Principles of FLT

Content of FLT

The content of FLT or what to teach is one of the main problems the Methods deals with. The first component of “ what to teach ” is “habits and skills” which pupils should acquire while learning a foreign language. According to the aims of learning this subject they are: hearing (listening comprehension), speaking, reading, and writing. The level of habits and skills is determined by the syllabus for each form.

The second component of “what to teach” is language (textual) material, arranged in topics and serving as starting points for the development of oral language and written language, which allows the teacher to reach the practical, educational and cultural aims set by the syllabus.

The 3^rd component of the content of F.L.T. is linguistic material, i.e., phonology, grammar, and vocabulary carefully selected for the purpose. The selection of linguistic material, the compiling of the so called minima, for instance, minimum vocabulary and minimum grammar, has always been one of the most important and difficult problems to be solved and although a great deal of work has been done in this respect.

To jump up what has been said above, the content of F.L.T. involves:

language skills: hearing, speaking, reading and writing;

language (textual) material;

linguistic material; vocabulary; grammar, phonological minima.

In conclusion it should be said that the content of teaching in our schools is laid down in the syllabus and realized in teaching materials and in the teacher’s own speech.

Methods of FLT are based on the fundamental principles of didactics; among them a conscious approach to language learning, activity, visualization and others.

The principal of conscious approach to language learning implies comprehension of a linguistic phenomenon of language material by the pupil usually through the medium of the native language or the arrangement of the material in sentence patterns graded in difficulties with the emphasis on some elements which are singled out as “teaching points”.

In teaching a foreign language therefore, it its more reasonable to help pupils in assimilating language rules which function in this language by introducing the rules, rather than to wait until the learners deduce these rules through speech activity.

A conscious approach to F.L.T. implies the use of the learner’s native language. Soviet methods have devoted much attention to the problem of the mother tongue in teaching and learning a foreign language. If a man knows only his native language his concepts are directly associated with the expression of these concepts in this tongue.

Consequently, from the analysis of the didactic principle of the conscious approach to FLT, we may formulate a specific methodological principle:

In teaching a foreign language it is necessary to cope with the mother tongue of pupils.

This means that teaching a foreign language, for example, English to Russian, and so on should differ in the arrangement of language material and in the techniques of its presentation and retention. We cannot ignore pupils’ native tongue in teaching a foreign language when searching for the shortest and most sound ways to the desired end. Indeed, Russian –speaking pupils and Arabic speaking pupils have different troubles in learning English. The teacher either helps pupils to make a transfer, for instance, from Russian into English (little explanation, if any, and few exercises are needed in this case), or he gives pupils the necessary explanation and supplies them with exercises, which pupils perform within the target language.

The principal of activity in foreign language teaching is of utmost importance since learning a foreign language should result in mastering the target language which is possible provided the pupil is an active participant in the process, he is involved in language activities throughout the whole course of instruction.

In modern psychology activity is now generally considered to be a main characteristic of cognitive (approach) processes.

Practice and special observations prove that pupils’ interest depends on their progress in language learning. If pupils make good progress in hearing, speaking, reading and writing, they become interested in learning the foreign language.

The pupil willingly and activity learns the subject if the understands its social and personal “meaningfulness”.

However not all children can realize the necessary for learning a foreign language. The teacher’s task is to show them how important a foreign language is to every educated person, how people can get new information from various fields of human activity through foreign languages. Besides the teacher should promote his pupils’ interest in studying the language and stimulate their desire to learn.

In teaching a foreign language it is necessary to stimulate pupils’ activity by involving them in the act of communication in the target language either in its oral (hearing, speaking) or written (reading, writing) form.

If pupils are not involved in the act of communication in the target language and remain on the level of performing drill exercises, they soon lose interest in the subject and become passive at the lessons. One needs a lot of practice in the use of the language to master it. It is pupils who should work and not the teacher as is often the case.

Methodologist and teachers are searching for ways to solve this problem. Some ways may be recommended. They are:

Work in unison, when pupils are told to pronounce a sound, a word, a phrase, a sentence.

Mass work, when pupils are invited to listen to a text, to read a text silently, to do some exercises in written form;

Work in small groups when pupils are divided into 4-5 groups, and each group receives a special assignment either for reading or speaking; the work results in conversation between group 1 and the class, group 2 and the class etc.

Work in pairs, when pupils sitting at the same desk have an opportunity to “talk” in the target language: reciting a dialogue they are to learn, doing an ask –and answer exercise or making up a dialogue of their own.

Individual work in programmed instruction, when each pupil can work with the program he receives either through visual or auditory perception at his own pace.

The principle of visualization has always been very important for the language learning since the gaining of knowledge begins either with sense perception or with what has been formerly perceived, that is with previous experience.

Visualization as it is understood here, may be defined as specially organized. Demonstration of linguistic material and language behavior characteristics of the target language with the purpose of helping the pupil in understanding, assimilating and utilizing this in connection with the task set.

The use of visualization makes foreign language lessons emotionally colored, gets the pupils interested and awakens their thought. All these provide favorable conditionsfor the realization of the principle of conscious and active teaching and create natural situations for the use of the language as a means of communication.

Visualization implies an extensive use of audio-visual aids and audio-visual materials throughout the whole course of foreign language teaching for presentation and retention of the linguistic material and for developing oral and written language, although they are to be used differently depending on the stage of instruction, the age of pupils, their progress in the target language, and other factors.

Hence the methodological principle may be formulated as follows:

In teaching a foreign language at schools it is necessary to follow the oral approach as it is the one that allows the pupil to deal with the language its primary function – as a means of communication.

In teaching foreign languages other didactic principles such as the principles of systematic teaching, of consecutiveness, of accessibility, of durability are used.

The foreign language syllabus is the main document which lays down the aims and the content of teaching foreign languages in schools. A school, like any other educational institution, has a curriculum which states the subject to be studied, the number of hours (periods) allowed to the study of each subject, the sequence in which the subjects are introduced.

We have different types of schools which differ in curricula. The main three are the ten(twelve)-year-school, the specialized school or the school with a number of subjects taught in the foreign language, and the evening school.

In the ten-year school the foreign language is taught for 6(six) years. Pupils begin to study it in the 5^th form and finish in the 10^th form. In the specialized school pupils learn a foreign language for 9(nine) years beginning in the 2^nd form and completing the course in the 11^th form.

In the evening school a foreign language is an optional subject and as such it should be taught for three years (in the 9^th, 1th, 11^th forms). The syllabus is an essential document for every teacher, and he is responsible for the fulfillment of its requirements.

The teacher cannot make alterations in the syllabus. The syllabus is uniform for all the teachers working in schools of the given type.

The syllabus includes: 1) The explanatory note. Here the teacher will find the aims of foreign language teaching in school. He will also find some suggestions as to the approach to teaching oral language, reading and writing vocabulary and grammar.

2) the syllabus itself: The teacher will find the requirements for the command of knowledge in English (German, French), i.e., pupils’ habits and skills in hearing, speaking, reading and writing; topics for every form (5,6)etc for speaking and reading, the amount of class periods for every form.

Teaching aids and teaching materials

To master a foreign language pupils must be engaged in activities which are characteristic of the language, they should hear the language spoken, speak, read and write it. Classroom practices which are restricted to teacher’s presentation of linguistic material (vocabulary, grammar) and the testing of pupils’ knowledge cannot provide good learning. The teacher covers “content” but does not instruct pupils. The majority of pupils remain passive, and work only to memorize what the teacher emphasizes. Nor can the teacher ensure pupils learning a foreign language if he uses only a textbook, a piece of chalk, and a blackboard.

To achieve effective classroom learning under the conditions of compulsory secondary education, the teacher must use all the accessories he has at his disposal on order to arouse the interest of his pupils and retain it throughout the lesson which is possible only if the pupils are actively involved in the very process of classroom learning.

To teach a foreign language effectively the teacher needs teaching aids and teaching materials.

During the last few years important developments have taken place in this field. As a result there is a great variety of teaching aids and teaching materials at the teacher’s disposal.

Teaching aids

By teaching aids we mean various devices `which can help the foreign language teacher in presenting linguistic material to his pupils and fixing it in their memory; in testing pupils’ knowledge of words, phrases, and grammar items, their habits and skills in using them.

Teaching aids which are at teachers’ disposal in contemporary schools may be grouped into 1)non- mechanical aids and 2)mechanical aids.

Non-mechanical aids are:

a blackboard, the oldest aid in the classroom;

aflannelboard (a board covered with flannel or other soft fabric for sticking pictures on its surface);

a magnet board (a board which has the properties of a magnet, i.e. can attract special cards with letters, words, phrases or pictures on it)

Mechanical aids are:

tape- recorder, the same tape may be played back as many times as is necessary;

a record player is also an audio equipment available in every school;

an epidiascope used for projection of illustrations and photographs;

an overhead projector used for projection of a table, a scheme, a chart, a plan, a map or a text for everyone to see on a screen.

television and radio equipment;

a language laboratory, this is a special classroom designed for language learning.

There are two main types of language laboratories- library and broadcast systems.

In conclusion, it must be said that the use of teaching aids is very demanding on the teacher. He must know about each aid described above, be able to operate it, and train pupils to use it. He/she should also know what preparations must be made for classroom use of each of these teaching aids, andwhat teaching materials he has at his disposal.

In teaching foreign languages in our secondary schools most of the teaching aids are available.

Teaching materials

By teaching materials we mean the materials which the teacher can use to help pupils learn a foreign language through visual or audio perception.

Good teaching materials will help greatly to reinforce the pupils’ initial desire to learn the language and to sustain their enthusiasm throughout the course.

The following teaching materials are in use nowadays:- teacher’s book;- pupil’s books,- resource books, visual materials, audio materials, and audio- visual materials.

A teacher’s book must be comprehensive enough to be a help to the teacher. This book should provide all the recorded material; summaries of the aims and new teaching points of each lesson, a summary of all audio and visual materials required; suggestions for the conduct of the lesson and examples of how the teaching points can be developed.

Pupil’s book must include textbooks, manuals, supplementary readers, dictionaries, programmed materials.

Textbooks. The textbook is one of the most important sources for obtaining knowledge. The textbook also determines the ways and the techniques pupils should use in learning the material to be able to apply it when listening, speaking, reading and writing.

The modern textbooks for teaching a foreign language should meet the following requirements:

The textbooks should provide pupils with the knowledge of the language sufficient for developing language skills, i.e. they must include the fundamentals of the target language.

They should ensure pupils’ activity in speaking, reading and writing, i.e. they must correspond to the aims of foreign language teaching in schools.

The textbooks must extend pupils’ educational horizon, i.e., the material of the textbooks should be of educational value.

The textbooks must arouse pupils’ interest and excite their curiosity.

They should have illustrations to help pupils in comprehension and in speaking.

The textbooks must reflect the life and culture of the people whose language pupils study.

Each textbook consists of lessons or units, the amount of the material being determined by the stage of instruction, and the material itself. The lessons may be of different structure. In all cases, however, they should assist pupils in making progress in speaking, reading and writing. The textbook should have a table of contents in which the material is given according to the school terms.

At the end of the book there should be two word- lists: English- Russian and Russian- English, which include the words of the previous year and the new words with the index of the lesson where they first occur.

Every textbook for learning a foreign language should contain exercises and texts.

Exercises of the textbooks may be subdivided: 1) according to the activity they require on the part of the learners (drill and speech); 2) according to the place they are performed at (class exercises and home exercises); 3) according to the form (whether they are oral or written).

Exercises for developing pronunciation should help pupils to acquire correct pronunciation habits.

Most of the exercises should be communicative by nature:

They should remind us of natural conversation: questions, statements, exclamatory sentences, etc;

They should be somehow logically connected with pupil’s activity;

They should reflect pupils’ environment;

They should motivate stimulate pupils to use the given words.

The textbooks should provide the revision of words in texts, drill and speech exercises.

Grammar exercises should develop pupils’ habits and skills in using the grammar items to be learnt in speaking, reading and writing. The teaching of grammar may largely be carried on through sentence patterns, phrase patterns, words as a pattern, and the ample use of these patterns in various oral and written exercises.

The textbook should provide pupils with exercises for developing both forms of speech – dialogue and monologue.

Exercises for developing reading should help pupils to acquire all the skills necessary to read and understand a text.

Exercises for writing should develop pupils’ skills in penmanship, spelling and composition.

Texts in the textbook should vary both in form and in content. Pupils need topical and descriptive texts, stories and poems, short dialogues and jokes.

Texts should deal with the life of our people and the people whose language the pupils study.

It should be noted that a great deal of work has been done in the field of the textbooks. As a result new textbooks have appeared in English, German and French.

The modern textbooks which are now in use (at schools) at schools meet most of the requirements given above.

Manuals. The manual is a handbook which may be used in addition to the textbook.

Selected reading. There is a great variety of supplementary readers graded in forms and types of schools.

Dictionaries. For learning English there are a lot of English-Russian dictionaries. (available) available.

The pupil needs a dictionary to read a text which contains unfamiliar words.

Programmed materials.Theyare necessary when programmed learning is used. The main features of programmed learning are as follows:

Learning by small easy steps. Every step or frame calls for a written or an oral response which require both attention and thought.

Immediate reinforcement by supplying a correct answer after each response. The pupil is aware that his response is right.

Progression at the learning rate of each individual pupil. Each pupil can work at his own pace.

Programmed learning creates a new individualized relationship between the learner and his task. He learns for himself and the programme teaches him. Programming is concerned with effective teaching since it is aimed, as carefully as possible, at a particular group of pupils and leads them through a number of steps towards mastering a carefully thought – out and circumscribed teaching point.

Programming allows the teacher to improve the effectiveness of teaching by constructing materials which will guide the pupil through a series of (steps) steps towards the mastery of a learning problem.

There are at least two types of programmes: Linear and Branching. In a linear programme the information is followed by a practice problem which usually requires the competition of a given sentence. The pupil can compare his answer with the model, given in the textbook.

Teaching pronunciation. The importance of Correct Pronunciation in language Learning.

The first impact of any language comes from the spoken word. The basis of all languages is sound. Words are merely combinations of sounds. Therefore teaching pronunciation is of great importance in the developing of pupils’ hearing (listening) and speaking habits and skills.

Teaching pronunciation is of no less importance in the developing of reading and writing habits and skills, since writing is a graphic representation of sound sequences.

Wrong pronunciation often leads to misunderstanding. For example, when a speaker or a reader replaces one phoneme with another, he uses quite a different word, in this way altering the sense of what he wanted to say.

For example, white instead of wide; it instead of eat; pot instead of port etc.

Every teacher must understand how important the teaching of correct pronunciation is.

The difficulties in English Pronunciation usually experienced by Russian – Speaking Pupils.

Any language has its specific phonic system. This is true for English as well. The sounds of English are not the same as the sounds of Russian, though there are, of course, some sounds which occur both in English and in Russian.

There are many difficult sounds in English for Russian learners, [w], [δ], [θ], [r], [ə:], [ou], [ɛə] for example. To Russian- speaking pupils the combination of sounds [θs], [δz] which occurs in English at the end of a word (months, clothes) is strange and they find great difficulty in pronouncing the word with this sound combination. The same may be said about the sound [η]:

In English it comes in the middle or at the end of many words: English, think, song, sitting, longer and presents a lot of trouble to pupils to produce it correctly as there is no sound like this in the Russian language.

The Content of Teaching Pronunciation.

Pupils should study English literary pronunciation which constitutes received pronunciation. This is the language of radio, TV, Theatres, universities and schools.

Only when pronunciation is correct, which all main phonic rules are strictly followed, can one understand what one hears and clearly express one’s thoughts in English.

The teacher, therefore, faces the following problems in teaching pupils English pronunciation:

the problem of discrimination; i.e. hearing the differences between phonemes which are not distinguished or used in the Russian language and between falling, using, and level tones;

the problem of articulation, i.e. learning to make the motor movements adequate to proper production of English sounds;

the problem of intonation, i.e. learning to make right stresses, pauses and use appropriate patterns etc.

Of course absolute correctness is impossible.

How to teach pronunciation.

In teaching pronunciation there are at least two methodological problems the teacher faces:

1) to determine the cases where conscious manipulation of the speech organs is required, and the cases where simple imitation can or must be used;

2) to decide on types of exercises and the techniques of using them.

Each sound is also contrasted with the foreign phonemes which come close to it and with which it is often confused.

The contrast is brought out through such minimal pairs as: it –eat; spot- sport; wide- white; cut- cart; full- Fool; boat- bought.

The experience of the sound contrast is reinforced audio- visually:

By showing the objects which the contrasting words represent. For example, ship-sheep.

The teacher makes quick simple drawings of a ship and a sheep on the blackboard or shows pictures of these objects.

By showing actions. For example, He is riding.- He is writing. Situational pictures may be helpful if the teacher cannot make a stretch on the blackboard.

By using sound symbols [ᴂ]-[e]; [δ]- [θ]. Phonetic symbols do not teach the foreign sounds.

In learning pronunciation great use should also be made of imitation. Pupils learn to pronounce a new language by imitating the pronunciation of the teacher.

As to intonation if should be taught mainly through imitation, though some explanations and gestures in particular are helpful. For example, the teacher can show the use of the voice by moving his hand up and fall by moving it down.

He can also use the following symbols:

for stress

for pause

for

for using tone, and teach pupils how to use them while listening to a text and reading it.

The secret of success is neither in theory (explanation) nor in practice alone, but in practice informed by theory.

Exercises used for developing pronouncing skills may be of two groups: recognition exercises and reproduction exercises.

Recognition exercises are designed for developing pupils’ ability to discriminate sounds and sound sequences.

The following techniques may be recommended to check pupils’ ability to discriminate sounds, stress and melody.

The teacher pronounces a number of English words and asks his pupils to recognize the new sound. For example, the new sound is [ᴂ]. The teacher pronounces the words: a desk, a nest, a pan, a bed, bad.

When a pupil hears the new sound he raises his hand and in this way the teacher sees whether the pupil can recognize the new sound among other sounds already learned or not.

The teacher pronounces the sentence. They left for Kiev yesterday I asks his pupils to say which words are stresses.

If they say left, Kiev, yesterday (or the second, the fourth and the fifth) they hear the stresses words.

Reproduction exercises are designed for developing pupils’ pronunciation habits, i.e. their ability to articulate English sounds correctly and to combine sounds into words, phrases and sentences easily enough to be able to speak English and to read aloud in this language. A few minutes at each lesson must be devoted to drilling the sounds which are most difficult for Russian- speaking pupils.

In studying English pupils usually make mistakes in pronunciation, often repeating the same mistakes again and again.

The material used for pronunciation drill should be connected with the lesson pupils study. These may be sounds, words, word- combinations, phrases, sentences, rhymes, poems and dialogues.

The material for a particular lesson depends on the stage of teaching, pupils’ progress in the language, their age, the objectives of the lesson, and other factors. For example, pupils mispronounce words with [ou]. The teacher selects words with the sound and includes them in pronunciation drill: no, go, home, alone, don’t.

Don’t go home alone.

Pronunciation is a skill that should be developed and perfected throughout the whole course of learning the language, that is why we insist that the teacher should use pronunciation drill during the lesson, irrespective of the stage of instruction.

No matter have pronunciation is taught pupils will make mistakes in pronunciation of sounds, stress, and tones in the target language. The problem arises as to who should correct the mistakes and how they should be corrected. In the junior stage it is the teacher who corrects pupils’ mistakes in pronunciation because pupils’ ability to hear is not developed yet; besides they need good examples to follow which can be given either by the teacher or by the speaker. Moreover, the teacher can explain the mistake to the pupil and show him what should be done to avoid it. The ability to hear the difference in pronunciation of people should be developed from the very first steps. At the intermediate and senior stages pronunciation errors must be corrected both by the teacher and by the pupils themselves, though it becomes possible provided that sound producing aids are widely used since listening to tape- recordings and records develops the pupils’ ability to hear erroneous pronunciation when comparing the pattern pronunciation of the speaker with that of his own.

As to how mistakes must be corrected the following may be suggested:

the teacher explains to the pupil his mistake and asks him to pronounce the sound, the word, or the sentence again, paying attention to the proper position of the organs of speech for producing the sound, for example, [θ];

the teacher corrects the mistake by pronouncing the sound, the word, the phrase, or the sentence in which the mistake is;

the teacher asks the pupil to listen to the tape- recording or the sentence in the way the speaker does it; thus through comparison the pupil should find the mistake and correct it.

There are of course, some other techniques of correcting pupils’ phonetic mistakes.

Those mentioned above, however, can ensure the development of self- control in the pupil which is indispensable to language learning.

Young teacher are inclined to expect immediate results and soon they stop teaching pupils correct pronunciation as a hopeless task. No doubt they forget their own imperfections and do not know- that pronunciation can be taught only by a long, patient, and persist. Abort throughout the whole course of study.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-05