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9PROBLEM BASED LEARNING: FOCUSED LISTENING AND
WRITING ACTIVITIES
Kultaeva Feruza Ergashovna
Senior teacher, Samarkand state architecture and civil engineering university https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7880215
Abstract. This article deals with Problem-based learning (PBL). It's known that a student-centered approach in which students learn about a subject by working in groups to solve an open-ended problem. This problem is what drives the motivation and the learning.And we focused to Listening and writing activities.
Keywords: PBL, feedback, skills, subskills, aspects of foreign languages.
The content of foreign language teaching or what to teach is one of the main problems the Methods deals with. In this article an attempt is made to touch on the chief components which, we think, should constitute the content of foreign language teaching ESP learners; a more detailed consideration will be given in appropriate chapters dealing with teaching various aspects of the language and language skills.
The first component of "what to teach" is habits and skills which students should acquire while learning a foreign language. According to the aims of learning this subject they are: hearing (listening comprehension), speaking, reading, and writing. The level of habits and skills is determined by the syllabus for each term. However, quantitative and qualitative characteristics of skills, or the so-called terminal behavior is not defined yet for different specialties and stages of instruction. This is one of the problems for methodologists to investigate and solve. Nevertheless, some attempts have been made in this aspect. Thus, in the syllable we can find some directions as to the level of skills that should be reached in each particular level and their development. For example, the requirements for hearing and reading skills differ in B1 and B2 levels.
The second component of "what to teach" is language (textual) material, arranged in topics and serving as starting points for the development in oral language and written language, which allows the teacher to reach the practical, educational, and cultural aims set by the syllabus. Topic for speaking and reading are developed from level to level i. e., 'learners' ability to read and speak on a certain language skills: hearing, speaking, reading, and writing as his vocabulary and grammar, art topic is widely enriched.
The third component of the content of foreign language teaching is linguistic material, phonology, grammar and vocabulary carefully selected for the purpose. The selection of linguistic material, the compiling of the so-called minima for instance, minimum vocabulary and minimum grammar has always been one of the most important and difficult problems to be solved and, although a great deal of work has been done in this respect, we are still on the way to its solution.
Listening: Listening and comprehension are difficult for learners because they should discriminate speech sounds quickly, retain them while hearing a word, a phrase, or a sentence and recognize this as a sense unit. Learners can easily and naturally do this in their own language and they, cannot do this in a foreign language when they start learning the language. Students are very slow in grasping what they hear because they are conscious of the linguistic forms they perceive by the ear. This results in misunderstanding or a complete failure of understanding.
While listening a foreign language learner should be very attentive and think hard. They should strain their memory and will power to keep the sequence of sounds they hear and to decode it. Not all the students can cope with the difficulties entailed. The teacher should help them by making this work easier and more interesting. This is possible on condition that he will take into consideration the following three main factors which can ensure success in developing learners' skills in listening: (1) linguistic material for listening; (2) the content of the material suggested for listening and comprehension; (3) conditions in which the material is presented.
1. Comprehension of the text by the ear can be ensured when the teacher uses the material which has already been assimilated by students. However, this does not completely eliminate the difficulties in listening. Students need practice in listening and comprehension in the target language to be able to overcome three kinds of difficulties: phonetic, lexical, and grammatical.
Phonetic difficulties appear because the phonic system of English and Uzbek (Russian) differ greatly. The hearer often interprets the sounds of a foreign language as if they were of his own language which usually results in misunderstanding. The following opposites present much trouble to beginners in learning English. They can hardly differentiate the following words by ear: worked — walked; first — fast — forced; lion — line; tired — tide; bought — boat — board.
The difference in intonation often prevents pupils from comprehending the communication. For example, Good morning (when meeting); Good morning (at parting). The teacher, therefore, should develop learner's ear for English sounds and intonation.
Lexical difficulties are closely connected with the phonetic ones. Learners often misunderstand words because they hear them wrong. For example: The horse is slipping. The horse is sleeping. They worked till night. They walked till night.
The opposites are often misunderstood, for the learners often take one word for another. For example: east — west, take— put; ask — answer. The most difficult words for listening are the verbs with postpositions, such as: put on, put off, put down, take off, see off, go in for, etc.
Grammatical difficulties are mostly connected with the analytic structure of the English language, and with the extensive use of infinitive and participle constructions. Besides, English is rich in grammatical homonyms, for example: to work — work; to answer — answer; -ed as the suffix of the Past Indefinite and the Past Participle.
2. The content of the material also influences comprehension. The following factors should be taken into consideration when selecting the material for listening. The topic of communication: whether it is within the ability of the pupils to understand, and what difficulties pupils will come across (proper names, geographical names, terminology, etc.)
The type of communication: whether it is a description or a narration. Description as a type of communication is less emotional and interesting, that is why it is difficult for the teacher to arouse pupils' interest in listening such a text. Narration is also more interesting for listening. Consequently, this type of communication should be used for listening comprehension.
The way the narrative progresses: whether the passage is taken from the beginning of a story, the nucleus of the story, the progress of the action or, finally, the end of the story. The title of the story may be helpful in comprehending the main idea of the text. The simpler the narrative progresses, the better it is for developing pupils' skills in listening.
The form of communication: whether the text is a dialogue or a monologue. Monologist speech is easier for the learners; therefore, it is preferable for developing pupils' ability to aud. 3. Conditions of presenting the material are of great importance for teaching listening, namely:
The presence or the absence of the speaker. The most favorable condition is when learners can see the speaker as is the case when the teacher speaks to them in a foreign language. The most unfavorable condition is listening and comprehending a dialogue, when learners cannot see the speakers and do not take part in the conversation.
Consequently, in teaching listening comprehension the teacher should bear in mind all the difficulties pupils encounter when listening in a foreign language.
Speaking a foreign language is the most difficult part in language learning because pupils need ample practice in speaking to be able to say a few words of their own in connection with a situation. This work is time-consuming and pupils rarely feel any real necessity to understand during the whole period of learning a new language in school.
Another factor of no less importance is a psycho-linguistic one; the learner needs words, phrases, sentence patterns, and grammatical forms and structures stored up in his memory ready to be used for expressing any thought he wants to. In teaching speaking, therefore, the teacher should stimulate his students' speech by supplying them with the subject and by teaching them the words and grammar they need to speak about the suggested topic or situation. The teacher should lead his pupils to unprepared speaking through prepared speaking.
Writing: Within the communicative framework of language teaching, the skill of writing enjoys special status—it is via writing that a person can communicate a variety of messages to a close or unknown reader or readers. Such communication is extremely important in the modern world, whether the interaction takes the form of traditional paper-and-pencil writing or the most technologically advanced electronic mail. Writing as a communicative activity needs to be encouraged and nurtured during the language learner's course of study, and this chapter will attempt to deal with the early stages of ESL/EFL writing.
Viewing writing as an act of communication suggests an interactive process which takes place between the writer and the reader via the text. Such approach places value on the goal of writing as well as on the perceived reader audience. Even if we are concerned with writing at the beginning level, these two aspects of the act of writing are of vital importance; in setting writing tasks, the teacher should encourage students to define for themselves the message they want to send and the audience who will receive it.
The writing process, in comparison to spoken interaction, imposes greater demands on the text, since written interaction lacks immediate feedback as a guide. The writer has to anticipate the reader's reactions and produce a text which will adhere to Grice's (1975) cooperative principle. According to this principle, the writer is obligated (by mutual cooperation) to try to write a clear, relevant, truthful, informative, interesting, and memorable text. The reader, on the other hand, will interpret the text with due regard for the writer's presumed intention if the necessary clues are available in the text. Linguistic accuracy, clarity of presentation, and organization of ideas are all crucial in the efficacy of the communicative act, since they supply the clues for interpretation. Accordingly, while the global perspectives of content and organization need to be focused on and given appropriate attention, it is also most important to present a product which does not suffer from illegible handwriting, numerous spelling errors, faulty punctuation, or inaccurate structure, any of which may rend on the message unintelligible.
The present chapter focuses on the development of the mechanics of writing letter is a necessary instrumental skill with the meaningful writing cannot take place study then moves on to early functional for which can be carried out with there are some proficiency in the target
languages intent to remember that in can greatly facilitate writing, like the other lap correspondences, but be dealt with at the premier of exceptions or and discourse proficiency that need to be learned dents have reached posed sequence rules which provide the learners with useful generalizations and which therefore help them become effective readers. Once students have assimilated and internalized the basic features of such correspondences—namely, the distinction syllables—this will work well not only for all monosyllabic words but also for polysyllabic ones, in which the stressed syllable can act as a monosyllabic environment for letter-sound vowel correspondences (e.g., dispose).
Furthermore, some of the more advanced spelling rules related to English morphology can be facilitated by this knowledge. In polysyllabic verbs with the final syllable stressed, the spelling rules, for adding the inflection -ing, work in the same manner as for monosyllabic ones. Thus, learners who know the rule for consonant letter doubling when changing sit to sitting will be able to apply the same rate to any polysyllabic verb that ends with a stressed syllable having the form. Therefore, the verb begin, since its final syllable is stressed, will undergo doubling of the last consonant in beginning, as opposed to the verb open, where the final syllable is not stressed and therefore the -ing form of open is spelled opening.
However, in spite of all that has been said so far, English orthography has a notorious reputation because, in addition to all these helpful and relatively reliable rules, we must account for various less productive rates. Some of these are quite predictable, such as the occurrence of the letter a in front of r or 11, which quite consistently is realized as the sound /o/ as in call, or a in front of the letter r, which has the sound /a/ as in car. In general, the letter r affects the sound of the vowel preceding it and causes it to become more centralized, as in the words world, bird, and curd. Furthermore, the vowel diphthongs have a variety of spellings, such as the following letter combinations, which all correspond to the same vowel diphthong /ow/: rope, boat, low, foe. So, while it is true that there are quite a few cases in English which need to be remembered as individual words, there are far fewer than people imagine. In summing up this section dealing with the teaching points relevant to the mechanics of reading and writing, we should emphasize the fact that it is important for learners of English as a second or foreign language to realize from the start that English orthography is by no means a one-to-one letter-sound correspondence system; it has its own consistency embedded in the combination of letters with their immediate environments, resulting in what we tend to call sound-spelling correspondences. By practicing the proper pronunciation of sounds in relation to given spelling patterns, we can provide learners with a good basis for pronunciation as well as for the skills of reading and writing.
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