Classroom discussion 4
Reflect
According to the
tasks teacher has given, members of each group did the tasks by researching the
many details and contents. Then, class’s activities are presentations the tasks
teacher given. The presentations of the ways to teach English are discussed in
the classroom. Four groups of presenters
show the information in front of the class. There are teaching listening,
teaching reading, and teaching writing, and assessing and testing. One of them
is my group, teaching writing. Our groups worked very hard to study the details
and search for the more information for the topics we are given. Here are some
learning outcome from both presenters and the audience.
Teaching speaking can help students in communication a lot. However, the old style of teaching might makes students get bored and do not want to learn. This can make teacher’s teaching is not effective enough. To Teach speaking skill, teacher should be aware the differences between second language and foreign language learning contexts. Teacher has to focus on students practice with both fluency and accuracy. Besides, teacher should give students the group work and pair work in speaking activities and limit teacher’ s talking, The less teacher talks the more students learn. Then, students’ task should be related to the speaking lessons. There are many kinds of learning speaking activities that could apply in classroom; information gap, jigsaw activities, building the speaking habit, the hot seat, interview the picture, turning inner voice, buzz groups, from the sentence discussion, prompt cards, telling story, role play, and so on. In addition, while students are doing the activities, teacher is everything to help students accomplish the difficulties. Nevertheless, teaching speaking can use the technology in teaching activities also. Then, take consider which kinds of technology can be applied in speaking teaching activities.
Teaching English with technology is a useful way of teaching English. It helps teacher up to date the new information. There are many ways to teach English with technology. One of them are IWB or Smart board that can be the audio or video and easily to use with sensor touching technology. Teacher can introduce the various kinds of content on the IWB or smart board while students are attending to learn with these attractive materials. Furthermore, there are the tools that can be used in classroom activities such as, flip charts, overhead projector, computer, and so on. The kinds of activities that students learn through media technology could be the recording. With recording, students can interview people online and can create plays, film, oral presentation, etc. Students can use the social network or online website to learn and show their learning. However, the picture, cards, strips of paper are still useful in teaching English. Teacher can easily create the materials and students also easily understand what teacher is going to teach them.
Listening skill is
the first and the basic skill for every learner. However, many ESL classrooms
in Thailand are not focused on this skill at the initial step. Then, teaching
listening skills is one of the most difficult tasks for any ESL teacher. This
is because successful listening skills are acquired over time and with lots of
practice. It is quite difficult for students because there are no rules as in
grammar teaching. Speaking and writing also have very specific exercises that
can lead to improved skills. This is not to say that there are not ways of
improving listening skill; however they are difficult to quantify. The activities
that help in teaching listening can be the dictation, short dialogues, short
text, comprehend sentences, listening to the stories, or listening for the
newscast. Moreover, it can be integrate with another skill also.
Teaching reading is
one of the most important basic skills that teacher has to teach the students
effectively. Reading skill is very for the students in learning language all
other language all over the world. There are many kinds of reading for example
skimming, scanning, reviewing, extensive, intensive reading, and so on. For
this topic, we will focus on extensive and intensive reading. Extensive reading
is a kind of reading by looking up the words roughly and without translating to
every word. It consist of three main principles of extensive reading: do not
look up words in dictionary, skip over parts you do not understand, and if you
are not enjoying one book, toss it aside and get another. Next, intensive reading
is a kind of reading that focused on the language rather than the text. The
procedures of intensive reading consist of pre-reading: prediction activities,
reading for the gist of “skimming” for main ideas, reading for specific
information(scanning), ask students to try out the techniques, and give
students the tasks before asking them to look more details.
Teaching writing is
also useful for students ‘lifelong skill. If they can learn writing
productively, they can apply in their business or other life’s activities. For
teaching writing, we will discuss three main ideas: being accurate, encouraging
students to learn writing, and producing a finished product. The first import
thing is accuracy. In the beginner step, teacher will start at teach ‘nuts and
bolts’ of writing. Nuts and bolts is the
way to teach student to write with the lines with the correct forms. After
that, the use of punctuation will be taught to the students. If they learn in
more advanced step, the process of writing will be taught. Writing process
consist of planning, drafting, editing, revising, and publishing. Sometimes,
writing steps can be changed the ways, we can go back to correct and add what
we want to write. Moreover, it is not easy to make students enjoy with
writhing, so in teaching writing teacher has to find the way to encourage
students ‘writing. Teacher can find the interesting teaching activities by
using games, songs, picture, and other writing activities, such as folding
paper. If the students’ learning products are finished, teacher can help
students to keep it advantages ways. For example, portfolio, writing journals,
blogs, wikis and lots of online medias which are very popular these days.
Finally, assessing
and testing are the major tools in teaching. It can be shown how well students learnt
and how effective the teaching methods were. The types of assessment consist of
formative, summative, informal, diagnostic, placement, progress, achievement,
and proficiency test. Formative assess students ‘performance during
instructions, usually occurs throughout the instruction process. Summative assessment measures students’ achievement at the end of the instructions. Informal assessment
decides what to do next on a lesson. Diagnostic assessment assess students’ strength,
weakness, knowledge, and skills prior the instruction. Placement test is a test
that measure when they first arrive at language teaching institution. Progress
assessment is a kind of assessment that to see how students are getting on.
Achievement Assessment is the test set in the end of something, such as a
semester, a year. Proficiency assessment measures a students’ language
ability. Besides, one of useful assessment
tools is rubric. It is a multi-purpose scoring guide for assessing students’
products and performances.
In conclusion, all
of teaching methods and assessing and testing are tools in English language teaching.
There are many ways and tools in teaching. Teacher has to evaluate the contents
with the students’ knowledge appropriately. Not only the teaching techniques that are the influential
for learning, but assessment and testing tools are also important. It is the
tools to show what’s the students background knowledge, how students’ progress
in learning, or how the teaching methods teacher used. All of those techniques
and instruments can be applied in real classroom situation. If teacher could
apply the techniques and the tools appropriately, the more effective learning students receive.
