Language Learning Strategies For Secondary School Students In India

Identifying Mispronounced Words

Discuss about the Learning Pronunciation Of English Words For High School Students In India.

In this paper, the different language learning strategies will be covered. Most of these strategies will seem slightly different from the usual learning strategies that have been applied before since in high school level the learning strategies the students have been using can be seen not to be effective. The lesson will be comprised of different activities which are mostly interactive such as discussions, use of technology for creative ideas, brainstorming, presentations, and competitions among the learners. The lesson will be based on the identification of words mostly confused by the learners and they will be all loudly mentioned and written down for the preparation of the lesion to start.

The lesson plan is aimed for secondary school students in India for their English class on pronunciation of closely pronounced words. these words have been challenging in terms of pronunciation for the learners hence the need for the address of these words and the development of a pronouncing strategy that will help the learners to learn how to pronounce these words correctly.  The lesson will take a maximum of 60 minute as the maximum duration. The language media used for this lesson will be the target language of English.

It is important to also identify the importance of this lesson. This will significantly improve the learners speaking skills and effectiveness of their communication. The focus ill be on identifying the words first then the development of a strategy that they can apply for any other words that they may arise and face challenges while pronouncing them this means that the strategy is more of a solution methodology for their pronouncing problem. The devised strategy should not only be used for the identified words in class but the students can apply it outside the class so as to magnify their communication skills in English.

Outcomes of the lesson are: students will be able to identify the words that they find hard to pronounce, they will e able to correctly pronounce them and finally they will have devised a strategy on how to solve any other word they may find hard to pronounce.

With the lesson taking 60 minutes it is important for effective time management so as to maximize the productivity of the lesion. As per (McLeskey Rosenberg & Westling, 2017) the process of lesson plan preparation requires a well sort out time frame for each activity to avid a rushed lesson and adequate activity time allocation for the both the instructor and the learners. (Milkova, S. (2012).   

Group Discussion and Sentence Practice

Sequence of the lesson are as follow:

The lesson starts by greetings and taking attendance, any student absent in the previous class has the chance to provide a sound reason of there absence. After the introduction a slight recap of the previous lesson studies is also important so as to jog the mind of the learners and prepare them for the lesson a head. Also, this get them in a learning mood with the mind ready for class. All these minor preparations also involve the confirmation of all the learning aids are in place and no interruptions while the lesson starts.

Since this is a special lesion for the class, the teacher will introduce the challenge in pronunciation of words in the English class and give 1 or 2 examples. This will familiarize the students with what they are about to cover. Then a brief introduction on the importance of the lesion and the intended goals of the lesion. All these will be outlined and the teacher will as the students to note down the purpose of the class as well as the intended goals for the class. The list is to be ticked at the end of the class by the learners confirming that these requirements are met.

List: 

1. Have I learnt any words that are commonly pronounced wrong?
2. Have I learnt the meaning of these words?
3. Have I managed to differentiate the pronunciations?
4. Have I learnt a pronunciation strategy for any confusing and hard words?

Whole Class: Provision of all the wrongly pronounced words (10 min)

This is an activity that involves the whole class with the teacher in control of the activity, the learners are to list all the words they find hard to pronounce as well as confusing words. The activity will take at most 10 minutes since the process involves the complete involvement of the whole class. The learners will give these names as the teacher writes them down n the board where everyone can read them. Also, the students will have to note these words down.

The groups are randomly selected in the class and each group to start the discussion of these words for effective understanding the clear definition of the words so as to start resolving the pronunciation barrier. This involves the use of all resources available so as to help get the correct definitions. In the process they are to write down the definitions of how they have understood the words. They are also to engage in reading out loud these words to the fellow group members over and over and by the help of the other group members, they can identify the weaknesses of the other members. The teacher is to supervise the activity by moving from on group to the other o ensure the activity is on track and no one is playing rather than working on the task at hand.

Visual Memory Techniques

After the groups discus all the names as groups of four, the teacher breaks the groups into groups of 2 or pairs where each pair is issues tow words for sentence development. Through this activity the students are physically involved in the lesson and the movements while rearranging the groups makes the class lively and chances f the learners being destructed are minimized. For the sentence practice the partners are to formulate a sentence and read it out load for the partner t write it down. This practice puts strain on the emphasis on the pronunciation of words. Wrong pronunciation means the students partner writes the wrong sentence. Each pair is to do this practice at least 5 times that means a total of 10 sentences 5 each doe by the other partner. The exercise is not mainly the construction of sentences but listening and writing what has been said by the group member.

This activity involves the formation of image database for the words. Each word has a picture associated with it. This activity is aimed at giving the student a pictorial memory of these words. This will help them memories the words in discussion hence reducing the chances of confusing both words.

Whole Class: words pronunciation and pictorial relationship between the words and the pictures. (5 min)

After the picture search activity, the learners get the chance to relate the pictures or with their pronunciation for instance table below. This will help the students create a mnemonic for the words (Putnam, 2015)

Students will be asked to give incidences some of the words they have shared have ever been used wrongly and they have known and they are to give these examples and state where they saw this, either on social media, television or social gathering as also provide the other people reaction towards the pronunciation incidence. This is meant to be a funny moment for the class so as to ease the serious mood in the class so as to help in the absorption of what has been taught.

After all the activities have been carried out an evaluation will be carried out by the teacher. With previously prepared check list at the beginning of the class will be brought up. The learners will bring forward the list and the instructor will go through each question in the list and the responses of the students noted so as to determine the effectiveness of the lesson. With this having being carried out a random question session will be offered for the students to ask anything that they would wish to get clarification about.

Conclusion

This is the last section of the lesson, it involves the issuing of assignment to the students where they have to fill the Table 2 with the other words and add to the list of words. This will help the learners come up with more words that pronunciation has been a problem. The teacher will issue the assignment delivery date and then end the class and appreciate them for there contributions and their devotion towards the lesson.

McLeskey, J. L., Rosenberg, M. S., & Westling, D. L. (2017). Inclusion: Effective practices for all students. Pearson. The study has covered mainly on how instructors can conduct a completely inclusive lesson with all the students participation achieved. This has help in the creation of the activities carried out in the class. 

Milkova, S. (2012). Strategies for effective lesson planning. Center for Research on learning and Teaching, 1-4. Milkova, article covers on effective time management for a lesson and how to develop a lesson plan in line with the duration available for the class. It also helps one help create a connection between the learners and the instructor. This has been applied through out the lesson plan providing effective steps on how to proceed.

Putnam, A. L. (2015). Mnemonics in education: Current research and applications. Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 1(2), 130. Putnam focuses on the application of mnemonic in education and how effective it is in learning. The research also covers on how this helps in the memory retention of the learner and how this is effective when learning. The work by Putnam helps me integrate the idea in memorizing the hard to pronounce words for the learners and hoe to effectively use it in class as seen in the lesson plan.