ABSTRACT:
English Language Teaching is an art that enhance both teacher and the student involved in learning a new language. The content below deals with Language Teaching and learning, that will help the students to learns the basic methods and techniques used in learning a language both by the natives as well as the immigrants. The paper concentrates upon the major methods and techniques involved in teaching a language specially the target language (English).
INTRODUCTION
Language Teaching and Learning is a term that used to level up the language in social context. It is a way through which the rules of a language has been taught and made easy in communicative manner. The student can understand what the teacher tries to convey in their own native language and will able to format those thoughts into the target language. This method helps both the teacher and the student to understand as well as to accumulate and acquire the language as their own native language. The techniques and methods used in Language Teaching and Learning enhance the teacher to convey the language in a better way. Curriculum also plays a role in Language teaching as it not only emphasis opportunity but also facilitates the students to learn alphabetic symbols, grapho – phonemic relationship (sound-letter) relationship. This method will also train the students to develop all the four skills reading, writing, listening and speaking in a cohesive way. Language teaching Method
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Makes the class more lively and enthusiastically as it involves the participation of every individual in class. Demonstrational classes gives way for the students to inculcate the complex grammatical sentences in easier manner. Bilingual method can be used to make the learning process smooth and comfort to the students as it reduces the difficulty in learning a new language. This will also train them in multi-skill approach as it gives work to reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. Language Teaching and Learning is important as it engages both teacher and student in a learning process as it engages on learning the whole language rather than concentrating only on the skill instructed activities. The learner could acquire discipline in learning a language as he/she puts forth the rules and fundamentals that binds in a language. Various kinds of tasks were conducted to improve the interest of learning a language without any hesitation or anxiety, and also having class discussion in groups make the classroom more interactive than a monotonous manner.
TECHNIQUES USED IN LEARNING A LANGUAGE:
Techniques of a language is used to associate the four major skills, the various techniques or components that are heading below derives the way that best suits for a student in learning a language using their skills.
PASSAGE READING
Listening and speaking skills goes hand in hand as one does not exist leaving the other. To train the student more in listening, the teacher will read a passage from a text and ask them to listen carefully so, the students could learn the pronunciation of each and every word that the teacher uttered. They can also be requested to count the sound that each word gives, this will enable the student to learn that each word as a different type of meaning associated with the same sound of a word. Next in tern the student can asked to read the same passage read by the teacher so as to check whether the student were able to get to the point. To identity the sounds we could use the homophones as the best example: We aren’t allowed to talk aloud in public.
Here the words allowed and aloud gives the same sound but both holds up a different meaning, as one talks abouts the opportunity that one needs to convey what they have to say and the other talks about the volume, that a person could use in his conversation. The students can also asked to write a dictation from the recited passage so the teacher could get a clarity whether they understood the tone and pronunciation of the read passage.
PICTURE COMPRHENSION
Student were asked to absorb the given picture carefully for five minutes and ask them to frame relatable sentence of their own. This type of technique enable the student to think in target language (English) and produce it in sentences. Through this a teacher can know how well the students able to frame sentences. Picture comprehension is a beautiful technique that gives a visual effect in the mind of the learner as it enhances the imaginative power in their minds. The teacher should ask the students to frame at least five sentences each. The teacher can even ask relatable questions about the picture, so it will help the students to think in a border way. To make it more interesting, the teacher can split the students in pairs as one can build question and another can prepare answer related to the question. These questions can be formulated in groups as everyone could understand others perspective of looking a picture and imbibing the content. The teacher can also ask the students to identify the objects shown in the picture, to verify whether they could figure out the object correctly.
For example:
- Teacher: How many children are playing in the park?
- Student: Four children are playing in the park.
JUMBLED SENTENCES
This technique is mainly used to test the ability of the students in arranging the sentence grammatically. The students can easily understand the basic grammar used in a sentence by arranging the jumbled words. This will also help the teacher to grade the students of how well they have understood the grammar part as they figure out the inappropriate words placed randomly. The teacher can easily identify the slow learner as they stumble hard in arranging the jumbled sentence, so the teacher can show extra care in making the slow learners advance in their learning. In jumbled sentences the meaning of the words are more important and so the teacher should make sure whether the student know the meaning of each word in the given sentence. The teacher can also point out student in class and ask them to read the sentence aloud once it has been arranged, because reading aloud will help the student to find the mismatch of words if so present in the sentence that has been arranged. The teacher can also give the jumbled sentence as a paragraph and ask the students to arrange it in number order and ask them to give a suitable title for the pair. This will help the student to understand the connectivity of each sentence in a paragraph, and could also help them to understand the whole point discussed in that particular paragraph as it is been arranged by them as a whole.
Examples:
- Teacher: Father watch birthday him a presented his as Ravi.
- Student: Ravi’s father presented him a watch as his birthday present.
Here, the sentence is totally arranged in dis continual manner, and the student try to arrange it in a grammatical way so as to give a proper meaning to the sentence. The first sentence gives no meaning but the second sentence gives a clear statement that Ravi got watch as his birthday present.
LINKING DEVICES
Linking devices are of more important as it enable the student to understand, which suitable linking word can be used to join two are more sentences. This will help the teacher to know whether the student is understood the grammatical conjunction in linking the sentences. Without understanding the sentences student cannot use the linking device, so this will give the teacher a clear idea of how many students were still struggling in learning the target language. Thus a still more attention could be given to these students in class.
Example:
- Question: He faces many hardships. He won the match. His entire team is proud.
- Answer: In spite of many hardships, he won the match and his entire team proud.
STORY BUILDING
The teacher will give the starting two lines of the story and ask the student to build the story line on it. This will help the student to predict the next few lines of the story with the help of the title and the two lines. This will enhance the schemata in the learners mind. Their thinking aspect widens and learn to frame interesting sentences. The teacher can ask the students to share their story in class, this will help the class to go more interestingly and interactively. The students learn many formation of stories through this sharing of ideas and the teacher will get to know the students creative ability.
Example:
COMPLETE THE STORY LINE:
Once there lived a women in a deserted forest. She finds a mysterious castle at the center of the village. ----------------------------------------------------------
ORAL PRACTICE
One major technique of learning target language (English) is the oral practice. The teacher makes the student to recite poems, short answers or paragraphs, that enables to in way of training the students to correct their way of pronunciation. Oral practice can be dived into five divisions: Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, Phonology, and Pragmatics.
Morphology:
The study of the form of words in a particular inflected manner.
Syntax:
The arrangements of words and phrases in a language.
Semantics:
It relates to the meaning of the language.
Phonology:
It deals with the system of sounds.
Pragmatics
Study of relationship between linguistic forms and study of those forms in a language.
DIRECT METHOD
The Direct method to language learning is a form of immersion method This method focuses on usage of language instead of structure and grammar rules. Here the focus is shifted to oral communication with target words and target communication. One of the most important aspects of Direct approach instruction is the teacher because the native speaking teacher is integral as this method does not rely on translations but full immersion into the language being learned .
There are three main methods used in the Direct Approach : The first method focuses on listening and speaking over reading and writing .This method emphasizes the teacher using drama and creative actions to convey vocabulary words and target language . For Eg: The teacher could act out cracking an egg and cooking it in a pan to teach the word “cook”. The next method is TPR (TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE) which is a very familiar method used by a lot of teachers while taking their lessons. This method involves modelling actions or using pictures for students to learn vocabulary words and target phrases . For Eg: A Teacher can wave the hand while teaching the word “Hello” and this will make the students wave back at that teacher and eventually speak the word with the action .The third method is TPR storytelling which combines the previous mentioned methods in a connective context . For Eg: The students would act out a story in groups taking turns with speaking role play. Employing activities that use the direct approach method can help the teachers make their classes more interactive and engaging . It helps the students to create a meaningful connection to the target language in the lesson.
An easy activity to practice direct method is to do drill commands . For Eg: Usage of words like “Stand up” , “Sit down” and “touch your head”. The students can also take turns being the leader and calling out the commands .This activity would work well in a beginner lesson with simple action words .
The next engaging activity is to take turns rolling a dice for each student . The number on the dice is the number of commands that a student would act out .
Example: If the student rolls a three, the teacher would give them three commands to act out – Touch your nose , stand up and raise your hand . The students would then act out the string of commands. These are just a few ideas of engaging activities using the direct approach that the teacher can use in the classroom, not only this method create an entertaining lesson for the students but it has also been proven by research to create a meaningful lasting memory of the language for the students and that is the goal of the teachers.
COMMUNICATVE LANGUAGE TEACHING
Communicative Language Teaching or Communicative Approach focuses upon communication through which learning a language would be easily achieved. It stresses upon interaction as both the means and ultimate goal of acquiring a good command over the language. Here the students learn and practice the target language by interacting with one another and the teacher who instructs. In this approach , there is a greater room for individual interpretation than most methods permit. It focuses more upon fluency instead of accuracy. This approach can be more suitable for the Intermediate and Advance learners , but for beginners more attention and practice will be needed. This approach will provide fluency through the direct usage of the language according to the circumstances through group work , pair work , discussions and so on .
BILINGUAL METHOD
Prof. C. J. Dodson Wales improved the bilingual method of foreign language teaching , as a counterpart of the audio-visual method and he set out to make progress to the audio-visual method. In this method , the mother tongue holds a vital role and it is used only by the teacher while elaborating the content and its meaning. Here oral training is more emphasized , so that the children have greater practice .In Bilingual method , there are three main stages : Presentation , Practice , Production. Initially the students have to present the material , then practice and they are expected to discover something new .
It is only by the usage of their mother tongue , the children can understand the words and sentences in foreign language. To simply say, Bilingual method is closely associated with that of the Direct Method and Grammar Translation Method. This method does not need any teaching aids and is applicable to all kinds of students.
Bilingual method is suitable for both rural and urban schools and paves the way for an enhanced educational input.
CONCLUSION
In todays world, the learning system has been entirely changed. The total learning process compressed into a small palm size gadget. The students have given various ideas of how to learn in order to survive in this pandemic situation.
Practical way of teaching a language is of more important as it creates a relationship between teacher and student in learning a language. The teacher tries to give simple sentences or examples that enable the students to understand every nook and corner of the language. Language learning is based on skill-getting and skill-learning category, as it helps in a way of using the skills in our day to day life or learning to use those skills.
Thus the paper concludes that, though the teaching process take various forms, the method or the technique used in teaching a new language does not take any other forms as it bases of all learning. Through these techniques and methods the student learns a new language in a better way and thus it builds a confidence level on ones own self.
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