Question to language teachers Ekaterina Krylova· 3 days ago Hello!
I have encountered an interesting moment in lecture 4, week 2.
There's a trilogy the Enactive, the Iconic, the Symbolic. "Through doing things we begin to learn". So there's an example for Maths: playing with a beam balance as the Doing for beginning to learn. My question is, what doing activities can be applied to teaching languages? How can we start teaching English for example, not getting to symbols right away? What do you think?
Irina Shastova Signature Track · 3 days ago For example. I want my children to know some names of fruit. I can bring some fake or even real ones to the class. Children would be interested and ask me to teach English names of the fruit. As the next step, I would give them cards with the pictures of the same fruit. Children can work in pairs and check how well they remember. Only then I would show how to write the words.
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Ekaterina Krylova· 3 days ago your comment made me remember a set of new words i had, like "whisper", "whistle", "smell" and such abstract things are hard to be learnt, do you have any specific methods to teach that?
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+ Comment Daneen Webster-Gackou· 3 days ago There are many activities available for teaching language that are so intuitive we often overlook they are lessons at all. For example conversation that afford students the opportunity to express an abstract idea, describe the quality of a tangible object with native or foreign language, or even simply narrate an event experienced. Technology native students typically enjoy incorporating these activities using virtual visuals, etc.
0 · flag Charmaine Vida Tayal· 3 days ago I am a English Communication teacher taking seniors 6th-10th grade and there are numerous ways to teach the English language in class. The main aim is to focus on building their vocabulary,establishing grammatically correct sentences,proper pronunciation, clarity of thought with proper sequencing of sentences etc
If your students are in higher grades these points will be beneficial to you in your teaching.
Get their attention by choosing an inspiring ,interesting topic ,write words associated with your topic as flash cards and guide them in guessing the topic chosen by you or use the setting as a discussion to approach your main topic eg: I was doing a topic about designing a Car for the future with my 9 & 10 grade class. I started by asking my students how many of them were interested in bikes? what kind of bikes? why did they like the bikes they told me about? Then I moved to the concept of cars and asked them if they were given the opportunity to design their own cars what would it be like? I gave them an option of drawing those features or penning their thoughts down. After we discussed then I presented them with a comprehension piece in the format of a newspaper article and asked them questions based on that. Using flash cards we did a word meaning activity,where difficult words were taken from the newspaper article. The concept and the connector of bikes enabled them to discuss,express their views with clarity and gave them a base for introducing my main topic.
If the students are from a younger grade Topics such as Pirates where using an eye patch can done by the teacher to generate interest without telling them the topic.New Vocabulary words , grammar can be given a different twist to inspire interest and intrigue creating the spice for your creative lessons.
Charmaine Vida Tayal, India
Ekaterina Krylova· 3 days ago i like that you use the entry questions before the main topic to make an interest and introducing. i never thought it's important. i understand that i have a lack of creativity in a way. Thank you for sharing the ideas!
Charmaine Vida Tayal· 2 days ago Hi Ekaterina, You had inquired on how would you teach abstract words like Whisper,Whistle,Smell. The best approach would be word association. eg if you can get some items like flowers,talcum powder,soap to show your class passing these around and asking the children what do they think? They will reply that these items have a smell (fragrance) attached with it. This is where you as a teacher tell them the difference between Smell & Fragrance. By associating words children remember better. Also you can use voice modulation to tell them the difference between loud ,soft and whispering. Clapping can be another example of where sound can be associated with words to show a difference in loud,soft and for whisper a very soft clap can be done. As I have tried these methods with junior grades as a part of drama techniques I found them very effective.
Charmaine Vida Tayal, India
0 · flag Ekaterina Krylova· 2 days ago Thank you for the examples! i like the association thing, i suppose it is a wise method of memorising the hard words
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