Effective English Techniques in Primary School

Effective Teaching Techniques in Primary School

❝Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.❞ ‒Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What are children like as learners? They: are developing quickly as individuals; learn in a variety of ways, for example, by watching, by listening, by imitating, by doing things; are naturally curious; are not able to understand grammatical rules and explanations about language; love to play and use their imagination; can generally imitate the sounds they hear quite accurately and copy the way adults speak; have quite a short attention span and so need variety.

Tips for Teacher Don't worry when they use their mother tongue. You can answer a mother tongue question in English. Use a lot of gestures, actions, pictures to demonstrate what you mean. Make learning English enjoyable and fun. Don't worry about mistakes. Be encouraging. Talk a lot to them in English, especially about things they can see. Play games, sing songs, say rhymes and chants together. - Plan lessons with varied activities.

Effective Teaching Techniques For fulfilling these rules it is necessary to use different methods. Each method is realized in techniques. A technique is a way to organize a learning procedure. By a technique we mean an individual way in doing something, in gaining a certain goal in teaching – learning process. The choice of techniques is of great importance for effective teaching in primary school. The teacher should think of the techniques which are more suitable for his pupils.

Elicitation Elicitation is a technique by which the teacher gets the young learners to give information rather than giving it to them. Commonly, eliciting is used to ask young learners to come up with vocabulary and language forms and rules, and to brainstorm a topic at the start of a skills lesson.

Thinking about the Easter Bunny and eliciting the phrase chocolate eggs

Drilling A drill is a classroom technique used to practice new language. There are different kinds of drilling, such as repetition drills and substitution drills. Repetition drill involves the teacher modeling a word or a sentence and the learners repeating it. The teacher may ask his pupils to say some words in different emotions or volume. Substitution drills can be used to practice different structures or vocabulary items (i.e. one or more words change during the drill).

Why to Drill? Drilling is necessary at all levels. We use drills to perfect pronunciation and intonation, or to practice new grammar and vocabulary. Drilling is a controlled practice activity, so it’s a good way to get young learners talking early in the lesson, before they are ready for freer speaking practice activities. It also allows the teacher to check and make corrections as necessary before errors become embedded.

Substitution Drills These drills are useful for checking grammar points or sentence stress. Make a table or chart on the board (or in a handout). For example: T: What are you doing? S: What are you doing? T: We. S: What are we doing? T: The cat. S: What is the cat doing? This can also be done as pair work, with one student supplying the words and the other producing the sentence.

Using commands in action sequences The use of commands is the major teaching technique of TPR. The teacher models the commands and performs the corresponding actions to make the meaning clear. Young learners fulfill the commands (action-based drills) with the teacher, individually and in groups. When they begin to speak they direct commands to the teacher and to each other.

The children listen to the teacher using a fast TPR routine. They have a short physical break from a long activity. TEACHER: Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Slap your legs. Slap your legs. Stamp your feet. Stamp your feet. Snap your fingers. Snap your fingers. Clap your hands. Clap your hands.

Storytelling This technique is effective in teaching foreign language in primary school. It is very useful for development of young learners communicative and listening skills. Children love stories, they make interesting images in the minds when listening to a story. Teaching by story telling is one of the best method of teaching, the teacher can employ in any lesson presentation.

The teacher writes on the blackboard the key words: ant, grasshopper, food, work, play. The children listen to the story and count how many times they heard the key words. Then the teacher may give them the copies of the text and children have to find and circle these words. Ant and Grasshopper One summer day there was an ant and a grasshopper in the field. The ant worked very hard collecting food for winter and the grasshopper played. The ant said, “Grasshopper, why do you play all the time? You should work and collect food for winter like me.” The grasshopper laughed and said, “I don’t like work. It’s much more fun to play. I can work and collect food tomorrow.” Every day of summer was the same.

The ant worked and worked collecting food for the winter. The grasshopper played and played. He didn’t collect any food. Soon it was winter. There was snow in the field and it was very cold. The grasshopper went to see the ant and said, “Hello, ant. I’m hungry and it is cold. Please share your food with me.” The ant said, “No, grasshopper, sorry. You had a chance to work and collect food for the summer. But you only played. I collected food for myself. I don’t have any food for you.” The grasshopper walked sadly away and thought, “Oh, dear. What a fool I am! In the summer I played and played. Why didn’t I work like the ant? Where can I find the food now?”

Role-playing Role-playing is a technique in which pupils have certain roles and take their parts. Aim of the role-play is engaging pupils in the activity. Pupils do not recognise the educational character of the activity. Role-plays give young learners the opportunity to demonstrate how to use English in real life situations and make them focus more on communication than on grammar. It is necessary that pupils feel comfortable with the vocabulary and sentence structures. This makes role-plays effective for the final lesson on a particular topic.

At the shopThis is a pair work. One pupil is customer and the other is shop assistant. The teacher gives cue cards for them and explains the rules.  Shop assistant You are the shop assistant at the shop. Here are the prices: 50 cents; 1 dollar; 2 dollars; 3 dollars. A customer comes up to you. You start the conversation. Be polite. Customer You have to go to the shop and buy a can of cola, a loaf of bread, a kilo of candies, a bottle of lemonade. Don’t forget to be polite.

Conclusion Using of effective teaching techniques is very important. Teaching should reflect the students’ needs. It should also reflect the nature of the subject. The most effective language teaching will mean that the students are set realistic tasks where they use language for a purpose. Somehow or other, techniques must be used to increase the amount of student talking time.