Jennifer Patience » Uncategorized

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Week One: Day Three

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

Wednesday and a morning session with Ellen on ways of presenting new language. This morning we were looking at using a situation as the context for introducing or eliciting the target language structure. Ellen always starts off her sessions with demonstrations, i.e. getting us to be the ’students’ and experience the method through her teaching. Afterwards we all discuss what we did, how we responded and reacted and analyse what she did in the class to get us to reach those conclusions.

There are a number of teaching models out there for us to get to grips with and this one falls under the PPP method. Presentation - Practice - Production. Basically put, teacher presents the language, students practice the language and then they produce the language.

We were also introduced to the mantra of MPF: Meaning - Pronunciation - Form. When introducing new vocabulary or structures to students. This is going to be very important I think! First you establish that the student understands the meaning of the new piece of vocabulary. You can do this through visuals or mime or realia (real objects). Then work on the pronunciation. Use yourself as the demonstration model - enunciate clearly and give the students time to practice. Finally, you provide a written form of the word or structure - usually on the white board. This last bit for me is what I have to remember. Anyone that knows me in the classroom, knows I love the whiteboard so I’m going to have to work really hard to restrain myself from not rushing to the board before establishing the Meaning & Pronunciation….

Our mornings are split up into two, so after 90 minutes we have a half hour break and then it’s back with Robin for a session on ways of teaching vocabulary. We were given an interesting handout of 10 criteria to consider when you say you “know” a word:

1 - you can recognise it in its written form

2 - you can recognise it in its spoken form

3 - you can pronounce it correctly

…….. there are 7 more. A huge pat on the back to any of you that can guess what they are!

Yesterday we were given Assignment 1 which involves working with one of the students on a more personal basis. So the teaching practice sessions this afternoon were useful also for observing the students and deciding which of them we wanted to work with. Today Val and Prun were up, each teaching a 40 minute lesson.