Friday, May 4, 2012

Encourage Your Students to Speak Out in English

English is about practice. Students are good in English when they do some practice, written or spoken. What we found in the field, most of students are difficult to speak English. It is caused by some factors that most of them come from themselves. Here, the role of teacher should be shown. A teacher should be able to encourage student in speaking English. There are 5 principles can be conducted by teacher, namely:

1.   Positive Reinforcement
As a teacher, you should focus on your students successful attempts to use English. At first, reward ANY success however small. If students speak out loudly and clearly, but make a mistake, praise them just for speaking out or for pronouncing it well. As students improve, you can focus on the most outstanding successes. Whatever you encourage, students will continue to do. On the other hand, if you do not encourage them, they will likely become passive in class.

2.   Clear Goals and Instructions
Students need to know exactly HOW an activity is done, otherwise they will be out of control when the activity starts. If necessary, write the instructions on the blackboard or overhead projector. Or, model the activity with one of your best students so everyone can see what they need to do.

Students also need to know WHY an activity is being done. Dictations are done to train the ear, so they will be more successful in learning in the future. Pair practice is a simulation of real-life conversation, so they should not show their questions to their partner. Without understanding why, many students think an activity is not important and give up or practice half-heartedly.

Be sure to include goals and instructions in your lesson plan. That way you will be sure to remember to do them, and if you do have any problems, you will easily see how to fix them in future lessons.

3.    The Element of Surprise
Students usually know exactly what will happen in class and answer questions mechanically. By adding suprises to your lessons, students will be forced to think about meaning and will pay more careful attention. For example, you could ask students ordinary questions such as whether they like pizza, or if they like chocolate. Then ask them if they like chocolate pizza. You might ask students about their families, then ask if they are married, or if they can drive a car. Students who are answering without thinking will say "yes" automatically. In such cases, their classmates will usually laugh at their mistake, and they will realize the importance of paying attention.

Of course, laughing is good in general, so saying anything strange will improve the class atmosphere.Whenever you have a list of questions or a lot of language to cover, add something funny or strange at the end of the lesson. Add some intentional mistakes to see who will find them. In a sense, this is a kind of listening exercise. If you do this often, then some day if you really do make a mistake, you can casually tell students it was just a test!

A variation of the Surprise Principle is called the "information gap". When students all use the same textbook, they already have the same information. But if you give only SOME students certain information, a text or picture for example, the other students must use English to find out what information they are missing. Successful pair practice and language games include "information gaps" to encourage students to discover what information they do not have.
4.   Variety is the Spice of Life
Very often when teachers find a good technique, they use it more and more and come to depend on it. After some time, students become bored doing the same things, and this wonderful technique no longer looks very good. In reality the technique is still good, but variety is required to keep students' attention. Various activities can be organized according to how communicative they are. Start with a simple, mechanical activity, then continue with something more meaningful, and finish with a communicative activity. When students do a variety of activities, classes are not dull for either students or teachers!

5.   Friendly Competition
Competition automatically grabs students' attention. The easiest way to have friendly competition is to divide the class into two teams and play some kind of game. You could have the left side of the room against the right side, boys against girls, or each row against all the others. Competition can be used on an individual level as well, by giving points to students for their work. Make sure all students have a chance to succeed at getting some points so that nobody feels bad. You can give points for any written work such as dictations or mini-quizzes. Students enjoy seeing their progress over time, keeping them motivated in the long term. You can also give points during the whole term, by giving points for all kinds of activities during your classes.

Conclusion
Apply fhese five principles to your teaching and see how your students change over time. Positive reinforcement and having clear goals and instructions can be used right from the beginning, in every class. Introduce surprise, variety and competition to your lessons slowly, so as not to overwhelm your students. Make one or two small changes in every lesson, and pretty soon your students will call you "Super Teacher"!

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Target Needs Analysis


What are target needs?
Target needs are general term which has several fields that will determine the need in ESP itself. There are three points.:
1.   Necessity
Necessity is the need of someone to be success in his/ her business. For example, a businessman needs to understand about business letter, to communicate effectively, etc.

2.   Lack
Knowing the lack of student will help a teacher to design appropriate course in study process.

3.   Wants
Students need to know what they want to be learned. From that situation, students will do some efforts to achieve their willing.


Gathering Information about Target Needs
There are a number ways in which information can gathered about needs.The  most frequently used are:
  • Questioners
  • Interviews
  • Observation
  • Data collection example gatherin texts
  • Informal consultations with sponsors, learners and others.
The simple framework below outlines the kind of information that the course designer needs to gather from an analysis of target needs.
A target situation analysis framework:
Why is the language needed?
  • For study
  • For work
  • For training
  • For a combination of these
  • For some other purpose, example: status, examination, promition.
How will the language be used?
  • Medium: speaking, writing, reading etc.
  • Channel: telephone, face to face.
  • Types of text or discourse: example:   academic texts, lectures, informal
  • Conversation, technical manuals, catalogues
What will the content areas be?
  • Subjects: example: medicine, biology, architecture, shipping, commerce, engineering
  • Level: example: technician craftsman, postgraduate, secondary school
Who will the learner use the language with?
  • Native speaker or non native
  • Level of knowledge of receiver: expert, layman, student
  • Relationship: collogue, teacher, customer, superior, subordinate
Where will the language be used?
  • Physical setting: office, lecture theater, hotel, workshop, library.
  • Human context: alone, meetings, demonstrations or telephone
  • Linguistic context: in own country, abroad
When will the language be used?
  • Concurrently with the ESP course or subsequently
  • Frequently, seldom, in small amounts, in large chunks
It is clear that interpretations of needs can vary according to the points of view of the particular respodent. ESP like any educational matter is concerned with people and as such is subject to all the vagaries and foibles of human behaviour: For example: in analysing the needs of students, it would be normal practice to ask both the lecturers and the students about their English needs.


Analysing learning needs
To analysing learning needs, we have prepared a framework to analysing it.
The framework about :
v  why are the learners taking the course ?
v  How do the learners learn ?
v  What resources are available ?
v  Who are the learners ?
v  Where will the ESP course take place ?
v  When will the ESP course take place ?


COURSE DESIGN OF ESP FOR DENTIST


I.       STANDART COMPETENCE
Understand the meaning of the short functional text especially kinds of teeth, parts of teeth,       dentist tool, giving advice, and expression of offering help.
II.    BASIC COMPETENCE
1. Students are able to identify kinds of teeth.
2. Students are able to identify parts of teeth.
3. Students are able to understand dental tools.
4. Students are able to express in offering help.
5. Students are able to express in giving advice.
III. MEETING                                     : 2 x 45 minutes
IV. SKILL                                             : Speaking Skill
V.    LECTURER                                  :
Meeting
Basic Competence
Materi
Indicator
Method
I, II, III
Students are able to identify kinds of teeth.
Kinds of teeth:
1) Incisors
2) Canines
3) Molars


1.   Students are able to mention kinds of teeth correctly
2.   Students are able to recognize kinds of teeth correctly.
Lecturing
IV

V and VI
Students are able to identify parts of teeth.
Parts of teeth:
1)      Crown
2)      Enamel
3)      Pulp
4)      Gum
5)     Jaw bone
1.   Students are able to mention parts of teeth correctly.
Lecturing and discussion
VII
Students are able to understand dental tools.
1)  A mouth mirror
2)  College tweezers
3)      Radiograph equipment
4)  Disposable needles
5)     Dental burs
1.   Students are able to understand dental tools.
Lecturing
VIII

IX, X, and XI
Students are able to express in offering help.
Some kinds of expression in giving advice:
-         May I help you?
-         Can I help you?
-         Are you looking for something?
-         Would you like some help?
-         Do you need some help?
-         What can I do for you today?
1.   Students are able to express in offering help fluently.
Lecturing
XII

XIII, XIV, XV
Students are able to express in giving advice.
-       My advice is/ (that)…
-       Let me give you an advice/ a suggestion
-       I am going to give you an advice/ a suggestion
-       I advice you to…
-       I suggest …
-       Why don’t you …
-       You’d better …
-       I don’t think… I think you should/ ought to
-       If I were you…
1.      Students are able to express in giving advice correctly and fluently.
Lecturing, Discussion,
Role play