THE EXPLICIT TEACHING OF GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY

DURING my english lessons I try to concentrate first in the selection of the material for my students. This is crucial as regards teaching, adolescents tend to be bored easily and this is something I take into account before planning a lesson. Basically we need to bear in mind an specific aim we want to show to the learners during our lesson.

As regards grammar, I do not take into account the idea of teaching grammar explicitly since I have to give my students to reflect upon in, trying to let them discover the rule by themselves (deductive grammar) so I try to teach it implicitly rather than explicitly. Activities related to grammar in connection with the topic chosen need to be clearly linked in order to prioritize the aims of the lesson, i.e. the material that the lesson contains is to show the learners the use of the "s" in third person singular, for example, I will try to guide them and make them understand by themselves how to deal with the grammar item, once they have produced their own examples, it is good to make students write or reflect about the rules for understanding third person singular (grammar aims) The selection of relevant activities will guide them about how to apply the rule correctly.

As regards vocabulary the use of visuals is useful when I present a new vocabulary item, where the learners will be ready to produce their own examples. Pictures or concrete material is also relevant to be mentioned as the learners have the opportunity to see and identify the new vocabulary item. The selection of good activities when presenting vocabulary is something we need to put an eye on this since the learners (especially adolescents) tend to be bored when they developed uninteresting actvitities. The idea of setting games in the classroom or group work is also useful since the learners get involved easily in the lesson itself and of course enjoy what they are doing. It is important to mention is the necesary interaction between teacher and learners, If the teacher takes this into account, the lesson will be successful.

Osvaldo

Source: Hedge, Tricia, Teaching and learning in the language classroom OUP (2000)
Points for discussion, Question (4)

Time out, take five How teacher feel when being observed

When an authority or a colleague of us enters the classroom, we tend to feel nervous and with a bit of anxiety, because most of the teachers (and in general human beings) do not like being observed. This will bring a problem during our lesson, because we are worried to develop our lesson without making mistakes and we forget sometimes the topic of the lesson itself or we give an instruction in a way that our students do not understand, just because we are worried about the observer rather than the lesson and the students.

In my opinion, I think that the idea of being observed is something that teachers need to have in the sense that we share our experience with others and this makes us reflect upon the activity suggested is useful or not. Being observed by our peers is a way of finding solutions or making our classes better than we expected. Making mistakes during our lessons will help us to reflect with our peers what things we need to change in order to develop our classes successful.

My personal profile

Hi everyone!
It is a pleasure to me to introduce myself to you. My name is Osvaldo Mammino and I am a Third year student at the liceo Cultural Britanico TTC. I am attending my last two subjects for the secondary level and I am really happy to know that this course of studies is about to come to an end. Of course studying a second language like English or any other language is " a never ending story", since there are new methods in language teaching, courses to attend and other things that it will be necessary for us to take if we want to be updated.
Hopefully the group we are attending "Talller......." is really great since I know all the girls who are attending the course.
Hope we'll have a wonderful year to all of you! (Including our teacher of course, ja ja)
Regards
Osvaldo

P.S. I would like anybody of you to teach me how to publish a photograph of myself since I donot know how to handle with it

Teaching in a service training

I was invited for a group of graduate teachers to be a menber of the staff of a service training, teaching mainly in companies. I got surprised the other day when I opened up my E- mail box and found a message telling that I've been chosen to be a menber of the group of teachers. So the following day I went there for an interview with Peter Harrison, a teacher whom I met in a course in English business and management two years ago. While I was waiting for Peter there was a notice on a board showing the most important qualities that a teacher needs to have to work for this kind of service. There was also a sign at the end of the notice that said "any suggestions you'd like to add?" and I wondered myself of a list of thing a teacher needs to have, and here are some quotations I'd like to share with you:
- a teacher needs to be/have
- tolerant and patient
- handle the class dynamic
- Allow students to communicate themselves
- Allow students to feel confident with the language
- Tolerant to errors
- Grade the task according to the students interests and needs
- promote discovery learning
- Select appropriate material to students
- Help the learners to contrust their own knowledge
- Provide the students all the necessary tools to manage with the language
- select relevant activities to them
These items I thought are the ones that accompany my every day life when teaching. To me , a good teacher needs to have this quealities, and the most important thing: we teachers needs to have the capacity of believing that we are not God, we do not have the capacity of knowing everything, this will help us to grow with our students, to see what you need to adjust in your classes, according to our students interests and needs. All of these things are "in your hands" because I'm the one who thinks that everything is posible if you want it, so let's work on that.
From Teaching and learning........ By tricia Hedge
(Discussion topic item 5)