For a united Iran and Toran

Why we should learn foreign languages. I tried in this article gather materials to support my thinking. I think to have a unity of mankind we should know each other language and be able to communicate with each other. I wrote this experience I hope the friend can help me by reading it to make it better. This article is actually for discussion. I tried to do my part and rest is the friend who read this article and can make it may be better. I appreciate any comments.

You as an English teacher or as a future English teacher here or in other countries know how important it is to learn foreign languages or English. Our world is small now. We can breakfast in one continent and have lunch in other continent and supper in the third continent. In many countries now are a lot of foreigners who are not born in those countries. War, dictatorship, persecution for religions, nationalities and races force many people to leave their home countries. In other cases the high education motivation, to learn other language in other countries give the students and people interest to come in other countries. The pictures in the book shows exactly why we should be educated. The lack of education and knowledge and the ignorance of cultures and language can bring a lot of problems in the world. I believe if we can educate people in the world and if they try to understand each other cultures and languages and communicate with each other a lot of exited problems will be solved. To learn another language is the key for a good education.

I was teacher in seven different countries and gather a lot of experiences for the education field. In most countries that I thought, the students were so motivated and the teacher was so respected that the teaching was the easiest job there. In Europe and in Middle East always the parents and the school system support the teacher. To teach there is easy and if you like the students they respect you and follow exactly your instructions.

If you do not know a language and you are in other land, you will have a lot of problems. You cannot communicate with the people and you will be isolated and will have a hard time.

I write here a real story. Three people from three different nationalities wanted to buy food. They did not know the word for grapes. One of them was an Arab and he said I want to buy and eat Enab. The other one was Turkish and said no I want to buy Uzum. The third one was a Persian and said I would like to buy and eat Angur. All the three were a little angry with each other because they did not know the meaning of one word in other language. After a long discussion, one person was passing them and sees that they are speaking very lout and angrily with each other so he came to them and asked what the problem was. So they explain to him that they like to buy different thing and they are not agree with each other.

After he knows what they want and as he knows well all three languages, he said them, all of you want the same thing. And because you do not understand this word in your mother language so you have the problem. So they were happy and said to each other we should be more careful with each other and explain what we want and be patient.

What is the philosophy of learning languages and foreign languages and how we can learn them? It will guide us to the unity of mankind and to a better understanding. Learning languages will give us the abilities for a better communication and also is a key for learning other subjects.

Subject: Language Art:

If we learn one language very well; it will help us to learn other languages. The structures of different languages are similar to each other. For example if you know Spanish; you can learn easily Portuguese, French or Italian. The terms are the same, verb, subject and so on, only the pronunciation is a little be different.

Lesson Topic:

Explain the power of languages and motivate the students to learn the foreign languages or their own mother language. To learn grammar and style of a language and to speak and write better will be fun and it is more interesting if we try to have mastery concerning a language. And to learn language will help us to understand each other better and so we can cooperate much better with each other.

Academic Area:

I motivate the students to learn the language not only for having a good score, but for the knowledge of having mastery concerning that language. To know the philosophy and the importance of learning in general is my goal for my students and to emphases the importance of learning of other languages in our modern world is the other goal and intention of mine. The world is much smaller than in ancient time or even 100 years ago. Reading stories, Writing a summary of them, Orals conversation and discussions, Communications and Vocabulary.

Goals:

The goal of is to train to understand better the mother language, and other languages and the cultures behind them. It will help in general for the unity of mankind and to have a better world with cooperation and love and not hate and disunity. I will bring a lot of examples that the education is the key of the world peace connected with humanity and deep understanding of the world and their people. The student should know that to learn and think free will help him/her for a better life. In this way I think we can remove all difficulties which exist in the world. I would like to teach a language for a better understanding between people and for better communication abilities.

Language learning is connected with the world peace. If the people can understand each other, a lot of problems will be solved. We do not need translators; we can speak and communicate with each other directly.

Resources and Materials:

Library, Video cassettes about languages, Computer with internet access.

Day 1 Procedure:

Method:

1-Introduction to the grammar and grammar terms like verb…and vocabulary terms. Begin with questions about why we should learn foreign languages or our language (in classic form, grammar and literatures). To identify the previous knowledge of students. I will fix today the grammar terms in the mind of my students so they can use them. For example…they should know the verbs in all sentences that they read or the subjects…they should find the subject and must explain why it is a subject…because it does the work or it acts.

Why is it a verb? Why is this subject? How can we write good sentences? Why we should learn culture with the language, why we should learn to speak foreign language? Can we lean only the language without the culture behind it? Which difficulties we will have if we do not learn the culture? And we learn just the language? 10 minutes

2-The student can ask their questions and I will answer with the help of other students. Some sort of discussion and introductions. 10 minutes

3-I let them see a video and after that we will speak about the words which has been used in the video.10 minutes

4-Class activities. I will divide the class in small groups and they should work together and write a dialog and perform it and they get score for that. 10 minutes

5-I dictate them about 20 words and they should write them correctly and also explain them correctly or they can draw a picture for each word, a very simple picture. Then they can correct the words by themselves and score it by themselves. I will give them participation points for these activities. 10 minutes.

6-I will dictate the same 20 words again, this time I collect the papers and I will score them.10 minutes

After a break, I will ask them to write short sentences and use the words in their sentences. I will collect these papers also and I will score them later. 10 minutes

Home work

They should learn 20 new words and use them in the sentences. I will give them also a text, one page about 20 sentences; they should read it and prepare themselves for the next activities.

Problem-Posing

The teacher will try to understand the students deeply and will help them to express their concern and their thinking. The teacher will discover them and their thinking and issue important to them.

The teacher will show the students pictures and then ask them what they are thinking about those pictures.

The teacher showed a picture concerning an Indian woman who was looking worried and was sitting in a chair at the air port.

The teacher asked questions. What is happening here? Is there a problem? Have you or somebody you have known experienced a similar problem? What can we do?

The students will give different ideas and solutions.

Prepare pamphlets in different languages and with the necessary information about air port and the city.

The other picture is about prejudice and lack of education.

Sorrowfully sometimes you want to do your best and you want to study, learn and work and you want to be a useful person, but the society does not give you permission and possibilities to do this. So you will be without any education and work and then the society and people blame on you. If the society does not take care of people especially the young people for a good environment and good education, so later they should pay for the jail for them. The society does not try to remove the problem, but try to ignore the problems.

In the picture cartoon, the white man cannot even think that the Indian people were here before the white man and they do not have any other place to go. But the deep ignorance does not let the white man in the picture open his eyes and think.

The picture shows a real problem which existing in the world in different ways. Sorrowfully in many countries now, you will be punished for the religions of your family or parents, the race and nationalities.

As a person who worked as a high officer in the government, I think the prejudice is actually a political way for separating people from each other, train them against each other and train them to hate other group, so the corrupted leadership can control them.

Dialectical Writing

By writing we can transfer our experience and knowledge to other people or to the students easily.

The teacher should guide the students to be active and use their knowledge which they have learned. In this way the students will produce materials and will use the brain actively. The stimulus presents by the teacher could be anything, a poem, a political cartoon or other materials.

The teacher shares his/her role with the students. If you read you can keep 40% of the materials in your mind, if you read and listen in the same time you can keep 70% of the materials in you mind. But if you want to teach you must know 100% of the materials. So if you prepare yourself for teaching activities, you must know 100% the materials which you are presenting.

Teacher/ student co-authored products.

The teacher will train the students to be very active and will let the students to teach in the place of a teacher. So in this way the student should know the materials very well to be able to teach them.

Theme Cycles/ Investigative Inquiry

By showing a picture, the cartoon of Paul Conrad.

We can investigate the situation. How did the American Indian live?

How did their cultures differ from one another? What problems have they had to overcome in the past and now? What problems do they face actively now?

What contributions have they made to our society?

Meeting standards through participatory teaching and learning. To lead the students for the goal of education which is the humanity and have a nice life for yourself and other?

Common misunderstandings.

In this stage the teacher train the students to choose the right way and right reasonable choices.

In the old time the students had stayed in the same house with the teacher. They called it in

Germany this type of student Famulus that means the student live with the professor or teacher. Now they call the teacher who help the student closely and intimacy Dr. Vater. That means you have a father who is also your Dr. and teacher. There is very close relationship with the professor and student and the doctor father help the student for the whole day for some years. So the student has always contact with the teacher. Like parents and the children.

In many culture the teacher is spiritual parents. He/she will try to transfer his/her knowledge and experiences to generally younger students, so with the death of teacher the students know his/her knowledge and they will add new materials to the old and will find new discoveries and add all those to the old knowledge so in this way we grow.

In this way the human society grows and will have more and more knowledge.

The different methods and strategies are fine, but a good teacher should use or select the best one for his/her students according to their need and abilities and the usefulness of the method; if it is useful for them or not, so the teacher can change the strategies. Sometimes the teacher should use a combination of different methods and strategies. As each person and each student can learn in different ways, so a good experienced teacher can use different methods and strategies to find the best which can cover the student’s need.

The difference between teacher and computer is, that the teacher has feeling and can think and feel the environment, can think and act in different cases differently and has the power of brain to chose and select the best way for his/her students, but the computer cannot. It is only programmed in a way without any feeling and sensitivities.

In many countries and many systems the teacher is still guide and model for the young people. For this reason to select teacher is very important. Generally the teacher should have high value and be highly respected. The teacher is an academic father or mother. A mother or father with high standard and highly educated. So she/he is respected as a spiritual parent. The students like or love the teacher as a spiritual parent and the teacher love their students as spiritual children.

The parents say always to the teacher our children and or your student.

The parent trust their children to the teacher and the teacher should make a good job and train them as good as they can. And they should not be indifferent to the student at all.

The teacher should love the students like his/her children and be very concerned about their life and future and should not act indifferently as the system in the world wants.

I think the system in the world wants indifferent people and not united people who love and respect each other.

Sorrowfully some teacher is changing to a computer, too. But I hope love and the unity of mankind will come back and the relationship between teacher and student will be like in the past. The cooperation between teacher and student will be very useful. We will have a better world if our children will be trained in the best way of humanity.

Indifferent teacher will guide the students to jail, drug and terrorist campus and bad organizations. Especially when the students do not have both parents and they do not have time for the students.

A good education and the role of the good teacher will create a much better world.

In the old method the teacher used just grammar and translation to teach the
students other languages. The students have learned for a long time, four
or five years of intensive English, for example, but they could not speak
English as their second language.

They knew and learned all grammar rules and regulations, but in a very
passive form. They could not use them and they were not trained to use them
in a speaking form and use the words and their knowledge actively. That
method is not so useful today.

You have learned all rules and regulations, but you cannot use them in an
oral conversation. If you know all rules and regulation of a dance and you
know how to dance, but if you cannot perform it; it is not useful.

The old method based on translation, writing letters and reading
literatures. The oral aspect was not important and did not take under
consideration the future need for speaking.

I remember that the people could translate the whole book from English into
Persian, but they could not have a normal conversation nor could speak
simple sentences.

As a teacher I started my activities with the old method, but later the
school system in

Germany

changed and they wanted the students to speak, be
active in conversation, and use the language in the life. The school system
thought it was important to have contact with other English speaking people
and students.

In the past it was more important that the students should know the grammar
rules. Now the system wants me to train them in an active way and train
them to speak first. The words and grammar that the students know should be
used in conversation. It was not important how many words and regulations
your students knew. It was now important that they should be able to use
all of these words and regulations in an active conversation. They should
be able to use all words and regulations they know in dialogs.

I took my German and

Sweden

students to

London

many times and let them use
their language knowledge in English active conversation. These practices
were very useful for them, when we came back they could speak English
fluently. Now I could correct them and teach them grammar and literature
and they could keep them much easier in mind as they had a feeling about the
English language.

In

London

, my students could use their passive knowledge in an active
situation and they were very happy to do this. After they have listened for
a while, they were ready to speak. It came automatically by itself. I
could not believe that after few days, they have started to speak. Now I
could train them with reading easier and they could have more concentration
about reading and writing. Now the language was alive for them. They could
feel more and understand more.

A very famous good Persian translator translated the book written by John F.
Kennedy from English into Persian. The president of the

USA

wanted to see
him and speak with him. But there was a translator for the oral speech
between president and the book translator. The translator could not
communicate completely and directly with the president of the

United States

.

I think, it is much better that the students can speak the target language,
so it is easier to teach them literature and grammar.

They are trying to encourage the parent to read for their children and help them to read.

Reading

is a great source. All information is in the books.

Reading

brings the students in the level that they can write and speak with a lot of useful information. The authors are giving advices to the parent that they should not give up and should try always for the best of their children.

It is clear that language is combined with humanity and fine arts. So the good movies, classic movies which are not for advertisement and or other purpose can help the students, too.

Reading

can help the students to understand much better his/her environments.

Reading

trains the people to have a better communication skill and to understand other people and their problems much better. I love reading and reading help me to write much better in my native language.

Reading

will help the students to love the language and if you read more so you can learn much better and faster.

Reading

is the base of a language and language is the only difference between human being and the animal kingdom excluding human being.

Reading

makes us powerful in information and language. With mastery of language we can write documents of our thinking and they will for ever in the books, if they are good.

The writers have helped with their powerful language the people for a better life. If we read, the door of knowledge and information will be opened for us.

If a child cannot read, the parents should be patient and first try to read with him/her and give him/her nice books with nice pictures. Or bring him/her to a friendly teacher to train him/her reading.
A loving teacher teaches a language and helps the students with chants, pictures, poem and music. The teacher will affect the students for their whole life. The students should have motivation, but a loving teacher can even motivate the students. So with Love, interest and unity and using audio visual we can train the student to read and listen better. We can create a new student if we help him/her to read continuously.

My reaction: In Persian they say if the teacher teaches with love and unity the bad students will even come to schools on Sundays. All these devices if they are in the hand of a loving interested teacher will be useful. But the teacher who wants to do only his/her job and is indifferent can use all the modern systems and still not be successful and the students cannot profit completely.

Alone good and advanced materials together with all nice books with a lot of pictures, poems, chants and music will be not useful if the teacher is not interested in all students and is indifferent with some of students. The teacher will do only his/her job and the paperwork and full documentations; the students are not focused in the first place. Lesson plan, documentations, and method have taken the Love and Unity which the teacher should have in mind. What is more useful, when the students are later successful in their lives or when they are sitting in jail? The feeling should be present, if there is no feeling and no interest; all of these devices will not be effective. I think first the teacher should be interested to transfer his/her knowledge to the students and she/he should adjust himself/herself with the need of students and how they learn and read. The teacher can use all methods with different students, to help them to be interested in

Reading

. Students are human beings and each of them is a unique personality.

We cannot make a form or a way for all students. The best powerful lesson plan cannot help the students, if they have other concern. So according to the student’s abilities, interest and capacities the teacher should use different way and different materials to reach the goal of reading. If the student feel that the teacher does not like him/her; there will be then a barrier between students and teacher and the students will block their mind. The same with the teacher, if a student does not respect the teacher will be indifferent and upset and will gather more documents against the students.

The goal should be the students and not documentations, lesson plans or different methods. I think the teacher should not concentrate on documentation, lesson plans so much that the students are been forgotten. The teacher should use all methods and materials to help the student to learn and read. If the teacher concentrates on students, so chants, music, poems, pictures and play will help the students to learn and read more and more and also will help them to keep all information better in their mind