On 6th August, I got a golden opportunity to attend a one day
training session on 'Effective Techniques in Teaching English' organised by
Oxford University Press. The resource person was Ms. Ratna Rao, a well known
ELT expert. Really it was a great opportunity for me. We three teachers
attended this workshop from our school.
"We keep on learning
and then only we can keep on proceeding as a teacher."
This quote is really true as the day when we stop learning as
teachers, we cannot succeed. As Alvin Toffler says-
"The illiterate in
the 21st century are not those who are not educated, but are those who do not
learn, unlearn and re-learn.
The speaker applied the theory of Breaking the Ice which
means taking out from the comfort zone. Some activities which can be done in
order to free children from any type of burden and so they are supposed to sit
far from their friends and this also helps in learning how to work
collaboratively with new people. We did many activities which we can apply in
our class while teaching and also in proxy periods. The first activity was of
logical and practical thinking process where we were given some words and the
some letters were missing three times and we had to fill the blanks. For
Example- MALARIA, DISMISS,
RELEASE ETC.
Listening is the most
important skill. It starts with the womb of the mother as we have the example
of Abhimanyu from Mahabharata. To learn English, listening is the most
important of all LSRW skills. Not everyone will be knowing but in English we
have 26 Alphabets, 5 Vowels, 12 Sounds and the words are spoken differently and
written differently. The reason for bad handwriting of students is that they
are not doing much activities of writing as in class they are only listening.
They are rote learners.
Another
activity was that the speaker gave instructions and we had to draw whatever we
were instructed. The speaker gave the first instruction and e followed that. We
were told to draw a square but later she instructed to draw it in the centre of
the page. This proves that we listen only half and act fastly. This type of listening
is called Bottom-Up Listening. The opposite of it is Top- Down in which when we
are given instructions, we apply our common sense and try to do it more nicely.
Very few will know the difference between listening and learning. Listening is
when the brain is active and we give feedback. Hearing is when we do not
react to anything and people are passive
learners.
The third
activity was that we had to write the name of the body parts which had three
letters. The fourth exercise was to arrange the 12 months of the year in
alphabetical order. These types of exercise can be given to students. These
exercises are called HOTs(Higher Order Thinking). This concept of HOTs and LOTs
is called Bloom's Taxonomy which I also studied during my M.A. studies at Department of English(M K Bhavnagar
University). The six things which are included in this are Knowledge,
Understanding, Applying, Analysing, Evaluating and Creating. Knowing is important.
Without knowing, we cannot directly create anything. The first three comes
under LOTs and the other three comes under HOTs.
There are
two types of Grammar teaching techniques- Inductive and Deductive. We also came
to know about different types of claps like Train Clap, Rain Clap etc. The next
activity was a group activity in which 10 people were there. They had to invent
a new festival for which we had to give reason for celebrating it, give a name
to it, tell how it would be celebrated, what type of dress to be worn, which
rituals to be followed, which food to be eaten and a poster about it. Our group
invented a festival which is called Laughter Festival. The reason for celebrating
it was to release stress, remove sadness. As Mother Teresa says- "Peace begins with a smile, laughter is
many steps ahead of a smile." How will it be celebrated will be we
just have to smile at everyone we meet. The ritual will be work like you laugh
and smile everyday and no holiday will be there on that day. We all have to
wear a smiley band or a batch. The dress will be funky or any costume which we
have not worn yet. The food eaten will be sweets and chocolates. The other
groups were also there who also invented different festivals like No
Superstition Day, Being Human, Gratitude Day, Happy Moments Festival, Shadows
Day, Country Fest and Familia Refreshio.
 |
| Poster for Laughter Day Festival |
The next activity was that we were given a list f things and told a
situation that we are on sea voyage and our ship starts sinking so which three
things will we take with us to survive. After telling the three things, we had
to argue with other groups proving our point. This activity was given because
debating is one of the spoken skills in Oxford Books. We also were given poem
and also told how to teach it. I did the same activity when Dr. Atanu
Bhattacharya came at our department to teach ELT.
The workshop was
very fruitful and I gained many things which will help me to teach more
effectively.
