The use of our mother tongue
concerning the use of our mother tongue while teaching, well in the previous approach it was Forbidden for both teacher and learners , in this approach ,it is permitted for the LEARNERS , but for the teachers .Why?
It's the teacher's duty he or she is there to explain and make things clear and easier , the teacher has to prepare well his lessons and take care of the new vocabulary , prepare the appropriate visual aid for that new vocabulary , uses gestures , miming , plays the clown in class .
The teacher has to bear in mind that he or she is there because his or her learners need his or her help and if he or she uses each time the mother tongue the pupil will not improve and progress they will lose the motivation to INTERPRET any word or situation , they will simply ask the teacher to say it in their mother tongue and let them go !!!!!!
I am completely against using our mother tongue , the teacher can after using visual aids or what is said nowadays (VAKT)
VAKT is :
- V : visual ( all the visual aids that your learners can see pictures , flash cards , videos....)
- A : auditory ( all what your learners can listen to )
- K : Kinesthetic ( all the movements and gestures that learners can perform in class while explaining any vocabulary r situation)
- T : Tactile (all what your learners can touch in class during the lesson)
So as I explained above the teacher has be to aware about the type of aid he or she will use and at what period or stage to be used. of the lesson
The teacher may ask his learners about a specific word in their mother tongue But NOT BEFORE HAVING Explained it ,using the above different technics IN ORDER TO CHECK IF his learners are on the SAME TUNE , that's all.
In this new Approach it is permitted to give some tasks for the learners to translate in their mother tongue.
for the teacher who spent 3 hours to explain the word "ago" I wonder how much time will she need to achieve the program?
she could simply say :
Imagine the class starts at 8:00 Now it's 8:30
example : We started our class at 8:00 . Now it is 8:30 . so
We started our class at 8:00 = We started our class 30 minutes ago or 30 minutes ago we started our class
the learners will release that 30 minutes is the PAST period of time that they spent in class and the two sentences are the same
the first shows a point of time in the past and the second one a period of time & both the two sentences are the SAME .
With further PRACTICE the learners with acquire this new grammatical structure .
To teach such grammatical or pronunciation items I advise my colleagues to Use the PIASP Technic :
The PIASP Technic :
- P : Presentation ( the teacher presents a dialogue / sentence / paragraph .......)
- I : Isolation ( while reading or presenting the script he or she may ask the learners to underline the selected item , then he may ask them to read the script , later he asks them to remind him about what they have underlined and he reports it on the board )
- A : Analysis ( the teacher using mind mapping , he invites the learners to interpret what has been isolated )
- S : Stating Rule(s) ( here after having analyzed the selected items or sentence Your learners Have to be able to deduce the new rule re-investing what they have learnt before .
- P : Practice ( written) and should be through 3 types of practice tasks
1) Based form task
2) Meaning based task
3) communicative task
All what I want to say is to focus on the classroom situation , it's easier and saving time .
Good Luck