EXERCISES ABOUT SECOND
LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODS
1.
It has been said that the
Grammar-Translation Method teaches students about the target language, but not
how to use it. Explain the difference in your own words.
The difference is that the goal of
the Grammar-Translation method is be able to read, to translate and learn
explicit grammar rules, but it is not able to communicate. With this method
children only know the structures of a language, because its skills are reading
and writing.
A good method is one that develops
the communicative competences.
2.
In the Grammar-Translation Method,
grammar is treated deductively; in the Direct Method, grammar is treated
inductively. Can you explain the difference between deductive and inductive treatments
of grammar?
In deductive method, children learn the grammar because the teacher
explains it. This type of language acquisition goes from the general to the
particular. However, in the inductive method children get the grammar because
they have an input in the real life. It is goes from particular to general, this
means that with the information that they receive, they make the general rule.
3.
Which of the following techniques
follows from the principles of the Audio-Lingual Method, and which ones don’t?
Explain the reasons for your answer.
a. The teacher asks beginning level students to write a composition about
the system of transportation in their home countries. If they need a vocabulary
word that they don’t know, they are told to look in a bilingual dictionary for
a translation.
It is no connected with Audio-Lingual Method; it is connected with
Grammar-Translation Method.
b. Towards the end of the third week of the course, the teacher gives the
students a reading passage. The teacher asks the students to read the passage
and to answer certain questions based upon it. The passage contains words and
structures introduced during the first three weeks of the course.
No, because in Audio-Lingual Method at the beginning children talk and
then they can read.
c. The teacher tells the students that they must add an “s” to third person
singular verbs in the present tense in English. She then gives the students a
list of verbs and asks them to change the verbs into the third person singular
present tense form.
No, in Audio-Lingual Method you
don’t see the rule before, you just do it.
5.
Asher believes that foreign language
instruction can and should be modeled on native language acquisition. What are
some characteristics of TPR that are similar to the way children acquire their
native language?
At the beginning children don’t say anything because they are getting
inputs and they are learning the commands. Imitation is basic in this method.
7.
A lot of target language structures
and vocabulary can be taught through the imperative. Plan part of a TPR lesson
in which the present continuous tense. Or another structure in the target
language is introduced.
If we want to teach the present continuous, the teacher will say:
“everybody is sleeping” and children have to do the action of sleep, “everybody
is jumping” and children have to do the action of jump.
If we want to teach the colours, teacher will say “everyone touch
something blue”, and children have to do it, but they have the freedom to
choose the blue thing; “everyone touch something green” and children have to do
it.
If we want to teach relative sentences the teacher will say “the boys
that are wearing jeans stand up”, “The girls that are wearing skirt stand up”.
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