Reculiarites of Teaching English

A: Who’s he?

B: He's the president of Korea. She's the CFO. He's the mayor.

This can be contrasted with:

A: Who's she?

B: She's a member of parliament. She's an accountant. He's an alderman.

This uniqueness can come by association:

A car crashed into a tree. The driver was seriously injured.

Once we established (introduced) the car, there could only be one driver so

“driver” was unique at the time of introduction and we use the driver instead of a driver. We could have rewritten this so that driver was not unique (and the car was) when it was introduced:

A driver was seriously injured when the car he was driving crashed.

A driver can only be driving one car at a time so ‘car’ is unique in this instance once driver was introduced.

This exception applies to superlatives (which are usually unique in occupying the extreme position or quality): the best place, the worst thing, the fastest runner, the tallest mountain, the most. This can be contrasted with comparatives such as a better mouse trap where several better mouse traps are possible.

This exception also applies to ordering (ordinal numbers used as adjectives) where it is presumed that the ordering is unique: the second time, the third example, the fourth person to call. In other words, once you place an order on objects they hold a unique position in that order.

This exception applies to named things (which through naming become unique):

The Rocky Mountains. (a mountain range)

The New York Islanders. (a sports team)

The Amazon River. (a river in South America)

The Pacific Ocean (An ocean)

The Steelworkers Union (an organization)

The Great Plains (a geographic locality)

The Washington Monument (a statue)

The Number Four Bus

However, this application is imperfect as some things such as named lakes and islands take no articles (Buttle Lake, Skull Island) except in plural instances (the Great Lakes, the Galapagos islands).

This exception applies to famous people who become unique in their fame:

A: I saw Nicole Kidman yesterday.

B: Nicole Kidman, the actor? (There is only one famous Nicole Kidman)

Another way of presenting articles is by giving the rules of using them in the mother tongue. Then the pupils practice applying the rule first orally and after that in written form.

Written texts are often one of the major sources through which language learners meet new vocabulary, grammar and articles in particular, so it is only logical that they should be used extensively in classroom teaching. They have the great advantage.

As the example the teacher may use different texts. Such as:

“There is no city quite like New York. It is known as “The City That Never Sleeps” and is the biggest commercial and cultural center in the world. Manhattan – the heart of the city – is only one of the five boroughs in this city. There are thousands of things to do and places to visit for tourists. The most famous landmark must be The Statue of Liberty – a symbol of freedom.

You can relax in Central Park, which is larger than Monaco! New York really does have something for everyone. ”[11:76]

2.2 Memory techniques.

The learners are said to forget about 50 per cent of the information received after the presentation. That is why there are some special techniques which help the teacher to promote more effective learning. In the process of teaching articles I use different tables, schemes which can help students to remember this theme better. I suggest using the following exercises:

a) a phrase scheme

to school the cinema

to go to bed to go to the theatre

home the hospital

The teacher asks the pupils to learn these examples by heart. This will help to understand the difference between using definite and zero articles.

b) a phrase fork

bus

to travel by car

boat

c) a tree diagram

to be

at in

school home … bed hospital …

The dotted lines mean that the learners can add more words to the tree as they meet them.

2.3 Further activities for practicing article.

After explaining the main rules of using articles and showing the examples it is easy for pupils to understand the correct use definite and indefinite articles. First of all, it is suggested that the teacher should use dialogues for discussion with different articles (see Appendix 2). The pupils must learn the rules and discuss speakers’ use of articles.

After that pupils can easily cope with different exercises. The following exercises are presented in an order of increasing difficulty. In the first exercises the pupils complete a sentence by choosing the correct articles from the suggested.

Add the or no article. This exercise helps the teacher to check students’ use of articles and their understanding of countable and uncountable nouns.

Please pass me … butter.

… butter is a dairy product.

John, where’s … milk? It is in … refrigerator or on … table?

… milk come from cows and goats.

Do you like … weather in this city?

… air is free.

… air is humid today.

Later they may be asked to complete sentences without any cues. They pick from the sentence patterns and the vocabulary they have studied the forms that best complete the sentence.

What are these things? Try and find out if you don’t know.

a cauliflower? It’s …………….

a pigeon? It ………………… .

a skyscraper? ………………….

Earth? Mars? Venus? Jupiter? They ………………

the Rhine? the Nile? the Mississippi?

Give answers to the questions.

A friend of yours is in hospital. Where would you go to visit him? ………….

A friend of yours is in prison. Where would you go to visit him? ………….

A friend of yours is at church. If you wanted to meet him immediately after the service, where would you go? .

It is understood, of course, that the pupil is not expected to rack his brains for something to say even in the simplest of exercises. Suggestions for answers should be implicit in the context or when necessary should be made overly by the teacher.

Teachers should pay their attention to such activity as asking questions. There are several reasons why questions are important: they stimulate and maintain pupils’ interest; they encourage pupils to think and focus on the content of the lesson; they enable teachers to check pupils’ understanding; the questions helps the pupil both with the words and with pattern required for the answer.

Many textbooks and methodology manuals writers argued that games are not just time-filling activities but have a great educational value. Most games make learners use the language instead of thinking about learning the correct forms. In the easy, relaxed atmosphere which is created by using games, students remember things faster and better. That is why games are important part in the process of teaching articles and I try to use them in all possible ways. At the same time teachers should be very careful about choosing games if they want to have any results. They must correspond to the pupils’ level, age, to the material that is to be introduced or practiced. Here is the example of the game which can help teachers to combine teaching articles and vocabulary.

 Скачать реферат