Sunday, June 12, 2011
A video Extract on a Proper Application of Communicative Language Teaching in the EFL context
Please upload one video in the EFL which is in line with the principles of communicative teaching in your own interpretation (not exceeding 5 minutes).If you encounter difficulty uploading the video, please provide the link to the video. Please explain why and in what ways you consider the video a proper application of communicative language teaching in the EFL context.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This is the link of the video :
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJqw_4hkuuo
My comments on video:
The video is about a class which applies “Communicative Language Teaching” in their lessons. The students seem to be from Asian countries. The topic is obscure a bit; the teacher doesn’t mention the topic exactly. She wants the students to make three groups and come to the stage and do role play. She has three different envelopes which contain three different situations. The students come to stage and do role play according to their envelopes. Then, the other students try to guess the situation. According to Communicative Language Approach, there are some techniques which related to provide students more communicative class. They are like authentic materials, scrambles sentences, language games, picture strip story and role play. This video contains the last one. With the help of role play, the teacher aims to provide communication among the students. However, not all of the students in the class seem to have a chance to speak and participate to the lesson actively. Teacher only have three different role play situations and the other students have to guess what the situation is according to their friends’ role plays. In other words, they have a chance to talk only when they are guessing. Maybe, the teacher should have tried to make all of the students participate to role play activity. Apart from that, some students talk much more than the others in the group. “Communicative Language Teaching” approach aims to all of the students’ participation to speaking activities. Therefore, role plays should have been arranged by considering this. The teacher should have given them equal time to speak. The activities seem not to be well prepared. Nevertheless, the students who do role play activities speak in target language and “Communicative Language Teaching” approach seem to reach its purpose by this role play activity.
The video link is here: http://youtu.be/RIhYPEhCeYU
ReplyDelete"Present Continuous Tense" by Playing Charades
The video that I would like to comment on is about teaching “Present Continuous Tense” by playing Charades game in the classroom. The teacher chooses to teach this grammar rule by applying CLL and making students interact with each other throughout the lesson. First of all, the teacher asks the classroom whether they know the game Charades or not. Later, he gave a demonstration of the game. He chooses one of the flashcards that were in the basket and tries to make his teammates guess the action by imitating and acting the action out without speaking. He acts out as if he is bouncing a ball and wants students to guess it and he gave one more example. After the demo part, the teacher divides the class into two teams. Then, one member from each group comes to the stage and draws one flashcard. Later, each member tries to make his/her team guess the verb by acting out the action verb on the flashcards. However, students need to form the whole sentence such as “You are driving” in order to get points. During this process, team members help each other by talking and discussing among themselves and try to guess. This part goes like this and the teacher announces the winner team in the end. During the game, he also doesn’t interfere into the game and throughout the lesson; he works as an assistant rather than the authority. In CLT, this is mainly the case. Teacher doesn’t provide the input directly and tries to enhance the interaction and speaking in the target language during the lesson. Another important thing is grammar learning becomes fun for the students as we can understand from their enthusiasm and willingness to participate in the game.
These are all good; however, there are some facts that we couldn’t escape from. Firstly, this classroom consists of very few students like 10 students. This number could be very idealistic when we think about the real classrooms in Turkey, especially in state schools. Therefore, it is so hard to apply this lesson with large numbered classrooms because there won’t be enough time for everyone to get a chance to speak. In addition, this activity takes time. Teacher cannot teach every grammar rule with the help of this technique. In addition, this video is taken in an ESL context I think. However; if we think of teaching English as a foreign language, their exposure to English would be less, so we can’t expect teacher to work as only assistant. S/he needs to come to the stage and teach something students firstly. Speaking is one of the most demanding competences, so it would be quite idealistic to expect students to speak in the target language in the game. In this video, teacher could guide and check students whether they use English or not. In fact, they cannot use any other language because they are ESL students and everyone has a different mother tongue. They need to use English in order to communicate; however, it is not the case when we think about EFL classrooms. These are the main drawbacks of the activity and Communicative Language Teaching; however, this technique can add a variety to the activities and reinforce the knowledge already learnt. All in all, I-as a prospective teacher-would use this activity and CLT from time to time in my lesson to cheer up my students and develop their speaking skills.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHere is the link of my video: Classroom Activity / Same-Different Information Gap
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqAYvB-dcAQ&feature=related
My comments on the video:
Information gap activities are the core elements of communicative language teaching method. In the video above, the teacher presents such an information gap activity with its instructions, demonstration, pros and cons by utilizing communicative language learning method. First of all, there are three students in the classroom and their teacher aims to help them reinforce their speaking skills through this activity. Therefore, due to the nature of the communicative language teaching and information gap activities, the emphasized language skill is speaking in the video. Furthermore, she reminds the students of question words such as what, where, who, how many, when etc. at the very beginning of the lesson as a preparatory step for the activity. After that she states her grammar focus which is to form yes/no questions. That is why she wants the students to pose yes/no questions for the information gap task.
This is a pair work activity and the teacher gives each student a picture and does not want them to show it to each other. Then, she gives the instructions and says “Find five differences between your pictures”by asking questions in a way that their answers will be only yes or no. In the course of this speaking, they will also take turns and in this way each one of the pairs can have a chance to speak in this communicative learning environment. When they find five differences, they will raise their hands. After the instruction part, she distributes colourful pictures and the students begin to ask and answer to questions such as “Do you see a car?, Do you see flowers?” etc.
In the end, when the students find the differences, this means that they learn from each other by using English to communicate actively with each other. This also shows us that the students use the target language as a means of communication as it is desired. The activity gives the students opportunity to maintain their self-pace during speaking and it presents freedom and choice for them to ask a variety of yes/no questions. It also helps each and every student to participate and speak with his/her partner at their own levels. In other words, nobody in the classroom can get away with communication.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AazPkAD-65w
ReplyDeleteThis video shows us the characteristics of communicative laqnguage teaching and it tells us that communicative language teaching is based on communicative language use.It focuses on communicative competence rather than grammatical structures, anf it gives primary importance to meaning.It is constructed upon two systems of meanings; one is notions, and the other one is functions.Also, contextualization is a basic principle, and attemps by the learners to communicate are encouraged from the beginning of the classes, and a new language system is learned by struggling to communicate one's own meaning, and through interaction with others. In addition, material is determined according to the context, and students' interests. Activitiesd are arranged according to students interests, and there are wide range of activities. Activities are involved real communication situation, and thse are interactive language games, information sharing, task based activities, social interaction, and functional communication.
Here is the link of the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OE6tJ9aWrc&feature=related
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately it exceeds 5 minutes but it is a good communicative language teaching video.
Firstly the students make group of three and the two teachers demonstrates the activity for the students. Then the students start to talk about different topics that the teacher gave them in the part 1. There is an information gap among the students. The answers for the topics are different for each student. Information gap is important in communicative language teaching because it creates a real communication environment. The teachers are like counselors. They observe and monitor the students. They encourage them by saying “very good”. In this activity everybody has a chance to speak during the activity so the activty is very effective in terms of communicative language teaching. When the activity finished, one of the teachers asks some questions to the students about the information that they get from their groupmates and then the lesson is over.
Here is the link of the video:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NbJ47D2gB4&feature=related
It is a good video to show communicative language teaching approach. Actually the video is a mixed one showing the different types of communicative teaching approach. The students are coming from different parts of the world. So, they need to speak in a common language which is the target language, English. Maybe this is an advantage for them. As they come from different countries, they have to talk English in order to communicate. There is also a small interview part with the students. They reflect their feelings. They are happy to be there. Most of the time, group work or whole class activities are assigned. The classroom seems an enjoyable place; they are having fun while they are learning. While they are having discussions, the teacher monitors them. They play games together and sing songs through using the target language. They have the chance to produce the language most of the time, even in group works. In one of the activities, after they finish doing the activity, they use the board to write the answers. In that class, everyone has the chance to speak and this creates a lively teaching environment.
The link to the video:
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/Cp2SUggHYvU
Actually guessing activities are always useful for the students and it draws their attention. obviously it is and EFL class and the students do not have the chance to use English outside the classroom. Reading a dialogue is one of the good techniques to let the students speak and participate. Also, the important point here is that the dialogue that is written is authentic and is a daily speech. Besides, putting the papers on colorful envelopes was a good idea. After the 2 volunteer students read the dialogue, the other students have to guess the context, and it goes on like this so everybody in the class have a chance to participate. Finally, pair work is essential in communicative language teaching since the students will be more confident while doing tasks with their friends and communicate with them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NbJ47D2gB4&playnext=1&list=PLFF598D4812C366FF
ReplyDeletethe students in the video are talking to each other in pairs on an issue. Then, they are having a writing on the board competition. And then comes the game. The students seem to be really enjoying the activities. They feel really comfortable during the activities. The students are from very different parts of the world and they are in LA for language learning, I guess. The communicative learning activities implemented are very effective and the students are doing the activities comfortably.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJqw_4hkuuo
ReplyDeleteThis video is a good example of implementation of the communicative language teaching in the EFL context. The students are foreign and they try to learn English as a foreign or second language. The students form groups of there and come to the stage and perform, do a role play. The students have three choices. The teacher gives the students a role and the student on the stage try to do role play. The other students try to guess the situation or the event. In this activity students try to communicate each other and speak freely. In terms of the fluency we can say that it is communicative language teaching. The important thing in the activity is the correct guesses of the students about the performed situation. The students are not asked grammar question about the role play. The only thing that the teacher wants from the students is communication. It is an effective video in understanding of the communicative language teaching because of the characteristics of the lesson.
Here is the video link:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaQn2_LhGS8
In this video, students' task is role playing. The teacher asks them choose a character and then do the role playing activity. In communicative language teaching, using the language is an important thing. The aim is to make students speak and communicate in the target language. There are many activities for communicative language teaching and role playing is one of them. In role playing activities, students choose a character and play that character. They try to speak in the target language. In this video, the first group is in a hospital. One of the students is patient and the other two are doctors. The patient tries to tell her sikness and the doctors try to cure the patient. The students have to speak in English. With this acitvity, they learn how to explain their problems in a foreign language. The other group's role play is a dialog between a teacher and a student. Students speak with each other on the phone in English. I think this video is quite suitable for a communicative language teaching because students try to speak in the target language in different situations.
Here is the video link:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NbJ47D2gB4
This is a video from American Language Center and it is about an “intensive communication 4-8-12 week program”. There are students from various nations including Turkish one. This video starts with a group activity, but we cannot understand what kind of activity. They are discussing a topic in their groups. While they doing that, teacher guides them and when they start to speak, he says “continue” to the lesson. However, generally teacher tolerates the noise. Students seem to enjoy the lesson. After the group discussion, they are doing a competition between groups and write sth on the board in turn. After that, they do an activity with the teacher. The teacher asks them question and two groups answer it. Teacher congratulates them by saying “excellent”. Later, they sit in a circle and play a game related to topic. I know this game and it is like this: One student stands in the middle of the circle and say: “May the ones who like strawberry change their seats.” After they change their place, the one who cannot find a place stands in the middle and asks another question. I think this is very enjoyable game and while students play that game, they both have pleasure and reinforce what they learn or learn new structures or vocabularies from each other. They also have a chance to speak in a friendly environment. They also sing a song with their group. I think this is also both enjoyable and informative activity. The video ends with a group activity again. I like this lesson very much, because it is not like the traditional teacher centered lesson and it doesn’t just focus on grammar teaching. It gives students a chance to speak, discuss, and play a game etc in the lesson.
This is the link of the video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bW15RpON9M
ReplyDeleteMy comments on video:
In this video a teacher applies ‘’Communicative Language Teaching’’ to the learners. First of all ı want to tell topic. The lesson inlcludes 5 topics and a teacher apply all of them in her teaching. The topics are: my best friend, my last vacations, my favorite tv program, my favorite hobby and my favorite food. Actually, in my first listening I couldn’t understand because the voice was unclear but in my second listening I were able to understant everything.The learners are from differrent countries and I think it is convenient and enjoyable topic for their level.I really liked teacher’s teaching way because she made all the class to participate.Firstly she wrote all the topics to the board and chose 5 persons to write one sentence to each one and then they changed places.When we consider the aim of this lesson it is already to provide all learners to participate.And when they wrote their sentcences teacher asked questions related to their sentecenses and by this way everyone had a chance to talk. Therefore while preparing activitity the first think to be considered is participating of the class. All the class should be active and participata otherwise the teaching will be out of aim.Another point that I like else is teacher’s patience and being calm. She was really patient towards the learners and it gave them confidence. Role play was another activity that a teacher gave importance.Learner asked questions to each others. Here teacher’s aim was to build a sincere atmosphere between students which is really effective technique for those from different cultures.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp2SUggHYvU&feature=related
ReplyDeleteIn the video, the teacher gives some colorful envelops to the students. In each envelop, there are conversations about something. The teacher wants students to act out these conversations and he wants the other students to guess the dialogue. It is a good communicative language teaching activity because students act out their roles. Even if they read the conversation from the paper, they have to be careful about the pronounciation and the other students have to understand the conversation to be able to guess the dialogue. In the communicative language teaching, students should speak. They don't be passive, they should be active during the lesson and they should try to speak. In this video, students try to guess the conversation and to guess it they have to speak. Also they have to listen to their friends to understand the dialogue. The students who acting out the conversation also have to speak in the target language and they have to speak it properly to be understandable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJqw_4hkuuo&feature=related
ReplyDeleteHere is the link to my video.In the video, the teacher shows three clorful cards.The students form three groups.They are expected to role play the situation in the cards given to them and the other students guess the situation. The topic is not that clear however the students are very eager and enjoy the acting.So, they successfully complete the task. As one of the most used techniques of communicative language teaching, role plays serves as an effective activity for the communication between the students. However the guessing part can create some problems as they have only three cards and not all students participate equally in the guessing part. One of the aims of the communicative language teaching is to make all students contribute to the speaking activities especially those who are unwilling. So, the teacher should be very careful aout the issue of individual contribution also.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjyC-Q1kznQ
ReplyDeleteThe video is about information Gap. I think one of the challenges many second language teachers face is motivating their students to speak in the target language. Confident students always participate and students who are less confident are reluctant to speak. Even when students speak in the target language, they are usually answering a question and this approach greatly limits student output. Oral presentations provide opportunities for students to speak in the target language for an extended period of time and these activities are useful, but they should not be the only opportunities students have to speak at length. Because students prepare for these presentations by writing a script and then rehearsing it, they have difficulty speaking in the target language spontaneously because they are given little opportunity to do so. When students choose to learn a language, they are interested in learning to speak that language as fluently as possible.