Oxford's teachhing methods of english language 
Oxford's teachhing methods of english language
Contents
|Contents |2 |
|Introduction |3 |
|Theory part: The use of games |4 |
| Note-taking |10 |
|Practical part : Grammar games: |14 |
|Speed |14 |
|Spot the differences |15 |
|Tipycal questions |16 |
|Achievements |16 |
|Reported advioce |17 |
|Picture the past |18 |
|Impersonating members of a set |18 |
|No backshift |19 |
|Incomparable |20 |
|One question behind |20 |
|Sit down then |22 |
|Only if |22 |
|Two-word verbs |23 |
|The world of take |25 |
|A dictionary game |26 |
|Eyes |27 |
|Umbrella |28 |
|Listening to time |29 |
|Guess my grammar |30 |
|Puzzle stories |30 |
|Word ordwer dictation |31 |
|Grammar lessons taking notes: |33 |
|Passive voice |33 |
|Context and meaning |34 |
|Subject matter note taking |36 |
|Conclusion |37 |
|References |38 |
Introduction This course work presents two teaching methods widely approved in
Oxfrord Universities: grammar and vocabulary games and the variations of
taking notes during the lesson. Both of methods are embodied in the theory and practical part. As a
theory part I give research works of professional lavguage teachers who
studied the methods they considered as useful and effective and put their
opinion and reseach works on the press. I’m very grateful to them for
sharing their experiences with us. So this part of my work describes the
method itself, gives tests proving its effectiveness and touches some
problem spots of it. Next I offer practical part containing examples of
taking these methods in the classroom. None of these methods presented here is any brand new discovery for the
language teacher. Every teacher used to practice them in his/her work,
there’s only a try to add something new to well known and allegedebly usual
techiques (like note-taking), to study them deeper and show more
interesting and useful side of them. In short words some suggestions to
make them work better. The reason I’ve chosen this theme is the wish to know more about how to
make the lesson more interesting and useful at the same time. I’ve
benefitted much by collectiong and studing all this material I present here
and hope you’ll find this work worth reviewing.
The Use of Games
For Vocabulary Presentation and Revision by Agnieszka Uberman |Vocabulary acquisition is increasingly viewed as |
|crucial to language acquisition. However, there is |
|much disagreement as to the effectiveness of |
|different approaches for presenting vocabulary |
|items. Moreover, learning vocabulary is often |
|perceived as a tedious and laborious process. |
|In this article I would like to examine some |
|traditional techniques and compare them with the |
|use of language games for vocabulary presentation |
|and revision, in order to determine whether they |
|are more successful in presenting and revising |
|vocabulary than other methods. |
|From my teaching experience I have noticed how |
|enthusiastic students are about practising language|
|by means of games. I believe games are not only fun|
|but help students learn without a conscious |
|analysis or understanding of the learning process |
|while they acquire communicative competence as |
|second language users. | Vocabulary teaching techniques There are numerous techniques concerned with vocabulary presentation.
However, there are a few things that have to be remembered irrespective of
the way new lexical items are presented. If teachers want students to
remember new vocabulary, it needs to be learnt in context, practised, and
then revised to prevent students from forgetting. We can tell the same
about grammar.Teachers must make sure students have understood the new
words, which will be remembered better if introduced in a "memorable way".
Bearing all this in mind, teachers have to remember to employ a variety of
techniques for new vocabulary presentation and revision.
Gairns and Redman (1986) suggest the following types of vocabulary
presentation techniques:
1. Visual techniques. These pertain to visual memory, which is considered especially helpful with vocabulary retention. Learners remember better the material that has been presented by means of visual aids. Visual techniques lend themselves well to presenting concrete items of vocabulary-nouns; many are also helpful in conveying meanings of verbs and adjectives. They help students associate presented material in a meaningful way and incorporate it into their system of language values. 2. Verbal explanation. This pertains to the use of illustrative situations, synonymy, opposites, scales (Gairns and Redman ), definition (Nation) and categories (Allen and Valette ). 3. Use of dictionaries. Using a dictionary is another technique of finding out meanings of unfamiliar words and expressions. Students can make use of a variety of dictionaries: bilingual, monolingual, pictorial, thesauri, and the like. As French Allen perceives them, dictionaries are "passports to independence," and using them is one of the student-centered learning activities. Using games
The advantages of using games. Many experienced textbook and methodology
manuals writers have argued that games are not just time-filling activities
but have a great educational value. W. R. Lee holds that most language
games make learners use the language instead of thinking about learning the
correct forms. He also says that games should be treated as central not
peripheral to the foreign language teaching programme. A similar opinion is
expressed by Richard-Amato, who believes games to be fun but warns against
overlooking their pedagogical value, particularly in foreign language
teaching. There are many advantages of using games. "Games can lower
anxiety, thus making the acquisition of input more likely" (Richard-Amato).
They are highly motivating and entertaining, and they can give shy students
more opportunity to express their opinions and feelings (Hansen). They also
enable learners to acquire new experiences within a foreign language which
are not always possible during a typical lesson. Furthermore, to quote
Richard-Amato, they, "add diversion to the regular classroom activities,"
break the ice, "[but also] they are used to introduce new ideas". In the
easy, relaxed atmosphere which is created by using games, students remember
things faster and better (Wierus and Wierus ). Further support comes from
Zdybiewska, who believes games to be a good way of practising language, for
they provide a model of what learners will use the language for in real
life in the future.
Games encourage, entertain, teach, and promote fluency. If not for any of
these reasons, they should be used just because they help students see
beauty in a foreign language and not just problems .
Choosing appropriate games. There are many factors to consider while
discussing games, one of which is appropriacy. Teachers should be very
careful about choosing games if they want to make them profitable for the
learning process. If games are to bring desired results, they must
correspond to either the student's level, or age, or to the material that
is to be introduced or practised. Not all games are appropriate for all
students irrespective of their age. Different age groups require various
topics, materials, and modes of games. For example, children benefit most
from games which require moving around, imitating a model, competing
between groups and the like. Furthermore, structural games that practise or
reinforce a certain grammatical aspect of language have to relate to
students' abilities and prior knowledge. Games become difficult when the
task or the topic is unsuitable or outside the student'sexperience.
Another factor influencing the choice of a game is its length and the time
necessary for its completion. Many games have a time limit, but according
to Siek-Piskozub, the teacher can either allocate more or less time
depending on the students' level, the number of people in a group, or the
knowledge of the rules of a game etc. When to use games. Games are often used as short warm-up activities or when
there is some time left at the end of a lesson. Yet, as Lee observes, a
game "should not be regarded as a marginal activity filling in odd moments
when the teacher and class have nothing better to do". Games ought to be at
the heart of teaching foreign languages. Rixon suggests that games be used
at all stages of the lesson, provided that they are suitable and carefully
chosen. At different stages of the lesson, the teacher's aims connected
with a game may vary: 1. Presentation. Provide a good model making its meaning clear; 2. Controlled practise. Elicit good imitation of new language and appropriate responses; 3. Communicative prastice. Give students a chance to use the language .
Games also lend themselves well to revision exercises helping learners
recall material in a pleasant, entertaining way. All authors referred to in
this article agree that even if games resulted only in noise and
entertained students, they are still worth paying attention to and
implementing in the classroom since they motivate learners, promote
communicative competence, and generate fluency. However, can they be more
successful for presentation and revision than other techniques? The
following part of this article is an attempt at finding the answer to this
question.
The use of games for presenting and revising vocabulary
Vocabulary presentation. After the teacher chooses what items to teach,
Haycraft suggests following certain guidelines. These include teaching the
vocabulary "in spoken form first" to prevent students from pronouncing the
words in the form they are written, placing the new items in context, and
revising them..I shall now proceed to present practical examples of games I
have used for vocabulary introduction and revision.
Description of the groups. For the purpose of vocabulary presentation, I
chose two groups of third form students. With one of them I used a
presentation game and with the other translation and context guessing. In
both groups, students' abilities varied-ranging from those whose command of
English was very good, able to communicate easily using a wide range of
vocabulary and grammatical structures, and those who found it difficult to
communicate.
After covering the first conditional and time clauses in the textbook, I
decided to present students with a set of idioms relating to bodily parts-
mainly those connected with the head (taken from The Penguin Dictionary of
English Idioms ). The choice of these expressions was determined by
students' requests to learn colloquial expressions to describe people's
moods, behavior, etc. Moreover, in one of the exercises the authors of the
textbook called for examples of expressions which contain parts of the
body. For the purpose of the lesson I adapted Gear and Gear's "Vocabulary
Picture-Puzzle" from the English Teaching Forum (1988). Students were to
work out the meanings of sixteen idiomatic expressions. All of them have
Polish equivalents, which made it easier for students to remember them. Description of vocabulary picture-puzzle To prepare the puzzle, I cut two equal-sized pieces of cardboard paper into
rectangles. The selected idioms were written onto the rectangles in the
puzzle-pieces board and their definitions on the game board. On the reverse
side of the puzzle-pieces board, I glued colorful photographs of landscapes
and then cut the puzzle-pieces board into individual pieces, each with an
idiom on it. The important thing was the distribution of the idioms and
their definitions on the boards. The definitions were placed in the same
horizontal row opposite to the idioms so that when put together face to
face each idiom faced its definition.
Puzzle Pieces Board
The idioms and their definitions were the following (all taken from The
Penguin Dictionary of English Idioms p.77): 1. to be soft in the head: foolish, not very intelligent; 2. to have one's hair stand on end: to be terrified; 3. to be two-faced: to agree with a person to his face but disagree with him behind his back; 4. to make a face: to make a grimace which may express disgust, anger; 5. to be all eyes: to be very attentive; 6. to be an eye-opener: to be a revelation; 7. to be nosy: to be inquisitive, to ask too many questions; 8. to be led by the nose: to be completely dominated by, totally influenced by; 9. long ears: an inquisitive person who is always asking too many questions;
10. to be all ears: to listen very attentively;
11. to be wet behind the ears: to be naive, inexperienced;
12. a loose mouth: an indiscrete person;
13. one's lips are sealed: to be obliged to keep a secret;
14. to have a sweet tooth: to have a liking for sweet food, sugar, honey, ice cream, etc.;
15. to grind one's teeth: to express one's fury;
16. to hold one's tongue: to say nothing, to be discrete; The task for students. Work out the puzzle by matching the idioms and
their definitions. First, put puzzle-pieces on the desk with the word
facing up. Take one and match the idiom to the definition. Having done
that, place the puzzle-piece, word-side-up, in the chosen rectangle. When
you have used up all the pieces, turn them over. If they form a picture of
a landscape, the choices are correct. If not, rearrange the picture and
check the idiom-definition correspondences. The game objectives. To work out the puzzle, students had to match
idioms with their definitions. The objective of the game was for each pair
to cooperate in completing the activity successfully in order to expand
their vocabulary with, in this case, colloquial expressions. All students were active and enjoyed the activity. Some of their
comments were as follows: "Very interesting and motivating" "Learning can
be a lot of fun" etc. Students also had to find the appropriate matches in the shortest time
possible to beat other participating groups. The element of competition
among the groups made them concentrate and think intensively. Translation activity. The other group of students had to work out the
meanings of the idioms by means of translation. Unlike the previously
described group, they did not know the definitions. The expressions were
listed on the board, and students tried to guess their proper meanings
giving different options. My role was to direct them to those that were
appropriate. Students translated the idioms into Polish and endeavored to
find similar or corresponding expressions in their mother tongue. Unlike
the game used for the purpose of idiom introduction, this activity did not
require the preparation of any aids. Fewer learners participated actively
or enthusiastically in this lesson and most did not show great interest in
the activity. Administering the test. In order to find out which group acquired new
vocabulary better, I designed a short test, for both groups containing a
translation into English and a game. This allowed learners to activate
their memory with the type of activity they had been exposed to in the
presentation. The test checking the acquisition of newly-introduced reading vocabulary I. Match the definitions of the idioms with the pictures and write
which idiom is depicted and described: 1. to be inexperienced 2. to listen very attentively 3. to be terrified 4. to be dominated by someone 5. to be attentive 6. to be insincere, dishonest The proper answers are the following: 1. d ., to be wet behind the ears 2. a ., to be all ears 3. e ., to have one's hair stand on end 4. f ., to be led by the nose 5. b ., to be all eyes 6. c ., to be two-faced. II. Translate into English (the translated sentences should be the
following): 1. He is soft in the head. 2. She is two-faced, always criticizes me behind my back. 3. Mark has a sweet tooth, so he is not too slim. 4. Will you hold your tongue if I tell you something? 5. Why are you such a loose mouth? 6. Don't be nosy! This is none of your business. Analysis of the results. Group I received an average mark of 3.9 as
compared to 3.4 obtained by group II. In other words, the group which had
learned vocabulary through games performed significantly better. However,
it is especially interesting and surprising that group II also received
high scores for the game. Even though learners in group I had the material
presented by means of translation, most students got better marks for the
game. Summing up. Even though the results of one activity can hardly lead to
informative conclusions, I believe that the results suggest that the use of
games for presentation of new vocabulary is very effective and enjoyable
for students. Despite the fact that the preparation of a game may be time-
consuming and suitable material may be hard to find, teachers should try to
use them to add diversion to presentational techniques. Revising vocabulary Many sources referred to in this article emphasise the importance of
vocabulary revision. This process aims at helping students acquire active,
productive vocabularies. Students need to practise regularly what they have
learnt; otherwise, the material will fade away. Teachers can resort to many
techniques for vocabulary consolidation and revision. To begin with, a
choice of graphs and grids can be used. Students may give a definition of a
given item to be found by other students. Multiple choice and gap filling
exercises will activate the vocabulary while students select the
appropriate response. Teachers can use lists of synonyms or antonyms to be
matched, sentences to be paraphrased, or just some words or expressions in
context to be substituted by synonymous expressions. Doing cloze tests will
show students' understanding of a passage, its organisation, and determine
the choice of lexical items. Visual aids can be of great help with
revision. Pictures, photographs, or drawings can facilitate the
consolidation of both individual words as well as idioms, phrases and
structures. There is also a large variety of word games that are "useful
for practising and revising vocabulary after it has been introduced"
(Haycraft). Numerous puzzles, word squares, crosswords, etc., are useful
especially for pair or group work.
I shall now present the games I have used for vocabulary revision.
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