Effective Technique for English

Experts agree that reading is the golden key to the world of enlightenment and enjoyment. In our daily lives, 80 percent of the things we do involves reading. We read recipes in cookbooks, instructions on how to do things, labels of canned food and other products, menus in restaurants, street signs and advertisements, and many other printed forms in notices and announcements. To know more about places or things, we read periodicals and nonfiction books. For our relaxation, we read fiction, comic books, and light, humorous stories. When we study, we do a lot of reading. J. Donald Bowen (1985) suggests that instruction in pronunciation can be improved if it is presented in meaningful contrasts and in situations that are both relevant and interesting to the students, that is, contextualizing pronunciation practice in the language classroom. In teaching pronunciation the teacher should sets a model which the student attempts to reproduce and explain how to produce troublesome sounds, how to manipulate ones speech organs, and the characteristics sounds should have when produced. The combination of modeling, explanation, comparison, mimicry, and practice are the techniques for teaching pronunciation. The following are some strategies that can be used to make pronunciation lessons meaningful, interesting, and relevant using jazz chants, poems, songs, and games. Jazz chants were developed to give students the maximum opportunity to practice the sounds of English within a meaningful context. Each jazz chant should have a clear, steady beat and rhythm to make the students aware of the natural rhythmic patterns present in English. According to Carolyn Graham (1978), jazz chants develop listening comprehension skills. They also provide students with specific structures or patterns and vocabulary that they can use outside the classroom.

The use of poetry to practice pronunciation is effective for primary, intermediate, and advanced levels. Anna Maria Malko (1986) states that poems provide general or remedial pronunciation practice material. The teacher may focus occasionally on a particular phonological feature in order to help the students overcome persistent problems. The use of songs according to Julia Dobson (1989) practice pronunciation is meaningful, exciting, and interesting. Read each line in the song with the class following in choral repetition and correct any problems in pronunciation that occur. Have the students listen to the melody two or three times before they sing and correct errors in pronunciation or phrasing that may have been made while singing. Once the song is learned, make it a departure point for conversation. Ask questions with vocabulary items from the song. Pronunciation games can add variety to classroom activities. They can be used as icebreakers or as a presentation, or to reinforce pronunciation items in a language lesson. Some experts claim that students cannot communicate effectively in the language classroom because students cannot understand spoken English because they never had the opportunity to hear it. Some students are suffering from what Earl Stevick calls lath phobic aphasia, which means unwillingness to speak for fear of making a mistake. This situation occurs when grammatical correctness of what students wants to convey. This also happens when teachers look upon mistakes in the speech of their students as a sign of failure, either on their part or on their students. Most of us read because it gives us the pleasure of knowing, feeling, acting, and learning, or of escaping from our own limited worlds. We are able to go beyond ourselves, to be other people, to be in other places, and to do other things. Through the projection of ourselves and our relationships with other fellows, something about the general truth of being a human being. It is

this knowledge that is the most important reward books have to offer; through it come compassion, sensitivity, insight, taste, and judgment. Truly, through reading, we can ponder the mysteries of the world, explore accumulated knowledge, and contemplate the unknown. From this search, we begin to uncover some answers to questions and are simulated to raise more questions and to continue our pursuit of deeper understanding. Thus, reading is a valuable ingredient for blending our inner psychological world with the outer social world and for emerging into a new universe of thought, imagination, and reality. Of all human functions, skills based reading instruction is one of the most complexes. Because of its intricate nature, it is most difficult to explain as a process although it is easy to observe. Research findings of Rumelhart (1976) and Singer (1983) revealed that comprehension is the result of interaction between reader resources ad text data. Comprehension has been called the teachers bugbear. Many students achieve accuracy in recognition and pronunciation, but very few succeed in comprehension. To comprehend means to understand the meanings not only of single words and sentences but also of the interrelationships among sentences in a discourse. It implies the ability to summarize, outline, and organize concepts. It also involves a full grasp of the authors style and purpose and the features of the local setting against which a story unfolds. Several reading skills are needed in order to comprehend and react to a selection. Such skills as getting the main ideas, effect, and relationships; determining sequence; predicting outcomes; making judgment; drawing conclusions; and following directions are needed in order to fully grasp the message. There are four reading comprehension levels: 1.) literal level, or understanding who, what, where, and when; 2.) interpretative or inferential level; 3.) critical evaluation; and 4.) integration.

A very appropriate test of good comprehension is the students ability to organize and integrate concepts and information gleaned from the selection. The latest innovative technique makes use of semantic webbing. Freedman and Reynolds (1980) define semantic webbing or mapping as a process of organizing and integrating information that underlies many theories of conceptual thinking. As a technique it is an effective way for teachers to organize and integrate materials and concepts for teaching through the construction of visual displays of categories and their relationships. Reading specialists believe that a reader can comprehend selections if he/she can pick out or infer the main idea, note supporting details or proof statements, arrange incidents in proper sequence, see cause-and-effect relationships, do some characterization, predict outcomes of given events, or draw conclusions. In some classrooms, teachers are trying out several techniques to see which would facilitate comprehension-language experience approach, dimensional approach, programmed instruction, diagnostic-prescriptive method, semantic webbing or mapping, story grammar, and the like. Story grammar seems to offer the possibility of integrating some basic communication skills that enhance comprehension. A careful scrutiny, however, reveals that it is not an entirely new technique. Hayes (1979) showed that analogies embedded in the text help students extend their knowledge structure which they can use to comprehend new information. Thus, from the interaction concept of reading comprehension, the teacher must teach students the necessary knowledge structures, scripts, and cognitive framework for comprehending texts in the content areas of science, literature, mathematics, social studies, arts, and music; consider that different cultural backgrounds will result in various kinds of interpretation; and teach students to activate prior

knowledge and integrate it with new information. To apply the interaction theory, we have to take reader a variation into account when we assess comprehension. Among the latest innovations in teaching reading, educators contend that one of the best involves the use of whole language readers to improve reading and literacy instruction. The right education is one of a persons fundamental rights and that life-long learning is a sine qua non for survival, educators today are deeply engrossed in the search for the magic formula that will substantially minimize illiteracy. A research review of thousands of conference papers, journal articles, and abstracts reveals that two trends in reading education can be summarized by the terms literacy and collaborative learning. The current buzz words are whole language approach, literature based, integrated language arts, and collaborative learning. Feedback from researches in Western countries, especially in the United States, Canada, and England, give glowing accounts of their successful implementation of the whole language approach which is literature based. However, researches in countries where bilingual education is a phenomenon and where English is a second language show that a more effective strategy combines some features of a whole language program with a basal reading program. This eclectic approach used basal readers containing stories that have some literary value. The teacher links the story to related literature and, following the whole-to-part or top-down rule of thumb, he/she starts with whole reading and ends with selected vocabulary and development of comprehension, grammar, writing, study, and literary appreciation skills. Language learning becomes a more successful and joyous activity because of the gradual development of all skills.

The eclectic approach provides for a lot of interaction and makes use of the students prior knowledge and background experience. It combines both the top-down and bottom-up strategies. Top-down means starting with the text-a story, poem, play let, or essay. The analysis of the plot and structure, the grammar points, the sounds, and the spelling patterns come in naturally. After reading the selection, the students may retell the story and write about it, thus practicing their speaking and writing skills. They discuss and share their work while listening to other students ideas and feelings. Bottom-up implies beginning with the smallest units from sounds or letters or both to syllables, words, phrases, clauses, and paragraph levels. The attributes of the modified whole language reading program are the pre reading and motivational activities, reading strategies, vocabulary list and activities or energizers to develop vocabulary, comprehension questions to stimulate critical thinking, graphic organizers, skill books with meaningful oral and written activities, art activities, and other activities that foster cooperative learning to enhance and deepen the enjoyment of the students. Truly, through reading, we can ponder the mysteries of the world, explore accumulated knowledge, and contemplate the unknown. From this search, we begin to uncover some answers to questions and are stimulated to raise more questions and to continue our pursuit of deeper understanding. Thus, reading is a valuable ingredient for blending our inner psychological world with the outer social world and for emerging into a new universe of thought, imagination, and reality. According to Frank Smith (1978), Skill in reading actually depends on using the eyes as little as possible as we become fluent readers we learn to rely more on what we already know, on what is behind the eyeballs, and less on the page in front of us.

References: Bowen, D. (1980). A TEFL anthology. Washington, D.C.: English Teaching Division, International Communication Agency. Dobson, J (1989). Effective techniques for English conversation groups. Washington, D.C.: English Language Programs Division, United States Information Agency. Malko, AM. (1986). On wings of verse. Washington. D.C.: English Language Programs Division, United States Information Agency. Rumelhart, D. (1976). Towards an interactive model of reading. Technical Report No. 56. California: Center for Human Processing, University of California. Smith, F. (1982). Understanding reading. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.