Exploring teacher-initiated humour in Academic English classes

As a subject focused on teaching grammar forms needed for academic studies and genres of academic writing, Academic English may seem tedious at times. Sometimes it is a complex subject for students who are fresh to academia and it needs a peculiar didactic approach to provide a smooth transition of students from general to academic English writing at a university level. One of these approaches may be using humour during classes. The current research explores teacher-initiated humour in Academic English classes at the Westminster International University in Tashkent and its effects on students. Besides, it seeks answers to questions as to what types of humour teachers employ during the class mostly, how often they use humour, as well as students’ and teachers’ recommendations given on how to use humour in class. This study uses both qualitative and quantitative data extraction methods in the form of an online questionnaire with students and a semi-structured interview with teachers. Obtained results show that affective and social roles of humour, its quality of lessening anxiety, creates favourable conditions for students and teacher’s connectedness, which outweighs other humour’s roles. Besides, mnemonic and engaging roles of humour received solid support by the respondents. To obtain a more positive effect, it is recommended that teachers, when incorporating humour in class, apply a systematic approach. Humour should be planned beforehand and needs to be appropriate. Moreover, it should be used with moderation.

Construction of Online English Offline Teaching Mode in the Era of Internet Plus

With the rapid development of Internet technology, its application in the field of education is more extensive and diversified, and plays a greater role in teaching. Grammar teaching is an important part of English teaching. The complexity of grammar in forestry English leads to the common problems of English grammar among students. Relying on the Internet technology to establish the cloud classroom intelligent platform, online and offline interactive English teaching can fully play the role of online teaching resources and information technology by combining online and offline. This method can activate the classroom and improve students' language application ability and learning interest. Based on this, this paper analyzes the application of cloud classroom intelligent platform in English teaching. Then this paper discusses its construction method and application strategy, aiming to provide reference for relevant researchers.

Teaching grammar in context and multilingual environment

Multilingual environment has always been characteristic to Georgian reality. Today, due to current political or economic changes multilingualism has impacted the various fields including education. In this respect, Tbilisi State University is no exception, where the number of multilingual classes of ESL students of Azeri, Armenian and Georgian nationality is increasing. This process is accompanied by new challenges posed to the acquisition of the English language. The necessity of tackling these problems imposes responsibilities on English teachers, who are constantly engaged in the search for appropriate strategies and approaches fostering the proper learning process. Having a good command of a foreign language implies the acquisition of new language items and the development of all the skills and sub skills that cannot be achieved without knowing grammar as an important component for developing the receptive and productive skills. The paper aims at finding the efficient ways of teaching grammar in multilingual environment. For this purpose, the problems related to learning grammatical structures are identified and analyzed and their solutions are suggested. Reviewing the advantages and drawbacks of applying various approaches and strategies, the paper singles out teaching grammar in context and supports its utilization in the multilingual classroom with the findings demonstrated by the experiment conducted. The paper presents scholarly viewpoints regarding the above mentioned issues, inferences and concludes that the proper strategies, methods and approaches to teaching grammar should be determined considering the peculiarities of multilingual classroom so as to achieve the favourable learning outcomes.

Contextual learning approach to the development of the grammatical accuracy in EFL

The present article highlights the importance of teaching grammar contextually so that students develop their grammatical skills. Effective strategies for all the stages of a lesson-presentation, practice and production (PPP model) – are presented. The main elements of a contextualized lesson are discovery, cooperation, authentic material and reflection.

Experience of training grammar at non-language University (the case of studying Russian by medical students)

Studied are issues related to ensuring better quality and efficiency of teaching the Russian grammar to students not specializing in philology. Relevance of this subject is illustrated, on the one hand, by the lack of attention paid by researchers to the problems arising from teaching Russian in non-linguistic universities. On the other hand, it is illustrated by significant shifts in the quality and methodology of acquiring knowledge by nowadays students who were born in the Internet era and are oriented towards digital and practical learning while being unprepared to real (non-virtual) communication and often incapable of presenting their thoughts in a precise and logical way. Based on the analysis of linguo-didactic literature and many years of practical work at a non-linguistic university, the author's methodology of motivating students to learn and master the norms of Russian grammar is provided. Characteristic of the aforementioned approach is a synthesis of traditional reproductive teaching methods with creative activities, which enable full engagement of students’ imagination, development of their conceptual thinking, motivating them to study the language and, through this process, to active self-expression. Moreover, a substantial creative component implied by this method enables overcoming a serious problem of modern pedagogics: students use Internet resources to have ready answers. The aforementioned positive aspects of the comprehensive approach to teaching grammar to non-philologists appear a useful pedagogical experience that can be recommended for educating students in other language sections within a course.

Cognition in Teaching Grammar and Actual Practices of Experienced and Less-Experienced Filipino ESL Teachers

Though studies in the Western and Asian settings have already provided ample evidence in the symbolic relationship between teacher cognition and classroom teaching, such relationship has remained unexplored in the Philippine setting. Hence, this study aims to describe the beliefs in the teaching of English grammar of experienced and less experienced Filipino ESL teachers in a senior high school. It also compared their beliefs and actual classroom teaching to establish if there is match between what they think and practice. Reasons for divergence from their beliefs were also explored. Results revealed that teachers’ personal theories become the basis for their personal knowledge, thus have strong influence on their planning, instructional decisions and classroom practices. While both teachers share similarities on their cognition and practice on grammar teaching, minimal differences were documented. Experienced teacher has a greater tendency to translate stated beliefs to actual practice. Contextual factors such as time, curriculum, efforts to improve one’s practice and the learners themselves were the cited reasons for teachers’ divergence.

DEDUCTIVE AND INDUCTIVE INSTRUCTIONS FOR TEACHING ENGLISH GRAMMAR IN ONLINE CLASSROOM

Realizing the importance of teaching grammar to young learners, pre service teachers, as prospective teachers, need to reflect their own grammar teaching performance. Moreover, during the covid-19 pandemic outbreak where all learning processes are conducted online, teaching strategy needs to be considered. Therefore, this study aimed to find out whether the pre-service teachers apply the deductive or inductive teaching instructions in teaching grammar to young learners during the online class and to investigate how pre-service teachers develop the instructions. To reach the objectives, qualitative research was employed by observing and analysing the teaching videos of thirteen pre service teachers. The pre service teachers were the students of English Education Department in a private university in Jakarta who enrolled the Teaching Internship program. All videos were transcribed and then the analysed data were put in a table and coded to ease the identification of deductive and inductive instructions. The results revealed that more students adopted deductive grammar instructions in teaching grammar for young learners rather than inductive instruction. Furthermore, the way the pre service teachers developed both instructions followed the PPP and TTT models with different emphasis on the Presentation and Teach parts. The tendency done in the Presentation part for inductive teaching was the pre service teacher acted as instructor whereas the Teach part in inductive teaching was as facilitator. Eventually, from this study it can be concluded that pre service teachers adopted deductive and inductive grammar instructions because both are suitable for teaching grammar to young learners in online classroom setting within consideration of meaningful learning activities.

Gramática lúdica y creativa. Una experiencia para hacer más accesibles los contenidos gramaticales en Educación Primaria

La enseñanza de la lengua y la literatura ha de ser una experiencia lúdica y sensorial para el alumnado, sobre todo a la hora de desarrollar contenidos curriculares referidos a la reflexión sobre la propia lengua y la gramática. Este trabajo expone una investigación empírica llevada a cabo mediante el trabajo de campo y la realización de actividades lúdicas en torno a los usos del lenguaje, desarrollada primero con 18 alumnos del Grado de Maestro de la Facultad de Educación de Soria (Universidad de Valladolid) y, después, con 274 escolares de seis centros de Educación Primaria de la ciudad donde desarrollan sus prácticas curriculares. La experiencia consistió en la realización, bajo la supervisión de sus tutores, de actividades a modo de juegos creativos en tres niveles lingüísticos: letras, palabras y textos. Los objetivos planteados fueron: despertar la curiosidad y el sentido critico del alumnado participante en la experiencia, tanto universitario como de la etapa de Educación Primaria; propiciar la reflexión sobre el código lingüístico para mejorar la expresión oral y escrita de los escolares; y facilitar la asimilación de diversos contenidos curriculares de forma libre, autónoma y cooperativa. Al presentarse como juegos, pudieron aplicarse con igual rendimiento en estas dos etapas educativas (Primaria y Universidad). En su realización, los errores se contemplaron como una oportunidad creativa. Los resultados obtenidos confirman el valor de la enseñanza de la gramática de forma lúdica y creativa. La mayoría de los escolares de Educación Primaria mejoró los resultados en cuanto a esfuerzo, corrección lingüística o lectura en voz alta; por su parte el alumnado universitario apreció la importancia de incluir recursos lúdicos en los procesos de enseñanza y aprendizaje, al repercutir sobre una mejor actitud afectiva del alumnado, reforzando la importancia de la sugestopedia como metodología en la enseñanza lingüística. Este trabajo expone una experiencia basada en actividades lúdicas que han sido desarrollada primero con 18 alumnos del Grado de Maestro de la Facultad de Educación de Soria (Universidad de Valladolid) y, después, con 274 escolares de seis centros de Educación Primaria de la ciudad donde desarrollan sus prácticas curriculares. La experiencia consistió en la realización, bajo la supervisión de sus tutores, de actividades a modo de juegos creativos en tres niveles lingüísticos: letras, palabras y textos, con el objetivo de despertar la curiosidad y el sentido crítico, propiciar la reflexión sobre el código y mejorar la expresión oral y escrita de los escolares, al tiempo que se asimilaban de forma libre, autónoma y cooperativa diversos contenidos gramaticales. Al presentarse como juegos, pudieron aplicarse con igual rendimiento en diversas etapas educativas. En su realización se contempló el error como una oportunidad creativa (Rodari, 2008). Los resultados obtenidos confirman el valor de esta metodología, al tiempo que se destaca la ayuda que pueden ofrecer al profesorado para el tratamiento de contenidos académicos que, con enfoques más tradicionales, presentan más dificultades de asimilación entre el alumnado, debido a su escasa capacidad para motivarle y para despertar su interés, pero necesarios para desarrollar la competencia lingüística y comunicativa. Teaching language and literature should be a ludic and sensorial experience for students, especially when it comes to developing curricular content targeting students’ own reflection about their language and grammar. Data were obtained through the completion of creative and playful activities about language, developed first with 18 students of Education Degree in Soria (University of Valladolid) and, later, with 274 students from six Primary schools where university students developed their curricular practices. The experience consisted of the design and conduction, under school tutors’ supervision, of creative games which targeted three linguistic levels: letters, words and texts. More specifically, the objectives included: to awake learners’ curiosity and critical thinking; to promote reflection on the linguistic code for improving oral and written expression; and to facilitate the assimilation of several grammatical contents freely, autonomously and cooperatively. Since these activities were presented as games, they were applied with the same performance levels at university and at primary school settings. Mistakes were considered opportunities for creativity. The results obtained confirm the value of teaching grammar in a playful and creative way. Most of the Primary students improved their results in terms of effort, linguistic correction and reading aloud. University students highlighted the importance of including recreational resources in teaching and learning processes as this had a positive effect on primary school learners’ affective attitude. The results obtained reinforce the importance of suggestion-pedagogy as a method in language teaching. This work exposed an experience with 18 university students from Education Degree in Soria (University of Valladolid) who have been involved as part of their own university training and later they have applied this experience to 274 students from six schools of the city, during its curricular practices. This experience consisted, under the supervision of their tutors in Schools, in several activities applied as creative games with three linguistic levels: letters, words and texts, with the aim of awakening curiosity and critical sense, promoting reflection on the linguistic code and improve oral and written expression, while assimilating various grammatical contents freely, autonomously and cooperatively. When activities are presented as games, they could be applied with equal performance in various educational stages. In its realization, error was seen as a creative opportunity (Rodari, 2008). The results confirm the value of this methodology, while highlighting the help it can offer to teachers for the treatment of academic content that, with more traditional approaches, presents more assimilation difficulties among students, due to its limited ability to motivate him and arouse his interest, but necessary to develop linguistic and communicative competence.

The Use of Dictogloss Technique in Teaching Grammar Through Writing

This research paper deals with how dictogloss technique and cooperative listening can be combined to promote the development of listening, writing and speaking skills of a second language learners. Data has been collected data from students’ of the 10th grade, who study in the Pre-university School ‘Luciano Motroni’ in Prizren. This research, include 80 students from them 33 boys and 47 girls. These students were chosen because they had mixed proficiency in English and they were more compatible with joining in listening, writing, reading and grammar. The methodology I used to conduct this research paper, include the dictogloss technique and means of comparative and analytical methods. The results have shown that the use of dictogloss technique in teaching grammar through writing is an effective and useful way to improve the students’ grammar.