Teaching Philosophy - Mubashir
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Transcript of Teaching Philosophy - Mubashir
1
My Teaching Philosophy
M.Ed. TESOL – Program
Kabul Education University
Afghanistan
Qeyamuddin Mubashir
2013
Advisor:
Beth Trudel
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Introduction to my teaching philosophy
Studying Instructional Issues changed my mind in looking at my students, current teaching,
teaching methods and approaches, teacher‟s role, student‟s role, learning theories input and
output hypothesis, learning styles and strategies. When I was teaching in the past, I was boasting
that I am using communicative language teaching and approaches; I thought that I am
considering all the needed standards for teaching and learning is taking place. However I was
doing what I boasted but still with some difficulties and problems. It means that still I need to
improve my teaching and bring positive changes. For example, right now I am using
communicative language teaching I will improve it in the future to make it more communicative.
1. What method(s) or approaches do I currently use? How did I choose these methods?
How do I know they are effective?
Currently I am using communicative language teaching (CLT) in my classes. I use it because I
would like my students to learn the lesson practically by sharing their experiences and
knowledge with the class. I chose this method to teach my classes with a lot of effort when I was
a student at Kabul University in 2008. When I first studied the theories and principles of
communicative language teaching, I thought it is impossible to apply it in Afghan context. But
later, when our teacher taught us a model class using CLT, I realized that it would be both
possible and effective in Afghan context and my classes. When I observed my teacher‟s model
class I saw that all the language skills were practiced integrated. By the instruction of our
teacher, my classmates and I could produce a piece of our own writing at the end of the class.
When I experienced that this method is a very effective way of teaching the language, from that
time on I decided to use it in my classes. Although I faced lots of difficulties using this approach
to teach my classes, I didn‟t stop using it. I knew that if sometimes there were some failures in
my classes while using this method it was not the fault of this method, it was my problem that I
might not know how to use it effectively. I tried and tried and tried this method for four years
until I could succeed to use it effectively in my classes and convinced my students that this is a
good way of teaching and they really learned.
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This approach of teaching is effective for many reasons. First, there is an emphasis on learning to
communicate through interaction in the target language (Nunan, 1991, p. 279). In this method the
classes are designed in a way that there is opportunity to use target language in the class
discussions, instructions and all other classroom language. Then authentic texts are used in the
learning situations rather than made up texts. When we use authentic texts in the language, the
students learn authentic language and they can link what they learn in the class with the outside
community. As well as the other element of this method which make it more practical and
effective for me is the role of the teacher in this approach. The teacher‟s role in this approach is a
facilitator, prompter, participant, resource and tutor. When the teacher is a facilitator, it means
that he/she checks the students or groups of students in the class to make sure they understand.
As a participant, teacher goes and takes part in the group discussions with the students and helps
them in their tasks. I particularly like this role. I like to go to groups and work with my student
and help them learn things. The teachers talking time is also less in this method only the teacher
is as a facilitator in the class not the authority. Finally, the reason which this method I think is
effective for students is that the teacher paves the way for students to learn in this method rather
than transfer of knowledge from the teacher to students. The effectiveness should be measured
by the results of your students. Please add.
The way I use this approach in my classes I can show it through an example. For example, I
start my class by writing the name of Sayed Jamalluddin Afghani, the Genius of East on the
board in a spider diagram and ask my students: What do you know about work and life of him? I
give my students 5 minutes to think and then I ask them and write their ideas on the board. Later
I distribute the handout about life and works of Sayed Jamalluddin Afghani to my students and
ask them to read the text and discuss in their groups: what are his important works and
characteristics as a genius? Next, I ask one person from every group to share their group‟s
findings with their class. And finally I ask the students to summarize the text Sayed Jamalluddin
Afghan‟s Life and Works in their groups.
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2. Do the methods, approaches and techniques studied in class apply to the Afghan
classroom? If not, why not? If they do, how do they apply, and how would they
improve your teaching? Please deal with each one individually.
The methods, approaches and techniques we studied in the instructional issues class are different,
some of them could be applied in the Afghan context and some of them would not be applicable
in Afghan context.
Many of the methods, approaches and techniques are applicable in Afghan context. For example
the Communicative language teaching (CLT), Direct Method, and Vygotsky‟s theory all have
interconnected characteristics and tries to build communicative competence. Although
implementing the methods which try to enhance and build communicative competence are new
in Afghanistan and there are obstacles as in its way, they are applicable in Afghan context.
Application of the communicative approaches needs more efforts in Afghanistan. For example
history of teaching grammar translation and the teachers have not received modern
methodologies are the obstacles. Based on all the reasons mentioned above we need to work hard
in applying the communicative methods in Afghanistan. And based on my experiences on
practicing communicative approaches, I am sure that these good approaches are applicable and
effective in Afghan context and classrooms. For good application of communicative approaches
in Afghanistan and to strengthen we need more practice and study about these approaches. I
would like to show the application of these approaches through a life example about one of my
classes I taught last week in a senior class at KEU. To teach lesson planning in a methodology
class started as following.
First, I asked my students to sit in groups of five and asked them: what do you think a lesson
plan is and why it is important? Then students discussed in groups and shared their ideas in the
class and I wrote their ideas on the board after encouraging the students for all the definitions
and importance they explain we all chose one and improved it as a whole class. Next, I asked the
students to discuss in their groups: what elements should be there in a lesson plan? After five
minutes discussion I wrote their ideas in a spider diagram on the board and discussed each
element one by together. Then, I give them a model lesson plan to evaluate and compare with
their ideas. Later, after their group discussion we discussed the model lesson plan as a whole
class. Then, I asked them to write the aim of today‟s lesson in groups and we improved it on the
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board. Finally, I asked my students to follow the model and write a lesson plan choosing their
preferred topic. This was a real life example I shared in my teaching philosophy. This example
matches with all the three approaches I have chosen to be effective and applicable in
Afghanistan.
The other communicative approach is Total Physical Response. It‟s a little different with the
other approaches regarding the activities and order of the skills practiced than the approaches I
talked about earlier. This method is also applicable in Afghanistan and I would like to say that
since this method involves lots of acting by the teacher and performing by students it is more
enjoyable for low level students or children. Mostly the action verbs are practiced well in this
approach. For example, in a beginner class we can teach students: stand up, sit down, walk, run,
shout, open the window, clap and jump.
Grammar Translation Method translation method is also one of the methods we studied in this
book. We should admit that grammar translation method is one the methods through which me
and most of other English teachers here in Afghanistan have learned English. It has an old
history in Afghanistan ELT. This method is still being used by English teachers in private course
and high schools. Mostly people use it because they think it‟s a little convenient for them.
Grammar translation is a method that mostly focuses on long definitions of grammar points,
translation of passages, memorizing things about English language and involves more mental
activities. It focuses more on accuracy rather than fluency. Communicative competence is not
practice more in this method and not considered very important. Although this method is very
much applicable in Afghanistan than any other communicative methods but it is not effective to
learn the language. Based on my experiences and observations about teaching through grammar
translation method it is not helpful for students to learn the language and therefore I don‟t like to
apply it in Afghanistan any more.
The other new thing I learned in this book is teaching strategies for the skills of the language.
Teaching strategies are the most important thing for me. The teaching strategies we studied in
this book are very much applicable in Afghan context and effective for the ESL students. For
example, when we use good strategies for a skill the students can learn easily. For a pre-listening
activity if we give the students information about the topic of the listening and activate their
schemata the students can easily understand while they listen to the audio. The same importance
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is with the other skills. Therefore I think that teaching strategies for different skills of the
language are very helpful and effective for the students.
Motivation is the other important point we studied in this book. There are two types of
motivation and according to this book motivation is one of the important tools that accelerate
students learning. Motivation is one of the most needed things for afghan ESL students and
needs to work more toward generalizing it in afghan classes and is very much applicable and
effective for Afghan students.
Games, storytelling, role plays, dramas are the other enjoyable, practical and applicable
techniques in teaching English for the Afghan students in Afghan context. We can choose
situations to practice role plays. We can use stories to practice dramas and storytelling activities
in our ESL classes. Games are also the most applicable technique in afghan context. We can
think of our lesson change it into games and practice it in our class. For example, we can have
spell games, games on completing a jumbled paragraph task and set a prize the one that finishes
first and many more.
Finally at the end I would like to comment that no approach is a bad approach every approach
has advantages and disadvantages. We cannot say that one approach is not applicable and the
other is entirely applicable in Afghan context. We can design our lesson plans using a variety
and combination of methods to make it more dynamic and effective for the students to learn
something. I mean that sometimes we need Grammar Translation Method to teach a topic for the
students and sometimes a combination of CLT and GTM. To conclude I would like to comment
that every method needed for language teachers.
This is a good and thorough answer to this question. Nice work. However, I do disagree with you
on GTM. I think the only time the first language should be used in the classroom is to translate
difficult vocabulary words. However, you should have your own opinion!
Input and Output Hypothesis
In the past I was teaching without understanding input and output hypothesis. Although I didn‟t
know these two hypotheses I had communicative classes. I was trying to expose my students to
output. I was doing more group work and pair work. Now that I know what input and output
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hypothesis are I don‟t agree to Krashen‟s idea that he says students can only learn second
language by offering them the input. I believe that students need both input and output. Offering
input to students without letting them practice the language through communication, which is
output, is not practical. In my idea the most important thing for students is the output which
helps the students to practice the input, i+1. Now that I teach any class, I try to teach my students
more through output rather than input hypothesis. When we design communicative activities it
involves both input and output. For example I design my lesson plans in a way that has more
group works, pair works and role play to help my students practice more the output. Again as a
real example, in one of my lessons to write an integrated summary I do the following steps.
Example:
First, I give my students the text Action Research and ask them to read, discuss and highlight
the key ideas in pairs. Then, I ask all the students to watch the video Action Research and take
notes of the key ideas individually and then compare their notes with their partners and ask and
answer questions about their notes. Later, in groups of 3 I ask the students to discuss the key
ideas highlighted in the text and the notes they took from the video to find out the similarities
and differences between the ideas of both authors and then fill out the graphic organizer. After
filling out their graphic organizer I ask the groups to start writing their integrated summaries.
When the groups finished writing integrated summaries, I ask every two groups to sit together,
one person from each group read their integrated summaries and the other groups listen and give
feedback on the ideas and transition. Then the other group follows the same process. Finally, the
groups go back in their places and revise their integrated summaries and write the final draft.
This was an example of applying output, which has input from the students. In this activity there
are group works, pair works and individual. The students discuss the ideas in groups, ask and
answer questions, give feedback and read, speak, listen and write.
Vygotsky’s Socio-cultural Theory
In the earlier chapter in the instructional issues class, we studied Krashen‟s input hypothesis and
Swain‟s output hypothesis and I chose output hypothesis to follow in my teaching. Now that I
studied Vygotsky‟s socio-cultural theory, I prefer to apply it in my teaching/ classes.
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As Vygotsky (1978) proposes “that an essential feature of learning is that it creates the zone of
proximal development: that is learning awakens a variety of internal development processes that
are able to operate only when the child is interacting with people in his environment and in
cooperation with his peer. Once these processes internalized they become part of the child‟s
independent development achievement” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 90).
According to Vygotsky a learner has three zones; potential development, zone of proximal
development and actual development. The distance between potential development and actual
development is zone of proximal development. Now I know where a leaner is before starting
learning, how he/she will change or learning can change him/her and what will he/she become
after learning takes place. To help a learner go from potential development to actual
development I should have problem solving activities and critical thinking. I found out that if we
use transmission model where only teacher have the most roles and talks a lot, the students will
remain in the potential development level forever.
Although I was doing some communicative activities in my class in the past, but still it was not
enough to shift students from potential development to actual development efficiently. To
improve my teaching and have modern classes and teaching in the world and make sure my
student move from potential development to actual development in the future, I will try to have
classes where there are lots of problem solving activities, communicative tasks that makes my
students critical thinker and independent learner. For example, I will ask my students who
should clean the city, the people or the municipality? I divide students into groups of five and ask
them to discuss about this question. Later, I ask one or two people from every group to report
their discussion. Then, I all the people in the groups didn‟t have the same ideas I ask every five
students who have the same idea about cleaning the city to sit together and write a paragraph and
say their reasons why they think municipality should clean the city and why they believe that
people should clean the city.
Empowerment of students in the Language Classroom
Empowerment of students in the classroom means giving power to students and it begins with
the way teachers interact with students. Traditionally, classroom interaction sticks to the
initiation/ response/ feedback (IRF) paradigm in which the teacher asks a question (initiation),
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the student gives the answer (the response); and the teacher evaluates the answer (the feedback).
But in the modern methodology empowerment of students in the language classroom is “student
ownership of learning” (Harmer, 2001).This is helping students take control of their own
learning. But how do you do that? We can do this by giving responsibility to the students in the
classroom and letting students make decision about their lessons, as letting students to choose
their homework assignment. For example, I will provide students with two or three options
maybe one reflective journal and the other writing a lesson plan to choose one of them for
themselves. The other point is giving options and responsibility for students about tests that
could be done in many ways. One way is to divide students into groups and assign each group
one unit to write 5 questions. Then, I will ask the groups as a jigsaw reading to share their
questions. Later in the test the teacher should tell the students that brings half of the questions
from their own questions. The other facility is, for example, to make seven questions for the test
and ask them to answer any five of them they like. The other empowerment technique is
involving students in evaluation as self-evaluation. For example, I will ask the students to take
five minutes at the end of a class period to respond to the following questions:
What did I learn today?
What do I still have questions about?
Could I use this knowledge to take a test, complete an assignment, or accomplish
something in my life?
Teaching strategies
Teaching strategies are behaviors or processes that teachers use to develop their students learning
and their own skills. Good teaching strategies can make teaching easier, faster and more
enjoyable. For every teacher it‟s very much important to have and apply good teaching strategies
in their class. Though every teacher has teaching strategies for themselves but they are unaware
of them. Consciously set teaching strategies can enhance learning more than unconscious
strategies. Therefore, it‟s important to every teacher to set specific teaching strategies for them.
Teaching strategies are different for different skills.
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In the past I was not consciously using specific teaching strategies in my teaching. Now that I
know different teaching strategies of language skill to use in the classroom I can consciously set
strategies while teaching every skill in my classes. As an example, I have chosen the one strategy
that I prefer for every skill of the language.
Listening:
Listening is an important skill in learning spoken language both first and second Patricia &
Richard (2010). Listening has three stages as: pre-listening, while listening and post-listening.
The strategy I have chosen for pre-listening activity:
Explore with the students to their prior knowledge and experience concerning the content of
what they will be listening to. Provide background information to fill in any gaps (Anderson,
1999; Chang & Read, 2006).
For an ESL student listening is an important and the most difficult task because the English
learners are not exposed to Native English speaking communities and their listening sources are
usually their teachers or peers. For this reason, I would like to design very applicable and helpful
listening strategies for my students. The reason I have chosen this strategy for the pre-listening
stage is that I would like to link my students‟ prior knowledge and provide background related to
the listening. This way my students would be led to the context of the listening they are supposed
to listen and understanding the listening would be easier for them. I think the strategy that I have
chosen is very effective. For example, if I teach a listening class about the quality of water, I
first prepare an activity for students to work in pairs about quality of water to activate the
students‟ schemata about the quality of water, or I would ask some information questions about
the quality of water from the student. I do this activity to awaken their prior knowledge about the
quality of water and prepare them for the actual listening.
The strategy I have chosen for while-listening activity:
At first, select listening materials in which the input is enhanced and/or modified to meet the
needs of the listeners.
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While listening activity is the main part of the listening, if we can choose a very practical
strategy at this stage student would learn more. The strategy I have chosen I think is very
important. When the listening material is according to the needs of students, they would be
motivated to listen and an atmosphere of learning would be created.
The strategy I have chosen for post-listening activity:
Have students fill out the graphic organizer they were introduced to during the pre-listening
phase.
To do a task better and to get a good result the outcome expected from students should be clear
and specific. In the post listening activity we can find out how much the students have gotten
from the listening. I have chosen a graphic organizer because if we ask students to fill out a
graphic organizer it is both specific and involves critical thinking. Instead of asking everything
from students it is better to ask a segment as an important point of the text.
Speaking
Speaking involves many things such as what to say, how to say it, error correction, discussions,
everyday conversation, role play, interviews, formal prepared speeches and so forth. There are
many issues involves in ones‟ identity and social standing and knowing how to do things. Such
as making request, asking for clarification and saying „no‟ politely.
Teaching strategies for teaching speaking
Use scaffolding to fill in gaps during teacher-fronted interaction but only as much as needed to
prevent a breakdown in communication. Be careful not to usurp the students’ turn or interfere
with what the student wants to say (Walsh, 2002).
If we stop a student speaking in the class to correct his/her error, he or she will not speak again
(Mubashir, 2013). I have used scaffolding strategy only to fill the gap in a way the student feels
that the teacher is supporting him/her. Scaffolding strategy is like helping students to talk. For
example I ask the students to discuss about their last weekend activities in pairs. Later, I ask one
student to stand up and report his partner‟s last weekend activity to the class. While the student is
talking he/she may make some mistakes in using the past form of the verbs. For example he says:
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he go to Paghman last week and visit some friends. When I hear his errors I don‟t say, no you are
wrong it is: he went to Paghman and visited some friends. Instead I say: Good, good you mean
he went and visited some friends. OK.
Pronunciation
According to behaviorists, pronunciation is students‟ ability to speak like a native speaker of
English, while today being understood is important in one‟s own environment. I agree with
today‟s idea. I think it‟s important to be understood in one‟s own linguistic environment. Being
who you are when speaking or pronouncing a word shows one‟s identity. This is true that what is
intelligible in one society is not intelligible in another society. It means that sounds, stress,
intonation, pausing, and so on can be taught as needed within the context of meaningful
communication and we can learn these things from native speakers, but meaningful in our
community.
Teaching strategies to aid students with pronunciation
Considering the above explanations if we set strategies for our students I am sure that we can
improve our students‟ pronunciation. The strategy I have preferred for my students is:
Help students to develop realistic goals concerning pronunciation based on current research
whenever possible and avoid insisting that they be “native like.”
I chose this strategy and apply it in my classes because now a day‟s people think that if someone
doesn‟t have a native like pronunciation his/ her English is not good. For example, I will ask the
students to get preparation about Afghan election for 2014 and we would have a whole class
discussion about the election. In this discussion I can see and identify students pronunciation
when students were pronouncing Afghan dialect English. I do not criticize them because of not
having native like pronunciation. This is because every dialect and pronunciation type represents
the identity of a nation.
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Reading
The first important thing in learning every skill in the second language is to have that ability in
the first language. The same is true with reading. Therefore in order to be able to read effectively
in English we should have ability to read in Dari/Persian. Then in the second step we should
select effective reading strategies for reading. Here in this unit I have chosen two reading
strategy one from the book and one from my own through which I would like to teach reading to
my students.
The strategy that I have chosen from the Instructional Issues Book Making it Happen:
Identify and teach key terms and concepts necessary to the comprehension of a specific reading.
Include commonly used vocabulary, academic concepts used across subject areas. And items
critical to the reading at hand (Richard-Amato & M. A. Snow, 2005)
For example, if I teach a reading about the development of technology in 21st century, I will make
an activity about key concepts and ideas about 21st century for students. Then, I will elicit a
reading technique such as scanning from students and discuss it as a whole class. Then, I ask the
students to read the passage.
The second strategy I chose from my own:
I will ask my students to read in chunks by moving their eyes on the lines, not following the lines
with fingers.
When we read we should read we should read the text in chunks it means reading three, four or
five words at one look or glance. Though it is a strategy of reading but it is close to skimming.
But here I am discussing about reading strategies not techniques. When I teach reading in the
class for my students.
For example I teach communicative language teaching in my class at Kunduz University and
usually my classes have 30 students in Kunduz University. First I divide my students to 6 groups
of 5 and then divide the CLT into 6 segments. Then I tell them that each group should read its
own part and discuss with partners and tell them that do not read in details or do not stop on
difficult vocabularies while reading. I tell them that move your eyes on the text and try to read in
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chunks looking at every three, four, or five words at the same time. Then give them their
segments and ask them to start. While they are reading I walk around and monitor, participate or
prompt the groups.
Vocabulary Development
Teaching vocabulary in Afghanistan is in a very bad condition right now. Most ESL teachers
except some who are teaching at the universities and have received specialized methodological
training, teach vocabulary in its worst way. Most teachers teaching at high schools and private
English courses forces student to memorize lists of vocabularies, but I do not agree with this
idea.
In my idea and also as we studied in the Instructional Issues, vocabulary is leaned in two ways
intentional and accidental. Vocabularies which are learned accidental are never forgotten and
they are learned in context. The students can use them properly. The other way of learning
vocabulary is intentional, in intentional way of learning vocabulary it should be taught in
context.
The strategy which I have chosen for vocabulary teaching:
Encourage lots of reading – extensive reading increases students‟ vocabulary dramatically
(Eskey, 2005: Hu and Nation, 2000).
Based on my experience when I teach vocabulary I would like to teach it accidentally and in
context. I mean that I do not like to hold any class by the name of teaching vocabulary. Rather I
would encourage my students to read short stories, updated information about different things
from the internet and let students learn vocabularies unconsciously.
Total Physical Response (TPR)
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Total physical response is an interesting method devised by James Ashar in 1960s. This is a type
of method in which the teacher is the director and the students are actors or the teacher is
sometimes the actor. In this method the students remain silent until they do some total physical
response activities to know how and what to speak. It means in this method first students act the
activity and then talk what they act. This method mostly focuses on action. In her book Richard-
Amato quotes from Aahser, Kusudo, & De la Torre, that this method focuses 70% on listening
comprehension, 20 percent on speaking, and 10 percent reading and writing. In the past in
usually used this method in my classes in Kunduz University English Department. I think this
method should be sometimes used as one activity in a class because this method involves acting
very much and might be so fun if used a lot. I like this method and will it in the future too in my
classes. As an example I will use this method as following.
I will write the following words on the board and in the first stage I only ask students to repeat
and act them one by one. In the second stage I ask them to act and make a sentence for each one
of them.
The words which I will use in my class:
1. Clap
2. Snap
3. Stomp
4. Yawn
5. Stretch
Role play
Role play is a new and uncommon way of teaching in Afghanistan context, but I am sure we can
enter it in our teaching activities in our classes and design activities according to Afghan context
and culture.
Role paly is a type of activity in which one puts themself in the position of someone else. It is a
difficult task to put yourself in someone else‟s shows. As Atticus Finch says in Harper Lee‟s To
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Kill a Mockingbird, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his
view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” I like this technique of teaching in
the future I will use it in my classes and make it applicable in the Afghan context. This is a
technique of teaching in which there is no anxiety for learners and maybe for the actors, it is
more enjoyable and less stressful. The way I would like to apply it I can show it in an example as
following.
Role play example between a patient and a doctor: P = patient and Dr. = doctor
P: I do not feel well; I think I have got the flu again. The medicine was not so effective.
Dr.: I gave you some medicine. Did you take your medicine as I told you? ……………. Tell me
honestly.
P: Mmm ……….. Actually the pills were very bitter. I couldn‟t take them regularly just I took
them once or twice.
Dr.: As I had told you, you should’ve taken your medicines otherwise you would not get better.
I had told you to rest in bed, drink some warm liquid with lemonade.
P: I am sorry I couldn‟t, I went to a wedding party of my friend.
Dr.: You should’ve stayed in bed and kept warm. You should’ve drunk lots of liquid. Well,
I will give you another prescription and this time you should be careful and take your medicine,
stay in bed and drink lots of liquid. Insha‟Allah you will recover soon.
In this role play the target language is: You should’ve. First, I will ask two students one of them
take the role of a patient and the other the role of a doctor to role play it. Next, I will write the
structure on the board and also write the model sentence on the board and ask students to
practice it repeating it. Later, I will ask student to make their own sentences using should’ve.
Games
Using games in the ESL classes is fun. We can use games in our classes for instructional
purposes. Using games in our classes makes the class interesting and enjoyable for the students,
as well as one of the ways which can make creating learning atmosphere in the class easy is by
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using games in the classes. For example we can start our class teaching the importance of active
listening through games. To do this activity we can ask two students come in front of the class
and in first phase we ask the one student to talk and the other listen carefully by giving feedback
and paying attention to the speaker. In the second phase we ask one student to talk and the other
student to not listen attentively. We ask the other student to play with his pen or work on his
computer or listen to somebody else while his classmate is talking. Then at the end of the talk we
ask the speaker to ask the listener what the speaker said? This is clear that the listener has not
listened to anything and don‟t know anything about what the speaker said. This ways we can
show the importance of active listening to the students.
Motivation
The most important element in teaching and learning is motivation. There are two types of
motivation; integrative motivation and instrumental motivation. Integrative motivation is
intrinsic and is a very strong motivation. People who have this motivation study for life.
Instrumental motivation is extrinsic. People having this motivation only studies for grade or to
show for people. If we can motivate our students learning will take place in our class and the
class will be enjoyable. There are many ways to motivate students. One way is to give prize for
students doing the activities and getting good marks but according to the research, this is an
extrinsic motivation and is not helpful for the students to learn. This is because they will stop
studying immediately after we stop rewarding them. I am sure using motivation is important in
the class. For example, I would like to motivate my students by making my classes interesting
through creating interesting and authentic activities. For example, in a conversation class I ask
the students this question: Should men take part in the house work or only women should do the
housework? Since this is a controversial question and different students have different ideas, I
ask the students who supports men should take part in the house work and those do not agree
with this idea. Then I divide the class into two opposing groups. I ask the students to discuss and
give reasons and try to convince each other about men taking part in the house work. When we
have such a topic in our class, students do not think about the lesson. They try to defeat the group
with opposing idea. Each group tries to win the debate. This way, by having such activities,
students get motivated and try to study and take part in the lesson.