2009 English Education Program Inha University 2009 English Education Program

Welcome to Effective Communication in the Classroom EJ 417 Mondays from 10:00-11:50 Wednesdays from 11:00-11:50

Today’s Class Introduce myself to you. Briefly discuss the aims of this course. (a) Making our communication more effective. (b) Looking at teacher/student interactions and coming up with ways to accomplish these in English. (c) Give you confidence to conduct English classes in English. (d) Look at a variety of activities that you can use to teach English (3) Introduce three concepts: (a) Negotiating meaning (b) Teaching skills versus teaching content (c) Modifying our input versus authentic speech. (4) Talk about our class style.

1. Negotiating Meaning One of the aims of this course is to improve our communication so that we are more effective in getting our meaning across. As a teacher this means giving instruction (in English) in ways that your students will be able to comprehend.

Before we go into what negotiating meaning is, lets take a look at why we need to negotiate meaning. The cartoons in this slide and the next illustrate why we need to negotiate meaning with our students. In the cartoon the teacher says that the homework is due. In this example, what does due mean? Can you foresee any difficulties arising if this situation is in an ESL context?

Here, the student misunderstands what his teacher wants him to do. This is a failure of communication. Do homework today?

What does this cartoon tell us? As teachers, there will be times when your students do not understand you . . . . . . especially when you are giving instructions in English!

What’s worse, there are times when they will not understand but they think they do understand.

Task 1 In the previous cartoon we saw an example of a failure of communication, which resulted in a student not handing his homework in. In partners discuss: How could the teacher have avoided this? How could the student have avoided this?

Here are some possible answers: Teacher Rephrase: “Your homework is due today. You have to hand it in by three o’clock this afternoon.” Comprehension Check: “You got that?” “So when do you have to hand in the homework.” Visual Reinforcement: Write on the blackboard. Send a written notice home. Student Rephrase: “So I hand it in tomorrow then.” Clarification Request: “I’m sorry. Did you say I have to do the homework tonight.”

So now we have some incite into what negotiating meaning is So now we have some incite into what negotiating meaning is. It’s giving instruction to your students and then checking to make sure that they understood it! In other words, it’s sending your message and making sure the message was received as sent.

We will look at discussion strategies such as rephrasing, clarifying, and summarizing that will help us to avoid misunderstandings. When we clarify and rephrase we are negotiating the meaning of our message.

I do not mean what you think I mean. Well, what do you mean then? Negotiating Meaning I do not mean what you think I mean. Well, what do you mean then?

We will look at language structures that you can use so that (a) your students understand what you mean. (b) you know that your students understand what you mean.

My hope is that as teachers become more proficient in communicating instruction to students in English, they will increase the amount of time they actually talk to their students in English.

___________________________ Task 2 Before we discuss the second aim of this course I’d like you to discuss with a partner and fill in the blanks for the proverb below: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day . . . ___________________________

And you feed him for life. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish And you feed him for life. As language teachers, we don’t just want to teach a language. We also want to teacher our students how to learn a language.

1. Teaching Skills to Students This brings us to the second aim of this course, which is to look at how we make our students good independent language learners. To do this we have to teach them skills and not just highlight language points for them on the blackboard.

Negotiating meaning is an example of one skill. Being able to negotiate meaning is an important skill for someone who has to give instruction to others on a daily basis. It is something that you naturally do in your native language, but is not as natural in a second language.

Being able to communicate clearly and uncover misunderstandings is also a good skill for your students to have. This is one skill we should teach our students as well.

Because the skills that we learn in this course are valuable for your students, we will look at activities we can use to teach these skills.

Sampling Activities Another aim of this course is to sample a variety of activities that you can use to teach English in your class. (This is probably the best part of the course! We will look at really practical ways to teach English that can even be used for the large classes that you are likely to have to teach.)

Classroom Interactions Finally, we are going to look at classroom interactions that teachers have with students and ask: “How can we accomplish that in English?”

Classroom interactions are interactions that teachers have with students such as: Giving definitions . Posing hypothetical questions Putting language in context Giving feedback . Explaining instructions .

3. Comprehensible input The last concept that we need to touch upon is that of comprehensible input. The concept of comprehensible input was first introduced in Krashen’s theory of language acquisition.

He argued that people acquire languages by receiving input that is meaningful and can be understood.

Language teachers are a good source of meaningful interaction and their instruction provides input for their students. By not providing instruction in English you are depriving your students of important source of input: you.

Of course, giving instruction in authentic English increases the likelihood that students will be confused. Therefore, we have to try to balance two important goals: Making sure our students understand us. and Making sure our students get rich and varied input.

The more authentic (rich and varied) our instruction is the less likely it will be understood.

To see what I mean look at the following instructions: “Take out your books and draw a picture.” “What I want you to do is to take out your books and draw a picture.”

Clearly, the first quotation is easier to understand. On the other hand, should we really use the imperative voice every time we give instructions? If we don’t give our students real examples of complex grammar then who will? And so, we will look at ways to modify and vary our input to balance these two goals.

The Ultimate Goal My ultimate goal is to give you the confidence to interact with your students so that you will conduct a greater portion of your class in English.