November Issue

Year 2

Issue 5

November 2012

English Messages A Monthly Newsletter by and for teachers in Bahrain

Laying the foundations for a successful and secure future We, as educators, are aware of the fact that our students' future largely depends on what they learn and acquire today. As education providers we are making great efforts to provide all students with equal opportunities to develop their communication skills, acquire essential knowledge and core values so that they could get ready for the future.

Worldwide more and more people and countries are increasingly interested in learning English as a key prerequisite for any educational success. It is now the established language of science, technology, scholarship, commerce and most importantly communication in most countries. Thus, mastering the English language has become the cornerstone of education in the 21st century, and it is really impossible for both students and scholars to lead a normal and successful life these days without being competent at English at some level of proficiency.

In Bahrain, for instance, English is now the main language of business. Most financial institutions, service industries, and governmental transactions use English as a basic means of communication.

Therefore, together we have to work harder and multiply our efforts to help our students learn English and consequently lay the foundations for a successful and secure future.

Find in You Will

our Fifth

Issue:

s cification Test Spe ix S e d  Gra ntest Songs Co tion  School Demotiva m o r F r pproach  Recove A New A : g in ll e p g S  Teachin elling f Storyt o t r A e eaching  Th nguage T a L d n a  Culture ble Days oster forgetta n U  Free P : s e c Resour Teaching



English Messages

Specifications for Test Items Writing: Primary Level, Grade Six

General Guidelines: The Basic English Language Examination measures three skills: listening, reading and writing. The total mark of the exam is 100.

The exam should be:  valid (i.e. it should offer an appropriate way of measuring what it claims to measure)  reliable (i.e. the results produced should be as free as possible from errors of measurement)  impactful (i.e. the effect it has on individuals and on classroom practice should be positive)  practical (i.e. the demands it makes on the resources of the test developer and the test administrator should be compatible with the resources available) When preparing questions consider the following points: Instructions are clear, brief, specific, and easy to understand The task should be familiar, manageable, valid, appropriate to learners' age, sex, interests and culture.

The text should be:  authentic (modifying and adapting texts that reflect genuine use of the language) 

of reasonable length and difficulty of similar style to text types they have in lessons



copyright free

The questions should be:  graded as they shift from the easiest to the more demanding 

well-organized to follow the structure of the text



clear (not ambiguous)

Visuals should be:  clear 

suitable



stimulating to students

English Language Unit Basic Education

Year 2

Issue 5

Guidelines for the Different Exam Sections. (Grade Six) LISTENING section: at least one distractor should be added in questions that require students to choose correct answers from different choices the script is well-recorded and clear Consider the following points in the READING section:   

don't test general knowledge in the passage topics should not lead to writing questions questions should not lead to direct lifting of answers from the text

Cloze tests should consider that:  

the topic sentence is complete with no gaps to fill in to enable students to better understand the whole paragraph there are at least five words between each gap

Consider the following points in the WRITING section:  the different types of writing tasks: guided, semi-guided and free  the space and time allocated for the writing are sufficient  topics should be within the interest and experience  topics should not be similar to the ones used in the reading section  Letters and emails:  Students should be aware that all five parts of the letter (the heading, the greeting, the body, the closing and the signature) are in place and used correctly  Names and addresses of sender/receiver are provided Finally, have someone else review and do your items/tests.

Page 3

Year 2

Issue 5

School Songs Contest Reasons Why You Should Use Songs to Teach EFL Language teachers are advised to use songs as part of their classroom teaching repertoire. In fact, scientific research has proven that teaching English through songs really helps our students improve their English.

Well, this year we are planning to organize a national school songs contest. We hope it will be held in the second semester. Schools have to get ready for the contest by choosing one of the songs in the CD which we distributed during our first meeting with primary school teachers.

During the contest we expect to see very beautiful shows. Indeed, schools have the right to choose as many students as they want. In addition to singing, students should act out/perform the song as each song has a special theme or story. This is why schools are encouraged to use special costumes, background music and PowerPoint presentations‌ The following criteria will be used in assessing students’ performance: Rhythm, Performance, Clarity/Quality of voice and music, Confidence, Facial expressions, and costumes.

In the end, all schools should have one team. (ONLY Cycle One). We will inform you about the place and date of the contest, but most probably it will be next March or April. Get ready and do your best to train your students well.

Page 4

Year 2

Issue 5

How To Recover From Demotivation 1- You’re demotivated by lack of clarity about what you want: When you haven’t consciously and clearly articulated what you want, your picture of your future will be vague. We like what’s familiar and so we resist what’s unfamiliar and vague. If you’re not clear about what you want to create, then it makes sense that you’ll lack motivation to act because you’d rather stay with your current familiar reality.

How to get motivated again: If you want to create something different from what you’ve been experiencing, it’s not enough to just know what you don’t want. You need to know what you want instead, and you need to articulate a clear and specific vision of what you want to create so that you can become familiar with that new outcome and feel comfortable to move towards it. Take some time to articulate what you want and why you want it. It’s always important to know where you would like to go.

2- You’re demotivated by not knowing what to do next Your end-goal might be nice and clear, but if you haven’t taken time to chunk your end-goal down into smaller goals, you’ll get stuck, confused and demotivated when it’s time to take action. Some projects are small and familiar enough that they don’t need a plan, but if you’re often worrying that you don’t know what to do next and you don’t have a clear plan, then this might be the source of your demotivation and frustration.

How to get motivated again: If you want to keep your motivation flowing steadily through all stages of your projects, take time to create clear project plans and to schedule your plans into your calendar.

Use your fears to point you to the potential risks you need to manage in your plan. Write down all your, “I-don’t-know-how-to” concerns and turn these into research questions. The first part of any planning stage is research, and you’ll find new research questions along the way, so realize that conducting research should be part of your action plan at every stage of your project. Ask yourself what smaller goals need to be achieved for you to achieve your end-goal, and finally schedule deadlines for yourself.

Page 5

Year 2

Issue 5

Suggested Strategies & Activities to Develop Students' Spelling Recent studies highlight the importance of developing spelling in order to develop students' reading and writing skills. This calls for the need to teach spelling using different strategies in meaningful context.

The following are suggested strategies that teachers can adopt to teach spelling:  Develop phonemic awareness through the use of meaningful context, such as, the text book materials, songs and stories that provide repetitive reinforcement of words.  Explore sounds by helping students to notice the sounds in different words using rhyming words.  Discover spelling patterns that help students in recognizing the associated pattern with certain sounds, such as, ch, sh, tion, gh.  Develop visual awareness of the words through providing pictures and flashcards. Word Walls can be used to display the targeted words.  Teach words in small chunks rather than giving long lists weekly. Two to three words can be taught daily.  Provide sufficient time to practice and offer feedback on any misspelled words. Use the Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check strategy.  Encourage self-assessment and peer assessment against words lists.  Help students with their dictionary skills.  Let students keep their own Words Journals  Know your students' needs through their writing and weekly dictation and reteach common mistakes.  Assign Spelling Buddy to help students with their spelling.  Use Letters Cards to help students form the new words which help in their awareness of the construction of words. Writing the words in the air and using dough.  Use different activities to reinforce the words, such as, words with gaps, word search, cross words.

Use games to motivate students and help them know the words. There are many useful games, such as: 1.Hangman 2.Matching (match the picture with the word) 3.Fishing (works best with suffixes and prefixes) 4.Memory Game (flipping words down and search for matching words) 5.Letter Scramble  Challenge more able students by asking them to use all the new words in a short story.  Assign homework to the less able by asking them to form the new words from letters cut from magazines or newspapers.  Use interactive spelling sites and competitions such as the Spelling Bee.

Websites Containing Spelling Activities & Games http://www.kidsspell.com/ www.spellingcity.com http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/ interactive/literacy.html http://pbskids.org/games/spelling.html http://www.ehow.com/info_8418079_ k i n d s spelling-games.html http://www2.sd5.k12.mt.us/elrod/multiage/ Spelling.html

By Mrs. Ameera Al Balushi Curriculum Specialist

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English Messages

The Art of Storytelling Since the human race began, people have told stories to each other, to pass on family lore, values and beliefs, common history and heritage, to teach factual and conceptual information, to entertain, and to form bonds of friendship.

Storytelling is an art, a tool, a device, a gateway to the past and a portal to the future that supports the present. Our true voices come alive when we share stories What are the most important aspects of storytelling?  For the listener?

Teaching approaches for young learners We help children learn language when what we ask them to do is…

•Purposeful •Meaningful •Social •Supported •Enjoyable •Full of practice

Rationale for using stories • Stories use a holistic approach to language – The story is engaging teaching.

– The storyteller is engaging – The listener can participate in the story- • Stories support natural acquisition of language. telling • Stories can introduce children to other cultures and attitudes.  For the storyteller?

• Stories help children develop critical think– Choose the right story – Make the storytelling fun and interesting ing skills.

• Children love stories!

– Include the listeners in the storytelling Techniques for storytelling Characteristics of Young Learners 1.Vary the pace, tone and volume of voice.

2. Pause where appropriate. impulsive 3. Disguise your voice for different characters. inquisitive 4. Make sound effects where possible. energetic 5.Ask questions that involve children. spontaneous 6.Do not be afraid to repeat, expand, and social reformulate. entertained (Adapted from Brewster, Ellis, & Girard 2004) Crave our attention…

Other helpful tips and our love…

• Use routines for starting and finishing storytelling, for getting children’s attention How children learn • Children are active learners and thinkers.

• Create or bring in visuals and realia for storytelling (e.g., pictures, puppets, masks) (Piaget, 1970) • Build a visuals and realia bank • Children learn through social interaction.

• Encourage children to tell the story to a friend/parent (and imitate your storytelling!)

(Vygotsky, 1962) • Have storytellers observe each other to pick • Children learn effectively through scaffold- up new techniques and develop own style.

By Mrs. Reem Alaradi — Curriculum Specialist ing by adults. (Bruner, 1983)

English Messages

Culture and Language Teaching Introduction A full mastery of a language does not just mean understanding the rules and using the four skills perfectly. It also requires a full mastery of the culture of that language. In EFL classes, cultural factors concerning English language are often neglected.

Culture receives undue attention partly because of the insufficient culture-oriented realia and materials, and partly because of the unreasonable and impractical teaching syllabus that leaves out cultural knowledge in most tests. Above all, English teachers mostly fail to provide language learners with the cultural aspects of the English language. It is now a widely accepted fact that language classrooms must address the cultural elements of the English language.

Why is teaching culture important?

Cultural awareness in today’s world of globalization is highly significant. Rather than their own culture, EFL learners should also be aware of the English-speaking countries cultures. This is often referred to as intercultural awareness, which has always been talked about as thought it were a 'fifth skill' - the ability to be aware of cultural relativity following reading, writing, listening and speaking. Claire Kramsch points out: "If...language is seen as social practice, culture becomes the very core of language teaching. Cultural awareness must then be viewed as enabling language proficiency…. Culture in language teaching is not an expendable fifth skill, tacked on, so to speak, to the teaching of speaking, listening, reading and writing.” Consequently, many researchers insist on The EFL learner’s exposure to the culture related to the English language and consider this consistent with the language-acquisition process.

Although most of our English textbooks at primary levels start with everyday spoken English which aims at intercultural communication, most of the drills designed for starting dialogues with native speakers are, nevertheless, far from the authentic situations in which they are to be used. For example, the sentence “where are you going?” or “what’s your name?” is not explained by the teacher in detail and he does not point out in which circumstances to use either. A student will not get a satisfactory answer if he asks an English-speaking friend he runs into about where he is going, for it is impolite for people to ask this kind of questions in English-speaking countries, though it is quite common for people to raise such questions when they come across one of their friends in the Arab world. Such problems arise directly as a result of the lack of cultural awareness relating to English language.

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Year 2

Issue 5

In such an environment, a student confronted with a real situation of intercultural communication and who may be excellent in reading and writing, will often fail to communicate successfully with a native speaker of English if the topic touches on the culture of the English language. For instance, in a reading material of acknowledgements to a book, there runs a line that “I owe many thanks to my students at this school who were the guinea pigs for many of the exercises used in the units.” The ignorance of the usages of the culture-loaded word “pig” in American culture will unmistakably lead to the confusion and puzzlement of Arab learners of English: in American culture, pig can mean wise and loyal and innocence; whereas in our culture, the image of pig usually symbolizes stupidity and filthiness. In this example, there are words in the vocabulary of language that inform people’s ways of behavior. Just as G. Lazar has argued, “our students’ comprehension is frequently impeded not by linguistic features, but by cultural ones. Language can never be divorced from culture.”

What can a teacher do?

As a result, to make a better understanding of the English language and to ensure the success of intercultural communication that takes place increasingly in today’s globalization, teachers have to reconsider the importance of cultural factors in the EFL classrooms and to incorporate the teaching of culture into the teaching of English. Such a model of teaching culture is determined by the inseparable relationships between language and culture: language is transmitted by and transmits culture.

Page 9

The teacher can use reading materials, stories (to be told orally), and pictures as sources for cultural information. He can also use other things that will help his students get a panoramic view of the target culture. The teacher can also use other sources of information as materials to develop students’ awareness of the foreign culture by utilizing one of the learners’ five natural powers of sight, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling such as: foods or fruits culturally specific to the English Language, art works shown in museum, video, CDs, TV, songs, internet, and souvenirs.

What about students?

Being exposed to all these cultural factors is not sufficient for students to cultivate the intercultural awareness. It is suggested that students should be encouraged to take an active part in the revealing of the cultural information. For this purpose, certain types of activities should be designed to make students aware of every aspect of culture. Activities like prediction, discussion, research, and celebration of foreign festivals can be used in the cultural consciousness-raising process.

Conclusion In conclusion, the teaching of culture should be considered as an integral part of teaching English as a foreign language. Meanwhile, teachers should develop an awareness of the cultures related to the English speaking countries, so that they would be able to present the foreign cultures as they are to help students form a positive attitude and develop better understanding of the language components.

By Teacher Feryal Ali Khader Arad Intermediate Girls’ School

English Messages

Henry Ford

English Messages

English Language Curriculum Development The English Language Curriculum Unit at Basic Education has organized a series of events and meetings to develop a new English Language curriculum which reflects the new orientations of the Ministry of Education and responds to the growing needs of students in Bahrain.

Reviewing international literature and understanding the strengths of some successful world curricular documents is the first stage in the process of curriculum construction, and for this purpose last month Mr. Emad Abdulla Al Sediri presented a workshop entitled : “Constructing a National Curriculum: Contemporary Trends.”

The meeting was an opportunity for the curriculum team to discuss a variety of issues regarding educational outcomes and the major components of the next curriculum document. As well as that, specialists took their time to explore and examine a wealth of contemporary trends in curriculum development processes.

Scrabble Game Competition at A’ali Intermediate Boys School The English Department at A’ali Intermediate Boys School organized a very exciting Scrabble Game Competition which involved different boys and girls schools from several governorates. Mrs. Nawal Al Sada, the English Language Curriculum Specialist attended the competition and expressed her deep satisfaction with the high level of participant students and the outstanding organizational efforts made by the Senior teacher Mr. Jaafar Meerza.

By the end of the competition valuable prizes were given to the winners for the final high scores they got. The school principal seized the opportunity to thank the English Department at A’ali Intermediate Boys School for their contributions and active participation in developing and improving school life.

English Messages MOE

1- Grammar: Complete the sentences with was or were.

3- Speaking: A- What did you do last week? Tell your teacher.

I …………............. happy last night.

You …………............. angry yesterday.

She …………............. in London last week.

He …………............. on holiday last summer.

It …………............. a cold morning.

We …………............. at school two days ago.

You …………............. at the cinema last weekend.

They …………............. at home last Thursday night.

The cat …………............. on the roof yesterday morning.

The children …………............. in the garden last month.

2- Vocabulary: Label the following pictures.

4- Writing: Last week you were sitting in the school library.

Suddenly, you heard someone screaming, “Fire!

Fire”. Write about what happened and what you did.

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

“Life isn't simple. But the beauty of it is you can always start

over. It'll get easier.” Alacia Bessette, Simply from Scratch, 2010

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