What is Realia?

What is Realia? And what does ‘realia’ mean?

The word ‘realia’, sounds a little like a little bit too scientific for the English classroom! If you have come across this word in textbooks, and are pondering what it means, the word realia means using real items found in the world around us as an aid to teaching English. Using realia, helps to make English lessons memorable, it creates a link between the objects, and the word or phrase they show. So how should teachers use realia in the classroom?

Why use realia?

The use of realia is only limited by your imagination and possibly practicality too. Using realia stimulates the mind, and bring vocabulary to life like no other visual aid can. Students can, touch it, smell it, and maybe (though not always) even taste it! Realia saves time, as recognition of an object is often immediate although there could be some exceptions, depending on where you are teaching. Elicitation immediately becomes much easier, and holding up the object with a raised eyebrow, will usually result in the desired word being spoken.

Realia breathes life into new vocabulary, and the chances of your students remembering the new words you have taught them, increases. Take the word, biscuit: the probability of remembering the word becomes much higher after experiencing the taste, touch and smell of the object! Realia does not have to be limited to food or drink. Timetables, tickets, newspapers, and clothes; in fact any object you can think of can be used as a teaching aid.

Won’t I get some funny looks if I bring tea bags into my lesson?

Possibly, yes! However, after the initial surprise, both adults and children warm to this approach. Bringing realia into your lessons is a great icebreaker, and adults usually find this approach fun, and refreshing method of learning vocabulary. Passing a teacup to your students, is a great way of eliciting phrases such as ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

Many adults have had bad experiences of learning English at school, remember their English lessons as simply being dull. Realia as the benefit of really grabbing students attention, and prompting them to speak

Realia for young learners

Young learners like nothing better than playing with plastic toys. Use this to your advantage! If you can’t include food and drink, then take along a plastic tea-set. Learning animal names? Then take along some soft toys! It probably isn’t going to be possible to bring along a giraffe, but plastic toys work beautifully! Bring in fruit, vegetables, and lots of toys. Get your young learners moving animal about, create a mini farmyard, and move those animals into the field, the barn, or the farmyard. If this sounds like too much work, then make it a class project! Children love making things, and this would be one method of learning vocabulary, which your children will not forget!

What else can I use realia for?

More ideas? Well, realia can also be used to demonstrate grammatical structures. Use realia for counting objects, for demonstrating the difference between ‘The rabbit is on the chair’ and ‘The rabbit is under the table.’ Use realia to demonstrate the difference between ‘is’ and ‘are’ (There is one sweet, there are two sweets).

Realia in Roleplay

Don’t stop at using realia to learn vocabulary or grammar. Realia is suited to role-plays and immediately bring realism into the roleplay. Students are much more likely to warm to those waiter role plays if they can give you cup. It is surprising how much difference realia makes! Your students are much more likely to feel at home practising a phone conversation on a mobile phone than without one. Using realia, is only limited by your imagination: here are some ideas on how to use realia in your lessons.

Quick Ideas!

• Take along a hat, scarf, gloves, to introduce winter/winter activities
• Stage a fashion show after learning the vocabulary for items of clothing
• Use those plastic tea sets, and animals, for your children
• Bring in some plastic cups, and saucers, and roleplay waiter scenario Teaching business English?
• Taking a business class? Make use of mobile phones to create realistic telephone conversations. Use diaries, to schedule meetings, and plan events
•

References

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/realia
http://iteslj.org/Articles/Smith-Realia.html
http://www.stephenhenryconsulting.com/letter/dr_lozanov.php

10 ways to survive TEFL teaching

10 ways to survive TEFL teaching

Do you want to improve your teaching skills? Have you just started teaching, or would like new ideas? Is so, keep reading! I always like to refresh my skills, and my lessons-it's all too easy to get stuck into the same lesson plans, and the same activities. If you've already been teaching for a number of years, keep reading, and feel free to add suggestions in the comments box.

1. Go in with a plan.

Sounds simple, and logical, doesn’t it? Surprising how many people don’t bother, and then wonder why students are getting bored.

2. Prepare Extension activities

There are always bright sparks in the class, who finish super quickly! Have a simple extension task to do so they don’t get bored. This doesn’t have to be a worksheet, as long it is a well thought out task. You’ve just had a lesson on adjectives, and they’ve written a simple description in two minutes flat (it was supposed to take 10 mins) So give them a picture to write a longer description, get them practising their speaking skills and asking/answering questions about the picture, ask the students to imagine they walked into the picture (it could be a room, or a place); Get the students to describe how they feel and why, not just describe what they see.

3. Always recap knowledge

Don’t presume that now your class has ‘learnt’ something that they are going to remember it. No that would be far too easy! Include vocabulary learned in a previous lesson and incorporate the new vocabulary, play a memory game at the beginning of your lesson to warm up. There are lots of ways to reinforce students’ knowledge.

4. Try and tap into the interests of your pupils

Again, this can be difficult on a one-to-one basic. Don’t make my mistake and teach Spike Milligan’s ‘Can a Parrott eat a carrot’, if your student is into racing cars. Always tap into your students interests, no matter how boring you may find the subject.

5. Have a ‘bag of tricks’

What do I mean by a bag of tricks? When you begin teaching, sometimes things do ‘go wrong’. No matter how hard you plan, you will inevitably get caught out! This is because you yourself are still learning! So have a game, or a quick activity, break your students into groups and brainstorm a subject. Buy yourself some time to collect your thoughts

6. Take notes

When something goes wrong, don’t blame your students! Do not wallow in ‘I’m such a bad teacher’ mode either-this is not productive. Every good teacher has made (and still makes) mistakes; get over it! Instead, do something constructive. Make a note of what went wrong, and try and work out why it went wrong. This will help you become a better teacher, and hopefully prevent you from repeating the mistake.

7. Create a bank of useful games

Games used well can be very useful (click here for ideas). Games needn’t be riotous affairs, or a waste of time providing they are well thought through. Personally, I am not a fan of dice games or simply reading out cards, however they do provide a good starting point and there are always exceptions to the rule. There are games to practise every skill, and for every ability.

8. Use a variety of media!

A picture tells a thousand words! Use a clip from a film (emotions, setting the scene); use for teaching grammar (present continuous-What is he doing?) and prediction (What do you think he will do next?).

9. If you are bored, your class is going to be bored too.

If you are bored with your lesson then the chances are your class will be too. This is where you need to think about the pace of your class. Look around you-are students looking out the windows when you are talking? Are you giving long-winded explanations that they haven’t a hope of understanding. Or could your activities do with a refresh?

10. Try and balance your class

There is a sense sometimes from some TEFL videos, that if the class isn’t ecstatic with enjoyment, then you the teacher are doing something wrong. This is true of almost every marketing video out there. I would like suggest another view. If your class is going wild all the time they are not learning as much as they should be. Timetable in quiet working time (for your own sanity) speaking time, and the fun time too. If you utilize all four skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) you won’t go far wrong.

The PPP Approach

A closer look at the presentation section of the PPP model in an elementary level lesson

The presentation is the most important part of your lesson. Do not rush through this part of the lesson; this is where you ensure your students gain the confidence to speak and use the language. Without sufficient time spent drilling, students will be unable to do the practice exercises.

In the presentation section of your lesson you need to show the meaning of the language, test the meaning of the language, drill the language, and make sure it is written up on the board, unless you are teaching very young children.

Show the meaning

Flashcards, mime and presenting the target language in a short conversation and in context, all help students to understand the meaning of language.
Words are meaningless on their own, so always try and put your sentences into a simple, natural conversation.

Let’s take a few simple sentences:
This is cat. (show a flashcard of a cat)
This is a dog (show flashcard of dog)
This is a rabbit (show flashcard of rabbit)

Make sure you drill each sentence.

Put your target language into a short conversation

Conversational language should be presented ideally in a short role-play; a question and answer scenario usually works well. It is not enough to write one short sentence on the board, when teaching a grammar-e.g. ‘This is a dog’. This could mean anything to the student, who is presented with this sentence for the first time.

So how do we put this into a short conversation, and how on earth does our brain make sense of this? Well, without banding about pseudo science, I prefer to think of it as simple logic.

What's this?

It's a _________________

Flashcard of dog!

Using concept checking questions to check meaning.

To test the logic or meaning of these sentences, we could do the following:

Show a flashcard, and wait for your students to say ‘This is a __________’. However, to double check whether students understand this sentence, we could show a flashcard of a cat and ask the question:
What's this? (look puzzled)
It's a dog,

However, just to double check your students have understood, we could also do the following:

Teacher shows flashcard of a rabbit:
T: Is this a cat? (points to the rabbit with puzzled look)
Sts: No.
Teacher: No it's not, it’s a rabbit (Teacher gets class to repeat, sentence)

Teacher shows flashcard of a dog:
T: Is this a cat?
Sts:Yes, it’s a dog
T: Yes, it’s a dog, that’ right!

Now the meaning of the sentence has been checked and both the meaning and structure reinforced.

Drilling (repetition)

Drilling is simply getting the class to repeat together the sentence they are learning (target language). This can be done gradually over the presentation part of your lesson. Individual students may find it intimidating if you, the teacher expect students to say the sentence by themselves in front of the class, so if you hear students getting the sentence wrong, try getting the class to repeat the sentence a couple of times, rather than embarrass the student. This also gives the class additional practice! However, some students may relish getting the opportunity to perform.

Showing how a sentence is structured

Short sentences such as ‘This is a cat’ can easily be written up on the board, and there is little room for confusion here.

What's this?
This is a cat
a dog
a monkey
an elephant

and
Is this a cat?
Yes it is. /No it isn’t.

So how can help students make sense of how a longer sentence and show its structure. Let's think about the following sentence:

Yesterday, Jean went to the park, with her friends.

To show how a sentence is structured (or built up) we can write it up with key questions, to help students understand how the sentence is structured. There is no need for grammatical terms, to further puzzle students!

When? Who did what? with whom?
Yesterday Jean went to the park with her friends
Last week I played tennis with Eva
Last Saturday Bob went shopping with Jean

Now, the sentence is broken up into logical chunks, and there are keywords at the top of each chunk to help the students understand which part of the sentence goes where

What is language

Blogging For ELT

Blogging for ELT

This article takes a look at blogging, which is becoming increasingly popular as a language learning tool. It gives an overview of blogging websites, suggests why you might want to use them, and gives some practical advice on setting up blogs for use with your own classes.

What is a blog?

A blog (short for weblog) is a frequently updated website that often resembles an online journal. It's so easy to create and update a blog - it requires only basic access to the Internet, and a minimum of technical know-how. Because of this, it is one of the easiest ways to publish student writing on the WWW. It's almost as easy as sending an email.

Nowadays, blogs can also display photos and some people are using them with audio and even video, but this article will concentrate on the basics, showing how a simple text-based blog can be used to great effect with your English language learners.

Types of blogs used in language teaching

Aaron Campbell (2003) has outlined three types of blogs for use with language classes:

The Tutor Blog is run by the teacher of a class. The content of this type of blog can be limited to syllabus, course information, homework, assignments, etc. Or the teacher may choose to write about his or her life, sharing reflections about the local culture, target culture and language to stimulate online and in-class discussion. In this type of blog, students are normally restricted to being able to write comments to the teacher's posts. A great example of this is Aaron Campbell's own 'The New Tanuki' http://thenewtanuki.blogspot.com/

The Class Blog is a shared space, with teacher and students being able to write to the main area. It is best used as a collaborative discussion space, an extra-curricular extension of the classroom. Students can be encouraged to reflect in more depth, in writing, on themes touched upon in class. Students are given a greater sense of freedom and involvement than with the tutor blog. A very good example of what has been done with this type of blog is Barbara Dieu's 'Bee Online' http://beeonline.blogspot.com/) and 'Bee Online 2' http://beeonline2.blogspot.com/

The Learner Blog is the third type of blog and it requires more time and effort from the teacher to both set up and moderate, but is probably the most rewarding. It involves giving each student an individual blog. The benefit of this is that this becomes the student's own personal online space. Students can be encouraged to write frequently about what interests them, and can post comments on other students' blogs. For examples, see the links to learner blogs from the class blog and tutor blog examples above.

Of course, teachers who decide to use blogs often use a combination of Tutor or Class blog and Learner blogs, with hyperlinks connecting them.

Why blog?

So, why should you blog with your students? There are many reasons why you may choose to use weblogs with students. One of the best reasons is to provide a real audience for student writing. Usually, the teacher is the only person who reads student writing, and the focus of this reading is usually on form, not content. With weblogs, students can find themselves writing for a real audience that, apart from the teacher, may include their peers, students from other classes, or even other countries, their parents, and potentially anyone with access to the Internet.Here are some other reasons for using blogs:

To provide extra reading practice for students.

This reading can be produced by the teacher, other students in the same class, or, in the case of comments posted to a blog, by people from all over the world.
As online student learner journals that can be read by their peers. The value of using learner journals has been well documented. Usually they are private channels between teacher and student. Using a blog as a learner journal can increase the audience.
To guide students to online resources appropriate for their level.The Internet has a bewildering array of resources that are potentially useful for your students. The problem is finding and directing your learners to them. For this reason, you can use your tutor blog as a portal for your learners.

To increase the sense of community in a class.

A class blog can help foster a feeling of community between the members of a class, especially if learners are sharing information about themselves and their interests, and are responding to what other students are writing.

To encourage shy students to participate.

There is evidence to suggest that students who are quiet in class can find their voice when given the opportunity to express themselves in a blog.

To stimulate out-of-class discussion.

A blog can be an ideal space for pre-class or post-class discussion. And what students write about in the blog can also be used to promote discussion in class.

To encourage a process-writing approach.

Because students are writing for publication, they are usually more concerned about getting things right, and usually understand the value of rewriting more than if the only audience for their written work is the teacher.

As an online portfolio of student written work.

There is much to be gained from students keeping a portfolio of their work. One example is the ease at which learners can return to previous written work and evaluate the progress they have made during a course.

To help build a closer relationship between students in large classes.

Sometimes students in large classes can spend all year studying with the same people without getting to know them well. A blog is another tool that can help bring students together.

Where to start

There are lots of sites where you can set up a blog for free, but perhaps the best known and one of the most reliable and simple blogging tools to use with students is Blogger (http://blogger.com/). It takes only fifteen minutes from setting up an account to publishing the first post using this valuable tool.
The teacher sets up the tutor blog or a class blog. With a Class blog, students will need to be invited to participate by e-mail. Learner blog accounts can either be set up beforehand by the teacher, or done at the same time with a whole class in a computer room. The former gives the teacher more control of student accounts, but some advantages of the latter is that learners are given more choice (of username, design of the blog, etc) and a greater sense of 'ownership' of their new virtual writing space.

Tips for managing learner blog settings

Use the 'Settings' in Blogger to add yourself (under Members) as Administrator of the learner blog. This is invaluable if students later forget usernames or passwords, and can also help if inappropriate posts are published

Make sure you change the setting and turn the 'Comments' feature on. This will allow the others to respond to things the students write on their learner blogs.

Also in 'Settings', you will find an option to receive an email whenever a student publishes their blog. This will save you time regularly checking learner blogs to see if any of your students have posted. Another way of being informed of this is to use the 'Site Feed' function (discussed further below).

Keeping students interested

Many teachers who start to use blogs find the novelty factor is enough to create student interest in starting to use them. However, blogs work best when learners get into the habit of using them. If learners are not encouraged to post to their blogs frequently, then they can quickly be abandoned. A failed experiment. Here, the teacher in the role of facilitator is vital for maintaining student interest. Here are some ideas to how this can be done:
Respond to student posts quickly, writing a short comment related to the content. Ask questions about what the learner writes to create stimulus for writing.

Students should be actively encouraged to read and respond (through the commenting feature of the blog) to their classmates.

Writing to the blog could be required, and it may form part of the class assessment. Students should be encouraged to post their writing homework on the blog instead of only giving it to the teacher.

Some ideas for activities

Mystery guest. Invite another teacher or someone from another school or country as a mystery guest to your blog. Ask the students to engage him or her in dialogue and guess their identity.
Project work. A blog is an ideal space for developing a project, especially if the project is a shared one between several classes or even classes in different countries.

International link-ups.

Contact another educational establishment to see if they are interested in a joint blogging project. Students can write about their lives, culture, interests, etc, and be encouraged to read about the other class and respond by writing comments.

Photoblog.

If you plan on using photographs in your blog, there are lots of tools available to help you. Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/) makes publishing photographs to blogs easy. If you want to make photographs central to the blog, however, it is better to use a blogging tool such as Buzznet (http://www.buzznet.com/), which is a photo publishing tool and blog rolled into one.

Pitfalls to watch out for

Unwanted comments. To avoid unwanted comments, you can always restrict comments to people in the class or to registered bloggers.

Correction. It is difficult to use a blog for correcting students. Student written work can always be corrected before posting to the blog, or you can do class correction sessions using work published in the blogs.
Privacy. By their very nature, most blogs are public. Anyone with access to the Web can find and read a blog, and write comments (if this feature has been turned on). If privacy is an issue, then you will be better off using a blogging tool that allows different levels of access rights. Live Journal http://www.livejournal.com/ is a good choice, and is particularly popular with teenagers . Live Journal allows the setting up of a closed community, which could be restricted to the members of a class or to a wider circle including other classes, parents, etc.
Advanced feature
The easiest way to keep track of a lot of learner blogs is to use the 'Site Feed' feature. You will need to use another piece of software called a newsreader or aggregator to read site feeds. Using a newsreader means your e-mail in-box won't become cluttered with posted messages from students publishing their weblogs. One of the most popular, free web-based newsreaders is Bloglines http://www.bloglines.com/.
The BBC and British Council are not responsible for the content of external web sites.Further reading
Blog-efl. My own blog with information and comments for teachers of EFL/ESL interested in using blogs http://blog-efl.blogspot.com/'Weblogs for use with ESL classes' Campbell AP (2003) http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Campbell-Weblogs.html

Metode Kualitatif

Metode kualitatif juga sering dipadakan dengan :
1. Metode penelitian naturalistik, karena dilakukan pada kondisi yang alamiah
2. Metode Etnography, karena pada awalnya penelitian dipakai pada bidang antropologi budaya.

Sejarah penelitian ini dipengaruhi oleh filsafat post-positivisme yang juga sering disebut sebagai paradigma interpretif dan konstruktif, yang memandang realitas sosial sebagai sesuatu yang holistik/utuh, kompleks, dinamis dan penuh makna, dan hubungan gejala bersifat interaktif.Penelitian dilakukan pada obyek yang alamiah, yaitu obyek yang berkembang apa adanya , tidak dimanipulasi oleh peneliti dan kehadirannya tidak mempengaruhi dinamika pada obyek tersebut. Dalam penelitian ini orang akan berfungsi sebagai instrumenya atau human instrument, yaitu si peneliti itu sendiri. Sehingga untuk menjadi instrumen seorang peniliti harus dibekali teori dan wawasan luas dalam bertanya,menganalisa, memotret dan akhirnya mengkonstruksikan situasi sosial yang diteliti menjadi lebih bermakna.

Penelitian Kuantitatif

Metode Kuantitatif kadang juga disebut sebagai :

1. Metode tradisional, karena sudah lama dipakai dalam dunia penelitian dan sudah mentradisi.

2. Metode positivistik, karena dilandasi oleh filsafat positivisme.

3. Metode ilmiah/scientific, karena memenuhi kaidah-kaidah ilmiah yaitu konkrit/empiris, obyektif, terukur, rasional dan sistematis.

4. Metode discovery, karena metode ini dapat mengembangkan berbagai iptek baru.

5. Metode kuantitatif, karena data penelitian berupa angka-angka dan anilisisnya memakai statistik.

Maka metode kuantitatif dapat diartikan sebagai metode penelitian yang berlandaskan pada filsafat positivisme, digunakan untuk meneliti pada populasi atau sampel tertentu, teknik pengambilan sampel pada umumnya dilakukan secara random, pengumpulan datanya menggunakan instrumen penelitian, analisis data bersifat kuantitatif/statistik dengan tujuan untuk menguji hipotesis yang telah ditetapkan.