Anna Walter’s Blog

In my opinion, it is important to teach our students different skills like being able to collect information on a certain topic, being able to edit it in an appropriate way and also discuss on the topic with the members of the team. The adolescents need to be prepared for their future jobs – and it is OUR task to arm them with the necessary basics.

Since the poster reflects only some ideas on how students can be taught methodological, scientific, and social skills, I just want to add some of my own ideas…

I. METHODOLOGICAL SKILLS:

1. Students need to learn how to obtain information from different sources.

Sources they ought to know:

Books, magazines, CDs, DVDs, lexica, the internet, the newspaper, etc.

How can students be made familiar with these sources?

• they can do some research on a certain topic
• the teacher can prepare a quiz where students have to find information to answer the given questions (could also be a competition)
• the teacher could present them some search engines on the internet/ the library databases -> students then can try out them by themselves

2. In order to structure and store information, students should be taught…

• to select important information from the text by highlighting and underlining
• to give each paragraph a naming or to build up questions which should be answered by each paragraph
• to create an outline
• to save up/ file information in different folders (digital/ real), in order to keep the overview

3. Pupils can learn how to edit/ format their thoughts by…

• making use of headwords
• using different fonts, font sizes and colors to e.g. highlight the headings and thus edit their texts

4. In order to teach students to interpret and evaluate information, our task is to…

• Provide them with additional information (e.g. some images or videos) which will give them some ideas on how to interpret sth.
• Support them in their decision on what is important and what could be left out by limiting their time of presentation

5. Pupils often need technical support when they have to present their topic. What we could do to help them is…

• show them how to create a power point presentation: how to add images, media and sound and also how to structure information

• give them some hints during their preparation on what they could improve
• give them a feedback at the end of the presentation – it is important to let them know that they did well on their task and to tell them what they can improve next time

II. Teachers can enhance their students’ SCIENTIFIC SKILLS by…

a. Proficiency = speaking a language:

• show them current films or movies based on a certain problematic and let them discuss in class
• let them record a dialog or make a movie
• let them write and perform a play

b. Knowledge:

• making them listen to listening comprehensions based on real situations, in order to teach them the right pronunciation
• let them fill in gaps online or form sentences, based on certain grammatic rules
• use a learning software
• offer them a vocabulary trainer
• let them write diary entries in their blogs

c. Using language frequently:

• let them play a game where every pupil has to call up his/ her classmate and talk for five minutes in English (parents have to check it)
• build up chat rooms where students are only allowed to communicate in English
• let them comment on each others posts
• find a “pen pal” who will report the German student about his/ her news via Skype

III. There is a variety on how SOCIAL SKILLS can be improved:

• Let each student actively participate in your lessons in order to develop students’ self-confidence to speak English
• Organize exchanges in order to motivate them to learn the language and establlish social contacts
• Use methods which make it possible for students to talk to each other: writing a collective story/ a play/ a movie transcript
• Let them discuss on a controversial issue and present their results
• Create a nice atmosphere where students do not have to fear to talk without being laughed at by the others

My personal advice:

Dedicate at least five minutes of your lesson to grammar games/ practice in pronunciation/ something students have fun with!!!