In all the trainings I gave at different government and private schools and in Kasur, Gujrat, Hafizabad  and Khanewal, as well as Bulleh Shah Mills or BRAC Karachi, I used AV Aids to enable my training sessions to be more innovative and communicative. 

I have always enjoyed using AV Aids; they support my use use of songs, poetry and other literature and provide great opportunities for listening and speaking activities. Puzzles, flip charts, flash cards, pictures, building blocks  and charts have been extremely useful for developing curiosity, engagement and creativity as well as supporting my classroom management.

Whether they are government or private school teachers, they all love videos, music, toys and games, along with realia, for any task. The age group of the students does not matter. 

I have had wonderful experiences with new government and private school teachers as well as very experienced teachers from  prestigious institutes like Aitchison College, LGS, OPF, Jinnah Public School, DPS, Murtaza Academy, Cadet College Hassan Abdal and Lawrence College.  The teachers loved to be taught through realia and toys. The forty hours’ training of LGS that I was asked to conduct was the time I realized, to my pleasure, after two or three toys-based sessions on listening and speaking, that teachers were highly motivated. Most of them were very mature and had more than fifteen years of teaching experience, but they loved the use of toys and realia as strategies for developing language skills. 

The training at Trust Schools and F.C. College was a similar experience, where teachers remained connected and attentive throughout the workshop because of the use of A.V. Aids. 

In all the trainings I gave at different government and private schools and in Kasur, Gujrat, Hafizabad  and Khanewal, as well as Bulleh Shah Mills or BRAC Karachi, I used AV Aids to enable my training sessions to be more innovative and communicative. 

I have always enjoyed using AV Aids; they support my use use of songs, poetry and other literature and provide great opportunities for listening and speaking activities. Puzzles, flip charts, flash cards, pictures, building blocks  and charts have been extremely useful for developing curiosity, engagement and creativity as well as supporting my classroom management.

Whether they are government or private school teachers, they all love videos, music, toys and games, along with realia, for any task. The age group of the students does not matter. 

I have had wonderful experiences with new government and private school teachers as well as very experienced teachers from  prestigious institutes like Aitchison College, LGS, OPF, Jinnah Public School, DPS, Murtaza Academy, Cadet College Hassan Abdal and Lawrence College.  The teachers loved to be taught through realia and toys. The forty hours’ training of LGS that I was asked to conduct was the time I realized, to my pleasure, after two or three toys-based sessions on listening and speaking, that teachers were highly motivated. Most of them were very mature and had more than fifteen years of teaching experience, but they loved the use of toys and realia as strategies for developing language skills. 

The training at Trust Schools and F.C. College was a similar experience, where teachers remained connected and attentive throughout the workshop because of the use of A.V. Aids. 

Children acquire their first language without the fear of making mistakes. On the other hand, second language learners are always conscious about learning a second language as they have already developed concepts related to their first language.  In such situations I find that using literary text, in ESL classrooms, is a highly effective way to keep students engaged and motivated which results in making learning less painful and more fun. 

Literary text can be used in an ESL classroom either in the form of a short story or even as song lyrics. Both of these forms can be explored in order to enhance students’ listening, speaking, reading and writing skills in the second language. Short stories provide students with an opportunity to gather information by reading fewer words. Short stories can be read in one go, so many short stories can be shared and explored during a taught course. Students can also find elements of interest in short stories which keep them motivated to read. Similarly, song lyrics have a beautiful rhythm which keeps the readers charmed and involved in the text. It is poetry with an edge. Exploring song lyrics provides teachers with wonderful opportunities to integrate pronunciation, rhythm,   rhyme scheme and stress patterns through listening and speaking. In addition, they also help second language learners become familiar with slang words, English expressions and idioms in interesting and entertaining ways.

I get these recurring queries from teachers: “How do I improve English vocabulary?” and “How do I improve written expression?” and also “How do I help my students become more proficient in English?” Well, to be very honest, there is no sure-fire way to achieve these ambitions. However, I find that exposure to literature can definitely make this journey for both the student and the teacher relatively easier. How do I know this? I strongly believe that literature has an enormous impact on students’ lives and on their learning. Exploring children’s literature provides exposure to the target language in a natural context, which broadens students’ vision as they dive into the depths of reading. So, I always have my students begin with reading children’s literature. It not only leaves a positive impact on students’ attitudes, but also improves the writing ability of the learners. Literature arouses imagination, is a source of enjoyment and facilitates understanding of one’s ‘self’ and others (Raphael, 2000). Furthermore, literature has a variety of expressions set in contexts, which facilitates vocabulary development as well as exposing the reader to written expression.

Depending on students’ interest, various genres can be selected, though you need to start with what your students are interested in. For example, you can start with ‘The Famous Five’ or ‘Secret Seven’. What about the Harry Potter series, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and Ink Heart? My reason for choosing these in particular is that all of these are series. Once introduced to the students, I have found that the they become eager to read more, to ‘read the next book’, which generates an interest in reading and, as a consequence, the continued exposure eventually enriches their vocabulary and supports the development of their written expression. Classics like ‘Animal Farm’, ‘Charlotte’s Web’, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ and ‘Alice in Wonderland’ should also be added to my list of ‘must reads’.

My Communication Skills Classes.

I’m so pleased with the students attending my communication skills classes at the Ali Institute. Why? Well, I work with a number of students in different institutions and schools, and my experience has been somewhat ‘shallow’ – it seems that ‘learning’ means ‘sitting in the classroom and listening to the teacher’.

I don’t believe it’s possible to develop communication skills simply by ‘sitting in the classroom and listening to the teacher’! I make my lessons for communication skills highly interactive, with plenty of scope for practice and practical application of skills. Perhaps more importantly, we had so much fun it didn’t feel like hard work and we were all having fun! It certainly made my teaching easier.

Here are just a few of the activities we did:

1. Active listening exercise

I ‘labelled’ students as ‘1’ and ‘2’. ‘1’s were listeners and ‘2’s were talkers. Listeners were taken out of the room and told to ‘actively not listen’ for 1 minute, ‘listen but show no non-verbal communication’ for 1 minute and then to ‘actively listen’ for 1 minute. Some of the strategies the students used for ‘actively not listening’ were SO funny, and irritating! Afterwards we discussed feelings about not being listened to and strategies for active listening.

2. Building a sculpture

I made a model out of children’s building bricks and placed it secretly outside the room. I put the students into small groups and had them select one student as ‘the viewer’. The viewers left the room and had 1 minute only to view the model (we called it ‘the sculpture’!) but they were not allowed to touch it. I placed a pile of building bricks on the ‘teacher’s table’. The viewer, with hands always behind their backs, had to direct their groups to collect bricks from the ‘teacher’s table’ in order to reconstruct ‘the sculpture’. We had some very strange results and had an informed discussion about the need for clarity in speaking, the need for checking understanding of the listener, and questioning skills.

3. Telephone game

We had a series of telephone conversation role plays. I provided the scenario for the ‘caller’ and the ‘called’. The students sat back-to-back on chairs and played out their roles. Not seeing each other’s faces simulated a telephone conversation. Afterwards we discussed the differences between communication where we can each other and communication over the telephone.

4. Question the film star

I was the film star! The students had microphones and had to devise questions to grab my attention as I made my way quickly from my limousine to the film theatre (the length of the corridor!) If they asked interesting questions I would stop and talk to them otherwise I simply kept walking! Their task was to keep me on ‘the red carpet’ as long as possible. It took a number of tries, but in the end they were asking really imaginative, engaging questions. It was also good exercise as we marched up and down the corridor!

Teaching Your Child the Most Common First

It is said by educationists and teachers that vocabulary building is the first and most important step in learning any language. Since English is used as a second language in our country, so we usually need to start our young students with the alphabet and some basic vocabulary words which begin with those letters. Apart from only focusing on the alphabet and the common nouns/names beginning with those letters, it would also be good for a child in second language learning to learn how to use the most common nouns in speech or in writing. This exercise of being able to use the most common nouns in speech and then writing enables students to start using English for the most common purposes first. Children, apart from knowing about the alphabet and learning some common and proper nouns, will be able to have a good use of basic English if they start using the most common nouns in various oral and written sentences. According to  Hagit (2005), the most common nouns used in English language are: time, person, year, way, day, thing, man, world, life, hand, part, child, eye, woman, place, work, week, case, point, government, company, number, group, problem and  fact.

At grade levels one, two and three, a Montessori teacher of English can practice using these words meaningfully with the students by making short sentences first and then longer ones orally. She/he can use these common nouns in the classroom in sentences talking about school or classroom matters such as, ‘We must come to the class on time.’ ‘There is a strange person standing there and I must tell my teacher.’ ‘Students who work hard all year get good marks in the exams.’ ‘It is a beautiful world.’ ‘Life is a great blessing of God.’ ‘You must wash your hands before eating anything’, and so on. When the students are able enough to write anything, then the teacher can use these common nouns to give exercises to students to write down sentences on their own. These exercises will enable young kids to start having the basic use of English as a second language. 

Students, in grade levels four or five can start using more common nouns in making everyday sentences. The teacher can also involve the students in display activities, such as writing classroom rules using these words, writing about themselves using these common words or writing about any of their favourite buildings or historical places using these words. 

According to World English (2003), there is another complete and longer list of the most common nouns in the various forms of English used around the world, which are as follows: (English, 2003)

Students can be enabled to use this long list of common nouns in speech and writing tasks at grade levels three, four or five. They can be asked to use these words orally in describing various things in class and later write descriptive paragraphs and then short essays on any simple topic using a small and relevant list of these common words. When introducing our young learners to English as a second language, it is always more meaningful to have a knowledge of the most commonly used nouns or  words, but also an opportunity to use them step by step to develop their communicative competence. 

References: 

Borer, Hagit. 2005. In Name Only. Structuring Sense, Volume I. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

English, W. (2003, August Tuesday ). World English. Retrieved from World English Organization : http://www.world-english.org/esl.htm

Is there a difference between students and learners?  This question has been rattling around in my brain for a while now.  I began noticing that many people seemed to use the two words interchangeably as if they meant the same thing…but do they really?  In looking through dictionary definitions I failed to find any clarity.  Students are defined most frequently as people who learn in school.  Most dictionaries do not define learner.  Instead they direct you to the word learn and by so doing make the connection that learners are ones who learn.  All of the definitions gave me the impression that learners and students were the same thing and that the words could be used interchangeably.  

For me this just doesn’t feel right.  These definitions seem to fall short of capturing the true essence of what students and learners are.  So I’m back to my original question with the realisation that the definition needs to come from me and be rooted in my experiences.

In my mind a student is a person who is learning, typically in a formal environment or institution.  Students are placed into grade classrooms, assessed and evaluated and moved on through the system one grade after another.  When I think of students I think of books, backpacks, desks, rows, and order.  Order in the classroom, order in the school, order in the system that is providing the education.  Digging into my past experiences as a student in school I have many happy memories.   I was a great student.  I knew the “stuff” I was told I needed to know.  I knew how to be successful because I could easily figure out what teachers wanted from me.  I knew the game of school, what the rules were, how to follow them and could easily jump through all of the hoops.  I could memorise facts, poems, information, formulae and then recall them for my teachers when asked to do so.  I loved tests and exams because they allowed me to show how smart I was and almost always provided me with a chance to shine. 

At the start of teaching I realised that I had a problem…my learning as a student was not always helpful.  Knowing “stuff” didn’t matter, knowing “stuff” didn’t help the children in class learn it, knowing “stuff” didn’t help me become a better teacher. What I needed to learn was not the “stuff” but how to use it, adapt it, make it my own and more importantly, make it work for my students.  From that day forward I needed to become a learner.

Now as a learner I want feedback not grades.  I seek out opportunities for collaboration not competition.  I am in control of my learning and pursue not only areas of personal passion but also areas where I need to grow to better support the learners in my classroom.  This learning is not always orderly, in fact it is often very messy but it empowers me in ways that my learning as a student never did.  As a learner my learning is not confined by a building, a time or a preset curriculum - it was set by me.  This learning is relevant, authentic, engaging and extremely satisfying. 

My inquiry is not over on this topic but I do believe that there IS a difference between being a learner and being a student.  This difference appears to lie largely in who is in control of the learning and in the creation of understanding that transcends any one place and time. 

Teaching students about Urdu Language Teaching (ULT) was as interesting as teaching them about English Language Teaching. I had imagined that it would be easier teaching a native language as students already have a foundation in it because it is their mother tongue (usually). Moreover, I felt that it would be much easier teaching adults because they already have a proficiency in the language, but when it came to teaching student Early Years practitioners for two days, there were some strange and funny situations. Many students did not know that genres are asnaaf’e adab and that the new terms according to them such as mersiya, nezm’e moera, qata, rubayi,, munqebet were just the types/names of many poems of Urdu that they had been reading since childhood ? The most interesting experience was teaching Urdu phonics; the word phonics appeared strange to them, complicated yet attractive, that was fearful in the beginning when I told them that they will study phonics with me the next day ? When I did Urdu phonemes with them, using some videos, they were pleased to know that they had been doing these sounds since their childhood, but not with the categorisation and sequence of phonics ? Moreover, the students were observed to be excited and playful like kids in the class when they did Urdu children’s songs - with activities - and they were naughty as well. Urdu riddles and puzzles made them even naughtier. Some also had difficulties in comprehending Urdu literature, some had in lesson planning… both problems seemed to be the same as we have in E.L.T. The best part of the lesson was when the Montessori student teachers were  silent while listening to, and watching, the Urdu stories and they all wanted to be the main character of those stories with more creative or funnier ideas ? All students, no matter what their age, do belong to the same age group more or less, especially when they are learning, and here is where the excitement of teaching and learning comes !

Going Step by Step ! 

If there isn’t enough knowledge of a language then communication is not effective. What happens then is that communication errors take over - often with very funny results. This happens in our ESL English language classrooms where students do not have enough vocabulary. I realised that in my teaching of ESL (English as a Second Language) class, that I was actually teaching EFL (English as a Foreign Language). I experienced this with some students in a B.Ed. class who came up with funny answers during some communication activities; ‘The stupid man was very intelligent’, ‘The long boy stood in front of the line’, ‘She has tall hair’, ‘I will not setress you do this work’, ‘I need waater far life’, ‘He is a happy cat’, ‘It was a happy class’, ‘He is a beautiful teacher because he has good results’, ‘It should must happen’, ‘I was eaten by that food’, ‘I want to be a nice cook passing B.Ed.’ , ‘I will play in my childhood’, ‘I was eat food’, ‘First I die, then I enjoy me life’, ‘Me Lord, I don’t know you.’ Not to mention how students make a plural of a word like 'fees'! These and many such expressions of some students in the language classes during speaking activities made me realise in the beginning of the teaching sessions that I need to start with the basics. Every language course cannot be designed or taught in the same way. For students lacking the knowledge of the parts of speech, the teacher needs to be patient and plan his/her lessons carefully. The teacher needs to start with vocabulary/noun activities using pictures integrated with listening and speaking, moving to creative speaking and writing. Starting from nouns, then adjectives (how the nouns seem/look), verbs (what the nouns do) to adverbs (how/when/where the nouns do) and then to joining them using conjunctions and positioning them using prepositions is a good step-by-step technique that enables these ESL initial learners to conceptualise language in an effective way. First of all, the teacher needs to assess the students’ knowledge and level of understanding. It is essential for a language teacher to start classes with basic speaking and writing activities in order to form a strong foundation for the students to begin to develop their English language skills. This comes from knowing the level of each student developed from a need analysis. Asking them to enter the  'library of language' to discover more is the aim of the teacher's creativity, becomes an ongoing motivation for students.  This is what I have been doing successfully with my Foundation, Functional Grammar and Communication Skills classes and it has made my lessons as easy as climbing a ladder - it's a challenge, but not impossible!

A Small Achievement 

A few months back we started using language development software (i.e. Rosetta Stone) with our student teachers. They can use this software in their language lab classes but they also have the opportunity to use the software whenever they want. At the start, it seemed students were not taking advantage of this opportunity but today I was happy to see its effect on the language skills of students - especially on those student teachers from rural locations. 

In the morning, I had a class of English Language Teaching with the students – a lesson on Phonetics & Phonology. I gave them a chart of consonant & vowels sounds and asked them to pronounce these sound after listening to an audio; they pronounced these sounds without listening to the audio. They made hardly one or two mistakes in reproducing these sounds. They said they had learned all these sounds while working with the language software.  In the exercise they had a lot of fun discovering various phonemes within words in order to create new words with the sounds because they were doing it for the first time, but at least they were familiar with the sounds.   

A small, but important achievement.