"The language that students bring with them into the classroom is often restricted and not sufficient to enable the learner to benefit fully from education." What are the reasons for this?

University Degree Education and Teaching

THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF TEACHING

ASSIGNMENT 2

Contents

Question 1

“The language that students bring with them into the classroom is often restricted and not sufficient to enable the learner to benefit fully from education.”

What are the reasons for this? Describe ways by which the teacher might develop students’ language skills.

Language is the described as the means by which we organise our lives in relation to others. Language is NOT merely the stringing together of words into sentences; rather it is the means by which thought is conveyed and through which concepts are formed. If learners have the necessary vocabulary and rules of language, they should have the means to understand. The motivation for acquiring language lies in the need to communicate.

Basil Bernstein’s approach to the study if language was an attempt to explain the differences in educational achievement, primarily between working class and middle class children. In Bernstein’s view, working class children spoke in ‘restricted code’ using short, simple, repetitive ungrammatical forms of speech, whereas middle class children used more ‘elaborate codes’ using longer, more grammatically correct speech forms, enabling them to benefit more fully from education. The language used in textbooks and by the teacher is elaborate code and therefore those students who use the restricted code may sometimes be at a disadvantage by not being able to understand the elaborate code. This can be very intimidating for students and must be avoided.

The home environment can also determine the different use of language and children’s educational achievement can be linked to parental attitude and expectations, this is known as the “educational climate” of the home. The role of the parent is very important from an early age in developing linguistic standards for their children, parents can do through playing games, reading books and holding “adult” two-way conversations with their children.

Teachers are aware that social disadvantage can have an effect on language and consequentially on learning. Opportunities that are available through educational provision can be considerably lessened by social disadvantage because of low expectations. Attitudes and general situations of people may make then unwilling or unable to take advantage of the opportunities that are available to them.

Douglas Barnes said, “The relationship between language and learning in the classroom remains a matter of great practical importance. If all teachers could learn to be as sensitive to language in the classroom as some already are, this might significantly raise the level of learning in all our schools.” The better the language skills of our students the better they’re understanding and therefore learning.

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The teacher must therefore develop student’s’ language skills to enable them to learn, to reach their full potential. To do this, the teacher must start with the language the students understand before introducing new ideas and terminology. Success in the classroom is not just a matter of how well children learn to communicate. The teacher also has the responsibility to develop skills of clear presentation. Written skills may be improved through development of report writing, memos, quizzes and essays.

Teachers must always ensure that technical terms are carefully explained and understood. The use of key words can be helpful and when the students hear this word being used in context they are more likely to understand it and become confident enough to add it to their own vocabulary. Teachers should consider how useful taking notes and producing handouts might be. The students can then use these notes and handouts for revision purposes. Students need to be helped to understand what they are required to read in textbooks and what is required of them when completing assignments. The teacher’s use of language with the students will influence their language development.

Verbal interchanges in a classroom are very important, as language aids the internalisation of concepts. Pole bridging is a process that can also help, whereby the teacher can talk through a process and this helps to fix the process in the students mind and reveal any gaps in the understanding. Students should be encouraged to pole-bridge for themselves. Another method of verbal interchanges is the student asking themselves, their fellow students and their teacher questions and preparing answers in their own minds. In this way they are verbalising their thoughts and ideas and this contributes to improving their language skills. Asking students to explain concepts, new language etc in their own words, orally and in writing, helps internalisation. Discussions and debates may also be employed to assist in the internalisation of ideas.

Brainstorming is another method by which the teacher can encourage students to become involved in the class and encourage them to suggest their own ideas without judging their value or justifying their suggested ideas. Ideas are assessed at a later stage. This is best done in small groups so that more students will participate and can be done at the beginning of a lesson to assess what is already known or at the end of a lesson to establish what has been learnt.

One of the most important things for a teacher to remember is never to ridicule the students if they get an answer wrong or to punish language errors. Rather they should simply repeat the correct version in their reply without being obvious. The student must always feel “psychologically safe” in their learning environment.

People can also often communicate through non-verbal language as well as verbal, through facial expressions, gestures and body language. Facial expressions can sometimes convey more meaning than words and there interpretation should be part of the teacher’s language skills.

Conclusion: The language used in communication is of prime importance. The most effective means of effective communication is two-way; everyone has the right to communicate – both teacher and student. Teachers should listen to, and accommodate, the many forms of language used by students and take on the role of helping to improve their language. It is important that the teacher develops teaching strategies to maintain the students’ attention thus helping to motivate and develop their language skills.

Question 2

Explain the importance of:

a: demonstration as a teaching method.

When teaching a skill it is very important that we demonstrate how to perform the skill in order to provide a model as the goal providing a visual image of what is to be achieved and allowing students to imitate this. The demonstration needs to be carefully prepared and consideration given to particular areas.

The task should be analysed and then broken down into its component parts before being unified. The teacher is responsible for the teaching environment and for the students. The classroom should be correctly laid out with plenty of room for the students to be able to see the demonstration, the equipment must be adequate to carry out the demonstration and good lighting and enough power sockets must also be considered.

Verbal guidance by the teacher is very important so that the student can keep their attention on the key points of the demonstration. The more senses used the better the learning. Practice by the student must follow the demonstration immediately, or as soon as possible so that it is still fresh in their minds.

The most effective way for a teacher to demonstrate a task is by firstly carrying out the demonstration at the natural speed of the task; such that the student knows what they should be aiming for. Then the demonstration should be repeated, this time with verbal commentary stating what is being done and why and at such a speed so that all students can follow what is actually being done. Breaking the demonstration down into parts and unifying them into a series of continuous movements is always recommended.

After being shown the demonstration the students will be eager to try the task for themselves. The majority of us learn better by seeing and we tend to remember something if we have seen it demonstrated first.

b. The use of questioning.

Questions can be very important as part of the learning process, either by asking questions of your students or by the students themselves asking the questions of the teacher or of each other.

Questions can be used to check previous knowledge of a subject, to check how the student is learning before continuing, to encourage the student to participate and to gain the students attention, to arouse interest and curiosity, to encourage thinking and reasoning and to evaluate the lesson’s objective.

When a teacher is planning a lesson carefully consideration must be made as to the questions that may be used, especially those designed to develop a topic. They need to be carefully framed and re-phrased if not fully understood; as the teacher must also remember that what it clear to them may not be clear to the students.

Care must be taken to ensure that the questions are spread out over the entire group and that the same people are not the centre of attention all the time. All students should be given the opportunity to answer, and should also be encouraged to ask the teacher and each other questions as well.

One of the most important things about questioning a group of students is that they must feel that they are not at risk of ridicule if they get the question wrong. It is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure that all the students feel “psychologically safe” in the classroom. The teacher must never let them feel threatened by a wrong answer. Creating this atmosphere depends a lot on the amount of respect the teacher and students have for each other.

Teachers should always ensure that a combination of Open and Closed questions are incorporated within any questioning session. Open questions enable the student to answer in their own words whilst closed questions have more “fixed” answers, e.g. Yes/No, 4520 etc. It is important that a teacher uses open and closed questions in the correct situation.

In addition to teachers asking students questions the teacher should always be ready to field questions from students, this form of feedback is essential in reinforcing the students learning experience.

c. The use of audio-visual aids to support learning.

Audio-visual aids can be used as an extension of the teacher, but must never be used as a substitute. Communication can often be helped by the use of audio-visual aids, but teachers must ensure that they are not using these aids just because they are available. Good planning is very important to ensure that the aid being used is the best one of the task in hand. The aid should be appropriate, uncomplicated and accurate.

There are many different types of teaching/learning aids and are all useful depending on the needs of the students. They appeal to different teaching and learning styles and they also appeal to the senses, they add interest through variety, reinforce learning and help to develop understanding. A teacher should never rely solely on verbal lessons; the use of additional audio-visual aids assists the teacher and aids the student’s memory retention of a given subject.

The most effective audio-visual aid is the teacher and all other aids should be chosen to support the teacher and not the other way round. Audio-visual aids are ideal for use in a summary or conclusion; they assist in the retention of the student’s attention and reinforce the lesson.

Principles – Assignment 2