TESOL_MAN
27-12-2005, 02:49 PM
Asslam Alaikum dear brothers and sisters. I’ll grab the chance of being able to contact your knowledgeable minds and share with you a topic about our dear students.
Have been teaching for more than five years, I have noticed that Saudi high-school graduates have a serious problem in doing presentations. They are suffering from some main obstacles. First, they don't have enough courage and confidence to stand in front of their colleagues and speak. Here I mean they are struggling with psychological barriers. When they come out to do a presentation, they feel that everyone is looking at them and every colleague is trying to find their mistakes. It's strange that they fear their colleagues even if they are close to them. The second problem is that our students have poor speaking skills. They don't have enough vocabulary, and don't know how to connect sentences.
I think there are two reasons for this problem. First, some teachers don’t try to break the psychological barriers. They never asked a student to come out and speak in front of his/her colleagues. I’m sure if you observe his class for a while, you won’t find any speaking skills or at least encouragement for students to speak. Second reason, some teachers concentrate on grammar more than anything else. They don’t try to equip students with some useful vocabulary. Another, some of our students still look at English as a passing course. This type of students look at English as a boring subject, and the teacher is the most boring one among others.
In order to come over this problem, I suggest we do the followings: 1. implement the importance of speaking, 2. break the psychological barriers by giving the students the courage to speak out in front of their colleagues at least once a week, 3. provide the students with new vocabulary at least one word a day, 4. get rid of the classical way of teaching by introducing some exciting learning games, 5. encourage pair-work and group-work between the students, 6. be an optimistic and interesting personality.
Finally, let’s decide from now to improve our students’ talents and trigger the creativity they have before they lose it. Let’s give our students the chance to speak English out in public with full courage and confidence. Thinking about the problem is much better than seeing it and remain silent.
Note: this is my simple opinion from my own experience. I might be right or partially right, and might be wrong or partially wrong. Please be generous and enhance my perspectives about this topic. Let’s hear your opinions and suggestions about this problem.
Have been teaching for more than five years, I have noticed that Saudi high-school graduates have a serious problem in doing presentations. They are suffering from some main obstacles. First, they don't have enough courage and confidence to stand in front of their colleagues and speak. Here I mean they are struggling with psychological barriers. When they come out to do a presentation, they feel that everyone is looking at them and every colleague is trying to find their mistakes. It's strange that they fear their colleagues even if they are close to them. The second problem is that our students have poor speaking skills. They don't have enough vocabulary, and don't know how to connect sentences.
I think there are two reasons for this problem. First, some teachers don’t try to break the psychological barriers. They never asked a student to come out and speak in front of his/her colleagues. I’m sure if you observe his class for a while, you won’t find any speaking skills or at least encouragement for students to speak. Second reason, some teachers concentrate on grammar more than anything else. They don’t try to equip students with some useful vocabulary. Another, some of our students still look at English as a passing course. This type of students look at English as a boring subject, and the teacher is the most boring one among others.
In order to come over this problem, I suggest we do the followings: 1. implement the importance of speaking, 2. break the psychological barriers by giving the students the courage to speak out in front of their colleagues at least once a week, 3. provide the students with new vocabulary at least one word a day, 4. get rid of the classical way of teaching by introducing some exciting learning games, 5. encourage pair-work and group-work between the students, 6. be an optimistic and interesting personality.
Finally, let’s decide from now to improve our students’ talents and trigger the creativity they have before they lose it. Let’s give our students the chance to speak English out in public with full courage and confidence. Thinking about the problem is much better than seeing it and remain silent.
Note: this is my simple opinion from my own experience. I might be right or partially right, and might be wrong or partially wrong. Please be generous and enhance my perspectives about this topic. Let’s hear your opinions and suggestions about this problem.