Creating attentiveness among language learners via Audio-Visual aids
By Dr.Ajay R. Tengse, Reader and head, PG Dept. of English,Yeshwant Mahavidyalaya, VIP Road Nanded (MS)(India)-431602
Abstract
Learning a foreign language is like learning a musical instrument. The use of Audio Visual Aids plays an important role in this specific task. They are of special importance in teaching English where the learners experience is not so direct as in learning mother tongue. The English teacher should develop the skill for preparing Audio Visual Aids with available resources.
Teaching a language is a sequence that consists four steps, hearing, speaking, reading and writing. The first two steps are audio-lingual skills, the last two are graphic skills. We usually try to acquaint a language through hearing, then we try to speak it.
Introduction
English deserves to be regarded as a world language. It is world’s most widely spoken language. It is the common means of communication between the peoples of different nation. There is no doubt that the in the field of language learning and education has recently witnessed grate changes in order to make learning accessible and enjoyable. It was of great importance to bridge gaps of distance to realize educational objectives at much shorter period of time.
Learning a Language is acquiring four basic skills in it and also using every day situation. The acquisition process takes place not in isolation but in a cultural environment. The innate predisposition enables the human being but in a cultural environment. The innate predisposition enables the human being to acquire linguistic ability within a specific language environment.
Teaching of English has been prompted by the need of continuous effort and effective methodology. Only “talk and chalk” is not enough. The national policy regarding language teaching emphasized on the efforts of making the class room activities more effective. More and more teaching aids are to be used in the classroom to make teaching more interesting and effective. Significant changes have been taken place in programmers of the teaching of the foreign language.
Most universities, colleges and governmental institutions, especially in countries where English, French and other languages are taught as second languages, have equipped premises with conventional or sophisticated Audio-Visual aids. Skilled crafts-man usually chooses his tools with atmost care in order to accomplish certain tasks. A teacher of English is like a skilled crafts-man. He needs a medium through which he teaches: especially if that language is taught by a non-native teacher to non-native learners. Both will widely benefit from using prerecorded materials. Such materials will make the teacher teach less and the learner learns more. They will also enable students listen, speak, read and write the foreign language with the same speed of an educated native speaker. This does not in my opinion disregard the role of the teacher in the laboratory. The teacher, whether native or non-native speaker, will be spontaneously assisted in communicating ideas. The student on the other hand, will concentrate on the essential features of the language in a systematic way. As B. Woolrich put it:
Learning a foreign language is much like learning a musical instrument. The student must practice if he wants to learn to play, say the piano since it is obvious that no amount of study will teach any one to play, yet failure to make satisfactory progress in a foreign language has been traditionally qualified to insufficient study rather than the real cause; insufficient practice.[1]
Good utilization of various components of the language laboratory; tape recorders, head-phones, console and other audio or visual accessories, has negative or positive impact on the process of teaching and learning. A well-equipped language laboratory allows both the teacher and the students to:
1- practice learning language individually or in groups.
2- monitor the progress of a certain student with out disturbing others.
3- allow the student to work at his or her pace.
4- test speaking and comprehension ability.
5- improve language proficiency through repeated listing to drills especially by nonnative teachers.
6- divide the students into teacher or machine-directed groups[2]
Other visual accessories such as film strips, slides, posters, video-tapes etc. can serve as bases for developing association between concepts of the foreign language that being studied. The students can concentrate more in an environment of[3] little disattraction. In other words they are spontaneously guided to grasp concepts on the basis of their concreteness or abstractness.
The use of Audio Visual Aids plays an important role in this specific task. They are of special importance in teaching English where the learners experience is not so direct as in learning mother tongue. They serve variety of purposes in teaching Engslish. They should be relevant to the teaching point to achieve some instructional objectives. Some Audio Visual aids can always be developed with available resources. The English teacher should develop the skill for preparing Audio Visual Aids with available resources. It calls for a determination rather than complacency, an active planning rather than disinterest , a careful execution of a program than a passive repetition of a blueprint handed over by so called experts. For this the language teacher should be innovative and imaginative in teaching of a language. They should be in constant touch with literature also. They need to have an abundance of motivating techniques with them.
Audio Visual aids may be described as aids that facilitate the understanding of the written or spoken word in a teaching learning situation. Visual aids pertain to the sense of sight , audio to the sence of hearing and audio-visual to both of senses.
In this regard Dean Maclusky, has suggested his view:
The movement for visual education will progress in direct ratio to the number of teachers who are trained in the technique of visual instruction. He said further that textbooks and syllabi must be prepared. courses of study must be given an opportunity to learn the advantages and disadvantages of visual instruction through formal and informal instruction.[4]
Audio Visual Aids
Visual aids are classified into three broad divisions
i. First is related with pictures, flash cards and black board.
ii. Second related with magnetic board, clock mode and rotating charts
iii. Third related with moving films.
Audio aids
Gramophones , tape recorders, radio and language laboratory.
Audio Visual Aids includes : Television , Sound films, Computerized Language laboratory
Objectives
The basic objective of the proposed research paper is to use audio visual aids in teaching languages in colleges to enable the students to acquire the four fundamental language skills thoroughly so that the student
1. Can listen English when spoken
2. Can speak comprehensible English
3. Can read English and understand.
4. Can write English Correctly.
To achieve all these objectives the students should be given to hear a lot of everyday English, Incorrect and complete form, Pronounciation , intelligible and good pronounciation, correct words and patterns and fluency, Correct pronunciation, drilling of difficult words , use of proper stress and intonation , reading with attention for meaning, Reading with speed , Reading to find out answer to specific queries and the practice in handwriting i.e. use of correct structure, use of correct spelling , practice with simple, graded and controlled composition, practive in free composition and use of correct punctuation.
This article essentially be an analysis and evolution of the use of Audio Visual aids for teaching English language. These Audio Visual aids should be prepared and arranged in such a way that the teacher should be able to handle it , more effectively so that the young learners without wasting anytime can profitably and strongly be drawn in the venture of teaching English language, The emphasis being on teaching English joyfully.
It also evaluate and analyses the use of Audio Visual aids for teaching English.
1. A/V aids provide ample exposure to language experiences.
2. A/V aids provide ample exposure to spoken English.
3. A/V aids create variety in teaching
4. A/V aids reduce teachers talking.
5. A/V aids create language atmosphere
6. A/V aids create interest and inspiration in the learner’s mind
7. A/V aids clarify the subject matter
8. Save time and Energy.
Practice in four skills with drills
Teaching a language is a sequence that consists four steps, hearing, speaking, reading and writing. The first two steps are audio-lingual skills, the last two are graphic skills. We usually try to acquaint a language through hearing, then we try to speak it. The language laboratory can provide practice in phonological drills, pronunciation, stress pattern and intonation. It can also train the ear to discriminate between vowels, consonants as well as semantic and grammatical differences. The teaching of pronunciation, stress and intonation is a slow business. It can not be rushed. The teacher and the student must be prepared to spend a little time each day on each lesson gradually building up skills in sound differentiation and reproduction. [5]
Traditional foreign language instruction was largely dedicated to teaching of reading approached through the study of syntax or rules of grammar. But the recent years have witnessed a shift of emphasis in language teaching and learning. This shift of emphasis is paralleled by recent advances in linguistics science and allied fields which have contributed to a new view of language learning. The teaching of languages has been mechanized in order to accelerate pace of learning and to make learning of foreign languages by native and non-native speakers accessible and enjoyable. Application of educational technology such as language laboratories and other related media has minimized periods of time spent in learning languages through conventional methods. It has also familiarized the teacher and the learner to variety of modern teaching techniques. As Sir Eric Ashbey stated: Any technology which increases the rate of learning would enable the teacher to teach less and the learner to learn more.
A thirty minute drill on phonology, sound of words, or word transformation may save a threehour of class contact. Repetition of syllables stress or intonation might be tiresome to the teacher and distracting to the students. Students may practice such learning activity in the laboratory freely and without embarrassment. Other visual accessories; slides, films, video tapes, posters etc., can serve as cues to expedite learning of language concepts or recalling of events. The visual element clarifies the spoken and facilities the process of understanding, the sight of a scene recalls the appropriate phrase, thus aiding the process of learning and remembering. The double impact of sight and sound is strengthened further by the economy and concentration of the presentation. The significant detail is shown accompanied by the appropriate gesture and intonation. It is worthwhile mentioning that the language laboratories and other educational technology, have introduced modern theories in teaching methodology and the curricula design.
Specialized audio-visual course have been prepared to meet educational requirements. Foreign languages instructors have joined special training programs to achieve full and proper utilization of the language laboratories. During a conference on teaching foreign languages held in Zagreb, Yugoslavia in 1968; Denis Girard, a French linguist, stated that: …. Linguistically, an audiovisual methodology is based on a science analysis of the language taught. It first teaches the spoken language, given the pupil the ability to communicate and create linguistic habits.
Psychologically it enables the pupil to decode and encode oral utterances by systematically training his power of sound perception and discrimination of sound production.
Advantages of audio-visual aids
1. It helps the pupil in understanding languages by bringing him in direct contact with objects and things, by bringing the distant things near, by bringing the world into the classroom. They help the student in understanding different cultural backgrounds.
2. Audio-visual aids promote remembering by involving the many senses of the learners, by arousing their curiosity, by making use of pictorial content and by providing variety in teaching.
3. They make teaching effective by creating situations for presentation and practice of language items and by reducing dependence on the mother tongue.
4. They help in formation of language habits by drill, repetition and constant practice.
5. They increase the pupil’s experience of language by providing rich variety and better quality.
6 They promote teacher’s efficiency by saving time and energy.
7 They provide recreation to the learners.
Conclusion
Being a teacher , it is our responsibility to see that the learners’ knowledge does not remain confined to the knowledge contained in the books prescribed for their course. Activities such as reading newspaper, novels, biographies , journals as well as well informed and well equipped by using various audio visual aids for command over language. For this purpose extensive practice will help learner to develop their knowledge and command over the language.
References
1. Filipovic Rudulf, Active Methods and Modern Aids in Teaching Foreign Languages, London Uni Press 1972.
2. Miller A. George, Language and Communication, McGraw-Hill Book Co Inc. BY 1963.
3. Paul Seattler, A History of Instructional Technology, McGraw-Hill Book Co Inc NY 1968 P 143-185.
4. Stack Edward M., The Language Laboratory and Modern Language Teaching. Oxford Uni. Press Inc 1960 P 3,4,21-23,184
5. The Teaching of Modern Languages, By, The Incorporated Association of Assistant Masters in Secondary School, Uni. Of London Press Ltd. 1968.
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