Nios Deled Course - 503
Assignment 1 Answer 1
Nios Deled Course-503 Learning
Languages at Elementary Level
Q1 (a) Explain the meaning of '
fine motor skills'. How these skills can be developed in children?
Ans. Fine motor skills involve the use of the
smaller muscle of the hands, commonly in activities like
using pencils, scissors,
construction with lego or duplo, doing up buttons and opening lunch boxes.
Fine motor skill efficiency
significantly influences the quality of the task outcome as well as the speed
of task performance. Efficient
fine motor skills require a number of independent skills to work
together to appropriately
manipulate the object or perform the task.
Fine motor skills let kids
perform crucial tasks like reaching and grasping, moving objects and using
tools like crayons, pencils and
scissors. As kids get better at using their hands, their hand-eye
coordination improves. They also
learn skills they need to succeed in school, such as drawing and
writing. Developing these
abilities helps kids become more independent and understand how their
bodies work. And as they learn
how to have an impact on the world around them, their self-esteem
may grow, too.
In order to encourage the
development of these skills, children should be allowed to manipulate solid
objects as they see fit. Holding,
turning, twisting and playing with objects develops grasping ability in
children. Another very important
activity that provides children with enjoyment in addition to
developing motor skills,
essential for writing, is drawing. Therefore, children should be encouraged
to draw. Children's early
drawings often resemble meaningless scribbles which later evolve into
discernible shapes and figures.
Apart from drawing, some other
activities that help develop the motor skills necessary for writing
include games such as pouring
water into a container, stringing beads and flowers, making objects
out of clay or dough, etc. The
home environment of the child provides him/her with enough
opportunity to engage in such
activities. However, this is not always the case. Therefore, it is
necessary for teachers to help
children engage in such activities wherever required.
Practicing Letters, Words,
Sentences: Generally, it is believed that achievement of sentence writing is
helped by practicing writing
letters and then words again and again. This is true to a certain extent,
but if children are made to engage
in tedious repetition of letters and words, they may be
disenchanted with writing before
they even begin to write. Therefore, while individual letters and
varnmalas are useful in
introducing children to writing, they might not be meaningful to children
unless their relationship with
whole words or sentences is made clear.
Two things – respecting
children's abilities and creating meaningful contexts in which they can learn
are of great importance in
teaching children to write. It is necessary to appreciate the fact that the
child has an immense innate
capability to learn language. They learn their native languages naturally
through meaningful social
experiences involving speaking and listening. Similarly, they grasp the
rules of writing mostly through
meaningful experiences involving written material.
child has an immense innate
capability to learn language. They learn their native languages naturally
through meaningful social
experiences involving speaking and listening. Similarly, they grasp the
rules of writing mostly through
meaningful experiences involving written material.
In teaching, we often act under
the assumption that children need to be told everything and that they
would not understand unless they
are told. This, however, is not true. It is necessary to get rid of this
mindset and to start respecting
the capabilities of children. Children have a unique ability to write
before coming to school. It is
normal for children to create figures and symbols in sand, on the floor or
on paper and to make up stories
about them. For them, these drawings are not meaningless, but
rather they represent a unique
script through which they express what they wish to say. Children
should be given the opportunity
to make full use of their abilities. Their learning process does not
involve joining pieces of
knowledge together to get the complete picture, but in fact it involves the
opposite. The whole picture is
formed first, and then the specifics become clear in different ways.
Unless a meaningful whole is
supplied, the small specifics, such as individual letters of the varnmala
or alphabet, will not make sense
and will be boring.
Q1 (b) Which out of accuracy and fluency in
language, you, as a language teacher, would give
priority while facilitating learning of
language and why?
Ans. Accuracy
is the ability to produce correct sentences using correct grammar and
vocabulary. On
the other hand, fluency is the ability to
produce language easily and smoothly. It is very difficult to
choose where accuracy should be stressed over
fluency and vice versa.
The level of accuracy of a child at primary
level is different from that of an adult. A child learns
language by committing mistakes. A childs errors help her in learning and
simultaneously even
while committing error she is following the
rules of language. For instance, a 3 year old child speaks
in order to express herself: Mummy khilona
chahiye hai. khana chahiye hai.
The child knows that every sentence ends with
the word “hai” and therefore she uses “hai” after
“chahiye”. As per language rules, “chahiye” is an auxiliary verb.
Another auxiliary verb “tha” is used
along with “chahiye”, only in past tense. Although the
child is unaware of this rule but she uses it.
In reference to the learning proficiency,
fluency means the ability through which a child is
spontaneously able to express herself by
speaking, reading and writing. In this, emphasis is laid on
meaning and context rather than on
grammatical errors. Today a language teacher faces a huge
dilemma, as to which out of the two should
she seriously pursue? Both the perspectives are present in
front of us.
Traditional teachers give greater importance
to accuracy, in language learning. They force the
children to read and write in correct
grammatical terms. For this, they test the children through
various periodic assessments. In most of the
classes children are hardly given an opportunity to
improve by recognizing their own errors.
Examination centered approach is influenced by this
accuracy based perspective.
Another group of teachers believe that
language is the medium for expression of feelings and
experiences. They give more importance to
fluency. Instead of grammar, they lay focus on
understanding the meaning and reference,
along with this, they emphasize that the children speaking
fluently should be able to express themselves
in such a way that the listener understands it correctly.
These teachers believe; that since
initiation, the more the child will make use of language, the more
her level of fluency will rise.
After having a look at both the perspectives,
in fact, it seems that both stand correct in their own
place. In order to learn language from an
overall perspective, children have to be skilled in both.
Reaching class 10, children start using
language with fluency. It is then that we should focus on
accuracy because in child’s language
development, timely and appropriate help plays a very
important
role.
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Q2 (a) Critically analyse the strengths and
limitations of any two methods through which
‘reading’ can be developed as skill among
children.
Ans. Some
of the methods of teaching reading and their shortcomings are as follows:
(1) Knowing the rules of reading quickly: Actually, there are no rules for reading. At
least none that can be simplified and defined
for children. All fluent readers develop the knowledge
necessary to read but they develop it from
the effort to read rather than by being told. This process is
akin to the process of the child acquiring
oral language. The child is able to develop the rules for
articulation and comprehension without being
taught any formal rules. There is no evidence to
suggest that teaching grammar helps in making
children develop the ability to speak. There is also no
evidence indicating that practicing
pronunciation or other non-reading tasks help in developing
reading ability.
(2) For reading, the child has to remember
rules of pronunciation and follow them:
One view which is widely accepted that the
ability to read comes from being able to link sound to its
corresponding symbolic representation. We,
however, know reading does not end or begin at being
able to pronounce the text. We have to grasp
the meaning even before we pronounce the word unless
we know the word we cannot speak it.
Converting letters to sound is not only unnecessary but also a
waste of effort. If we look carefully, it is
obvious that a fluent reader does not get into changing letters
to sounds. Such a process does not help in
making meaning; it rather takes one away from it. In spite
of this, it is often argued that children
will have to develop competence in pronunciation of the word,
part by part, as per letters used otherwise
they will not be able to recognise words they have not seen
earlier.
Some of the enablers for learning to read are
as follows:
(1) Contextual reading material: Students need context to learn language and
learn to
read. Stories and poems also form interesting
contexts. While relating a story a teacher should stop in
between and let students complete what would
follow. Many important concepts are natural parts of
the stories (for example- big, small,
near-far, fat-thin etc.). Students acquire or consolidate them easily
through a story. The context of the story
introduces these and when enacted their meaning gets
clearer. Besides, the student gets an
opportunity to place herself in different characters and in
imaginary situations. Initially students
mimic and copy only the gross visible features of the
characters.
(2) Reading must be purposeful and
challenging: Reading
material for students must
be useful, meaningful and challenging.
Whenever we read something, we read it for some purpose.
These could be, for example, reading for fun,
reading due to curiosity, reading to understand the
sequence of events in a story, to know what
happens at the end of story, to learn about, what is
happening around and find whether such
materials are even being written or not. If they are given
challenges of this kind, challenges that give
them opportunity to learn more, talk about what they
have learnt and share their experiences, they
will learn to read faster. If reaching the meaning of a text
to find something that they want to know is a
challenge, they will feel inspired to make an effort.
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Q2 (b) Enumerate the principles to be followed to choose
material for language laboratories.
Ans. Some
important principles that can help the teacher to use materials appropriately
in the
classrooms are as follows:
(1) To store the materials properly is essential but it
is equally important to ensure that it
can be quickly distributed to children. If children
have to get materials and return them then the
system of distribution and collection must involve
children. They must feel responsible and help.
Such a participation would also ensure that the total
time taken for distribution and collecting back is
not too much.
(2) Material should be easy to reach. Even if only the
teacher has to use the material, the
preparations must be made in advance. It is upsetting
for children to wait while the teacher searches
for the appropriate material to begin. The continuity
and interest in learning gets broken.
(3) If we have to use a lot of material then it is
better to use them one by one. Only there is a need to show a relationship
between different materials or show the reaction between them
that we can use them together.
(4) Breakage of materials is possible during use, it is
necessary that there is an acceptance
of damage and writing off and replacement of materials
in the system. When children read books
handle charts, use chalks or colours these materials
will get torn, broken or consumed. Any system
that does not allow for such processes cannot encourage
the use of materials.
(5) It is important to remember that the materials must
be used for learning and not just
for display. Materials will not teach on their own;
teachers must know which material is useful in
which situation. TLM is only a tool for making lessons
meaningful. The work of choosing teaching
materials has to be done by the teacher keeping the
interest and abilities of children in mind.
The various principles or basis of choosing study
material are as follows:
(1) The material should be such that they fulfill the
educational objectives. That means
they make possible the work that we want to do and the
opportunity we want to provide children.
For example, if we want children to develop imagination
and express their ideas in an organized
manner, we need to pick up a picture that can give them
this opportunity.
(2) The material should be usable for diverse purposes.
We should procure such
materials and prepare teachers so that they can use
materials in a flexible way.
(3) The materials should be easily available and
require no extra effort. It is also
necessary that they should be available in sufficient
quantity and not be expensive. Children should
be able to use it. Models of thermocol that get damaged
and break on touching are not good
materials. We must remember that most of the materials
should be for use of children.
(4) The material that children have to use must be such
that it does not require very
elaborate precautions. They should not be security
hazard.
(5) It is necessary that both teachers and children be
participants in the process of
choosing and developing materials. It is not
appropriate to pre-decide, choose and then send
materials to the school and teachers.
(6) Participation of teacher and children in selecting
materials is essential. They must
also have opportunity to learn to and think about ways
of using the materials in classrooms.
(1) To store the materials properly is essential but it
is equally important to ensure that it
can be quickly distributed to children. If children
have to get materials and return them then the
system of distribution and collection must involve
children. They must feel responsible and help.
Such a participation would also ensure that the total
time taken for distribution and collecting back is
not too much.
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