Assignment - MA

SUBJECT RESIT:

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES

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Assignment - MA

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES

RESIT WORK

YUDY VIVIANA LOPEZ CERON

FUNDACION UNIVERSITARIA IBEROAMERICANA

MASTER IN TEACHING ENLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

COLOMBIA

2014

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Assignment - MA

Name and surname(s): Yudy Viviana López Cerón

Login: COFPMTFL1646982

Group: 2014-06

Date: 27TH, November, 2014

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Assignment - MA

INDEX

1. Theories about the use of tables and charts for teaching English

2. Personal opinion about the use of tables

3. Questionable statements about the use of charts

4. Personal opinion about the use of charts

5. Criticism about the point of view of a Strong communicative teacher

6. Appreciation about the point of view of teachers focused on form

1. There are various statements in this text which are extremely questionable, depending on your own personal view of language learning. For example, the text says, “...the chart....can serve as a basis for lively questions and discussions....” Why might this be ‘questionable’?

2. Criticise the approach suggested here from the point of view of a ‘strong’ communicative teacher.

3. Say what is good about the approach, from the point of view of a teacher more focused on form and a step-by-step, linear approach.

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Assignment - MA

1. Theories about the use of tables and charts for teaching English

According to Ariza (2010) in the book Why TESOL? In chapter 18 “Meeting the Needs

of English Language Learners”, there are many ways that help to us as teachers to carry

out a class and obtain positive outcomes from students, some of these techniques are:

- To allow learners to work in groups

- To use pictures and objects for introducing vocabulary

- To work on topics and vocabulary about culture in order to immerse to them in

different ways of thinking and so respecting the likes and manners of others.

- To use charts and tables which allow learners to receive comprehensible input,

learn new concepts and to be less dependable

With regard the use of charts, Celce-Murcia, Brimton and Goodwin, in his book “Teaching

Pronunciation: a reference for teachers of English to speakers of other languages” , talk about

the different kinds of charts that can be used by teachers, according to Gattegno (1972-1976)

some of them are: Sound color chart which contains sounds of vowels and consonants, both are

represented with different colors and located in different places depending if they are vowels,

diphthongs or consonants. Another one is Fidel charts where each letter is color coded, the third

one is the large colored words charts that contains words and give the teacher the opportunity to

work on dictation. Every chart has been created for improving and acquiring pronunciation,

intonation, stress and production of not only single words but phrases. These charts were used

have been used in a Silent way environment.

According to Hogart and Crothers (2003) in their book English as a second Language, English

literacy Development: A teacher´s guide, there are many strategies for working on

pronunciation, some of them are:

- To speak naturally and pause between phrases

- To look at the learner at the moment of speaking, it is for knowing if they are

understanding or not, depending on their face expressions

- To use key visual like charts, Venn diagrams, story maps and others, this

strategy allow learners to classify information, to make comparisons and

contrasting and also, work on cause and effect. One kind of chart mentioned

here is the T chart (image below)

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Assignment - MA

Xxxxxxxxx Xxxxxxxxxxx

It is used for locating information in a class of listening, reading or learners can

complete it with personal information. There are other kinds of charts.

2. Personal opinion about the use of tables

In my opinion, the use of tables helps the teachers to give organized information about a

specific topic which later will be used by learners to find or deduce answers developing

different skills such as: Writing, when teacher implements an activity like “fill in the blanks”

and learners have to look at the table for finding the missing information. Speaking is worked

when the teacher or a learner asks oral questions to others. It also provides to learners

vocabulary and reading comprehension.

I use different kind of tables in my classes; one of them is the following one

Name: Lucy

Age: 19

City: Paris

Occupation: sport

woman

Name: Erick

Age: 27

City: New York

Occupation:

fireman

Name: Alice

Age: 40

City: Lima

Occupation:

Teacher

Name: Katty

Age: 9

City: Tokio

Occupation:

Student

According to this example of table, it is possible perform different activities: personal

information, vocabulary, grammar structures, questions and answers and so on.

QUESTIONABLE STATEMENTS ABOUT THE USE OF CHARTS

“The chart can serve as a basis for lively questions and discussions....” Why might this be

‘questionable’?

I consider that it depends on the type of chart we use in our class, there exist some kind of charts

that allow us to carry out questions and discussions about one topic or more, some of them can

allow us to discuss deeper than others. Other ones only provide information where learners give

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Assignment - MA

a short answer as “yes or no” and there isn´t discussion, there is not a real process of

communication, it is ended or cut after a short answer. the example of chart given in the

illustration 1 is not ready for lively questions or discussions; I think that this chart can be used

for asking questions with closed answers, learners are exposed to limited answers. If we look for

a class discussion, the type of chart or table to be used would be one completed with different

points of view of different learners, and not with precise information. The chart given gives the

learner the opportunity of correcting another one if he or she gives an incorrect answer, for

example, Question: “What does Jim do on Saturday?” Incorrect Answer: “He has baseball

practice,” due to this is not the correct answer, the mate can raise his or her hand and correct it,

“He works in a supermarket” but not a discussion. It is known as feedback. But it is true that

another kind of chart or table could allow learners to ask and answer different types of questions

depending on his/her level.

The table above is a those where we can perform Wh Questions, they are not close questions

where people only answer yes or not, but people give specific information about the question,

for example: How old is Erick? – He is 27 years old. In this case, if the teacher or learner 2

wants to continue a lively dialogue, or discussion, he or she can make questions like “Is Nancy a

nurse? So learner 1 needs to look for the information in the correct place and explain with the

appropriate answer, both them can have a short discussion with short questions. One of the

skills expected to perform are speaking, reading, writing, we can too, carry out a kind of debate

or a discussion about different manners and activities in each country and city. In fact, they can

become autonomous by asking and answering learners to learners. A table allows us “to kill two

or more birds with one stone”. Tables are part of the tasks suggested by Prabhu (1980) in

Methodological Approaches, Chapter 4 who talked about the use of diagrams, maps, stories,

dialogues, personal details developing so, Communicative Language Teaching and

Communicative Language Learning.

In my opinion, Charts are useful in a class based on the Silent way method founded by

Gattegno. They are interesting in the sense of improving leaners pronunciation and creating

phrases with a correct intonation and stress but I think that leaners are not going to participate in

a discussion by using a chart. We can also work on syntax and phonological structures as we

could read in Chapter 3, Methodological Approaches, it stresses the fact that learners look at the

pointed information on the chart instead of listening to the teacher, in this way and according to

Gattegno, learner becomes more independent and autonomous in some skills but they are not

ready to make lively questions or discussions.

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Assignment - MA

Image taken from:

http://www.pronunciationscience.com/pronsci-approach/products-and-training/silent-way

as it is said in the page Pronunciation Science the PronSci approach started by Messum and

Young who based on the Silent way (Gattegno) that the improvement of pronunciation in both

practice and theory is achieved by means of charts, one of them is the Word chart, these word

chart contains dots which indicate the weak or strong pronunciation of each word. (Image

above).

This is another type of chart commonly used in my English classes. Other kinds of charts are:

Rectangle chart, Spelling chart and Word Chart.

Image taken from: http://www.elcivics.com/esl/charts-graphs/lesson-1.html

Criticise the approach suggested here from the point of view of a ‘strong’ communicative teacher.

I consider that a strong communicative teacher would accept to use charts and tables in order to

develop communicative skills and independence on learners, but not this type given here. It

would be effective if we ask leaners to work in pairs about a specific topic and complete a chart

taking into account both points of view and opinions and as we just saw, we are facilitators and

guides, if a learner make a mistake, we have to correct it for avoiding it happens again, this is

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Assignment - MA

the similarity with Silent way, the teacher listens more and speak less and the activities should

be creative and motivating. The charts are useful for a strong communicative teacher in the

sense of presenting organized information to the learners

Astong teacher makes use of charts about only pictures from different places, the task of

learners is to describe the activities and the event they find in the picture and others with

another answer discuss the opposite answer, later they are prepared for writing about the given

answers if he or she doesn´t agree, they need to say why, they also have to present a sheet of

paper including ideas about the class and their own ideas related to the picture presented. They

also take advantage of the charts of pronunciation for improving and being understood, it

happens with that kind of teachers because one of their goals is improve output leaners and

perform them in communication with a correct pronounciation

According to Mcleskey, Valdron, Spooner and Algozzine (2014) in their handbook of effective

Inclusive Schools, Research and Practice, name five Instructional practices that help learners to

learn English as follows: 1. To build vocabulary, 2. To use visual representations, 3. To use

explicit instructions, 4. To use native language and, 5.To provide opportunities of language

between learners, assisted by the teacher (Gersten & Baker, 2000).

The K-W-L chart is a kind of visual representation that helps teachers and learners organize new

information and relate concepts (Hoover, Klinger, Vaca & Patton, 2008)

The handbook stresses that when a teacher uses a K-W-L chart, he or she is able to assess the

knowledge a learner has about a given topic by asking him/her about his/her prior knowledge,

they also punctuate that this type of chart allows learner to organize information in the

following way:

(Fisher, Frey & Williams, 2002). It is useful for a strong teacher.

Image taken from:

http://thirdgradedoodles.blogspot.com/2013/05/reading-across-multiple-non-fiction.html

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Assignment - MA

Phonemic Chart is another kind of chart used by strong teachers as mine at the university, this

tool helps to us to acquire and improve the sounds of symbols consonants and vowels, so we get

a better pronunciation. Adrian Underhill, editor of the Macmillan Books for teachers and author

of Sound Foundations and advisor in the development of Macmillan English Dictionary,

provides us advices through some videos in the web page

http://www.macmillanenglish.com/pronunciation-skills/ for taking advantages and being

successful in the use of this kind of chart

Say what is good about the approach, from the point of view of a teacher more focused on form and a step-by-step, linear approach.

In the case of a teacher more focused on form, I can say that they take advantage of tables in text books where grammar is explained, it is a means of clarification of rules, they only focus on structures, so they are not interested in giving a chart or table about lively communication or at least not before giving a step by step explanation to the learner about forming or making correct sentences, utterances or phrases, according to them, this is the principal step in order to perform correctly in communication, I share in a part this view because can help us to be successful in our interaction taken into account Ellis et Al (2001) who states that form is not only grammar but also phonology, vocabulary, grammar, discourse, and even spelling. An example of tables used for me in the classromm that focus on form and maybe these kinds of teachers would use in their classes is The table for playing STOP, which allows to learners to improve and add vocabulary and correction of words pronunciation at the moment of naming them.

It can be very useful and recommended for a teacher more focused on form; a table about the

use of DO and DOES as an auxiliary.

DO + I, you, we, they + verb + complement

DOES + He, she ,it + verb + complement

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Assignment - MA

These kinds of tables are habitual on the English textbooks. They make learners to understand

grammar; they are complemented with examples of the grammatical rule given. The true is that

these charts provide desirable input, what it is not really true is that all charts and tables provide

learners output. So leaners can use their tables or charts in order to help themselves to use

correct grammatical structures and improve input and aoutput, it help them to be more

understandable.

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Assignment - MA

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ariza, E. et al (2010) Why TESOL? Theories and Issues in Teaching English to Speakers of

Other Languages in K-12 Classrooms. Chapter 18: Meeting the Needs of English Language

Learners. P.66. Kendall Hunt Publishing Co.

Celce-Murcia, M., Brimton, D. & Goodwin J. (1996). Teaching Pronunciation: a Reference for

Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.

Mcleskey, J., Valdron, N., Spooner, F. & Algozzine, B. (eds) (2014) Handbook of Effective

Inclusive Schools, Research and Practice. Routledge. Taylor & Francis Group.

Prabhu, N.(1980). Methodological Approaches. Chapter Four. FUNIBER.

Webography

Hogart, B. & Crothers, B. (2003). English as a Second Language, English Literacy

Development: A Teacher´s guide. Retrieved from:

https://www.tcdsb.org/ProgramsServices/SchoolProgramsK12/ESL/ELL%20Documents/ESL

%20MEDIA%20KIT%20-%20Opt.pdf.

Messum, P. & Young, R. (2010). The PronSci Approach. Pronunciation Science. Retrieved

from: http://www.pronunciationscience.com/pronsci-approach/

Underhill, A. Pronunciation Skills. Macmillan Ed. Retrieved from:

http://www.macmillanenglish.com/pronunciation-skills/

http://www.novitasroyal.org/Vol_4_1/baleghizadeh.pdf

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