A useful activity for teaching English.
Some of the common reasons all students of English learning classes give for their inability to speak in English are:
- I don’t know grammar,
- I have poor vocabulary,
- I lack self confidence,
- Others make fun,
- I lack environment to practice, etc.
‘I don’t know grammar’ generally occupies the top slot as the reason for inability to speak in English. Generally no amount of discussion is able to fully convince the students that they don’t really have to master grammar to speak in English.
In order to convince the students that even with a little knowledge of English we are able to understand the message of the receiver, I have created an activity. Teachers of English improvement classes will find it useful. I flash some common everyday questions given below on the screen:
- Which is your favourite sport?
- Who is sitting next to you?
- What is in your pocket?
- What is the colour of your shirt?
- In which class do you study?
- Which is your favourite tourist place?
- Who is your favourite actor?
- Which is your favourite movie?
- What is the name of your school?
- What is the name of your favourite teacher?
- Where do you stay?
- How do you come to the class?
- Can you drive a car?
- Shall we go for a movie after the class?
Many more such routine questions can be added. Students are asked to sit in a circle and each student is required to ask any question from above list at random to any other participant.The student who has been asked question is required to reply without worrying about grammatical accuracy of the answer. The answers given by the students are recorded on an electronic device.
Other students are required to just listen to the answer without making any comment.
We can all guess that as the students are learners, many of the answers given are grammatically wrong.
After everybody has the chance to ask a few questions and also reply, I ask the students as to what they were doing when somebody was answering the question. Were they trying to understand the message of the speaker or were they checking if the answer given is grammatically right or wrong?
Till date not even one student has replied that she/he was checking the answer for gramatical accuracy. Every one replies that they were trying to understand the message of the speaker. They also agree that they have understood the messages of almost all the speakers.
Now the answers recorded are played back to demonstrate that many of the answers were grammatically wrong and yet the listeners did not have much difficulty in understanding the message of the receiver.
This eventually convinces most of the students that important thing for us, and what we actually do, is to understand the message of the speaker and for this the message need not be grammatically correct.
Some discussion on the difference between content words and structure words takes place to explain that so long as we do not miss the contents words from our sentences, the listener will be able to understand the intended message, which is primary requirement of any communication.
The activity ends with asking those students who do not have proper knowledge of grammar to raise hand. Most of the hands go up.
And, I ask them to reflect on that if I do not myself know grammar, how can I check if the sentence I listen or read is grammatically right or wrong? All round nodding of heads!
No one after this activity says that she/he is unable to speak in English as she/he doesn't know grammar.
We conduct workshop on ‘English Improvement’ and many other soft skills improvement workshops for industries, educational institutes and individuals. We also offer a few programs like ‘Shine under Stress (Strategies to Succeed in Exams)’, ‘Seven Laws of Teaching’, ‘Student’s Behaviour Management’ etc. pro bono to educational institutes
Please visit link https://bit.ly/sarwansingh or write to us at [email protected] or [email protected] or call (91)8866680407 for further details.
By:
Sarwan Singh
@sarwan_singh
Business Strategist I Wordsmith I Mentor
9 年Very nice exercise idea that I shall take pleasure in using. Thanks for your generosity in sharing.
Seasoned Educator and Soft Skills Specialist | Inspiring Effective Communication in Teams | Ex- Master Trainer Leap Scholar | Ex-Unacademy | Test Prep Expert (English)
9 年Exactly, the ability to speak any language does not come from learning the structure but the confidence to speak and that the message is conveyed. The structure can be learnt later. Pre school students do not learn grammar but learn to speak first and then they get the finesse of the speaking skill in the later classes. If everything was to be learnt in the pre-primary stage then there would have been no requirement for the further education in language learning.
TESL, TEFL, Pronunciation & Fluency Specialist, Author of Teacher Materials, Private Accent Coach, Teacher Trainer
9 年Very nice article, Sarwan. You get to the heart of language learning, and student fears surrounding it. I like the pro bono you do at universities. Kudos for your thoughtful approach to language teaching.