Lesson plan for Total Physical Response approach ( TPR)

Topic: demonstrative pronouns

Duration: 40 -45 min

Level: intermediate

Objectives:

1.       Students will be able to differentiate between, this, that, these and those.

2.       Students will be able to apply them appropriately in speaking and writing.

3.       Students will be able to understand the differences between this, that, these and those.

TEACHING PROCEDURES

Pre activity:

1.       Teacher asks students using the Total Physical Response method (TPR) ‘What is this?’ pointing to the pen she/he holds, and ‘What is that?’ pointing to the pencil a student holds. Alternate between the two forms several times using different objects.

Introductory focus:

2.       -Teacher writes the singular forms on the board and explains when to use each one.

(This indicates something close to the speaker)

(That indicates something away from the speaker)

-          Teacher also might want to recap what is singular and gives some examples on it.

3.       -    After practicing the singular forms, the teacher introduces the plural forms - These and       Those-pointing to different class objects.

-          Teacher can explain and give examples on what are plural forms.

Lesson development (involving students):

4.       Teacher can get students to do the demonstration using the demonstrative pronouns using different objects.

5.       Students practice the rule by constructing sentences in both forms.  

Closure:

6.       Activity Students practice the demonstrative pronouns forms in pairs: student (A) asks a question using this/these or that/those, student (B) answers the question, and vice versa.

7.       Teacher recaps the whole lesson on what they have learnt for the day. Teacher may questions students on what they have learnt.

sample lesson plan for CLT

TOPIC: Going shopping

Duration: 40 - 45 minutes 

LESSON 1: Buying school supplies

Objective

1. Students will create a story about two young friends shopping for school supplies.

2. Students will respond to questions about that story.

3. Students will create a mini-dictionary and copy essential vocabulary from the story into the dictionary.

Introductory review (Brainstorming) (5 minutes)

Students brainstorm, in their native language (L1), about: 

• What do you shop for at the beginning of the school year?
• What classes that you're taking require special supplies?
• What would you really prefer to buy?

Introductory focus (20 minutes)

Teacher and students create a story about two friends who go to a stationery store to purchase school supplies. 

Teacher encourages class participation and student involvement by constantly asking students to provide the specific details of the story.

 Teacher writes down important vocabulary and phrases in the target language on the board in the front of the room and also writes the translation of each word or phrase in the students' native language. 

Teacher constantly reinforces vocabulary and information by asking yes/no, either/or, and who/what/where/why questions about the various details of the story.

Outline of a story:

·         2 friends meet at the school supply store (students provide name of friends and name of store.

·         One friend states that he/she needs pens, pencils, an eraser, a calculator and a small bag for all these items. (Teacher asks for class input on which items they choose to be in the story.

·         One of the friends gets the sales lady's attention.

·         A sales lady responds to the friends and asks if she may help.

·         One friend requests one item from the list above and the sales lady shows where this item is. (Teacher asks for class input on which item the class would like to choose first.)

·         One friend asks for the price and accepts that item for purchase.

·         The second friend finds a special item. (Teacher provides a variety of items, e.g. a fancy calculator, a laptop computer, a fancy cell phone, an expensive fountain pen, etc. and asks the class to choose which special item they want in their story.)

·         Both friends ask for the price of this special item.

·         Sales lady gives a price (Teacher encourages class input and the class decides on a price-the more outrageous, the better).

·         Both friends express shock.

·         Second friend asks for price of another item. (Class input decides which item.)

·         Second friend accepts to purchase this item.

·         Both friends find the backpack display and express which one he/she prefers or likes.

·         One friend states that he/she doesn't have enough money to buy his/her favorite backpack.

·         Second friend offers to lend enough money to buy this backpack.

·         Both friends pay for their purchases and leave the store.

Guided Practice (10 minutes)

Teacher has written a variety of questions on little slips of paper and has put these slips of paper in a basket or bag.

EXAMPLES:

·         What are the friends' names?

·         Why do they go to a school supply store?

·         What item does the first friend ask about?

·         What is the special item that the second friend finds?

·         What is the big problem with the special item?

·         How much does this special item cost?

·         What do the two friends decide about that special item?

·         What item do the friends talk about after they decide the special item costs too much?

·         What is the problem with buying the backpack?

·         How do the two friends solve the problem with buying the backpack?

·         What item do you need for school?

·         What do you say to get a sales person's attention?

·         What do you say when you ask for the price of something?

·         What do you say when you don't like something?

·         What items do the two friends buy?

·         What do you think will happen when the two friends leave the store?

Teacher has placed a call bell in the middle of a small table at the front of the classroom. Teacher divides the class into two teams and these teams sit on opposite sides of the classroom.

 Teacher calls one student from each team to stand on either side of the small table. Teacher pulls out a slip of paper from the basket or bag and asks that question. The student who knows the answer reaches out to ring the bell. 

That student gets to answer the question. If the answer is right, that student's team gets a point. (Teacher has written Team One and Team Two on the board and keeps tally of the points for each team.) Very often, both students know the answer and rush to hit the bell first. This creates fun and excitement in the game. 

Once a point has been won, those two students each choose the next player from their team to come up to the table. Teacher puts the slip of paper back into the basket or bag and mixes up the slips. The process is repeated until the end of the allotted time.

Closure (5- 10 minutes)

Teacher will recap what students have learn for the day. 

The teacher shows the PPT on how to create a mini-dictionary. The teacher models each step and guides the students in making their own. Students then copy all the vocabulary and translations from the front board into their mini-dictionary. ( This can be used as a follow up activity on the next lesson)

Communicative Language Teaching ( CLT)

What is Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

CLT is an approach to language teaching ( Richards & Rodgers). It is based on the theory that the primary function of the language use is communication. The main goal is to develop learner’s communicative competence and communicative ability. In this approach students are given task to accomplish by guiding the language instead of studying the language.

Communicative competence includes the following aspects of language knowledge (C.Richards, 2006):

ô  Knowing how to use language for a range of different purposes and functions

ô  Knowing how to vary our use of language according to the setting and the participants (e.g., knowing when to use formal and informal speech or when to use language appropriately for written as opposed to spoken communication)

ô  Knowing how to produce and understand different types of texts (e.g., narratives, reports, interviews, conversations)

ô  Knowing how to maintain communication despite having limitations in one’s language knowledge (e.g., through using different kinds of communication strategies)

The principles of CLT

• .       Activities that involve real communication promote learning.
• .       The task principle: Activities in which language is used to carry out meaningful tasks promote learning.
• .       The meaningfulness principle: Language that is meaningful to the learner supports the learning process.

Learners now had to participate in classroom activities that were based on a cooperative rather than individualistic approach to learning. Students had to become comfortable with listening to their peers in group work or pair work tasks, rather than relying on the teacher for a model. They were expected to take on a greater degree of responsibility for their own learning. And teachers now had to assume the role of facilitator and monitor. Rather than being a model for correct speech and writing and one with the primary responsibility of making students produce plenty of error-free sentences, the teacher had to develop a different view of learners’ errors and of her/his own role in facilitating language learning.

There is this interesting article which talks about the communicative language teaching today. In this article, they will explore the assumptions of CLT, its origins and evolution since it was first proposed in the 1970s, and how it has influenced approaches to language teaching today. Since its inception in

the 1970s, CLT has served as a major source of influence on language teaching practice around the world. Many of the issues raised by a communicative teaching methodology are still relevant today, though teachers who are relatively new to the profession may not be familiar with them. This booklet therefore serves to review what we have learned from CLT and what its relevance is today. 

The link is show below: http://www.cambridge.org/other_files/downloads/esl/booklets/Richards-Communicative-Language.pdf

Advantages

•           Students get more practice speaking the language
•            The classes present situations which the student may encounter in real life
•           Increased fluency
•           Students have increased confidence when interacting in the language 

Disadvantages

• Not suitable for large classrooms
•  Students and teachers must be able to understand each other
• The weaker learners who struggle and cannot use the target language and continue to make mistake, they tend to give up. 
• CLT approach only focus on fluency not accuracy
•  CLT approach will be suitable for intermediate and advanced leaners. Whereas for beginners, some controlled practice in needed
•  The work load on teacher increases

Personal view

As a future teacher, this method may work quite well for socially active people who do not like to study grammar and vocabulary or who may find grammar and linguistic concepts too difficult. I think this method may be quite good for teaching pre-adolescent children, because, unlike adults, children actually are still able to learn a new language similarly to the way they learned their first language. Plus, children lack the mental capacity to grasp grammar concepts that we, as adults, are able to use to speak and write correctly in a new language. However, People social anxiety or shyness will never be able to learn the language in a CLT classroom; they may not want to turn up for the class. In some situations, teachers tend to neglect grammar in CLT classroom because they think that CLT is about speaking with peers which is not true. If teachers can focus on teaching a student the grammar and vocabulary of the language, you teach that student how to use the language in every situation imaginable. They can give the student the foundation tools to write poetry in that language, a love letter, a business letter, a dissertation, to improvise a speech, to ask for help in any situation, to participate in spontaneous conversations, to express any thought or feeling he or she may want to express.

References

ô  C.Richards, J. (2006). communicative language teaching today. Cambridge.org. Retrieved 20 December 2014, from http://www.cambridge.org/other_files/downloads/esl/booklets/Richards-Communicative-Language.pdf

Criticisms and personal view point of GTM ( Grammar Translation Method)

Since GT M is known as a method of teaching dead language, there are so many critics and research has done on it. Scholars and teachers view GTM with a different perspective. Each other’s views are different from one another due to their teaching experience and so on.

As we know, GTM method was well known to teach foreign languages. Students are not thought spoken language but focusing too much on grammar rules. according to Thiergen (1903) in (Jaworska, 2009),  students who were taught foreign language or second language using GTM will face difficulties in real life communication especially when they are in overseas to studies. Author named Wilhelm Vietor promoted teaching of spoken language and through pronunciation practice. Therefore, translation, explanations of grammatical rules and the use of L1 has vanished and change to Direct Method (DM).  DM is a way where the child learns his/her first language through observation, speaking, listening, and building associations and limitations (Nueuner & Hunfeld). Students could also get the wrong interpretation of their ability to learn.  Many students fall into this gap in education where they were ignored.

My view on GTM

Grammar translation method is very teacher centered. Learners need to know the grammar rules, grammatical paradigms and verb conjunctions and so on. But GTM does not allow students to create the meaning for English. It just plainly requires students to translate from word to word. This is not training students for nay of the skill. This is just purely translating. There are many flaws in this method. For example, students can wrongly interpret the information. Some students can translate but they are not able to orally communicate or read or write. As Richards and Rodgers (1986) state, it is a method for which there is no theory.  There is no literature that offers a rationale or justification for it that attempts to relate it to issues in linguistics, psychology, or educational theory.

GTM emphasizes the written language at the expense of the spoken. Being able to speak and understand the spoken language has the higher priorities than reading and writing for most learners. Even there are many opportunities to practice speaking; it will be good to include writing as a basic in a regular lesson. Writing train students to be reflective, to experiment, see the result of their attempts and to be critical on what they want to say. Students may also consider of using grammar books, dictionaries. Sometimes teachers can specify the content of writing exercises precisely, and on other occasions we can give a more open-ended instruction such as: “Write some of the sentences that we've been practicing (orally) in this lesson” or “Write a paragraph using some vocabulary that was new for you in this lesson.”

 Language is learned by conscious memorization of grammar rules and vocabulary in GTM. But nowadays memorization isn't highly regarded. Learning is about internalization through exposure, experience and use is preferred and can make learning more meaningful. As a future teacher, we know that people have different learning styles. Some students like memorizing words, phrases, sentences, patterns and rules, and find that they can draw productively on memorized material, at least in situations where they have time to stop and reflect before speaking or writing.

In GTM the teacher explains, translates, conducts practice, and corrects mistakes, and learners interact with the teacher, not with peers. But nowadays it's widely recommended that the teacher should play a less prominent role and guide learners to make their own discoveries, eliciting language and get explanations from them, encouraging them to co-operate, help and correct each other, and generally fostering learner independence. This is where active learning environment occurs. Teachers talk should be minimal and let students do the talking. Teachers can explain but not spoon feeding them.

References

·         Richards, J.C. and Rodgers, T.S. (1986). Approaches and methods in language teaching: A description and analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

·         Jaworska, S. (2009). The German language in British higher education. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Grammar Translation Method ( GTM)

 Historical background

The grammar translation method is an old method which was used to teach dead languages. It was used during the mid-19^th to the mid-20^th century to teach a foreign language. Since there were no justifications for teaching oral skills in the classical language, the Grammar Translation method was the only way to develop the ability to read and translate classical text.   By the mid-19^th century, the method has been adopted for teaching and learning by German scholars and then it slowly spread to US and Europe.

The Grammar Translation method was criticized by those direct method scholar saying that language supposed to be learned by speaking and listening. However, the GTM was used as one of the primary method in US classrooms.

After some time, it became evident that GTM was not producing students capable of speaking foreign language well to communicate or to understand the opposite party’s communications. The U.S. government therefore turned to methods that were grounded in the linguistic and psychological theories of the time, which were later adapted for use in public schools as the Audio-lingual Method. By the 1960s the Audio-lingual Method had replaced the Grammar-Translation Method for teaching foreign languages in most U.S. classrooms. However, grammar-translation techniques continue to be used throughout the world in teaching classical languages and occasionally modern languages, especially less commonly-taught languages.

What is Grammar Translation Method (GTM?)

The major characteristic of the grammar-translation method is, precisely as its name suggests, a focus on learning the rules of grammar and their application in translation passages from one language into the other. Vocabulary in the target language is learned through direct translation from the native language. There will be very little teaching is done in the target language. Instead, readings in the target language are translated directly and then discussed in the native language, often precipitating in-depth comparisons of the two languages themselves. Grammar is taught with extensive explanations in the native language, and only later applied in the production of sentences through translation from one language to the other.

The key feature of GTM: 

• ·        Use of mother tongue
• ·        Vocabulary items are taught in the form of word lists.
• ·        Elaborate explanations of grammar.
• ·        Focus on the morphology and syntax.
• ·        Reading of difficult texts early in the course.
• ·        Practice focuses on exercises translating sentences or texts from mother tongue to the target language and vice verse.

Advantages of GTM (Languages, 2014)

ô The native language is maintained as the main reference. The translations to the second language enable students to understand the differences between both languages quickly, especially in abstract word and complicated sentences.

ô The phraseology of the target language is quickly explained. Translation is the easiest way of explaining meanings or words and phrases from one language into another. Any other method of explaining vocabulary items in the second language is found time consuming. A lot of time is wasted if the meanings of lexical items are explained through definitions and illustrations in the second language. Furthermore, learners acquire some sort of accuracy in understanding synonyms in the source language and the target language.

ô ESL learners will understand how their mother tongues function, in order to have the capacity to communicate their thought since GTM focuses on phraseology of the targeted language.

ô Save teacher’s work load. Since the textbooks are taught through the medium of the mother tongue, the teacher may ask comprehension questions on the text taught in the mother tongue. Students will not have much difficulty in responding to questions in the mother tongue. So, the teacher can easily assess whether the students have learned what he/she has taught them. Communication between the teacher and the learner does not cause linguistic problems. Even teachers who are not fluent in English can teach English through this method. That is perhaps the reason why this method has been practiced so widely and has survived so long.

Disadvantages (Sayeh S, 2013)

ô  No scope for effective communication and very tedious for learners. Direct translation is an inefficient way of teaching other important skills in a language. For example, translating a sentence word for word from German to English might not have the same meaning because there is so little attention is paid to other skills. With GTM, students would not be able to hold a proper and fluent conversation in English or other language because teacher speaks more in students’ native language rather than English.

ô It is an unreliable and ineffective method. The natural order of learning a language is listening, speaking, reading and writing. That is the way a child learns his mother tongue in natural surroundings. GTM is a teaching method of second language starts with teaching of reading and pay very little attention to context of texts which are treated as exercise in grammatical analysis. The learning process in reversed.  

ô  Slow learning rate and making learners to think L1. It does not give a pattern of practice. A person learn a language by internalizing the patterns to the extend they form its habit. But GTM does not provide such practice. It only teaches rules of the language and not utilizing it. Research shows that just by relying on the rule of the language, a person can’t speak that language. Language learning is a process of acquiring certain skills by practicing and not memorizing the rule. 

References

Ø Languages, T. (2014). The Comparison of Various Methods of Teaching Languages. Academia.edu. Retrieved 18 December 2014, from http://www.academia.edu/7344790/The_Comparison_of_Various_Methods_of_Teaching_Languages

Ø Richards, Jack C. and Theodore S. Rodgers (1986). Approaches and methods in language teaching: A description and analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Ø Sayeh S, A. (2013). A Contrastive Study of the Grammar Translation and the Direct Methods of Teaching (1st ed.). Hong Kong: 3rd International Conference on Business, Economics, Management and Behavioral Sciences. Retrieved from http://psrcentre.org/images/extraimages/ICECEBE%20113900.pdf

Multiple Intelligences

Everyone is familiar with three main leaning styles which are visual learners, auditory learners and kinesthetic learners. Beyond these three theories , there are many approaches for human teaching and learning. one of them is Howard Gardner's multiple intelligence.These intelligence  relate to a person’s unique aptitude set of capabilities and ways they might prefer to demonstrate intellectual abilities.

Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence

1. Verbal-linguistic intelligence (well-developed verbal skills and
sensitivity to the sounds, meanings and rhythms of words)
2. Logical-mathematical intelligence (ability to think conceptually and
abstractly, and capacity to discern logical and numerical patterns)
3. Spatial-visual intelligence (capacity to think in images and pictures, to
visualize accurately and abstractly)
4. Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (ability to control one’s body movements
and to handle objects skillfully)
5. Musical intelligences (ability to produce and appreciate rhythm, pitch
and timber)
6. Interpersonal intelligence (capacity to detect and respond appropriately
to the moods, motivations and desires of others)
7. Intrapersonal (capacity to be self-aware and in tune with inner feelings,
values, beliefs and thinking processes)

(Source: Thirteen ed online, 2004)

There are some ways to apply multiple intelligence theory in teaching and learning. This is the link on instructional techniques and activities using 7 types of multiple intelligence in classroom teaching and learning. http://www.saisd.net/admin/curric/sstudies/handson/multintell.pdf

Even though there are many techniques to implement multiple intelligence theory in real life classroom. There is always advantages and disadvantages in techniques we teachers use in classroom.

ADVANTAGES:

1.  The different intelligence help point out which ares students need help in.
2. When a teacher ' teach for understanding' , the students will be able to create useful educational experiences and be able to solve problems in life
3. It helps students to build up confidence as it demonstrates how they can use their strengths to address their weaknesses. 
4. It motivates students to find where their interest and strength lies and push their abilities further.

CRITICISM :  Multiple intelligence approach is naturally attractive but the crucial criticism is that no valid measurement tool is available and it is difficult to prove. Therefore, it is accused of being ambiguous and subjective, instead of objective. Moreover, the assessments/ materials are complex and expensive to design. Some also argue that Gardner's intelligence are better understood as cognitive styles, or ways of thinking, rather than distinct types of intelligence.

conclusion

 students begin to understand their strengths and weaknesses. According to Gardner, learning is both social and psychological process. when students are able to understand the balance of their multiple intelligence, they will be able to manage their own learning. However, MI does not provide teachers with new IQ labels for their students. 

reference

Thirteen ed online (2004). Tapping into multiple intelligences. http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/index.html

Ukessays.com,. (2014). Benefits of Multiple Intelligence in English Language Teaching. Retrieved 18 November 2014, from http://www.ukessays.com/essays/education/benefits-of-multiple-intelligence-in-english-language-teaching-education-essay.php#ixzz3JQlgMyT4