Teaching Grammar and Vocabulary .

HELLO EVERYONE !

I HOPE THIS POST  FINDS YOU WELL .

Our  topic for this week was  about Critical thinking on learning  grammar and vocabulary .

Students might be too low in their language skills to practice critical thinking  or students might have the language skills to practice critical thinking in English by they might not be accustomed to doing it. These are the two first things  that came to my mind  about this topic.

We all know that critical thinking is so much harder in second language  because the learner encounters unclear language in reading or listening  and teachers expect them to be clear and exact in their writing and their speaking , so it might be a bit challenging to be a critical thinker in a second language considering these facts.

Firstly , no matter what kind of activity you choose to use, you can adjust it for your student’s needs and definitely you can make them think whatever their language  level i is . How can we do that ?

 If we are going to use  a reading passage ,before reading you can show your students a photo .This will make  them  think ,guess ,ask questions ,wonder what has happened ,how,where ,when  and so on .

Photos always  inspire questions .

 Secondly ,whether critical thinking is the main focus of the lesson  or just a side of a story ,a couple of extra questions in a grammar or vocabulary lesson it could really deepen students’ engagement in the material. It will be more just a language class  for them ,It will be something more meaningful .

Preparing  some good questions  ,which  are general and  do not have only one correct answer might be a good idea.

So just as we design a powerpoint  presentation to make it more effective and interactive  we can do the same with the activities  we use in class to make students think critically.

Furthermore, I was very attracted by  the following questions  that are suggested for us  in the webinar we had on “Out of your seat grammar”.

Why are you doing each activity ?

If you’re not sure why….don’t do it.  If it is worth doing…is it worth all of the time you are dedicating  to it?

It has  happened to me in those projects we are asked to prepare a lesson plan and put ourselves in teacher’s role  ,as we are doing now in this subject, or  in Teaching Culture that  I REALLY try to be very active, to use many methods ,to include so many activities  and to make my best in that class I ‘m going to teach . Maybe I worked hard to prepare the whole thing   and maybe  i could do the same even  if I were in a real class. But  in fact if I asked myself these questions it would turn out that  no matter how interesting the activities are and no matter how advanced ,varied  and how hard I have worked on them , the result might  not be what I expected ..But how could this happen?

 First of all, we  should  consider that for our students  the new topic  we are going to teach is a new information for them .Even though  they  might have had that topic in previous grades but now  it comes to them more advanced .For example we used to learn about History of Albania in 9^th grade and also in high school too but of course in different levels.

 Do you remember when we were in middle school or high school and we struggle on learning one page  and a half in history ?  Whereas  now we can study the whole chapter  in one week . So we should be aware that for our students, what are we going to teach them is something new,too many activities ,too many skills to teach might not be the right thing to do .They might be confused with so many activities you are trying to do or distract from some important points and focus on some others  and we won’t have the result we desire .Or maybe some things will remain unclear just because we provided them to o much activities .

Sometimes "the best" is not to pick  all the good activities you know and bring them to your students ,but to be sure that whatever activity you use will achieve your goals .

 Hope you enjoy it !