Strategies and methods for English Language Arts - Coursework Example

Strategies and Methods for Improving English Language Arts Many experts suggest different tools and tactics in order to improve the arts oflanguage in the students of different age groups and standards. The two basic divisions of language arts include the part of literature and the part of the language itself. When we talk about the improvement in the arts of language for any student then it includes many areas or fields, which actually requires a concern upon them. The major five areas of arts of language are reading, speaking, listening, writing and visual literacy. All of these areas in any student should be polished in order to improve his language arts. In this research paper, we will try to find out the ways and strategies, which can help any teacher or mentor to implement on their students. These strategies should aim for an increase in the efficiency of the English language arts of the students. All of the five skills of any person need a thorough concern about them to be polished. Reading is the capability of human minds to capture the meanings of written or printed texts and words in the form of comprehensions (Mansaray, 2013). The reading ability actually gives a sense of understanding with various kinds of written messages. The reading content can be different and varied from social issues to the horror and suspense stories. The matter of the fact is the reading ability is very much beneficial for the people and especially for the students. Therefore the teachers and the mentors especially focus on the development of reading habit in the fourth grade students, because this will help these children in the future a lot (Mansaray, 2013). After reading, there comes the art of writing. The writing skills are not general in the people. Some people have the capability that they can write on the issues which matches with their interest. The writing skills are polished when the person has the ability to read a lot of material. Because reading is a habit which actually widen the minds and helps them to become sharp (Greene, 2013). Therefore, we can say that if a person is a good writer then surely he must be a good reader before that. If a person wants to write a good composed essay on any issue then he must read a lot of research material on that particular topic. This helps them to write their own material in an effective way. The teachers and mentors also suggest that for an effective usage of arts of language for a fourth grade student, he must be a good reader and writer also (Greene, 2013). Speaking is also included in the arts of language for a student of English language. Speaking is a little bit different type of arts of language as compare to writing and reading. Reading and writing are the personal concerned features of any person but when it comes on the speaking ability of any person then it definitely portray his nature and character in his spoken words (Teaching Of Language Arts, 2010). Therefore, we can say the importance of speaking skills is very much influencing in any person’s life. The speaking skills and capabilities just not include the words rather the tone of the person, the attitude of the person, the way of talking and the other gestures and postures of the people are also considered in his speaking style. If the speaking abilities are developed in any person from his childhood then they actually help them in his routine life also (Teaching Of Language Arts, 2010). In other words, we can say that the speaking skills or the arts may cover a variety of issues under its head. Then there comes the turn of listening skills within the arts of language. The importance of listening skills or ability is just like the importance of reading skills or the ability. A person cannot understand any message or issue unless or until he does not completely listens to the message carefully (Key Shifts in English Language Arts, 2011). The noise factor is very important in the good listening ability. The noise actually acts as a hurdle between the person and the message to completely understand the message or the content, which is going to be delivered. Therefore, the noise factor should be removed when we want to develop the listening ability of the fourth grade students (Key Shifts in English Language Arts, 2011). The teachers give very importance to the polishing of these listening abilities in the students to improve the effectiveness of English language arts. The experts give equal importance to the visual literacy, as they consider reading, writing, listening and speaking. However, it is a matter of fact that the number of visual literacy comes at the end of all of these factors of the arts of language. A person can only be visually literate when he completely understands all other skills of speaking, reading, listening and writing. The visual literacy basically means the art of understanding pictures and symbols without any help of written or spoken material (Brinkley, 2012). However, the fact remains same that all of these five factors or the arts of English language are equally important for the Fourth grade students and thus they should be polished in order to improve the productivity of the children. In order to improve the proficiency of fourth grade students in the English language arts, the role of the teacher or the mentor is very important. The role of a teacher is to set up opportunities to learn and develop their skill sets and thus improve their personalities. The teachers may help them to learn, explore, practice and develop different abilities, which actually make their arts of English language better than other students do (Dixon, 2011). The teacher or the mentor actually shapes the literary learning or the experiences of the students in their own styles therefore the role of teacher should be very much critical in this regard. Therefore, the teacher should plan such kinds of activities or experiences, which actually leave a positive impact on the children. Actually the children are just behaving as their teacher wants them to behave therefore this is an ideal age just to mould the student in the positive direction (Dixon, 2011). Environment plays an important role in the learning process of the children. If the environment is supportive and helping, the children to learn and experience new things then it will have a positive image on the minds of the students (Olson, 2007). The class environment should always supportive for the children. Now it is in the hands of the teacher to maintain the decorum of the class and thus provide them with a supportive and healthy literary environment. The impact of a positive and supportive healthy environment will definitely help to improve the arts of language and other skills in a more efficient way. The teacher’s role should be centered in the class room which means that the trencher should design learning tactics and the strategies that every student is around her personality in order to keep in direct eye contact. This will help in confidence building in the students of fourth grade. The teacher should encourage students in order to be involved or participate in the class room discussions and many other forums outside the class room environment. In this way, the students feel more confident and thus he may also feel a sense of strong grip over the listened or read content or material. The students can also be involved in conversation with their school friends and class fellows. However, here the teacher should focus on the meaningfulness of the content and the attitude building of the students. The introduction or the exposure of students towards the new vocabulary is also important and beneficial for the students from teacher side. The asset of good vocabulary is very important for the students especially at an age of fourth grade students. This vocabulary asset might help the students in their future but this can be learned and developed at this young age of fourth grade students. Story telling is a very good and effective technique for developing listening skills in the children because the children are very much used to the typical moral stories of the cartoon characters. Teachers can use these typical stories to influence the children behavior in a positive way. Here the important thing to be focused is the repetition of all these techniques in a regular manner. The children may not understand any moral or ethical practice at once rather they may get familiar to it after regular repetitions and repeated exposures to the same stories and experiences. The teacher should try to teach group behavior to the students. The students should learn how to behave in a group or team work. The group behavior orientation may teach many behaviors and lessons to the students. The group behavior teachings involve many good and positive things, which should be developed in any child’s behavior. After any good work, the positive comments or the gestures from the teacher or the mentor may enhance the success of the students a hundreds time more than the actual. Therefore, the teacher or the mentor should appreciate the children on every positive or improved step towards a better personality. When we specifically talk about the English language arts of the students of fourth grade then we mean that the little elements of the English language are important to be noticed and improved. These elements of English language may include phonics awareness of the students, syllable awareness of the students, fluency of the students in their English language handling, vocabulary building and writing abilities. All of these elements should be improved and considered to improve for a better art of language usage. Many of the experts of this field give very high points to the back ground knowledge of the arts of language. This means that the teachers should prepare the students before they can give them any lesson regarding the arts of language. The back ground plays a very important role in the understanding of the children. The teacher or the mentor should first prepare a base in the minds of the students and then teach them different arts of language just to improve their capabilities and skill sets. In addition to the background knowledge, the extended discussions play an important role in the understanding of the students. The students should be appreciated to be involved into the discussions with the teachers regarding the topics. In this way, their confidence level will build up in positive direction and the students may get familiar with deep analysis or deep observation regarding anything in their life. Whenever different minds take part in a discussion then it may give rise to differences in the opinions and the difference of opinion actually give a variety of though patterns. It is not possible that only one person is right and the others are wrong. Rather every person is right from his own point of view. Therefore, the difference of opinion may actually widen the area of knowledge and it can also be called as the information sharing between the team members. When we talk about the implementation of the learning process or the tools and techniques of the improvements in the arts of English language then there come three phases, which must be fulfilled for the proper implementation of the learning process. The three phases are very much important for the learning process of any student. These three phases of learning process are the activating, acquiring and applying. Different experts give different names to these phases of the learning process but basically the function is same in the steps of the learning process. The very first phase of activating means the preparation for the learning process. In the past few paragraphs, we have discussed the concept of back ground building in the minds of the students. That means the preparation of a base in the minds of the students. This base or the background knowledge may helps to construct a very strong building on it. Therefore, the base should be strong enough to hold the rest of the knowledge building in the future. This first phase is the activation phase. After the activation phase, there comes the acquiring phase or we can say that the acquisition of the knowledge regarding the concerned or relevant areas. The acquisition basically means the adoption of new coming knowledge from any coming source. At the end of the learning process there comes the application phase, which means the utilization of the acquired knowledge. The utilization of the acquired knowledge can be witnessed in the speaking and the written of any person. In the same way, the acquisition of knowledge can be traced back in the reading and the listening of the students of fourth grade students. The experts are of the opinion that these phases are not linear at all rather they can occur at any point of time but actually they just give a framework for the learning process of the fourth grade students. Reference List: ‘Key Shifts In English Language Arts’, (201), Common Core, Retrieved on August 17, 2014 from http://www.corestandards.org/other-resources/key-shifts-in-english-language-arts/ ‘Teaching of Language Arts – Models of Language Arts Instructions, Focus on Outcomes, Language Arts Standards,’ (2010) State University.com, Retrieved on August 17, 2014 from http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2155/Language-Arts-Teaching.html Brinkley, E. (2012), ‘English language Arts Framework’, The College board, Connect To College Success, Page 15 – 45 Dixon, B. (2011), ‘Common Core Teaching And Learning Strategies’, English Language Arts, Realizing Illusions, Page 45 – 67 Greene, R. (2013), ‘% Key Strategies for English language Arts Instruction’, Teaching Channel, Retrieved on August 17, 2014 from https://www.teachingchannel.org/blog/2013/10/25/strategies-for-ell-instruction/ Mansaray, H. (2013), ‘Nine Strategies for Reaching All Learners in English language Arts’, Edward Middle School, Edutopia, Retrieved on August 17, 2014 from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/stw-expanded-learning-time-individualized-learning-hassan-mansaray Olson, C. (2007), ‘A Cognitive Strategies Approach to Reading and Writing Instructions For English Language Learners For secondary School’, Research In The Teaching of English, Volume 41, Number 3, Page 269 - 299 Read More