How to learn English in 21^st century

            Nowadays, it is well known English is international language. People around the world use it to communicate. They cannot avoid using and learning English. In south-east Asia, they are going to be ASEAN community and English is going to be a formal language to communicate. Then, Thailand will become to be a member of ASEAN community too. You see that English have more performance in your life. Therefore, it is a good way if you practice your English skill more. You can practice by using these strategies.

            Before making note from reading, you need to ask some questions. For example, why I reading this?, what am I looking for? In addition, you need to ask questions about the content of your reading.  It’s very useful if you analyse the topic think about your purpose for making note. You could save time if you have approach to ask questions. There are many practical suggestions on noting from text that are: choose index cards or A4 in one side only, record full references details after you finish noting. When you note your reading, you need to properly acknowledge in the paper. You can use colour pens to note because it can show the different to areas and help you to remember your note. You should be using and revising your note. Moreover you can add your own thoughts and you will be able adapt the ideas in your note. Noting can help you to effective reading.

            Reading will be effectively or not it depends on your reading purpose and you should have ways to read. There are many purposes and many ways to read like to locate specific information, you might read quickly and looking for the specific information that you want to know. When you read the new topic, you may spend more time to understand. Then, you should begin with a general introduction, you should read slowly and make sure you understand their meanings and write them in your own words. However, some courses there are reading essential text. For example, scan the content page before you begin reading. Read and note major points or idea in your own words. When you are reading for assignment, you should refresh your mind about the assignment topic and review your plan. Also, you should make brief note and avoid overuse of colurpens. It’s well known that all reading topic is not easy. So, you should have strategies than you can try. After you finished reading, you should revise and ask questions your reading. . It needs you to do that is criticized and make decision about the reading. This is for you to do and study alone.

            Studying alone is you can study in your own time or free time without the force set by lecture timetable. It is freedom for you to be responsibilities in your life. You need to organize your time effectively. Your schedule must be practical, flexible and realistic. Planning, it is important to get some understanding of how much work you need to do, and how much time you have to do it. You may spend your time to study in library or other about assignment. When you spend time, you should concentrate for the task. You do not waste vast amount of time. You may do other things. In addition, group study is the chance for many students. There are clearly advantages that is meeting or talking in face to face situation. They can use computer networks to communicate to other students. E-mail is as well as direct interaction. It is very quickly to respond. It helps you for your study like send your assignment to your lecturer, send another copy to the student. Then, you should write your assignment and lecture clearly and revise its before sent it to them.

            Lecture noting which can recall relevant points and ideas presented in the lecture. So, before you going to lecture notes, you should read briefly about the lecture topic beforehand because it can help you to take more relevant note and become actively in the learning process. You should know the purpose of lecture like for examination. You need to take fairly comprehensive notes. You see that taking note is an active and thoughtful exercise, you can hardly be wrong. Therefore, you should note the topic name, lecturer and date for each lecture. Use abbreviations and revise your note as soon as possible. This is very important because it helps to reinforce the information you have gathered in the lecture. Your lecture note will be achieved if you organize a good time.

            Time organization is more complex than just writing out a timetable and scheduling time in your diary. You must set distinct goals in the long-term and short-term. After that, you plan what do you do in weekly and identify times when study will be number one priority for you and you need to check it is a balance between study and other or not. When you have emergencies situation, it is essential that you are able to re-organize your life so that study time is available. It is normally for students that is losing heart during a course. So, lecturers are often happy to offer advice, support and information, particularly in their subject area and you need to find the problem in your course. If you know the problem, you should analyse the source of the problem. You should know that everyone is different that you are being successful than friends because you have more time to study and your friends and you have own unique learning styles and rates.

            All of ideas above allow you to offer increased opportunities for language learning by taking advantage of learning strategies that you can do it very well. You will be good in English if you give a chance for yourself to practice and practice. It seems that how much you practice that is how much you are good in English.

This time for teaching test

          It is one day for teaching test about ASEAN. Today there are 11 people to do a test. Now I would like to tell you how they were teaching.

          The first person thought speaking skill. She thought about exchange rate. She let students to speak more time including group and pair work and she used language fluency. The second person thought reading skill. She prepared ASEAN song to start the lesson. She thought reading strategies but when read the words, she pronounced the words incorrectly. The third person thought writing skill. She let students to watch ASEAN video before going to start the lesson. She thought writing a letter but she didn’t tell them how to write. She had only video about writing a letter. She used language incorrectly. The fourth thought listening skill. She thought about booking a flight ticket. Activity that she used in the class it cannot practice listening skill. The fifth person thought speaking skill. She had video that was related to the lesson. She thought about asking and bargaining prices. She let students to know the currency in Singapore first and then she let them to play game. She had more time for them to practice speaking skill. The sixth person thought listening skill. Activities that she used it were emphasis on speaking more than listening. The seventh person thought writing skill. He thought how to write a fight ticket. She showed the website that it used for it. The eighth person thought speaking skill. She thought about exchange rate in Malaysia. She prepared more activities for students but some activities it didn’t related to skill. The ninth person thought reading skill. She thought about meaning of ASEAN country flag. She had more activities about it but it didn’t clear for reading skill. The tenth person thought writing skill. She thought writing a postcard in Malaysia. She had a real material. The last person thought speaking skill. He thought about country and nationality. He let students to have more time to practice speaking skill.

          All of our teaching is better than before. We had real materials to teach that is related to communicative language teaching. When you are teaching students, students can use language in real life. Now, language learning is on web-based learning. It is emphasis on students. Students must learn by themselves. So, we should think how to teach students and should comprehend about how to write  an objective.

This time for teaching test

ASEAN is important for people in 10 countries. Then, it is a good way for my friends and me to design your lesson to teach students about ASEAN. Today there are 13 people for doing a test.  One of all is me.

          The first person thought listening skill. She chooses places in Laos to teach students but I think she didn’t teach them about listening strategies. She emphasized on speaking more than listening. So, she couldn’t evaluate students correctly. The second person thought about speaking skill. She began the lesson by presenting all countries in ASEAN. She had a sound of words for them to listen and practice their speaking. She thought them how to pronoun the word correctly by using the stick but it was a good way if she chooses one country to teach them. The third person thought reading skill. She began the lesson by presenting the food in Malaysia but there was less practice for students. The fourth person thought writing skill. She thought about comparative place in Laos. I think she didn’t prepare herself for teaching and she didn’t have clear activity. The fifth person thought listening skill. She let students to listen in a less time. She should have more time for students to practice listening skill. The sixth person thought reading skill. She let students to read news but she thought in the wrong way and she didn’t know the parts of news correctly.  She pronounced the words incorrectly. The seventh person is me. I thought writing skill. I let students to write a postcard by using tourist attractions in Singapore and I let students to know tourist attractions in Singapore first. The eighth person thought speaking skill. She thought about recommendation place and she had time for students to practice speaking. She thought fluency. The ninth thought listening skill. She thought about do and don’t in Malaysia. She thought different content. It was good for teaching this content. The tenth person thought speaking skill. She thought about ASEAN currency and asking price. She had a native speaker for students to listen conversation but she didn’t use language fluency. The eleventh person thought reading skill. She had a good activity but she pronounced the words incorrectly. She should have worksheet for students because it helped students to understand fast. The twelfth person thought writing skill. She had activity for students to practice writing skill but she wrote some word incorrect like exiting. The right word is exciting. So, she should check the content before teaching students. The last person for today thought listening skill. She let students to listen exchange rate conversation but she didn’t teach listening strategies for them.

          All of us that thought today, there were many mistakes.  Teacher told at last we didn’t focus on students. It was a good way if we let students to do more activities. When we writing a lesson plan, we should write learner more teacher for doing activity. We cannot forget about task and test must relate together. If we would like students to speaking, we should give time for them to speak.

This time for teaching test

      Today is one day for teaching test. There are 10 people for today. I’m a first person to test. I thought about ordering food. There are a lot of mistake like don’t interpret students while they are doing the activity. Teacher should tell about their mistake after they finished doing activity. Then there are a lot of good points for my teaching. I would like to tell you about that one. I had clear objectives and have instruction to evaluation and assessment students. I had good manage classroom and I used eye-contact to students all the time. I could solve the face problem and I used a lot of questionings. Classroom is smooth and transition. I will get the good point and I will improve the mistake to be good in the next test. The second person thought about asking direction. She had a video about people asking the way to the place for beginning the lesson. She should give time to students to practice the conversation much time.  When you want to teach vocabulary to students, you should show the parts of speech of the vocabulary. The third person thought about ordering food. She had video for beginning the classroom and game but she should improve the speaking rubric to emphasis on fluency more than accuracy. The fourth person thought about occupation. She used game for beginning the lesson but she had a lot of mistakes about her pronunciation. The fifth and sixth person thought about asking direction. She used game for starting the class. The seventh person thought about places in Satun and she let students to describe the picture by using the adjective. The eighth person thought the same one about asking direction. The last person thought about ordering food. She had a video and she thought modal verb too.

          From watching friends teaching and teaching today, there are a lot of things that are good for the next teaching. I will get the good point that friends and teacher commented me and I will improve the weak point of them and me too. This is good lesson and experience for many people and me to learn.

This time for teaching test

          Before we were testing, teacher told us how to write ASEAN lesson plan and objective might clear and should choose 1 skill for teaching. But while we were teaching, we could interfere other skill. He said that in 21 century everything is in the website, children must learn by themselves. Today we would like to teaching finish in the first lesson plan (Local).

          Now I would like to tell you one by one about their teaching. There were 11 people. Some people thought the same content. The first person thought about attraction in Phang Nga.  She would like them to know place in there. While she was teaching, she used question to check students that they understood or not. She used video to encourage students to learn in that content but she should improve her evaluation. The second person thought about recommendation place in Nakhon Si Thammarat. She had video for students but she spent more time for the video. So, it could make students to be boring. Ball Game that she used could have more techniques like turn on the music and then turn off the music. One thing that she did well was conversation sound; she could find native speaker sound. The third person thought what you did on holiday at Krabi. He thought multi skills. He did not specific in 1 skill. So, students did not understand and couldn’t use the content in real life. There were many mistakes in the worksheet thought it was simple point. Therefore he could more prepare himself for teaching. The fourth person thought about asking direction. She started the lesson by using game and let students to know the place in Phattalung. Her spoken and written was not correctly. She did not manage her classroom while students were playing Facebook. She should manage students to stop playing Facebook. The fifth person thought about be going to. She let students to know the place in Sougkla and she would like them to watch the video about Songkla. She had an objective clearly but her evaluation did not relate to objective or criteria. The sixth person thought asking direction in Phattani. She had video and picture cards about that place. She thought like before person. By an accident she had the same mistake about evaluation form that criteria did not relate to the score. The seventh person thought about Occupation in Trang. She had a game for them but she did not tell them about part of speech and occupation words should have article. The eighth person thought about ordering food. First one, she let students to know food in Nakhon Si Thammarat by playing game. She did a good job but her written grammar did not correct and her evaluation too. The ninth person thought about hotel reservations. It was not the same other. He had authentic material to teach students. The name of hotel should have the- and his evaluation should relate to objective. The last person for today thought about food in Nakhon Si Thammarat and she focused on agreement and disagreement with food. The content nearly difficult and students never used in the real life. She used good language but fast. She told that she wanted to teach speaking skill but she emphasis on grammar more than speaking skill. So, she should one thing to teach.

          From watching friends teaching today, there are a lot of things that are good for my teaching. I will get the good point of them and I will improve the weak point of them too. This is good lesson and experience for many people and me to learn.

Listening skill

Listening skill

Using Comic Strips in Language Classes

          Comic are usually funny so applying them to methodological purposes will have the same effect as using games in teaching English. Comic strips not only amuse and interest L2 students. There are plenty of other reasons to use them in education.

          Oller’s episode hypothesis, John Oller and his episode hypothesis “texts which are more episodically organized can be stored and recalled more easily than less episodically organized material”. The students can follow the story line step by step and can recall its structure more easily. Oller’s theory can be applied in the case of comic strips used in the language class. The visual nature of comic strips also helps to increase motivation and more importantly. The learner will memorize and recall it more easily. Comic strips improve communicative competence and are used in spoken, colloquial. Consequently, comic strips help students to deal with spoken and even informal language. Comic strips are authentic and using authentic material is very important in language teaching and learning. There are many sample exercises to practice.

          Comic strips are not only for fun in language class, but there are also methodological reasons for teachers to use them. Comic strips provide the structure and stimulus to which students respond. It helps students to acquire vocabulary, grammatical and communicative competence. When I’m a teacher, I will use comic strips to teach in the language class because it can help students to learn many skills.

Reading  skill    

Ten Helpful Ideas for Teaching English to Young Learners

        Teaching English to Young learners <TEYL> has become its own field of  study as the age of compulsory English education has become lower and lower in countries around the world. This article contains some helpful ideas to incorporate into TEYL classroom.

        The ideas given below can be applied to learners ranging from approximately 5 to 12 years old and can be used for various proficiency levels. There are 10 ideas:

1.    Supplement activities with visuals, realia, and movement. This popular method can be used as technique with storytelling and with songs that teach language related to any kind of movement or physical action. Children have fun with movement, and the move fun for students, the better they will remember the language learned.

2.   Involve students in making visuals and realia. One way to make the learning more fun is to involve students in the creation of the visual or realia.

3.   Move from activities to activity. For young students, from age 5 to 10 especially, it is a good idea to move quickly from activity to activity. Do not spend more time in any activity.

4.   Teach in theme. Teachers should teach students from their planning.

5.   Use stories and contexts familiar to students. The contexts that are use when teaching English, which may be a completely new and foreign language, should be contexts that are familiar to them.

6.   Establish classroom routines in English. Young learners function well within a structured environment and enjoy repetition of certain routines and activities.

7.   Use L1 as a resource when necessary.  Teachers these days are mostly encouraged to teach English through English. Sometimes students can express comprehension of English in their native language.

8.   Bring in helpers from community. Collaborate with others who are studying English, studying to be English teachers, or who speak English well in order to expand the English learning community. Using helpers means taking extra time to communicate your expectation with the guest and working this special event into your lesson plan.

9.   Collaborate with other teachers in your school. Collaborate with other teachers in your school to make the learning experience richer for your students. Connect your lesson to the topics, activities, and stories your students are learning in their native language.

10.        Communicate with other TEYL professionals. TEYL professionals help keep your classroom fresh with new ideas and collaboration can help to construct new ideas and solutions to the common problems that teachers face.

All of the ideas given above stood out as some of the more helpful ideas for teaching EFL to young learners. These activities should prove helpful to all teachers of English to young learners.

Reading  skill    

Reading to Speak: Integrating Oral Communication Skills

          Speaking skill is the most important skill and students must master several difficult microskills, including the pronunciation of unfamiliar phonemes, the correct placement of stress and intonation and the appropriate use of formal and informal expressions.

        How to integrate oral communication skills. Speaking is added to reading and writing lessons to ensure that students receive essential practice in oral communication. The listening skill is already a natural complement to any true speaking activity, adding speaking opportunities to reading or writing lesson automatically allows students to integrate at least three skills. The integration of speaking and reading activities can be used in both intensive and extensive reading class. There are 3 activities that are 1.> Read to act 2.> Read to debate and 3.> Read to interview.

        Reading comes first and speaking is following. When teacher integrates speaking skills, it improves students’ communicative competence. Teacher can use these activities to practice students to speak fluency. 

Inside the classroom

        Today there are 5 people to teaching test. Each person has mistake about lesson plan. They don’t know how to write enabling objectives and terminal objectives. They cannot separate its. When they write enabling objectives and terminal objectives wrong, they cannot achieve for teaching including evaluation because it isn’t relevance. So, teacher asks my friends and me how different between enabling objectives and terminal objectives. If we know it, we can write lesson plan correctly.

        Enabling objectives come from indicator what teacher would like students to know first and terminal objectives are what students can do after they finish study. For example, enabling objective you write: students will be able to understand preposition. Terminal objective you write: students will be able to ask and answer question about the direction of place. If you can write like this, you can evaluate students correctly. Teacher said that they have only rubric criteria but they don’t have the instrument to evaluation. So, you should design it. When you teach, you should choose 1 content that clearly don’t teach many content. You should think that after you finish teaching students can use this language function in real life.

        In conclusion, enabling objectives are different from terminal objectives. You should plan your teaching that activities are smooth and choose only 1 content to teach. If someone can do like this, you will get the good point and good teaching.

 Week 15: Leaning Contract

Day	Time	What I do?
Sunday	10.00	Learning contract
Monday	-	-
Tuesday	22.30	Writing inside the classroom
Wednesday	21.30	Reading skill
Thursday	-
Friday	22.30	Reading skill
Saturday	11.30	Listening skill

Listening skill

Academic Writing: Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay

          Million of students have been taught a formula that has nothing to do with chemistry or mathematic. First, write an introductory paragraph. Then, add three paragraph of evidence. Finally, write a conclusion. Many people said about five-paragraph formula. Some people said the formula is simple to deal with subject and some people are difficult for them. Karen Gocsik said there is no formula for students to write. Students organize their paragraphs to build toward the main idea at the end of the paper.

Vocabulary	Pronunciation	Meaning		Sentence
		Thai	English
formula < n.>	/ ˈfɔːmjələ /	ประโยค	series of letters, numbers or symbols that represent a rule or law	This formula is used to calculate the area of a circle.
guarantee <n.>	/ ˌɡærənˈtiː /	การรับประกัน	a firm promise that you will do sth or that sth will happen	He gave me a guarantee that it would never happen again.

Reading  skill  

 Motivating Students by Modifying Evaluation Methods

          A foreign language learner’s motivation can be influenced by many factors: social, psychological education, and economical. Teachers can do a lot to motivate their students by being observant, understanding, informed, and tactful.

        In the Chinese, this Confucian model has exerted a great influence on foreign language. Teacher is very demanding, responsible. The students are compared with each other. The sad thing from this model is that a teacher’s good will and extra effort frequently bring and negative and harmful effects on the students.

        When evaluating students’ performance, instead of looking at it with the critical eye of an authoritarian, the teacher should examine the way students have been successful. The brainstorming activity would be ruined and the benefits of focusing on success and achievements are manifold.

        Norm-referenced evaluation is like athletic competition in the prize winners are scare. Criterion-referenced evaluation measures a student’s performance by comparing it to a defined of knowledge or skills <Bachman 1990: 74-76>. The students are evaluated according to standards, not each other. Objectives-referenced evaluation works well with essays and should be an integral part of the everyday teaching process. Teachers should not unrealistic demands or judgment criteria for their students, but rather depend on objectives referencing to evaluate both their students’ performance and their own teaching. When teachers evaluate students’ performance, it should be done as one of several means to help students succeed in learning. Analytic assessment point out specific aspects of a students’ performance.

        Students have different tolerance because they differ from other students in such diverse aspects as their family, educational history, learning strategies, and attitude for foreign language learning <Eillis 1994>. These are 3 techniques for improving how we evaluate our students’ work:

1.    Diachronic evaluation.

2.    Split method.

3.    Dynamic view.

Learning a foreign language is a long and complex task. Students should encourage their selves  to learn. These are many methods to motivate them to learn well like focus on success and achievement, use objectives-referenced testing. I think it is useful for teachers to choose these methods to motivate students.

Vocabulary	Pronunciation	Meaning		Sentence
		Thai	English
tactful < adj.>	/ ˈtæktfl /	ระวังคำพูดไม่ให้กระทบผู้อื่น	careful not to say or do anything that will annoy or upset other people	That wasn't a very tactful thing to say! I tried to find a tactful way of telling her the truth.
prevail <v.>	/ prɪˈveɪl /	แพร่หลาย	to exist or be very common at a particular time or in a particular place	We were horrified at the conditions prevailing in local prisons.
begrudge<v.>	/ bɪˈɡrʌdʒ /	อิจฉา	to feel unhappy that sb has sth because you do not think that they deserve it	You surely don't begrudge him his happiness.
conceit < n.>	/ kənˈsiːt /		an artistic effect or device, especially one that is very clever or tries to be very clever but does not succeed	The ill-advised conceit of the guardian angel dooms the film from the start.
sluggish < adj.>	/ ˈslʌɡɪʃ /		moving, reacting or working more slowly than normal and in a way that seems lazy	He felt very heavy and sluggish after the meal.