Learn deeper about Simple Present Tense

Teach Simple Present for 7th Grade Student

Teaching about grammar is not an easy thing to do for ESL (English Second Language) teachers and it even worse for Indonesian English teacher because in Indonesia, English is categorized as foreign language. 

There are so many differences could be found in English and Indonesian language especially in the matter of grammar. One of hardest materials for Indonesian English teacher to deliver to student is tenses. It is because in Indonesia language the time setting of an event is always symbolized by time adverbial in the beginning or the ending of a sentence and it is not followed change of verb form. For example:

1.                          1.Adik  makan roti

2.                          2.Kemarin  adik makan rti 

3.                          3.Adik makan roti kemarin

For the examples above we could see that verb makan is not change although one of the events happened in past and another event happen in present.

That a quite different with English tense. It is because in English language the time sequence is really important, it determine the form of verb used. For example:

                1.  My sister eats bread

2.                            2. My sister ate bread yesterday

3.                            3.My sister ate bread

Sometimes in English we can omit the time adverbial because the form of the verb alone is enough to identify when the event happen. 

Those differences are challenge for Indonesian English teacher. Because based on this fact teachers should think a creative way to deliver tenses material to Indonesia students,   like including fun activities in teaching  for example with making some game.

 Here I have a lesson plan for teaching simple present tense for VII grade student,   I chose simple present tense because it is usually introduced by teacher at the beginning of the course. More than that simple present tense also consider as basic in English grammar‘s world. Usually if students have strong understanding on simple present tenses it will help them for mastering next level of English grammar like simple past tenses, present perfect tense and so on.

This lesson plan is including some activities like watching video and online quiz for simple present tense. Aside from lesson plan, I also attach some needed materials for teaching simple present tenses like the rubric for assessment, reading materials, link to learning video for simple tense and link to some fun online quiz.

Here the link:

1.      Lesson Plan link:

             http://www.mediafire.com/?53yt318dqjml8o3

2.      Link for the Teaching Material, Video Link and Online Quiz Source:

             http://www.mediafire.com/?t42s0470heg3ts6

3.      Link for the The Problem Sheet for Pre-Test:

             http://www.mediafire.com/?5m80g9g0f0wpvd7

4.      Link for the Assessment Presentation:

            http://www.mediafire.com/?xb8aah5mszaejx2

5.      Link for the Rubric Presentation:

             http://www.mediafire.com/?abcksurcr5w162y

Hopefully all material above will help you to teach simple present tenses so you can deliver this material smoothly. Any comments or built critics are pleased.

Thank you very much,

Best regards,

Weni Mardi Waluyani

English Teacher Candidate

Paradigm Shift: Technology for Teaching

Education Value of Blog

Do you familiar with blog? Do you have a blog account? Well… blog is one of technology mostly used nowadays. Blog is a personal website for us to share something or for reflecting ourselves. So it can be said that blog is an ‘online diary’ but the significant difference is this ‘diary’ can be read by anyone (if you are set your blog into public blog mode) or by certain people only (if you are set your blog into private blog mode).

But actually blog is not only for ‘online diary’ because blog has big potential to be used in education. Some teachers today have started to use blog as one of their medium in teaching (teaching aid) with assign student to make their own blog and post their reflection on teaching in it or with make a class blog which there will be posted materials for student to read.

It is a good choice to use blog as teaching aid, because based on discussion in our group today (29^th September 2011) in Multimedia Production course. We find at least 6 advantages for using blog as one of medium in learning. There are:

1.      Blog will make teacher and student more familiar with technology

2.      It could be good place to practice both student and teacher writing’s skill

3.      It could stimuli both student and teacher’ creativity because they should deal with designing their blog and all when they make a blog account.

4.      It could be a good medium for reflection so teacher can know about how far her/his student’s progress. In other hand student can figure out about what material they have understood and what is not.

5.      Through blog there is a medium for sharing information form teacher-student, student-student or teacher-teacher.

6.      Blogging will construct a collaborative learning because with blog teacher can review her/his student’s works and give comment at it. Teacher also can review and comment at their peer’s works. Student can review and comment and their peer’s work.

7.      With blog there is will be a community learning so people in that community can help each other.

With all of the advantages above, personally I think use blog for learning process is a good alternative to be considered by teacher.