Learning by doing: an application

In the context of teaching English communicatively, it is supposed that the all-necessary linguistic support comes from the course books. The pupils interact with them, internalize the items of language so that they can use language for the purposes of everyday communication. The teacher is only a facilitator. Despite these good intentions, the realities of the classroom are often different. The paper discusses that teachers will have to employ a variety of techniques to enable students become functionally OK in English in any EFL situation.

 Word Level Activities

It’s commonly observed that an initial introduction of words in Arabic helps create the platform to launch pupils into working in English, but at the same time, steps should be taken to minimise the use of mother tongue to word level so that the possibility of using English actively for communication won’t be affected. Consider the following ideas:

Words may be introduced in three stages:

·        First of all, teachers make a list of active words in a Unit. Active words are those that are important not only from the point of view of comprehending the concepts of the Unit but also for their frequency of use in everyday communication.

·        And pupils refer to Glossary or the dictionary, find out and write their meanings in Arabic.

R Instead, if teachers start giving meanings in Arabic, first of all, it won’t give pupils any practice in Referencing Skill and secondly, pupils expect teachers to use Arabic for everything and there is no limit to it.

·        Then, teachers give (perhaps in the form of a Hand-out) the meanings in simple English & extend the meaning wherever necessary and possible by giving their synonyms.

R It helps pupils think and understand concepts in English

R Synonyms & other shades of meaning would extend pupils’ concepts from concrete to abstract or simple to complex.

R It also gives teachers their classroom English.

 Activities at Sentence Level

In the absence of selection and gradation of language items in OWTE materials, it’d be helpful if teachers could connect homogenous items in the Unit or elsewhere in way of referring while teaching especially grammar and production tasks such as Writing. How? Please study the table below: at column 1, we have tried to get the overall picture of the Unit; at Column 2 we have added PB also into our outlook, and at Column 3, we have tried to develop a global view of the whole OWTE material by looking even at the course books of the previous levels.

Step1	Step2	Step3
Textual work (ABs)	Self Access work (PBs)	Related references  (ABs or PBs of other levels)
This is to plan the order of presentation of the Unit because it gives the overall idea of the items to be taught in a Unit.   Here planning can be done where Tasks from Activity 4 (Grammar) can best fit in, for example.	The related tasks in PBs (They can be done in the class or can be given as Home work, but the point is, teachers have to follow up even PB-tasks)	Unit 1, Act 1, Task 1&2 of 2S(A) deals with Frequency Words such as often, sometimes etc, and the language item there is ‘How often do you watch TV?’ Now please refer to Abs of 1S (A&B), we‘ll understand that it is not the first time that the pupils are coming across this item. It was already introduced in 1S.

By doing this,

R Teacher can get ideas and examples from the Units of other levels

R  Pupils can revise them for reinforcement

R This repetition results not only in long term memory, but also gives pupils better understanding of the item in question, and

R Teachers can use & reuse VSCs thoughtfully wherever necessary

 

Practising the words & Language Items

(A) Writing assignments:

·        Pupils gather as much information as possible - pictures or printed (preferably on AB topics) or refer to all available sources (including people) to write on the topics chosen. This is

R to enable them practise the skill of Information gathering and use the words and sentence structures they have learned

R to encourage them to write something related to life known to them there by bringing in their own experiences

·        Once enough information is collected, teachers help pupils edit the information in way of Note Making (teachers only build on what pupils say, to provide linguistic support where necessary)

·        and pupils use the notes to write short reports.

 

(B) Spoken English:

Presentation: Teacher lists out the spoken phrases of a Unit and tries to give synonymous phrases if any.

Practice: What pupils do here is four-fold.

1.      On practicing the language items in Activity 5, pupils write the meaning in Arabic, when the meaning is clear to them.

2.      Teachers give new contexts and pupils study these dialogues for the reinforcement of meaning.

3.      Then, get together in pairs and practise these dialogues.

Production:  

3.              Finally, prepare a dialogue on their own for each of those phrases to role-play in front of the class.

R Teachers can create new contexts preferably making use of the items and words taught already.

Conclusion

The whole point at issue is that one need not invent things and ways, but when teachers rediscover things for themselves by practice, they become aware of their teaching. In other words, routine teaching is replaced by critical thinking. Also many such things as these are easily done if one or two teachers collaborate. Better still, a teachers’ forum could help fight the kind of problems that teachers have been grappling with – methodological or otherwise - by sharing their strategies and techniques.  You may not find the kind of peer you are looking for in the immediate environment where you are, but it is possible on the World Wide Web. You are welcome on board   Visit our site if you can and join us to help our pupils and ourselves.