Reading | Spreading the wings | Prof. Divyesh Bhatt | Ink and Insight

 

‘Activity-based’, ‘learner centric’, ‘skill-focused’ – these are phrases we hear constantly in our professional environment these days. Our English textbooks have gradually taken the avatar of unit-based and activity-based lessons abandoning the old text-centric model of a story and a few comprehension questions. We find activities on ‘reading’, ‘listening’, ‘speaking’ and ‘writing’ strewn around the pages of the textbook. 

Well frankly, it is quite overwhelming when we look at a textbook and it is more than a hundred pages long. A question that rings quite often in many a staffroom is – “આટલું કઈ રીતે ભણાવાઈ!!” So, what do we do? Let’s take a deep breath and reboot. Let us ask ourselves - Do we have to ‘teach’ each activity, each exercise? The clear answer to this question is no. We do not have to teach activities or tasks, we ‘conduct’ them. One hurdle crossed! Let’s remind ourselves, “I don’t have to teach this. I must conduct this task.”

But then, ‘conducting’ is just as complicated. Only someone who teaches in “મારી” school will know. This statement might be very true for many of us. However, once again, let us step back, take a breath, and ask ourselves, “What if I aim for a small task? Something that’s doable. Let’s say I can’t conduct the task exactly as instructed. Maybe I don’t have the colourful cards or abundant stationery or supportive colleagues. But I can still conduct a little roleplay.” “If my students are too shy to speak, let me read out the dialogues for them and ask them to act them out as I speak.” Something is always better than nothing. We can always follow this principle in a task. And guess what? That is the key to a successful task. 

In a successful task, the learner meaningfully engages with the target language. In our case, it is English. So, ask yourself the following questions after each class – 

Did my students speak in English? 

Did my students read in English? 

Did my students listen to English?

Did my students write in English?

Did my students comprehend or produce any English independently?

If the answer to even one of the above questions is yes, hearty congratulations to you!! You have on your hands a successful learner centric English language class!!