Unit Of Work( Professional Practice For Teachers Of English As A

Unit Of Work( Professional Practice For Teachers Of English As A Unit Of Work( Professional Practice For Teachers Of English As A Foreign Language) â€" Assignment Example > IntroductionFinding communicative contexts that reflect real life situations can be challenging when teaching a foreign language. When that language is English, teaching it at any level requires that the classroom be a place where English is not only taught, but used meaningfully. This means that the language is not taught in isolated portions or by delving into the grammar or semantics of the language. Rather, the language is utilised in real world situations using subject matter content that is relevant according to the age of the students and their aims for learning the English language. One type of content-based instruction includes theme based language instruction and it is beneficial for differing age groups and levels of proficiency. This approach is supported by Brinton (2003) when the aim of the students is to acquire language. The topic that will be covered in this report is models in L2 learning with the specific theme being conversation lessons. The reason for the choi ce of this topic is that the ability to converse in real life situations is one of the most important aims of language and in order to manoeuvre successfully in the environment in which the student expects to use the English language, they must be able to understand and communicate with the actual environment in which they find themselves. Without this ability, having knowledge of the English language is not really useful on a daily basis. In order to learn a language successfully it is important for the learner to be motivated, cooperative and have empathy. This naturally leads to a stress on development of the learner. This involves several stages of development in the student process. The principle process entails increasing language awareness which involves contribution of the learner to their own learning process; dynamic learning strategies such as self-monitoring or responding to peers; and lastly, the assumption of accountability for their own education. This last process means that some of the roles traditionally carried out by teachers should be transferred to learners which foster their independence (Kavaliauskiene, 2002). The lessons are aimed at post-elementary level, sixteen-year-old migrant students from Russia, learning English as a second language. The objectives of the exercise are to develop autonomy in the language development, learner cooperation and interaction, vocabulary, peer and self-assessment and interaction. The target language will cover vocabulary and grammar review using such materials as role-play and homework carried out individually outside classroom situations. The procedure involves the interaction of the entire class with a time limit of ten minutes per activity. This is an effective way to transfer roles from the teacher to the students, while encouraging interaction and cooperation as well as giving opportunity for evaluation and revision of material earlier learned. This is useful as a warm up exercise at the start o f a class or as revision at the end of it. To initiate the activity, a student is requested to appoint a spokesperson who will answer the first query. Should they get the answer correct, they pass the baton to the next student to answer the following question. This sequence is continuous unless a question is answered wrong, giving the students an opportunity to step into the teacher’s role by providing the correct answer. This exercise is even more effective when the class is subdivided into groups of 3-5 members. The group members select a group name and initiate the above activity but without the teacher’s role being included. Instead, the different groups are in charge of checking answers in turns which makes it more interesting for the students. This activity gives every student the opportunity to articulate themselves and discourse upon their point of view. The teacher’s role is almost redundant apart from monitoring and evaluating the performance of students. The teach er only intercedes when students are unable to come up with answers to the questions.