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My experience in learning English
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The second part of the introduction to Millie.
Multi-sensory approach All children are different and learn in different ways. This is why it’s important to engage all the senses and use a variety of techniques. We encourage teachers to use sounds, music, pictures and other visual aids (including real objects that the children can touch and smell). It’s also important to make use of the children’s natural need to move around and incorporate physical movements and mime into any language work. The more opportunities a teacher has to combine the different senses, the better. Making this important link between listening, speaking and movement, we regularly introduce “action stories”. Here the language which children hear is supported with actions to aid memorisation and to make the activity more enjoyable. The teacher introduces the movements and the children join in. (E.g. PB: U8, L3, pp. 84–85.)
The book and the authors This is the first book of the Millie series for primary grades. It’s part of the New Millennium English textbook series, which has been designed specifically for secondary schools in Russia. Millie–2 is intended for the second class (first year of study of English), for pupils aged 7–8. These three books have been written by a team of experienced teachers of English working in schools in different regions of Russia (Moscow, Nizhni Novgorod, Omsk, Sochi, St Petersburg and Tula). Our credo The book represents an innovative approach to language learning, which is truly child-centred. Our emphasis is on fostering positive attitudes to language learning. This means that the units have been created for children to enjoy English and have fun in the classroom, while participating in a variety of activities and games that engage their imagination and curiosity. This new approach is success-oriented and caters for all learners of all abilities. Structure and syllabus The syllabus is topic-based and allows for a natural introduction of new language arising from topics that have been carefully selected to reflect children’s interests at this age. The book contains ten units. Each unit covers six lessons. The first five lessons aim at developing children’s ability to communicate effectively, by using modern English and developing language skills. The last lesson in every unit is devoted to revision of the unit material, together with an episode of a special story, “The Upside-Down World”. All the units have been developed with careful attention to systematic revision and recycling of key language. An additional lesson after every second unit is devoted to a progress check, where children are encouraged to evaluate their own progress. This article is provided to help teachers in raising awareness and developing sensitivity in correcting errors, to encourage them to develop a positive attitude to their students’ errors and demonstrate ways of how to correct errors in teaching practice. One of the responsibilities of a teacher is to give feedback to learners. Giving feedback the teacher facilitates the learners’ evaluation of their success and progress. At various stages of language learning students make mistakes. Is it good or bad? By making errors learners are testing out their ideas about the language – they are experimenting. So, making errors is part of the learning process: by receiving feedback students get to know the difference between correct and incorrect language, they see what to focus on. Why do they make mistakes? It is caused by many reasons. The most common one is the students’ own language. A good example occurs when students make mistakes in word order. Grammatical consideration matters too. The learners often have problems with the use of articles, tenses, prepositions. Task 1. Write down some mistakes that your learners make when they speak a foreign language. What mistakes do they make (pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary errors, word order)? Why do you think they make mistakes? What causes them? Fill in the chart. Some are done for you.
Do you speak English? It seems to be a very simple question to answer, but not many speakers of the language can identify what they know about the language and what enables them to speak it. This is what language awareness is: explicit knowledge about the language, or as B.G. Donmal defines it, “a person’s sensitivity to and conscious awareness of the nature of language and its role in human life” [4]. Many of the teachers are convinced that analyzing the language and doing linguistic research is not their job. Nevertheless, many methodologists, including R. Carter, S. Thornbury and M. Spratt have proven the opposite – language awareness can be beneficial for the teacher and consequently have a positive influence on his / her teaching / learning process and the students’ achievements. Among such consequences are teacher’s abilities to:
Children love stories, because they are associated with pleasure. They are used to listening to their mothers and fathers telling them interesting, exciting stories with unexpected endings.
Using stories in the classroom also can be very motivating. In addition, we can use stories for developing and practicing different skills and language for different topics. There’s one more reason why we should use stories. It’s educational. Every story contains a message we’d like to transfer to the listener. There are a lot of opportunities for personalisation: expressing attitudes, comparing with children’s own experience, etc. Action stories, besides being motivating, versatile and educational, meet children’s demand to be physically active. Children have an insatiable desire to move around. In the classroom we suppress this desire and ask them to sit still, stop fidgeting, fold their arms and not move them. We wrongly assume that unless children are sitting still, looking at the teacher, they are not learning. The Total Physical Response (TPR) theory suggests that we learn language items most successfully if we associate them with physical movements. The theory contains a series of powerful techniques developed by Dr James Asher linking language to physical movements. The ideas behind TPR are connected with our natural ‘body language’ and the idea of kinaesthetic memory.
The reference dictionary of US English
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A dictionary of Slang (US)
A other dictionary of Slang (UK)
Excellent site for English student and all people who are passionate about language The Internet is an excellent place for English teachers to find resources for the classroom. There are sites to help teach writing, literature, grammar, vocabulary, and much more. Here are 20 free Internet resources for English teachers to check out before the beginning of the new school year. Web English Teacher - Web English Teacher is a great online resource for English teachers. Site features include free grammar, literature, and writing resources. ReadWriteThink - ReadWriteThink offers high quality, standards-based lessons for reading and language arts teachers. Lessons are available for grades K-12. Scholastic Teachers - Scholastic provides many different teaching resources for K-12 educators, including lesson plans, classroom activities, printables, recommended reading, and a community forum. Reading Rockets - Reading Rockets has a special section just for teachers. The section includes tips on engaging students, reading aloud, and setting up a classroom library. Reading Rocket also offers free teaching resources, themed booklists, and educational videos. LitPlans - This comprehensive site offers more than 30,000 literature lesson plans for grades 6-12. Lesson plans are sorted by author and are very easy to find using the LitPlans directory. OneStopEnglish - OneStopEnglish is a teacher's resource from Macmillan Education Group. The site offers free lesson plans, worksheets, flashcards, and other materials for teaching English. WritingFix - Designed specifically for writing classrooms, WritingFix provides writing tips, lessons, and prompts for student writers. Countless foreign languages are spoken all over the world. Of course, the most commonly spoken language in the United States is English, with 82 per cent of the population speaking English as their native language. English is the common language of business and everyday life. Close behind English as the second most popular language in the United States is Spanish. Approximately 12 per cent of Americans speak Spanish as either their first or second language. However, on the whole, Americans do not speak enough foreign languages. Approximately 370 million people speak English as their native language; whereas, approximately 1.5 billion people all over the globe speak English as a second language. English speakers are focused in the business and tourism industries, so Americans can usually get by. But in an increasingly globalized world, learning to speak a foreign language can take your connections to a higher level. From Wikipedia: Crazy English is a brand name related to an non-traditional method of learning English in mainland China conceived by Li Yang. Li believes that the traditional way of learning English in China is ineffective. Li Yang's method places heavy emphasis on practicing English orally. His method can be described with the quote "To shout out loud, you learn." Students practise his technique by going behind buildings or on rooftops and shouting English. They also go to his rallies and shout together; this helps them overcome their shyness (everybody is doing it, so nobody is embarrassed). In many ways it remains similar to the traditional pedagogic practices of Chinese education in that it still relies on repetition and recitation; its main plus point appears to be that it encourages learners to overcome the public embarrassment of speaking English in public and potentially making a mistake- this is closely linked to the concept of 'face' in China. This video shows a Crazy English 'class'. Tips for Beginners
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