A good teacher is one that is not afraid to think outside the box. Of course sticking with the curriculum and teaching the students the objectives of the course is not up for debate; however, there are various ways to achieve the goal. One can go strictly by the book and risk being yet another teacher whose lessons are predictable year to year, class to class. On the other hand, a teacher can try to be versatile and engaging, playing on students’ interests to make them want to learn more.
Many websites offer resources for teachers in the form of lesson plans, advice from experts, peer chat and the likes. But there are teachers who want to cater to their particular students and do not want to use the same materials over and over. Their best bet is reaching out and pulling materials from the world around them.
Let us take a Spanish teacher, for example. It is very important to teach the students grammar and vocabulary. The course books have plenty of verbs and nouns, conjugations and tenses, examples of conversations, but in reality, how many times will students ask somebody outside the classroom “where is the library”? To truly learn a foreign language, one needs to become familiar with the way it is spoken and written in real life.
Teachers who want to bring live foreign language to their classroom may opt for books, magazines, songs or movies. Students will be presented with some new vocabulary, but they will also see how sentences are built and how to apply different grammar rules in a natural way. What is more, they will not only physically see it on the paper, but also hear it spoken in a movie, so they will familiarize themselves with the proper pronunciation.
As a teacher, do not be afraid to try these methods with beginners or intermediate students. Even though their vocabulary is limited, reading an interesting article in a youth magazine or watching a fun movie, will introduce them to new words, an in many instances they will be able to get the meaning of the word from the context in which it appears.
Reading the words and hearing them spoken shows the students how to use these words, and thus makes them remember the vocabulary better. It also makes them more confident and open to go in front of the classmates to either read a paragraph from a book or make a short speech they authored.
Students of more advanced language skills will take pleasure in watching a movie or reading a book, and for a teacher it presents an opportunity to not only teach them new things, but also to test their knowledge and abilities. A post-viewing discussion of the movie checks grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. A book report is good for both vocabulary and grammar testing, as well as use of language per se.
If the class is to be enjoyed by both teachers and students, fun, life inspired materials should be used for teaching as well as testing the skills. Students will show faster improvement and will be more willing to participate in discussions or written assignments, if they are given an opportunity to give their opinion on something they find interesting. And swapping traditional resources for teachers for movies, books and such, makes for a perfect way to change a boring lesson into fun live language introduction.
resources for teachers
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