Teaching and Learning English Using Media

Dossier / Travail , 2012 , 10 Pages , Note: 2,7

Didactique de l'Anglais - Pédagogie,Linguistique

Es werden verschiedene Medien (wie Bücher, Computer, Bilder, Filme etc) vorgestellt und erklärt wie sie im Unterricht einsetzbar sind und zugleich deren Vor- und Nachteile aufgelistet.

Table of Contents

1 The Teacher

2 The Course Book

3 Pictures

4 Music

5 Films

6 The Computer

7 Reflection on What I Have Learned

Works Cited

1 The Teacher

Learning a language in the English foreign language classroom^[1] depends on many different factors. Every single student, their socio-cultural background, their interest, motivation, and how they behave during the lessons affect the process of teaching and learning a foreign language at school (Müller 27).

Therefore, a teacher has some diverse roles in the EFL classroom. Müller mentions the roles as a language-teacher, an expert in learning, a classroom manager and a researcher and learner (27). Because teachers are models and the central means of language input, their English should sound like it is their mother-tongue, “at all levels (they) need a solid target language competence” (28). Teachers should always be able to understand, help, practice and communicate with their pupils and take away their shame to talk or to make mistakes.

As an expert in learning the teacher focuses on the learner him-/ herself and supports the individual learning processes and makes the students feel comfortable using the English language. A better atmosphere is said to be a support for the language acquisition process (30). Important, of course, is the choice of tasks a teacher chooses to strengthen the different competences of students and to convey a feeling of security by using the language in many ways.

As one sees, the teacher is a classroom manager, he needs to be flexible, spontaneously, an entertainer, organizer, and instructor and is responsible for the interaction in the EFL classroom. Another important role of a teacher is to find qualitative good resources to teach with. By researcher and learner also is meant “teachers need to be able to explore the quality of the interactions by researching the ways in which they contribute to a successful communicative (EFL classrom)” (32).

2 The Course Book

In most language programs textbooks function as key components (Richards). They provide structure and a syllabus for a whole year of school, only one unit or a single lesson. A very positive aspect of a textbook is its standardization, because all students from different classes or schools who use the same textbook receive similar content and thus can be tested in the same way.

Furthermore, a course book maintains quality, provides the balance of skills taught, and includes a variety of learning resources. Additionally, they save teacher’s time and are efficient. Therefore, they can be effective language models, have a visualized appearance, and support or train teachers by arranging their lessons.

On the other hand, textbooks only are often not representative of today’s language, do not always reflect student’s needs, and can deskill teachers (Richards).

There are different opinions of the usage of course books in the EFL classroom (Kurtz 151). One can divide teachers into three groups: teachers, whose lessons totally depend on textbooks, those, who use textbooks as an orientation for their lessons and add some own material, and teachers, who use the classification of the course book as an orientation but predominantly work with own material.^[2]

3 Pictures

“From the teacher’s perspective, pictures provide an interesting way to extend textbook activities” (Miller 3). Activities with pictures add variety and open new ways for interaction in the EFL classroom. Pictures contribute to motivation, a sense of the context of a language and a specific reference point (Wright 1).

[...]

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^[1] In the following English foreign language classroom will be expressed through EFL classroom.

^[2] To find out more about the handling with the course book in class see Kurtz p. 151ff.

• Université: Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
• Note: 2,7
• Auteur: Lena Groß (Auteur)
• Année de publication: 2012
• Pages: 10
• N° de catalogue: V269073
• ISBN (ebook): 9783656600916
• ISBN (Livre): 9783656600992
• Langue: anglais
• mots-clé: teaching, learning, english, using, media