SHORT NOTES: GUIDELINES FOR LANGUAGE CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION

Main areas of classroom instruction

Presentational modes and focus on form

Corrective feedback

Types of activities and parameters of task and interaction Classroom organisation

Teacher control of interaction

Teacher has a great number of decision to make at every moment of classroom instruction o Guidance from:  Research findings (theories)  Professional judgement  Experiences and intuition  Awareness of cultural context  Personal values When a second language is taught, a number of major steps must be taken: o Elements of the language or its use or skills must be brought into classroom (presented/highlighted) o Selected elements must be learned through activities arranged by the teacher o Teacher must provide knowledge of results (correction/feedback) to the students

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LANGUAGE PRESENTATION Elements of language selected depend on the objective of the lesson Two types of choices to be made: o Those concerning physical characteristics of presentation (Modalities) o Those concerning the deductive and inductive procedures that learners will be engaging in (Rule presentation and explanation) 1.1 o MODALITIES Teacher must be aware that they are not in the classroom to fill up the time with the sound of their own voices but to arrange matters so that their students do the talking (or writing/listening) Teaching aids is the modalities to be considered:  Nontechnical aids y Chalkboard y Realia y Flashcards y Magazine pictures y Charts  Technical aids y Overhead projector y Audio/Video recording y CD-ROM y Internet Every aspect such as range of classroom, cultural context and time required to set up any material used for aiding the language lesson must be taken into account. A good textbook can be used by new untrained teacher while for experienced teacher, they may use the text as an aid, adopting some parts, adapting others or can even dispense with it completely. General points in the presentation stage of a lesson  The instructor: free from constraints despite the various procedures suggested by the teachers notes typically accompanying the text.  Teacher has the right and responsibility to utilise the material whatever seems appropriate, hopefully making use of the findings that research suggest.  It is relevant to consider what little is known about the learners development of control over the pragmatic aspects of the second language. It is clear that sole reliance on a textbook within the classroom is becoming less common in richer countries or more well-resourced schools. Technology must be used to make sure the teaching of language never left behind in todays modern sophisticated life.

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RULE PRESENTATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS Explicit grammar instruction was not consistently superior in the long run to other practices. The various communicatively oriented language teaching methods and prescriptions developed after that de-emphasized the use of explicit grammar rule presentation and even questioned the used of grammatically based materials. It is reasonable for the teacher to be aware of options in how to make a rule explicit or not; whether or not to isolate a rule; whether an explanation should involve a deductive or inductive presentation; who should give the explanation; whether the language is abstract or not; and whether the explanation is provided orally or in writing. Teacher must ensure the clarity and sufficiency of their explanations by checking student comprehension. A typical sequence in teacher rule presentation, Faerch (1986)  A Problem-formulation  An Induction with the teacher eliciting student opinions  The teachers Rule-formulation  Exemplification by the teacher and students (optional) *Alert teacher will adapt this typical pattern to their circumstances

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TASKS 2.1 THE ACTIVITY o Information and Motivation Phase  Warm-up y Examples: Mime, dance, song, jokes, play y Purpose: To get students stimulated, relaxed, motivated, attentive or otherwise engaged and ready for the classroom lesson y Not necessarily related to the target language  Setting y Focus is on lesson topic; either verbal or nonverbal evocation of the context that is relevant to the lesson point y Teacher directs attention to the upcoming topic  Brainstorming y Free, undirected contributions by the students and teacher on a given topic to generate multiple associations without linking them y No explicit analysis or interpretation is given by the teacher  Story telling y Oral presentation by the teacher of a story or an event as lengthy practice y Implies the use of extended discourse y Usually aims at maintaining attention or motivation and is often entertaining  A propos y Conversation and other socially oriented interaction/speech by teacher/students/visitor on general real-life topics; typically authentic and genuine

Input/Control Phase  Organisational y Managerial structuring of lesson or class activities y Includes reprimanding of students and other disciplinary action, organisation of class furniture and seating, general procedures for class interaction and performance, structure and purpose of lesson.  Content explanation y Explanation of lesson content and grammar or other rules and points  Role play demonstration y Use of selected students or teacher to illustrate the procedure(s) to be applied in the following lesson segment  Recognition y Students identify a specific target form, function, definition, rule or other lesson-related item, either from oral or visual data but without producing language as a response  Language modelling y Presentation of new language by the teacher through isolated sentences with the help of visuals, drawings on blackboard, realia etc  Dialogue/Narrative presentation y Reading or listening passage in the form of dialogue, narration, song etc y Usually implies students listening to a tape or the teaching read aloud while students follow with or without the text  Question-answer display y Controlled activity prompting of student responses by means of display question  Review y Teacher-led review of previous week/month or other period y A formal summary and assessment of students recall and performance Focus/Working Phase  Translation y Student/teacher provides L1/L2 translations of given text  Dictation y Students write down orally presented text  Copying y Students write down visually presented text  Reading Aloud y `Student(s) read aloud from a given text  Drill y Involving fixed patterns of students and teacher responding and prompting y Usually with repetition, substitution and other mechanical alterations  Dialogue/Narrative recitation y Students recite a passage or dialogue either in unison/individually

 

Cued narrative/ dialogue y Students build up a dialogue or a piece of narrative following cues from stimuli related to narrative/dialogue Meaningful drill y Language activity involving exchange of a limited number of fixed patterns of interaction Preparation y Students plan the subsequent activity by means of rehearsing, making notes or simply thinking Identification y Students pick out and produce label y Identify a specific target Game y Organised language activity that has particular task/objective and a set of rules Referential question-answer y Involves prompting of responses by means of referential questions Checking y Teacher guides the correction of student previous activity/homework, providing feedback Wrap-up y Brief teacher or student-produced summary of points or items that have been practiced or learned

Transfer/Application Phase  Information transfer y Students extract information from a text  Information exchange y Involves one-way/two-way communication such as information gap exercise, in which one or both parties must obtain information from other to achieve a goal  Role play y Students act out specified roles and functions in a relatively free way  Report y Prepared oral exposition of students p0revious work and elaborated on according to students own interpretation y It can also be students report on information obtain from previous activity  Narration y Students lengthy exposition of something which they have seen, read or experienced y Narrated in their own words without previous preparation  Discussion y Debate or other form of group discussion of specified topic  Composition y Written development of ideas

 

Problem solving y Students work on an activity in which a problem and some limitations on means are established y Requires cooperative action on the part of participants Drama y Planned dramatic rendition of play, skit etc Simulation y Involves complex interaction between groups and individuals based on simulation of real-life actions and experienced

Borderline Activity  Testing y Formal testing procedures to evaluate students progress y It could be included in any phase, depending in the content to be tested

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FACILITATION Instructor/facilitator has a major role on arranging matters so the materials presented gets used and thereby learned. CLASS ORGANISATION o Participants  Teacher.  Teacher aide/trainee.  Individual student/groupings of students.  The class as a whole.  The language presentation materials used.  Any visitor/outsider. *Combination of all these participants influences structures in class organisation and effects on language learning processes. o Teachers role  In a teacher-dominated classroom (teacher-fronted) y Teacher speaking most of the time. y Leading activities. y Judge on student performance.  In a student-centred classroom y Observe students work (individually/in pairs/in groups). Benefits of learner-centred instruction  Increasing student opportunities to perform using target language (receptively/productively).  Increasing personal sense of relevance and achievement.  Relieving the teacher of the need to constantly supervise all students.  Students often will pay more attention and learn better from one another (among students with different levels of ability).

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Realising the teacher to be prepared with fewer teacher-dominated activities and tasks.

Pair and group work  The most appropriate and effective classroom organisation generally.  Learners speak more frequently and with longer speech.  Learners produce more interactional modifications directed at one another.  Learners utilise a wider range of language.  Difference in performance between groups should be taken into account; different groups in a classroom can be linked through different tasks, roles and shared responsibilities to generate whole-class tasks and objectives.

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ASPECTS OF THE TEACHER-FRONTED CLASS o Question types  SL teachers ask more display questions (those to which the questioner already knows the answer).  SL teachers tend to test using display questions whether the learners already understood the information.  This is different to the casual conversation between native speakers with adult non-native speakers where they use referential questions (those to which the questioner does not already know the answer).  Display questions y Generally only focus on accuracy rather than meaning. y There is no negotiation of meaning and students would gain less new information. y Less complex language is likely to be produced by students.  Referential questions y Closed referential questions (to which the speaker does not know the answer with only one or a very limited set of possible answers). y Open referential questions (to which the speaker does not know the answer with a large variety of possible answers). Wait-time  This refers to the length of the pause which follows a teachers question to an individual student or to the whole class.  This situation lasts until either a student answers or the teacher adds a comment or poses another question.  Also apply to the period between one students answer to a question and the response of the teacher or another student.