Article "Author's project "English bag: transcription"

We present you the project “My English Bag: English transcription”. which is aimed at monitoring existing gaps in English transcription knowledge with their subsequent elimination.

Tasks:

1.  the creation of educational environment and conditions for developing not only language competence, but also creative activities of our students.

2.  promotion of foreign language resources, aimed at learning English and adapting them to the needs  of students and their parents.

3.  activation of the cooperation “student-parent + teacher”

4.  display of individual progress in language material digestion

5.  project efficiency determination

It is common knowledge that a second-grader faces certain problems when they start learning a foreign language:

1)     The necessity to master both the alphabet and the graphic representation of the sounds (transcription).

2) The inability of getting help from the adults

We conducted a poll among fifth-graders. The results of the poll showed that 60% of pupils had difficulties with the English transcription. We began to search for the solution of the above-stated tasks and came across an English-language website http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk  Let’s look at the blackboard. It’s a product “Phonemic chart”. This product is unlikely to be available for people who don’t speak English. The received information was adapted in the form of a multimedia training system “My English Bag” It allows you to train visual skills and to recognise the transcriptional phonetic letters  and match them with letter-symbols, and also  to practice real graphic transcription. In order to test the system we launched its use among the fourth- and fifth-graders. In the course of the research we found out that this training system can be aimed not only at the students’ needs, but also at their parents’, which is of great importance. Because not all parents learnt English before and most of them face difficulties trying to help their children. Now we’ll show you our trainer in operation.  

Menu: letters -  transcription -  rules of reading.

-       each page has its audio output. Here the students can learn about  the letters, sounds and rules of reading;

-       then listen to them;

-       learn about different variants of  pronouncing or  letter combinations.

The next problem that we faced was the way of making the system accessible. Using USB flash drives didn’t seem to be efficient enough, hence we created a website of the same name where we could upload all the information. For the time being, we only operate with three pages: the presentation itself, exercises and feedback. The presentation is available online and anybody can visit our website and try it out. Exercises will help to train the skills of the beginners and test the knowledge of those already proficient in the English language. In order to operate our project we use the popular “cloud technology” “Google Apps”. The computer application allowed to create  different self-assessment tests for  training and developing skills.

       The feedback page was mostly created to see the users’ response to our work. Down the line we realised that not every student had a computer or a stable Internet connection. This fact prompted us to launch several collective projects such as making phonetic alphabet cards and bookmarks. The last stage  is to determine both the dynamics of individual progress of  learning language material and  the effectiveness  of the project.

       The results showed the following  dynamics. The participation in the city festival of students' projects opened a new direction for us that we are currently working on. At the moment we are developing the programm of the  practical course for people with disabilities. In the mid-may of this year we plan to conduct the first lessons, on basis  of  the children and youth centre “Rusinka” in our  city.  As it was said by the head of the Federal service for supervision of education and science Sergei Kravtsov at the 8th Congress of teachers: "...Student’s underachievement should be determined not by the results of the state final attestation, but at an earlier stage and immediately eliminated..." . In this we see the prospect and effectiveness of our project.

     Thank you for attention! And now we are ready to answer  to your questions.