Samarkand state institute of foreign languages english faculty I course paper

Chapter II. STRATEGIC WAYS OF FORMING COURSES
2.1. Identifying appropriate instructional strategies and managing students
After selecting the learning objectives and assessments for the course, we need to think about the various instructional activities we will use to engage students with the material and enable them to meet the objectives. Of course, the key is to align instructional strategies with the other two components. Many instructional strategies are flexible, and can be used in service of several learning objectives, but some of them are better suited for a particular set of objectives. In most cases, we will need to use a combination of instructional strategies. two of three components of course design:
Lectures- transmit information which supplements or enhances reading; promote understanding via explanations; respond to student misconceptions or difficulties; create or engage interest in a new area; motivate reading or other assignments.
Discussions -practice thinking and communicating in the subject/discipline; evaluate positions, arguments, or designs; defend own position; identify problems, conflicts and inconsistencies; get feedback from/about students; draw on students’ expertise and prior knowledge.
Case studies - actively involve students in learning; apply disciplinary methods of analysis; practice problem solving; practice high-level cognitive skills (i.e., application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation); think critically; blend cognitive and affective dimensions (if the case has ethical or controversial dimensions); develop collaborative skills; relate knowledge to real world; formulate arguments and counterarguments.
Writing - develop systematic relationships among ideas; application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation; reflect on own thinking; record the evolution of own thinking; practice disciplinary conventions (e.g., APA style); practice responding to feedback and revising.
Labs- develop disciplinary and process skills; obtain immediate feedback and respond to it; develop metacognitive skills (e.g., awareness of own strategies); evaluate results or product of own work; approximate real life situations.
Group projects -Compare and contrast perspectives; practice high-level cognitive skills (i.e., application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation); develop meta-skills such as leadership, communication, conflict resolution; strategize and plan how to tackle complex problems and distribute work.
Recitations - practice problem solving; review material; check student understanding; identify and correct misconceptions; individualize instruction; answer questions.
Public Reviews - evaluation; practice giving constructive feedback; self-reflection; defend vision for own work.
Service learning - sometimes called community-based instruction, service-learning places equal emphasis on the service component of the experience and the learning outcomes for the student.
Independent student projects - explore areas of interest in depth; conceive of, plan, and execute a research or creative project from beginning to end; work independently; seek mentorship from an expert in the field.
Keeping Order
Once you’ve set up the course and the classroom you need to think about managing the people. Your aim is to build confidence in your students so that they respect your guidance and instructions. At the same time, you should encourage a learning environment that sees all the students treated fairly by you and their classmates. When a student is disruptive you need to deal with the matter efficiently so that there’s minimal distraction from the lesson. Learning English is the priority so other matters that students choose to raise shouldn’t use up valuable lesson time. These tips can help you set the right tone and expectations for your students:
✓ Teach classroom language. Tell students the words they need to communicate their learning problems to you. It’s easy to lose control of a class when they stop speaking English in favour of their mother tongue, but if they know how to say things like, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Could you repeat please?’ they can let you know when things are going wrong. You can put phrases like this up on the wall or ask students to write them at the back of their course books.
✓ Don’t start until everyone is listening. There’s nothing worse than shouting over boisterous students in an attempt to teach the other quieter ones. It’s best to ask for silence and wait for it. Those who want to learn actually help you to maintain order. Some cultures find speaking over one another acceptable so you may want to point out what you consider to be good classroom etiquette at the start of the course
Handling a lack of participation
If your classroom is worryingly quiet, you have a problem on your hands, but fear not, you have ways to increase student participation. Firstly, it’s easier to change yourself than anyone else, so look at your own level of enthusiasm. Keep your energy levels high throughout your lesson (I often have a soft drink on hand, which I can craftily sip to prevent getting dull and dehydrated) and act as though you have full confidence in the success of every activity you present. Cheerfulness is infectious so make sure that you’re not a misery guts in class. Another thing you can do is to ensure that you put your questions simply and create tasks at the appropriate level. Your students are likely to clam up if they don’t understand what they have to do. A nice trick is to drop the level of an activity you present in class so that the students can just concentrate on speaking without grappling with new words and grammar. This may boost their confidence a bit for next time. Have a look at the pairings and groups you use in class as well. Some combinations amongst the students may not work well. Perhaps two very shy people together don’t participate because neither wants to go first. So, rearrange the students frequently by asking them to sit in alphabetical order sometimes, and in order of their birthdays at other times. Just sorting that out requires communication from the students. You can do speaking activities in concentric circles: in a class of ten students, you have five standing in a circle in the middle, all facing outwards and then five in a circle all around them facing inwards. The inner circle remain still, but the outer circle rotate every few minutes so that they all speak to a different person at regular intervals. It’s very helpful for students to do an activity more than once because they improve each time but it doesn’t seem boring when they have a different partner for each attempt.
Attending to poor attendance
Poor attendance is a real pain because it affects the progress the class can make. On the other hand, progress also depends on who is turning up to lessons and if you have a hard core of good attenders, You don’t need to worry so much about the persistent no show. However, if different people come each time, the only thing you can do is to review previously taught information at the beginning of each lesson. A course book is a great back-up for students who missed last week or last night as they can at least read through the material by themselves, which allows them to take responsibility for their own learning