

B: OK. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try it.

I consider that the activities which I use at this stage of the learning process should be fairly controlled, because the students have just met the new language. If I am able to assure a proper, comfortable atmosphere in my class, the lesson will be successful. My students enjoy to be challenged and face my quests any time they have the opportunity.

Production

During production, teachers provide as many practical exercises as possible. The aim of production is fluency which means “the ability to process language speedily and easily” (Thornbury, 1999: 93). “The end of the PPP cycle is production, which some trainers have called immediate creativity” (Harmer, 2001: 81). This means that learners are able to use the grammar structures they have learned instantly, without any need to refer to a course book. Harmer (2001: 81, 82) provides an example of a group of students to be found in a villa where their task is to describe what they are doing at that moment, being able to use various vocabulary and grammar structures. During this stage, no correction is needed or is needed just minimally since learners are provided the opportunity to experiment with the language are also needed feedback from the side of teachers.

Once students have been given sufficient presentation and practice, I expect them to be able to use the language in a relatively unstructured situation. There are many kinds of production activities. Three common ones are improvisation, discussion, and writing. I used the following examples of improvisation and discussion.

Improvisation

Improvisation can be considered the fifth skill – the skill which follows reading, listening, speaking, and writing. In many ways, it is the most important because it is the real test of whether students can use what they have learned without being told exactly what to do or say. Suppose, for example, that we have finished the presentation and practice portions of our lesson on the present perfect continuous tense. The students are ready to put their knowledge to use, so I asked them to do an activity of this type:

Work with a partner. Partner A, you have been trying to find something – for example, a good novel, a funny play, a serious movie, a good bakery, a reasonable coffee shop, a good Chinese restaurant, or a cheap hotel. Have a conversation. Ask Partner B for a suggestion. Partner B, give a suggestion. Give plenty of details.

I have noticed that the students like improvisation as they have the freedom to create new situations and to practice the language, the grammatical structures and to be more accurate and fluent during English classes.

Discussion

Discussions of various types are excellent vehicles for students to use language. One effective type is the controversial discussion in which we provoke the students' interest in a serious topic and let them take the discussion wherever it leads. Another type of discussion that works well is a picture discussion. We might conclude our lesson on the present perfect continuous by bringing in several copies of a picture which will elicit the structure. Care must be taken in choosing the picture, of course, but we can probably find an effective one. Suppose, for example, that we locate a magazine picture which shows several people standing in line outside a stadium waiting to get into a baseball game.

I asked the students to tell what is happening, tell a story, and/or create conversations for the characters. The only stipulation is that everything be in the students own words. This type of activity will provide an effective and comprehensive test of the students' ability to produce the language we have taught them. I as a teacher have to be very careful when dealing with errors. A harmful correction can discourage the students and affect the production stage. I think that this three stage lesson is a good way to teach grammar structures as during it the students are presented the new language, they are given examples and explanations and as a final stage they have the opportunity to practice it. In the case of English tenses I think that it can be well applied to teach grammar structures.

Mistake vs. Error

Bartram and Walton use the definition that a mistake is “caused by the learner not putting into practice something they have learned” (Bartram, Walton, 1991: 20) and Harmer explains a mistake as “slips made while students are simultaneously processing information and they are therefore easier to correct quickly (Harmer, 1998: 62). All these definitions agree that a mistake is made after having learned a rule and it is a matter of inattention that it was made. Both learners and teachers can correct it very easily. Correction should be given right after a mistake has been made so that learners realize that they have made it.

On the other hand, an error is “consistent and based on a miss-learned generalization” (Ur, 1991: 85) and “needs constant attention” (Harmer, 1998: 62). In comparison with a mistake, learners are not able to correct themselves because they have learned a rule incorrectly.

However, it is very difficult for teachers to distinguish between a mistake and an error during a lesson. They can be unsure if learners have made an occasional mistake or understood a rule incorrectly (Ur, 1991: 85). Ellis states three main reasons why teachers should focus on mistakes. The first reason is that “they are a conspicuous feature of learner language, raising the important question of “Why do learners make errors?”(Ellis, 1997: 15), the second reason is that “it is useful for teachers to know what errors learners make” (Ellis, 1997: 15), and the third reason is that “it is possible that making errors may actually help learners to learn when they self-correct the errors they make” (Ellis, 1997: 15).Bartram and Walton (1991: 43) point out that it is more effective if learners make the corrections on their own because they are more involved, independent, cooperative, and teachers speak less time. Bartram and Walton (1991: 44) – suggest the ways of correcting learners. They are gestures, facial expressions, non-verbal sounds, and simple phrases.

Harmer (2001: 99) divides mistakes into three categories –slips, errors, and attempts. Slips are “mistakes which students can correct themselves” (Harmer, 2001: 99), errors are “mistakes which they cannot correct themselves” (Harmer, 2001: 99) and attempts are “when a student tries to say something but does not yet know the correct way of saying it” (Harmer, 2001: 99).

Overall, both a mistake and an error are the wrong use of a rule. It is common practice to ask the learners to explain a rule to make sure that a mistake is not actually an error. When correcting an error, it is done to “help the learner change his or her conscious mental representation of a rule” (Krashen, 1987: 117). If teachers correct the mistakes of their learners, they are trying to change an incorrectly pictured rule.

Although I try to use the English language during my classes I am forced to repeat the explanations in the students’ mother tongue as their age and level of knowledge requires that.

CHAPTER IV: Classroom Management – General Considerations:

Classroom management is:

“All of the things that a teacher does to organize students, space, time, and materials so that student learning can take place.” – Wong & Wong

“The best discipline is good teaching.” – Jordan Reeves

Classroom management means how the teacher works, how the class works, how the teacher and students work together, and how teaching and learning happen. For students, classroom management means having some control in how the class operates and understanding clearly the way the teacher and students are to interact with each other. For both teachers and students, classroom management is not a condition but a process.

Skills such as effective classroom management are central to teaching and require "common sense," consistency, an often undervalued teacher behavior, a sense of fairness, and courage. These skills also require that teachers understand in more than one way the psychological and developmental levels of their students. The skills associated with effective classroom management are only acquired with practice, feedback, and a willingness to learn from mistakes.

While good classroom arrangement is not a guarantee of good behavior, poor planning in this area can create conditions that lead to problems.

The teacher must be able to observe all students at all times and to monitor work and behavior. The teacher should also be able to see the door from his or her desk.

Frequently used areas of the room and traffic lanes should be unobstructed and easily accessible.

Students should be able to see the teacher and presentation area without undue turning or movement.

Commonly used classroom materials, e.g., books, attendance pads, absence permits, and student reference materials should be readily available.

Some degree of decoration will help add to the attractiveness of the room. Classroom management systems are effective because they increase student success by creating an orderly learning environment that enhances students' academic skills and competencies, as well as their social and emotional development. Classroom management systems are most effective when they adhere to three basic principles (Brophy, 2006: 39-40):

Emphasize student expectations for behavior and learning.

Promote active learning and student involvement.

Identify important student behaviors for success.

Usually students need clear instructions, a set of clear rules which are applied during the classes.

These rules are very useful and they help the teacher to install a kind of routine. If we have rules we need to have punishments to apply them to those who do not obey and rewards to those who do.

The effectiveness of punishment versus reward in classroom management is an ongoing issue for education professionals. Both tactics provide teachers with leverage when working with disruptive and self-motivated students. Before you decide whether to motivate students with rewards or manage with consequences, you should explore both options.

The Positive Side of Rewards

Many teachers want to keep a positive atmosphere in their classroom. One way they maintain this is by using rewards to motivate students. These are offered in a variety of ways, such as a treat for completing homework on time or extra recess for good behaviour. Rewards work for the students who receive them and those who do not: Seeing a high-achieving student enjoy a reward may inspire a disruptive student to focus on her work.

The Positive Side of Punishments

Educators often choose punishments when rules are not followed. They lay out guidelines when the year begins and list what the punishments will be if the rules are not followed. The punishments, or consequences, usually involve withholding something the student enjoys. For example, a disruptive student may be kept in at recess time or serve detention after school. A student who frequently distracts his peers from learning will be deterred if he knows he will not receive a class treat at the end of the month.

Reward Drawbacks

Though rewards motivate students to participate in school, the reward may become their only motivation. While many students may aim to please their teacher, some might turn in assignments just for the reward. If you choose to implement rewards in your classroom, keep an eye out for students who may need encouragement to do their best.

Punishment Drawbacks

Fear of punishment gets most students to follow clearly articulated rules. Mentioning these punishments to a disruptive learner, encourages him to behave well. However, the fear may cause a student to work simply to get by rather than operate at her full potential. For example, a student may behave only to avoid punishment, without listening to the lesson.

The teacher has a very important role when it comes about classroom management. The teacher’s main aim should be to establish a positive relationship with the class and try to create a safe and positive learning environment. The teacher has some roles which he she has to fulfill: the teacher must communicate well with the students; he or she also has to be a good organizer, a prompt controller, a careful planner and a thoughtful motivator. The teacher has also be very careful and pay great attention to how he organizes the class and how he divides it during the activities. For each activity he has to choose how he should ask the students to fulfill it. Source: http://education.gov.gy.

Individual, Group Work and Pair Work in the practice of the verb tenses

I think that it is very important how the teacher organises the class during the practice stage of the lesson. A lesson could contain all these 3 forms of work. Individual work is very useful during the learning process but the main aim of a language is communication. As there is a strong need for cooperation in each field of work, the teacher should use pair and group work. While working this way, the learners will obtain several benefits:

They can learn from each other, hearing the language used by the other members of the group.

They will be given the chance to be more creative and to be more involved in producing language.

Their motivational level is likely to increase.

During these activities, they will have the chance to develop fluency.

Working in pairs or groups implies creativity and flexibility, hence the students might develop a certain skill for improvisation and the teacher doesn’t cover the material but leads the group on a path of discovery. Individual work is less creative and it is usually used to practice drills, or to solve simple exercises. Teaching and classroom materials nowadays consequently make use of a wide variety of small group activities. There are some advantages and limitations of pair and group work in the language classroom: the push for authenticity is one of them.

There is a need to have a relationship between real life and classroom activities, so the language classroom is intended to prepare the students for real communication. Some argued that the classroom activities should use authentic sources as basis for learning. Richards (2006: 23) argued that:

Classroom activities should give the students the chance to practice “real world” language. Since language is a tool of communication, methods and materials should concentrate on message. The purposes of reading should be the same in class as they are in the real life. The texts should give cultural information about the target language, they should ensure an exposure to real language and fit the learners’ needs. Using this kind of texts, we obtain a more creative approach to teaching.

It is also considered that it is not important if classroom materials are derived from authentic texts and other forms of input, as long as the learning process they facilitate is authentic. That is why created materials can be motivating and superior to authentic materials because they are generally built around a graded syllabus while the language which can be found in authentic materials could be difficult and irrelevant.

It is easily noticeable that textbooks look “authentic” as the reading passages are designed to look like articles, e-mails, leaflets, advertisements. Textbooks are designed to a similar standard of production as real world sources.

I observed that students enjoy working with authentic teaching materials, they find them attractive and interesting. They provide information from the real world and are helpful tools in practicing conversation in group or pairs.

No matter how we group the students, we are all the time interested in the result we obtain after adapting an activity; during a lesson we can integrate all the four skills in order to have a successful lesson, but there are activities which use only the productive or the receptive ones.

Practicing Verb Tenses Using Productive Skills

The productive skills are speaking and writing, because learners doing these need to produce language. They are also known as active skills. Speaking is a complex activity and it involves interaction between people using language and body language to determine the listener to be attentive. We can develop our student’s speaking skills by focusing on particular aspects of speaking such as fluency (that is speaking at a normal speed, without hesitation, repetition or self correction), pronunciation, body language and grammatical accuracy. (Spratt, 2005: 34-35). The real goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative efficiency. The students should be make themselves understood, using their previous knowledge. They should try to avoid confusion in the message due to faulty pronunciation, grammar or vocabulary, and to observe the social and cultural rules that apply in each communication situation. This is the reason why the teacher should teach his students how to develop the ability to produce grammatically correct, logically connected sentences that are appropriate to specific contexts and to do so using comprehensible pronunciation.

Activity: What’s happening? –the skills involved in this activity are reading, writing and speaking, but I consider that the main skill here used to practice present continuous is writing.

Interaction: Individual work

Aim: To practice the Present Continuous Tense

Procedure:

I wrote down on a worksheet the beginnings of some sentences and I gave it to the students. I asked them to think of suitable endings using the present continuous tense. I asked them about the situations when we use this tense. They answered correctly that we use it to express actions which happen in the moment of speaking. Then I gave them 1 minute to look through the task and signal if they have some unknown vocabulary.

I gave the student’s a time limit of 10 minutes and let them work individually. While they perform their task I like to walk and see what they “produce”. If I see a mistake I try to emphasize it by pointing to it to let the student know that there is something wrong and give him the opportunity of self correction.

I let the students know when their time ended and I asked them to read aloud. They read one by one their sentences, and I encourage them to raise hands as many times as they hear a mistake. If they do not notice the mistakes, I correct them.

Feedback is very important this is why, I write some correct answers on the blackboard.

I think that this is a good individual activity having as purpose the usage of this tense. Doing it individually, each student has the chance to be creative without being influenced by somebody else. It was a helpful and enjoyable activity.

Activity: Changing sentences – the skills involved in this activity are reading, writing and speaking, but I consider that the most important ones are writing and speaking.

Interaction: Pair-work

Aim: to practice Present Simple Tense; to encourage the students to cooperate;

Procedure:

I started the activity showing the students some pictures representing some everyday activities and I asked the students to try to make up some sentences using some adverbs of frequency like: usually, often, sometimes, etc…I started my activity like this because I wanted them to remember the usage of the present simple tense. Students were very receptive and had no difficulties in solving their task.

I let the student know that they were on the point of performing a pair work. I gave each pair a worksheet and explained them that they have to use the chart to compose sentences.

As the time limit was set, students started to perform the task. I helped them when they asked for help and at the end of the activity I asked them to read aloud some sentences.

After writing some sentences on the blackboard, I asked the students to use again the picture shown at the beginning of the activity, and make up sentences using it. I asked them to be creative and give names to the characters, and write elaborate sentences.

The pairs performed their task well; here are some examples of the sentences:

Tom always cleans the house to help his wife.

Jake and Eddy always play basketball at school.

My aunt usually drinks her coffee and listens to the radio in the morning.

I think that this pair work helped the students to practice the present simple successfully.

Activity: Story writing – The main skill used during this activity is writing but it involves speaking too.

Interaction: Group Work

Aim: To practice the past simple tense; to develop the learner’s imagination and reading skills.

Procedure:

I start the activity by dividing the class in 4 groups of 5 students. I try all the time to make mixed level groups. This is a good opportunity to those whose level of knowledge is lower to improve it. Each group got two pictures and was asked to make up a story with the title: My last holiday!

Group 1:

Group 2:

Group 3:

Group 4:

I also gave each group a word bank which fitted the pictures. I asked the students to use the words in their story but pay attention to the past forms of the verbs. I also told them that they have to use most of the verbs in their past forms.

The students performed their task and wrote interesting and creative stories. During the activity I tried to monitor the groups and guide them as many times as they needed to be guided.

Using this activity I wanted to expose my students to some somehow real life situations, but they also were allowed to use their imagination and create stories based on some unreal events. They enjoyed their task a lot and all of them were implied in the process of writing. As a feedback I asked the groups to show a leader who would read the story in front of the others.

Creative writing is a good group activity; it encourages cooperation and it develops imagination and writing skills.

Practicing Verb Tenses Using Receptive Skills

“We have two ears and one mouth so we can listen twice as much as we speak” – EPICTETUS

The receptive skills are listening and reading, because learners do not need to produce language to do these, they receive and understand it. These skills are sometimes known as passive skills. Listening is the most used skill among the four skills.

Reading is the ability to receive, to attend to, to interpret, and to respond emotionally to written messages.

These skills can be used to practice tenses but in my opinion it is difficult to use them without implying speaking and writing; as their names say these are passive skills. We can connect them with both speaking and writing.

Activity: Sorry, I was late (getting events in the correct order) – Skills involved are listening for gist and reading by role playing the given conversation.

Interaction: Pair work

Aim: to develop listening skills and also practice past tense simple

Procedure:

A popular technique which helps the students understand the gist of a story involves the students in listening so that they can put pictures in order in which they hear them.

In the following example, students look at the following pictures:

Students are told that they are going to work with a partner and they have to listen to a conversation. The students just listen, they are not given the tape script. As a task they should put the pictures in the correct chronological order (which is not the same as the order of what they hear). This is what they hear:

The students would listen to the conversation twice. Then, they check their answers with their partners and if it is necessary, they can listen again to ensure that they have the correct sequence (B, A, D, C).

As a follow up activity I gave the students the tape script and asked them to read it by performing role plays. I also asked them to pay attention to the past forms of the verbs. The students read together with their partners.

This is a good listening and reading activity and I consider that it helped my students to practice past simple tense. To go on with further practice I asked them to write other conversations using this one as a model, but this activity implied the two productive skills: writing and speaking.

Activity: role play: – Skills involved are reading and speaking

Interaction: Individual work

Aim: to develop reading skills, to practice role play and the past simple tense

Procedure:

Each learner acquires a personality or interprets a character and receives a card with some information about their role and the situation. In these activities, the teacher gives the information to the learners (cards) such as who they are and what they think or feel. Each student having his own situation to deal with, I consider this activity to be an individual work. With all these, when they finish their task separately, the students have to act out a situation as if they were people on their card. Here are some examples:

CUSTOMER: You bought a shirt yesterday. When you got home, you noticed that there was a mark on the sleeve. You take it back to the shop. You do not want to buy another shirt; you want your money back.

MANAGER: You are the manager of the shop. Your policy is that you can only exchange clothes; you cannot give customers their money back. You always try to be polite to customers but you cannot change store policy without writing to head office.

SHOP ASSISTANT: You work in a shop. Yesterday a customer bought a shirt. You noticed that it had a mark on the sleeve so you told him/her and gave her/him.

Students performed their task well and used correctly the forms of the past tense.

This is a speaking activity but at its basis there is a reading activity. It is very important for the success of this activity to understand the written text. If the student’s reading skills are poor, he would not fulfill the task successfully. I think that it is hard to use just the reading skill to practice grammar because somehow the teacher has to check understanding the reading task, and this checking is not possible without implying a speaking or a writing activity.

Activity: listening to a song – Skills involved are listening

Interaction: group work

Aim: to develop listening skills, to practice mixed tenses

Procedure:

Nothing is worse than a song almost nobody can understand. The students learn more and more by hearing the target language, even when they do not understand what is being said, songs greatly improves the ability to hear and even speak the language. According to Ur (1984: 65) “there are two periods of pleasurable listening in a typical song-learning process in the foreign language classroom: the beginning, when students hear the song for the first time and try to catch as many of the lyrics as they can; and the end, when they know the song well”. Songs can be a good source of vocabulary by following the song to determine words. The second skill that the students can learn through songs is speaking. Singing a song is a pleasing achievement. After the students listen to the song, they would attempt to sing it or the lyric can be employed as stimulus for class discussion.

First I divided the class in 4 groups of 5 students each and I told them that during that listening activity they would listen to an old but beautiful song sang by The Beatles: Can’t buy me love. I try to use old fashioned songs during my listening activities. I think that the lyrics in these songs are better for such an activity.

I told the students what was the name of the band they would listen to, but unfortunately because of their young age they hadn’t heard about it before. I didn’t mention the title because I asked them to listen to the song and try to guess it.

Students listen to the song carefully for the first time and tried to guess. Even if they hadn’t heard the song before, they guessed its title.

At this point of my activity I had to imply reading and writing skills for a successful activity so I gave the groups a worksheet based on the song and I asked them to solve it.

They listened carefully once again to the song and performed their task by solving the worksheet.

To my surprise they likes the song as much as they asked me to listen some more times to be able to sing it.

In my opinion it is important to choose proper activities to practice English tenses. Through well prepared communicative activities such as role plays, done in pairs or in small groups, you can encourage students to experience and innovate with the language, and create a supportive atmosphere that allows them to make mistakes without fear of embarrassment. I believe that this will contribute to their self confidence as speakers and to their motivation to learn more. (Harmer: 2001, 172-175)

Grammar Games For Learning Verb Tenses

I think that it is very important to design interesting, interactive activities for the students. Younger learners learn very easily if you try to trick them and use a game to teach or practice a grammar structure.

As it follows, I will present some games which I have used during my lessons.

Find someone who…

Name of the activity: Find someone who…

Language point: the present simple – affirmatives, questions, negatives

Material used: pieces of paper with the given sentences

Time: 10 minutes

Level of control: meaningful drill

Classroom organization: the whole class

The aims: to find out if the learners are able to transform the affirmatives into questions and being able to communicate in English

Procedure: the learners were handed out the small pieces of paper with five sentences in 3rd person singular and their task was to transform them into 2nd person singular question and ask their classmates the question. If a learner answered the question according to the required answer, the name of the asked learner could have been written next to the question. If the asking student had one name at each sentence on his piece of paper, the task was finished.

Evaluation: at first, the learners were confused about what to do so it was needed to explain the rules once more. After the second explanation, they started working. The atmosphere in all the classes was good and friendly during this activity so it might be concluded that the learners liked the activity and found it entertaining.

Problems encountered: the biggest problem encountered was the correct transformation of the affirmatives into questions. When this problem occurred, the learners were made figure the mistake out on their own first. If they still had not known what the mistake was, they were told and asked to correct it by themselves. When they were not able to correct it, they were said by me. This was probably the consequence of not explaining the grammar rules beforehand. In addition, the learners were also prone to using Czech language instead of English. If this situation happened, they were warned about not to it, being said an English instruction “Speak English, please!” In all four classes, this warning helped so the learners

Guess what I am doing

Name of the activity: Guess what I am doing

Language point: the present continuous – affirmatives

Material used: small pieces of paper with a verb on them, a small box for the pieces of paper

Time: 10 minutes

Level of control: controlled drill

Classroom organization: the whole class

The aims: to find out if the learners are able to make the present continuous affirmatives

Procedure: the learners were provided with an explanation of the activity and told that they had to answer, using a full sentence, not just a phrase or one word. One learner came to me and took one small piece of paper from a small box. His task was to read the verb for himself and perform it without telling the class what the verb was. Then, the rest of the class had to guess what the performing learner was doing. They had to guess until somebody said what the correct answer was. The procedure was repeated until all the cards were taken and performed.

Example: You are sleeping on the desk! – Yes, I am.

Verbs used: read in a course book, sleep on the desk, look out of the window, sit on the desk, drink water, walk around the class, write on the blackboard, stand in a corner, do homework, sing a song, write a letter to my friend, dance, draw a picture, speak English, text an SMS, call somebody.

Evaluation: this activity was followed by a good atmosphere in all the classes so it might be concluded that the learners liked the activity. The learners were also using the English language the whole time. It might be stated that the activity was carried out highly according to the plan. However, this activity might be improved by asking the individual learners for answer so that lack of participation from the side of the shy and slower learners can be avoided.

Problems encountered: at the beginning, the biggest problem encountered at this activity was to calm down the class when each verb was being performed. When this activity was introduced in the first class, the precautions about the noise in the following classes were taken by emphasising that if the noise was too big, the activity would be finished. After the learners were said it, the noise was avoided. On top of that, another problem occurred was that not all learners participated in guessing the activity. The reason might be that they were weaker in terms of their English.

Interview your partner

Name of the activity: Interview your partner

Language point: the present simple and continuous – affirmatives, questions, negatives

Material used: small pieces of paper with four questions with prompts only

Time: 10 minutes

Level of control: guided, meaningful practice

Classroom organization: pairs

The aims: to find out if the learners are able to make the affirmatives, questions, and negatives in the present simple and continuous and use them correctly and to find out if they are able to communicate in English

Procedure: the learners were given the small pieces of paper with the questions. Then, they had to make pairs and interview their partners, using the correctly formed questions in either the present simple or continuous, depending on which one to use in which question. They had to change pairs at least once so that they could interview at least two classmates.

Evaluation: although this type of activity was intended for pairs, in the classes with the odd number of learners had to be one group of three learners. The atmosphere during this activity was good on the whole. Nevertheless, the slower learners needed more time to complete the activity while the quicker learners were finished already. For the next time, this might be possibly avoided by changing the pairs of quicker learners so that they interview more classmates.

Problems encountered: the most significant problem encountered by the learners was transformation of the sentences into questions. When this problem occurred, the learners were, at first, asked to transfer the sentence once again, if they had still been not successful, they were said the correct answer (more about mistake managing in chapter below). This problem occurred especially in the classes of the learners aged 12 to 13. The weakness in this activity might be attributed to the fact that the learners were not presented the grammar needed beforehand for a success of performance of this activity.

Picture description

Name of the activity: Picture description

Language point: the present simple and continuous – affirmatives, negatives

Material used: one picture for each pair

Time: 10 minutes

Level of control: (structure-based) free sentence composition

Classroom organization: pairs

The aims: to find out if the learners are able to make the affirmatives of the present simple and continuous and use them correctly and to find out if they are able to produce sentences with no vocabulary prompts, only with visual

Procedure: the learners had to make pairs. Each was given a picture and their task was to describe it, using various vocabulary and the structures with both present simple and continuous. After all of them were finished, two pairs had to describe their picture in front of the class, saying at least two sentences.

TOM:

MARK and ANNIE:

JANE:

Example sentences: He usually goes out but he is reading a book now. He usually plays the guitar but he is texting now.

Evaluation: this activity was relatively not a good choice because it could have been seen on the learners that they were bored as soon as they were given the pictures. After being asked what they did not like about this activity, they said that this was the most common type of activity they did at school. This activity might be possibly improved by an activity where one learner describes a picture and the other learner draws.

Problems encountered: the most significant problem which occurred was that the learners got bored by this activity. The reason might be the fact that they possibly did not know what sentences to make in terms of the present simple. So the duration of the activity was shortened to the minimum of using four sentences for the description for each pair. The learners were also helped by giving some example sentences but in their native language. The degree of success of this activity was determined by the nature of this activity – describing a picture. Another problem was that learners did not know what sentences to form so that they could also use the present simple and not only the present continuous as the usual tense used for picture description type of activity. They were, therefore, given the clue sentences in Romanian aloud so that the whole class could hear them.

Assessment tasks

Assessment means judging learners’ performance by collecting information about it. We assess learners for different reasons, using different kinds of tests to do so. Assessment tasks are the methods we use for assessing learners. Teachers need to think carefully about what kinds of knowledge their tests allow students to demonstrate. This can be done by combining formative and summative assessment.

Summative assessment:

Takes place at the end of a predetermined period of instruction

Rates the student in relation to an external standard of correctness

Is the approach taken by most traditional and standardized tests

Formative tests

Takes place on an on-going basis as teaching is proceeding

Rates the student in terms of functional ability to communicate, using criteria that the student has helped to identify

Helps students recognize ways of improving their learning

In my opinion there are some activity types that can be used as assessment tasks when we want to check the students’ knowledge about a certain English tense, or about the differences between two tenses, including the following:

Task-completion activities: puzzles, games, map-reading, and other kinds of classroom tasks in which the focus is on using one’s language resources to complete a task.

Oral presentations involve giving a talk or leading a group discussion. Thorough preparation is the key to a successful presentation:

plan your presentation and research your topic

write a draft and edit your presentation

be aware of the time limit and how to best structure your presentation

rehearse your presentation

Matching: You can match captions / texts / recorded extracts to pictures; short notes or headlines to longer texts, e.g. news items.

Sharing personal experiences and story-telling: Activities where learners are asked to recount their personal experiences and tell stories are valuable because they give learners a chance to speak for longer and in a more sustained way. And it is something we often do in real-life.

Teachers can utilize many of the classroom activities for assessments, as long as these assessments are focused on the language targets and have clear scoring criteria.

CHAPTER V: My Research

Argument

This section intends to illustrate the practice and research I conducted during the school year 2016-2017 at “Dimitrie Cantemir” secondary school. Since I consider that grammar has a vital role in language acquisition, I concentrated my research on making my students aware of the importance of a correct use of the present simple and continuous tenses. In this chapter I will focus on common errors made by my students in using these tenses.

Aims of the research

The aim of this study is to investigate what type of errors students make regarding the form and usage of the present simple and continuous tense. The main aim of my research is to diagnose the learner’s weak points and difficulties and to offer them remedial work by suggesting solutions and identifying strategies that will help them reduce or eliminate these mistakes.

When talking about receptive and productive skills in the practice of these tenses, I noticed that my learners are able both to recognize them and produce them, showing sometimes difficulties in using the correct tense.

Data of the research

Description of the class: I have chosen class 5B (30 students) to conduct my research. The students in my class are of mixed levels, ranging from beginners to elementary level students. They have 2 English classes per week, but unfortunately some of them do not show any interest in learning English, and they do not learn or practice individually at home and this is why some of them have poor results.

How I started my research

As my work is based on new and traditional methods in teaching English tenses, I decided to start my work by using different teaching methods (traditional and new ones) when a I taught my students Present Simple and Continuous Tenses. I have to mention that it wasn’t the first time my students learned about these tenses, as they have already met them during the previous school year. The students remembered that they have previously read and used them but they didn’t remember the rules or the situations when these tenses are used.

At the beginning of the school year, I set up a plan. According to it I decided to teach my students the Present Continuous Tense using a traditional method (I have chosen Grammar Translation Method) and the Present Simple Tense using a modern method (the Inductive Approach). I was very curious about how my students would go through this process of learning, what would be the difficulties they encounter through it and which of these methods would be preferred by them (here they met my expectations, as I know that they are curious and active students I presumed that they would like the modern method more than the traditional one).

They did not enjoy the Grammar Translation Method as they considered it boring and not challenging. With all these, they did a good job when they had to translate the sentences from Romanian to English.

The next step of my plan was to practice during some classes these tenses, emphasizing their usage, and giving the learners some challenging tasks which implied both receptive and productive skills.

The final level of the plan was to give the students a diagnostic test to know exactly their level of knowledge and to diagnose the difficulties they have encountered when they have to use these tenses.

Description of the diagnostic test:

The diagnostic test I have designed includes the following types of exercises:

A reading comprehension exercise in which I inserted the two tenses; as a post reading activity the students had to answer 10 questions about text;

A multiple choice exercise to measure the understanding of the use of the tenses;

An exercise which is meant to point out the students’ mastering the forming of the negative and interrogative forms of the tenses.

A “give true answers about yourself” type of exercise intended to measure the learners’ ability to produce language.

A fill in exercise that measures the understanding of the use of the two tenses;

DIAGNOSTIC TEST for 5th grade students

Subject I: Read the paragraph and answer the questions: (10×3=30 points obtained for the correct answers)

Bob is a doctor. He looks after sick people. He usually gets up at 6.00 A.M.. Today he is late, it is 6.30 A.M. and he is still in bed. He usually goes to work by train but today he is driving to work. He arrives at work at 6.30 A.M. every morning but it is 7.30 A.M. now and he is still driving.

It’s noon now. He always has his lunch at 12.00 o’clock but today he isn’t having lunch at noon, he is looking after his sick patients. It is half past seven now, Bob is watching TV. He usually watches TV at half past seven because his favourite programme starts at half past seven. Bob has his dinner at 8.30 P.M. every day and he is having dinner now.

It is midnight now Bob is going to bed. He always goes to bed at midnight.

1. What does Bob do?

2. What time does he usually get up?

3. How does he usually go to work?

4. Why is he driving to work today?

5. What time does he arrive at work every day?

6. When does he always have his lunch?

7. What is he doing at 12.00 today?

8. Why does he usually watch TV at 7.30?

9. What time does he go to bed?

10. What time is he going to bed now?

Subject II: Tick the correct form: (10×1=10 points obtained for the correct answers)

Subject III: Form the negative and interrogative of the following sentences: (5×2=10 points obtained for the correct answers)

I like reggae music.

Maria is seeing her cousin today.

The film starts at seven o’clock.

We are trying to write a letter to our uncle.

There are some nice photos in this book.

Subject IV: Give true answers to the following questions: (5×2=10 points)

1. What do you usually do in the mornings?

What do you usually eat for lunch?

Where does your father work?

What are you doing now?

What time do you wake up in the morning?

Subject V: Fill in the blanks with the correct form of the Present Simple and Continuous Tenses: (15×2=3 points)

The kids ………………………….. (play) in the park now.

Jane usually ………………………. (read) the newspaper in the morning.

I …………………………… (do) my housework now.

I ………………………… (eat) my lunch now.

……………………………. (you / want) a tea?

They …………………………….. (watch) a movie now.

I ……………………………. (not / like) spinach.

Father …………………………. (sleep) now.

My mother usually …………………. (cook) dinner in the evening.

He …………………….. (write) a letter to his grandparents every month.

She ………………………. (not / like) coffee..

Mary ………………………….. (listen) to her favourite song now.

Tom usually ……………………(drink) coffee, but he …………………. (drink) tea now.

We ………………………. (go) to the theatre tonight.

………………………… (he / go) to school by bus every day?

Points obtained – 90

Point granted – 10

Total – 100 points

Final mark: …………

Before having the test, I explained the students about the aim of it, about the fact that it meant to illustrate the difficulties they have in practicing these tenses. Moreover, i assured them that during the following language classes we would be working on reducing their weak points in using these present tenses appropriately through different strategies adapted to useful classroom activities. To ensure a relaxed atmosphere, I tell the students that their marks would be useful for my research and I would record them only if they ask me to do it.

The purpose of this test is to diagnose my students; difficulties and weak points in using the present simple and continuous tenses.

The stages of this activity are the following:

I explain the types of the exercises the students will have to complete.

I administer the test making sure that each student knows what to do.

I ask for feedback concerning the difficulty of the test and their assessment.

Data collection:

When the students finished their work, I collected the test papers and corrected them. Here is the analysis of the test, presented below in the table, pie chart and conclusions. The results of the test taken by class 5th B were as follows:

Average mark of the test results: 6, 90.

In percentage the distribution of the test results looks as follows:

Analysis of the Diagnostic Test on Subjects:

Subject I: A reading comprehension exercise in which I inserted the two tenses; as a post reading activity the students had to answer 10 questions about text. Students have to read a short text about a person’s daily program in which I also inserted some questions which are in Present Continuous tense. I noticed that the students understood the text but some of them had difficulties in answering correctly the questions especially in the case of the first question, where they had to change the verb in order to give a grammatically correct answer.

Subject II: A multiple choice exercise to measure the understanding of the use of the tenses. This was one of the best performed tasks, but to higher the level of difficulty I gave them 4 possible answers, not 2 as I used to do during my classes. 15 students, which means half of the class made this exercise correctly. I also assumed a risk here – as the exercise do not involve any production of language the students might simply guess the answer, without relying on real knowledge of the right usage of the tenses.

Subject III: It is an exercise which is meant to point out the students’ mastering the forming of the negative and interrogative forms of the tenses. During practice classes I used this type of exercise as drilling. They enjoyed it and succeeded to solve their task correctly.

Subject IV: A “give true answers about you” type of exercise intended to measure the learners’ ability to produce language. Here I was interested in language production. We have discussed these questions during our previous classes when I was pleased to find out that my students enjoy speaking about themselves. Although I corrected the vocabulary mistakes, I did not take them into account, which means that I gave the two points for an answer if the student used correctly the tense and misspelled a word from the sentence.

Subject V: Represented by a fill in exercise that measures the understanding of the use of the two tenses; I consider this to be the most difficult exercise of the test, although I eased a little bit the students’ task and underlined the time expressions in each sentence. The sentences which seemed difficult for the students were the following: 2, 9, 10, 11 and 13. My students still seem to have a problem in using the form of the third person singular of the present simple tense.

Discussion on the diagnostic test:

The results of this test showed me that the students have some difficulties in using correctly these tenses. Some of the mistakes they have made are related to the formation of the 3rd person of the present simple tense. Some of them do not master the usage of the two tenses, even though we learned about the time expressions. I think that this lack of knowledge is due to the fact that they did not learn the words which indicate the tenses. There were some mistakes related to word order in the situations of the interrogative sentences. My students needed further explanations when they had to transform into present simple interrogative and negative a sentence in which the main verb was DO. I have also noticed the fact that they have better results when they use and practice separately. But when it comes to choose between them to fill in a sentence, or to make up some sentences or a short dialogue, they do not perform as well as in the first situation.

For this reason, I considered it is compulsory to find strategies and methods to help them overcome these difficulties.

Remedial strategies in teaching and learning Present Simple and Continuous Tense

After the test we started remedial activities, through different types of exercises such as: multiple choice, gap filling, matching, discussions, role plays, short dialogues. The first thing I did after the test was to discuss in detail each exercise, to identify the most frequent mistakes, to write them on the blackboard and practice them in similar contexts. After this activity we continued to practice them to reduce the errors occurred and improve learners’ knowledge.

Among these reinforcement activities, we used successfully the following tasks:

Multiple choice tasks;

Matching exercises( openings with endings of sentences);

Guess the verb which best fits in a sentence;

Writing tasks based on pictures, some given situations;

Guided writing task: the students had to write short composition in which they had to use some given words or sentences;

Self and peer correction of their own writings;

Pair work and group work to encourage collective support, confidence and involvement;

Role playing to imitate real life situations;

Transformation tasks; students had to transform sentences from one aspect to the other, or from positive to interrogative and negative.

Students’ portfolios which included fact files about different subjects such as: my town, my country, inventions, snapshot of me.

To conclude I have to say that although these tasks seem to be pretty time and energy consuming, they proved to be very efficient.

The school should aim at a communicative approach in the teaching process, but there is no way that one can know a language without knowing its grammatical basis. That is why I think it is compulsory that the message is grammatically correct, otherwise both the messenger and the message risk to be misunderstood. There must be a balance between grammar and other skills. The students’ needs must be the central point in the teaching and the results of this study indicates that the students need more grammar teaching.

Students’ opinions on Present Simple and Continuous Tenses

To find out my students’ opinion on the two present tenses I administered a feedback questionnaire, made up of ten questions. It was meant to point out if the remedial strategies for better learning about the tenses or the practice tasks done during the school year were successful and helped them improve the process of teaching-learning. The questionnaire was administered to 30 students in 5th B.

Feedback Questionnaire

Do you know more about the form and usage of the Present Simple Tense at the moment than you knew before the research started?

Yes No

Do you know more about the form and usage of the Present Continuous Tense at the moment than you knew before the research started?

Yes No

Was the process of learning the Present Simple Tense difficult for you?

Yes No

Was the process of learning the Present Continuous Tense difficult for you?

Yes No

Do you think that you are able to use correctly the two tenses?

Yes No

Would you like to practice more Present Simple and Continuous at school?

Yes No

Which of the following was more problematic for you when practicing Present Simple?

the positive form of the 3rd person singular

the usage of do and does in the interrogative and negative sentences

placing the adverbials (always, usually, sometimes, etc…) in the correct place.

Which of the following was more problematic for you when practicing Present Continuous?

the formation of the negative and interrogative forms

using correctly the verbs of senses

using correctly to be as an auxiliary verb

What strategies or methods did you enjoy more while practicing Present Simple and Continuous?

individual work

group or pair work

class work

How important are these tenses for you to communicate in English?

unimportant

of minor importance

very important

Here are the students’ responses to each of the questions:

Yes/ No questions

Multiple choice questions:

Results interpretation

Question 1: At the end of the research 93% of the students knew more about the form and usage of the present simple tense while 7% seemed to care less about it.

Question 2: 93% of the students considered that they know more about the usage of the present continuous tense and 7% considered that their knowledge did not improve during my research.

Question 3: 70% of the students appreciated that the learning process of present simple tense was not difficult, while 30% had difficulties in acquiring this grammar structure.

Question 4: 57% of the class found it easy to learn about present continuous tense, and 43% of it had the opposite opinion.

Question 5: At the end of the research I was glad to find out that 53% of the students consider that they are able to use correctly the two tenses, while 47% do not believe that they can do it.

Question 6: 83% of the students agreed that they want more practice during the English classes while a minor percent of 17, did not share their idea.

Question 7: While 23% believed that they had difficulties in using correctly the 3rd person singular in positive sentences, 33% had problems in using do and does in negative and interrogative sentences, the greatest percentage, 44% considered that placing the adverbials in the correct place gave them most of the problems.

Question 8: While a little percent of 13% is not able to use to be as an auxiliary correctly, 27% of my students consider that they have difficulties in forming the negative and interrogative form of the present continuous and the highest percentage, 60% are not confident when they have to practice and use the verbs of the senses.

Question 9: At the end of the research, 73% of the respondents admitted that they prefer working in pairs or groups to learn about the usage of these present tenses, 17% thought that class work helped them the most and 10% believed individual work as being the key to their success in learning.

Question 10: Since communication is the most important competence that students must acquire, I strongly believe that this research fulfilled its purpose because each of the 30 students considered that these tenses improve their communication skills, 73% considering communication as being very important and 27% giving it less importance.

Conclusions of the research

The questionnaire gave me a good and reliable feedback to see how my students underwent the process of learning and practicing the present tenses. I strongly believe that the students should be exposed to real life communicational situations during the English classes, and we as teachers should create a proper environment in the classroom through different approaches and strategies that are at hand in our schools in order to stimulate the students’ wish to express themselves as accurately and fluently as possible.

The feedback questionnaire I gave them highlighted the following:

93% of my students know more about the two present tenses than they used to know before the research.

More than 50% found no difficulties in learning about the tenses,

53% of the class estimate that they can use correctly the grammatical structures while 83% really want to practice more in order to improve their knowledge

My remedial work insisted upon the correct place of the adverbials in the case of the present simple tense, as 44% of my students considered that they still have difficulties placing these words in the right place, and also insisted upon the usage and meaning of the verbs of sense as a high percentage of the class, 60%, have difficulties in using them correctly.

My research showed that 73% of my students enjoyed those tasks which involved group and pair work, proving once again that the main purpose of a foreign language is to communicate; 73% of them consider that these tenses are helpful during the communication process.

All these results proved to be of a great help for me and my students. I advised them to revise all the time these grammatical structures and practice them as many times as they have the opportunity even in real life situations. I asked them to concentrate on what they did well and to pay attention to their mistakes, because they have to learn not to do them again.

CONCLUSIONS

According to what I have written about in these 5 chapters, I hope that I succeeded to show the fact that grammar is now viewed as one component of communicative competence and it represents an important part of language teaching. The verb has a very important role in communication because without having a good knowledge of it from morphological, syntactical, semantic and lexical point of view, we are not able to create comprehension in oral and written discourse.

We can’t teach this grammatical form isolated, we have to relate it to other ones. In my paper I tried to write about activities used to teach the verb to secondary school students with concern for their needs, objectives, educational level and learning style. There is a strong need for authentic tasks because learners nowadays are very curious and up to date with technology. Sometimes they find it difficult to concentrate, they are not all the time focused on the subject matter but they all the time show interest when they have to interact and they enjoy working in groups and pairs being highly competitive and expecting immediate feedback.

This information is stated by Lewis, 1986 who writes that “language learning is above all a dynamic integrated whole; Scrivener, 1994 mentions that “language learning is an activity that involves the whole person”, it is a dynamic process that requires experience, reflection and experimentation” (Pugliese, 2010: Part A).

I also think that teachers should reinforce knowledge each time it is necessary by practicing it in a controlled, guided or individual way. It is very important to make the students feel confident during the classes and give them all the necessary explanation they need.

What I wanted to show with my work is that if we believe that we can do something, we can do it no matter how difficult it is. Using correctly a foreign language we have the power to communicate with other people and our self confidence and courage will raise our self esteem.

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ANNEXES

Worksheet used for an activity meant to underline the differences between Present Simple and Continuous.

Worksheet to exemplify the rules according to which we form the 3rd person singular

Worksheet to practice the 3rd person singular

Worksheet to practice the correct spelling of the Present Continuous verbs ending in –ing.