Page 206 - DEDU505_TEACHER_EDUCATION_ENGLISH

Teacher Education

Notes Towards the end the evidence and arguments are summarized and conclusions are drawn.
It may be mentioned here that the above classification is not a rigid one. It has been
described with a view to enhancing your understanding of the structure of lectures.
Depending upon your needs you may use one or more than one category for structuring
your lecture.
• Effectiveness of the lecture method depends to a great extent on the capability of the teacher
to secure and sustain attention and interest of the students. As stated earlier, you should
acquire competence in the skill of stimulus variation which consists of movements, gestures,
modulation of voice, focusing, pausing and audio-visual switching.
Several devices are available for making the students i n t e d in the lecture. Telling the
students at the beginning of the lecture why the lesson is hporlmt, pointing out some key
concepts that they need to attend to for comprehending the lecture, relating the instructional
material to the personal or societal context, etc., are some example of these devices.
• Effectiveness of a lecture also depends upon your competence to communicate your intent
to the students. The process of communication relates to designing of message by taking
into account the entry level behaviour of your students, delivery of the message through an
appropriate medium, reception of the message without any distortion and feedback about
whether or not the students have comprehended what is taught You should attend to all
these aspects of an effective lecture.
While delivering the lecture, you should pay special attention to its three parts viz., introduction,
the message, and closure. During introduction, you should make clear what you expect of the
students at the end of your lecture. Alternatively, you may announce the main idea/major concepts
which you want your students to learn. While dealing with the subject properly, you should
explain the concepts, provide enrichment materials, support your conteh3tigwn ith arguments,
etc. At the end of the talk you should summarize the main points of the lesa rl. Your students will
be able to retain the main points for a longer period if you highlight ~ilema dequately in your
lecture.
Proper reception of the message depends upon the physical conditions of the classroom and
psychological conditions of the students. The physical conditions comprise seating arrangements,
acoustics of the classroom, temperature, condition of the blackboard, etc. The psychological
conditions relate to the motivational level of the students during the lecture. For proper reception
of the message, you should provide comfortable physical and supportive psychological
environment to your students.
For maintaining a student's attention, you should not only be enthusiastic about yow lecture, but
also keep your students entertained. For doing this you should, among other things, make use of
humour, provided it has educational value and is not out of place. Humour relieves monotony of
listening. Apart from this, you should maintain rapport with the students by maintaining
occasional eye contact with all the students in the classroom.
As already pointed out, the role of the students in a lecture is to listen, observe and take notes.
The effectiveness of lectures can be increased if the students are trained in the use of these skills.
Unfortunately this aspect has remained neglected in our schools so far and therefore it needs to
be attended to.
In the lecture method, you cannot obtain feedback directly from the students. However, you can
get feedback indirectly by observing the behaviour of your students during the lecture. Loss of
attention, yawning, sleepiness, mischief, etc.. among students indicate that they have lost track of
the lesson. You can take corrective measures by identifying the cause(s). Another method of
obtaining feedback is through student's answers to your questions. You should keep sufficient
time at the end of the lesson to ask questions. The nature of questions asked by the students and
their answers to your questions reflects how far she lecture has been effective.
Assessing Lecture: The quality and effectiveness of a lecture may be assessed with the help of a
Lecture Appmd Scale. It is a seven point appraisal scale. Its items are based on the views of

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