Points To Keep In Mind

1. Language is a skill subject and not a content subject. To Master this skill students need to listen to good English and get opportunities to use what is learnt.

2. We want to use the textbook as a tool that provides opportunities for interaction. No need to ask a lot of content based questions to test the understanding of the reading passages.

3. Involve the students in listening, speaking activities before you start with the reading lessons. After the reading lesson have further discussions and encourage them to talk about their own ideas and feelings.

Example: If the lesson is about gifts start the discussion with what kind of gifts they want to give their best friend or a person they like the most at home.

For listening activities you can have a variety of activities which sharpen their ears and help them listen to words, their pronunciation, the intonation patterns in sentences, the overall gist of a message conveyed, etc.

Examples: (a) Give them the ‘O’ words from Unit 1. Call out some of the words and ask them to circle the words they hear.

to and fro

(b) Make two children read aloud the Pre Task dialogue of Unit 8. Ask a few questions based on the conversation. What does Shruti want to buy? How does she ask for it? What she likes about the plane? Why does she say ‘Then it will be of no use to us.’

Follow this up with talking about what they want for themselves: What do you want to buy? What features you want in that toy? Who will you play with? etc.

3. Each reading lesson can be taught differently. Here are some ways of using the reading texts.

a] Narrate the story and ask the students to scan the text and find some words.

b] Make the students read the text silently, prepare a couple of questions and play a group game of Reading Quiz.

c] Make students role-play a lesson and read aloud the dialogues.

d] Ask the students to transfer the information of the reading passage to a table, flowchart or mind-map.

4. While preparing the plan to teach a lesson, understand the most important teaching points. Decide how much time you can spend on each teaching point.

If you are spending one week per lesson, do not try to use the same type of plan for lesson after lesson. Prepare an annual plan with specific teaching objective for each unit.

5. Teach grammar through interesting group or pair activities and guessing games. Consolidate the learning using an activity where they can use the grammar item meaningfully and periodically provide practice in exam related exercises.

Think of where that grammar item is likely to be most used in real life situation. Create that context in class and help students use that item while working in pairs or groups. Include guessing games as a fun way of practicing specific patterns.

6. Teach vocabulary in context and select groups of words which are similar in terms of the way they are pronounced or in terms of the meaning they convey, etc.

7. For writing activities, discuss the topic with the students, start translating their ideas into complete sentences on the blackboard. Let them watch you develop a letter, a story or a paragraph. This will help them learn to write such write-ups on their own.  

If you are asking them to copy from the blackboard, you can give more than one option for them to choose and copy. This will ensure everyone is not writing the same thing and at the same time will not increase your correction work.

Example: Unit 7, page 64, writing activity: Write what you felt after looking at the pictures of Tsunami tragedy.

Have a discussion with the students, help them with the words needed to express their feelings, write part of the answer on the blackboard and a list of words to choose from.

8. The examination patterns have changed and now students ability to use the language is measured and memory based tests are avoided. For example, a paragraph from the reading text is given and questions are based on that. Students are expected to read the paragraph, read the question, find the answer from the paragraph and learn to write it properly to answer the given question. We need to teach this in the class by writing a couple of lines on the bb, giving a question below, showing them how to find and write the answer keeping in mind the question that is asked.

9. We can prepare teaching aids with the help of the children. We can ask the children to bring some pictures from newspapers, magazines to class. We can ask them to bring some objects to class. We can write words on the bb, give each student a strip of paper and ask them to copy one word each. When all these strips are collected we can use it for a number of activities.

10. Prepare charts for some of the things the students need to memorize and remember, things such as the three forms of the verbs, some greetings and expressions and display them around the class. Let them remain there throughout the year and whenever the students need them, they will be able to refer to your charts on the walls. This constant reference will help them remember things well.

Example:

‘ed’ past - 2nd & 3rd same

Spelling changes 2nd & 3rd same

1st & 3rd same

All 3 same

All 3 different

This list is not complete. Can you add more points? Can you think of more activities? We will share it on the site http://class9.askrangoo.com.

Please remember we learnt Gujarati by getting exposure to that language from the people around us and by having an opportunity to use that language to tell others what we want, how we feel and generally communicate our ideas. If we can provide exposure to English in the class, in a natural way, and if we provide opportunities for students to talk to each other, they will learn English easily and without stress.

When we were children we did not worry about the mistakes we made. We had no fear that someone will criticise us for making mistakes. Can we provide the same kind of atmosphere for the students in our class?

Native speakers also make mistakes when they learn English for the first time. How do they correct it? They listen to more English, they get opportunities to compare what they say with what they hear from others and correct themselves. Our students get less exposure. What can we do about it?

Can we tell them a story or talk about something interesting that happened on the way to school?

Can we use instructions in English for day-to-day activities such as ‘Show me your homework. Have you finished it?’

Can we show them videos in English at least once in a while?

Can we use ‘WELCOME English’ for interesting exposure as well as for improving our own language?

Can we use the computer lab in the school for providing exposure to English?

What do you think we can do?