Why learn english?

Are you ready to rock your socks off and learn English as a non-native speaker? Yes, you are! It might seem like a crazy mountain to climb, but with the right mindset and approach, you'll be able to conquer it like a boss. In this first part of the series, we're going to have some fun setting the foundation for your English learning adventure.

First things first, ask yourself, "Why the heck do I want to learn English?" Is it to show off to your friends? Or is it because you want to be the next international superstar? Whatever your motivation is, let's get it clear and make some awesome goals that will keep you motivated and excited to learn.

Now, let's get down to the nitty-gritty - the basics! Think of these as the building blocks that will help you become a language mastermind. You need to start with grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation - the trifecta of English learning. But don't worry, we're going to make it fun! Let's play a game where you have to guess the meaning of a new English word every day. Bonus points if you can use it in a sentence like a pro!

Consistent practice is the key to success. You don't become a ninja overnight, right? The same goes for learning a new language. Make it a habit to read English texts, listen to English music, watch English movies, and talk to your English-speaking friends (or make new ones if you have to). And if you don't have any friends, just talk to yourself - it's called practicing, not being crazy.

Mistakes are not the end of the world, my friend. In fact, they're a blessing in disguise. Think of them as opportunities to learn and improve your skills. You might even surprise yourself and make some hilarious mistakes that will make you the life of the party (in a good way, of course).

Finally, set some epic goals for yourself. Don't be too hard on yourself, but don't make them too easy either. Challenge yourself and break them down into small achievable tasks. And most importantly, celebrate your progress! Treat yourself to a cupcake or a fancy smoothie every time you nail a new English skill.

By setting a strong foundation for your English learning journey, you'll be a superhero ready to take on more advanced skills like reading, speaking, and writing. Stay tuned for the next part of this series, where we'll dive into tips for improving your English reading skills. Exciting stuff, right?

English is fun! Let's Learn!

 Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and everyone in between, welcome to my blog! Today, we're diving into the world of learning English as a non-native speaker. Now, I know what you're thinking - "English? That's the language where the spelling doesn't make any sense, right?"

Yes, dear reader, that's the one. But don't worry, we're here to help you navigate the weird and wonderful world of English. As a language model, I've seen my fair share of English faux pas, from accidentally using "their" instead of "they're" to completely butchering the pronunciation of "rural" (seriously, why does it have so many "r's"?).

But fear not, because, in this blog series, we'll be providing you with tips and tricks to help you learn, read, speak, and write in good English. We'll cover everything from basic grammar to advanced idioms, and we promise to make it fun (or at least as fun as learning a language can be).

Now, I know th
at learning a new language can be intimidating. It's like starting a new relationship - you're excited to learn more, but you're also afraid of making mistakes and embarrassing yourself. But trust me when I say that making mistakes is all part of the learning process. We're all in this together, and even native English speakers make mistakes sometimes (just ask anyone who's ever tried to use "whom" correctly).

So, buckle up, grab a cup of tea (or coffee, or whatever beverage you prefer), and get ready to dive into the wonderful world of English. We promise to make it entertaining, informative, and most importantly, we promise not to judge you if you accidentally mix up "affect" and "effect" (which, let's be honest, even native speakers struggle with).

So, what are you waiting for? Let's start learning!

Reading Skills

Reading one of the important communication skills bring students in contact with the mind of great authors when we read their theories, biography, or their experiences. Now, one should wonder what should be the aim of teaching reading comprehension.

Aims of Teaching Reading Comprehension:

1. 1      To enhance students' vocabulary.
2. 2.       To enable students to learn English properly.
3. 3.       To read English with fluency.
4. 4.       To read with correct pronunciations, stress, and intonation.
5. 5.       To enhance students loud reading and silent reading.
6. 6.       To give them the practice of structure and sentence patterns.

Now let’s understand the process of reading which is classified into three stages:

1.       Recognition stage: at this stage, the reader identifies the graphical representation of the phonological items. He recognizes the spoken words in its written form.

2.       Structural stage: The learner sees the syntactic relationships of the items and understands the meaning. For e.g. Un and happy, mis and taken. One can do this exercise with students they enjoy doing this exercise.

3.       Interpretation stage: this is the highest level of the reading stage where the students understands the meaning of the written words, phrases, sentences and can make meaning out of it.

Types of Reading:

There are types of reading classified according to the speed, aim, and comprehension.

1. Intensive Reading: It is also called detailed reading and meant for getting information. It also helps in studying sentence structures including grammar, word order, and syntax. It helps learners to develop active vocabulary. Linguistic items are developed. The aim is to build more language knowledge rather than simply practice the skill of reading.

2.       Extensive Reading: It is carried out “to achieve a general understanding of a text”. The aims of extensive reading are to build reader confidence and enjoyment. The speed is faster than the slower.

A Difference between intensive and extensive reading

Aloud Reading: this is done at the primary level and not suitable at senior levels. It helps students to develop the skill of pronunciation. While the process of reading is going on the student shouldn’t be interrupted at regular intervals in fact he should be given chance the read aloud.

4.       Silent Reading: it helps in inculcating reading habit among students. It helps in acquiring knowledge. This should be followed by Aloud reading as the teacher is confident that the student can read properly with the correct pronunciation.

Apart from the above-mentioned types of reading as a teacher one should be aware of other types of reading which are: Skimming and Scanning.

The teacher should make sure that the reading should be made interesting through innovation and new ideas.

 Homework for all:

What's Wrong?

This exercise focuses on intensive reading. Read one sentence at a time and find the inappropriate vocabulary mistake or contradiction. All errors are in the choice of vocabulary NOT in grammar.

1. Jack Forest is a baker who always provides his customers with tough meat. Last Tuesday, Mrs. Brown came into the shop and asked for three fillets of brown bread. Unfortunately, Jack only had two fillets remaining. He excused Mrs. Brown and promised her that he would have too much bread the next time she came. Mrs. Brown, being a reliable customer, assured Jack that she would return. Later that day, Jack was sealing the shop when the phone sang. It was Mrs. Brown requiring if Jack had baked another slice of brown bread. Jack said, "As a matter of truth, I burnt some extra loaves a few hours ago. Would you like me to bring one buy?". Mrs. Brown said she would and so Jack got into his bike and rode to Mrs. Brown's to deliver the third-pound of brown toast.

Speaking Comprehension skills

Speaking Skills

Speaking reflects how well-versed a speaker is. It is an important skill to impart in a student’s early formative years therefore an in-depth knowledge of speaking or oral skills is necessary.

The written word is nothing but a symbol of the spoken word. For cultivating a good speech the necessary attention on pronunciation is necessary. A teacher should create an environment in the class where he keeps on asking questions frequently giving an impression to the students that they have to speak and also giving them a space to open up without hesitation. The teacher should inculcate “fear-free environment” where neither he nor students peer judge or make fun of the students.

It is an important lesson to teach students to speak incorrectly. In a space where English is the second language, the focus should be on speaking and when the student will start speaking there are chances that he will speak it correctly but nonetheless, it is the duty of the teacher to make students speak in the class by imparting various other methods.

1. 1)      Asking and Answering Question: It is important to ask students question and if the student is not able to answer in that case the teacher can give him the answer and student later by repetition method would be able to speak.

 

1. 2)      Imitation and Repetition: It’s an important elementary step in developing skills in English. Imitation helps the student to pronounce the word correctly. In imitating sounds students are training its vocal cord to speak complex words that are foreign to its user.

 

1. 3)      Substitution: It is an elementary method where students are taught to substitute the words. For e.g. “This is a ball” is substituted with the words like This is Pen/mat/cat/rat/apple/bed/shed etc. when substitution is made, a number of new sentences are produced with ease by students. The above example is of single substitution there can be multiple substitution words in a phrase for e.g., This is a Pencil can be substituted with this is a long pencil.

 

1. 4)      Day to Day Expressions: Expressions of greeting, gratitude, small talk, introductions and making acquaintance, leave-taking, appreciation are very important communication acts which students should be aware of.

 

1. 5)      Eliciting: You can elicit sentences and phrases which give the description of what is depicted in the pictures. Ask simple and common questions when you show the pictures to the students. For example show a picture to the student and ask him to describe what the student sees in the picture.

 

1. 6)      Show and tell: In this activity, students are encouraged to bring their favorite object and speak about it for a minute or more.

 

1. 7)      Role Play: It is the liveliest form of involvement where students participate actively. A pretended situation is created where students are asked to pretend and speak dialogues accordingly. Roles from TV programs, cartoons are effective as students can best relate and would be able to speak more. Roleplay helps in improving the motivation of the students.

 

1. 8)      Rhymes Reading: One rhyme should be practiced daily with proper stress and intonation. Through these rhymes, the child loves to give audible expressions to its activity in its games and to teach them the rhythm of language.

Vegetable Rhymes

Cloze and Maze method for English Teaching.

Reading Skills-1

Cloze and Maze Method is one of the important strategies in developing student’s ability to identify words.

A cloze is a sentence with one word partially incomplete and the students have to complete the sentence. Students should use the context to identify the words as you would notice that the exercise has an important significance in students learning.

The teacher while preparing the exercise should frame sentences that are related to the life of students. This exercise can be done with a large group of students as well.

Above is an example of a cloze method. Ask students what word would make sense in the missing space. Make the exercise more of a fun. This activity should not take more than ten minutes.

Maze Method

It is also a fun and interesting technique to include in the activities. In this method, a student is given two or three options to choose from.

For e.g. Saurbah loves to ………… Football. (Play/plant/plan)

Use of dictionary in teaching

Dictionary gives a meaning, origin, and use of a particular word. A good dictionary can help one understand the subject better and improve student’s condition.

Exercise:

Give students five words for e.g. Retaliate, myriad, plagiarism, paradise, and rejuvenation.

Ask students to find these words in the dictionary and ask them to write it down in their notebooks. You can ask the students to dictate and make use of the word in the classes.

Listening comprehension skills

Simple principles of Teaching Listening Comprehension

Before we start our class let's do the revision of what we have done so far. we had discussed the four communication skills required:

Today we will focus on Listening skills:

In the early stages of listening discrimination of sounds for e.g,. bit and pit are two different words but sound similar. The student should also be able to discriminate between the sounds of his/her native language and sounds of the English Language.

As a Teacher, while teaching English listening, you should  be clear with:

1) your goals in teaching a lesson must be explicit and simply explained to students.

2) You should carefully plan for the materials you will introduce to enhance the learning. These materials should be relevant to the interest and levels of the students.

3) You must insist on active and overt student participation.

It is also important to understand that Listening, Thinking, and Remembering is not separate acts, in fact they complement each other, but in the beginning students might tend to focus on these as independent items.

                                            

Task-oriented activities help in improving the performance of students and to engage them in class. six types of task-oriented exercises are: 

a) Listening and performing actions: e.g. Simon says (stand up, sit down, jump, close eyes).

b) Listening and Performing operations: e.g. listening and constructing a figure or drawing a map etc.

c) Listening and Solving problems: e.g. Riddles, numerical, spatial, or chronological problems.

d) Listening and Transcribing: e.g. Writing notes, messages.

e) Listening and summarizing information.

f) Interactive Listening: e.g. asking questions and answers from students. 

While preparing lessons for the listening comprehension following format can be used:

1. Select the teaching Point.
2. Introduce the topic before class.
3. Give one or two guiding questions.
4. Divide the listening into stages.
5. Divide the passage into several sections.
6. Summary of the passage in the end.

At the end of the class one should always ask oneself "What worked and what didn't work for the class?"