stani's paper presentation

Activiity based Drills and task oriented Exercises
A. Stanislaus
English is taught all over the world, by all sorts of teachers to all sorts of learners. Schools and classrooms vary enormously in their wealth and their provision of equipment. Learners are very different from place to place. But, whatever the conditions in which you are working, there is one resource which is universal and unlimited: the human mind and imagination. This is probably the one single most valuable teaching and learning resource we have. Nothing can replace it. In even the most ‘hi-tech’ environment, a lack of imagination and humanity will make the most up-to-date and sophisticated resources seem dull; conversely, the simplest resources can be the most exciting and useful. Hadfield & Hadfield (1999)
In the first and the previous RETIF( Regional English Teachers and Inspectors Forum) here at Bukha, I presented an action research report on ’Using modern techniques in teaching English in the Sultanate of Oman’ for which there was overwhelming support and appreciation. Teachers became aware of such materials in the field of education. Many of the teachers responded positively and began to use CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) in their classrooms.
Now, this time I worked sincerely and earnestly right from the time the new academic year began. I started working on the idea of designing ‘activity based drills and task oriented exercises’. This is only for our learners.

The classroom environment each individual have created in our schools need not be the same everywhere. The materials seem to be the same but there are differences in both the users and the environment. Therefore there were some practical difficulties in using CALL in some schools and by some teachers.
‘Going beyond text book’ was the need of the time (five years ago) in English language curriculum in the country. ‘Our World Through English’ (OWTE) is at its fag end in many schools in the Sultanate of Oman. ‘English For Me’ (EFM) is fruitful and is found successful. Language teachers going through the training found it meaningful and enriching. The need of change has been the need of the time especially in the field of language learning.
Language teaching and learning process goes through a continuous change, time and again, in order to be successful in its mission. We, the teachers of English language, are here with the motive to adapt changes, if we think that the change will bring success in our system.
Having crossed successfully a little more than a decade, in this noble profession I personally found ‘adaptation’ in accordance with the rhythm of our pupils would make our mission fruitful and interesting.
Our ultimate aim must be our pupils’ language learning. They should have happy schooling. Whether they accept or not we are their guides, their philosophers and their well wishers. We need to be visionaries. We should be clear in what we are doing. Our way of teaching, the materials we use in the process and the way we assess our pupils should be authentic in their nature because we are accountable for what we do.
Activity based drills
Origin:
Drills and Exercises were in use in ‘Linguaphone’ method of teaching English. The Linguaphone Institute in London introduced such systems both in L1 and L2 learning. As the years passed by, there was a tremendous response to this system of language learning. In my second year of teaching (1991) I was teaching English as a second language for a group of youngsters using Linguaphone method and it attracted many more students. Within a couple of years I founded a spoken English institute named ‘Lincy Lingua Lab’ in India. The journey of search began…
I began to research my classrooms and continue to learn a lot from my pupils
Lamia Al-Sinani and Buthaina Al- Baluchi at ETIC in Muscat (1999) suggested us to do something similar to these drills in their presentation on ‘Those Ten Minutes Left’.
There is a formidable range of materials published worldwide for teachers of English as a Foreign Language. However, many of these materials, especially those published in English-speaking countries, assume that the teachers using them will be working with smallish classes and have abundant resources available to them. Also many, if not most, of these materials make implicit culturally-biased assumptions about the beliefs and values of the teachers and learners. Allan Malley (1999).
This situation is ironic in view of the fact that the vast majority of as a foreign language classrooms do not correspond to all these conditions.
Typically, classes are large, resources are limited, and teachers have very few opportunities for training and professional development. Also, the cultural assumptions of teachers and learners in many parts of the world may vary quite significantly from those of materials, writers and publishers.
‘Activity oriented drills and task oriented exercises’- is an attempt to address this situation. These drills and exercises are typically for our pupils here in the Sultanate. The drills and the exercises are self explanatory. They are directly referred to the activities and tasks of the text. The language is accessible and none of them require sophisticated resources. Instead they call on the basic human resources which all teachers and learners bring with them to class. The language points covered are ones found in a typical situations and topics are those which form part of everybody’s daily lives, for example families, homes, and leisure activities.
I have tried to offer a framework for teachers who need more training and support. The hope and expectation is that such teachers will begin by following each drills and exercises quite closely but, as their confidence increases, will adapt and add to the techniques presented here, responding to the particular needs and abilities of the learners.
As teachers we need to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of our learners. We also need to know the nature our learners’ English. Moreover we must concentrate on our learners’ progress.
Activity based drills and task oriented exercises are communicative in their very nature. They continue or extend where the activity books have stopped. They transfer information (information gap). “A communication exercise in which each of two paired students have information which they must orally relate to each other in order to fill in the “gap” in the information they have. (taken from internet)
The past five years of experience teaches me to adapt and accommodate different methods of teaching together with the present valuable approach.
One of the key elements of communicative methodology has undoubtedly been giving students practice…
These emphasis on activities are intended to replicate important aspects of real-life language use in the classroom, and are based on the conviction practicing “doing things” with language that will be more fruitful than practicing language forms that are out of context(Morrow, K. & Schocker, M.(1997) (Using texts in a communicative approach, ELT Journal 41/4,p.248).
On adapting materials Salem H, Mohammed S., Ahmed H., and Juma M. (2004) at ETIC in Muscat too made some valuable suggestions on why to adapt some materials. According to them we need to adapt materials that are:
· more localized i.e. more specific to pupils’ interest, life experience and culture.
· more communicative i.e. create a need to use the language
· more individualized i.e. teacher adapts to fit the needs of his class

They finally suggested some principles to put into practice by the language teachers. They are:
· flexibility to adapt
· finding opportunities to be creative
· participating in intensive workshops about adaptation and
· taking into account the authenticity of the materials.
As teachers we need to be “motherese”, “parentese”, “caretaker” and be a “kidwatcher” (Interactionists) in our conversation with our learners. The drills are of similar types so as to feel at ease and motivating the does to be reasonable.
My pupils needed these types of drills-

1. to come closer to the text in the context of their own
family, town or village, social institutions and the schools

2. to get acquainted with spoken materials that they learnt

3. to give more spoken practices

4. to pay attention to individuals in the classroom

5. to focus more on the pupils who need remedial help

6. to encourage pair work

7. to give a strong base in the task oriented structures

8. to make pupils to feel at ease in doing the drills in sheets

9. to involve pupils in systematic record keeping

10. to motivate pupils in language learning

11. to create interest in English the most important need.

12. to make use of the gap( ! ? ! ) at the end of the lessons

13. to provide different opportunities to become more
confident
14. to revise the grammar and the structure

15. to change the classroom atmosphere

16. to reinforce outstanding pupils and

17. to find a place for communicative approach within the
Before we begin to use such materials we need to ask ourselves the following questions:

1. Is it a controlled or free activity?

2. Does it focus on the meaning of the form?

3. Does it encourage fluency or accuracy?

4. Is there a real life purpose and is there any information transfer?

5. Is there an outcome? For example is there any pupil production?

6. Do we use language in a purposeful situation so that there a meaningful outcome?

7. Does it enable pupils to bring the outside world to the classroom?

8. Does it capture pupils’ attention and evoke their motivation, Focus on fluency rather than accuracy?

9. Does it allow them to speak freely and use their own language?
Task oriented Exercises
Task based exercises are different than Activity oriented drills in their aim and function. The importance is given to grammar rather than spoken drills. It reflects learners’ ability to recall the grammar point they have learnt.
Highlights:

1. All the sheets are designed in a particular format.

2. Units, activities and tasks they refer to are mentioned.

3. Pupils have to write their names in every sheet they work on.

4. All the sheets need to be dated so as to file them in order.

Approach:

1. Use OHP for a difference

2. Tell pupils that these drills and exercises they work on
will be used for informal assessment.

3. Explain the grammatical point of each drill and exercise.

4. Make sure that the learners do not just copy the answers.
Conclusion:
This is one of the few attempts to address the problems of the ‘silent majority’ of the teachers, and few resources to work with.
Make necessary changes and enjoy teaching. Find the gap; fill in with these types of drills and exercises. Hope you too will design such drills and exercises according to the local need of your pupils and enrich your pupils’ English language learning.
I have designed them and copied them in 3.5 floppy so that you can modify and change any such drills and exercises which you feel are to be modified and changed according to the need of your pupils. Of course teachers should have the right to do so! You are accountable to what you do. You are responsible for all that you do.
References
1. Hadfield & Hadfield (1999) Simple Speaking Activities, OUP

2. Interactionists theory of language learning

3. Lamia S., & Buthaina (1999) ‘Those Ten Minutes Left’ in ETIC
At Muscat
4. Linguaphone Institute Limited, London

5. Malley A. (1999), Foreward : Hadfield & Hadfield’s Simple
Speaking Activities, OUP
6. Morrow, K. & Schocker, M.(1997)(Using texts in a
communicative approach, ELT Journal 41/4, p.248).
7. Nixon C. & Tominlson M. (2001) ‘Primary Activity Box’ CUP

8. Nunan D. (1989) Designing tasks for the communicative
Classroom, CUP
9. Salem H., Mohammed S., Ahmed H., & Juma M. (2004)
‘Adapting Materials’ a presentation jointly done at
ETIC in Muscat