Our thesis discusses the holistic approach of teaching English in the second grade of elementary school and the related cross-curricular integration. The importance of the integration of movement and games in English classes is presented, as well as the most common models and approaches to teaching English, of which the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and total physical response are specifically described. In the following, examples of physical activities, games and songs are separately presented, meant to help enhance the effectiveness of learning English.
The introduction of motoric activity in English classes in the second grade of primary school was held through action research in May 2015. The study involved 81 pupils, of whom 39 were in the experimental group, which received teaching with movement, and 42 in the control group, where English classes took place in the traditional way. The purpose of the experiment was to determine whether second grade pupils, who were learning English for the first time, already had some knowledge of the foreign language and to find out what progress they achieved after a month of teaching. Among other things, we were also interested in how physical activities affect the attention and participation of pupils in the classroom, compared to the conventional teaching of English, and how motivated the pupils are for further learning of a foreign language.
The results showed that the majority of pupils in the second grade (88 %), who were learning English for the first time, had no prior knowledge of the English language. The final examination has shown that after one month of learning English the pupils who have learned English with the help of movement, have made greater progress compared to the pupils who were taught in the traditional way. On examination they achieved an average of 88 % of the total points, while the pupils of the control group gained an average of 73 % of the total points. Our results have proved that movement has a positive effect on memorizing English words, as pupils memorize mostly through hearing, vision, speech and movement at the same time.
Movement in classroom has a positive effect on the attention and participation of pupils, because the silent and quiet pupils become animated and get filled with energy, while the restless satisfy their need for movement. With the use of the questionnaire on children's motivation we found that all pupils in both groups were highly motivated to learn English, since diverse and interesting activities were implemented in both groups. Still, it is obvious that physical activities result higher motivation and are more likely to attract pupils. They do not need to be pre-motivated, as is the case with the usual methods of teaching English.
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