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pattern clear to his pupils. Some teachers believe that foreign situations are
the best way of teaching a foreign language. Some textbook writers believe
that situations which are part of daily life in England, or America, or Australia,
are therefore the best situations for teaching English in India or Ghana or
Uruguay simply because these situations represent whats commonly called
English-speaking culture. But these people forget that English-speaking
culture may be just as foreign as the English language because the pupils
environment may be completely different. Food, transport, housing, clothing,
shopping, climate, type and methods of work in the pupils country may have
little in common with these aspects of life, in an English-speaking country. So,
if you rely on English-type situations to make the meaning of a new sentence
pattern clear, you will be disappointed. You should use local, familiar situations
to introduce new language features. Then later, you can use non-language
features to teach English-speaking culture, explaining the way in which it is
different from local culture. This then, is something that the teacher can do
when hes faced with a textbook full of foreign situations different from those
in his own country. His teaching of the English language can be made much
more effective if he teaches English as if it were an alternative languge to the
pupils mother tongue for use in the pupils environment. If the teacher does
this in the elementary stages, his pupils will be able to learn English in familiar
situations and will proceed more quickly with acquiring a knowledge of the
English language. Then, when they have some control of language, the foreign
situations can be introduced. Let us consider an example of what I mean. In
my last talk, I mentioned sentence patterns with can and cant, which are
used to talk about certain skills, and mentioned of verb play as the most
useful verb because it can be used with the names of musical instruments and
games.