English Messages - April Newsletter

Year 1

Issue 4

April 2012

English Messages A Monthly Newsletter by and for teachers in Bahrain

Let Earth Day 2012 Inspire You! Earth day is meant to inspire the public to take better care of the environment and learn to take pride in the environment. The original Earth Day was used as a teaching day to get the public more informed about the environmental impact humans were making.

Since then, the basic message of the day is the same, but it has been taken much further. Since this original celebration Earth Day has become an international holiday. Several environmental groups have also started participating in an Earth week.

During this week, these organizations host several different programs that educate their communities about the different aspects of Earth and how to take better care of Earth. Each year, Earth Day celebrations have become more and more elaborate with an ever increasing audience.

Different activities are held to acknowledge Earth Day. Each participating country holds their own activities which can be seen on the international Earth Day webpage. Last year, groups across the globe began to enter into active communication with their government officials concerning environmental policy. These groups began to make moves toward getting schools and business to recycle as well as take other actions towards preserving our environment.

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You read in our Third Issue: Environmental Education Programs Critical thinking Classroom observation Testing in Practice Reflecting Upon the Material Free Posters

Kingdom of Bahrain - Ministry of Education - English Language Unit (Basic Education)… English Messages—Year 1—Issue 4

English Messages

Environmental Education Programs !Many countries also began environmental educat i o n p r o grams for children so environmental conservation would start at a younger age. Of course, Bahrain like most world states, has included lots of lessons dealing with environmental issues in its curricula to encourage students to take an active role in the preservation of the country’s resources.

Other, more recreational, activities are also held each year in different parts of the world. Many national parks hold nature walks in hopes that these will inspire more environmental responsibility.

Other groups organize clean-ups to clear trash and make the environment more livable.

A big push for more child appropriate programs has also been seen throughout recent years.

Nearly every community holds some sort of Earth Day activity. All you have to do is talk with your students about Earth Day and see what activities they may suggest. Don’t waste more time.

Think green and let’s together ensure a better future for Bahrain and the whole world.

English Language Unit Basic Education

Like all human beings we, too, do care in Bahrain Definitely we all strive to live in a healthy and safe environment. Life would have no value and no taste without greenness. Like most countries worldwide Bahrain is making great efforts to protect the environment and ensure a green future for the upcoming generations. Actually a big number of fantastic parks was built during the last ten years. I remember that one of my friends once told me that what Bahrain is doing is really amazing. The country is investing huge amounts of money to build those parks and ensure a healthy and safe environment for its citizens.

Let them realize how essential it is to preserve endangered species, how crucial it is to care for our future and the future of our planet.

Don’t forget to take cameras with you as the scenes you may capture are really gorgeous.

After you finish your trip, ask your students to draw a poster, write a story or a report about the place or even about the challenges our planet is facing.

As a matter of fact, I think that all teachers should realize that one of the key purposes of our current curriculum is to build global citizens who worry about the future of mankind and do their utmost to preserve the stability and integrity of our planet.

Next April 22, 2012 the majority of countries worldwide will be celebrating Earth Day. And like all human beings we, too, do care here in Bahrain.

Invite your students for a short walk in Dohat Arad. I’m sure you would spend unforgettable moments together. Invite their science teacher and seize the opportunity to tell students about the value of such projects.

You could also ask them to prepare a PowerPoint presentation about Dohat Arad and to describe some of the photos they have taken.

By Mr. Emad Abdulla Al Sediri Curriculum Specialist

English Messages

CRITICAL THINKING: WHY IT COUNTS? “The future now belongs to societies that organize themselves for learning…nations that want high incomes, and full employment must develop policies that emphasize the acquisition of knowledge and skills by everyone, not just a select few.” Ray Marshall and Mark Tucker, Thinking for a Living, 1992.

skeptical without being cynical. It is open-minded without being wishy-washy. It is analytical without being nitpicky. Critical thinking can be decisive without being stubborn, evaluative without being judgmental, and forceful without being opinionated.”

While trying to probe the complexity and relevance of the process of critical thinking, experts have focused on what they think is at the very CORE OF CRITICAL THINKING. They have listed a number of cognitive skills and dispositions including: interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation and self-regulation.

There have been many attempts to define THINKING. Scientists, psychologists and educationalists have all tried to come up with a definition that reflects the subtle complexity inherit to this psychological process.

Researchers have, nevertheless, been more successful in categorizing the various forms and manifestations of What might a generation be like if it lacked these thinking, hence the familiarity of terms such as creative, dispositions? It would most probably be a generation that: analytical, basic, effective, convergent, lateral, inductive, • Does not care much about anything, productive, reflective, holistic, cognitive, mathematical, • Is not interested in the facts, abstract, practical, ineffective, complex, divergent, vertical, • Prefers not to think, deductive, logical, impulsive, meta-cognitive, analytical, • Mistrusts reasoning and as a way of finding concrete, scientific, verbal and critical thinking. things out or solving problems, • Holds his or her own reasoning abilities in low DEFINING CRITICAL THINKING: esteem, • Is close minded, • Inflexible, The Expert Consensus Statement has summarized • Insensitive, thorough research about critical thinking (CT) and the • Is unfair when it comes to judging the quality of critical thinker as follows: arguments, “ We understand CT to be purposeful, self-regulatory • Denies his or her own biases, judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, • Jumps to conclusions or delays too long in evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of making judgment, evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological or • Is never willing to reconsider an opinion. contextual considerations upon which that judgment is based. As such CT is a liberating force in education and a powerful resource in one’s personal and civic life.[…] The ideal critical thinker is habitually inquisitive, well-informed, trustful of reason, open-minded, flexible, fair-minded in evaluation, honest in facing personal biases, prudent in making judgments, willing to reconsider. […] Thus educating strong critical thinkers means working towards this ideal. It combines developing CT skills with nurturing those dispositions which consistently yield useful insights and which are the basis of a rational and democratic society.” (Emphasis added) Facione, 2011, explains the last idea emphasized in the definition in a really attractive way: “Critical Thinking is

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Now, does this remind you of something?!

Does this mean that societies need to invest much more money, time and energy to foster the value of critical thinking? The answer is most probably YES.

By Mr. Adel Ashoor, Al Maari Primary Boys School, Muharraq

Year 1

Issue 4

Classroom Observation Feedback

By Mr. Noaman Amara*

By attending my colleague's English class as part of our school's policy of inter-teachers classroom visits, I have learned a lot. Indeed, I have jotted down notices about each part of the lesson on the classroom observation sheet I had and wrote down other commentaries for the sake of my evaluation of the lesson.

From the very beginning, the teacher started by greeting his students, while smiling, and this was a good class routine especially for beginners so as to create a friendly and positive atmosphere where learning can take place. Then, the teacher started the lesson with a guessing game activity in order to review and reinforce the target vocabulary by using flash cards. In fact, using extra material -such as attractive flash cards- motivated students to participate in the game. Besides, in order to memorize the new vocabulary items I realized that it was essential to recycle them and then consolidate them. This is why my colleague’s students were very engaged and willing to participate.

The second activity was about a poster of a house. The aim was that students would be able to recognize vocabulary and use prepositions (in/on/under) in context. What I really admired was the way volunteers used known vocabulary to answer their teacher's questions.

However, what I sincerely appreciated most was the teacher's awareness of "when to correct [pronunciation] errors and how to do that without any hurt or humiliation". In fact, while eliciting answers from the students, it was a good opportunity to correct pronunciation errors and help them with sentence structures.

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The third activity was about spelling the names of the rooms. The boys told the teacher how to write the names of the rooms on the board, without referring to the poster. In this activity, I admired the way the teacher guided his students to correct each other while spelling out the names of the rooms (bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, sitting room). I also noticed the importance of peer-correction. Actually, in a learnercentered classroom, teachers are advised to start with self-correction, then peer-correction and finally teacher correction (Amara, N. 2009).

The aim of the fourth activity was that students be able to label the rooms on the worksheet of the house. The boys wrote the room names on their individual worksheets. At this stage, I enjoyed the way the teacher monitored and assisted weaker students, but what I liked most was the peer-correction technique adopted for correcting this writing activity.

In f act, after most of the students gave their answers orally, the teacher guided the students of each group to exchange their worksheets so that each worksheet would be checked and corrected by another member of the same group, which was a good application of cooperative learning!

(Read more on page 5)

Year 1

Issue 4

Classroom Observation Feedback

By Mr. Noaman Amara*

Activity five was devoted to story-time. The aim of this activity was to introduce a new story entitled "Terrible Tiger". What was noticeable at the beginning of the story was the way the teacher prepared the setting of the story. He switched off the lights of the room and put on the projector light so that the focus is on him as if he were on stage, and students could notice his "shadow", a new keyword in the story. Besides, while telling the story, he used a big story book in which there were pictures of the terrible tiger and its body parts. In addition, the teacher wanted to create a scary atmosphere so as to enable his students to understand other new vocabulary items like "terrible", "go away", "don't stay", "claws", "jaws", "tail", etc.

By the end, the teacher distributed a second worksheet for his students to reorder the pictures according to the events of the story. What I really appreciated was essentially the fact that the teacher accepted every contribution from each student and later guided his students so that they all reach a unanimous decision about the correct order of the events. The teacher also assigned a homework activity asking each of his students to color and cut the pictures so that they can make their own story book.

To summarize, I can say that by observing my colleague's lesson, I learned a lot from his way of teaching and his management of the classroom. I realized the importance of creating a positive and friendly classroom atmosphere for young learners. This encouraged them to participate and not to fear making errors and mistake.

Although, the teacher missed to mention the stages of the lesson for his students at the beginning, and although he didn't share the objectives of the lesson with his, the lesson was Actually, the teacher used simple and purhighly successful. poseful questions to introduce the story like "Can you see my shadow?"; "Is the boy What I would like to say is that classroom obhappy?"; "Where is the terrible tiger?", "Where servation is a good strategy to improve one’s is the boy?", etc. It was clear that the boys teaching practices. It’s simple, but it’really were enjoying the activity and managed to unhelps you progress and flourish. derstand all the new lexical items. *By Mr. Noaman Amara (Religious Institute, Al-Jufair, Manama) Page 5

English Messages

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English Messages

What Makes a GOOD TEST? 1– Reliability: 2–

A test is reliable if it accurately and consistently evaluates a student’s performance. In general, ambiguous questions, unclear instructions, very short tests and vague grading criteria threaten reliability. Also, highly challenging questions affect student’s performance and consequently affect the reliability of exams.

Validity: 3– Contextualization:

One important concept in testing is validity. Teachers have to design valid and balanced tests by reference to the objectives of the course they are teaching. A good analysis of the skill areas involved and the content taught in class always ensures high levels of validity

Focusing on form and ignoring meaning is a major defect in tests. Instructions should be clear and well-contextualized to give students a chance to better understand and reflect on the questions. For example, it is always important to provide a clear context for the productive task (writing)

Never trap your students! Don’t just test their Intelligence and Alertness 4– Authenticity:

A test should be authentic, namely, the teacher should construct his tests out of materials extracted from authentic works such as novels, newspapers, magazines, speeches, interviews, songs, letters, advertisements, diaries… Teachers have to adapt those materials to the level of their students by reducing length, replacing unfamiliar lexical items and modifying culturally inappropriate details.

5– Practicality:

In addition to the above mentioned criteria, consideration must also be given to practical matters such as time indication, length, printing quality and presentation. Numbering paragraphs, questions, indicating the point value (marking scheme) of all tasks and leaving enough space for the productive task are key features of good tests. Even providing a special space for teachers to grade exams and for students to write some of their personal details are very crucial components which should never be overlooked.

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English Messages

Year 1

Issue 4

Brief Guidelines For Final Exams 1– Listening

2– Reading

3– Writing

Teachers have to continuously evaluate and test their students’ listening skills. In final exams rubrics have to be clear, precise and concise. Besides, topics should be suitable for the learners’ age, interests and culture.

Multiple choice, matching, information transfer, note-taking and gap-filling are types of questions to be included in our exams. We have intentionally chosen these types of questions because they are highly objective and reliable.

In addition, they are less timeconsuming for both students (during the exam) and teachers (after the exam)

Reading is one of the basic skills that receives a great deal of attention and care in our educational system. Like listening, this paramount skill could be tested in different ways. We have decided to choose the following types of questions to be able to construct GOOD tests which objectively and precisely measure our students’ reading skills and the levels of proficiency they have achieved. Questions could vary from cloze tests, multiple choice options, True/ False statements, W/H questions to information transfer tasks. We always have to start with easier questions and move towards some more challenging tasks. Also, we have to respect and follow the structure of the text while constructing questions so that students won’t jump from one paragraph to another without any logic or order.

Writing tasks have changed.

They have become more humanistic, more realistic and less sophisticated. We test our students’ ability to produce ideas and express themselves in different contexts. Based on what they have seen in class, we expect our students to be able to tackle a wide range of tasks confidently, independently and professionally. Writing topics and styles should be within the experience and interests of intermediate level students. They should reflect the various writing techniques and strategies our students have acquired in class. Our students will often be given the opportunity to express themselves freely and show the extent of their command and mastery of the English language in clear, realistic and well-contextualized tasks.

GOOD TESTS objectively and precisely measure our students’ reading skills and the levels of proficiency they have achieved.

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English Messages

“Reflecting upon the Material� By Mr Iyadh Labadi * On March 20th,Tariq Bin Zeiyed Intermediate school English Department headed by the senior teacher Mr. Hussein Qussim hosted cooperative schools English teachers to take part in a workshop entitled; Reflecting upon the Material. The workshop was prepared and conducted by Mr. Iyadh Labadi.

What is it about?

We teachers know much more how to do things than why we're doing them! This idea goes, in fact, straight to the heart of a central concept in language teaching. That's our need to get into the habit of critical reflection.

With an insight into different assumptions of the reading process, the rationale for different reading tasks and classroom techniques, the workshop works largely with developing teachers' drive to have full awareness of what they're doing.

In a communicative English language teaching environment, our task as teachers goes beyond familiarizing students with a text in the target language or testing their ability to "understand" it. It is developing students' reading skills that matters most. * Mr. Iyadh Labadi (Tariq Ben Zeyad Intermediate Boys School)

Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.

By John Lubbock

Year 1

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Issue 4

English Messages

15. look carefully

Kingdom of Bahrain Ministry of Education Directorate of Curricula English Language Unit (Basic Education) curriculabh@hotmail.com Tel +973 17 27 86 16 Fax +973 17 24 34 72

"Treat the Earth and all that dwell thereon with respect."

Native American Proverb

Editorial Team Dr. Nawal Al-Khaja Mr. Emad Al-Sediri