
Originally Posted by
jolanar
... they don't remember most of the vocabulary taught during the previous three yrears or even the vocabulary taught during this year; they cannot construct simple sentences, they forget the ''s'' of present simple and many other weakenesses concerning punctuation, past participles meanings of the most used verbs....
They sound like normal pupils to me. That's not intended as a flippant remark. Many pupils see learning a language at school as simply a school subject that they have to endure. Gifted teachers (I was never one) can motivate them to learn, but the rest of us just have to do our best.
Don't be surprised at problems with the third person 's ending or past participles. We who know about the real problems of English tend to assume that learners should at least be able to master these basics. Some of them can't, and some learners who become moderately proficient in English still slip up on 'basic' things,
In order to ienhance the pupil's' writing capacity I want to try some steps which are:
1- To allow the use of Arabic - English dictionnary so that pupils overcome the want they have with vocabulary especially if the cues are not given .
There is always a danger that they can rely on a dictionary so much that they make no real effort to learn vocabulary. There is also the point that, without some training in using a dictionary, pupils can sometimes make more of a mess of things with a dictionary than without. However, if you are aware of the potential risks, I, personally, see benefit in giving them some assistance in Arabic.
2-To use the cues in constructing simple sentences then to add modifiers if they are needeed.
I am not sure quite what you mean by this.
3- To stress the subject verb agreement,
Don't worry too much about this. If they are able to string together a sentence that is comprehensible, subject-verb agreement mistakes are not the greatest tragedy, in my opinion. If they can't do that, then I think subject-verb-object word order, for example, is more important than a missing inflection.
4- To link sentences according to the ideas (reason or consequence or addition or enumeration...) .
I would sooner have several short sentences, reasonably well formed, than one or two more complex sentences badly formed. Once they can produce simple sentences, then you can guide them towards linking ideas.
5- To read aloud the whole paragraph many times as away of revising it.
That seems to me to be one sure way of boring them. However, if this is the way they learn in other subjects, they may be used to it.