Discovering meaning!

Discovering meaning!
Students are rearranging words to make meaningful sentences

domingo, 3 de octubre de 2010

Oral English Communication Skills

Oral English skills are critical when teaching English to children. I´m reminded of how many hours native children "hear" and "absorb" their mother tongue before actually beginning to speak their own first few words, anywhere from 2000 to 5000 hours of contact time!

Compare that with the 30 -70 hours most young children receive in preschool and early primary and it´s easy to understand why it takes a while before young children feel comfortable producing language in English.
I´ve always felt that teaching children English implies having a very good understanding of just how effective our own oral communication skills are. But how does one do this?

In business circles, companies use an interesting and effective tool for diagnosing the overall status of a particular situation. This tool is called a SWOT analysis: S for strengths, W for weaknesses, O for opportunities and T for threats.

The strengths and weaknesses analysis refers to the internal environment of the company or situation being analyzed. The opportunities and threats refers to the external ennvironment of the company or situation.


When I began to think about my own oral language skills, both in Spanish and Catalan, it occurred to me that the SWOT analysis could be a very helpful instrument in helping me to see where I was in terms of oral language skill development. It forced me to think about my own personal strengths and weaknesses as a language speaker and reflect upon the opportunities
and threats in my immediate teaching and learning environment.


Sometime later, I came across a language blog written by Neil Barker. He also had the idea of doing a SWOT analysis. Take a minute to visit his blog and see his personal SWOT analysis as an English language teacher. http://neilbarker.co.kr/2010/03/02/personal-teaching-swot-analysis/


In the university classes I teach, my student teachers are asked to do their own personal SWOT analysis as it relates to their oral language communication skills. The results are most enlightening and rewarding!


If you have done or would like to work with SWOT analyses in yor classrooms or with teachers you work with, drop me a line and let me know how it is going. If I can help in any way, just let me know!

happy teaching!

theresa

1 comentario:

LAIA dijo...

wow! I agree with you!

I'm going to add your blog in my favorite pages, and why not in my Symbaloo!!

thanks for doing that!!

:)