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An integrated approach for the development of communication skills
Section 7. Pedagogy
Abdenova Zhuldyz Amirzayevna, L. N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University, Lecturer, the Faculty of Philology E-mail: [email protected]
An integrated approach for the development of communication skills
Abstract: Most English teachers in Kazakhstan have been familiar with the notion of oral communication skills, receptive skills (readingand listening) and productive skills (speaking and writing). This paper, therefore, would like to address how to implement teaching stages covering the skills for the integration purpose. The teaching stages include eliciting ideas, highlighting lexis and their meanings, predicting text, ordering jumbled paragraphs, listening, reading comprehension, and acting out the story/speaking.
Keywords: Oral Communication skills, Receptive Skills, Productive Skills.
Most English teachers in Kazakhstan have been familiar with the notion of oral communication, receptive skills (reading and listening) and productive skills (speaking and writing). Yet, despite their familiarity with those skills, the main concern of most English teachers remains unchanged. They tend to teach the two kind-sof skills separately. As a result, their English teaching had and has always to do with complicated structures of the language, too long reading passages, too technical vocabulary, and other activities thatare far from being communicative in their nature. The facts show that most of them have not realized that integrating oral communication, receptive and productive skills into an English lesson is important for their learners to achieve lesson aims. This paper, therefore, will address the issues of the implementation of integrating oral communication, receptive and productive skills in an English lesson.
Oral communication skills are fundamental to the development of literacy and essential for thinking and learning. Through talk, learners not only communicate information but also explore and come to understand ideas and concepts; identify and solve problems; organize their experience and knowledge; and express and clarify their thoughts, feelings, and opinions. Listening and speaking skills are essential for social interaction at home, at school, and in the community [1, 10-18].
The receptive skills are listening and reading. Because learners do not need to produce language to do these, they receiveand understand it. These skills are sometimes knownas passive skills. They can be contrasted with the productive or active skills of speaking and writing. Often in the process of learning new language, learners
begin with receptive understanding of the new items, then later moveon to productive use. The relationship between receptive and productive skills is a complex one, withone set of skills naturally supporting another. For example, building reading skills can contribute to the development of writing.
The productive skills are speaking and writing, because learners doing it need to produce language. They are also known as active skills. They can be compared with the receptive skills of listening and reading. Learners have already spent time practicing receptive skills with a shape poem, by listening to it and reading it. They now move on to productive skills by group writing their own, based on the example. Certain activities, such as working with literature and project work, seek to integrate work on both receptive and productive skills.
Integrating receptive and productive skills in one lesson has attracted language teachers for years. There is no absolute format for the integrated lesson. The underlying principles being that language is used to learn as well as to communicate and that it is the subject matter which determines the language that learners need to learn. It should also attempt to follow the curriculum in that it includes content, communication, cognition and culture, and includes elements of all four-language skills. Furthermore, in the integrated lesson, learning is improved through increased motivation and the study of natural language seen in context [2, 5-9].
When learners are interested in a topic they are motivated to acquire language to communicate. In this case, fluency is more important than accuracy and errors are a natural part of language learning. So, learners develop
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Section 7. Pedagogy
fluency in English by using English to communicate for a variety of purposes.
As stated in the introduction, to carry out the integrated lesson the writer will apply teaching stages covering those skills. For practical reasons, the writer will apply the stages in a reading lesson. In this case, the integrated lesson draws on the lexical approach, encouraging learners to notice language while reading followed by activities involving the other three skills. As a result, teachers can potentially diversify methods andforms of classroom teaching and learning, improve learners’ overall and specific language competence, introduce learners’ to the wider cultural context, and increase learners’ motivation.
More specifically, the integrated teaching stages must include [3, 28-39]:
1. Eliciting ideas. At first ask learners if there is a baby in their family. How would you feel if someone stole their baby? What would they do? Why do people steal babies? Then dictate words from the reading text about the King and the Baby: woman, baby, dead, exchange, steal, insist and settle the matter, sword, divide, give.
The objective of this stage is to introduce the topic of the story to learners to help them relate more easily to the characters and action in the text.
2. Highlighting lexis and their meanings/Vocabu-lary. Check meaning of any words that may cause difficulty, e. g.: sword/divide, (show/draw a picture/symbol and ask what is this?) exchange (act out with another student by exchanging pens or stealing something from someone when they are not looking).
The objectives of this stage are to focus attention on key words in order to prepare learners for the prediction task and to check meanings of key words given so that the task can be achieved.
3. Giving the title of the story.Give learners the title of the story they will read: The King and the Baby. The objective of this stageis to prepare learners mentally for the prediction task.
4. Predicting text. Put learners into pairs or small groups and ask them to predict the story based on the words given. Ask few learners to tell the class their ideas. The objective of this stage is to prepare learners mentally to read the text by creating a version of the text first in their minds.
5. Ordering jumbled paragraphs/Skimming. Hand out cut up version of the text. Ask learners to skim the story and order the paragraphs. Ask them what they looked for to help them decide on the order of the para-graphs.The objectives of this stageare to apply group work in order to negotiate meaning and to do skimming.
6. Listening for the right order. Play a cassette telling the right order of the story and ask learners whether or not their prediction is correct. The objective of this stage is to provide the correct order and a reason for gist reading.
7. Reading comprehension. Ask some short questions based on the story.
The objective of this stage is to focus on overall meaning or main ideas in the text.
8. Acting out the story/Speaking. Put learners into groups of 3, one person for each character in the story. The objective of this stageis to measure learners’ comprehension in a fun, nonverbal way.
In addition to the activities above, here are some ideas that will help to assess the learner’s oral communication skills [4, 27-35]:
- Debates — learners will be able to think on their feet, change their tone and volume when supporting their point-of-view, and develop a clear and concise argument (speaking to communicate — interactive strategies, clarity and coherence, appropriate language; listening to understand - comprehension strategies, active listening strategies, demonstrating understanding).
- Speeches — allow learners to pick a topic that interests them. They will be able to research the topic and reflect on what they found, or write on something that is personal to them. Either way, this is a chance to bring out their creativity (speaking to communicate — visual aids, non-verbal cues, vocal skills and strategies, clarity and coherence, appropriate language; reflecting on oral communication skills and strategies — metacognition).
- Interviews — learners can pick partners in order to film or perform an interview of each other on a topic of their choice. They can then show it in class and describe the different techniques and strategies they used (listening to understand - comprehension strategies, active listening strategies, demonstrating understanding; speaking to communicate — interactive strategies, clarity and coherence, appropriate language).
- Role-play/Drama — learners are given assigned roles and are asked to act out specific scenes to texts (novels, poems, plays). Learners can even write their own script and either film it or perform it in front of the class (speaking to communicate — vocal skills and strategies, visual aids).
- Reading dialogue and texts in class (listening to understand — using active listening strategies, listening comprehension strategies, demonstrating understanding of content; speaking to communicate — vocal skills and strategies).
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The scientific study of managing innovations in teaching process at higher education system
- Presentations — learners present a report on a topic of choice. They should be persuasive and show critical thought and analysis. Learners should be encouraged to include visual aids and class participation to make the presentation more effective.
- Give a lesson — divide learners into groups of 4 and assign a novel to each group for them to read. Have learners prepare a 20-minute lesson to teach the rest of the class about the novel they read. Learners can create activities, videos, posters, or models in relation to the text.
By applying teaching stages above, the writer expects the audience to realize that integrating oral communication, receptive and productive skills into an English lesson is feasible and valuable for the sake of the development oflearners’ English skills [5, 16-25]. Indeed, this is not an easy task to do because we have to make sure that the integrated lesson is reasonably inter-related and suitable to the learners’ level and needs. We also need to balance the oral communication, receptive and productive skills and vary the activities in order to teach the lessons interactively as well as to achieve the aims of the lessons.
References:
1. Gower M. Teaching Practice. - Oxford: Macmillan Education, 2009.
2. Lightbown P. M. How Languages Are Learned. - UK: Oxford University Press, 2010.
3. Masduqi H. CELTT 1 Survey: Staging Aims. - Indonesia: LAPIS-ELTIS, 2009.
4. Moon J. Children Learning English. - Oxford: Macmillan Education, 2011.
5. Spratt M. Teaching Knowledge Test. - UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Asanov Naukan Altaevich, al-Farabi Kazakh National University, D. p. s., рrofessor Ibragimova Meruert Nurhjigitovna, al-Farabi Kazakh National University, the Faculty of Pre-University education E-mail: [email protected]
The scientific study of managing innovations in teaching process at higher education system
Abstract: The scientific study of managing innovations in teaching process at higher education system has been researched in the given article. The researchers’ scientific statements have been separately described.
Keywords: innovation, technology, practice, institution of higher education, methodology.
The process of managing innovations in teaching process at Higher educational system is a clear phenomenon in practice. That process has deep history. Because, in the world higher education institutions are associated with the use of innovations in the development of the education system.
Using and managing innovations at the level of historical development higher education institutions can not only be practical process. Because the innovations in the education system of higher education institutions have often only a scientific conclusion. In other words, we think the process of managing innovations in teaching process at Higher education system is the scientific study with methodological apparatus.
The systematic and scientific analysis of teaching methodological work is carried out all over the world.
Nowadays there are comprehensive conclusions in this aspect. Among them, there is a huge fund of Kazakhstani scientists. The works of N. A. Assanov, §. T. Taubayeva, A. K. Mynbayeva, S. S. Hassenov, E. Sh. Kozybayev have made a great contribution to the scientific studying teaching methodological process.
Based on the practice of the world, the Ministry of Education and Science has presented the main socioeconomic demands in the education system as the content of regulatory system for educational work of higher education. The Ministry of Education and Science has aimed at organization and harmonization of methodological process at Higher education system.
The Kazakhstani Science has divided into several areas at studying teaching methodological process: the structural organization of teaching methodological
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