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During my internship where I had the possibility to assess my knowledge and my desire to

become a teacher I observed that teachers at school still prefer to teach using the traditional
methods, thus the accent is put not on the pupils but on the teachers, who impose students to
learn a specific topic that in most of the cases represent for them an another uninteresting
exercise, moreover they impose them to learn it mechanically. Well, not all the teachers do that,
thats why, when teaching I decided to put the accent on student centered approach.
Someone told: Give man a fish- and he/she will be fed for a day, teach man to fish and he/she
will be fed for life I gave this quotation in order to underline how important are teaching
methods for students. Just giving them the information means they learn mechanically being
unaware of what they just have done, so after a short time they can forget the information learnt
mechanically, when students are actively involved in the process of learning, when they are put
in a position where they have to produce knowledge, demonstrate the skills they have learnt, and
work they will obtain for sure the better results than in case with traditional methods. I remember
the time when I was a student too and the teachers taught us using deductive methods it was
really boring because the teacher talk and talk continuously our job being just to listen to them
and put some notes in our copybooks, for sure we cannot ignore the importance of these methods
but we should adapt our lessons to the needs of every student, their minds should be moved
continuously in order to obtain the better results.
I have begun the third chapter with grammatical data collection at the gymnasium level. The
conclusion that we have made are the following there is not a consequence in teaching the
grammatical material ,as if the books were written by different authors; the authors make use of
student centered approach but for training knowledge, comprehension and sometimes, mostly in
the book for the 9th form, the application competences. Student centered approach grammatical
activities very rarely stimulate a talk or a discussion.
Secondly, we have implemented the observation experiment. The essence of this experiment is a
three week teaching in 2 different classes.
The structure of THE EXPERIMENT IS THE FOLLOWING:
1. A questionnaire
2. a set of student centered stations (a classroom learning station is a designated place in a
classroom where students complete an educational task) based on the grammatical material in

Lesson 5 (Present Indefinite ,Present Continuous ,Present perfect and Present Perfect Continuous
Tenses) in the 8th form VERSUS TRADITIONAL METHOD
3. The analysis of the results.
Traditional and Student centered method were implemented at two groups with approximately
the same proficiency rate. The first group got an average in English 8,2 and the second group got
an average in English 8, 1.
Traditional method was implemented to the 8th form students.
I began my experiment with a questionnaire, the questions being the following:

What ways of learning do you like?


What way of learning do you not like?
In what way have you been learning?

Their replies were approximately similar, thats why I decided to present them together.
Here we have the summary of pupils replies:
When they were asked what way of learning they like, they answered that like football,
competitions, crosswords, games, break, drawing, trips, projects, playing theatre performances,
singing songs and writing letters. (Table1)
Basically like all the students when they were asked what way of learning they do not like of
course they replied: writing, reading, tests, dictations, learning by heart, projects, singing songs,
writing letters. (Table 2)
Concerning in what way they have been taught they answered that quite Ok, sometimes they
played games, sometimes they learned normally, wrote dictations, played , did projects and
crosswords, sang songs, wrote letters, and learned from pictures.(Anexa3)
As I have mentioned the traditional and student centered method were implemented at two
groups. In the first group I thought using the traditional method thats why while teaching I
selected a set of methods that I thought would be available for teaching grammar
Here is a list of the methods used:
a) Vocabulary and grammar lesson without a textbook, using the tenses
b) Create a text according to the model, using a tense
c) Translation from English into native language, using a definite tense
d) Translation from native language into English, using a text
e) Reading, spotting a tense
f) Listening, spotting a certain tense.
In two weeks, the pupils urged the same Oh, English again. Poor students were bored to be
taught in the same traditional way

The results of the summative evaluation are the following:


15 students wrote the test, based on grammar material (Present Indefinite, Present Continuous,
Present perfect and Present Perfect Continuous Tenses) from 17.
2 pupils got 9= 13%
4 students got 8=27%
7 students got 6=47%
2 students got 5=13%
Diagram 3.1a samples of tests
The second class was taught according to student centered approach, having at the base the
stations. They could not change their group, they had to collaborate, to cooperate and to help
each other. There were 17 pupils in the group and the same topics were taught. For about 3
weeks, the pupils worked in groups. Some had to mime the difference between Present Simple
and Present Continuous/ Present Perfect versus Present Perfect Continuous, the second group
had to make a situation to exemplify the usage, the third group had to describe the picture using
the above mentioned tenses, the fourth group had to read the text from the book and then retell it
using the same tenses. The second day the roles were changed. This group was given the same
test.
The results are the following:
2 pupils got 10 =12%
3 pupils got 9=18%
5 pupils got 8=29%
7 pupils got 7=41%
Diagram 3.1b
It could have been observed that even those students that did not have a good command of
English understood the difference and could use the structures in some simple situations. Thus,
the student centered approach turned out to be really effective. This method opens a lot of
possibilities for students as well as for the teachers who can experiment and practice various
forms of this method and enjoy the results.

Diagram 3.1b

The students answers to the first question

Football
Annex1

Competiti
ons
Crosswor
ds
Games

Break
Drawing

Trips
Projects

Playing
theatre
performanc
es
Singing
songs

W
llee W
tttt rriitt
eerr iinn
ss gg

What way of
learning do
you like?

The students answers to the second question

Tests
Dictations
Annex2

Learning
by heart

Writing
Reading

Projects

Singing
songs

W
W
rrii
ttiinn
gg

llee
tttt
eerr
ss

What way of
learning
you do not
like?

The students answers to the third question

Annex3

Sometimes
we learned
normally

We wrote
dictations
Sometimes
we played
games

Did
projects and
crosswords

Sang songs
Learned from
pictures

W
le r o
tt
er te
s

What way have


we been learning?

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