Teaching of Prose and Lesson Planning

 

According to Coleridge, “prose is words in their best order “

Prose is meant for learning a language. Teaching prose means teaching reading with comprehension. 

The learners are taught the skill of reading. 

Having taught the students how to read a language, the next logical step is to teach them reading with comprehension. 

Teaching prose enables the students to understand the passage, to read fluently, to enrich their vocabulary and to enjoy reading and writing. 

It enables the learners to extend their knowledge of vocabulary and structures and to become more proficient in the four language skills.

 It develops the ability of speaking English correctly and fluently.

The main aims of teaching prose are:

(i) Literary enrichment and

(ii) Content knowledge

 

To achieve these aims of the teaching of prose should be intensive as also extensive.

 

 

Aims of Teaching Prose:

Teaching of prose is the intensive study of language, structure and vocabulary. It main objective is to develop the language ability of the students. This ability makes the child understand and use English language without any problem. Thus a detailed study concentrates both on language study and comprehension of ideas or linguistic skills. The general aims are as follows.

General Aims of Teaching Prose:

To enable the students

1. To understand the passage and grasp its meaning

2. To read with correct pronunciation, stress, intonation pause and articulation of voice.

3. To understand the passage by silent reading.

4. To enrich their active and passive vocabulary.

5. To express the ideas of the passage orally and in writing.

6. To enjoy reading and writing.

7. To develop their imagination.

8. To prepare for world citizenship.

 

Specific Aims

These vary according to the subject matter depending upon whether it is a story, biography, play or an essay.

For these the specific aims are as follows;

Story

To enable the students

1. To learn a few facts through the story.

2. To teach some morals

3. To mould ones character

4. To acquaint with the style of story writing

Essay

1. To get students to grasp a few facts through the essay.

2. To make students curious about the subject of the essay.

3. To acquaint students with the style of essay – writing.

4. To enable students to arrange ideas in organized manner.

 

 

Biography

1. To get students acquainted with the lives and deeds of great men.

2. To reveal to the students the path of character building.

3. To make them aspire for better things in life.

4. To inculcate in them desirable sentiments.

 

Play

1. To provide the students with opportunities for self- expression.

2. To make them speak English in the conversational style.

3. To make them play different roles.

4. To build their character.

 

The steps involved in teaching Prose:

A prose lesson contains structures, vocabulary and ideas for comprehension. 

The students must have a mastery over the sounds, structure and vocabulary before reading the passage / lesson. 

The main objective of teaching prose is to help the students use the structures and vocabulary he can read with comprehension and write a few sentences about the lesson using the appropriate structures and content words . 

Therefore a prose lesson is not for memorizing question and answers but for learning a language. The steps for teaching of prose may be summed up as follows.

 

Introducing the prose lesson

The introduction has two purposes

i. To bring the past knowledge to consciousness.

ii. To win students attention to the new subject

English is a foreign language and India students find it difficult. So teachers should try to motivate students to study the lesson. 

All the efforts made by the teacher to attract students to learn the lesson. It includes the material aids, previous knowledge of the students and introduction.

The teacher can introduce the lesson through appropriate question or through showing pictures models etc. 

However he should not start the topic directly. The introductory question arouses curiosity among the students for the new lesson.

 Hence the teacher should first ask some question to test the previous knowledge of the students and then link that to the subject to be taught.

 

Teaching Structures:

When presenting new structural items, we should primarily achieve two things:

a. To enable the students to identify the new structures.

b. To make absolutely clear its meaning and use.

 

To achieve (a) above, the teacher must supply clear models of the structures. Some believe that plenty of examples should be given bringing the pattern out clearly .

In this connection substitution table is of great help as it highlights the elements of the pattern and their order and nature.

One of the ways of achieving (b) is to present the structures in readily understandable situation. 

This helps the students not only to understand the meaning of the new item but also its use in different contexts. Later they are provided with opportunities to use the structures themselves.

 

3. Dividing the text in to smaller units.

 

Reading passages sometimes happen to be very long making it tiresome to work though them from beginning to end. In such a case the text will have to be split up in to shorter, more manageable units or sections. This will facilitate the teacher to present the lesson before the students interestingly and efficiently.

 

Teaching Vocabulary:

The teacher selects the new words from the subtopic and exposes their meaning one after the other. To give clear ideas to students he may use an object, a model or a picture. Sometimes through situation he may explain the meaning.

The purposes of exposition are;

i. To clear the meaning of difficult words, phrases and India.

ii. To make the comprehension of the passage easy.

iii. To pave way for intensive reading.

 

5. Model reading by the Teacher:

In this step, the teacher should read out his selected passage loudly before the students. At the time of reading he/she should be very careful about the pronunciation, words phrases and intonation. Since the students learn to read through imitation the teacher should take the utmost pains to impose his / he own reading aloud.

This model reading helps the students for aural comprehension. Before doing model reading, the teacher should give instructions to students regarding postures, opening of the book and attention. While reading he should not completely absorb himself in the book.

 

6. Silent Reading by the students:

Here the teacher gives time for the students to read the passage silently such type of reading is helpful for rapid reading, learning of new words and a quick grasp of meaning. Silent reading should continue for a limited time, say for 5 or 10 minutes for a single passage.

7. Testing Comprehension

 

In this step the teacher asks some question from the present passage to the students to text to what extent the students have comprehended the meaning of the passage.

These questions should be based on the very passage taught by the teacher and they should be direct, short and objective based.

 

8. Testing Application

The main aims of application test is to evaluate to what extent the objectives of a lesson have been achieved. The question may be of oral or written type.

After the teaching of structure or vocabulary teaching to do the exercises at the end of the lesson.

 

9. Loud Reading by the students

 

Now is the time when the teacher can ask the students to read out the passage loudly one by one?

This loud reading is very much helpful to the students for clear pronunciation. It also improves the to he, rhythm and fluency. But a student should read long passage. Each student should read a few lines from the passage.

In the regard the following points can be given special consideration.

i. The errors of pronunciation must be corrected at the end of the reading.

ii. Students should be asked to keep the books 25/30 cm. away from the eyes.

iii. They should hold the book in the left hand while the right hand should be kept free.

 

The teacher will therefore need to exercise great care whenever the students are asked to read aloud. As the students have already learnt all the new words, structures and as they have also understood the text, the chances for success in reading aloud are greater than they are at the beginning.

 

10. Giving Assignment

 

After the classroom talks are completed the teacher can give some assignment which could be of the following types:

i. To remember the meaning and spelling of new words.

ii. To use the words in sentences

iii. To write the gist of the passage.

iv. To answer questions on the passage.

v. To do the exercises based on the structures taught.