As it has been said in previous paragraphs, practices and written tests are an essential part of the learning process for technical English students. Practices on the topics are developed inside the classroom with the help of a dictionary. In this way students can be prepared for the written test and also, they can gain some points for their final grade if they solve and give back the practice to the teacher before the class finishes. Written tests are similar to the practices that are solved inside the classroom. Written exams consist in 10 to 20 sentences that must be translated into Spanish. If a student has solved each practice, the exam will be easy to solve for him/her the unique and essential tool of technical English students, the Spanish-English Dictionary, is used in the exam to make it easy. Practices and written tests are always linked in order to get the results that teachers want to achieve, and for the reason that they are not only useful in the learning process, but also are an essential part of the same.
On the other hand, foreign teaching methods are rich in strategies and methodologies. Teachers have the chance to proportionate a lot of approaches for the students since they are learning English to teach it. Another way how English learned as a foreign can be used is to communicate with foreign people. Being these the main uses of English as a foreign, the objective of the Foreign Languages Department of the Western Multidisciplinary Campus of the National University of El Salvador is to create capable teachers not only in the educative field; but also in the communicative. Consequently, the variety of techniques used for teaching foreign students is successful if they are applied in a correct way.
Besides the uses and objectives of foreign English there are different methodologies that fulfill the four learning skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing). Methodologies for listening make foreign English students feel interested in the language, these kind of styles develop the students’ listening skill from a low level to a mid or even a high level, so it gives teachers the chance of having many options for their classes as a result there can be found songs, dictations, and audio material. As it was said, songs play an important role because they can get the students awareness. Teachers have to be careful at the moment of using songs since they have to choose the best one because all will depend on the kind of music that will be used, so it can be decided by the teacher and the students for them get involved in the bustle. Besides that, teachers have to consider which is the objective they are chasing for them to achieve all the lesson’s aims. Another way teachers use to improve listening is dictation, since students have to recognize not only how words are written but also how words are pronounced, dictations are an excellent tool for them differentiate the sounds. Audio materials are a great complement for the text book used in the course because they include conversation, listening exercises, exercises and a brief explanation in the listening way of grammar and pronunciation. The different listening activities help the students to foster their hidden skills that will facilitate not only their classes but also their work in their specific areas. That’s why, students can feel passionate about the variety of things they can do for having a good listening skill.
As well as methodologies for listening are important in teaching foreign English, speaking methodologies help students to communicate their thoughts in an easier way. Teachers use speaking by applying different kinds of strategies and methods in their lessons to have their students talking about their opinions or reproducing the words given. Oral interaction in the classroom is essential because not only served to learn new words and vocabulary but also served for the students to socialize among themselves. Conversations are a great strategy to reach this objective because it has students talking and learning from each other’s mistakes. An excellent way to have students talking is group work; in group work students share ideas and combine points of view in order to accomplish an activity. Likewise group work, debates help students to establish a position, pro or con, on a topic. Debates give freedom to students to talk and to share thoughts. Teachers must be careful at the time of choosing topics for speaking activities because if a topic is not interesting for students, they are not going to talk about it. Presentations are another way to develop speaking skills, because they help students to gain confidence in themselves while being at the front. Teachers can encourage their students by making the learning of pronunciation easy and fun for students; since they are learning new vocabulary through speaking activities, technical English students could be beneficiated by applying some of the speaking strategies that had been mention before. Activities do not have to be developed in English but they can have presentations on vocabulary learning, or conversations that can be held in daily speaking can be provided for them to practice. In this way students from English as a foreign and for technical English would have the opportunity to share their thoughts and communicate ideas in an easy way.
In addition to methodologies for listening, methodologies and strategies for reading are also important for the learning process. When teachers want their students get involved with the reading, the use of visual aids at the time of teaching is necessary to encourage them to read. Reading accompanied by pictures help students to assimilate and to understand the readings better. Reading must be according the type of students, their beliefs, their ways of living, their likes, etc. A reading that is interesting for the students would be enjoyed by them. In the same way as foreign English students, Technical English students could enjoy the benefits of reading not only sentences but also paragraphs about information referred to their majors; taking out questions created by them according to the paragraph. Researches are also a perfect tool for making English students read, for the reason that by searching information, they are processing the knowledge and the new data is being acquired. Mechanical reading and scanning are as well good strategies to practice reading inside the classroom. By giving a reading to a foreign or technical English student and by practicing it inside the classroom, teachers are persuading students to read mechanically. Through scanning, students have the opportunity to underline and to discover new vocabulary. There are many different methodologies to teach reading in both cases (foreign English students and technical English students) that are very important for them to obtain new vocabulary through it.
Besides, the development of writing skill makes the students feel more comfortable. Students feel secure through the different things they can do for learning -"I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I write and I understand." -- Chinese Proverb, this shows the importance of writing in the learning process since students are going to be able to foster their abilities using any kind of tactics. As well as it is known, fill-in-the blank is a good strategy used for teachers get their objectives. How can they do this? Easy, they can give a set of sentences for the activity, in this way; students acquire one more skill (vocabulary). Based on this, teachers develop their classes using practices which obviously consist on sentences. The point is that students are going to learn the different kind of words that English has. So, they must be conscious about what they can find (nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs, etc.) Furthermore, students’ vocabulary is increased since they have to look for any new word used in the classroom. Vocabulary plays an important role in order to help the students to base their daily lesson in sentence structures, so they must have a background about what they are doing in the diverse topics they study in their major. Moreover, grammar is the basis for all the techniques that have been mentioned, as a result, teachers have to take it as an essential part of their curriculum if they want their students get better results. Thus, students from a foreign or technical career are going to experience a wide learning process since they have the chance of getting deeply involved in the grammar English context.
In conclusion, a necessary issue that must be improved in technical teaching at the Western Multidisciplinary Campus of the National University of El Salvador is the creativity and dynamism of their teachers for them to teach in a most motivating way taking into account the different learning intelligences that students could have. By applying different methodologies at the time of teaching technical English, students will not see the language as an obligation or a necessity to pass their semesters, so they are going to be willing to learn it. As a result, this shows that even though foreign English has more methodologies to be applied, it does not mean that these methodologies cannot be used to teach technical English.
Internet resources:
Joe, Angela (1996). Vocabulary Learning and Speaking Activities, FORUM Consulted on May 24th, 2006 in
Eadie, Jacqueline (2005). A Translation Technique. FORUM. Consulted on May 24th, 2006 in
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Sibarah, Ignatius N. (2005). Songs as a Magic Tonic. FORUM. Consulted on May 24th, 2006 in
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Cheek, Jimmy G. and Beeman, Carl E. (1991). Using Visual Aids in Extension Teaching. . Consulted on May 24th, 2006 in
Bibliographic resources:
Interviews (annex)
UNIVERSITY OF EL SALVADOR
MULTIDISCIPLINARY WESTERN CAMPUS
FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT
QUESTIONARY ABOUT
“METHODOLOGIES USED FOR TEACHING ENGLISH TO STUDETNS OF OTHER CARRERS AND TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN”
NAME: _________________________________________________________
ENGLISH (TECHNICAL / FOREIGN) TEACHER
- Do you use a variety of strategies for teaching English?
- What kind of strategies do you use?
- Which strategies do you think are the best?
- Do you think games are a good tool for teaching vocabulary? Why?
- What kind of games do you use in your classroom?
- How do you maintain your students involved in the learning process?
- Which skill do you think is the most important for your students? Why?
- How do you encourage students to study at home?
- What kind of complications do students face when they translate?
- Do you think that repeating is good for pronunciation? Why?
- Do you think that the number of students can interfere in the teaching process? Why?
- How many students do you think is the best amount for each group?
- Do you think visual aids are important for reinforcing students learning? How do you use them?
- How do you assess your students at learning?
- Do you consider games are a useful part of your teaching process or just a wasting time activity? Why?
- Which methodology from the other teaching style would you include in your curriculum? Why?
Thank you for your help!!