The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : English learning made interesting

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Sunday, Aug 03, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

English learning made interesting

Staff Reporter

CHENNAI: Around 120 English teachers from different schools turned children at an English Language Teaching (ELT) workshop conducted by Orient Longman in the city on Saturday.

Trainer Eleanor Watts, a U.K.-based author of children’s books, taught them ways in which they could make English language fun for their students to learn. The teachers, mostly handling Classes I to VIII, could be seen saying “yes ma’m” in chorus each time Ms. Watts asked if they understood what she said.

“I know English is a crazy language, but even those children who do not speak English at home can learn it,” said Ms. Watts.

She said “scaffolding” as a teaching method helped. “Scaffolding is about building writing frames to support the language development of children.” The concept developed by Jerome Bruner was designed to help children learn to do tasks on their own.

She advised the teachers to give children such writing frames with which they could learn to express their ideas. These writing frames would be like “idea boxes” which will give children words that make up the different components of a sentence. By combining a given list of words, children can make different sentences on their own. Scaffolds can be used for writing poems and stories too.

Ms. Watts urged teachers to make the exercise as interesting as possible for the students and ensure they do not lose sight of their goals during the task. She said giving children an audience would encourage them to write better. “Often it is only the teachers who are reading what children write, which is sad,” Ms. Watts said. She suggested children be made to write letters to newspapers and for campaigns.

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