Specialised education of uzbekistan the uzbek state world languages university the english teaching methodology department

LECTURE 8. THE STRUCTURE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING PROCESS AND ITS ORGANIZATION
Plan:

1. 
   The structure of foreign language teaching process
   
2. 
   The teaching process and its organization
   

The structure of the EL lesson and types of lessons

There is no general scheme of the lesson structure which can be obligatory for all lessons. Some of the stages of a lesson are constant, others can be varied. A constant stage of a lesson is an involving into language atmosphere. This stage includes various tasks or activities. One of them is a phonetic drill. The atmosphere of communication created at the beginning of the lesson lasts during the whole lesson. The dominant place is given to the teacher‘s communicative action related to motivation, instructions, control and evaluation.
These stages are considered as reasonable from methodical point of view:

1. 
   Involving into the language atmosphere;
   
2. 
   Explanation of the new material and algorithm of operations and actions with it;
   
3. 
   Doing exercises as practicing and activating the new material;
   
4. 
   Writing down and explanation of the homework, summarizing the lesson‘s results and marking.
   

In the domestic methodology the following types of the lesson are distinguishedl 16:

1. 
   The lessons are directed to acquire a) language elements on lexical, phonetic and grammatical levels and language use as a result of this type of a lesson is obtaining the linguistic competence.
   
2. 
   The lessons are directed to acquire communicative activity. The aim of this type of a lesson is forming or developing listening, reading, speaking and writing skills.
   
3. 
   The lessons which combine previous types of lessons are directed to acquire knowledge, language sub-skills and communicative skills. In the practice of teaching the preference is given more to this type of a lesson.
   

Besides in methodology of FLT the different lesson organization approaches as teaching models are used: 1) Presentation -> Practice -> Production (PPP); 2) Engage -> Study -> Activate (ESA); Test -> Teach -> Test (TTT); 4) Task-based approach (TBA).

1. 
   PPP works through the progression of three sequential stages. Presentation stage represents the introduction to a lesson, and necessarily requires the creation of a realistic (or realistic-feeling) "situation" requiring the target language to be learned that can be achieved through using pictures, dialogues, imagination or actual "classroom situations". The teacher checks to see that the students understand the nature of the situation and then he/she builds the "concept" underlying the language to be learned using small chunks of the language that the students already know. Having understood the concept, students are then given the language "model" and engage in choral drills to learn statement, answer and question forms for the target language. This is a very teacher-orientated stage where error correction is important.
   

It is necessary to take into consideration that at the presentation stage of the lesson eliciting is a useful way of involving the class by focusing students‘ attention and making them think; it establishes what students know and what they do not know; and it encourages students to make guesses and to work out rules for themselves. For example, eliciting can be organized on the basis of a picture, or a headline of the text as a pre-reading activity.
The second stage — Practice usually begins with what is termed "mechanical practice"

• 
  open and closed pair-work. Students gradually move into more "communicative practice" involving procedures like information gap activities, dialogue creation and controlled role- plays. Practice is seen as the frequency device to create familiarity and confidence with the
  

new language, and a measuring stick for accuracy. Thus, learners have practice making sentences with new words and structures. The teacher still directs and corrects at this stage, but the classroom is beginning to become more learner-centered.
The third stage – Production is seen as the culmination of the language learning process, whereby the learners have started to become independent users of the language rather than students of the language. The teacher's role here is to somehow facilitate a realistic situation or activity where the students instinctively feel the need to actively apply the language they have been practicing. The teacher does not correct or become involved unless students directly appeal to him/her to do so. At the stage of production learners talk more freely about the known and unknown information/situation This model is effective for teaching a simple language at low levels.
The PPP approach is relatively straight forward, and structured enough to be easily understood by both students and new or emerging teachers. It is a good place to start in terms of applying good communicative language teaching in the classroom. It has also been criticized considerably for the very characteristic that makes it the easiest method for 'beginner' teachers, that is, that it is far too teacher-orientated and over controlled.

2. 
   A nice alternative to 'PPP' is Harmer's 'ESA' (Engage ->Study-> Activate) based on surveys which have shown that the conditions for successful LL are motivation, exposure to language and chances to use it.
   

In the Engage stage, a teacher motivate learners and arise their interest by involving their emotion through using games, music, discussions, stimulating pictures, dramatic stories, anecdotes, etc. Other ways of encouraging the learners are: asking them what they think about a topic (predicting, guessing) before reading the text. If learners are engaged they learn better.
In the Study stage a teacher focuses on vocabulary and constructions or information. Successful language teaching/learning depends on the degree of quality language acquisition (getting language knowledge or skills through listening and reading), for example, and study activities organized by a teacher.
Activate is the stage where learners use the language knowledge and skills in given situations. These three stages can be varied, they are not constant. Variation is even recommended for effective teaching/learning EL.

3. 
   Model ―Test -> Teach -> Test‖. TTT is a frequently used alternative to the PPP method, wherein the production phase is sequentially moved to the first part of the lesson. During the (first) test phase that corresponds to the production phase in the PPP approach, learners are more or less abruptly asked to communicatively produce a language concept based on their existing knowledge and without any prior guidance from the teacher. The teacher will then asses the students‗ level of competency in the particular language area, determine their needs, and proceed with the teach phase (which corresponds to the presentation phase in the PPP approach) based on an overall assessment. The teach phase allows to discuss problem areas and guide learners towards the correct use of the language concept.
   

The final stage of the TTT approach is the second test that aims to check how students have absorbed the new inputs from the teacher. The logic of this sequencing is for students to learn the new language concepts better by differentiating its invalid uses (most likely to be committed during the first test phase) from correct usage (likely to be accomplished after the teacher presented the language concept during the teach phase).
In general, the TTT approach is a good way for teachers to determine the specific needs of students in different language areas. With this knowledge, educators can optimize their teaching strategies to produce optimum learning outcomes. It is best used at intermediate and higher competency levels, as well as in classes where the students have mixed language proficiencies. However, one consistent criticism about the TTT approach is that it has an element of randomness since several unexpected learners‗ needs may arise that
is beyond the scope of the intended lesson. Despite this disruptive possibility, the TTT approach is still being adopted by many educators because it is very —economica1!1 and
—focused!! in the sense that valuable time need not be wasted on teaching language areas students are already proficient with.

4. 
   Task-based model /approach. TBA is a good alternative to either the PPP approach or the TTT method. In TBA-structured classes, teachers do not pre-determine the language specifics to study but base their lesson strategies on how a central task is completed by the learners. Similar to the other two approaches, TBA follows a sequential progression: 1) a pre- task introduction to be conducted by the teacher; 2) the learners‘ completion of a central task involving a particular language aspect; 3) reporting, analysis and feedback to be performed by the teacher concerning how the learners accomplished the central task; and 4) practice sessions to hone learner proficiencies in the language area.
   

The task-based approach is advocated by many educators because of several clear advantages. For one thing, TBA allows learners to employ all their language resources towards the completion of a task and not just pre-selected language areas as in the case of PPP. In addition, TBA utilizes natural, real-life language contexts that are highly relevant to learners. Hence, language exploration and learning directly arises from students‘ actual needs and not as suggested in textbooks. TBA is also based on the premise that a holistic exposure to language as opposed to incremental exposures common to PPP— is a better way of learning a new language.
A good EL lesson consists of much more than a series of activities and exercises that the teacher has strung together to occupy classroom time — and it involves much more than simply presenting the material in the current EL textbook. EL teaching is not only a field of practical activity but also a discipline that draws on a considerable body of knowledge and practice. Every lesson of a teacher should reflect a solid understanding of the nature of the language, of the EL learning and teaching, and of his/her learners — taking into account their needs as well as their learning styles and preferences.

QUESTIONS:

1. 
   What features of EL lesson can you say about?
   
2. 
   What do we mean by the cycle of lessons?
   
3. 
   What are requirements claimed to the FL lesson organization?
   
4. 
   Name the forms of interaction. What forms of interaction are more successful in communicative language learning?
   

Reference

Jalalov J.J. Chet til o‘qitish metodikasi. Foreign Language Teaching Methodology. - T.: O‘qituvchi, 2012. -P321-322.