Teaching english to pre-school children and children in a primary school

Disadvantages of acquisition. The result of acquisition is not evident. To understand doesn't mean to produce the target language yourself. Impossible to control. The limited time of school syllabus. Students must be involved into the target language community: to hear the language and to produce themselves more frequently.

Conscious learning does speed the process of learning. Clearly explained language work and drill exercises give students opportunity to create a new piece of language and learn it successfully. The conscious approach and the use of communicative tasks can satisfactorily co-exist.

4) of Activity.

The direct method requires activity both on the part of the teacher and of the learners. This principle is realized in some specific methods for FLT:

a) The learners should be taught from the beginning sentences and living speech, not sounds and separate words.

b) The learners should be taught from the beginning to think in the target language but not in the mother tongue.(foreign language is active, mother tongue is passive)

c) To cultivate in learners the power of guessing and constantly control it. (not to use the grammar-translation method for introducing a new material )In so doing learners are active acquirers but not passive recipients.

d) In the early stages the teaching should be based on speech. New material is introduced and activated orally. Reading and writing must be taught on the material previously assimilated orally.

e) The learners should be double active: linguistically and dramatically. They must speak and act what they speak, perform serious of actions and pronounce simultaneously.

f) Practice must precede theory. Applied practice intensify the activity and acquisition of the language.

g) Use of chorus work. Imitation of the teacher's intonation and pronunciation ensure learners productive work (all of them should try the new piece of language aloud).

h) The use of Pair-, Group-work. More than one student is actively engaged in productive oral work at a time. This work encourages learners' cooperation and increases their participation in language use.

General methods of activity:

Not correct a student's mistake that the student can correct him/herself, but call upon him by interrogative intonation or surprised mimic.

Not correct a student's mistake that he/she can't correct him/herself but that the other students can correct and call upon them to do so.

During the individual interrogation ensure the active participation of all the class in the work.

Keep the whole class on the alert by addressing the question not to individual student but to the whole class, by interrogating in any order that they can't foresee, by accustoming students to listen to their classmates' answers and correct their mistakes.

Comment on the students' marks and reason them.

Encourage students to address questions to him/ herself .

Prepare them for individual work at the subject out of the class and in later life.

Activity is related to students' interest and their motivation factor. Teacher should use different active forms varying them to avoid monotony.

Common criteria of Activity:

The relative duration of the part of the lesson taken up by speech in FL by students

The relation between speech of the learners and of the teacher.(the less the teacher speaks the better the teacher)

The readiness and the quality of the learners' answers to the teacher's questions.

The use of the power of guessing by learners.

The number and the content of the questions asked by the learners.

Correction by the learners of their own and of their classmates' mistakes.

5) of Visuality.

Visuality is defined as specially organized demonstration of linguistic material. The purpose of this principle is to help learners in understanding, assimilating the new material. It allows teachers to create natural conditions for oral practice and in free conversation.

Classification of visual material:

Objective and subjective

Syntactical and analytical

Artificial and cinematographical

The use of visual material makes FL lesson emotionally colored gets the learners interested and awakes their thoughts. It creates natural conditions in the classroom.

6) of Consecutiveness.

In FLT the sequence must be observed from the known material to the unknown one, from the simpler to more complex, from the proximate to more distant. It should be realized with respect to the native language. Reading and writing in Russian and Kazakh ; Grammar material of these languages must have been taught before the learners are set with the corresponding tasks in the target language(e.g. parts of speech, tenses of the verb). The Past Perfect can only be explained and further trained on the basis of the Present Perfect.

The sequence from more proximate to more distant is observed in the order of topical material, e.g. we study the theme “My Biography” first, then “Biography of Famous People” at the senior stage.

We trace the vertical direction of the same theme throughout the whole course.

7) of Systematicness.

The teaching of every subject must be systematic, carefully planned. The whole course of every school for each year, term and lesson must be conducted according to a general program.

The didactic principle of systematicness demands not only systematic work by the teacher but also the acquisition of systematic knowledge by the learners.

It implies relative completeness, generalization and classification of the knowledge. Knowledge should be first systematically imparted step by step to the learners, then generalized and systematized for them. Systematizing the learners knowledge must help them to form valuable associations for better memorizing.

e.g. We may group and tabulate reading of interrogative pronouns.

[w] [h]

what who

which whose

when whom

why

The use of tables, wall-charts, diagrams facilitates the acquisition learners' knowledge.

8) of Accessibility.

This principle is realized through conformity with the following requirements:

The subject matter of the instruction must:

correspond to the age & mental abilities of the learners: neither too easy nor too difficult, too childish for them;

be rightly dosed: be neither over-abundant nor scarce;

be properly graded; each stage should be prepared by & followed logically from the preceding stages without gaps in the previous instruction;

be so presented that the learners have to meet only with one difficulty at a time; gradation of

difficulties is a condition of accessibility;

of Durability.

This principle determines the assimilation of the instruction. Durable assimilation is ensured by the didactic principles: consciousness, activity, visuality.

Durable or lasting instruction can be ensured systematic revision of the knowledge acquired, drill in proper habits, exercise of skills.

Interest, attention & motivation are positive factors of durable knowledge.

10) of Individualization.

A teacher should take into account the personality of every learner to provide cognitive aims of education. Every learner should acquire & learn language in accordance with his/her psychological & mental abilities.

The teacher should assess the progress of every individual & find the way how to manage the classroom activity not to depress the slowest learners & not to frustrate the fastest ones by being held back.

Individualization is achieved through individual cards, tasks of different levels(for bright, average, poor students), additional materials, pair-, group-work where every learner presents his/her own abilities.

Lecture 8, 9

Teaching aids and teaching materials

Plan:

Teaching aids

Teaching materials

Programmed materials

Visual materials

Audio materials

Audio- visual materials

To master a foreign language pupil must be engaged in activities which are characteristic of the language; they should hear the language spoken, speak, read, and write it. Classroom practices, which are restricted to teacher's presentation of linguistic material (vocabulary, grammar) and the testing of pupils' knowledge cannot provide good learning. The teacher covers “content” but does not instruct pupils. The majority of pupils remains passive, and work only to memorize what the teacher emphasizes. We cannot but agree with the following words: “... most of the changes we have come to think of as `classroom learning' typically may not occur in the presence of a teacher. Perhaps it is during seatwork and homework sessions and other forms of solitary study that the major forms of any learning are laid down.” Nor can the teacher ensure pupils learning a foreign language if he uses only a textbook, a piece of chalk, and a blackboard.

To achieve effective classroom learning under the conditions of compulsory secondary education, the teacher must use all the accessories he has at his disposal in order to arouse the interest of his pupils and retain it throughout the lesson which is possible only if the pupils are actively involved in the very process of classroom learning.

To teach a foreign language effectively the teacher needs teaching aids and teaching materials. During the last few years important developments have taken place in this field. As a result there is a great variety of teaching aids and teaching materials at the teacher's disposal.

TEACHING AIDS

By teaching aids we mean various devices which can help the foreign language teacher in presenting linguistic material to his pupils and fixing it in their memory; in testing pupils' knowledge of words, phrases, and grammar items, their habits and skills in using them.

Teaching aids which are at teachers' disposal in contemporary schools may be grouped into (1) non-mechanical aids and (2) mechanical aids.

Non-mechanical aids are:

a blackboard, the oldest aid in the classroom; the teacher turns to the blackboard whenever he needs to write something while explaining some new linguistic material to his pupils, correcting pupils' mistakes, or arranging the class to work at some words and sentence patterns, etc:; the blackboard can also be used for quick drawing to supply pupils with “objects” to speak about;

a flannelboard (a board covered with flannel or other soft fabric for sticking pictures on its surface), it is used for creating vivid situations which would stimulate pupils' oral language; the teacher can have a flannelboard made in a workshop or buy one in a specialized shop; the use of a flannelboard with cut-outs prepared by the teacher or pupils leads to active participation in the use of the target language,- as each pupil makes his contribution to working out “a scene” on the flannelboard;

a magnet board (a board which has the properties of a magnet, i.e., can attract special cards with letters, words, phrases or pictures on it) used with the same purpose as a flannelboard;

a lantern which is used for throwing pictures onto a screen.

Mechanical aids are:

tape recorder (ordinary and twin-track); the same tape may be played back as many times as is necessary, the twin-track tape recorder allows the pupil to play back the tape listening to the speaker's voice and recording his own on the second track, the lower one, without erasing the first track with the voice of the speaker, the tape recorder is considered to be the most important aid in teaching and learning a foreign language;

a gramophone or record player is also an audio equipment available in every school; the record player is an indispensable supplement to contemporary textbooks and other teaching materials as they are designed to be used with the long-playing records which accompany them;

an opaque projector or epidiascope used for projection of illustrations and photographs;

a filmstrip projector which can be used in a partially darkened room (the Soviet filmstrip projector ЛЭТИ does not require a darkened room);

an overhead projector used for projection of a table, a scheme, a chart, a plan, a map or a text for everyone to see on a screen;

television and radio equipment: television would make it possible to demonstrate the language in increasingly varied everyday situations; pupils are invited to look, listen, and speak; television and radio programmes are broadcast, but it is not always easy for teachers using these programmes to synchronize their lesson time with the time of the television or radio transmissions;

teaching machines which can be utilized for presenting information to the pupils, for drilling, or testing; the teaching machine can provide an interaction between the pupil and the “programme”; the learner obtains a stimulus and a feed-back from his response; thus, favourable conditions are created for individual pupils to learn, for instance, vocabulary, grammar, reading, etc.;

a language laboratory, this is a special classroom designed for language learning. It is equipped with individual private or semi-private stalls or booths. They are connected with a network of audio wiring, the nerve centre of which is the monitoring console which has a switch board and tapedecks, making it possible to play tapes and send the programme to all or any combination of booths. The teacher at the monitoring console can listen in, or can have a two-way conversation with any pupil.

There are two main types of language laboratories - library and broadcast systems. The library system is suitable for students capable of independent study; each student selects his own material and uses it as he wishes. The broadcast system is suitable for classwork when the same material is presented at the same time to a whole group of students, and a class works together under a teacher's direction.

The language laboratory is used for listening and speaking. The pupil's participation may be imitation or response to cues according to a model. The language laboratory is used for “structural drills” which usually involve rephrasing sentences according to a model, or effecting substitutions. The language laboratory is often used for exercises and tests in oral comprehension.

Tape recorders fulfill all the functions required for this use of the language laboratory. Tape programmes can be associated with visual aids for individual work or work in pairs. The language laboratory keeps a full class of pupils working and learning for the entire period, and thus enables the teacher to teach the foreign language more effectively.

In conclusion, it must be said that the use of teaching aids is very demanding on the teacher. He must know about each aid described above, be able to operate it, and train pupils to use it. He should also know what preparations must be made for classroom use of each of these teaching aids, and what teaching materials he has at his disposal.

In teaching foreign languages in our secondary schools most of the teaching aids are available. Each school should be equipped with a filmstrip projector, a film projector, an opaque projector, a tape recorder and a phonograph. Specialized schools, where English is taught nine years, should have language laboratories.

When used in different combinations teaching aids can offer valuable help to the teacher of a foreign language in making the learning of this subject in schools more effective for pupils.

TEACHING MATERIALS

By teaching materials we mean the materials which the teacher can use to help pupils learn a foreign language through visual or audio perception. They must be capable of contributing to the achievement of the practical, cultural, and educational aims of learning a foreign language. Since pupils learn a foreign language for several years, it is necessary for the teacher to have a wide variety of materials which make it possible to progress with an increasing sophistication to match the pupils' continually growing command of the foreign language. Good teaching materials will help greatly to reinforce the pupils' initial desire to learn the language and to sustain their enthusiasm throughout the course.

The following teaching materials are in use nowadays: teacher's books, pupil's books, visual materials, audio materials, and audio-visual materials.

A teacher's book must be comprehensive enough to be a help to the teacher. This book should provide all the recorded material; summaries of the aims and new teaching points of each lesson; a summary of all audio and visual materials required; suggestions for the conduct of the lesson and examples of how the teaching points can be developed.

Pupil's books must include textbooks, manuals, supplementary readers, dictionaries, programmed materials.

Textbooks. The textbook is one of the most important sources for obtaining, knowledge. It contains the material at which pupils work both during class-periods under the teacher's supervision and at home independently. The textbook also determines the ways and the techniques pupils should use in learning the material to be able to apply it when hearing, speaking, reading, and writing.

The modern textbooks for teaching a foreign language should meet the following requirements:

1. The textbooks should provide pupils with the knowledge of the language sufficient for developing language skills, i. e., they must include the fundamentals of the target language.

2. They should ensure pupils' activity in speaking, reading, and writing, i.e., they must correspond to the aims of foreign language teaching in school.

3. The textbooks must extend pupils' educational horizon, i. e., the material of the textbooks should be of educational value.

4. The textbooks must arouse pupils', interest and excite their curiosity.

5. They should have illustrations to help pupils in comprehension and in speaking.

6. The textbooks must reflect the life and culture of the people whose language pupils study.

Each textbook consists of lessons or units, the amount of the material being determined by the stage of instruction, and the material itself.

The lessons may be of different structure. In all cases, however, they should assist pupils in making progress in speaking, reading, and writing.

The structure of the textbook for beginners should reflect the approach in developing pupils' language skills. If there is an oral introductory course, the textbook should include a lot of pictures for the development of hearing and speaking skills. Thus the textbook begins with “picture lessons”. See, for example, Fifth Form English by A. P. Starkov and R. R. Dixon.

If pupils are to be taught all language skills simultaneously, the textbook should include lessons which contain the material for the development of speaking, reading, and writing from the very beginning. See, for example, English 5 by S. Folomkina and E. Kaar.

The textbook should have a table of contents in which the material is given according to the school terms.

At the end of the book there should be two word-lists: English-Russian and Russian-English, which include the words of the previous year and the new words with the index of the lesson where they first occur.

Every textbook for learning a foreign language should contain exercises and texts.

Exercises of the textbook may be subdivided: (1) according to the activity they require on the part of the learners (drill and speech); (2) according to the place they are performed at (class exercises and home exercises); (3) according to the form (whether they are oral or written).

Exercises for developing pronunciation should help pupils to acquire correct pronunciation habits. Special exercises should be provided for the purpose, among them those designed for developing pupils' skills in discriminating sounds, stress, or melody. It is necessary that records and tape-recordings should be applied, and they should form an inseparable part of the textbook.

Exercises for assimilating vocabulary should help pupils to acquire habits and skills in using the words when speaking and writing, and recognizing them when hearing and reading.

Most of the exercises should be communicative by nature:

- they should remind us of natural conversation: questions, statements, exclamatory sentences, etc.;

- they should be somehow logically connected with pupils' activity;

- they should reflect pupils' environment;

- they should stimulate pupils to use the given words.
The textbooks should provide the revision of words in texts, drill and speech exercises.

Grammar exercises should develop pupils' habits and skills in using the grammar items to be learnt in speaking, reading, and writing. The teaching of grammar may largely be carried on through sentence patterns, phrase patterns, words as a pattern, and the ample use of these patterns in various oral and written exercises. Grammar, therefore, must be divided into small fragments, each taught in response to an immediate need “... It is not the grammar of English that is so difficult: it is English usage.” Therefore grammar exercises must be suggested in connection with situations and remind us of the real usage of grammar forms and structures in the act of communication.

Exercises for developing oral language should constitute 40--50% of the exercises of the textbook. The other 50% will be those designed for assimilating vocabulary, grammar, the technique of reading, etc.

In all stages of teaching exercises for developing oral language should prepare pupils to carry on a conversation within the material assimilated. This is possible provided pupils are taught to use the words and the sentence patterns they learn in various combinations depending on the situations offered, on the necessity to express their own thoughts and not to learn (to memorize) the texts arranged in topics, which is often the case in school teaching practice.

Exercises designed for developing oral language should prepare pupils:

- to use a foreign language at the lessons for classroom needs;

- to talk about the subjects within pupils' interests, and about the objects surrounding them;

- to discuss what they have read and heard.

The textbook should provide pupils with exercises for developing both forms of speech - dialogue and monologue. As far as dialogue is concerned pupils should have exercises which require: (1) learning a pattern dialogue; the pattern dialogues should be short enough for pupils to memorize them as a pattern, and they must be different in structure: question - response; question - question; statement - question; statement - statement; (2) substitutions within the pattern dialogue; (3) making up dialogues of their own (various situational pictures may be helpful).

As to monologue pupils should have exercises which help them: (1) to make statements, different in structure (statement level); (2) to express their thoughts or to speak about an object, a subject, using different sentence patterns, combining them in a logical sequence (utterance level); (3) to speak on the object, subject, film, filmstrip, story read or heard, situations offered (discourse level). The textbook should include exercises which prepare pupils for reciting the texts, making oral reproductions, etc.

Exercises for developing reading should help pupils to acquire all the skills necessary to read and understand a text. Therefore, there should be graphemic-phonemic, structural information, and semantic-communicative exercises, the amount of each group being different depending on the stage of teaching.

Exercises for writing should develop pupils' skills in penmanship, spelling, and composition.

Texts in the textbook should vary both in form and in content. Pupils need topical and descriptive texts, stories and poems, short dialogues, and jokes.

Texts should deal with the life of our people and the people whose language the pupils study.

It should be noted that a great deal of work has been lone in the field of the textbooks. As a result new textbooks lave appeared in English, German, and French. There is no doubt that these books are better than those formerly used.

The modern textbooks which are now in use in ten-year schools meet most of the requirements given above.

Manuals. The manual is a handbook which may be used in addition to the textbook, for example, English Grammar for Secondary School by E. P. Shubin and V. V. Sitel, in which pupils can find useful information about various items of English grammar described in a traditional way.

Selected readings. There is a great variety of supplementary readers graded in forms and types of schools. For example, Stuart Little by E. B. White; English Readers for the 6th and for the 7th forms;,Our Animal Friends (for the 7th form).

Dictionaries. For learning English there are some English-Russian dictionaries available, for instance, the Learner's English-Russian Dictionary, compiled by S. K. Folomkina and H. M. Weiser (M., 1962); Англо-русский словарь. Сост. В. Д. Аракин, 3. С. Выгодская, Н. Н. Ильина (М., 1971).

The pupil needs a dictionary to read a text which contains unfamiliar words.

Programmed materials. They are necessary when programmed learning is used.

The main features of programmed learning are as follows:

1. Learning by small easy steps. Every step or frame calls for an oral response which requires both attention and thought.

2. Immediate reinforcement by supplying a correct answer after each response. The pupil is aware that his responsible is right. The steps are so small and their arrangement is so orderly that he is likely to make very few errors. When an error occurs, he discovers his mistake immediately by comparing his response with the one given in “the feed-back”.

3. Progression at the learning rate of each individual pupil. Each pupil can work at his own pace.

Programmed learning creates a new individualized relationship between the learner and his task. He learns for himself and the programme teaches him. Programming is concerned with effective teaching since it is aimed, as carefully as possible, at a particular group of pupils and leads them through a number of steps toward mastering a carefully though-out and circumscribed teaching point. Programming allows the teacher to improve the effectiveness of teaching by constructing materials which will guide the pupil through a series of steps towards the mastery of a learning problem. These steps should be of appropriate size and require the pupil's active cooperation; he may be asked to answer a question, to fill in a blank, to read, etc. It is very important to grade progress of steps throughout the programme so carefully that each pupil gets every step right.

Media of programmed instruction are programmed lessons or textbooks and teaching machines machines.

There are at least two types of programmes: linear and branching. In a linear programme the information is followed by a practice problem which usually requires the completion of a given sentence. The pupil can compare his answer with the given in the clue on the right one frame below. All pupils should progress from frame to frame through the programme. There are few types of programmes of linear programming: programme of comparatives, practice programme, vocabulary programme, situation programme, textual programme.

In these sample programmes the materials are constructed according to a predetermined plan. Each programme has a precise objective. For instance, “Programme on comparatives” teaches the pattern “X is something -er than Y”. In the last frame the learner is asked to make a statement of comparison unaided by the wording of the frame.

Every frame contains a blank for the pupil to respond to. The correct response is supplied one step below on the right or under the frame so that the learner receives immediate confirmation of his responses. As the steps are small and an unlimited number of repetitions are possible weak pupils are not discouraged. Such programmed materials may be presented as textual frames in the book and in combination with the tape recorder.

In a branching programme the information is followed by a multiple-choice question and the learner's answer to this determines the material he sees next. If he selects the right answer he will be presented with a new unit of information. If he selects a wrong answer he is told he is wrong and the likely nature of his mistake. The student is either directed back to the original frame to make another attempt at the question or he is directed to a remedial sequence before being returned to the original frame.

An able pupil who will see only frame will progress through the material far more quickly than a pupil who has to go through the remedial frames. Thus the time that a pupil spends on a branching programme will depend not only on the speed with which he deals with each of the frames but also on the amount of information he has to deal with in any remedial frames.

Programmed foreign language instruction properly utilized is a useful medium which allows the teacher to individualize his pupils' work at the foreign language and create favourable conditions for language learning.

Visual materials.

Objects. There are a lot of things in the classroom such as pens and pencils of different sizes and colours, books, desks and many other articles which the teacher can use in presenting English names for them and in stimulating pupils' activities to utilize the words denoting objects they can see, touch, point to, give, take, etc. Toys and puppets may be widely used in teaching children of primary schools, which is the case in the specialized schools.

Flashcards. A flashcard is a card with a letter, a sound symbol or a word to be used for quick showing to pupils and in this way for developing pupils' skills in reading and pronunciation. Flashcards are usually made by the teacher or by the pupils under the teacher's direction, though there are some ready-made flashcards.

Sentence cards. They bear sentences or sentence patterns which can be used with different aims, e. g., for reading and analyzing the sentences, for using these sentences in speaking, for compiling an oral composition using the sentence as a starting point, for writing a composition.

These cards are prepared by the teacher and distributed among the pupils for individual work during the lesson. The teacher checks his pupils' work afterwards.

Wall-charts. A wall-chart is a big sheet of paper with drawings or words to be hung in the classroom and used for revision or generalization of some linguistic phenomenon. Such as “English Tenses”, “Passive Voice”, “Ing-Forms”, “Rules of Reading”.

For example: The letter С

[к] [s]

cat pencil

music face

Though there are printed wall-charts, the teacher should prepare his own wall-charts because he needs more than he can get for his work.

Posters or series of illustrations portraying a story. They are used as “props” in retelling a story read or heard. The teacher himself, or a pupil who can draw or paint, prepares such posters.

Pictures. There are at least three types of pictures which are used in teaching a foreign language: object pictures (e. g., the picture of a bed), situational pictures (e. g., the picture of a boy lying in bed), topical pictures (e. g., the picture of a bedroom). They may be big enough to be hung in the classroom or small to be distributed among the pupils for each one to speak on his own. Pictures may be utilized separately (as single units) and in sets to be used as “props” for oral composition or re-telling a story. For example, there is a set of pictures by M. S. Kaplunovsky which can be used for creating vivid situations on a flannelboard.

Printed pictures are available for the teacher to use in the classroom. However, they cannot cover the teacher's needs in these materials. So he should make pictures. The teacher either draws or paints them himself or asks some of his pupils to do this. He can also use cut-outs (pictures cut Out of some periodicals).

Photographs. They are of two kinds: black-and-white and coloured. One can use photographs which are on sale, e. g., “Views of Moscow” or have them taken, e. g., “We are going on a hike”, or “Our family”.

Albums. An album is a book of pictures or photographs which is used for developing pupils' language skills. It usually contains textual material to supply pupils with necessary information, and in this way make their work easier in describing these pictures.

Maps and plans. In teaching English the maps of Great Britain, the USA, and other countries where English is spoken may be used. The plans, for example, of a house, a building, a piece of land with measurements may be a help in comprehension and thus stimulate pupils' speaking.

Slides. A slide is a glass or plastic plate bearing a picture. Slides are usually coloured and used in sets to illustrate a story; the teacher can utilize slides for developing hearing and speaking skills.

Filmstrips. A filmstrip represents a series of pictures, as a rule, situational pictures in certain sequence which a learner sees while listening to a story from the teacher or the tape to reproduce it later. Special filmstrips are available. They last about 5-10 minutes and can be used with synchronized tapes. When a picture appears on the screen, the tape is heard. See, for example, “Great Britain”, “London”.

Audio materials. Tapes and records or discs belong to audio materials. Tapes are usually prepared by the teacher (he selects the material and the speaker for recording). Tapes

and records are used for teaching listening comprehension, speaking, and reading aloud.

Audio-visual materials. Sound film loops and films are examples of audio-visual materials:

Sound film loops are becoming popular with the teachers. They are short (each lasts 1.5-1.7 min.) and the teacher can play the film loop back as many times as necessary for the pupils to grasp the material and memorize it.

Films. Specially prepared educational films for language teaching have appeared, e. g., “The Mysterious Bridge”, “Robert Burns”, “Australia”, “New York”, “Winter Sports”.

Young children like to sing and play various games, that is why songs and games should constitute an important part of teaching materials. Folksongs and popular current songs develop a feeling for the distinctive culture being studied. They furnish a frame work for pronunciation practice. Games give an opportunity for spontaneous self-expression in the foreign language and can be used as a device for relaxation.

Practical and educational functions of teaching materials are as follows:

Teaching materials used in various combinations allow the teacher to develop his pupils' oral-aural skills. Recorded materials can provide the teacher and the pupil with an authentic model, tireless and consistent repetition and many different voices.

These materials are valuable for presentation, exercises, revision, testing, etc.

Visual materials have an important role to play in the development of hearing and speaking skills. Carefully devised they help to get rid of the necessity for constant translation and assist the teacher in keeping the lesson within the foreign language.

By portraying the context of situation, the gestures and expressions of the speakers, and even their personalities, visual aids allow immediate understanding and provide a stimulus to oral composition.

Especially important are graded materials designed for the teaching of reading. Graded reading materials are essential at every stage from the introduction to reading in association with audio and visual “props”, through the elementary stage of reading familiar material to intensive and extensive reading.

Lecture 10

The role of extra-curricular work in language learning in school

Plan:

neaching english teaching extra curricular

The role of extra-curricular work in language learning in school

How to organize extra-curricular work in foreign languages

The contents of extra-curricular work and how to conduct it

At present the Soviet Union is extending its international, economic, political, scientific, and cultural ties. The practical knowledge of foreign languages becomes therefore a necessity. Thus, the aims of foreign language teaching in schools are to develop pupils' ability to speak and read in a foreign language. The curriculum emphasizes it. It is obvious that extra-curricular work is of great importance under such conditions: it gives an opportunity to create a language atmosphere for pupils; besides, pupils consider the language not as a school subject but as a means of communication, they use it to understand or to be understood in a situation where only English could be used, for example, when corresponding with children of foreign countries, meeting a foreign delegation, seeing sound films in the English language, listening to English songs, issuing school wall-newspapers, etc. Extracurricular work helps the teacher to stimulate his pupils' interest in the target language. The language becomes alive to them. Extra-curricular work is of great educational value. The teacher can give his pupils a broader knowledge in geography, history, literature and art of the English-speaking countries.

Finally, extra-curricular work in a foreign language helps the teacher in fostering proletarian internationalism. Correspondence with the children of foreign countries provides the fulfillment of this task to a certain extent.

The experience of the best school teachers proves that extra-curricular work can be of great value and it is helpful in all respects if it is carefully organized, the material is thoroughly selected, and if the teacher can encourage his pupils to work hard at the target language by using modern methods and techniques of teaching.

HOW TO ORGANIZE EXTRA-CURRICULAR WORK IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES

In organizing non-class activities for pupils the teacher should bear in mind that work of this type differs greatly from that carried out during the class period both in form and content, though it is closely connected with it. Indeed, the class-work must prepare pupils for non-class activities. For example, during the lessons pupils in the 5th, 6th forms assimilate the following sentence patterns.

Give me (him, her, us) ... a ... .

Take ...! Have you ...? Is it a ...?

Has he (she) ...?

During extra-curricular work the teacher suggests the pupils should play lotto or a guessing game where these sentence patterns are needed.

Extra-curricular work is voluntary. However, for those who wish to take part in this work it becomes obligatory. Since through extra-curricular work the teacher can raise the level of the pupils' command of the language in general, it is bad practice to draw only the best, bright pupils into the work, as some of the methodologists and teachers recommend. No marks are given to the participants for non-class activities, although the teacher keeps a careful record of the work done by each of them. The results of extra-curricular work done can be evaluated when the school holds contests, pioneer assemblies, reviews of wall-newspapers, amateur art reviews, pleasure parties, etc., in the foreign language.

Since extra-curricular work is voluntary and based upon pupils' activity, initiative and creativeness, the Young Pioneer and Young Communist League Organizations should render help to the teacher to carry out this work. The teacher recommends various kinds of non-class activities to his pupils, selects the material and elaborates methods and techniques as to how this or that work should be carried out. The Young Pioneer and Young Communist League Organizations choose participants in accordance with their aptitude, and keep a record of the work done. Extra-curricular work may be closely connected with the work of the Young Pioneer Unit. It cannot be fulfilled, however, within the framework of the Unit only.

Since extra-curricular work is voluntary and based on active and creative work of school organizations and individual pupils, when organizing non-class activities the teacher ought to take into consideration the fact that the motive for the activities is the interest the teacher stimulates in his pupils for learning the language both during class-periods and extra-curricular work.

It is quite obvious the teacher may succeed in promoting greater interest for studying the language provided he works skillfully in class, explaining new material in a clear and comprehensive way, using various methods and devices to make his pupils active and interested in the work done, applying audio-visual aids, preparing exercises which give the pupils satisfaction of a job well done, making them feel their own progress in the target language after every lesson.

In carrying out extra-curricular work various forms should be used so that the majority of the class is able to take part in it. The following forms of extra-curricular work are used at schools: individual, group and mass work.

Group work includes: (1) `hobby', groups that work systematically; they are: play and game sections, chorus section, conversation section, reading and translation hobby groups, drama section, literature and art sections; (2) groups for temporary activities, namely to make up an album, to make a display-stand or a bookstand with English books and booklets, to illustrate a story read, to organize a school library, etc.

C1 ass w о г к includes: the organization and holding of a pioneer assembly in the foreign language; talks in that language; pleasure parties, conferences, olympiads and contests, excursions to films in a foreign language with following discussion; dramatization of the stories read; holding of guessing games; issuing wall-newspapers; making up school display-stands, etc. One of the most entertaining types of mass work that wins more and more popularity among pupils is с 1 u b work. The foreign language club gives an opportunity to have natural situations for communication in the foreign language. The work of the club may contribute to international friendship among young people, as one of the main activities of the members of the club is establishing contacts with foreign friends, mainly through correspondence. Sometimes guests from foreign countries may be invited to view performances of the club, in which case direct association with foreigners is established. Club work is varied in form and content. The work of English clubs is described in “Иностранные языки в школе” and some other journals.

The club work of one of the Moscow schools is a good example. Many pupils of the school took part in the club work. They worked in different sections, for example, the section of philatelists which made interesting stamp albums, or the section of young naturalists, who got different seeds from remote corners of the world. Its members grew flowers in the flower-beds of the schoolgarden.

Unfortunately there are but few clubs in our schools. Teachers underestimate this mass work in foreign languages, and do not realize that work of this kind is of great educational and practical value.

To organize both class and non-class activities of pupils properly it is necessary to have a special classroom for the study of the foreign language. The classroom must be decorated with portraits of revolutionaries, writers, poets, artists, composers, and other outstanding people of the countries whose language the pupils study. Decorations should be regularly changed; otherwise pupils get used to them and no longer notice them. Besides, changing decorations will help teachers to mark current events in life (e. g., centenary of some writer, scientist, or the visit of a prominent government leader to our country). The room must be equipped with modern technical aids, such as a tape-recorder, an opaque projector, a film strip projector, a film projector, etc., and a set of slides, tapes, films, film-strips. The teachers should regularly enrich this stock. A map of the country whose language we study should be a permanent visual aid in class. There must be a book-case in the room with books in foreign languages, the stock of books being regularly increased, too. There must be various, visual aids such as lotto, dominoes and other games in the room. To crown it all, a notice-board which shows pupils' activities must be hung there. On- the notice-board one might find lists of pupils engaged in sections, non-class activity programmes in the foreign language, hobby group work schedule, lists of. recommended literature for independent reading.

THE CONTENT OF EXTRA-CURRICULAR WORK AND HOW TO CONDUCT IT

The content of extra-curricular work is determined by the tasks set for each form by the syllabus, pupils' interests and their age characteristics. For example, after the pupils have assimilated the linguistic material of lesson 4 (A. P. Starkov, R. R. Dixon)of the text-book for the 6th form, during non-class activities the pupils are told to use those words and sentence patterns they have assimilated in a talk during tea. Some of the girls are told to lay the table.

The pupils have learned the following words:

- tea, milk, water;

- bread, butter, apples, sugar, salt, pepper, fish, meat, soup;

- lay the table, be ready, pass, prepare, serve, have breakfast, have tea, have dinner, for breakfast, pour, spread (the table-cloth), wash, clean, help, put, please, thank you;

- spoon, fork, knife (knives), plate, dish, saucer, cup.
The following words may be added:

- coffee, cocoa;

- sweets, gruel, sausage, cake;

- brown, white (bread);

- clear (the table), wash (dishes).

Help yourself. Not at all. Don't mention it.

The following conversation may take place:

1. While the girls are laying the table

- Get some bread and put it on the table, please.

- What bread shall I get?

- The white bread.

- We have white bread. We do not like to have brown bread for breakfast. We have it for dinner.

- Now get some butter and sugar and put them on the table, too.

- Where is the sugar-basin?- I don't know.

- Oh, I see the sugar-basin there with sugar in it.

- Is the tea ready?

- Yes, it is.

- Do we have milk on the table?

- Yes, we do.

The girls ask the teacher and the children to take their seats at the table.

- Take your seats, please. Everything is ready.

2. At table

- Do you prefer tea or milk?

- I like milk better.

- As for me, I don't like milk. I like coffee.

- Do you like sugar in your milk? .

- No, I don't like sugar in my milk.

- Which do you like better, fish or meat?

- I like fish. And you, N.?

- I like meat better.

- Give me some bread, please.

- Here you are.

- Thank you.

- Not at all.

The material covered and that which has been introduced is reviewed and learned beforehand.

In the 8th form, after the pupils have learned the linguistic material of “Great Britain”, the following work may be done. It may be connected with travelling about the country. The map of Great Britain should be used on this occasion, but not the one that was used during the lesson. The work should be done so that it permits the pupils to broaden their knowledge in geography and learn some additional words and expressions. They may travel by air and sea, by train and by car or bus, and even on foot.

In the 9th form the text “London” gives pupils an opportunity to learn and become familiar with the map of London, its places of interest, its monuments, great people who lived there, etc. There are slides, film-strips, post-cards, and films about London which are to be used to foster pupils' interest.

Texts dealing with the life and deeds of outstanding people should be used for deepening pupils' knowledge and developing their interest in language learning. Here are some examples which illustrate the use of such forms of work as round table conferences.

An extremely valuable round-table conference on the theme “How V.I.Lenin Studied Foreign Languages” was arranged in one of the secondary schools of Riga. V.I.Lenin's experience in studying Russian, Old Slavonic, Latin, Greek, German, French, Ukrainian, English, Italian, Polish, Dutch, Swedish, Czech, Finnish and Bulgarian was discussed by the pupils of the 9th form and could not but encourage the pupils to study languages.

A similar conference on the theme “V.I.Lenin Abroad” was arranged in the 10th forms of the same school. The conference was arranged as follows: nine “delegations” from various countries occupied their seats around a nicely decorated table. In front of each delegation was a small flag of the respective country and the name of this country: USSR, Great Britain, Poland, Finland, Germany, France, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia and the flag of the Latvian SSR. The delegates spoke Russian, Latvian, German, English, French, Czech, Polish, and Finnish. Some interpreters were also present. The actual air of an international gathering pervaded the hall. The pupils had prepared their speeches in the given languages carefully and the participants were most attentive when their classmates began to speak an unfamiliar language.

A third example, illustrating the injected international character of foreign language teaching dealt with Rockwell Kent. A press conference on the theme “Rockwell Kent's gift to the Soviet Union” took place in the 10th form. The purpose of choosing this type of lesson was to excite the pupils' interest in learning English. The process of the lesson can be described as follows. At the beginning of the lesson a tape-recorder was switched on and a noise peculiar to such gatherings filled the classroom.

Teacher: We are present at a press conference organized by the Ministry of Culture of the USSR. Some American correspondents have been invited to this conference.

Chairman: This press conference is dedicated to Rockwell Kent. My task is to announce the news of his gift to the Soviet people. The famous American artist and author R. Kent was a great fighter for peace, a great friend of the Soviet Union. He died on March 12, 1971, at the age of 88. Long before his death R. Kent present-ed a large collection of his paintings, drawings, and books to the Soviet Union.

Secretary: Some years ago there was an exhibition of R. Kent's paintings in the Soviet Union. The pictures were exhibited in many cities and everywhere the people showed great interest in them. R. Kent's books have been translated into Russian and Latvian. Now you will see some illustrations to the Latvian translation of his book “Skarba pirmatniba”. (The pictures were projected on a screen.)