CO-TEACHING

Shodmonova N.I.
Senior Lecturer, Russian language teacher, Department of Uzbek and Russian languages Karshi Engineering-Economic Institute, c. Karshi, Uzbekistan

CO-TEACHING

Abstract

In teaching Russian for specific purposes, the teachers of language prefer co-teaching which gives more effect in acquisition of second language. Furthermore, Russian language teacher has to cooperate with subject matter teacher at the Department of Engineering, in order to increase the quality of language classes, and improve the background knowledge of learners on relevant subject. As the two of teachers have a comfortable relationship and rapport with each other, the learners feel more comfortable in the classroom, they can sense tension as well as harmony within the learning environment, consequently, a positive relationship will help minimize misunderstandings and motivate you to resolve problems before they escalate.
This paper highlights ideas of scholars on co-teaching, and its advantageous sides, how this method may reflect the needs of learners in acquiring subject in L2, consequently, some features of co-teaching accomplished too.

Keywords: Russian language, co-teaching, subject matter teachers.

Introduction
Co-teaching or team teaching is when two educators work together to plan, organize, instruct and make assessments on the same group of students, sharing the same classroom. This approach can be seen in several ways. Furthermore, regular classroom teachers and special education teachers can be paired in co-teaching relationships to benefit inclusion of students with special needs. one of the great needs of students in technical language classes is speaking in L2. The successful mastering of any lexical and grammatical topic and understanding the subject of communication in a second language acquisition is best of all achieved through speech interaction.

Active and interactive methods of teaching underlie the modern educational process and help to immerse students in active communication in the language studied. Learning occurs in the process of speech activity: the learner retains new material through personal experience in communication and reproduces it afterwards in speech. Additionally, as G. Neuner says, “learning of foreign language inevitably brings us into contact with a new world in which, although their world ‘in principle’ is similar to our own world (in its elementary dimensions of living) and they do rather the same things as we do, people have arranged their environment differently and arrange their social behavior according to different conventions” (Neuner, 2006). A situation can be understood as “an appropriate environment for a given piece of language” (Widdowson, 1978); as one of the forms of social interaction between learners which creates the context for authentic communication (Neuner, Krüger, Grewer, 2000); or as ‘a scenario’ which learners can change according to their communication goals and needs (Schatz, 2006). Having expanded their vocabulary and having mastered the definite speech pattern, the students can communicate actively in new situations within the topic studied.

The students can express their ideas freely in a chain of sentences or can be involved in face-to-face interaction in pairs or in small groups. Pair and group activities are advantageous to the learners since, according to J. Richards, they give “greater opportunities to use the language and to develop fluency” (Richards, 2006). Hence, co-teaching promotes learners actively perform in L2 because teachers of both subjects; Russian and subject matter design the curriculum with necessary instruments, tools according to the level and wishes of learners, which can improve their knowledge.

Co-thinking
Teaching features of speaking in a second language allows developing the skills of the coherent oral and written communication, taking into account such important characteristics of speech as functions, forms, types, functional and semantic, functional and stylistic and compositional forms of speech. Besides, co-teaching often has to use audio and video materials. We have to choose video material according to the level and interests of our students. If we make it too difficult or too easy, the students will not be motivated. If the content is irrelevant to the students’ interests, it may fail to engage them. Video is richer then audio: speakers can be seen: their body movements give clues as to the meaning: so do the clothes they wear, their location, background information can be filled in visually. Some teachers, however, think that video is less useful for teaching listening than audio precisely because, with the visual senses engaged as well as the audio senses, students pay less attention to what they are actually hearing.

A danger of video is that students may treat it rather as they treat watching television –uncritically and lazily. There may well be occasions when it is entirely appropriate for them to watch video in a relaxed way, but more often we will want them to engage, not only with the content of what they are seeing, but also the language and other features (Jeremy Harmer. 2007:145). Moreover, there are some objectives of co-teaching.

Objectives of Co-Teaching
Stern distinguished four types of objectives; proficiency, knowledge, affective, and transfer. Proficiency objectives concern mastery of skills such as reading, writing listening, and speaking. Knowledge objectives concern the acquisition of linguistic and cultural information. Linguistic knowledge objectives include language analysis and awareness of the systematic aspects of language. Cultural knowledge objectives include control of sociocultural rules and also the ability to recognize culturally significant facts, knowing what is acceptable and what is not. Affective objectives concern the development of positive feelings toward the subject of study. They include attitudes toward attaining second language competence, sociocultural competence, and language learning. Transfer objectives concern the ability to generalize from what has been learnt in one situation to other situation (Helen Bastrukmen; 2006:145).

Collaboration
If cooperation largely involves the language teacher taking the initiative and finding out what happens in the subject department, collaboration involves the more direct working together of the two sides, language and subject, to prepare students for particular tasks or courses. In collaboration the language and subject teacher work together outside the classroom. The collaboration has clear goals but also defined limits. There are three options for collaboration work:

  • The planning of a series of classes where the language class prepares the students for a subsequent subject class taught in L2.
  • The running of a class on a specific skill or related to a specific task where the subject department has a specific input to the materials or the language teacher uses material produced by the department.
  • The objectives of the language class are subordinated to those of the subject course. There is a true integration between the language and the subject classes which has a positive effect on student motivation (Dudley-Evans and John: 2007:71).

Conclusion
In the process of teaching and learning, teachers of second language need to get advice or instructions from subject matter teachers at the Department of Engineering, especially, if they teach Russian for specific purposes because language is so technical and so difficult to comprehend and perceive in the classes of Russian for specific purposes. Vocabulary is even hard to pronounce correctly and learn. Furthermore, they have to work together on the design of classes, set up plans, writing materials, manuals, relevant books in order to meet the needs of learners in teaching specialty in L2. They also pay attention to the level and background knowledge of learners, and their wishes. Team teaching may give more effect if both teachers work together on the same project. However, co-teaching has more opportunities to better evaluate, to choose appropriate materials; paper based or visual in order to write acceptable manual or course book to meet the needs of learners in technical language class.

References:

  1. Helen Basturkmen. Ideas and Options. English for Specific Purposes. University of Aukland, Lawrence erlbaum associates, PUBLISHERS 2006 Mahwah, New Jersey . London. 2006
  2. Jeremy Harmer. How to teach English. Cambridge University Press, London. 2007
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