Teach English in Jieshou Zhen - Yangzhou Shi

At present, foreign language, especially English is considered as a basic subject in high school curriculum, it has the same characteristics as other subjects. The purpose is also to contribute to the formation of human ethics for students. Foreign languages have been included in the educational programs of all levels from elementary to tertiary. For us Hanoi, English is also introduced into schools and it is also considered a major subject. Like other basic subjects, practical skills are an indispensable part, but foreign language has its own characteristics that make the system of communication practical functions central to the content of teaching. because the system of practical exercises does not stop at the illustration but here the actual communication practice becomes the main activity content, the top goal of teaching and learning foreign languages. Content of communication skills is practiced through four activities: Listening - Speaking - Reading - Writing. All four skills go hand in hand throughout the process of teaching and learning. Therefore, we can consider the importance and needs of English are very large. However, learning English in recent years has not achieved much results despite the time it takes a lot. Facing this situation, English teachers must find their own teaching methods that are most effective, a question that is asked: How to teach foreign languages well, especially teaching grammar structures effective. This is still a difficult question for teachers. Most English teachers also have certain knowledge limitations and inexperience. The goal of introducing new grammatical structures is to make students understand the meaning, pronunciation and usage. A basic structure is used as a means to practice phonetics, grammar and vocabulary. Many teachers often teach grammatical structures that are: Introducing a new structure, giving the form (usage) then for students to practice according to the textbook, they do not pay much attention to whether the student understands all or not and can be applied in practice to get a wallet or not. Teachers must know how to use their creativity in designing exercises to exploit that grammatical structure. Based on the overall goals of the subject as well as the specific purpose of each lesson to design the exercises in accordance with the goals that they have set. * Grammar lesson outline Begin with an exercise, game, listening, etc. that introduces the grammar concept. For example, when presenting the 2nd conditional, draw a picture of myself with thought bubbles of lot of money, a sports car, a big house and a world map. Then ask the students what you’re thinking about and then introduce the target language. “If I had a lot of money, I would buy a sports car and a big house.” Practise and drill the sentence orally before writing it on the board (positive, negative, question and short answer). Ask students questions that will help them identify the grammar concept to be discussed. Later focus on form by asking the students questions. E.g. “What do we use after ‘if’?” and on meaning by asking the students questions to check that they have understood the concept (E.g. “Do I have lots of money?” No “What am I doing?” Imagining.) When we are satisfied that the students understand the form and the meaning, we move on to the practice stage of the lesson. During this stage of the lesson it is important to correct phonological and grammatical mistakes. Practice There are numerous activities which can be used for this stage including gap fill exercises, substitution drills, sentence transformations, split sentences, picture dictations, class questionnaires, reordering sentences and matching sentences to pictures. It is important that the activities are fairly controlled at this stage as students have only just met the new language. Many students’ books and workbooks have exercises and activities which can be used at this stage. When teaching the 2nd conditional, the activity of split sentences is suitable. We can give the students lots of sentence halves and in pairs they try and match the beginnings and ends of the sentences. Example: “If I won the lottery,” … “I’d travel around the world.” We also can do a communicative follow up game like pelmanism or snap using the same sentence halves. * Production Again there are numerous activities for this stage and what we choose will depend on the language we are teaching and on the level of the students. However, information gaps, role plays, interviews, simulations, find someone who, spot the differences between two pictures, problem solving, personalisation activities and board games are all meaningful activities which give students the opportunity to practise the language more freely. When teaching the 2nd conditional, try to personalise the lesson at this stage by giving students a list of question prompts to ask others in the class. Example: do/if/win the lottery? Although the questions are controlled the students are given the opportunity to answer more spontaneously using other language items and thus the activity becomes much less predictable. It is important to monitor and make a note of any errors so that we can build in class feedback and error analysis at the end of the lesson. Conclusion Ask students to once again explain the concept. Giving homework Provide an exercise which focuses on the correct construction of the grammar point. * Some of fun ways to teach Grammar 1) Find someone who … This is a speaking activity that we can use to practice any grammar or language. The learners have try to find someone in the group who matches the description or has done a specific activity. For example, we practice using present perfect: On the board write: - find someone who has been abroad. - find someone who has eaten something very strange. - find someone who has been a millionare. The learners make questions “Have you ever been abroad?” and then in groups ask each other questions. 2) Actions We want the students to practice the simple past of regular or irregular verbs. Grab a small ball or bean bag and say a verb out loud; toss the ball to a student who will have to say its past form. He or she tosses the ball back to the teacher and we choose another student. Whenever a student makes a mistake, he or she has to leave the circle. The last student left standing gets a reward sticker or other prize. We can say a sentence in affirmative, and they have to supply a question, or vice versa; this activity can be adapted to any grammar point. 3) Phrasal Verb Matching Split the class into two groups and have the groups move to opposite ends of the classroom. Name one group “Verb” and the other group “Prepositions”, and assign a specific action verb or preposition to each student. For example, one of the “Verb” could be “take”, and one of the “Preposition” could be “away”. Have the two groups mingle and seek out partners who can help them complete a satisfactory phrasal verb. “Take” and “away”, for instance, might partner up to form “take away”. Today, learning English often focuses on communication, which is mainly listening and speaking, to serve for work and study. Therefore, there are many ideas that grammar is not important and does not need to learn grammar. That is a wrong idea. In fact, learning grammar is also essential for students' English learning process. We need to use grammar to be able to structure sentences and communicate effectively. Teaching grammar in an ESL/EFL setting is quite different from teaching grammar to native speakers.