Wednesday, November 28, 2012
wiki
By using wikis, we can create a web page that we can interact with our students and other people to help them learn something. We can create different sources for our students to help them find a lot of information. By using wikis we can help students to share their comments on different topics. We learn different ways to use wikis in classroom
Monday, November 19, 2012
Challenges of teaching English in high schools
Challenges of teaching English in high schools
English is the global language and plays a significant role in the world. It is used as the lingua franca for communication, education, business and media contexts like TV, newspaper and Internet. Having a common language with each others make both the people and the institutions to be more interested in English language learning or teaching. As it gained an incrediable role in the society, it became a popular content in education to satisfy people’s needs. Ministry of education accepts the English as a compulsory course to improve people’s knowledge skills and to contribute to their future profession. As it is a foreign language or second language for students, teachers have an important role for teaching it. Although students still don’t cope with their native language and don’t understand it’s rules effectively, they have to face with the new language in which there are grammar rules different from their native language rules. By learning the new language, they start to compare and contrast it with their native language and this leads teachers to have difficulties in classrooms.
There are many challenges high school teachers are faced with while they are teaching. In this blog, there will be some researches about different persons point of view in different levels. When we generally look at different levels, it seems that all levels nearly have same challenges. Ayşe Kızıldağ did a research about the challenges of English language teachers. The participants in this study are 20 English language teachers, including fourteen females and six males working at public primary schools in Turkey.
According to that research conducted by Ayşe Kızıldağ(2009) there are three categories for challenges of English language teachers. These categories are; institutional, instructional and socio-economic. Institutional category includes lack of institutional support and lack of understanding the nature of language teaching, heavy workload,crowded classrooms. Instructional one contains busy curriculum, inappropriate textbooks, lack of materials and unsatisfactory placement test. The last one, socio-economic refers to lack of support from the families.
If you need to read more here is the site:
http://www.iejee.com/1_3_2009/kizildag.pdf
.
In addition, Gandara, Maxwell-Jolly& Driscoll (2005) have found that the most important challenges of teaching English are teacher-parent communication and understanding of home-community issues, lack of time to teach English learners both English and academic subjects, lack of assistance at home, lack of tools like assesment materials and instruments to teach
For more information:
http://gse.berkeley.edu/research/pace/reports/Listening_to_Teachers.pdf
In addition some challenges can be because of teachers ethnic. Chen & Cheng (2009) did a research on the challenges of three South African teachers in Taiwan and found that they have difficulties because of their South African accents, racism, crowded classrooms, teaching phonics, classroom management or having something to teach they were not familiar with. Similarly, Walia classified the challenges in two parts. Instructional challenges; lack of enthusiasm towards the subject, decision on suitable methodology, lack of curriculum based on language needs and overcrowded classrooms and Professional challenges; low salary, lack of financial support and lack of cooperation.
Moreover, when we look at the high schools in Cyprus we can find the same challenges, teachers have to work hard for effective teaching. Teachers complain about the lack of materials, heavy workload. I think as we will become an English language teacher , knowing the challenges we may face will help us in our future profession. I think a teacher can find teaching English difficult when he or she has some students that give no attention to learning the language. The teacher will need to motivate them for learning. Also, we will have crowded classrooms include different types of students. Some of them will be fast learners and others not. We need to have a balance in class for both types. We should choose a method that suitable for both levels. Teaching English to high schools students is completely difficult for us.
In this video you will hear about the pros and cons about the teaching English in high schools. I want you to focus only the cons of the teaching English to understand the challenges more.
What do you think about your future profession?
Do you think that you will have the same challenges?
What are the some challenges you are faced with when you become a teacher?
Kızıldağ, Ayşe. Teaching English in Turkey: Dialogues with teachers about the challenges in public primary schools. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education. Vol.1(3).2009.
In what parts of the teaching do you think you will have more challenges?
English is the global language and plays a significant role in the world. It is used as the lingua franca for communication, education, business and media contexts like TV, newspaper and Internet. Having a common language with each others make both the people and the institutions to be more interested in English language learning or teaching. As it gained an incrediable role in the society, it became a popular content in education to satisfy people’s needs. Ministry of education accepts the English as a compulsory course to improve people’s knowledge skills and to contribute to their future profession. As it is a foreign language or second language for students, teachers have an important role for teaching it. Although students still don’t cope with their native language and don’t understand it’s rules effectively, they have to face with the new language in which there are grammar rules different from their native language rules. By learning the new language, they start to compare and contrast it with their native language and this leads teachers to have difficulties in classrooms.
There are many challenges high school teachers are faced with while they are teaching. In this blog, there will be some researches about different persons point of view in different levels. When we generally look at different levels, it seems that all levels nearly have same challenges. Ayşe Kızıldağ did a research about the challenges of English language teachers. The participants in this study are 20 English language teachers, including fourteen females and six males working at public primary schools in Turkey.
If you need to read more here is the site:
http://www.iejee.com/1_3_2009/kizildag.pdf
.
For more information:
http://gse.berkeley.edu/research/pace/reports/Listening_to_Teachers.pdf
In addition some challenges can be because of teachers ethnic. Chen & Cheng (2009) did a research on the challenges of three South African teachers in Taiwan and found that they have difficulties because of their South African accents, racism, crowded classrooms, teaching phonics, classroom management or having something to teach they were not familiar with. Similarly, Walia classified the challenges in two parts. Instructional challenges; lack of enthusiasm towards the subject, decision on suitable methodology, lack of curriculum based on language needs and overcrowded classrooms and Professional challenges; low salary, lack of financial support and lack of cooperation.
Moreover, when we look at the high schools in Cyprus we can find the same challenges, teachers have to work hard for effective teaching. Teachers complain about the lack of materials, heavy workload. I think as we will become an English language teacher , knowing the challenges we may face will help us in our future profession. I think a teacher can find teaching English difficult when he or she has some students that give no attention to learning the language. The teacher will need to motivate them for learning. Also, we will have crowded classrooms include different types of students. Some of them will be fast learners and others not. We need to have a balance in class for both types. We should choose a method that suitable for both levels. Teaching English to high schools students is completely difficult for us.
What do you think about your future profession?
Do you think that you will have the same challenges?
What are the some challenges you are faced with when you become a teacher?
Kızıldağ, Ayşe. Teaching English in Turkey: Dialogues with teachers about the challenges in public primary schools. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education. Vol.1(3).2009.
Gandara,
Patricia., Maxwell-Jolly, Julie & Driscol, Anne(2005). Listening to Teachers of English Language
Learners. A survey of California
Teachers’ Challenges, Experiences and Professional Development Needs.
Chen,
Cheryl Wer-yu & Cheng Yuh-show(2009).
A case study on foreign English teacher’s challenges in Taiwanese
elementary schools.
Walia,
Divya Nimit. Opportunities and
Challenges in ELT: A Teacher’s Pride vs. Plight.
In what parts of the teaching do you think you will have more challenges?
Saturday, November 10, 2012
conversation with Lauren
I think using audocity is very helpful for students. We can use it for students because they can improve their listening and speaking skills. They can practise pronunciation. Students can find TTS somehow strange for them, they cannot feel good for not speaking with a real person. Although it's very useful for them, they don't feel relaxed about an online woman/man.I think using text to speech will help both students and teachers. Students will pronounce the words better, they will make better conversation like in meaningful way.
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