HOW TO AROUSE STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN LEARNING ENGLISH

Instead of simply giving words,sentences, or structures, the teacher should involve the students more bydrawing them from the students.. This happens even if students do not know the wor

HOW TO AROUSE STUDENTS’

INTEREST IN LEARNING ENGLISH

2 Using visual aids

3 Teaching English through games

4 Role play

5 Using Language Lab

6 Using PowerPoint presentations

7 The teacher’s attitude

to learn it

II Why do we have to arouse students’ interest in learning English?

Many teachers wrongly see students as machines to be programmed (“ I’vetaught them the present tense They must know it”) But students are people.People think but they also have feelings Students may be learning about machines,but they still learn as human beings Learning, particularly the learning of alanguage, is an emotional experience The feelings that the learning process evokeswill determine the success of the learning Whatever technical virtues a teacherpossesses, however good at the language the teacher is, without interest thestudents will never learn

If the students are bored, they will not pay attention And the result is thatthey won’t learn Moreover, if they are not interested in learning, they will beeasily distracted Then they will get up to mischief and prevent others fromlearning That’s why we have to arouse students’ interest in learning English

The teacher must provide interest through:

-identifying and catering to the students’ interests in terms of topics, e.g.themselves (the most interesting topic of all), their hobbies, ambition,dreams;

- variety of language points., skills practiced, interaction TS, ST, SS,pair/ group activities;

-humour (in visual aids e.g cartoons, anecdotes and jokes as reading orlistening passages, mime);

-inherently interesting tasks, e.g problem solving

Remember that students are more likely to be interested in you and what youare doing if you show an interest in them No matter how big your class, you musttry and get to know your students as people and not just as numbers in a register

Do not regard time in class spent on learning about your students as wasted time

On the contrary, the extra motivation generated through this will more thancompensate

III Some activities to arouse students’ interest in learning English

There are various activities in a classroom to arouse students’ interest inlearning English In this limited unit, I would like to suggest some common anduseful ones

1 Eliciting

In many classes, it is the teacher that talks while the students listen Ifthe students speak at all, it is usually to repeat what the teacher says, or toanswer a set question This way of teaching will obviously make thestudents feel bored and frustrated Instead of simply giving words,sentences, or structures, the teacher should involve the students more bydrawing them from the students He should ask them for their ideas andsuggestions, getting them to contribute what they know already, andencouraging them to guess new words This is called eliciting

Eliciting involves the class by focusing student’s attention and makingthem think This happens even if students do not know the words beingelicited; so elicitation can be used for presenting new language as well asreviewing what was taught earlier Furthermore, eliciting encouragesstudents to draw on what they already know or partly know So it is a usefultechnique for mixed ability classes or classes of students from differentlearning backgrounds, where different students know different things Inaddition, eliciting gives teachers a chance to see what students know andwhat they do not know, and so adapt the presentation to the level of theclass Of course, eliciting takes more time than straightforward presentation

of new language However, it will catch students’ attention and they willremember the lesson more

Some ways of eliciting:

a Eliciting from picturesUsing pictures to elicit is the easiest way to introduce a new topic

or new vocabulary When eliciting from pictures, it is often best to ask

fairly general questions that allow a variety of responses Thisencourages more students to respond and leads them to say more Forexample, to elicit from the picture in unit 1 of the textbook “TIẾNGANH 10” (on page 12), the teacher can ask, “What is the man’s job?Why do you know that?” Students could answer “He is a farmerbecause he is in the field/ he is with a buffalo/ he is ploughing/ he isharrowing, etc.”

Sometimes the students cannot answer the questions because theydon’t know the vocabulary In this case the teacher should present it.The advantage of trying to elicit it first is that students’ attention willnow be focused on the word and they should be listening with greaterinterest

b Getting students to guess

Because language follows rules, it is often possible to guess thingswhich we have never actually been taught, and an important part oflearning a language is developing this ability to make guesses Eliciting isone way of encouraging students to guess and to work out rules forthemselves Learning through this way will fill students with enthusiasm

EX: I don’t mind waiting

Would you mind closing the window?

She doesn’t mind ? (do) the housework

The students will know the answer is “doing:”

When getting students to guess, the teacher should pay attention tothese points:

- The teacher should pause after asking each question, to give students time

to think

- The teacher should vary his or her questioning technique according to thedifficulty of the question, letting good students answer difficult questionsand directing easier questions at weaker students In this way the wholeclass will be involved

- The teacher should try to elicit “onto the blackboard’, building up a set ofexamples as students respond

c Getting students to imagine

A textbook often include only questions that would be to elicit keyvocabulary or structures, or to establish a situation or topic Therefore, theteacher should take every opportunity to ask questions that require students

to interpret what is in a picture or a text ((EX: To get students to interpret thepicture in unit 1 of the textbook “TIẾNG ANH 10” (on page 12) the teachercan ask “Why is the man in the field?”), or to imagine things beyond apicture or a text (EX: What will happen next?) There are no single “right”answers to these questions but a wide range of possible answers Studentsare encouraged to express their own ideas and feelings Questions of thiskind encourage students to give a more imaginative, personal response If

we ask questions like that, we can involve the class in discussion and canstimulate freer use of language

2 Using visual aids

There are various kinds of visual aids that we can use to teach English such

as the blackboard, real objects, flashcards, charts, the teachers ourselves, flannelboard, slides, coloured rods, etc

Using visual aids has a lot of advantages:

- Showing visuals focuses attention on meaning, and helps to make thelanguage used in the class more real and alive

-Having something to look at keeps the students’ attention, and makes theclass more interesting

-Visuals can be used at any stage of the lesson- to help in presenting newlanguage or introducing a topic, as part of language practice, and whenreviewing language that has been presented earlier Good visual aids arenot just used once, but again and again, and can be shared by differentteachers

In this part, I would like to study some familiar visual aids used in a classroom

a The blackboard: The teacher or students can use it to draw pictures,diagrams, maps, etc simple pictures drawn on the blackboard can help toincrease the interest of a lesson, and are often a good way of showingmeaning and conveying situations to the class Blackboard drawings should

be as simple as possible, showing only the most important details It is notnecessary to be a good artist to draw successfully on the blackboard- a lot ofinformation can be conveyed by means of very simple line drawings and

“stick figures”, which are easy to draw It is important to draw quickly so as

to keep the interest of the class Teachers should also talk as they draw: inthis way the class will be more involves, and will understand the picture onthe board both from seeing it and from listening to the teacher

b Real objects: (sometimes called “realia”): They can be the things that arealready in the classroom such as fan, desk, table, wall, clothes, etc We canalso bring them into the classroom.-food, clothes, household objects,containers, etc Real objects are in many ways the easiest kind of visual aid

to use in class, as they need no special preparation or materials Simpleobjects can be used not only for teaching vocabulary but also as prompts topractice structures and develop situations

EX: The teacher can show a cell phone

-to teach the word “cell phone”

-to practice the structure “What …for?”( What is a cell phone used for?- It isused to talk to people when you are away from home.)

-to develop an imaginative dialogue:

Student 1: Could you lend me your cell phone?

Student 2: Yes, of course What do you want it for?

Student 2: My sister has been to Hanoi I’d like to phone her

c Charts: They are large sheets of card or paper with writing, pictures ordiagrams, used for more extended presentation or practice They wouldusually be displayed on the wall or blackboard, or the teacher can hold upfor the class to see

EX: To teach the word “erosion”, the teacher can show this picture

Using charts is convenient because of the following reasons

-The teacher does not have to spend time in the lesson drawing or writing onthe blackboard

-As the chart is prepared in advance, it is possible to draw the pictures ortables more carefully, and also to make them more attractive (e.g by usingcolour)

-The chart can be kept and used again with the same class (e.g for review,

or to practice a different tense), or used with other classes and by otherteachers

-The textbooks we are using now are up-to-date and have good illustrations.There may be no need for teachers to make charts However, it may still beworthwhile to copy some visual material from the books onto charts, sothat the teacher can introduce the lesson in a more interesting way, orreview earlier lessons, or simply to make a change of activity

d Flashcards: They are cards with single pictures which can be held up by theteacher They can be used for presenting and practising new words andstructures, and for revision The teacher can draw a picture on the flashcard,

or stick on a picture from a magazine; flashcards can also be used to show

words or numbers We can make good flashcards by paying attention tothese points:

-They should be large enough – at least 20 x 14 cm (half a piece of typingpaper)

-Pictures can be drawn, using a thick pen so that they are clear, or they can

be cut from a magazine; pictures from magazines are often more interesting

to look at, but it is difficult to find pictures which are the right size andwhich are simple enough

-If possible, flashcards should be made on pieces of white card – then theycan be kept and used again

e The teachers ourselves: The teacher can use gestures, facial expressions, andactions to help show the meaning of words and to illustrate situations Theteacher can swing their arms to teach the word “swing” He can mimesomeone sneezing to teach the word “sneeze” Most action verbs (sit, stand,write, etc) and some adjectives (happy, worried, etc) could be taught in thisway

3 Teaching English through games

Students are greatly keen on participating in games So teaching Englishthrough games is the most effective way to make students learn From mypersonal experience and from some reference books, I would like to introducesome common games

a Guessing game

+ Students write a word or a sentence on a piece of paper

+ The teacher has a student go to the front of the class Other students ask

yes-no questions to guess the word or the sentence

+ The student who can guess the word or the sentence will replace the otherstudent and continue the game

+ The teacher can also divide students in groups Each group will think of aword or a sentence and the representative of each group will go to the front ofthe class in turn The group who can guess the word or the sentence will getthree marks The group with more marks will be the winner

+ When all the numbers have been chosen, the group with more marks will bethe winner.

EX: Find the new words in the reading text ofunit 4 (English 11)

+ The teacher writes on the board the word nets.

g What and where

+ Draw circles on the board corresponding to the number of the words that havejust been taught

+ Write the words onto the circles

+ Have students read the words

+ Rub out the words in turn and have students read aloud the word that has justbeen rubbed out

+ Have students write the words again onto the correct circles

h Kim’s game

+ Divide the class into groups

+ Show students some objects or pictures

+ Hide the objects or pictures

HOBBIES

travelling listening to music

watching television

reading books swimming

+ Call on the representative of each group to go to the board to write the names

of the objects or pictures The groups with more correct names will be thewinner

i Slap the board

+ Write new words or stick pictures onto the board

+ Call on two groups to go to the board (Each group has four or five students)+ Have each group stand in the same distance

+ Say aloud the words in Vietnamese if the words on the board are in Englishand vice versa (Say the words in English if using the pictures)

+ The students of the two groups will go to the board and slap the word saidaloud

+ Give marks to the group that can slap the word more correctly and quickly.+ The groups with more marks will be the winner

j Find someone who

+ Write the table on the board Have students write it on their notebooks

k Simon says

+Say aloud orders Students just perform the teacher’s orders if the teacherbegins with, “Simon says”

+If the teacher says, “Simon says: stand up”, the students will stand up

+ If the teacher says, “stand up”, the students will not stand up

+ The students who make mistakes will be punished in some funny way

l Pelmanism

+ Prepare some cards Write the content that need to be practised on one side

of each card (e.g the content is to practise the verbs of the present and pasttense Write 10 verbs of the present tense on ten cards and stick them on the left

of the board Write the past tense of the verbs on other ten cards and stick them

on the right of the board The side of each card which is blank must be shown.)+ Divide the class into 2 groups Have each group choose 2 cards in turn

+ Turn up the chosen cards If they belong to the same verb (e.g eat – ate), thatgroup will get marks If not, turn down the cards and stick them on the sameposition Continue the game until all the cards are turned up

+ The groups with more marks will be the winner

m Noughts and crosses

+ Draw a table of nine squares Each square contains a word or a picture

EX:

Supermarket

Souvenirshop school

Post office Bookstore Village

Hotel street School+ Divide the class into 2 groups: one is “Noughts” (O) and the other is

“Crosses” (X)

+ Have the groups choose the words in the squares and make sentence with thatword (e.g There is a post office near my house)

+ The group with the correct sentence will receive a “O” or a “ X”

+ The group with three “O” or “ X” in the same vertical line, diagonal line or