Specializarea: Engleză-Franceză [306618]
UNIVERSITATEA DIN ORADEA
Departamentul pentru Pregătirea Personalului Didactic
Specializarea: Engleză-[anonimizat] I
Conducător științific:
Lector universitar dr. CLAUDIA LEAH
Autor: Prof. CLAUDIA-IOANA MADA
Unitatea de învățământ: Liceul Tehnologic Nr.1
Localitatea: Dobrești
Județul: Bihor
-Oradea 2016-
UNIVERSITATEA DIN ORADEA
Departamentul pentru Pregătirea Personalului Didactic
Specializarea: Engleză-[anonimizat], VIDEOS
Conducător științific:
Lector universitar dr. CLAUDIA LEAH
Autor: Prof. CLAUDIA-IOANA MADA
Unitatea de învățământ: Liceul Tehnologic Nr.1
Localitatea: Dobrești
Județul: Bihor
-Oradea 2016-
CONTENTS
ARGUMENT
INTRODUCTION
Global English and ELT
Motivation and Needs in learning a Foreign Language
The Value of Studying Grammar
CONCEPTUAL DEMARCATION
CHAPTER 1: [anonimizat]
1.1 [anonimizat]
1.2 Contrasting Tenses
1.3 Present Tenses Summary Charts
1.4 Are you still Tense about Tenses?
CHAPTER 2: TECHNIQUES AND RESOURCES IN TEACHING GRAMMAR
2.1 [anonimizat]
2.2 Traditional & Modern Approaches to teaching grammar
2.3 Can Grammar be fun?Advantages of making Grammar a “Game”
2.4 Active learning- A Must have of today’s teaching process
CHAPTER 3: [anonimizat], VIDEOS IN THE ESL CLASSROOM
3.1 Interactive and supportive atmosphere for ESL classroom
3.2 Task-Based Learning for the Practice of Grammar
3.3 [anonimizat]
3.4 Songs enhance learners’ involvement.
3.5 Grammar chants
3.6 The Importance of videos in Language Acquisition.
CHAPTER 4: [anonimizat], GAMES, VIDEOS
4.1 How much can you „spice up” your lessons?
4.2 Turn it into a Game.Types of Language Games .
4.3 Sing It Out Loud. Songs used to revise tenses and shake up the routine.
4.4 Videos- enchanting and culturally rich resources for grammatical structures.
CHAPTER 5: LESSON PLANNING
6.1 Why plan?
6.2 Approaches to Planning
6.3 Steps for Preparing a Lesson Plan
6.4 Lesson Plan Analysis
CHAPTER 6: INTRODUCTION TO THE RESEARCH
7.1 The Research Method
7.2 Questionnaires for teachers
7.3 Questionnaires for learners
7.4 Conclusion of the research
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
APPENDIX
ARGUMENT
I chose to start with this quote as it is the best to describe my conviction of an efficient teaching process. I believe that it should engage students to actively participate in the learning process. I [anonimizat], without being too exposed to the target language. That’s why learning a foreign language is seen as a burden or even useless activity. I need to find better ways to engage and motivate them to learn.
Along my teaching experience, I [anonimizat]. So I regarded this as a weak point in the teaching process and something had to be done about it.
Thus, [anonimizat], videos. I [anonimizat]- [anonimizat], discussed, and practiced in a manner that is more appealing to students.
Unfortunately, in spite of being so important in the language learning process, the English grammar is often associated with rules, drills, red ink and boredom( Larsen- Freeman, 2003; Summer, 2001). Thus it can be quite a challenge for students and teachers alike. Students need to understand and use English effectively while teachers need to know to teach it, in a way that is appealing and interesting to them.
Nowadays we have at our disposal various resources that we can use, in terms of teaching methods, seating arrangements, visual aids, etc. However, one of the teacher’s crucial tasks is to compare, analyze and evaluate the methods they use in order to motivate the students and to make the learning as effective as possible.
In my study, I focused on some techniques commonly used today and tested them. With a theoretical study of these methods, I will present how I applied them in real classrooms and how they worked.
However, after reading this thesis or any other publication on methodology, one cannot
say which method is the best or the worst. As Kenneth T. Henson claims, usually the methods are better for some purpose, e.g. understanding, transfer, but there is no method simply the best for everything (Henson; 2012). I agree with Michael J Wallace’s opinion, i.e, that a central factor in the choice of methods is the learners’ needs and characters; something works for one person well, but the same method might not work at all for another person (Wallace;2001:42). I tried to use a variety of methods in my paper, and watch what makes the method more effective.
INTRODUCTION
GLOBAL ENGLISH AND ELT
IT is present everywhere. English is spoken by more than 400 million people as their mother tongue, about 375 million use it as a second language, approximately 750 million use English for business or other purposes, a billion are learning it and about a third of the world’s population are somehow exposed to it. It is predicted that by the year 2050 half of the world’s population will be more or less proficient in it. It is the language of globalization – of international politics, business, diplomacy, the language of computers and the Internet.
Ever since the end of the 20th century, English has become a global language, keeping its privileged position among different other world languages.
”Global English”- refers to various functions that the English language serves on all continents. It refers to the use of English as a means of communication across cultures.
Responsible for the global spread of English have been British and American teaching organizations, educational and research agencies, which offer various promotional activities, extensive programmes on ESL and EFL teaching around the world.
The purpose of the official British Council web site is stated as follows:
”We connect people with learning opportunities and creative ideas from The UK to build lasting relationship around the world”, the emphasis being laid on the British Council’s educational mission and the creation of an image of friendship with other nations.
Whereas The United States Information Agency states in its web site profile that
”…USIA is an independent foriegn affairs agency within the executive branch of the US government . USIA explains and supports American foreign policy and promotes US national interests through a wide range of overseas information programs. The agency promotes mutual understanding between The United States and other nations by conducting educational and cultural activities.”
It is necessary to master the English language in order to succeed in a world where English is employed nearly everywhere for international communication. English is a gateway to a world of knowledge, commerce and culture, a lingua franca, that gives a student access to the world in a way that other languages do not. English is today the key to participating in the global conversation.
According to Kachru’s Inner Circle Countries (Kachru & Nelson, 2001), English is the first and majority group language. In the countries outside the Circle, like Nigeria, Singapore, Pakistan, India, English is used as a second language together with other languages as means of international communication. While the Expending Circle is covered by an unspecified number of countries where English is studied as a foreign language in schools.
Being spread as an international language, it has somehow changed our conception of the language itself and how it should be taught.
Now it’s an era marked by the significant spread of English worldwide, with speakers of English as a foreign, second or other language outnumbering native speakers (Jenkins, 2006; McKay, 2003). As this process promises to continue, the English language teachers must have in mind the implications for teaching and learning (Jenkins, 2006; Yano, 2001). We, as teachers, must be aware of the impact that the spread of English has on the English language teaching and learning.
”English is now the language most widely taught as a foreign language- in over 100 countries such as China, Russia, Germany, Spain, Egypt and Brazil- and in most of these countries it is emerging as the chief foreign language to be encountered in schools, often displacing another language in the process”( Crystal, 2003).
Teaching English as a second language is an important task that produces some great rewards.
First there is a feeling of pride that-as a teacher-you have made a difference in the life of your students.
Then, it is a noble calling, empowering students to take their places in the global community and become active participants in the global conversation.
MOTIVATION AND NEEDS IN LEARNING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
It’s not a news for anybody that motivation and self-confidence are some crucial aspects in learning a particular language successfully. It’s worth mentioning Nemerow’s idea (Nemerow, 1996) on the role of motivation: ”The lack of motivation is probably the greatest obstacle to learning”.
Motivation is related to one of the most basic aspects of the human mind and most teachers would agree that it has an important role in determining success or failure in any learning situation. We could understand motivation as a driving force for the students’ learning goals, for the activities they are willing to take part in, so as to reach their goals.
It’s also true that it depends on the kind of motivation that the students have to study English. If they only learn it in order to pass some tests or to enter university then you, as a teacher, have to face a battle, as their motivation is only instrumental.
The main issue is that you need to help students find their own reason to improve. I believe that without an internal motivation, they will continue to be lazy or not take the learning seriously.
From my personal experience, I shall say that you need to make your lessons more interactive.
Based on his survey, Nemerow(1996) pointed out that learners are more motivated when there are game-based lessons. More than 80% of the students surveyed used the word fun in their evaluation of games. When being envolved in interactive activities, they are perceived as something different, that somehow ease the learning process. In this situation, students’affective filter (Krashen, 1982) is down and it allows acquisition of more information.
A student that was subject of Nemerow’s survey explained: ? ”I believe we remember events that make us happy or sad for longer periods of time than those that do not affect us emotionally.” ( Nemerow, 1996).
The teacher needs to find ways of motivating students in the classroom. Some of the successful ways, if the teacher is resourceful and skillful enough are: to use „pair work” or „group work”, to seat the students appropriately as to determine the dynamics of the lesson, to use the role-play activity in order to help the less motivated learners take part in the lesson.
Realia and flash cards are considered important tools in teaching especially a foreign language, since they play the role of a facilitator in teaching new vocabulary, they are helpful in drawing students’attention to follow and match new words to items.
Creating stories with the students is another way of developing speaking and writing skills. While having this activity some issues are revealed such as: fluency, the range of vocabulary, accuracy.
Teachers are able to demonstrate techniques of using songs in different ways to teach grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and community building because the students like songs and they motivate them to learn the language in an interesting way. Teachers can elicit students’ideas about the songs through activities such as prediction, mind maps, word splashes, etc. Students may discuss questions such as: the feelings in the song, what will happen next, and so on, and write their responses in an interesting manner. Students may write and present how the song makes them feel and then draw a picture of their feelings while listening to the song. Teachers respond to their presentation and ask questions. The feedback is provided from the group.
Since the school is equipped with various audio visual materials such as cassette recorders, videos, computers, projectors and many others, teachers should use these materials when teaching.
THE VALUE OF STUDYING GRAMMAR
”Like everything metaphysical, the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of language”
(Tom Stoppard)
I would like to reffer next to the importance of studying grammar in the ESL classroom.
Grammar is said to have discouraged many learners during the process of learning English, but just how important is it? We, as human beings, are able to build sentences, even the younger ones can do that. Does it mean that we all do grammar? To some extent it does. But are we able to talk about how sentences are built, about the types of words and word groups that make up sentences- that is knowing about grammar. If lexis and vocabulary create blocks of language, then grammar is the structure that holds them together.
In the teaching of grammar, technique-resourse combinations are often modified to structure-discourse match and if well-developed, they can be used effectively for all phases of a grammar lesson. In order to make a grammar lesson effective, beneficial, and interesting a teacher should use some well-developed and fascinating techniques in the classroom- the use of songs, verse, games, and problem-solving activities- ( Saricoban &Metin, 2011)
We are all familiar with those boring grammar lessons of sitting in a desk writing, correcting and rewriting sentences to learn proper grammar usage. Nevertheless there is a movement towards teaching grammar as interactively as possible through games, songs, videos, etc. that encourage learners to sustain their interest in work. All these interactive activities enable the teacher to provide contexts in which language is useful and meaningful. A major advantage is that they give learners the satisfaction of doing something that feels like an out-of -class activity, where they are the main actors, they have the control of what is going on in the classroom. In fact, without even knowing it, they turn into objects of teaching. It is believed that, during games for example, the students are focused on the activity and end up absorbing the grammar subconsciously.
My point is that teachers should not give up grammar too easily, because of dry rules and activities, as there are alternative resources at hand; besides being potentially motivating due to their funny aspect, the games, jokes, songs, films and poems provide personalization practice as they offer the students the chance to be actively and personally engaged in the lesson and pleasurable tension especially when games are in focus.
Ultimately, it is the teacher’s job to look for other engaging resources and to make use of his/her creativity in transforming a boring grammar drill into an entertaining, challenging, motivating and efficient one.(Schwarz, 2014 )
CONCEPTUAL DEMARCATION
EFL- stands for English as a Foreign Language
ELT- stands for English Language Teaching
ESL- stands for English as a Second Language
L2- stands for Second Language
USIA- stands for The United States Information Agency
SLA – stands for Second Language Acquisition
TBL- stands for Task Based Learning
ITV- stands for Instructional Television
PPP- is an established methodology for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, known as Presentation, Practice, Production
T- stands for Teacher
Ss- stands for students
DCI- here stands for Data Collection Instrument, in the context of research
CHAPTER 1. THE ENGLISH TENSE SYSTEM- THEORETICAL APPROACH
OVERVIEW OF TENSES, ASPECTS AND MOODS
CONTRASTING TENSES
PRESENT TENSES SUMMARY CHARTS
ARE YOU STILL TENSE ABOUT TENSES?
1.1 OVERVIEW OF TENSES, ASPECTS AND MOODS
Robert Binnick (1991: VII) wrote: ”…whoever had read in one book that English has three tenses, in another that it has two, and yet in a third that it has sixteen(…)may be pardoned for some confusion and some skepticism as to the claim of linguistic scolars to know a great deal about tense”
The English verb system is largely periphrastic, as opposed to many other Indo-European languages, widely-spoken, such as Spanish, French. The tenses of the English verb are made partly by inflection, partly by the use of auxiliary verbs.
In English there are three grammatical paradigms that relate to the domains of time and reality
TENSE- is a grammatical form associated with verbs that tells of the distinction of time; that is to say tense and time are somehow related but different. Time is a universal concept with 3 divisions: Present Time, Past Time & Future Time.
The English verbs have 2 tenses: The Present Tense and The Past Tense.
We must be aware that the terms ”tense” and ”time” are not synonymous in English.
There is often a correspondence but check these examples:
Tenses give many details about time and the action itself, such as:
Hornby (1995:123) states that tense is a verb form or series of verb forms used to indicate the time of the action or state. Knowing the tenses is of great importance for learners of English as they have a great influence in forming the meaning of sentences.
The form of a tense refers to the grammatical words and morphemes (parts of words) it is made up of.
By the use of a tense we mean what it is used for in communication.
When teaching the tenses, it is said that the spoken explanation (auditory intake) alone is not always enough to make the learning process efficient. You may want to give your students an overview of all. So what’s better than provide some visual associations, using the time line. Besides, it breaks the monotomy of one medium. However, it is not necessary to include tense titles in time lines. Your main objective is to help the student put the concept with the phrase/sentence, not with the tense title.
We use the time line, like most grammar aids, as a remedial help, i.e. when some students are experiencing some difficulties with tense usage.
SIMPLE TENSES are used whenever we are talking about a point in time (present, future, past).
CONTINUOUS TENSES are used whenever we are talking about a length of time. There are four present tense forms in English:
Simple Present Tense (known as Timeless Present)
Form: [Verb]+ -s/-es in the third person
Used:
to state facts or general truths (e.g. The sun rises in the East.)
to express habits or customs (e.g. I go to the gym every morning.)
to relate to future plans- often regarding programs and timetables
(e.g. Our plane takes off at 7:06 a.m)
to tell jokes and stories or to report sporting events in real time
(e.g. Sanchez scores the winning goal)
Present Tense Continuous- is used to talk about the present.
Form: Am/Is/Are+ Present Participle(-ing form)
Uses:
Temporary states/situations (e.g. We’re living London)
Actions happening at time of speaking (e.g. They are watching an interesting documentary)
Future arrangements (e.g. They are having a graduation party next week)
With always, an air of irritation may be implied ( e.g. He’s always making fun of others)
Ongoing activities (e.g. I’m building a boat in my spare time)
Changing, growing, developing situations ( e.g. Your English is improving)
Present Perfect Simple, unlike many other related languages, does not mention past time ( when with since is an expection), being concerned with the present.
Form: Have/Has + Past Participle
Uses :
Experience (e.g.I have been to The USA)
Unspecified time before now (e.g. There have been many earthquakes.)
Change over time ( e.g. Your English has improved since you moved here)
Accomplishments ( e.g.He has passed all his exams.)
An uncompleted action you are expecting (e.g.The rain hasn’t stopped yet.)
Present Perfect Continuous:
Form: Have/Has been+ Present Participle
Used for:
Duration from the Past until Now (e.g. What have you been doing for the last 30 minutes?)
Recently/Lately (e.g. They have been staying too much on the Internet lately)
The Past tenses are:
Past Tense Simple
Form: verb+ -d/-ed/-ied or irregular form (V2)
Uses:
Completed Action in the Past (e.g. I travelled to London last summer.)
A series of Completed Actions (e.g. He arrived from the airport at 8:00, checked into the hotel at 9:00 and met his clients at 10:00.)
Duration in Past (e.g. They sat at the beach all day long.)
Habits in the Past (e.g. I played the guitar when I was a child.)
Past Facts or Generalization (e.g. Maria was shy as a girl but now she is very outgoing.)
Past Tense Continuous
Form: [Was/Were + Present Participle]
Use:
Interrupted Action in the Past (e.g. We were having a picnic when it started to rain.)
Specific Time as an interruption (e.g. At midnight we were still outside looking for him.)
Parallel Actions (e.g. The teacher was reading from her book while the students were making noise.)
Repetition and Irritation with always/ constantly ( e.g. The woman was constantly talking. She annoyed everybody.)
Past Perfect Simple
Form: Had+ Past Participle
Uses:
Completed Action before something in the Past (e.g. Jenny understood the movie because she had read the book.)
Duration before something in the Past (Non-Continuous Verbs)
e.g. They had had the car for 12 years before it broke down.
Past Perfect Continuous
Form: [ Had been+ Present Participle]
Uses:
Duration before something in the Past (e.g. Tim had been working at that company for a year before it went aut of business.)
Causes of something in the Past (e.g. Sally gained weight because she had been eating lots of sweets.)
Have you ever asked yourself how many tenses of the verb are there in English? Maybe the automatic reaction is to say three: present, past and future. That’s probably because in the traditional grammar, tense was considered as the grammatical expression of time and identified by a particular set of endings on the verb. However, English has only one inflectional form to express time: the past tense marker ( i.e. –ed) as in climbed, danced and taught.Therefore, there is a two-way tense contrast in English: I talk vs. I talked- i.e. Present Tense vs. Past Tense. Still, people find it extremely difficult to drop the notion of ”future tense” ( and related notions such as imperfect, future perfect) from their mintal vocabulary, and to look for other ways of talking about the grammatical realities of the English verb. ( The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language. Cambridge University Press, 2003). Thus, from this perspective, English doesn’t have a Future Tense.
Nevertheless, there are various ways of expressing Future time in English:
The Simple Present – to relate to future plans (programs & timetables)
( e.g. Our friends leave tonight for the Atlanta.)
The Present Continuous- to express future arrangements
( e.g. They are leaving the kids with their grandparents.)
The modal verb Will (Shall) with the base form of a verb- to express a voluntary action, a promise, a prediction (no evidence).
( e.g. The man will leave his ID.)
The modal verb Will (Shall) with the progressive- continuous action in the future
( e.g. I’ll be leaving you some money.)
A semi-auxiliary such as To Be Going To or To Be About To with the base form of a verb- used for future plans/intentions or a prediction (with evidence)
( e.g. The children are going to leave their parents a note.)
A form of Be with the infinitive
( Our bus is to leave at 6:45 p.m.)
As a general idea I would say that the verb tenses are the tools that the English language speakers use in order to express time in their native language. Still there are English tenses that do not have direct translations in their native language. Thus, by studying verb tenses, you will learn to think like a native English speaker. An interesting way to look at all tenses is by following this graph with an Overview of the English Verb Tense System (www.glenys-hanson.info)
ASPECT- is a verb form (or category) that indicates time-related characteristics such as the completion, duration or repetition of an action. In English, aspect is expressed by means of particles, separate verbs and verb phrases.
English verbs have 2 primary aspects:The Progressive Aspect (known as the continuous form) and The Perfect Aspect (Perfective).
The Perfect Aspect- describes events occuring in the Past but linked to a later time, usually the present.
Example: I have read the manual already but still can’t figure it aut.
Form: Has/ Have or Had+ the Past Participle
Used in 2 forms: Perfect Aspect, Present Tense and Perfect Aspect, Past Tense
The Progressive Aspect- usually describes an event that takes place during a limited time period.
Example: I am reading the manual.
Form: To Be+ the –ING form of the main verb
Used in 2 forms: Progressive Aspect, Present Tense and Progressive Aspect, Past Tense.
MOOD- the expression of modality of an action or state. Modality is the expression of possibility, necessity or contingency. It can be expressed through modal verbs as well as through grammatical mood in English.
English has three moods: indicative, imperative and subjunctive.
Indicative Mood is used to make factual statements, ask questions or express opinions as if they were facts. Any verb tense may be deployed in the indicative mood.
Examples: I saw something today that really annoyed me.
He lives most of the year in Spain but returns regularly to visit his mother.
Did you finish the report last night?
Imperative Mood allows speakers to make direct commands, express requests and grant or deny permission. In most imperative sentences, there’s an implied you.
Form: the base form of any English verb.
The negative form of the English imperative is created by inserting the do operator and the negative adverb not before the base form of the verb.
Examples: Do not sit on that sofa!
Let me go to bed.
Keep reading.
Subjunctive Mood expresses commands, requests, suggestions, wishes, Hypothesis, purposes, doubts and suppositions that are contrary to fact at the time of the utterance.
The Present Subjunctive form is identical to the base form of the English verbs (the infinitive without ” to”)
The Past Subjunctive form is identical to the plural simple past indicative.
The Subjunctive is only distinguishable in form from the indicative in the third person singular present subjunctive and with the verb to be the present subjunctive and the first and third person singular in the past subjunctive.
Examples: If I were the manager, I wouldn’t let him go.
I wish I were at the seaside.
He commanded that he leave the company.
I suggest that they follow the instructions.
It’s essential that they be heard.
1.2 Contrasting Tenses
It is said that the English grammar, mainly through its complex Verb Tense System, can be misleading for the ESL students. Thus, verb tenses receive a lot of attention, perhaps more attention than any other aspect of grammar.
Some of the intermediate-level students, with some conversational fluency, have been taught different verb tenses but don’t use them correctly as they haven’t completely understood nor have they internalized them. And we know that, in order to reach a higher level of academic success, students need to control grammatical accuracy, including the verb tense system.
In most cases the verb tenses are learned in isolation of each other when in fact they interact and relate. For example, if I tell a story about a situation that happened to me yesterday I’m most likely to use past simple, past continuous and past perfect tenses.
The Present Tense Simple is best learned in relation to the Present Continuous: ”I teach young learners English but I’m not teaching them English now”- this example demonstrates the contrast between present simple and continuous, i.e. a habitual activity rather than one engaged in at the moment.
Next in my paper, I would like to refer to contrasting tenses and their importance in doing a comprehensive review of verb tenses.
I chose to start with Present Simple Tense and Present Continuous/Progressive as they are studied first. While the Present Simple is used for things that happen regularly, or that we see as permanent, the Present Continuous is used for things that we see as temporary, incomplete or happening over a limited period of time. For example:
Normally I take the train to work…(=this is what I usually do)…but this week I’m coming by bicycle.(= for a limited period)
The main similarities and the differences between the two are represented in the picture below ( http://englishtenses.eu)
To be remembered that there are some verbs that cannot be used in any of the continuous/progressive tenses, the so called State Verbs.
While you can say: ”I own a mansion at the country”, you cannot say ”I’m owning a mansion…” Own is a state verb.
State verbs describe unchanging conditions or situations. These include:
a)verbs that describe thought processes and opinions- agree, believe, disagree, forget, know, remember, think
b)verbs that describe emotions- adore, detest, like, love, hate, want
c)verbs that describe the five senses- feel, hear, see, smell, taste
d)others- be, belong, have, seem, own
Some verbs are both stative and non-stative but there is a change in meaning.
State: He’s very friendly.(= this is his character)
Action: He’s being friendly.(= he is behaving this way, he is not usually like this)
State: They have an apartment near the town center.(= possess)
Action: They are having dinner. (= taking)
State: I think you are absolutely right.(=this is my opinion)
Action: I’m thinking about what you said.(= considering, it is in my mind)
( http://englishtenses.eu)
I’ve frequently heard the question: Is it Past Simple or Present Perfect Simple?. The choice of tense depends on whether the speakers sees something as in the past or linked to the present. For instance:
Past: The car broke down yesterday.
Present: The car has broken down. (so it is out of order now)
We use the Past Simple for a finished, definite time in the past(yesterday), while the Present Perfect makes a link to the present. It is still relevant or important now.
When talking about states, we need to know that if the state is over, past is used, as in :
I had that car for years.( then I sold it), while if the state still exists now we use the present perfect, I’ve had this car for years (I still have it).
Maybe not as contrasting as Past Simple and Present Perfect, but Present Perfect Continuous is also to be mentioned here. As previously clarified with the Present Perfect Simple, the Present Perfect Continuous refers to an unspecified time between before now and now. The speaker is thinking about something that started but perhaps did not finish in that period of time. He/She is interested in the process, and this process may still be going on or may have just finished. With the Present Perfect Simple we focus more on the result of the action.
Examples: She has been writing all day.(=she is still writing)- the process/the action is important
Vs.
She has written 10 pages already.- the result of the action is important
(http://englishtenses.eu)
(http://englishtenses.eu)
The Past Perfect refers to a time earlier than before now. It is used to indicate that a completed action happened earlier than something else in the past. It does not matter which event is mentioned first – the tense makes it clear which one happened first.
While Past Perfect emphasizes completion ( or the result of a completed action), Past Perfect Continuous emphasizes the duration or activity of an action.
Example: I had saved my paper before the notebook crased. (result of the action)
Vs.
I had been writing for about half an hour when suddenly the notebook crashed. (duration)
( http://englishtenses.eu)
I believe that showing how all the verbs within one timeframe (past, present and future) relate to each other can be particularly helpful for them. It’s more than clear that language learning, like learning in general, occurs in relation to other learning.
1.3 PRESENT TENSES- SUMMARY CHARTS
”Live in the present”- many philosophers would say. But then if we refer to the English language we may as well add: ”Which present? ” As we all know by now, we can relate to present in many different ways. There are four present tenses in English: Present Simple, Present Continuous, Present Perfect Simple and Present Perfect Continuous.
As important as it might be to live in the present, it’s not that easy to know exactly which present you live in, is it? That’s why, I considered that maybe looking at this table of the present tenses, would make things easier for the learners.
PRESENT TENSES
1.4 ARE YOU STILL TENSE ABOUT TENSES?
”Learners generally have far more difficulty in using present tenses correctly than in understanding them.” This can be explained by the fact that there is usually enough information in a text so that learners understand what the main idea of the sentence is. (Parrot; 2000:162).
From my point of view, it is the teacher’s responsibility to find the best ways to teach tenses, as they may influence the students’ motivation in learning. The students’enthusiasm is much related to the technique used by the teacher in transferring the lesson.
Having this in mind, English teachers should think critically in order to find creative approach in teaching the tenses, so that the students will take much participation during the learning process. We need to provide occasional review of several of the tenses the students have been learning.
To be honest, I have never thought about using cartoons as a means of teaching the English tenses but I reckon it’s a great idea. Due to the fact that the English grammar, especially tenses, can sometimes get weighed down in the mundane (How to teach Grammar Like a Pro: 10) this can stimulate the learners’interest and can make the grammar structures approachable.
Another idea as a tense review activity could be flashcards. They are a good choice as they are suitable for any level of tenses. They can be used in different drills, activities and prompts.Working with cards is something that the learners usually enjoy, as they are something hands-on that they can touch and manipulate. All types of card activities can be generated, like matching games, sets of cards, used as prompts, performing different drills. The great advatage of all these is that they give students the opportunity of working together.
Another major problem that I face when revising tenses is question formation. Most students find making question rather difficult in any tense. So, the idea is to base activities around this practice. It can be really useful in order to reinforce one tense or compare several at a time. There is also the issue of creating information questions vs. yes/no or closed questions. It’s advisable to practice both types in various ways. By providing simple prompts like: George/photos,observe how many questions they can make with these simple prompts. You can even try a mingling exercise like Find Someone Who…with the provided promps. Students need to formulate the questions. For example Find Someone Who has taken photos of their families.
Naming and contrasting all the tenses. A resourceful teacher will find fun and realistic ways to show learners how tenses operate and differ. One way to do this is to provide all kinds of passages, focusing on your students’interests, bringing in an assortment of clippings from newspapers, magazines, the internet. The best passages are those which deal with several tenses, tell a compelling story and use humour or satire. Thus they are not only meant to analyze the tenses but they have a lot more to discuss and ask questions about. In order to bring even more fun in the activity it can be turned into a competition. A competitive atmosphere can raise the learners’engagement in the activity. Another idea would be to do a cut-up passage, in which you provide a passage that is cut up into sentences and mixed up. Then the students have to figure out the order and identify the tenses used in each sentence. This is also a great oppotunity for students to use critical thinking skills.
How about some music? Can music help you shake up the routine in the ESL classroom? I strongly believe it can. If carefully chosen, it can be a great way to review tenses, to analyze the meaning, to practise conversation , introducing the band or artist. The activity can be organized in various way. As a first activity you can review the tenses that it focuses on. Then you can have the students listen to it several times, you can give them the fill-in-the-blank worksheet. All sorts of combinations that take your class and their level into consideration will be a welcome break from the usual grammar activities.
To sum up, I would say that grammar, especially tenses can become a burden if the technique used in the teaching process was monotonous. There are plenty of resources available, waiting for you to adapt them to your learners’needs and level. Every now and then it is necessary to mix things up and prepare activities that the students don’t do so often. Moreover, it’s a good tool to observe the way the students put their learning to practical use.
CHAPTER 2. TECHNIQUES AND RESOURCES IN TEACHING GRAMMAR
MAJOR LANGUAGE TRENDS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST LANGUAGE TEACHING
TRADITIONAL & MODERN APPROACHES TO TEACHING GRAMMAR
CAN GRAMMAR BE FUN? ADVANTAGES OF MAKING GRAMMAR A ”GAME”
ACTIVE LEARNING- A MUST HAVE OF TODAY’S TEACHING PROCESS
2.1 MAJOR LANGUAGE TRENDS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY LANGUAGE TEACHING
The field of language education is permanently changing. If we look back throughout the history different methods & approaches to foreign language teaching have been developed.
Teaching grammar has been offered more or less attention, considered as the knowledge that enables students to express themselves in an appropriate and comprehensible way.
If we refer to the history of foriegn language teaching, we can observe that it was Latin which was the first and most-widely taught and studied. Rodgers and Richards (2003) point to Latin as a dominant language of religion, education and government in the western civilization. It had been taught through grammar rules and translation and this way of teaching was then applied to teaching other languages.
Diane Musumeci of University of Illinois (2007) stated in her work that ”fluency in Latin represented much more than the ability to edit manuscripts. In her words, the reasons for learning Latin in the 15th century were not very different from learning English, in the age of Global Village”. (http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/foreignlang/conf/grammar.html). She claimed that the importance of communication in Latin definitely affected language teaching. The importance of Latin as dominant language changed at the end of the 16th century when French, Italian and English gained importance, reflecting political situation and change in Europe.
However, the language teaching during the 20th century suffered some changes and the most important one was the focus on spoken language instead of written language.
Richard and Rodgers (2003) see oral proficiency as the main goal of language teaching rather than support of reading and writing.
As regarding the development of methods, the second half of the twentieth cetury was the era of new-coming methods and approaches and using them in the language teaching. Worth mentioning among the most important methods are: the Audiolingual Method, the Natural Method, the Total Physical Response, the Communicative Approach, the Task-based Method, which focused on how grammar was dealt with.
The twenty-first century is referred as the ”Postmethods Era” by many scholars like: Brown, Larsen-Freeman, Mellow, where the focus of teaching is on eclecticism. Eclecticism is about the use of various language learning activities, each of which could have different characteristics.
However, learning in the twenty-first century is all about technology both inside and outside the classroom.
Now, the student-centered approaches are replacing the teacher-centric instruction, as is recognizing the need for learner autonomy and cooperative learning (Jacobs & Farrell; 2001). Individualized instruction has become the norm of the twentieth-first century. Student-centered learning is dominating but on the rise here is also the student participation in the development of outcomes for learning (Pauk; 2007).
This trend towards learner-centred approaches is most likely to continue. It’s also about linking language learning to leadership skills and community impact; and asset-based approaches to assessment including frameworks and benchmarks. Participants in the process will need to update their thinking, their teaching practices, even the ways of viewing the teaching profession. There is a necessity to learn practical classroom applications that can help you modernize, update and make your teaching relevant for students nowadays.
Demonstrations of work through portfolios, student-made videos, student blogs, wikis and podcasts are just some examples. The idea is not to use technology just for the sake of using technology. But it is to demostrate students’ learning in order to show how they, themselves reflect upon the impact language learning has had on them. Afterwards, sharing it with others through technology that they use, to create their own projects. The truth is that this rapid development of technology and the use of cell phones and other different multimedia devices have opened endless posibilities for teachers to teach English and access information. For instance, the Internet, YouTube, Web.2.0, e-books and several websites have influenced both the teaching and the learning processes. Nowadays, it has become a lot easier to bring real-life issues to the classroom and have a meaningful discussion with all the ready-made materials at the touch of the keyboard button. Thus, an appropriate integration of technology in the classroom gives an imbold to students to use the target language in many different ways.
The language classroom of today is greatly different from that of the mid-to-late 20th century. There is no longer a focus on grammar, memorization and learning from rote but rather using language and cultural knowledge as a means to connect to other people around the globe. Geographical and physical boundaries are being transcended by technology as students learn to reach out to the world around them, using their language and cultural skills to facilitate the connections they are eager to make.
The role of teacher in this era is also evolving and the responsabilities have been increasing. There can be identified multiple roles, as facilitators of student learning and creators of a productive classroom environment inwhich students can develop the skills they will need for the twenty-first century workforce. It is known the fact that more and more teachers are convinced to use collaborative, content-based, project-based curriculum to help students develop higher-order thinking skills, effective communication skills and knowledge of technology.
2.2 TRADITIONAL & MODERN APPROACHES TO TEACHING GRAMMAR
”Grammar is one of the most ancient intellectual pursuits” (Dykeman, 1961).
It is pointed out that people have studied grammar for over 2000 years, since the time of the Ancient Greeks (Hudson; 1992). However, there have been some controversial issues regarding whether and how to include grammar in L2 instruction.
Even though traditionally grammar has been an important and integral part of language programs, during the last three decades, grammar has lost its popularity,due to some educators, who have become uncertain about its value. Some schools have even ceased to teach it, or they have taught it only in parts. The limited attention given to the teaching of grammar developed in 1970s and 1980s and continues nowadays when a number of studies on L2 acquisition of English grammatical morphology have been published ( Dulay & Burt,1973, 1974; Elley, Barham, Lamb& Wyllie, 1975; Hillocks, 1986; Krashen, 1985; Makino, 1980; Pienemann, 1989). These studies emphasized that grammar teaching had a negative effect on grammatical accuracy.
Krashen, moreover claimed that ” the effect of grammar is peripheral and fragile” and that ”direct instruction of specific rules has a measurable impact on tests that focus the performer on form but the effect is shortlived (Krashen; 1992: 410).
Nevertheless, many language teachers, based on their classroom experience, have continued to believe that an understanding of the linguistic structures is a necessary part of the study of another language (Gao, 2001; Manley & Calk, 1997; Petruzella, 1996; Schultz, 2002).
Furthermore, Gao stressed the idea that grammar is ”a catalyst for second language accuracy and fluency” (Gao; 2001: 326).
Ever since the mid 1990s, the belief that grammar is important in literacy teaching has continued to gain much ground (Bastone 1994; Engel & Myles 1996; McCarthy, 2002; Sciff, 2004). According to McCarthy: ”…Almost every piece of spoken and written language presented to…the students is grammar. And the mastery of grammar…is not a thing that can be considered good or bad ; it is not an optional ingredient…it is very difficult indeed to conceive of a grammar-free language activity.” (McCarthy; 2002: 17).
Just like some SLA educators like Benati (2001), Nunan (2005) and Patterson (2001) stated, there should never be a question whether grammar is taught or not. Rather it should be about how grammar is taught.
Moreover, Macedonica (2005) suggests that the problem of non-fluency and accurate speech is attibuted primarily to the type of exercises employed to process second language input.
Consequently, it is necessary to have an overview of L2 grammar teaching and learning in terms of various methods of instruction.
As we witness a rapid development of EFL teaching in non-English speaking countries, teachers have found many new ways or methods for teaching languages. They have been admired models in some time or place, often to be ridiculed perhaps or dismissed as inappropriate in yet another. Times do change and so do fashions. What may once appear new and promising can subsequently seem strange and outdated.
If you’re struggling to find out what the best teaching method for learning English is, the truth is that, it has been demostrated by academic researches and linguists that we cannot talk about one best single method for everyone, in all contexts. And the same goes for the teaching method- no one is inherently superior to the others.
Below there is a Timeline of Teaching Methods, proposed by TJ Taylor (http://blog.tjtaylor.net/teaching-methods)
Every single teaching method is based on a particular vision of understanding the learning process and the language, often using specific techniques and materials in a set sequence.
As presented above in the Teaching Methods Timeline, the main methodologies are listed below in the chronological order of their development:
Grammar Translation – the classical method
Direct Method (Natural Method) – discovering the importance of speaking
Audio-lingualism – the first modern methodology
Humanistic Approaches – a range of holistic methods applied to language learning
(The Silent Way, Suggestopedia, Community Language Learning, Comprehension Approach)
Communicative Language Teaching – the modern standard method
Principled Eclecticism – fitting the method to the learner, not the learner to the method
Over the years teachers have found many methods and approaches to teaching grammar, which proved to have their advantages and disadvantages. The place of grammar in earlier methods and approaches is overviewed in the following table, taken from Richards and Rodgers (2001):
Grammar Status in Early Approaches and Methods
The methods of teaching grammar might be divided in 2 main approaches: deductive and inductive approach.
The Deductive Approach, rule-driven learning, as used by Thornbury (1999:29) starts with the presentation of a rule, followed by examples in which the rule is applied. This means that the teacher usually explains all the grammar rules and structures needed for understanding, provides many practice activities until ”the students are familiar with it” (Scrivener; 1994:114) and prepares as many activities as possible.
”The teacher’s role …is to provide a language-rich environment in which the learners meet comprehensible language as they engage in activities of various kinds” (Cross;1992:27).
This approach is cognitive because learners, at first, learn grammar and then they learn speaking and writing (Cross;1992:27).
The main idea with this approach is accuracy. It is typical for the so-called Grammar-Translation Method because it ”took grammar as the starting point for instruction”
( Thornbury;1999: 21).
A Grammar-Translation lesson is a lesson which ”began with an explicit statement of the rule, followed by exercises involving translation into and aut of the mother tongue” ( Thornbury;1999: 21).
On the other hand, with this type of lesson the learners did not have many opportunities to use the language communicatively. Grammar was being taught in their mother tongue, all sentences being translated into the native language, and the focus is on writing and reading. It’s hardly given any attention to speaking. Still, as compared to the Grammar Translation method, the deductive method encourages the use of the target language as the language for explaining and giving instructions, sentences are also not translated into the mother tongue (Thornbury;1999: 29,30). Thornbury (1999: 30) calls this method ” a new, improved version of Grammar-Translation”.
Some possible activities in deductive approach are:
rule-explanation
translation
doing worksheet
self-study grammar
Widodo (2006:129) points out some Advantages and disadvantages of the deductive approach to teaching grammar
The Inductive Approach, also called rule- discovery (Thornbury 1999: 49). Here the learners are provided with plenty of material, without being explained the grammar beforehand, and they have to deduce the rules and structures according to the material given. They discover the structure and the rules by themselves, studying examples. New teaching points are often introduced orally, concrete vocabulary is presented through demonstrations and so on.
A typical example of the rule-discovery approach is when learners are in a foreign language environment, being thus exposed to as much language as possible and it is their responsability to deduce (discover)the rules and structures from what they experience. It works in the same way in a class where learners are provided with the same conditions (Hamer; 1987:29)
This is typical for the so-called Direct Method and Natual Approach in English teaching ( Richards&Rodgers;1986:5).
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Inductive Grammar Approach (Widodo;2006: 129)
Probably a modern language teacher is an open-minded person, who won’t follow one rigid method but applies Principled Eclecticism approach, that is fitting the method to the learner not the other way round. This implies choosing the techniques and activities that are appropriate for each particular task, context and learner, considering the motivation and helping learners become independent and inspired to learn more.
Actually, a modern teacher uses a variety of methodologies and approaches, choosing techniques from each method, that are considered effective and applying them according to the learning context and objectives. In fact, lessons are meant to facilitate the understanding of the new language being taught and not rely on one particular “best method”.
Anyways, some examples are provided as follows (http://blog.tjtaylor.net/method-principled-eclecticism/)
The teacher proposes a variety of exercises, both written and oral, to improve.
The teacher corrects errors immediately if the scope of the classroom activity is accuracy, but if the scope of the activity is fluency these errors will be corrected later on.
The teacher develops all four linguistic skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking).
To improve pronunciation the teacher uses drills, where students repeat automatically the phrases spoken by the teacher.
The teacher helps the student personalize the use of grammatical and lexical elements used in class.
The teacher understands that a didactic program has to include not only grammar and lexis, but also linguistic functions, colloquialisms, idioms, etc.
The teacher introduces exercises of guided discovery for new grammar rules.
At times the teacher may translate – but only if they know both languages very well and believe it is the most efficient way to provide the meaning of a new concept in that moment, especially for abstract ideas.
The teacher is committed to developing a wide range of resources in order to give relevant, stimulating, and productive lessons.
It is impossible to do everything if only one method is used. As a result, professional EFL teachers follow what is described as the Principled Eclecticism approach, where students are also encouraged to be autonomous in their learning.
2.3 CAN GRAMMAR BE FUN? ADVANTAGES OF MAKING GRAMMAR A “GAME”
”Play is the highest form of research” (Albert Einstein)
If you consider this then you can definitely turn grammar into a fun activity. It sure doesn’t have to be taught “by the book”. You need to make sure you find some ways to let you have fun and be creative. A grammar lesson in a fun, educational environment can be generated by: games, films, songs, jokes, even poems.
The problem that most teachers face when teaching grammar is that they don’t know how to tackle it. For both teachers and students alike the English grammar can be hard going.
However, frustration and fear should never be associated with grammar. Dry and dull ESL/EFL grammar classes are definitely not the answer. By keeping on working your way through a textbook over and over again will affect even the most motivated students. Nevertheless we cannot escape it. As we know, the lexis and vocabulary are the building blocks of language and most certainly grammar is the structure that holds them together. So why not have fun with it?
A grammar class can be a great opportunity for fun. Fun and humour are essential ingredients for the ESL/EFL classroom. Group participation, interaction engage students making the information more memorable and relevant.
An important thing to be considered though, is that students have different learning needs. While some will take a more logical approach, others will be more inclined to simply use the language as they receive it. In order to be effective, the best teaching method is to learn how to blend these two together.
As mentioned previously, there has been a movement away from the traditional methods of teaching English grammar through writing, rewriting and worksheets to using a more active, communicative and enjoyable approach- through games. There are plenty of grammar games that manage to encourage and sustain learners in their interest in work. They are also the perfect tool for teachers in creating contexts in which language is useful and meaningful. The learners want to be actively involved and in order to do that they need to practice their skills (speaking, writing).
As grammar is so serious and central that teacher needs to focus students’energy and the best way to do this is through the release offered by games. Games are the perfect means to practise vocabulary and grammar structures extensively. Especially when competing, students are more motivated to play in order to win than they are to do desk work, for example. Moreover, students are always delighted to do out-of-class activities, as they feel they become the subjects, they control what is going on in the classroom. The important thing is that fun generates energy and this energy is essential for the achievement of a serious goal.
Thus, we can identify several advantages of making grammar a “game” for learners.
Aydan Ersoz, autor of Six Games for the ESL/EFL Classroom (2000) sustained that language learning involves constant effort that can be tiring. He adds that games may encounter this as those which are challenging and amusing are also highly motivating (http://iteslj.org/Lessons/Ersoz-Games.html).
Games may be used to add excitement through competition or bonding among students and teacher. In fact, without even realizing it, students get to master language structures. And according to some modern language experts, language is best learnt when focusing on the language and not on the meaning.
Games may even create contexts in which the language is useful and meaningful. When playing the games, the learners must understand the others as well as make themselves understood. Thus, games provide practice in real life situations. So, the “quality” of the practice given by these games is higher than the “quantity” of practice that the traditional grammar exercises provide.
All the four skills- reading, writing, listening and speaking- are engaged with games.
Games can be used in all stages of teaching or learning sequence, be it presentation, practice, recombination or free use of language. They can also be adapted to suit different levels.
Another important thing about games is that they have a diagnostic role. When playing, the teacher is not just a passive witness. On the contrary, he/she may observe the students’ performance, identifying their strengths and weaknesses. Eventually, this feedback will be of great value to the teacher for further planning.
Games are also able to provide genuine information gap/opinion gap. That is, we speak or write in order to pass on information or convey opinion that the listener might be interested in. If the listener is familiar with that piece of information or is of the same opinion, there is no gap and he/she will most likely switch off. In grammar games there is always a genuine information or opinion gap. This is what makes the game more interesting and life-like.
In “Songs, Verse and Games for Teaching Grammar”, Saricoban & Mertin (2000) explain how and why games work for teaching grammar in an ESL classroom. They agreed that
” Games and problem solving activities, which are task-based and have a purpose beyond the production of correct speech, are the examples of the most preferable communicative activities”. Furthermore, they explain that grammar games are a great help for learners not only to gain knowledge but also to be able to apply and use that learning.
2.4 ACTIVE LEARNING A “MUST HAVE” OF TODAY’S TEACHING PROCESS
“Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just sitting in classes, listening to teachers, memorizing prepackaged assignements, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write reflectively about it, relate it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves” (Chickering & Gamson, 1987).
No matter the number of students or the subject of your teaching, one of the primary goals for the class should be the active engagement of the students with the material. Students learn more when they participate in the process of learning, be it through discussion, practice, review or application (Grunert, 1997). This is contrary to traditional methods of teaching, where students are supposed to sit for hours at a desk, listening and passively absorbing information presented by the teacher.
The learning process is regarded as effective, motivating and appealing to students when different teachniques are used. They may range from very short and simple techniques, like developing the topic, for instance, to more involved activities such as small student work groups doing collaborative learning projects.
Effective teaching is as much a process as effective learning is, thus teachers who are new to the classroom situation most probably would use traditional learning activities and afterwards, once they have established a comfortable rapport with their students, would they experiment with unconventional strategies.
Active learning strategies serve two purposes. One is to make the classroom a dynamic, ever changing environment in which students are the main actors and the other is that they offer the possibility to see teachers as people who are flexible enough to take risks in the classroom. By doing this, your students are likely to act in the same way. These active strategies can be used as important educational tools only when all students participate all of the time.
Bonwell & Eison (1991) in Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom define active learning as that which ”involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing” A list of some general characteristics of strategies that use active learning in the classroom is the following:
Students are not passive listeners but they are actively involved in the process;
The main objective is developing student’s skills and less emphasis is placed on transmitting information;
The student’s higher-order thinking is accessed ( analysis, synthesis, evaluation);
Engaging activities for students ( for example discussing, reading, writing)
As stated previously, in the active learning activities students are asked to analyze, synthesized or apply material either during classes or as assignements. Here are some examples to be considered:
Case-based problem solving exercises- which are meant to help students develop analytical skills and learn how to apply analytical theories to real-life problems. Here, case studies can be used and then have students work out their solutions individually or in small groups.
Debate is again another active learning technique that helps develop critical thinking and logical reasoning skills. Competing viewpoints are presented and students are asked to defend one or more in a short written exercise or a classroom debate.
The encouraging of effective collaboration is again another aspect not to be neglected.
Especially with large classes, collaboarative group work can be an expremely useful thing. For instance:
Small-group discussions- help students understand and retain material, besides its main goal, that of developing their communication skills and increasing their awareness of their classmates as learning resources.
Peer instruction exercises- like a minute paper reflections or speed problem solving questions can prove to be very efficient.
Cognitive psychology research has shown that among the best ways to improve understanding is to teach material to a peer (Topping and Stewart; 1998). An exercise of this kind can be built in the class through presentations, study groups and quick, breakout “teaching” sessions.
With these active learning strategies you have the possibility to increase the student’s investment, motivation and performance. Now, students take more responsibility for their performance in the course, which is now regarded as more valuable and more directly related to their goals.
By including active learning into your curriculum, you transform your classroom into an exciting, dynamic learning environment.
Conclusion
There is no point in saying that the teaching of grammar can be effectively approached by using various resources such as: games, songs, poems, videos, problem solving activities and even pictures. Based on the needs analysis of the class, several techniques can be integrated with such resources.
As teaching is considered a developing art, that requires innovative and creative ideas to enrich its effectiveness, we must not hesitate to make use of all these resources, thus encouraging active learning. These resources may assist our teaching of grammar, while providing a relaxed, motivating atmosphere for students. Activities like these are student-centered, hence by using them students are given a chance to express themselves, enjoy during the learning process and use the reserves of their minds. Worth mentioning here is the fact that all these resources and strategies require the activation of both left and right hemispheres. Thus, the long-term memory is used and the process of learning is effective during such activities.
The whole point is that teachers must not give up on grammar too easily, due to all the rules and exceptions to the rules and activities, because there are always alternative resources at their disposal. Moreover, being also motivating due to their funny aspect, the games, jokes, songs, films give a personalization practice as they offer learners the opportunity to be actively and personally engaged in the lesson.
CHAPTER 3. THE USE OF GAMES, SONGS, VIDEOS IN THE ESL CLASSROOM
INTERACTIVE AND SUPPORTIVE ATMOSPHERE FOR THE ESL CLASSROOM
TASK-BASED LEARNING FOR THE PRACTICE OF GRAMMAR
LANGUAGE GAMES-CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND CHARACTERISTICS
SONGS ENHANCE LEARNERS’ INVOLVEMENT
GRAMMAR CHANTS
THE IMPORTANCE OF VIDEOS IN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
3.1 INTERACTIVE AND SUPPORTIVE ATMOSPHERE FOR ESL
”Learning is more effective when it is an active rather than a passive process.”
(Kurt Lewin)
I believe most of us can recall at least one moment, by the time we were students ourselves, sitting in a class, trying not to nod off or listening to a teacher who was brilliant in that particular field, but had no ability to engage students in the teaching process.
When planning a lesson, the teacher should remember the faces and voices of his/her students. Eventually ”all the work we do is about people- and taking the potential that children and youth bring to us and turning that potential into wonderful realities. We need to remember why we’re educators . Next to parents, we’re the most powerful force for changing the world for the better. We need to engage people’s emotions, values and beliefs. We need to make this personal” ( Sanchez; 2010:8).
It said that language learning is one of the most face-threatening school subjects because of the pressure of having to operate using a rather limited language code. In a language class students need to take considerable risk even to produce relatively simple answers because it is all too easy to make a mistake when you have to pay attention to pronunciation, intonation, grammar and content at the same time. According to MacIntrye (1999) and Young (1999), language anxiety has been found to be a powerful factor hindering L2 learning achievement. The solution is to create a pleasant and supportive classroom atmosphere.
The teacher is responsible for creating a positive learning environment in the classroom. It is necessary to foster an environment in which our students feel comfortable, safe, relaxed, engaged and willing to take risks( this goes for those learners who have had a negative experience in traditional classroom environments).
A supportive language environment would be described by students as a means of expanding their sense of family and enhancing their self-esteem. And all these, if combined with increased literacy skills, encourage students take more chances in pursuing their goals.
Furthermore, if activating the students, they become more responsible for their learning, and are more likely to benefit from the lesson and all these leading to self-motivation, which is a fundamental aspect of successful learning.
There are several factors that contribute to a positive learning atmosphere. I should metion here a few:
Being consisted, so that the students know what to expect and what is expected of
them;
The classroom needs to be a dynamic and engaging place for the students;
Set & post some ground rules from the beginning of your ”journey” together. Students
need to be aware of the rules and the consequences;
Positive reenforcement will allow the students to build self-esteem and be more
successful.
Education is an ongoing process, constantly changing. Even our perception of it has changed. Now students are no longer expected to sit at their desks and take notes, be passive learners. Lessons are much more engaging and interactive nowadays.
What is interactive learning in fact? Some say it is a hands-on, real world approach to education.
According to Stanford University School of Medicine (2015) ” …interactive learning actively engages the students in wrestling with the material. It reinvigorates the classroom for both students and faculty. Lectures are changed into discussions and the students and teachers become partners in the journey of knowledge acquisition.”
Interactive learning can be of various forms. Interaction helps learners develop language learning and social skills and so maximising interaction in the classroom is an important part of the teacher’s role. It can take place across the curriculum with or without technology.
The main idea is to envolve the student, engage critical thinking and avoid passive learning. Passive learning definitely still has its place, as there are times when learners need to memorize facts or different theoretical aspects.
If we were to point out some benefits of interactive learning, these would be:
Enhanced understanding, retention and motivation- all these in class activities
challenges the students to actively explore the material;
Immediate feedback- close interaction with peers and teacher;
Teacher satisfaction- rather than just transmitting information, teachers actively
participate in the construction of knowledge in the classroom, guiding students as they make sense of the content for themselves;
Peer learning- interactive learning gives all students the chance to work closely
together in teams or pairs and draw on their on conclusions and experiences to enrich the learning process.
3.2 TASK-BASED LEARNING FOR THE PRACTICE OF GRAMMAR
Teachers have to deal with different tasks every day but among the most challenging one is to capture the interest and to stimulate the imagination of their students so that they will be more motivated to learn. To this end, the permanent search for and the development of meaningful teaching materials, which often can be used to supplement the textbook, is a critical planning activity to be done by teachers.
Task-based learning is an overall approach to language learning that views the ”tasks” that learners do as central to the learning process. The learning process is seen as a set of communicative tasks that are directly linked to curricular goals.
There is one approach to teaching language that has attracted a lot of attention in the past years. It’s a task-based approach to learning and teaching.
The task-based approach is ”an approach based on the use of tasks as the core unit of planning and instruction in the language teaching” (Richards & Rodgers; 2001:223).
The tasks within the task-based approach are the means through which learners can make use of authentic language they use in the real world for meaningful communication. The basic principle underlying TBLT merges in the concept of ”communicative tasks”, which is considered as the major language outcome that TBLT aims to achieve. Here the focus of classroom activities is on the task, and ultimetely on meaning. The task may be defined as a goal-oriented activity with a clear purpose.
As suggested by Doughty and Williams (1998), while carrying out communicative tasks, learners will receive comprehensible input and modified output. These processes are central to second language aquisition and will eventually lead to development of both linguistic and communicative competence.
Richards (1999) also believes that successful language learning hinges on the immersion of students in tasks that require them to negotiate meaning and engage in naturalistic and meaningful communication. This concept is often found at the heart of much current communicative or task based materials, such as ”discussion-based materials, communication games, simulations, role-plays and other group or pair-work activities.”(Richards; 1999:5)
TBL is more likely to keep learners motivated since it builds on whatever language they know in a positive way. Learners are actively engaged throughout the task cycle and get chances to think for themselves and express themselves in the security of their group.
Learners become more independent and feel empowered, gaining satisfaction from successfully achieving things through the Foreign Language. As mentioned before, the emphasis is on meaning, real-world language use, engagement of cognitive processes and the involvement of the four language skills.
It is pointed out this ”grammar gap” in the development of linguistic competence making use of ”task-work activities” which often results in fluency ”marked by low levels of linguistic accuracy” in language classroom. (Richards;1999: 7)
This compromising attitude towards the relative positions of form and meaning has been expressed by Skehan as well: ” The challenge of the task-based instruction is to contrive sufficient focus on form to enable interlanguage development to proceed without compromising the naturalness of the communication that task can generate.” (Skehan;1998: 4)
In Jane Willis’ (1996) flexible model for task-based learning, learners begin by carrying out a communicative task, without specific focus on form. After finishing the task they report and discuss how they accomplished this, maybe even listening to a fluent speaker doing the same task. Should this give the impression that task-based learning means ”forget the grammar” it would not be a wise move.
On one hand, analysis activities encourage learners to investigate language for themselves, and to form and test their own hypotheses about how language works. In the task-based cycle, the language data comes from the texts or transcripts of recordings, used in the task cycle, or from samples of languages they have read or heard in earlier lessons. Having already processed these texts and recordings for meaning, students will get far more out of their study of language form. Analysis activities can be followed by quick bursts of oral or written practice, or dictionary reference work. Finally, the students need time to note down useful words, phrases and patterns into a language notebook. Regular revision of al these will help vocabulary acquisition. (Willis & Willis, 1996)
Designing tasks to promote language use is another way to tackle this.
Any topic or theme can give rise to different types of tasks, which can be generated with the help of the Typology of TBL Task Design, below, proposed by Dave and Jane Willis
Each type involves different cognitive processes. The top three types increase in cognitive complexity from left to right but are generally cognitively less challenging than the three at the bottom. These may involve more complex cognitive operations or combinations of simpler task types.
For instance, if we take the topic ”cats”:
a listing task might be: List three reasons why people think cats make good pets;
a comparing task might be to compare cats and dogs as pets;
a problem-solving task could be to think of three low-budget solutions to the problem of looking after a cat when the family is absent;
an experience sharing or an anecdote telling task could involve sharing stories about cats
As a conclusion, TBL offers a change from the grammar practice routines through which many learners have previously failed to learn to communicate. It encourages learners to experiment with whatever English they can recall, to try things out without fear of failure or public correction, and to take active control of their own learning both in and outside the class.
For the teacher, the framework offers security and control. While it may be true that TBL is an adventure it can be taken within the safety of an imaginatively designed playgroung.
3.3 LANGUAGE GAMES-CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND CHARACTERISTICS
Most of us enjoy playing, no matter the age. From early childhood playing is part of most children’s lives and it has a big role in their development as well. When children enter middle childhood (6-12) their play turns into games which are different from play, as they are more organized and planned and they usually include a variation of rules and a specific objective (Rixon; 1981: 3). In most of the games participants are almost forced into communicating with each other in order for the game to work.
The use of games as a teaching strategy has been widely adopted in different subject areas. If in the past the teaching process was more about learners being passive and listening into the classroom, today they are usually much more active in the classroom. And what a better way to activate than by playing games (Sugar; 1998:3). There has also been a tendency toward a greater use of games in the language classroom. Many innovative language teaching methods, such as the Natural Approach (Terell, 1982) and Suggestopedia (Lozanov, 1979) make use of language games.
The teaching methods should be diverse in order to light and sustain interest amongst students. Teachers can help sustain diversity in a multitude of ways. For instance, using activities that require students to be creative in thinking and by emphasizing individual learning and cooperative learning equally.
A distinction was made by Littlewood (1981) and Hadfield (1996), who divided language games in 2 main types: communicative and pre-communicative games.
On one hand, the communication games are those where the focus is on successful communication, and not that much on grammatical correctness. Communication games refer to different communicative functions like: greeting, invitation, request, description and narration where the output is open-handed, unpredictable or unprescribed.
On the other hand, the pre-communicative games are those that stress accuracy of language use. They have explicit definitions, like ”structural games” (Hadfield ;1996), or more direct ”grammar games” (Ur; 1988, Steinberg; 1992, Rinvolucri &Davis;1995). The aim of structured-aimed games is to foster the linguistic ability for certain syntactic patterns, some vocabulary areas and idiomatic expressions, spelling and pronunciation skills and new vocabulary. In these pre-communication games, the participants’ output is close-ended to ensure the correctness of language use.
If we refer on specific aspects, then we can make another subdivision of language games such as: cooperation & competitiveness and techniques.
Cooperation and competitiveness
As the name suggests, in this type of game the main action is organized into team-based activities, encouraging cooperation. Having a common goal, the participants need to work together as to achieve it. More and more game designers such as: Hadfield (1996) and Wright, Betteridge and Buckby (1989) all of them have emphasized the cooperative element of the language learning game. Rinvolucri and Davis (1995) divided games into two major categories in his collection: competitive games and cooperative games.
The cooperative games are said to be excellent to engourage shy students, as they involve all the members of a team, group or pair. Some activities of this type include: ordering and grouping things, finding a pair or finding hidden things, completion of drawings,etc. Students need to exchange information in order to complete the task and to give or follow instructions.
Accoring to Bruffee (1993) collaborative learning is a process which enables students to practise working together in low- risk situations, in preparation of effective working group relationships. It’s a great opportunity for them to rely on one another rather than counting exclusively on the authority of the teacher.
In fact, collaborative learning promotes the craft of interdependece, where collaboration, consultation and teamwork are essential factors.
According to Krashen’s Input Hypothesis (1985), second language aquisition is a highly collaborative and interactive process. He also claims that a small group approach enables learners to attain greater language competence than a teaching methodology that stresses the memorization of grammar, vocabulary and drill exercises in isolation. Thus, he concluded that coopertaive learning could help to create a healthy learning environment that makes language learning meaningful.
Reasearch has pointed out many benefits for the learners in cooperative learning. The ccoperative nature of most lanuguage games naturally encourages student interaction.
Vygotsky (1997) believed that ”play,in providing interaction, creates a zone of proximal development, which provide an opportunity for learning”. Games can be considered as means of enhancing learning outcomes by creating more interactive opportunities for learners.
Grammar games, especially communication-oriented ones, are apparently perceived as good for bringing about natural, meaningful and low-anxiety interaction, in a formal linguistic environment because they require pair or group work and they are by their very nature informal tasks.
Technique
There are plenty of techniques to be used when playing games. We need to spice up the teaching so, the various the games the better. Techniques may include problem-solving, information-gap, guessing, search, matching, exchanging and collecting, combining card games, puzzles and simulation. Due to the importance of variety in games, Ramor and Wetz (1984), Wright, Betteridge and Buckby (1989), Hewitt (1999), Holscher (1991) grouped their games as Puzzle Games, Crosswords Games, Bingo Games, Domino Games, Matching Games, Board Games, Cards Games, Picture Games, Quartett and Lotto.
As teaching is a developing art, that requires innovative and creative ideas to enrich its effectiveness, one should not hesitate to use language games in classrooms.
3.4 SONGS ENHANCE LEARNERS’ INVOLVEMENT
If you have ever asked yourself what songs have to do with teaching, the answer is simple: music motivates. And even more than that, people listen to music for pleasure. Having the right ingredients: motivation, pleasant atmosphere, variety, the success of your lesson is almost guaranteed.
It is said that songs are one of the most enchanting and culturally rich resources to be used in the language classrooms. Not only do they offer a change from routine classroom activities but they are also resources to develop students’ abilities in listening, speaking, reading and writing. They may as well be the perfect tool to teach a variety of language items such as sentence patterns, vocabulary, pronunciation, rhythm, adjectives, adverbs and so on.
”…Learning English through songs also provides non-threatening atmosphere for students, who usually are tense when speaking English in a formal classroom setting…”( Lo and Fai Li;1998:8).
Besides the fact that they give a new insight into the target culture, they provide authentic texts, being the means through which cultural themes are presented effectively.
Meeting the students’ needs in the classroom can be really challenging sometimes. You may be successful by using contemporary popular songs that are already familiar to them.
For example, if correctly chosen, traditional folk songs have the dual motivating attack of pretty tunes and interesting stories, plus for many students- the added ingredient of novelty. (Hill;1999:29). Most songs, mainly folk songs, follow a regularly repeated verse form with rhyme and have a series of other discourse feature which make them easy to follow.
The meaning is an important device in teaching grammar, it is essential to contextualize any grammar point. Thus, if selected properly and adopted carefully, a teacher should benefit from songs in all phases of teaching grammar. Songs may be used for the presentation or the practice phase of a grammar lesson. Extensive and intensive listening, creativity, use of imagination in a relaxed classroom atmosphere- all these are encouraged by songs.
For sure that the selection of songs plays an important role. When doing this, the teacher needs to consider the age, the interest of the learners, the language being used in the song.
In what concerns the teaching procedure, one can find various ways of using songs in the classroom.
Depending on the creativity of the teacher, determinant roles on the procedure have: the level of students, the interest and the age of the learners, the grammar structure to be studied and even the song itself.
Songs that are familiar to the children or those that have an international reputation (such as Old MacDonald) are the best songs for primary students. There isn’t a clear teaching procedure, leaving a freedom of choice to the teacher. The important thing though is not how to teach but rather what to teach.
If the grammar point focuses on the teaching of letter sounds or spelling the words, the traditional camp song ”Bingo” might be used or when teaching them counting ”Johnny Works with One Hammer” could be an option. At this level, motion added to the songs, which parallel the words of the songs- is a way to make them more meaninful and enjoyable. A lively atmosphere is ensured by choosing lively action songs, through which they can dance or act while singing.
The use of meaningful or popular songs, which not only review or introduce grammar point but also reflect cultural aspects, is more appropriate for teenagers/adults in the intermediate or advanced level.
With the primary level of singing the song, the prosodic features of the language are emphasized . At higher levels, where the practice of some grammar aspects is at the foreground, songs can be used with several techniques like:
Gap fills or close texts;
Focus questions;
True-false statements;
Put these lines into the correct sequence;
Dictation;
Add a final verse;
Circle the antonyms/synonyms of the given words;
Discuss.
Once the targeted grammar structure, the song and the techniques to be used are decided, the teacher should make an effective lesson plan.
As songs are listening activities, it is recommended to present them as a listening lesson, but it is necessary to integrate all the skills in the process in order to achieve successful teaching.
There are some aspects to be considered in a pre-listening activity. The title, the history, the theme of the songs could be exploated. Problem vocabulary items can be picked up in advance. Students should know which grammar structure is going to be studied before the listening activity. Some teachers make use of picture when they introduce the theme of the song.
As a follow-up, integrated skills can be used to complete the overall course structure. The themes of the songs may lead the learners to related reading texts either about the singer(s) or the topic,etc. It is also possible to have a written reaction of some kind about the students’ own thoughts or reflections. Other themes of the songs might be exploated through role plays. Acting could bring some enthusiasm to the learning process.
Exploitation of songs for the teaching of tenses can be illustrated through several examples. For the Present Tense, ”Let It Be”,by The Beatles, ”Yesterday” by The Beatles for the Past Simple, for Present Continuous ” Sailing”, by Rod Steward, for Present Perfect ” Nothing Compares to You”, by Sinead O’Connor, for Past Perfect ” Last night I had…”, by Simon and Garfunkel, and so on.
However, what’s to be remembered is that songs, which have frequent repetitions, tell a story, provide comments about life or introduce cultural themes are the effective ones since they convey authentic and meaningful material.
As a conclusion, it could be stated that songs not only entertain and relax the learners while they are learning or practising a structure, there is much more you can do with them in the classroom. Language teachers make use of songs to open or close their lessons, to illustrate themes and topics, to add variety or a change of pace, to present new vocabulary or recycle known language.
Thus, as language teachers, we benefit from using songs since our concern is to motivate the students and draw their utmost attention on the subject during teaching.
Oliver Wendall Holmes (1862) suggests taking a musical bath once a week, saying that ”music is to the soul what water is to the body”.
3.5 GRAMMAR CHANTS
Also known as jazz chants, the grammar chants are rhythmic expressions of natural language which link the rhythms of spoken American English to the rhythms of traditional American Jazz. A jazz chant is a fragment of authentic language presented with specially attention to its natural rhythm.
In late 1960, Carolyn Graham was an ESL teacher at the American Language Institution of New York University and a jazz entertainer at a piano bar. She discovered the Jazz Chants by accident when playing the piano. A friend of hers came by and while saying several words, she could feel exactly the music beat she was playing. Thus, the connection between the traditional American Jazz and spoken American English was discovered. Soon Graham began to write chants based on spoken American English and started using them in her class. Thus, the famous jazz chants were born.
The music for chants is often taken from some traditional English songs. If the learners know the melody of the original songs, they can concentrate more on the words and rhythm , melodies like ”Are you sleeping?” or ”Twinkle, twinkle Little Star”, and so on (Graham; 2006).
The Jazz Chants may be divided into two main groups:
Topic Jazz Chants
Grammar/Structure Jazz Chants
Topic Jazz Chants are usually connected to specific themes such as: family, food, hobbies, nature, occupations, health, transport, seasons, days of the week, holidays, seasons, etc.
Grammar/Structure Jazz Chants deal with some English grammar or structures like: prepositions, action verbs/verb tenses, adjectives, imperatives, questions, answers, different structures like: there is/are, be going to, pronouns and many more. They are meant to reinforce the targeted structures and are presented in a language function about every day situations.
Throughout the ’80s and ’90s these Jazz Chants, that Graham discovered , were spread far and wide along with the ESL teaching methods and techniques that appeared during the same period. Nowadays these jazz chants are used in hundreds and thousands of ESL and EFL classrooms around the world, as they improve the students’ speaking competence in terms of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. They practise stress and rhythm, are highly motivaing and encourage role playing and pair activities. They strengthen language structures and the ability to speak every day spoken English.
These little jewels help non-native speakers get the ”feel” of American English. The students learn the rhythm, the stress and intonation patterns by ”doing” them. It is a very effective and enjoyable way to learn. As long as the teacher finds the accompanying activities and, if chosen properly, they are suitable for all ages. They help students remember difficult words or structures. And another good thing about them is that children are themselves while singing, clapping or shouting.
Jazz chants often take the form of an interchange or dialogue which display the natural give and take of everyday spoken language(cited from https://carolread.wordpress.com).
3.6 THE IMPORTANCE OF VIDEOS IN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
”Without question, this generation truly is the media generation, devoting more than a quarter of each day to media. As media devices become increasingly portable, and as they spread even further through young people’s environments- from their schools to their cars- media messages will become an even more ubiquitous presence in an already media-saturated world. Anything that takes up this much space in young people’s lives deserves our full attention.”
Kaiser Family Foundation (1999)
More and more language teachers seem to accept the great influence of educational video in the teaching and learning processes. The use of audio-visual materials in the classroom is not an entirely new concept. As filmstrips were first studied during World War II as a training tool for soldiers (Hovland, Lumsdaine &Sheffield; 1949), educators have recognized the power of audio-visual materials to capture the attention of learners, increase their motivation and enhance their learning experience. But of course, things have changed considerably since that time and so have the content and the technology, increasing the availability and the value of visuals in classrooms. Content has developed from the instructional television (ITV) in the years 1950s and 1960s to educational standard-based videos designed specifically as supplemental classroom tools.
It is believed that the use of educational video and television in classrooms has increased considerably in the past 20-30 years, as mentioned in a series of studies conducted by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. These surveys analyzed both the patterns of use as well as teachers’ attitudes and expectations for outcomes. Not only is this technology widely used, according to the most recent study, but it is also highly valued as a means of teaching more effectively and creatively. ( Corporation for Public Broadcasting;1997).
There is no other choice but to accept the fact that the use of visuals can enhance language learning. As they help teachers to bring real world into the classroom, they make learning more meaningful and more exciting (Brinton; 2000).
”Videos, like other theme-based materials, are effective springboards for other content-based classroom activities. They provide background information and proper stimuli for subsequent reading, writing, speaking and listening activities” (Stoller; 1993:3).
As Tomalin (1991) notices, the use of videos in the classroom is highly motivational for young students. They are stimulated to acquire new words and phrases, while they are learning about the target culture and they are receiving renewed input of the target language.
There are authors that emphasize the role of the video as a facilitator of the mental processing, thanks to the images on the TV screen that are lifelike, such as representations of people or objects.
So, video lessons may provide a range of learning opportunities for ESL students. Mainly, they are good for listening practice but teaching vocabulary and grammar are not at all to be neglected. However video lessons can be exploated to the fullest as long as you prepare them thoroughly and the activities must be targeted to your goals.
There are two parts to be considered in video lessons. One part is related to the teaching goals. That is, when you show a video to your students is it for listening, vocabulary or grammar practice? What language element do you want them to learn? The second part has to do with the structure of the lesson itself. Even if you are sure that the main objective of the lesson is to improve listening comprehension, just by pressing the play button, in order to show a video, won’t do. Each video lesson should be accompanied by a lesson plan, which should meet the teaching goals. All video lessons must incude: pre-viewing activities, viewing activities and post-viewing activities.
The pre-viewing activities are to be regarded as warm-up exercises that we usually have for different types of activities, the important thing is to match your goal.
The viewing activities deal with tasks that must be completed while watching the video, again targeted to your goals.
You can wrap up the video lesson with some nice post-viewing activities. They are even a great opportunity to consolidate everything the students have learned in a production or performance activity.
The best thing about introducing video lessons in the ESL classroom is the great variety of materials available, from short pieces of news to a full episode of a popular TV series, a movie trailer or a full-length feature film on different occasions. With a selection of activities, included in all the stages of the lesson, you can hit the target every time.
It is a known fact that this new technology offers many new opportunities that are meant to be explored further on, thus the potential for learning and discovering effecient ways to do that opens up before us.
Conclusion
This chapter’s main aim was to stress the importance of interactive resources that are at teachers’ hands, such as: games, songs, videos in the ESL classroom. The idea is that teachers should not give up grammar too easily because of dry rules and activities as there are alternatives.
Moreover, being motivating due to their funny aspect, the games, songs, videos, films provide personalization practice as they offer the students the chance to be actively and personally engaged in the lesson.
Aside from activating students and creating diversity, another major aspect of these activities is the pleasurable tension created, a comfortable and friendly atmosphere inside the classroom, where students, especially the shy ones, might feel more confident in expressing themselves in the target language. They are not just time-filling activities, they have a great educational value. W.R. Lee holds that most language games make learners use the language instead of thinking about learning the correct forms ( W.R.Lee; 1979:2). While using them in the ESL classroom, the teacher is palced in the background role and therefore students are allowed to take on more responsability.
Ultimately, they help the teacher to create contexts in which language is useful and meaningful. In fact, it is the teacher’s job and desire, to look for various funny resources and to make use of his/her creativity as to transform a boring grammar drill into a challenging, entertaining, motivating and even efficient one.
We could conclude that it is grammatically correct to use the words: grammar, creativity and fun in the same context.
CHAPTER 4. INTERACTIVE ACTIVITIES-
SONGS, GAMES, VIDEOS
HOW MUCH CAN YOU ”SPICE UP”YOUR LESSONS?
TURN IT INTO A GAME. TYPES OF LANGUAGE GAMES.
SING IT OUT LOUD. SONGS USED TO REVISE TENSES AND SHAKE UP THE ROUTINE.
VIDEOS- ENCHANTING AND CULTURALLY RICH.RESOURCES FOR GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURES.
4.1 HOW MUCH CAN YOU ”SPICE UP” YOUR LESSONS?
Active learning, improved retention, collaborative learning, catering for learning styles, change of classroom atmosphere, improved level of motivation – all these are desirable ingredients when ”cooking” a lesson. My conviction is that with a little extra planning and with the right resources nothing is imposible.
When, during the teaching session you see a big percentage of your students slowly lowering their heads down to their desks, this means you need to shake up the lesson a little bit. And what a better way to do this than by using songs, games, multimedia and modern technology to enliven the lesson and motivate the students.
Nevertheless there are some aspects to be considered when doing this. Let’s take games, for example. When a teacher decides to look for games to use in the classroom, he/she should not just pick a ”time filler”, which does not have a definite linguistic outcome, but stick to games that use talking, listening, looking and moving. Games may be used when teaching rules and quick-witted expressions. It is acknowledged that there are some risks associated with the use of games such as: noise, lack of discipline (Kuo; 1990) but the benefits are so much better.
Richard-Amato (1996) advises teachers not to lose sight of the pedagogical value of games, especially in second language teaching. Games make practice more effective as students turn into active participants in the learning process (Allery, 2004; Ruben, 1999; Thatcher, 1990).
In addition to the improvement of learning outcomes, we must addmit that games are also effective as they can lower the stress but increase the interest and motivation in students while giving them the opportunity for effective communication (Allery, 2004; Ruben, 1999, Montero & Watts, 2001).
Team challenges might also be something to enliven your lessons. As difficult situations ask for difficult measures, that involves a lot of communication. Using team activities in the classroom not only requires students to work together in order to accomplish some tasks or a mission, but also helps them use English naturally.
If your students’ self-esteem is quite low you may need to help them feel a measure of success while also highlighting the many nuances of English expressions. The way to do this is by using subjects and skill sets already familiar to your students. The result is that they’ll talk more and even get to fell more comfortable doing so. For instance, you may use Math to help build English ability. As numbers are universal, every one counts and every student needs to be able to have a good grasp of numbers in any language they are learning to speak. It’s so to say an essential part of the language and of survival. Some would say that learning numbers can be a dry lesson, because of repetition, counting out loud and the such, but it’s your job to turn learning numbers into something fun.
Another great idea to get out of the routine is to immerse your students in English online- with real-world videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks- and turn them into personalized language learning lessons. You may find several great choices when searching for songs for in-class activities. You’ll come across music videos, musical numbers from cinema and theater, kids’ singalongs, commercial jingles and so much more. Thus, you bring authentic materials in your classroom and this guarantees to get your students excited about English.
When talking about the use of media in the language classroom, Brinton stated:
”Use media materials when variety is called for, when they expedite your teaching task and serve as a source input, and/or when they help you to individualize instruction and appeal to the variety of cognitive styles in your classroom. But above all use media to involve students more integrally in the learning process and to facilitate language learning by making it a more authentic, meaningful process” (Brinton; 2000:130).
Changing the environment of the classroom adds new life to a lesson. Have you ever considered playing sports or getting physical exercise in English? Sports can be a good choice for ESL learners. There are plenty of flashcards and worksheets available online that can help warm up your students to the world of sports, exercise and hobbies.
The point is that, if you incorporate these subjects and activities in the ESL classroom, they will definitely catch your students’ attention and add some fun and diversity to your classroom.
Pietro suggests that in order to improve the learning setting we need ”to break away from the traditional idea of the teacher-dominated classroom” and turn it into ”the focus of a functioning speech community in which natural discourse is simulated” (Pietro; 1987:13).
According to Vygotsky (1997), external dialogues or interactions with people are necessary to develop inner speech and awareness of one’s thought process. He also stated that play, providing interaction for developmental change, creates an important source of development and that it creates a zone of proximal development, which provides an oportunity for learning.
To sum up, I would say that when creating/using all these resources teachers should have in mind that students want to learn in an engaging, intersting way. Spice up the lessons, vary the activities you use in your ESL classroom so as to keep the students on their toes, ready to learn.
4.2 TURN IT INTO A GAME. TYPES OF LANGUAGE GAMES
Diversity in the teaching methods is one of the major aspects if the teacher’s purpose is to light and sustain interest among students. Teachers can provide this, by using a variety of ways, for instance, activities that require students to be creative in thinking, emphasizing individual learning and cooperative learning equally.
Games deserve a place in the language classroom for several reasons that will be revealed as we move on.
Games are fun and children like to play them. Through games children experiment, discover and interact with their environment. (Lewis, 1999)
Games add variation to a lesson and increase motivation by providing a plausible incentive to use the target language. For many children between four and twelve years old, especially the youngest, language learning will not be the key motivational factor. Games can provide this stimulus. (Lewis, 1999)
Games have been given various definitions along the years but the one that I choose to start with is that given by Griffiths and Clyne (1995), who believe that they may be defined as an ejoyable diversion in which we test our skill, strength or chance, according to a set of rules.
An instructional game is defined by Harvey and Bright (1985) by the following characteristics:
-A game is fun and interesting;
– A game is goal-defined;
– A game is competitive;
– A game is engaging;
– A game is rule-governed;
– A game has a closure.
Language games are used for the practice of some particular language items, such as: grammar, sentence structures, vocabulary and spelling but also for developing language skills such as speaking, listening, writing and reading. One of their specific traits is that they seem to be task-oriented.
Like games in general, the language games are rule-governed. These rules describe the pattern of activity meant to take place.The rules lay out the game organization, the procedure of the game, the behavioural restrictions and the scoring method.
In a word, language games encourage active participation and generate fun, are rule-governed, have specific linguistic language outcomes to achieve, are based on competitive and challenging interaction.
Types of Language Games
When we refer to language teaching, the word game has been a vague term for different kinds of activities considered to fun. Kleppings’(1980) initial findings that it is difficult to group language games, were later on confirmed by Shie (2003). Games have been classified according to different aspects like functions, language skills, techniques and organization.
For this paper I chose to refer to the distinction that Littlewood (1981) and Hadfield (1996) made, that is, they divided language games into: communicative and pre-communicative games.
Communicative games focus on successful communication, rather than on grammatical correctness. Communication games cover communicative functions of the language such as: greeting, invitation, description & narration, request, and so on. With these, the output is open-ended, unprescribed or unpredictable.
Pre-communicative games focus on the accuracy of the language use. This types of games have explicit definitions, such as ”structural games”, given by Hadfield (1996), or more direct, ”grammar games” as Ur (1988), Steinberg (1992), Rinvolucri & Davis (1995) suggested.
These structure-aimed games have as main objective to foster the linguistic ability for certain syntactic patterns, some vocabulary areas and idiomatic expressions, spelling and pronunciation skills and new vocabulary. In order to ensure the correctness of language use, the participants’ output is close-ended.
Both communicative pre-communicative language games have a further subdivision, made on the basis of specific aspects such as: cooperation & competitiveness and techniques.
It has happened to me several times to have planned an interesting lesson that would involve students working and learning together. And, in the well-crafted plan, students would have been engaged in differnt activities, supporting one another, thus, helping them grow as a learning community. But I don’t think it’s a surprise for anyone to say that these activities don’t always work out as planned. Of course, there are many factors to be considered but the truth is that students are unable to work together properly because they don’t know how to support one another.
By using cooperative games students will become critical thinkers, will learn to work with one another and apply these skills to accomplish team goals. And the good thing about all these is that students will have fun while developing all these skills.
In these games a challenge is always at stake, and with this, the freedom that students have to work together in order to solve the challenge, by discussing different strategies, communicating their ideas and putting their plans into action. These games are centered on the students’development as they are the primary decision makers with little direction from the teacher. There aren’t any right or wrong answers, and students are given the opportunity to build better relationships with other team members as they struggle, deal with failure, and eventually work to master the problem presented.
An important lesson that students are taught is that of teamwork, as cooperative games help students learn how individual efforts unite to help the team accomplish goals. They are learning how to collaborate with one another, that it is okay to fail and then try another method, and what it means to be a supportive and dependable teammate.
The key in teamwork is perseverance, and students learn that failure is an important foundational step, as it gives them the opportunity to review, reflect, reorganize strategies, and redirect their efforts toward the successful outcome.
Perhaps the most beneficial component of cooperative games is the emphasis on how the team has worked together to solve the challenge, rather than which team earned the most points, was the fastest, or was the best. Students are therefore learning to collaborate and depend on one another, not simply to win, but to achieve a goal.
Although these activities may just seem like a fun pastime, these games are actually vital teaching tools that will allow your students to develop their collaborative skills. At times, you may see that some groups are arguing; however, the discussion and communication will improve as they gradually develop their collaborative skills.
These games allow students to become leaders, followers, and peacemakers at different times; however, they will all be provided with the opportunity to learn and shine.
To make a point, I have selected some language games that were proposed by Wright, Betteridge & Buckby (2006), in their book Games for Language Learning.
Telepathy (pictures)
Procedure:
Make sure the learners know the picture cards in your hand. They should be able to remember all of them.
Discuss telepathy with the class in the mother tongue for a few moments, raising interest in whether or not there is any truth in it.
Say that you will do an experiment. Select one of the picture cards at random and show it to only half the class. Tell them they must concentrate on the card, and try to send out telepathic signals about what the person in the picture is doing.
Tell the other half of the class that you will give them three chances to receive the telepathic signals. It is then inevitable for people to feel the need to try it again. Do it perhaps 5 times, with 3 chances each time. Each time record if the 'message' was received within the 3attempts.
E.g. Learner 1 : Is he swimming?
Teacher: No.
Learner 2: Is he running?
Teacher: Yes! Well done.
5 Then suggest that the same experiment be done in pairs. Each learner should draw three or four stick people showing different actions. (Or they might write down three or four short sentences evoking actions in the present perfect.) Then one learner in each pair takes both sets of drawings and, hiding them from the other learner behind a book, places his/her finger on one of them. The other learner then has three guesses.
Notes
You could ask the learners to do the experiment ten times with the utmost concentration. They should count how many times the right guess is made within the first three attempts.
This same game can be used for practising areas of vocabulary and, of course, then involves reading the texts and thinking about them.
Where’s the mouse?
Procedure:
Invite the learners to take it in turn to imagine being a mouse. The ”mouse” should think of a hiding place in the classroom, or in a larger place, for example the school. (Alternatively, show the class a picture and ask the ”mouse” to imagine where in the picture he/she is hiding). Ask the ”mouse” to write down their location on a piece of paper, in order to prevent cheating.
Challenge the other learners to ask questions to try to find where the ”mouse” is, for example:
Learner 2: Are you in the cupboard?
Mouse: No.
Learner 3: Are you under the desk?
Mouse: No.
Variation 1 Hiding place
Send one or two learners out of the classroom. Discuss with the class what small object they would like to hide and where it should be hidden. For example:
Learner 1 Let’s hide this watch.
Learner 2 Let’s hide this coin.
Learner 3 Let’s hide it under the box of chalk.
Learner 4 Let’s hide it in the cupboard.
When the object is hidden, call the learner(s) in and challenge them to find the object by asking questions. For example:
Learner 1: Is it at the front of the room?
Class: Yes.
Learner 1: Is it on top of the cupboard?
Class: No.
At an intermediate level, the learner(s) who went outside the classroom can be asked to use the present perfect (e.g. Have you hidden it near the door?) or the passive form (Is it hidden at the back of the classroom?)
When the ”seekers” guess correctly, they should go to the place, find the object, hold it up and say: Is it this (watch)?
Pelmanism (grammar)
Note:
This game is called Pelmanism in Britain and Concentration in North America.
Procedure:
Invite the learners to form groups of three or four.
Give each group a set of cards, and help them become familiar with the pairs. A simple way to do this is to invite them to muddle all the cards face up and then see how quickly they can pair them together.
Ask the learners to shuffle the cards and lay them face down so that the pictures and/or writing on the cards cannot be seen. It doesn't matter if the players see the cards being put down and if they try to remember where the pairs were placed.
The first player then picks up two of the cards. If they think their cards match, they make some appropriate comment to the others, before picking them up. For example:
Player 1: (pointing to the back of a card) Apple!
(turns over the picture … if it is the picture of the apple then they leave it turned over)
(pointing to the back of another card) The apple has been eaten!
(turns over the card … if the picture and the text make a pair, the player leaves them turned over)
If the others agree that the cards are a pair, the player keeps them and takes another turn.
When two cards are picked up which do not match, they must be shown to the other players and replaced in exactly the same position from which they were taken.
Then the next player has a turn.
This continues until all the cards have been paired off.
The player with the most pairs is the winner.
Notes
This is one of the richest families of language-learning activities … and so easy to offer to the learners. Note that it is possible to do matching entirely by reading and writing. It is not a minor point that we are suggesting that each item is written on its own card. The physical handling of these cards is a key and a gateway to better learning for many people. They can 'get a grasp' of the idea.
Matching cards, once prepared, can be used again and again. If you laminate them they will last even longer and look smart.
Card-matching games can be used by you in classwork, but they are so flexible that you can also have packets of them ready to give to individuals or groups of learners who finish activities before the others.
To reduce arguments, make a key for each set of cards so that the learners can check against the key if there is any dispute.
You can complicate the game by making the examples very close or by including extra word cards that have no partner.
In most countries small printing houses throw away thousands of strips of card. These are perfect for matching card games.\
Bingo Grammar
Procedure:
1 Brainstorm twenty sentences in the present continuous indicating physical actions and write them on the board, for example:
A footballer is kicking the ball. A woman is smiling. A boy is shouting.
Ask the learners to make a Bingo grid by dividing a piece of paper into four squares. Tell them to choose any four of the sentences and illustrate them with quick sketches, one in each square. Give them exactly io seconds to make each of the drawings. You must do this or the learners will not be ready at the same time.
The game is then played as follows: you call out the sentences in random order and the learners cross out the pictures sketched on their Bingo grid if they illustrate the sentences you call out.
When a learner has crossed out all of his or her pictures, he or she shouts Bingo!
Play the game several times to give each learner the chance to do well and, of course, to give more practice in the chosen language form.
Note
By using pictures, the learners' attention is focussed on the meaning of the sentences.
Variation 1 Bingo parts of speech
Preparation Make a list of words or set of cards representing different parts of speech.
Procedure
Ask the learners to draw a Bingo grid of four or six squares (or 'boxes') on an A4 piece of paper.
Tell each learner to decide which parts of speech they are going to listen out for and write one
into the top of each of their boxes. They might choose from: verb, article, noun, adverb, adjective, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, etc. Such distinctions as 'verb of motion', 'verb – past tense', 'plural noun', 'singular noun', etc. may of course be added with your guidance. You can in this way give practice in the recognition and identification of any parts of speech. A learner might decide to have more than one box for a given part of speech.
As you call out words, the learners write them into the correct square on their grid. They only need one word in each box in order to say Bingo!
Make sure you keep a record of the words you have read out.
SING IT OUT LOUD. SONGS USED TO REVISE TENSES AND SHAKE UP THE ROUTINE.
”Music is the soul of language”.
( Max Heindel)
Songs have long been among my favourite teaching resources (probably because I love singing as well) and I strongly believe that language teachers can and should use them as part of their classroom teaching repertoire.
Songs contain authentic language, are easily accessible, they can be used to open or close the lesson, to illustrate themes and topics, to add variety or change of pace, present new vocabulary or recycle known language. But how do songs actually benefit your students?
There is strong practical evidence supporting the use of music in the English language classroom; there is also a growing body of research confirming that songs are a useful tool in language acquisition. In fact musical and language processing occur in the same area of the brain. (Medina, 1993)
There are several types of songs you can choose from, ranging from nursery rhymes to contemporary pop music. But there is also at your disposal a lot of music written especially for English language teaching. However, a criticism of the latter is that they often lack originality and musical appeal, but there are good examples to be found of stimulating, modern, ‘cool’ music, appealing to the real tastes of language learners.
‘Real’ music that the children hear and play every day can be extremely motivating in the classroom, too. However, the lyrics may not always be suitable: they may, for instance, contain slang or offensive words, there may be grammatical mistakes and they may only marginally teach the language points you want to focus on.
If you’re asking yourself why the songs are so useful, well we can’t generalise, but research has found that pop songs have characteristics that help learning a second language: they often contain common, short words; they are written at about 5th grade level (US); the language is conversational, time and place are usually imprecise; the lyrics are often sung at a slower rate than spoken words and there is repetition of words and grammar (Murhpy, 1992). Furthermore, songs are also known to lower the “affective filter” or, in other words, to motivate learners to learn. So, what positive contributions to language learning can songs make?
Songs provide a great opportunity for young learners to move around. Clapping, dancing and playing instruments stimulate memory, which makes it possible for learners to hear chunks of language as they sing and use them in different situations later. Older learners can also benefit from clapping, dancing, rocking, tapping, and snapping their fingers to music and songs.
Now that most music is accessible to almost anyone anywhere, either through radio, CDs, DVDs and downloads from the Internet, learners can enjoy songs from all corners of the globe. Songs used in English classes can, in that way, shed light on interesting musical traditions in countries, but can also teach teens, young adults and adults to appreciate other cultures. For adult learners they can be “a rich mine of information about human relations, ethics, customs, history, humor, and regional and cultural differences’ (Lems, 2001).
As language teachers, we can use songs to practice listening, speaking, reading and writing.
You can do many things with the songs in the classroom. The sky is the limit!
There are a few things to keep in mind: simple, repetitive songs often contain a recurrent grammatical pattern which is useful to teach (especially with younger children). More difficult songs often contain interesting vocabulary and idioms. Also there is often a message, a theme, or a story underlying a song which students can discuss, explain, debate, and write about at almost any level.
Practical tips and tasks for using songs
Focus it
Start with a focusing activity: anything that will get students thinking about the subject of the song. Have them think about the title of the song, in groups of pairs. Find a picture that relates to the subject of the song and have students make guesses about it.
Highlight it
Put a selection of important words from the song on your board. Have students ask each other what the words mean. Then, have students in groups write or tell a quick story that uses the words. You can also get students to circle, underline or highlight specific words or word categories.
Stop it
Again, write a selection of words on the board. Students must shout STOP any time they hear one of the new words. You could also stop the song before a word you want them to guess.
Lip sync it
Have students lip sync the song before a team of judges in a Class Idol show. This allows them to become familiar with the words, rhythm, stress and intonation before actually singing the words out loud.
Strip it
Cut the song into strips. Give each student one strip to memorize. Students put the strips in their pockets. They get up and tell each other their part of the song, without looking at their part or showing their part to anyone else. Students then organize themselves in the right order, speak the song and then listen and check. You can also have students put the strips on a table in order.
Question it
Have students ask each other questions about the song (about the words, about the topics or about characters in the song). For more advanced students you could choose two songs of a similar theme, and split the class into two teams. Have each group listen to their song and draw up a list of (open or True/False) questions. Pair each student with a member of the opposite team and have them take turns asking their questions.
Gap it
You can prepare a gapped version of the lyrics and let students complete them before listening and then check afterwards.
Write it
Have students write a letter to the main character or the singer, send an answer to a person referred to in the song, rewrite the song as a story, write a story which began before the story in the song and led to it, or write a story which will continue after the song.
Change it
Change words (adjectives, adverbs, nouns -names, places or feelings), and invent new lyrics for the melody. If you have karaoke versions of the songs you can then let students sing their own versions.
Draw it
Get students to draw or collage the song and compare the visualisations in class.
The possibilities are endless. Make songs a regular feature in your lessons!
Music pervades virtually every aspect of our lives. Students adore it. It contains numerous useful elements for language teaching and it’s fun for both the teacher and students. So, why not include music and songs in your language learning classes as well?
I have made a selection of songs that could be successfully used in the classroom.
Word Grab (http://www.teach-this.com/esl-games/music-games)
Age/Level: Elementary and above
Time: 20 minutes
Players: 2 teams
Preparation: 15 words from a song written down on pieces of paper
Aim: To listen for words in a song
This is a fun and lively ESL music game to play with your students.
Procedure
-Choose a popular song that your students would like.
-Pick 15 words from the song and write them down on separate pieces of paper.
-Then, stick each word to the board.
-Divide the class into two teams. Have each team stand in a line in front of the board.
-Next, play the song.
-When the student at the front of each line hears a word from the song that is on the board, they race each other to grab the word.
-Teams win one point for each correct word they grab.
-Once students have played, they go to the back of the line and the next two students at the front of the line play.
-The team with the most words wins.
-You may have to play the song two or three times until all the words have been grabbed.
Next there are some song-based activities taken from Hancock’s Singing Grammar (1998).
Johnny’s playing football
Grammar: Present Continuous
Music: chant+ slow version
Topic: children ”telling tales” on each other. For example, in the first verse, perhaps another child shouts out that Johnny is playing football in his school clothes in order to get Johnny into trouble. This melody, known as the ”cat call”, is frequently used by children to tease each other, both in the UK and other parts of the world.
Lyrics:
Johnny's playing football
Johnny's playing football
He's wearing all his school clothes and getting very dirty
Johnny! Your mother's coming!
Johnny! Your mother's coming!
Mary's eating chocolate
Mary's eating chocolate
She's eating lots of chocolate and now she isn't hungry
Mary! Your dinner's ready!
Mary! Your dinner's ready!
The kids are drawing pictures
The kids are drawing pictures
They aren't doing the exercise they're just drawing pictures
Kids! The teacher's looking!
Kids! The teacher's looking!
Procedure:
1.Prediction:- Ask students to fold the Songsheet so they can only see the pictures.
– Students describe the pictures and predict what the song is about. As a hint, point out the one tale-telling child in each picture. If necessary, prompt students with questions like Is the boy wearing sports clothes? and What is the friend saying?
2.Gist: Play the song. Students check their predictions.
3.Students unfold the Songsheet and separate the words. Play the song again. Students listen and check.
4.Students add the apostrophes. Point out that there are several examples of the contraction of is:’s.
5.Pronunciation: To help with the difficult third/fourth line in each verse, you could ”backchain”, that is, model it for the class to repeat like this: very dirty and getting very dirty school clothes and getting very dirty…
6.The class could sing along to the song. If they fing this difficult to the full speed version, let them sing to the slow version first.
7.Extension: Students could write more verses of their own and try to sing them with the same melody as the song.
Grammar page
1.Students underline the present simple or present continuous in exercise A.
Note: He is always telling tales (present continuous to show disapproval/irritation) is a possible alternative answer to He tells tales.
2.Exercise B focuses on agreement between pronoun, auxiliary and verb form.
3.Exercise C provides more written practice of the structure. As an extension, students could write a similar poem of their own.
Game page
Preparation: Copy the set of cards (one set for the whole class) and cut them out.
1.Ask a volunteer to come to the front of the class, read a card and then mime the action.
2.The rest of the class should report what the person is doing, e.g. Olga’s eating bubble gum!
They could use the same tale-telling intonation from the song, since all the actions are forms of classroom misbehaviour.
3.The person who is miming indicates whether guesses are correct by nodding or shaking their head. If the answer is nearly correct, they say this or make a gesture.
I’ve been waiting
Grammar: present perfect simple/continuous
Music: country+ slow version
Topic: This song could be the thoughts of the singer as he waits for his girlfriend to show up for their date. The first verse is after an hour of waiting. The chorus gives some of the background of their new relationship. The last verse is after two hours of waiting.
Lyrics:
I've been waiting for an hour
And she's not here yet
Maybe she's stood me up
It's been raining all the time and my hair is wet
Now I feel fed up
I've been seeing her for over twoweeks now
I thought she was mine, all mine
We've been going out dancing almost every night
I thought everything was fine
I've been waiting for two hours
Standing here alone
I've been trying to call her on the phone
I've been cursing, I've been screaming
'Cause for two weeks I've been dreaming
Now the only thing to do is go back home
I've been seeing her…
Songsheet
Preparation: Make one copy of the Songsheet for each student. Alternatively, make one copy for each pair of students and cut the lines of the jumbled lyric into strips of paper for the students to put in order.
1. Prediction: Ask students to fold the Songsheet (if you haven't cut the lyric into strips) so they can only see the pictures. Ask them to say what might be happening in the pictures and make a list of words they think they might hear in the song.
2. Detail: Play the song. Students tick the words in their list that they hear.
3. Students unfold the Songsheet (alternatively, give out the strips of paper containing the lyric) and find rhyming lines in the lyric. (Answers: yet/wet, up/up, mine/fine, alone/phone/home, screaming/dreaming)
4. Students listen and sequence the lines of the song. Play the song again for the check.
5. Vocabulary: You could check students know the meaning of see in the continuous tense (= go out with). You could also check students know the expressions with up: fed up and stand up. You could introduce other phrasal verbs with up related to the theme of this song, for example: show up, turn up, break up, split up, chat up, give up.
7. Students sing along to the song. They may find this song difficult to sing at full speed. There is a slow version provided for them to practise with before singing at full speed.
8. Extension: You could ask students to imagine that there has been a mistake and the girl in the song has been waiting for two hours on a different corner. As the boy and girl give up and start going home, they meet each other.
Grammar page:
1.Exercise A focuses on contexts where we can see what people have been doing from the way they look.
Note: In each case, although the simple tense would be correct, the continuous tense gives a more natural emphasis; the writer can see the activities that these people have been doing, but he cannot necessarily say they have finished doing the activities (which is what the present perfect simple would imply).
2. Exercise B looks at the differences between present perfect simple and continuous. Students are asked to complete rules by looking at the examples.
3. Exercise C asks students to apply the rules from B, and it is preparation for the Game page.
Game page
Preparation: Make one copy of the Game page for every group of two, three or four students in the class. You may want to cut off the answers at the bottom of the page and give them to the groups as a separate strip which they would keep face down on the table. Each group will need a coin, and each player will need a small object to represent themselves, like a counter. You could provide these things or ask students to use something of their own.
1. The rules are on the board, but students should decide what the penalty is for making a grammar mistake in this game. Competitive students could suggest missing a turn. Other students may prefer to help each other on questions of grammar during the game.
2. To demonstrate the game, throw a coin and ask which square you could move to next. For example, if you throw heads, you could move from start to square 1. If you then throw heads again, you could move from square 1 to square 3 and up the ladder to square 6. If you land on the head of a snake, go down the snake to the square below.
VIDEOS, ENCHANTING AND CULTURALLY RICH RESOURCES FOR GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURES
Video recordings have been around for some years. The current generation of students grew up watching videos on YouTube, Facebook and different others, yet videos do not get used much in the classroom as compared to other IT and multimedia technology like PowerPoint and the Internet.
Just like game-based lessons, video lessons give ESL students a wealth of learning opportunities. Naturally, they’re great for listening practice, but never underestimate their value when it comes to teaching vocabulary and grammar.
However, to really tap into the potential of video lessons, these must be thoroughly prepared and activities must be targeted to your goals.
There are two layers to be considered with video lessons.
One is related to your teaching goals. Will you show your students a video for listening, vocabulary or grammar practice? What is the language element you want them to learn?
The second layer is the structure of the lesson itself. Even if you're sure you want to show a video to improve listening comprehension, it's not as simple as just pressing “play”. Each video lesson must be accompanied by its own lesson plan, and the lesson plan must be targeted to meet your teaching goals. Each video lesson plan must include: pre-viewing activities, viewing activities, and post-viewing activities.
Here are some strategies for each type of activity:
Pre-viewing activities
The pre-viewing activities would be like the warm-up exercises that we usually have for other types of activities. There are several pre-viewing activities you could do, but try to use those that match your goals.
If your goal is to teach vocabulary through a video, then in the pre-viewing activity you should introduce this new vocabulary, in context, in conversations, through a matching exercise, guess the meaning of the word activity, etc.
If your goal is to work on listening comprehension, introduce the topic of the video, so your students will know what it’s about and be better prepared to grasp information. This introduction may be done in numerous ways, but the most usual is a series of warm up questions about the topic.
If your goal is to practice grammar, then the pre-viewing activity should be a review of the tense or grammar point you want to practice. Some great activities for pre-viewing practice are games, fill in the blanks exercises, or any of the grammar worksheets you can find.
Viewing activities
Viewing activities consist of tasks that students must complete while watching the video, and these should also be targeted to your goals.
When focusing on vocabulary: first you introduced some new words, then, your students saw how they were used in the video. Now is the time for your students to use these new words themselves. Divide them into pairs, and ask them to write a conversation or report using this new vocabulary. If your goal was to teach vocabulary related to weather, and you showed a video of a TV weather report, ask your students to write the weather forecast for next weekend.
When working on listening comprehension: gap filling exercises also work great, but for this goal, gaps should be longer, and students should be required to fill them with information rather than just new words. Comprehension questions are always a great way to test listening comprehension. They need to produce something that shows how much they understood. This production may be anything from a picture, a PowerPoint presentation that summarizes the video, or a role play.
When practicing grammar: because of their very nature (songs are usually short and often repeat phrases, words, and structures), music videos are the best for practicing grammar. We Are the Champions by Queen is a great song to use to practice the present perfect. Frank Sinatra's New York, New York shows students ways in which the future with going to and will can be contracted.
Post-viewing activities
Post-viewing activities are a nice way to wrap-up the video lesson and a great opportunity to consolidate everything your students have learned in a production or performance activity.
The best part of incorporating video lessons into your ESL classroom is the vast amount of material available, from short news pieces on CNN.com to a full episode of a popular TV series, a movie trailer or a full-length feature film on special occasions. Just remember to include the right pre-viewing, viewing, and post-viewing activities and you’ll hit your target every time!
People often say a picture is worth a thousand words. So how many words is a video worth?
In order to make my point I have digged for some videos. Here are some examples:
The Brexit, video taken from: (http://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/36616378)
Warm-up:
-Ask Students what they know about the EU, how it works and their opinion of it (pair work).
-Then write the word Brexit on the board and ask if they know what it means, briefly explain the referendum on the 23rd of June.
Procedure:
1.Teacher made some paper strips with each of the arguments for pair work, but you can just give the hand-out and they do by themselves before discussing with their colleagues.
2.Students decide about each argument and discuss them, teacher corrects it.
3. Students must find out which argument belongs to which category. Elicit the categories before going to the exercise (helps if you fold the paper after ex 1); by asking questions: how is it called the activity of buying and selling goods?
4. Listening for gist: Remember to pre-teach any possibly problematic vocab. Answer: UK current status in the EU/ UK choices regarding business with the EU/ UK/EU citizens’ status
5. Listening for detail: Answer:
The UK won’t leave immediately.
Europe’s main leaders aren’t pleased with BREXIT.
There is a 2-year process starting now once the exit is officially announced to regulate the exit.
The UK will keep doing business with the EU anymore.
EU citizens living in the UK might have to leave. No one ones what will happen
The laws in the UK will have to be adapted/changed.
To finish you can role-play conversations between someone against and someone for brexit.
Tasks:
The following statements are against (A) or for (F) BREXIT?
1.Save millions ($) in fees and invest this money in new industries.
2.Leaving doesn’t mean reduced immigration. UK would have to accept the free movement of people in order to remain in the European common market.
3.Britain can negotiate a new trade relationship with the EU without being a member.
4.EU has one regulation standard for all its members, which reduces red tape and benefits business.
5.A boom in employment as businesses are free from EU laws.
6.The UK can return control over employment law, health and safety measures, where it disagrees with EU regulations.
7.Savings outweighed by the costs to keep access to single market.
8.Britain can change the immigration system that offers an open door to EU citizens and blocks non- EU immigrants who could contribute to the UK.
9.Britain avoids exporting tariffs and red tape, which is important as 45% of its exports go to EU.
10.Job losses when companies move to lower-cost EU countries.
Put the arguments of ex.1 under each of the following categories:
3.What happens next?
watch this video: (http://www.vox.com/2016/6/24/12024728/brexit-economy-economists-recession)
Check () the topics mentioned in the video;
Summarize how European Union works, what its features are.
The new prime minister
UK current status in the EU
New referendum
UK choices regarding business with the EU
UK/EU citizens’ status
The collapse of the EU
4. All the following are wrong. Correct them, then watch the video again to see if you are right.
The UK will leave immediately.
Europe’s main leaders are pleased with BREXIT.
There is a 2-year process starting now to regulate the exit.
The UK will not do business with the EU anymore.
EU citizens living in the UK will have to leave.
The laws in the UK will still be the same.
Pear Pancake with Jamie Oliver
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPdpSAvmnHY)
Level: elementary
Topic: A, An, Some, Any
Procedure:
1. Watch the video and listen carefully;
2. After watching and listening to the video students have to fill in the blanks with some phrases (task 1);
3. Read the dialogue and use only A, An, Some & Any and fill in the blanks (task 2);
4. Correct the mistakes (task 3);
5. Students are asked to create some sentences on their own, using A, An, Some, Any.
Task 1 Fill in the blanks with the phrases from the box below:
First, you measure _________________________ and put them in a big mixing bowl.
Next, pour in ________________________ into the mixing bowl.
Then, add in __________________________.
After that, you need to break in ________________ and whisk everything.
Once that’s done, you need to grate in _______________.
Then, you heat the frying pan. Once it’s heated, put in __________________________.
Next, you put _____________________________________ into the hot pan.
Once they’re cooked, serve them in a plate and put _______________________________ on top.
You can also drizzle ________________________.
Task 2: Read the dialogue below and use only A, An, Some & Any and fill in the blanks.
Nigella: How many cups of flour does Jamie Oliver ask Poppy to add in the mixing bowl?
Gordon: Jamie asks Poppy to put 1)____ cup of flour.
Nigella: What does he do next?
Gordon: Next, he asks her to pour in 2)____ mug of milk using the same cup.
Nigella: Does he add in 3)____ pinch of salt? What about eggs? Does he use 4)____ eggs in his pancake recipe?
Gordon: Of course. He adds in 5)____ pinch of salt and he breaks in 6)____ egg. He whisks everything then he grates in 7)____ pear with the core and all.
Nigella: I see. Well, I never grate 8)_____ fruit in my pancake and to be honest, I do not grate in 9)____ fruit all. Maybe I should try it next time!
Gordon: I don’t grate in 10)____ fruit either which is why I’m definitely going to try his recipe next time I’m making a pancake. Then he heats the pan and adds in 11)___ knob of butter. Then he puts 12)______ spoonfuls of pancake mixture. Once they’re cooked, serve them in a plate.
Nigella: Hang on a second, does he enjoy his pancakes with 13)____ yogurt? What about 14)______ honey? I always drizzle 15_____ honey on my pancakes!
Gordon: Oh yes! I completely forgot, sorry! Yes he does! He serves the pancake with 16)____ dollop of yogurt and he also enjoys his pancake like you do by drizzling 17)_____ honey.
Task 3: Correct these mistakes.
There are some cheese in the fridge.
_______________________________________________________________________
There aren’t any sugar left in the jar.
___________________________________________________________________
Is there any bananas in the fruit bowl?
________________________________________________________________________
There isn’t any red apples in the kitchen.
________________________________________________________________________
Are there any soy sauce in the bottle?
_______________________________________________________________________
There is some oranges in the basket.
________________________________________________________________________
There isn’t an peach pie on the plate.
An Elementary Video Class (www.onestopenglish.com)
Film: Chocolat (adaptable for other films)
This is a good first video lesson for elementary students.
This lesson uses the scene when mother and daughter first move into the old pastry shop. They have a conversation just before bedtime when the little girl asks her mother to read
her a story. From “What a nice town this is.” To “Okay”.
Stage One: Pre-viewing Task
-Tell your students that they are going to watch a movie clip where a mother and daughter
have a conversation just before bedtime. Ask your students to predict some of the words they think might appear in such a conversation. Write the words or phrases on the board.
Stage Two: Pre-viewing Task
-Students then put the cut-up conversation in a logical order (a cut-up version of the
worksheet). There are several possibilities, it only has to make sense at this stage.
Stage Three: While-viewing Task
-Students then watch the scene paying close attention to the dialogue. (At this stage they
shouldn’t be re-arranging the cut-up conversation but watching the movie)
Stage Four: Post-viewing Task
-Students now put the jumbled conversation into the correct order. You may have to
replay the scene a few times while they do this.
Stage Five: Cooler Watch the scene again.
-Elementary students enjoy this, it gives them lots of confidence to watch a real movie
clip and understand it.
Stage Six: Role-play Preparation
-Ask students to work in pairs and write a short script between mother/ father and
daughter/ son. This will give you time to help them with grammar and vocabulary.
Stage Seven: Role-play. Students act out the role-play in front of the class.
Worksheet (Chocolat)
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Daughter: What a nice town this is.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Daughter: Don’t you think so, Maman?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Mother: It’s a lovely town.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Daughter: Maman, Partoufle wants to know how long we can stay.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Mother: Oh, you tell Partoufle not to worry. Time for bed.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Mother: What story tonight?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Daughter: Partoufle wants to hear about Grandmère and Grandpère.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Mother: Not tonight, Anouchka.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Daughter: You always say that.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Daughter: Tell about Grandmère and Grandpère.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Mother: Not tonight.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Mother: How about the Princess and the Pirates?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Daughter: Okay.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Watch and Write
Film: Bridget Jones’s Diary (adaptable for other films)
Language focus: A good lesson for practising narrative tenses.
This lesson uses the fight scene near the end of the film. Cleaver (Hugh Grant) and Mark Darcy
(Colin Firth) finally have it out on the street. The scene leads into a writing activity where students report the fight in the local newspaper.
From “Alright Cleaver outside!” to “Very, very foolish mistake. Forgive me.”
Darcy walks away down the street.
Procedure:
Stage One: Pre-viewing task
Ask your students some warmer questions like:
• Were you ever in a fight when you were at school? Why?
• Have you ever seen a fight?
• What happened?
Stage Two: While-viewing task
Watch the video clip and answer the questions in the first part of the worksheet.
This gives the students an opportunity to decide which angle they want to take when reporting the incident in the newspaper article. You may want to repeat the scene after the students have read the worksheet. Students can work in pairs or individually, you decide.
Stage Three: Post-viewing task
Using the information in the first part of the worksheet students then write a newspaper article. They write the first draft on the worksheet giving you time to work with them on their vocabulary and grammar. It’s a good idea to have them write the second draft as a spoof newspaper report to hang on the wall.
Further Activities.
Students then read other students’ articles and compare the different versions. Were any of the articles the same? Whose was the funniest?
Worksheet: Bridget Jones’ Diary
Part One
• Watch the video clip then answer the following questions.
• What is the relationship between the two men and the girl?
• Why were they fighting?
• What did they say at the beginning of the fight?
• What did the friend say to the waiters?
• What happened in the fight?
• What did the girl say to the winner at the end? Why?
• Who does she love? Why?
Part Two
You are a newspaper reporter for the London Evening News. You saw a
street fight last night and you want to report the incident.
Conclusion
The main objective of this chapter was to emphasize one more time, if there was any need for that, the importance that grammar has in the language acquisition.
Nevertheless, the constant explanations of grammar rules while decontextualizing grammar are some quick ways to demotivate students and unfortunately many ESL teachers fall into this comfortable trap.
Xiao-Yun (2010) reinforces the idea that ”traditional grammar teaching is often associated with the dry memorization of rules and the equally dry prospect of applying these rules in fill-in-the-blank, pattern practice, substitution transformation, and translation, which cause negative feelings”.
Krashen (1987) seems to support this opinion, stating that ”language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious grammatical rules, and does not require tedious drill”.
The idea is to turn the grammar lesson into a game-like lesson. The same idea being asserted by Rinvolucri (1995:5).
So, I suggest not to underestimate the power of games, songs, videos.With these great educational resources the teacher provides the students with various opportunities to learn grammar in a fun, yet efficient kind of way.
CHAPTER 5. LESSON PLANNING
WHY PLAN?
APPROACHES TO PLANNING
STEPS FOR PREPARING A LESSON PLAN
LESSON PLAN ANALYSIS
WHY PLAN?
I have asked myself this question several times at the beginning of my teaching career. But then, later on, I realized that lesson planning is at the heart of being an effective teacher. We should see it as a creative process that enables us to synthesize our understanding of L2 aquisition and language teaching pedagogy with the knowledge of our learners, the curriculum and also the teaching context. This is like when we have a picture of the learning we want to occur and analyze how all the pieces of the learning experience should fit together to make that vision a classroom reality.
There is no point in saying that there are great benefits to writing a lesson plan.
First lesson planning produces more unified lessons (Jensen; 2001).
Teachers may have the opportunity to think deliberately about their choice of lesson objectives, the types of activities that will meet these objectives, the sequence of those activities, the resources needed, the duration of each activity, the working method. The connection between the current lesson and any past or future lessons, and the correlation between learning activities and assessment practices are also to be considered. Having all these taken care of, the lesson will be more meaningful to the learners.
It is the lesson planning process that allows teachers to evaluate their own knowledge with regards to the content to be taught (Reed & Michaud, 2010).
Through the lesson planning, the teacher is given the opportunity to evaluate his/her own knowledge for specific purposes. And this is because teachers have to be not only language experts, but also familiar with different disciplines like law, engineering, business maybe- fields that use language in specialized ways.
As Jensen (2001) believes ”a teacher with a plan is a more confident teacher”. If the ”what”, ”how” and ”when” are clear, the lesson will tend to flow more smoothly because all the information has been gathered and the details have been decided upon beforehand.
If a teacher wastes time, during the lesson, flipping through the textbook, thinking of what to do next, or running to make photocopies that a compromised lesson I should say. Students realize when a teacher doesn’t really know what to do. And if this is he case, if you show one sign of weakness, they will pounce. A lesson, especially a primary school one, can be like a battle of wills and if you blink, you lose. And a lesson plan can be your best weapon in that battle. In moments of uncertainty, they respond with chaos. That’s to say that, a lesson plan doesn’t only keep the teacher as well as the students on track but it also helps outside the context of the lesson itself. This is exactly what a lesson plan does- it lets you track progress problems.
Moreover, a lesson plan gives you not just a sense of accomplishment but something tangible that reflects that accomplishment.
Research shows that these kinds of small accomplishments ”can increase your motivation, your productivity and your work engagement and satisfaction”.
There are plenty of teachers struggling with motivation, with not having real feedback from their students or the tests. Well, believe it or not, lesson plans are powerful motivators.
As long as the teacher is confident, this will inspire more respect from the learners, thus reducing discipline problems and helping the learners to feel more relaxed, open and engaged to learning.
Of course that there are times when we feel that lesson planning takes too much time. But then, remember that lesson plans can be used again, in whole or in part, in other lessons months or years in the future (Jensen, 2001). In other words, lesson planning can be time consuming now but it may save time later. There are many teachers who keep files of previous lessons they have taught, which they then draw on to facilitate planning for their current classes.
However, you don’t need to keep the lesson plans all for yourself. Other people, like substitute teachers, for example may benefit from them as well, while facing the challenge of teaching another teacher’s class and appreciate receiving a detailed lesson plan to follow. Having the certainty that the substitute teacher is following the plan also gives the classroom teacher the confidence that the class time is being used productively in his/her absence.
Lesson plans can serve as evidence of a teacher’s professional performance. In order to support their annual performance evaluation, teachers are asked to include lesson plans, along with other materials, as part of a portfolio.
In conclusion, if you need to boost your lessons, and this is something we all need, then planning and assessing is the way to do it. And, at the end of the year, in a moment of wonder, instead of asking yourself if you’ve made a difference, you can always look at that stack of papers from your desk, that are the evidence of the difference you’ve made.
So, planning your lesson can do wonders for you and your students not only in but also out of the classroom.
APPROACHES TO PLANNING
Some compare a lesson plan to a road map of what students need to learn and how it will be
done effectively during the class.
There is no ”right-way” to plan a lesson, except the way that works best for the individual teacher and results in the best possible learning. Planning can actually be defined as a thinking skill that involves visualising the lesson before it takes place. As Jim Scrivener (2005:109) agreed, it involves ”…prediction, anticipation, sequencing, organising and simplifying… ”.
Lesson planning emerges from the teacher’s view of what good teaching and learning consist of. Being familiar with the teaching context, the learners and personal philosophy is a good foundation for lesson planning.
The process of lesson planning can be refered to in several ways.
Even though we cannot talk about a universally-agreed structure for a lesson plan, there are some basic elements to be considered.
The first thing you need to do when planning a lesson is to identify the learning objectives for the class meeting. The next thing to do is to design appropriate learning activities and develop stratgies to obtain feedback on students’ learning.
In order to ensure the success of a lesson plan, it should integrate the three components:
Objectives for student learning;
Teaching/learning activities;
Strategies to check student understanding.
The process of lesson design is summerized below:
Locate the lesson or sequence of lessons in the context of:
The scheme of work;
Students’prior knowledge;
Your knowledge about the class and individuals in it.
Identify the learning objective(s) for students. Structure the lesson as a series of episodes by separating the learning into distinct stages or steps, each of which has a specific outcome, by selecting:
The best pedagogical approach to meet the learning objectives;
The most appropriate teaching and learning strategies and techniques;
The most effective organization for each episode.
Ensure coherence by providing:
A stimulating start to the lesson that relates to the objective(s);
Transitions between episodes which recapitulate and launch new episodes
A final plenary that reviews learning.
Teachers should consider all these factors when designing a lesson:
(http://oer.educ.cam.ac.uk/wiki/Teaching_Approaches/Planning_for_interactive_pedagogy)
It is necessary to have a clear picture of the learning objectives and the next step is to consider the intended outcome. What will the learners produce at the end of the lesson or the sequence of lessons that will be the evidence of the learning that has taken place, be it a presentation or a solution to a problem, or some writing. Thus, your expectations with students will be clarified.
Jim Scrivener (2005) claims that planning should set teachers free in the classroom, although not many teachers would describe themselves as liberated by the traditional format of the formal lesson plan. The idea is that teachers need to be trained in a way that ensures that these processes of planning are ”taking place in mind even if not commited to paper” (Cattlin; 2014).
STEPS FOR PREPARING A LESSON PLAN
Many metaphores have been used to describe lessons. A lesson is like a film, with a pilot, theme, rhythm, flow and ending(Thornbury, 1999). It is like climbing a mountain, with hard work and a sense of satisfaction on reaching the goal (Ur, 2012).
There are teachers that plan a lesson as they are walking down the hall to the classroom, while there are times they spend hours deciding upon what to do in class the following day. But there are also those teachers that do not plan at all, considering that planning in advance can be counterproductive, given the unpredictability of classes. This tension is defined by Harmer (2007: 366) as ”the planning paradox”.
On one hand we need to think in advance about what we want to accomplish and how what’s the way to do it. On the other hand, we must acknowledge the interaction among teachers, learners and language and what happens minute by minute in our classes.
For a start we need to say that every class is different. As teachers, it is necessary to identify the type of learners there are (i.e. auditory, visual and kinesthetic) before planning a lesson. When choosing a topic, you need to make sure it will appeal to everyone in class, even if the lesson topics come from a textbook and the text dictates a certain theme, when personalizing the lesson as much as possible you hold the students’ attention for the entire class.
Another must of your lesson plan is to cover the four basic learning skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking.
I will refer next to six steps to guide you when you create your first lesson plans.
Outline learning objective
The first step is establish what you want students to learn and be able to do at the end of the class. Once you outline the learning objectives for the class meeting, rank them based on their importance. Thus you manage better the class time and accomplish the ore important learning objectives in case you are running out of time.
Develop the introduction
With the learning objectives in mind, design the specific activities you will use to get students to understand and apply what they have learned. You may want to have an idea of the students’ familiarity with the topic, thus you will have a sense of what to focus on. Develop a creative introduction to the topic to arise interest and encourage thinking. You can use a variety of approaches in order to activate students, like audio-visual aids (music, videos), real-world example, and many more you can choose from and that are excellent lead-in tools.
Plan the specific learning activities (the main body of the lesson)
There are several ways you can choose from in order to explain the materials, such as: visuals, analogies, real-life examples, and so on, meant to catch the attention of more students and appeal to different learning styles. You need to appreciate the time you will spend on each of these activities and to consider extended explanation or discussion but also be prepared to move on quickly to different applications or problems, and to identify strategies that check for understanding.
Plan to check for understanding
Having explained the topic and illustrated it with different examples, you need to ensure the students’ understanding, by asking specific questions. Try to predict the answers your questions will generate. Decide on whether you want oral or written responses to the questions. Moreover, think and decide on the balance between covering content (i.e. accomplishing your learning objectives) and ensuring students’ understanding.
Develop a conclusion and a preview
Towards the end of the lesson, a good idea would be to do a quick review to tie up the lesson and at the same time check if the students could grasp all the concepts being taught. Another good thing would be to go over the new vocabulary and key phrases taught. Review could also occur in the form of a short worksheet, which they can complete in class or it can be given as homework for the day. Conclude the lesson not only by summarizing the main points, but also by previewing the next lesson.
Create a realistic timeline
When there are too many learning objectives, there is the possibility to run out of time and not cover all the main points that had been planned. It is also true that sometimes you need to adjust the lesson plan during class, depending on the students’ needs. Flexibility proves to be a good asset in this situation. So, having additional examples or altenative activities can help you save the day.
To sum up, we say that in order to be effective, the lesson plan doesn’t have to describe each and every classroom scenario. Nor does it have to anticipate every student’s response or question. Instead, a good lesson plan should give you a general outline of your teaching goals, learning objectives and means to accomplish them. It is a reminder of what you want to do and how you want to do it.
And as a general rule: Prepare thoroughly. But in class, teach the learners, not the plan. (Scrivener; 2005: 109).
LESSON PLAN ANALYSIS
Lesson planning is at the heart of being an effective teacher. But an effective ESL teacher is not only familiar with the different elements of lesson planning but needs to decide which elements are important to his/her teaching and create a lesson plan that works for him/her. There have been some serious debates over which approaches to structuring and planning lessons are more effective.
So, as it follows, I will have an overview of the traditional Present, Practice, Produce (PPP) approach and the Task-Based Learning (TBL) approach.
Present Practice Produce (PPP) Approach
In the first stage, the learners get to see or hear examples of language being used (could
be a reading text, or listening to a recording).
Clarification is when the learners focus on a piece of language, in order to see it, think
about it, understand it, to become much clearer on its form, meaning and use. The teacher presents an item of language in a clear context to get across its meaning. It can be done in different ways, for instance through a text, a situation built, a dialogue, etc.
After this, the learners are asked to complete a controlled practice stage, where they may
have to repeat target items through choral and individual drilling, fill gaps or match halves of sentences. All of this practice demands that the students use the language correctly and helps them to become more comfortable with it.
Finally, they move on to the production stage, also called the ‘free-practice’stage.
Students are given a communication task, such as a role play, and are expected to produce the target language and use any other language that has already been learnt and is suitable for completing it.
Things seem pretty logical with this method but there have been identified some problems:
Students may give the impression of being rather comfortable with the new language
as they are producing it accurately in the class. But it happens that some lessons later students have difficulties in producing the language correctly or at all;
The overuse of the target language may sound totally unnatural;
Students may not produce the target language during the free practice stage because
they consider they are able to use existing language resources to complete the task.
Below, there is a lesson plan that I created using the PPP approach.
LESSON PLAN (1)
SCHOOL : Liceul Tehnologic Nr.1 Dobresti
TEACHER: Claudia- Ioana Mada
DATE: 6th March
CLASS: 5TH A
LEVEL: Elementary
TEXTBOOK: Snapshot Starter, Longman
LESSON LENGHT: 50 min
TYPE OF LESSON: Grammar and vocabulary acquisition.
TITLE OF THE LESSON: What’s Daniel doing?
INFORMATION ABOUT THE CLASS:
There are 14 pupils in the class. They have2 one-hour lesson every week as part of their school curriculum. I have been teaching them since January 2014. For this lesson I have chosen to revise and introduce grammar and vocabulary related to Present Continuous and Present Simple .
MAIN AIM:
By the end of the lesson, Ss will be able to use the new grammar structure correctly and make the distinction between Present Simple and Present Continuous.
SUBSIDIARY AIMS:
By the end of the lesson the Ss will have:
practiced reading , speaking, listening, writing;
familiarized themselves with the forms of Present Continuous tense;
PERSONAL AIM:
To make Ss feel confident when using the tenses and acquire a good level of vocabulary.
Help students enjoy speaking English.
DIDACTIC STRATEGIES:
Methods and procedures: elicitation, explanation, conversations, group/pair work, dialogues, individual work, games( miming).
Materials: pictures, worksheets, flashcards, handouts, blackboard, cut out cards.
ASSUMPTIONS:
Ss will be able to describe the pictures, to identify the actions but they won’t be able to express themselves correctly. There might be some confusion between Present Simple and Present Continuous.
ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS:
Ss may need further explanations in using the tenses, especially in spelling (they might have some spelling problems as well).
SOLUTIONS:
Give extra explanations, using activities from everyday situations, if necessary, make sure they understand.
PROCEDURE
ACTIVITY 1: WARM- UP
AIM: -to break the ice, to get into the atmosphere;
-to engage and activate all Ss to interact and communicate;
TIMING: 5 min
INTERACTION: T-Ss ; Ss- T
SKILL FOCUS: Speaking, listening.
PROCEDURE:
T greets the Ss and checks the attendance;
T has written down on slips of paper different categories to brainstorm. T splits the Ss into teams of 4. There is a runner in each team who goes to the teacher’s desk and picks up a category. The S goes back to the team members and tells them the category they need to brainstorm. The first team to finish shouts STOP.
ACTIVITY 2: LEAD-IN :GUESS WHAT I AM DOING
AIMS: – to guess the right activity using the Present Continuous Tense;
– to practice vocabulary related to actions;
TIMING: 7 min.
INTERACTION: T- Ss , Ss – Ss;
SKILL FOCUS: Speaking, listening
PROCEDURE:
T encourages Ss to watch her carefully and try to guess what activity she is miming. After their guesses, Ss are invited to come up front, pick up a cut out card with an activity they need to mime while the others are trying to guess, using the Present Continuous structure.
ACTIVITY 3: PRESENTION
AIMS: – to introduce the Present continuous uses and forms;
TIMING: 15 min.
INTERACTION: T – Ss; Ss- T;
SKILL FOCUS: speaking, listening, reading
PROCEDURE:
-T shows Ss some pictures with people doing different activities and invites them to identify them. Thus the teacher elicits the Present Continuous form from the Ss.
-T writes the title on the blackboard and draws a diagram of The Present Continuous, emphasizing the different uses and forms.
-Ss take notes.
ACTIVITY 4: CONTROLLED PRACTICE
AIMS: -to identify weak areas and provide opportunities for consolidation;
– to practice speaking, reading and listening skills.
TIMING: 10 min.
INTERACTION : T – Ss , Ss – T
SKILL FOCUS: speaking, reading, listening.
PROCEDURE:
T gives out some worksheets and circulates as the Ss individually work them through. Ss are given 5 minutes for this task.
T checks Ss’ answers and offers some further explanations, if necessary.
ACTIVIY 5: WORD SEARCH
AIMS: – to enable the Ss to use the present continuous form of the verbs;
-to create involvement in a fun activity;
TIMING: 10 min.
INTERACTION: T- Ss, Ss-T;
SKILL FOCUS : speaking, writing ;
PROCEDURE:
– T gives each student a handout with a word search that they have to tackle. As a follow up activity they need to use the verbs found in the word search and to complete some sentences. T monitors the activity.
– T checks the Ss’ answers.
ACTIVITY 6: FEEDBACK
AIMS: – to make notes about the Ss’ activity
-to grade the Ss
TIMING : 3 min.
INTERACTION: T – SS
SKILL FOCUS: speaking, listening
PROCEDURE: -T praises all the Ss for their participation during the entire lesson and appreciates their work by grading them.
A Task-Based Approach
Task-based learning is an altenative for language teachers. In task-based approaches, the focus of classroom activities is on the task, and ultimately on meaning.
In Jane Willis’ flexible model for task-based learning, learners begin by carring out a communicative task, without a specific focus on form. After doing the task, students report and discuss how they succeeded this, maybe listening to a fluent speaker doing the same task. Only at the end, is there a specific focus on features of language form.
In a task-based lesson, the teacher doesn’t pre-determine what language is to be studied, the lesson being based around the completion of a central task and the language studied is determined by what happens as the students complete it. There are certain stages to be followed.
Pre-task
The teacher introduces the topic and provides clear instructions on what they will have to do at the task stage, recycling some language that might be useful for the task.This stage may also include playing a recording where people do different tasks. This gives students a clear example of what is expected of them.
Task
The students complete the task in groups or pairs, using the language resources that
theyhave, while the teacher monitors the activity and encourages the participants.
Planning
A short written or oral report is prepared by the students, in order to inform the class on
what happened during the task. After that they practise what they are about to say in their groups. Teacher is there to offer support ( give advice, to clear up any language questions).
Report
It’s time for the students to report back to the class (orally/written). Teacher may give students some quick feedback on the content, or may provide an alternative to the same task for the students to compare.
Analysis
The teacher emphasizes relevant parts form the text of the recording for the students to analyse.
Students may be asked to notice interesting features within the text.
Practice
In the end, the teacher selects language areas to be practised, according to the needs of the
students and what emerged from the task and report phases. Students may continue to do practice activities, to increase their confidence and make a note of useful language.
To have a clear picture, here is a lesson plan (http://www.onestopenglish.com), proposed by Lindsay Clandfield, following Jane Willis’flexible task-based learning framework to teach the grammar point ”used to”.
LESSON PLAN (2)
Aim: -students discuss how they were different 10 years ago.
Level: Pre-intermediate
Preparation:
For this class you need a photograph of yourself when you were 10 years younger (or
thereabouts). This works best if you look considerably different in the photo than you do now.
You also need to prepare a short text about ho your life was different then to what it is
now. In this text include at least two examples of things you used to do and two examples of things you didn’t use to do. You can either record this text onto a cassette to play for the students or practise reading it out loud until you are able to ”speak” it comfortably in front of the class.
Prepare a written version of this text that you can distribute to the class.
Pre-task warmer
Aim: To prepare students for the task, to engage their attention.
Tell the students that you are going to show them a photo of you from 10 years ago. Ask them what they think will be different, but don’t correct them at this stage (i.e. respond to the meaning of what the say, not the form). Allow time for three or four suggestions. Then take out the photo of yourself and walk around the class, showing it to the students. Ask them what was different about you then. Put the picture up to the board and ask: ” What else was different about my life, do you think? ”
Allow more comments and suggestions from the class, but don’t tell them if they are right or wrong in their guesses. Explain that they will find this out later.
Task
Aim: Fo students to discuss how their life was different ten years ago.
Ask students to work in groups of three. Tell them to talk about their life ten years ago. Put the following questions on the board:
What did you look like?
What was different about your life?
Did you have different likes and dislikes? Different hobbies?
Are you very different now?
Explain that the questions are to help them start talking. Give them a time limit of three to five minutes to discuss this. Circulate and listen to the students doing the task, but do not correct any language at this moment.
Planning
Aim: For students to prepare an oral report of their task.
Stop the task. Tell the students that they must work together to prepare a summary of their discussion to report to the whole class. They must write notes for this summary and be prepared to report this orally to the rest of the class. Set a time limit of five minutes for them to do this.
Report
Aim: For students to present their reports and find out who was most different ten years ago.
When the students are ready, ask a spokesperson from each group to report the group’s summary. Tell the class that they must listen to each group’s report and decide at the end of all the reports which students have changed the most in the past ten years.After all the reports, ask students who they think has changed the most. You could ask the students who have changed the most to bring in a photo of themselves at that time.
Post-task listening
Aim: For students to hear a fluent English speaker doing the same task.
Draw the student’s attention back to the photo of you on the board and explain that you are going to ask them to listen to you doing the same task that they did.Read or play the recording that you made. Ask the students some quick comprehension questions about what they heard (e.g. What did I say about my hair? What did I say about my job?) If the students find it difficult to understand, repeat the text again.
Language focus
Aim: To raise students’ awareness about the target language.
Choose two or three sentences from your text which include the grammar “used to” and write them on the board. For example:
a) I used to go to heavy metal concerts.
b) I used to have long black hair.
c) I used to wear tight leather trousers.
d) I didn’t use to do my homework.
Check that students understand the meaning of the sentences. This is best done by concept check questions. For example a) above, the concept check questions would be:
Did I go to heavy metal concerts in the past? (Yes)
Was it a regular occurrence? (Yes)
Do I go to heavy metal concerts now? (No).
Explain the rules of form for used to:
used to + infinitive and
didn’t use to + infinitive
At this point you could distribute the script of your story and ask students to find other examples of how you used used to. Point out that in English we use used to to talk about states and habits that continued for a period of time in the past.
Language practice
Aim: To give the students some restricted written practice in the target language.
If you feel that your class needs some restricted practice in the grammar, ask them to write down three things that they used to do and three things that they didn’t use to do when they were children. Circulate and monitor. Ask students to check their sentences with each other and elicit some examples to put on the board.
Optional follow-up
Aim: To give the students a chance to repeat (and hopefully improve) the task.
Ask students to work with a partner that they haven’t worked with yet during this class. Tell them to repeat the same task as they did at the beginning of the class, but that they should try to include the target structure used to into their speaking.
Once students have practised together, ask a couple to report back to the class what they talked about with their partner. Use this time to focus on accuracy, i.e. correct what they say if they make mistakes using the target language.
And here is another lesson plan, designed by me, based on my teaching experience but following my students’needs, interest and knowledge.
LESSON PLAN (3)
SCHOOL : Liceul Tehnologic Nr.1 Dobresti
TEACHER: Claudia- Ioana Mada
DATE: 6th March
CLASS: 6TH A
LEVEL: Elementary
TEXTBOOK: Snapshot Elementary, Longman
LESSON LENGHT: 50 min
TYPE OF LESSON: Grammar and vocabulary acquisition.
TITLE OF THE LESSON: Present Perfect Simple vs. Past Simple?
INFORMATION ABOUT THE CLASS:
There are 20 students in the class. They have2 one-hour lesson every week as part of their school curriculum. I have been teaching them since January 2014. For this lesson I have chosen to revise Present Perfect Simple and Past Simple and to identify the difference between them.
MAIN AIM:
By the end of the lesson, Ss will be able to use correctly and to distinguish between the 2 tenses.
SUBSIDIARY AIMS:
By the end of the lesson the Ss will have:
practiced reading , speaking, listening, writing;
recycled grammar structures &vocabulary taught previously;
PERSONAL AIM:
To make Ss feel confident when using the two tenses and acquire a good level of vocabulary.
To increase the students’ interest in English.
DIDACTIC STRATEGIES:
Methods and procedures: elicitation, explanation, conversations, group/pair work, dialogues, individual work, games, song.
Materials: pictures, worksheets, flashcards, handouts, blackboard, cut out cards, CD player.
ASSUMPTIONS:
Some Ss have difficulties in expressing themselves correctly in English. Others are not familiar with the past participle form of verbs.
ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS:
Ss may need further explanations in using the tenses, especially in spelling.
SOLUTIONS:
Give extra explanations, using activities from everyday situations, if necessary, make sure they understand.
ACTIVITY 1: WARM- UP
AIMS: -to create a pleasant atmosphere;
-to engage and activate all Ss to interact and communicate;
TIMING: 5 min
INTERACTION: T-Ss ; Ss- T
SKILL FOCUS: Speaking, listening.
PROCEDURE:
T greets the Ss and checks the attendance;
T asks Ss to take a minute to look around and try to memorize the position and state of everything in the room. Then T asks Ss to close their eyes while she makes some changes. When Ss open their eyes they have to identify and name what the teacher has changed.
T confirms/ denies.
ACTIVITY 2: LEAD-IN
AIMS: – to encourage communication;
-to introduce the topic of the lesson.
TIMING: 7 min.
INTERACTION: T- Ss , Ss – Ss;
SKILL FOCUS: Speaking, listening
PROCEDURE:
T gives each S some cut-out-cards with questions on them. Ss need to ask their partner the question referring to their personal experience up to now and if the answer is “Yes” there are some follow up questions.
Ss should write down their partners’ answers as they have to report at the end.
ACTIVITY 3: PRESENTION
AIMS: – to elicit from the students the difference between “finished time” & "unfinished time”;
-to recycle Past Simple and Present Perfect.
TIMING: 15 min.
INTERACTION: T – Ss; Ss- T;
SKILL FOCUS: speaking, listening, reading, writing
PROCEDURE:
-T writes some sentences on the blackboard, in order to elicit from Ss the time when the actions occur.
– Ss are encouraged to state their opinions, based on their knowledge.
– T draws a diagram of The Present Perfect Simple & Past Simple, emphasizing the different uses and forms.
-Ss take notes.
ACTIVITY 4: CONTROLLED PRACTICE
AIMS: -to get a better understanding of the two grammar tenses;
– to practice the writing skill.
TIMING: 10 min.
INTERACTION : T – Ss , Ss – T
SKILL FOCUS: speaking, writing.
PROCEDURE:
T gives out some worksheets and circulates as the Ss individually work them through. Ss are given 5 minutes for this task.
T checks Ss’ answers and offers some further explanations, if necessary.
ACTIVIY 5: SONG
AIMS: – to enable the Ss to use the present perfect form of the verbs;
-to create involvement in a fun activity;
-to practice the listening and writing skills
TIMING: 10 min.
INTERACTION: T- Ss, Ss-T;
SKILL FOCUS : listening, writing ;
PROCEDURE:
– T gives each student a handout with a Song activity that Ss have to tackle. At first there is a pre-listening activity: they have to identify the past participle form of some verbs. As a follow up they listen to the song I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (U2) to familiarize themselves with the song and then they have a second listening and while listening they need to fill in the missing words.
– T checks the Ss’ answers.
ACTIVITY 6: FEEDBACK
AIMS: – to make notes about the Ss’ activity
TIMING : 3 min.
INTERACTION: T – SS.
SKILL FOCUS: speaking, listening
PROCEDURE:
-T praises all the Ss for their participation during the entire lesson and appreciates their work by grading them.
WORKSHEET
Song Activity
I Still Haven`t Found What I`m Looking For (by U2)
First, give the Past Participle of each verb:
climb – ______________ run – _______________ crawl – ________________
scale – ______________ find – _______________ kiss – _________________
feel – _______________ speak – ______________ hold – _________________
Among the advantages of the task-based approach, one that has been identified is that during the task, the learners are allowed to use whatever language they want, allowing them to focus entirely on the meaning of their message. Thus, it provides real-life communicative practice.
Whereas, the danger of this approach is that focus on meaning could come at the expense of focus on form. Learners may become fluent, but their utterances are not often accurate. Moreover, they develop strategies to complete the tasks quite quickly, cutting corners in their language use and form.
To sum up, I personally believe that the focus should be on learners learning language (through using and experiencing it themselves) but not at the expense of the teachers teaching language, the free of language control is not always the best solution.
PPP lessons seem very teacher-centred, offering a rather simple approach to language learning. It is based upon the idea that you can present language in neat little blocks, adding from one lesson to the next.
However, research shows that we cannot predict or guarantee what the students will learn and ultimately a wide exposure to language is the best way of ensuring that students will acquire it effectively. Restricting their experience to single pieces of target language is unnatural.
Ultimately, learners bring different learning styles and preferences to the learning process, they should be consultated in the process of develping a teaching program, while the teaching methods must be flexible and adaptive to learners’ needs and interest.
CHAPTER 6. INTRODUCTION TO THE RESEARCH
THE RESEARCH METHOD
QUESTIONNAIRES FOR TEACHERS
QUESTIONNAIRES FOR LEARNERS
CONCLUSION OF THE RESEARCH
THE RESEARCH METHOD
The main purpose of this study is to get the perception of students and teachers alike about acquiring the Present Tenses through games, songs, videos. This research aimed at finding the effects of using games, songs, videos on teaching and learning of the Present Tenses in the ESL classroom.
This chapter presents some details about the selection of the subjects of the study, methods of data collection and research instruments. The final part deliberates the description of data analysis of the study.
The study takes place after several English language teaching and learning sessions, using the task-based approach.
The qualitative approach
Thus, due to the purpose of the study, i.e. to understand the extent of games, songs, videos, benefited the students in acquiring grammar, the researcher decided to employ a qualitative approach, both for the collection and the analysis of the data. Flick (2002: 4) describes the essential features of the qualitative research as follows:
”…the correct choice of appropriate methods and theories; the recgnition and analysis of different perspectives; the researchers’ reflection on their researches as part of the process of knowledge production; and the variety of approaches and methods”.
In opposition to quantitative research where one can measure the outcome of the research in numbers or volume, qualitative research involves methods that ”…represent a form of data collection and analysis with a focus on understanding an emphasis on meaning” (Edmonds & Kennedy; 2013:112). Qualitative methods are considered non-experimental and are used to find answers to questions like how and why within the field of human behaviour by using a naturalistic approach, meaning observing and understanding your informant in their natural setting (Edmonds & Kennedy, 2013).
The study was processing according to the following steps:
Identifying the effects of games, songs, videos in teaching/learning the English
grammar;
Consulting the literature review and previous studies concerning the effects that these
modern methods have on the ESL class;
Preparing some game-based grammar activities;
Organizing 2 observation sessions with 30 students in the school;
Choosing the sample of the study- among teachers and learners;
Applying the survey questionnaires on the sample study;
Analyzing and interpreting the results;
Presenting the summary, some suggestions in the light of the study conclusion.
Selection of the informants
In order to conduct the research, and to understand in greater depth a particular phenomenon, the researcher used two different types of informants: the students that are currently learning English as a second language and the teachers that are involved with teaching English as a second language.
The reseacher decided to focus on a smaller sample size. The sample chosen should possess some information of the subject matter being studied and be ready to open up to share their experiences during the data collection.
The students that were chosen as informats were from different age groups, reaching from 9 to 14 years old and in different grades from 4th to 7th. They were also in different stages of learning English as a second language, divided by grade level.
The representative sample of the study was selected randomly and consisted of 30 student- informants as follows:
10 from 7th grade;
5 from 6th grade;
10 from 5th grade;
5 from 4th grade.
The teachers that were participants in this study, a number of 15, have different educational backgrounds and teaching experiences with teaching English as a second language. Four of them teach English in Dobresti, five teach in different schools in Beius and 6 are teachers of English in different schools in Oradea.
Data collection
Data connect theory to practice. Without data we have to take the researcher’s word for whatever claims he/she is making.
A data collection instrument (DCI) can be defined as the means (physical or nonphysical) of producing quantitative or qualitative data to be analyzed and interpreted.
Examples of data collection instruments include: questionnaires, various types of tests, observation scheme and transcription protocols for speech samples.
In order to collect data that help achieve the aim of the research, I employed the observation and the questionnaire, which is a good way to reach people’s insights and thoughts.
The process is useful in making comprehensive interpretation on the subject matter being studied. To develop my research, at first I had prepared a theoretical framework, where I justified and explained the use of games, songs, videos as resources for teaching and learning English. But in order to check this theory, I carried out 2 observation sessions with some students in the school where I teach.
In one session, I chose to observe and analyze the use of games, as a tool for learning Present Tense Simple and Continuous, while in the other session, the students were taught the same grammar point but in the traditional method, focused on the explicit knowledge, by discussing the rules and other features of grammar consciously. As I was trying to find out the students’view on the effects of the educational game on developing the grammatical practice, this activity was followed by a questionnaire (Appendix 2).
Qualitative questionnaire proves to be a powerful tool for data collection as it can retrieve information that cannot be conveyed by other modes of research instruments.
As far as this study is concerned, there are 2 sets of questionnaire.
The first set of questionnaire is designed to investigate students’ attitude towards the use of games, songs, videos in the ESL classroom. It contains 10 items, divided into different sections like: demographic information, knowledge of the Present Tense forms, the attitude towards the use of games, songs, vieos as teaching instruments. It was distributed to the informants and given a day to answer it.
The second set of questionnaire consists again of 10 items. It was distributed to different English teachers of different educational backgrounds, different teaching experience and using various teaching methods in the ESL classroom.
QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS
The participants in this study are 10 teachers of English as a Second Language, from various primary and lower secondary schools, not only in Dobresti but also in Beius and Oradea.
In terms of gender, 8 of the participants in the study are female and 2 are male. Their age range is from 27 to 52. The range of participants’ length of ESL teaching experience is from 2 to 27 years. The background information of the participants can be summarized as followed.
Tabel 1.
The background information of the participants
Research Instruments
The instrument used to elicit data for this research study is a questionnaire, designed by the researcher based on the questionnaire developed by Schulz (2001).The teachers completed the questionnaire either at the moment of administration or via e-mail and sent it back. The questionnaires were anonymous and consisted of two sections, one collecting demographic information and the other section collecting the main data to answer the research questions.
In the first section- the demographic data asks the participants to provide their gender, age and ESL teaching experience.
The main questionnaire section consists of 15 items that require the participants to fill in the option which best showed their opinion about games, songs, videos and their effectiveness in teaching the present tenses. The items are on a five-point Likert-scale ( where 5=strongly agree, 4=agree, 3=undecided, 2=disagree and 1=strongly disagree).
The items in the questionnaire were prepared after a sudy of the relevant literature and since all the participants were ESL teachers, the questionnaire was administered in English.
Data Analysis
In this section, the results of the study are stated according to the research questions. The responses from the questionnaires will be grouped according to the item groups that attempt to answer the research questions. For instance, research question 1 was answered based on the responses to items numbered 1, 3, 4.
A short description of each research question is made. Then, a table showing the questionnaire items and the mean scores is provided.
Tabel 2
Teachers’ opinions about the Role of Grammar in the ESL classroom
Generally speaking, the teachers in the sample agree that the study of grammar is essential in the ESL classroom but also to the eventual mastery of a second language, when language learning is limited to the classroom. Providing learning contexts, like real-life situations is important when analyzing or practising the grammar structures. Moreover, they generally believe that students’ communicative ability improves if they study and practise the grammar of the target language. On the whole, the ESL teachers in the sample consider that grammar learning really helps in the process of second language learning.
Tabel 3
Teacher’s Beliefs about the Pedagogical Value of Using Games/Songs/Videos in Language Teaching
The results show that most of the teachers (86,67%) mainly believe in the pedagogical
value of games in second language teaching. The fifth question asking whether games should be given a special role in the teaching programme or not, the result reveals that almost all of the participants, i.e. 93.33% agree to this. In question nine the results indicate that all of the participants agree that games/songs/videos provide learners with a chance to show their skills not only in grammar but in many areas of language as well. The aim of the question thirteen was to find out if participants think of these interactive activities (games, songs, videos) as tools designed only for fun or alternatives that can be used to make instruction more effective. According to the results, half of the participants take games, songs, videos as tools for fun, others take them as among the best alternatives to make the instruction beneficial for learners. Consequently, while there are a few ESL teachers considering that games, songs or videos have no pedagogical value, the ones thinking them pedagogically valuable are in majority.
Table 4
Teachers’ Attitudes towards the Use of Games, Songs, Videos in Grammar Teaching as a Form of Instruction
According to the results, most ESL teachers (63.33%) disagree with the idea that games, songs or videos prevent teachers from measuring students’ knowledge of grammar, when used as a form of instruction. 56.67% of the teachers don’t consider that these interactive activities can be time-consuming or distract students’ attention. Question twelve indicates that most of the ESL teachers, 80% have difficulty in finding a proper activity (game, song, video) for every field of grammar. Thus, the results of Table 3 reveal that while most of the ESL teachers still believe in the validity of teaching direct rules, their attitude towards the use of games, songs or even videos as a form of instruction is generally positive.
Table 5
Teachers’ Thoughts about the Effectiveness of Using Games, Songs, Videos in Teaching Grammar
Question 7 shows that a significat number of teachers, 93.3% embrace the idea that grammar games, songs or videos can motivate, encourage, entertain and most important- teach grammar more efficiently than the traditional methods can. The results of the question 11 state that a grat majority of teachers, namely 93.3% believe that games lower students’ anxiety towards grammar learning. Thus, games do help students to overcome their anxiety, to feel relaxed and to be enthusiastic to learn. As for question 14, it indicates that the majority of teachers being questionned, 90%, believe that while playing a game or when being involved in a song/video-based activity, learners’ main focus is not on the structures only, as they learn them unconsciously. Consequently, Table 4 reveals that a great majority of ESL teachers are aware of the fact that games, songs and videos are effective in many ways in grammar teaching.
Table 6
The frequency of using games, songs, videos for Teaching/Learning Grammar
The last question from this questionnaire, no.15, was meant to reveal how frequent the participants use these interactive activities- games, songs, videos- in the ESL classroom in order to teach grammar. The results indicate that many of the participants, 76.67% try to use them as much as possible as teaching tools. Some teachers justify that is not always easy to incorporate games or songs into the class as the time is limited and the curriculum is strict and you cannot find such an activity for every field of grammar. And maybe this is why the use of games or other interactive activities are often neglected in grammar teaching/learning.
Discussion
If we want to refer to the role of grammar in the ESL classroom, Borg (2006) underlined the fact that teachers generally reported that they valued and promoted grammar in their teaching. Some teachers believe that grammar could be viewed as a framework for the rest of the language. Similar to the results from the past research, this study found that ESL teachers in the sample believe that formal study of grammar is of crucial importance to language learning. It can also be stated that teachers see grammar learning as an important component too help the students achieve communicative ability.
The primary aim of this study was to explore the effectiveness of using games, songs, videos in teaching grammar, with the help of some ESL teachers that were so kind as to share their beliefs and teaching experience with us in the matter. We can conclude that games are important teaching tools, just as Vernon (2006: 1) states, as young learners play a game, ” they focus on the activity and end up absorbing the language subconsciuosly.”
Under the same belief, Gunn and McCallum (2005) say that games are another way to help students learn, review and internlize various grammar structures.
As the findings of this study show, games, songs, videos are an important and essential part of the English language teaching and learning in the context of the English lessons just because they provide ESL teachers with many instructional advantages. All these interactive activities direct learners’ energy into language learning because they like to be physically active, they stimulate they imagination and creation and the most important- they learn subconsciously.
In order to be pedagogically successful, these interactive activities need to be well-prepared, organized and have an educational purpose. They shouldn’t be used as to prevent class from monotony or to be a time filler.
It goes without saying that the participants of this study underline the effectiveness of games in teaching and practising grammar. However, there are 80% of the ESL teachers that feel unconfortable when they do not teach grammar by explicitly giving the grammar rules. Thus, in spite of their recognition of the value of games for the teaching of English grammar, they still follow a rule-based approach to teaching grammar. They don’t seem to encourage students to get used to using the grammar forms, especially in the natural process of games, songs, videos.
Even though this study is a small scale study, employing the views of 10 teacher participants, it can be viewed as an important step in identifying some opinions on an important topic such as the use of games, songs, videos in the teaching of English grammar.
QUESTIONNAIRES FOR LEARNERS
Observation
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the instruments I chose to develop my research are the observation and the questionnaire.
The first technique used was the observation, as I believe it is important to observe the development of the practical sessions, to assess the students’commitment in the process of learning the language, to check the efficiency of games, songs or videos in grammar lessons, compare this with other learning resources.
The representative sample of the study was selected randomly and consisted of 30 students from primary and middle school, from Liceul Tehnologic Nr.1 Dobresti, being in different stages of learning English as a Second Language, divided by grade level (elementary, pre-intermediate and intermediate).
Thus, I did a direct observation, as I was physically involved, developed along 2 activity sessions.
In the first session, I addressed the use of a game ”Pic Tac Toe” (by Peter Snashall), to teach and practise Present Simple and Present Continuous (Appendix 3). This activity can be exploated in various ways: as a great icebreaking lesson involving pictures, a game, creative sentence production, it can also be a drill to present or contrast verb tenses (it goes very well with Present Simple and Continuous). The students were very ”absorbed” in a fun, enjoying and positive atmosphere, they were active and, the most important, willing to use grammar in order to improve thir speaking skill.
The second activity of the observation session proved to have another effect on the learners. Having the same main objective as the first activity, i.e. to teach and practise Present Simple and Continuous, but in a more traditional method. Here, the teacher explained and discussed the grammar rules and other features consciously. This activity was teacher-centered as opposed to the first one, which was students-centred.
Finally, it was noted that there were significant differences between the 2 sessions. Obviously, the first activity that involved the use of game had positive effects on understanding and using the targeted grammar point.
Questionnaire
The questionnaire followed the observation session, as the researcher considers them as a powerful tool for data collection as it can retrieve information that cannot be conveyed by other modes of research instruments.
The learners’ questionnaire was delivered in May 2016.
According to the results from the demographic questionnaire, in terms of gender, there are 22 girls and 8 boys. Their age range is from 9 to 14 years old, being in different grades from 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th grade.
All this background information is presented in Table 1 as follows:
Table 1.
The background information of the participants
Research instruments
In order to collect the data that help achieve the aim of the research I applied the questionnaire. I was trying to reach the subjects’ thoughts and insights, their attitude towards the use of games, songs, videos in the ESL classoom. This questionnaire could be seen as the subjects’ self-reports on this matter. They had as a starting point the 2 observation sessions, meant to create a clear picture over the use of games, songs or videos in teaching grammar.
The questionnaire is divided in two sections: a demographic section, where the subjects were asked to give information about age, gender, grade and their level of English (Table 1).
In the second section there were 15 items that required the subjects to fill in the option which best showed their attitude towards games, songs, videos and their effectiveness in learning the English grammar (the Present Tenses). The items are on a five-point Likert-scale ( where 5=strongly agree, 4=agree, 3=undecided, 2=disagree and 1=strongly disagree).
The items in the questionnaire were prepared after a sudy of the relevant literature and based on the researcher’s teaching experience of over 10 years. The questionnaire was administered in English, in the presence and with support of the English teachers (in case the subjects had some difficulties in understanding some vocabulary items).
Data Analysis
The same as with the questionnaire for teachers, the results of the study are stated according to the research questions. The responses from the questionnaires will be grouped according to the item groups that attempt to answer the research questions.
A short description of each research question is made. Then, a table showing the questionnaire items and the mean scores is provided.
Table 2
Students’ attitude towards learning Grammar in the ESL classroom
As shown in Table 2, students are aware of the importance grammar has in learning, or better yet, mastering a foreign language, as 76.67% were in favour of learning it. It has always been a debate regarding the most efficient methods of learning grammar. 53% of our subjects seem to believe that they learn better when the grammatical rules are explained and drilled. On the other hand, the majority of subjects, 86.67%, consider that learning different grammatical structures is not necessary as long as they are being exposed to real-life situations. The opportunities provided at school for the practise of the Present Tenses are enough according to 93.33% of the subjects.
Table 3
The Relation between multimedia resources (games, songs, videos) and Grammar in the ESL classroom
The next section tries to identify the relation between multimedia resources, namely games, songs, videos and Grammar in the Esl classroom. As the results prove, most of the respondents-90%- see in games, songs and videos meaningful activities to be developed in class. They also seem to believe that these activities help more in the grammar acquisition than with the traditional method, i.e. explicit rules, drills. Thus, 86% of the subjects were convinced that they may offer different perspectives on the grammar lessons.
Table 4
The Students’ Thoughts about the Effectiveness of Using Games, Songs, Videos in learning a foreign language
Table 4 deals with the students’ opinions regarding the effectiveness of these task-based resources: games, songs, videos in learning Present Tenses, for example. Most of them seem to agree that activities like games, songs, videos may provide authentic learning experience. As they are known to be entertainig and fun, these activities create the perfect atmoshere, as expressed by 80% of the subjects, for a new learning experience, providing opportunties for all the other skills.
As 93.33% of the students have realized, their confidence in using English has considerably increased. For question ten, 80% of the resondents admit that the taget language is used during these activities. And overwhelmingly, 100% of the subjects consider all these game, song, video-based activities great motivators for the learning of English.
Table 5
The frequency of using games, songs, videos in the ESL classroom.
As for the frequency, 66.67% of the subjects agree that the teacher makes use of these activities during the English grammar classes as much as possible. As expected, all of the respondents express their total agreement for the use of these fun and engaging activities in each English lesson.
Discussion
The purpose of the study was to examine the effect that games, songs and videos might have on the learning of the English grammar. Table 2 was meant to identify the students’ attitude towards the importance of grammar in the ESL classroom. The results have shown that while most of the subjects give credit to grammar when talking about mastering a foreign language, not so many, i.e. 53.33% consider that they learn better if the teacher explains the grammatical rules. Only 13.33% believe that they need to learn different grammatical structures as opposed to 86.67%, who think that the most efficient way is to be exposed to them in different contexts (real-life situations). And the mojority of them consider to have had enough practice with the Present Tenses at school.
There is clearly a connection between mutimedia resources, such as games, songs, videos and grammar, as 90% of the respondents agreed upon, and who also believe that they can become some meaningful activities in the ESL classroom. Activities like these may offer different perspectives on the grammar lessons and they prove to be more efficient in the grammar acquisition than some drills or grammar rules, according to 93.33% of the subjects.
As shown in the questionnaire, the respondents have agreed upon the selected benefits of games, songs, videos as powerful tools in language learning. Worth mentioning here is that all the subjects valued the challenge that grammar games offer, the confidence they bring in students, motivating them to learn English.
And finally, when referring to the frequency that activities like these should have, overwhelmingly all the subjects consider that it’s never too much and that they should always be part of the teacher’s lesson plan.
6.4 CONCLUSION OF THE RESEARCH
This research aimed at exploring the effects of using games, songs, videos on teaching/learning grammar in the ESL classroom. It focused upon the importance of grammar, the connection between grammar and multimedia resources, the pedagogical value and the effectiveness of these resources. It also investigate the relation between students’ English performance and employing games, songs, videos in the learning of grammar.
After carring out this research I extracted some conclusions.
First, I would like to reffer to Krashen’s input hypothesis (1977), according to which humans acquire language in only one way- by understanding message or receiving ’comprehensible input’. Thus, teaching activities should be designed in such a way as to supply the child with enjoyable and easy to understand input. As clearly presented in this paper, songs, games, videos are wonderful materials in that respect. They are comprehensible, enjoyable, authentic and full of language we need in real life. They are part of our lives and they are around us. In order to share them with our students all we need to do is a little planning before we enter the class.
Similarly, Gunn and McCallum (2005) consider that games are another way to help students learn, review and internalize various grammar structures.
In the first part, the study investigates some of the ESL teachers’ beliefs regarding the formal study of grammar. The results show that 86.67% of the participants believe that the formal study of grammar is essential to the possible mastery of a second language when language learning is limited to the classroom.
As the findings of this study show, according to some English teachers, games, songs, videos are an important and necessary tool of the language teaching and learning in the context of English lessons simply because they provide ESL teachers with many instructional advantages. As most learners like to be physically active into the learning process, these entertaining and engaging activities are the best way to direct learners’ energy. Moreover, they are imaginative and creative and they learn subconsciously. Therefore, teaching the English grammar requires a special effort and challenge by the teacher and these task-based activities are the means to achieve this.
Anyways, as Thornbury (1999: 153) suggests a teacher during his/her language lesson
should consider several rules. Firstly, grammar ought to be taught in context and grammatical forms in association with their meanings. 86.67% of the teachers in the sample agree that the study of grammar is essential in the ESL classroom but also to the eventual mastery of a second language, when language learning is limited to the classroom.
Secondly there should always be some communicative use present in the process of learning grammar. If we refer again to the study, the teacher-respondents generally believe that students’ communicative ability improves if they study and practise the grammar of the target language.
Thirdly, a teacher ought to economise the presentation stage in favour of the practice stage. And then, there is also the rule of appropriacy. Thornbury concludes that all the above-mentioned principles should be interpreted according to the level, needs, interests, expectations and learning styles of the specific learners. Regardless of the method teacher uses, teaching grammar should always be varied and motivating for the students. I personally consider that game/song/video-based activities meet all these requirements for an efficient lesson.
Undoubtedly, as the results of the study show, the participants pointed out the effectiveness of teaching and learning grammar through games, songs or videos. Thus, the learning/teaching process becomes enjoyable and permanent as they provide meaningful context for practising grammar communicatively.
However, some of the results of the study refer to the problematic practices despite this recognition. It is shown that 86.67% of the ESL teachers feel uncomfortable when they do not teach grammar by explicitly giving the grammar rules. This proves that even though English language recognize the value of games for the teaching of English grammar, they still follow a rule-based approach rather than a task-based approach helping students to get used to using grammar forms especially in the natural process of games.
The last section of the study dealt with the frequency of using these game/song/video-based activities in the grammar lessons. The results point out that even though a great majority of the participants favours the effectiveness of these engaging and entertaining activities in grammar teaching, only 76.67% participant teachers admit to use them as frequently as expected and 66.67% of the participant learners in the study claim that their teacher uses activities like these during the English grammar classes.
However, the small scale and limited duration for conducting the study may cause the limitation of reaching a justifiable generalizability. To get a complete and clear picture of the effect of using games, songs, videos in teaching grammar, a control group and an experimental group should be designed to be inclusive to such studies in further research in order to better analyze their performance differences.
The overall findings indicate that students and teachers alike hold a positive attitude toward the effect of using games, songs, videos in the process of teaching and learning grammar.
CONCLUSION
The present thesis dealt with finding effective ways of Teaching the present tenses through games, songs, videos. Furthermore, the aim was to study in detail, theoretically and practically, how the Present Tenses are explained, discussed and practised in a manner that is more appealing to students.
I tried to focus on some techniques commonly used nowadays and presented them, based on a theoretical study of different methods and then practically, by a research that I had developed. The research was divided into two sections: a survey among teachers and one among learners. I don’t know for sure if I managed to make my point with the present paper but it definitely made me reconsider some aspects of my teaching methods.
The intention of this thesis was, above all, to point out the efficiency of using game/song/video-based activities in teaching grammar. Moreover, I tried to focus on enjoyable, useful and entertaining ways of practising grammar. The idea was to put together a set of practice activities that I found extremely effective to apply during the grammar lessons.
Thus, the first chapter dealt with a theoretical approach of The English Tense System. There, I had an overview of the tenses, aspects and moods. Then I referred to some contrasting tenses that students usually have difficulty with. And I concluded with the idea that the teacher is responsible to find the best ways and methods to teach tenses as they may influence the students’ motivation and commitment to learning.
The second chapter described techniques and resources in teaching grammar, with major language trends in the twenty-first language teaching. Then different methods, approaches and attitudes to teaching grammar were presented and compared. Some arguments for and against teaching grammar were also mentioned. Afterwards, I tried to answer the question:’ Can Grammar be fun?’, pointing at some advantages of making grammar a’game’. And this chapter ended with something that I referred to as a’must have’ of today’s teaching process, i.e. active learning. The idea with this process is that one of the primary goals for the class should be the active engagement of the students with the material. Students learn more when they participate in the process of learning, be it through discussion, practice, review or appication (Grunert, 1997).
Consequently, the teaching of grammar can be effectively approached by using various resources such as: games, songs, poems, videos, problem solving activities and even pictures. Based on the needs analysis of the class, several techniques can be integrated with such resources. This is how I approached the third chapter of this paper, emphasizing the task-based learning for the practice of grammar.. Language games, songs, grammar chants, videos were all briefly presented in the context of English language learning. I have concluded that the practice activities are the most natural way to automise grammatical knowledge.
Chapter four abounded with interactive activities, like songs, games, videos, meant to shake up the lessons. They are believed to increase motivation, to add variation to a lesson, they are goal-defined and not to mention fun and entertaining. So, in this chapter there is a collection of grammar games, songs, videos, adapted and ready to use during the English grammar lessons.
The following chapter focused on lesson planning, which is at the heart of being an effective teacher, approaches to planning and the neccessary steps when preparing a lesson plan. All these were followed by a close lesson plan analysis.
The last chapter introduced us to the research. As previously mentioned, this study aimed at examining the effects of using games, songs and videos on teaching grammar. In order to achieve this aim, the researcher first had chosen the sample of the study and then elaborated a survey. The survey was concentrated on:
the analyses of the sample lesson, in which present tenses were taught in a modern method;
the questionnaires given to both teachers and students.
The main objective of the questionnaires was the teachers’ and students’ attitude towards the effectiveness of using games, songs, videos in teaching/learning grammar.
The findings of this study show that games, songs, videos are an important and essential part of the English language teaching and learning in the context of the English lessons just because they provide teachers and learners alike with welcome communication-rich grammar practice activities. The students confirmed that these activities, as teaching-learning strategies are fun and entertaining, create a non-threatening learning environment that encourages interactions between students and teachers, enhance communication and teamwork, encourage active participation. However, 80% questionned teachers feel unconfortable when they do not teach grammar by explicitly giving the grammar rules. Thus, despite admiting their value for the teaching of English grammar, they still follow a rule-based approach to it.
Even though, this is a small scale study, employing the views of 10 ESL teacher-participants and 30 student-subjects it can be viewed as a significant step in identifying some opinions regarding the effects of using games, songs or videos on teaching/learning grammar in the ESL class.
The idea is that, the research and all of the above-mentioned methods and principles have revealed that teaching grammar should always be varied and motivating and interpreted according to the level, needs, interests and learning styles of the specific learners. I personally reckon that activities that involve games, songs, videos in teaching grammar are the best ’ingredients’for an efficient lesson.
It is important to realize that grammar is to be taught not because of grammar itself but it should be taught meaningfully and effectively. It is our responsibility as teachers to help the students use grammar actively through the language when communicating. And the best way to sum up this idea is through this quote:
”A language is acquired through practice; it is merely perfected through grammar”
(Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Batstone, Rob – Grammar. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997
Busy Teachers.org- How to Teach Grammar Like a Pro, Busy Teacher.org, 2012
Celce-Murcia, Marianne; Brinton, Donna; Snow, Marguerite- Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, Heinle Cengage Learning, 2014
Davies, P. and Pearse, E.- Success in English Teaching, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997
Doff, A. – Teaching English- A training Course for Teachers, Cambridge University Press, London, 1991
Gerngross, G.- Creative Grammar Practice, Longman, London, 1992
Hadfield, Jill- Intermediate Grammar Games, Pearson Education Limited, 2003
Hadfield, Jill; Hadfield, Charles- Oxford Basics. Introduction to Teaching English, Oxford University Press, 2008
Hancock, Mark- Singing Grammar, Teaching Grammar Through Songs, Cambridge University Press, 1998
Harmer, Jeremy – The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman, Harlow, 1999
Harmer, Jeremy – The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman, Harlow, 2007
Lee, W.R. – Language Teaching Games and Contests. Oxford English, Oxford, 1991
Lightbown, Patsy; Spada, Nina- How Languages are Learned, Oxford University Press, 2006
Nunan, David- Language Teaching Methodology, Prentice Hall International, 1991
Nunan, David; Carter, Ronald- The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of other Languages- Cambridge University Press, 2001
Pennington, Martha- New Ways in Teaching Grammar, TESOL International Association, 1995
Penston, Tony- A concise Grammar for English Language Teachers, TP Publications, 2005
Richards, Jack; Rodgers, Theodore – Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993
Sanchez, Francisca- Interactive Classroom Strategies & Structures for Success, Francisca Sanchez, 2010
Scott, Wendy; Ytreberg, Lisbeth – Teaching English to Children. Longman, New York, 1990
Scrivener, Jim – Learning Teaching. MacMillan Education, Oxford, 2005.
Semlyen, Eva; Filimon, David – An English Teaching Methodology Handbook. Editura Didacticã și Pedagogicã, București, 1973
Thewlis, Stephen- Grammar Dimmensions, Cengage ELT, 2007
Thornbury, Scott – How to Teach Grammar, Pearson Education Limited, 1999
Ur, Penny – A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997
Ur, Penny – Grammar Practice Activities. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004
Vince, Michael – Advanced Language Teaching with Key. Heinemann English Language Teaching, Oxford, 1994
Watcyn-Jones, Peter- Fun Class Activities 1, Pearson Education Limited, 2000
Woodward, Suzanne- Fun with Grammar, Prentice Hall Regents, 1997
Wright, Andrew; Betteridge, David; Buckby, Michael- Games for Language Learning, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006
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http://www.teachhub.com/ (Accessed 27 July 2016)
http://www.eslnow.org/ (Accessed 29 July 2016)
https://en.islcollective.com/ (Accessed 29 July 2016)
http://www.teach-this.com/ (Accessed 7 July 2016)
http://www.tildee.com/ (Accessed 29 July 2016)
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/ (Accessed 03 August 2016).
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http://elt.oup.com/ (Accessed 02 August 2016).
http://englishpage.com/ (Accessed 02 August 2016).
http://www.eslbase.com/ (Accessed 02 August 2016).
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APPENDIX 1
SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE ON ESL TEACHERS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING GAMES, SONGS, VIDEOS IN TEACHING GRAMMAR.
Dear participants,
Thank you for agreeing to complete this survey.
You will not be asked to provide your name so your identity will be completely anonymous to the researcher.
Please provide some of your biographical information
☺Gender : M…. F….. ☺Age:……… ☺Length of ESL teaching experience:……years
Directions: Please read the questionnaire items carefully and circle the answer you agree.
5= strongly agree
4= agree
3= undecided
2= disagree
1= strongly disagree
Statements 5 4 3 2 1
1.The formal study of grammar is essential to the eventual mastery of L2 5 4 3 2 1
when language learning is limited to the classroom.
2.I believe that games are both fun and full of pedagogical value. 5 4 3 2 1
3. It is more important to practice the L2 in situations simulating real life 5 4 3 2 1
(interview, role plays, etc) than to analyze and practice grammatical patterns.
4.Generally speaking, students’communicative ability improves faster 5 4 3 2 1
if they study and practice the grammar of the language.
5.I believe games should be given a special role in a foreign language 5 4 3 2 1
teaching programme.
6.I believe that I cannot measure students’ knowledge of grammar when I use 5 4 3 2 1
games, songs or videos in the classroom.
7.I believe that grammar games, songs and videos may motivate, encourage, 5 4 3 2 1
entertain but also teach grammar in more effective ways than the traditional methods.
8.I believe that using games.songs or videos can be time-consuming and can distract 5 4 3 2 1
students’ attention during the instruction.
9.I believe that games/songs/videos present many opportunities to learners 5 4 3 2 1
to show their skills not only in grammar but also in many language areas.
10.I feel unconfortable when I don’t give the exact rules for every grammar subject. 5 4 3 2 1
11. I feel unconfortable when I don’t give the exact rules for every grammar subject. 5 4 3 2 1
12. I find it difficult to find the right activity for every aspect of grammar. 5 4 3 2 1
13. I think that teachers must use these interactive activities for fun only 5 4 3 2 1
for breaking down boredom.
14. I believe that while playing a game, or using a song/video as alternatives, 5 4 3 2 1
learners are not concerned about focusing on the structures, but learn them unconsciously.
15. I use games, songs or videos during the English grammar classes 5 4 3 2 1
as much as possible.
Thank you for your cooperation! ☺
APPENDIX 2
SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE ON THE LEARNERS’ VIEW ON THE BENEFITS OF USING GAMES, SONGS, VIDEOS IN LEARNING GRAMMAR.
Dear participants,
Thank you for agreeing to complete this survey.
You will not be asked to provide your name so your identity will be completely anonymous to the researcher.
Please provide some of your biographical information
☺Gender : M…. F….. ☺Age:……… ☺ Class:….. ☺ Level of English…..
Directions: Please read the questionnaire items carefully and circle the answer you agree.
5= strongly agree
4= agree
3= undecided
2= disagree
1= strongly disagree
Statements 5 4 3 2 1
1. In order to master a foreign language it is essential to learn its grammar. 5 4 3 2 1
2. They may provide an authentic learning experience. 5 4 3 2 1
3. Games, Songs, Videos can turn into a meaningful activity in the ESL classroom. 5 4 3 2 1
4. Activities like these offer different perspectives on the grammar lessons 5 4 3 2 1
5.The teacher uses games, songs or videos during the English grammar 5 4 3 2 1
classes as much as possible.
6. They help us understand the content we are about to learn. 5 4 3 2 1
7.I learn better when the teacher explains the grammatical rules, 5 4 3 2 1
followed by drills and practice of grammatical patterns.
8.I don’t have to learn different grammatical structures but 5 4 3 2 1
be exposed to them in real-life situations.
9. I feel more confident to use English after activities like these. 5 4 3 2 1
10. The target language is used during these activities. 5 4 3 2 1
11. They may provide an appropriate challenge that can motivate us to learn English. 5 4 3 2 1
12. I believe that games, songs, videos help us in the grammar acquisition, 5 4 3 2 1
more than the drills or explicit rules.
13. I believe that games may present many opportunities for us to improve 5 4 3 2 1
our skills not only in grammar but also in many language areas.
14. I wouldn’t mind if the teacher prepared a fun, engaging activity, 5 4 3 2 1
like a song, a game or a video for each lesson.
15. I believe I have enough opportunities to practise the Present Tenses at school. 5 4 3 2 1
as much as possible.
Thank you for your cooperation! ☺
APPENDIX 3
Pic Tac Toe (http://www.eslflow.com)
INTRO
This a great icebreaking lesson involving pictures, a game, creative sentence production & a drill to present or contrast verb tenses-excellent for present simple or continuous tenses.
SET UP
STEPS
1. Draw an empty grid 4 by 3 on the board and tell the students to copy it.
2. Then tell them to draw a boy and an ice cream in square 1. If they don't follow draw it yourself so they get the idea you're dictating pictures.
3. Have fun with the picture dictation and keep up a fast pace so they don't linger on details. Keep the descriptions spare: "square 12, a man, a woman and a heart".
MODEL
When the pictures are finished explain the rules of the game.
STEPS
1. Play a little game of traditional tic tac toe with yourself on the board.
2. Explain you're going to play a variation of tic tac toe where one square is worth 5 points
and a row of 3 is worth a bonus 10.
EXPLAIN THE RULES
1. All sentences in present simple or target tense.
2. No sentences shorter than 6 words.
3. Sentences must be correct.
MODEL AGAIN
Draw an example picture on the board and elicit a correct sentence using present tense( or target tense) i.e. "He plays pinball at the game center everyday".
Make sure the students understand the connection between the pictures and the sentences-the best way is by playing a little game with yourself on the board.
GAME
Then divide the students into 2, 3 or 4 teams of 4,5 or 6 students. Start walking around the class in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction asking for sentences (this is a spoken exercise..no writing…students must orally present a correct sentence). If a team gets a correct sentence mark it on the board "Tic Tac Toe" style. Play until the whole board is filled up- not until sometime gets "Tic Tac Toe".
REVIEW DRILL
Immediately after the game and before the energy recedes….select a good student and say
"You are present simple"
"I (the teacher) am present continuous"
Systematically start to work your way through the pictures.
Picture 1
Student : "The boy eats an ice cream"
Teacher: "The boy is eating an ice cream"
Picture 2
Student: "He drives his car in the rain"
Teacher: "He is driving his car in the rain"
Finally put the students in pairs to do the same.
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