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Classroom
Techniques for Teaching English
M.
C. Jacob
1
Introduction
This
paper deals with classroom techniques for teaching English.
According to E. Anthony (cited in Allen & Cam) “Techniques are
special tricks employed by the classroom teacher to achieve the objectives of a
lesson”. In this sense there is a
close relationship between the objectives and classroom techniques.
There can be two types of objectives: long term and short term.
When it comes to the teaching of English at the Secondary School level a
long term objective could be ‘to help the students speak error free English
and a short term objective could be ‘to help the students learn seven
vocabulary items’. Even each
stage / phase of a lesson has a short-term objective.
For example, the presentation stage of a grammar lesson has a short-term
objective like ‘to help the students to understand the form, meaning and use
of the new structural / grammatical item’.
For achieving such objectives we use various classroom techniques.
2
Classroom Techniques
The
following are some of the classroom techniques used by a teacher of
English
1)
Demonstration
2)
Pictorial Illustration
3)
Verbal illustration / verbal / context
4)
Association
5)
Questioning
6)
Look and say
7)
Do and say
8)
Listen and Repeat
9)
Narration
10)
Bilingual presentation
11)
Translation
12)
Choral drilling
13)
Read and Say
14)
Silent reading, etc.
One
could add some more to the list.
2.1
Demonstration
Demonstration
can be used for presenting both structures as well as vocabulary items.
Demonstration includes the use of realia (real objects) performing
actions, using gestures, facial expressions, etc. It is used for presenting words and structures which stand
for concrete ideas / concepts. For
example, for teaching ‘the present continuous tense’ demonstration can be
done. “I am winding my watch, I
am cleaning the blackboard” while performing these actions.
For presenting words like toys, bangles, etc. realia may be used.
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