TEACHER ORIENTED METHOD

IN SECOND AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING



INTRODUCTION

Teacher Oriented Method is a method of the teacher, used in the classroom while teaching the foreign or second language. It is universal truth that Teacher is all in all in the classroom who is a keen observer, processor, initiator and creator of learning and effective atmosphere in the classroom. It is the teacher who observes the psychology, interest and sprit of the student in the classroom before applying the method of the second language teaching.

Teacher Oriented Method is a method like GTM, Direct Method, and Competence based Method and so on, but it is different from other methods and relevantly reveals that how, when and by which method teacher handles and manages the students in the classroom while teaching the foreign and second language. Teacher plays an important role and significant role in the classroom while teaching the second language. There are many teaching methods of the second and foreign languages have been proposed in the America and Europe by keeping the context of America and Europe in the minds not other countries like India and South Asian Countries. I think that the foreign countries are very different from the South Asian Countries in respect to culture, tradition, custom, civilization and social diversity, that is why no single language teaching method is suitable, relevant and appropriate in the context of India and South Asian Countries. In this circumstance, it is only Teacher who makes the methods suitable and appropriate in the class just after observing the psychology, conscious, interest and curiosity and diversity of the students and their environment in the classroom.

I am not talking in the vacuum but collected the data from many English language teachers of different public schools in the heart of Delhi, and then I observed it and became able to propose the Teacher Oriented Method (TOM) in which Teacher is considered as a major factor in the classroom rather than methods. The data reveal some amazing facts is that as we know that India is known as a sign of diversity among the people and it is shown in the classroom too, in such condition the data pointed out that teacher plays a significant and important role in the classroom after observing the diversity of the student in the classroom; In India where the students of all community pursue education together in the same school irrespective of religion, region, caste, class, and creed; in such circumstances, it is very difficult and tough for teacher to use one method of English language teaching in the classroom. In this critical situation, it is totally depend on teacher how and by which method s/he manages and handles the classroom and make the students skillful, talented, and native like competence and fluency in all objectives (speaking, listening, reading & comprehending) of the second and foreign language, although it is not easy task and job for teacher where diversity among students too is deep rooted in the core heart of society and community in Indian context and South Asian Countries as well.

After analyzing and observing the data and the context of Indian society and its diversity with respect to classes, family-backgrounds and communities completely, I have decided to propose the Teacher Oriented Method keeping this in the mind that it would be really helpful in Indian context and South Asian Countries.

METHODOLOGY

This paper by the title of Teacher Oriented Method, is trying to describe the importance and magnificent perfomance of the teacher who with his or her best effort of level attempts to teach the students without being slave of any kind of methods, using his or her own method, having observed the the atmospher and psychology of the students and their levls. This paper is based on the fact of field works and empirical experience and research works. I have used the primary data for the term paper with the help of primary method. During the data collection in the field work, I have used a list of questionnaires (Quantitative method) and interview and observation (Qualitative method) too.

During the data collection, I went on going to school to school and asked the questions to the English teachers and had the precious time of teachers for interviews. I had collected the data from government and public schools with the 1^st to 10^th standard and nursery to 8^th standard. I had been able to interact with them for almost 45 minutes per teacher.

It is very difficult to collect the data from the school teacher in time of the school. Sometimes the principals of the school do not allow to collect the data from the teacher because the class may be disturbed and interrupted and due to sex discrimination. Despite in such a circumstance, I had been able to collect the empirical data from four English Teachers nicely and including myself.

I have given all the questionnaires and the name of informants in the Appendix page.

APPROACH

Teacher Oriented Method is based on a functional, interactional, active, processor, performer and problem solver perspective of teacher and instructor. It seeks to teach the language in relation to cultural, social and linguistic context in which it is used. It seeks to teach language from three theoretical views of language and the nature of language such as the Structural View (structure of elements or morphemes), Functional View (semantic and communicative dimension), and Interactional View (conversational and interactional activity).

It refers to the importance of the teacher and his method in whole meaningful context and directs the teacher not to method. Teacher plays an important, effective and significant role in the second and foreign language rather than method.

DESIGN

OBJECTIVE

The primary objectives of Teacher Oriented Method are to teach a practical command of the four basic skills of language. The main motto is to make the student understand, whatever the teacher wants to teach in the classroom within the shadow of the syllabus and solve the problems. Teacher pays attention to individual and social groups in relation with psychological, social and linguistic point of views.

As Chomsky points out that human beings are born with a language faculty and innate capacity in the material world and have the capability to learn and acquire language, then why some students are not able to learn and acquire language as fast as others do in the classroom? According to me the answer is very easy and simple. This is the lack of interest, motivation, particular attention and encouragement of teacher towards some unfortunate and the poor students in the classroom. It is often seen in the classroom that teacher always pays attention to the talented, skilful, and good students while teaching the language or other subjects not to the poor students who have too capability and capacity to learn the same course and the contents but lack of somewhat confidences, encouragements, motivations, special attentions and cares of teachers.

Keeping this in the mind, I have attempted to bring such method by which teacher can pay attention to each and every student in the classroom irrespective of his religion, caste, race, class and creed. The teacher and the student relation like that of parent to child in the classroom and the classroom is like a family. Teacher is the parent of all the students in the family of classroom.

THE SYLLABUS   

The basic syllabus of Teacher Oriented Method is the following contents:

• Grammar should be taught deductively or inductively according to the class situation.
•  A list of every day vocabulary should be given to the students every day.
• A list of frequent and common phrases and vocabulary with their appropriate occurrences and functional uses in the sentences should be taught.
• A list of structures and patterns of English or second language should be taught.
• Materials and class handouts based on the topic should be given to the students for the study. (e.g. ‘Co-education’ is the topic then teacher should provide the materials and handouts of it.)
• Speaking and Listening should be focused through group discussion in the class among students under the guidance of teacher.
• For writing improvement, students are given a task to write at least one page every day about their daily activities or write a summary of a topic learned in the classroom.
• Reading and Comprehension should be focused through passage and reading texts.
• Pronunciation of vocabulary and grammatical rules should be corrected by teacher.
• Task and home work should be given to the students based on class teaching and study.
• Bilingual method (Target or Source language) should be used by teacher if necessary.

TEACHER’S ROLE

In Teacher Oriented Method, teacher is all in all and plays an effective and important role in the mode of second language teaching in the classrooms. Some salient features of teacher are given:

§  Teacher should use Bilingual Method (Target language & mother tongues) if necessary.

§  Teacher should pay attention to the poor students much more than talented students.

§  Teacher should try to find out the problems of students which are obstacle and hindrance in the path of learning.

§  Teacher should speak very politely and gently in the classroom.

§  Teacher should make friendly relationship with the students and be a wide frank in class.

§  Teacher should behave like parents and try to know the problem of students.

§  Teacher sometimes should tell the students some jokes if students not in study mood.

§  Teacher should address and call the students by their good names respectfully.

§  Teachers should not lose their temper in the classroom at the students.

§  Teacher should not tell and teach the topic about which they are not sure of.

§  Teacher should make the classroom and topic interesting and enjoyable.

§  Teacher can use any method out of 16 methods to teach the student according to the situation of the classroom.

§  Teacher can use more than one method like GTM, Drill Method, Audiolingual Method and so on to teach the second language learning in the classroom. A single method cannot be relevant, suitable and appropriate in Indian context.

§  Teacher should check the homework and correct it regularly every day.

§  Teacher should encourage and appreciate the hardworking and laborious students by giving good grades or marks, complements and appreciations.

§  Teacher’s motivation, encouragement, appreciation, inspiring speech and effective suggestion work like as a tonic medicine for the students as it works to the patient.

§  Teacher should try to communicate with the students in target language and can speak source language too if necessary.

§  Teacher should attempt to make the learners able to grasp the ‘spirit’ or ‘feel’ of target language and not just its component form.

§  Teacher should attempt to create and produce the ‘Inner Criteria’ among the students which allows learners to monitor and self- correct their own production.  

§  Teacher should test the student’s skills, talent, knowledge, proficiency, competencies and performances in all four objectives of the target language to know exactly what needs to be taught and to what extent the learners have achieved the proficiency.  

§  Teacher has the responsibility to provide a conveyance for communication in an appropriate way to the learner’s proficiency level.

§  Teacher (knows as ‘Counselor’) translates the learner’s sentences into the foreign or second language, and the learners then repeat this to other members of the groups.

LEARNER’S ROLE      

The learner plays an important and responsible role in the process of second or foreign language learning and teaching too. There are many following salient features of the learner:

v  Learner is required simply to listen and comprehend what the teacher says and to respond to questions and commands in the initial stages of learning.

v   Learner is supposed to ask the question politely to the teacher as much as possible.

v  Leaner has the natural tendency and ability to commit mistakes and errors in the process of second language learning and that is an inherent feature of learners.

v  Learner is supposed not to feel shy and hesitation in asking the any question to the teacher in the classroom.

v  Leaner must communicate with his/her teacher frankly in target language as much as possible and with other social groups too regularly.

v  Learner is supposed to think, realize, feel, and create concept only in target language.

v  Learner is supposed to repeat the sentence, corrected by teacher and make more than ten sentences in the same structure and practice it honestly.

v  Leaner is supposed to engage in various group tasks such as small group discussion of a topic, preparing a conversation, preparing a summary of a topic for presentation to the teacher.

v  Learner can record conversations and speech in the target language given by teacher and can listen it in spare time and try to comprehend it properly.

v  Learner can analyze and study structures of target- language sentences in order to focus on particular lexical usage or grammatical rules.

v  Learners are supposed to engage in free conversation with the teacher or with other learners. This might include discussion of what they learned as well as feelings they had about how they learned.

v  Learners are supposed to take an active role in ensuring comprehensible input given by teacher; learn and use conversational management techniques to regulate input.

v  Learner is supposed to start speaking the target language without thinking of mistakes and errors in the productions because mistakes and errors are the steps of stare and integral part of the learning process.

v  Learners are supposed to respect the teacher who is considered as a form of God.

PROCEDURE

It refers to the actual moment to moment techniques, practices, and behaviors that operate in teaching a language according to a particular method. It is the level at which we describe how a method realize its approach and design in classroom behavior. At the level of design we saw that a method will advocate the use of certain types of teaching activities as a consequence of its theoretical assumptions about language teaching and learning. At the level of procedure, we are concerned with how these tasks and activities are integrated into lessons and used as the basis for teaching and learning.

In nut cell, procedure focuses on the way a method handles the presentation, practice and feedback phases of teaching.

Ø  The first class may begin with the introduction of students and teacher. So that teacher and learners get chance to know each other properly.

Ø  Language teaching begins with the spoken language. Material is taught orally before it is presented in written form.

Ø  Teacher can teach grammar and its rules and sentences structures to the students inductively or deductively by using bilingual method in which teacher can use the target or source language.

Ø  Reading and writing are introduced once a sufficient lexical and grammatical basis is established.

Ø  The student should be given the tasks and exercises to do in the classroom in presence of teacher on the basis of teaching rules and sentences structures of the target language.

Ø  The learning of structure through the practice of patterns of sound, order and form rather than by explanation.

Ø  The teacher may encourage learners to address questions to one other or to the teachers.

Ø  Question-answer drilling, in which the teacher gets one students to ask a question and another to answer until most students in the class have practiced asking and answering the new question form.

Ø  Correction, in which the teacher indicates by shaking his head, repeating the errors, etc., that there is a mistake and invites the student or a different student to correct it. Where possible the teacher does not simply correct the mistake himself. He gets students to correct themselves so they will be encouraged to listen to each other carefully in the classroom. That is a very effective tool to be used in the classroom while teaching.  

Ø  Question and answers related to the student’s personal experience but centered on the theme of the dialogue. 

Ø  Teacher should teach vocabulary and its types viz Active and Passive vocabulary by the principles of selection and gradation in the classroom.

Ø  The new vocabulary should be taught by showing actual objects, using visual devices, by performing actions and by creating verbal situations in the classroom.

Ø  The selection of vocabulary with its principles like word’s validity and its usefulness, frequency and its popularity, structural value, universality, productivity and regional value should be given to the students for memorization and learning.

Ø  Pupils get more language practice and they have to speak more second language in the classroom or around the classroom.

Ø  Group discussion should be conducted regularly in the classroom and learners should be as active participants getting much more time to speak and discuss the topic among them.

Ø  Students are encouraged to ask questions and to copy sentences from the board with notes on meaning and usage in the class and this can be their ‘class-text-book’ for home study.

Ø  In an intermediate or advanced class, a teacher may encourage groups to prepare a paper and article for presentation to the class or teachers.

Ø  The teacher uses colored rods together with charts and gestures to lead the students into producing the words and basic grammatical long numbers.

Ø  The students read the sounds aloud, first in chorus and then individually.

Ø  After the students can pronounce the sounds, the teacher moves to a second set of charts containing words frequently used in the language, including numbers. The teacher leads the students to pronounce long numbers.

Ø  Teachers make the learners able to discover of generalizations or rules underlying the functional expression of structure.

Above principles and techniques are given here to the teacher which are used in the classroom regularly but still the teacher and instructor know far better how to use technique and trick in the classroom to teach languages after observing and perceiving the psychology, curiosity, emotion  and interest of the students in the classroom. It is seen universally that teachers do not necessarily follow the procedures a method prescribes because they have to see and follow the classroom observations. Teachers always teach the second or foreign language learning keeping the classroom’s observation in their mind, not what the principles of procedures say about that.

CONCLUSION

I would like to conclude the soul of the term paper by keeping the empirical data and my own experiences and observations in the mind. The data and myself are the eyewitness of the important role, functional, interaction and devoted performance of the teachers in the school and educational institutions that is why I have dared to propose the Teacher Oriented Method (TOM) is a method which can be used to teach any foreign or second language in India or South Asian countries where South Asian countries are well known for their multilingualism, diversity in culture and customs, and community in the society. I think this method would be very helpful in teaching the second or foreign language in the village areas and countryside of the city and town in both Government school and private school but May not for elite, high esteem and metropolitan schools (e.g. Delhi Public School, some International schools in Delhi and so on) at the same time.

The method describes the issues of the second language teaching in terms of approach, design and procedure. This method is basically based on the functional, interactional performance and importance of the teacher who is all in all in the second language teaching rather than method in the classroom. The veteran and skilful teacher cannot sell his/her freedom and be a slave to any method whatever its merits. He should select effective and influential features of any method which can be effective in particular circumstances.

APPENDIX  

A list of informants is given below:

Name	Age	Sex	MT	OT	Education	Profession	Experience	Schools	ELTM
Md. Ansary	33	M	Bhojpuri	Eng,Hindi	M.ED	Teacher	10 Yrs	Private	GTM, OM
Mrs. Kishwar	35	F	Urdu	Eng,Hindi	B.A	Teacher	7 Yrs	Private	DM, OM
Md. Azhar	26	M	Urdu	Eng,Hindi	M.ED	Teacher	2 Yrs	Government	GTM, OM
Miss. Farhana	28	F	Urdu	Eng,Hindi	B.ED	Teacher	4 Yrs	Government	GTM, OM

A list of questionnaires is given below:

1.      By which method do you teach English language in the classroom?

2.      How do you teach Grammar and its set of rules and structures of the target language?

3.      How do you provide the vocabulary and phrasal word for the learners?

4.      How do you teach the vocabulary and phrasal words in the classroom?

5.      Which language do you use in the classroom while teaching the target language?

6.      How do you teach a new vocabulary and structure of the language in the classroom?

7.      During the teaching of any objective of the language, what is your goal and aim?

8.      How do you focus on the skill of speaking and listening in the classroom?

9.      How do you focus on the skill of reading and writing in the classroom?

10.  Which method do you like most in teaching English language in the classroom?

11.  Do you use more than one method in language teaching time to time?

12.  Do you observe students and the class atmosphere before you teach English language?

13.  When students do not do the home works then in such situation what do you do?

14.  In which method do you believe that it may be effective and useful for the students?

15.  Do you give any physical or mental punishment to the students in the classroom?

16.   According to you and your experience, which thing plays an important and effective role in the second language teaching any method or teacher him/herself?

17.  How do you teach the small children or students (2^nd or 3^rd stand)?

18.  Can you tell me about your observations and experiences as a veteran teacher who always try his/her level best to teach students English language?

19.  What are the major tonic and factor given by the teacher to the students in the classroom for their motivation, encouragement, enthusiastic and inner & self confidence?

20.  Do you tell any story and jokes to the students when they are not in a study mood and they want to do something in addition to study for refreshment sometimes in class?

Abbreviations

MT- Mother Tongue

OT- Other Tongue

OM- Other Method

ELTM- English Language Teaching Method

DM- Direct Method

GTM- Grammar Translation Method

REFERENCES

Ellis, Rod. (2005), Analyzing Learner Language Oxford Press.

Flowerdew, J. and Miller, L (2005), Second Language Listening, Cambridge University Press.

Richards, J.C & Rodgers T.S. (2001),Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching.Cambridge    University Press.

Troike, S. M.(2006), Introducing Second Language Acquisition, Cambridge University Press.