Teaching specific aspects of language

The inductive approach In a so-called inductive approach, things happen the other way round. In other words, instead of going from the rules to the examples, students see examples of language and try to work out the rules. Thus, for example, after students have read a text, we might ask them to find examples of different past tenses and say how and why they are used. This boomerang-type lesson (where the elements occur in the sequence engage —>• activate ->• study) is especially appropriate where language study arises out of skills work on reading and listening texts. If we want students to understand how speakers in informal conversation use certain phrases as delaying tactics (or to buy ‘thinking’ time) we might after letting them listen and respond to someone speaking spontaneously get them to listen again, but this time reading a transcript of what is being said.

That is what we would do explain and practice sequence. However, in an inductive approach we prefer the students to find this information out. If we are teaching ‘body language’, therefore, instead of telling students which verbs like

‘wave’, ‘clench’, ‘wag’, etc collocate with which nouns such as ‘hand ’, ‘arm ’, ‘teeth’, ‘fist’, etc, we can send them to monolingual learners’ dictionaries or computer corpuses to see if they can work it out for themselves. Such discovery activities ask students to do the work rather than having everything handed to them on a plate by the teacher or a grammar/ vocabulary book. Discovery activities suit some students very well; they enjoy working things out. It is generally easier for more advanced students to analyze language using discovery procedures than it is for complete beginners. The boomerang sequence is often more appropriate with students who already have. Teaching the language system a certain amount of language available to them for the first activation stage than it is with students who can say very little.

Explaining meaning One of the clearest ways of explaining the meaning of something is to show it. If we hold up a book, point to it and say ‘book ... book’, its meaning will be instantly clear. For actions, we can use mime: if we are teaching ‘He is running’, we can mime someone running. At other times, we can use gesture. We can demonstrate superlative adjectives, by using hand and arm movements to show ‘big ... bigger ... biggest’, and many teachers have standard gestures to explain such things as the past, or the future. We can also use facial expressions to explain the meaning of sad, happy, frightened, etc. We can use pictures to explain situations and concepts (for example, a picture of someone coming away from a swimming pool with dripping wet hair to show ‘She has just been swimming’). We can use diagrams too. Many teachers use time lines to explain time, simple versus continuous and aspect. For example, if we want to explain the present perfect continuous tense, we can use a timeline to demonstrate ‘I’ve been living here since 2004’. If we can’t show something in one of the ways mentioned above, we can describe the meaning o f the word. For example, a ‘generous’ person is someone who shares their time and their money/possessions with you. ‘Nasty’ is the opposite of ‘nice’. A ‘radish’ is a kind of vegetable. If describing meaning is not appropriate, we can list vocabulary items to explain concepts. For example, if we want students to understand the idea of the ‘caring professions’, we can list a number of jobs such as ‘doctor’, ‘nurse’, ‘social worker’ and ‘counselor’ to explain the phrase. We can also use check questions to make sure students have understood correctly. If they are learning how to make third conditional sentences and one o f the examples is ‘If she’d missed the bus, she would have been late for work’, we can ask the students questions such as ‘Did she miss the bus?’ and ‘Was she late for work?’. A way of making meaning absolutely clear, of course, is to translate words and phrases. Sometimes this is easy; all languages have a word for ‘book’. Sometimes, however, it is more complex; many languages do not have an absolute equivalent for the English phrase ‘devil may care attitude’ and translating idioms such as ‘to pull the wool over someone’s eyes’ means having to find an LI equivalent, even though it may be constructed completely differently. The trick of explaining meaning effectively is to choose the best method to fit the meaning that needs to be explained. In fact, most teachers use a mixture of some or all of these techniques. However, check questions are especially important since they allow us to determine if our explanations have been effective.

Teaching grammar One way of teaching grammar is to use an explain and practice procedure such as we have described above. So, for example, if we want to teach the present simple for habitual actions, we can show elementary students pictures of someone with an interesting occupation (in this case a marathon runner). After talking about running (‘Would you like to run?’, ‘Do you take exercise?’, etc), the students see the following pictures. We point to the first picture and model the sentence ‘She gets up at half past five’. Now we draw the two hands together and say ‘gets,.. gets ... listen, she gets . . . ’). Then we model the sentence again and get the students to repeat it chorally and individually. Students now look at the second picture and we try to elicit the sentence (that is get them to produce it, rather than give it to them) ‘She has breakfast at six o’clock’. If necessary, we model this sentence too, isolating ‘has’. Students repeat this second sentence chorally and individually. We now start a cue-response drill where we say ‘half past five’ and the students say ‘She gets up’ or ‘six o’clock’, for them to say ‘She has breakfast’.

Real education must consider the whole child and the purpose of human life and civilization. Real education must acknowledge the spiritual and emotional development of the child; the importance and influence of the arts and real happiness on the education process; and integrate them into the curriculum and evaluation process. An integrated education of this nature will enable the students to connect through shared emotional experiences and to reach their full potential as the images of their higher selves, the divine.

In summary, there are different methods of teaching English. Every teacher should use interesting and productive methods of teaching English. They will help to improve students’ knowledge. English lessons will be interesting for every learner. Our future generation must be intelligent and harmounsly developed.