English lesson. Its requirements

The English lesson should be oriented more on training and practice some language phenomena and speech skills than on giving linguistic knowledge. Therefore, the first requirement to the English lesson is - to be communicatively- oriented. All classroom activities should be clearly related to something the learners will need to do with English in their real world and reflect actual communication - that is, they have the following characteristics:

•Definite purpose for beginning the communication;

•Desire to communicate;

•Information gap which creates the desire and gives the purpose; (one person in the exchange knows something the other(s) do not)

•Choice what to say and how to do it;

•Feedback when learners evaluate communication according to how well the aims of the communication have been accomplished.

The next very important requirement claims the English lesson should have a complex, over-all skill-integrated character. Some approaches to language teaching talk in terms of four separate skills - listening, speaking, reading, or writing. Skills lessons are principally designed to improve one single skill and often supplement grammar teaching. Communicative approach talks in terms of integrated skills. This peculiarity of a communicatively-oriented lesson depends on the nature of speech activity - in a real communication process all kinds of speech skills are integrated. With the exception of reading or listening for pleasure, it is rare for anyone to use one skill in isolation for any length of time. If you are talking to someone you will be both observing their reactions and listening for their responses; as you will listen to them, you will be composing what you want to say next. Writing usually involves reading, checking and often revising what you have written. Skills are integrated and sequenced in a real life so they should be integrated in the classroom. Most teachers today are aware of the benefits to be derived from using the four skills as a means of presenting, practicing and extending one and the same set of language forms and functions. Skills integration gives natural recycling of the language and topics taught, and most frequent combination of skills should be taken advantage of in the language classroom.

The third requirement to the English lesson is the view on a foreign language as both an aim and a means of teaching. Generally, language serves as a supporter, a helper, and a mediator of the educational process. However, in case of language teaching the practical aim is to make students be aware of using language in different real-life situations and acquire some level of communicative competence. Thus, the target language should be taught by means of the target language. Teacher in the classroom is (and must be) a very valuable source of language, an effective language professional who uses language as a tool to communicate messages in authentic/semi authentic situations.

The classroom situation is a genuine social environment, which allows the meaningful situational use of the target language, and its communicative potential is closer to real interaction than is often assumed. Much of the language put into the mouths of learners in the name of practice may well have little direct application outside the classroom, but many classroom management phrases can be transferred to 'normal' social situations: e.g., Couldyou open the window?

Will you go and fetch a piece of chalk?

Sorry, what didyou say?

I didn 't catch it.

There are at least two reasons why teacher should try to avoid using the students’ mother tongue in the classroom. First of all, because the role of teacher talk is to provide natural communication in the classroom. There is nothing artificial about a situation that involves teacher praising a student or asking another to try again. By managing the class deliberately and flexibly in the target language, teacher takes an important step forward removing the barriers between controlled, and often meaningless interactional language use.

Secondly, because teacher talk serves as a model for learners, an example to follow. So, teacher should mind his / her language, choose it carefully, and adapt the way they speak, thinking about the speed of delivery. Teacher's vocabulary and use of structures should be adapted to the level of the students. Although teacher talk is so important in the language classroom, teacher should mind the balance between their talking time (TTT - teacher talking time) and that of students' (STT - student talking time):

TTT 10 %: STT 90 %

The balance depends on the type of lesson and activities involved, and on the level of students. But still - lesson is for students to speak and practice, not for teacher to demonstrate their competence. Bearing in mind the balance, teacher should create a lesson where the target language is a real means of teaching.

In addition, one of the most distinctive features of a present-day English lesson is its learner-centeredness. Learner-based teaching focuses on encouraging learners to express their ideas freely, and teacher's job is to give students appropriate language means for their self-expression. This rout to fluency is more direct than teacher imposing irrelevant topics in the hope that some day learners will be able to say what they really want to. In learner-based teaching the teaching and the learning are taking place on both sides. Learners with their ideas, opinions, experiences, and areas of expertise should be the centre of attention in the language classroom.

The next requirement to the English lesson is its variety. Variety is a good feature of all good teaching and teaching materials. It keeps learners' minds active and holds their interest. Monotony of lesson leads to demotivating students. If new language is always introduced in the same way (e.g. in a dialogue), then the introduction stages of the class will become gradually less and less challenging. If reading activities always concentrate on extracting specific information and never ask students to do anything else, reading will become less interesting. The same is true of any activity that is constantly repeated. The English lesson should provide variety in different aspects:

■Variety of activities and tasks proposed;

■Variety of modes of interaction;

■Variety of materials used;

■Variety of text types and exercise types;

■Variety of topics discussed, etc.

Teacher's aim is to provide a variety of different learning activities and tasks which will help individual students to get grips with the language. Different modes of interaction used in the language classroom may vary from plenary mode (T - Cl or teacher - class), to pair work (St1 - St2 or student 1 - student2) and group work. Individual forms of work can be used in shift with cooperative/collaborative interaction. Open pairs can be shifted with closed and mingled pairs. The change is refreshing to learners and teacher and leads to renew learners' enjoyment, attention, to keep their interest and promote motivation.

Thus, a motivational character of the English lesson is last but not least item in successful teaching. Positive motivation is the key to success. Factors that promote high motivation of the English lesson are as follows:

•materials used;

•activities, tasks and techniques proposed;

•giving students a clear sense of achievement;

•creating a relaxed, supportive atmosphere and rapport.

Teaching materials should be challenging, tuned with learners' interests, colourful and attractive, characterized by variety of exercise types, texts and topics. Materials, especially coursebooks, should serve to enjoy learners. "Fun is not an added extra, it is the lifeblood of effective learning", says Tom Hutchinson, one of the most successful material writers for teenagers. A good coursebook gives learners extensive practice of all four skills; stimulates their interests by getting them to talk and write about their life and to relate the target language to their own experiences and aspirations. Clarity of organization, creativity of highly original tasks, and flexibility of the course tailored to the needs of learners serve as a good motivational characteristic to materials used.

Secondly, activities, tasks and techniques are also a good source to increase students' motivation to learn English. Sometimes a foreign language seems a remote and unreal thing for learners as they do not see the language as relevant to their own lives. It produces a negative effect on motivation. Therefore, thoroughly chosen, useful and challenging activities, interesting tasks and encouraging techniques can help to bridge this relevance gap and make learners highly motivated.

One more effective factor of increasing learners' motivation is giving them a clear sense of achievement. Nothing can be more frustrating to be given a task which learner cannot do because they don't have necessary language knowledge. Well-organized and structured lesson, full of carefully graded activities help learners to feel comfort and confidence in fulfilling the tasks having enough of the language needed for it. This confidence and a sense of coping with the task, a sense of achievement can motivate students' learning and create a positive attitude to the lesson.

An effective motivational factor of the English lesson is creating a relaxed, supportive atmosphere, a classroom psychological environment which stimulates facilitative relationship and rapport between teacher and students. Different kinds of activities, language games, songs, jokes, puzzles, movement games can be of help in maintaining a favourable classroom atmosphere which can increase students' motivation and interest to language learning.

In conclusion, a successful English lesson should meet the requirements of humanistic teaching, where learner is the subject, not the object of teaching whose needs and interests are taken into account, whose ideas are respected and whose individual personality is cherished.

Дата добавления: 2017-01-13