Teaching Vocabulary at the Initial Stage of Instruction - Курсовая работа

YEREVAN STATE UNIVERSITY Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology English Philology Chair TERM PAPER THEME: Teaching Vocabulary at the Initial Stage of Instruction STUDENT: Gayane Manukyan SUPERVISOR: Naira Avagyan YEREVAN -2011 Plan Introduction Chapter 1. Teaching English as a foreign language 1.1 Methods of foreign language teaching Chapter 2. Teaching vocabulary at the initial stage of instruction 2.1 Teaching English to children in an EFL setting 2.2 Teaching vocabulary to children 2.3 Textbook analysis Conclusion Bibliography Introduction This paper discusses the methods of teaching EFL and English vocabulary to children. The paper comprises two chapters and analysis of the fourth form English textbook (Apresyan, Thovmasyan). In Chapter 1 I speak about the current and traditional methods of teaching English as a foreign language and give a brief description of each method. In the first part of Chapter 2 I speak about the objectives of teaching English to children in a non-English environment, the role of motivation and the teacher factors. The second part of Chapter 2 presents a study of methods and techniques of teaching vocabulary at the initial stage of instruction. The issues discussed here are the choice of teaching materials, ways of presenting the new vocabulary, the development and extension of children’s vocabulary, games and special activities as means of vocabulary acquisition and retention. Benjamin Franklin has emphasized the role of methods in a foreign language acquisition: “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn”. His statement is particularly true in case of children as it is enjoyable participation in the language learning process and motivation that children need first of all. Motivation, curiosity, and holistic attitude to learning new things make language learning both easy and interesting for children. The importance of the initial stage of instruction lies in creating a positive attitude towards the language learning process. Children can learn almost anything if they are dancing, tasting, touching, seeing, and feeling information (Dryden & Vos, 1997). There are a great many of methods, techniques and approaches of teaching a foreign language, and more will be created to meet the demands of the globalized world where the importance of English cannot be underestimated. We should understand that any method is as good as its implementation, and the best language teacher is the one who gets good results no matter what methods he uses. “No course book will be totally suited to a particular teaching situation. The teacher will have to find his own way of using it and adapting it if necessary” (Jiazhi Wang). The third part of Chapter 2 is the critical evaluation of an EFL textbook. After the evaluation of its design and content I have analysed how the textbook fosters the development of the four skills respectively: writing, speaking, reading, and listening. Chapter 1. Teaching English as a Foreign Language 1.1 Methods of Foreign Language Teaching There are eight language teaching methods in practice today: 1. The Grammar -Translation Method 2. The Direct Method 3. The Audio-Lingual Method 4. The Silent Way 5. Suggestopedia 6. Community Language Learning 7. Total Physical Response Method 8. The Communicative Approach 1. The Grammar-Translation Method Around the turn-of-the-19th-century, language students often translated volumes from Classical Greek or Latin into English via this method. It consists mainly of exhaustive use of dictionaries, explanations of grammatical rules (in English), some sample sentences, and exercise drills to practice the new structures.