English Module 2

Hearing the language

In this module, the focus will be on hearing the words and word phrases as spoken in English, without an emphasis on seeing / reading script. The seeing of the words will come later and association of the sounds with the script will come later. The focus is her on getting the students familiar with the arbitrariness of a group of sounds to indicate meaning for specific words and contexts.

Objectives

1. To build an understanding of the spoken word in English
2. To introduce students to the patterns and structures in English through listening

Audience

1. Any beginner group

Resources

1. Objects
2. Pictures
3. Recordings of words and phrases
4. Video clips
5. Simple short stories as audio clips -
6. Simple words, commonly used words - audio of the words, images of the word (no focus on script) to register and build vocabulary
7. Concrete items which are commonly used/accessed/seen
8. Basic verbs
9. Word categories - animals, plants, relationships - See a list in this spreadsheet
10. Simple sentences
11. Alternate sources of materials - Pratham storyweaver

Unit 1 - Introduction to simple words in the environment (object identification)

Activity: The teacher will introduce simple objects in the environment the students are familiar with. For example, "What is this?" Students may say the closest word in their language. The teacher can explain "This is a book". This is the phase in which the multilingual nature of a classroom can be fully explored and used. This can be repeated for a given number of objects or pictures. Movement should be from objects to pictures.

Once they have listened to the sounds, the teacher can do the reverse. After they listen to the words, students can identify the correct objects. The teacher demonstrates with one example. "Show me the book" And shows the book. It is to be noted here that the word show is also introduced. This can be done either by directly speaking or by playing the recordings of the words/ phrases and have students identify the associated objects/ pictures

Assessment is continuous and built into the process.

(New vocabulary should consist of words of the same nature as those taught in the first lesson - book, pen, pencil,cat. It should thus consist of names of familiar concrete things (counting animals as things), which are present or can be brought into the class, or shown by pictures or blackboard drawings. It is for teachers to judge how many words of this kind their classes can digest, but they should understand that the main purpose of this concrete vocabulary is for use in the structures which are being introduced. The struc­tures may be called the walls and the rooms of the lan­guage house which is being built. The vocabulary is the furniture and fittings. Looked at in this way, isolated words are seen to have a relatively subsidiary position).

Unit 2 - Introduction to simple conversational structures

Activity: The teacher will introduce simple conversational structures and also numbers and counting in English. This assumes, of course, that children have basic number-quantity association understanding. This can also include simple words that qualify objects and also introduce colour names. Here again, the local language of the classroom will be used to introduce the conversational words.

Examples:

1. What is your name? My name is Ranjani
2. What color is this? This color is blue.
3. What is Kavya doing? Kavya is walking. (Introduce pronouns later)

Show recordings of simple activities done by the students - walking, eating, drawing and use these clips to make recordings of the activity in English.

Unit 3 - Listening to simple stories in English

Activity: The teacher needs to tell simple stories from words already introduced and help students make meaning. Here again a multi lingual approach will be useful. Stories can be told in English and translated into Kannada and vice-versa. However, care should be taken to move gradually into speaking English fully. The objective here is to deepen knowledge of language by broadening vocabulary, with sentence construction, set of sentences comprising a simple story

As a variant, the teacher can project a picture, have the children work in groups to tell a story. These stories can be told by the children and recorded and these can be used further as resources.

(Stories should be graded across easy-difficult levels, so that every learner has stories that are appropriate to her context. Pratham StoryWeaver uses the following levels - Level 1  - Easy words, repetition, less than 250 words, Level 2 - simple concepts up to 600 words, Level 3 - Longer sentences up to 1500 words and Level 4 - Longer, more nuanced stories, more than 1500 words.

Unit 4 - Making categories of words

Families of words can be made into lists along with recordings of phrases

Word families (for vocabulary building)

1. Flowers
2. Household items
3. Birds
4. Trees
5. Vehicles
6. Colours
7. Shapes
8. Wild animals
9. Fruits
10. School items
11. Vegetables

Word families (for pronunciation)

1. 'a' sounds
2. 'e' sounds
3. 'o' sounds
4. 'i' sounds
5. 'u' sounds

Assessment

1. Make a list of all the words students have been introduced to and allow them to pair up / work in small groups to listen to each other speak the words.
2. The teacher must observe how much of the local language is being used to communicate
3. With simple picture stories (these can be created even by the students), ask students to communicate in English a story from the pictures
4. Read the following words and match the pictures
5. Listening Comprehension: Match the audio with the pictures