C) Use the given expressions in
Situations of your own.
d) Conduct a conference on* one of the following talking points:
How to improve teaching practice in the 5th year.
Should the methods and techniques of foreign-language teach ing be changed at school?
The pros and cons of school practice in the early stage.
III. a) Read the following text:
Recently I was teaching to a third-grade class. I threw out a num-ber of ideas and asked the students to write something for me with-out worrying about grades* or spelling. Most of the class got right away, but a few students looked puzzled, almost panicky. One girl said, "I want to write, but I just don't know how to get started."
That wasn't the first time one of my students had made that kind of statement or the first time I had thought about the problem of getting started. Many times during the years right after I graduated from College, I sat staring at blank paper wanting very much to write but unable or afraid to get started.
At that moment I had an idea. I decided that after the rest of the class was through with writing I would talk with all the children about how people get themselves ready to work. This would not be intend-ed as a way of criticising the students having trouble, but rather a way of getting the students to think about the rituals people develop to help themselves concentrate and do serious work.
* AE:
marks. 10
After giving these examples, I asked if any student had ever had problems beginning to work and had come up with a personal solu-tion. I was greeted with silence, and just when I was beginning to think that-the students didn't understand what I was talking about, one girl raised her hand. She said, "I heard an ice skater on TV the other night. She said she has to sit alone in a corner and think for a while before she can skate. Is that the kind of thing you mean?"
One boy mentioned that he liked to close his eyes and shut everything out before he got to work. The girl who had said she didn't know how to begin writing said that she was a bit like me. She said she liked to walk around and think before getting to work.
It was becoming clear that the students were excited by thinking of work habits as a personal matter. From this discussion I realized that the students had come to think of work as something that had no personal style. For the most part, they considered it something one did because others insisted on it, rather than something that enriched them.
Consequently, the students and I took a detour from writing and spent a lot of time looking at people's working habits.
At this point, I decided the children and I were ready to take the topic of work habits further and develop the whole curriculum around the theme of people working. There is no limit to the possi-bilities of bringing the real and rewarding world of personal, non-mechanical work into classroom.
Answer the following questions:
What is the message of the article? 2. Does the author think work habits are a personal matter? What do you think on the point?
The author is both a classroom teacher and a writer.
3. Do you think the author managed to communicate his ideas to the class effectively? If so, say how he did it.
Discuss the article in pairs.
Give suggestions of your own how to conduct an interesting and effective lesson of English (in any stage) that would involve all the members of the class in work. Describe a few techniques that would maintain interest.
IV. Select a picture or series of pictures that you believe would be essential to teach a specific aspect of English at school to make it both instructive and enter taining. Be ready to tell the class how you would use it.