Task 7. Try your hand at teaching

a) Choose a grammar point (e.g., one of the tenses, the plural of nouns, the degrees of comparison of adjectives, word order in questions, etc.) and think of how you would present it a) to primary school students; b) to teenage and adult learners at elementary level; c) to high school students. Would you introduce your material inductively or deductively? What techniques would you use? How much would you go into technical detail for each group of learners? Give your presentation to the class.

B) Using tables and diagrams

A good way to present information about grammar is using tables and diagrams. There are many ready-made tables for sale, but you can make them on your own. Think of some ways to present grammar information in a concise visual way. Create a table or a diagram and present the grammar point in question to the rest of the class.

Task 8. Read the information given below and practice your skills:

Grammar drill

Grammar drill is a teaching/learning activity, which emphasizes rote learning, memorization and automation of language. There are the following types of drills:

• formal drills such as substitution, completion and transformation,

• functional drills such as receiving training in expressing a certain grammar meaning (e.g. futurity, priority of actions, types of modality etc)

• meaningful drills such as using grammar in a broader situational context.

Practising grammar starts with the formal drill, i.e. practicing grammar structures with the focus on language accuracy.

The next step is functional drill, i.e. teaching how to express grammar meaning in separate sentences (e.g., saying what a driver should not do when coming across road-signs).

The ability to express grammar meaning is necessary for the learners to pass over to the meaningful drill, i.e. communicating a message in a situational setting with a certain grammar focus (e.g. commenting on what people are doing in the photos from the family album and focusing on Present Progressive).

"Two steps forward - one step back" is a strategy in practicing grammar. It means that the "meaningful drill" usually comes after the “formal drill” and the "functional drill". Instead of proceeding further to fluent communication tasks, the teacher returns to the "formal drill" again to reinforce the knowledge through language analysis.

Formal drills

a) Match the type and the activity:

1. Substitution

2. Transformation

3. Completion

A. Change the Present Simple sentences using the word in brackets as the subject. 1. They go to the country every weekend (Mary). 2. I never talk to strangers on the train (He). 3. Some people like to have bread with every meal (My brother).

B. Put the verb into the most suitable form, Present Continuous or Present Simple, with a future meaning. 1. We (have) a party next Sunday. 2. What time (leave) the next train for Cambridge? 3. What you (do) on Monday evening?

C. Ask Present Simple questions to the following sentences beginning with the words in brackets. 1. My brother lives in a small town in the North. (Who? Where? What kind?) 2. J.K. Rowling writes interesting books for children and adults. (Who? What? What kind? Who…for?) 3. The train to Manchester goes every hour. (Which? How often? )

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 973

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