CHAPTER:12 SKILL OF ILLUSTRATION AND STIMULUS VARIATION

 

CHAPTER:12

SKILL OF ILLUSTRATION AND STIMULUS VARIATION

This Chapter Deals with

Skill of Illustration

Importance of Illustration skill

Types of Illustration

Components of Illustration Skill

Suggestion for making Illustration effective

Conclusion

Micro Lesson on Skill of Illustration

Skill of stimulus variation

Components of Stimulus Variation skill

Micro Lesson on Skill of stimulus variation

 

Skill of Illustration

The skill of illustration is also known as the skill of interpretation. It is the expansion skill of explanation, when the teacher failure to bring understanding of the students with explanation skill, then the teacher uses the skill of illustration. Many a time, it happens that a teacher unable to comprehend an abstract topic by using the skill of explanation. They require something more than mere explanation. The skill of illustration helps the teacher to stimulate and motivates pupils to comprehend the abstract concept or ideas. Thus skill of illustration is a valuable means of cultivating the power of observation and judgement and trains the senses to greater acuteness and perception. A skillful teacher uses some examples to illustrate the ideas, concept or principles during the teaching learning process.

                                To illustrate means to make a point or ideas clear and intelligible by which the children can acquire proper knowledge of that content. The dictionary meaning of illustration is “ to make clear, intelligible, comprehensible, to elucidate, to explain or exemplify as by means of figures, comprehensions or examples”. Obviously, examples are one of the most effective tools in the hand of the teacher to make the concept easier and simple for pupils to understand. Thus examples can be defined as “the observation or situations of occurrence of a concept or generalization”. And the skill of Illustrating with Examples can be defined as the selection and presentation of the example, relevant to the concept or generalization to be taught to the pupils so as to make it easier for them to understand it”. The examples, of courses, may be drawn from the pupils’ experiences”. To conclude the meaning of illustration , we can say that it is a process of making clear the concepts taught by linking it with already known and understand by pupils.

Importance of Illustration skill

v   The skill of illustration helps the teacher to attract the attention of the students.

v   It helps in facilitating the pupils understanding.

v   It helps the teacher to give concrete description to the abstract ideas and thoughts.

v   It also helpful for young children because they hardly indulge in abstract thinking.

v   An Illustration overcome and clear up difficulties of comprehension.

v   It helps in simplifying and gives vividness to explanation.

v   The skill of illustration helps in making instructions complete and enable the children to understand abstract concept, ideas and principles.

v   It also helps in developing the retention power of the students.

v   It cultivates the power of observation and judgment.

v   The skill of illustration uses various senses of the pupils.

v   It helps in making a link between unknown knowledge to known.

v   It helps in making the lesson interesting.

v   It stimulates interest and curiosity of the learner.

Types of Illustration: The skill of illustration employees all the sense organs of the students and it also helps in developing the power of imagination of the learner. So, illustration is very useful in making some ideas or mental picture more clear, definite and precise. It stimulates interest and curiosity of the students. Teaching through the skill of illustration has a great impact on learning. There are mainly two types of illustration which are used in the process of teaching and learning which are discussed in the following

v  Verbal Illustration

v  Non-verbal Illustration

Verbal Illustration: These are illustrations which influence the minds of the students through the medium of ideas expressed in words. The examples of verbal illustrations are-: Stories, anecdotes, descriptions, analogies, comparisons, smiles, words and examples etc.

Nonverbal Illustrations: These are illustrations which act directly through senses. They may be called as nonverbal, natural, concrete, material or objective illustrations. These illustrations are greater potential values than the verbal illustrations. This category includes concrete material such as actual objects and specimens, models, pictures, digrams, sketches, maps, graphs etc.

Components of Illustration Skill: There are some logical questions which may strike us at this stage. Do all the examples make the concept or generalization easier to understand? If not, then what kind of examples is helpful and appropriate in realizing these objectives? There are certain characteristics of effective examples. A teacher should have sound knowledge of these characteristics which will help him in formulating suitable and effective examples for illustrating a particular concept and generalization. The components based on these characteristics are presented in below-:

v  Examples given should be according to the age, grade, mental ability, previous experiences and their family back ground etc.

v  Formulation of relevant examples.

v  Formulation of interesting examples.

v  Using different medium for presenting examples.

v  Use of different approaches such as inductive approach (example to rule) and deductive approach (rule to examples).

v  Students’ involvements.

v  Appropriate number of illustrations.

v  Understanding of concepts.

Suggestion for making Illustration effective

v  Illustration should be simple and comprehensible.

v  It should be exact and accurate.

v  Too many illustrations should not be used.

v  Lengthy illustrations should be avoided.

v  It should be interesting.

v  The language used for illustration should be simple.

v  It should be presented at a suitable time.

v  There should be a variety and novelty in the use of illustrations.

v  Students should be motivated to observe illustrations carefully.

v  Appropriate medium should be used for presenting examples.

v  Provide opportunity to the students for presenting illustrations from their own experiences.

v  It should be planned before.

v  It should be self-explanatory and apparent meaning.

 

Conclusion : A good teacher has the skill of apparent teaching. For this purpose, he is able to give good examples. Illustration is one of the potential skills in the process of teaching learning which helps the teacher in stimulating students, motivating students, understanding students and to capture understanding of the students towards the concept or teacher.

 

MICRO LESSON ON ILLUSTRATION SKILL

Pupil Teacher’s Name       : ……………………….                                                        Date: ………………

Roll No                                     : ……………………….                                                          Skill: Illustration skill

Subject                                     : English                                                                                  Duration: 5 Minute

Topic                                        : “Present Continuous Tense”                                       Class: IX

 

Content	Pupil Teacher’s Activity	Student’s Activity
The teacher is teaching from the book. He picks up a few sentences of present continuous tense and tries to make the concept clear	Dear students, We shall understand about the Present Continuous Tense. Please listen me carefully and try to give answer the following question. 1.    What am I doing? (write a sentence on the black board) 2.    Look outside the window. What is the gardener doing? 3.    What are those students doing? (point out by his fingers) Good, I have given you three examples of Present Continuous Tense	Students become active and listen to the teacher carefully.   You are writing, sir Students look outside. He is pronging the hedges They are playing.   Yes sir.
	Now I’ll give you few verbal examples of Present Continuous Tense. -: My brother is reading -: Birds are Flying. -: He is reading a story. Dear students, Now give me some examples on Present Continuous Tense   Dear Students, Present Continuous Tense is used when an action is taking place at the time of speaking, reading, writing etc.	Students listen carefully       -: He is Working. -: Students are          Playing cricket. -: Sita is singing

 

Observation Schedule

 

Components of the skill	Evaluation
	So, so	Normal	Good
Ø   Formulation of relevant examples. Ø   Formulation of interesting examples. Ø   Using different medium for presenting examples. Ø   Students’ involvements. Ø   Appropriate number of illustrations. Ø   Understanding of concepts. Ø   Use of simple examples Ø   Sufficient number of examples Ø   Use of inductive approach Ø   Use of deductive approach	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	1  2  3 1  2  3 1  2  3 1  2  3 1  2  3 1  2  3 1  2  3 1  2  3 1  2  3 1  2  3	4  5  6 4  5  6 4  5  6 4  5  6 4  5  6 4  5  6 4  5  6 4  5  6 4  5  6 4  5  6

Skill of stimulus variation

The chief aim of teacher in the class room is to make the lesson impressive. For this, he uses various types of methods and techniques. An important aspect of the success of teaching is that the teacher should continue to hold the attention of the students fixed on the subject matter. In order to attract the pupils attention, the teacher may present various types of stimuli, such as movement of the body, gesture, change in speech, focusing of the feelings, change in the interaction style with the pupils, pause and change in the order of audio visual aids. All the above mentioned aspects functions as a stimuli. The skill of changes in stimuli is known as the skill of stimulus variation. The skill of stimulus variation generates interest among the students in their learning. The teacher should imbibe in himself the capabilities of attracting and holding the attention of the students throughout his teaching. According to Sneha Joshi “A stimulus is something that evokes functional reaction in tissues. It has a touching effect on the learner”. What to change , when to change and how to change requires a skill on the part of teacher of securing and sustaining attention at high level, such a skill named as “Skill of Stimulus variation”.

Components of Stimulus Variation skill

The teacher can easily draw the attention of the students through various activities and behaviors. The behavior and activities of the teacher associated with the following skills-:

I.       Teacher’s Body Movement: The physical movements of the teacher in the class are important. Generally it is seen that the teacher’s body movement is the easy way to draw the attention of the pupil. Movement does not mean that the teacher should become a pendulum. The movement of the teacher should be balanced.

II.    Teacher’s Gesture: Gestures are the movements of the part of the body to direct attention, to express emotion, to emphasize importance, or to indicate shape, size and movements etc. During the time of teaching, the teacher should not stand like a statue, so he uses gestures of body and that should be meaningful and appropriate.

III. Change in Speech Pattern: The speech at the same pitch create bareness among the students in the class room. Variation in speech can be used in order to put emphasis on a particular point or to show emotion. So the teacher should bring fluctuations in his voice.

IV. Focusing: Focusing is used to concentrate the attentions of the pupils on some specific point or event. It includes teacher’s behavior that directs on particular things or an object. It includes use of appropriate words, objects etc. this type of teacher’s behavior can be obtained through verbal, verbal gestural and gestural focusing. In the verbal focusing, the words are repeated again and again to concentrate the attention such as look here children, attend to me, don’t see outside because I am going to announce something important. In the gesture focusing, the attention of the students is concentrated with the help of gesture towards some desirable direction or an object.

V.    Student’s active participation: It includes active participation of students in the classroom during the lesson. Teacher can involve students in different activities like drawing on the blackboard, dramatization, creating situations, handling equipments, reading from part writing or other activities.

VI. Pausing: It is a kind of deliberate silence during lecture. Pause should be used during the time of teaching where it is necessary. It is used for the purpose of securing pupil’s attention. It should not be too long or too short.

VII. Oral Visual Switching: To change in sensory focus the PT will use this component for concentrating the attention of the students.

VIII. Change in Interaction Style: The interaction style should be changed from time to time e.g. Teacher-Pupil Interaction, Peer group Interaction which is used to avoid boredom and to sustain the attention of the students.

 

MICRO LESSON ON STIMULUS VARIATION SKILL

 

Pupil Teacher’s Name       : ……………………….                                                     Date: ………………

Roll No                                     : ……………………….                                                   Skill: Stimulus variation

Subject                                     : English                                                                            Duration: 5 Minute

Topic                                        : “Degree of Comparison”                                           Class: VII

 

Content	Pupil Teacher’s Activity	Student’s Activity
“Degree of Comparison”	Dear students, Do you know about Degree of Comparison?   Ø By giving stress PT will tell about Degree of Comparison with the help of pictures drawn on chart. Ø PT goes to the black board and writes; Degree of Comparison are used to indicate the comparison between two or more than two things and pictures. Ø PT will tell the degree of comparison on black board by drawing pictures. Ø PT will tell +ve, comparison and superlative degree e.g. (Good-Better-Best)                  (Much-More-Must). Ø PT calls two students infront of the class and the rest of the students to tell about which degree of comparison is used.      PT nodded his head and smiled	No response   Students are listen and seeing carefully   Students are listen carefully   listen carefully   listening   Response from students

 

Observation Schedule

 

Components of the skill	Evaluation
	So, so	Normal	Good
I.                    Teacher’s Body Movement 2.       Teacher’s Gesture 3.       Change in Speech Pattern 4.       Focusing 5.       Student’s active participation 6.       Focusing 7.       Pausing (oral and visual) 8.       Switching a-chart b-black board sketching c-film projector d-flash cards 9.       Oral Visual Switching 10.    Change in Interaction Style	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0           0 0	1  2  3 1  2  3 1  2  3 1  2  3 1  2  3 1  2  3 1  2  3 1  2  3           1  2  3 1  2  3	4  5  6 4  5  6 4  5  6 4  5  6 4  5  6 4  5  6 4  5  6 4  5  6           4  5  6 4  5  6