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Thursday, May 25, 2006
Speak out: Teaching English well
By Howard P. Devilleres
Department of Education, Cebu City Division
English as a second language can be taught through modeling. One can learn English by speaking it.
Note that one characteristic of language is that it is basically and primarily spoken. So, in learning a language one has to speak it at the same time.
In this paradigm, the focal point is the teacher as model. The mentor is an effective teaching aid to facilitate the learning of the English language in the classroom setting.
The teacher must therefore equip himself with the proper facility of expression that deserves to be imitated by the learners. That is one perspective in modeling.
Why is English not successfully taught in the classroom? One reason is that the classroom facilitator is not fluent in speaking the language himself.
Even in the teaching of other subjects that use English as medium of instruction, the model is not usually a good speaker of the language. The English is sometimes terrible.
Why is this happening? For all we know, only very few mentors are qualified to teach English as a subject. The ability of the teacher to speak the language is already a contributory to failure.
Suggestions
There is a need to recover and rehabilitate the mode of teaching in line with the revised basic education curriculum. A few points:
--Education must be reflective of the past. It must refer to the past years’ learning experience and evaluate and gauge it as to how far the children have gone in learning the language.
--Education must be responsive of the present. It must produce a product (new teachers) that can cope with society’s present needs and demands. Educational institutions must refine their finished products---their student teachers---to answer the present needs of the learners. They should produce teachers who can speak English very well.
--Education must be speculative of the future. The education department must anticipate what will happen in the schools after the years of teaching English as a subject using poor teachers. With that kind of teachers, learning is futile.
Teachers, to be proficient in English, must master the skills. They must be fully trained and well developed in speaking the language.
What will teaching institutions do to make mentors effective in teaching English? What will happen to the schools if this problem remains unattended?
Reengineering
Schools offering education courses must reengineer their lineup of subjects.
There’s not much of a problem with students taking up English as his major subject. But if he majors in other subjects like Math, Science or Filipino, then he should be made to take English as his minor subject.
This is to provide the teachers with the tools in teaching the elementary school subjects effectively. How can a teacher teach well if he lacks the ability to express his idea?
A shift in paradigm is needed to answer the present needs in the field of education.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (May 25, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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