Tài liệu Skkn creating effective teaching and learning environments

BM 01-Bia SKKN DONG NAI EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT NAM HA HIGH SCHOOL __________________________ Code: THE INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS Teacher: TRAN THI VAN ANH Research field: English Education management:  Teaching method:  Other fields:  Attachments:  Object  Software  Film School year: 2019 – 2020  Other things DONG NAI EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT NAM HA HIGH SCHOOL __________________________ THE INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS Teacher: TRAN THI VAN ANH Research field: English Education management:  Teaching method:  Other fields:  Attachments:  Object  Software  Film  Other things School year: 2019 – 2020 CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Pages Introduction 1. Study background 5 2. Reason for choosing the study 5 3. Objects and scope of the study 5 4. Purpose of the study 5 Contents I. Reality of the study 6 II. Contents of the study 1. Process of the study 6-18 1.1. Integrated activities 6-11 1.1.1. Predicting 7-9 1.1.2. Consolidating 9-10 1.1.3. Interviewing 10-11 1.2. Mind mapping 12-13 1.3. Playing games 13-16 1.4. Using technology in learning and teaching 16-18 2. Advantages and disadvantages of the study 3. Evaluation of the study 19 19-20 Conclusions 21 References 22 Appendix Sample lesson 22-33 CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS GENERAL INFORMATION 1. Name of the initiative experience: CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS 2. Research field: English teaching method 3. Author: - Full name: TRAN THI VAN ANH Male (Female): Female - Diploma: Bachelor of teaching English - Position, place of work: English teacher/ Nam Ha high school - Telephone number: 0909.961.960 Email: [email protected] Contribution rate for the initiative experience (%): 100% CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS INTRODUCTION 1. Study background My study, Creating effective teaching and learning environments, offers applicable techniques helping improve the effectiveness in teaching in general and in teaching reading in particular as well as stimulating learning environments among students. 2. Reason for choosing the study Nowadays, teaching and learning are not giving and receiving knowledge any longer. Instead, teachers give instructions and students are main characters of the class, which we call learner-centred learning. In this situation, students choose what they will learn, how they will pace their learning, and how they will assess their own learning. Realizing the characteristics of new teaching and learning style, I always study and research the best methods to help teachers improve the quality of teaching and learning English. I also learn from my colleagues at Nam Ha high school as well as other high schools through professional training courses. Furthermore, I have done some experiments in which I applied various teaching techniques to improve teaching and learning environments in my classes. Last but not least, in order to finish this study, I have made statistic and considered the result which has been changed significantly since I started using these techniques. Following are my study, Creating effective teaching and learning environments, which is drawn from all my eight-year teaching experience. 3. Objects and scope of the study The study focuses on students belonging to my three classes such as 10C4, 10C5, and 12C9 at Nam Ha high school; they are at the age from sixteen to eighteen. About the time of this study, it is conducted during the first semester of the 2019-2020 school year (from the mid of September to the mid of December), and the activities are built according to the available tasks in the textbook. 4. Purpose of the study In an attempt to improve teaching and learning quality in reading lessons, I have had an idea and conducted some practical applications. I feel quite optimistic about these techniques; hence, I write this paper aiming to share the skills to create effective teaching and learning environments, especially in reading lessons. School year: 2019-2020 5 Teacher: Tran Thi Van Anh CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS CONTENTS I. Reality of the study Nobody can disapprove of the fact that teaching and learning styles have changed significantly over the years. In the twenty-first century classroom, it is students, not teachers, who play primarily “active” role. Moreover, students are required to be more active and become responsible participants in their own learning and with their own pace of learning. In addition, teachers are facilitators of student learning and creators of productive classroom environments, in which students can develop the skills they might need at present or in future. However, this will certainly force teachers both to be more creative, active and to make more efforts to improve their skills in teaching as well as class management. In fact, to find out the best solutions to the problems teachers often meet while applying new techniques in teaching English, all groups and departments related to education usually carry out the movements, the contests or the discussions which help teachers have opportunities to learn experiences from each other. II. Contents of the study 1. Process of the study In order to create effective teaching and learning environments in reading lessons, teachers are supposed to be more patient and flexible in teaching as well as making great efforts to design attractive learning activities. Moreover, the most important thing to better class environments is making students excited about learning activities, so that they will actively contribute to the lessons. Following are some techniques which I have applied to improve teaching and learning environments in reading lessons. 1.1. Integrated activities Integrated activities aim to focus on more than one skill or subject matter through one exercise or activity. For example, in a reading exercise, you can develop not only reading skills but speaking skills, writing skills and listening skills as well. As we know, the main reason for language learning is effective communication. However, our current educational system is only focused on grammar and comprehensive reading, which is not good for students’ communicative skills in the future. Many Vietnamese students graduating from a university cannot communicate with foreigners. Therefore, using integrated activities in teaching English is obligatory. It is necessary for teachers to design activities in which students are supposed to use a combination of receptive School year: 2019-2020 6 Teacher: Tran Thi Van Anh CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS skills – reading and listening - and productive skills – speaking and writing. There are also many interesting activities which teachers can use to engage their students. Following are some activities to combine reading and writing or speaking which I have used in my reading lessons. 1. 1.1. Predicting - Rationale: The aim of this activity is for students to preview a reading passage in order to predict its content. - Procedure: 1. Have students preview the text they will be reading to get a general idea of what it is about. The clue may be the title of the passage, the first paragraph, the first sentence of each paragraph, the last paragraph, and so on. 2. Ask students to work in groups to write down what they think the passage will be about or what they think will happen in the reading based on the information they got in step one. Depending on the nature of the reading and the level of the class, students could write lists of words or phrases, or they could write a paragraph. 3. Invite students to read what they have written. Compare predictions. 4. After reading the entire passage, students can compare their predictions with the text. In this activity, students begin to pose questions about a text and make predictions about it before they read. In this way, students become authors of the text and may understand the kinds of expectations that a writer has, which can be helpful for them in their own writing. Students may also begin to see the role that previewing and predicting play in understanding what they read. In addition, this kind of activity gives students a purpose for reading and motivates them to orient themselves to the topics they want to discover. Sample lessons: Grade 12 – Unit 8: LIFE IN THE FUTURE The clue: the title of reading text and the first paragraph “What will life be like in the future? Different people have different answers to this question; some are pessimistic while others optimistic.” → Students’ first prediction: “The passage will talk about life in the future. Some people think life will be better; while others think it will be worse.” Teacher divides class into two groups and asks them to discuss some changes in specific fields, such as medical care, environment, transport, etc. according to two different opinions “Life will be better” and “Life will be School year: 2019-2020 7 Teacher: Tran Thi Van Anh CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS worse”. Then, each group will write their work in the wallchart and show it to the class. → Students’second prediction: LIFE WILL BE BETTER. LIFE WILL BE WORSE. School year: 2019-2020 8 Teacher: Tran Thi Van Anh CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS Grade 10 – Unit 4: SPECIAL EDUCATION The clue: the title of the passage and the vocabulary “A TEACHER IN A SPECIAL CLASS” → Students’ prediction: “The passage will talk about the work of a teacher in a special class. The work may be very difficult, because the students may be disabled. For example: - Students may be blind; teacher has to use books with Braille alphabet to teach them. - Students may be deaf and dumb; teacher has to use sign language to teach them. - It will take teacher a very long time and so much effort to teach disabled students.” 1.1.2. Consolidating - Rationale: After reading a passage, students are asked to recall as much as they can of what they read. Reconstructing a reading helps students clarify their understanding of the text and gives them practice in using the language they are learning. - Procedure: 1. After reading, give students a few minutes to review the text. Tell them to remember everything they can. 2. Ask students to close textbooks and take turns with classmates to tell each other in their own words what they remember from the reading. Invite students to speak aloud to classmates. Compare their works. 3. As a class, give some phrases or numbers which appear in the passage and ask students to use these cues to talk about the events mentioned in the passage. Consolidating is a valuable step in the reading process because it becomes quite apparent whether students have understood the reading, thus allowing the teacher to discover and work with any misconceptions that might arise. School year: 2019-2020 9 Teacher: Tran Thi Van Anh CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS Sample lessons: Grade 12 – Unit 2: CULTURAL DIVERSITY Instruction: Talk about the different ideas about love and marriage between Americans and Asians metioned in the passage, using the following phrases as cues: “romantic” marriage “contractual" marriage physical attractiveness confiding partnership of equals trust built on love → Students’ work: “Americans believe in “romantic” marriage, while Asians believe in “contractual” marriage…” Grade 10 – Unit 14: THE WORLD CUP Instruction: Talk about the events mentioned in the passage, using the following figures as cues: 1904 13 1930 17 32 2002 → Students’ work: 1904 is the year when FIFA was held up… 1.1.3. Interviewing - Rationale: The purpose of this activity is that students write about experience relating to central ideas, themes or events in a passage that they have read. - Procedure: 1. After reading, give students a few minutes to review the text. Elicit the main information of the passage from the whole class. Make questions to ask about the information. 2. Ask students to take turns with a classmate to ask and answer the questions, according to their own situation or experience. 3. Have students act out their interview in front of the class. Give feedback. Through this activity, students discover what they already understand about the reading text. When students form connections with a text by relating it to their own concrete experience, they gain a deeper understanding of characters and issues in the text. School year: 2019-2020 10 Teacher: Tran Thi Van Anh CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS Sample lessons: Grade 12 – Unit 1: HOME LIFE Interview a partner about his/her family life. - Teacher elicits a list of questions about family life from students. Questions: Who works in the family Who does the household chores Your responsibility in the family The interest the family members share closely The person you often share your secret with The person you talk to before amking an important decision - Students work in pairs to ask and answer questions about family life. - Teacher observes students working and gives assisstance if necessary. Grade 10 – Unit 5: TECHNOLOGY AND I Task: Interview a classmate about advantages and disadvantages of the computer in his/her own daily life. - Teacher elicits some ideas from whole class. Advantages of the computer Learn foreign languages Relax: listen to music, play games, watch movies Search information Do reports Disadvantages of the computer Take time Be short-sighted - Students work in pairs to ask and answer questions about advantages and disadvantages of the computer. - Teacher observes students working and gives assisstance if necessary. School year: 2019-2020 11 Teacher: Tran Thi Van Anh CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS 1.2. Mind mapping Students of the 21st century are extremely different from students in the past. They are more active; therefore, instead of having students sit at their desks doing worksheets all day, teachers ask them to keep their brains busy by engaging them in activities that promote cognitive stimulation, and keep their hands moving with activities that allow students to explore different senses and textures or projects that students can create, rather than just observe. The most activity I often use in my classes is mind mapping. This is a highly effective way of getting information in and out of your brain. Mind mapping is a creative and logical means of note-taking and note-making that literally "maps out" students’ ideas. Procedure: - After students are explained about new vocabulary in the reading text, they are divided into groups. - They have to read the passage in textbook and work in groups to create a mind map to sum up the reading passage. - Each group shows the work on the board and presents about it in front of the class. Sample students’ works: Grade 12 – Unit 4: School educational system (12C9) School year: 2019-2020 12 Teacher: Tran Thi Van Anh CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS Grade 10 – Unit 5: Technology and I (10C5) Mind Maps provide a visual learning mechanism that will help students recognize relationships they may miss in a more linear type of activity. The act of mapping something out encourages the individual to create an internal retelling of the story. Through this activity, students can have a thorough understanding about the reading text. 1.3. Playing games All of us know why reading is important. Not only does reading teach our students grammar, word usage and idea expression, but it also enables them to acquire new information about their second language’s culture. Additionally, reading helps students to see how English is communicated through writing, which is why a good writer is also a good reader. But reading anything in a second language is never easy. Students who are still juggling new vocabulary, grammar rules and even phonics may feel reading is not only tedious, but also too difficult for them to understand. Therefore, playing games as reading tasks is a great way to make reading a fun classroom task for students. School year: 2019-2020 13 Teacher: Tran Thi Van Anh CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS Sample lessons: Grade 12 – Unit 2: Cultural diversity – Reading Love and Marriage Gameshow - Teacher introduces the game to students. There are 6 questions about attitudes towards love and marriage that students have to answer. - Students work in 2 groups to choose the number and answer the question behind that number. School year: 2019-2020 14 Teacher: Tran Thi Van Anh CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS Grade 10 – Unit 3: People’s background – Reading Guessing game: Who Is She? - Teacher shows some pictures about a woman. Students use these cues to guess who the woman is. Picture 1: Picture 2: Picture 3: Picture 4: School year: 2019-2020 15 Teacher: Tran Thi Van Anh CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS Picture 5: Answer key: She is Marie Curie. 1.4. Using technology in learning and teaching Everyone acknowledges the power of technology over teaching. I often use educational programmes such as Powerpoint, ActivInspire, MS Office, and so on to design lessons and exercises. One of my favorite apps is Kahoot, an educational tool. With this app, we can create fun learning games for our class in minutes, or choose from millions of existing games to introduce a topic, review and reinforce knowledge, and run formative assessment. Following are some tasks I designed for my classes. School year: 2019-2020 16 Teacher: Tran Thi Van Anh CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS Sample lesson: Grade 10 – Unit 5: Technology and I Grade 12 – Unit 1 – Language focus – Tenses revision Students in this fourth industrial revolution are also excelent at using technology in learning, such as searching and sharing information on the Internet, making report with Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, and so on. I often have my students do some homework with their computers or laptops, which makes them more interested in learning than reading textbooks or doing paper homework so much. Following are some of my students’ work. School year: 2019-2020 17 Teacher: Tran Thi Van Anh CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS Students’ sample work Grade 12 – Unit 10: Endagered species Grade 10 – Invention of Television School year: 2019-2020 18 Teacher: Tran Thi Van Anh CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS 2. Advantages and disadvantages of the study 2.1. Advantages of the study Teachers are always enthusiastic and creative in not only teaching but applying new techniques in teaching as well. Both experienced teachers and young, active teachers usually work together to find out better solutions to improve teaching and learning problems. Nowadays, students are better at soft skills, such as computer skills, group-working/ pair-working skills, self-study skills and so on. 2.2. Disadvantages of the study Length of time for a teaching period is relatively short. As a result of this, it is difficult for teachers to deliver their knowledge to the students. Besides, the content of the subject is too overwhelming. It requires teachers to provide students a large sum of knowledge in a limited time, only fourty-five minutes. 3. Evaluation of the study 3.1. Ingenuity of the study After one-semester experiment on my students, I am really confident about the effect of this study. I myself can recognize the change in the teaching and learning environment in my classes. My students pay much more attention to the lessons as a result of my integrated activities. Moreover, they become more and more mature and responsible for their every behavior in class due to the classroom policies they have developed by themselves. Last but not least, blending technology in learnning really works because my students seem to be more eager with homework than ever before. It is the chance for them to show their technological skills; therefore, they have to prepare their work carefully. 3.2. Effect of the study From my observational field notes, I came to the following evaluations over the strong points of my real lesson. Students were enhanced to self-study and were stimulated to work in class activities. School year: 2019-2020 19 Teacher: Tran Thi Van Anh CREATING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS (The 1st term of the school year 2019 - 2020) Class 10C4 (44) 10C5 (44) 12C9 (33) The number of students really joins class activities before applying to the new method. 35 students 30 students 20 students The number of students really joins class activities after applying to the new method. 40 students 41 students 33 students 3.3. Applicability of the study This study has been applied to teaching every subject, not only English. Many teachers in different subjects or levels can conduct it and get positive results as well. However, to make this study work, the most important factors are teachers and learners. Teachers need to be energetic to design new activities and knowledgeable to supply assisstance for students if necessary. Learners are supposed to be active, eager to work hard, even by themselves. Nowadays, technology in education is not a new thing, thus teachers at every school in every part of the country can apply this study to improve the quality of learning and teaching. School year: 2019-2020 20 Teacher: Tran Thi Van Anh