ELT SERIES BY OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
(JULY 27 TO 31, 2020)
Oxford University Press India organised a series of webinars under their ELT Series – English Language Training for Teachers programme from July 27, 2020 to July 31, 2020. A five day webinar series touched various aspects of english language and its applicability and usage in today’s day and age.
Under its aegeies, the first session was ‘Teaching Poetry Online to Nurture Students’ Aesthetic Competence’ by Mala Palani who emphasised upon silent reading and self interpretation of the poetry to be the way of teaching and learning. Currently, teachers don’t allow room for children to experiment with their own ideas and neither do they encourage anyone who does so. She gave a lot of emphasis on not only covering the poetry in curicullum but also go beyond the text to do a comparitive analysis of similar works of an author. Literary devices must be constantly revised in classrooms even when poetry is not the component of teaching. Once students begin to develop confidence with rhyme scheme, metre and figures of speech, they themselves will becomes poets.
The second session Reading - The Adventure Within by Dipti Gupta encouraged the participants to focus upon LSRW which emerges from the habit of reading amongst early learners. Reading level was suggested to be the way forward. Usually, a child is pushed towards reading according to his class, instead he should be assessed on various reading level exams available online and accordingly should be advised to read material suited at his reading level grade.
Class and home libraries should be a must have practice Whether through Kindle or physical book, each child must be constantly encouraged towards reading. Teachers of any subject, must always have a component of 5-10 minutes of reading for all, which can really motivate individuals as well as develop a sense of community learning and a regular habit of reading.
The third webinar emphasised on ‘Teaching speaking in the virtual classroom’ by Sonali Bhattacharyya where a thought provoking session was conducted highlighting the need of the hour for a teacher to be a moderator and not the primary speaker. The one way methodology which most teachers follow by using ppts, videos and lectures is now obsolette. In the modern day, especially on a virtual classroom, each participant is a potential speaker, coming from a zone of comfort. Both the teacher as well as the students, should indulge in pre learning and post discussion methodology. Immense focus on group ethics, code of conduct was given and further vocal participation more than written was touched upon. Teachers can use rail method, cut-stop-speak, linear progression and many such others to bring their learners to the level of speaking.
The fourth session was themed on ‘Teaching grammar in context using the digital platform’ by Shefali Ray was an insightful webinar where a number of digital tools were shared by her which can facilitate the learning process. Most commonly suggested tools were google forms, nearpod, quizlet, quizizz, mentimetre, google classroom – all of which we are already using in our classrooms efficiently. Apart from this, teacher’s role should be minimum as a speaker and should be more of a doer in the process. Grammar was also suggested to be taken up from their own tools available on their website for purchase which carry question banks can also be put to efficient usage.
The final session ‘Sure fire methods to teach vocabulary’ by Jacopo D'Andria Ursoleo and Kate Gralton touched upon the basic of phonetics which must be regulary addressed and practices in classroom settings. Students, these days, have forgotton how they intially learnt spealling by laying stress on syllabes and using their larynx created most of the sounds. Although the techniques appeard childish and were more releveant for junior classes, but was a good learning for students in senior classes who still face issues with spellings. Dictation and word games, should be played across k-12 to engage the learners with the spirit of language.
Overall, the five days comprehensive webinar serieis added value as an english teacher struggling for new methodologies every class. The sessions were reassuring and gave insightful ideas about various possibilities with english language in a digital setup.
