A PEER OBSERVATION REPORT

A PEER OBSERVATION REPORT

OF

Mr. Rajendra Shrestha

 

Submitted to

The Department of English Education

In Partial Fulfillment for the Master of

Education in English

 

Submitted by

Ranjit Kumar Singh

T.U. Regd. No: 9-2-229-54-2003

Campus Roll No: 97/065

Second Year Exam Roll No: 290320

Observer: Ranjit Kumar Singh                   Student-teacher: Mr. Rajendra Shrestha

Dates of Observation: 14^th & 18 th Mangsir and 1^st Poush          Class/Time: 6:55-7:30

The first class I observed on 14^th Mangsir 2068 was the Level Higher Secondary Literature class at Manglodaya Campus Thankot. There were 26-32 students in a big classroom. The reason why the number of the students varied was that some students came late and others left early. As the teacher and I entered the classroom, the first thing I noticed was that the students were all quietly waiting for the teacher to come in and start class. My peer introduced me and told the students to focus on t he class. The students were genuinely interested and asked questions such as: Where do you come from? Where do you live and so on?

The class is taught by Mr. Hari Prsad Paudel. The students in the class are fro multicultural group of same age group. The first class I observed was a poem named Concrete Cat by Dorthi Charles …………………..from The Magic of Words grade XI.

The lesson began with the teacher inquiring if all the students had brought their text book or not. He repeatedly stressed the importance of bringing books in class because the poem he was going to teach was based on how words are arranged to form a cat which student could not understand without the textbook. This poem is a unique poem in its form being a visual poetry, also being a visual viewing of a cat. But not only are these words arranged to look like a cat, the words define the cat. There is alot of repetition in this poem, "stripestipestripestripe." The visual image appears to be in picture form, because the cat is not moving, and especially the mouse being behind the cat. The poem basically shows a cat and its survival necessity of day to day life.

 The teacher asked those who have one now to put it in front of them. If they haven't they can see in their friends’ books.

Thereafter he showed the Material he had brought drawing the concrete cat and described the form of the foem. He gave some other example of concrete poem. One of them is given below.

Student could easily understand what that poem was about. Further he described some alphabets which are used in the poem e.g. A, U and Y for different parts of the cat. As he made the students clear that ‘A’ represents the pointed eAr of the cat, ‘U’ represents the moUth and in the similar vein ‘Y’ represents the eYe of the cat. In the "Concrete Cat" by Dorthi Charles is a beautiful image of a cat. In this concrete poetry the writer give the appearance of a happy cat.  With the capital A in the ears, the capital Y in the eyes and the capital U in the mouth and the happy bouncing spaced letters in the tail, the cat appears to be very happy and content.  It has food indicated by the words, dishdish.  A literbox, and a dead mouse, that is why the poet spelled the word mouse upside down.  This concrete poetry can be painted and really form a cat.

I was so fascinated by his sight in this poem. He left no stone unturned to make each and every concept clear to the students.

The second class I observed on 18^th Mangsir 2068. It was General Advice from MEANINGs INTO WORDS. The lesson was not based on the previous unit so he did not focus on the previous unit or subject matters. The materials he used were sample letter and other cutout which he used very effectively in classroom.

 The teacher began the class with some small talk, commenting on the weather, and on some news headlines while introducing new vocabulary. I noticed that all students were listening attentively, but that only a few were brave enough to participate actively. Initially, I thought I would just observe and see what emerged, but after 10 minutes I decided it would be more useful to observe the verbal and non-verbal behaviors of just two students.

I picked two people with apparently opposite personalities as the objects of my observation: one of them was boy and the other was girl. I observed how they are interacting with the teacher time and again to get some gist of the unit.

He read out the sample letter he had with him and made student guess what he was going to teach them. That was related to GENERAL ADVICE to relative through letter.

He did his job so effectively and I was sure enough that students achieved the desired goal.

The third class observed was on 1^st Poush of the same friend Mr. Hari Bahadur Paudel was a poem named Poplar Field written by William Cowper an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time. This poem was from The Magic of Words, the literature book prescribed for grade XI.

He discussed the burning issues of natural degradation. He pleads for the conservation of environment. He gave illustration from our surrounding to make the concept the poem clear.

Overall I found his lesson so effective and fruitful. Despite a few missteps, he maintains a professional behavior in the classroom and is to be encouraged. I wish his bright future.

An Internship Report

 MANGLODAYA MULTIPLE CAMPUS

Thankot, Kathmandu

Introduction

Manglodaya campus is situated at VDC Thankot-3 is one of the leading campuses in the western part of ktm valley .The main an objective of this campus is to provide qualitative education. It is a public campus which was established in 2045 B.S. conducting intermediate programme under TU and higher secondary programme was added in 2058 .it has been promoted by an efficient team of reputed lectures, social workers and well known academic experts .

Objectives

·         to provide quality education through practical ways

·         to serve society by producing skilled manpower

·         to insure the feeling of social well fair, peace and harmony in the society

Present and future progremme

Higher secondary programme

Management: Com.Eng, Com. Nepali, Economics, computer science, business study, account, Travel and tourism, Hotel manage ment. and others.

Humanities: In the faculty of humanities the cources are Com. Eng., com. napali ,major. Eng, sociology, maths and others are taught

Bachelor degree Programme

Under this programme BBS classes are running in affiliation to TU. The campus has aimed to run BA and B.ED classes in future.

At present there are 3 sections in class 11and12 and no section in BBS level. The total number of students benifited there are around 450 and around 25 teaching and non-teaching staffs.

Regarding the infrastructure of the campus, it has its own campus building, library, enough classrooms and others .All the classes of the campus begin at 6:15.The result of higher secondary is shown good enough as the percentage of passed students is 70 each year. Besides academic activities, the campus conducts extracurricular activities as well

Every students studying in the campus must concentrate his/her mind in education to accomplish the pre planned educational programme .The motto of the campus is that the educational programme can be made and only in the collaboration of students ,teachers and guardians .

Some rules and regulations for students:

Ø  All the students must obey the rules and regulations of the campus.

Ø  They all should come to campus regularly.

Ø  Each students should maintain discipline

Ø  College uniform is a must

Ø  Students should get admitted in time

Each and every institution requires management committee to run the programme smoothly. The members of management committee are:

            Chairman:        Mr. Om Krishna Amatya

            Members:        Mr.  Ghana Shyam Giri

                                    Mr. Bishnu Pd Shrestha

                                    Mr. Puranjan Shrestha

                                    Mr. Surendra Lal Shrestah

                                    Mr. Rameshwar Pathak

                                    Mr. Indra Pd. Rijal

            Member Secretary Mr. Gokul Pd. Sigdel

           

            Teaching and Non-teaching staff

1.      Mr. Gokul Pd. Sigdel                          Campus chief

2.      Mr. ShivaRam Sigdel                          Asst. ampus chief

3.      Mr. Raju Thakur                                  Humanities Co-ordinator

4.      Mr. Binay Lamichhane                       Management Co-ordinator

5.      Mr. Indara Pd. Rijal

6.      Mr. Madhusudan Adhikari

7.      Mr. Hariram Nepal

8.      Mr. Uddhav Adhikari

9.      Mr. Laxman Pd. Bidhan

10.  Mrs. Yamuna Khatri

11.  Mr. Kashi Ram Sharma

12.  Mr. Ram sharan Tripathi

13.  Mr. Bhanu Pradhan Dhakal

14.  Ms. Roshna K.C.

15.  Mr. Dinesh Sigdel

16.  Mr. Krishna Lamichhane

17.  Mr. Shree Hari Rupakheti

18.  Mr. Bhim Br. Upreti

19.  Mr. Bishnu Maharjan

20.  Mr. Karan Br Shrestha

21.  Mr. Dil Br. Shrestha                            Accountant

22.  Mr. Om Prakash Shrestha                   Librarian

23.  Ms. Laxmi Regmi                               Computer Operator

24.  Mrs. Gita Devkota                              Peon

25.  Mr.  Dipendra Thapa                           Security Guard

Finally, we are very thankful to all the members of the campus giving us chance to conduct our practice teaching. We found them very co-operative and supportive in every step. They never deny for help whenever we ask for and they guide us in each and every tasks. We wish for bright future of the campus.

Micro-Teaching Lesson Plan-M.Ed.

Lesson Plan no: 1

Level: B.Ed. III Year                                                                                                                         Date: 24^th Kartik 2068

Title: Translation equivalence

Objectives:

1.       To define, classify and exemplify translation equivalence

2.       To find out problems in search of Traⁿ  equivalence

3.       To manage the problems of Traⁿ  equivalence

Materials: Hand-out, Teacher’s note

Content: Equivalence in Traⁿ

1. Definition:

·         The extreme possible correspondence between SL text and TL text on various linguistic levels such as morphemes, words, phrases, clauses, idiom and proverbs.

·         emerges during 1950s and 60s (Hatim, 2001:14)

2. Types:

·         Nida (1964)

                                i) Formal Equivalence                     ii) Dynamic Equivalence

·         Catford (1964)

                                i) Textual Equivalence                    ii) Pragmatics Equivalence

·         Newmark (1981)

                                i) Semantic Equivalence                ii) Communicative Equivalence

3. Problems: Krishnaswami says:

“Translation is like a Woman if beautiful, it cannot be faithful and if faithful, it cannot be beautiful.”

                                                                                                                (Cited in Das, 2008, p.1)

Cicero (First century BC) who forwards his viewpoint on word -for-word and sense-for-sense translation has put forward the following words:

“If I tender for word, the result will sound uncouth and if compelled by necessity I alter anything in the order or wording. I shall seem to have departed from the function of a translator.”                             (Cited in Das, 2008, p.37)

·         Lgs are different on lingu. features and cultural feature

·         No sameness betⁿ two lgs cause loss or gain in Traⁿ

eg.          SL: Kathmandu ma dosro Pashupatinath mileko jasto bhan parna thaleko thiyo

                TL: ………………some felt a living Apollo.    (The Wake of the White Tiger: 247)

·         Metaphore

                SL: kalo bhut jasto Madhya raat thiyo

                TL: The midnight was pitch-dark like a ghost.

                                                                                (The Stories of Conflict and War: 110 in Adhikari, 2009)

·         Same words have different meaning in different culture

        When we translate Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s Day” literally may not fit for the country where the summer is unpleasant (Bassnett, 2002.p30). Bhuja for rice is not acceptable in the culture where they prefer ‘bhat ’for the same; and they mean something else by ‘bhuja’.

·         Socio-cultural matrix i.e. culture-bound words

        Gundruk- fermented and dried vegetable

        Dhoti- loin cloth

4. Solution:

·         Transference

·         Notes & Paraphrasing

·         Naturalization

·         Glossary

·         Addition & deletion

5. Conclusion:……………………………..

6. References:

                Adhikari, Bal Ram (2009). Theoretical and Practical Consideration about Aesthetic Approach to Literary Translation,                   30^th Annual Conference of the Linguistic Society of Nepal

                        Baker, Mona (1992). In Other Words: A Course-book on Translation, London: Routledge

                        Das, B.K. (2008) A Handbook of Translation Studies, India: Atlantic Publishers & Distributers

                        Hatim, Basil (2001) Teaching and Researching Translation, London: Pearson Education

                        Newmark, Peter (1988)  A Coursebook of Translation, New York: Prentice Hall

                                                                                                                                                By: Ranjit Kr Singh

                                                                                                                                                M.R.C Tahachal

                                                                                                                                                ranjitks658@gmail.com

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Bell Jar

For the 1979 film, see The Bell Jar (film). The Bell Jar is American writer and poet Sylvia Plath's only novel, which was originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963. The novel is semi-autobiographical with the names of places and people changed. The book is often regarded as a roman à clef, with the protagonist's descent into mental illness paralleling Plath's own experiences with what may have been clinical depression. Plath committed suicide a month after its first UK publication. The novel was published under Plath's name for the first time in 1967 and was not published in the United States until 1971, pursuant to the wishes of Plath's husband Ted Hughes and her mother.

Plot summary

Esther Greenwood, a young woman from the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts, gains a summer internship at a prominent magazine in New York City under editor Jay Cee. At the time of the Rosenbergs' execution, Esther is neither stimulated nor excited by the big city and glamorous culture and lifestyle that girls her age are expected to idolize and emulate. Instead her experiences frighten and disorient her. She appreciates the witty sarcasm and adventurousness of her friend Doreen, but also identifies with the piety of Betsy (dubbed "Pollyanna Cowgirl" by Doreen, because she's from Kansas), a 'goody-goody' sorority girl who always does the right thing. She has a benefactress in Philomena Guinea, a formerly successful fiction writer (based on Olive Higgins Prouty), who will, later during Esther's hospitalization, pay for some of her treatments.

Esther describes in detail several seriocomic incidents that occur during her internship, kicked off by an unfortunate but amusing experience at a banquet for the girls given by the staff of Ladies' Day magazine. She reminisces about her friend Buddy, whom she has dated more or less seriously and who considers himself her de facto fiancé. She also muses about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who are scheduled for execution. She returns to her Massachusetts home in low spirits. During her stay in New York City, she had hoped to return to another scholarly opportunity, a writing course taught by a world-famous author. Upon her return home, her mother immediately tells her she was not accepted for the course. She decides to spend the summer potentially writing a novel, although she feels she doesn't have enough life experience to write convincingly. All of her identity has been centered around doing well academically; she is unsure of what to make of her life once she leaves school, and the choices presented to her (motherhood, as exemplified by the prolific child-bearer and vacuous Dodo Conway, or stereotypical female careers such as stenography) do not appeal to her.

Esther becomes increasingly depressed, and finds herself unable to sleep. Her mother encourages, or perhaps forces, her to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Gordon, whom Esther mistrusts because he is attractive and seems to be showing off pictures of his charming family rather than listening to her. He hastily diagnoses her with a mental illness and has her hospitalized. She receives electroconvulsive therapy, improperly administered, and feels she's being electrocuted like the Rosenbergs. When she tells her mother she refuses to go back, her mother smugly and callously announces, "I knew you'd decide to be all right."

Esther's mental state worsens. She describes her depression as a feeling of being trapped under a bell jar, struggling for breath. She makes several half-hearted attempts at suicide, including swimming far out to sea, before making a serious attempt. She leaves a note that says she is taking a long walk, then crawls into the cellar and swallows almost 50 sleeping pills that have been prescribed for her insomnia. She is discovered under her house after a rather dramatic episode in the newspapers has presumed her kidnapping and death, all taking place over an indeterminate amount of time. She survives and is sent to a different mental hospital, where she meets Dr. Nolan, a female therapist. Along with regular sessions of psychotherapy Esther is given huge amounts of insulin to produce a "reaction," and again receives shock treatments, with Dr. Nolan ensuring that they are properly administered. Esther describes the ECT as beneficial in that it has a sort of antidepressant effect, lifting the metaphorical bell jar in which she has felt trapped and stifled. Her stay at the private institution is funded by her benefactress, Philomena Guinea.

Esther tells Dr. Nolan how she envies the freedom that men have, but as a woman, worries about getting pregnant. Dr. Nolan refers her to a doctor who fits her for a diaphragm. Esther now feels free from her fears about the consequences of sex. She feels free from previous pressures to get married, potentially to the wrong man. Under Dr. Nolan, Esther improves and various life-changing events help her regain her sanity. The novel ends with her entering the room for her interview which will decide whether she can leave the hospital.

Parallels of Plath's life to the novel

The book contains many references to real people and events in Plath's life. Plath's real-life magazine scholarship was at Mademoiselle magazine beginning in 1953.^[2] Furthermore, Philomena Guinea is based on Plath's own patron, Olive Higgins Prouty, author of Stella Dallas and Now, Voyager, who funded Plath's scholarship to study at Smith College. Plath was rejected from a Harvard course taught by Frank O'Connor.^[3] Dr. Nolan is thought to be based on Plath's own therapist, Ruth Beuscher, whom she continued seeing into adulthood. A good portion of this part of the novel closely resembles the experiences chronicled by Mary Jane Ward in her autobiographical novel The Snake Pit; Plath later stated that she'd seen reviews of The Snake Pit and believed the public wanted to see "mental health stuff," so she deliberately based details of Esther's hospitalization on the procedures and methods outlined in Ward's book. Plath was a patient at McLean Hospital, an upscale facility which resembled the "snake pit" much less than certain wards in Metropolitan State Hospital, which may have been where Mary Jane Ward was actually hospitalized.

In a 2006 interview, Joanne Greenberg revealed that she had been interviewed in 1986 by one of the women who had worked on Mademoiselle with Plath in the college guest editors group. The woman claimed that Plath had put so many details of the students' real lives into The Bell Jar that "they could never look at each other again", and that it had caused the breakup of her marriage and possibly others.^[4][5]

Film adaptations

Larry Peerce's The Bell Jar (1979) starred Marilyn Hassett as Esther Greenwood, the protagonist and featured the tagline: "Sometimes just being a woman is an act of courage." After the movie came out, Jane Anderson claimed she was portrayed as the character "Joan" in the movie and filed a lawsuit. She felt that her character was ill-represented, which resulted in her subsequent emotional trauma. In 2008 Plum Pictures announced plans for a Hollywood version of the novel, the movie to be written by playwright and screenwriter Tristine Skyler and Julia Stiles to star as the novel's protagonist^[6], with Rose McGowan as Doreen. As of January 2011, the film remains in development.^[7]

ESL/EFL in Multilingual Classroom

A multilingual class is a class where the learners speak a variety of first languages. Multilingual classes can be compared to monolingual ones, where all the learners speak the same first language.

Example
Multilingual classes are typically found where learners have travelled from other countries to learn a language, e.g. summer schools.

In the classroom
In a multilingual class there can be much more use of the target language, because it will be the only common language between the learners, who will use it for their normal interactions both in and out of class. Learner behaviour and cultures can be very different, which may create problems but can be used as a focus of comparison and discussion.

Americans speak more than 150 languages at home, from Bengali to Tatar to Swahili. More people speak Spanish in the United  States than in Spain.

But in America's all-English classrooms, what's a teacher do when faced with students for whom English is a foreign language?

Jesi Holschbach, a high school science teacher in New York City, worries. Many of her students are native Spanish speakers. She has Spanish-speaking tutors in the classroom to help, but she says her students don't just need to understand the concept. In order to pass their classes in New York, they need to be able to explain it in English.

"My tutors try to explain a concept and continue to get frustrated until they explain the topic in Spanish. Then tell me that the students understand the material but they cannot convey their understanding to me," Holschbach says. "But they need to complete state exams in English."

She says her students are often tripped up "by words that many English speakers take for granted." For example, she says, "when the state exam asks what the benefit of a particular thing is and students answer with a disadvantage."

Tammy Conard-Salvo, the head of Purdue University's Writing Center, says that even students who speak English with a good degree of fluency can get tripped up by idiomatic phrases like "tripped up." Idioms are hard for native-English-speaking teachers to avoid, she says: "One reason they are idiomatic is because they are so ingrained." But phrases like "miss the boat" and "back to back" which mean something different than the words mean on their own, can be baffling for a student who didn't grow up speaking English.

The most important thing, she says, is to gives students space and time to ask questions without being embarrassed. Teachers also need to be good judges of body language. "Students won't tell you when they're confused," she says, "because they're too embarrassed to say they don't understand it."

Holschbach says she pairs up her Spanish-speaking students, and works with them to express their ideas creatively. They portray their knowledge in pictures, or through their tutors.

The students who don't understand Spanish don't always like to hear it spoken. "The English-only speaking students feel as though when the other students speak Spanish, they are talking about them." Holschbach says. "Then the English-speaking students start fights with the Spanish-speaking students."

Even so, Holschbach says teaching to a mixed-language audience changes her teaching in a good way. "I present new vocabulary with pictures to help the students," she says. "I do not necessarily slow down, and the things I do also benefit English-speaking students."

Conard-Salvo encourages teachers to see multi-lingual classrooms as an opportunity.

"A lot of times there's that expectation that students learn English and become acclimated to American culture," she says, "when we could be a lot more open minded and looking to what we can learn from students from other backgrounds."

______________________________

Tips for Teaching Conversation in the Multilingual ESL Classroom

Cara Pulick

Introduction

Leaving aside completely the matter of potential cultural conflicts and misunderstandings, teaching conversation in the multilingual classroom presents challenges beyond those faced in the monolingual classroom. The difficulties inherent in a conversational ESL class--namely, speaking and listening in another language--are multiplied when the participants in those conversations are neither native speakers nor from the same linguistic background. Problems ranging from grammatical mistakes to vocabulary limitations to, perhaps most troublesome, pronunciation issues complicate the process of conversing in a foreign language.

From a classroom management standpoint, however, a bigger challenge is when such obstacles turn to frustration and students from differing linguistic backgrounds begin to tune each other out or, worse, exhibit irritation. Fortunately, when handled well, a multilingual classroom is a great place for students to try out their real-world conversation skills. If they can make themselves understood not only to ESL teachers and to others linguistically like themselves, but also to the world at large, then they are communicating.

The following are some suggestions for increasing cross-cultural student-to-student engagement and understanding in the ESL classroom.

Mix It Up

• Incorporate as many communicative activities as you can into your lesson plans--role plays, Q&A sessions, information-gap exercises, realistic problem-solving tasks--and group students from distinct linguistic backgrounds together.

Keep the Student on Their Toes

• After a student answers a question, tells a story, or makes a sentence, throw a mini listening pop quiz. Choose a student from a different linguistic background to see if he understood the original student's comments. Ask him to rephrase, repeat or summarize what he heard. This is a good double-check on both speaker and listener.
• Play linguistic Hot Potato in the classroom: If a student asks you a question, divert the question back out to the class to see if another student can provide an answer or explain it to the others. In this way, students won't tune out while the others are talking and they have yet another chance to interact with each other.

Let the Students do the Work

• At the beginning or end of class or after a comprehension exercise, have students ask each other questions about the material covered. That will get them used to listening to each other's accents, not just to yours. Plus it provides an oft-needed review of the frequent problem of question formation in English.
• Try not to echo your students or summarize their comments.If you "help out" students with pronunciation difficulties in this way, the others will feel free to ignore them and wait for you to repeat it more clearly.

Work on Everyone's Difficulties

• If you are doing a pronunciation exercise or discussing a false cognate for one linguistic group follow it up with one for another group. This will help teach the students to be patient with each other's linguistic limitations, as they learn that while the problems may not be the same for each group, each group has its own problems.

Explain It to the Students

• Emphasize that communicating effectively means not only speaking so that a teacher can understand, but speaking so that everyone can understand. Students who speak the same language often understand each other not because they speak correctly but because they make the same mistakes. If you can do so tactfully, you can use a multilingual conversational exercise to point out the difference between what a student thinks he is saying and what his classmates actually hear.
• As students tend to forget, communication also means accurate listening, not just to the video or to native speakers, but to each other as well. For those students who think it is pointless or even detrimental to listen to other non-native speakers, remind them that in today's global society, the chances are that they will find themselves conversing, doing business, or otherwise interacting in English with other non-native speakers.

Have Fun

• One of the best aspects of multi-lingual classrooms is that the widely varying cultural, linguistic and personal backgrounds of the students provide a constant source of interesting conversational material. Use this to your advantage by creating activities where students have to speak--and actively listen--to each other describe how things work in their culture or country

There are two broad categories of situations in which non-native English speakers may learn English. Multi-lingual classes are with students from various nationalities normally in a country where English is the native language. This may be considered as teaching ?English as a Second Language (ESL). Monolingual classes are usually in the students? home country and this context is ?English as a Foreign Language? (EFL). In multi-lingual classes the students are living in an English speaking country and are exposed to the language, either for a limited period of time or permanently. In class they must use English to communicate even if there are some other students with the same native language (L1). The teacher will probably ask them to sit separately, and even if he/she speaks their native language it will not be used in class because the teacher?s job ?is to serve as a model of fairness and neutrality and only English is the surest way to achieve this in a multilingual classroom? (1). In multi-lingual groups students are likely to have a higher intrinsic motivation (1a) which the teacher should take into account in his approach and lesson planning. Task based activities can involve extra-classroom activities in ESL teaching e.g. interviewing , and it is said that a teacher can ?focus more intensively on accuracy? (1) in speaking because there are opportunities for fluency practice outside the classroom. Culturally related activities can be used to great advantage in multi-lingual classes. Rosemary Richey (2) feels that intercultural training is not just an added ?extra? in Business English but that it is essential to ?genuinely communicate in a real life business setting?. The teacher could find difficulty in multi-lingual classes because students from different cultures will have different language problems and learning styles. The Japanese have been classified as ?reflective learners? whereas Brazilian students are ?impulsive learners? (1). In a monolingual class, students could have a low intrinsic motivation (1). They find themselves in classes of 30 ? 50 at university and have to pass an examination or study English as part of a compulsory curriculum. Alternatively a high extrinsic motivation in certain situations e.g. businessmen with promotion prospects in smaller classes, can give good results (1). The classroom activities in monolingual groups can be related to the students? culture and will need to have as much student talking time as possible since there is otherwise very little opportunity to speak English. It is very important to aim the activity at the students? level otherwise they will resort to the use of L1 either through boredom or because they are out of their depth. At a presentation on English Language Teaching in Japan in 2004, the conclusion reached was that ?properly trained Japanese English teachers will more often do a better job ? (3) than the EFL teachers in Japanese High Schools. In the future, as globalization continues, cultural awareness will become increasingly more important. This should be taken into greater consideration in the English Language teaching field especially regarding monolingual and multi-lingual groups. 

You can make it easier for students to use English by:

• Describing your rationale clearly and getting their support from the beginning,

• Deciding where you place yourself in the classroom. The groups nearest you are more likely to use English than those further away. So take an interest in what each group is doing and move around so that groups have less chance of switching back to their own language.

• Monitoring more overtly: for example, by having a pen and paper in your hand.

• Making the work task-oriented. If the final product has to be in English, whether it is a story, a film review or just answering comprehension questions, a greater use of English is ensured.

• Keeping speaking activities short until the students have more confidence and increased fluency. It is better to have a shorter time than is strictly necessary than having time to spare at the end of group work.

• Making sure that the students have the English to do what you ask. You might find it helpful to start off with very structured activities after you have taught some essential words and expressions so students are not at a loss for words.

• Starting with “open” pair work (a dialogue in front of the class) as a model for the “closed” pair work (every pair working simultaneously).

• Assigning roles. If everyone knows what he or she must do, they are more likely to do it in English. You might consider giving someone the role of “language monitor” - someone to make sure English is used in the group – or “evaluator” - someone who will report back on the of the group overall, including their use of English and of their mother tongue.

Finally, don’t be too concerned if your students resort to their mother tongue in group work or pair work activities. Sometimes it saves time in the long run, as when they are clarifying instructions before they begin the task. It is worth remembering that if you are doing group work as an alternative to whole class work, then even if only 2 people are using English simultaneously you have doubled the amount of student talk for that time.

FROM ___GOOGLE

MOTHER FIGURE

Housewife Lucy has the difficult job of looking after the children alone whilst her husband is away. This job of looking after the children has taken over her life; so much so that she never leaves the house and doesn't even have the time to change out of her pyjamas. Concerned neighbour Rosemary decides to come around to check on Lucy and to give her the number of her husband Harry who has been trying to call her for a while, and is shocked to find Lucy rushing around trying to look after the children and revealing that she doesn't listen to bells. Rosemary enlists the help of her husband Terry to discover what is wrong with Lucy. Terry is a chauvinist with no respect for Rosemary, and this attitude is clear in the way he speaks to both Lucy and Rosemary. However Lucy, in her permanent state of the "mother", treats the pair in the only way she knows how, as children. This approach quickly puts Terry in his place and puts an end to the petty squabbles between Rosemary and Terry, and the end result is the pair leaving hand in hand (if rather reluctantly).