Қазақ
мемлекеттік қыздар
педагогикалық университеті Хабаршы №3 (51), 2014 ж.
137
evaluation of presentations. After all students have to present collected information alive,
in front
of their peers being ready to give additional comments and answer questions.
Using the visual presentation as a support, students talk on professional, specified topics
providing the listeners with greater knowledge and clearer understanding. This can not only
increase the student’s awareness of public speaking in a FL, but also invite other students to
provide feedback, thus promoting communication. The presentations can last for 4-5 minutes but
in some of the more advanced groups the students themselves vote on a 12-15 minutes limit.
Team teaching in the most general sense encompasses a wide variety of arrangements. One
specific form, which has become quite prevalent in recent years, is having two teachers in the
classroom teaching simultaneously (Suntsova and Burmakova, 2008). Very often these are FL
teachers accompanied by the native speaking assistants of the target language. Besides, there is
another type of teachers’ cooperation – interdisciplinary teaching, which is organized across
different curricular disciplines. For example, a FL and a computer science teacher might work
together to form an interdisciplinary unit on professional communication in IT industry. The
professional communication would be the unifying idea, but the English teacher would link it to
Language Arts by studying vocabulary and formats, and teaching students how to design letters,
faxes, documents, etc. The science teacher might teach students about the real communication
systems that exist at enterprises in IT industry, present the service hierarchies, highlight the
communication flows, and help them research the local companies.
One of the advantages of team teaching is that it inevitably produces a lower teacher
student ratio, but having two teachers in the class sharing turns speaking does not accomplish
this. Only by running separate activities, dividing the class into groups – having both teachers
circulate and interact with students is the ratio effectively lowered. Ideally, both teachers should
be actively involved in managing and teaching most of the class time.
There are six ways to implement team teaching into a classroom: 1) both teachers are
teaching together (teachers act simultaneously); 2) one teaches, one observes; 3) subgroup
teaching – subgroups are set up and cover specific topics simultaneously being moderated by the
teachers. The other groups, without teachers, are doing work being self-directed by the students;
4) parallel teaching – teachers act separately, but in one classroom; 5) alternative teaching – one
teacher works with the majority of the group, the other teachers a smaller part, usually those who
are behindhand; 6) one teaches, one assists answering specific questions on the subject.
Successful team teaching has the potential to benefit all concerned. Teachers stand to gain
in terms of their professional development – they are provided with partners to help them set
objectives, make plans, implement lessons and evaluate the results. They have someone from
whom they can draw inspiration and who can provide them with constructive feedback on their
teaching. Students benefit from the increased quality of the lessons and a lower student to
teacher ratio.
The Golden Rule of the team teaching is never to take anything for granted and explicitly
discuss everything, because when expectations are unclear or vastly different, the essential
rapport quickly breaks down. Clear communication on the part of both members of the teaching
team is essential to the success of the relationship and the realization of teaching objectives.
Communication is perhaps rendered more difficult for teams made up of teachers from
different cultural backgrounds which value radically different communication styles. Personal
conflicts, whether they are gender-based, cultural or personal have no place within the
classroom. Despite any differences of opinion, each teacher should remain respectful and
professional towards the other in the classroom. Students will be quick to pick up on any
tensions and may try to exploit them. In the classroom, the most important people are the
students –teachers should set aside personal difficulties and make teaching their number one
priority.
Казахский государственный женский
педагогический университет Вестник №3(51), 2014 г.
138
Team teaching in FL instruction requires thorough planning and preparation as well as
following some rules and requirements:
1) flexibility of the teachers, their being ready to change the class planning according to the
current situation;
2) compatibility of the teachers,
both personal and professional, implying trust,
cooperativeness, conciliatory spirit, and commitment to collaborative practice;
3) equal status of the teachers and their responsibilities, regardless of their age,
experience and education;
4) common goal orientation and joint coordination of activities;
5) using teaming approaches for problem-solving and programme implemention.
The advantages of the teaching methods and techniques mentioned above are numerous
and their employment contributes to the development of the following students’ skills and
abilities:
1. Language learning and intercultural skills.
2. Communication skills: written, oral and non-verbal.
3. Critical thinking skills.
4. Reflective learning abilities.
5. Organizational skills and professional knowledge.
6. Collaborative learning and team-working skills.
7. Life-long learning habits.
8. Managerial and workplace communication skills such as holding a meeting, describing a
project, solving a problem, negotiating a contract, giving a presentation, etc. All of these
methods and techniques force students into real-life situations and require them to get involved
into managerial and workplace communication.
C
ONCLUSIONS
It should be noted that one of the main ideas of introducing these methods and techniques
into FL courses is to provide opportunities for realistic learning situations, in particular to
enable students to learn and use a FL in tasks related to and facilitating their study of other
university courses. The case study method, language portfolio, essays and research, oral
presentations and teaching in teams are the areas of the most pronounced collaboration between
a FL and other university courses as the tasks should be set in such a way to include the content
covered as assignments or projects in professional courses. This not only enables the connecting
of the professional knowledge and language knowledge in a meaningful way, but also promotes
peer and collaborative learning in a realistic environment, which is one of the key
methodological recommendations in contemporary FLT.
REFERENCES
1. Suntsova E.N. and E.A. Burmakova The Use of
case Study Method in Foreign
2. Language Teaching // Прикладная филология: идеи, концепции, проекты: Сб. cт. VI
Mежд. научно-практич. конф., Часть 1. – Томск: ТПУ, 2008. – С. 87-94.
3. Benoit R. B. Haugh. Team Teaching Tips for Foreign Language Teachers. Borrowed
from: http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Benoit-TeamTeaching.html on August 20, 2009.
4. Horwich J. Cracks widen in team teaching of English. Asahi Evening News 24 October,
1999. Life Section.