Table of Contents [309658]
Table of Contents
Introduction …………………………….……………………………………………..….. 3
Chapter 1: [anonimizat]-Visual Technologies ………………………………..….. 7
1.1. Traditional Approaches ……………………………………………….………..…… 8
1.1.1. The Direct Method …………………………………………………………… 9
1.1.2. [anonimizat] …………………………………………….…. 10
1.2. Modern Approaches …………………………………………………………..……. 12
1.2.1. The Silent Way …………………………………………………………….. 13
1.2.2. Suggestopedia ……………………………………………………………….. 15
1.2.3. Community Language Learning Method ………………………………….. 17
1.2.4. Communicative Language Teaching Approach ……………………………. 18
1.3. [anonimizat] …………………………….…………….………… 21
Chapter 2: Audio-Visual Materials and Technology …………………………….……. 23
2.1. [anonimizat] ……. 23
2.2. Audio-Visual Materials and Technology Used in Motivating Reading ……………. 26
2.3. [anonimizat] ………………………………………………………………………….……. 27
2.4. [anonimizat] …….. 29
2.5. Audio-Visual Materials and Technology in Facilitating Writing ……………….… 32
2.6. Using Videos in Developing Language Skills ………………………………..……… 34
Chapter 3: A [anonimizat] ………………………………………………….. 38
3.1. Lesson Designed to Develop Students’ Reading Skills …………………………… 39
3.2. Lesson Designed to Develop Students’ Listening Skills ………………………….. 45
3.3. Lesson Designed to Develop Students’ Writing Skills ……………………………. 49
3.4. Lesson Designed to Develop Students’ Speaking Skills …………………………… 53
3.5. Lesson Based on Video …………………………………………………………….. 58
Chapter 4: [anonimizat] ……………………………………………………… 63
4.1. Research Purpose ………………………………………………………………….. 63
4.2. Research Objectives ……………………………………………………………….. 64
4.3. Work Hypotheses ………………………………………………………………….. 64
4.4. Methodology of the Research ……………………………………………………… 65
4.4.1. The Systematic Observation ……………………………………………………………… 65
4.4.2. [anonimizat] ……………………………………… 66
4.4.3. The Survey Method ………………………………………………………… 71
4.5. The Research Sample Group…………………………………………………….…. 72
4.5.1. Students Research Sample Group……………………………………………. 73
4.5.2. Teachers Research Sample Group ………………………………………… 73
4.6. Interpretations of the Data Collected Using the Questionnaire …………………… 73
4.6.1. Results Interpretation of the Data Collected Using the Questionnaire for Students …………………………………………………………………………… 74
4.6.2. Results Interpretation of the Data Collected Using the Questionnaire for Teachers ………………………………………………………………………….. 80
Conclusions and Valorisation of the Research…………………………………………. 89
Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………….. 94
Appendices ………………………………………………………………………………. 97
Introduction
"[anonimizat]." Craig R. Barrett (Chairman, Intel Corporation)
[anonimizat], their organization, their main jobs and occupations, their fights and so on. As life developed, these people started to learn from nature and, by imitating it, they have created real masterpieces. Some of them were preserved up to now and we wonder about the way they could have been created. In time, after the invention of paper and the development of printing the visual and later audio materials started to abound in our life. Pictures, books, cards and other things like these were created in order to make our life more meaningful, easy and comfortable. Teaching and learning became easier and easier and less time consuming. Those days the main sources of information were the books and the teachers. With no teacher, the learning was almost impossible. Nowadays, it is easier to be an autodidact, as there are plenty of materials on the internet and we also have the technology required in order to fulfil our needs when speaking about the acquisition of foreign languages.
Due to the fact that we are living in the 21st century, the needs of people have changed and language teaching has reached a new dimension when speaking about methods and techniques. Innovations from all fields are being brought into the field of language teaching, too. The development of technology has witnessed a revolution in all aspects of our life, not only in industry, but also in the way people interact and communicate in this new society. Its availability is considered a great help by the language teachers as it can be used during the teaching learning process with great results. In the past, learning a foreign language was understood as learning to read the literature of that language. Nowadays, it is considered as a real need of being able to communicate in that foreign language. As a result, the foreign language learning is understood as a must and the teaching methods and approaches have changed and have continuously been adapted in order to get the desired results.
Thus, the teachers of foreign languages adapt some old methods and techniques and bring new innovation in the classroom by the use of audio-visual materials (such as pictures, posters, realia, audio clips, power point presentations, videos and so on) and audio-visual aids (such as videocassette players and recorders, computers, video cameras, CDs, DVDs, CD-ROMs and all kinds of web based multimedia software and hardware). In a very short time these became more and more popular in teaching foreign languages. This way, learning and teaching become more interesting, the lessons are more efficient and contextualized and the audio-visual resources are seen as a great tool for teachers to use in order to enhance the education of their students. In other words, we consider that using the audio-visual materials and techniques plays a capital role in the teaching-learning process of foreign languages.
I have chosen this topic for my thesis as I am fascinated by technology and the use of audio-visual materials. I consider them of a primary importance during language classes. I have always been preoccupied by the way my students acquire new knowledge, about what they are interested in, the topics they like to study, how they feel while studying and the ways they can get what they want in an easy and pleasant way. After studying these things in time, I have found out that the use of the audio-visual materials and the necessary technology to present them are very important during language classes. This conclusion drove me along the pathway to this thesis which tries to emphasize the necessity of audio-visual technologies in language teaching and to present some strategies that make learning more efficient. The thesis contains a table of contents, an introduction, four chapters, a conclusion, a bibliography, a webography and an appendix.
Some of the main objectives I have had in my mind as a starting point for writing this thesis were: to study and better understand the evolution of teaching methods and techniques in time and see the particularities of each of them (such as materials they use, class organization, teacher’s role, the way the new vocabulary was presented etc), to identify the audio-visual materials, aids and technologies they use in order to get the target language, to find out what my students are interested in and the most efficient way they can get the new vocabulary and the new knowledge in an easier and faster way, to analyze the impact of the technology used in the teaching process upon students and teacher and its effectiveness, to see what kind of the extra materials are the best for my students and when to use them to get the desired results, to find out possible problems that might appear while using the audio-visual materials and technology and how to cope with them. Thus, after studying the above mentioned aspects of language teaching, I was thinking about the following hypothesis: do the audio-visual materials and technology improve the teaching learning process of foreign languages? If yes, how do they change it? What are the advantages for students and for the teacher when they are used during language classes? And, in order to find out the answers for all these questions I have started this research.
The introduction presents a short overview of the evolution of teaching and the use of audio-visual materials during language classes and explicitly underlines the necessity of using the audio-visual materials and technologies during language teaching and the advantages of using them.
Chapter one presents some teaching methods and techniques used in different periods of time in language teaching, their main characteristics, aids used to provide information for learning, advantages of using that method or technique, teacher’s role and students’ role during the teaching learning process.
Chapter two presents the role of audio-visual materials and technology in language teaching, the audio-visual materials and technology used in motivating reading, enhancing listening skills through the use of technology and audio-visual materials, the audio-visual materials and technology in facilitating writing, using technology and the audio-visual materials in facilitating speaking and using videos in developing language skills. Each subchapter underlines the importance of audio-visual materials and technology during language classes, the advantages students can benefit from when they are used in the classes and some quotes of famous specialists in language teaching and their opinion related to this subject.
Chapter three is a practical part. It contains five lesson plans, one for each main skill in language teaching (listening, speaking, reading and writing) and one about the importance of using videos in learning foreign languages.
The next chapter of this thesis is the research chapter. It presents the research objectives, the ways the research has been done and the methods used for research. They are useful for every person interested in the evolution of methods and techniques used in language teaching during longer periods of time, from the beginnings of language teaching methodology up to now. It also shows the interpretation of the data collected during the research process using the questionnaire, both for students and teachers (Romanian and international teachers of English language). This chapter contains essential information about language teaching in Romania and abroad, about the audio-visual materials used worldwide while acquiring new knowledge, the periodicity they are used in the teaching-learning process, the age of the teachers, the genre of the teachers and the students’ preferences when speaking about the use of audio-visual materials, techniques and technologies during English classes.
The last chapter of this thesis is the conclusions’ chapter. It presents valuable information about the results collected in the previous chapters and ways in which language teachers around the world may benefit from the use of the audio-visual materials and technology. It also presents options and ideas about when the audio-visual materials should be used during a lesson, how long they should be used for, how students feel while they are being used and more other useful information for language teachers.
The next part of this thesis presents the bibliography and the webography which present the author of the books and articles from the internet that I have read and used in my research, the title of the books or articles, the year they have been published and so on.
The last part of this thesis is the appendix. It contains the materials and worksheets used during using the audio-visual materials for the lesson plans included in this thesis, the exercises used for teaching in those English classes for which the lesson plans are provided and the keys for all the exercises. The purpose of including the worksheets, the exercises and the keys in this thesis is to help and encourage the interested people in using these lesson plans and to reduce the time needed for the preparation of the lesson.
In conclusion, this thesis is valuable both for teachers and students, as well as for other people interested in the language teaching and learning process, as it presents the evolution of language teaching in time, the materials used then and nowadays, the role of each person involved in the acquisition of new knowledge, their interaction and it also presents real results collected from English classes. If needed, this thesis may be used as a starting point for other research.
Chapter 1
Theoretical Concepts – An Outline of the English Teaching Methods Emphasizing the Use of Audio-Visual Technologies
It seems that the study of English as a foreign language is of a primary importance in the 3rd millennium, as there are more than 380 million native English speakers and the number of people around the world that speaks it as a foreign language is more than 1 billion. This number is following an ascendant trend every day because of some major life problems such as: people moving from one country to another in search of work and a better life, people travelling abroad in order to see the world and spend lovely time there with their family or friends, people that study abroad and so on. Together with French, German and Spanish, English is spoken more and more around the world for the above mentioned reasons. “No one knows exactly how people learn languages although a great deal of research have been done into the subject. Certain theories have, however, had a profound effect upon the practice of language teaching (and continue to do so) despite the fact that they have often originated in studies of how people learn their first language. It is only comparatively recently that the study of second language acquisition has achieved the importance that it now has.” (Harmer, 1996: 31)
The European Union is speaking, seriously or not, about a new language called “Euro-English” that will be spoken on all territories that belong to it by the year 2025. This new language is a simplified version of the English language we speak today. Before starting this thesis, I consider that some theoretical concepts about teaching foreign languages should be mentioned: what an approach, what a method and what a technique are. After that, in this chapter, an overview of the main theories and methods about the development of the language skills through the use of audio-visuals in the classrooms will be given.
According to Richards & Rogers when we think about language teaching, there are three important things to consider:
1. An approach refers to theories about the nature of language and language learning that serves as the sources of practices and principles in language teaching.
2. A method is an overall plan for the presentation of language material based on the approach. This is where theory is put into practice.
3. A technique refers to what kind of exercises, activities, or tasks are used in the classroom for accomplishing the objectives (1999: 15, 16).
After differentiating between these main concepts, I will present some language teaching-learning theories and methods that support the concept of teaching them and I will focus mainly on those methods that use audio-visual resources in language teaching. Thus, I will present traditional approaches versus modern approaches and I will mention the time when the methods were used, their main objectives, teacher’s and students’ role and so on for every method. It is interesting to compare them and observe the evolution of language teaching in time. We can do better in the future if we learn from the past. Speaking about history, somebody said that we are condemned to do the same mistakes in the future if we don’t know our past. We can observe a similarity between history in general and history of teaching foreign languages. I, personally, consider the above mentioned statement as valuable and useful, that’s why I have organized my thesis this way.
1.1. Traditional Approaches
The traditional approach started in the past and lasted up to the late 1960s. A characteristic of this method is that it focuses on how the language is mastered, on what people can do and the competences they get by using that foreign language. To make sure the students avoid making mistakes, the teacher was in the centre of all activities. He used to control everything in order to create good language practice. One simple way to achieve this task was to use drills such as: memorizing word lists, repeat short dialogues, act out dialogues and roles. To get the results the teacher wanted, he/she used long theoretical explanations. But students’ role was reduced to the minimum and their creativity was totally ignored. They were only present in the classroom and did what they were instructed to do. Also, the students’ talking time was reduced and almost inefficient. One of the first methods that have these characteristics is the Grammar Translation Method, but we are not going to speak about it, as it does not use audio-visual materials at all and thus, it is not relevant for out thesis. But some other relevant methods are listed below.
1.1.1. The Direct Method
If the Grammar-Translation Method, as its name says, was focused on translation, a welcomed change was brought by the Direct Method. It was focused on real life situations dialogues and its goal was to communicate and even think in the target foreign language. The students were encouraged to avoid thinking in their native language and after that translate in English what they want to say. This method “receives its name from the fact that meaning is to be connected directly with the target language, without going through the process of translating into the students’ native language.” (Larsen-Freeman, 2000:23).
This method of teaching assumes that learning foreign languages should be compared with how a newly born child learns his native language. Although all four skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) are important and are worked on, oral communication and listening are emphasized. The reading and writing activities are based on oral practice first. Some main characteristics of the teaching-learning process of using the Direct Methods are: classroom activities and the instructions are conducted exclusively in the target language; the teacher never translates into the students’ native language, the teacher introduces the new target language using various visual aids like realia, pictures, posters, demonstrations or pantomime, grammar is taught inductively, the students are presented with examples and they are encouraged to figure out the rules, vocabulary is practiced by using new words in complete sentences, pronunciation also is brought into attention from the beginning of the course. The teacher loses the supremacy in the classroom and oral communication skills are developed in question-and-answer exchanges between teachers and students in small, intensive classes. The teacher and the students become partners in the teaching-learning process; the interaction goes both ways, from teacher to students and from students to teacher, although the latter is often teacher-directed. Some techniques used by this method are: reading aloud (the learners take turns reading parts of a passage, play or dialogue), conversation practice (the teacher asks the students questions that contain particular grammar structures and the new vocabulary), dictation (the teacher chooses an appropriate text for the students’ level and interests and reads it aloud three times; the first time in order to familiarize the students with it, the second time pausing at times to allow them the necessary time to write it down and the last time so that they can correct their writing), map drawing (the students are given a blank map and they have to follow the given instructions to fill it in), paragraph writing (the students have to write a paragraph on a given topic using the new words and structures) and getting students to self-correct (the teacher tries to get the students to self-correct). The main purpose of using such techniques was to determine the students to perceive meaning using no translation, but thinking and speaking in the target language. The explanation of the new words was made by using short definitions in the target language or by using various visual aids such as: realia, drawings, posters or maps. The students were also encouraged to act out dialogues or do pantomime. This way the students were associating the object with its meaning by using the foreign language they were learning. The abstract concepts and words were taught deductively, by association of ideas.
To sum up, the basic premise of the Direct Method is that one should attempt to learn a second language in much the same way as children learn their first language. This method emphasizes the spontaneous use of language, oral interaction, no translation between first and second languages, and little or no analysis of grammar rules. It is possible to talk about a situational syllabus which is based on situations or topics rather than a grammatical syllabus based on linguistic structures.
1.1.2. The Audio-Lingual Method
The Audio-Lingual Method was developed in the USA during the World War II, as there was an urgent need for the American people fighting abroad to learn the language of the country they were fighting in. This method was not used for a very long time, but it covered the period between 1959 and 1966. The new method was based heavily on behaviourist theories of learning that see language learning as the result of habit formation. “These saw language—spoken language—as a collection of habits, and language teaching as habit formation. The amount of language to which the learner was exposed was to be strictly limited but unsimplified; real languages with real intonation at real speed. It was to be ‘over learned’ by repetition so that it became automatic, and was not to be analysed grammatically (there was no grammar progression in the early courses) but manipulated by the substitution of items …” (Rowlinson, 2003:13)
This method of teaching foreign languages is similar to the Direct Method when speaking about using the target language in a communicative way. “Language skills are learned more effectively if the items to be learned in the target language are presented in spoken form before they are seen in written form. Aural-oral training is needed to provide the foundation for the development of other language skills.” (Richards & Rodgers, 1999:51)
All the four skills used in learning foreign languages are used. “The language skills are taught in the order of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Listening is viewed largely as training in aural discrimination of basic sound patterns. The language may be presented entirely orally at first; written representations are usually withheld from learners in early stages.’ (Richards & Rodgers, 1999:53).
For this method, some main characteristics of the teaching-learning process are: the new vocabulary and structures are presented through dialogues which are learned through imitation and repetition, since the structures of the language are very important, a structural syllabus is used and a limited amount of vocabulary is presented by being contextualized within the dialogues, grammar is taught by inductive analogy rather by deductive explanations, students are led to figure out the rules from the examples the teacher provides, the cultural information is contextualized in the dialogues or presented by the teacher and the pronunciation is taught from the beginning, often by students working in language laboratories. The teacher’s role is central and active; most of the interaction is between teacher and students and is initiated by the teacher: he/she only models the target language, controls the process of learning, monitors and corrects the learners' performance but do not totally control the students. Summarizing the characteristics of the Audiolingual Method, Brown (2001:23) points out the use of tapes, language labs, and visual aids.
Some techniques used by this teaching-learning method are: the dialogue memorization (students memorize the dialogues through mimicry and perform them in front of the class), drills like repetition, backward build-up, chain, substitution, transformation, question-and-answer are used, based on the basic patterns presented in the dialogue, minimal pairs exercises (the teacher works with pairs of words: e.g. ship/sheep) for teaching pronunciation, complete the dialogue (students fill in a gap-text with the missing words) and grammar games designed to practice grammar structures within a context. Instructional materials in the Audio-Lingual Method are teacher oriented; only the teacher has access to a textbook that provides an overall perspective (on content and various practice activities); students’ exposure is limited to audio materials and the development of listening and speaking skills, at least at lower levels. However, even at more advanced levels, printed materials are only used as support for speaking activities. Instructional materials also include the latest technological developments such as tape recorders, video projectors and usually a language laboratory may also be considered important. All these materials have the advantage of providing the students with accurate, native speaker models for dialogues and drills and controlled ways of improving fluency. Nevertheless, methodologists considered that Audio-Lingual Method did not expose the students to real or realistic language.
1.2. Modern Approaches
These teaching-learning methods are considered modern as they are students’ centered. They are the most important people in the classroom and all the activities focus on them. Teacher’s talking time is reduced to the minimum and students’ talking time is extended to the maximum. This way students develop important characteristics like autonomy, creativity, independence and creativity which are vital for learning a foreign language and not only, but of a great importance in school and real life situations. The three teaching methods considered modern are: The Silent Way, Suggestopedia and The Community Language Learning. They are also known as “Humanistic Approaches” of teaching foreign languages.
1.2.1. The Silent Way
This method started to be used in the teaching-learning process around 1970s and its main purpose was to determine students to speak as much as possible. The teacher is not the main person, but is present into the classroom to help students grow and gain as many information and knowledge as possible in the available time. Real life situations are of a primary importance and are used to encourage the students to work individual or in groups with almost no help from the teacher. This way they are free to talk to each other and creatively use their own ideas. They are also responsible for the result of their work and for the use of English all the time. Richards and Rodgers summarize the principles of this method as follows:
“1. Learning is facilitated if the learner discovers or creates rather than remembers and repeats what is to be learned.
2. Learning is facilitated by accompanying (mediating) physical objects.
3. Learning is facilitated by problem solving involving the material to be learned.” (Richards & Rodgers, 1999:99).
The Silent Way method focuses on the fact that teaching should be subordinated to learning while students are responsible for their own learning. The goal of this method relies in the use of the language for self-expression. In order to do this, students need to develop independence from the teacher, student-student interaction being encouraged. All four skills are worked on from the beginning of the instruction and meaning is considered as important as form. The teacher also observes students’ ability to transfer what they have learned to new contexts. Students are sometimes given assignments to do outside the classroom at their own pace. “Language is seen as groups of sounds arbitrarily associated with specific meanings and organized into sentences or strings of meaningful units by grammar rules. Language is separated from its social context and taught through artificial situations, usually represented by rods. Lessons follow a sequence based on grammatical complexity, and new lexical and structural material is meticulously broken down into its elements, with one element presented at a time. The sentence is the basic unit of teaching, and the teacher focuses on propositional meaning, rather than communicative value. Students are presented with the structural patterns of the target language and learn the grammar rules of the language through largely inductive processes.’ (Richards & Rodgers, 1986, p. 101).
For this method, the main characteristics of the teaching learning process are: students study the language by using its basic building blocks like specific sound charts, colours representing sounds in the target language and so on. After learning the correspondence between the sound and the colour, the students learn to form syllables and then words and to correctly use them in communicating in English. While the students are working, the teacher is silent and says nothing. This way the students are responsible for the work and the teacher’s role is to monitor and help students if necessary. The students have an active role in their study; they actively take part in exploring the new language they are learning. The method is based on the fact that students can learn from each other and each student is an important source of information. The techniques considered of a major importance this time are: teaching pronunciation with sound colour charts, using word charts (they are used to teach and recycle vocabulary; the words are written in different colours so that students can learn basic pronunciation patterns), Fidel charts (they are used to associate the sounds of the language with their spelling), rods (they are very versatile, they can be used to express visible actions for any language structure; the rods generate meaning – at the beginning they can be used to teach colours and numbers, later on they can be used for teaching more complex structures -e.g. prepositions, conditionals, they let students to be creative and imaginative), self-correction gestures (the teacher uses students’ errors to develop their own criteria for correctness), peer correction (used to improve co-operative manner) and the structured feedback (the students are asked, at the end of the class or day, about what they have learnt that day and about the way and place they can use this new information outside the classroom).
By using this method, the role of instructional materials is vital. They may be books, worksheets, pictures, tapes, films or other visual aids. “The Silent Way is perhaps as well known for the unique nature of its teaching materials as for the silence of its teachers. The materials consist mainly of a set of coloured rods, colour-coded pronunciation and vocabulary wall charts, a pointer, and reading/writing exercises, all of which are used to illustrate the relationships between sound and meaning in the target language. The materials are designed for manipulation by the students as well as by the teacher, independently and cooperatively, in promoting language learning by direct association.’ (Richards & Rodgers, 1986, p.108).
1.2.2. Suggestopedia
This teaching-learning method was also developed in the 1970s, by a Bulgarian called Georgi Lozanov. The method promotes audio-visual materials in teaching foreign languages. According to him, learning may be pleasant and comfortable if students are placed into the right environment. This way, they feel better and the teaching-learning process is more efficient. “The most conspicuous characteristics of Suggestopedia are the decoration, furniture, and arrangement of the classroom, the use of music, and the authoritative behaviour of the teacher.” (Richards & Rodgers, 1986:142). According to Larsen-Freeman (2000:72): “Suggestopedia, the application of the study of suggestion to pedagogy, has been developed to help students eliminate the feeling that they cannot be successful and, thus, to help them overcome the barriers to learning.” The main purpose of this method is to make sure the students feel comfortable while they work and the atmosphere inside the classroom is the right one to facilitate study. The method is based on the principle that people are not ready to acquire new knowledge if they are anxious and distracted. They easily acquire information if they are relaxed and attentive, if they can concentrate and nothing disturbs them while working. Thus, the classroom is decorated with posters with presenting grammatical structures in the target language, some smooth music is running in the background and the students are arranged so that they can see each other and work together. The scientists consider that the peripheral learning of the students is activated in the right environment. In order to get over their inhibition, the students are asked to invent stories and speak about past or future characters to feel more secured and ready to learn a new language. The use of native language is not permitted at all. The students are also involved in activities like dramatization, songs, games, puzzle solving and some other exercises. Suggestopedia emphasizes vocabulary and large number of words and phrases are acquired. Grammar structures are briefly presented as it is believed that students learn best if their attention is focused not on the language forms, but on using the language communicatively. The teacher initiates interactions with the whole class of students and also with individuals. Learners interact with each other in various activities conducted by the teacher. Errors are not immediately corrected, the teacher models the correct forms during the class.
The main techniques used in teaching using suggestopedia are related to arts, which is considered by the inventor of this method to be of a vital importance for students to relax and voluntary involve in the classroom activities. By using arts, the students overcome learning barriers and inhibition and feel powerful and motivated. Some activities mainly used in suggestopedia are: drama (used as a way to improve the English skills, to gain confidence in speaking English. The students work hard in order to develop their skills, but at the same time they have fun), reading aloud (the teacher reads the text aloud maintaining the same rhythm as the music that is played in the background while the students relax listening to music), questions and answers (the students ask questions and provide answers about the characters they have assumed), dramatization (the students read the dialogues in the manner the teacher tells them to do: sad, cheerful, dramatic), role play, the students are asked to assume roles and to create meaningful lines for given situations) and games that help to create a playful atmosphere, thus indirectly suggesting that learning can be fun. Great importance is placed on the students’ feelings, in making them feel confident and relaxed during the learning activities. Teacher's existence and classmates' existence should not threaten the individual. Individual's self-confidence is important. Choice of new identity makes students feel more comfortable and secure. The classroom conditions (temperature, lighting, armchairs) should supply students with the feeling of relaxation and comfort.
The inventors of Suggestopedia consider that the auxiliary materials used while teaching are mainly text and tape, but they also use picture and music to encourage students to learn. This time the emphasis is on the books’ characters. They should be very well depicted, they should speak good English, and the text should have a literary value they should be written by well-known international writers. Suggestopedia accepts translation of texts from the native language in the target language and the language problems should be introduced in a way that do not distract or annoy the students.
1.2.3. Community Language Learning Method
The Community Language Learning Method takes its principles from the Counselling-Learning Approach developed by Charles A. Curran. According to him, adults feel threatened by any new learning situations and to solve this problem teachers should become language counsellors. If learners do not feel secure, they will find it difficult to enter into a successful learning experience. The goal of this method is to communicatively use the target language. Teachers want their students to learn about their own learning and take responsibility for it. The scientist who studied this method considers that the classroom is a community seen as a means of learning. Inside it, the stress and priority is given to the process of teaching-learning which more easily takes place if the students feel comfortable. For a successful learning experience, very important details are: classroom experience, students’ relations to each other and teacher’s attitude, which may affect the way the students feel during the class. The most important skills are: understanding the others and speaking the language. Reading and writing are also worked on, based on what the students have already understood. When speaking about vocabulary, literal native language equivalents are given to the target language in order to teach their meanings; this makes the meaning clear. In teaching grammar, large chunks are analysed by means of equivalents in the native language; it can be explicit when necessary. The main characteristics of the teaching-learning process are: The students are sitting and work in a circle, but the teacher stays outside not to be the centre of attention. He is the facilitator and helps the students if necessary. The teacher helps them by giving them target language translation in chunks. Students are recorded while repeating them. Finally, a script is made and it looks like a real conversation. Students are very important during the class and teacher’s role to help the students express themselves in the target language. At the end of the activity the students are asked about their feelings. The teacher accepts both appraisals and critics and try to involve all students in the activities. Nobody is criticized. All the ideas are accepted and by sharing them the students feel like in a community. This way, the students are the masters of their learning. They learn from each other and are responsible for their learning. This method combines traditional and modern activities. The main techniques used by this method are: transcription (the teacher writes the mother tongue equivalent of the text in the target language on the board or a poster-sized paper in order to be able to refer to it later. Students copy them in their notebooks), reflection on experience (students tell about their feelings about the language learning experience), reflective listening (students relax and listen to their own voices speaking the target language on the tape; the teacher may also read the transcript while students are listening), the human computer (the teacher repeats the correct form as many times as the students need; the teacher never corrects the student's errors, only repeats the correct form) and small group tasks (students learn from each other and get more practice by working in small groups).
The role of instructional materials is still very important, but not the role of the textbooks. These were chosen by the teacher according to the content of the material intended for the students for that day. Sometimes the students were free to choose the topic and even content of the lesson. The teacher was there to facilitate the learning process and to help the students through meaningful conversation and messages. At the beginning, the students’ voice was recorded. After it, they could hear their own voice and work on the authentic materials they have produced. This method is very efficient for the students, as they learn what they are interested in, but not always easy for the teacher as they have to constantly prepares themselves, read books, internet pages and many more. As a consequence, the role of the textbook is diminished. Richards and Rodgers suggest that at later stages of learning when students start to become more proficient and confident the teacher can provide materials that are derived from what happens in class for example transcripts of the conversations that the students had that can be analysed or the students can be asked to work in groups to produce their own materials such as scripts for dialogues and mini-dramas (1999: 123).
1.2.4. Communicative Language Teaching Method
In the late 1990s, the New Communicative Approach brought a new vision regarding the language teaching and learning process. Educators started using activities that required students to interact, to negotiate meaning, to use their own content when communicating. Teachers also learnt to become tolerant of students’ errors for the sake of developing their students’ communicative competences. Moreover, they provided opportunities for learners to discover rules and use them in real life communication in order to improve fluency and accuracy in expressing themselves in the target language. These activities were called communicative because they gave students the choice to use the language they were taught in realistic communicative activities. Teaching in the target language classes focuses on fostering the students thinking as well as language content, outcomes and learning activities. Even if grammar is seen as an important part of a foreign language, in Communicative Language Teaching Method it is considered as a fundamental step to language proficiency. Diane Larsen Freeman said that the goal of communicative language learning is mainly use to enable students to communicate in the target language. “Communicative competence involves being able to use the language appropriate to a given social context. To do this, students need knowledge of the linguistic forms, meanings, and functions. They need to know that many different forms can be used to perform a function and also that a single form can often serve a variety of functions. They must be able to choose from among these the most appropriate form, given the social context and the roles of the interlocutors. They must also be able to manage the process of negotiating meaning with their interlocutors.” (Diane Larsen-Freeman, 2000: 131)
According to Richards and Rogers some characteristics of this approach are: language is considered a system for the expression of meaning which primary function is for interaction and communication. The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses and the primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural features, but categories of functional and communicative meaning as exemplified in discourse (1986: 71).
Students’ involvement in communicative activities depends on the materials used in the classroom. In order to arouse students’ interest and make their classes more engaging teachers must select attractive audio and visual aids: beautifully coloured pictures, tapes, animated displays, interesting video clips, etc. The Communicative Teaching Method uses a wide range of audio-visual materials to support the language teaching process. “Practitioners of Communicative Language Teaching view materials as a way of influencing the quality of classroom interaction and language use. Materials thus have the primary role of promoting communicative language use.” (Richards & Rodgers, 1986:79). The Communicative Approach considers as a priority the use of authentic materials, according to Diane Larsen Freeman (2000:135).
Starting from this statement, Richard and Rodgers divided the materials used in CLT into three categories, such as: text based materials (they are intended to support the individual, pair or group work, as they contain information gap or a task for students to do, a stimulus to encourage their work by using comprehension questions and paraphrase exercises), task based exercises (They are exercises designed for work pair. Each exercise contains two sets of information, one set for each student. The information is usually complementary and the students have to communicate, to ask and answer questions, in order to find out what the whole text is about. Each student, in turn is an interview and an interviewee.) and realia (real object we easily find around us, such as newspapers, advertisements, pictures, maps, charts, graphical signs etc. that the teacher can use to determine her students speak and practice their English in a pleasant way). These things have the advantage of being at our hand all the time and of being very cheap or even free of charge, but at the same time are of a great value in developing students abilities to communicate in a foreign language. Different kinds of objects can be used to support communicative exercises, such as a plastic model to assemble from directions (1999: 79-80).
The main techniques used with the Communicative Approach are: the authentic materials (articles from newspapers or magazines, short stories, videos from real English TV channels, songs, menus, timetables, advertisements, etc., which are used by native speakers in real life are used as class materials), the scrambled sentences ( the students are given a text in which the sentences are in a scrambled order and they have to restore them to their original order; this type of exercise focus on the cohesion and coherence of the language; other options are to put the lines of a dialog in the correct order or to arrange the pictures of a picture strip story and write lines to accompany the pictures), language games that provide valuable communicative practice of the target language, picture strip stories that provide opinion gaps; students discuss which activity should come first and role plays which give students the chance to practice the target language in various contexts; if the role plays is unprepared improvisation it also provides genuine communication (i.e. information gap – natural unpredictability of what each participant will say to each other).
Communicative activities (information gap, opinion gap activities) are used to promote students' communication in classes. Pictures, and other visual aids and realia are very important to support meaning. Task based activities are also used to promote students' involvement in classes. These communicative activities are set in situations similar to those in real life. They “must be close to the students’ life experience, so that they can identify with it. To perform the tasks required by the activity, the learners assume certain roles, and they are made to use the language in ways typical for the situational context. This way, learning the foreign language is achieved by using the foreign language, i.e. the students learn to communicate in the target language by struggling to express their thoughts and feelings in situations close to their own background.” (Adriana Vizental: 2007:39).
1.3. The Post-Communicative Turn (PCT)
The greatest influence on language teaching and learning has definitely been the digital revolution. Starting in the 20th century and expanding ever since, it has shaped both the students’ learning needs and the language teaching technology itself. At a time when the communicative approach had won almost universal recognition, teachers started to realize that it was no longer able to address the changed needs of learners. As a reaction to this situation, new teaching methods have appeared in the recent years. Their advantages and disadvantages have been analysed and educators have reached the conclusion that teaching methods must be flexible and adaptable to learners’ needs and interest. Approaches and methods are not culturally universal. Teachers should become familiar with the major teaching approaches and methods proposed for teaching the target language, use them flexibly and creatively based on their own judgement and experience, transform and adapt the methods they use to make them their own.
The new methods do not stem from one unified theory but they share a number of common assumptions. As a consequence, they have been grouped under the umbrella term The Post-Communicative Turn (PCT). This syntagm acknowledges the most influential previous method, the communicative approach, as well as the need to go beyond it in order to address the new challenges and duties of the modern teacher, in line with the drastic changes in English teaching caused by technology as the latter provides so many options as making teaching interesting and also making teaching more productive. Technology is one of the most significant drivers of both social and linguistic change.
According to Adriana Vizental, the methods of the Post-Communicative Turn have some common principles about education and language learning; the latter is task-oriented (the language learning focuses on meaning and on authentic activities, similar to those in the outside world; the learners are taught to use the language to construct and communicate meaning), it is context-oriented (the language learning is successful if the content to be taught and the context of learning are compatible with the learner’s world of knowledge and personal experience), it is collaborative (learning is achieved through social interaction and negotiation of meaning), it is about our cognition (the language learning must go hand in hand with cultural awareness; the students are taught to differentiate between their mother tongue patterns and those of the target culture) and they encourage learners’ autonomy (learners must control their own learning and construct their own knowledge, they must be aware of the process and strategies of language learning) (2007: 44).
As stated above, the foundation on which the PCT builds is definitely communicative. However, Adriana Vizental records three avenues of possibility in terms of improvement: grammar must be taught thoroughly, writing must be practiced fully and literature must be given its due role.
To sum up, we can state that post communicative turn relies heavily on the communicative approach, on its principles and techniques; however, post-communicative teachers tend to use all other methods and approaches, depending on the level of students and their interests and the individual circumstances of each particular learning situation. The audio-lingual method is particularly well suited for beginner levels as it generates good linguistic habits. The grammar-translation method is extremely effective especially in stimulating independent work. The communicative approach is used at all levels, in order to complement other approaches. Finally, writing is used both for task-based assignments and non-communicative subjective tasks like essays.
Chapter 2
Audio-Visual Materials and Technology
2.1. The Role of Audio-Visual Materials and Technology in Language Teaching
After presenting the theoretical concepts of English teaching methods, I think that some information about the use of the audio-visual materials and technology is necessary in order to better understand their role in the teaching-learning process. According to the specialists, the audio-visual aids and technology refer to any device used by teachers in the classroom to communicate with their students any ideas or any information. For example, the teacher uses pictures, posters, realia, motion pictures, film strips, CDs, tapes, power-point slides and presentations etc. as additional materials in teaching foreign languages. All these are mentioned in the lesson plan and are very important for a better and faster understanding of some new knowledge or abstract concepts the teacher may want to introduce to his/her students. These audio-visual materials can be used singly or in a combination to communicate the desired information to the students in our classrooms or to elicit a desired response from them. This kind of materials is especially used to enhance an oral presentation of the desired content of the lesson. And, for excellent results, the teacher uses audio-visual technology, such as tape recorders, CD players, tablets, computers, laptops, video-projectors, mobile phones and so on and so forth. According to Edgar Dale “Audio-visual technology are those devices by the use of them communication of ideas between persons and groups in various teaching and training situations is helped. These are also termed as multi-sensory materials.” (1963: 47) Similarly, Richards and Rodgers say: “Tape recorders and audio-visual equipment often have central roles in an audio-lingual course” (1986:57). Since then, as new English language teaching approaches and methods came to the fore, audio-visual materials have been used more extensively than ever before.
Their role is to facilitate the teaching-learning process, to make the learning tasks more enjoyable and motivating, to bring freshness and variety to the learning experience, to make learning meaningful over a wide range of student's abilities, to actively engage students in the lessons, to give them a chance to provide direct feedback to the teacher, to assure the order and clarity of materials the students need to develop conceptual structures and establish meaningful system of ideas. To this effect, Allen and Valette (1977:350) suggest that audio-visual materials can be effective aids for teaching a target culture in a language classroom as they are capable of expanding the limited boundaries of the traditional classroom setting and of creating a more realistic language learning environment.
The audio-visual materials and techniques are very important in the acquisition of a new language, especially when they provide native speakers’ models of spoken language. Ager (1967:7) claims that the use of various audio-visuals materials such as diagrams, cartoons, film sequences, etc. are able to foster a learning context that emphasizes not just the appropriateness of certain language patterns but also their life-like character. He also claims that a second language should be learned in the same way that the learners’ native language was learned. He says: “in the situations in which it would be natural for a native speaker to use certain forms and structures, the student should hear the native speaker actually using them.” Similarly, according to Wright (1976:1), language learners benefit from the use of many media and many styles of visual presentation.
Some other advantages of using the audio-visual materials/ technology are: they help the student to understand languages by putting him in direct contact with objects and things that create a realistic world and thus they help students to understand a different cultural background. As a result of using these materials and technology, the students are expected to promote a mood of mutual understanding and sympathy in the classroom, to show significant changes in their behaviour and to strengthen their motivation for learning foreign languages. To conclude, audio-visual materials make the learning process more concrete, real and vital, which makes the teaching and learning easy and successful. Those materials are of great importance in the educational field particularly in teaching languages as they provide a rich variety of materials, a better quality of the materials. They make teaching effective by creating situations for presentation and practice of language items and by reducing dependence on the mother tongue. They also help in formation of language habits by drill, repetition and constant practice and provide recreation to the learners. Johnson (1946:404), for instance, suggests that the field of foreign language teaching is the one in which all sorts of audio-visual materials are most vital tools for reaching both linguistic and cultural objectives. That’s why the use of such materials should be considered as an essential part of language instruction and they should be carefully planned and utilized as an integral part of the course, as well.”
Last but not least, science has had a tremendous impact on every aspect of our lives; through the steady progress of various technologies, science has forever changed education, too. Nowadays, teachers are using different technologies in their classes to make them more effective than the traditional ones.
The recent emergence of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) in the field of ELT has spread the use of technologies in language teaching even more. Now teachers of ELT are well aware of the trend of incorporating ICT in language teaching in diverse ways. Due to the wide range of existing double-role devices (entertainment and education) such as computers, smart phones, tablets, etc., language teachers find it easier to bring innovation in language teaching. If a couple of decades ago such devices either did not exist or had prohibitive prices that only powerful organizations could afford, today their use, as well as the use of internet is universal. The real difficulty no longer refers to the scarcity of resources but to how to make the right choice and identify those materials teachers consider relevant to their students, the ones that facilitate their acquisition of new knowledge in a short time and in an easy way. Moreover, distant learning and E-learning have become popular in the recent time due to the effective use of technology in language teaching and testing. As a result, different online courses are conducted by different ELT organizations. Learners have the advantage of sitting in the comfort of their homes and attending different virtual courses using distant learning and testing.
Thus, we can say that the role of technologies in the teaching-learning process is of a primary importance in the 21st century, a century marked by tremendous changes in all aspects of life, including education.
2.2. The Audio-Visual Materials and Technology Used in Motivating Reading
Teaching reading is an important activity for a variety of reasons, ranging from acquiring reading skills in the target language to improving writing skills, all the way through language acquisition. As Harmer said: “Reading texts also provide opportunities to study language: vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, and the way we construct sentences, paragraphs and texts. Lastly, good reading texts can introduce interesting topics, stimulate discussion, excite imaginative responses and be the springboard for well-rounded, fascinating lessons.” (Harmer, 2006: 68). Reading is a very important skill and should not be separated from the other skills. In Romanian schools, a lot of classroom work involves intensive reading. Most textbooks contain various reading materials that practise specific reading skills such as skimming, scanning, intensive reading for specific purposes, understanding text structure. Intensive reading involves a short reading passage followed by textbook activities to develop comprehension and/or a particular reading skill. At upper levels and with highly motivated students, silent reading is the norm. As Neil Anderson states in Practical English Language Teaching, “Classroom approaches to teaching reading should emphasize the silent nature of this skill and avoid overemphasis on oral reading. Different strategies are used when reading orally than when reading silently. Since comprehension is the goal of reading, your primary focus in the classroom should be on getting meaning from print. Make silent reading the goal in your classroom instead of using oral reading.” (2003: 69), However, with lower level or less motivated students, oral reading is preferred in order to maintain focus.
Reading texts are usually exploited in three stages: Pre-reading activities which are meant to introduce and arouse students’ interest in the topic, to motivate them by giving them a reason for reading and to provide some language preparation for the text. For instance, I use guiding questions (What would you like to know about topic X? Write down some questions which you hope the text will answer or You are going to read a text about topic X. Here are some words and phrases from the text. Can you guess what the text is about?), true/false questions and visuals (photographs, maps, posters, diagrams, etc.) to intrigue my students. While-reading activities usually start from a general understanding of the text and then move to smaller units: paragraphs, sentences and words. For example, comprehension questions, completing diagrams, making lists, taking notes, checking against predictions made beforehand, put events in the correct order, etc. help the students understand the writer’s purpose and the content and structure of the texts. After-reading activities enable the students to consolidate and reflect upon their reading. Some examples of post-reading activities are: writing an outline of the text, matching a column with main ideas from the text, choosing a main idea/title for a passage from among several choices, role-plays, debates, etc.
On the other hand, in everyday life we tend to do much more extensive reading for pleasure, entertainment and general understanding. Extensive reading has a powerful impact on language learning. The more we read, the more confident we become. So, as teachers, we should encourage our students to read a lot in the target language, both in and outside the classroom. A very convenient method, especially for teachers, is to encourage her students to use the County Library from their town, where there are a lot of books in English. The librarians also provide help and guidance for the readers. Or, as an alternative for the teachers that teach students from rural area where they do not have books in English, or maybe they do not have a library at all, we can help our students by providing a local library of readers with the books we have at home. This way we cover the shortage of English books and offer our students a chance to be ready for real contact with English, even if they live in a disfavoured area. Next step to keep our students in contact with English language should be a local “Book Club” where, after reading the English books at home, the students can talk about their favourite books and characters.
2.3. Enhancing Listening Skills Through The Use of Technology and Audio-Visual Materials
It is relatively easy today to develop English language listening skills: one notices the omnipresence of English speaking films, cartoons, documentaries and music in the everyday life of most young learners. As a consequence, they have the chance to practice listening almost uninterruptedly. Adriana Vizental says that “children today practically ‘grow up on English’ – it is almost like a second mother tongue to them.” (2007:143)
However, the teacher should take into consideration the varying levels of exposure to English of various students and the fact that some learners have little talent for language learning. Therefore, because of the diversity of student potential and exposure to English, the task of teaching listening is far from easy, especially as people fail to realize its importance. That explains why this skill was not given enough attention previously in the past. Nevertheless, the use of technology has made the task of language teachers a lot easier. Nowadays, a wide range of audio-visual materials is available online, much of it for free, providing the learners with native language exposure. English language instructors can download listening materials from the internet according to the current needs of their learners within minutes. As a result, the use of audio-visual materials in teaching listening skills has increased significantly. Audio materials give learners a better idea about the correct pronunciation of the target language. Using various technologies in language teaching, teachers can help learners get used to native speakers’ accent.
Despite abundant materials, the listening class has to be carefully prepared, according to the following procedure. First of all, the necessary materials and the required equipment need to be at hand. The selection has to take into consideration the proficiency level of the learners but also their interests and concerns in order to make the learners’ experience more pleasurable and useful. Listening tasks must provide interesting content and communicate real meaning that is, real world issues of general interest, close to the students’ life experience. Moreover, teachers should provide clear instructions before starting the listening activities. If the learners know the reason of listening to a text beforehand, they will be more attentive and engaged in listening.
By promoting active listening activities, teachers allow students to more effectively practise the English language and also retain the information for later use. Listening practice has its own functional uses in daily language and it is important that teachers utilize these functions as goals in the classroom in order to design the most appropriate activities for their students. The visual support associated with the listening tasks is very useful to channel students’ attention and improves performance. Teachers should use material and language that is slightly higher than the learners’ current level because it provides some challenge to help them grow, but not so much challenge that it is too difficult. According to Krashen’s Input Hypothesis (1985) using material for listening that is slightly higher than learners’ current level will help learners advance to the next level. Listening skills must be taught in an integrative way: every listening activity must go hand in hand with speaking or writing tasks.
The basic framework on which you can create a listening lesson can be divided into three main stages: Pre-listening activities facilitate the introduction of the new vocabulary and arouse students’ interest in the topic by activating their prior knowledge. Among the various activities that help students prepare to listen, the most used are: discuss a relevant picture, discuss relevant experiences, associate vocabulary with the topic, predict information about the topic and write questions about the topic. While-listening activities keep students focus their attention on the listening text and guide them through the activity. Some examples are: gather the gist of the topic, identify supportive details about the topic, answer the questions, complete sentences, complete a chart, map, graph, etc. After-listening activities facilitate the comprehension and help students integrate what they have learned into their present knowledge; for example: giving opinions (using English language functions), relating similar experiences, role-playing a similar interaction, writing a brief report or a similar text, debating the topic, etc. are some of the widely used post activities.
To conclude, listening skills tend to provide the foundation for all language learning and play a long-life role in the communication process. Teachers need to take into consideration the reasons why students might listen to such a text in real life. In designing the proper tasks, Jim Scrivener’s advice is that they should either “closely reflect what they might need to do in real life or help them improve skills that will be useful to them in future.” Even if we work inside the classroom, at school, in a planned and organized environment, we always should prepare our students for real life, for their contact with the real world, to prepare them for the moment when they have language exams, leave school or start work.
2.4. Using Technology and the Audio-Visual Materials in Facilitating Speaking
As everybody knows, the most important but the most difficult skill to master is the speaking skill, as this skill implies not only extended knowledge, but also communicative competences. There are students that know lots of things, but it is very difficult for them to present them, especially in front of a large audience. They feel shy and uncomfortable and they often get panicky or simply feel they can’t speak in the above mentioned situation. There are students with less knowledge, but with very good communicative competences. They are more successful when speaking foreign languages as they are confident and more relaxed. The fact that speaking skills are very important is confirmed by Ur who said: “Of all the four skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), speaking seems the most important: people who know a language are referred to as speakers of that language, as if speaking includes all other kinds of knowing; and many if not most foreign language learners are primarily interested in learning to speak” (2000: 120). The same opinion is presented to us by Dakovska (2005:231) who states that speaking is considered the most important skill when studying a foreign language. Of course, students are continually encouraged to use the target language during classes and they usually do it. The problem is that when they go outside the classroom they have nobody to talk to and nowhere to use the foreign language they are learning, no real chance to communicate in that language. If speaking foreign languages seems to be difficult for many students inside the classroom, we have to mention that outside the school it is even more difficult because we live in a non-native English speaking country and the students cannot use English on a daily basis. But even in this case, there are students who try to find a context for themselves. For example, they communicate on social networks with friends from other countries, they play together and have fun together. Even if they do not necessarily use correct language patterns, they develop their confidence in speaking foreign languages and this is a very important aspect. In my opinion, speaking a foreign language does not mean only being able to follow a pattern, but being able to interact with people in authentic and real situations, not only during classroom controlled speaking situations. Therefore, teachers’ task to develop speaking skills is extremely challenging. This takes time and needs patience before we can really see the desired results in our students. Moreover, speaking needs to be practised together with the other skills, which suggests an integrated skills approach. “Nor is listening the only other skill that is implicated. Many real-world tasks that involve speaking may also involve reading and writing as well.” (Thornburry, 2005:118)
In the past, knowing a foreign language was understood as the ability to read a book or to understand a simple message in the target language. Today, in the era of communication, the development of speaking skills is of a primary importance. People learn foreign languages to communicate with others especially outside the classroom, not only inside it. Of course, at the beginning, students feel uncomfortable and nervous and consider speaking foreign languages as a challenging task. That’s why the interaction between students is very important. Working in pairs or groups during the class, the students learn from each other and help each other. They are more confident to speak with their colleagues and friends than with a teacher and are not afraid of saying what they really think about a given topic. Another important factor in determining if a lesson reaches its target is the classroom settings. If students sit in a circle, they can see each other; their inhibition is lowered and they are encouraged to speak. Teacher’s role during a lesson is to encourage students to use the target language all the time (if possible) and monitor them while they are working at the required task. Every student should be involved in activities in all steps of the lesson, even the shy students and less communicative ones. The activities should not be dominated by good students. A successful speaking lesson relies on successful speaking activities. Thus, the activities should be well chosen by the teacher in order to meet the requirements of the school and students’ requirements.
Another important aspect to be mentioned when speaking about communication in a foreign language is students’ motivation. Without it, the teaching-learning process is not efficient. To keep the students focused and concentrated, the teacher should choose topics that students are interested in; otherwise they won’t be willing to take part in activities and to communicate in the target language. There are two main kinds of motivation: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. According to Harmer (2001: 51), “extrinsic motivation is caused by any number of outside factors, for example, the need to pass an exam, the hope of financial reward, or the possibility of future travel. A student feels obliged to acquire a language because outside factors motivate him or her to learning. The second kind of motivation − intrinsic motivation, on the contrary, stands in total contrast to extrinsic one since it comes from within the person (Harmer, 2001: 51). There are many ways a teacher can make his/her students interested in speaking during the class, such as using audio-visual materials while teaching. They are always interactive and engaging and determine students to speak. If the materials are well chosen, the students feel enthusiastic and ready to express their opinions.
One more important aspect to be mentioned when speaking about learning foreign languages is the appropriate level of the language used. The teacher should start from easy activities and continue with more difficult ones. She should choose activities that correspond with the linguistic level of his/her students, even going a bit up that their level. This way the students don’t feel it is difficult for them to do the task and have a chance to learn some more new things, besides expressing their ideas and opinions through fluent speech.
In conclusion, speaking requires that learners not only know some theoretical aspects of a foreign language, such as grammar, pronunciation or vocabulary, but they also understand why and in what way to produce language. Brown defines speaking as “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information” (2000: 13). This is what makes a good teacher: the way he/she provides opportunities for all his/her students to speak, a nice physical environment, choosing interesting activities for the level of his/her students, offering his/her students a purpose for speaking in a foreign language, providing them help, support and guidance they may need, that’s why the use of technology and of the audio-visual materials is very important and helpful for every teacher in reaching this target.
2.5. The Audio-Visual Materials and Technology in Facilitating Writing
Writing is one of the most important language skills and, just like the previously discussed skills, highly benefits from the use of various attractive visual aids are meant to motivate the learners in writing. Teachers use different colourful visuals for teaching different types of writing (expository, persuasive, descriptive, and narrative). If learners are asked to write a composition on some previously discussed topic, they may lose their interest in writing and get bored. However, if the teacher presents something new, attractive and thought-provoking to them, students will find it easier to focus and the process of teaching writing will become more effective than the traditional way of teaching this skill. For example, videos can be used in the class to promote reflective writing. Similarly, pictures can be useful to encourage students in the case of narrative writing.
According to Harmer, “Teachers sometimes use pictures for creative writing. They might tell the students to invent a story using at least three of the images in front of them (on cue cards, for examples). They can tell them to have a conversation about a specified topic, and at various stages during the conversation, they have to pick a card and bring whatever that card shows into the conversation” (2002: 135). This type of writing activity is appropriate in group writing. Rather than working individually, learners can work in small groups which will give them more confidence and interest and there will be multiple ideas from the individuals of the group. This is just one example of the way in which audio visuals stimulate group work.
Writing is never an automatic consequence of language learning. In practice, much too often teachers want their students to write summaries, compositions and essays without prior training, and are quite disappointed by their poor results. Actually, they should not expect their students to write competently without gradual and thorough training. Students must cover the entire range of writing activities – from simple imitative ones, to complex creative tasks of free writing; it is also essential that they should write frequently and regularly. One of the important characteristics of audio visual aids is that they can be used at any stage and at all levels, from beginners to advanced students. Used properly, they can turn the acquisition of a difficult skill into a pleasant activity.
The development of writing skills is essential in producing proficient language users. There is a great variety of writing skills, from basic, spelling ones, to complex skills that allow students to produce complex pieces of writing. In order to develop such skills, the teacher must create intricate classroom activities and work towards progressively transforming the students into more independent writers. Teachers must work on two fronts: they should deal with both the students’ linguistic proficiency and the writing process, at the same time. If they are to make students proficient writers, teachers must provide them with good written models, must give them controlled activities and give them sufficient time to complete the task. Simultaneously, they must create an environment that encourages positive feedback and motivates students.
In all situations, especially visual aids but also audio aids bring an essential contribution in terms of motivation, by stirring students’ curiosity and helping them focus on the task at hand. They also facilitate a more direct, clearer understanding of the topic of the respective task.
2.6. Using Videos in Developing Language Skills
The use of video in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom has become a common practice for English teachers. In the 21st century, the availability of internet and of a great variety of technologies related to the use of videos has made the task of the language teachers easier. They can download various videos appropriate for their learners from the internet. As there is a multitude of videos designed for language teaching, that are free and ready to be used, teachers can easily choose according to their needs (Ozkan, 2002: 37). Audio-visual aids can facilitate language teaching in numerous ways. They make the classroom more appealing by introducing new material in an attractive way. Furthermore, they help the learners to generate ideas for discussion. They make the class more interactive and effective. Çakir notes another advantage of using video in language teaching: students deal with authentic language materials. Moreover, using curriculum related videos helps the learners to conceptualize and get a deeper understanding of particular topics. Besides, learners can concentrate on the use of contextual language in the videos in correlation with non-verbal features of language that help them to have better understanding of the target language use (2006: 67).
Cunning (2001) discussed the usefulness of using videos in language teaching stating that video provides stimuli to the learners which create opportunities for the learners to get a background schemata of the subject. Also the use of videos helps the learners to get a clearer idea of the phonological aspects of the target language such as stress and rhythm patterns. Moreover, it allows the learners to predict, infer and analyse information of the subject matter. Furthermore, watching a video, learners have the opportunities of experiencing dynamics of language communication, as Secules, Herron, & Tomasello (1992) point out.
Videos obviously emphasize the communicative dimension of teaching. They stimulate virtually every single aspect of communication. Thus, they answer one of the most basic needs of language appropriation, namely acquiring the ability to communicate with others in the target language, as Lonergan aptly put it (1988: 1).
Video can also increase students’ motivation and interest in foreign language acquisition as more senses get involved in the process. Harmer claims that this is all the more true as the use of video is coupled with interesting tasks. (2002: 282)
This opinion is shared not only by teachers, but by students as well. Feedback provided by students after lessons where video was used constantly points out to the fact that the full immersion provided by the video by involving two different senses, hearing and sight, makes the lesson more fun and the content more attractive for them. Furthermore, video can provide the learners with one more highly appreciated advantage, especially if English is not their native tongue and they study English in their home countries. In that case, lessons will most likely be taught by teachers who are not native English speakers and thus, videos are the only way to give students access to English spoken by native English speakers in authentic situations. As Stempleski and Tomallin pointed out, the use of a video clip presenting language interaction in English is the next best thing to seeing the same interaction in real life. (1992: 3)
Another major advantage of video is its ability of engaging students irrespective of their different levels of English. Since diversity of English language levels is what can be seen in most classes, the usefulness of videos is obvious. Using video is a perfect way to help students understand the language, even if they are not familiar with particular words and phrases by examining and interpreting the visual clues provided by the video. Furthermore, video is the only teaching aid that reproduces the complexity of real life situations precisely by combining the aural as well as the visual aspect. Textbooks or audio recordings fail to address or partially address this issue. However, as Allan shows, the most realistic “scenes” are created by videos, as the latter bring pictures, different voices and sound effects to the “scene” (1985: 48).
As the act of communicating is mostly non-verbal (it is performed without words, through gestures, facial expressions, body language, poses, eye contact, different tones of voice – intonation, stress, whispering – and so on), all these elements can help students understand the message, the emotions, or the mood in which the message is conveyed. Even scenes with little or no dialogue can also be comprehensible to viewers and can be used to guess what the actors could be saying, which is perfect for follow-up activities. Further information about follow-up activities and how to implement video into a complex lesson of English can be found in the Appendix. To sum up the long list of advantages of using videos in the classroom, one can add their capacity to make students talk. As Allen convincingly shows, it is often hard to make students talk but videos have a strong impact and often spark fierce debates (1985: 47-48).
As the usefulness of videos is hard to deny, the next step consists of choosing from among the variety of available video materials. At the most basic level, such materials can be divided into two groups – authentic and non-authentic. Authentic materials are those which are not made for language teaching purposes. Lonergan advocates the use of realia, as these authentic materials “can be used in the classroom to bring to language learning the same benefits as other realia, such as newspaper articles, magazine pictures, or popular records. They are real and meaningful; and they have a relevance to the learner which transcends the immediate needs of language learning” (1988: 8). Benefits refer to solving the students’ inability to transfer what they learn in the classroom to real life situations and their exposure to natural language in a variety of situations. Some authors suggest using realia with different amounts of language, depending on students’ levels—the higher the level of the students, the higher the amount of language, the idea being that what counts is actually generating a lot of discussion (Larsen-Freeman, 1986: 136). Non-authentic materials are those which are made for teaching purposes. As Lonergan shows, they have their own merits, especially in terms of selecting and organizing content: one knows exactly what has to be taught and evaluated (1988: 8).
One of the greatest strengths of television and video is the ability to communicate with viewers on an emotional, as well as a cognitive, level. Because of this ability to reach viewers’ emotions, video can have a strong positive effect on both motivation and affective learning. Not only are these important learning components on their own, but they can also play an important role in creating the conditions through which greater cognitive learning can take place. In conclusion, the use of video during the teaching-learning process offers uncountable possibilities for the acquisition of a new language. Video materials can be used for different purposes in the classroom and outside it, for teaching, practicing that new language or even for testing. All language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) are involved in using videos, as well as vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. More than that, students develop their communicative competences, their cultural and cross-cultural awareness and their confidence when video materials are used in the teaching-learning process.
“Video is infinitely superior to audio when it comes to helping the students understand what is being said, because gestures, the physical context and behavioural clues are all present.” (Gower& Walters, 1987: 163). To sum up, the use of video during the teaching-learning process offers uncountable possibilities for the acquisition of a new language. Video materials can be used for different purposes in the classroom and outside it, for teaching, practicing that new language or even for testing. All language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) are involved in using videos, as well as vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. More than that, students develop their communicative competences, their cultural and cross-cultural awareness and their confidence when video materials are used in the teaching-learning process.
Chapter 3
A Practical Illustration about the Use of the Audio-Visual Materials
and Technology during English Classes
For the practical part of my paper I designed lessons that develop the students’ thinking and language skills using technology and audio and/or visual materials. The students that took part in these lessons are nine, ten and twelve graders whose levels of English are good and very good, between B1 and C1 according to the Common European Framework. These students are interested in learning and have good knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, being able to use English in various situations. In creating the lessons I used the textbooks, additional books and audio and/or visual materials. The materials used during the lessons can be found in the appendices of the paper (see appendices 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7). I also provided the links for the video content when it was taken from the internet. In analysing the lessons I will first describe the aims of the activities the students are involved in, the stages of each activity and then look at the role of the teacher, the materials used, the organization of the class, the interaction between teacher and students and the feedback of the students based on discussions where they were asked to point out the things that they enjoyed and did not enjoy.
My expectations at the beginning of the experiment were that the students, being used to the communicative way of learning and teaching English, find the lessons and the materials interesting and motivating for developing their skills through the use of audio-visuals. The discussions and the feedback that the students provided when the lessons were analysed proved that they are much motivated and involved in the teaching-learning process when the audio-visual aids are used. The integration of these materials in a great variety of activities benefits both teachers and learners by making concepts easily understandable, stimulating enjoyment, confidence, concentration and teacher-learner communication. To sum up the use of audio-visual technologies in language teaching can fully improve students’ thinking and practical language skills, especially when using English in non-native speaking contexts.
In each sub-chapter I’m going to present a detailed description of a lesson mainly focused on developing one of the skills of our students (speaking, listening, reading, writing), accompanied by the lesson plan for every lesson. This way the reader of this thesis benefits twice. First, because they have the description of the lesson and secondly, because they can use the lesson plan as it is and they do not have to produce it themselves (it means less work for the people interested in teaching these lessons). Of course, everyone is free to adjust them according to their teaching competences, the level and the needs of their students and the target of their lesson.
3.1. Lesson Designed to Develop Students’ Reading Skills
Reading skills are very important when speaking about the acquisition of a new language. These skills are usually developed after speaking/ listening skills. It helps students to communicate with someone even if they are not present, if they are not face to face. The reading skills come together with the writing skills and are mostly used by advanced learners of English. Of course, as EFL teachers, we start teaching reading/writing in a foreign language only after our students can read and write very well in their mother tongue. These skills need continuous practice in order not to lose them, but for permanent development. Once our students can read and write in a foreign language they are not totally dependent by a teacher. Some advantages of having reading/writing skills in a foreign language are: the students are able to find themselves books or material for self-study, they can choose themselves the topics they like best, the types of text they find interesting, the right time for reading them to read and so on and so forth.
The first lesson I am going to describe is entitled ‘World Mysteries’, a lesson designed to develop students’ reading skills. As reading should not be separated from the other skills, the lesson also focuses on developing students’ listening and speaking skills. The students who took the class are nine graders, they are between 15 and 16 years old and their level of English is intermediate. They have good knowledge of English and are eager to work in class activities. They are also collaborating and like being involved in activities which use pair or group work because they are interested in communicating with each other. The aims of the lesson are: to encourage students’ involvement and raise their interest for the topic, to improve their reading comprehension skills, to practise and develop Ss’ speaking skills and to practise listening through watching a video.
The lesson is based on a reading comprehension text that is taken from their textbook. Based on this text I created pre-, while- and after-reading activities in order to develop students’ language skills, using various types of audio-visual materials: pictures, a video clip about the most famous mysteries of the world, and handouts with the jumbled paragraphs and exercises designed to develop their thinking and language skills.
In this lesson all types of interaction are used (T-Ss-T, S-S) and also all types of organization (individual work, pair work, group work, whole class). Regarding the teacher’s roles, the teacher is the organizer of all the activities that immerse students in the language learning. She is also a facilitator, offering explanations when students need them and a monitor in order to make sure the students are doing the tasks correctly. Any errors the teacher hears while monitoring this activity can be discussed and corrected as a class.
Regarding the students’ feedback about the lesson, the following day, I asked them to express their opinions about the lesson. They pointed out that they liked the video clip about the world mysteries and admitted that they had never heard about many of them. They also considered the text about the Mayan civilization very interesting. They enjoyed mostly the activities that involved pair and group work. When they were asked what parts they had not enjoyed they pointed out that explaining some words and giving their synonyms was difficult although they knew their meanings but it was difficult to say something on the spot.
In conclusion, the students enjoyed the lesson and found the activities motivating and they also emphasized that the teaching-learning process was facilitated by the use of audio-visuals.
LESSON PLAN
Name: Teodora MIRCEA Class: 9 B
School: ‘Unirea’ High School Level: intermediate
Date: 14th November 2016 No. of Students: 27
Time of lesson: from 12:10 to 13:00 Textbook: Close-up B1+ _______________________________________________________________________
Lesson: WORLD MYSTERIES
Type of lesson: acquiring new information
Skills: reading, speaking, listening
Organization: Whole Class (WhC), Individual Work (IW), Pair work (PW), Group work (GW)
Methods: conversation, explanation, interactive methods, exercises
Materials: blackboard, TV set, worksheets, pictures
Lesson Aims:
to raise Ss’ interest for the topic
to put the jumbled paragraphs of a text in the correct order
to match the words to their definitions
to give synonyms for the highlighted words in the text
to practise and develop Ss’ speaking skill
to practise listening through watching a video
Specific competences:
By the end of the lesson students will be able:
to share ideas and participate in a classroom discussion
to define the meaning of some words related to mysteries
to use the newly acquired vocabulary in different contexts
WARM–UP
Aim:
to create a pleasant atmosphere and encourage Ss’ involvement
Procedure:
T greets Ss, asks for absentees and about Ss’ mood.
T writes some words on the blackboard and asks Ss to predict the theme of the lesson (phenomenon, disappearance, evidence, incident, clue, detective, alien, UFOs, witness, detective).
T announces the title of the lesson: WORLD MYSTERIES and asks Ss if they know any mysteries.
Interaction: WhC, T-Ss-T
Timing: 5’
ACTIVITY 1
Aim:
to raise Ss’ interest for the topic
Procedure:
T divides Ss in groups of four and gives them a set of pictures representing mysteries of the world and, separately, a list with their names and asks them to name them. (In order to make this task more difficult, the list can be given later, after they have tried to name some of them.) Then, T checks the answers as a whole class.
T presents a short video clip about ten most famaous mysteries of the world. (https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ph5qf). While Ss are watching, they write the countries/places the mysteries come from. T checks the activity as a whole class.
T asks Ss to name the mysteries from the video they haven’t heard until watching it.
Interaction: GW, WhC, Ss-Ss, T-Ss-T
Timing: 20’
ACTIVITY 2
Aim:
to put the jumbled paragraphs of a text in the correct order
Procedure:
Ss are asked to work in pairs for this activity (ex. 1).
T gives each pair a handout with a text about ‘The Mystery of the Maya’ in which the paragraphs of the text are, apart from the first, in the wrong order. T tells Ss to arrange the paragraphs in the correct order. When Ss have finished the task, they read back through the text to make sure the paragraphs make sense.
Then, together with another pair, in groups of four, Ss compare their answers and check/decide the final order of the paragraphs.
T checks the correct order of the paragraphs as a class.
Interaction: PW, GW, S-S, Ss-Ss, Ss-T-Ss
Timing: 10’
ACTIVITY 3
Aim:
to match the words to their definitions
Procedure:
T asks Ss to solve ex. 2, as an individual work. Ss have to to find for the meanings given the correct word in bold in the text.
Then, in pairs, Ss are going to check the exercise.
T checks the exercise as a whole class.
Interaction: IW, PW, S-S, Ss-T-Ss
Timing: 7’
ACTIVITY 4
Aim:
to give synonyms for the highlighted words in the text
Procedure:
T asks Ss to solve ex. 3.
In pairs, Ss have to find synonyms for the highlighted words in the reading text.
Then, T checks the answers as a class.
Interaction: S-S, Ss-T-Ss
Timing: 3’
ACTIVITY 5
Aim:
to practise and develop Ss’ speaking skill
Procedure:
T asks Ss to concentrate their attention on the Ideas Focus section.
In pairs, Ss talk about the questions.
Interaction: PW, S-S
Timing: 5’
Homework
Ss write a short paragraph on one or more of the questions from the section IDEAS FOCUS.
3.2. Lesson Designed to Develop Students’ Listening Skills
The second lesson ‘Moods and Feelings’ is intended to develop students’ listening and speaking skills. The students who took the class are ten graders, they are about 16-17 years old and their level of English is upper intermediate. They have good knowledge of English and are willing to work in class activities. They are also cooperative and like being involved in activities such as pair or group work because they are interested in communicating with each other. The aims of the lesson are: to revise and practise vocabulary connected to body language, feelings and emotions, to match the descriptions of different kinds of therapy to the speaker, to identity the reasons why people go to a therapist, to develop Ss' speaking and listening skills.
The lesson is based on pre-, while- and after-listening activities in order to develop students’ listening and speaking skills, using various types of audio-visual materials: a small box with slips of paper, pictures, CD player and their textbook. The students work individually, in pairs or groups of four. During all activities the teacher monitors the students to make sure they are doing the tasks correctly and encourage them all the time. Any errors the teacher hears while monitoring the activities can be discussed and corrected as a whole class activity.
Being asked to express their opinions about the lesson, the students remarked that the use of audio-visuals helped them to get engaged in the learning process. They also got the chance to hear native speakers of English in meaningful situations. When they were asked what activities they had enjoyed least, some of the students mentioned that the listening exercise contained some parts that were difficult for them to understand.
All in all, the students liked the lesson, the opportunities to interact with each other and found the activities interesting and motivating. They also emphasized that the teaching-learning process was facilitated by the use of audio-visuals.
LESSON PLAN
Name: Teodora MIRCEA Class: 10 B
School: ‘Unirea’ High School Level: upper intermediate
Date: 9th October 2017 No. of Students: 16
Time of lesson: from 10:00 to 10:50 Textbook: Upstream upper- intermediate
________________________________________________________________________
Lesson: MOODS AND FEELINGS
Type of lesson: revising and developing knowledge
Skills: listening, speaking
Organization: Whole Class (WhC), Individual Work (IW), Pair work (PW), Group work (GW)
Methods: conversation, explanation, interactive methods, exercises
Materials: Student’s Book, worksheets, handouts, pictures, CD, CD player
Lesson Aims:
to revise and practise vocabulary connected to body language, feelings and emotions
to match the descriptions of different kinds of therapy to the speaker
to identify the reasons why people go to a therapist
to develop Ss' speaking and listening skills
Specific competences:
By the end of the lesson students will be able:
to use vocabulary expressing feelings and emotions in their own context
to name the reasons why people go to a therapist and some types of therapists
to use vocabulary connected to therapy in their own context
WARM–UP
Aim:
to create a pleasant atmosphere and encourage Ss’ involvement
Procedure:
T greets Ss, asks for absentees and about Ss’ mood.
T has a small box in her hands and inside it there are some slips of paper. On each slip of paper there is either an answer or a question. In turns, Ss have to make up a question to match the response or to give an answer for the question.
Examples: 1. How would you feel if the headmaster asked to see you?
I would feel relaxed/ calm/ stressed/ nervous, etc.
2. I get butterflies in my stomach.
How do you feel when you have to speak in public?
Interaction: WhC, T-Ss-T
Timing: 5 min.
ACTIVITY 1 (Pre-listening activity)
Aims:
to introduce the students into the topic of the lesson
to revise vocabulary connected to body language
Procedure:
In pairs, Ss are given a set of pictures and a list of adjectives to choose from. They have to describe the people in the pictures using adjectives expressing body language.
When Ss have completed the task, they share their descriptions with the whole class.
Interaction: PW, S-S
Timing: 10 min.
ACTIVITY 2 (While-listening)
Aims:
to match the descriptions of different kinds of therapy to the speakers
to develop Ss’ listening skills
Procedure:
Ss are asked to open their textbooks on page 28 and go through the strategy box from exercise 1 in order to complete the listening task successfully. Next, they read the descriptions of different kinds of therapy (A-F), underline the keywords and suggest what they think each therapy involves.
Ss listen to five therapists talking about their work. While listening they match the descriptions of different kinds of therapy (A-F) to the speakers (1-5). There is one extra therapy which they do not need to use. Ss listen to the track twice. After the second playing of each speaker, T pauses the track and checks Ss' answers.
Interaction: IW, Ss-T-Ss
Timing: 15 min.
ACTIVITY 3 (After-listening activity)
Aims:
to identify the reasons why people go to a therapist
to be aware of the benefits of therapies
to develop Ss’ speaking skills
Procedure:
T elicits why people might go to a therapist and what types of therapies they know. In groups of four Ss recall the reasons of going to a therapist. Then, using a spidergram, Ss with the T’s support will write these reasons on the blackboard.
They also discuss the benefits of therapies.
Interaction: GW, Ss-Ss, Ss-T-Ss
Timing: 20 min.
3.3. Lesson Designed to Develop Students’ Writing Skills
Writing skills are considered the most difficult language skills to teach. At present, various attractive audio-visual materials and technologies are used to motivate students in writing lessons. For example, pictures, songs. Or even videos can be used in the class, as a starting point, to encourage reflective writing. Students could work individually, in pairs or in small groups. The last two options will give them confidence and will arise their interest in the given topic, as they have multiple idea working together.
This lesson is based on developing students’ writing skills about providing solutions to a problem. The students who took the class are ten graders and their level of English is very good.
At the beginning of the class, I used a video song of Michael Jackson about environment pollution which students liked very much. After listening to the song, students in groups came with different ideas about environment pollution and its solutions. Thus, the class became an interactive one with the active participation of the students.
Next I used a video on environment pollution. After watching the video, the students discussed the possible solutions of the environmental pollution in groups and then they presented in front of the class. This is very important, as they are the generation of tomorrow, the ones who should benefit of the advantages of a clean environment and recycling. This lesson was great to draw their attention at the consequences of pollution and helped them to find valid solutions for this problem. By the use of the song and video, the students have practiced their speaking skills.
As I expected, the lesson was successful and the students worked well, being interested in the subject of the lesson. They became involved in the designed activities and expressed interesting ideas about the subject of the lesson.
LESSON PLAN
Name: Teodora MIRCEA Class: 10A
School: ‘Unirea’ High School Level: upper-intermediate
Date: 14th March 2018 No. of Students: 33
Time of lesson: from 12:10 to 13:00 Textbook: Upstream Upper-intermediate _________________________________________________________________________
Lesson: An essay suggesting solutions to a problem
Type of lesson: revising and developing knowledge
Skills: writing, speaking
Organization: Whole Class (WhC), Individual Work (IW), Pair work (PW), Group work (GW)
Methods: conversation, explanation, interactive methods, exercises
Materials: blackboard, TV set, worksheets
Lesson Aims:
to raise Ss’ interest for the topic
to provide suggestions to a problem and supporting details
to write the expected results to that problem
to write an essay suggesting solutions to a problem
Specific competences:
By the end of the lesson students will be able:
to share ideas and participate in a classroom discussion
to write suggestions to a problem and its expected results
to write an essay providing solutions to a problem
WARM–UP
Aim:
to raise Ss’ interest for the topic
Procedure:
T greets Ss, asks for absentees and about Ss’ mood.
T invites Ss to listen to a song called Earth Song by Michael Jackson in order to make them aware of the causes and effects of environmental pollution.
The song is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDBNSV59DKs
Interaction: WhC, T-Ss-T
Timing: 7’
ACTIVITY 1
Aims:
to identify the types of pollution
to elicit the causes and the effects of the environmental pollution
Procedure:
T divides Ss in groups of four and gives them a worksheet.
T tells Ss that they are going to watch a short video clip about different types of pollution. It is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI4YXufffPc
While Ss are watching it, they have to complete a table, mentioning the types of environmental pollution, the causes and effects of pollution. T checks the answers as a whole class.
Interaction: GW, WhC, Ss-Ss, T-Ss-T
Timing: 8’
ACTIVITY 2
Aim:
to provide solutions to reduce environmental pollution
Procedure:
In pairs, Ss are asked to provide suggestions in order to reduce environmental pollution. They also have to justify why they have chosen these solutions by offering the supporting details and stating the expected results.
T asks some pairs to read their ideas in front of the class..
Interaction: PW, S-S, Ss-T-Ss
Timing: 10’
ACTIVITY 3
Aim:
to write an essay suggesting solutions to a problem
Procedure:
T asks Ss, in pairs, to write an essay suggesting ways to deal with the problem of environmental pollution, using the suggestions, the supporting details and the expected results from the previous activity.
T asks some students to read their essays in front of the class.
At the end of the lesson, the very active students are rewarded, praised, while the less active ones are encouraged to get more involved in the future lessons.
Interaction: PW, S-S, Ss-T-Ss
Timing: 25’
3.4. Lesson Designed to Develop Students’ Speaking Skills
The fourth lesson “Making a living” is intended to develop students’ speaking and writing skills. The students who took the class are ten graders, they are about 16-17 years old and their level of English is upper intermediate. They are good students and are always engaged in class activities. They are also cooperative and like working together in pairs or groups. The aims of the lesson are: to develop Ss' speaking and writing skills, to complete a dialogue, to role play a dialogue, to act out a job interview, to complete a paragraph making comparisons and to describe and compare professions.
The lesson is based on pre-, while- and after-speaking activities in order to develop students’ speaking and writing skills, using various types of audio-visual materials: the student’s book, worksheets, handouts, pictures box with slips of paper, pictures and a CD player.
The students work individually, in pairs or groups of four. During all activities the teacher monitors the students to make sure they are doing the tasks correctly and encourage them all the time. Any errors the teacher hears while monitoring the activities can be discussed and corrected as a whole class activity.
Being asked to express their opinions about the lesson, the students remarked that the use of audio-visuals helped them developing their communicative skills. They also got the chance to hear native speakers of English in real life situations. When they were asked what activities they had enjoyed best, some of the students mentioned that the speaking about different jobs is really helpful for them, as they are nearly at the stage to leave the high school and enrol in a university or look for a job.
In conclusion, the students liked the lesson, the opportunities to interact with each other and speak about possible jobs for their nearest future was a benefit for them. They also observed that the teaching-learning process was facilitated by the use of audio-visuals.
LESSON PLAN
Name: Teodora MIRCEA Class: 10 C
School: ‘Unirea’ High School Level: upper intermediate
Date: 19th February 2018 No. of Students: 32
Time of lesson: from 9:00 to 9:50 Textbook: Upstream upper intermediate
_________________________________________________________________________
Lesson: MAKING A LIVING
Type of lesson: revising and developing knowledge
Skills: speaking, writing
Organization: Whole Class (WhC), Individual Work (IW), Pair work (PW), Group work (GW)
Methods: conversation, explanation, interactive methods, exercises
Materials: Student’s Book, worksheets, handouts, pictures
Lesson Aims:
to develop Ss' speaking and writing skills
to complete a dialogue
to role play a dialogue
to act out a job interview
to complete a paragraph making comparisons
to describe and compare professions
Specific competences:
By the end of the lesson students will be able:
to use vocabulary connected to job interviews
to describe characteristics of various jobs
to use the appropriate language structures for comparing and contrasting any two professions
WARM–UP
Aim:
to create a pleasant atmosphere and relax the Ss
Procedure:
T greets Ss, asks for absentees and asks about Ss’ mood.
T reads some jokes in order to create a pleasant atmosphere and relax the Ss.
Interaction: T-Ss
Timing: 3 min.
ACTIVITY 1
Aims:
to complete a dialogue
to role play a dialogue
Procedure:
T asks Ss to read out the words/ phrases in the list and use them to complete the gaps of a dialogue about a job interview (ex. 1)
T plays the recording for Ss to check their answers.
Ss work in pairs, take roles and act out the dialogue.
T asks some pairs to act out the dialogue in front of the class.
Interaction: IW, PW, S-S
Timing: 7 min.
ACTIVITY 2
Aim:
to act out a job interview
Procedure:
In pairs, Ss are given job interview related dialogue tasks that involve various occupations (ex. 2)
T explains the task and asks pairs of Ss to take roles and act out dialogues similar to the previous exercise using their own ideas and the useful language in the box. Ss write the dialogue in their notebooks.
T asks some pairs to act out the dialogue in front of the class.
Interaction: IW, PW, S-S
Timing: 10 min.
ACTIVITY 3
Aim:
to complete a paragraph making comparisons
Procedure:
T asks Ss to look at the pictures and elicits which professions are shown (taxi driver and doctor) and then elicits some ways in which they are different (ex. 3)
T asks Ss to read the paragraph and choose the correct words to complete the gaps.
T checks Ss’ answers around the class.
Interaction: PW, S-S, Ss-T-Ss
Timing: 7 min.
ACTIVITY 4
Aim:
to compare two professions
Procedure:
T asks Ss to read the ideas given under the two pictures (ex. 4).
T explains the task and ask Ss to compare and contrast the two professions shown using the ideas and appropriate linkers.
T checks Ss’ answers around the class.
Interaction: IW, Ss-T-Ss
Timing: 10 min.
ACTIVITY 5
Aim:
to write a paragraph making comparisons
Procedure:
T asks pairs of Ss to choose two more jobs to compare in the same way. They prepare and write together some characteristics for both jobs. Each pair then reads their comparison with phrases from the comparison box to the class, but instead they replace the jobs with A and B. At the end the class guesses the two jobs (ex.5)
At the end of the lesson, the very active students are rewarded, praised, while the less active ones are encouraged to get more involved in the future lessons.
Interaction: PW, S-S, Ss-T-Ss
Timing: 13 min.
3.5. Lesson Based on Video
The fifth lesson “The Smelliest Fruit” is intended to develop students’ speaking and listening skills by using videos during the class. The students who took the class are twelve graders, they are about 18-19 years old and their level of English is advanced. They are communicative students and like being engaged in class activities. They are also serious and like hardworking. The aims of the lesson are: to raise Ss’ interest for the topic, to practice listening through watching a video, to improve Ss’ listening comprehension, to practice and develop Ss’ speaking skill, to complete a paragraph making comparisons and to describe and compare professions.
The lesson is based on pre-, while- and after- watching video activities in order to develop students’ speaking and listening skills, using various types of audio-visual materials: a blackboard, a TV set, a laptop, worksheets, pictures, a DVD. The students work individually, in pairs or groups during the lesson. While working to solve the tasks the teacher monitors the students to make sure they are correctly using the target language and work well together all the time. Any errors the teacher hears while monitoring the activities can be discussed and corrected as a whole class activity.
Being asked to express their opinions about the lesson, the students said that watching the video helped them a lot in developing their speaking and listening skills. They also got the chance to hear native speakers of English in real life situations. When they were asked what activities they had enjoyed best, some of the students mentioned that the speaking about different professions is really helpful for them, as they are nearly at the stage to leave the high school and enrol in a university or look for a job.
In conclusion, the students worked very well together, they had opportunities to interact with each other and speak about possible professions they may choose after graduating the high school. They were also happy that the teaching-learning process was facilitated by the use of video materials.
LESSON PLAN
Name: Teodora MIRCEA Class: 12 C
School: “Unirea” Highschool Level: upper-intermediate
Date: 14th May 2018 No. of Students: 33
Time of lesson: from 12:10 to 13:00 Textbook: Close-up C1 _________________________________________________________________________
Lesson: The Smelliest Fruit
Type of lesson: acquiring new information
Skills: speaking, listening
Organization: Whole Class (WhC), Individual Work (IW), Pair work (PW), Group work (GW)
Methods: conversation, explanation, interactive methods, exercises
Materials: blackboard, TV set, laptop, worksheets, pictures, DVD
Lesson Aims:
to encourage Ss’ involvement
to raise Ss’ interest for the topic
to practise listening through watching a video
to improve Ss’ listening comprehension
to practise and develop Ss’ speaking skill
Specific competences
By the end of the lesson students will be able:
to share ideas and participate in a classroom discussion
to define the meaning of some words related to food
to use the newly acquired vocabulary in different contexts
WARM –UP
Aim:
to create a pleasant atmosphere and relax the Ss
to encourage Ss’ involvement
Procedure:
T greets Ss, asks for absentees and asks about Ss’ mood.
T gives Ss a quiz about food and asks them to answer the questions individually.
T asks Ss to form groups of four and compare their answers.
Then, T asks some Ss to read their answers.
Interaction: IW, GW, T-Ss-T
Timing: 5’
ACTIVITY 1
Aim:
to raise Ss’ interest for the topic
Procedure:
T asks Ss how their sense of smell influences what they choose to eat.
T asks Ss if they know any food that smells bad and shows them some pictures representing smelly food.
T presents a short video clip about the smelliest food in the world and gives Ss a list with these smelliest fruit which appear in the video and Ss have to write the countries they come from next to each food. The video clip is available at:
Then, T checks the answers as a class.
Interaction: T-Ss-T, WhC
Timing: 10’
ACTIVITY 2
Aim:
to introduce the new vocabulary
Procedure:
T gives Ss a worksheet with exercises designed for before-, while- and after-watching activities.
T asks Ss to read the questions from exercise A and talk about their possible answers, in pairs.
Then, T asks Ss to do exercise B in pairs. They have to match the words given with their definitions; these words are going to come up in the video.
Interaction: PW, T-Ss-T
Timing: 10’
ACTIVITY 3
Aim:
to practise listening through watching a video
Procedure:
T tells Ss that they are going to watch a short documentary about The Durian Fruit.
While watching it, T asks Ss to solve ex. C and decide whether the statements given are true or false.
Then, T checks the answers as a class.
Interaction: T-Ss-T, IW
Timing: 5’
ACTIVITY 4
Aim:
to improve Ss’ listening comprehension
Procedure:
After Ss have watched the video clip, they are asked to do exercise D; individualy, they have to complete the gaps of the summary of the video with the missing information.
After they have finished, T shows the documentary film again; thus, Ss can check the gap filling exercise.
Interaction: T-Ss-T, IW
Timing: 15’
ACTIVITY 5
Aim:
to practice and develop Ss’ speaking skill
Procedure:
T asks Ss to read the questions from the Ideas Focus section.
In pairs, Ss share their knowledge by answering the questions.
Interaction: PW, WhC
Timing: 5’
Homework
Write a short paragraph on: What do you think is totally unacceptable to eat?
CHAPTER 4
Research Concerning the Development of Language Skills
through the Use of Audio-Visual Technologies
“The competition between nations and the guarantee of welfare becomes increasingly dependent on technological supremacy, an immediate expression of the level reached in education.” (2000:124), says Ioan Nicola, a great Romanian researcher in pedagogy. From his point of view, education plays a capital role in every person’s life and in order to be successful, lifelong learning should be accompanied by technology. I totally agree with this statement and this quote encouraged me in choosing this research about the importance of audio-visual materials and technology during language teaching.
This is a very important chapter of my thesis and in it I will present the purpose of the research, the objectives, the work hypotheses, the methodology of research and the sample groups taken into consideration when doing this research. Each of them will be presented as a sub-chapter of this chapter and will show the reader of this thesis some facts about the importance of using audio-visual materials and technology in English classes.
4.1. Research Purpose
The purpose of the present study is to investigate and demonstrate the effectiveness of using audio-visual materials and technologies in developing students’ language skills in general, and as regards English language skills, in particular. I will also speak here about the advantages students as well as teachers have while the audio-visual materials and technologies are used in classes. I will observe the way my students feel and react while these materials and technologies are used in comparison with the periods/times they are not used in class and I will compare the results.
4.2. Research Objectives
In order to find out if the audio-visual materials and technology are efficient and desirable to be used during language classes, I set the following objectives for my research:
to review the approaches and methods that have used all kinds of audio-visual resources in the teaching-learning process and briefly present how these aids have supported educators and students to carry out successful teaching experiences;
to identify the uses of audio visual materials and technologies;
to find out about the students’ interest in audio visual materials and technologies;
to analyse the effectiveness of audio visual materials and technologies in the teaching-learning process;
to demonstrate that audio-visuals integrated in the lessons bring a change in the dynamics of the language classroom (see the lesson plans presented in the next chapter);
to analyse and compare the results of the sample group with those of the experimental group and determine the level of importance of using audio-visual materials and technologies;
to find students’ opinions and teachers’ opinions about the effectiveness of using audio-visual resources;
to find out the problems that may occur in using audio-visual technologies in the classroom and some ways they could be dealt with if they happen.
4.3. Work Hypothesis
In this research paper our hypothesis states that if teachers use audio-visual materials and technologies in their lessons, their students’ language skills will be improved. They will learn foreign languages faster and easier and in a more pleasant way. By using them, these audio-visual resources integrated in the educational process should motivate students in developing their language skills.
4.4. Methodology of the Research
To get correct results, we need to use appropriate methods in our research about the use of the audio-visual materials and technologies during English language classes. This research is intended to find out if the work hypothesis is confirmed or not, if we get relevant and reliable results that can be used in classes or in further researches. In order to get accurate results, I will use several methods of research. If they all show the same results, it means that our research is valid and worthy to be taken into consideration by language teachers and some other researchers. Thus, in my research, I have used the following methods:
The Systematic Observation
The Psycho-Pedagogical Experiment
The Survey Method (Questionnaires)
4.4.1. The Systematic Observation
The systematic observation is a study method commonly used in researches. When using it alone in a research, we can miss some details. But using it in a collaborative way, we can get good and relevant results. This is why I have chosen it for my thesis. My students were observed throughout the research. I was interested in the way they feel and work together, in the way they react when the audio-visual materials are used in class or not, in the way they develop their language skills and how easy or difficult it is for them to acquire new knowledge.
I have used this research method all the time but especially during the first semester of the academic year 2017-2018 and the results were recorded regularly. Thus, I decided to observe directly both the control group and the experimental group and to make comparisons between them by determining the level of importance of using-audio visual materials and technologies in the education system. I have chosen to observe a class of ten graders from my school who study English in a split class. They have four lessons a week. With the experimental group I used audio-visual materials besides the textbook in the teaching-learning process while with the control group I only used the textbook. This was done while teaching a unit from their book. Then for the next units, I changed the experimental group and the research group in between them, as, if my hypothesis was right, not to disadvantage any students in getting knowledge in a faster and pleasant way. After regularly collecting data, the latter was analysed, processed and compared. The acquired results helped me in finding out if the work hypothesis of this thesis was correct and in formulating some valuable conclusions that are presented in the last chapter of this thesis.
4.4.2. The Psycho-Pedagogical Experiment
Another method that I used was a very relevant one, focusing on the effectiveness of modern methods using audio-visual materials and technology during the teaching-learning process, in an experimental way. I chose for the experiment two groups from the same class (one half of the class in each group) and it lasted for only a short period of time, until the target language was taught, in order to verify the work hypothesis of this thesis. For the next unit from their textbook, I inverted the groups, to check the results I got by collecting data and to make sure that one group was not better that the other one. The experiment was repeated all year long, so all the students had a chance to benefit from the use of the audio-visual materials and technologies and to be treated in the spirit of fair play. By doing the experiment over a longer period I wanted to make sure that the season, the weather, the part of the day (at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the day) the students had the English lessons did not affect their way of acting and responding in the experiment and the data were collected in a right way.
The essence of the experiment was based on the difference of the methods I used when teaching the new vocabulary with and without the use of audio-visual materials and technologies. In the first phase, for the first group (Group A) I prepared a set of modern, enjoyable and challenging activities in which audio-visual materials and technologies were used while for the second group (Group B) I simply used traditional methods in teaching the same vocabulary. With group A, I used activities that involve modern methods and materials, such as video clips presenting idioms about colours, pictures and cards. First of all, as a lead-in activity, students were asked how different colours may influence their life, about their favourite colours and the relationship between these colours and their personalities. Then, they were given a gapped text where they have to complete each gap with a colour. Then they watched the video clip where the idioms based on colours were explained in a funny and relaxed way. After that the students were divided in groups of four, each group received a colour and they had to write as many idioms they could with that colour; they were also allowed to use the internet. After they had finished, a student from each group came in front of the class and presented the idioms by explaining them to their colleagues and giving examples. In this way, the new vocabulary was taught by the students. Then, we played a game: each student got a half of the idiom on a card, the task being to find the other half of it in the hands of someone else. Students had to mingle and ask questions to find the proper half of the idioms. With group B, I simply presented the meaning of the same idioms. Students took notes from the blackboard and then made sentences using the newly acquired vocabulary. They also did some exercises based on these idioms from their textbooks.
I did not tell either of the groups that I was going to give them a test the next day. The test consisted of three exercises: in the first one they had to define the meaning of six idioms, in the second one they had to complete ten sentences with the missing part of the idiom, and the third one was a matching exercise, the first column contained 10 complete idioms while the second column listed their meanings. The total points were 100 points (30 points for the first exercise, 20 points for the second one and 30 points for the last one and 20 points granted). The following tables show the results of the students in both groups. The names of my students are not given in full. Only the initials are provided as I consider it is enough. We are interested in the results of the test not in who the students are. Their results are presented in the tables below and each table contains the initials of the students’ names and the number of points they have scored at the end of the test. As can be seen, the students from group A (the group where I used the audio-visual materials and technology), reached higher points than the students from group B, where I used traditional teaching methods. There is no spectacular difference between their results, as the whole class is very good. Our high school is one of the better high schools in Târgu Mureș and all of them are hardworking students. But, by comparing the results, we can easily note the difference.
By comparing the results, we can see that the average for group A is 9.81 and the average for group B is 9.06. The difference of 0.74 is attributed to the use of the audio-visual materials and technologies during the English class. We also note that there is no big difference in education and social background between the members of each group. The dissimilarity that occurs in the results of the test is merely due to the way the students were exposed to the new vocabulary. The fact that students from group A had the chance to take part in activities based on modern methods, to revise the idioms in a playful and relaxed way, to work in groups or/and pairs, individually or as a whole class. The variety of the activities and the multiple types of interaction enhanced the acquisition of the new vocabulary. Thus, students from group A developed their language and thinking skills through the use of modern activities that involved audio-visual materials and technology.
Group A Group B
The following chart shows the differences between group A, where the audio-visual materials and technologies were used (in blue colour) in comparison with group B (in red colour), where the traditional teaching was done and no audio-visual materials and technologies were used.
For the next unit from their book, I changed the experimental group and the control group in order to make sure that the members of first group do not have a “sharper brain” and the results are attributed to the use of the audio-visual materials and technology, to the way in which the students were exposed to the new vocabulary and not to the fact that the students in the first group were better than the students in the second group. The vocabulary that I taught in this unit was connected to houses: different types of houses, the rooms/areas of a house, renting a house, appliances and furniture, idioms and fixed phrases with home, household items, etc. The students in group A were taught the vocabulary from this unit by offering the explanations and the definitions of the new language items while students in group B benefited from new methods in which I used a video clip presenting different types of houses and lots of interesting and motivating related activities.
The next day I tested both groups without telling my students my intention to check their knowledge connected to the previously taught material. The test consisted of three exercises: the first one was a multiple choice exercise in which students had to choose the most appropriate answers, in the second one they had to complete ten sentences with the missing part of the idiom, and the third one required students to write the correct word for the given definitions. The total points were 100 points (30 points for the first exercise, 20 points for the second one and 30 points for the last one and 20 points granted). The results are presented in the tables below.
Group A Group B
The following chart shows the differences between group A, where the traditional teaching was applied and the audio-visual materials and technologies were not used this time (in blue colour) in comparison with group B (in red colour), where modern teaching was involved and the audio-visual materials and technologies were used.
By comparing the results, we can see that the average for group A (where no audio-visual materials were used) is 8.93 and the average for group B (where the audio-visual materials were used) is 9.73. The difference of 0.80 is attributed to the way in the students were exposed to the new vocabulary and the use of the audio-visual materials and technology. We note that the groups were not changed. The same students belonged to the same group as before and there still is a difference between their scores. In conclusion, we can observe that the grades of the students exposed to the audio-visual materials and technology are a bit higher than for the students who were not exposed to them. I consider that the extra materials help my students to learn foreign languages faster and motivate them.
4.4.3. The Survey Method
The third method I employed to demonstrate de efficiency of the use of audio-visual materials and technologies during English language classes is the survey method, the use of questionnaires within the survey method. This is very often used worldwide because of its convenience in both sending the same questionnaire to all members participating in the research and receiving answers. I have used a questionnaire for students and a questionnaire for teachers. Both of them are presented in the appendix (see appendix 1 & 2). One advantage of this method is that the data collected are exact and because the results are visible throughout the research, from the very beginning to the end, as they are automatically calculated by internet protocols, by using Google Forms on-line application for the sending of the questionnaires to the receivers and the processing of data. Another advantage is that the questionnaire is kept on-line as much as the sender wants to and the respondent people can answer the questions when they have a bit of free time.
4.5. The Research Sample Group
As I have already mentioned before, I used a questionnaire for students and a questionnaire for teachers. This is in order to see how important the students and teachers consider the use of the audio-materials and technology, what they like best, what problems may occur while using them and in what way these problem could be avoided or sorted out. This research method will also help me in testing the work hypothesis of this thesis and in proving the efficiency or non-efficiency of the use of the audio-visual materials in language classes and the fact that the motivation of students is increased when they are used during the teaching-learning process.
The questionnaire for students contains eight compulsory questions and an optional one. The questions are about their age, if they consider necessary the use of the audio-visual materials and technology, if their teacher currently uses these materials during classes and how often, if they consider them useful or not, if the materials are related with the lessons and if they consider them efficient. The optional question is about their opinion/suggestions for their teacher about the use of the audio-visual materials and technology during English classes.
The questionnaire for teachers in about the same length (it contains 12 questions), but it has got two parts (the first four questions are about their age, if they are a female or a male, the number of years they taught languages and the level of students they teach (primary, secondary or high school students). The rest of the questions are as follows: if they currently use the audio-visual materials and technology during teaching foreign languages, how often they use them, which materials they use (select from a list), how they choose extra materials, if they are related to the new lesson or not, if they find them efficient, if they find them challenging or not and how they cope with the problems that may arise.
4.5.1. Students’ Research Sample Group
The students sample group consists of about 100 students from “Unirea” High School in Târgu- Mureș, a medium size town situated in the central part of Romania, during the 2017-2018 school year. They are between 16 and 19 years old, grades 10 or 12. They had a chance to participate in classes where the audio-visual materials and technology were used and in classes where they were not used. They could compare the classes, the way they acquired new vocabulary and knowledge and draw some interesting conclusions about the use of the above mentioned items. At the end of the research they were happy to take part in the survey and express their opinion about these materials and their use during the English language classes.
4.5.2. Teachers’ Research Sample Group
The sample group for teachers consists of 40 language teachers: 30 from Romania and 10 from some other parts of the world, including England, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Finland, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, and Poland. They teach primary, secondary or even high school students. Very rarely does it happens that the same teacher teaches all levels. Usually they only teach one or two levels. The teachers were very receptive and eager to help me with the research. They were also interested in its results which may help them to find out more about students preferences regarding the use of the audio-visual materials and technology, but also about how and when teachers from other parts of the world use the above mentioned materials and technology.
4.6. Interpretation of the Data Collected by Using the Survey Method
In doing a research, all its phases are very important: deciding upon the subject that is going to be studied, the purpose of the research, the methodology of research, the methods used for it, but the most important part is the interpretation of the data collected, irrespective of the method used for collecting them. If there are errors at any stage of the research (e.g. collecting data), they affect the interpretation of results which do not show real facts. But, after the results are correctly collected, very important is the interpretation of the data. The next sub-chapters present the interpretation of data collected by using the students’ questionnaire and the teachers’ questionnaire within the framework of the survey method. They are relevant for this thesis and are very important for drawing the right conclusions for this research.
4.6.1. Results Interpretation of the Data Collected Using the Questionnaire for Students
I conducted my research on roughly 100 students from “Unirea” High School, Târgu Mureș who, in the school year 2017-2018, were students in the 10A, 10B, 10C, 12C and 12D grades.
I took advantage of statistics technology to assess my students’ opinions related to the topic of my paper. Thus, I made a questionnaire with the help of Google Forms and I sent it to my students to complete. I am grateful for their help and involvement. Despite having numerous other tasks—curricular and extracurricular—they responded promptly and submitted their answers in a matter of days.
The students’ questionnaire starts with a reference to their age. The students’ ages vary between 16 and 19. In our selected sample there are four age groups and the concerned students are either in the tenth or twelfth grade. The majority of the answering students are in the tenth grade; they are 16 years old (40.42%) or 17 years old (23.24%). The remaining respondents belong to the 18 or 19-year-old categories which represent the twelfth graders (19.20% and 14.14%).
The second question shows students’ opinion regarding teachers’ need of using audio-visual technologies in their lessons in order to develop their students’ language skills. The majority of the answering students (95.8%) consider the use of technologies a must in order to develop their language skills in the classroom. However, a very small number of them (4.2%) did not find it useful for the English teachers to use audio-visual technologies in their lessons. These few students may feel more comfortable when traditional methods of teaching are used.
The third question indicates possible reasons of using audio-visual technologies in the teaching-learning process. Most students (above 70%) agreed that the use of audio-visual technologies in the classroom make lessons interesting and interactive. They also stated that the use of these materials help them focus on real life communication (58.3%), develop their language skills (53.1%) and make lessons more effective (41.76%).
The fourth questions presents various audio-visual resources used in education and students are asked to choose those that are used in their lessons in order to facilitate the teaching-learning process. Language teachers make use of numerous teaching aids to make classroom activities interesting and interactive. According to the data collected in our case, the most used aids are the TV set and the CD player (above 80%). Other frequently used materials are the pictures, illustrations, the laptop, presentations in power point, the video projector and the mobile phones. To a lesser extent, charts, diagrams, flashcards, posters and the smartboard are used during the lessons. I must admit that each time when I announce that we need the TV set for our class the students feel happy and eager for the lesson to begin and are always enthusiastically involved in the classroom activities.
The next chart indicates the frequency of using the audio-visual technologies in our students’ English language lessons. Most students (57.3%) stated that these tools are often used in the teaching-learning process. One third of the students mentioned that these tools are sometimes used and only few of them stated that these tools are used rarely or always.
The following question refers if the audio-visual aids are correlated to the lesson. All students answered positively to this question, indicating that there is always a relation between them and the topic of the lesson.
The answers to the next question indicate students’ opinion concerning the efficiency of the audio-visual technologies in education. As it can be seen all students gave a positive response. The responses given show that there are a number of benefits that students derive from the use of audio-visual materials.
The next charts shows the benefits of using audio-visual technologies. More than half of the students point out that audio-visual technologies are efficient because they make the lessons more interactive, allow learners to absorb information more easily and help students focus their attention on the topic. A little less than fifty percent of the students indicate that audio-visual technologies encourage communication and increase students’ motivation and participation in the class. None of them considers these tools to be inefficient in classroom activities. Thus, the use of audio-visual technologies is perceived to help language teachers in teaching language skills.
The last question, which is optional, is an open-ended one where students are expected to respond based on their observation, knowledge and experience. The table below shows some suggestions made by the students about audio-visual materials in the English language classroom.
4.6.2. Results Interpretation of the Data Collected Using the Questionnaire for Teachers
The questionnaire for teachers consists of two parts. The first section includes general information about the country the teachers come from, their gender, their teaching experience and the levels they teach. The second section contains eight questions regarding the use of audio-visual resources in the teaching-learning process.
As we mentioned above, the first section refers to general information about the teacher respondents. The total number of teachers who completed the questionnaire is 40, 30 being Romanian teachers and 10 being foreign teachers. The countries the foreign teachers teach in are: England (3), Poland, Portugal, Spain, Tanzania, Finland, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia.
The second question shows the gender balance; most of the answering teachers (81%) are females while one fifth (19%) is represented by males. This gender balance happens because more women embrace the teaching career in the pre-university education system.
The next question relates to the teaching experience of the respondents. As shown below, most of them (65%) are teachers with a teaching experience between 10-20 years. One quarter represents teachers who have a relevant experience of more than 20 years in the
education system. Few teachers have little experience, being at the beginning of their career (3% having between 1-5 years of teaching and 10% having between 5-10 years of teaching).
The last question indicates the teaching levels: primary, lower secondary or upper secondary. In our country there are schools that have only primary and lower secondary students and only a few school have all the three levels.
Section 2 begins with the question regarding the use of audio-visual technologies in the class. All teachers stated that they use them in teaching their students. The responses for this research question highlights the teachers’ awareness of the benefits of the utilization of the audio-visual resources in education.
The answers to the second question reveal the frequency of using the audio-visual tools in the teaching-learning process. A good number of teachers stated that they always (40%) or often (52.5%) use these tools in order to develop their students’ language skills. Very few teachers (12.5%) claimed that they sometimes use them. As can be seen below, audio-visual technologies play an important role in education since all the teacher respondents answered that these tools play an important role in their lessons. Therefore, we can state that audio-visual technologies help educators to make the classroom activities interesting and enjoyable.
The next chart presents the audio-visual aids used by the teachers in their activities. The most widely used materials are pictures, illustrations, the CD player, the laptop, video projector and PowerPoint presentations, flashcards, posters, mobile phones. To a lesser extent, smartboards, charts, diagrams and the TV set are used to facilitate the activity of both teachers and learners. All these aids motivate students to pay more attention during the class activities and help them relate their learning to real life situations.
The answers to the fourth question present the ways audio-visual materials facilitate teaching language skills. Most teachers (90%) agreed that audio-visual materials make the lessons interesting and interactive. A large number of instructors also consider that they make the teaching-learning process more effective, they develop their students’ language skills and focus on real life communication.
The chart below presents how teachers relate the audio-visual materials with the lesson. Most respondents stated that they use these materials to support and develop the teaching-learning process and also to reinforce the topic. More than half of the teachers indicated that the audio-visual resources are also used as a warm-up activity, to introduce the topic of the lesson or even create an entire lesson based on a specific audio-visual material.
The following chart shows the way teachers select audio-visual materials for their classes. Most agreed that they use the textbook and also use other resources besides the regular textbook. It is very challenging for teachers to find out suitable materials that match the level and the interests of their learners.
The next chart shows that there are times when teachers encounter challenges in using the audio-visual technologies. All the teachers agreed that they sometimes face some challenges while using audio-visual aids in their classes. The common ones are the technical problems.
In response to the last question, teachers came up with different ideas. All the teachers agreed that every teacher should have a contingency plan while using audio-visual technologies. Moreover, before using these materials, they should be checked. And, teachers should watch the materials beforehand to have a complete idea about the materials so that they can think about alternatives if there are any problems. Following these procedures, the possible problems can be easily dealt with. In the table below there are some suggestions made by the teachers in connection with challenges related to the use of audio visuals.
As we can see, there are a lot of different responses, as the respondent teachers are from different countries. I consider that their response is influenced by their age, gender, the country they come from, their background, their education and many other factors that occur during the teaching-learning process. But, irrespective of all these facts, each answer is valuable and worthy to be considered. All the answer together shows us a real picture of the educational system of the 21st century around the world. Only taking into consideration both students’ and teachers’ opinions and needs we can speak about an educational process. If we miss one part, we miss learning understood as a whole.
Conclusions and Valorisation of the Research
As we have already seen in the previous chapters of this thesis, the last century brought with it many changes in all aspects of our life: economic, political, social and so on. As life changed, the needs of people changed, too. The same happened with the educational system. All the modern approaches and methods of teaching underline the importance of free thinking and they focus on independence of learning, freedom of choosing the topic or materials for our students, encouragement for the use of creativity and personal development in all aspects of our life.
Nowadays, the focus is on personal development both for students and for teachers, on the need to learn all our life. That’s why the European Union developed a lot of programs for students and teachers to travel abroad, to meet new people, to work together and develop future connections. With the development of internet and its availability for everyone, education has no limits. It doesn’t matter what country you live in, it is very easy to get information from all over the world, to have access to education from all over the world. Nowadays, the focus is not on what your teacher can teach you, but on what you can learn by yourself. There are virtual books, dictionaries, encyclopaedias and even libraries everyone can have access to, and there are educational platforms and online training courses for free for both students and teachers. They cover a wide range of topics and we can choose what we are interested in. Due to the permanent availability of internet it is exactly the same thing if you are a student in a town or in a village. Even the students and teachers from rural areas have access to the new teaching methods and techniques and to the audio-visual material and technology. This way there is no big discrepancy between what it is taught and the knowledge our students could acquire. If in the past this aspect was a big problem, in our days it is only a matter of motivation. If there are differences in the results of education, they are due to the motivation of students and not to their social background, the place they live in or the school they study at. The same data, information and programs can be accessed from all corners of the world. And this is very good for us, present and future citizens of Europe. The stress falls on promoting intelligence, imagination, creativity and leadership in order to cope with the educational needs required by the century we live in.
After presenting some important information about the period of time we live in and its characteristic and needs, after attentively collecting data about the use of the audio-visual materials and technology during language classes by using different methods, such as classroom observation, the psycho-pedagogical experiment and the survey method, these conclusions may be formulated:
Communication is the key point of the 21st century. Being part of the European Union since 2007, Romania should train the people of tomorrow’s Europe, people that are educated according to the same standards, in the same or in a similar ways, people that have the same or similar values, and people that are able to communicate, live and work together.
Communicating with people from other countries is a necessity and not an option (for the above mentioned reasons and many other individual or personal reasons not mentioned here) and it implies learning foreign languages. Thus, our job as language teachers is of a primary importance.
It is the language teachers’ duty and responsibility to meet the needs of the people they are educating, to guide their students in finding the right vocabulary, grammar and general knowledge that is useful for them for their future relationship with people from every corner the world they may choose to live in.
It is the language teachers’ duty and responsibility to find the right way in which their students can acquire this information in an easy and pleasant way, to choose the best materials that meet the educational needs of their students, to find a way to present them in an attractive way, to use the right technology to achieve this goal and to continuously encourage their students to study and educate themselves in order to develop their creativity and imagination.
After this thorough research and interpretation of the data collected by using the questionnaires, I have observed that my students are more relaxed and ready to cooperate if the teacher uses audio-visual materials and technology during language teaching classes: “I like the English lessons in which our teacher brings the TV set and we have activities based on video clips. I have learnt lots of interesting things” (extract from students’ suggestions, question 9 from students’ questionnaire).
Both students (98.5 %) and language teachers (100%) agree that the use of the audio-visual materials and technology is a must during foreign language lessons.
The students consider the audio-visual materials correlated with their lessons (100%).
The students consider the use of the audio-visual materials very important because they make the lessons more interesting (72.9%), they make the lessons more effective (41.9%), they develop the students’ language skills and they focus on real life situations.
The students consider the audio-visual materials and technology as being efficient (100%) as they help them focus their attention on the given topic, encourage communication, make lessons more interactive, allow learners to absorb information more easily and increase their motivation and participation in class.
As a result of the study I have found out that students like the audio-visual materials and technology. Here are some suggestion collected from their questionnaire: “I would like the audio-visual materials and technology to be used in every lesson”, “The teacher should try to make use of technology as much as possible to help children focus on the lesson and learn easier”, “The audio-visual materials and technology should be used more often because the regular books do not seem interesting for the students”…
Both Romanian and international teachers use audio-visual materials and technology during their classes (100%), irrespective of the level of their students (primary, secondary or high school) for the following reasons: to support and develop the teaching- learning process (92.5%), to reinforce the topic of a lesson based on a specific audio-visual material (52.5%) and so on. They are selected both from the textbook and their own choice (78%), from own choice (19%) or only from the textbook (3%).
The most used audio-visual materials and technology during language classes are: pictures/ illustrations (92.5%), CD player/ recordings (82.5%), the laptop (82.5%), the video-projector (75%), Power-Point presentations (72.5%), flash-cards (65%), the mobile phone (62.5%), the TV set, the smart board and so on. We notice that the biggest percentages belong to modern gadgets, tools and applications.
Even if the majority of teachers (65%) have problems while using the audio-visual materials and technology, they continue to use them as they make the lessons more interesting (90%), make the teaching-learning process more effective (77.5%), develop students’ language skills (70%) and they focus on real life communication situations (62.5%).
Here are some ways in which the teachers cope with the problems they may have while using the audio-visual materials and technology: they try to anticipate the problems and avoid them, they check the materials twice before presenting them to the students, they prepare the technology before classes to make sure they work, they ask for students’ help if some problems occur with technology or they ask for help from the IT department if it is really necessary, or they improvise and use their own creativity if nothing else works.
In conclusion, the use of the audio-visual materials and technologies during language teaching is considered necessary for both students and teachers, irrespective of the country they teach in, not only in Romania. They always produce good results when they are used. I have already checked it using three different research methods and the hypothesis of this thesis was confirmed by the results. They make the lessons more interesting and enjoyable and they really meet the formation needs of our students. A good teacher is considered to know very well his/her students, what their needs are, when and how to present the new material, how to make the lessons useful. He/she should use the right methods at the right time in order to help his/her students acquire new knowledge in an easy and pleasant way. The results of this thesis will help me in the future with my English classes in choosing, preparing and delivering new knowledge, but they can be used by any person interested in teaching foreign languages or interested in self-development and self-training. By being the teachers we should be, we give a European dimension to our school and we prepare our students for living a successful life in the century we live in.
Bibliography
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Online Sources
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers -visited on visited on the 15th October 2017
Ager, D. E. (1967). Techniques in Advanced Language Teaching. Audio-Visual Language Journal. retrieved from
https://www.academia.edu/19611550/THE_EFFECT_OF_USING_AUDIO-VISUAL_MATERIALS_ON_FOREIGN_LANGUAGE_LEARNERS_LEVELS_OF_MOTIVATION_AND_ACHIEVEMENT – visited on the 2nd July, 2018
Çakır, İ. (2006). The Use of Video as an Audio-Visual Material in Foreign Language Teaching Classroom. The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – TOJET 5, 4- 9 retrieved from http://www.tojet.net/articles/v5i4/549.pdf – visited on 3rdApril 2018
Canning-Wilson, C. (2001) – Practical Aspects of using Video in the Foreign Language Classroom. The internet TESL Journal, retrieved from http://itestlj.org/articles/canning-video.html. – visited on 2nd May 2018
Johnson, L. B. (1946). Use of Audio-Visual Aids in Foreign Language Teaching. The Modern Language Journal, retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1946.tb04262.x – visited on the 2nd July, 2018
Ozkan, B. (2002). The use of video cases in teacher education. The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, volume 1 Issue 1 Article 6, 37-40, retrieved from: http://www.tojet.net/articles/v1i1/116.pdf – visited on the 2nd July, 2018
Secules, Teresa, Herron, Carol., & Tomasello, Michael. (1992). The effect of video context on foreign language learning. The Modern Language Journal, 76, 480-9, retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1992.tb05396.x – visited on the 2nd July, 2018
APPENDICES
Appendix 1
QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS
How old are you?
16
17
18
19
Do you think it is necessary for the English teachers to use audio-visual materials and technologies in their lessons?
Yes
No
Teachers need the use of audio-visual materials and technologies in the classroom in order to:
make the lessons more effective
make the lessons interesting and interactive
develop their students’ language skills
to focus on real life communication
others:
Which of the following audio-visual resources are used in your English lessons?
Flashcards
Pictures, illustrations
Charts, diagrams
Posters
CD player/recordings
Laptop
PowerPoint
Mobile phone
TV set
Video projector
Smartboard (interactive whiteboard)
Others
How often are the audio-visual resources used in your English language lessons?
Always
Often
Sometimes
Rarely
Never
Are they correlated to your lesson?
Yes
No
Do you find the audio-visual materials and technologies efficient?
Yes
No
They are efficient because they
help students focus their attention on the topic.
encourage communication.
make the lessons more interactive.
allow learners to absorb information more easily.
increase students’ motivation and participation in the class.
I do not consider them efficient.
Your suggestions about audio-visual materials in the English language classroom. (optional)
Appendix 2
QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS
SECTION 1 – General information
Country:
Gender: Male Female
How long have you been teaching English?
1-5 years
5-10 years
10-20 years
More than 20 years
What levels do you teach?
Primary
Secondary
High school
SECTION 2 – Using audio-visual materials and technologies in the classroom
1. Do you use audio-visual materials and technologies in teaching your students?
Yes
No
2. How often do you use audio-visual materials and technologies in your classroom?
Always
Often
Sometimes
Rarely
Never
3. Which of the following audio-visual resources do you use in your English lessons?
Flashcards
Pictures, illustrations
Charts, diagrams
Posters
CD player/recordings
Laptop
PowerPoint
Mobile phone
TV set
Video projector
Smartboard (interactive whiteboard)
Others:
4. How do the audio-visual materials and technologies facilitate teaching the language skills?
They make the teaching-learning process more effective
They make the lessons interesting and interactive
They develop students’ language skills
They focus on real life communication
Others:
5. How do you relate the audio-visual resources with the lesson?
As a warm-up activity
To introduce the topic
To support and develop the teaching-learning process
To reinforce the topic
To create a lesson based on a specific audio-visual material
Others:
6. How do you select audio-visual materials and technologies for your class?
From the textbook.
Your own choice.
Both.
7. Do you face any challenges while using audio-visual technologies?
8. How do you cope with/ overcome those problems?
Appendix 3 (for lesson 1)
Pictures representing some mysteries of the world
The lost city of Atlantis Bermuda Triangle
Nazca Lines Stonehenge
The Overtoun Bridge WOW! Signal
Flight MH 370 Voynich Manuscrit
The Taos Hum Aluminium Wedge of Aiud
Jack the Ripper The Loch Ness Monster
The Mystery of Maya
1. Read the text and put the paragraphs in the correct order. The first paragraph has already been selected for you.
[1] A lost world lines hidden deep within the rainforests of Central America. Hundreds of cities and towns stand among the trees. These used to be home to millions of Native Americans know as the Maya, who lived in the Central American jungle for approximately 3,000 years. They built an incredible civilization which was successful for about 750 years. For many of the settlements, the good times ended about 1,000 years ago. Today the Maya’s cities are empty. Trees and vines embrace the once proud temples and palaces, which are now in ruins.
[2] I learnt a different story in another place that I visited the great city of Tikal. About 55,000 people lived there once, and the city had roughly 3,000 major buildings. Tikal remained a lovely city for decades after Cancun was destroyed, but eventually it was also abandoned. Why? Archaeologists think the city suffered a drought that made it hard to grow corn, beans, squash and the other foods which were important in the diet of the Maya. Warfare may also have weakened the society as the people of Tikal battled with neighbouring cities. This drought and warfare probably shook the people’s faith in their king. The Maya thought of their rulers as gods. When the king couldn’t bring rain or victory, though, people may have stopped listening to him, and their community then fell apart.
[3] So what happened to those people? Their disappearance is considered one of the biggest mysteries in archaeology. Did they abandon their beautiful cities, or did some disaster wipe them out? For decades, archaeologists have been trying to discover what happened, and there is still no agreement. Theories range from the invasion of foreign forces and migration, to disease and the collapse of an overpopulated society. For example, some think a natural disaster like an earthquake or a volcanic eruption occurred. Others think that an epidemic caused thousands of deaths. New evidence has recently come to light from an investigation into the layers of mud at the bottom of a lake in the region. This suggests that a long-lasting drought was an important factor in their disappearance. However, there are so many possibilities that many researchers now believe that it was a combination of two or more of these things that marked the end for those people.
[4] Whatever the cause of the Maya’s disappearance, their downfall will continue to capture people’s imagination for many years to come. During my visit, it certainly captured mine. While I was among the pyramids and temples at Tikal, I imagined the people living there in the city’s last days. I could picture them hungry, tired and scared, running from their homes. Like the Maya in many places in the rainforests of Central America, they left behind a great city and a great mystery.
[5] To examine some of the theories about what happened to the Maya, I went to Central America. I visited Mayan cities and talked to the archaeologists who were studying them. One very hot day, I stood on a riverbank near the ruins of Cancun, which was once a successful city. Thousands of Maya used to live there and rich people from other cities would go there for holidays. But that fact changed 1,200 years ago. Archaeologists think that invaders came suddenly, probably by canoe. They may have battled with soldiers by the river before heading into the city centre. I followed the path they would have taken and came across an amazing palace next to the ruins of a large pool. It was decorated with red tiles and had once held drinking water for the city. Then, it became a tomb. The invaders killed the city’s leaders and threw their bodies into the water. The invasion must have been quick and terrifying. The city’s people were probably so scared that they ran away into the rainforest.
2. Read the text again and match the definitions below with the words in bold from the text.
thick forests in tropical areas where there is a lot of rain ……………………………
a type of vegetable with solid yellow flesh and a hard skin; pumpkin …………………
destroyed or very damaged ………………………………
a sudden violent movement of the earth's surface, sometimes causing great damage ………………………
a long period when there is little or no rain ………………………………
places where people come to live and build their homes ……………………………
destroy smth completely, kill ………………………………
a large number of people suffering from the same disease at the same time …………
made people doubt what they believe ………………………………
all the people who live in a place ………………………………
with too many people ………………………………
the activity of fighting in a war ………………………………
a large grave ………………………………
a person who enters a country by force with an army ………………………………
the climbing plants that produce grapes as their fruit ………………………………
3. Find synonyms for the highlighted words in the text.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
4. Ideas Focus: Answer the following questions.
Why do you think people are so fascinated by mysteries?
Are you interested in mysteries? Why? / Why not?
Do you think there must be a logical explanation for every mystery? Why? / Why not?
Do you like films about aliens and mysterious incidents? Why? / Why not?
Do you think scientist should waste time looking into strange phenomena? Why? / Why not?
Would you like to visit the location of a famous mystery? Why? / Why not?
Are there any famous mysteries in your country?
KEYS
The correct order of the paragraphs is: [1], [3], [5], [2], [4].
The definitions of the words in bold from the text:
a thick forest in tropical areas where there is a lot of rain rainforests
a type of vegetable with solid yellow flesh and a hard skin; pumpkin squash
destroyed or very damaged in ruins
a sudden violent movement of the earth's surface, sometimes causing great damage earthquake
a long period when there is little or no rain drought
places where people come to live and build their homes settlements
destroy sth completely, kill wipe sth out
a large number of people suffering from the same disease at the same time epidemic
made people doubt what they believe shook the people’s faith
all the people who live in a place community
with too many people overpopulated
the activity of fighting in a war warfare
a large grave tomb
people who enter a country by force with an army invaders
the climbing plants that produce grapes as its fruit vines
Synonyms for the highlighted words in the text.
embrace = cover
fell apart = collapsed
disappearance = vanishing
evidence = proof
downfall = failure, destruction
to come across = found by chance
Ss’ own answers.
Appendix 4 (for lesson 2)
Warm-up: Examples of questions/responses on the slips of paper
How would you feel if the headmaster asked to see you?
How do you feel when you have to speak in public?
How do you feel when you think someone is following you?
How would you feel if your mobile phone were stolen?
How does skydiving make you feel?
What do you do when you feel impatient?
How do you react when you’re embarrassed?
How would you feel if your favourite television programme were cancelled?
How would you feel if an airplane landed on the road outside your house?
How would you feel if you won a large sum of money?
How would you feel if an aggressive dog were following you?
How do you feel when you win the first prize?
How would you feel if your favourite football team won the World Cup?
How would you feel if your parents bought you an expensive brand new car?
How does bungee jumping make you feel?
How would you feel if your favourite singer kissed you?
How would you feel if your mobile phone were stolen?
How would you feel if your best friend talked behind you?
I get butterflies in my stomach.
My heart starts pounding.
It gives me a rush of adrenaline.
I begin to drum my fingers on the table.
My face turns red.
I feel very nervous.
I hate this dull weather, it makes me feel depressed.
Pre-listening activity: Pictures representing people’s body language
Picture 1: hug Picture 2: pull/hair
Picture 3: smile Picture 4: scratch/head
Picture 5: yawn Picture 6: clench / fist
Picture 7: frown Picture 8: stroke / chin Picture 9: bite / nails
How do you think the people in the pictures feel?
e.g. Picture 1: The children are hugging, so they must be happy/ pleased.
Picture 2: ………………………………………………………………………………..
Picture 3: ………………………………………………………………………………..
Picture 4: ………………………………………………………………………………..
Picture 5: ………………………………………………………………………………..
Picture 6: ………………………………………………………………………………..
Picture 7: ………………………………………………………………………………..
Picture 8: ………………………………………………………………………………..
Picture 9: ………………………………………………………………………………..
While-listening activity
Listen and match the descriptions of different kinds of therapy (A-F) to the speakers (1-5). There is one extra therapy which you do not need to use.
A dealing with your problems while listening to music Speaker 1: …..
B relaxing and thinking about your emotions Speaker 2: …..
C explaining your problems to your family Speaker 3: …..
D working out your problems through films Speaker 4: …..
E discussing problems in groups Speaker 5: .….
F expressing feelings through drawing
The audio script for the listening exercise
Speaker 1
I have always found that bringing my patients together is very helpful. They realise that they are not alone and I think that it does wonders for their self-confidence. They feel like they are helping others as well as themselves and they also gain hope from seeing how the other patients improve. Working in this way gives my patients a safe environment in which they can discuss their problems with others, and that, after all, is what therapy is all about.
Speaker 2
This type of therapy is based on the idea that people can visualize and create things from their thoughts and emotions. Patients who have problems putting their problems into words can often express themselves by painting or drawing. I find that it works especially well with children but it can be used with patients of any age. It is really a journey of self-discovery, as the patients relax and learn more about themselves from the pictures that they create.
Speaker 3
We live in a busy and stressful world and many of us have no time to think about how we feel. Avoiding our emotions though, only leads to bigger problems in the end. I think that the best thing I can do for my patients is to teach them how to relax and think about their lives. By letting themselves go and focusing on who they really are, my patients find that they feel more alive. This can help them deal with problems at work or at home and lets them really live life to the fullest.
Speaker 4
It may sound strange at first. Certainly when most people go to take in the latest blockbuster, they don’t think of it as therapy. For many of my patients, though, it can lead to a real breakthrough. They find that they can really connect with the characters and plots and this can give them inspiration and hope when it comes to dealing with real life. Whatever problems my patients have, I find that I can almost always recommend something on the big screen that will help them to look at their life in a new way.
Speaker 5
The beauty of this form of therapy is that you can do it anywhere. On the way to work, in the gym, or at home. It can help us to relax, improve our mood and reduce stress. I call it the Mozart effect but of course the composer or performer doesn’t really matter. The important thing is to find a piece that creates an emotional response in the patient. It’s amazing what a great effect a simple, everyday activity like this can have.
KEYS
Pre-listening activity
How do you think the people in the pictures feel?
e.g. Picture 1: The children are hugging, so they must be happy/ pleased.
Picture 2: He is pulling his hair, so he must be angry.
Picture 3: They are smiling, so they must be happy/ pleased.
Picture 4: He is scratching his head, so he must be unsure/ confused.
Picture 5: The baby is yawning, so she must be tired.
Picture 6: She is clenching her fist, so she must be angry.
Picture 7: She is frowning, so she must be confused.
Picture 8: He is stroking his chin, so he must be thoughtful.
Picture 9: She is biting her nails, so she must be worried/ angry/ impatient.
While-listening activity
Speaker 1 E (discussing problems in groups)
Speaker 2 F (expressing feelings through drawing)
Speaker 3 B (relaxing and thinking about your emotions)
Speaker 4 D (working out your problems through films)
Speaker 5 A (dealing with your problems while listening to music)
Extra therapy: C
After-listening activity
Why do people go to a therapist?
Suggested answers:
Therapy offers people support when they
are going through difficult times
have difficulties at work/ school
feel depressed, worried, shy, stressed, sad
have eating disorders
have attention problems, learning problems
have an illness
have family troubles: divorce, death of a loved one
get rid of a vice, a bad habit
want to build their self-confidence
find difficulties in making friends, etc.
Appendix 5 (for lesson 3)
JOB INTERVIEW
1. a) Complete the dialogue. Use the words and phrases in the list.
Do you have any relevant experience?
Have a seat
when can you start
Thanks for coming in.
tell me a bit about yourself
A: Hello. You must be John Brown.
B: Yes, good morning.
A: 1) ……………………………….. , John. I’m Tim Marti.
B: Nice to meet you.
A: So, 2) ……………………………….. , John.
B: Well, I’m 20 years old, I’m a university student and I want a part-time job to help with my living expenses.
A: Okay. Why should I consider you for this job?
B: Well, I’m hardworking and efficient and I work well in a team. I’m also cheerful and friendly.
A: I see. 3) ……………………………….. ?
B: Yes. Over the last two summers I worked as a waiter for a catering company at a variety of events. I have a letter of recommendation here.
A: Thank you. Should I offer you the job, 4) ……………………………….. ?
B: Right away!
A: OK. 5) ……………………………….. . I’ll be in touch.
B: Thank you very much. I hope to hear from you soon.
b) Take roles and read the dialogue aloud.
2. Your local supermarket is advertising for part-time shop assistants. In pairs use the language in the box to act out a job interview. Use the dialogue in Ex. 1 as a model.
MAKING COMPARISONS
3. Which professions can you see in the photographs? What are some of the ways in which they differ? Choose the correct words to complete the paragraph.
1) Both/ As doctors and taxi drivers have interesting jobs 2) but/ in spite their jobs differ in many respects. 3) Although/ Despite no special skills are required for being a taxi driver, becoming a doctor requires years of training. Both jobs require working nights and weekends. 4) However,/ Also, doctors have a safer job compared to taxi drivers who are often the victims of crime. Both jobs can be very stressful 5) but/ despite a doctor’s job is more rewarding 6) as/ on the other hand they change people’s lives for the better. 7) In addition,/ Nevertheless, doctors earn more money than taxi drivers.
4. Look at the pictures below. Use the phrases in the language box and the ideas below to compare the two professions.
KEYS
1. a)
Have a seat
tell me a bit about yourself
Do you have any relevant experience
when can you start
Thanks for coming in.
b) Ss work in pairs, take roles and act out the dialogue.
2. Suggested answer
A: Hello, you must be Frank Green.
B: Yes, good afternoon.
A: Please have a seat, Frank. I’m Emma Smith.
B: Pleased to meet you.
A: So, tell me about yourself, Frank.
B: I’m 23 years old, I’m studying at university and I need a job to help with living expenses.
A: What should we employ you?
B: Well, I’m reliable, enthusiastic and I work well with others.
A: Do you have any relevant experience?
B: Yes, I worked Saturdays in a clothing shop in the city centre last summer.
A: OK. If I offer you the job, when could you start?
B: Next week.
A: OK, thanks for coming in. I’ll be in touch.
B: Thank you for your time. I hope to hear from you soon!
3.
Both
but
Although
However
but
as
in addition
4.
Both bakers and firefighters have interesting jobs, but their jobs differ in many ways.
To start with, a baker’s job is not as dangerous. A firefighter’s job is hazardous and risky. Although once mastered there are no new skills to be learned being a baker, working as a firefighter requires constant training. Also, a baker has a happy work environment whereas a firefighter can witness people getting hurt. In addition, a baker must work long hours every day compared to a firefighter, who does shift work. Also, a firefighter has financial security because he gets paid well. A baker, on the other hand, can be poorly paid.
Appendix 7 (for lesson 5)
FOOD QUIZ
1. Name three essential ingredients of salad.
______________________________________________
2. Stilton, Brie, Camembert and Edam are all kinds of what?
_________________________________________________________________________
3. What is the difference between 'biscuits' and 'cookies'?
_________________________________________________________________________
4. Name three kinds of seafood.
_________________________________________________________________________
5. Name two important ingredients used in Thai food.
_________________________________________________________________________
6. What's the difference between a pie and a tart?
_________________________________________________________________________
7. Spaghetti, macaroni, penne, and ravioli are all kinds of what?
_________________________________________________________________________
8. What's the difference between French fries, chips and crisps?
_________________________________________________________________________
9. Which countries do these famous dishes come from?
Paella ____________________
Falafel ____________________
Tiramisu ____________________
Borshch ____________________
Wurst ____________________
Chicken tikka ____________________
10. Think of:
a food for a picnic _________________________________________
a food for health _________________________________________
a food for the rich and famous _________________________________________
a food for romance _________________________________________
a food that reminds you of your childhood _________________________________________
a food for a wedding _________________________________________
a dish for a first date _________________________________________
a food for a business meeting _________________________________________
a food that reminds you of travelling _________________________________________
a food for Christmas _________________________________________
Pictures representing the smelliest fruit
Durian fruit Century Eggs
Natto Hongeo
Stinky Tofu Limburger Cheese
Lutefisk Surströmming
Hákarl Kusaya
Kiviak Iru
WORKSHEET
The Smelliest Fruit
Before watching
A Work with a partner and answer these questions.
The durian fruit smells extremely unpleasant, but it is eaten by people in South Asia. Why do you think they eat it?
Can you think of food in other cultures which have a unique taste or smell?
B Match the following words with their meanings.
bear fruit
bedspreads
charcoal
nationwide
be on the front lines
rotten
smuggle
to take things or people to or from a place secretly and illegally
decayed
a decorative cover put on a bed
in all parts of a particular country
be on a constant watch
produce fruit
a hard, black substance similar to coal
While watching
C Watch the video clip and decide if these statements are true or false. Write T for True and F for False.
It is easy to say what the durian fruit smells like. ……….
Many Asian strongly dislike the smell of cheese. ……….
A durian fruit is worth a lot of money. ……….
The bad odour of durian fruit can get into furnishings. ……….
Hotels in Borneo check every guest for durian fruit. ……….
In Borneo, you are not allowed to eat durian fruit outdoors. ……….
After watching
D Complete the summary of the video with the missing information.
In Malaysian Borneo, hotels staff watch for durian fruit. Even though it is unwelcome in many places, it is loved by people nationwide. Its smell can be described as anything from (1)………………………………………… fish and custard, to a rubbish dump, blue cheese or even a dead dog! Other cultures love foods that smell (2) …………………………………………, like cheese which is popular in the west, but it is considered offensive in Asia.
(3) ………………………………………… its bad smell, durian is precious in Southeast Asia. Durian trees sometimes take 15 years to (4) ………………………………………… fruit and a single durian fruit can cost up to 50 US dollars. But in Kuching, hotels managers are on a (5) ………………………………………… watch to keep the fruit out. Durians are bad business for hotels. One smelly fruit can scare off all their customers. Some people (6)………………………………………… durians into rooms and the hotels have to deal with the consequences.
The smell gets into curtains, (7)…………………………………… and carpets. Some hotels use charcoal which absorbs the odour (8)……………………………………, and other use an ionizer which can remove the contaminating smell in less than three hours.
In Borneo, visitors can decide for themselves if this fruit is delicious or disgusting, as (9)………………………………………… as they eat in the (10)………………………………………… air.
Ideas Focus
Which foods do you think have an unpleasant smell? Would you try them? Why? / Why not?
Do you think there are any foods or drinks that should be banned from public places?
What do you think is totally unacceptable to consume?
Video script: The Smelliest Fruit
Narrator: N
Resident: R
Edward (Hotel Manager): E
Audrey (Hotel Staff): A
N: Here in Malaysian Borneo, a battle has just begun. Hotel staff watch nervously for a food that is unwelcome in many places, yet loved by people nationwide. Meet the durian fruit. Its smell is hard to describe.
R 1: It smells like… of rotten fish and custard.
R 2: A rubbish dump.
R 3: Blue cheese.
R 4: Perhaps a dead dog.
N: Other cultures love foods that smell strongly. Cheese, which is actually rotted milk, is popular in the West but not so much in Asia, where many find the smell offensive. Notwithstanding its bad smell, durian is considered precious in Southeast Asia. Some believe it’s worth killing for. Durian trees sometimes take as long as 15 years to bear fruit. Known as the ‘King of Fruit’, a single durian can cost up to 50 US dollars. Here in Kuching, the capital of Malaysian Borneo, hotels are on the front lines of the durian war. When the fruit is in season, hotel managers maintain a constant watch to keep it out. For them, durians are bad for business. One smelly fruit can scare off a hotel full of customers.
E: So it goes into the curtains. It sticks into the carpet. It sticks into the bedspreads.
N: But since it’s not feasible to check every guest, people manage to smuggle them in. And it’s the hotels which have to deal with the consequences. Every hotel has its own method of dealing with a durian alert. One is to use charcoal which absorbs odours naturally, but takes a long time. The other way is to use a machine called an ioniser, which can remove the durian’s contaminating smell in less than three hours.
A: Please no durians here. Not in the hotel. Outside… in the fresh air you can do it. But definitely not here.
N: In Borneo, visitors can decide for themselves if this unique fruit is delicious or just plain disgusting, as long as they confine their tasting sessions to the outdoors.
KEYS
The video clip with the smelliest food – The countries they are from:
Durian Fruit – South Asia
Century Eggs
Natto – Japan
Hongeo – Korea
Stinky Tofu – China, Taiwan
Limburger Cheese – Germany
Lutefisk – Norway
Surströmming – Sweden
Hákarl – Iceland
Kusaya – Japan
Kiviak – Greenland
Iru – Nigeria
Food quiz – answers
1. Lettuce, cucumber, tomato.
2. Cheese.
3. Biscuits (British English) and cookies (N American English).
4. Prawns, crab, shrimp, lobster, clams etc.
5. Chilli, lemon grass, coconut milk, lime juice, fish sauce etc.
6. A pie usually has a pastry covering; a tart does not.
7. Pasta
8. French fries (American English), chips (British English equivalent of French Fries) and crisps (British English equivalent of American 'chips')?
9. Which countries do these famous dishes come from and what are their ingredients?
10. Ss’ own answers.
Worksheet – The Smelliest Fruit
A. Ss’ own answers.
B. 1 – f, 2 – c, 3 – g, 4 – d, 5 – e, 6 – b, 7 – a.
C. 1– F, 2 – T, 3 – T, 4 – T, 5 – F, 6 – F.
D. 1– rotten, 2 – strongly, 3 – Despite, 4 – bear, 5 – constant, 6 – smuggle, 7– bedspreads,
8 – slowly, 9 – long, 10 – fresh.
E. Ss’ own answers.
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