UNIVER SITATEA PETROL GAZE DIN PLOIE ȘTI [614477]

UNIVER SITATEA PETROL – GAZE DIN PLOIE ȘTI
DEPARTAMENTUL PENTRU PREGĂTIREA
PERSONALULUI DIDACTIC

Lucrare metodico -științifică pentru
obținerea gradului didactic I

Coordonator :
Conf. univ. dr. TOMA Irina
Candidat: [anonimizat] 2 Comarnic, Prahova

PLOIEȘ TI
2020

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Motto:
“Tell me and I forget
Teach me and I remember
Involve me and I learn” .
(Benjamin Franklin)

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CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Definitions
2.1. Approaches, met hods, procedures, techniques and methodology
2.2. The traditional methodology / The traditional teaching and traditional
teaching methods
2.2.1. The Grammar – Translation Method
2.2.2. The Direct Method
2.2.3. The Situational Language Teaching Method
2.2.4. The Audio -Lingual Method
2.2.5 . PPP (Presentation, Practice and Production) and alternatives to
PPP
2.2.6. The Silent Way Teaching Method
2.2.7. Suggestopedia
2.2.8. Community Language Learning
2.2.9. Total Physical Response
2.3. Summary of the traditional teaching methods
2.4. The m odern methodology / The modern teaching and modern teaching
methods
2.4.1. Communicative Language Teaching
2.4.2. Content – based Instruction
2.4.3. Task – based Instruction
2.4.4. Summary
3. Opinions on Traditional and Modern Teaching
3.1. Introduction
3.2. The teachers’ preferences
3.3. Opinions on traditional teaching
3.4. Opinions on modern teaching
3.5. Summary
4. The research
4.1. The background of the experiment
4.1.1. Why at the seventh grade students?
4.1.2. The description of the two groups

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4.1.3. “Teaching English through films ”, the syllabu s of an optional
course taught to the students in the second group
4.1.4. The students’ questionnaire : opinions on the way they are
taught English
4.2. The experiment
4.2.1. The presentation of the experiment
4.2.2. The description of the experiment on the first group of students
– Teaching using traditional teaching methods
4.2.3. The description of the experiment on the second group of
students – Teaching using modern teaching methods
4.2.4. The test and the students’ results
5. Conclusions
6. Annexes
6.1. Annexe no. 1: The Initial Test applied to the two groups of students at
the beginning of the school year 2019 -2020
6.2. Annexe no. 2: The marking scheme of the initial test
6.3. Annexe no. 3: The test applied to the two groups of students in the
experiment
6.4. Annex e no. 4: The marking scheme of the test applied in the
experiment
7. Bibliography

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1. INTRODUCTION

When I decided to wr ite my first degree thesis on Tradition versus Innovation in
Teaching English , I had in mind some arguments. First of all, as an English teacher I have
used both traditional and modern teaching methods, I have taught English using old
textbooks which could not help me as an English teacher or my students, as they contained
uninteresting reading texts for the students , not enough practice exercises for me and that is
why many times I had to create additional materials to help my students understand better.
Now I am using digital textbooks and I consider these are much better than the old ones, as
they provide useful text s and dialogues which can be encountered by the students in their
daily communicative exchanges. As their name suggests, these textbooks come together
with a CD or they can be found on the Internet, so students can use them in the class,
guided by the teacher , or at home when they work independently. Almost all of the
activities proposed in these textbooks can be done on a computer. Moreover, a t the end of
an exercise, students can validate their answers, which is certainly a positive characteristic
of them, a s nowaday students are part of a generation who can use different devices even
from an early age. In my first years as an English teacher I used to consider that students
need the traditional way of teaching grammar, with rules explained in detail by the t eacher,
then followed by practice. Now, since using these digital textbooks, I‟ve seen that grammar
function s too and student s understand it , even if it is taught inductively.
Another argument I had in mind when choosing the title of this thesis was a
comparison between the ability to communicate in English I and my classmates had when
we studied E nglish in school and our students‟ abilit y to communicate in English. It i s
more than obvious that our students are better English speake rs than we were in sc hool.
When we were students English was taught mainly traditionally, with lists of words which
we had to memorize, the texts we re ad during the English lessons were excerpts from
literary works, grammar was taught deductively and there was little – if any – use of
technology. That i s why I consider that the innovations brought by the use of technology in
the classroom have changed a lot the world of teaching. It does not mean at all that
technology can replace teachers or even traditional teaching methods. In fact, I would say
that many of today‟s modern teaching methods are an evolution of the traditional teaching
methods. I am also very aware of the fact that one good method for a group or a class of

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students might not work at all for another class and tea chers should choose a particular
teaching method according to their students‟ level and needs.
In the theoretical part of m y thesis I will use prof essionals‟ books and publications to
define the terminology related to the subject of my study ( I am reffering here to
approaches, methods, procedures, techniques and methodology ) and to describe different
teaching methods from the oldest ones to the communicative teachi ng methods, trying to
notice what makes each of them to be an efficient teaching method.
Later, in the third chapter, I will show the opinions of some English teachers in
Romania n schools on traditional and modern teaching methods.
The following part o f my thesis, the fourth chapter, will illustrate some real -life
situations from my experien ce as an English teacher. I used the seventh grade students in
two different schools where I teach English, Simion Stolnicu Highschool and The
Secondary School No. 2 in Comarnic, to make a comparison between traditional and
modern teaching methods. This chapter will present the students ‟ opinions regarding the
ways they prefer to be taught English, the experiment , the test and the results I got.
In the fifth chapter, I will summarize the goals I had at the beginning of my study, the
steps I followed during my research and the conclusion s I arrived to.

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2. DEFINITIONS
The key terms of my thesis are traditional teaching and modern teaching . As the
teaching process involves approaches, methods, procedures, techniques and methodology,
I will start the theoretical part with their definitions.

2.1.Approaches, methods, procedu res, techniques and methodology
”An approach describes how language is used, how people acquire their knowledge of
the language and makes statements about the conditions which will promote successful
language learning” ( Harmer, 2001 , p. 78).
“A method is the practical realisation of an approach. The originators of a method
have arrived at decisions about types of activities, roles of teachers and learners, the kinds
of materials which will be helpful, and some model of syllabus organisation. Methods
include variou s procedures and techniques ”. ( Harme r, 2001, p. 78). It is “ a way o f
teaching”. ( Scrivener, 2011, p.31 ). According to Scrivener, the choice of a method
depends on the approach used by a teacher, “on what he / she believes about what language
is, how people learn and how teaching helps pe ople learn”. ( Scrivener, 2011, p.31 ).
A procedure is “ an ordered sequence of techniques ”. It is “ a sequence which can be
described in terms such as: first you do this, then you do that… Smaller than a method, it is
bigger than a technique” . ( Harmer, 2001, p.78 ).
According to Larsen –Freeman & Anderson, “ the techniques are the actions o f a
teacher in the classroom”. (Larsen – Freeman & Anderson, 2011, p. 20 ).
Methodology refers to the classroom techniques and procedures, t o what exercises,
tasks and activities teachers should use in the classroom and to how they should integrate
these in the lesson. It can be used as an equivalent to the word “ teaching”.
2.2. T he Traditional Methodology / The Traditional T eaching and
Traditional Teaching Methods
“Traditional Teaching is often characterised by the teacher spending quite a lot of
class time using the b oard to explain things – as if transmitting knowledge to the class –
with occasional questions to or from the learners. After these explanations, the students
will often do some practice exercises to test whether they have understood what they have
been told. Throu ghout the lesson, the teacher keeps control of the subject matter, makes
decisions about what work is needed and orchestrates what the students do. In this

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classroom, the teacher probably does most of the talking and is by far the most active
person. The students‟ role is primarily to listen and concentrate and, perhaps, take notes” .
( Scrivener, 2011 , p.14 ).
The traditional teaching is also characterised by Scrivener as “jug and mug” , a
process where the knowledge is “poured from one receptacle into an empty one”, the
teacher being the “knower”, who has the task of passing over knowledge to the students” .
( Scrivener, 2011, p.14 ).
2.2.1. Grammar – Translation Method
Also known as “ the classical method”, the grammar – translation method was one of
the oldest teaching methods, used by teachers all over the world. “ Much traditional
language teaching in schools worldwide used to be done in this way, and it is still the
predominant classroom method in some c ultures. The teacher rarely uses the target
language. Students spend a lot of time reading texts, tra nslating the m, doing exercises,
writing essays. There is relatively little focus on s peaking and listening skills” . (Scrivener,
2011, p. 31 ). “Its techniques are similar to those used for teaching dead languages , such as
Latin or Greek. And, just like those languages , the approach is doomed to fail, unless the
teacher knows how to use it to his / her advantage, or is wise enough to combine it with
other m ethods” . ( Vizental, 2008, p. 28 ). This lack of practising the speaking and listening
skills is also highlighted by Thornbury, who states that “The almost exclusive focus on
written forms, on sentence – level grammar, and on accuracy, means that – unless teachers
incorporate free speaking activities into the lessons – there is zero pr eparation for spoken
fluency” . ( Thornbury, 2017, p. 41 ).
According to Richards and Rodgers, “ grammar – translation is a way of studying a
language that approaches the language first through detailed analysis of its grammar rules,
followed by application of this k nowledge to the task of translating sentences and texts into
and out of the target langua ge”. ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 5 ).
The same features of this method were shown by Harmer : “Students were given
explanations of individual points of g rammar and then they were given sentences which
exemplified these points. These sentences had to be translated from the target language
(L2) back to the students‟ first language ( L1) and vice versa […] . Language was treated at
the level of the sentence onl y, with little study, certainly at the early stages, of longer texts
[…] There was little if any consideration of the spoken language and […] accuracy was
considered to be a necessity” . ( Harmer, 2007, p. 63 ).

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A traditional grammar – translation lesson contained the following activities:
teache r‟s model reading of the text ( the reading text was usually an excerpt from a literary
text which was one to three pages long ), foll owed by the students‟ reading ( a paragr aph or
two for each st udent). While the students were reading, the teacher was carefully
correcting every mispronunciation. The following step after reading was the inscription, on
the blackboard and in students‟ notebooks, of the new words, in the form of long bilingual
lists. The students were then supposed to memorize the entire list. The text was translated
into the students‟ mother tongue and the teacher insisted on its linguistic and stylistic
subtleties. The students had to memorize the informational content of the text, as well as
long quotations from it, in order to be able to re -tell the story. This was followed by the
literary analysis of the text, which consisted of a survey of the plot and message, character
portrayal or the analysis of the writ er‟s style . Grammar was taught deductively: the teacher
explained the rule, then he / she illustrated it with examples, which were followed by
practice. The students were also asked to do translations into the target language. The text
to be tran slated cou ld be a summary of the literary text they had studied or some other texts
containing the newly acquired vocabulary and grammar patterns. Students‟ homework was
also related to the literary text they had studied in class, as they were asked to write the
summary of the text, a literary essay or translations.
The teacher and students‟ roles were very traditional in the grammar – translation
method. The teacher was the authority in the classroom. The students did what he / she
said, so they could learn what he / she knew. Most of the interaction in the classroom was
from the teacher to the students. There was little student – student interaction.
Students ‟ mother tongue was used in the classroom teaching: “ The student‟s native
languag e is the medium of instruction. It is used to explain new items and to enable
comparisons to be made between the foreign language and the student‟s native language” .
(Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 6 ).
In order to understand this method better, in the following lines I will summarize a
lesson w hich was described by Larsen -Freeman and Anderson, in Techniques and
Principles in Language Teaching. The lesson was observed by the two authors on a high –
intermediate level English class at a university in Colombia. It was a grammar -transla tion
lesson which consisted in a readi ng passage in the students‟ text books. The text was an
excerpt from Mark Twain‟s Life on the Mississippi . Each student was called on to read a
few lines from the passage and to translate them into their mother tongue, Spanish.
Whenever necessary, t he teacher helped the students with the new vocabulary items. When

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all the students had finished reading and translating the passage, the teacher asked them in
Spanish if they had any questions. A girl asked what “paddle wheel‟ was and the teacher
told her the Spanish word for it. Then the teacher continued to explain in Spanish how a
paddle wheel loo ked and worked. Another student said he couldn‟t understand the word
“gorgeous” and the teacher translated it in Spanish.
When the students had no more questions, the teacher asked them to write the
answers to some comprehension questions they had in their textbook, at the end of the
excerpt they had read. The questions were in English and the students were asked to
answer them in English as well. They did the first question together, as an example, then
the students worked individually. At the end the teacher asked them in Spanish to stop and
check their work. One by one, the students read a question and the answer he / she had
written. If the answer was correct, the teacher called on another student to read the next
question. If the answer was incorrect, the teacher asked another student to supply the
correct answer or the teacher herself gave the correct answer.
For the next activity, the teacher asked the students to turn over the page. Th ere was
a list of words there and it contained the following words: “ ambition”, “career”, “wharf”,
“tranquil”, “gorgeous”, “loathe”, “envy” and “ humbly”. The teacher told to the students
that the words were taken from the passage they had just read and ask ed them to give the
Spanish word for each of them. The class did this exercise together . If no one in the class
knew the Spanish equivalent for a certain word, the teacher gave it to them. In the
following part of the exercise, the students were given the word s “love”, “noisy”, “ ugly”,
“proudly” and they were asked to find the opposites of the words in the passage.
When the exercise was finished , the teacher reminded the students that English
words which look like Spanish words are called “cogna tes” and added that the word
“possibility” from the passage was the same as the Spanish word “ posibilidad”. Then the
teacher asked the students to find other examples in the passage. When all the cognates
from the passage had been identified, the student s had to translate them into Spanish.
At the end of the chapter, there was a list of vocabulary items. The list was divided
into two parts: the first part contained words and the second part of t he list contained
idioms like “ to give someone the cold shoulder”. There was a Spanish word or phrase next
to each of the English words and idioms in the list. For homework, the teacher asked the
students to memorize the Spanish translation for the first 20 words and to write a sentence
in English using each word.

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As the above activities show ed, the grammar -translation method focused on reading
and writing skills, listening and speaking being probably co nsidered less important. But
spoken language is quite d ifferent from writte n language, so grammar -translation learners
could cope quite well with the English writing, but failed in face -to-face interaction,
especially because “Shakespeare‟s or Dickens‟s language does not correspond to present –
day English, so that the language acq uired in the grammar -translation classes was painfully
out-of-date. Therefore, it often happened that people who had learned English for several
years and were confident in their linguistic abilities found that in a real -world situation
they could not unde rstand a word of what was being said. Nor could they find their words
to say what they had in mind” . (Vizental, 2008, p. 30).
2.2.2. The Direct Method
The Direct Method arrived at the end of the nineteenth century, when “the goal of
instruction b ecame learning how to use another language to communicate” ( Larsen –
Freeman & Anderson, 2011, p. 46 ), when teachers realized that “their method was not
efficient and that significant changes were required to make language teaching operational.
Teachers understood that they had to equip their students with a different kind of
knowledge of the foreign language, one that should serve them as a useful tool in the re al
world” . (Vizental, 2008, p. 31). This method appeared as a reaction to the Grammar –
Transl ation Method , which “was not very effective in preparing students to use the target
language communicatively” . (Larsen -Freeman & Anderson, 2011, p. 46).
The teachers of the Direct Method considered that the learning of languages had to
be done the same way as the first language was learned. It was based on the use of the
target language as a means of communication and instruction in class. Translation and
students‟ mother tongue were not allowed. It was thought that “a foreign language could be
taught without translation or the use of the learner‟s native language if meaning was
conveyed directly through demonstration and action ”. ( Richards and Rodgers, 2001, p.
11). “No translation is allowed. In fact, the Direct Method receives its name from t he fact
that meaning is to be conveyed directly in the target language through the use of
demonstration and visual aids, with no recourse to the students‟ native language” . ( Larsen –
Freeman & Anderson, 2011, p. 46). That is why new techniques, such as the demonstration
of pictures and o bjects or the imitation started to be used. “Known words could be used to
teach new vocabulary, using mime, demonstration and pictures ”. ( Richards and Rodgers,
2001, p. 11 ).

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Grammar was taught inductively. “Rather than using analytical procedures that focus
on explanation of grammar rules in classroom teaching, teachers must encourage direct and
spontaneous use of the foreign language in the cl assroom. Learners would then be able to
induce rules of grammar” . ( Richards and Rodgers, 2001, p. 11 ).
Both speech and listening comprehension were taught in the Direct Method and
correct pronunciation and grammar were emphasized.
One of the greatest theoreticians of the Direct Method was Maximilian Delphinius
Berlitz. He insisted that the mother tongue had to be abandoned in the classroom and he
provided the following reasons for this:
“1. no word in one language can be an exact equivalent of one in another language;
2. the person who learns a fo reign language by means of translation cannot become
accustomed to think in it, therefore his speech will always be artificial and bookish – a
mere translation of his mother tongue thoughts;
3. every language has its own peculiarities, its idiomatic expressions and terms, which
cannot possibly be rendered by translation; furthermore, similar expressions in different
languages often carry different ideas / meanings;
4. every language must be learned out of its elf; the person who learns a foreign language
by means of translation cannot grasp its spirit” . ( Vizental, 2008, p.32 ).
Berlitz also suggested that learning should go from concrete to abstract, because
concrete things could be perceived directly, so the re was no difficulty in explaining their
meaning.
The principles of the Direct Method can be found in the guidelines for teaching oral
languages and they are still followed in Berlitz schools. These are some of them:
“Never translate: demonstrate
Never explain: act
Never make a speech: ask questions
Never imitate mistakes: correct
Never speak with single words: use sentences
Never speak too muc h: make students speak much […] “. ( Richards and Rodgers, 2001,
p. 12 ).
For a better underst anding of the method, I will summarize the activities used by an
English teacher teaching English through the Direct Method at a lower -level secondary
school in Italy. The class was observed by Larsen -Freeman and Anderson at the end of the
students‟ first year of English. There was a big map of the USA placed in front of the

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classroom, as the title of the les son was “Looking at a Map”. One by one, the students read
a sentence from the reading passage. While they were reading, the teacher was pointing to
the part of the map where the geographical area described by each sentence was. When the
students finished r eading the passage, the teacher asked if they had any q uestions. A
student asked what a mountain range was, so the teacher turned to the whiteboard and
drew a series of inverted cones in order to illustrate a mountain range. The student nodded,
saying he u nderstood. Anoth er student asked what the word between meant. The teacher
replied: “ You are sitting between Maria Pia and Giovanni. Paolo is sitting between
Gabriella and Cettina . Now do you understand the meaning of between ? ”. The student
confirmed that he could understand.
Then the teacher asked some questions and students answered to them. When the
students ‟ answer was a single word, the teacher reminded them to answer in a full
sentence. For example, at the questions: “Class, are we looking at a map of Italy?”, the
class replied in chorus “No!” , but when the teacher reminded them to answer in a full
sentence, their answer was: “No, we aren‟t looking at a map of Italy”.
The question and answer session lasted until the students answe red to all of the
teacher‟s questions. Then the teacher invited the students to ask questions. When a girl
asked where the Appalachian Mountains were, the teacher first worked with the students
on the corr ect pronunciation of the name “ Appalachian”. When the students‟ pronu nciation
was correct, the teacher allowed the class to answer the question.
Another student‟s question was “What is the ocean in the West Coast?”. The teacher
repeated the question, emphasizing the preposition, by saying: “Wha t is the ocean in the
West Coast or…on the West Coast?” . The student hesitated, then he answered “on the
West Coast”. The teacher asked him to repeat the question and the student repeated “What
is the ocean on the West Coast?”
After about ten qu estions asked by the students, the teacher started another question –
answer session. The difference between the two question – answer sessions was the fact
that the questions in the second one were about the students in the class, each question
using one of the prepositions on, at, in, to, between . For example: “Antonella, is your book
on your desk?”
The next exercise was one in which the students had to fill in the correct
prepositions. Finally, the teacher gave students a dictation. The passage he dictated was a
long one about the geography of the United States.

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From the activities used in the lesson presented above, we saw that the literary texts
used in the grammar – translation method were replaced by lessons containing different
conversational activities, which meant that students had the possibility to use language in
real contexts. Stu dents‟ mo ther tongue was not used in the classroom, as the teachers
explained the meaning of the words through objects or pictures. The teacher s
demonstrated, they did not explain, they did not translate. Grammar was taught
inductively , so there were not any explicit grammar rules given. Students did not memorize
word list s any more, they learnt vocabulary by using it in full sentences. Students were
learnt how to ask questions, not only how to answer to them, as the purpose of the
language learning was to communicate.
Although the Direct Method was popular enough, it was considered inappropriate as
a teaching method in schools, as “the system could not provide a solution for public
education, with its large groups of students” . ( Vizental, 2008, p. 32 ).
2.2.3. The Situational Language Teaching Method
The Situational Language Teaching Method, also called the Oral Approach, was
developed from the 1930s to the 1960s by English linguists who “attempted to develop a
more scientific foundat ion for an oral approach to teaching English than was evidenced in
the Direct Method” . ( Richards and Rodgers, 2001, p. 36 ).
The Situational Language Teaching was characterized by the presentati on of
structures in situations: ”The meaning of words or structures is not to be given through
explanation in either the native language or the target language but is to be induced from
the way the form is used in a situation. If we give the meaning of a new word, either by
translation into the home lan guage or by an equivalent in the same language, as soon as
we introduce it, we weaken the impression which the word makes to the mind ( Billows,
1961). Explanation is therefore discouraged, and the learner is expected to deduce the
meaning of a particular structure or vocabulary item from the situation in which it is
presented. Extending structures and vocabulary to new situations takes place by
generali zation. The learner is expected to apply the language learned in a classroom to
situations outside the classroom ”. ( Richards and Rodgers, 2001, p. 41 ). The teachers of
the Situational Language Teaching considered that the foreign language learning was a
process similar to the way chi ld lan guage learning took place: “ When we acquire our
primary language, we do so by learning how to behave in situations, not by learning rules
about what to say” . ( Halliday ).

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In the Situational Language Teaching vocabulary and reading had an important role.
“Vocabulary was seen as an essential component of reading proficiency ”. ( Richards and
Rodgers, 2001, p. 37 ) and the emphasis on reading skills was the goal of foreign language
study for many teachers. Grammar was taught inductively, like in the Direct Method.
The objectives of the Situational Language Teaching were the accurate use of
vocabulary items and grammar rules. Learners were supposed to produce accurate
pronunciation and use of grammar and to be able to respond quickly and accurately in
speech situations.
The Situational Language Teaching syllabus was structural, being designed upon a
word list and basic structures. Structures were always taught within sentences and
vocabulary was chosen according to how well it enabled sentence patterns to be taught.
Both a textbook and visual aids were used. The lessons in the textbook were tightly
organized around different grammar structures. Visual aids were either produced by the
teacher or commercially produced and consisted of wall charts, flashcards, pictu res, stick
figures and so on. “ The visual element together with a carefully graded grammatical
syllabus is a crucial aspect of Situational Language Teaching […] In principle, however,
the textbook should be used only as a guide to the learning process. The teacher i s
expected to be the master of his textbook (Pittman, 1963 )”. ( Richards and Rodgers, 2001,
p. 44 ).
A typical lesson started with pronunciation and intonation practice followed by a
presentation of new materials, which were mainly represented by basic structures or
vocabulary. Then oral practice and drilling of the elements presented followed. The lesson
ended with a reading activity or some written exercises. The lessons were teacher –
directed. In the initial stages of learning, the students were just required to listen and repeat
what the teacher had said and to respond to questions or commands. Later, they were
encouraged to participate more actively. The teacher‟s role was different in each stage of
the lesson. In the presentation stage of the lesson, he / she had the role of “a model, setting
up situations in which the need for the target structure was created and then modelling the
new structure for students to repeat “. ( Rich ards and Rodgers, 2001, p. 43 ). During the
practice phase of the lesson, when students could use the language in less controlled
situations, the teacher was there to observe them and to decide upon the basis of the
following lessons.
Classroom procedures used in the Situational Language Teaching depend ed on the
level of the class and they move d from controlled to freer practice and from oral use to

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their use in writing. The following are examples of Situational Language Teaching
procedures:
“1. Listening practice , in which the teacher obtains his student‟s attention and repeats an
example of the patterns or a word in isolation clearly, several times, probably saying it
slowly at least once ( where…is…the…pen?), separating the words.
2. Choral imitation , in which students all together or in large groups repeat what the
teacher has said. This works best if the teacher gives a clear instruction like Repeat or
Everybody and hand signals to mark time and stress.
3. Individual imitation , in which the teacher asks several individual students to repeat the
model he has given in order to check their pronunciation.
4. Isolation , in which the teacher isolates sounds, words, or groups of words which cause
trouble and goes through techniques 1 -3 with them before replacing them in context.
5. Building up to a new model , in which the teacher gets students to ask and answer
questions using patterns they already know in order to bring about the information
necessary to introduce the new model.
6. Elicitation , in which the teacher, using mime, prompt words, gestures, etc. gets students
to ask questions, make statements, or give new examples of the pattern.
7. Substitution drilling , in whi ch the teacher uses cue words ( words, pictures, numbers,
names, etc.) to get individual students to mix the examples of the new patterns.
8. Question -answer drilling , in which the teacher gets one student to ask a question and
another to answer until most students in the class have practised asking and answering the
new question form.
9. Correction , in which the teacher indicates by shaking his head, repeating the error, etc.
that there is a mistake and invites the student or a different student to correct it. Where
possible, the teacher does not simply correct the mistake himself. He gets students to
correct themselves so they will be encour aged to li sten to each other carefully. ( Davies et
al. 1975 )”. (Richards and Rodgers, 2001, p. 46 ).
Although the Situational Language Teaching provided the methodology for many
methodological texts from the 1980s and textbooks written according to its principles are
still used in many parts of the world, in the mid – 1960s, this method was criticized. For
example, Chomsky considered that the structural and behavioristic approaches to language
did not offer the ability to create new sentences.

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2.2.4 . The Audio -Lingual Method
As there was a need of people to learn the language rapidly, another teaching method
appeared. It was called the Audio – Lingual Method and its objective was to develop
students‟ oral skills, as it emphasized the teaching of listening and speaking before reading
and writing. It was also called “Army Method” because it appeared during the World War
II when the American armies had to learn the language quickly and intensively.
“It aimed to form good habits through students listening to model dialogues with
repetition and drilling but with little or no teacher explanation” . ( Scrivener, 2011, p.31 ).
The audio -linguists adopted some important ideas from their predece ssors, the
teachers of the Direct Method. One of the ideas referred to the students‟ mother tongue,
which continued not to be allowed in the classroom. The second idea adopted from the
Direct Method was the contextual presentation of the vocabulary and gra mmar. They
believed that new vocabulary items, if introduced among previously learned ones , were
“easily understood and remembered thanks to their connections with the surrounding
elements. Audio -linguists also suggested that memorization of such structure s leads to the
formation of good habits” . (Vizental, 2008, p. 33 ). The grammar structures were
introduced contextually. The audio -lingual teachers considered that by learning situational
dialogues, the students also memorized the patterns that occurred wi thin them.
In a typical audio -lingual lesson, the following proced ures could be observed: first
students heard a model dialogue (on the tape or read by the teacher) containing the key
structures that were the focus of the lesson. They repeated each line of the dialogue, both
individually and in chorus. While students were repeating the dialogue, the teacher was
paying attention to their pronunciation, intonation and fluency. If there were pronunciation
or grammar mistakes, they were corrected im mediately. The students memorized the
dialogue line by line. If necessary, a line was divided into several parts and the students
repeated each part of the line. When their pronunciation was correct , the teacher added
more words until the students could repeat the entire line. The dialogue was then acted out
by the students . Sometimes half of the students said one speaker‟s part and the second half
of the students responded. “The typical text was the situational dialogue, generally
preceded by a short des criptive passage. The initial passage introduced the situation, basic
vocabulary and grammatical structures (e.g. phrasal verbs , the Genitive, idioms, etc.),
while the situational dialogue presented a typical conversation for the given situation; e.g.
Goin g Shopping, In the Street, At the Dentist’s, English Meals etc. The texts were short
enough to be memorized, providing useful models for various real – life situations. By

18
providing a large number of such situational dialogues, audio -linguists believed tha t they
could equip their students with proper tools to cope with all kind of real -world situations”.
( Vizental, 2008, p. 33 ).
“The Audio -Lingual Method relied heavily on drills […]; substitution was built into
these drills so that, in small steps, the student was constantly learning and, moreover, was
shielded from the possibility of making mistakes by the design of the drill” . ( Harmer,
2001, p.79 ).
This is an example of an Audio -lingual drill:
“Teacher: There‟s a cup on the table…repeat !
Students: There‟s a cup on the table .
Teacher: Spoon .
Students: There‟s a spoon on the table .
Teacher: Book .
Students: There‟s a book on the table .
Teache r: On the chair .
Students: There‟s a book on the chair” . (Harmer, 2001, p.79 ).
Various kinds of drills were used. In Approaches and Methods in Language
Teaching, Second edition , Richards and Rodgers included the following drills: the
repetitio n, the inflection, the replacement, the restatement, the completion, the
transposition, the expansion, the contraction, the transformation, the integration, the
rejoinder and the restoration.
In a repetition, the student has to repeat a se ntence as soon as he / she hears it. He /
she repeats it without looking at a printed text. The sentence has to be short enough to be
memorized.
Example: This is a book. – This is a book .
Sometimes, after a student has repea ted a sentence, a few words ar e added and the student
has to repeat the whole sentence, even to add more words.
Example: I met him. – I met him.
I met him last summer . – I met him last summer when I was in London.
The inflection means that one word in a se ntence appears in a different form when
repeated.
Example: I bought the book. – I bought the books .
He bought the house. – She bought the house.
I saw the child. – I saw the children .

19
In the replace ment, one word in a sentence is replaced by another one.
Example: He bought this car last year. – He bought it last year.
Helen didn‟t come. – She didn‟t come.
They told their parents the truth. – They told them the truth.
In the restatement the student has to rephrase a sentence and to address it to
someone else, according to the teacher‟s instructions.
Example: Tell him to call me! – Call him / her!
Ask him how old he is! – How old are you?
Ask John when he arrived. – John, when did you arrive?
The completion is a drill in which the student has to listen to a sentence with a
missing word and then he / she has to repeat the sentence in completed form.
Example: We all have ……own secrets. – We all have our own secrets.
The transposition implies a change i n word order when a new word is added.
Example: I‟m tired (so) – So am I .
I can‟t swim (neither) – Neither can I .
In an expansion drill, when a word is added, it takes a certain place in the sentence.
Example: I know him (well). – I know him well.
I know him (hardly). – I hardly know him.
I get up early (always). – I always get up early.
I am late (never). – I am never late.
The contraction is the drill in which a single word stands for a phrase or clause.
Example: Put the book on the desk. – Put the book there .
They believe that the Earth is flat. – They believe it.
In an integration drill, two different utterances are integ rated into one.
Example: I know that boy. He is crossing the street. – I know that boy who is crossing the
street .
They must be honest. This is important. – It is important that they be honest .
In a rejoinder drill, “ the student makes an a ppropriate rejoinder to a given
utterance. He is told in advance to respond in one of the following ways:
Be polite.
Answer the question.
Agree.
Agree emphatically.
Express surprise.

20
Express regret.
Disagree.
Disagree emphatically.
Question what is said.
Fail to understand.
Be polite . Examples:
Thank you. – You’re welcome.
May I take one? – Certainly.
Answer the question. Examples:
What is your name? – My name is Smith.
Where did it happen? – In the middle of the street .
Agree. Examples:
He‟s following us. – I think you’re right.
This is good coffee. – It’s very good. (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 61 -62 ).
In the Audio -Lingual Method, the teacher‟s role was central and active , he was like
an orchestra leader, he directed and controlled the language behaviour of his students. He
was responsible for providing his students with a good model for imitation ; it was a
teacher -dominated method.
The students were imitators of the teacher‟s model. They followed his directions and
responded as accurately and as rapidly as possible. They “were viewed as organisms that
could be directed by skilled training techniques to produce correct responses. Learners
played a reactive role by responding to stimuli, and thus had little control over the content,
pace or style of learning. They were not encouraged to initiate interaction, because it might
lead to mistakes. […] The teacher had to keep the learners attentive by va rying drills and
tasks and choosing relevant situations to practise structures “. ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001,
p. 62 -63 ).
Most of the interaction was between the teacher and his students and it was initiated
by the teacher. There was also studen t – student interaction in chain drills or when students
acted different roles in dialogues.
Although the teacher was the central figure in the Audio – Lingual cl ass, his image
was a new one: “s / he is no more stern and critical, but friendly and supportive; s / he no
longer sits / stands in front of the class, but moves among the students and participates in
their activities. Furthermore, in order to encourage the students in their attempts to speak
the language, the teacher is less critical; the friendly smile never leaves his / her face and

21
praise is always close at hand, for the least of the students‟ successes” . (Vizental, 2008, p.
31 ).
In the following lines I will summarize the activ ities used in an Audio -Lingual
class, observed by Larsen -Freeman and Anderson and presented in Techniques and
Principles in Language Teaching . The class was in a school from Mali and the students
were beginners. The students‟ mother tongue was not used, al l of the teacher‟s instructions
were in English. If necessary, the teacher used actions to convey meaning.
At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher presented the students the following
conversation between two people:
“Sally: Good morning, B ill.
Bill: Good morning, Sally.
Sally: How are you?
Bill: Fine, thanks. And you?
Sally: Fine. Where are you going?
Bill: I‟m going to the post office.
Sally: I am, too. Shall we go together?
Bill: Sure. Let‟s go.” ( Larsen -Freeman & Anderson, 2011, p. 60 ).
The teacher acted out the dialogue a few times, then she asked all to students in the
class to repeat the dialogue after her model. They repeated a line several times, then they
moved on to another line. When they got to the line “I‟m going to the post office”, the
students stumbled a bit in their repetition and the teacher stopped them. She used an
expansion drill to help them saying the line. She started with the end of the line and asked
the students to repeat the l ast two words ( post office) . When their pronunciation was
correct, the teacher added a few more words and asked the students to repeat “ to the post
office”. The teacher continued like this and she added more words, until the students could
repeat the entir e sentence correctly.
After the students had repeated the dialogue seve ral times, the teacher said Sally‟s
lines and asked the students to say Bill‟s part. Then they switched their roles and the
teacher said Bill‟s lines , while the students said Sally‟s. After that the teacher divided the
students in two groups: all the boys in the class formed the first group and they had to say
Bill‟s part and all the girls in the class represented the second group and they had to say
Sally‟s part.

22
The next exercise was a chain drill with four lines from the dialogue. ( In a chain drill
the students say the lines individually and they also use the expressions to communicate
with someone else). The teacher addressed to the student nearest her, saying :
“Good morning, Adama”. The student answered: “ Good morning, teacher” . The teacher
asked the student how he was and that answered: “ Fine, thanks. And you?” The teacher
answered he was fine, then, through gestures, suggested Adama to greet the student who
was sitting next to him . Adama greeted th e girl sitting next to him, who answered him,
then greeted the student sitting next to her. The chain drill went on like this until all the
students had a chance to ask and answer the questions. The last student dir ected the
greeting to the teacher.
When they finished the chain drill, the teacher invited t he students to perform the
dialogue in pairs.
In the next part of the lesson, the teach er used a substitution drill. ( In a substitution
drill the students repeat a sentence in which they have to replace a word or a phrase with
another one given by the teacher. This word or phrase is called “a cue”). The teacher began
the substitution drill by repeating the line “ I am goin g to the post office”. Then she showed
the students a picture of a bank and said “the bank” and “ I am going to the bank”. The
students understood that t hey had to use the expression “the bank” instead of “ the post
office”. The substitution drill continued like this with ot her cues given by the teacher ( the
drugstore , the café , the supermarket , the bus station , the football field and the library ).
Each cue was accompanied by a picture which helped the students understand the meaning.
A similar pro cedure was then used for the sentence “How are you?”. The cue words
were the subject pronouns “he”, “she”, “ they”. That substitution drill was slightly more
difficult than the previous one since the students had to change the form of the verb “to
be”, too.
The substitution drills were follow ed by a transformation drill. (In a transformation
drill the students have to change an affirmative sentence into a negative or an interrogative
one or an active sentence into a passive one, for example). The teacher said “ She is going
to the post office” and explained the students that they had to make the sen tence
interrogative by saying “ Is she going to the post office?” When everybody understood how
the transformation drill had to be done, the teacher s tarted practising it by saying “They are
going to the bank”. The class replied: “ Are they going to the bank?” . After about fifteen
transformation drills, the teacher started a question – and – answer drill. She held up one of
the pictures she had used earl ier, the picture of a football field, and asked: “Are you going

23
to the football field?”. In order to give her students a mo del answer, the teacher said: “ Yes,
I‟m going to the football field”. Then she did the same thing with another cue, “ the park”.
At th e third picture, that of a library, the class answered. When the teacher noticed that the
students could answer correctly to that kind of question – and – answer drill, she asked:
“Are you going to the bus station?” while holding the picture of a café. The class
answered: “No, I am going to the café”.
For the final minutes of the le sson, the teacher repeated the dialogue she had used at
the beginning of the lesson , then she asked the half of the class to her left to say Bill‟s lines
and the half of the class to her right to say Sally‟s. There was no hesitation at all, as the
students repeated the dialogue correctly. The teacher was pleased as she felt her lesson had
gone well.
The Audio -Lingual Method “brought about considerable improvements to the
teaching of foreign languages: learning vocabulary in context, a new type of teacher –
student relationship, focus on oral communication, etc. However, with the furt her changing
of society, the rather limited performances of audio -linguists made this kind of learning
inappropriate for the needs of the modern man” . (Vizental, 2008, p.35). Moreover,
“students were often found to be unable to transfer skills acquired thr ough the Audio –
lingual method to real communication outside the classroom, and many found the
experience of studying through audio – lingual procedures to be boring and unsatisfying” .
(Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 65 ).
2.2.5. PPP ( Presentation, Practice and Production) and alternatives to PPP
A variation on the Audio – Lingual Method was Presentation, Practice and
Production or PPP, as it was referred to. It “grew out of structural -situational teaching
whose main departure from Audiolingualism was to place the language in clear situational
contexts” . (Harmer, 2007, p. 64 ).
In a Presentation, Practice and Production lesson, the teacher introduced a situation
meant to contextualise the language structure to be taught. Then the langua ge structure was
presented by the teacher and practised by the students through accurate reproduction
techniques such as choral or individual repetition or cue – response drills. Later, the
students made sentences of their own using the new language struct ure, which represented
the Production or “what some trainers have called immediate creativity ”. (Harmer, 2007, p.
66).
There were some alternatives to PPP, as this was criticised. Its critics considered that
it was “clearly teacher – centred” and that students learnt “ in straight lines , starting from no

24
knowledge, through highly restricted sentence – based utterances and on to immediate
production. Yet human learning probably isn‟t like that; it is more random” . (Harmer,
2001, p.82). The alternati ves to PPP were ARC ( Authentic use, Restricte d use and
Clarification), ESA ( Engage, Study, Activate) and OHE ( Observe, Hypothesise and
Experiment).
ARC was put forwar d by Jim Scrivener and it stood for Authentic use , Restricted
use and Clarification and focus. As Harmer said, “most language in the classroom can be
described as either A, R or C. Thus a communicative activity will demonstrate authentic
use, whereas a drill, jazz chant, elicited dialogue or guided writing, for example, wil l
provoke restricted use of language by students. Finally, Clarification language is that
which the teacher and students use to explain grammar, give examples, analyse errors,
elicit o r repeat things” . (Harmer, 2001, p.83).
In the ESA model E s tood for Engage and referred to the fact that students‟
learning w as not efficient if they were not emotionally engaged with what was going on. S
stood for Study and described the teaching and learning moments where the focus was on
how something was const ructed. A stood for Activate and represented the stages of the
lesson where the students were encouraged to use the language.
OHE stood for Observe, Hypothesise and Experiment : “Michael Lewis claims that
students should be allowed to Observe ( read or listen to language) which will then provoke
them to Hypothesise about how the language works before going on to Experiment on the
basis of that hypothesis” . ( Harmer, 2001, p.83 ).
Although the Audio -Lingual Method and its alternatives were practised a lot, their
problem was “students‟ inability to readily transfer the habits they had mastered in the
classroom to communicative use outside it” . (Larsen -Freeman & Anderson, 2011, p. 80 ).
Moreover, in the early part of the 1960s, linguists reacted against the idea that learning a
language meant forming a set of habits.
2.2.6 . The Silent Way Teaching Method
The Silent Way was a language teaching method created by Caleb Gattegno in
1963. As its name suggests, this method was characterised by the use of silence as a
teaching technique. Silence was regarded as the best learning instrument in the classroom,
because “in silence students concentrate on the task to be accomplished ”. (Richards &
Rodgers, 2001, p. 83), while “repetition ( as opposed to silence) consumes times and
encourages the scattered mind to remain scattered ( Gattegno). Silence, as avoidance of

25
repetition, is thus an aid to alertness, concentration and mental organiza tion”. ( Richards &
Rodgers, 2001, p. 83).
The use of silence moved the focus from the teacher to the students and encouraged
cooperation among students. It allowed the teacher to observe the class and it helped
students to correct their own errors. If a teacher was silent when a student made a mistake,
the student had time to self -correct.
“It is based on the premise that the teacher should be si lent as much as possible in
the classroom but the learner should be encouraged to produce as much language as
possible” . (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 81).
The founder of the method, Caleb Gattegno , believed that “ learning is best
facilitated i f the learner discovers and creates language rather than just remembering and
repeating what has been taught. The learner should be in the driving seat, in other words,
not the teacher” . (Harmer, 2001, p.89). He also considered that “to teach means to serv e
the learning process rather than to dominate it”. (Larsen -Freeman & Anderson, 2011, p.
80).
Learning tasks and act ivities in the Silent Way had “ the function of encouraging
and shaping student oral response without direct oral instruction from or unnecessary
modelling by the teach er”. ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 85) .
The Silent Way was characterised by its focus on discovery, problem – solving and
the use of accompanying materials, such as the pronunciation chart, word charts,
Cuisenaire rods and the pointer.
The pronunciation chart, also known a s “Fidel chart”, contained symbols of all the
vowels and consonant sounds in the t arget language. The symbols were colour – coded
according to their pronunciation. The chart helped students with the pronunciation of
sounds, e specially those sound s which were new to them as the students‟ native language
did not have them. With the help of the chart, students could pronounce the sounds without
relying on mechanical repetition.

Fig. 1: Pictures of pronunciation charts

26
The word charts contained the functional vocabulary of the target language and used
the same colours as the pronunciation charts. Each letter was coloured in a way that
indicated its pronunciati on.

Fig. 2: Picture of a word chart
The Cuisenaire rods were small wooden blocks of different lengths and colours used
“to directly link words and structures with their meanings in the target language, avoiding
translation into the native lan guage” . ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 86 ). They were
useful in different activities. At the beginning stages they could be used to practise colours
and numbers, and later they could be used to teach more complex grammar structures
(comparatives, superlatives, prepositions) . For example, to teach prepositions , the teacher
could use sentences like : The blue rod is between t he green one and the yellow one or The
red rod is on top of / under / behind the green one . According to Harmer , they can be use d
to illustrate the position of adverbs of frequency: “ We can assign a word or phrase to each
of, say, five rods and the students then have to put them in the right order (e.g. I usually get
up at six o‟clock). By moving the usually rod around and showing where it can and cannot
occur in the sentence, the students get a clear visual display o f something they are
attempting to fix in their minds” . (Harmer, 2001, p. 141).

Fig. 3: Picture of Cuisenaire rods

27
The pointer was used to indicate stress , phrasing and intonation. ” Stress could be
shown by touching certain symbols more forcibly than others when pointing out a word.
Intonation and phrasing could be demonstrated by tapping on the chart to the rhythm of the
utterance” . (Richards & Rodgers, 200 1, p. 86 -87 ).
A typical Silent Way lesson followed a standard structure. The first part of the
lesson focused on pronunciation. The activities used depended on the students‟ level, so
they could work on sound s, phrases, even sentences designate d on the Fidel chart. At the
beginning stages the teacher modelled the appropriate sound after he / she had pointed to a
symbol on the chart. A student imitated the teacher and the teacher indicated in silence ,
through gestures or action, if he or she was correct. If not, another student had to help the
first one. After practice with the sounds of the language, at later stages of the lesson
structures, vocabulary and sentences were practised .
The Silent Way was both criticized and appreciated. “T o some, it seemed somewhat
inhuman, with the teache r‟s silence acting as a barrier, but to others, the reliance the
students were forced to place upon themselves and upon each other was exciting and
liberati ng.” ( Harmer, 2001, p.89 ).
2.2.7. Suggestopedia
Suggestopedia, also known as Desuggestopedia, was developed by the Bulgarian
psychiatrist Georgi Lozanov, who considered that “ the suggestopedia course directed the
student not to vocabulary memorization and acquiring habits of speech, but t o acts of
communicati on”. ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 101).
The arrangement of the classroom, the decorations, the furniture and the use of
music were very important features of the method, all of them making the students feel
comfortable, co nfident and relaxed. Mor eover, it was considered that “ the learner learned
not only from the effect of direct instruction , but from the environment in which the
instruction took place. The bright décor of the classroom, the musical background, the
shape of the chairs and the personality of the teacher were considered as important in
instruction as the form of the instructional material itse lf”. ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.
102).
Another fea ture of Suggestopedia was the “ infantilisation”: it me ant that the teacher
and the student had a paren t – children relationship. The teacher tre ated the students with
sympathy: “ Traumatic themes are avoided, and the sympathy with which the teacher treats
the students is vitally important” . (Harmer, 2001, p. 89).

28
The students in a Suggestopedia course were given differen t names from their real
ones: “ Assuming a new identity enhanced students‟ feeling of security and allowed them to
be more open. They felt less inhibited since their performance wa s really that of a different
person” . ( Larsen – Freeman & Anderson, 201 1, p. 107).
Suggestopedia was also characterized by an authoritative behaviour of the teach er,
as it was considered that “ People remember best and are most influenced by inf ormation
coming from an authoritative source” . ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 101).
The objective of Suggestopedia was to offer its learners advanced conversational
proficiency in a short time . A Suggestopedia course lasted 30 days and consiste d of ten
units of study. There were classes six days a week, four hour s a day. Each unit consisted of
a dialogue which had about 1200 words. The dialogue was presented on two parallel
columns: the first column contained the dialogue in the target language, while the second
column contained the translation of the text into the learners‟ native language. The
dialogue was usuall y accompanied by a vocabulary list and by some vocabulary structures.
Each unit was organized around three days of course. On the first day on a new unit the
teacher presented the content of the unit and the learners received the printed dialogue with
the native language translation in the parallel column. If the learners had any questions
about the dialogue, the teacher answered them. Then the dialogue was read a few times.
The second and the third da ys of the course were spent “ in primary and s econd elabo ration
of the text. The p rimary elaboration consisted of imitation, question and answer, reading
[…] of the dialogue and of working with the new vocabulary items presented in the unit.
The secondary elaboration involved encouraging students to make new com binations and
productions based on the dialogue” . (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 103 ).
The course also contained some micro and macro -studies. In a micro -study the
focus was on grammar, vocabulary and precise questions and answers. Such a questio n
could be: “What should one do in a hotel room if the bathroom taps are not working?”. A
macro -study focused on role playing and innovative language constructions.
During the course, the learners were encouraged to use the target language in a
setting where they were supposed to need it, such as hotels or restaurants. The last day of
the course was devoted to a performance in which every learner took part. Students were
expected to speak naturally, not from memorized lines.
The Sug gestopedia teacher‟s main role was “to create situations in which the learner
was most suggestible and then to present linguistic material in a way most likely to

29
encourage positive recepti on and retention by the learner ”. (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.
104 ).
In the following lines, I will summarize the activities used in a course where English
was ta ught using Suggestopedia. The course was observed by Larsen – Freeman and
Anderson and presented in their Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching . The
course was taught at a university class in Egypt and the learners were beginners. The class
met for two hours a day, three days a week. The classroom was bright and colourful and
there were several posters on the walls. Some of the posters co ntained different scenes
from the United Kingdom and the others cont ained grammatical information ( the
conjugation of the verb TO BE, the subject and object pronouns and the possessive
pronouns. There was also a table with some rhythm instruments on it, as the Suggestopedia
courses were always accompanied by music. Some hats and masks were next to the
musical instruments.
At the beginning of the course , the teacher greeted the students in Arabic and
announced them that they were about to begin a new experience in language learning.
Suggestopedia teachers always gave the students the impression that learning the target
language would be easy and enjoyable, knowing that learners brought with them certain
psychological barriers to the learning situa tion. That‟s why, in order to “ desuggest” those
barriers, the teache r in the Egyptian class said: “ You won‟t need to try to learn. It will just
come naturally”. Then the teacher showed the students a poster with different English
names divided in two column s: men‟s names in one column and women‟s names in the
other column and she announced them they had to choose new identities, ones they could
play with. The teacher pronounced each name and asked the students to repeat the
pronunciation. One by one, the stu dents chose the names. When all the students had chosen
a name, the teacher asked them to choose a new profession, too and using pantomime to
help them understand, the teacher acted out different occupations, such as pilot, singer,
carpenter and artist. Th e students chose what they wanted to be.
Then the teacher greeted the students using their new names and asked them a few
yes / no questions in English about their new occupations. Helped by the teacher‟s actions,
the students understood the que stions and could answer “yes” or “no”. After that, the
teacher taught the students a short dialogue in English, in whi ch two people greeted and
asked each other what they did for a living. After practising the dialogue in chorus, the
students were able to introduce themselves to the teacher. Then they played the rhythm
instruments while they sang a song.

30
In the next part of the firs t course, the teacher gave ea ch student a twenty -page
worksheet containing the dialogue of the first unit. It was printed on two columns: The
English dialogue on the left column and its Arabic translation on the right column. There
were also some comments in Arabic about some of the English vocabulary items and the
grammatical structures they would encounter in the dialogue. All those items were written
in bold in the dialogue. Using the English language, the Arabic language and the
pantomime, th e teacher p resented the story from the dialogue to the students . Then,
accompanied by Mozart‟s Violin Concerto , she read the text, giving the students the
sufficient time to look at the two columns, the English text and its Arabic translation. For
the second reading of the text , the teacher changed the music to Handel‟s Water Music and
read the text at a normal speed. The se were the activities for the first class.
At the beginning of the second class, the teacher greeted the students and asked them
to intro duce themselves in their new identities. Then the teacher pulled out a hat from a
bag and put it on her head. While doing that, she pointed to herself and named a character
from the dialogue. Through gestures, the teacher indicated that she wanted four mor e
people in the class to wear hats. After the hats had been distributed, the four students
wearing the hats had to read the dialogue, imagining that they were the characters whose
hat they wore. Then four different students did the same thing and after tha t another four.
The three groups had to read the texts in different ways: a sad way, a cheerful one and so
on.
Next, the teacher asked questions in English about the dialogue and she also asked
the students to give her the English translation of an Arabic sentence from the dialogue and
vice versa.
Then she taught the students a children‟s alphabet song containing English names
and occupations. It sounded like t his: “ A, my name is Alice; my husband‟s name is Alex.
We live in Australia , and we sell apples. B, my name is Barbara; my husband‟s name is
Bert. We live in Brazil, and we sell books”. It was a funny song which contributed to
creating the relaxing atmosphere the Suggestopedia courses took place in. After the song,
the teacher asked the students to stand up and stay in a circle. The teacher threw a medium –
sized ball to one of the students, while asking him in English what his name was. The
student caught the ball and answered his name was Richard. At the teacher‟s indication, he
threw the ball to another student and asked:” What you do?”. The teacher corrected him in a
very soft voice saying “What do you do?”, as Suggestopedia teachers always corrected
students‟ errors gently, not in a direct, confrontational way.

31
During the third class of that week, the students continued to work wi th the dialogue,
but they did not read it any more. They used the new language in a creative way , they did
role-plays and so on. The students did not get any homework for the next class they had
that week, which was another feature of the Suggestopedia: the only homework the
Suggestopedia teachers proposed to their students was to read over the dialogue if they
wished.
Suggestopedia was definetly different from other teachin g methods, especially
because “ it aimed to facilitate unconscious memorization of the new material” .
(Thornburry, 2017, p. 91 ).
2.2.8. Community Language Learning
Community Language Learning (CLL ) was a teaching method developed by Charles
A. Curran and h is associates in Chicago. “Curran was a specialist in counsel ling and a
professor of psychology at Loyola University in Chicago. His appli cation of psychological
counsel ling techniques to learning is known as Counsel ling – Learning. Community
Language Learning represented the use of Counsel ling – Learning theory to teach
languages” . (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 90 ).
In Community Language Learning the teacher was seen as a counse llor or a
“knower” that gave advice and assistance in case of need and the learners were seen as the
“clients ” in the language classroom. “A language counsel lor does not mean someone
trained in psychology; it means someone who is a skilful understander of the struggle the
students face as they attempt to internalize another language” . ( Larsen – Freeman &
Anderson, 201 1, p. 118). “ The basic procedures of the Community Language Learning can
thus be seen as derived from the counsel lor – client relationship” . ( Richards & Rodgers,
2001, p.90).
CLL did not use a conventional language syllabus containing the grammar,
vocabulary and other language items to be taught and the order in which those had t o be
covered, as the learners (“ clients ”) were the ones who decided what they wanted to
communicate to the other learners or what they wanted to talk about. The teacher‟s
responsibility was to provide a conveyance for those meanings in a way which had to be
appropriate to the learner‟s proficien cy level. “This means that the language should not be
imposed on the learners, in the form, for example, of a syllabus and course book, but that it
should emerge jointly from them, and simply be translated fo r them by the teacher –
counsel lor”. ( Thornburr y, 2017, p. 86 ).

32
“Since a CLL course evolved out of the interactions of the community, a textbook
was not considered a necessary component. A textbook would have imposed a particular
body of language content on the learners, thereby impedi ng th eir growth and interaction” .
(Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 95 ).
In the classical form of the Community Language Learning (CLL), small groups of
learners s at in a circle. The teacher – counsel lor or the “knower” stood outside the circle.
The tea cher‟s role was to provide or correct the learners‟ target language statements. For
example, a student said something in his / her native language and the “knower” was there
to give him / her the English equivalent. The student repeated it and the teacher corrected
him / her, if necessary. Then the student could say the statement to the other learners in the
circle. “Later, when students were more confident with the target language, they could be
put in lines facing each other for pair – work discussion” . (Harmer, 2001, p. 88 ).
In some CLL lessons, the students‟ statements – corrected or translated by the
teacher – were recorded onto tape to be analysed later, when the teacher usually replayed
the recording and chose elements of it “to transcri be onto the board in order to draw
attention to particular linguistic features that were considered to be within the learners‟
current learning capability. Other activities might complement this basic framework, such
as reading the text aloud, as well as r eflecting on the experience itself” . ( Thornburry,
2017, p.87 ).
Community Language Learning combined traditional learning tasks and activities
with innovative ones. Richards and Rodgers listed the following activities and learning
tasks used i n CLL: the translation, the group work, the recording, the transcription, the
analysis, the reflection and the observation, the listening and the free conversation.
1. Translation : Learners formed a small circle. One of them whispered a message he / she
wanted to express, the teacher translated it into the target language, and the learner
repeated the teacher‟s translation.
2. Group work : Learners engaged themselves in different group tasks, such as small –
group discussion s of a topic and they prepared c onversations for presentation to another
group.
3. Recording : Students recorded their conversations in the target language.
4. Transcription : Students transcribed statements or conversations they had recorded in
order to analyse their linguistic forms.

33
5. Analysis : Students ana lysed and studied transcriptions of sentences in the target
language, in order to focus on particular lexical usage or on the application of particular
grammar rules.
6. Reflection and observation : Learner s reflected on their experience and they then
reported it to the class.
7. Listening : Students listened to a monologue by the teacher about different elements they
had used in the class interaction.
8. Free conversation : Students engaged themselves in free conversations with the teacher
or with other learners . They could be discussions about what they had learned, as well as
feelings they had had during the learning activity.
“Learner roles in CLL were well defined. Learners became members of a community
– their fell ow learners and the teacher – and learned through interacting with the
community. Learning was not viewed as an individual accomplishment, but as something
that was achieved collaboratively […] In the early stages of learning, the teacher operated
in a sup portive role, providing target – language translations and a model for imitation on
request of the clients ”. ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 95 – 96 ). Later, when students were
able to initiate interaction, the teacher observed them, monitoring their perfo rmance and
providing ass istance when requested. Then, “ as learning progresses, students become
increasingly capable of accepting criticism, and the teacher may intervene directly to
correct deviant utterances, supply idioms, and advise on usage and fine po ints of grammar.
The teacher‟s role is initially likened to that of a nurturing parent. The student gradually
grows in ability, and the nature of the relationship changes so that the teacher‟s position
becomes somew hat dependent on the learner” . ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.95).
Although Community Language Learning had some positive aspects, the most
important of t hem being the fact that it cent red o n the learner, it was criticised, too. Its
critics considered that the teachers could not be cou nsellors without special training. They
also thought that the lack of a syllabus made objectives unclear and evaluation difficult to
accomplish.
2.2.9. Total Physical Response
Total Physical Response (TPR) was “a teaching method built around the c oordination
of speech and action; it attempted to teach language through physical activity” . ( Richards
& Rodgers, 2001, p. 73). It was developed by James Asher, a professor of psychology at
San Jose State University, in Ca lifornia.

34
Asher develo ped Total Physical Response as a result of his experiences observing
young children learning their first langua ge. He saw that little children listened to adults
telling them what to do (for example: “Open your mouth!”, “Look at me!”, “Sit down!”) ,
then they performed the movements the adults had required. If children did not need to be
able to say the words and the only thing they had to do was to listen and understand , Asher
realized that the first step in language acquisition was comprehension, n ot word
production. He concluded that people acquire d their mother tongue, rather than learn ed it
and “successful adult second language learning “ should be “ a parallel process to child first
language acquisition” . ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 73). “If ch ildren learn much of their
language from speech directed at them in the form of commands to perform actions, then
adults will learn best in that way too” . ( Harmer, 2001, p. 90). “This is exactly how an
infant acquires its native language. A baby spends many months listening to the people
around it long before it ever says a word. The child has the time to try to make sens e out of
the sounds he hears”. ( Larsen -Freeman & Anderson, 201 1, p. 1 37).
Asher identified three processes as central:
”1. C hildren develop listening competence before they develop the ability to speak. At the
early stages of first language acquisition, they can understand complex utterances that they
cannot spontaneously produce or imitate.
2. Children‟s a bility in listening comprehension is acquired because children are required
to respond physically to spoken language in the form of parental commands.
3. Once a foundation in listening comprehension has been established, speech evolves
naturally and effortlessly out of it”. ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.74).
Parallel to the process of first language acquisition, the second language learning
should start with listening exercises, accompanied by physical movement. Speech and
other productive skills should a ppear later. Asher believed that “language learning starts
first with understanding and ends with production” . ( Larsen -Freeman & Anderson, 201 1,
p. 137).
According to Asher, the first language acquisition takes place in a stress -free
environment, while the adult language learning environment often produces stress and
anxiety. That is why he considered that the absence of stress was an important condition in
language learning.
The objectives of TPR were to develop students‟ listening skills. In TPR students
were not forced to speak. Instead, teachers waited until students were ready to speak as
they had acquired enough language through listening .

35
Most of the time in a Total Physical Response class was spent doing imperative
drills. They were usually used to elicit physical actions and activity on the part of the
learners. According to Asher, “most of the grammatical structures of the target language
and hundre ds of vocabulary items can be learned from the skilful use of the imperative by
the instructo r”. ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.73). Initially, students learned the meaning
of the commands they heard by direct observation, as well as by performing the actio ns
themselves . “The teacher demonstrated the actions and individual students joined him / her
to perform them. Once the students were sufficiently well trained, the teacher repeated the
instructions without enacting them and the students, either individual ly or as a group,
performed them” . (Thornbury, 2017, p. 27). When the students learned the meaning of the
words appearing in the comm ands, the teacher gave new commands to them , using
combinations of the words they had already learned. Later, if all the students could respond
to commands correctly, one of them started giving instructions to other classmates.
Conversational dialogues were delayed until after about 120 hours of instruction.
Other class activities used in TPR were the role play and the slide presentations.
Role plays were done around everyday situations, such as at the restaurant, at the
supermarket or at the gas station.
There was not a basic text to be taught in a TPR course. Materials and realia were
only used in later learning stages. With beginners , lessons din not require the use of
materials because the teacher‟s voice and gestures were considered a sufficient basis for
classroom activities. Later, the teacher used common classroom objects, su ch as books,
pens, pictures, furniture and so on. TPR teachers limited the number of new vocabulary
items given to students during a lesson, in order to help them differentiate the new words
from those previously learned. They varied between twelve and thi rty – six, as Asher had
suggested: “ In an hour, it is possible for students to assimilate 12 to 36 new lexical items
depending upon the size of the group and the stage of training ( Asher, 1977, p.42)” .
( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 76 ). Grammar was tau ght inductively.
As the TPR learners‟ main role was to listen and perform, responding physically to
commands given by the teacher, the teacher play ed an active and direct role. “ It was the
teacher who decided what to teach, who modelled and presented the new materials, and
who selected supporting materials for classroom use […] Asher stressed, however, that the
teacher‟s role was not so much to teach as to provide opportunities fo r learning. The
teacher had the responsibility of providing the best kind of exposure to language so that the

36
learner could internalize the basic rules of the target language” . ( Richards & Rodgers,
2001, p.76).
There was little error correctio n in Total Physical Response. Asher suggested that,
in giving feedback to learners, the teacher had to follow the example of parents giving
feedback to their children: “ At first, parents correct very little, but as the child grows
older, parents are said to tolerate fewer mistakes in speech. Similarly, teachers should
refrain from too much correction in the early stages and should not interrupt to correct
errors, since this will inhabit learners. As time goes on, however, more teacher intervention
is expec ted, as the learners‟ speech becomes fine-tuned .” ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.
76).
Critics of Total Physical Response considered that the method could only be
appropriate for beginner learners and they doubted the fact that it could have a real
connection with any real – world needs . In fact, Asher himself suggested that TPR should
be used together with other methods.
2.3. Summary
As we have seen so far, the traditional teaching methods “gave priority to
grammatical competence as the basis of language proficiency. They were based on the
belief that grammar could be learned through direct instruction and through a methodology
that made much use of repetitive practice and drilling. The approach to the teaching of
grammar was a deduc tive one: students were presented with grammar rules and the n given
opportunities to practic e using them, as opposed to an inductive approach in which
students are given examples of sentences containing a grammar rule and asked to work out
the rule for the mselves. It was assumed that language learning meant building up a large
repertoire of sentences and grammatical patterns and learning to produce them accurately
and quickly in the appropriate situation. Once a basic command of the language was
established through oral drilling and controlled practice, the four skills were introduced,
usually in the sequence of speaking, listening, reading and writing.
Techniques that were often employed included memorization of dialogues, question
– and – answer practice, substitution drills, and various forms of guided speaking and
writing practice. Great attention to accurate pronunciation and accurate mastery of
grammar was stressed from the very beginning stages of language learning, since it was
assumed that if students made errors, these would quickly become a permanent part of the
learner‟s speech”. ( Richards, 2006, p. 6 -7). It was supposed that a person who knew the

37
rules and the lexis was able to understand and speak the target language. In fact, the
learners could not really cope with communication in different real – life situations.
The teaching was teacher – centred and “learning was very much seen as under the
control of the teacher”. ( Richards, 2006, p. 4).
To sum up, the tra ditional teaching put the responsibility for teaching and learning
mainly on the teacher and it was believed that if students were present in the lesson and
listened to the teacher‟s explanations and examples, they would be able to use the
knowledge.
That is why, by the end of the 1960s, the teachers of the time realized that the
traditional teaching methods, with their endless drills and repetitions, could not produce
good communicators, as “real – world interactions are rapid and spontaneous, co nditioned
by time pressure: you never know what your interlocutor will say next, so that you have to
decode his / her message, formulate your answer, and build up your response not only fast,
but also appropriately , according to your interlocutor, the situ ational context and the
activity type”. (Vizental, 2008, p. 35 ). The situational dialogues and pattern practice of the
traditional teaching methods proved to be insufficient and inadequate in most real – life
contex ts. For example, the sentence “ My uncle‟ s cat is sleeping in my mother‟s armchair”,
which was often used to teach the genitive case in the audio -lingual textbooks, is unlikely
to be encountered in ordinary communicative situations.
2.4. Modern methodology / teaching and modern teaching methods
The modern teaching is a learner – centred and activity – based teaching method
which is used to get learners fully involved. With modern teaching, the learner constructs
his / her knowledge and skills through active participation in the teaching – learning
process. The teacher only acts as a guide and facilitator of the learning activities. Through
participation in these learning activities, the learners are guided to achieve the objectives
of the teaching – learning process. Modern teaching enco urages interaction and reduces
competition.
2.4.1. Communicative Language Teaching
In the 1970s, a reaction to the traditional language teaching methods began and
soon spread around the world as the old methods fell out of fashion. Some teachers
“observed that students could produce sentences accurately in a lesson, but could not use
them appropriately when genuinely communicating outside of the classroom. Others noted
that being able to communicate requi red more than mastering linguistic structure, due to

38
the fact that language was fundamentally social ( Halliday 1973 )”. ( Larsen -Freeman &
Anderson, 201 1, p. 152) . They understood that students needed to use the language
communicatively for different comm unicative purposes such as making requests, giving
advice, making suggestions, describing wishes and needs, and so on. To sum up , being
able to communicate required communicative competence . This meant “knowing what to
say and how to say it appropriately b ased on the situation, the participants, and their roles
and int entio ns” (Richards, 2006, p. 9) or “ knowing when and how to say what to whom” .
(Larsen -Freeman & Anderson, 201 1, p. 152). Because the traditional teaching methods
and syllabuses d id not include such information (the traditional syllabuses consisted of
word lists and grammar lists, graded across levels from beginner to advanced ), the
teachers of the time started to ask themselves how a syllabus had to look like in order to
reflect the noti on of communicative competence . Their answer was Communicative
language teaching (CLT) . “Communicative Language Teaching created a great deal of
enthusiasm and excitement when it first appeared as a new approach to language teaching
in the 1970s -1980s, an d language teachers and teaching institutions all around the world
soon began to rethink their teaching, syllabuses, and classroom materials. In planning
language courses within a communicative approach, grammar was no longer the starting
point […] Rather than simply specifying the grammar and vocabulary learners needed to
master, it was argued , that a syllabus should identify the following aspects of language use
in order to be able to develop the learners‟ communicative competence:
1. […] the purpose s for which the learner wishes to acquire the target language; for
example, using English for business purposes, in the hotel industry, or for travel;
2. […] the setting in which they will want to use the target language; for example, in an
office, on an ai rplane, or in a store;
3. the socially defined role the learners will assume in the target language, as well as the
role of their interlocutors; for example, as a traveller, as a salesperson talking to clients, or
as a student in a school;
4. the communica tive events in which the learners will participate: everyday situations,
vocational or professional situations, academic situations, and so on; for example, making
telephone calls, engaging in casual conversation s, or taking part in a meeting;
5. the langu age functions involved in those events, or what the learner will be able to do
with or through the language; for example, making introductions, giving explanations, or
describing plans ;

39
6. the notions or concepts involved, or what the learner will need to be able to talk about;
for example, leisure, finance, history, religion;
7. the skills involved in the knitting together of discourse: discourse and rhetorical skills ;
for example, storytelling, giving an effective business presentation ;
8. the variety or varieties of the target language that will be needed, such as American,
Australian, or British English, and the levels in the spoken and written language which the
learners will need to reach;
9. the grammatical content that will be needed;
10. the lexical content , or vocabulary, that will be needed” . ( Richards, 2006, p. 9 -10 ).
CLT teachers understood that textbooks needed a change, too, as they had to reflect
the learners‟ needs, in terms of vocabulary (for example, a secretary needs making
telephone calls, writing emails). That is why the texts in the communicative textbooks use
“authentic materials (whether spoken or written) coming from the wide range of discourses
of native speakers – from casual co nversation s to guidebooks, from literature to journalism;
the list is practically unlimited. In addition, communicative textbooks no longer provide
one text for a lesson, with the implicit suggestion that its content should be learned .
Instead, they may offer several short texts cent red around a topic […] This kind of
arrangement provides the advantage that, instead of merely learning the lesson, the student
has to process and systematize the information provided by the texts; it is also closer to the
way p eople come a cross information in real world ”. ( Vizental, 2008, p.38 ).
Communicative Language Teaching required a rethinking of the clas sroom teaching
methodology, too: “If emphasis is placed on learning a language for communicative
purposes, the methods used to promote learning should reflect this […] A communicative
methodology will therefore encourage students to practise language in pairs and groups,
where they have equal opportunity to as k, answer, initiate and respond. The teacher
assumes a counselling role, initiating activity, listening, helping and advising. Students are
encouraged to communicate effectively rather than merely to produce grammatically
correct forms of English (Abbs & F reebairn 1979)” . (Thornbury, 2017, p. 61 ).
Richards identified the following principle s of the new teaching methodology :
“1. Make real communication the focus of language learning;
2. Provide opportunities for learners to experiment and try out what they know;
3. Be tolerant of learners‟ errors as they indicate that the learner is building up his or her
communicative competence;
4. Provide opportunit ies for learners to develop both accuracy and fluency;

40
5. Link the different skills such as speaking, reading and listening together, since they
usually occur so in the real world;
6. Let students induce or discover grammar rules .” ( Richards, 2006, p.13 ).
When applying the above principles in the classroom, teachers realized that new
classroom techniques and activities had to replace the old activities which had required
accurate repetition and memorization of sentences and grammatical patterns.
Since the language classsroom is seen as a preparation for being able to communic ate
in the real world and since real communication is the most important characteristic of CLT,
”some argued that classroom activities should as far as possible mirror the real world and
use real world or ” authentic” sources as the basis for classroom lear ning […]. Arguments in
favor of the use of authentic materials include:
*They provide cultural information about the target language.
*They provide exposure to real language.
*They relate more closely to learners‟ needs.
*They support a more creative approach to teaching.” ( Richards, 2006, p. 20 ).
As the communicative teaching lays great emphasis on interaction, on the exchange
of ideas and negotiation of meaning, like in the outside world, t he new coommunicative
activi ties consist mainly o f student – student conversations which ”simulate the linguistic
behaviour of real – world interactants . A communicative activity is set in a situation similar
to those encountered in the real world. The situation must be close to the students‟ life
experi ence, so that they can identify with it. ” ( Vizental, 2008, p. 39 ).
As Richards said, “With CLT began a movement away from traditional lesson
formats where the focus was on mastery of different items of grammar and practice
through controlled activities such as memorization of dialogues and drills, and toward s the
use of pair work activities, role plays, group work activities and project work” . ( Richards,
2006, p. 4 ).
This is how Harmer defined communicative activities: ”Activities in CLT typically
involve students in real or realistic communication, where the accuracy of the language
they use is less important than successful achievement of the communicative task they are
performing. Thus role -play and simulation have become very po pular in CLT, where
students simulate a television programme or a scene at an airport […] Sometimes they have
to solve a puzzle and can only do so by sharing information. Sometimes they have to write
a poem or construct a story together. What matters in these activities is that students should
have a desire to communicate something. They should have a purpose for communicating

41
(e.g. to make a point, to buy an airline ticket, or write a letter to a newspaper). They should
be focused on the content of what they are saying or writing rather than on a particular
language form. They should use a variety of language rather than just one language
structure. The teacher will not intervene to stop the activity; and the materials he or she
relies on will not dictate what specific language forms the students use either. In other
words such activities should attempt to replicate real communication.” ( Harmer, 2001, p.
85).
Communicative activities have the following important features: information gap ,
choice , feedback and fluency .
Information gap refers to the fact that in real communication, people usually
communicate in order to get information they do not possess. It means that one person in
an exchange knows something that the other perso n does not know. For example, ”a
traditional classroom exchange in which one student asks Where i s the library? and
another student answers It is on Green Street, opposite the bank when they can both see it
and both know the answer, is not much like real c ommunication. If, however, the first
student has a map which does not have the library shown on it, while the other student has
a different map with library written on the correct building – but which the first student
cannot see – then there is a gap between the knowledge which the two participants have” .
( Harmer, 2007, p. 70 ).
When talking about choice as one of the characteristics of the communicative
activities, I mean that ”in communication, the speaker has a choice of what he / she wi ll
say and how he / she will say it. If the exercise is tightly controlled, so that students can
only say something in one way, the speaker has no choice and the exchange is not
communicative. In a chain drill, for example, if a student must reply to her n eighbour‟s
question in the same way as her neighbour replied to someone else‟s question, then she has
no choice of form and content, and real communication does not occur” . ( Larsen -Freeman
& Anderson, 201 1, p. 162 ).
Feedback : True cmmunication is purposeful . This means that a speaker can evaluate
whether her / his purpose has been achieved or not based upon the information he / she
receives from hi s / her listener. If the listener does not have the opportunity to provide the
speaker with such f eedback, then the exchan ge is not really communicative. ”Forming
questions through a transformation drill may be a worthwhile activity, but it is not in
keeping with CLT since a speaker will receive no response from a listener. She is thus

42
unable to assess whether her question has been understood or not” . ( Larsen -Freeman &
Anderson, 201 1, p. 162 ).
In communicative activities, fluency is more important than accuracy. ”Fluency is
natural language use and it is developed by creating classroom acti vities in which students
must negotiate meaning, use communication strategies, correct misunderstandings, and
work to avoid communication breakdowns. Fluency practice can be contrasted with
accuracy practice, which focuses on creating correct examples of l anguage use” ( Richards,
2006, p. 14 ). According to Richards, these are the differences between activities that focus
on fluency and those that focus on accuracy:
” Activities focusing on fluency
*reflect natural use of language
*focus on achieving communication
*require meaningful use of language
*require the use of communication strategies
*produce language that may not be predictable
*seek to link language use to context
Activities focusing on accuracy
*reflect classroom use of language
*focus on the formation of correct examples of language
*practise language out of context
*practise small samples of language
*do not require meaningful communication
*control choice of language” . ( Richards, 2006, p. 14 ).
The activities used in CLT are: jigsaw activities , task – completion activities,
information – gathering activities, opinion – sharing activities, information – transfer
activities, reasoning – gap activities, role plays, simulations, re aching a consensus , the
discussion, the interview, problem solving , picture strip story and the communication
games .
Jigsaw activities are based on the information gap principle . In jigsaw activities the class is
usually divided into groups and each group has some informat ion. In order to complete an
activity, the class has to put the pieces together to complete the whole. For example, the
teacher can divide a narration into as many parts as the number of students in the class.
Each student gets a part of the narration. The n students have to move around the class, to
listen to each section read aloud and to decide where in the story their part belongs.

43
Task – completion activities refer to puzzles, games, map – reading and different other tasks
in which the focus is on using one‟s language resources to complete a task.
Information – gathering activities are interviews and searches in which students have to use
their linguistic resources to collect information.
Opinion – sharing activities are activities in which students have to compare their opinions
or beliefs in order to choose a date or something like this.
Information – transfer activities ask students to take information that is presented in one
form and use it in a different form. F or example, they may read instructions on how to get
from a place to another one, and then draw a map showing directions.
Reasoning – gap activities involve deriving some new information from previously given
information. For example, working out a teacher ‟s timetable on the basis of given class
timetables.
Role plays are activities in which students are assigned roles and improvise a scene. In role
plays, the teacher gives students info rmation such as who they are, what they should say
and what they feel and think. For example, the teacher can tell the student: ‟‟ You are
David, you go to the doctor and tell him …” . This is an example of a very structured role –
play, but they can appear in a less -structured way, too. For example, the teach er tells the
students who they are, what the situation is and what they are talking about, but the
students have to determine what they will say. The latter one is a better example of a CLT
activity, as it gives the students choice and it provides informa tion gaps since students
cannot be sure what their interlocutors will say. Role – plays are very important in CLT
because they give students an opportunity to communicate in different social contexts and
in different social roles .
Simulations are similar t o role plays, but they are more elaborate than role plays. In
simulations, students can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment. For
example, if a student is acting as a singer, he / she can bring a microphone to sing and so
on.
Reachin g a consensus is an activity in which students have to agree with each other after a
certain amount of discussion. The task is not complete until they do.
Example: The students are told that they are going on holiday and they have to decide what
ten objects to take with them. They will have to reach a consensus on these objects.
Stage 1: All the students are asked to write down the ten items they would choose to ha ve
in their luggage if they are going to stay on holiday for two weeks.

44
Stage 2: When all the students have completed their lists, they are put into pairs. Each pair
has to negotiate a new list of ten items. This means that each member of the pair has to
change his / her original list to some extent.
Stage 3: When the pairs have completed th eir lists, two pairs are joined together to
negotiate a new list that all four students can agree with.
Stage 4: Groups can now be joined together and the list re – negotiated.
Stage 5: When the teacher thinks the activity has gone on for long enough, a f eedback
session is conducted with the whole class and each group explains and justifies its choice.
Discussions can be held for various reasons: the students may aim to arrive at a conclusion,
share ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups. There are many
types of discussion activities:
*The buzz group : This is where the students are put i nto groups of three or four and asked
to think of the topic. For example, the tea cher may ask them to think of “ as many…as
possible” ( as many free times activities as possible).
*The controversial topics: The students are given some statements about a topi c and they
are asked to circle the one which best reflects their agreement or disagreement with the
statement. When they have done this, they compare their answers in pairs and then in
groups and they have to agree with the final answer.
*The debate: The students are given a controversial proposition and they are then put into
two groups which have to prepare arguments either in favour or against. When the
arguments are ready, the teams elect a proposer and a seconder who make formal speeches
to argue thei r case.
Interviews : Students can conduct interviews on different topics. These give students a
chance to practise their speaking ability not only in class, but also outside the class. After
interviews, each student can present his / her study to the class .
Problem – solving : Problem – solving activities encourage students to talk together to find a
solution to a set of problems or tasks.
Picture Strip Story : In this activity, a student in a small group is given a strip story. He /
she shows the first picture of the story to the other members of the group and asks them to
predict what the second picture will look like.
Communication games : Games are frequently used in CLT and the students find them
enjoyable. Games which are designed to prov oke communication between students usually
depend on an information gap , as one student has to talk to a partner in order to solve a

45
puzzle, draw a picture (describe and draw), put things in the right order (describe and
arrange), or find similarities and differences between pictures.
Most of the activities discussed above are designed to be carried out in pairs and
small groups . Group – work is a cooperative activity in which “students tend to participate
more equally, and they are also more able to experiment and use the language than they are
in a whole – class arrangement. Pair – work has many of the same advantages. It is
mathematically attractive if nothing else; the moment students get into pairs and start
working on a problem or talking about something, many more of them will be doing the
activity than if the teacher was working with the whole class, where only one student talks
at a time ”. ( Harmer, 1998, p. 21).
Completing the activities in this way has the following advantages for the students:
“*They can learn from hearing the language used by other members of the group.
*They will produce a greater amount of language than they would use in teacher – fronted
activities.
* Their motivational level is likely to increase.
* They will have t he chance to develop fluency” . (Richards, 2006, p. 20 ).
Advantages of working in group s or pairs were identified by Harmer , too: “Both pair –
work and group – work give the students chances for greater independence. Because they
are working together without the teacher controlling every move, they take some of their
own learning decisions, they decide what language to use to complete a certain task, and
they can work without the pressure of the whole class listening to what they a re doing.
Decisions are cooperatively arrived at, responsibilities are shared. The other great
advantage of group – work and pair – work (but espec ially group – work) is that they give
the teacher the opportunity to work with individual students. While gro ups A and C are
doing one task, the teacher can spend some time with group B who need s special
attention” . (Harmer, 1998, p. 21).
There are some disadvantages of working in groups or pairs , too. First of all, some
students may not like the people they are grouped or paired with. Secondly, one student in
a pair or a group may dominate while the others stay silent. Working in groups may
encourage some students to be more disruptive than they would be in a whole -class activity
and they may use their first language when the teacher is not working with them. All these
possible problems can be avoided if the teacher knows his / her students well.
The CLT classroom activities also implied new roles for teachers and learners.
These are a lot different from their traditional roles. “Traditionally, the teacher was looked

46
upon as unchallenged leader and source of information, while learners were viewed as
passive recipients, supposed to digest and memorize the information provided. The
communicative class is student – centred, and teacher and learners are partners in a
cooperative venture ”. ( Vizental, 2008, p. 39 ).
In CLT classes learners become researchers, discoverers and they have to
participate in activities which are base d on a cooperative rather than individualistic
approach to learning, they work in group or pair tasks, listening to their partners, rather
than just relying on the teacher as a model. “S/he is taught not to expect everything from
the teacher, but to locate , analyse and process information himself / herself. S/he also
learns to find solutions to problems, interact s with the group, and negotiate s meaning, the
way people do in real life. This way, student talking time is increased and learners have
more opport unities to interact and produce their own language” . ( Vizental, 2008, p. 40 ).
The teacher is viewed as a facilitator a nd monitor. His new role is that of “go –
between between the student and the learning process. The communicative teacher is a
needs analyst , a counsel lor, an organizer and a manager of the classroom activities and,
occasionally, an error corrector . S/he must help the students to link the learning material
to their own lives and internalize it as personal experience, so that it should become
meaningful and important. While supervising classroom activities, s/he must facilitate
smooth interaction among the students, with special care that every member of the group
should have the opportunity to participate (e.g. that the shy ones should not be silenced by
the more daring)” . ( Vizental, 2008, p. 39 -40 ).
As a needs analyst , the CLT teacher has the responsibility of determining and
responding to the learners‟ language needs. This may be done informally, through
discussion s with students, or formally, administering a needs assessment instrument. On
the basis of such needs assessments, the teacher has to plan the instruction which best
responds to the learners‟ needs. In such needs assessments, the students are usually asked
to answer on a 5 -point scale ( from strongly agree to strongly disagree ) to statements like
the following ones:
“I want to study English because…
1. I think it will someday be useful in getting a good job.
2. It will help me better understand English – speaking people and their way of life.
3. One needs a good knowledge of English to gain other people‟s respect.
4. It will allow me to meet and converse with interesting people.
5. I need it for my job.

47
6. It will enable me to think and behave like English – speaking people […]
Another role assumed by several CLT approaches is that of counselor, similar to the
way this role is defined in Community Language Learning. In this role, the teacher –
counselor is expected to exemplify an effective comm unicator seeking to maximize the
meshing of speaker intention and hearer interpretation, through the use of paraphrase,
confirmation, and feedback. ” ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 167 -168 ).
As an organizer and a group manager, the teacher has to organize the classroom as
a setting for communication and communicative activities.
The CLT teacher rarely acts as an error corrector, because “communicative teachers
do not stop the stud ents to correct their mistakes. Unnecessary intervention on the part of
the teacher prevents the learners from becoming involved in the activity” ( Vizental, 2008,
p. 40 ) and does not develop their communicative skills. ”Errors of form are tolerated
durin g fluency – based activities and are seen as a natural outcome of the development of
communication skills. Students can have limited linguistic knowledge and still be
successful communicators” . ( Larsen -Freeman &Anderson, 201 1, p. 164 ). The teacher
may no te students‟ mistakes for later comme ntary during a more accuracy – based activity .
In CLT classes, the learner is gradually taught to employ techniques of self – control and
self – correction, to detect and correct his / her own mistakes.
The CLT teacher‟s activity in the classroom was described by Vizental lik e this:
“For a communicative activity, the teacher creates a situation; sets a purpose for the
interaction; organizes the students (e.g. in pairs or groups) and assigns them roles; s/ he sets
the activity in motion, then stands back to allow the students to use their imagination to
expand the context. The teacher encourages the students to be creative and communicate
freely, to negotiate meaning, and thus solve problems. The classroom a tmosphere is
positive, relaxed and supportive, aiming t o reduce the students‟ anxiety” . ( Vizental, 2008,
p. 40 ).
In the following lines I will summarize the activities used in a class from Canada
where a form of Communicative Language Teach ing was practised. The lesson was
observed by Larsen -Freeman and Anderson and presented in their Techniques and
Principles in Language Teaching . There were twenty students in the class and they were at
a high -intermediate level of English proficiency. At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher
greeted the students and distributed them a worksheet. There was writing on both sides. On
one side was a copy of a sports column from a recent newspaper. It was about the last
World Cup competition. The teacher used the target language and asked the students to

48
read the text and to underline the reporter‟s predictions about the next World Cup. When
the students had finished, they read what they had underlined and the teacher wrote their
answers on the board. These ar e the predictions identified by the students in the text:
France is very likely to win the next World Cup.
Spain can win if they play as well as they have lately.
Germany probably will not be a contender next time.
Argentina may have an outside chance.
Then the teacher asked the students to look at the first sentence and to express the same
prediction in a different way. One student ‟s answer was: “France probably will win the
next World Cup”. The teacher said “Yes” and asked for another answer. As no one
answered, the teacher offered the answer “France is almost certain to win the World Cup”
and he then asked a prediction for the second sentence. A student answered: “It is possible
that Spain will win the Worl d Cup” , then another one said: “There i s a possibility that
Spain will win the World Cup”. Each of the reporter‟s predictions was discussed in this
way.
When all the reporter‟s predictions had been discussed, the teacher asked the
students to t urn to the other side of the worksheet, where they found all the predictions
which they had worked on, but they were written in a different order. The teacher asked the
students to put the sentences in the correct order by numbering them. When they finishe d,
the students compared their answers with the original on the other side of the worksheet.
The teacher then asked the students if they agreed the reporter‟s predictions. He also
asked them to get into pairs and to write their own predictions about the next World Cup
champion. Students wrote their predictions.
For the next activity, the teacher proposed a game. He divided the class into small
groups of five people each. He handed each group a deck of thirteen cards. Each card had a
picture of a piece of sports equipment. First of all, the students had to identif y the items
and the teacher wrote on the board each name identified by the students: basketball, soccer
ball, volleyball, tennis racket, skis, ice skates, roller skates, football, baseball bat, golf
clubs, bowling ball, badminton racket and hockey stick . The cards were shuffled and four
of the students in a group were dealt three cards each. They were not allowed to show their
cards to anyone else. The extra card was placed face down in the middle of the group. In
each group there was a fifth person who re ceived no cards. That person was told to try to
predict what one of the students in the class would be doing the following weekend. I
mean, that fifth student in each group had to say statements like: “X may go skiing this

49
weekend”. If one of the members o f the group had a card showing skis, he / she was
supposed to reply: “X can‟t go skiing because I have his / her skis”. If, on the other hand,
no one in the group had the picture with the skis, the fifth person in the group could say a
strong statement abo ut the likelihood of that person going skiing. For example, he / she
could say: “ X will go skiing”. Then he / she could check his / her prediction by turning
over the card that was placed face down. If it was the picture of the skis, then the student
knew he / she was correct. The students took turns so that each person in the group had a
chance to make a prediction about the way a classmate would spend his / her weekend.
Then the teacher read a number of predictions and asked the students to ma ke
statements about how probable they thought the predictions were, why they believed so
and how they felt about the prediction. During this activity, one student‟s prediction was
grammatically incorrect, but the teacher and the other students ignored his error and the
discussion continued, because fluency is more important than accuracy in CLT and, as I
have already explained earlier, the CLT teacher does not usually stop students to correct
their mistakes.
For the next activity the teacher di vided the students in groups of three. As there
were twenty students in the class, there were six groups of three students and one group of
two students. One member of each group was given a picture strip story. There were six
pictures in a column on a pie ce of paper, but there were no words. The pictures told a
story. The student who had got the story showed the first picture to the other members of
his / her group, while covering the remaining five pictures. The other students in the group
had to predict what would happen in the second picture and the student with the story told
them if they were correct or not and showed the second picture, asking them to predict
what would happen in the third picture and so on until all the six pictures had been shown.
In the final activity of the class the stude nts were divided into groups of four and
the teacher asked them to do a role – play. They had to imagine they were all employees of
the same company. One of them was the others‟ boss. They had to disc uss in a meeting
what would possibly happen as a result of their company merging with another company.
Before they began doing the role -play, they talked together about the topics they could
discuss: whether or not some of the people in their company would lose their jobs, whether
or not they would have to move, whether or not they would earn more money. The teacher
remembered them that one person in the g roup was the boss and they had to think about
their relationship if, for example, “the boss” made a prediction which they did not agree
with. While the students performed their role – play, the teacher moved from group to

50
group and offered some advice on w hat the groups could discuss. When the role – play was
over, after about ten minutes, the students had the opportunity to ask questions and the
teacher discussed with them about the language forms which could be used when talking to
one‟s boss and about th e ones which could be used when talking to a friend,
The last few minutes were used by the teacher to give the homework assignment.
Communicative Language Teaching has influenced a lot the language teaching and
learning and now commu nicative activities are being used in classrooms all over the world.
In 1984 Howatt noted that there were two versions of the Communicative Approach:
a strong version and a weak version. With C ommunicative Language Teaching I have just
illustrat ed the weak version, in which the most important thing was to provide learners
with opportunities to practise English for communicative purposes. Content – based
Instruction and Task – based Instruction, which I will present in the following chapters ,
belong to t he strong version of the Communicative Approach. This one “goes beyond
giving students opportunities to practise communication. The strong version asserts that
language is acquired through communication. The weak version could be described as
learning to use English ; the strong version entails using English to learn it (Howatt
1984)” . ( Larsen -Freeman & Anderson, 2011, p. 172).
Both Content – based Instruction and Task – based Instruction can be described as
extensions of the Communicat ive Language Teaching.
2.4.2. Content – based Instruction (CBI)
Content – based Instruction is an educational option which combines content
teaching and language learning. It was inspi red from an idea dating in 1963: “On October
30, 1963, in a living room near Montreal, Canada, a dozen concerned parents of English –
speaking children met to discuss what could be done about the lamentable state of their
children‟s French. As a solution, they proposed a form of language immersion, in which
the children would be taught their school subjects (or some of them), not in their first
language, English, but in French. This was a radical idea at the time, when bilingualism
was still regarded with deep suspicion: the popular view w as that the influence of the
second language would retard development of the first language, not to mention the
negative effects it would have on education in general. But, with the support of experts at
McGill University in Montreal, the first class of An glophone children to be taught in
French was set up at kindergarten level in September 1965. By 1983, the Canadian
Immersion Program was providing over 100,000 Anglophone children with at least some
part of their regular curriculum in French; five years la ter this figure had more than

51
doubled, and the idea had spread to the United States, where immersion programs in
Spanish led the way ”. (Thornbury, 2017, p. 76).
Content – based Instruction is an approach to language teaching which focuses not
on the language itself, but on what is being taught through the language. It means that the
language becomes the medium through which something new is learned. In Content -based
Instruc tion the student learns the target language by using it to learn about something.
Content – based Instruction (CBI) is “an approach to second language teaching in
which teaching is organized around the content or information that students will a cquire,
rather than around a linguistic or other type of sylla bus”. ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.
204). This means that the target language is learned simultaneously with the content being
taught through the language.
During the lesson students are focused on learning about something. This could be
anything that interests them from a n academic subject , which provides natural content for
the study of language, to th eir favourite pop star or other themes of general interest to
students. They learn about this content / subject using the language they are trying to learn,
rather than their native language, as a tool for developing knowledge and so they develop
their linguistic ability in the target language. This is thought to be a more natur al way of
developing language ability and one that corresponds more to the way we originally learn
our first language.
Here are some definitions of content : “Content refers to the information or subject
matter that we learn or communicate thr ough language rather than the language used to
convey it.” (Richards, 2006, p. 28 ).
“The content can be some topic such as popular music or sports in whic h students
are interested. Often t he content is academic subject matter” . (Larsen – Freem an &
Anderson, 2011, p. 174).
In traditional language teaching content was selected after other decisions had been
made. In other words, grammar, texts, skills, functions, etc. were the starting point in
planning the lesson or the course book and content was selected only after all those
decisions had been made. “Content – based teaching starts from a different starting point.
Decisions about content are made first, and other kinds of decisions concerning gr ammar,
skills, functions, etc. are made later” . (Richards, 2006, p. 28).
Content – based Instruction is based on the following principles:
“*People learn a language more successfully when they use the language as a means of
acquiring information, rather than as an end in itself .

52
*CBI better reflects learners‟ needs for learning a second language.
*Content provides a coherent framework that can be used to link and develop all of the
language skills.” ( Richards, 2006, p. 28).
Because “language learning is typically considered incid ental to the learning of
content, the objectives in a typical CBI course are stated as objectives of the content
course. Achievement of content course objectives is considered as necessary and sufficient
evidence that language learning objectives have been achieved as well” . ( Richards &
Rodgers, 2001, p. 211).
The teacher and the students‟ roles in CBI are different than in previous methods.
The teacher needs to set clear learning objectives for both content and language and then
he / she creat es activities to teach both. “Instructors must be more th an just good language
teachers. They must be knowledgeable in the subject matter and able to elicit that
knowledge from their students (Stryker and Leaver 1993: 292)” . ( Richards & Rodgers,
2001, p. 214 ). CBI students learn by doing . The goal of this method is “for learners to
become autonomous so that they come to understand their own learning process and…take
charge of their own learning from the very start (Stryker and Leaver 19 93: 286 ). In
addition, most CBI courses anticipate that students will support each other in collaborative
modes of learning. This may be a challenge to those students who are accustomed to more
whole – class or independent learning and teaching modes […] L earners themselves may
be sources of content and joint participants in the selection of topics and activities. Such
participation has been found to be highly motivating and has resulted in a course changing
its direction in o rder to better meet the students ‟ needs. ( Stryker and Leaver 1993: 11)”.
(Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 213).
The materials used to facilitate language learning in CBI are usually newspapers
and magazine articles, tourist guidebooks, railway timetables, radio and TV broadcasts, as
it is considered that “textbooks are contrary to the very concept of CBI (Str yker and
Leaver 1993: 295)” ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 215).
For a better understanding of C ontent – based Instruction , in the following lines I
will summarize the activities used in a classroom in an international school from Taipei,
where both geography and English were studied thr ough this method . The activities were
observed by Larsen – Freeman and A nderson and presented in their Techniques and
Principles in Language Teaching . It was a sixth grade class with Chinese, Japanese and
Korean students, whose English was at a low intermediate level. At the beginning of the
lesson, the teacher asked the students in English what a globe wa s. Some of them answered

53
it was ”world”, others made a circle with their arms and others were silent. Then the
teacher took out a globe from her desk, she put it on the desk and asked the students what
they knew about it. They called out answers enthusiastically and the teacher recorded them
on the board. When they had trouble explaining a concept, the teacher supplied the missing
language.
Next, the teacher gave the students a worksheet which she had prepared, based on a
video, “Understanding Globes”. The fi rst part of the worksheet was entitled “Some
Vocabulary” and contained some key geographical terms used in the video. The teacher
asked the students to listen as she read the ten terms: “degree”, “distance”, “equator”,
“globe”, “hemisphere”, “imaginary”, “ latitude”, “longitude”, “model”, “parallel”. There
was a modified cloze passage under the list of words.
This is the passage:
“A …………is a three -dimensional …………..of the earth. Points of interest are located on
a globe by using a system of………..lines. For i nstance, the equator is an imaginary line
that divides the earth in half. Lines that are parallel to the equator are called lines
of………….Latitude is used to measure ………….on the earth north and south of the
equator….”
The teacher asked the students to try to fill in the blanks in the passage with the
new vocabulary. When they had finished, she showed them the video and they had the
possibility to fill in the remaining blanks. Then they paired up to check their answers.
Next, the teacher told the students that the following verbs from the passage: “are
located”, “are called”, “is used” are at the present passive and explained them that the
passive was used to defocus the agent or doer of the action. She also told them that the
agent of the action was not mentioned at all in those examples because he / she was not
relevant. The teacher then explained how latitude and longitude could be used to locate any
place in the w orld and she gave students some more examples using the present passive
with latitude and longitude. When she finished explaining, the students had to use latitude
and longitude coordinates to locate cities in other countries. So the teacher integrated the
present passive in English and the content focus of the geography lesson at the same time.
The following activity was a guessing game . In small groups, the students thought
of the names of five cities, located them on the globe and wrote do wn their latitude and
longitude coordinates. At the end they read the coordinates and the students in the other
groups had to guess the name of the city. The first group said: “This city is located at 5

54
degrees north latitude and 74 degrees west longitude” . After several misses by their
classmates, group 4 got the correct answer: ”Bogota” and gave the others new coordinates.
For the last activity the teacher proposed a dictogloss – “In a dictogloss , students
listen twice to a short talk or reading on app ropriate content. The first time through,
students listen for the main idea, and then the second time they listen for details. Next,
students write down what they have remembered from the talk or reading. Some teachers
have their students take notes while listening. The students then use their notes to
reformulate what has been read. Students get practice in note – taking in this way. Next,
they work with a partner or in a small group to construct together the best version of what
they have heard. What they write is shared with the whole class” . (Larsen – Freeman &
Anderson, 2011, p. 185) . So t he teacher read the students two paragraphs about Australia.
The first time she read them, the students had to listen for the main ideas. The second time
she read them, they listened for details. After the second reading, the teacher asked the
students to reconstruct what she had read as much as they could from memory. After t he
students had worked about ten minutes, the teacher told them to discuss their drafts with a
partner , to combine the two drafts and to edit them into one, which had to be as close as
possible to the original. At the end of the activity, each pair of students read their draft to
the other students and the class voted on which version was the closest to the original.
For homework, the students were given a description of Australia and a graphic
organizer . They had to read the description and to complete the graphic organizer.
“Gra phic organizers are visual disp lays that help students to organize and remember new
information. They involve drawing or writing down ideas and making connections. They
combine w ords and phrases, symbols and arrows to map knowledge. They include
diagrams, tables, columns and webs. Through the use of graphic organizers, students can
understand text organization , which helps them learn to read academic texts and to
complete academic tasks, such as writing a summary of what they have read.” (Larsen –
Freeman &Anderson, 2011, p. 185)
Content – based Instruction has been both appreciated and criticised. Its advocates
claim that “it offers unlimited opportunities for teachers t o match students‟ interests and
needs with interesting and meaningful content […] Critics have noted that most language
teachers have been trained to teach language as a skill rather than to teach a content
subject. Thus, language teachers may be insuffici ently grounded to teach subject matter in
which they have not been trained.” (Ric hards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 220).

55
2.4.3. Task – based Instruction
Task – based Instruction, also known as Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT), is
another example of the “strong version” of the Communicative Approach, where la nguage
is acquired through use. “In other words, students acquire the language they need when
they need it in order to accomplish the task t hat has been set before them” . ( Larsen –
Freeman & Anders on, 2011, p. 193 ).
The idea of Task – based Instruction came from N Prabhu who, “working with
schools in Bangalore, southern India, speculated that students were just as likely to learn
language if they were thinking about a non – linguistic problem as wh en they were
concentrating on particular language forms (see Prahbu 1987). Instead of language
structure, in other words, students are presented with a task they have to perform or a
problem they have to solve […] One way of looking at Task – based Instruc tion is to see it
[…] like a sort of PPP upside down (Willis 1994: 9). In other words students are given a
task to perform and only when the task has been completed does the teacher discuss the
language that was used, making corrections and adjustments whi ch the students‟
performance of the task has shown to be desirable ”. (Harmer, 2001, p. 86 -87 ).
In Task -based Instr uction (TBI), “the emphasis is on the task rather than the
language. For example, students might be encouraged to ask for information about train or
bus timetables and to get the correct answers (that is the task). We give them the timetables
and they then try and complete the task (after, perhaps, hearing someone else do it or
asking for examples of the kind of language they might want to use ). When they have
completed the task, we can then, if necessary – and only if necessary – give them a bit of
language study to clear up some of the problems they encountered while completing the
task […] When they have completed the task (which will involv e finding facts, planning
content and writing the brochure etc.), we can then read their efforts and do some language
/ writing study to help them to do better next time” . (Harmer, 1998, p. 31).
Tasks present the language learning “in the form of a probl em – solving negotiation
between knowledge that the learner holds and new knowledge (Candlin and Murphy
1987:1)” (Larsen – Freeman and Anderson, 2011, p. 192). They are “something that
learners do and carry out using their existing language resources” . (Richards, 2006, p. 31).
Richards identified two kinds of tasks: pedagogical tasks and real – world tasks.
Pedagogical tasks are specially designed for classroom use. For example, a task in which
students have to find the differences between two similar pictures is an example of a
pedagogical task.

56
Real – world tasks reflect real – world uses of language. For example, a role play in which
students practise a job interview would be a real – world task.
“Willis (1996) proposed six types of ta sks as the basis for TBI:
1. Listing tasks : For example, students might have to make up a list of things they would
pack up if they were going on a beach vacation.
2. Sorting and ordering : Students work in pairs and make up a list of the most important
characteristics of an ideal vacation.
3. Comparing : Students compare ads for two different supermarkets.
4. Problem – solving : Students read a letter to an advice columnist and suggest a solution to
the writer‟s problems.
5. Sharing personal experience : Stud ents discuss their reactions to an ethical or moral
dilemma.
6. Creative tasks : Students prepare plans for redecorating a house ”. ( Richards, 2006, p.
31-32).
More types of tasks have been illustrated by Richards and Rodgers. They inspired
themselves from the Bangalore Project (a task – based design for primary age learners of
English), where both pedagogical and real – world tasks have been used. Here are the first
ten types of tasks used in that proj ect:
“1. Diagrams and formations : Naming parts of a diagram with numbers and letters of the
alphabet as instructed.
2. Drawing : Drawing geometrical figures / formations from sets of verbal instructions.
3. Clock faces : Positioning hands on a clock to show a given time.
4. Monthly calendar : Calculating duration in days and weeks in the context of travel, leave,
and so on.
5. Maps : Constructing a floor plan of a house from a description.
6. School timetables : Constructing timetables for teachers of particular subjects.
7. Programs and itineraries : Constructing itineraries from descriptions of travel.
8. Train timetables : Selecting trains appropriate to given needs.
9. Age and year of birth : Working out year of birth from age.
10. Money : Deciding on quantities to be b ought given the money available (Adapted from
Prabhu and cited in Nunan 1989:42 – 44)” . (Richar ds & Rodgers, 2001, p. 231 -232).
According to the type of interaction that occurs in their accomplishment, tasks can
be classified in: jigsaw tasks, information – gap tasks, problem – solving tasks, decision –
making tasks and opinion – exchange tasks.

57
“Jigsaw tasks : These involve learners combining different pieces of information to form a
whole (e.g., three individuals or groups may have three different parts of a story and have
to piece the story together).
Information – gap tasks : One student or group of students has one set of information and
another student or group has a complementary set of information. They must negotiate and
find out wha t the other party‟s information is in order to complete an activity.
Problem – solving tasks : Students are given a problem and a set of information. They must
arrive at a solution to the problem. There is generally a single resolution of the outcome.
Deci sion – making tasks : Students are giv en a problem for which there is a number of
possible outcomes and they must choose one through negotiation and discussion.
Opinion exchange tasks : Learners engage in discussion s and exchange s of ideas. They do
not need to reach agreement ”. ( Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.234).
A TBI lesson usually has three stages: the Pre – task, the Task cycle and Language
focus. In the Pre – task the teacher explores the topic with the class , using brainstorming
ideas, pictures or mime to introduce it. He / she may highlight useful words and phrases,
but does not pre – teach new structures and he / she helps students to understand the task
instructions. If the task is based on a task, students usually read part of it. The students
may also hear a recording of other people d oing the same task. During the T ask cycle, the
students perform the task in pairs or small groups while the teacher walks around and
monitor s, encouraging in a supportive way the students‟ attempts of communicating in the
target language . The students then plan how they will tell the rest of the class what they did
and how it went, and they then report on the task either or ally or in writing. The emphasis
here is on clarity, organization and accuracy, t hese being considered as necessary for a
public presentation. In the Language focus stage the teacher may conduct some form of
practice activities based on the language structures which the task ha s provoke d.
TBI also implies a change in the teacher and s tudents‟ roles. The teacher cannot act
as a controller any more if he or she wants “students to manipulate, comprehend and
interact with the task” ( Nunan 1989a:10 )”. (Harmer, 2001, p. 87). He / she has some
additional roles. These are: selector and sequenc er of tasks (as the teacher has a very
important role in selecting, adapting or creating the tasks), preparing learners for tasks
(students should not go into new tasks “cold” and that is why the teacher prepares them for
the task, by introducing topic, cl arifying instructions and providing partial demonstration
of task procedures) and consciousness – raising (according to Richards and Rodgers, “this
does not mean doing a grammar lesson before students take on a task. It does mean emg

58
ployin a variety of form – focusing techniques, including attention – focusing pre – task
activities, text exploration, guided exposure to parallel tasks, and use of highlighted
material”).
The learner‟s roles are: group participant (as most of the T BI tasks are done in
pairs or small groups), monitor – because “Class activities have to be designed so that
students have the opportunity to notice how language is used in communication. Learners
themselves need to attend not only to the message in task work, but also to the form in
which such messages typically come packed” . (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 235), risk-
taker and innovator (as many T BI tasks require learners to create messages for which they
lack previous experience and linguistic resources).
As TBI foc uses on authentic tasks, the materials used must be authentic wherever
possible. Newspapers, television and the Internet are examples of authentic materials.
Task – based Instruction has some clear advantages. First of all, it is a strong
communicative ap proach in which students spend a lot of time communicating and it is
enjoyable and motivating. Another advantage is the fact that students are free of language
control, as in all the three stages of TBI they have to use all their language resources rather
than just practising one pre – selected item, like with the traditional teaching methods.
2.4.4. Summary
As we have just seen , unlike traditional teaching, the modern teaching is much
more student – centred. The teacher is present not to explain, but to encourage and help
students to explore, to discover and to induce the rules. According to Scrivener, the
teacher‟s main role is “to help learning to happen”, which includes “involving” students in
what is going on “by enabling them to work at their own spe ed, by not giving long
explanations, by encouraging them to participate, talk , interact, do things, etc.”. ( Scrivener,
2011, p. 18 -19 ).
Since the modern teaching is aiming to something different, the way to achieve the
goal has also changed. As pointed o ut by Richards, “attention shifted to the knowledge and
skills needed to use gra mmar and other aspects of language appropriately for different
communicative purposes such as making requests, giving advice, making suggestions,
describing wishes and needs an d so on”. ( Richards, 2006, p. 8). Teachers‟ methods,
courses and textbooks had to be changed in order to respond to the learners‟ new needs.
Instead of the grammatical competence, the communicative competence became the
priorit y. The classroom interactio n also changed and , as a result, pair – work and group –
work are mainly used .

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3. OPINIONS ON TRADITIONAL AND MODERN
TEACHING
3.1. Introduction
In this chapter I will present some English teachers‟ opinions on traditio nal and
modern teaching, opinions which resulted from a questionnaire I applied during my
research. My questionnaire consisted of the following questions:
1. How long have you been teaching?
*for less than 5 years
*6-10 years
*11-20 years
*for more than 20 years
2. At the moment, are you teaching in an urban or a rural area?
*urban
*rural
3. What levels have you taught so far?
*primary school
*secondary school
*high -school
4. What kind of teaching methods do you usually use?
*traditional teaching methods
*modern / communicative teaching me thods
*modern / communicative teaching methods combined with the traditional ones
5. How often do you use technology in class?
*for every lesson
*once a week
*other answers
6. Are there in your school the necessary devices for using technology in class?
*Yes
*No
*No, but I usually use mine
7. Grammar is better understood if it is taught deductively / traditionally, with teachers
explaining rules, giving examples and students practising them through exercises .
*Agree

60
*Disagree
8. If taught inductively ( I mean the students are given examples of sentences containing a
rule and asked to work out the rule for themselves), grammar is better understood by the 7th
– 8th grade students and by the high – school students, while for younger students it should
be taug ht deductively.
*Agree
*Disagree
9. How do you usually teach vocabulary?
*traditionally, with bilingual lists of words
*by offering students the possibility to infer the meaning of the unknown words, when
asking them to match the words with their definitions
*other answers
10. Which is more important for you?
*your students’ fluency
*your students’ accuracy
11. When explaining and communicating with your students in class, what language do
you usually use?
*the English language
*the English languag e combined with the Romanian language, if necessary
12. What do you think about the new digital textbooks, in comparison with the old
textbooks?
13. Please write your opinion about the traditional teaching methods (their advantages /
disadvantages)
14. Please write your opinion about the modern teaching methods (their advantages /
disadvantages).
When I started the research for this thesis, I asked some English teachers to
complete my questionnaire and I got twenty – one answers from teachers teaching E nglish
in different school s and having different teaching experience. Three of the teachers who
answered the questionnaire (14, 3%) have been teaching English for less than 5 years, 4 of
the teachers (19%) have been teaching for six to ten years, eight of them ( 38,1%) have
been teaching for eleven to twenty years and six teachers (28,6%) have been teaching for
more than twenty years. Fifteen of them are teaching at the moment in schools from urban
areas, while the other six teachers are teaching in schools from rural areas. Seventeen of
the teachers (81%) have taught so far to students from primary schools, nineteen teachers

61
(99, 5%) have taught to students from secondary schools and sixteen teachers (76, 2%)
have taught to high -school students ( I have to m ention here that the same teach er may
teach to different level students, especially in schools where there is just one English
teacher and th is is the explanation why I did not ge t a result of 100% at this question).
3.2. The teachers’ preferences
At the fourth question from my questionnaire, “What kinds of teaching methods do
you usually use?”, one teacher ( 4,8% from the respondents) answered that he / she used
modern / communicative teaching methods, while the othe r twenty teachers ( 95, 2%)
answered that they use d modern / communicative teaching methods combined with the
traditional ones . I think the good part here is that there is no teacher who uses only
traditional teaching methods between my respondents. Because I consider that modern
teaching methods imply the use of technology in class, the next two questions in my
questionnaire were about the use of technology in class. The fifth question of my
questionnaire asked the respondents how often they use d technology in class. One
teacher ‟s answer was that he / she used technology three or four times a week. I suppose he
/ she is a teacher teaching English to students studying at the philology profile in a high –
school or to secondary school studen ts studying intensive English who have three o r four
English classes a week. I think he / she must be the teacher whose answer at my previous
question wa s that he / she used modern / communicative teaching methods. Eleven
teachers teach in schools where there are the necessary devices for using techno logy in
class, while nine teachers do not have the necessary devices in their schools, but they
usually use their own devices.
The next two questions are in fact some statements and the teachers had to agree or
to disagree with them. So, because I starte d my research from the hypothesis that the best
teaching way is a combination of modern and traditional teaching methods, that traditional
teaching methods should be used to teach grammar, while the modern ones should be used
especially for teaching vocabu lary, I wanted to check if this opinion was only min e or
other English teachers had the same opinion.
Fifteen of the teachers who answered the questionnaire ( 71,4 %) agreed with the
statement that “Grammar is better understood if it is taught deductively / traditionally, with
teachers explaining rules, giving examples and students practising them through
exercises”, while six teachers (28,6 %) did not agree with it. 85,7 % of the teachers (
eighteen teachers from the total of twenty – one) agreed with the idea that “If taught

62
inductively, grammar is better understood by the 7th – 8th grade students and by the high –
school students, while for younger students it should be taught deductively”, while the
other 3 te achers ( 14,3 %) did not agree with it .
When I asked about the way vocabulary was taught, fifteen of the teachers chose
the modern teaching methods: one teacher (4, 8 %) uses the words in different contexts
until the meaning reveals itself and fourteen teac hers (66, 7% ) offer students the
opportunity to infer the meaning of the unknown words by asking them to match the words
with their definitions. The other six teach ers chose the traditional way of teaching
vocabulary: one teacher (4, 8 %) presents vocabulary in three stages, with the tr aditional
teaching method PPP ( Presentation – Practice – Production ), while five of them (23, 8%)
use bilingual lists of words.
The teachers‟ answers so far have confirmed my idea that traditional teaching
methods are appropriate for teaching grammar and modern teaching methods can be
successfully used in teaching vocabulary.
As we have already seen in the theoretical part of my thesis, traditional teaching
methods focused on students‟ accuracy and all the mistakes noticed by the teacher were
immediately correc ted by him / her, considering this the best way to help students not to
memorize the incorrect version, while for the modern teacher fluency is more important
and he / she does not usually interrupt the student to correct his / her mistakes. I wanted to
check this, too, in my questionnaire and nineteen of the respondents (90, 5%) answered
that their students‟ fluency was more important and only two of them (9, 5 %) chose
students‟ accuracy as being more important.
I got the same percentage when asking what l anguage the teachers usually use d
when explaining or communicating with their students in class: nineteen of t he respondents
(90, 5%) answered they use d the English language combined with the Romanian language
if necessary, while the other two teachers (9, 5%) answered they used only the English
language. I think this depends a lot on the level of the students.
3.3. Opinions on traditional teaching methods
In this part of my thesis I will present the twenty -one teachers‟ opinions about the
teaching methods and I will begin with the traditional ones. In the teachers‟ an swers to my
questionnaire I identified both advantages and disadvantages of the tr aditional teaching
methods. Let me start with their advantages.

63
One of the respondents thinks that students learn quickly in the classroom if the
teacher uses t raditional teaching methods. Another teacher considers that an advantage of
these methods is the interaction teacher – students because this helps the students to learn
the lessons delivered by the teacher.
Two of the teachers think that traditional teaching methods are useful in teaching
grammar and one teacher considers them more suitable for ol der students, who can
understand rules.
Seven of the respondents think that students understand better if they are taught
English using traditional teaching methods and one of the seve n teachers adds that students
at technological high – schools understan d better when taught with traditional teaching
methods.
One teacher thinks that the traditional teaching methods are easy to use , while
another teacher considers them better for beginner teachers. One teacher believes that the
traditional teaching methods represent the best way to learn for some students, but they are
not good at all for other students.
Three teachers appreciate the traditional teaching methods because the students are
more disciplined. One of the res pondents highlights the accessibility of the traditional
teaching methods and three of them consider that traditional teaching methods should be
combined with the modern ones.
I can identify more disadvantages than advantages of the traditional teaching
methods in my respondents‟ answers.
For two of the teachers, the disadvantage of the traditional teaching methods is the
interaction teacher – students, which does not offer students the possibility to work in pairs
and groups. As a result, the students of ten get bored.
One teacher says the traditional teaching methods are too teacher – centred , while
another teacher considers a disadvantage of these methods the fact that the students always
depend on their teacher.
Six of the respondents think the disadv antage of the traditional teaching methods is
the memorization of rules and the fact that nowadays students hate learning rules by heart,
so they do not like these methods.
Four of the teachers‟ opinion is that the traditional teaching methods do not give
students the opportunity to express themselves, do not develop either their critical thinking
or their creativity and, as a result, the students never get to know their strengths.

64
Two teachers think that students do not have the chance to use the language
interactively when using traditional teaching methods. For other two teachers, the
traditional t eaching methods do no t offer good practice, as there is too much focus on
presentation and little time left for practice.
According to another teacher , a disadvantage of these methods is the fact that they
are too slow.
3.4. Opinions on modern teaching methods
In this section I will introduce the respondents‟ opinions on the advantages and
disadvantages of the modern teaching methods. Because there ar e fewer disadvantages
than advantages, I will start with the disadvantages. Two of the teachers highlight the idea
that the modern teaching methods imply the use of technology in class, so teachers need
supplementary aids such as IWB, a laptop, a video pro jector and so on, and not all the
schools have the necessary devices. Another teacher considers that the modern teaching
methods are time consuming , while one person thinks that it takes longer for the students
to acknowledge grammar rules, but the same te acher agrees that once the grammar
structures are acquired, students tend to remember them better.
Concerning the advantages of the modern teaching methods, three teachers mention
the fact that these methods are learner – centred and activity – based, which makes students
get fully involved.
One teacher thinks that the modern teaching methods are attractive, while f our
teachers hi ghlight that these methods are more interesting, as they encourage cooperation
among the students, who can work in pa irs and groups. A nother teache r appreciates that
they motivate students and make learning effective, pleasant and fun. Three teacher s
mention a similar idea: that students like the modern teaching methods and, as a result,
they do not get bored.
One teach er considers that the modern teaching methods enable the learner to
construct his / her knowledge and skills through active participation. Two more teachers
characterize learning with modern teaching methods as being active and contextual.
One person describes the teacher‟s role, by saying that the teacher only acts as a
guide, who leads the learners to the achievement of the objectives. Another teacher
mentions that the students are the teacher‟s partners.
Two teachers appreciate that the modern teaching methods use activities that
respond to real life problems and learners use English in real life situations. One teacher

65
points out that the modern teaching methods develop students‟ creative thinking , while
another teacher refers to the st udents‟ critical thinking. One teacher characterizes the
modern teaching methods as being more adjusted to students‟ needs and interests. Another
person says they are attractive, while two of the teachers describe these methods as being
interactive.
For o ne teacher, the modern teaching methods are good because students talk, write
and learn more with them than with the traditional ones. One teacher thinks these methods
allow students to communicate and use the structures and vocabulary they learn and
anoth er teacher mentions that the modern teaching methods develop students‟
communication skills.
Because the Communicative Approach implied a change in the textbooks, too, I
wanted to know what my respondents‟ opinion about the digital textbooks was . Three of
the teachers have not used this kind of textbooks s o far, and one of them motivated this
with the fact that there are no digital textbooks for highschool approved by the Ministery
of Ed ucation. One single teacher does not like these textbooks very much.
Two of the teachers highlight the disadvantages of the digital textbooks. For
example, one teacher asks what is going on when there is a power cut, poor internet signal
or when children do not own the necessary means to use them. The second teacher who
highlights a disadvantage of the digital textbooks mentions that these textbooks request
technological devices and not all the school have such devices.
The other respondents of my questionnaire mention the advantages of these
textbooks. Four of them conside r that the digital textbooks are better than the old ones, six
teachers describe them as being more attractive, two teachers believe they are interesting
for the s tudents and easy to use, three teachers describe them as being useful when all the
students h ave access to technology and one person underlines the fact that the di gital
textbooks are great because they have interactive exercises and cover all the four skills.
3.5. Summary
To conclude, I consider it is a good thing th at most of the respondents highlig hted
more disadvantages and fewer advantages for using the traditional teaching methods in
class, while their opinions concerning the use of the modern teaching methods show ed the
opposite, as most of them mentioned more advantages and fewer disadva ntages of these
methods. This fact and the answer s I got at the fourth question of my questionnaire ( that
95,2 % of the respondents usually use modern teaching methods combined with the

66
traditional ones) and at the eleventh ques tion, too ( that 90,5 % of them use in class the
English language combined with the Romanian language, if necessary ), show that more
and more English teachers today are trying to change their teaching style and the classroom
activities, in order to better respond to their students ‟ needs. I could say that the change has
already been done in the respondents‟ style of error correction, because for 90, 5 % of them
fluency is more important than accuracy.
As I have already mentioned , I chose the theme of th is thesis starting from the
hypothesis that the best teaching way was a combination of modern and traditional
teaching methods , that the traditional methods were more appropriate for teachi ng
grammar, while vocabulary could be taught communicatively, with modern teaching
methods. No w, when I am analysing the data I got in my questionnaire, my hypothesis is
confirmed, because 7 1,4% of the respondents agreed that grammar is better understood if it
is taught traditionally, with teachers explaining rules and giving examples. 85, 7 % of the
teachers also agreed that grammar taught inductively is appropriate for older students,
while for younger students it should be taught deductively . I remember this was one
teacher ‟s opinion about traditional teaching methods: that they work better w ith older
students who can understand rules. My hypothesis is confirmed for the teaching of the
vocabulary, too, as only 23, 8 % of the respondents teach vocabulary traditionally, with
bilingual list s of words, while the others teach it with modern teachin g methods.
We w ill see later when I analyse the results of my experiment if my hypothesis is
confirmed, too in the way I applied both traditional and teaching methods in class.

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4. THE RESEARCH
4.1. The background of the experiment
In this c hapter I will present how I applied , during my research, both the traditional
and the modern teaching methods at two seventh grade studen ts classes and the result I got.
The two seventh grade students classes are from the Secondary School Number 2 in
Comar nic and from “Simion Stolnicu” High – school in Comarnic.
My research includes the syllabus of an optional course taught to one of the two
groups during the school year 2019 – 2020, a questionnaire answered by students from the
two groups and my experiment.
4.1.1. Why at the seventh grade students?
In this section I wi ll explain why I chose to do my experiment with seventh grade
students.
I chose to apply my experiment at seco ndary school students because during the
school year 2019 -2020 I did not teach to primary school students and when I had to choose
between secondary school and high -school students , I chose secondary school students
because I think the students at this lev el are more motivated and more interested in all the
school subjects than the high -school students. I also chose this level because at the
secondary and primary schools we teach using digital textbooks, which are part of the
modern teaching, while for the high – school classes we do not have such textbooks.
I chose the seventh grade students from all the four different levels we have in the
secon dary schools because they are the first generation students who studied five years in
the primary school , using a new curriculum . So we could say they represent the
“innovation” in the Romanian school system.
4.1.2. The description of the two groups
During my experiment I will call the seventh grade students from the Secondary
School Number 2 “Group A” , while the seventh grade students from “Simion Stolnicu”
High – school will be called “Group B”. Both Group A and Group B have been studying
English for eight years , they had English textbooks from the same publisher every year and
until the sixth grade they had the same number of English classes a week (two classes a
week). During the seventh grade, in the school year 2019 -2020, the students in Group B
studied one more English class every week, as they studied an optional course called
“Teaching English through film s”, whose syllabus I will present in the next section of this
research. For the students in Group A I have been their English teacher since they st arted

68
the third grade, while to the students in Group B I have been teaching English since they
started the f ifth grade. Another difference between the two groups is the number of
students in each class. Group A has only ten students , which is definitely an advantage
because every student in the class has more chances to answer and I can evaluate all their
answer s. Group B started the school year with thirty students and during the school year
2019 -2020 they got a new student. They are too many students for a single class! But I
think they are more motivated than the students in Group A.
4.1.3. “Teaching English throug h films”, the syllabus of an optional course taught to
the students in the second group
In this section I will present the syllabus of the optional course taught to the
students in Group B.

ARGUMENT

The opt ional course “Teaching English through f ilms” is directed to the seventh
grade students, whose interests do not gravitate any more just around their school activity,
spreading to other areas of science, technology or art, as they are at the age when their
interests expand, as a result of their bigger cultural horizon and their richer life experience.
Their interests become lasting and aware and they are followed tenaciously in order to get
a certain purpose. Watching short films about different subjects or cartoons inspired from
well-known stories are some of the successful activities at this age.
Learning in a pleasant and attractive way is desirable for all the school subjects and
the films are interesting activities which can stimulate both students‟ motivation and their
curiosity at this age. Another advantage of learning English through watching different
films is the fact that the students listen to the English language spoken by native speakers.
Listening to the English language and getting messages in a pleasant and at tractive way
will encourage students to communicate fluently.
“Teaching English through f ilms” is a course designed for a school year and it will
be taught in a fifty – minute class every week.
This course was designed to arouse students‟ interest and passion for the English
language, to develop their ability of understanding and expressing simple messages, their
creative thinking. Through this optional course, the students will become familiar w ith the

69
English sounds, new words and the English civilization. They will have the possibility to
discover different aspects of the British life and culture.

I. GENERAL COMPETENCES
1. Receive oral messages in usual communication situations
2. Speak in usual co mmunication situations
3. Understand written messages in usual communication situations
4. Write messages in usual communication situations

II. SPECIFIC COMPETENCES AND EXAMPLES OF LEARNING ACTIVITIES
1. Receive oral messages in usual communication situations
SPECIFIC COMPETENCES
1.1.Understand the general meaning of the listened message
1.2.Identify the general meaning of a short listened message
1.3.Provide suitable responses to different kinds of oral messages
1.4.Verbal / non -verbal reactions to short listened messages
LEARNING ACTIVITIES
*exerc ises in which the receiving of the message is confirmed through answers to
questions
*quizzes
*true / false sentences
2. Speak in usual communication situations
SPECIFIC COMPETENCES
2.1. Participate in short verbal exchanges with support from the interlocutor
2.2. Express short messages in communication situations
LEARNING ACTIVITIES
*exercises of repetition after the model
*role play
*group discussions about listened or seen messages
3. Understand written messages in usual com munication situations
SPECIFIC COMPETENCES
3.1. Understand relevant information from a seen message
3.2. Read fluently a short text
3.3. Repeat short messages or parts of a message

70
LEARNING ACTIVITIES
*reading exercises ( on roles, in chorus , individually)
*exercises of choosing the correct answer
4. Write messages in usual communication situations
SPECIFIC COMPETENCES
4.1.Write new texts, starting from a seen excerpt of film
4.2. Write similar situations to those in the seen film
4.3. Write opinions about the seen exce rpt from the film
4.4. Participate in the exchange of written messages
4.5. Complete a form with information about the characters
LEARNING ACTIVITIES
*competition in which students have to form correct sentences using new words
*writing a description starting from the seen excerpt from the movie
*writing texts about given pictures.

III. VALUES AND ATTITUDES
Positive attitude towards the others
Showing respect to himself / herself and to the others
Showing willingness to work in groups and to cooperate with him / h er classmates
Positive attitude towards using the English language in everyday communication situations

IV. CONTENTS
Themes / Subjec ts: from the everyday reality
*Family and home
*Going shopping
*My room
*A surprise party
*At the restaurant
*Meals
*On the telephone
*Countries , nationalities and languages
*Cleaning activities
*My perfect day
*Aches and pains

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*Christmas traditions
*Favo urite sport
*Favo urite actor
*Friendship and feelings
*Incredible Journeys
*Profession
*Easter traditions
*Responsibilit y and hard working
*Favo urite singer

The functions of the communication
*to explain
*to describe a place / a person / a festival
*to express feelings and emotions
*to suggest
*to give instructions
*to express agreement / disagreement

The achievement activities
*dramatization
*role plays
*simulations
*projects on a given subject
V. EVALUATION
*projects
*written tests
*oral evaluation
*role plays
*dramatization
*educational games
VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Episodes from ”Beginner Levels – Learn English through Oxford English
video”

72
 Episodes from ” Elementary Level – Learn English through Oxford English
video”
 Episodes from ” Pre -Intermediate level – Learn English through Oxford
English video”
 Episodes from ” Intermediate level – Learn English Conversation and
Improve Vocabulary through Oxford English video”
 Home Alone (original title) 1h 43min | Comedy , Family
 Hop Animation Movies For Kids
 "Moral Stories Compilation by Kids Hut”
 Internet
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppJy5uGZLi4
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzpCCqKBgWw
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP5UD8c3T_s
 https ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7Qhrlm -vTQ
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO199kGfmlg
 https://youtube/Zxji4mUdI_o
4.1.4. The students’ questionnaire: opinions on the way they are taught English
When I was analysing the data of my research, I thought that the test I applied to
the two groups of students after I had taught using the traditional teaching methods for the
students in group A and the modern teaching methods for the students in group B could not
reflect exactly which of the teaching methods was the best. First of all, there could be some
studen ts who study extra English classes with other English teachers . I thought that
although I had taught traditionally or using modern teaching methods in class, the other
teacher might have taught the same topic using different teachin g methods. In this case, it
could be impossible to decide if a particular student‟s English level (and his / her result at
my test) was acquired in my English class at school or in his / her extra English class.
Secondly, I think that written tests do not always reflect students‟ real knowledge, as a
particular student could feel not very well during the test, he / she could be nervous, tired
or upset and these states could definitely influence his / her result. I do not say any more
that there may be students who cheat in written tests or some students could choose at
random their answers in the test, especially in the multiple -choice items. That is why,
having in mind all the above ideas, I asked the students in the two groups to answer the
questions in a questionnaire meant to illustrate their opinions on the way they are taught

73
English. Because I applied the questionnaire duri ng the students‟ summer holiday, I got
only thirty answers from the total of forty -one seventh grade students I have in the two
groups of students.
These are the questions I use d in my students‟ questionnaire:
1. Do you like English?
*Yes
* No
2. What is your favourite skill?
* Reading
* Writing
* Listening
* Speaking
3. Why do you think it is important to know English?
* To get good marks at school.
* To make new friends who speak English (for example, on different social networks).
* To communicate easi ly if I travel to a country where people speak English.
* For my future studies / work .
4. How do you prefer studying vocabulary?
* With bilingual lists of words (the English words and their translation into Romanian)
given by your English teacher in class and studied by you by heart.
* By inferring (guessing) the meaning of the unknown words in context.
* By matching the unknown words with their definitions.
5. When do you understand English grammar better?
* When your English teacher explains the rule, gives exa mples and then you practise it in
exercises.
* When you fill in sentences with words / phrases from the reading text and then you have
to match each of the sentences with a definition / rule (so you have to work out yourself the
rule).
6. When do you feel more comfortable in class?
* When your English teacher uses only the English language to communicate or to explain
things.
* When your English teacher uses both the English and the Romanian language to explain
things.
7. Did you study an optional course called “Teaching English through films”?

74
* Yes
* No
8. If your answer to the previous q uestion was “ yes”, please tell how the course helped you
to improve your English.
* I learned new words.
* The course developed my listening skill and now I understand easily English songs /
films or people speaking the English language.
* I did not like the course and I think it did not help me to improve my English.
Twenty -eight students (93, 3%) from the total of thirty respondents like English.
Concerning their favourite skill, the students who prefer the receptive skills are more than
the students who prefer the productive skills, because listening is preferred by thirteen of
them (43, 3%) , twelve students (40%) prefer reading, n ine students (30%) p refer writing,
while speaking is prefer red by eight students (26, 7%).
Twenty -two students (73, 3%) think it is important to know English to be able to
communicate easily when travelling to a country where people speak English, seventeen of
them (56, 7%) consider it is important to know English for future studies and work and
five students (16, 7%) think it is necessary to know English if you want to make new
friends who speak English, for example on different social networks. Only two students
conside r it is important to know English to get good marks at school. Because getting good
marks at school is somehow related to someone‟s future studies or work, I could say that
all the respondents want to know English for communicative purposes, for real life
situations.
At my fourth question, “How do you prefer studying vocabulary?”, the students
who prefer the traditional way of studying vocabulary are more than those who like
studying it with modern methods, as nineteen students (63, 3% of the respondents) prefer
studying vocabulary with bilingual lists of words given by the English teacher in class and
studied then by them by heart, while the other eleven students prefer studying vocabulary
in modern ways: six of them (20%) like inferring the meaning of th e unknown words in
context and five of them (16, 7%) like matching the unknown words with their definitions.
Concerning my respondents‟ favourite way of studying grammar, at my fifth
question, “When do you understand English grammar better?”, twenty – eight students (93,
3% of my respondents) understand it better if the teacher explains the rule, gives examples
and then they practise the rule in exercises. Only two students (6, 7%) understand better
when they have to fill in sentences with words or phr ases from the reading text and then to

75
match each of the sentences with a definition or a rule, so they work out themselves the
rule.
When answering about the use of the target language in class , my students‟
preferences illustrate the traditional meth ods, too . At my sixth question, “When do you feel
more comfortable in class?”, 25 students (83, 3% of my respondents) answer they feel
more comfortable if their English teacher uses both the English and the Romanian
language to communicate or to explain, w hile the other five students (16. 7%) feel more
comfortable when their English teacher uses only the English language in class.
I think that my respondents‟ answers are quite interesting. Although they want to
know English for communicative purposes, the number of students whose favourit e skill is
speaking is the smallest (eight students, in comparison to the other skills: nine students
prefer writing, twelve students prefer reading and thirteen students prefer listening). Of
course this result could have another explanation, too: there could be shy students between
my respondents and that is why only eight of them prefer speaking. But the answers to the
next three questions of my questionnaire definitely show my students‟ preference for the
traditional wa ys of learning languages, with lists of words, grammar taught deductively
and the use of the target language combined with the native language. That is why, just like
the answers I got in the teachers‟ questionnaire, my students‟ answers make me consider
that the best teaching methods are the modern ones if they are creatively combined with
the traditional teaching methods.
Twenty – two students from the thirty respondents belong to the second group of
students, Group B, who studied the optional course “ Teaching English through films”,
because twenty – two of my respondents answered that they had studied the course.
Concerning the eighth question of my questionnaire , about how the course helped them to
improve their English, nine students (40. 9%) say that the course helped them because they
learned new words and thirteen students (59, 1%) say that the course developed their
listening skill and now, as a result, they understand easily English films, songs or people
speaking English. One student did not like the course and, as a result, he or she considers
that the course did not help him / her to improve his / her English. I think that the course
helped the students in Group B, especially because of the fact that it offered them the
possibility to liste n to native English speakers. It also developed their listening and reading
skills and they understand easier the general idea of the text.

76
4.2. The experiment
As I have already mentioned before, I started my experiment from the hypothes is
that the bes t teaching way was a combination of modern and traditional teaching methods,
that the traditional methods were more appropriate for teachi ng grammar, while vocabulary
could be taught communicatively, with modern teaching methods. I used to teach grammar
with long explanations followed by practic e in exercises and I always taught the grammar
structure before reading the text in which it was used. At the beginning of the school year
2019 – 2020, when I started using the 7th grade English textbook published by Art Klett, I
changed my teaching style, being probably helped by the different structure of the
textbook. I had used textbooks fr om this publisher before, when the students in my
experiment were in the 5th and the 6th grade s, but this one is a bit differe nt from the
previous ones, as it provides exercises in which grammar can be easily taught inductively.
At the beginning of each unit there is a reading text accompanied by different vocabulary
exercises. The reading text is usually followed by the gramm ar structure, which is
introduced in two exercises: in the first exercise the students are asked to complete some
sentences with information from the text which was previously read. The missing part in
these sentences is always the grammar structure of the un it. Students usually complete the
sentences quickly , especially because of the fact that the text was previously read. The
second exercise asks the students to complete the grammar rules, helping themselves by
the sentences they have already completed in t he first exercise. This way the students work
out themselves the rule.
At the beginning I was not so confident in this way of teaching grammar. T he first
unit of the English textbook for the 7th grade students treats have to and don’t have to for
expressing obligation and lack of obligation. In the following lines I will present the
exercises offered by the textbook for the inductive teaching of these verbs. The first
exercise, the exercise 1 on page 16, asks the students to complete two sentences from the
article on page 15 with have to and don’t have to .
1. They………………wash their faces with clean water.
2. To stop trachoma people………………take expensive medication.
The correct answers are: “They have to wash their faces with clean water ” and “To stop
trachom a people don‟t have to take expensive medication”.
The second exercise asks the students to complete the rule and a chart :
RULE: Use ………………. to say “this is necessary”.

77
Use ……………… to say “this isn‟t necessary”.
The chart looks like this:
Positive Negative
I/you/ we/ they have to help. I/ you/ we/ they don’t have to help.
He/she/it ………….. help. He/ she / it …………….. help.

Questions Short answers
……… . I/ you/ we/ they have to help? Yes, I / you/ we/ they do.
No, I/ you/ we/ they don‟t.
……….. he / she/ it have to help? Yes, he/ she / it ………..
No, he / she/ it …………
Because the students had already studied these verbs during the sixth grade, I
thought they found it easy to complete the sentences, to make the ru le and to work it out
alone as a result of the fact that most of them could remember the verbs have to and don’t
have to from the previous school year. But later, when I had to teach new grammar
structures, which had not been studied before, I realised this way of teaching grammar
worked, too. I remember I used successf ully this way of teaching grammar for almost all
the grammatical structures in this textbook, except for the differences between The Simple
Past, The Present Perfect Simple and The Present Perfect Continuous, where I insisted on
longer explanations and I u sed many translation exercises which helped the students
understand.
During the fifth and the sixth grades, I always taught in the same way to the two
groups of students and I applied them the same tests. That is why at the beginning of the
school year 201 9 – 2020 I applied the same initial test to both seventh grade classes. The
test, which can be found in the first annexe of my thesis, contained three exercises with
multiple – choice and cloze items, which tested reading comprehension, the vocabulary and
the grammar structures studied during the previous school year and one exercise with
subjective items, which evaluated the students‟ ability to write a postcard.
In the following lines I will present the results which the students in the two groups
got in the initial test.
There was an absent student in each group, so in Group A I applied the test to nine
students, while in Group B I applied it to twenty -nine students.
These are the results the students in the two groups got:

78
Group A
The students‟ marks Absent
students The average
mark of the
class
10 9.99-9.50 9.49-9.00 8.99-8.00 7.99-7.00 6.99-6.00 5.99-5.00 <5
6, 88

(six 88%) – 2
22,22
% 2
22,22
% – – 1
11,11
% 2
22,22
% 2
22,22
% 1

Group B
The students‟ marks Absent
students The average
mark of the
class
10 9.99-9.50 9.49-9.00 8.99-8.00 7.99-7.00 6.99-6.00 5.99-5.00 <5
1
7,47
(seven 47%) 2
6,89
% 5
17,24
% 4
13,79
% 4
13,79
% 3
10,34
% 2
6,89
% 4
13,79
% 5
17,24
%

Comparing the results, we can see that at the beginning of the school year 2019 –
2020 and before my experiment, there were some differences between the students in the
two groups: first of all, the number of students who could not get at least five points is
bigger in Group A than in Group B: two students from the total of nine students in Group
A (22, 22 %), compared to five students from the total of twenty – nine students in Group B
(17, 24%). Secondly, in Group A there were no marks of ten and no one go t mark s
between seven and nine. But the number of students whose marks were better than nine is
bigger in Group A than in Group B: four marks from the total of nine in Group A are better
than nine (44, 44 % ), while eleven marks from the total of twenty – nine in Group B are
better than nine (37, 93%).
That is why when I analyse the results the students in the two groups got in the test
I applied in my experiment, I will compare the marks in each group with the marks the
same students got in the initial test, to see if the teaching methods I used in each group
contributed or did not contribute to the students‟ progress.

79
4.2.1. The presentation of the experiment
As I have already said, I always taught in the same way to the students in the two
groups, but in my experiment I used the traditional teaching methods for the students in
Group A and the modern teaching methods for the students in Group B. In September 2019
I started to teach grammar structures inductively to the students in Group B, while for the
students in Group A I first presented the grammar structures deductively, with long
explanations and then I used the exercises in the textbook in which the students were asked
to complete different sentences with information from the reading text and to match them
with different rules. Concerning the vocabulary, I used bilingual lists of words especially
in Group A, but I let the best students in the group (t he four ones who got more than nine
points in the initial test, as they usually get good marks in Engli sh) to decide if they need to
write the words in their notebooks or not. I used exercises in which the students had to
match different words or phrases with their definitions for both the students in Group A
and the students in Group B. With the students i n Group A I always translated the reading
texts into Romanian.
I applied my experiment when I taught the contents of Unit 5, called “Social
Networking”. T he students s tudied vocabulary related to IT terms , the indefinite pronouns
and the modal verb s “should / shouldn‟t / had better / ought to ” for giving advice in this
unit. Although I taught using the traditional teaching methods for the students in Group A
and the modern teaching methods for the students in Group B , at the end of th at unit I
applied the same test to all the students in the two groups. The test can be found in the third
annexe of my thesis, but I will analyse it later, when I finish explaining the way I taught.
This unit explores the following general and specific competences from th e
curriculum:
1. Receive oral messages in everyday communication situations
1.1 Identify the main information from the news presented on TV / recorded materials
relating to different events, when the commentary is illustrated by pictures.
1.2 Identify deta ils from messages and interactions on predictable topics, when the
speakers / interlocutors talk clearly and slowly.
1.3 Identify common aspects between your own culture and the culture of the language
studied.
2. Speak in everyday communication situations
2.3 Express an opinion on a particular issue with the support of the interlocutor

80
2.4 Show a positive attitude towards participating in a verbal exchange and public
speaking.
3. Receive written messages in everyday communication situations
3.1 Select necessary information from lists or simple functional texts (brochures, menus,
schedules, ads).
3.2 Extract information from multiple short texts based on situations from the everyday
life.
3.3 Identify information from a simple written letter / em ail to write an answer.
3.4 Show willingness to be informed through reading.
4. Write messages in everyday communication situations
4.1 Write a simple presentation message for a personal profile.
4.3 Show a positive attitude towards participating in the exchange of written messages.
In the f ollowing lines I will present the reading text of the unit “Social
networking”, as I used i t for both Group A and Group B.
“Think before you act online
Sometimes what we post on our favourite social networks can have consequences we didn’t
expect. One weekend, 20 -year-old James Miller posted on his Facebook page that his job
was “soooo boring”. When he got to work on Monday his boss told him to clear his desk
and g et out. He gave him a letter, too. It said: “After reading your comments on Facebook
about our company, we understand you are not happy with your work. We think it is better
for you to look for something that you will find more interesting”.
A few years ag o, a girl’s birthday party turned into a nightmare. Fifteen -year-old Cathy
posted an invitation to her birthday party online. She posted her address, too. When her
parents got back from the cinema that evening, they couldn’t believe their eyes. There were
500 people at the party, and some of them were smashing windows, breaking potted plants
and making a total mess of the house.
Most teens think they know everything about social media, and that things like this could
never happen to them. A study shows that last year alone, more than three million young
people worldwide got into trouble because of their online activities.
Here are some important tips. None of them can guarantee 100 % Internet security, but all
of them will help you to be safer online.
RULE 1: Share with care!
Not everyone will like what you write on Facebook or Twitter. Think before you post
something. You can never completely control who sees your profile, your texts, your

81
pictures, or your videos. Before clicking “post”, everyone should ask themselves: ”How
will I feel if my family or teachers see this?”
RULE 2: Be polite when you write!
Imagine someone is unfriendly in real life. You don’t like it, right? Well, the same is true of
online communication. Politeness matters, and anyone can be polite. No one likes it when
you “shout” in your messages. DON’T USE ALL CAPITALS!!!!!!!
RULE 3: Protect and respect!
Don’t share your passwords with anyone. Don’t post your home or email address online.
Beware of “cyberbullying” – don’t forward rumours about other people, and don’t say
negative things about them. If you get messages like that or see them online, talk to an
adult you know.” (from the 7th grade English textbook, Art Klett, 2019, p. 55).
I taught this unit in two courses of fifty minutes each for both Group A and Group
B, but using different teaching methods in each group. During the first course I taught the
above text and the indefinite pronouns, whi le in the second course we read some excerpts
from different types of written messages and I taught the modal verbs “should / shouldn‟t /
had better / ought to”.
These are the excerpts from the written messages:
“a) Hi Mum,
I won’t be home before 6 this evening. Have seen an advert fo r a bike and would like to
check it out. Benjamin has promised to do the shopping. Good to have such a nice brother.
Looking forward to the pizza tonight. I’ll be hungry as a wolf.
Love, Emily.
P.S.: You asked me to remind it i s dad’s birthday on Tuesday. You ought to get him a nice
present this year.
b) Messages
Contacts
Hi Emily,
There was a phone call for you from someone called Lucas. He wanted to invite you for a
bike ride on Saturday. He says you can use his bike and he’ll borrow a friend’s.
Benji
c) Great trip yesterday. Here are some photos of it. (1) Lucas and I getting ready for our
bike ride. Note the big rucksack – everything in it for a wonderful picnic. (2) The picnic:
Yummy!
The trip was great, but the weather wasn’t too exciting: fog and rai n.

82
d) FOR SALE
Mountain bike, bought last month, used 3 times – perfect condition
Phone Lucas: 98576493
e) Messages
Contacts
Hi E,
Best Saturday for a long time. I never knew rain and fog can be so much fun. I’d like to try
again next Sunday. Hope you can come!
L
P.S.: Love the photos on Facebook
f) From: Emily
To: Lucas
Hi,
Have thought about it carefully. It’s a cool bike, but 400 pounds is a lot more than what I
wanted to spend. Sorry!
Anyway, really nice to have met you. What you said about your bike tours sounded lovely.
You should give me a ring some time if you want to.
My phone: 97326797
E” ( from the 7th grade English textbook, Art Klett, 2019, p. 58).
I will present the different ways I taught to the students in the two groups in the
following two sections of my thesis.
4.2.2. The description of the experiment on the first group of students – Teaching
English using traditional teaching methods
In this section of my thesis I will present the traditional teaching I did in Group A.
In this group I used long explanations of the grammar structures, I asked students to
translate the reading texts into Romanian, I taught vocabulary with bilingual lists of word s
and I used the Romanian language combined with the English language whenever
necessary.
In the following lines I will present the way I taught traditionally the content of the
unit 5, “Social networking”, from the English textbook. As I have already sai d, I taught the
contents in two different courses of fifty minutes each. At the beginning of the first course,
I asked my students if they used any social networks. Most of them answered they used
Facebook. Then I wrote the following words and phrases on t he board: Facebook account,
to post comments, to read somebody’s posts, to check for updates , hardly ever use

83
something and I asked my students if they could translate them into Romanian. As the
above expressions are related to the students‟ hobbies, the computers and social networks,
most of the students were able to translate them. They came in turn to the board to translate
them and the other students in the class wrote them in their notebooks. Because they were
not sure what the meaning of “hardly ever use something” was, I helped them with the
Romanian translation . When all the students had written the words into their not ebooks, I
asked them to open their textbooks on page 54 and to do the exercise 2, in which they had
to read some statements about using social networks and to decide which of the statements
were true for them. These are the statements:
“1. I have got a Fac ebook account but hardly ever use it.
2. I do not post many comments, but I like to read other people’s posts.
3. I constantly check for updates on social media.
4. I sometimes post comments that I regret later.
5. I know of a post that created a problem. ” (from the 7th grade English textbook,
Art Klett, 2019, p. 54).
I asked them to work individually. After about five minutes, the student s read aloud the
sentences and they told us if the sentences were true or false. Whenever a student answered
that a statement was false, I asked him / her to make it true for him / her. For example, they
answered:
I have got a Fac ebook account and I use it every day.
The next activity of the course was the reading of the text “Think before you act
online” , on page 55 of their textbooks . Before started reading it, I asked the students to
listen to the text played on the computer. T hen they had to read in turn small passages from
the text . I also asked them to translate the passages into Romanian. Whenever one of them
found an unknown word, I asked the other students in the class to translate it or I offered
myself the translation of the word. The students wrote the words and their translation s into
their notebooks.
When all the students had read and translated a passage from the text, I asked them
to translate the following phrases :
1. to key in your password ; 2.to install a programme; 3.to upload a photo ; 4.to delete a
message ; 5.to buy an app ; 6.to download a file ; 7.you get an error message ; 8.an
application closes down ; 9.your screen goes blank ; 10.you close a file without saving it
first; 11.a programme f reezes ; 12.your hard disk crashes

84
The students could translate almost all the phrases. When they could not translate a certain
phrase, I offered them the Romanian equivalent. They wrote the words in a bil ingual list in
their notebooks. When all the phrase s were translated and all the students knew their
meaning, I asked them to use the phrases in sentences of their own. At the end of the
exercise, I corrected their work, while the students read their sentences to the class.
When I had to teach the grammar structure, the indefinite pronouns, I chose to
explain these pronouns in detail to the students. So, I explained my students that we use the
indefinite pronouns to refer to people or things without saying exactly who or what they
are. I also to ld them that we use pronouns ending in –body or –one for people, and
pronouns ending in –thing for things, then I gave them the following examples :
Everybody liked the party.
I opened the door but there was no one at home.
It was a very clear day. We co uld see everything.
Then I wrote on the board the other forms of the indefinite pronouns:
Somebody everybody nobody anybody
Someone everyone no one anyone
Something everything nothing anything
and I explained the students that we use a singular verb after an indefinite pronoun:
Everybody loves Sally.
Everything was ready for the party.
I drew the students‟ atte ntion about the use of the indefinite pronouns in negative
clauses and I wrote the following rules on the board, while the students wrote them in their
notebooks :
1. In negative clauses, we use pronouns with no-, not pronouns with any- with an
affirmative verb ( Nobody came .) or a negative verb with an indefinite pronoun with any-
(Do not tell anyone your secret!)
2. We do not use another negative form in a clause with nobody, no one or nothing:
Nobody came. ( NOT : Nobody did not come).
Nothing happened. ( NOT : Nothing did not happen).
When all the students in the class had written my explanations about the indefinite
pronouns, I asked them to look again at the text they had read and translated before. First
of all, I asked them to underline the indefinite prono uns in the text . Then I asked them to
check if the indefinite pronouns ending in –body or –one refer to people and the indefinite
pronouns ending in –thing refer to things. When they were ready to confirm this rule, I

85
asked them to look in the text for an indefinite pronoun used with a singular verb and for
an indefinite pronoun used in a negative clause. One student found the example “ No one
likes it when you shout in your messages”, saying that it illustrates both rules, as the
indefinite pronoun “no one ” is used with the affirmative verb in the singular form “likes”.
For their homework, I asked my students to write the exercises 3 and 4 on page 54
of their textbook. In the exercise 3 on page 54, they had to read some sentences about the
text they had read in class and to decide if they were correct or incorrect. In the exercise 4
they had to correct the sentences which were incorrect in the exercise 3.
These are the sentences in the exercise 3 on page 54 :
“1.James Miller did not think before he wrote a post and so he lost his job.
2.His boss apologised for giving James work that was no t very interesting.
3.Cathy’s birthday party ended in disaster because her parents went out that evening.
4.A study from last year shows a lot of teens had problem s because of their behaviour on
the web.
5.It says that before writing a post you should think of reactions you might get.
6.It sa ys that posting things when you a re unhappy is a good way to feel better”. (from
the 7th grade English textbook, Art Klett , 2019, p. 54).
This was the first course taught traditionally to the students in Group A. At the
beginning of the second course I checked students‟ homework and then I told them we
would read some paragraphs from different written messages, which we wou ld match then
to the following types of communication: text message, notice, online post, email or note.
First of all, I wanted to make sure that the students knew the words ”notice” and
”note” and I wrote them with their Romanian translation on the board in a bilingual list of
words. Then the students read and translated the texts into Romanian. Whenever they
found an unknown word, I wrote it on the board, in the bilingual list of words. I wrote the
following words in that list: advert, looking forward to…, to remind, ought to, to borrow,
carefully, to give somebody a ring. After each text , the students chose what type of
communication it was.
Then I asked the students to do the exercise 2 on page 58, in which they had to
choose the correct answer to some questions about the texts they had read before. These
are the questions and their possible answers:
“1.Who is Benjamin?
A. Emily’s dad; B. Emily’ s brother; C. Emily’s friend.
2.What‟s the purpose of Benjamin‟s note?

86
A. To tell Emily what Lucas said; B. To find out why Lucas phoned; C. To borrow a
bike from Lucas.
3. On her Facebook page, Emily
A. has posted photos of their trip; B. asks Lucas what he thinks of the photos; C. says
she didn’t like t he trip.
4. The advert says the mountain bike
A. is almost new and in good condition; B. is not the right bike for girls; C. is in
excellent condition, but expensive.
5. What should Lucas do?
A. Lower the price; B. Give Emily a call; C. Buy Emily a bike.
6. Lucas writes a text message
A. to invite Emily to join ; B. to tell Emily that the weather is not good; C. to invite his
friends on a bike ride. " (from the 7th grade English textbook, Art Klett, 2019, p. 58).
Before teaching the verbs used for giving advice, I asked the students to translate
the following phrases: bad / good / practical / useful advice; advice about something; to
take / follow someone’s advice; to ignore someone ’s advice; to advise someone to d o
something and to advise against something . I reminded them that “advice” is an
uncountable noun, while “advise” is a verb. When all the above examples had been
translated, I asked the students to use them to complete th e following sentences from the
exercise 2 on page 59:
“1. I’ve told Peter he shouldn’t post photos like that, but he has always………….my………
2. Should I buy a tablet or a laptop? Can you give me some……………what’s better?
3. He wants to become a web designer. His dad has…………..him to take a course. He
should…………..that……….
4. My uncle has a heart problem. This web page ………….. fatty foods .” (from the 7th
grade English textbook, Art Klett, 2019, p. 59).
The students wrote the completed sentences on the board and in their notebooks.
When all th e sentences had been completed, I underlined the forms He shouldn’t post
photos , Should I buy…? and He should follow that advice from the sentences 1 – 3 and I
explained the students that the underlined forms of the verb “should” were used to give
advice. I also explained them that we can give advice, too with the verbs “ought to” and
„„had better” and I asked them to look for examples of giving advice in the messages they
had read at the beginning of the course. They found “You ought to get him a nice pres ent
this year” and “You should give me a ring some time if you want to”.

87
Then I wrote the following expressions on the board: change to a better provider;
open it ; delete it; attach it as a file; choose a good password for it; upload it onto your
blog; g o online and find it cheaper. I checked if the students knew their meaning and I
asked them to write them with their Romanian translation into their notebooks. When they
finished writing, I asked them to use the above expressions to give advice for the fol lowing
situations. I did the first one as an example:
“My phone never has a signal.
You’d better change to a better provider.
1. I don’t know who this email is from and it’s got a strange – looking attachment.
……………………………….
2. This email’s got lots of important information in it.
……………………………….
3. The new One Direction CD is 15 pounds in the shops!
……………………………….
4. This photo i s really embarrassing. I do not want anyone to see it.
……………………………….
5. I need to send this photo to Bob.
……………………………………
6. This web page contains load s of my personal details.
…………………………………..” (from the 7th grade Activity book, Art Klett, p. 57).
This was the traditional teaching I applied for the students in Group A.
4.2.3. The description of the experiment on the second group of students – Teaching
English using modern teaching methods
In this section of my thesis I will illustrate the modern teaching methods I used to
teach the contents of the Unit 5, “Social Networking” , to the students in Group B.
In this group I taught the grammar structures inductively, I did not ask the students
to translate the texts into the Romanian language and I presented vocabulary by offering
my students the possibility to infer the meaning of the unknown words when matching
them with their definitions. I also tried t o use only the English language in class.
Just like in Group A, I taught the contents of this unit in two courses of fifty
minutes each. During the first course, we read the text “Think before you act online”, I
taught the vocabulary representing IT terms and the indefinite pronouns, while in the
second course we read some written messages illustrating different types of

88
communica tion a nd I taught the verbs “should”, “ought to” and “had better” for giving
advice.
Now let me illustrate the way I used the modern teaching methods to teach the
contents mentioned above.
At the beginning of the first course I divided the students in five groups of five
students each and one group of six students. When I organized the students into groups I
announced them they were not allowed to use the Romanian language. I asked them if they
used a social network and, j ust like in the other group, most of the students answered they
used Facebook. I explained them that we would read a text about online behaviour and I
gave eac h group a worksheet containing different words or ex pressions written in the first
column and their definitions written in the second column. I asked them to work in groups
in order to match the words with their definitions. While they worked, I went from one
group to another one, I observed the students ‟ answers and I offered help whenever
necessary.
These are the words or phrases and their definitions:
I hardly use it To write something on Facebook or other
social network
People’s posts They thought it was unreal
I check for updates I use it very rarely
To post a comment To pack his personal things he had on the
desk
They couldn’t believe their eyes They were breaking windows
consequence disorder
To clear his desk To have problems
They were smashing windows Ideas / pieces of advice
Potted plants The comments people write on a social
network
mess result
worldwide gossip
To get into trouble Plants which grow in a pot
tips To make an image available on the Internet
rumour I check for news that updates my
information
To key in your password All over the world
To install a programme To pay for a programme for your mobile or

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tablet
To upload a photo To type a secret word that gives you access
to a computer
To delete a message To put a programme on a computer
To buy an app To remove a piece of text so it cannot be
seen any more
To download a file To copy information or a programme from
the Internet onto your computer hard disk
You get an error message Your computer monitor does not show any
information any more
An application closes down A programme shuts down
Your screen goes b lank You lose all the changes you’ve just made
You close a file without saving it first Information appears on your computer
screen telling you about a problem
A programme freezes The system that saves information on your
computer suddenly stops working
Your hard disk crashes An application stops working
When they had matched the words with their definitions I asked the students in
each group to give their worksheet to the group nearest to them. Then we discussed the
exercise and I asked the students to correct the worksheet of the other group.
Then I ask ed the students to open their textbooks on page 54 and to discuss with the
other stuents in their group the sentences in the exercise 2. One student in the group read a
sentence aloud and said to the other members of the group if it was true or false for him /
her. If the sentence was not true for him / her, he / she had to change it to make it true.
These are the statements:
“1. I have got a Facebook account but hardly ever use it.
2. I do not post many comments, but I like to read other people’s posts.
3. I constantly check for updates on social media.
4. I sometimes post comments that I regret later.
5. I know of a post that created a problem.” (from the 7th grade English textbook,
Art Klett, 2019, p. 54).
The next activity of the course was the reading o f the text ”Think before you act
online”. First I asked the students to listen to the text played on the computer. Then each
student in the class read a few lines of the text. This time I did not ask the students to
translate the text into Romanian. When a ll the students had read a passage, I wanted to
check their reading comprehension, so I asked them to work in groups, too in order to

90
decide if the sentences in the exercise 3 on page 54 were correct. If a sentence was
incorrect, the students had to correc t it.
These are the sentences in the exercise :
“1.James Miller did not think before he wrote a post and so he lost his job.
2.His boss apologised for giving James work that was not very interesting.
3.Cathy’s birthday party ended in disaster because her parents went out that evening.
4.A study from last year shows a lot of teens had problems because of their behaviour on
the web.
5.It says that before writing a post you should think of reactions you might get.
6.It sa ys that posting things when you a re unhappy is a good way to feel better”. (from
the 7th grade English textbook, Art Klett, 2019, p. 54).
They had to work together and to communicate until they agreed on the final
answer. For exa mple, one student in a group said the third sentence was correct. Another
student corrected him by saying that “Cathy‟s birthday party ended in disaster because she
had posted the invitation to her party online ”. The first student agreed, but added that th e
party would not have ended in disaster if Cathy‟s parents had been at home.
When I had to teach the grammar structure, the indefinite pronouns, I chose the
inductive teaching. I asked the students to complete the sentences in the exercise 1 on page
58 with information from the article they had read earlier. These are the sentences:
“1. Most teens think they know……………about social media.
2. Think before you post………………
3. ………….likes it when you “shout” in your messages.” (from the English textbook for
the 7th grade, Art Klett, p. 56). Then I asked them to complete the missing forms in the
chart in the exercise 2, on the same page:
everything something nothing anything
everyone 1)…………… 2)…….. 3)…….
everywhere somewhere nowhere anywhere
The students realised quickly enough that the missing forms were: someone, no one
and anyone . That is why I told them the words they had completed in the sentences in
exercise 1 and in the chart in exercise 2 are called indefinite pronouns and I asked them to
look for other indefinite pronouns in the article previously read. When they had identified
all the indefinite pronouns I explained them they had to use some / any / no / every to
complete the following rule:
Rule: The words beginning with

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*………..mean “all” (people / things /places)
*………..mean that we do not know exactly which (person / thing / place)
*………..mean “not any” (person / thing / place)
*………..mean that we do not care or it does not matter which (person / thing / place).
As they worked really well, I asked them to complete the sentences in the exercise
3 on page 56 with words from the chart they had completed earlier, in the exercise 2. These
are the sentences they had to complete:
“1. Where’s my pen? I’ve looked ……….. , but I can’t find it.
2. Using social media can be a real problem. ………….should know that.
3. The teacher asked a question, but ………. knew the answer.
4. ………… left a message for you at reception.
5. Ouch! There’s ……….. in my eye!
6. I have no idea where Sally is. She could be…………
7. Do you want a place to relax on your holiday? There’s ……… better than here!
8. It is so noisy. Let’s go …………quieter.” (from the English textbook for the 7th grade,
Art Klett).
For their homework, I asked the students to complete the following sentences with
information that was true for them:
1. Everyone knows that I……..
2. For my next holiday I’d like to go somewhere……..
3. I don’t like eating anything that has got… ……..in it.
4. I think anyone can learn to………. (the sentences are from the exercise 4 on page
56 of the Activity Book for the 7th grade students, Art Klett).
This was the first course taught with modern teaching methods to the students in
Group B. At the beginning of the second course I checked students‟ homework and then I
told them we would read some paragraphs from different written messages, which we
would match then to the following types of communication: text message, notice, online
post, email or note.
First of all, I wanted to make sure that the students knew the words ”not ice” and
”note” and I wrote on the bo ard that ”a note” is ”a small letter ” and ”a notice” is ”a piece
of announcement ”. Then the students read the texts and chose what type of communication
they belonged to . Then I asked the students to do the exercise 2 on page 58, in which they
had to choose the correct answer to some question s about the texts they had read before.
These are the questions and their possible answers:

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“1.Who is Benjamin?
A. Emily’s dad; B. Emily’ s brother; C. Emily’s friend.
2.What‟s the purpose of Benjamin‟s note?
A. To tell Emily what Lucas said; B. T o find out why Lucas phoned; C. To borrow a
bike from Lucas.
3. On her Facebook page, Emily
A. has posted photos of their trip; B. asks Lucas what he thinks of the photos; C. says
she didn’t like the trip.
4. The advert says the mountain b ike
A. is almost new and in good condition; B. is not the right bike for girls; C. is in
excellent condition, but expensive.
5. What should Lucas do?
A. Lower the price; B. Give Emily a call; C. Buy Emily a bike.
6. Lucas writes a text message
A. to invite Emily to join ; B. to tell Emily that the weather is not good; C. to invite his
friends on a bike ride. " (from the 7th grade English textbook, Art Klett, 2019, p. 58).
Before teaching the verbs used for giving advice, I asked the students to look at the
following phrases: bad / good / practical / useful advice; advice about something; to take /
follow someone’s advice; to ignore someone’s advice; to advise someone to do something
and to advise against something . I reminded them that “advice” is an uncountable noun,
while “advise” is a verb. Then I asked the students which of the phrases meant “not to
listen to somebody’s advice” and “to do what somebody has advised you to do”. When
they could match the phrase “to ignore someone‟s advice” with “not to listen to
somebody‟s advice” and ”to take / follow someone‟s advice” with “to do what somebody
has advised you to do”, I asked the students to use the above phrases to complet e the
following sentences, from the exercise 2 on page 59:
“1. I’ve told Peter he shouldn’t post photos like that, but he has always………….my………
2. Should I buy a tablet or a laptop? Can you give me some……………what’s better?
3. He wants to become a web de signer. His dad has…………..him to take a course. He
should…………..that……….
4. My uncle has a heart problem. This web page ………….. fatty foods .” (from the 7th
grade English textbook, Art Klett, 2019, p. 59).

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I underlined the forms: He shouldn’t post photos like that ; Should I buy a tablet or
a laptop? and He should follow that advice and I asked my students to write them again
into their notebooks. I added another example:
You had better join me if you don’t want to break your promise , and then I asked the
students to complete the sentences from the exercise 1 on page 59 with information from
the written messages they had read at the beginning of the course. Here are the sentences:
“1. You ………….get him a nice present this year.
2. You …………give me a ring so me time if you want to”.
I asked the students to read again the six sentences and to choose the correct words
to complete the rule in the same exercise. This is the rule:
“RULE: “Should ”, “had better ” and “ ought to ” are used to give 1) advice / information.
*”Should ” and “ ought to ” mean more or less the same, but we usually do not use “ ought
to” in questions and negative statements.
*The meaning of “ had better ” is often a little stronger. The speaker wants to say that there
are 2) positive / ne gative consequences if you ignore the advice”. (from the English
textbook for the 7th grade students, Art Klett, p. 59).
Then I asked the students to close their textbooks and I gave a student in each
group of students a worksheet containing the followin g situations:
1. I’ve broken my friend’s MP3 player. What should I do?
2. I didn’t do the test very well. What should I do?
3. I’d like to go climbing, but I’ve never done it before. What should I do?
4. I’m hungry. Should I eat some chocolate?
5. I’m angry with my brother. He said something I didn’t like. What should I do?
6. This sweater my sister gave me looks terrible. I don’t like it at all. What should I do?
The other students in the group were given a worksheet containing the following
pieces of advice:
1. You should / shouldn’t eat it. Fruit is healthier.
2. You should / shouldn’t tell him. It’s best to be honest with him.
3. You ’d better / better not return it to the shop. That would really hurt her feelings.
4. You shouldn’t / ought to go back and study everything again.
5. You ’d better / shouldn’t get some training. It can be dangerous.
6. You ’d better / shouldn’t say sorry the next time you meet your friend”.
I explained the students that the student who got the worksheet containing the
situations had to read them aloud, while the other students in his / her group had to answer

94
by choosing the best piece of advice and the correct form of the verbs in each piece o f
advice. I asked them to talk in order to decide together which the best piece of advice was
for each of the situations.
Then I wrote the following expressions on the board: change to a better provider;
open it; delete it; attach it as a file; choose a good password for it; upload it onto your
blog; go online and find it cheaper and I explained my students they had to use the above
expressions to give advice for the following situations. I did the first one as an example:
“My phone never has a signal.
You’d better change to a better provider.
1. I don’t know who this email is from and it’s got a strange – looking attachment.
……………………………….
2. This email’s got lots of important information in it.
……………………………….
3. The new One Direction CD is 15 pounds in the shops!
……………………………….
4. This photo i s really embarrassing. I do not want anyone to see it.
……………………………….
5. I need to send this photo to Bob.
……………………………………
6. This web page contains loads of my personal details.
…………………………………..” (from the 7th grade Activity book, Art Klett, p. 57).
This was the way I applied the modern teaching methods when teaching to the
students in Group B.
I think the contents taught in this unit were interesting and useful for the students,
as they illustrated some situations which could help the students to have responsible online
behaviour. The students in Group B were a bit more motivated during the two courses, as
they had the possibility to work in groups and to decide together with their group mates
what the meanings of the unknown words w ere or what a grammar rule illustrated.
4.2.4. The test and the students’ results
Although I taught the contents of the unit “Social Networking” using traditional
teaching methods in Group A and modern teaching methods in Group B, I applied the
same test to all the students in both Group A and Group B because I wanted to see which
of the teaching methods showed the students‟ progress.

95
The test I applied proposed the students a text about a boy‟s online behaviour.
When I wrote the test, I removed from the tex t eight words representing IT terms and four
sentences containing some tips which had the modal verb “should” . I asked the students to
use them to fill the gaps in the text. The second exercise had “True – False” items and the
third exercise “Text reconstruction” items and they checked the reading comprehension
and the students‟ ability to order the events chronologically.
In the following lines I will present the results the students in the two groups got in
this test.
Group A
The students‟ marks Absent
students The average
mark of the
class
10 9.99-9.50 9.49-
9.00 8.99-8.00 7.99-7.00 6.99-6.00 5.99-5.00 <5

1

6, 96
(six 96%) 2
22,22
% 2
22,22
% – – 1
11,11
% – 1
11,11
% 3
33,33
%

Group B
The students‟ marks Absent
students The average
mark of the
class
10 9.99-9.50 9.49-9.00 8.99-
8.00 7.99-7.00 6.99-6.00 5.99-5.00 <5
2
7,80
(seven 80 %)
6
20,68
% 4
13,79
% 3
10,34
% 1
3,44
% 7
24,13
% 2
6,89
% 2
6,89
% 4
13,79
%

Comparing the students‟ results in the test I applied during my experiment with
their results in the initial test, we can observe that both the students in Group A and the
students in Group B got better marks. The average mark of the students in Group A in the
initial test was 6, 88 (six 88 %), compared to their average mark in the test I applied in my
experiment , which was 6, 96 (six 96 %). The average mark of the students in Group B in
the initial test was 7, 47 (seven 47 %), compared to their average mark in the second test,
which was 7, 80 (seven 80 %). The number of the students who could not get at least fi ve
points is bigger in the test I applied in my experiment than it was in the initial test for the

96
students in Group A , as there were two students who did not get five points in the initial
test, while in the test I applied in my experiment there were thre e students whose marks
were smaller than five points. In Group B there were five students whose marks were
smaller than five points in the initial test, while in the test I applied in my experiment there
were only four students who could not get at least f ive points. In comparison with the
results in the initial test, where no students in Group B got marks of ten, in the second test
there were two students who got ten points.
If we compare the results the students in the two groups got in the second test, we
can notice that the students whose marks were better than 9, 50 is bigger in Group A than
in Group B, as there were two students from the total of nine (22, 22 %) who got ten points
in Group A, in comparison with six students from the total of twenty – nine (20. 68 %) in
Group B. 22, 22 % of the students in Group A got marks between 9 and 9,50 points, while
in Group B 13, 79 % of the students got marks between 9 and 9,50 points. In Group A
there were no marks between 8, 00 and 9, 50 points, while in Grou p B there were three
students (10, 34 %) whose marks were between 9, 00 and 9, 50 points and one student (3,
44 %) whose mark was between 8, 00 and 9, 00 points.
Because we can notice there was progress for both the students in Group A and the
students i n Group B in the test I applied in my experiment, I could say that both the
traditional and the modern teaching methods I applied in my experiment helped the
students to improve their results. This means that the best teaching way is a combination of
moder n and traditional teaching methods.

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5. CONCLUSIONS

In this part of my thesis I will summarize the steps I followed when I wrote on
Tradition versus Innovation in Teaching English . First of all, I chose to write my thesis on
this topic after I had used both traditional and modern teaching methods in class. I started
from the hypothesis that the best teaching way was a combination of modern and
traditional teaching methods, that the traditional methods were more appropriate for
teachi ng grammar, while vocabulary could be taught communicatively, with modern
teaching methods. At the beginning of my career as an English teacher I used to teach
grammar with long explanations followed by practice in exercises and I always taught the
grammar structure before reading the text in which it was used, having in mind the idea
that students could not understand a grammar structure which had not been explained in
detail to them. I also used to thin k that a text was better understood if the grammar
structure s which were used in it had been previously explained . When I started to use the
digital textbooks, I changed my teaching style, too and I started to teach grammar
structures inductively. Seeing t hat my students could understand both teaching ways, I
wanted to compare the traditional and the modern teaching methods. That is why I chose
this topic for my thesis.
I started reading professionals‟ books and publications about traditional and modern
teaching methods and I used them and different web sources to describe the teaching
methods. In the second chapter of my thesis I first presented the traditional teaching
methods and then I described the modern ones.
In the research part of my thesis I applied a questionnaire to different English
teachers in order to find out their opinions on traditional and modern teaching methods . I
also applied a questionnaire to my students to see their opinions on the way they are taught
English. The results I got in these questionnaires confirmed my initial hypothesis, that the
best teaching way was the use of modern teaching methods creatively combined with the
traditional teaching methods.
Then I explained why I had chosen to apply my ex periment on 7th grade students, I
described the two groups of students and I presented the syllabus of the optional course
called “Teaching English through Films”, studied by the students in Group B of my
experiment.

98
I compared the results the students i n the two groups got in the initial test at the
beginning of the school year 2019 – 2020 after I had taught them using the same teaching
methods during the school year 2018 – 2019.
At the beginning of the school year 2019 – 2020 I started using differ ent teaching
methods: I used traditional teaching methods for the students in Group A and modern
teaching methods for the students in Group B. That is why I described in detail the way I
taught the unit “Social Networking”, with traditional teaching methods in Group A and
modern teaching methods in Group B. Although I taught using different teaching methods
in the two groups, at the end of that unit I applied the same test to the students in the two
groups.
As the results got by the students showed their progress in both groups, I can
conclude that the hypothesis I started from at the beginning of my research is confirmed.
Although the modern teaching methods are more motivating and attractive for the students,
for the best results they should be creatively co mbined with the traditional teaching
methods.
In the end of my thesis, I want to repeat Benjamin Franklin‟s words: “Tell me and I
forget / Teach me and I remember / Involve me and I learn”, as I think they illustrate the
evolution from traditional to mod ern teaching methods: at the beginning the students were
told a lesson in class by the teacher and they could not cope with everyday communication
outside the class room . With the modern teaching methods the students are involved in the
teaching process and they have better results when communicating outside the classroom.

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6. ANNEXES
Annexe no. 1
6.1. The Initial Test applied to the two groups of students at the
beginning of the school year 2019 -2020
INITIAL TEST
School year: 2019 -2020

I. Read the text and choose the correct answer:
Maddy : Hi, Karen. Is that a new bike?
Karen : Yes, it is. It was a birthday present from my granddad. It‟s the best present
ever!
Maddy : Wow! It looks cool! How much was it?
Karen : It was 240 pounds.
Maddy : I love it. My bike is older and it‟s smaller.
Karen : What kind of bike have you got?
Maddy : I‟ve got a really old bike, a Super 500 , but I want to get the Velox 450. It‟s got
all the newest technology.
Karen : Is it more expensive than my bike?
Maddy : Yes, it is. It‟s more expensive and it‟s faster and lighter than your bike, too.
Karen : How much is the Velox 450?
Maddy : It‟s about 350 pounds, I think.
Karen : That‟s expensive! Well, I think this bike is the best. I tried all the other ones in
the shop, but this bike was the most comfortable one to ride.
Maddy : Really? Can I try it?
Karen : Sure, but be careful.
Maddy : You‟re right, Karen, it‟s great!

1. Karen has got a new
a) Car; b) bicycle; c) scooter
2. It was a present for:
a) Christmas; b) passing her exams; c) her birthday
3. The new bike cost
a) 250 poundds; b) 240 pounds; c) 350 pounds

100
4. Maddy‟s bike is:
a) older and bigger ; b) newer and smaller; c) older and smaller than Karen‟s
bike.
5. Maddy wants to get a
a) Super 500; b) Velox 450; c) Velox 350
6. Maddy wants this bike because it‟s very
a) Small; b) new; c) old
7. The Velox 450 costs
a) 350 pounds; b) 315 pounds; c) 355 pou nds
8. Karen liked her bike because it was
a) The most comfortable one; b) t he most expensive one; c) the fastest one
9. Maddy thinks Karen‟s bike is
a) Cool; b) great; c) big.
10. Karen got her bike from:
a) her grandma; b) her dad; c) her granddad
( 10 answers x 0,20 p oints = 2,00 points)
II. Read the dialogues and fill in the gaps with the words below:
house; cycling; beach (x2); 9:30; meet; Sunday; lake
James : Are you free on 1)……………….., Connor?
Connor : Yes, I am. Why?
James : Shall we go 2)………………….?
Connor : Yeah, great! Let‟s go to the 3)…………………….on our bikes!
James : No, I don‟t like the 4)…………………. – the sea is too cold. Why don‟t we go to the
5)……………..instead?
Conno r: Ok, where shall we 6)………………………?
James : Why don‟t we meet at my 7)………………..on Saturday morning?
Connor : Perfect. What time shall I come?
James : Let‟s mee t at 8)…………………. .. ( 8 words x 0,30 p oints = 2,40 points)
III. Choose the correct answer:
Dear Mum and Dad,
I‟ ( 1) m / are really enjoying the summer camp. The dance lessons (2) is / are
really great and I (3) learnt /’ m learning lots of new things. Yes terday we (4)
have / had dance lessons in the morning. In the afternoon it (5) rains / rained

101
and we (6) can’t / couldn’t go horse riding, so we (7) visited / are visiting a
castle. It (8) was / were really interesting.
This afternoon, we (9)’re going / go swimming and this evening there ( 10) was
/ is a talent show.
See you on Saturday.
Love, Ktty ( 10 x 0,25 points = 2,50 points)
IV. Imagine you are in a summer camp. Write a postcard to your parents. Use
exercise III as a model. Tell them:
*why you like or don‟t like the camp;
*what you did yesterday;
* what you are doing tomorrow .
( 2,10 points)
YOU HAVE ONE INITIAL POINT!

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Annexe no. 2
6.2. The marking scheme of the initial test
I. Multiple -choice items (10 answers x 0, 20 points – 2, 00 points)
Objective : to check reading comprehension
Correct answers:
1-b) bicycle
2-c) her birthday
3-b) 240 pounds
4-c) older and smaller
5-b) Velox 450
6-b) new
7-a) 350 pounds
8-a) the most comfortable one
9-a) cool
10-c) her granddad
II. Cloze items (8 words x 0, 30 points = 2, 40 points)
Objective : to check the understanding of the given words a nd students‟ ability to use the
words in the correct gap
Correct answers:
1. Sunday
2. cycling
3. beach
4. beach
5. lake
6. meet
7. house
8. 9.30
III. Multiple -choice items (10 answers x 0, 25 points = 2, 50 points)
Objective : to evaluate the verbal tenses studied during the 6th grade
Correct answers :
1. I‟m
2. are
3. I‟m learning

103
4. had
5. rained
6. couldn‟t
7. visited
8. was
9. we‟re going
10. there is
IV. Subjective item: writing a postcard (2, 10 points)
Objective: to check students’ ability to write correctly in English
The students have to: * write a text appropriate to the type of text which was asked –
3 points
* use the words in the correct order in simple sentences – 3 points
* use correctly the grammatical structures -3 points
* use correctly an elementary repertoire of words and expressions
appropriate to the proposed topic -3 points
* refer to all three required sub -items (why he /she likes or does
not like the camp; what he / she did yesterda y; what he / she is doing tomorrow) – 3 sub –
items x 3 points = 9 points
+ one initial point!

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Annexe no. 3
6.3. The test app lied to the two group s of students in the experiment

TEST 7 th GRADE
Unit 5: SOCIAL NETWORKING

I. a) Read the blog entry and complete it with the words in the list:
Tablet; download; posted; blog; install; machine; deleted; online
(8 words x 0, 30 points = 2, 40 points )
b) Four sentences have been removed from the passage. Choose from the
sentences 1 – 4 the appropriate pieces of advice to complete the tips in the blog entry.
1. You should never download files from people who promise to fix everything.
2. You should never pay anyone who promises to do everything before they do it.
3. You should never trust anyone who promises to fix everything.
4. You should never tell bad news to a tired person. (4 sentences / pieces of advice x
0, 55 points = 2, 20 points )

Tips for everyday life
Hi! I‟ m Johnny Tipp and welcome to my blog!
Everyday life teaches me something. That‟s why I started my blog – so I could share it all
with you.
What to do when your computer goes wrong
I‟m writing this post on my 1)…………….because the desktop computer isn‟t wo rking at
the moment and everyone thinks it‟s my fault. But as I keep telling them, I was only trying
to help.
Let me explain. A few days ago, I was writing my 2)……………when a message appeared
on the screen. It said there was a problem with the computer and t hat I should restart the
3)………………So I did. After five minutes, the same message appeared again. After
about five times, I began to think this problem was serious, so I went 4)…………….to find
a solution. I found a site that promised to fix everything.
Tip 1
A)………………………………… ………………………………………………………….
All I had to do was to 5)………………….a file onto my computer and then to
6)…………………it. So I did.

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Tip 2
B)………………………… …………………………………………………………………
The next thing I saw was a message 7)…………….on the screen: “To fix this problem ,
please enter your credit card details”. Well, for some reason, I know my dad‟s credit card
details and so I entered them.
Tip 3
C)…………………………………… ………………………………………………………
Then the computer just 8)…………..all the files on it and turned itself off and I couldn‟t
turn it on at all. So when Dad came home, all tired from work, I told him the whole story.
Tip 4
D)……………………………… …………………………………………………………..
When he finally calmed down, he rang his bank. They found that 1000 pound s was missing
from his account. And that‟s it. It was an expensive lesson, but I‟ve learned a lot.
PS: I‟m not the most popular person in my family at the moment.
II. Read the blog entry again and decide if the following sentences are true o r
false.
1. Johnny was writing his blog when a message appeared on the screen. (………..)
2. The message said he had to write his blog later. (…………..)
3. Johnny restarted his computer six times. (…………..)
4. Johnny went online to find a solution. (……………..)
5. He found a site that promised to replace his computer. (……………)
(5 answers x 0, 40 points = 2,00 points )
III. Read the blog entry again. Then put the following events in the correct
order, to get the summary of the text.
a.) Johnny tells his dad about the problem. (……..)
b.) Johnny writes his blog. (……….)
c.) Johnny installs a program. (………..)
d.) Johnny‟s computer tells him it has a problem. (………..)
e.) Johnny‟s computer completely breaks down. (…………)
f.) Johnny goes online to find a solution. (………….)
g.) Johnny uses his dad‟s credit card. (………..)
h.) John ny downloads a program. (………….)
(8 sentences x 0, 30 points = 2, 40 points )
YOU HAVE ONE INITIAL POINT!

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Annexe no. 4
6.4. The marking scheme of the test applied in the experiment
I. a) Cloze items (8 words x 0,30 p oints = 2,40 p oints )
Objective : to check the understanding of the given words and the students‟ ability to use
them in the correct gap.
Correct answers:
1.tablet
2.blog
3.machine
4.online
5.download
6.install
7.posted
8.deleted
b) ’’Identifying paragraph structure” items ( 4 sentences / pieces of advice x
0,55 p oints = 2,20 p oints )
Objective: to check the students‟ ability to understand the relation between the sentences
in the text.
Correct answers:
Tip 1 : sentence no. 3:You should never trust anyone who promises to fix everything.
Tip 2: sentence no. 1: You should never download files from people who promise to do
everything before they do it.
Tip 3: sentence no. 2: You should never pay anyone who promises to do everything before
they do it.
Tip 4: sentence no. 4: You should never tell bad news to a tired person.
II. ”True -False” items ( 5 answers x 0,40 p oints = 2,00 p oints )
Objective: to check reading comprehension.
Correct answers:
1. True
2. false
3. false
4. true
5. false

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III. ”Text reconstruction” items ( 8 sentences x 0,30 p oints = 2,40 p oints ).
Objective: to check the understanding of the text message and the ability to order the
events c hronologically.
Correct answers:
1. – b) Johnny writes his blog.
2. – d) Johnny‟s computer tells him it has a problem.
3. – f) Johnny goes online to find a solution.
4. – h) Johhny downloads a program.
5. – c) Johnny installs a program.
6. – g) Johnny uses his dad‟s credit card.
7. – e) Johnny‟s computer completely breaks down.
8.- a) Johnny tells his dad about the problem.
+ one initial point!

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