Course Structure

 1) Teachers at Semey schools are sometimes asked to teach a course "A General Survey of English-speaking Countries", or "An Introduction to English-speaking Countries", or similar. We are teaching this course in our school, and sometimes find the lesson preparation quite complicated. This mostly happens since there is no unified curriculum for teaching this course. At our school the course is conducted for the 8th grade students but it isn’t a secret that students meet different questions on English-speaking countries in the course of the textbooks . The curriculum is created by NIS teachers and focuses mainly on geography, history, economy, and government structure, language and famous people of the UK, USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand. The main aim of these lessons is to broaden students’ socio-cultural knowledge, to develop speaking skills and to give brief insight into the past and modern lifestyles of English speaking countries. And the last but not the least point is that our students have questions on country studies in the Unified National Test. There are various types of works during the lessons. Learners work in groups (discussion, role playing, etc.), present their own projects and make PPT presentations. Teachers mainly give lectures or oral travelling lessons. Our school has decided to have annual spring Olympiad on country study to motivate students in getting English –speaking countries knowledge. You may have a look at our tasks on CDs. And now we would like to share some of our materials designed by our teachers. First of all you can find PPT on the CDs which we present you ,and some new ideas how to make these lessons more lively. In the hope that it might be of some assistance to other teachers, we want to demonstrate today some kind of teaching materials and share our experience and ideas. Of course, we do not expect that all teachers will follow this guidance, since their own lessons will naturally be influenced by their individual experience and their creativity about teaching.. 2) So we are going to present you our "Discover Great Britain” . Collection of 6 films made by teachers of NIS . This video pack contains a collection of six six-minute-long documentary sequences. The pack also contains worksheets for each programme with explanatory teacher’s notes. Full video scripts are also provided. In general secondary school age will find these video lessons fun and stimulating to use. Worksheets The worksheets contain a wide variety of exercises to develop the comprehension and language skills of the students. They are divided into the following sections. Before you watch The questions/activities in this section are aimed an introducing students to the topic. Some of the activities are designed to stimulate a class or group discussion whilst others are more closely vocabulary-based tasks. While you watch This section contains several activities which demand more detailed comprehension and practice. By the end of the first viewing, students should have gained a "gist” comprehension. After several viewings and completing the tasks from this section, students should have a more detailed understanding. After you watch This task is designed to allow students to make use of the language and structures they have encountered in the programme in order to complete a task related to the topic area. The task is usually a pair or group work activity and requires students to use their imagination to extend on the topic area in a way that is relevant to their own experiences. Teacher’s notes These notes provide extra information for teachers and suggestions for further activities. An answer key to the activities is also provided Using the videos. The worksheets provide a focus for both teacher and student. However, in addition to the worksheet activities, you may wish to include some of the following viewing techniques. *Silent viewing: Ask students to guess what is happening based on what they see taking place, and expressions and gestures of the speakers. *Sound only: Ask students to close their eyes and listen to the words and intonation of the speakers and any background noise or sound effects. Then ask students to describe the scene as they imagine it to look. *Prediction: Pause the video and ask students to guess what will happen next. Using the video scripts Full video scripts are provided at the back of this school-book. Timing are offered for each video. The video scripts can be used as a basis for extra activities. Some possible activities are: *Jigsaw task: divide the class into small groups. Make a photocopy of the relevant scene from the programme. Cut up the text into several parts. Students then have to reoder it in order to make the text right followed 3) Watch the film and do the tasks in order to judge the idea of our product. 4) Now my colleague Telmanova Madina Nessipkazyevna will share fresh ideas which can help you . 2) There are various ways of organizing work at the lessons of country studies. The most important point here is that learners should not just obtain factual knowledge but also be able to use this knowledge and apply it practically later at the same time developing their skills. At the end of studying each country, students are usually assigned to prepare PPT presentations or some kind of posters about the country, but there are other more interesting and engaging ways of working. As you know nowadays there are a lot of internet websites and online resources to be used. One of them is WebQuest. It is free online application that can be used for different purposes, mainly for projects and independent work. You can register for free at www.zunal.com and create your own quests or edit and update existing ones. Now let’s have a look at the site. Show the materials, show my own quest. Then show the guidebook.