Evaluating Articles at elementary level.

         

A An and The are the articles that we use in english. Teaching articles in a learner friendly way is realy a difficult task for those teachers who do not plan properly. I think every teaching item can be taught through activities. ABL way realy helps learners to recall what they have learnt for a long time.

One day I was just reading some lines from a passage from 7 grade textbook, suddenly something happened and we got deviated from that lesson to the use of articles.Because many of my students did not know it properly. We went on discussion but the next day when I asked the same to my learners , they were commiting silly mistakes. That made them so sad and me too. They were sad because they were not attentive when that part was taught to them by the previous teacher and I was feeling ashamed for not being able to teach them in some new way. Then I realised they won't learn better through lecture method but through an activity.

I used an activity for taking review of 7th standard students about articles. I searched various videos on YouTube regarding Use of article in english gramar lesson. After a lot of brainstorming, finally I remembered a very simple activity that I had conducted once in a teacher training.

I devided students into two teams. Given them instructions of siting and playing the activity. Aloted scorer for recording the scores. I explained them the rules. Also penalty for wrong behaviour.It was so funny activity. I demonstrated the activity so well that no participants had any doubt in their mind. Even though I asked some instructions and concept checking questions too.

There were lots of running and jumping, so students did not actually realise that they were being evaluated for their understanding the use of articles. Students were playing naturally. They had no pressure of being examined. They just knew playing the game as they always do. But throughout this activity, though not so long students understood the use of appropriate article. As many of their friends were helping their teammates and rectifying their mistakes in a very joyful mannar. 

                   I decided to keep myself silent. Because I knew learners can improve themselves more easily rather a teacher. And as there was a competition between two teams students were eager to score more and get patting from me. No doubt all learners deserved that.

After that activity I asked them,"Can we sit back in the classroom and learn articles now?" The students said "Now what is left , sir we learnt everything  about articles" very enthusiastically. It was real learning for me and my learners. 

This experience made me more confident about using language games in and out of the classroom. It also pushed me more closed to my learners. I also learnt to manage the time for activity in the lesson plans. I think that day I understood the best way to evaluate learners not by exams but by joyful tasks. This is what Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation expects from all our teachers. 

You can hit the link to see how did I conduct that activity.

https://youtu.be/jyALWyKch7s

you can talk to me on

vkhanke@gmail.com

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Twitter @vijaykhanke

Fun With Fractions

             Teaching fractions at the primary standards is very simple, only when it is explained well and practiced more. I had such a great experience of this because when I was persuing my primary education I realy faced difficulties in fractions. I don't remember why but that part really trobled me a lot.         

                 

Whenever I see numerator and denominators I could get confused and my teacher used to punish me for not being able to read and draw the given fractions. The teacher sometimes could get confused self because while explaining some types of fractions he himself was not confident enough. Many of my friends complained several times to the teacher but he would turn a deaf ear to our problems. We could not assess internet as no such facility was available by that time. Teacher and parents were the only sourse of knowledge.

Considering all these problems of students  l decided to teach Fractions in a very child friendly and interesting manner. For this purpose  I prepared teaching learning material for easier learning of students. 

I used squares, circles, triangles for practically demonstrating various ways of making equal portions. I designed set of activities for introducing fractions to the learners. Distributed all the sets to the students. 

At first students read the instructions but couldn't understand the task but were so motivated seeing colourful shapes. They were eager to touch, cut and play with the shapes before. So instead of teaching them fractions I allowed students to play with the shapes . 

For more than an hour students lost all there senses and were so involved that he himself has to divide the students into four groups and give them separate shapes some made with the help of students and I made some. 

I simply put a question before students by challenging the groups to make as many ways as they can find equal parts of the shape provided to them. The teams accepted his challenge and began to find all possible ways to make equal portions of the assigned shapes. Their enthusiasm and creativity made me astonished. At the end they said, "That's it sir".Now you suggest your ways?" 

I was very happy and started again playing with them. In this way we learnt half, quarter, one full and three quarters. Students learnt greater and smaller fractions. They themselves told me  the numerator and denominators.  

And gradually day after a day we learn Equivalent fractions, like and unlike fractions ,improper and mixed fractions, its conversion, all the basic activities like addition, substraction, multiplication and division of fractions. 

                              Please do not forget to watch this video for better understanding. https://youtu.be/r1RTUQV7-FM