- Teachers have to say many things simply to organize the lesson starting or stopping an activity, getting students to do or not to do things, etc. Much of this language consists of simple commands and instructions, which are repeated lesson after lesson; so if the teacher says them in English, students will quickly learn what they mean. Elicit from the student-teachers a range of simple classroom commands in English which could be used even with elementary students. If you like, build up a list on the board, e.g.:
Classroom Language : Simple instructions
Here are some common instructions which the class can easily understand:
Come in.
Go out.
Stand up.
Sit down.
Come to the front of the class.
Stand by your desks.
Put your hands up.
Put your hands down.
Hold your books/pens up.
Show me your pencil.
A number of instructions can be used at the beginning of a session
All of you look here.
You need pencils/rulers.
We'll learn how to ...
Are you ready?
Open your books at page ...
Look at activity five.
Listen to this tape.
Repeat after me.
Again, please.
Everybody ...
You have five minutes to do this.
Who's next?
Like this, not like that.
A number of instructions can be used at the end of a session
It's time to finish.
Have you finished?
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Let's stop now.
Stop now.
Let's check the answers.
Any questions?
Collect your work please.
Pack up your books.
Are your desks tidy?
Don't forget to bring your ... tomorrow.
Instructions can also be sequenced:
First
Next
After that
Then
Finally
Language for Comprehension :
Are you ready?
Are you with me?
Are you OK?
OK so far?
Do you get it?
Do you understand?
Do you follow me?
What did you say?
One more time, please.
Say it again, please.
I don't understand.
I don't get it.
Like this?
Is this OK?
ORAL SKILLS
Scope :
Speaking is perhaps the most
demanding skill for the teacher to teach. In their own language children are able to express emotions, communicate intentions and reactions, explore the language and make fun of it, so they are expected to be able to do the same in English.
What is important with beginners is finding the balance between providing language through controlled and guided activities and at the same time letting them enjoy natural talk. Most of our pupils have little opportunity to practise speaking English outside the classroom and so need lots of practise when they are in the class.
This unit aims at sharpening the skills of the teachers in such a way that they will be able to develop oral
skills in themselves and the children. There is a wide range of skills dealt with in this unit such as Classroom English, Telling Stories, Creating Situations for dialogue, Language Games and Activities, Use of language in social gatherings, Conducting Interviews and Telephone Conversation. Plenty of activities have been given for each skill.
Classroom Language:
A very important way of helping pupils progress from dependence on the book and on the teacher to self-dependence is to give them the necessary tools. One of the tools is classroom language.
For example, most children do not know the answer to a question as they do not understand it and do not know how to ask for help. So teaching them phrases like, 'I'm sorry, I don't know' or '1 don't understand' develops their ability to communicate meaningfully in the classroom and elsewhere. Here are some phrases which your pupils should use. Note that they should be taught as phrases, not as words or structures. Children are only interested in what the phrases are used for.
Good morning/afternoon Goodbye
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Can I, please?
Sorry, I don't know/don't understand/can't.
What's this called in English? What's the English for?
Whose turn is it,/book is this/chair is this?
Whose turn is it to?
Listening in the classroom :
It is quite clear that listening is the
Specific Objectives
•To create awareness among teachers the broad scope of classroom English.
•To suggest ways and means of using English in the classroom.
•To impress upon the need for speaking in English in the classroom.
•To create an English atmosphere in the classroom.
skill that children acquire first, especially if they have not yet learnt to read. When the pupils start to learn a foreign language, it goes in mainly through their ears. So what the pupils hear is their main source of the language. Of course, we also give them as much visual back-up as possible through facial expression, through movement, through mime and through pictures.
When you are telling a story, you don't have to tell it from beginning to end without breaks. You can re-tell it again and again as you go along:
'This story starts on a nice. sunny Monday morning. Who's the story about?. Who can we see in the picture? Yes, Suman and Babu. It's a nice, sunny Monday morning and Suman and Babu are. ... Where are they? In the forest. Right. They're in the forest. And what are they doing? They're picking berries. So, it's a nice, sunny Monday morning, and Suman and Babu are in the forest picking berries. What happens next? Well. . . .' And so the story continues.
Mime stories:
In a mime story, the teacher tells the story and the pupils and the teacher do the actions. It again provides physical movement and gives the teacher a chance to play along with the pupils.
Here's a very simple example of a mime story:
'We're sitting in a boat, a small rowing boat. Let's row. We row and row. Now what's that? A bird. A big bird is flying over the water. Now it's gone. We keep
SPEAK IN ENGLISH
Try to speak English as much of the time as you can, using mime, acting, puppets and any other means you can think of to get your meaning across .
rowing. Can we see the bird? No, no bird. This is hard work. Row, row. We're tired. We row slowly. There's the shore. Let's go home now. We're so tired we're dragging our feet. We're tired. We want to go to sleep. We lie down on our beds. We close our eyes, and . . . .
shhhh. . . . We’re asleep'.
'Listen and repeat' activities:
'Listen and repeat' exercises are great fun and give the pupils the chance to get a feel for the
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language: the sounds, the stress and rhythm and the intonation. When done in combination with movements or with objects or pictures, this type of activity also helps to establish the link between words and meaning.
Rhymes:
All children love rhymes and like to repeat them again and again. Here you can use either traditional rhymes or modern rhymes, and you really don't have to worry too much about the grading. Rhymes are repetitive; they have natural rhythm and they have an element of fun, of playing with the language.
Presenting new language orally:
When children start learning English, they obviously need to be given language before they can produce it themselves. Language has to go in before it can come out. At this initial stage the activities will be under the control of the teacher. Here are just some of the ways you can present new language orally:
Dialogues and role play work:
Working with dialogues is a useful way to bridge the gap between guided practise and freer activities. Controlled dialogues can easily develop into freer work when the pupils are ready for it. Putting pupils into pairs for doing the dialogues is a
simple way of organising even large classes.
‘Listen and do' activities instructions:
The most obvious 'listen and do' activity which we can and should make use of from the moment we start the English lessons is giving genuine instructions. Most classroom language is a type of 'listen and do' activity. Communication is two-way, and you can see very easily if your pupils have understood the message or not.
I. CLASSROOM ENGLISH
Classroom English is the English used by a teacher in a classroom situation. It certainly is a language for special purposes which have to be learned especially.
Let's have a look at the most interesting and worth memorising words and sentences a teacher may use during a class. Let's imagine we are students
MORE ABOUT ORAL SKILL
There are also lots of ‘listen and do’ exercises which you can do with your children where they have to physically move about. You can ask pupils to do all sorts of things like : ‘hop on your left foot five times’ - ‘count up to ten and then walk to the blackboard and back’ - and the more language the pupils learn, the more you can ask them to do. The advantage with this type of activity is that you know at once if the chil-dren have understood. You can check classroom vocabulary, move-ment words, counting, spelling, etc. Pupils learn from each other. If they haven’t understood the first time, they’ll still be able to do the activity by watching the others
sitting in a classroom and a teacher comes in. The following are the most common and typical classroom situations:
Greetings:
The teacher usually greets his audience and says a few words to establish contact:
Good morning.
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How are you?
I hope you are all feeling well.
Introduction:
If the teacher is new, he will introduce himself / herself to the students.
Let me introduce myself.
I am Miss / Mr ......
Transition to work:
Greetings are followed by an invitation to start working:
It's time to start now.
Absence / Lateness:
One of the first questions at the beginning of a lesson is about the students absent: Who is absent today?
Who is missing?
Who isn't here?
Who was absent Yesterday?
Who was away last Friday?
Why are you late?
Where have you been?
Did you oversleep (miss your bus)?
I'll be unhappy if you're late again.
Blackboard Activity:
One of the most typical classroom situations is blackboard activity:
Come to the blackboard, please. Go to the board.
Come and write the word on the board. Write it next to/above/ below that word. Take a piece of chalk and write the sentence. Here's a piece of chalk. Write it on the board. Try and keep your writing straight (level).
Step aside, please, so that the class can see what you have written. Move to one side, please, so that we can all see.
Go and fetch some chalk from the office. I've run out of chalk. Would you please go and see if there's any in the next classroom. Would you go and look for some chalk for me, please. Does anyone know where the chalk is kept? Do you know if there's any coloured chalk?
Controlling a class:
To control a class when there is noise or lack of attention, a teacher would usually say the following:
Could I have your attention, please.
Not so much noise, please.
Silence, please.
Get on with your work quietly.
Don't keep turning around.
Let us not disturb the neighbouring class.
GROUP WORK:
Quite often a teacher would ask a class to work in groups or individually:
Work (in twos, threes, etc) (in groups of two, three, etc.) (together with your friends) (in pairs).
Get into groups of three. Find a partner.
Divide the class into groups.
Here are some tasks (exercises) for you to work on in groups (pairs) (threes).
If individual work is given, the following oral instructions may be given:
Work on your own/by yourselves / individually.
Try to work independently.
There is no need to discuss it with your neighbour.
No cheating.
To stop the work when the time expires, a teacher can say:
That will do, thank you.
That's enough for now.
All right, you can stop now.
You will have to stop (finish) in a minute.
Your time is up now, I am afraid.
Approval and encouragement:
Excellent. That's perfectly correct.
That's correct. You've got the idea.
Well done. Very fine.
You made a very good job of that.
That's (much) (a lot) better. You are improving. You have made a lot of progress.
Not quite right, try it again. You've almost got it. You're half way there. Have a guess if you don't know.
Don’t worry, your language will improve. What if I give you a clue? I'll help you if you get stuck.
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In case you feel like criticizing a pupil you can say the following: (IN PRIVATE)
That wasn't very good.
You need to pay more attention.
You can do better than that.
Ending a class could be signalled by the following sentences:
It's almost time to stop.
I'm afraid it's time to finish now.
We'll have to stop here.
There's the bell, so we must stop working now.
All right! That's all for today, thank you. That will do for today. You can go now.
Setting homework:
This is your homework for tonight (today/next time).
For your homework would you do exercise 10 on page 23.
Prepare as far as (down to/up to) page 175.
Finish this off at home.
Do the rest of the exercise as your homework for tonight.
You will have to read the last paragraph at home.
Saying goodbye:
See you again on Tuesday.
See you again tomorrow afternoon.
Have a good holiday (Christmas) (Deepavali).
Enjoy your holiday / summer holidays / vacation.
I hope you all have a nice vacation.