NIOS D.EL.ED: Nios Deled Course - 503 Assignment II Answers

Nios Deled Course - 503 Assignment II Answers


Nios Deled Course - 503 Assignment II Answers
Learning Languages at Elementary Level
Q1 (a) Enumerate the various methods which can be used to facilitate the learning of language.
Ans. Some important methods of language-teaching methods are as follows:
(1) Grammar Translation method: The grammar–translation method is a method of
teaching foreign languages derived from the classical (sometimes called traditional) method of
teaching Greek and Latin. In grammar–translation classes, students learn grammatical rules and then
apply those rules by translating sentences between the target language and the native language.
Advanced students may be required to translate whole texts word-for-word. The method has two
main goals: to enable students to read and translate literature written in the source language, and to
further students' general intellectual development. The biggest limitation of this method is that the
children do not acquire proficiency in listening and speaking the language.

(2) Communicative method: Communicative language teaching (CLT), or the
communicative method, is an approach to language teaching that emphasizes interaction as both the
means and the ultimate goal of study. Language learners in environments utilizing CLT techniques
learn and practice the target language through interaction with one another and the instructor, study
of "authentic texts" (those written in the target language for purposes other than language learning),
and use of the language in class combined with use of the language outside of class. Learners
converse about personal experiences with partners, and instructors teach topics outside of the realm
of traditional grammar in order to promote language skills in all types of situations. This method also
claims to encourage learners to incorporate their personal experiences into their language learning
environment and focus on the learning experience in addition to the learning of the target language.
According to CLT, the goal of language education is the ability to communicate in the target language.
(3) Natural Approach: The Natural Approach is a language learning theory developed
by Drs. Stephen Krashen of USC and Tracy Terrell of the University of California, San Diego. This
method gives maximum attention to the fact that in language teaching the focus should not be on the
teacher or the teaching-learning material but on the learner (student). This fact was also affected by
researches done in linguistics. From these researches it also became clear that making mistakes is an
essential step in the process of acquiring language. On analyzing these errors it was also found that
these errors are in fact indicators of a child􀈂s knowledge and learning process.
The theory is based on the radical notion that we all learn language in the same way. According to
this method, children have innate ability to acquire language from birth. A 4-year old internalizes the
rules of her language and does not make mistakes in speaking even before entering school. That is
why the Natural Approach focuses on giving the child a tension free environment for learning
language as well as providing interesting and challenging teaching–learning material of their level.
(4) Audio Lingual Method: With the outbreak of World War II armies needed to become
orally proficient in the languages of their allies and enemies as quickly as possible. This teaching
technique was initially called the Army Method, and was the first to be based on linguistic theory and behavioral psychology.

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Q1 (b) "Creation of suitable environment is an important pre-requisite for language learning".
Discuss.
Ans. Even though we have the sensory organs and the tendency to speak, no child can learn
language until she hears it being spoken and practises speech. Each child learns the language of her
group-the way she speaks, the words she uses and the accent of her speech. The child who grows up
without contact with people, she cannot speak normally and it will be difficult to teach her later. Also
the children who are hard of hearing or deaf, begin to babble at the same time as other children but
after some time the amount of babbling decreases, since they do not get a feedback. If not provided a
hearing aid, the child will grow up they do not get a feedback. If not provided a hearing aid, the child
will grow up without learning to speak. This brings out the importance of environmental factors in
language acquisition.

Research studies have shown that when parents are sensitive to the child's speech and respond to her
utterances, the child's language develops. A rich language environment leads to better speech
development. We know that children living in institutions generally show lower levels of language
development compared to children in families. A positive emotional relationship with the parents
helps the child to feel secure and lays the foundation for language acquisition.
It is clear that the child must be maturationally ready to learn to speak and must get opportunities for
hearing and practising speech. Adults and older children help the infant in acquiring language,
especially during the first year of the child's life, in the following ways:

(i) Caregivers, whether adults or children, keep their language simple when they are
talking to infants, especially those only a few months old. They use short and simple sentences, speak
in an exaggerated manner and do not use pronouns like 'I' or 'you' since these are difficult for the
infant to understand. Adults call out the child's name rather than saying 'you' and call themselves
'mummy', 'daddy' or 'aunty' rather than 'I'. They also produce nonsense sounds, i.e. those which have
no meaning, but which the child delights to hear. They respond to the child's cooing and babbling by
talking to her, imitating her and encouraging her. Most of this modification in the way of talking is
instinctive. Caregivers also see what type of speech the infant responds to most and then use that in
their interactions.
(ii) When the infant is around 4-5 months of age, the caregivers begin to show them toys
and household objects. While showing these they refer to them by their names and describe them a
little. Siblings delight in such activities with the baby and are untiring in their efforts to attract her
attention to an object. By 6-7 months the infant also begins to point at objects, picks them up and
shows them to people. This increases the interaction between caregivers and the child. By the time the
infant is 7-8 months old, the family members also begin to talk about what is going on around the
child. They refer to their own actions and the actions of the child. While walking with the infant on
the road the father, on seeing a fruit seller, is likely to say: "Banto, look! Bananas! See, there! Banto,
eats banana everyday, don't you? It tastes good, mm......?"

Thus, in a normal environment, the child is continuously surrounded by people who talk to each
other and her. The infant picks up new words from the context in which they are spoken and in this
manner her language develops.

(iii) Lullabies and songs are a delightful part of the caregiver-child relationship. There is
hardly anyone of us who grew up without hearing them. Some of the songs refer to everyday events
like eating, bathing and sleeping. Some of them are about myths and stories. Infants enjoy the rhythm
of the lullabies greatly. In addition, they also learn new words. In this way, by 6-7 months the infant
begins to recognize the sound and meaning of commonly used words. The infant is able to
understand language not because she understands all the words that we use. She may understand
one or two words but she relies on the gestures used; the tone of the voice and the context in which
they are spoken. When the father says: "No, don't touch that!", the child is able to understand because
he points to the forbidden object, shakes his head and raises his voice to convey anger or anxiety. This
brings us to another aspect of language development that we must keep in mind. At any age, the
child is able to comprehend more than she is able to speak.

(iv) When children are around 9-10 months of age, parents and relatives begin to play
language games with them. They say a word like "bye-bye" and encourage the child to reproduce it.
They also teach her to wave by showing her the gesture. Increasing competency in language helps the
baby to interact with more people and form relationships with them and this helps in her social and
emotional development. Language helps her to learn about people and objects. Thus, we see that
language influences development of cognition and social relationships. This shows how development
in one area influences development in other areas as well.



Q2 (a) Critically analyse any two methods which can be used to develop 􀈁writing skills􀈂 for their
strengths and limitations.
Ans. Writing is an important form of communication and a key part of education. It takes time to
develop strong writing skills, and it can be a tough task to accomplish. Following are some of the
activities to develop writing skills among lower classes:

(1) Picture composition: The teacher can give a picture to students and ask them to write
about it. This writing can include a wide variety of compositions. They may be asked to write a story,
to describe the picture, to write a dialogue between the characters, to fill in a missing gap in the
picture and write about it, etc. When a series of pictures depicting a story is provided, they can be
asked to write the story.

(2) Continuing the story: The teacher can tell the beginning of a story, and can ask to
write what they think happened next.

(3) Independent writing: The teacher can as to children to write about something that
they evidently show great interest in or something that they talk about a lot. This will not only help to
develop writing skills, but may point the teacher towards more techniques for facilitating learning.

(4) Dictation: The teacher can speak aloud some words and ask the children to write
them to see if they are able to link the spoken sounds to their written forms.

(5) Developing stories from given outlines: The teacher can give a rough outline of a
story in the form of a series of words and phrases, and then ask to build a story using these words
and phrases.

(6) Last-letter-first: The teacher can make some groups of students and ask to write
down words one by one, such that the first letter of the word they write is the last letter of the word
that came before. Through this activity, the teacher can identify the problem areas without pointing
them out directly to the child.

(7) Topic of interest: The teacher can let children talk about a topic of their interest and
write down what they have said. This will clarify the communicative purpose of writing and will
clarify the link between speech and writing.

(8) Rhyming words: The teacher can ask to students to come up with words which
rhyme with the given word, or are similar in sound of the given word.

Higher forms of writing are taught in schools for the development of expression, creativity and
communicative ability. Those higher forms are as follows:

(1) Paragraph writing: Paragraph writing remains one of the most important parts of
writing. The paragraph serves as a container for each of the ideas of an essay or other piece of writing.
It helps children learn how to think and write focusing on one theme. It is a good exercise for
encouraging young children to express themselves coherently and also forms the basis for essay
writing. It is advisable to ask children to write about things that they find relevant to their lives.

(2) Essay writing: An essay is a short piece of writing that discusses, describes and
analyses one topic. It can discuss a subject directly or indirectly, seriously or humorously. Essay
writing is the most important branch of composition. In the process of essay writing, the student has
to gather up ideas associated with the topic, analyze them, reject the irrelevant ideas and choose the
relevant ones. This process acts as health tonic to the powers of the mind of the student. His
intelligence grows keener, reason sharper and imagination livelier.

(3) Letter writing: Unlike essays, letters have a very specific communicative purpose.
Therefore, they do not require the elaboration of points as required in essays. On the other hand, they
do require a certain skill in writing to communicate. The style of writing will vary according to the
writer􀈂s relationship with the recipient. The writer needs to understand how the recipient will react to
the content of their message.

(4) Story writing: Writing stories is something every child is asked to do in school, and
many children write stories in their free time, too. By writing story, children learn to organize their
thoughts and use written language to communicate with readers in a variety of ways. Writing stories
also helps children better read, and understand, stories written by other people.

Story writing should be introduced when children are beginning to write, so that their imagination
aids their writing skills and also for older children. In the case of the latter, the aims of this exercise
remain roughly the same. However, promotion of thinking skills and imaginative faculties is
emphasised over learning of language. As children grow, they are expected to regard issues from
different perspectives, engage in problem solving and appreciate the aesthetic qualities of writing.
These skills develop through an affinity with different forms of literature. By the time they get to
senior classes, children have been exposed to different forms of literature such as poems, stories,
plays etc., and these further help in the development of thinking and story writing skills. In turn,
story writing helps generate interest in literature and language.

(5) Poetry writing: Writing poetry is a transferable skill that will help children write in
other ways and styles. Children in smaller classes usually know only those poems which include
rhyming words. Younger children enjoy rhyme and rhyming words help in generating interest and in
giving children an impression of words, because of which they can read easily. Rhyming words can
also generate interest in writing and develop the skill of writing on the basis of sound. Therefore,
small poem making activities may be taken up with young children. Children can be asked to make
up poems either individually or in groups, with their peers. This can be an enjoyable activity.

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Q2 (b) Real assessment of children’s performance should be continuous and comprehensive in
its nature. Justify.

Ans. Continuous and comprehensive assessment (CCA) emphasizes on two fold objectives. These are
continuity in assessment and assessment of all aspects of learning. Thus the term “continuous” refers
to assessment on intermittent basis rather than a onetime event. When the assessment exercises are
conducted in short intervals on regular basis, the assessment tends to become continuous. In other
words, it can be said that if the time interval between two consecutive assessment events can be
lessened or minimized then the assessment will become continuous. In order to make the assessment
process continuous, the assessment activities must be spread over the whole academic year. It means
regularity of assessment, frequent unit testing, diagnosis of the learning difficulty of the learners,
using corrective measures, providing feedback to the learners regarding their progress, etc. will have
to happen maximally.

The second term comprehensive means assessment of both scholastic and co-scholastic aspect of
Student’s development. Since all the abilities of the learners development cannot be assessed through
written and oral activities, there is a need to employ variety of tools and techniques (both testing and
non-testing techniques) for the assessment of all the aspects of learners development.
“Continuous” is generally considered by teachers as a regular conduct of tests. Many schools are
practicing weekly tests in the name of continuous assessment in all subjects. “Comprehensive” is
considered as combining various aspects of childs behavior in isolation. Personal-social qualities
(empathy, cooperation, self-discipline, taking initiatives etc.) are judged in isolation and are being
graded on four/five point scale, which appears impractical.
By continuously observing the learners to see what they know and can do, the teacher can make sure
that no learner fails. Everyone is given a chance to succeed and more attention is given to children
who were falling behind. Continuous assessment process fosters cooperation between the student
and teacher. While the student learns to consult the teacher, classmates and other sources on aspects
of her/his project work; the teacher is able to offer remedial help for further improvement in learning.

Comprehensive component means getting a sense of holistic” development of child’s progress.
Progress cannot be made in a segregated manner, that is, cognitive aspects, personal-social qualities,
etc. After completion of a chapter/theme, teacher would like to know whether children have learnt
(assessment of learning) as s/he expected based on lesson’s objectives/learning points. For that, s/he
broadly identifies the objectives of the lesson and spells out learning indicators. The teacher designs
activities based on expected learning indicators. These activities need to be of varied nature. Through
these questions/activities she would assess the learners and that data would be one kind of
summative data of a lesson/theme. Such assessment data must be recorded by the teacher. Likewise
in one quarter, she/he would cover 7-8 lessons/topics and in this manner she/he would have
substantial data covering varied aspects of childs behavior. It would provide data on how the child
was working in groups, doing paper-pencil test, drawing pictures, reading picture, expressing orally,
composing a poem/song, etc. These data would give “comprehensive picture of child’s learning and

development.


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