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Threading the pupils interest‡
Les "pistes modernes" par lesquelles l'intérêt
de l'élève s'éveille et fructifie en "auto-apprentissage hors-classe"
peuvent surprendre...
Quelques petits pas vers Internet (même sans y mettre beaucoup les pieds, définir
http, @...),
une approche de la pub-magazine, des réalisations graphiques (création
de posters - une élève 'très faible' a réalisé une affiche
bilingue pour le punch au rhum qu'elle fabrique le week-end pour se faire de l'argent
de poche a explosé ensuite et s'est débloquée à l'oral), création
de 'portfolios' (dossiers-albums)... bref - une certaine ouverture à leurs centres
d'intérêts...
Voici sur ce même sujet un message lu sur ETNI, la liste des profs d'anglais
d'Israël.
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I've been following various discussions and would like to comment...
I start from the premise that most of the comments relate to some individual aspect
of teaching a second language. When I was studying for my teaching license, I had
to take courses dealing with various theories of learning and teaching. One of them
was a linguistics course on second language acquisition. My impression was that though
there were quite a few theories about the process of acquiring a second language,
no one really knew how it actually happened. I have, over the years, come to believe
that it works differently in different people.
Reading -- I have spent much effort getting the students to read outside of
the classroom. I have them prepare portfolios, take tests, do reports, projects and
presentations. It all helps some but the most success I ever had was with a very
very weak five point 11th grade student who was on his way to four points. Over the
summer he got interested in science fiction and started reading everything he could
get his hands on.
He scored in the upper 80's on his bagrut exam at the end of the 12th grade. Of course
I took credit for his improvement, but in fact he did it more or less on his own
through reading. I've had other students who became Dungeons and Dragon freaks and
I happily stood on the sidelines watching their English improve by leaps and bounds.
One student of mine was a computer nerd who was very much into graphics and worked
his way through a manual about 5 centimeters thick, all in English, on the subject.
He scored highest on the Bagrut exam in his class.
Now I am not saying here that reading is the magic formula for learning English (though
I think that it is) but that if the student has been attracted by some activity or
interest that requires an English reading skill, then the teacher's job becomes very
easy.
Writing -- The same thing applies to writing. A few years ago I had a seventh
grade class that couldn't put three words together on a piece of paper without me
or them suffering a nervous breakdown.
I tried one of Jimmy's ideas and introduced an email project into the class. Within
two ot three exchanges everyone was writing at least a paragraph and some were sending
letters of two and three paragraphs.
As far as listening and speaking, its amazing how much effort goes into these activities
when some attractive English speaking boys and girls appear on the scene who are
the same ages as the students in my class.
Cheating -- When the students see a need for a particular skill in English
in order to acquire knowledge, and information that they desire, or to be entertained
or to communicate, they do not cheat. The act of cheating does not even occur to
them. When the students have to acquire language skills in order to get a grade,
then cheating becomes relevant to the students.
So what am I saying here, get rid of grades and make learning interesting to the
students ?
Absolutely not. If you think that I know what is interesting to all of my students,
that I have the resources, time or energy to appeal to those interests even if I
knew what they are, then you are mistaken.
The only thing to do is to be on the lookout for those moments when a student's interest
gets him or her to do a learning activity and stand out of the way. The rest of the
time, try everything that you can do to make it interesting and hope that you hit
your target once in a while.
When none of this works, you can always fall back on the threat of grades but then
watch them like a hawk.
Efraim Perlmutter
(reproduced with permission).
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