Using multi subject knowlegde in teaching english at high school

EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT OF THANH HOA HA TRUNG HIGH SCHOOL INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE “USING MULTI- SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE IN TEACHING ENGLISH AT HIGH SCHOOL” Full name: Nguyen Cam Thuy Position: Teacher Subject: English INDEX N0 CONTENTS THANH HOA, 2020 INDEX PAGE Introduction 1.1 The reason for choosing the topic 1.2 The purpose of research 1.3 Study objects 1.4 Research Methodology Procedure 2.1 Rationale of the initiative experience 2.2 Situation of the problem before applying the initiative experience 2.3 The result of reality 2.4 The solutions were used to solve the problem 2.5 Steps in carrying out integrated method 2.6 The result after applying the method 2 4 5 Conclusion and requests 3.1 Conclusion 3.2 Requests Reference books 12 13 13 14 Introduction 1.1 The reason for choosing the topic Improving the quality of teaching and learning has been a necessary issue, which concerns the whole society Teaching and learning must be comprehensive innovation: content, objectives, methods, means and other requirements Teaching today is to promote self-discipline, initiative and creativity of learners In recent years, the documents of the State and of the Ministry of Education and Training emphasized the need to renew teaching methods The focus of teaching method innovation is changing from the way of transmission of one-sided teaching, mainly force the learners memorize knowledge, to positive ways with the guidance and help of teachers to promote activeness, selfdiscipline, initiative, creativity, the spirit of cooperation, to create fun and excitement for learners, so that they can train their habit and ability in self learning, but how to have a flexible teaching approach, engaging the learner, evoking the learning desire of students It is a question Moreover, we all know it isn't easy to learn a language The process of learning a language is not only complex but also very long Learning English is the same Theories and exercises in class will become useless if students are not taught how to apply what they have learnt into practice, because speaking another language in real life is completely different and often students are confused with their lists of memorized vocabulary and they don't know how to order in a restaurant or book a ticket at the airport … Through teaching at high school, I realized that I need a new method that meets those requirements of learners Using multi - subject knowlegde in teaching English is such a method Making use of multi - subject knowlegde is an effective technique to animate the teaching and learning atmosphere, arouse the interests of learners, and make the language acquisition impressive Especially, students can approach new issues in mitidimentional way My subject is "Using multi - subject knowlegde in teaching English at high school" So in this writing, I will mainly focus on how to apply it successfully, make use of it and take the most advantage of it in English class and the final purpose is to bring daily understandings from many subjects at school into classrooms to deal with a particular lesson as well as discuss with other colleagues to apply this method in many units Therefore learners can understand the lessons intensively and broadly 1.2 The purpose of research Applying integration in teaching English at high school is to achieve the following purposes: - Allowing learners to explore, gather, process, refine and present information about topics they want to investigate without the constraints imposed by traditional subject barriers An integrated approach allows students to engage in purposeful, relevant learning - Encouraging students to see the interconnectedness and interrelationships between the curriculum areas Rather than focusing on learning in isolated curriculum areas, an integrated program is based on skill development around a particular theme that is relevant to the children in the class - Giving opportunities for students to learn more about the content Students can develop a deeper understanding of content through a range of purposeful activities - Making use of inquiry approach Students are active learners who research, interpret, communicate, and process learning to both others and themselves Inquiry approaches allow for students to construct meaning using their prior knowledge on a subject, and new knowledge gained during the learning process - Contributing in renovation of teaching methods, improving the effectiveness of teaching and learning, adding knowledge and skills for teachers - Making and using various and flexible teaching methods to help students learn and exploit knowledge actively - Creating excitement for students, promoting self-discipline, independence and creativity of students - Equipping students the knowledge, values, attitudes, behavior and healthy habits, eliminating negative habits, to solve the social issues that are of concern 1.3 Study subjects To implement the subject, I selected four classes: 10A, 10B, 10H, 10Đ of Ha Trung High school in school year 2017-2018 and four classes: 10A, 10C, 10G 11I in school year 2018-2019 Number of students: 367 Characteristics of Students: The students in the classes above include excellent and good students, most of the rest acquire knowledge fairy well, they need to be motivated Therefore, when selecting these students, I hope that my method will increase student's interest and self confidence in learning English 1.4 Research methodology To study this content, I use some of the following methods: - Reference document Method: search the theory of educators on the use of multi - subject knowlegde to create interest in learning for students in the educational materials and English materials related to the topic Collect documents, knowledge about multi - subject knowlegde method Thereby, filter the information with practical value, which can apply in order to illustrate and supplement, paraphrase, and deepen English language - Observation Method: Regularly take part in colleagues' lesson to observe and enrich my knowledge and teaching skills - Experimental Methods: Assess the skills of students as well as the effectiveness of multi - subject knowlegde methods through the exercises, tests Contents 2.1 Rationale of the initiative experience In recent years the term of integration appears quite popular However, the term in different fields of science covers different contents According to Vietnamese dictionary: "Integration is the combination of different activities, programs or components into one block of function Integration means unity, harmony, union According to the Dictionary of Education: "Integration is the act of linking the subjects of research, teaching and learning of the same field or several different areas in the same teaching plan" In English, it is written as "integration" coming from a Latin word (integer) which means "whole" In other words it is the coordination of different activities, components of a system to ensure the harmonization in functions and objectives of the system Integration in education has been noticed in many countries since the 1960s of the twentieth century and is widely applied today At a low level, positive teaching is only about integrating the relevant educational content into the process of teaching a subject such as integrating moral education, lifestyle, legal education, sovereign education: national border, sea and islands, economical and efficient use of energy education, environmental protection, traffic safety At middle levels, the subjects that are close to each other are only integrated the similar parts At a higher level, it is necessary to handle the knowledge content in relation to each other to ensure that students are able to synthesize that knowledge in a reasonable way to solve problems in learning as well as in life Integration teaching must be based on the following principles: - Ensuring goals - Ensuring science - Ensuring feasibility - There are similarities in the content and methods of the subjects taken Applying the integration into the teaching process is of great importance Integrated teaching is a trend of teaching theory and is implemented by many countries around the world including Vietnam 2.2 Situation of the problem before applying the initiative experience Through investigation, exploration and attendance my colleagues' lessons and through the process of teaching at Ha Trung high school over the years I see that the process of teaching and learning English of teachers and students meet some limitation This comes from several reasons below: 2.2.1 For the teachers Teachers at high schools get used to new English textbook Integrated teaching wasn't used much in class, so a lot of us – teachers of English at high school – get stuck in organizing integrated method effectively Some teachers haven’t been clearly aware of the effectiveness of integrated method in teaching and learning a foreign language 2.2.2 For the students Students haven't still found interested in learning English because many lessons are difficult as well as impractical for them to learn Beside students don’t know how to combine knowledge of some subjects in use for English lessons They also find it hard to present their idea So I find myself that besides using traditional methods as before, to make each English teaching and learning lesson more attractive, active, passionate for students, there is an extremely important solution that teachers should use integrated method to teach and improve the quality of their work I also see that this method can be used in all blocks: 10, 11, 12 and teachers should guide and employ suitable integrated method in lessons wherever they can 2.3 Result of the reality To understand the status of the studying problem, I have conducted a survey of the quality of students in classes 10A, 10C, 10G, 10I in my school in academic year 2018 to 2019 Before applying multi-subject knowledge method, the quality of the students is quite low Let us observe the statistic table of the second 45 minute test results of class, school year 2017 - 2018 by the students of grade 10 at Ha Trung High school as follows: Class 10A 10B 11Đ 11H Sts’ number 46 46 42 45 Very much SL % 6,5 6,5 4,8 2,2 Much SL 3 % 8,7 10,9 7,1 6,7 A little SL 4 % 13,0 10,9 9,5 8,9 Not at all SL 33 33 33 37 % 71,8 71,7 78,6 82,2 It is clearly that the quality of the subject doesn't really meet the educational objectives Thus, I found myself: the renovation of teaching methods in the classroom must be associated with the strengthening of passion, excitement of learners, helping them to achieve high results in learning Integrated teaching brings more efficiency So, not much ambition with this topic, I just want to give some basic solutions in the application of integrated method to solve problems that arise in the process of teaching English 2.4 The solutions were used to solve the problem The outcome shows there are some crucial factors for its success: - The topic chosen should be real and relevant First of all, integrated topics are practical, so lively, attractive, and advantageous in creating motivation and excitement for learning for students The teacher: + Learn more about the knowledge of other subjects Basing on the specific conditions, teachers may develop appropriate integrated topics In order to avoid a lot of confusion, which makes it difficult to implement the general education plan, teachers can choose the contents of interdisciplinary knowledge in the general program to develop the topic, make sure to complete the program of that unit during the school year + Present the content of the knowledge in the subjects taught; specify the requirement to achieve, the name, time, duration of the lesson according to the current program and curriculum; + Make plan / plans for teaching subjects after separating the content knowledge which is taught according to the theme; + Present the idea / question of the topic to solve a problem through which students learn the content of interdisciplinary knowledge and the relevant skills that have been separated from the above-mentioned subjects They may be problems of the teaching content or problem to be solved in daily life + Divide each class into groups and assign tasks to each group Ask students to learn, discuss and give the unity on the content required to prepare before each lesson - Learning integrated topics, students are enhanced to apply general knowledge to solve practical situations, not have to remember lessons mechanically, boringly, and have a general understanding and applicability of general knowledge into practice In the process of implementing the plans for solving problems: student: The Students + Express and exchange with other people in the group about the results, which can be adjusted and improved Whenever students need to formulate new knowledge to solve problems, teachers will help students build new knowledge of themselves on the basis of comparing existing knowledge and experiences with new income + Connect and arrange old knowledge and new knowledge based on speaking, writing conclusions / concepts / new formulas In the process, students need to study theory or / and design methods for Experimental judgment Conduct experiments, collect necessary data, review and draw conclusions Newly formed knowledge and skills help solve the questions / problems 2.5 Step in carrying out the integrated method 2.5.1 Preparation: - Choose the topic, and content of some relevant subjects based on the topic of the lesson or the main grammar point of that lesson, contact with the teachers of other subjects relating to the lessons - Prepare materials, pictures, especially slices on Power Point - Provides students with enough language to be used in their work - Divide classes into groups and ask each one to discuss the plan of action then unite their duties as well as activities: + Group 1: study the notion: "What is human environment?" according to Geography + Group 2: find the infornation about "What does the people's changing the environment threaten to the growth and existence of plants and animals?" and "what is species?" according to Biology + Group 3: collect pictures and information of "The polution of their villages, towns and country + Group 4: study "People's responsibilities to our environment” according to Civil Education 2.5.2 Sample lesson plans: Sample UNIT 10: NATURE IN DANGER Period 62: Reading Using the knowleadge of Geography, Biology and Civil Education A Objectives: -Students should know how to talk about nature in danger - General knowledge: Students know about how we have destroyed our environment and affected other species and to save endangered animals - Language: students could know about environmental destruction and conservation - New words: Words related to nature in danger II Teaching aids: projector, computer, student’s book and pictures about endangered species, pollution etc III Procedure: Teacher’s activities Warm-up - Ask students to look at a video clip and answer the questions : What you think of our environment? What animals can you see in the clip? Are they in danger? Students’ activities - Listen to the teacher - Watch the clip - Give the answers it is being destroyed bears , birds, fish Yes, They are - Lead in: we all see nature in danger, to - Listen to the teacher and open the understand more, today we learn Unit 10- book – Unit 10, part A: reading part A: Reading Before you read - Ask students to answer the question - The representative of the group stands base on their geography understanding up to answer "What is human environment?" - Check and correct "Human environment is the space - study the chart surrounding the earth It has a direct relationship to the existence and development of human society." Human environment Natural environment: - land - climate -water -animals and plants Social environment: Social relationships in work, in deliver and in communication Man-made environment: Made of man such as houses, factories, cities… -Ask questions: + Do you think the environment is necessary to our life? And why? - Say: However, we are destroying our own life Let's read the passgage to know how people's actions harm to the - Look at the information and the chart given to answer - expected answer: yes, because all kinds of these environments have a direct relationship to the existence and development of human society." - listen and write down the words environment - Show slide of new words (Some appear in the clip) Explain pronunciation and meaning of new words including word "species" - Ask students to answer question basing on their biology understanding: What is species? - Check and correct: "A species is defined as one or more group of organisms where two individuals are capable of reproducing fertile offspring While you read - Ask students to look through the passage and read in silence - Help students read the passage Activity (task1) - Ask students work in pairs to fill each blank with a suitable word - Let students work in pair - Help students if necessary - Call one student to go and write down on board the answer - ask others check and correct Keys: 1.extinct 2.protect 3.decrease 4.pollutants 5.endangered 6.interferences Activity (Task 3) - Ask students to answer the following questions basing on the reading passage, geography and biology understanding - Let them work in groups - Help students if necessary What are the four ways by which human being are changing the world? What are the serious consequences of - answer the question - Listen to the teacher then read the passages - Ask some new words if necessary - Keep the book open - Listen to the teacher then activity - Ask the teacher if necessary - work in pairs - Write down in the notebook - Work in groups - Study the information in the passage and from their reparation to answer the questions - Practice with partners then write them down in the note books - Ask the teacher if necessary - give their answers 10 people's interference with the enviroment Why does people's changing the environment theaten to the existence and growth of plants and animals? What has been done to protect the environment? - Show slide to give the correct answers - write down They are changing the environment by building cities and villages; affecting water supply by using water for industry and agriculture; changing weather condition by cutting trees in the forests; destroying the air by adding pollutants to it The serious consequences of people’s interference with the environment are: Many kinds of rare animals are killed The environment where these animals are living is badly destroyed The numbers of rare animals are decreasing so rapidly that they are in danger of becoming extinct People's cutting trees in forests makes animals homeless,destroy many plants;their hunting kill a lot of rare animals;adding pollutants to the air cause glass effect that makes the Earth warmer and warmer All these action has changed the weather condition As a result, people and plants and animals suffer from floods, erosion, earthquake, hurricane and rare animals are in danger of becoming extinct Many organisations have been set up and money has been raised; Thousand of national parks have been established; laws have been passed to save rare animals After you read 11 - Ask students to work in groups to discuss about the fact of the pollution of their home towns and People's responsibilities to our environment according to the fact as well as the civil education understanding -Call on the groups to tell and explain their choice - work in group to discuss - give their answers -suggested anwsers + the fact of pollution: gargage everywhere; pollutants from cars, factories,herbicides, pesticdes + Our own duties: Keep classes, schools, houses and public places clean;throw garbage, discharge of waste water in proper place; save natural resources: water supply; protect species; not hunt rare animals and pland; Have critical attitude toward behaviors that negatively affect the environment, take part in environmental activities - Correct by themselves - Listen to students and correct mistakes - feedback Home work - Ask students to learn by heart all new - Listen to the teacher and write words down homework - Ask students to Reading exercise of Unit 10 in workbook and prepare Part B : Speaking at home Sample Unit 16: Historical places (English 10) Period 99: D Writing Using the knowledge of Geography about describing charts I Objectives: Educational aim: Students know how to describe a chart Knowledge: - General knowledge: Students learn about the chart - Geogaphical knowledge: make use of the rules of describing a bar chart as follow: How to describe a double, triple, column diagram (grouped) (with two or more elements) Step 1: Comment on what is the most common trend in the data chart 12 Step 2: Consider the first and last year of the data to answer questions of increase or decrease? And how much they increase and decrease? (Subtract the figures for the first year or divide by the numbers) Step 3: Next, rank for the criteria: Highest, second lowest (needed details) Then compare the highest and the lowest, between two years Step 4: Conclusion and explanation on the trend of the object - Language: Words used in a chart Skills: Describing a chart II Method: Interagrated, mainly communicative III Teaching aids: power point lesson plan, computer and projecter IV Procedures: Teacher’s activities Students’ activities Warm-up : (4 minutes) - Show slice of questions and let students - Observe and work in pairs to practise answering the questions: answer Have you ever seen a chart? - The answers can be various Have you read/describe? When did you use it? Do you remember the rules of describing a bar chart in Geography? - show the slice of the rules of describing a - read, listen and try to remember bar chart in Geography How to describe a double, triple, column diagram (grouped) (with two or more elements) Step 1: Comment on what is the most common trend in the data chart Step 2: Consider the first and last year of the data to answer questions of increase or decrease? And how much increase and decrease? (Subtract the figures for the first year or divide by the numbers) Step 3: Next, rank for the criteria: Highest, second lowest (needed details) Then compare the highest and the lowest, between two years Step 4: Conclusion and explanation on the trend of the object 13 Pre-writing: (10 minutes) Task - Let students go on asking some questions as in warm-up How many parts you need when you describe a chart? - Listen and explain some new words if they not know - Show questions in task and ask some students to write answers on the board According to the chart, which country had the biggest number of visitors to Viet Nam in 2001? How many French visitors arrived in Vietnam in 2001? Which country had the smallest number of visitors to Vietnam in 2002? Is the number of Australian visitors coming to Vietnam in 2001 greater than that in 2002? Which country, France or Australian, had more visitors to Vietnam in 2002? How did the number of American visitors to Vietnam in 2002 increase in comparison with that in 2001 -Give correct answers While-writing: (20 minutes) Task - Show the chart - work in group to discuss Three parts: introductory, body and conclusion - Read questions and discuss the answers - write their answers on the board - expected answers: The USA had the biggist number of visitors to Viet Nam in 2001 99,700 visitors Australia No, it isn’t France the number of American visitors to Vietnam in 2002 increase by 29,497 in comparison with that in 2001 - Study the chart 14 - Listen to the teacher - Answer - read task - Study the modal given - Explain what information to describe a chart - Ask for information - Let students read quickly task - Show the modal: The chart shows …………….in 2001 and in 2002 As can be seen from the chart, the number……………… in 2001………… … than ……… in 2002 It is clear that The USA…… ………………… ….… with 230,470 in 2001 and 11,546 in 2002 Australia……………………….in both two year while the number of American……………….from …………… in 2001 to…………… in 2002 In conclusion the number of visitors to…… From……………….in 2002 is higher than that in 2001 - Ask students to write a description of the chart provided in task and in modal individually then compare in pairs, groups - Go around, and help - Write a description of the chart provided in task and in the modal - Other students discuss and compare with their description to find mistakes if they have made and correct themselves - Change among groups 15 - two students write on the board - check them by themselves Post-writing: (10 minutes) - Let students work in group to write a description - write down the request on - Ask students who may be good at notebooks English to write on the board - Read, check, correct and give marks Homework: (2 minutes) - Do the writing part again at home and prepare the next lesson 2.6 The result after applying the method To test the feasibility of the method, I have tested, evaluated the learning result of students in some classes at Ha Trung high schools in the academic year 2017-2018 and some classes in 2018 - 2019 The results are as follows: Before applying role - play in teaching English lessons, the quality of student learning in the classes 10 A, B, Đ, H in school year 2017-2018 are as follows: Excellent Good Average Weak Bad NumS Class % SL % SL % SL % SL % ber L 10A 46 10,8 12 26,1 24 52,1 10,9 0 10 B 46 6,5 11 23,9 26 56,5 13,0 0 10 Đ 42 7,1 11 26,2 23 54,8 11,9 0 10 H 45 11,1 11 24,5 25 55,5 11,0 0 And below is the table of quality assessment after I have used role - play method in teaching English lessons in classes 10A,10C,10G, 10I during the school year 2018-2019 Class Num Excellent Good Average Weak Bad % SL % SL % SL % SL % -ber SL 10A 50 13 26 29 58 16 0 0 10 C 48 11 22 28 56 18 0 0 10 G 45 20 26 52 15,5 6,6 0 10I 45 15,5 29 64,4 13,3 6,6 0 16 With this result we clearly see the use of Integration in teaching has created excitement for the students in the learning process The content of the lessons are sometimes hard, teachers with their capacity needs to explore and apply the method so that lectures achieve the highest results Thereby, attracting students to find out the knowledge and self-training and know how to connect to reality are so important Especially through the English lessons, students will be educated the outlook on life and world intensively Conclusion and requests 3.1 Conclusion From the results of the students’ learning achievements, we realize that applying multi - subject knowlegde into a specific subject is a very necessary and remarkably effective job for students It not only helps students be good at one subject but know how to combine the knowledge of different subjects together as well to become a comprehensive development person, and the lesson using integration knowledge will become more attractive, more vivid, especially for a subject with dry knowledge as English At the same time, the implementation of these projects encourages teachers to constantly improve the knowledge of other subjects to teach their subject better, master better results, especially motivate students to love and learn English more 3.2 Requests: - For teachers: have to spend time and energy to choose suitable subject knowledge for each lesson, for the time of the lesson as well as the students' level - For Managers: Namely the School Board should take care, provide facilities and encourage the teachers of English - For organizations in schools as Youth, Union: need coordinate with the teaching teachers - For homeroom teacher: should be coordinated more closely with teaching teachers in the process of evaluating and grading student conduct - For the other teaching teachers need to interact together in teaching process Above is my experimental project in teaching some English lesson, I have tried my best, but due to the limited ability and time for implementation, it is inevitable that there are still unavoidable shortcomings Therefore my desire is to be supported as well as receive contributions from colleagues so that I will be able to complete this project Thank you very much! 17 The confirmation of The Headmaster Thanh Hóa, July 5th, 2020 I assure this is my idea report, not copy other people's content (Signature and name) Nguyễn Cam Thuy 18 REFERENCE BOOKS Nguyễn Hạnh Dung Teaching English method at High school English textbooks 10, 11, 12 H G Widdowson (1984) Explorations in Applied Linguistics Harmer, J (1991) The Practice of English Language Teaching Longman Johnson, K & K (1981) Morrow Communication in the Classroom Longman David Cross Practical handbook of language teaching Biology textbook 12, Geography textbook 10, Civil Education textbook 11, Reference of Biology, Civil Education and Geography Reference “Integrated interdisciplinary teaching training” by Ministry of Education and Trainingcủa 10 Clip: The human impact on this Earth on Youtube 11 Internet search 19 ... students can approach new issues in mitidimentional way My subject is "Using multi - subject knowlegde in teaching English at high school" So in this writing, I will mainly focus on how to apply it... problems in learning as well as in life Integration teaching must be based on the following principles: - Ensuring goals - Ensuring science - Ensuring feasibility - There are similarities in the... Teachers at high schools get used to new English textbook Integrated teaching wasn't used much in class, so a lot of us – teachers of English at high school – get stuck in organizing integrated method