English with Dina 1

Presented by Dina Viktorovna Polyakova

SHORT INTRODUCTION AND LESSON 1

I could express  the aim of the present lesson-contribution only by a motto: You really taught a foreign idiom only when students enjoyed it.

As a matter of fact, teaching should get that students may appreciate what has been taught.

I often observed that when students are faced with  new expressions (like questions, sentences, passages of a novel, lines of a poem, etc.) even in their mother tongue, an immediate appreciation looks like a very difficult task for them. They seem to understand well the meaning of what they have just heard or read, but significant indicators of a real spontaneous appreciation rarely appear. Comprehension appears to be fully passive.

Then, when the student is engaged in understanding or writing a foreign language, the task becomes  acute, even hard. Of course, he may quite understand, more or less correctly repeat a classic passage of a good prose or some verses of a classical poem, but  explain why he is enjoying it is usually very far beyond his power.

He will say an obvious and generical "It is beautiful, I'm fine, it's nice", nothing more. So, among the usual grammatical and lexical notions of my lessons, I  mean to supply him also a satisfactory answer to this sort of problems by providing him with a clear, well-defined method for a concrete appreciation of words, sentences, passages. poetic verses; answer, which is intended to give an adequate  real comprehension of  the everyday colloquial lexicon.

Besides, another of my task in parallel is the way through which the student could better reach a good appreciation of the sound together with a deeper meaning of the English words.

Shortly, here, I announce the main steps of a method for appreciation the idiom I teach.

The first step is represented by the traditional  "listen and repeat"; "write and read" of a passage of prose or poem as the first step in this process.

 The second step will be to ask the student about the meaning of what  he has  just listened or read.

 In the third step the student  has to  (try to) indicate the aim or the author's intention of said passages (or verses) as a result of not  a  passive paraphrase of what he  listened or read, but he must recount the essential parts of the  speech (passages, verses, conversations, etc )  in his own words

  At that moment, I will explain  to him  how good conversation, prose  or a poem is done,  and which are the most important structural language devices, and how these devices are at disposal for people desiring to  both speak  and write well.

 The detailed presentation of these structural devices represents the  subject-matter of the next  lesson, the Second one. 

LESSON 1     LESSON 2     LESSON 3     LESSON 4     LESSON 5