Theme-based teaching and learning

Theme-based teaching and learning using the theme-based ideas in foreign language teaching look at the various stages in the planning teaching around a theme. It is said that theme-based work construct meaningful learning opportunities for children, so careful planning from the teacher would be important. In addition, it is also said that theme-based teaching is building links and connections in the networks of children’s language resources.

Theme-based teaching focuses on how children naturally learn. The potential of this approach is to provide realistic and motivating uses of language, so creative thinking and skilled organization are used like a long list of activities relating to all areas of the curriculum under one theme. For this, it demands years of practicing and experience. Even the expert teacher will need careful planning of a theme, to prepare sub-themes and to identify the language learning goals. Firstly, find a theme. Secondly, plan content. Thirdly, plan language learning tasks. Next, learn language through theme-based teaching and learn vocabulary.

The most profitable aspect in this approach is that it can be related to all the areas in the school curriculum. In consequence, as students are going to be using real language to talk about topic probably they already know something about, this approach is going to turn out to be absolutely communicative and meaningful. The language learning of children is likely to revolve around chunks of discourse learnt from talk, stories and songs, vocabulary development, and some aspects of grammatical knowledge, together with elementary literacy skills.

These days, self-directed learning has been identified as an important skills for students and student-centred teaching approaches have been popular. However, we should not neglect teachers’ role in the classroom. In order for the teacher to be a successful helper teachers will need to maximize the time and talent of them. Doing this can make big difference in the outcome of students. What I mean by saying this is that theme-based approach especially among many other teaching methods need a lot of efforts of teachers, so we try to be more diligent helper for students.

Learning Grammar

If someone asks me grammar is important with young learner, I would say ‘yes’. I know it is said that grammar has no place in young learner classroom, that it is too difficult for children or not relevant to their learning, but as a teacher we have to open up the idea of ‘grammar’ and to explore grammar from learners’ perspective because there is no need to rush into technical rules and labels that will confuse.


The chapter says we can teach young learners for developing grammar in the foreign language, not by teaching grammar directly, but by being sensitive to opportunities for grammar learning that arise in the classroom. A grammar-sensitive teacher will see the language patters that occur in tasks, stories, songs, rhymes and classroom talk, and will have a range of techniques to bring these patterns to the children’s notice, and to organize meaningful practice.

In my opinion, the matter of consequence , especially teaching English in young age, is teach them in interesting approach. One of the ways can be teaching grammar through children’s stories in structural, communicative and mixed approaches. Recently, there are many English centers reflecting this trend. They emphasis on doing extensive reading to students, at the same time they try to teach grammar through stories. Depends on centers, the way of they are doing can be pattern drills or incidental learning.

Recently, I found a useful site entitled “http://www.kidsfreesouls.com”. It is a site of teaching grammar through stories and its main users will be young learners. It provides famous stories with grammar exercise as well. The questions are like; ‘Write the Answers in brief & underline the Adjectives’, ‘Find out the verbs in the story & underline them. Now, Make your own sentences with these verbs’, ‘Fill in the blanks with prepositions : in, on, near, under, above, from, after, into, etc.’, ‘’, and etc. I found myself not only this site, this kind of sites found it useful in that it provides useful grammar activities with teaching worksheet and I am using for my students as well.

In addition, other language practice activities that offer structuring opportunities as well. For example, questionnaires, surveys, quizzes, information gap activities, chants can be good ways of teaching grammar. Proceduralising activities is also effective. Learners automatise their use of the grammatical form so that it is available quickly and effectively for use in communication.

Learning spoken language

Before you start criticizing others, you have to take a good look at yourself.


회상하다 look back upon (the past) ; review; retrospect; recollect; reflect upon


지난 일을 돌아보다 look back upon the past

학창 시절을 돌아보다 look back upon one´s school days

고려하다 have regard to; take notice of; think of; take (a matter) into consideration[account]; pay attention to; give heed to

앞뒤를 돌아보지 않고 without reflecting on the circumstances

돌아보지 않다 disregard; ignore; neglect; pay no attention to; leave a thing out of consideration; take no account[notice, thought, heed] of

그는 외양 따위는 돌아보지도 않는다 He has no regard to appearance.

살피며 돌다 make a round; go one´s round; patrol

공장을 돌아보다 visit[go] round a factory



* community member
* spiritual practice

How can we learn spoken language? When we think back on my childhood, I picked up my family or people around me’ spoken words and sentences, not written words. I know it is more nature stage. In case of children, if they do not understand the spoken language, they cannot easily live or be one of community members in society. So, to have children learn spoken language is important and this chapter deals with learning the spoken language.


Children need both to participate in discourse and to build up knowledge and skills for participation. To effectively develop the discourse skills of young learners, teachers need to be aware of types of discourse(organization, components, language forms, children’s developing communication skills and cognitive abilities, the importance of working outwards from the familiar, the primacy of marrative, and the educational significance of discourse.

Being aware of some features as a language teacher, we have to support children’s foreign language discourse skills effectively. We can do it by supporting through motivating topics, task structure, and language practice. In addition, short activities for learning the spoken language are also good and if it is with written language practice, literacy becomes less of a struggle and more of a tool that can be used to assist communication. Using dialogues is also effective way of learning. Dialogues provides communicative phrase that child can learn and offer contextualized sentence patterns that are not very like the spoken language.

Still I have been learning and teaching English speaking skills, I try to have some practices such as getting over any fear I might have of making mistakes, being patient by myself, and grasping good opportunities I have to speak with people in English. As a teacher, teaching good spoken skill with thoughts that “learning any language can be frustrating, but frustration won’t help them. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes” is important so that they can have more opportunities to speak out loud.

Extensive Reading Sources

Following sites have useful materials and ideas on extensive reading:

I will add up constantly.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/9613243/Teachers-Guide-on-Teaching-Reading

http://www.extensivereading.net/er/materials.html (introduced from class)

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/forum-topic/extensive-reading-materials (journal 2)

http://www.buzzle.com/ (journal 2)

http://coyote.miyazaki-mu.ac.jp/learnerdev/LLE/andy2.html

Journal 4

Highlight anything that you have learned through this course and discuss why this is meaningful for your learning and instruction?

Through this course 'Studies in Teaching Second Language Reading', I learnt lots of useful, helpful, and practical knowledge, skills and strategies. Since I have been educated in intensive reading method all the time, I was so pleased that I had a good chance to be educated about ER in that I haven't meet chance to be studied in ER even though I knew that it is important and kind of best way of improving of our reading skills.

After learning the feature, dimension, materials, practice of extensive reading, certainly, I feel I learnt a lot about extensive reading. I am also writing my thesis about ER, so all things that I learnt through this course are meaningful to be honest. Through this course, I became to be an extensive reader myself. So these days, I try to read a lot both in English and in Korean.

By doing ER, I feel ER develops learner autonomy, enhances general language competence, and helps develop general, world knowledge, extends, consolidates and sustains vocabulary growth. I would like to deliver my feeling, experience, knowledge of ER to my students and make good curriculum of it.

Reading Strategies for Struggling Readers

Have you ever come across a non-reader? Maybe you have heard of phrases like "I hate to read, it's very boring.' or 'I never touch a book that's gargantuan to begin with.' And you probably don't think about it again, relegating it to the simple theorem - 'To each his own'. Let's look at this from the reader's point of view. Do you know that there are some people who struggle with even simple reading, forget speed reading? You might have experienced this in your school life - students in class who would absolutely struggle through their reading tests. If they were asked to stand up and read in class, they would get nervous and then drag through the piece with a lot of 'umms' and 'errs' much to the annoyance of the teacher. They were left to wonder how it was possible, that while they struggled through the first paragraph of the page, others had finished the entire essay. Now here's what the thing is - people who struggle with their reading have not developed the 'reading strategies' that other 'readers' have, without even realizing it. Therefore there is a need to have effective reading strategies for struggling readers. The good news is that it is possible to have and teach, reading strategies to struggling readers. The best reading strategies for struggling readers have been developed over the years, and that is what we will be discussing in this article.


Reading Strategies for Struggling Readers Explained
After it is learned that a person (usually a child), has a problem while reading, the most important thing that a parent can do for him/her is to start teaching him these reading strategies as soon as possible. This is because the reading strategies for struggling readers are most effective when taught at a young age. The degree of difficulty in learning these reading strategies for struggling readers increases with age. Thus it is most effective when reading strategies are taught and applied at a young age.

Reading strategies for the struggling readers can be divided into two parts:
1.Decoding Strategies
2.Comprehension Strategies
Decoding Strategies
This involves teaching the student phonemic awareness. Which means teaching the students the literal pronunciation of words by breaking them down into bits and pieces. By learning the bits and pieces that make up a whole word, it is possible for readers to be able to pronounce words that are difficult, unfamiliar and long-because they have good phonemic awareness. When a reader skips words or 'fades out' words or uses a wrong pronunciation, or avoids reading completely - there is a need to teach him phonemics. Thus teaching readers the 'sound' of a language (phonemes), becomes very important. After this has been taught, they need to be coached in their use and made to practice.

Teaching the students the sounds of the letters helps tremendously when teaching them phonemes. They learn how to pronounce several combinations of these letters and also learn the fact that letters aren't always pronounced the way they look. Readers also compare words that they don;t know with familiar words to understand the difference. Thus it is necessary to have a lit of simple and difficult words to 'look' and learn from.

One can also use chunking as one of the reading strategies for struggling readers. In this the reader can chunk unfamiliar words. Chunk together parts of a word and then try to pronounce them in parts. Once the entire word has been read in chunks, then try and club the different chunks of the word together to pronounce the entire word. This needs a lot of practice.

Comprehension Strategies
Comprehension means understanding something. While reading a text, a good reader will subconsciously use comprehension skills, so that when you ask him what the text was about, he will be able to answer it. But a struggling reader does not read to understand, he will simply read a text to get it done with, so when he is asked about the text, he will rarely be able to answer in deep.

Comprehension strategies include teaching the stragglers to re-read a text. Not to be confused with simple reading a text again but rather making a deliberate attempt to understand it. This can be made easier if the reader reads the text with a goal in ind-he has to find the answer to a question. So when he reads with an objective, he will pay more attention and learn to read better.

Also rephrasing and then stating a text will help them to read better. When a reader who struggles, reads a text and then relates it back in his own words, his entire concentration is on understanding the text to rephrase it. Read more on reading comprehension.


Reading Strategies for Struggling Readers - Others
Want to help a struggling reader by teaching him reading strategies can be done over the summer. The summer reading strategies for struggling readers will work best. Here are some essential reading strategies for the struggling reader:

•Use different strategies like videos and audio tapes to teach the student phonemes.

•Let him read a very simple text to a younger class so that he becomes confident.

•Provide him with a partner who can help him read.

•Form a 'readers play', where readers will come together and read/perform their texts. They'll make it more interesting by adding costumes, different voices etc to it.

•Struggling leaders work best when they have one to one training - so try to find a coach for them.

•Give positive feedback whenever possible and reward them when they are successful, this will help the stay motivated.

•Make them write out the words and pronounce out loud so that you can correct if wrong. They can also make a note of the word if it looks different and is pronounced different, for better understanding.

•Start using the decoding and comprehension strategies in daily life, when they learn to use it in daily life, they'll no longer have a block towards them and will learn faster.

Read more on

•Speed Reading Techniques

•Speed Reading Tips

•Effective Teaching - Reading Comprehension Strategies

Even if you know a struggling readers who would probably have difficulty reading through this article, (rather ironic, isn't it?) be sure that it won't be a problem for long. After you've taken tips from these reading strategies for struggling readers, there will be no looking back. So read well and teach better. All the best!



By Rujuta Borkar

Published: 3/18/2010

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/reading-strategies-for-struggling-readers.html

Lee, So-ra & YB Concert and 올밴.

As usual, I went to Lee, So-ra & YB Concert.

It was so amasing and exicing that I couldn't stop jumping.

Of course in Sora's section, I was calm and I was crying... and one of my friends was crying too

 when I saw him..

나를사랑하지않는그대에게. 제발, No.1 were the best among her songs, and 담배가게아가씨. 해야 were the best on YB' performance.

Ant by chance, I met 올밴....

                                                     Today was full of luck!!!!!!

Smile!

Let's smile like me.

These days, I am busy by doing my thesis work.

I am collecting thesis data... and I have to code them.



When can I finish it?





jaja.

Jennifer Lopez - On The Floor ft. Pitbull

Journal 3

Discuss readings skills that you have learned in this class, but have rarely used in your reading. Do you think they are really necessary ones for better reading? Why or why not?

Reading is one great habit that can truly change your life forever. Reading can entertain and amuse us, but most of all it enriches us with knowledge, and experiences narrated. Reading purely for leisure is fun as we all know but there exist certain reading skills and strategies, which if mastered at a nascent stage can help us, be better and far more comprehensive readers.

Gordon's (1982) indicates that there are three distincet sets of competencies that a students must develop in order to become an effective reader. Three competencies are; reading skills development, reading comprehension development, and reading research and study skills. In our class, we learnt many reading skills and strategies for better reading and we also covered Gordon's ideas.

Among them, I have used most of skills since I learnt them at school. However, I rarely use reading skills related to word sound such as 'Rhyming words', 'Hard and soft 'c' and 'g', 'Pronunciation key', etc. The reason why I don't use these skills is simple. The other reading skills development are good for understanding the text. such as, by knowing synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, prefix and suffix. I am not used to using these pronunciation related skills in my daily reading time. Of course, I have to use and teach these skills for students, so I use it on study purpose, not as daily habit.

Self-Acess Reading Resources for L2 readers

1. Target Student and Proficiency Level: Middle school students_third grade

2. Curriculum:  Middle School ENGLISH 1(이병민, 천재교육)

3. Purpose:
(1) to provide authentic material in-class
(2) to give better understanding of target texts and topics
(3) to build up the students' related vocabulary of topics

4. Category:
This collection of reading materials are organised by Units. For better understanding each Unit reading text, I provide  related sub-reading materials. The five selected chapters are as follows:
1) Lesson1. More Than One Language
2) Lesson 7. Cultural Understanding
3) Lesson 9. It's Such a Pleasure for Me to Learn
4) Lesson 11. Across Siberia to North America
5) Lesson 12. The Little Prince
The topics covered in these lessons are different languages in the world, culture difference, people who overcome their difficulty, scientific expedition, and English literature.

Lesson 1. More than One Language

Key world: Many different types of English in the world, Jamaica, India, The Pacific, Creol, etc.

1. What is Creole? (World Knowledge_reading)
http://www.zompist.com/last.htm:
Homepage Information. It is about Creole.

2. The English Language In 24 Accents ((Listening Practice_listening) )
http://youtu.be/NY2YYMAXgYM
Youtube. There are different accents in English. English has not have only one accent.

3. Global English and the teaching of pronunciation (Creative thinking_reading) http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/global-english-teaching-pronunciation:
It says there is not only one form of English. Good for group discussion topic and reading material for the activity.

4. British English vs American English (Word)
http://english-zone.com/vocab/ae-be.html

5. Types of English Language
http://www.a-z-dictionaries.com/articles/Types_Of_English_Language.html
Do you speak Indian English, Jamaican English, or... Malaysian English? There are so many "Englishes" in the world!

Lesson 7. Cultural Understanding

Key world: different Culture

1. Different Cultures of the World(World Knowledge_reading)
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/different-cultures-of-the-world.html  
There are many distinct cultures across the globe that are the essence of various human civilizations. Here is an attempt to give you an insight into different cultures of the world.

2. Cultural Diversity in the Classroom ((Activity Instruction_reading)
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/cultural-diversity-in-the-classroom.html
With globalism becoming a part of our lives, its effects can be seen on all the major spheres of our lives, including classrooms. This article will try to understand something more about cultural diversity in the classroom and how to promote it.

3. Do's and Taboos of Body Language Around the World(World Knowledge_reading)
http://onlineessays.com/essays/issues/iss095.php

4. Body language - Gestures (World Knowledge_listening)
http://youtu.be/Mi6h8zktO1s  (UCC)

5. Cultural misunderstandings (Group discussion_listening)
http://youtu.be/F_N1Cmt_QB0  (UCC)


Lesson 9. It's Such a Pleasure for Me to Learn
Key world: 역경을 극복한 사람들, 본받을 만한 위인, Martin Luther King, Muhatma Gandhi

1. Martin Luther King "I have a dream" (Listening Practice)
http://youtu.be/PbUtL_0vAJk
The full version of Martin Luther King's famous "I have a dream" speech.

2. Muhatma Gandhi (Reading Material for Group discussion)
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/mahatma-gandhi-facts.html
The article will throw some light on Mahatma Gandhi facts in a bid to introduce students to some of the lesser known aspects of his life and after reading this, we can discuss him in a group.

3. Hellen Keller (Reading Material for Group discussion)
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/the-amazing-life-of-helen-keller.html
The life of Helen Keller illustrates how a person can overcome tremendous obstacles as shown in her success in living a productive life in spite of blindness and deafness.

4. Barack Obama: Yes We Can (Listening Practice, Listening Practice)
http://youtu.be/Fe751kMBwms
I myself it is the best speech of OBAMA!!!!!!!!

5. Famous Leadership Quotes
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/famous-leadership-quotes.html
Here we come up with some famous leadership quotes that can motivate and inspire you to achieve your goals.


Lesson 11. Across Siberial to North America
Key world: Travelling

1. The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (UCC as advanced organiser)
http://youtu.be/i9kFUzhZnes (Part 1)

2. A travel aroud the world(reading material)
http://www.atravelaroundtheworld.com/

3, Various trip types
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/amazon  

4. Travel News_London
http://www.bbc.co.uk/travelnews/london/

5. Travel Stories and Photos
http://www.travelandtransitions.com/stories_photos.htm


Lesson 12. The little Prince
Key world: English Literature

1. The little Prince (Animation for advanced organiser)
http://youtu.be/SiUxtUV1o-s

2. Secrets of Shakespeare's last home (Reading and listening)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/2011/04/110429_witn_shakespeare_page.shtml

3. James Joyce_Dubliners
http://www.enotes.com/dubliners

4. Invisible Man
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/invisibleman/

5. Frankenstein
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/frankenstein

Katy Perry - "E.T." (feat. Kanye West) Official Lyrics Video

Journal 2

Introduce an example of ER materials with basic information, strengths and weaknesses.



Useful site 1

http://www.buzzle.com/




Basic Information:

This site creates interesting and thought-provoking content for your enjoyment. With categories covering everything from animals to tourism, Buzzle.com is our complete source for news, articles and information. We can get the latest buzz, interact with our authors and other readers on our message boards, or add to the buzz by becoming a Buzzle.com author.

Strength:


(1) Various reading material topics and lot of amounts
If you go to article part of this site, there are many sections labelled from 'Animal&Pet' to 'Ziodic Sign'. Whatever you want to read, most of them are here. Also, in one topic. there are many articles to read. It provides plenty of reading materials for us.



(2) Provide related articles as well
Once we read a specific article, this site also give us related articles as well.




Weakness: Not fency design
If this site want more teenager readers, the fancy hompage design will be needed. Also, the font size is too small. It would be better if the font size will be a bit bigger.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Useful site 2

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk

Basic Information:

This teaching English site provide free classroom materials to download, from short activities to full lesson plans, for teaching kids and adults. There are also articles on aspects of teaching, and free teacher development and teacher training materials.

Strength:

(1) Teacher-centred reading materials and activities
If you go to article part of this site, there are several sections labelled 'Methodology', 'Resources', 'Pronunciation', 'Vocaubuary', 'Speaking', Listening', 'Writing', 'Literature', and 'Culture'. These are good for language teacheres for their extensive reading in this field.

(2) Easy to assess

As a teacher, since we register on TeachingEnglish and join here by starting our blogs, we can keep up to date with new materials via Facebook or subscribe to our newsletter.

Weakness:

(1) Not Student-friendly site

Since it has been for language teacher, there are more sources for teachers, not for students. Of course, student migh have good idear for their language learning, but, they had better find other interesting reading sites.

(2) Lack of Topic
For widening language teachers' view, it should have had more various topics of articles in this site.

Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song [Official Video]

Journal 1

Journal 1.

Let’s say my younger brother is 9 years old. He doesn’t read in English yet. So, I decided to send him to Hakwon. But 3 months later he ended up feeling that English is simply nightmare. He hates doing phonics workbook and memorizing words. He doesn’t want to go to Hakwon anymore. I was anxious and worried about my only brother. How would I help him enjoy reading in English?

It had better not send him to Hakwon when he can’t read a letter. I have already had difficulty in motivating him having mind that reading in English is fun. So, the first task for him to do would be to commend himself to read a book and make him be interested in reading.



Firstly, I will gather some friends with the age group of my brother for the activities.


Secondly, I will show them funny animation which is same story with future reading book. I will make children sit on a carpet in comfortable mood and just watch the film at rest without having him any pressure. The language level or content level should be relevant to the group of children’ interest and level. The example of animation could be Lion King, Piter Pan, etc.


Thirdly, I will do story telling of the animation with the written version of book. After watching selected animation, children have already known the main characters, story, and main idea. The children would not have great difficulty in understanding the story telling in English.


After repeated these activities several times, the children are getting used to watching and hearing the story. Now is the right time to teach the letter and how to recognize the words for my brother in that it is the time when affective filter about reading a book is low.

1st week of Studies Teaching Secound Language Reading

1st week of Studies Teaching Secound Language Reading - Course Orientation & Greeting

When I think about Reading.
I can comp up with these three words;
Smart, Deligent, Yellow.

There would be no people who wonder with the words Smart&Deligent.

But, why yellow?
My heart can be touched by reading a book.

Recently, I read '아프니까 청춘이다 by 김난도', '친구가되어주실래요 by 이태석'.
I was moved to tears by reading the latter.

GD&TOP - HIGH HIGH MV

BIGBANG - TONIGHT M/V (Original Version)

Because of you - Kelly Clackson

2 P.M - Again & Again