The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of error analysis in specifying and planning remedial treatment in second language learning. Part 1 discusses situations that demand remedial action. This is a quantitative assessment that requires measurement of the varying degrees of disparity between the learner's knowledge and the demands of the situation. This leads to the qualitative assessment of the knowledge lacking in the learner, as measured against the language of the situation. Part 2 discusses the nature, scope, and problems of error analysis. Of fundamental importance are: a deep analysis of type of error and reasons behind it; an understanding of the process of second language learning; and a description of the learner's model of the target language, as a basis for remedial treatment. A final conclusion is that the study of the learner's model needs refinement, as it can now reveal information only about the learner's code, not about his communicative competence. (AM)
Remedial Teaching | What is Remedial Teaching?
Remedial Teaching (RT) means that help is offered to pupils who need (pedagogical/didactic) assistance. These are often children who function at a lower than average level because of a certain learning- or behavioural problem/disorder, but RT can also be offered to pupils who achieve at a higher than average level, they too can do with the extra attention and care. The best known learning disorder is dyslexia.
The parents of children with a learning- and/or behavioural disorder/problem have their own association: "Balans" (balance).
The help includes the pupil who is being put forward for RT to the remedial teacher (rt ‘er) is examined by means of an intake conversation, checks, tests and/or observations. The rt’er tries to form a picture of the pupil also by way of talks with the group teacher and the parents in order to discover where the problem lies. When this is clear (diagnosis) a therapy plan is drawn up. In a therapy plan it states amongst others which aims should be achieved. The treatment that ensues is called remedial teaching. It is help that is completely specialized in the problem of the pupil, it is custom-made.
The therapy plan is drawn up for a fixed period of time. Remedial teaching is usually given during 6 weeks to 3 months, once or twice a week at school or in the remedial teacher's own practice. The aim being that the pupil can join his own group again after this period of time (or possibly after a continuation).
Remedial teaching is offered at many schools. However, a school is allowed to establish its own priorities and is not obliged to offer R.T.. There has to be a course of care though, the organization of which is determined by the whole team, although the directives and rules are laid down by the Ministery of Education an Science (OC&W).
There is a clear distinction between remedial teaching and coaching. Coaching is a repetition of lessons already offered before (re-teaching).
RT in short:
· individual counselling (also in small groups)
· working systematically: observing, diagnosing, remedy, evaluation
· working purposefully and intensively with a pupil or pupils
· custom-made help following from a request for help
· acquiring skills in order to deal with learning problems/-disorders
· seeing to it that the pupil can remain at his/her school
· making a plan that can be used in the group when the RTer is absent
· providing information to the child and the persons involved (below)
· REMEDIAL TEACHING
· Remedial teaching is to ensure the desired quality of learning. It is very essential for ensuring effective learning and in improving the quality of education. It is a ty peof teaching aimed at correcting errors or addressing gaps in knowledge. The teacher, like the physician, uses test instruments to find out the difficulties in English language learning.Therefore, diagnostic test provides a detailed picture of strengths and weaknesses in the areas of students¶ learning.The stages of diagnostic testing are: Identifying the students who need help,locating the error/learning difficulties, and discovering the causal factors. After locating the areawhere the difficulty lies, as a teacher we should devise some strategy to overcome the problemsin learning. Therefore r emedial education teachers should be trained to tailor their classes to awide range of different learning styles. They should assess each student's individual proficiencylevel and then create a plan for that student's learning. From time to time during the classes,teachers should evaluate the progress of individual students and modify their learning plan asneeded. Thus, teachers help each student improve their self-confidence throughout the course of the program.
· Remedial teaching for slow learners
· REMEDIAL TEACHING is identifying slow learners and giving them the necessary guidance tohelp them overcome their problems, after identifying their areas of difficulty. Contrary to what issaid, remedial teaching is done perfunctorily without identifying their areas of difficulty andunderlying cause for lagging behind. Some students are unsympathetically branded as `block heads' without an earnest attempt to know the real cause of their slow learning.Slow learnersWho is a slow learner? In the present system of education, students are identified as slowlearners purely on the basis of their poor performance in the examination, which, in most casesdeviates from what is taught. Consequently even talented students are sometimes misconstruedas dullards. So, a slow learner is one whose performance is very dismal in the examination. He isneither mentally retarded nor is on the lower rungs of intelligence scale.The reasons for some students learning slowly are innumerable. One of the main reasons is the`no detention system' at the primary and upper primary level. Students are promoted to higher classes on the basis of attendance, even if they score low marks. The heterogeneous composition(mental age & physical age) of over crowded classes in all government run schools and privateschools also produces slow learners. So the incapacity of the teacher to pay individual attentionto a student over a long period makes a student a slow learner. A slow learner is thus a product of negligence of school at different stages of learning, inspite of his innate capacity to learn.There are some problems very specific to the individual. Ill health, lack of concentration, lessexposure to the subject taught and parental background are some causative factors for slowlearning. Talents differ. A childs capacity to learn different subjects varies from student tostudent. For instance, learning mathematics is a knack. All students do not do well inmathematics just as they do in other subjects. While other subjects can be learnt at any stage, it is
very difficult for students to learn mathematics without the basics. Students show interest in thesubjects they like and neglect other subjects if not taken care of. An urban child learns languageslike English well while a rural child cannot, however well the teacher tries to explain.Remedial measuresLearning takes place from simple to complex. If for some reason the student has not learnt the basics, it is futile to teach him the advanced topics. Remedial teaching is not revising the topicstaught repeatedly. Careful analysis of the students' performance in the examination anddiagnosing the areas of difficulty are key aspects in remedial teaching. Once the difficult areasare identified, the next task is to plan the learning experiences to teach the basics to understandthe given topic.Teachers often feel that what has not been learnt at the primary level, cannot be taughtsimultaneously with the prescribed topics at the secondary level as they are busy completing thesyllabus. Experience shows that once the basics are taught, the learning process is acceleratedand the slow learners comprehend and grasp the given topics of the class, since they have alreadyattained the mental age.In government run residential schools in Andhra Pradesh and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayasnation wide, the students are admitted in class VI based on a selection test consisting of a varietyof questions to test intelligence and aptitude of the students.It has been observed that many students thus selected do not possess the basics which they aresupposed to learn at the primary level. But these schools have produced excellent results over theyears by introducing bridge courses in their academic planning.Subjects like physics pose difficulty for students when compared to biology. In biologicalsciences, students can see and find meaning in what they study. Whereas physics is somewhatintricate and difficult for students without good knowledge of mathematics. Poor performance in physics can be remedied by first teaching the required basic mathematical operations. Sometimeslanguage becomes a barrier for students to understand the vast areas in subjects like geography.The innumerable new words used to describe various phenomena baffle the students. Students donot find these words in English language textbooks although they learn English language to pursue others subjects in an inter- disciplinary approach. The teacher has to explain all the wordsand their usage related to his subject before he teaches the concept.The new words used in questions could confuse students and elicit wrong answers from them.Students should be exposed to a variety of questions with antonyms and synonyms - all thewords used to frame a question to test the topic taught. Merely tagging the slow learners with bright students or segregating them into separate sections will not help the slow learners. Slowlearners harbour themselves unobtrusively in the group of bright students.Students learn a lot from the peer group. Unconscious learning does not take place if students aresegregated. Keeping the slow learners in the peer group of bright students and paying individualattention to them by the teacher will enable them to overocme their difficulties.
Student is central in the learning process. The learning experiences should be activity-orientedand the teaching should motivate and create interest in the student to learn on his own. Whengroup discussions are held in the classroom, the slow learners are benefited much.Suitably tailored lesson plan by the teacher and careful monitoring by the school administrationwill help slow learners have a better grasp of all lessons in schools.Y. SREEDHAR RAO
NEED AND UTILITY OF DIAGNOSTIC TESTING
Diagnostic tests are useful to the teachers of English for many reasons. They help theteachers toa)Identify pupils who make slow progress inEnglish language learning,b) Identify the causes of slow progress amongpupils,c) Locate specific weaknesses in an area of Englishlearning,d) Identify the specific areas which needremediation,e) Ascertain the basis for planning remedialteaching in an area of linguistic skills,f) Provide proper feedback to pupils,g) Place the pupils properly in the learning processof English,h) Hasten the process of English language learning,i) Heighten the efficiency of teaching learningprocess, j) Modify and adjust methods of providing learningexperiences.PROCEDURE TO FRAME DIAGNOSTIC TESTSThe procedure to frame diagnostic tests involves two steps. They are- A) Analysis of complex performance into its component sub skills. For ex:- Thecomponent of µIndirect narration¶ are ±
Understanding the dialogue from together with reporting verbs and reportedspeech.
Understanding the correct reference of pronouns use in reported speech.
Recognizing the types of sentences used in the reported speech.
Recognizing the tense used in the reported speech.
Ability to modify pronouns, tense forms reporting verbs, and sentenceconstructions.
Skill to use proper punctuation marks.B) Developing tests for each of the component skills.
The second step involved in developing diagnostic tests is to frame suitable test itemsfor each minute skill in the sub skill of a learning area. There should be many test itemsso that the entire area of sub skill is covered. Generally objective type of test items arepreferred and while doing so all the norms of objectives test items should be followed.
ADMINISTRATION OF DIAGNOSTIC TESTS
Administration of diagnostic tests is similar to that of administration of unit tests andachievement tests. However, some precautions must be taken. They are as followsa)Introduction by the teacher:- The purpose of the diagnostic test should be clarifiedto the pupils.b) Proper instructions to pupils:- Proper instructions regarding the method of answering the questions should be given.c) Time limit: Generally, no time limit is prescribed for diagnostic tests so that eachpupil works at his own speed.
CONCEPT OF REMEDIAL TEACHING
Diagnostic testing and remedial teaching go hand in hand. Diagnostic testing ismeaningless and useless without remedial teaching.µTo remedy¶ means to cure against a defect. Therefore, remedial teaching is providinginstructional corrective ness. It is a process of filling in the gaps in the previous learning,a process of removing distortions that have crept into pupils learning. It is a type of instruction through which errors are corrected and repetition of earlier flows isprevented.It is a purposeful effort to reinforce the forgotten ports introduced earlier. To sum up, itis an instructional effort to upgrade underachievers by remedying their errors.Need and utility of remedial teaching:Remedial teaching is useful to pupils and teachers because of following reasons.a) It fills in the gaps that have crept into pupil¶s learning.b) It provides for reinforcement of the parts or structures that are forgotten due todisuse.c) It rectifies the concepts in English that have been misunderstood.d) It provides correct and necessary foundation which is useful for future learning.e) It hastens the process of English language learning.f) Underachievers are promoted to put in more efforts to update their learning as aresult of which there is homogeneity in the class.Procedure of organizing remedial teaching:Procedure of organizing remedial teaching involves four steps. They areA)Classification of underachievers:The pupil¶s who commit similar errors in an area of English learning can be groupedtogether.B) Principles to be followed:For effective remedial teaching, following maxims should be followed.a) Some errors and unaccepted norms creep into learning because of factors like lackof motivation, poverty, bad health, ineffective teaching. Therefore, sympathetictreatment is a must. It is a part of remedial teaching.b) Emotional security should be provided to the pupils.c) Accuracy of diagnosis and correct classification should be ascertained.d) Multi-media approach should be used.
e) Skills of reading and writing should be developed together with good studyhabits.C) Selection of correctives:Selection of correctives depend on the nature of errors and causes of those errors.e.g. Errors might be caused due to inadequate learning in the past and therefore re-teachwould become necessary.D) Use of correctives:Once a diagnosis is made, classification of pupils is properly made and correctives areproperly selected, the correctives can be put to use. Correctives can be appliedindividually i.e. one pupil at a time or to a group. The teachers who take up the remedialteaching should have a suitable attitude and skill remedial teaching cannot be equate todaily teaching. It is a compensatory teaching.Evaluation of outcomes from remedial teaching:-Evaluation is said to be a continuous process. Therefore, effectiveness of correctives,methods used and the difference in achievement in an area of underachievementshouldbe evaluated. The diagnostic test given earlier to detect flows can be treated as thepretest.The same test can be used as the ost-test.The average scores of two tests can be compared. A significant difference betweenthe two average score would mean that application of correctives and use of methodshave resulted in remediation. If not, suitable modifications are needed. Thus, evaluationrefers not only to average scores but every aspect of diagnosis and remediation
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