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Module 7: Topics, situations,

notions, functions

Methods of Teaching English 2


Instructor: Dr. Suzan Arafat
Introduction
Language has traditionally been segmented into
sounds, vocabulary, grammar, but it may equally well
be taught through larger meaningful segmants based
on whole ‘ chunks’ of discourse( Ur, 1996).
Such chunks can be based round common topics
such as holidays, work, family…. etc.
Ur ( 1996) goes on to say that another possibility is to
base the language round situations like expressing
interests, introducing oneself, informing……etc.
Many course books base their units on topics or
situations among these is English for Palestine.
Samples from English for Palestine Of lessons based
on topics or situations :
 Below is the given explanation about TOEFL and IELTS
language proficiency tests as appeared in Grade 12,Unit 9,
Reading Section, Activity 5.
An example is in Grade 12 textbook, Unit 7, Reading Section,
Activity 4.
Shareefa does not want to get married and asks for Jasmine's
advice for help. This activity reflects the Palestinian Practices in
such situations of sometimes, forcing female daughters to marry
instead of continuing education.
Activity 5 in the Second Reading Section below introduces
Tourist sights in USA using positive words and phrases to make
readers interested in San Francisco.
What a topic is ?

In linguistics, the topic is what is being talked


about. It is the phrase in a discourse that the
rest of the discourse is understood to be
about ( Wikipedia, 2013).
On the other hand; situations are topics'
brought alive' as it were, and integrated into
some kind of communicative event( Ur,1996).
Introducing a new topic or situation

New topics and situations need to be presented in much the


same way as new language items or texts (see Module 1
Presentations and explanations). The presentation of topics or
situations may be approached from different directions; for
example:
 Take the topic or situation, do a task based on it, eliciting from
the learners or teaching any necessary new language, possibly
going on later to study a text.
 Teach the new language through the topic, situation or a text.
 Go straight into a text, using it both to teach new language and
to explore the relevant topic/ situation.

 For ideas for presentation of new topics or situations, see our


text book Box 7.1, p. 91.
What are notions and functions?
(The difference between a notion and a function)

 A notion is a concept, or idea: it may be quite


specific , in which case it is virtually the same as
vocabulary (e.g. dog, house etc) or it may be very
general –( time, size, emotion, movement) in which
case it often overlaps with the concept of 'topic‘.
 A function on the other hand is some kind of
communicative act : it is the use of language to
achieve a purpose, usually involving interaction
between at least two people– e.g. suggesting,
promising, apologizing, greeting, etc.
Functions and notions vs. topics and
situations

Notions and functions are rather more precise


categories than “topics and situations”.
Topics and situations are communicative events
whereas notions and functions are the ways
particular meanings are realized in language, for
example – a topic is “the family”, a situation is
“visiting a friend’s home”, notions and functions may
be things like “time past” or “inviting”. “Time past”
may include past tenses, phrases …, “inviting” may
include phrases like “Would you like to …?”, “I
suggest…”.
How bits of language should be presented to
learners?

 Topics, situations, notions and functions should be taught (it is


more effective) as meaningful chunks of language in context
rather than decontextualized items such as lists of vocabulary,
or grammatical structures. Teaching of larger language
components such as functions or topics is most effective when
combined with some teaching of other smaller segments such
as vocabulary or grammar. Conversely the learning of
pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar is probably most
effective when these are also integrated into activities that use
the target items meaningfully for some communicative purpose
i.e. the different language segments should be combined.
If we are going to combine pronunciation, vocabulary
and grammar with more communicative language
segments such as functions and notions, how do we
select what to study with what?
 In principle, any grammatical structure or vocabulary
item may be used within a variety of notions,
functions, topics and situations- and vice versa. For
example, the notion of possibility may be expressed
by the modal can; but also by words like perhaps and
feasible, and expressions like (would not exclude the
possibility that).
Some techniques of teaching such samples
contextualized within texts
 Learning by heart :
 Definition: (also known as rote learning) is
a memorization technique which based on repetition. The idea
is that one will be able to quickly recall the meaning of the
material the more one repeats it. Some of the alternatives to rote
learning include meaningful learning, associative learning,
and active learning ( Wikipedia, 2013).

 Criticism:
Within language teaching, learning by heart has been
associated with the audio-lingual methodology popular in the
1960s but later rejected by most methodologists. More recently,
however, both within language teaching and in other areas of
education, people are beginning to realize that learning by heart
has value, for example Just as an automatic knowledge of the
multiplication tables enables the young
mathematician to progress faster into
interesting problem-solving ,so memorized
chunks of language or formulaic utterances
associated with particular communicative
contexts furnish the learner with a rich and
reliable vocabulary which contributes
significantly to his or her overall mastery of
the language(UR,1996).
Another technique

 Varying a theme: to take the basic text and


elaborate on it. Rather than simply learning or
answering comprehension questions on texts, the
class may be invited to vary and extend them,
leading to further exploration of the kind of language
being learned. They might, for example, either on
their own or in collaboration with the teacher, do one
or more of the following:
 create a new text on a similar topic
 suggest other ways the writer could have expressed
the same notions or functions; what difference would
these changes have made?
 re-present the original text in a different way: if it was
a diary entry, for example, then reconstruct the
dialogue, or vice versa.
References

 Ur, P. 1996, A Course in Language Teaching, CUP


 English Language Curriculum for Public Schools
Grade12 (2013). Palestinian National Authority.
 Wikipedia,(2013). Rote learning.

Retrieved February 22, 2013 from


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rote_learning
 Wikipedia,(2013). Topic–comment.
Retrived February 20, 2013 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic%E2%80
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