2.7 Interactive Teaching as innovative method.

What is Interactive Teaching? The first thing to realize about interactive teaching is that it is not something new or mysterious. If we are teachers and we ask questions in class, assign and check homework, or hold class or group discussions, then we already teach interactively. Basically then , interactive teaching is just giving students something to do, getting back what they have done, and then assimilating it yourself, so that we can decide what would be best to do next.

But, almost all teachers do these things, so is there more to it? To answer this question, one has to step away from teaching and think about learning. Over the last twenty years, the field of cognitive science has taught us a lot about how people learn. A central principle that has been generally accepted is that everything we learn, we "construct" for ourselves. That is, any outside agent is essentially powerless to have a direct effect on what we learn. If our brain does not do it itself, - that is, take in information, look for connections, interpret and make sense of it, - no outside force will have any effect. This does not mean that the effort has to be expressly voluntary and conscious on our parts. Our brains take-in information and operate continuously on many kinds of levels, only some of which are consciously directed. But, conscious or not, the important thing to understand is that it is our brains that are doing the learning, and that this process is only indirectly related to the teacher and the teaching.  For example, even the most lucid and brilliant exposition of a subject by a teacher in a lecture, may result in limited learning if the students' brains do not do the necessary work to process it. There are several possible causes why students' learning fall short of expectations in such a situation. They may,

not understand a crucial concept partway into the lecture and so what follows is unintelligible, 

be missing prior information or not have a good understanding of what went before, so the conceptual structures on which the lecture is based are absent,

lack the interest, motivation, or desire to expend the mental effort to follow the presentation, understand the arguments, make sense of the positions, and validate the inferences.

However, whatever the cause, without interacting with the students (in the simplest case by asking questions), a teacher has no way to know if his/her efforts to explain the topic were successful. 

This brings me to the first of (what I believe are) three distinct reasons for interactive teaching. It is an attempt to see what actually exists in the brains of your students. This is the "summative" aspect. It is the easiest aspect to understand and it is well described in the literature. But, it is far from being the only perspective! The second reason is "formative", where the teacher aims through the assigned task to direct students' mental processing along an appropriate path in "concept-space". The intent is that, as students think through the issues necessary in traversing the path, the resulting mental construction that is developed in the student's head will possess those properties that the teacher is trying to teach. As Socrates discovered, a good question can accomplish this result better than, just telling the answer.

The third may be termed "motivational". Learning is hard work, and an injection of motivation at the right moment can make all the difference. One motivating factor provided by the interactive teacher is the requirement of a response to a live classroom task. This serves to jolt the student into action, to get his brain off the couch, so to speak. Additional more subtle and pleasant events follow immediately capitalizing on the momentum created by this initial burst. One of these is a result of our human social tendencies. When teachers ask students to work together in small groups to solve a problem, a discussion ensues that not only serves in itself to build more robust knowledge structures, but also to motivate. The anticipation of immediate feedback in the form of reaction from their peers, or from the teacher is a very strong motivator. If it is not embarrassing or threatening, students want to know desperately whether their understanding is progressing or just drifting aimlessly in concept space. Knowing that they are not allowed to drift too far off track provides tremendous energy to continue.

CONCLUSIONS

Summing up the results of the course work, we came to the following conclusions.

We researched the specific of mental activity of students at senior level.

The senior level. It is the final stage in process of mastering by students foreign language speech. The level of knowledge and skills of oral speech and written speech achieved at secondary stage should be kept.

Much attention of teaching is paid to oral speech at the senior level which acquires a qualitatively new development regarding content, motivation and informatively. However, the main role in process of teaching a foreign language at this stage assigned to reading. Texts for reading should be more difficult comparing to secondary level. While reading skills to read the emerging socio-political texts are formed to obtaining a complete and basic information as well as the ability to browse and select the desired article. Teaching writing skills students should master to make a plan, abstracts to oral messages to annotation and abstracts of reading, writing essays, make written memos within the requirements to monologue speech secondary school.

At the senior level the forming of students` active vocabulary is being completed and work on the formation of receptive vocabulary is continued. The program provides mastering receptive certain number of lexical units. Grammatical material intended far study in 10-11 grades is learnt only to the level of recognition and understanding while reading. There is a systematization of grammatical material that has been studied in secondary school and at the 11 grade.

We can state the following features of the educational process in the senior level, consistent implementation of communicate and cognitive training to related the increase of content of speech; purposeful implementation of the principles of individualization of learning, focused on the use of foreign language in the future.

We described the main methods of teaching foreign languages at senior level.

methods bear coupled names: grammar-translating method, Fries oral method, the method by teaching reading by West – they represent two sides of teaching.

According to the modern classification we can divide methods into:

Traditional

Communicative

Innovative

Traditional methods are grammar-translation, direct, audio-lingual, audiovisual.

Communicative methods are total physical Response, natural approach, competency-based approach, communicative approach.

Innovative methods are communicative language learning, silent way, suggestopedia, dramatic pedagogical method.

Traditional Language Teaching - the Grammar Translation Method, the Direct Method, and the Audio-lingual Method have been included not to give you a history of language teaching, but because they will strongly influence English instruction in many parts of the world.

Grammar Translation Method looks upon language learning as an intellectual activity. Until twenty years ago, this method was used in Europe to teach Latin un schools.

In typical Grammar Translation class the main focus is on reading and writing, with little attention being given to speaking or listening. The central text for each lesson is literary. Passages are selected from authors such as Mark Twain, George Orwell, etc. These passages are read and then questions are asked and answered at first orally, then in writing. Grammar is taught deductively, through presentation And study of the rules, followed by practice through translations and exercises. Vocabulary selection is based on the reading text used. Words are taught through bilingual lists and memorization. Students are often asked to write the new words in a sentence.

In this method the teacher initiates interaction and these are seldom any student – to – student exchanges. The role of the teacher is a traditionally authoritarian one and the role of the student is to obey.

The Direct Method developed in the XIX century as educationalists attempted to build a language learning methodology around their observations of child language learning. These educationalists argued that a foreign language could be taught without translation od use of the learner`s native tongue. The Direct Method therefore insists on thinking and communicating directly in the target language and does not allow translation. The Berlitz School of Language is the best known proponent of this method.

We investigated the effectiveness of usage of non-linear methods in teaching foreign languages.

What is Interactive Teaching? The first thing to realize about interactive teaching is that it is not something new or mysterious. If we are teachers and we ask questions in class, assign and check homework, or hold class or group discussions, then we already teach interactively. Basically then , interactive teaching is just giving students something to do, getting back what they have done, and then assimilating it yourself, so that we can decide what would be best to do next.

But, almost all teachers do these things, so is there more to it? To answer this question, one has to step away from teaching and think about learning. Over the last twenty years, the field of cognitive science has taught us a lot about how people learn. A central principle that has been generally accepted is that everything we learn, we "construct" for ourselves. That is, any outside agent is essentially powerless to have a direct effect on what we learn. If our brain does not do it itself, - that is, take in information, look for connections, interpret and make sense of it, - no outside force will have any effect. This does not mean that the effort has to be expressly voluntary and conscious on our parts. Our brains take-in information and operate continuously on many kinds of levels, only some of which are consciously directed. But, conscious or not, the important thing to understand is that it is our brains that are doing the learning, and that this process is only indirectly related to the teacher and the teaching.  For example, even the most lucid and brilliant exposition of a subject by a teacher in a lecture, may result in limited learning if the students' brains do not do the necessary work to process it. There are several possible causes why students' learning fall short of expectations in such a situation. They may,

not understand a crucial concept partway into the lecture and so what follows is unintelligible, 

be missing prior information or not have a good understanding of what went before, so the conceptual structures on which the lecture is based are absent,

lack the interest, motivation, or desire to expend the mental effort to follow the presentation, understand the arguments, make sense of the positions, and validate the inferences.

However, whatever the cause, without interacting with the students (in the simplest case by asking questions), a teacher has no way to know if his/her efforts to explain the topic were successful. 

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