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Resumen Workshop

This document discusses effective ways to teach grammar through texts. It makes three key points: 1) Language is context-sensitive, and there are three layers of context - co-text, situation context, and cultural context - that provide meaning. Grammar is best taught using whole texts to provide these contextual layers. 2) There are four sources of texts that can be used: coursebooks, authentic materials, materials created by the teacher, and materials generated by students. Each has benefits and limitations. 3) Effective grammar teaching involves presenting new concepts through comprehensible input, providing practice to consolidate learning, and testing to evaluate learning. Presentations work best when they attract student attention, link to prior knowledge, and

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
24 views53 pages

Resumen Workshop

This document discusses effective ways to teach grammar through texts. It makes three key points: 1) Language is context-sensitive, and there are three layers of context - co-text, situation context, and cultural context - that provide meaning. Grammar is best taught using whole texts to provide these contextual layers. 2) There are four sources of texts that can be used: coursebooks, authentic materials, materials created by the teacher, and materials generated by students. Each has benefits and limitations. 3) Effective grammar teaching involves presenting new concepts through comprehensible input, providing practice to consolidate learning, and testing to evaluate learning. Presentations work best when they attract student attention, link to prior knowledge, and

Uploaded by

mili
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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COMPULSORY MATERIAL

HOW TO TEACH GRAMMAR THROUGH TEXTS​​ (Ch. 5 “How to teach grammar)


Language is ​CONTEXT-SENSITIVE, ​i.e. in the absence of context, it is very difficult to
recover the intended meaning of a single word or phrase. This is true of words taken out of
the context of sentences. It is also true of sentences taken out of the context of texts.
As decontextualised words and decontextualised sentences lose their meaning, so too do
decontextualised texts. That is, texts divorced from their context may become difficult to
interpret.
We need to distinguish between the context of the surrounding text, i.e ​the CO-TEXT (the
rest of the text that surrounds and provides meaning to the individual language items in the
text​), and ​the context of the surrounding situation, i.e the CONTEXT OF SITUATION​. When
interpreting the meaning of a language item, it is important to take into account the roles and
relationships of the speakers and the mode of communication (a letter, a public notice).
Finally, the another type of context is the ​CONTEXT OF CULTURE (an understanding of
cultural aspects is necessary in order to understand many texts; lack of familiarity with
features of the culture can seriously inhibit understanding.)
Although language has traditionally been analysed and taught at the level of the sentence,
real language use seldom consists of sentences in isolation, but of groups of sentences (or
utterances, in the case of spoken language) that form coherent texts. In real life, we
generally experience texts in their entirety and in their contexts of use (we experience the
whole joke and we experience it in a situation where joking is appropriate). ​It is a feature of
classrooms, however, that language becomes detached from both its co-text and its context
of situation.
In order to look at grammar it is often easier to use examples taken out of context. BUT, as
we’ve seen, taking words, sentences and texts out of context threatens their intelligibility.
Taking grammar structures out of context is equally dangerous. (For example, you might
think that “He is playing tennis” means he is doing it now. However, in the following
instances that is not the case: “He never wears his glasses when he’s playing tennis”; “He is
playing tennis a lot these days. Do you think he’s lost his job?).
A text-based approach involves looking at language when it is “doing work”.
If children are going to be able to make sense of grammar, they will need to be exposed to it
in its context of use. And if learners are to achieve a functional command of a second
language, they will need to be able to understand and produce not only isolated sentences,
but whole texts in that language.

Sources of texts
Four possible sources of texts:

The coursebook These texts tend to be specially tailored for ease of


understanding and so as to display specific features of
grammar, which gives them a slightly unreal air.

Authentic sources Authentic texts offer learners examples of real language use,
(newspapers, songs) undistorted by the heavy hand of the grammarian.
Problems: the linguistic load of unfamiliar vocabulary and
syntactic complexity can make such texts impenetrable, and
ultimately very demotivating. Because of this, it is often
necessary to simplify authentic texts in ways which retain their
genuine flavour.

The teacher The teacher’s story, the teacher’s travel plans, etc. are likely
to be of much more interest to the sts than those of a
character in a coursebook.
Example: (a dictogloss)
The teacher wants to teach would to talk about past habits.
So, through a text, she tells the sts what she used to do
during her summer holidays when she was a child.
“When I was a child we used to go camping every summer.
We’d choose a different place each year, …
Then, the sts have to capture the meaning of the text and try
to reproduce it, although they may not be able to recall the
exact words. They understand the T’s account of his holidays,
but they don’t have a word-for-word memory of the text, and
so they tend to draw on forms with which they are already
familiar (we drove rather than we’d drive).
The next step is to compare both texts (the teacher writes her
text and the version the kids made). It is important for the
learners to notice the differences for themselves, in order for
them to make the necessary adjustments to their mental
grammar.

The students themselves These could be the most effective, since evidence shows that
the topics that learners raise in the classroom are more likely
to be remembered than those introduced by either teacher or
coursebooks.
(Community Language Learning: method first promoted in the
1970s. CLL aims at centring the lang. learning experience as
much as possible on the learners, giving them the
responsibility for the content of the lesson. The teacher is a
consultant that provides the lang. learners need in order to
express their meanings effectively. There’s no coursebook,
not even a syllabus: the topics are initiated by the sts and the
teacher decides which language forms to focus on from what
emerges in the conversation and taking into account the level
and needs of the class. The fact that the language emerges
out of the learner’s conversation means there’s a high level of
relevance and therefore memorability.)
Example: (recorded dialogue)
A st: Ana, what will you do the next Easter holiday?
T: Listen: Ana, what are you going to do this Easter.
S: Ana, what are you going to do this Easter? (The T records)
Ana:...
(teacher focuses on will vs. going to)
Conclusions:
- Language is context-sensitive
- There are at least three levels or layers of context: co-text (the surrounded text),
context (the situation in which the text is used), and cultural text (the culturally
significant features of the situation. Each of these types of context can contribute to
the meaning of the text.
- Grammar is best taught and practised in context. This means using whole texts as
contexts for grammar teaching. Why?
● texts provide co-textual information, allowing learners to deduce the meaning
of unfamiliar grammatical items.
● if the texts are authentic they can show how the item is used in real
communication.
● as well, as grammar input, texts provide vocabulary input, skills practice, and
exposure to features of text organisation.

“A COURSE IN LANGUAGE TEACHING” (PENNY UR)


The process of teaching a foreign language is a complex one. As so, it has to be broken
down into components for purposes of study.
1. Presenting and explaining new material (in order to make it clear, comprehensible
and available for learning)
2. Providing practice (to consolidate knowledge)
3. Testing (in order to check what has been mastered and what still needs to be learnt
or reviewed)
(This is not, of course, the only way people learn a foreign language in the classroom. They may
absorb new material unconsciously, or semi-unconsciously, through exposure to comprehensible and
personally meaningful speech or writing, and through their own engagement with it, without any
purposeful teacher mediation)
EFFECTIVE PRESENTATION:
In order for our sts to learn sth new, they need to be first able to perceive and understand it.
One of the teacher’s jobs is to mediate such new material so that it appears in a form that is
most accessible for initial learning. (Raw, unmediated new input is often incomprehensible to
learners; it doesn’t function as intake, and therefore does not result in learning. In an
immersion situation this does not matter because learners have plenty of time for repeated
and different exposures to such input in different meaningful contexts, so they will eventually
absorb it)
Presentation: the initial encounter with comprehensible input in the form of spoken or written
texts, (as well as various kinds of explanations, instructions and discussion of new lang
items or tasks (well, we call this systematization))
Another contribution of effective teacher presentations of new material is that they can help
to activate and harness learners’ attention, effort, intelligence, and conscious (metacognitive)
learning strategies in order to enhance learning. For instance, you might point out how a new
item is linked to sth they already know, or contrast a new bit of grammar with a parallel
structure in their own language (what we do in the systematization part; activation of
previous structures and then left and side parts of the bb)
WHAT HAPPENS IN AN EFFECTIVE PRESENTATION?
1. ATTENTION: ​the learners are alert, focussing their attention on the teacher and/or
the material to be learnt, and aware that sth is coming that they need to take in. You
need to make sure that learners are in fact attending; it helps if the target material is
perceived as interesting in itself. (we set a PURPOSE for reading)
2. PERCEPTION: ​(frequency) the learners see or hear the target material clearly. There
has to be frequency (the target language has to appear repeatedly) in order to give
added opportunities for the sts to NOTICE it.
3. UNDERSTANDING: ​the learners understand the meaning of the material being
introduced, and its connection with other things they already know (how it fits into
their schemata). So you need to make LINKS with previously learnt material.
4. SHORT-TERM MEMORY: ​the learners need to take the material into short-term
memory: to remember it, until later in the lesson, when you and they have an
opportunity to do further work (practice) to consolidate learning. So the more IMPACT
the original presentation has (colourful, dramatic, unusual), the better. Some learners
remember better if the material is seen. Others, is it is heard/associated with physical
movement. Ideally, all of these types of input should be utilized within a good
presentation

CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD PRACTICE ACTIVITY


Exercises and activities may relate to any aspect of language: their goal may be the
consolidation of the learning of a grammatical structure, for example, or the improvement of
listening, speaking, reading or writing fluency, or the memorization of vocabulary.
CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE LANGUAGE PRACTICE
1. VALIDITY: ​the activity should activate learners primarily in the skill or material it is
meant to practice. Many speaking activities, for example, have learners listening to
the teacher more than talking themselves. Activities should serve primarily to
rehearse and improve the items to be practised.
2. PRE-LEARNING: ​the learners should have a good preliminary grasp of the language
they are required to practice, though they may only be able to produce or understand
it slowly and after thought. If they can -however hesitantly-, produce successful
responses, they have a firm basis for further effective practice of the target language
material.
3. VOLUME: ​the more language the learners actually engage with during the activity,
the more practice they will get. If the lesson time available is seen as a container,
then it should be filled with as much “volume” of language as possible. Time during
which learners are not engaging with the language being practised for whatever
reason is time wasted as far as the practice activity is concerned.
4. SUCCESS-ORIENTATION: ​WE CONSOLIDATE LEARNING BY DOING THINGS
RIGHT. Continued inaccurate or unacceptable performance results only in
fossilization of mistakes and general discouragement. It is therefore important to
select, design and administer practice activities in such a way that learners are likely
to succeed in doing the task. Repeated successful performance is likely to result in
effective automatization of whatever is being performed (although the sts should be
challenged, if not they will get bored)
5. HETEROGENEITY: ​a good practice activity provides opportunities for useful practice
to all, or most, of the different levels within a class. If you give an activity whose items
invite response at only one level of knowledge, then a large proportion of your class
will not benefit. Consider the following activity: “Jenny is a baby. Jenny (can/can’t)
ride a bike”. Learners who are not confident that they understand how to use can
may not do the item at all. Those who are more advanced, and could make far more
complex and interesting statements with the same item have no opportunity to do so,
and get no useful practice at a level appropriate to them. However, look at the
following activity: “Jenny is a baby. Jenny can hold a toy and can smile, but she can’t
ride a bike. What else can, or can’t, Jenny do?”. This activity is more
HETEROGENEOUS, since we are providing weaker learners with support in the form
of sample responses, and we are giving everyone the opportunity to answer at a
level appropriate for them, from the simple “Jenny can drink milk” to the more
complex “Jenny can’t open a bank account”. Thus a much larger proportion of the
class is able to participate and benefit.
6. TEACHER ASSISTANCE: ​the main function of the teacher, having proposed the
activity and given clear instructions, is to help the learners to do it successfully. If you
assist them, you thereby increase their chances of success and the effectiveness of
the practice activity as a whole. Such assistance may take the form of allowing plenty
of time to think, of making the answers easier through giving hints or guiding
questions, of confirming beginnings or responses in order to encourage
continuations, or moving around the classroom making yourself available to answer
questions.
7. INTEREST: ​is there is little challenge in the language work itself because of its
success-orientation and if there is a lot of repetition of target forms, then there is
certainly a danger that the practice might get boring. And boredom leads to
inattention, low motivation, and ultimately less learning. However, interest can be
rooted in other aspects of the activity: an interesting topic, the need to convey
meaningful information, a game-like fun task, attention-catching materials, appeal to
learners’ feelings or a challenge to their intellect.

SEQUENCE AND PROGRESSION IN PRACTICE


The individual practice procedure should ideally be integrated into a series of activities that
help the learner progress from strongly teacher-supported controlled practice at the
beginning to later automatic and eventually autonomous reception and production of the
language.

THE PLACE OF GRAMMAR TEACHING


The place of grammar in the teaching of a foreign language is controversial. Most people
agree that knowledge of a language means, among other things, knowing its grammar; but
this knowledge may be intuitive, and it is not necessarily true that grammatical structures
need to be taught as such, or that formal rules need to be learnt.

VARYING LESSON COMPONENTS


A varied lesson, besides being more interesting and pleasant for both teachers and learners,
is also likely to cater for a wider range of learning styles and strategies, and may delay onset
of fatigue by providing regular refreshing changes in the type of mental or physical activity
demanded.
WAYS OF VARYING A LESSON:
1. TEMPO: activities may be brisk and fast-moving (such as guessing games) or slow
and reflective (such as reading literature and responding in writing)
2. ORGANIZATION: ​in lockstep, groups, pairs, individually
3. MODE AND SKILL: ​activities may be based on the written or the spoken language;
and the sts may be asked to produce (speak, write) or receive (listen, read)
4. DIFFICULTY: ​activities may be seen as easy and non-demanding, or difficult,
requiring concentration and effort
5. TOPIC: both the language point and the (non-linguistic) topic may change from one
activity to another
6. MOOD: ​activities vary also in mood: light and fun-based versus serious and
profound; happy versus sad; tense versus relaxed
7. STIR-SETTLE: ​some activities enliven and excite learners (controversial discussions
or activities that involve physical movement); others, like dictations, have the effect of
calming them down
8. ACTIVE-PASSIVE: ​learners may be active in a way that encourages their own
initiative; or they may only be required to do as they are told.

LANGUAGES AND CHILDREN: MAKING THE MATCH (HELENA CURTAIN)


Elements to consider when planning activities
WARM-UP: It is a time for communicative use of completely familiar language (type C
activities, since we focus on fluency and they are done in lockstep).
Purposes:
● It provides a ​review and a basis for new material to be introduced (activation of
previous knowledge)
● Because of the relatively easy level at which the warm-up is conducted, it helps sts to
build or regain confidence in their ability to work with the target language. ​At some
point in the warm-up, every child should have the opportunity to say sth in the target
language.
● It provides a time during which ​teachers and sts alike can share dimensions of their
personality and their interests (families, dislikes); and they can ​personalize
applications of material they have learned earlier in a more structured setting.
The warm-up does not just “happen”. ​It must be carefully planned to include different
material and strategies each day.
BALANCE OF OLD AND NEW MATERIAL: ​children need a great deal of practice with new
material before they are able to appropriate it for their own functional, communicative
purposes. Every class period should contain some new and some familiar material. One of
the teacher’s tasks is to make the old material seem new and the new material seem
familiar. The teacher must plan for many different contexts within which to practise, in order
to prevent boredom with the practice and to provide the children with a sense of progress-
the old always seems new, because the message to be communicated has a new context
and the need to communicate that message is also new. ​Each activity presents a new
context and a new challenge, but in the process the children have practised enough for the
language item to become automatic.
INTRODUCING NEW MATERIAL: ​when introducing new material, the teacher tries to build
on what sts have already learned so they have maximum security and reason for
self-confidence (and to create connections in the brain). (For example, on the first day of
class, the T may work on cognates to show the sts that they already know sth of the
language without even realizing it). If the teacher will present a song, poem, or story on
Thursday, so she will consciously “seed” or plant material in the lesson for Monday or
Tuesday, so that the later, longer message does not seem entirely new. Planning from day
to day will incorporate these linkages. The teacher should constantly be helping sts to
recognize these links, so that they discover language learning as a cumulative process -and
not as sth that they learn in order to pass a test and then forget.
ROUTINES: ​every class period, especially in the primary grades, should include a certain
number of regular, predictable classroom routines that make heavy use of language
repetition and patterned teacher-student interaction. These routines provide children with a
sense of security, and they also help to give meaning clues to the content discussed in the
course of the activity.
VARIETY: ​each class period should include a number and variety of activities. The younger
the children in a class, the greater the number of different activities planned for each class
period. The attention span increases with the age of the child, but even in the middle school,
activities should rarely last longer than ten minutes, and they should usually be planned to
last from five to eight minutes. Activities should be developed with attention to high and low
energy requirements on the part of both the t and the sts. Each lesson should include a
balance of active and passive activities, of listening and speaking, of one-way and two-way
communication. It is very important that children have the opportunity to ask questions as
well as to answer them and, especially in the TPR-oriented classroom, to give directions as
well as to respond to them. It is also wise to plan for change of pace. Songs, games, and
rhymes with actions can change the tempo and the emphasis of a class period, while
continuing to further communicative goals.

SUMMARY: Careful planning can help the elementary or middle school language teacher to
make the most of the limited time available for instruction in the target language. Effective
planning takes into account the educational development of the sts and builds on factors
such as story form and affective engagement to make learning more meaningful and more
memorable. Each plan should be organized around the needs and development of the whole
child and take into account the child’s need for both variety and routine.

ORAL WORK Scott and Ytreberg “Teaching English to Children”


Speaking is perhaps the most demanding skill for the teacher to teach. In their own
language, children are able to express emotions, communicate intentions and reactions,
explore the language and make fun of it, so they expect to be able to do the same in English,
but there are limitations because of their lack of language.
We don’t know what they want to say
If you want your pupils to continue thinking about English simply as a means of
communication, then you cannot expect to be able to predict what they want to say. There
has to be a gap of information. And children will often naturally insert their native language
when they cannot find the words in English.
Finding the balance
What is important with beginners is finding the balance between providing language through
controlled and guided activities and at the same time letting them enjoy natural talk.
Correction
When the pupils are working with controlled and guided activities, we want them to produce
correct language. If they make mistakes at this stage, they should be corrected (because the
focus is on ACCURACY). But when pupils are working on free oral activities we are trying
them to say what they want to say, to express themselves and their own personalities (the
focus is on FLUENCY). The emphasis for the pupils should be on content. If pupils are doing
problem-solving, for example, correction of language mistakes should not be done while the
activity is going on. The t can note what he or she thinks should be corrected and take in up
in class later.

PRESENTING NEW LANGUAGE ORALLY


When children start learning English, they obviously need to be given (exposed to) language
before they can produce it themselves. At this initial stage the activities will be under the
control of the teacher.
Some of the ways in which we can present language orally:
● THROUGH THE PUPILS: For example, if the teacher wants to present CAN, then
she can talk about what her pupils can or cannot do. Maria can swim. Peter can play
the piano. The sentences should be true -so it is important for the teacher to know
her sts- and accompanied by the appropriate actions and sounds.
● USING A MASCOT: having “someone” familiar constantly on hand with whom you
can have conversations about anything and everything is a wonderful way of
introducing new subjects and new language to young children. For example, if you
use a teddy as your mascot, you can use Teddy to ask questions or you can present
dialogues with him as your partner. (Teddy, can you swim? No I can’t, but I can sing.
And Teddy then sings a song.) Once the teacher has given the model, pupils can ask
Teddy all sorts of questions and Teddy can provide all sorts of answers. In this way
Teddy’s name, identity, likes, dislikes, etc. will be built up in cooperation with the
children, so that Teddy belongs to everyone in the class.
Most oral work is directed towards someone and asks for a response from someone,
and having another speaker of English around can make all sorts of situations easier
to get across.
● DRAWINGS (a man swimming, a man on the floor trying to play football)
● PUPPETS: they are good to present stories, situations or dialogues. They can just be
paper bags
● OTHERS: you can use pictures; you can mime/act situations; you can use realia, etc.

CONTROLLED PRACTICE
In controlled practice there is very little chance that the pupils can make a mistake. In the
Teddy example the pupils ask Teddy “Do you like….?”. They can then go on to ask each
other in pairs “Do you like….?”, with the other pupil answering Yes or No. Once the pattern is
established with the class, they can do it in pairs.
Examples of controlled practice activities:
● TELLING THE TIME
St A asks: “What’s the time?” Pupil B answers “It’s ………..”
Activities like this provide the basis for oral work, but do not always produce real language at
once. Their purpose is to train pupils to use correct, simple, useful language within a
situation or context. Pupils may have to repeat sentences, be corrected and go through the
same thing several times. Familiarity and safety are necessary to help build up security in
the language.

GUIDED PRACTICE
Guided practice follows on directly from controlled practice and will often be done either in
pairs on in small groups. Guided practice usually gives the pupils some sort of choice, but
the choice of language is limited.
Examples:
● WHAT’S THE TIME?: This exercise would follow on from the controlled practice
above. Both pupils have clocks with hands that move. The situation could be that
pupil A’s watch has stopped and he or she wants to ask pupil B the time. This puts
language into context and the guided practice can become a mini-dialogue.
Pupil A: What’s the time, please?
Pupil B: It’s five past ten.
Pupil A: Thank you (Puts his or her clock to the same time and compares
The language remains the same than in the controlled activity, but pupil A never
knows what the time is going to be. Since Pupil A has to do something with the
information he or she gets, it also makes the exercise just a bit more meaningful.

DIALOGUES AND ROLE PLAY WORK


Working with dialogues is a useful way to bridge the gap between guided practice and freer
activities. Controlled dialogues can easily develop into freer work when the pupils are ready
for it.
First the teacher will have to present the dialogue in whatever way seems more suitable.
She might like to use puppets or Teddy. Dialogues which involve some sort of action or
movement are the ones which work best with young children. Intonation is terribly important,
too, and children love to play with this. After the pupils have heard the dialogue a couple of
times, and the teacher’s done it with some individuals “giving” them their parts, the teacher
lets the sts repeat the dialogue with her. Then half of the class do it with the other half of the
class and then the pupils work in twos.
Role play:
Another way of presenting dialogues is through role play. In role play the pupils are
pretending to be someone else like the teacher, or shop assistant, or one of their parents,
etc. Beginners of all ages can start on role play dialogues by learning a simple one off by
heart and then acting it out in pairs. The t can give them a model first by acting out the
dialogue with Teddy, and getting the pupils to repeat the sentences after her. Example:
A: Good morning. Can I help you?
B: Yes, please. I’d like an ice cream.
A: Here you are.
B: How much is that?
A: 45p. Thank you.
B: Goodbye.
A: Goodbye.
The next stage can be to practise the dialogue but asking for different things. The class
know knows the dialogue, and together the teacher can suggest other things to ask for. The
prices will have to be changed, too. The roles which the children play can be given to them
orally, but if the children can read, then it is easier to give them written cue cards:
A’s card: you go into a kiosko…. Here are some of the things you can ask for… Remember
to be polite
B’s card: You work in a kiosko…. Here are the prices of some of the things you sell…. You
start the conversation.
Those who want to can keep to the information given. Others might want to move into a freer
activity and have a completely different conversation.

Dialogues and role play are useful oral activities because:


● Pupils speak in the first and second person. Texts are often in the third person.
● Pupils learn to ask as well as answer.
● They learn to use short complete bits of language and to respond appropriately.
● They don’t just use words, but also all the other parts of speaking a language -tone of
voice, stress, intonation, facial expressions, etc.
● They can be used to encourage natural “chat” in the classroom.

FREE ACTIVITIES
Using controlled and guided activities provides a good background for activities where
children say what they WANT to say.
Some characteristics of free activities:
● They focus attention on the MESSAGE/CONTENT and not on the language as such
● There is GENUINE COMMUNICATION even though the situations are sometimes
artificial
● Free activities will really SHOW THAT PUPILS CAN OR CANNOT USE THE
LANGUAGE
● Free activities CONCENTRATE ON MEANING MORE THAN ON CORRECTNESS.
Formal mistakes don’t really matter too much unless it means your pupils cannot be
understood. In free activities we are trying to get the pupils to use the language with
a natural flow. FLUENCY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ACCURACY at this stage.
● Teacher control is minimal during the activity, but the teacher must be sure that the
pupils have enough language to do the task.
● The atmosphere should be informal and non-competitive.
● There is often a game element in the activity.
Most of these activities are based on the INFORMATION GAP PRINCIPLE -that A knows
something B does not know, and B wants that information.

Pairwork:
- With older children working in pairs, give one pupil map A and the other map B. Pupil
B (whose map does not have the location of the places) asks student A where some
of the places are. This is a restricted free exercise, but that’s how it should be. Do not
give pupils exercises which are so free that they do not know where to start or cannot
cope linguistically.
- Student A has a picture of a boy and student B has a picture of a girl. The students
paint the picture. Then, student B gets the picture of the boy (and vice versa) and
student A describes how he has painted it. Student B paints it accordingly and when
he finishes the two pictures have to be identical.
Groupwork:
- Take any picture story from your textbook or workbook, copy it, cut it up and give one
picture to each member of the group. Each pupil then has to describe to the others
what is in his or her picture without showing it to the others. When the pupils have
heard what is in each picture, the group decides on the correct order of the activities.
- Another story telling exercise that needs a bit more imagination and is more suitable
for 8-10 year-old children: everyone in the group has two objects or pictures of
objects which have to be woven into a story. You start off the story (“I met a family
yesterday…”). The story then continues with one pupil adding to the story using his or
her object, which might be a packet of tea, or a toy car, or whatever (“Of course, they
had tea with me”). As the story continues, it gets funnier and more ridiculous. This
can also be done as a whole class story.
Whole class activities:
- A matching activity: make cards that are similar but a little bit different. Give each
student a card. The students look at their card and then they leave it face down on
their desks. Then, the students go asking the other sts about their pictures so as to
find the student with the same picture (it is challenging because the pictures are all
very similar).
- Another activity that is useful is using questionnaires. Ask sts to find out about
favourite food, favourite books, favourite tv programmes, or whatever is relevant to
what you are working on at that time. With the five to seven year olds you will have to
provide the questionnaire.

“WORKING WITH WORDS”: Decisions about content.


How does vocabulary reach the classroom?
Four main sources:
- through the course book (written and spoken texts, activities for the presentation and
practice of grammatical structures, testing exercises, etc.)
- through supplementary materials (not designed specifically for vocabulary
development -videos, narratives, role play, drills)
- through the sts (unanticipated and unpredictable items will surface from student
enquiries, queries and errors.
- though specific vocabulary activities designed by the teacher for his particular group
of students.
The teacher can only exercise strict control over one of the channels, i.e. the fourth. For the
rest, he can only exercise his judgement in whether to make an issue of an item once it
appears.
STUDENT RESPONSIBILITY AND TEACHER RESPONSIBILITY
In the very early stages of learning most students recognise the value of a common core of
lexis that will be essential. Once this basic level of survival has been achieved, lexical
selection and emphasis is prone to conflicts of interest that are seldom true of grammar.
Most learners perceive the relevance of grammatical structures whatever their field of
interest and reasons for learning the language. The same cannot be said of vocabulary
which is much more context-specific; items that are essential to an understanding of one
field of interest may be quite irrelevant to sts who are not interested in that particular subject.
One solution may be to accept that sts have different needs, and that they must assume
some of the responsibility for defining those needs and the vocabulary that will be relevant to
those needs.
What items should we choose? 3 options
● arbitrary selection
● deciding that a text does not warrant any further selection to lexis
● supplying the sts with dictionaries, set them a time limit, and allow them to
concentrate on any words they wish to learn. (The teacher may choose those words
which s/he considers essential and focus on those; and allow the sts to decide which
of the others they want to learn)
Advantages of letting the sts choose what vocabulary to learn:
● there’s motivation derived from learning what one wants to learn
● allowing the sts to have the responsibility for making decisions may well help to
engender greater discrimination on their part to recognise what’s useful.
This approach can be very revealing for the t as a means of understanding his or her sts’
needs and attitudes towards learning. Clearly the t must be involved in the decision about
items to be learnt, as the sts need guidance.

CRITERIA FOR SELECTION


How do we determine what is useful?
We have to concede that every teaching situation is different and so essential items in one
context may be quite useless in another. The relative importance you attach to the various
criteria described below will depend on your own teaching situation.
● FREQUENCY: the high frequency of an item is not guarantee of usefulness, but
there is obviously a significant correlation between the two. There may be occasions
when usefulness is not determined by frequency. An item of low frequency may be
vital if it is the only word that expresses a particular semantic value and cannot be
paraphrased easily (the word ‘adaptor’ for electrical appliances is very useful when
travelling; however, it’s not an item of voc that appears in many word-counts or low
level course books). The converse of this situation is where knowledge of one
particular item will satisfactorily cover the meaning of other items. For receptive
purposes it may be useful to know ‘sweater’, ‘jumper’ and ‘pullover’, but for
productive purposes one of those words should be sufficient.
● CULTURAL FACTORS: Word-counts are based on the utterances of native
speakers, thus they will obviously reflect the cultural interests of those speakers.
However, L2 learners may wish to express ideas or experiences quite outside those
of a native speaker (landscape and environment are examples; “mangos” and
“cockroaches” would be very important to Scandinavians).
● NEED AND LEVEL: Conflict arises when the lexical needs of the learner would seem
to be incongruous with his gral lang level. This is a potential problem for coursebook
writers designing Business Eng or Technical Eng material for low level sts. The
crucial issue here is one of motivation. If the st does not perceive the voc input to be
useful it will be difficult to engage his interest and so effective learning will also be
reduced. Relevant lexical input is likely to contribute to the effectiveness of the overall
programme.
● EXPEDIENCY: the classroom will often dictate the need for certain vocabulary,
without which the sts may fail to understand their teacher, fellow sts or the activity
they are supposedly engaged in. One such area is grammatical terminology, and
although many ts refuse to burden their sts with too many grammatical labels, with a
shared understanding of certain items, explanations can be more succinct, and the
sts is able to make profitable use of dictionaries and grammar books. The final
choice, however, must rest with the teacher as age, course duration and the
educational language background of the sts may significantly influence the possible
benefits or harm of employing grammatical terminology. The same would apply to
phonological terminology. In the case of many items used for classroom interaction
(or grammatical terminology), constant exposure alone usually guarantees that these
items will eventually be absorbed. There will be voc the sts need in order to ask
relevant questions and obtain further information.
RECEPTIVE VS PRODUCTIVE VOCABULARY
- Receptive vocabulary: language items which can only be recognised and
comprehended in the context of reading and listening material.
- Productive vocabulary: language items which the learner can recall and use
appropriately in speech and writing.
Which items are worth learning for productive use and which are only useful for purposes of
recognition?
The teacher will need to select what he feels will be most relevant for the sts’ productive
vocabulary and this, in turn, will affect his treatment of those items in the classroom. The
learner who perceives the vital personal relevance of an item may well acquire it whether the
t pays great attention to it or not. Conversely, the learner may consciously or subconsciously
reject items which the t is trying to teach him.
Very often the transition of an item from a sts’ receptive vocabulary to his productive one is a
gradual process. Repeatedly hearing or reading the item over a period of time is often the
most common way in which this transition takes place. In the classroom, ts may at times be
attempting to speed up this process by “making an issue” of the item.
EXTERNAL FACTORS TO BE CONSIDERED
How similar in form is the target item to an equivalent in the L’s own language?
Cognates such as ‘taxi’, ‘hotel’ and ‘bar’ should only cause phonological problems and are
thus useful to deal with early on when teaching beginners; they can give the learner a sense
of satisfaction as well as allowing him to focus on a new phonological system.
How easy is it to illustrate the meaning?
Concrete items which can be represented visually or demonstrated simply can inevitably be
dealt with more economically than abstract items.
What is the sts’ learning environment?
We need to take into account the intensiveness of the course, the time of day, whether the
sts are working or studying outside their lang.
What language aptitude do the learners have?
Learners who fail to adopt effective language learning strategies, or who have a poor
memory for language items, or great difficulty with phonology, will probably be unable to
absorb as many items as ‘good’ learners. They may need more training in learning skills.
Age will also affect the number of items which can be learnt (Lu: I would say that for kids, we
should focus on 5 items; while for older sts between 8 and 12 would be appropriate for a 60
minutes lesson)
What else dictates the syllabus, apart from the T?
What is the sts’ learning goal?

FACTORS WITHIN THE T’s CONTROL


What else do you intend to cover within the timetable?
We teach grammar or vocabulary, not both together.
How much exposure will you give to the item?
The amount of time and effort devoted to exposure, practice and revision are vital factors in
retention and in ensuring that items become part of a sts’ productive vocabulary.

GROUPING OF ITEMS OF VOCABULARY


Since vocabulary consists of A SERIES OF INTERRELATING SYSTEMS and is NOT JUST
A RANDOM COLLECTION OF ITEMS, there seems to be a clear case for presenting items
to a student in a SYSTEMATIZED MANNER which will both illustrate the ORGANISED
NATURE OF VOCABULARY and at the same time enable him to INTERNALISE THE
ITEMS IN A COHERENT WAY.
SEMANTIC FIELDS or LEXICAL SETS are made up of sets of semantically similar items.
These fields may range from very broad categories (life and living things) to smaller areas
(kinds of man). Lexical sets form useful BUILDING BLOCKS and can be revised and
expanded as sts progress; they often provide a CLEAR CONTEXT for practice as well.
Ways of grouping items of vocabulary:
● ITEMS RELATED BY TOPIC: e.g. types of fruit, articles of clothing, living room
furniture, etc.
● ITEMS GROUPED AS AN ACTIVITY OR PROCESS (also topic related): e.g. the
steps involved in starting a car, buying a house, etc.
● ITEMS WHICH ARE SIMILAR IN MEANING: ​items which are easily confused: pretty,
lovely, attractive. Also, sets such as “ways of walking” or “ways of looking”. THE
ITEMS NEED TO BE CONTEXTUALIZED PROPERLY, AND IT IS VITAL TO
HIGHLIGHT TO STS THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ITEMS AS CLEARLY AS
POSSIBLE.
● ITEMS WHICH FORM “PAIRS”: synonyms, contrasts, and opposites.(old/new,
buy/sell, lend/borrow) Again, CONTEXTUALIZATION IS ESSENTIAL here.
● ITEMS ALONG A SCALE, WHICH ILLUSTRATE DIFFERENCES OF DEGREE:
excellent/very good/good/satisfactory/weak. A child/a teenager/an adult.
● ITEMS WITHIN “WORD FAMILIES” I.E. DERIVATIVES: ​it is often possible to group
items of vocabulary to illustrate the principles of word building, the meanings of
prefixes and suffixes and the related phonological difficulties.
Biology/biological/biologist. Pleasant-unpleasant, helpful-unhelpful.
● ITEMS GROUPED BY GRAMMATICAL SIMILARITY AND NOTIONAL SIMILARITY:
this can be particularly useful at lower levels when dealing with areas such as
adverbs of frequency or prepositions, and at later levels to group together nouns with
irregular plurals, or words expressing probability or possibility.
● ITEMS WHICH CONNECT DISCOURSE: the grouping of sentence adverbials used
in listing: to begin with, in the second place, last of all. Items such as “unless,
otherwise, or else, provided that” which are related in that they impose some form of
condition.
● ITEMS FORMING A SET OF IDIOMS OR MULTI-WORD VERBS: ​certain sets of
multi-word verbs or idioms can form coherent groups. However, these groupings are
fairly restricted in practice and it is often easier to teach these as and when they
arise.
● ITEMS GROUPED BY SPELLING DIFFICULTY OR PHONOLOGICAL DIFFICULTY:
WITHIN A TOPIC AREA (FOOD VOCABULARY)
● ITEMS GROUPED BY STYLE: ​items that are neutral or colloquial: ciggy (cigarette),
loo (toilet). Similarly to deal with Br and Am Eng.
● AN ITEM EXPLORED IN TERMS OF ITS DIFFERENT MEANINGS: ​at later levels
there is a need for the st to expand his knowledge of known items. A “sentence” is a
grammatical unit, but also a punishment given by a judge.
● ITEMS CAUSING PARTICULAR DIFFICULTY WITHIN ONE NATIONALITY
GROUP: ​ false friends, phonological problems.

Teaching English Pronunciation - Building awareness and concern for pronunciation


Learning to pronounce a language is a very complex task and, as with many other complex
learning task, the learning process can be facilitated if the task is structured in some way
and if the learner is aware of what exactly is involved. This means dividing the task into its
components, ordering the components in some way (from basic to complex, or easy to
difficult) and showing the learner why each component must be learnt. English pronunciation
has various components such as sounds, stress, and variation in pitch, and the learner
needs to understand the function of these as well as their form.
Once learners are aware that English words have a stress pattern, that words can be
pronounced in slightly different ways, that the pitch of the voice can be used to convey
meaning, then they will know what to pay attention to and can build upon this basic
awareness.
Learners also need to develop a concern for pronunciation. They must recognize that poor,
unintelligible speech will make their attempts at conversing frustrating and unpleasant both
for themselves and for their listeners.

- Activities for introducing learners to all the components of English pronunciation and
persuading learners that pronunciation is important. Awareness building activities:

1- WORD STRESS: If a - Names of class members: The teacher can demonstrate the
non-native speaker produces a importance of stress pattern in the Eng language by showing
word with the wrong stress concern for the correct pronunciation of the names of the
pattern, an English listener may members of the class.
have great difficulty in Ask each sts his or her name, or call out the names from the class
understanding the word, even if list. Using rising intonation in your voice and a questioning facial
most of the individual sounds have expression, show that you are checking the names. When the sts
been well pronounced has identifies himself, show your concern for accuracy by shifting
the stress to the wrong syllable.
T: CARlos DoMECO?
C: raises hand or nods
T: Not CarLOS, but CARlos?
C: CARlos
T: CARlos
This can also be done with place names and names of well-known
people.
In the early stages, we can use the word LOUD to refer to the
stressed syllable.
- Follow up activities: you can make the learners choose a random
collection of words which they have to enter in the correct column
depending on their stress pattern.
Oo oO Ooo

2- RHYTHM: Having been - Introductory activities: a set of activities can be built around
introduced to word stress, learners strongly metrical material, such as rhymes, verse, and children’s
will be ready to move on to the games.
rhythm of English, which is D is for DUCK, with SPOTS on his BACK, who LIVES in the
characterized by the alternation of WAter, and ALways says, QUACK.
strong and weak syllables. (Your selection should depend on the age and interests of the
Rhythm is a product of word learners. Adults may prefer more sophisticated material such as
stress and the way in which famous lines from literature, or proverbs)
important items are foregrounded Procedure:
through their occurrence on a If you decide to present the material in written form, the first task
strong beat, and unimportant should be to identify the stress patterns of the content words. (use
items are backgrounded by their whatever notation you have introduced). After the stress has been
occurence on a weak beat marked, the teacher can read aloud entire lines. The learners can
then fill in the other items as stressed or unstressed.
If you decide to work on that orally, then tape recordings of rhymes
or short verse can be used and their rhythm can be beaten out.
§ The main point that you have to establish through these
activities is the alternation in English of stronger and weaker
beats.
- Follow up activities: you can devise some activities in which the
learners must provide words or phrases which fit into an already
established patter, a kind of rhythmic fill-in-the-blank exercise .
O o O o (apple crumble)
If you have been using verse and metrical material in the activities,
it is a good idea to include more natural utterances, just to make
sure that the learners do not get the idea that only Eng verse is
rhythmical.

3- SENTENCE STRESS: in Stress placement in utterances is linked to relative importance.


spoken English there are various The introduction of sentence stress will be more effective if the
ways in which a speaker gives the teacher can select a context which forces learners to grapple with
listener information about the this notion of Importance. We could just say “when you speak,
relative importance of different give more emphasis to the most important words”. BUT how
parts of the message. One way of should they know which the most important words are? Every
doing this is to put stress on the word seems important to sb who is struggling to put together a
words which carry the most message in a new language. We make learners which make
information. learners think about the relative importance of parts of a message.
- Selectivity: there are two real-life situations in which restrictions
on resources require a person to be selective, to include only
words that are essential and to omit words that aren’t. One is
sending a telegram, the other is writing newspaper headlines.
Telegram → Procedure: begin with a written message in full. Now
give the group a word restriction by saying either: “send a
telegram with as few words as possible”, or “the cost per words is
x and you only have y amount of money”. Some of them may
notice that they could leave out the personal pronoun, articles,
prepositions, etc. Mark the selected words that have been chosen
as important. Read it aloud, using gesture to underline the
stressed words.
Then, divide the class into pairs. One partner must write another
full message and select the words he or she wants to pay for in a
telegram, marking them in some way (circling or underlining). The
full message is then read aloud to the partner, who listens and
writes down only the words he or she hears as stressed.
- Whether a word is important or not is closely connected to its
status as newly introduced, or previously introduced, in a
conversation. At beginners’ level, it’s possible to demonstrate this
shift of stress using simple dialogues in which the two speakers
ask each other the same question in return
A- WHAT did you DO?
B- I……. What do YOU do?
__________________
Prepare lists of ingredients for some simple recipes. Then prepare
lists of “items in stock”. In both lists use some foods which exist in
different forms (apples, sugar).
A-Could I BOrrow some WHITE SUgar?
B: SOrry, I ONly have BROWN sugar.

4- WEAK FORMS: weak forms - The English chanting game The house that Jack built has definite
should be introduced after the potential as a focus for the introduction of the notion of weak
basic points about word stress, forms.
rhythm and sentence stress have This is the house that Jack built.
been covered. It’s probably wise This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built….
to choose one or two common After you’ve built up a few stanzas, draw the learners’ attention to
weak forms and construct an the word THAT, asking them first to give its pronunciation alone.
awareness-building exercise Now draw their attention to the pronunciation of that in the chant.
around them. One also needs an Possible prompts are: is it an important word? does it have a
activity or example which will meaning like rat, house, cat, killed?
clearly demonstrate the reasons The chant is good for this purpose because the first word can
behind the use of weak forms. easily be changed to “that”, thus drawing sts’ attention to the use
of that as a demonstrative and that as relative clause marker.
(Without using terminology, you can say that the first is a pointing
word and is always pronounced with the vowel as in cat, and that
the second always links parts of a sentence and is always
pronounced with a schwa).
- You can also concentrate on the word AND, exploiting written
forms such as “fish ‘n chips”
Ask the learners why they think “n” is used.

5- INTONATION: all languages - Select a tape recording of a short exchange. Ask the learners to
have intonation and a translate the dialogue into their native languages. Have the
characteristic rhythmic pattern learners rehearse and tape-record their dialogues. Now play the
English and other-language recordings in turn and begin to
question the learners about similarities and differences in how the
speakers use their voices. Do the voices have the same melody?
Does the English voice go up or down in the first question?
A follow-up activity can be developed around the dialogues by
asking some of the learners if they can hum (tararear) the dialogue
instead of actually saying the words. Start by doing this yourself
and then ask for volunteers. If the humming attempts are
successful, have the sts record two or three hummed dialogues.
Play the dialogues to the class and have them guess which
language they correspond to.
- Using fillers: another way to develop awareness of the role of
intonation is to exploit the use of various sounds used in spoken
language which are not words, but convey meaning through
non-lexical means, principally through intonation patterns.
Procedure → For example: A and B are flatmates. A wants to
redecorate the flat, and puts various ideas to B, who reacts with
enthusiasm to some suggestions, but not all. Ask the pairs to act
out the situations, but introduce the restriction that B must react
without using any words, only sounds.Give the possible Eng
noises to the sts if they aren’t aware of them already.
Learners should be intrigued by just how much information can be
conveyed without words.
- Other activities: Getting warmer! (game) Drama (it is good
because the sts can see how we can make use of intonation,
accompanied by facial expressions and gestures).

6- THE SOUNDS: many of the As we are learning to speak our first language, we learn what the
learners’ problems will be significant sounds are and how to deal with any variations of them
perceptual -they will be completely that we come across. Young babies, before they even say their
unaware that a sound they hear, first word, experiment with making a variety of sounds in which the
or are making, is not the same as air flows through the nose. But after a period of experimentation,
the sound English people use. children in an English speaking environment seem to notice that
PEOPLE TEND TO HEAR THE there are only three important nasal sounds in English. This leads
SOUNDS OF A NEW LANGUAGE to a three-way classification system being set up in the sound
IN TERMS OF THE SOUNDS OF centres of the brain and, once it has been established, all nasal
THEIR MOTHER TONGUE. sounds which are heard are examined and sorted according to the
three categories.
Each language has its own distinctive set of categories, and part
of the process of learning a new language is learning what the
significant sounds are. This may involve setting up a system and
getting used to recognizing the new sound instead of ignoring it,
treating it as a trivial variant, or “counting” it as a member or
example of one of the mother tongue’s three-term system.
Examples of activities:
- Which sound? (Minimal pairs) example: the sts have bat
and pat, the teacher produces a word and the child has to
circle the one he/she mentions.
- Same or different? The learners hear two sounds in
succession and have to say whether they heard the same
word twice or two different words. This type of perception
exercise is well-suited to situations where learners cannot
distinguish two English sounds because in their native
language there two sounds are simply variants of one
another.
- Odd one out?
- How many times did you hear it(a particular sound)?

7- LINKAGE AND SPEECH: - Identical neighbouring sounds:write on the board a few short
Ancient Greek and Latin phrases in which two identical sounds abut (I want to). Ask the
inscriptions on stone, runic class to count the number of sounds in each word, and write the
inscriptions on wood, and old numbers above the words. Now play a tape recording of the
Anglo-Saxon inscriptions were all phrase or pronounce it yourself, being careful to merge the final t
written without spaces between of want with the initial t of to. The question now should arise: are
words or sentences. But more there two Ts or only one? Emphasize that the one t pronunciation
recently all literate members of is the way English people speak.
most societies have used the A brief activity like this on a simple point of pronunciation will make
convention of putting a space learners aware that they should be on the look-out for ways in
between words. Influenced by this which Eng people actually speak and not rely too heavily on
convention, most people assume written forms.
that there is an equivalent to this
boundary in the spoken language,
that a period of silence separates
spoken words.

8- GENERAL - Questionnaire-based discussion: questions used to stimulate a


AWARENESS-BUILDING discussion of the importance of good pronunciation (questions like:
ACTIVITIES: more general, How do you feel when a foreigner pronounces your name wrong?
non-specific, awareness-building Do you think it is more important to have good pronunciation
activities can be useful in when…?)
particular teaching situations. - A tape recording of poorly accented and unintelligible speech in a
foreign language (the kids’ native language) by a native speaker
can also serve as the focus for a general awareness-building
activity. Then you can contribute their reactions to foreigners
speaking their respective language (why do you think this person
pronounces in this way/so badly? Would you like having a
conversation with this speaker?)
A higher level of awareness and concern usually has a positive
effect on motivation and therefore achievement.
TEACHING READING AND WRITING - Shin and Crandall
You may think that when you are reading, you are simply getting meaning from the text, but
actually you are also bringing meaning with you. Reading is an INTERACTIVE process
involving the reader, the text, and the writer. And when you are writing, you are likely to read
(and re-read) what you wrote to make sure you are communicating your intended meaning
to your audience.
Reading can be thought of as preparation for writing, and writing as producing something to
be read.
Listening and reading are similar: they are both receptive skills, processing what other have
said or written, but doing so in an ACTIVE way. We bring all that we know to our attempts at
understanding what someone has said or written.
Speaking and writing are both productive skills, where we take what we know about the
world, about texts, and about language to express an idea or opinion, to make an
observation, to provide information, to communicate our thoughts or needs, or to create a
poem, a story, or a song.
Learning to read and write is complex and difficult enough in a language the child already
knows; doing it in another language is even more difficult. But the good news is that when
there is sufficient English language development, many of the child’s skills and strategies
used in reading and writing in the first language will transfer to another language

All children, whether first or second language readers, go through the same five initial
literacy steps:
1- Awareness and exploration
2- Experimenting with reading and writing
3- Early reading and writing
4- Transitional reading and writing
5- Conventional reading and writing.

When children learn literacy skills in the first language, they develop several broad areas of
knowledge that they can access in English:
● VISUAL KNOWLEDGE: about print and text direction
● PHONOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE: about sounds represented by symbols
● LEXICAL KNOWLEDGE: about words and collocations
● SYNTACTIC KNOWLEDGE: about meaning construction and making sense of
words.
● SEMANTIC KNOWLEDGE: about social use of language as discourse.
They have learned that reading and writing can be used for different purposes, and they
have likely developed a number of strategies for understanding reading and making
themselves understood through writing.
One challenge facing all children is to learn the different ways in which English represents
sounds. There are 26 letters in the Roman alphabet, but they represent the 44 sounds in
English. For example, Spanish and German are much more regular and predictable
languages to read, since one letter usually represents one sound. So Spanish and German
students will have to learn that in English, there are many ways the same sound can be
represented.
Why include reading and writing in young learner classes?
Although reading and writing are very demanding and take time and patience to learn, they
are extremely important for the child’s growing awareness of language and their own growth
in the language. EYL teachers need to include reading and writing wherever and as early as
possible, for a number of reasons:
● Reading and writing can reinforce what is being learnt orally
● Reading expands the sources of input, and writing helps in remembering that input
● Writing provides a way to consolidate learning from the other skills, and reading helps
sts to see the conventions of writing
● Children enjoy reading and writing if the texts are meaningful and related to their
experiences
● Reading and writing help link the EYL class with home, as children bring home
writing they have done to share with their families or do homework requiring reading
and writing
● Writing provides another means of self-expression and, when read by others, a
sense of confidence and pride
For young learners to become effective and engaged readers and writers, they must have
multiple opportunities to explore, read, and write a variety of texts and to talk about what
they are going to read or write or what they have read or written.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR TEACHING READING


What is reading?
Reading is a process of relating written symbols to oral language, of constructing meaning
from written text, or making sense and deriving meaning from the printed word. When we
read, we interact with the text, bringing our knowledge of the world, of language, and of
discourse or specific text types to what we read.

To be able to read, a child has to:


● understand the alphabet
● decode
● develop sight vocabulary to read fluently (with automaticity)
● develop strategies to help with comprehension and fluency
● read texts that match his/her reading level and interests
● engage in extensive reading (independent reading of a variety of texts

Children have a whole set of experiences and understandings (background


information→SCHEMATA) that help to guide their understanding of the text. Our schemata
(plural of schemes) help us to make sense of the world and of what we read. One of the
reasons for building units around topics, where language and content are recycled, is that
these help sts to develop the background knowledge, the vocabulary, and the structures (the
schemata) to make sense of written texts.

APPROACHES TO TEACHING READING


When we read, we activate two types of knowledge: what we know about making meaning
(top-down processing) and what we know about language (bottom-up processing). With
reading instruction, there is an ongoing debate about where to begin: should we focus first
on helping children see the relationship between sounds and letters, beginning with
decoding letters and words, and then move to larger units to focus on meaning (the
approach used in phonics instruction)? Or should we begin with context and meaning, and
then move to analyzing and interpreting smaller segments of the language? We need to do
both:
When we are reading to children, we usually begin with context and meaning, relating what
we read to the children’s lives and knowledge. From there, we may explain particular words
and attend to smaller units of a text. But we don’t want to neglect practice in letter and word
recognition. They play an important role in comprehending a text. Children need to
understand sound-letter correlations, that the initial sound of dog and doll is the same and is
represented by “d”, but this is only useful if they know what a dog or a doll is. If children do
not know how to decode and have not learnt the regular sound-symbol correspondences in
English, when confronted with a new word, they are likely to skip over it. The solution is to
include phonics, but to do it in a meaningful context.

In balancing an approach to reading, we should consider three approaches:


1- PHONICS
2- WHOLE LANGUAGE
3- LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE

1- PHONICS is a bottom-up approach to processing a text. It focuses on the smallest unit of


texts: the letters. It teaches children the relationships between sounds and letters, how a
particular sound is symbolized in print. It usually begins with individual sounds or short words
that rhyme or share a common sound (cat, rat, man, hat). The goal is to help children
decode written language, using the sound-symbol relationships they have learnt. In this way
they can be successful at decoding, since that is the key to early reading success.
- Phonemic awareness activities: before focusing on letter-sound relationships through
phonics, children need practice in discriminating English sounds -what’s referred to
as phonemic awareness. This involves, for example, separating the spoken word big
into three distinct phonemes (b,i,g). Phonemic awareness training helps children to
understand the rules of English and, over time, helps build reading fluency. Some
phonemic awareness activities: identify the first sound in a word, identify the last
sound in a word, identify the word that doesn’t rhyme, separate the sounds of a word.
- Phonics activities: phonics focuses on written language, with the goal of learning the
relationships between the sounds and letters (spelling) of English. Children learn the
sound-symbol relationships and then apply what they have learned in decoding
words in a text. Some phonics activities include: identifying the number of syllables in
a word, pointing to the words that share a common letter-sound (as they become
more familiar, this can include irregular spellings), sorting pictures and making a
collage of objects that begin with the same letter sound (book/ball/boy) or rhyme
(cat/hat/rat), matching words that share a common letter-sound.
Phonics instruction should focus on words that children have already learnt orally within a
meaningful context, not in isolation.

2- A WHOLE LANGUAGE approach begins with meaning and then uses language in context
for further word or language study. It involves top-down processing, in which children bring
their knowledge of the world, their experiences with oral language and texts, and their
knowledge of the written language to constructing comprehension of written texts, using four
types of clues:
● Grapho-phonemic clues: expected sound-symbol correspondences
● Semantic clues: what words would be expected, based on the meaning thus far
● Syntactic clues: the part of speech that would be expected in a given place in the
sentence
● Pragmatic clues: what would be expected given the purpose of the text.
In early literacy, the whole language approach might begin with a focus on common words
(sight words: ​commonly used words that young children are encouraged to memorize as a
whole by sight). Learning sight vocabulary helps children to see the connection between
meaning and visual representation. One early sight-word activity may involve helping
children to recognize their own names. Their names can provide the context for meaningful
phonics activities in which children focus on the initial letter-sounds in their names.
Teachers using a whole language approach to reading may take their learners through the
following sequence of reading activities:
● READING ALOUD (presentation) beginning readers need multiple opportunities to
hear stories, poems, songs, chants, and other texts read aloud. With songs, where
both repetition and rhyme are present, it is easy for children to learn parts and to
participate after the teacher has sung the song, pointing to the words written on the
bb or as they are projected.
Another way for children to participate is through echo reading, in which children
repeat key lines after the teacher.
● SHARED READING (controlled practice) is the next step after reading aloud. In
shared reading, the T involves the students in reading together, using something as a
pointer, with a big book/Powerpoint. Pointing to the words while reading them helps
to establish the relationship between spoken and written language. Often the text is
one that has been read aloud before, so that when you read and point to the words,
the children are already familiar with the story or song.
● GUIDED READING (guided practice) the teacher works with small groups of children
who are at the same reading level, providing support or scaffolding while they read.
The goal is to let the children read, noting problems they have with specific words or
punctuation, and providing support and modeling reading strategies for the children
to practise. This is also a time when children can have extra practice in decoding,
word recognition, or grammatical structures that affect their understanding of a text
(for ex. a child may have some difficulties sounding out the consonant clusters ch
and sh). Predictable books, with repeated patterns, can be very helpful in building
children’s decoding skills and fluency, and also help them to develop confidence in
their reading.
● INDEPENDENT READING (independent activity) a major goal of any reading
program for YL is to encourage and enable them to read independently and to
motivate them to want to read a variety of texts. Children need time to read and to
choose materials from a class library or reading centre which contains a variety of
print and digital texts to read alone or with a partner. You can encourage
independent reading by giving each child a reading log to fill in when they have read
something (they write the name of the book, they rate it, etc.). Children can also be
given time to share their reactions to books or other texts with the class, encouraging
other children to read what they have enjoyed (you can divide the class into small
literature circles, have each group reading a book and then ask them to create a
poster to share with the class).

3- LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE is an approach that uses learners’ oral language as the basis
of a written story. The learners dictate their story to someone who is a more competent
writer, who writes what the learners dictate. The language experience story can be a
summary, an e-mail to the author of a story they’ve read, an invitation to parents to come to
a school event, or anything that is meaningful to the learners.
STEPS for young learners to follow.
1. Participate in a common experience (a field trip, a story, a celebration, a picture that
evokes feelings)
2. Have a discussion
3. Decide what to write, using a brainstorming web or other graphic organizer
4. Dictate the story to the teacher, who writes it so all can see.
5. Read back what the T has written
6. Decide if you want to edit sth
7. Copy what is written on the board into their notebooks
One question that always emerges is whether we should write exactly what the children
dictate or correct what they say into ‘good’ English
EXACT WORDS:
- Validate the children’s language
- Make a clear relationship between speech (sound) and print
- Will not likely lead to other errors or fossilization
A TEACHER-EDITED TEXT:
- Provides a good model
- Reflects the differences between spoken and written texts
- May be viewed more positively by parents and administrators
Some Ts write exactly what the children say. Then they ask the children to read and asks if
anyone wants to make any changes. The teacher suggests some changes to make, editing
the most serious errors.

EFFECTIVE READING ACTIVITIES


1. PRE-READING ACTIVITIES help learners activate their background knowledge and
prepare them to read and follow along when sb else reads. These include:
- Predicting what a story or other text will be about
- Pointing to and discussing the titles, subtitles, and graphics of an
informational text
- Talking about what is already known about the topic and the text
- Engaging in a variety of vocabulary activities
2. DURING-READING ACTIVITIES: when reading aloud to children or engaging in shared
or guided reading with them, it is important to model good reading strategies for them to use
when they’re reading independently. These include:
- Drawing a picture of a scene
- Paraphrasing or summarizing at several places in the text
- Predicting what will come next
- Re-reading for better comprehension
- Filling in a graphic organizer
- Comparing two texts
3. POST-READING ACTIVITIES help learners to remember or extend what they have read.
These include:
- Drawing scenes and labeling or writing sentences with them
- Putting a set of illustrations in order and then talking about each
- Answering a series of questions that lead to a summary of the text
- Sequencing sentences
- Forming small groups to discuss a favourite character
- Writing a new ending
- Engaging in Reader’s Theater: all it needs are the learners, who read lines in
sequence, following along in the script as others read their lines.

READING STRATEGIES
Children differ in their reading strategies, largely based on where they are in their literacy
development. Some are ‘code-breakers’, focusing on decoding each symbol; some are
‘meaning-makers’, trying to construct meaning from the text; some are ‘text-users’, who
understand that different texts have different purposes and vary their reading strategies
accordingly; and some are ‘text-analysts’, who understand that authors of texts have a
particular perspective that needs to be critically analyzed. We will need to help our learners,
especially the older ones, to vary their reading strategies based on their purposes for
reading and the nature of the text. Some reading strategies include:
● PREDICTING: finding clues to what might come next in a text (from the cover, the
title, pictures, headings, or prior knowledge of the content)
● MONITORING: determining whether one’s reading makes sense, and if not,
re-reading to understand
● CONFIRMING: finding evidence of an accurate prediction
● CONNECTING: making connections to prior readings, information, or experiences
● QUESTIONING: asking questions about a text while reading, which may include
predicting
● SKIMMING: reading to get the gral topic or main points of a text
● SCANNING: reading to find specific info such as dates or names or answer to
questions
● DISTINGUISHING between important and less important information
● USING CONTEXT CLUES: looking at the context (the pictures, other words, the
place in the sentence, punctuation) for better comprehension
● PARAPHRASING OR SUMMARIZING: while reading and after reading a text
● VISUALIZING: forming images about what has been read in order to facilitate
comprehension.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR TEACHING WRITING


What is writing? ​We write to communicate ideas, to interact socially with others, to
remember, as well as to get information and learn. The range of texts that children can write
is broad, but in gral, writing for children should be seen primarily as a means of
self-expression, with a focus on meaning, or as a means of reinforcing oral lang
development.
When we write outside of the classroom, we write because we have something we want to
communicate, a purpose for our writing, and a real audience we want to communicate with.
But we sometimes forget that when we assign writing in language classes.
Every writing assignment should have a specific:
● FORM: the type of writing text or genre -a letter, an email, a list, a story, a poem.
● AUDIENCE: someone who will read the writing
● TOPIC: something to communicate
● PURPOSE: a reason to write -to inform, entertain, remember, express feelings.

APPROACHES TO TEACHING WRITING


Children learning to write go through a number of stages in their first lg, and they are likely to
go through these stages as well when they begin writing in English: drawing, scribbling,
tracing and writing letters (not necessarily forming words), using invented spelling as they
attempt to write words, and finally using more conventional writing and spelling. Throughout
this process, they are creating their own meaning (even when we don’t understand what
they’ve written).
If they haven’t learnt how to write in their L1, they will also have to learn how to hold a pencil
or pen and over time to develop the fine motor skills required to form letters. Learning to
make letters and use them to spell are to writing what learning to distinguish sounds and
letters are to reading. They are the basics required to write or read.
While our goal with our YLs is to help them to construct original texts using their intellectual
and linguistic resources, we will also want to help them to revise these texts to make them
as clear and understandable as possible.
There are two major approaches towards the teaching of writing:
● A PRODUCT BASED APPROACH: it focuses on the final product, seeking to create
as accurate a text as possible. To achieve this, sts are given a series of activities
(controlled and guided) that serve as small steps to complete before they move to
constructing an entire text. This is a bottom-up approach, where accuracy with the
various pieces of lang (letters, words, sentences, paragraphs) is the focus,
Controlled and guided writing activities focus on reinforcing learning of some level of
language: vocabulary, grammar, or mechanics. The goal of controlled activities is to
have sts practice writing the lg with careful control. Most of the text is provided for the
student. These activities only ask the st to copy or fill in a blank with possible words
provided, or for older sts, to make minor choices or changes in a text (from present
tense to past tense, for example). The goal of guided activities is to help learners
experience success while they also learn the relationship between their ideas, words,
and writing. Free activities encourage creativity, providing only the writing prompt or
allowing the st to choose what to write

Controlled writing activities ● Counting the words in a sentence or clapping


with each word
● Copying words or sentences
● Building a personal word list
● Contributing words to the word wall
Guided writing activities ● Brainstorming topics or words to include
● Filling in blanks
● Completing sentences with picture clues or
sentence starters
● Responding to questions about a picture, a
scene, or a text
● Describing a picture with some voc provided
● Writing from dictation (dictogloss)
● Completing cloze activities
● Rearranging sentences in a paragraph
● POETRY can be a wonderful source of guided
writing activities. Children can write poetry if
given models to imitate:
- Name Acrostics
Young
Unique
Kind
Intelligent
- Three-Line Poems:
Children
Play
Happily
- Cinquains: five line poems, more appropriate
for advanced young writers (write the name of
an animal on the first line, two colours or
words to describe it in the second, …)
- Shape Poems: the words are written in the
shape of the major topic or feeling (slide)
- Poems from prose: divide the class into
groups and make each group responsible for
finding words to fit one of the senses. For
example, in a tree unit, one group might look
at the tree and write down what they see,
another group what they hear, etc… When
they come back, we finish each line
We see...
We hear...
…. (when the sentence starters are removed,
what remains is poetry)

2- A PROCESS BASED APPROACH: the primary goal is for children to express their
ideas, to construct meaning, and to explore their linguistic and other resources.
Process-based approaches take children through a series of steps to help them
construct and communicate their ideas, focusing on expression in the early stages,
and only being concerned with accurate grammar or mechanics in the final stages.
The most common approach to process writing is Writing Workshop:
WRITING WORKSHOP is a series of activities that help children to become authors,
beginning with free writing, and then moving through a series of writing steps or
stages until they have produced a work that they want to share, by publishing it in a
classbook, for example.
Through a series of stages, WW helps learners become both more fluent and
accurate writers.
The stages of WW are:
● BRAINSTORMING AND DISCUSSING: identifying possible topics to write
about individually, with a partner, and as a class, and talking about them with
others to activate background knowledge and obtain ideas for the first draft,
using a brainstorming web to capture ideas
● DRAFTING: writing a rough draft, focusing on getting ideas on paper, and not
worrying about spelling, grammar, or even word choice; fluency is the goal of
this stage.
● PEER REVIEWING AND CONFERENCING: sharing the draft with another st
with a focus on the content, helping the writer to see what his or her audience
likes, understands, or needs to make the writing clearer. (We can give them a
form to help them in providing appropriate comments for their partners:
PRAISE-QUESTION-POLISH)
● REVISING: taking the suggestions of others and also one’s own thoughts and
improving the content and organisation of the paper.
● REVIEWING AND CONFERENCING: sharing the revised text with the T
● EDITING: checking spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and improving the
final version of the paper. Accuracy is the focus here. (We can give them a
checklist: did I revise my spelling? does my story have a beg, a middle, and
an end?)
● PUBLISHING: sharing the writing with a real audience by posting it on a
bulletin board or online, including it in a class book, creating an individual
book, or putting it into an e-mail. It is also possible to invite children to read or
share their writing with the class.

DIALOG JOURNALS: a written conversation between a st and teacher that involves both
free and guided writing. The st writes about sth that interests him/her and the T responds. In
the beginning, children may just draw in their journals. A teacher’s response may be labeling
what they have drawn and asking a simple question to encourage the st to continue
responding. There is no overt correction, though a teacher may provide a model in the next
entry. With this regular and positive feedback, sts become more confident of themselves as
writers. They also improve their writing over time as they engage in meaningful
communication at their own language level and have a private conversation with the T.
Through process writing and dialog journals, YLs develop a better sense of audience, voice,
and the power of language. Teachers benefit by getting to know individual students and their
writing strengths and needs and by being able to offer individualized support.

READING AND WRITING DIGITAL TEXTS: Young learners may find that they do increasing
amounts of their reading and writing online. At least some of the texts older young learners
write, as well as read, should be those that communicate information to others through
e-mails, blogs, texts, or paired class assignments. If actual Internet access is not available,
assessments can model internet communication with documents that resemble e-mail and
other online communication.
We need to keep up with our learners!
Some digital writing activities include:
- E-pals and paired classes: e-pals are a modern adaptation of pen friends. Instead of
writing to each other and sending the message through the postal service, pairs of
English learners (in other schools or even other countries) write to each other
regularly. The topics usually begin with introductions, then move to likes and dislikes,
and even to descriptions of favourite games, sports, or foods. Children discuss what
they want to know about the other class as well as what they want to communicate,
and through online discussion, the children and teachers decide on a series of brief
topics to write about. Older learners can serve as tourist guides, introducing their
communities to each other
- Photo-autobiographies: older children can take pictures of family and friends, or of
things that are important to them to develop small digital or print books. Children can
create their own book, with each picture serving as a page in the book and,
depending on their level of literacy, provide a brief caption. A smaller version of this
would be to have each child contribute one picture for an online class newsletter or to
send to their e-pals in another class.

READING Chapter 5
APPROACHES TO READING:
Many five to ten year olds are in the process of learning to read in their own language.
Whether or not they have mastered the skill in their own language, and whether or not their
own language is written in the Roman alphabet, will have an effect on the initial stages of
teaching reading in English.
There are a number of different ways to approach the introduction of reading in a foreign
language:
1- PHONICS. This approach is based on letters and sounds. We teach the pupils the letters
of the alphabet, and the combination of letters, phonically (a→ae/ b→b). It is best to start
with 3 or four letters that can make up a number of words (c a n t, so you have can, cat,
etc.). It can be very useful to teach children who are not familiar with the Roman alphabet.
However, IT SHOULD NOT BE TAUGHT TO PUPILS WHO ARE LEARNING TO READ
USING PHONICS IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE -this could lead to great CONFUSION in
pronunciation.
2- LOOK AND SAY: This approach is based on words and phrases, and makes a lot of use
of flashcards. It is usual to start by teaching everyday words which are already familiar to the
children. The T shows the children the word and says it while pointing to the object. The
children repeat the word. This happens several times with each word.There are a lot of word
recognition games that can be done at this stage - matching words and pictures, pointing to
the object on the card, guessing which card Teddy has picked out of the hat - and so this
approach encourages recognition of a range of words and phrases before “reading” a text.
3- WHOLE SENTENCE READING:The t teaches recognition of whole phrases and
sentences which have meaning in themselves. This often means a story which the children
read for the first time themselves after the whole story is familiar to them. The words are not
presented in isolation, but as whole phrases or sentences.
4- LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE APPROACH: the t writes down a sentence for the child to
read which is based on what the child has said. “This is me. My sister is nine. She is in class
3F”. This is a good pupil-centred approach to reading.

Which method to choose?


We favour an approach which concentrates on meaning from the beginning. However, if
your pupils have a mother tongue which is not based on the Roman script, you will probably
find that you will have to spend some time teaching phonics and word recognition first.

FIVE TO SEVEN YEAR OLDS.


● They have to go through the process of doing reading-like activities first. Reading
from left to right, turning the pages at the right place,going back and reading the
same pages again, etc.
● If your pupils have not learnt to read in their own language, many will not yet have
understood what a word is, nor what the connection is between the spoken and the
written word.
● Sentence structure, paragraphing, grammar - none of this means anything to most
pupils at this stage
● Decoding reading -making sense of what you see on the page- is a very involved
process, and adults make use of all sorts of clues on the written page (punctuation,
paragraphing, use of special words, references). What 5 to 7 year olds have instead
is often a visual clue and this clue is vital to meaning. The illustrations in a book for
young children matter almost as much as the words themselves.
EIGHT TO TEN YEAR OLD BEGINNERS.
The majority of 8 to 10 year olds will already be able to read a bit in their own lang and most
seem to have little difficulty in transferring their reading skill to English. You can spend much
less time teaching the mechanics of reading, and concentrate more on the content.
Four possible starting points:
1. Reading a story from a book. Read the words and point to the words as you say
them. This is important if your pupils are to understand the connection between the
spoken and the written word. Let pupils point and ask questions, but not so much that
it interrupts the flow of the story. Encourage them to talk about the story. Leave the
book in the book corner and tell the group that they can read it on their own if they
want to. The next week, read the story again . Let sts give you some of the words.
Give all the pupils their own copy if possible and tell them to follow it while you read
to them. Encourage them to point to the words, but do not slow down. If you see
pupils pointing to the wrong words, sit with them and point with them. Let them read
the book silently for themselves. Go back to it from time to time and read it with the
whole class.
2. Reading a class story: in a class where Teddy is used, build up a short story about
Teddy. Make a book, you can ask pupils to help you with the illustrations. The story
can now be treated in the same way as above. Teddy’s story must look like a book
with pages to turn and pictures to look at.
3. Reading texts based on the child’s lg. Each individual pupil has his or her own written
text which says what he or she wants it to say. Ask the children to bring a pic and tell
you about it. If he gets stuck, ask questions. Write a sentence in the child’s book
based on what the child has told you. Let the child see you writing the sentence, and
say the words as you write them. The child repeats the sentence after you, pointing
to the words. This sentence can gradually be built on. It is useful to make children
see that print is a means of communication, and that there is a relationship between
the amount of talking that is done and the amount of writing on the page.
4. Reading familiar nursery rhymes or songs: they “read” what they already know by ♥.
While you may say that this is not real reading, the pupil can behave like a reader,
and it helps to build up confidence.

Reading aloud
Traditionally, reading aloud is often thought of as reading round the class one by one. But
this type of reading aloud is not to be recommended because:
● it gives little pleasure and is of little interest to the listeners
● it encourages mistakes in tone, emphasis and expression
● it may be harmful to the silent reading techniques of the other pupils
● it is a very inefficient way to use your lesson time
● If sts are going to read aloud for the rest of the class, they must be well prepared and
the others should want to hear what is going to be read.
However, reading aloud is a useful technique when used slightly differently. Reading aloud
to the t should be done individually or in small groups. The teacher can use it as a means of
training and checking rhythm and pronunciation. Reading dialogues aloud in pairs or groups
in an efficient way of checking work. The pupils can help each other with words they find
difficult to pronounce, and you should try to get them to be a little critical about what they
sound like.

Different reading materials


Once your pupils are on the road to reading, it is important that there is as wide an individual
choice of reading materials available to them as possible. You can have reading cards,
which tell a story that can be read quickly. When introducing new books, show it to the pupils
and tell them what it is about. Look at the cover and try to work out with the sts what it might
be about. Read an amusing or interesting part from the book.
You can have book reviews to decide on the suitability of a book. The sts have to say
whether they like it or not, it can be very simple. It helps develop a critical approach to
reading.

WRITING
Writing has certain characteristics that seem to make it difficult for pupils to get to grips with:
● you cannot make the same use of body language, intonation, tone, eye contact, and
all the other features which help you to convey meaning when you talk.
● very little of what you write is concerned with the here and now. Exercises which
reflect the pupil’s world help to bridge this gap.
● many children take a long time to master the skill of writing (mechanicals too)
● writing in a foreign language is all too often associated with “correcting errors”.
Handwriting, grammar, spelling and punctuation are often given priority over content.
If we try to make children’s writing meaningful from the start, with the emphasis on
content, then errors can be gently corrected and re-written in cooperation with the
teachers.

Even if there are difficulties in writing in the foreign language, it is still a useful, essential,
integral, and enjoyable part of the foreign language lesson.
● It adds another physical dimension to the learning process. Hands are added to eyes
and ears.
● It lets pupils express their personalities. Even guided activities can include choices
for the pupils.
● Writing activities help to consolidate learning in the other skill areas.
● Particularly as pupils progress in the lang, writing activities allow for conscious
development of language. When we speak, we do not always need to use a large
vocabulary because our meaning is often conveyed with the help of the situation.
Lots of structures in the language appear more frequently in writing, and when we
write we have the time to go back and think about what we’ve written.
● Writing is valuable in itself. There is a special feeling about seeing your work in print,
and enormous satisfaction in having written something which you wanna say.

Writing activities go from being tightly controlled to being completely free.You will usually do
more guided activities with beginners, but you should not exclude very simple free activities.
In general, controlled and guided activities are being done to practise the language and
concentration is on the language itself. Free activities should allow for self expression at
however low a level, and content is what matters most.

CONTROLLED WRITING ACTIVITIES -Straight copying


-Matching (pictures and texts)
-Organising and copying (they have the
structure of the text and the sentences
below, and they have to place them on the
corresponding place.
-Delayed copying (write a short, familiar
sentence on the bb. Let the sts see it for
some seconds. Erase it and see if they can
write it down)
-Dictation (should be short, made up of
sentences that can be said in one breath,
have a purpose, be read at normal speed)

GUIDED WRITING ACTIVITIES -Fill-in-exercises (they do not require much


production, since most of the lg is given, but
they require understanding.
We have got three family pets: a ____, a
dog, and a turtle.
-Dictate just half a sentence and ask them
to complete it in their own way
-Letters, cards, invitations, such as:
Dear ___________,
Are you free on_________? _________
going to the _________.

FREE WRITING ACTIVITIES Pupils need PRE-WRITING ACTIVITIES: the most


to be able to try out their language in a freer difficult part of free writing seems to be
way. The language is the pupils’ own moving from nothing to sth.
language, no matter the level. The aim is to All pupils need to spend time on pre-writing
produce a piece of written work which is as work: warm up activities which are designed
correct as you can expect from that pupil. to give them language, ideas and
Older sts should be encouraged to re-write encouragement before they settle down to
their work. WRITING SHOULD BE the writing itself.
ENJOYABLE. - talk about the topic: a short simple
conversation to get ideas and collect
thoughts
- word stars: key word on the bb, elicit
as many related words as you can
- vocabulary charts, picture
dictionaries
- topic voc: collecting related words.
See how many animals you can get
on the bb, for example.
- Dialogues
- Descriptions
- Letters
- Stories

DOs AND DON’Ts on free writing


DO DO NOT

● concentrate first on content ● announce the subject out of the blue


● spend a lot of time on pre-writing and expect pupils to be able to write
work about it
● make sure that it springs naturally ● set an exercise as hw without any
from other language work preparation
● try to make sense of whatever the ● correct all the mistakes you can find
pupils have written and say sth ● set work which is beyond the pupils’
positive about it lang capability.
● encourage, but do not insist on,
re-writing
● display the material whenever
possible
● keep all the pupils’ writings.

MODULE 10 TEACHING READING


Reading means ‘reading and understanding’. A FLL who says ‘I can read the words but I do
not know what they mean’ is not reading but merely DECODING- translating written symbols
into sounds.
HOW DO WE READ?
● We can read words without necessarily being able to identify and decode single
letters; maybe you can read them by fitting its general ‘visual shape’ into a sense
context. (her with)
● It is not accurate to say that there is a simple one-to-one relationship between the
amount of text (words, letters) and the speed of reading. What appears to be more
significant is the number of sense units: letters combined into meaningful words; or
words combined into meaningful sentences. A TEXT WILL TAKE MORE OR LESS
TIME TO READ ACCORDING TO THE NUMBER AND COHERENCE of this kind of
units.
● Successful reading results from the understanding you bring to a text, which is often
based on previous knowledge of a type of story or context; where this conflicts with
the actual words you see on the page, you will prefer to rely on your general
understanding
SOME CONCLUSIONS:
● When beginning to read a text, or where there’s little or not helpful context, we
depend on decoding letters to understand words; but as soon as there is a
meaningful context we tend to bring our own interpretation to the word according to
its general ‘shape’ and the sense of the text rather than according to its exact
component letters. Reading activities should stress reading for understanding rather
than exact decoding of letters
● We need to understand some words in order to understand the meaning of a text, but
by no means all: we often “skip” or misread words in order to make sense of the
whole more quickly or conveniently. We should not insist too strongly on our learners
understanding every word, but rather encourage them to go for the overall meaning
of a text.
● If smaller sense units (words, sentences) are combined into bigger, coherent ones
(sentences, paragraphs), the whole is much faster to read that if they are separate or
incoherent. Learners therefore will probably read more successfully if given
meaningful units of text to read rather than disconnected bits.
● Our understanding is based on far more than simple reception of the words
themselves, and the process of reading would be better defined as constructing
meaning from a written text. The ‘construction’ of meaning that occurs in reading is a
combination of ‘bottom-up’ processes (decoding and understanding words, phrases
and sentences in a text) and ‘top-down’ ones (our expectations, previous knowledge
constructs (Schemata) of the text content and genre). Learners should be
encouraged to combine top-down and bottom-up strategies in reading, which means
doing such things as discussing the topic of a text before reading it, arousing
expectations, eliciting connections between the references in the text and situations
known to the learners.

BEGINNING READING
It is generally preferable to begin reading only after the learners have some basic knowledge
of the spoken language, so that reading becomes as quickly as possible a matter of
recognizing meanings rather than deciphering symbols
We can use the conventional phonic method (beginning with single letters, starting with the
most common and useful)
It is more useful for reading purposes if the learner knows the most common sounds of the
letter, its name can be left until later.
Alphabetical order can be learnt later when the learners need to know it for dictionary use.

TYPE OF READING ACTIVITIES


A conventional type of reading activity or test consists of a text followed by comprehension
questions
However, there are some activities that provide questions which can be answered without
showing understanding of the text! These type of questions may not encourage, or provide
proof or, successful reading. Why could that be?
The vocabulary simply echoes the text, while the grammar of both text and questions is fairly
obvious and corresponds neatly, so that if you recognize the grammar context, you can
simply slot in the appropriate vocabulary.

How should questions be?


They should not quote verbatim from the text but paraphrase it, or request paraphrases, or
invite some measure of interpretation and application of the reader’s background knowledge.
In that way they would demand real comprehension, and encourage an interactive, personal
engaging with the text, as well as being more interesting to do. Interpretative questions often
have more than one possible answer and can be used as a basis for discussion.

However, the disadvantage of this approach (reading + answering questions) is that THE
READER HAS NO PARTICULAR MOTIVE TO READ THE TEXT IN THE FIRST PLACE: No
purpose for reading.
You can ask the sts to guess, ask some questions such as “Where was Jane walking?”, they
answer them and then they have to check their predictions
Having a purpose for reading, the sts will feel more motivated to read, and the reading itself
will be more purposeful, because of the challenge of finding out whether you had got your
answers right or wrong. The sts will have to base on the info given within the questions
themselves, and on their own schemata (previous knowledge, for example, of what a thief
can steal)
Through this questions, the passage will probably be easier to read because of the
preparation of topic and vocabulary which was provided through the questions. You might
tell them what the topic of the text will be and ask them to think about words that might
appear in the text.

READING TASKS OTHER THAN QUESTIONS


Tasks are useful for two reasons: it may provide learners with a purpose for reading and
make the whole activity more interesting and effective; second, we need to know how well
our learners are reading, and we can get this information conveniently through looking at the
results of comprehension tasks.
Alternative reading activities:
● Do-it-yourself questions: learners compose and answer their own questions
● Provide a title
● Summarize
● Continue: suggest what will happen next
● Preface: suggest what might have happened before
● Gapped text: towards the ends, there are some gaps which can only be filled in if the
text has been understood.
● Comparison between two texts on a similar topic
● Responding: write an answer
● Re-presentation of content: the text gives info or tells a story, learners re-present its
content through a different graphic medium (a drawing, colouring, marking a map,
lists of events described in the text, a diagram indicating the relationship between
characters or events)

IMPROVING READING SKILLS


Reading skills need to be fostered so that learners can cope with more and more
sophisticated texts and tasks, and deal with them efficiently, quickly, appropriately and
skilfully
EFFICIENT AND INEFFICIENT READING

EFFICIENT INEFFICIENT

1. Language The language is The language of the text is


comprehensible to the sts too difficult

2. Content The content of the text is The text is too difficult in the
accessible to the learner; sense that the content is too
they know enough about it far removed from the
to be able to apply their knowledge and experience
background knowledge of the learners

3. Speed The R progresses fairly fast: The reading is slow: the R


mainly because the reader does not have a large
has automatized recognition vocabulary of automatically
of common combinations, recognized items
and does not waste time
working out each word or
group of words anew

4. Attention The reader concentrates on The R pays the same


the significant bits and amount of attention to all
skims the rest parts of the text

5. Incomprehensible The Reader takes The reader cannot tolerate


vocabulary incomprehensible incomprehensible voc items:
vocabulary in his stride:: stops to look every one up
guesses its meaning from in a dictionary, and or feels
the surrounding text, or discouraged from trying to
ignores it and manages comprehend the text as a
without it. whole

6. Prediction The reader hypothesizes, The R does not think ahead,


predicts deals with the text as it
comes
7. Background knowledge The reader has and uses The r does not have or use
background info to help background info
understand the text

8. Motivation The r is motivated to read by The reader has no particular


interesting content or a interest in reading
challenging task

9. Purpose The r is aware of a clear The r has no clear purpose


purpose in reading other than to obey the t’s
instruction

10. Strategies The r uses different The r uses the same


strategies for different kinds strategies for all texts.
of reading

RECOMMENDATIONS:
1. Make sure your sts get lots of successful reading experience
2. Make sure that most of the voc in reading texts is familiar to them, and that words
that are unknown can be either easily guessed or safely ignored
3. Give interesting tasks before asking learners to read
4. Make sure that the tasks encourage selective, intelligent reading for the main
meaning, and not just understanding of trivial details
5. Allow, and even encourage, sts to manage without understanding every word
6. Provide as wide a variety of texts and tasks as you can

ADVANCED READING
Act for advanced readers are more sophisticated in various ways: the texts and tasks
probably approximate more closely to the kind of texts and tasks that people tackle in their
mother-tongue reading; the tasks tend to involve more complex thinking than mere
comprehension of info; and the activities more often involve expended speaking, listening
and writing as well as reading.
As sts become more advances, it would seem sensible to start basing their reading practice
on a wide variety of authentic texts, and on tasks that represent the kinds of things a reader
would do with them in real life (answering multiple-choice questions on a poem is not
something we do in real life; instead, discussing the interpretation of the poem or writing an
answer to a letter would be more appropriate)
We should make some attempt to select tasks that approximate to those we might do in real
life
Beyond understanding
Our aims in real life reading usually go beyond mere understanding. We may wish to
understand something in order to learn from it, to find out how to act, to express an opinion
about it, or for many other purposes. Other pieces of writing (literature, for example) demand
a personal response from the reader to the ideas in the text (such as interpretation,
application to other contexts, criticism or evaluation). Advanced activities should therefore
see the understanding of a text only as a PRELIMINARY step on the way to further learning
or other personal purposes.
WRITING INSTRUCTION IN THE INTERMEDIATE GRADES Robin Bright
Students come to understand writing quite differently depending on how writing instruction is
approaches and what is communicated to them about it.

THE PROCESS OF WRITING:


Until at least the mid-70s, the field of composition was “sustained by attention to the written
product and to questions about the presentation of the product”. We concentrated on
teaching sts the mechanics of producing a polished final piece. The rules of spelling,
punctuation, and grammar were stressed, and sts were often given formulas for the
construction of paragraphs and longer texts such as reports, essays, and various types of
narratives.
Later, researchers began focusing on writing as a process, observing how it is done. The old
emphasis on product over process began to be criticized by them.
Recent research continues to point to a shift away from product to a focus on process in
both reading and writing. It is no longer enough to evaluare a finished piece in order to
discover the nature and quality of a st’s writing. The process of writing takes time, and
researchers must employ ongoing, on-site procedures to allow them to watch writers at
word.
Most writers move through stages of prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing.
Each of these steps is executed by individual writers at their own pace and in their own way.
In prewriting ideas for writing are developed and organized. Drafting involves getting
something down on paper- the preparation of an initial text. Editing is the stage at which
mechanics are checked and corrected, and publishing is the sharing of the work with others
in some way.

EFFECTIVE ELEMENTS
Teachers are being encouraged to organize their instruction in ways that provide for the sts’
development of abilities in writing over time. Writers’ workshops, teacher-student writing
conferences, and writing portfolios are examples of particular strategies and structures that
are effective in accomplishing this goal.
Suhor developed a writing process model in which he selected what he considered to be the
most effective elements in writer’s repertoire - purpose, audience, ownership, and value. He
said that emphasizing such effective elements provides a less confining way of examining
the writing process than does looking solely at the steps the process involves
● Purpose: research documented the functions inherent in the writing tasks assigned to
a particular secondary school population. Three types of writing, each with a distinct
purpose, were identified: transactional writing (intended to inform or persuade),
expressive writing (that relates to personal experience), and poetic writing (to create
an imaginative form). Transactional writing was the most common.
For writing to be studied effective, situations would have to be viewed in relation to
the purposes writers adopt as they compose. But while the importance of purpose is
clearly documented in writing research, evidence exists that sts may differ in their
interpretations of what the actual purpose of a particular writing task is.
● Audience: a second effective element of writing is the audience for whom the writing
is intended. An audience is obviously necessary if the writer hopes to communicate
something. The notion of intended audience (See) also affects the nature of writing.
Britton et al. observed that audience is a powerful motivator of student writing. They
found that sts in their research sample generally wrote only for the teacher,
particularly for the teacher in his/her role of examiner.
Four audiences for school writing: self, teacher as part of an instructional dialogue,
teacher as examiner, and others.
● Ownership: the writer’s sense of ownership of his or her writing has been identified as
an aspect of an effective environment for teaching writing. In writing, opportunities for
ownership occur when topics call for sts to explore their own experiences and
opinions, or to elaborate upon a point of view. This suggests the need for sts to
select their own topics and thus become more motivated to engage on expressive
writing tasks at school.
● Value: based on their school experiences, many sts view writing as limited to
utilitarian ends: writing to please a teacher or to pass a composition course. They
often perceive little inherent value in their writing.
Some researchers have found that an emphasis on expressive writing provides an
implicit message to sts that they have sth worthwhile to say.
Whether the writing is expressive, transactional, or poetic, it seems clear that the
value children ascribe to their writing has a great deal to do with their motivation to
write. And if children are not motivated to write, they will not become capable or fluent
readers.
A writer’s understanding of the purpose, audience, ownership, and value of writing
influences the entire composition process. And how the teacher understands writing and the
implications of its instruction is certain to affect the process even further

WHAT IS SAID: THE TEACHER’S LANGUAGE.


What the teacher says to set up the writing task, monitor its progress, and end the session is
important to how sts come to view writing and to how and what they write. The teacher’s
direction of and response to sts during individual writing conferences affects sts’
understanding of the composition process. It is through language that sts figure out quickly a
new teacher’s expectations and demands and learn of the possibilities surrounding their
writing.
Various teaching styles appear to affect children’s writing. Each classroom is unique in terms
of how writing is actually taught and of the instructional language used by the teacher.

Instructional Language in the Classroom


In the classes the author observed, teachers addressed a number of topics throughout their
instruction: emphasis, ownership, audience, and purpose.
- Emphasis: In Norman’s classroom, strategies were taught during individual
conferences during which specific pieces of writing were discussed and particular
needs addressed. The strategies Norman taught at particular times varied from
student to student. Many teachers teach the writing process as it often appears in
teaching resource books and materials, providing a linear, step-by-step schema for
sts to follow. This approach has the distinct advantage of allowing the t to more easily
organize instruction and ensure that requirements of the writing curriculum are being
met.
Many teachers approach the teaching of writing in a well organized manner and hope
that by doing so they will provide sts with skills they will need throughout their lives.
These teachers are clearly interested in helping their sts view writings purposeful and
personally valuable. However, an approach to instruction that is primarily group
oriented, making the focus the needs of the class as a whole, can be less helpful to
individual sts that another type of approach
- Ownership: refers to who is actually in charge of the writing. In writing, opportunities
for ownership occur when topics call for sts to explore their own experiences and
opinions, or to elaborate on a point of view. In reading and literature, similar
opportunities for ownership occur when sts are encouraged to develop and defend
their own interpretations, rather than being led to accept the teacher’s predetermined
point.
Norman responded positively to sts who changed the focus of a writing assignment
that did not suit them, and he offered possible alternate ways of handling a writing
task. In the lesson the sts were encouraged to develop their own method of
responding to an assignment. For instance, after listening to a recording of the song
Sounds of Silence, Norman suggested that sts put down the title and write down
anything they could think of. Not surprisingly, the sts’ products from this assignment
were quite varied.
In some classes, the planning is done almost entirely by the teacher, with little room
for sts to deviate from the task, either in content or form. The result is that there is
little opportunity for sts to direct their own writing by selecting topics or displaying
their individual approaches to writing on an assigned topic. In those classrooms, I
found it interesting to note that even with extended attention to a prewriting phase,
before sts began these assignments, they asked questions such as ‘How long should
it be?’, ‘ How do I start?’, or ‘Do we have to memorize it?’
Whatever the reason for the differences, the effect of teachers’ instructional lg on sts’
ownership of their writing appears to have been considerable in the classes I
observed. Norman’s lg emphasized that writers are in charge of their writing. Sts
made decisions about content, form, and length. Norman encouraged his sts to
change tasks to meet their needs and interest and responded positively when they
did so. He encouraged sts to become critical readers of their own writing. In contrast,
other teachers articulated the necessity of well-planned writing activities.
Consequently, decisions regarding content, form, and length were often
predetermined by them, and they thereby took ownership of certain aspects of their
sts’ writing.
- Audience: audience can be seen to involve the writer’s adjusting his or her language
according to the characteristics of the intended readership of a particular piece.
In Norman’s classroom, ‘audience knowledge’ was not central to the assigned writing
tasks, the way it often is when sts are engaged in persuasive, regulative, or
communicative writing. Norman directed sts to focus on the inner audience of self
during writing. He appeared to be influenced by the belief that ‘the dominant motive
for writing is self-expression; communicative and aesthetic abilities depend on the
nurturing of the expressive capacity’.
Norman helped his sts remain in control of the process by having them reflect on
their writing as readers.
Apart from Norman’s emphasizing the writer as his or her own audience through his
encouraging sts to serve as readers of their own work, it appeared that he, as
teacher, was also an important audience for the sts’ writing. During a session,
Norman told his sts they needed to be aware of his expectations. Norman presented
himself as an important external audience in matters of neatness and handwriting.
It is more common in some classrooms for the role of audience in writing to be
discussed explicitly. For instance, many Ts indicate to the sts that they will be reading
their writing aloud during special events or schoolwide assemblies. In this way, sts
clearly are aware of the function and audience associated with their writing.
Some teacher I observed spent considerable instruction time emphasizing to their sts
that their writing would have an external audience. Making sts aware of the role of
others is not always an easy task. One way in which I observed how this could be
accomplished was when sts were encouraged to work with partners when writing.
One of the strategies used frequently was to have sts read their writing aloud to a
partner, with the partner following the text with pencil in hand, ready to make changes
when deemed necessary by the pair. Peers had a major role to play during writing
sessions.
Another way Ts help their sts become aware of audience in writing is to encourage
sts to be critical readers of their own writing. This appeared to be a more or less
successful task depending on the age of the sts, with younger sts less able to see
and make changes to their writing and older sts somewhat more able to do so.
Some Ts talked about audience to the whole class at the beginning of a writing
session and tended to suggest that audience is important to keep in mind when
shaping written products On the other hand, Norman and some of the other teachers
I observed encouraged their sts to be sensitive to their audience but stressed that
they themselves were readers of their own writing. They taught awareness of inner
audience, but in matters of presentation, these teachers emphasized outer audience
to their sts.
- Purpose: one of the most difficult tasks I’ve faced as a teacher of writing is describing
the purpose of particular assignments to my sts in a way that shows clearly their
relevance and importance.
Norman emphasized five major purposes for engaging in writing
* to discover one’s thoughts, ideas, and feelings
* for personal expression
* for enjoyment
* to communicate using a particular form (for example, when a few sts expressed an
interest in learning how to write narrative poetry, Norman indicated various purposes
served by this type of poetry and explained its structure. He said that as a genre,
narrative poetry tells a story, often uses rhyming couplets, and can have various
themes. He then offered several examples for the sts to read.
* to prepare for future school experiences
Writing as a method for discovery was a dominant dimension of purpose as
expressed in Norman’s instructional language. I recorded several instances when
Norman asked sts to use writing to find out what they knew or thought about a topic
or question.
In other intermediate classrooms I observed, the following three additional purposes
for engaging in writing were also emphasized during instruction:
* to remember or explain (sts in other classrooms were frequently asked to write in
order to remember or explain what had been previously listened to or read. After
having listened to the teacher read a particular selection, the sts were asked to
remember and record the sequence of events and to plot these on a graph according
to their perceived level of importance)
* to share with an audience (either by reading a piece informally to friends, reading it
aloud to the class, or displaying it on a bulletin board)
* to learn the stages of the writing process (when teacher consistently reminded the
sts what stage of the writing process they were engaged in and the strategies that
should accompany those stages. Many classrooms display charts outlining the
various staged associated with the writing process: prewriting, drafting, revising,
editing, and publishing. Sts were encouraged to use their drafting strategies to write
ideas quickly and not spend excessive time on spelling. At the revision and editing
stages, sts were asked to read their drafts aloud and ask themselves three questions:
will it make sense to others?, does it actually say what I want it to say?, should I add
or change words to make it easier to understand?

WHAT IS DONE: THE STS’ WRITING


As a teacher, I tried to encourage my sts to produce both quantity and quality in their
writing, but I wonder now if I emphasized one over the other in the language I used.
Some sts’ comments are indicative of their understanding that writing should be
produced with attention not necessarily to what it says, but to how it looks. I suspect
that this was not what their teachers had intended to stress as the only purpose for
writing, but their instructional language clearly conveyed this message.
What teachers say and do when they teach writing affects what their sts produce.

THOUGHTS ON HOW TO TEACH WRITING


Learning to write has been likened to weaving a delicate tapestry. Sts learn to weave
their own individual tapestries even if they have been exposed to the same
instructional strategies and approaches. What they produce depends on many
factors, including how they make sense of their task. The same instructional event
can look different depending on the perceptions and interpretations of those involved.
- What good writers do
It is important for Ts to focus on sts’ prior knowledge of strategies for good writing in
order to expand on that knowledge and correct misunderstandings that may have
developed over time (such as giving too much importance to neat handwriting).
Without further instruction, sts will have little chance of improve their own writing and
correct misunderstandings.
When asked about what is important for good writing, some sts said things like ‘Good
writers put a lot of effort into it and stay with it until it’s done”. Such comments should
indicate to teachers that these sts already know a great deal about specific behaviour
associated with good writing. The ts’ job now is to help sts draw on this knowledge
during writing. Teachers need to provide students with opportunities to express
themselves and must listen to what their sts have to say.
Instructional scaffolding can also help sts identify what they know about good writing
and expand on that knowledge. The steps involves are:
- an adult listens to the student read his or her own text
- the adult asks questions about the meaning and content of the text
- the adult then expands on the meaning of the text
As teachers get to know their sts during the school year, they become better able to assess
how individual children learn and how best to assist in their learning processes.
As teachers of writing, out focus needs to be less on what to teach when and move on how
children learn and how to support that learning. This focus requires observations of
individual children rather than just attention to their writing.
In addition to observation, it may be desirable to use other forms of assessment to gain a
comprehensible view of individual sts’ understanding of writing and its instruction: through
student self-evaluations, portfolios, etc.
- Goals and purposes
Teachers and researchers use to assume that children are unable to understand the
purposes for writing and writing activities in school. This assumption has led to instruction
that teaches writing as a code that involves spelling, punctuation, and organization but does
not emphasize creativity or personal expression. It appears from the sts’ reflective accounts,
however, that when a teacher does focus attention on the purposes of writing and explains
these directly to sts, they are able to understand and internalize these purposes. It may well
be valuable for Ts to talk with intermediate-level sts about the purposes of the writing tasks
they are assigned (‘intentionality’ in language learning). Intentionality exists when the task
has a clear overall purpose driving any separate activity that may contribute to the whole.
Eventual evaluation of sts’ success can be cast in terms of what they intended to
accomplish.
Teachers who are able to access and develop sts’ intentionality are in a better position to
assess each st’s progress. Writing workshops offer an opportunity for sts to reveal their
perceptions of purpose and for teachers to clarify any misunderstandings. Teachers need to
ask questions such as “What do you think you are learning by doing this activity?
- Audience
By the time they reach the intermediate grades, it seems obvious to many that writing is sth
one does for the teacher. But many researchers and teachers argue that sts need to develop
an understanding that writing is done sometimes for an external audience and sometimes for
oneself. This acknowledges the dual nature of writing: to make personal meaning and to
communicate that meaning.
Instruction could then take the form of writing activities that allow sts to engage in both
expressive writing, during which they can discover their own thoughts, ideas, and feelings,
and transactional writing, in which sts transmit info or ideas.
Also, sts should be encouraged both to write on self-selected topics that may be unfamiliar
to the teacher and to engage in expressive writing. Graves and Atwell recommend that
teachers reduce their reliance on prepared materials such as story starters and encourage
sts to develop their own topics for writing. In addition, Graves suggests that sts write to real
audiences- friends, parents, a favourite book author, and so on- who might respond to the
messages.
Of course, Sts who are involved primarily in transactional writing do so for an external
audience. While it’s important for sts to consider audience when writing, instruction needs to
emphasize a balance between the needs of the writer and the needs of a reader. Young sts
particularly may require specific instruction in the area of developing a sense of inner
audience because many of them will have experienced writing only as sth to be commented
on by the teacher or a parent. To that end, teachers need to incorporate self-assessment
into the writing process so that sts can learn to evaluate writing they have written for
themselves for their own reasons.
- Sts’ views of themselves as writerS
The majority of the students I spoke with reported that they enjoyed writing, but fewer
indicated they engaged in writing outside of school. One noteworthy pattern is that all the
older sts said they enjoyed writing. King and others have suggested that as sts get older,
they report decreasing enjoyment of writing, but clearly this trend was not observed in my
study. The data suggest that Norman’s emphasis on individual instruction, self as audience,
and expressive writing were influential in affecting his sts’ positive views of themselves as
writers. It seems that Norman’s influence and the freedom he gave sts to respond in their
own ways to writing assignments were the important factors. The very nature of expressive
writing offers the writer opportunities to make personal responses and thereby take
ownership of his or her work.
- The value of writing
In this study, Norman emphasized the value of writing to express thoughts, ideas, and
feelings, and his sts appeared to see writing as sth of personal value in their lives. On the
other hand, when other Ts I observed emphasized the value of writing to communicate with
others, their sts appeared to be unsure of the value of writing. In other words, sts whose
teachers stressed writing as a communication tool ONLY did not necessarily make the leap
to understand that writing can be personally relevant and valuable for their lives.

Module 11: Teaching writing


One of the reasons that teaching writing is so different from teaching speech is that the two
types of discourse differ in some basic characteristics.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WRITTEN AND SPOKEN DISCOURSE:
1- PERMANENCE: written discourse is fixed and stable so the reading can be done at
whatever time, speed, and level of thoroughness the individual reader wishes. Spoken text
moves on in real time. The listener -though he or she may occasionally interrupt to request
clarification- must in general follow what is said at the speed set by the speaker.
2- EXPLICITNESS: the written text is explicit; it has to make clear the context and all
references. In speech, the real-time situation and knowledge shared between speaker and
listener means that some info can be assumed and need not be made explicit (this and here,
for example)
3- DENSITY: the content is presented much more densely in writing. In speech, the
information is conveyed through many more words: there are a lot of repetitions and “fillers”,
producing a text that is noticeably longer and with more redundant passages.
4- DETACHMENT: the writing of a text is detached in time and space from its reading; the
writer normally works aloke, and may not be acquainted with his or her readers. Speaking
usually takes place in immediate interaction with known listeners, with the availability of
immediate feedback.
5- ORGANIZATION: a written text is usually organized and carefully formulated, since its
composer has time and opportunity to edit it before making it available for reading. A
speaker is improvising as he or she speaks. Thus a written text conforms more to
conventional rules of grammar, and its vocabulary is more precise and formal.
6- SLOWNESS OF PRODUCTION, SPEED OF RECEPTION: writing is much slower than
speaking. We can usually read a piece of text and understand it much faster than we can
take in the same text if we listen while someone reads it aloud to us.
7- STANDARD LG: writing normally uses a generally acceptable standard variety of the
language, whereas speech may sometimes be in a regional or other limited-context dialect.
8- A LEARNT SKILL: most people acquire the spoken language (at least of their mother
tongue) intuitively, whereas the written form is in most cases deliberately taught and learnt.
9- SHEER AMOUNT OR IMPORTANCE: spoken texts are far longer, normally. This is
largely because of redundancy. It is also true to say that most people speak far more than
they write. Speech is more important for survival and effective functioning in society than
writing is.

TEACHING PROCEDURES
Writing as a means of as an end
1- AS A MEANS
For example, learners note down new vocabulary, copy out grammar rules, write out
answers to reading or listening comprehension questions, do written tests.
Writing is simply used either as a means of getting the sts to attend to and practise a
particular language point, or as a convenient method of testing it: providing info as to how
well sth has been learnt in a form which the teacher can then check at his or her leisure.
2- AS AN END
Other activities take as their main objective the writing itself. At the micro level they practise
specific written forms at the level of word or sentence (handwriting, spelling, punctuation); at
the macro level the emphasis is on content and organization: tasks invite learners to express
themselves using their own words, state a purpose for writing, and often specify an
audience. Examples: narrating a story, writing a letter.
3- AS BOTH MEANS AND END
A third kind of activity combines purposeful and original writing with the learning or practice
of some other skill or content. For example, a written response to the reading of a
controversial newspaper article (combines writing with reading) or the writing of anecdotes to
illustrate the meaning of idioms (combines writing with voc practice)

WRITING FOR CONTENT AND/OR FORM


The purpose of writing is the expression of ideas, the conveying of a message to the reader;
so the ideas themselves should arguably be seen as the most important aspect of the
writing. On the other hand, the writer needs also to pay some attention to formal aspects:
correct spelling and punctuation, acceptable grammar, and careful selection of vocabulary.
One of our problems in teaching writing is to maintain a fair balance between content and
form when defining our requirements and assessing

TASKS THAT STIMULATE WRITING


Some criteria for the evaluation of textbook writing activities:
- Would my sts find the activity motivating, stimulating and interesting to do?
- Is it of an appropriate level for them?
- Is the kind of writing relevant to their needs?
- Would I need to do some preliminary teaching in preparation for this activity?
Some examples of writing tasks:
1. Book report
2. Book review
3. Instruction sheet
4. Narrative
5. Personal story
6. Describe a view, person
7. Answer a letter
8. Job application
9. Propose change
10. News report
11. Ideal school
12. Describe process
13. Film music

THE PROCESS OF COMPOSITION


The writing process: summary and implications for teaching
1. INDIVIDUALS VARY: different writers may produce equally good results through
widely different processes. This means that there is probably no one ‘right’ system of
writing that we should recommend; rather, we should suggest and make available
various possible strategies, encouraging individuals to experiment and search for one
that is personally effective.
2. WRITING IS A MESSY BUSINESS: most people progress through a number of
untidy drafts before reaching a final version. Nor do they always follow what might
seem a rational order of priority. So while it may be useful to advise learners not to
worry too much about spelling and grammar, and to get down their ideas first, it may
not be wise to try to impose this as a rigid rule. More helpful is to encourage them to
work through a number of revisions; to accept messy drafts as a positive stage in
writing; to treat early drafts as transition stages to be criticized but not formally
assessed.
3. WRITING IS POTENTIALLY SATISFYING: if you are writing on a topic about which
you feel you have something worthwhile to say, the process of writing can be
absorbing and enjoyable. It is therefore worth investing thought in the selection of
topics and tasks that motivate learners to write; and extremely important to provide
an appreciative reader audience.
4. YOU LEARN TO WRITE THROUGH WRITING: reading, of course, helps, since it
familiarized learners with the conventions governing various kinds of texts and in
general improves their language, but it is not enough, and is no substitute for
hands-on writing experience. One of our main tasks then, as teachers, is to get our
sts to write a lot, learning from their own writing experience.

GIVING FEEDBACK ON WRITING


What should feedback be mainly on: language? content? organization?
When a student submits a piece of original writing, the most important thing about it is its
content, whether the ideas or events that are written about are significant and interesting.
Then there is the organization and presentation, whether the ideas are arranged in a way
that is easy to follow and pleasing to read. Finally, there is the question of language forms,
whether the grammar, voc, spelling and punctuation is of an acceptable standard of
accuracy.
Many teachers are aware that content and organization are important, but find themselves
relating mainly to language forms in their feedback, conveying the implicit message that
these are what matters. This is for various reasons.
1. Mistakes in spelling or grammar catch the eye, they are very difficult to ignore
2. Sts also want their language mistakes to be corrected
3. Language mistakes are far more easily and quickly diagnosed and corrected than
ones of content and organization.
ADVICE: we should correct language mistakes; our problem is how to do so without
conveying the message that these are the only basis for evaluation of a piece of writing. One
possibility is to note corrections within the body of the text, and devote comments at the end
to matters of content and organization, followed by the evaluation. We may make
suggestions as to content and organization, and give the evaluation only on the basis of the
rewritten, polished version.

Should all mistakes be corrected?


The problem is one of potential conflict between two of our functions as teachers: language
instruction versus support and encouragement of learning. The correction of mistakes is part
of the language instruction, but too much of it can be discouraging and demoralizing.
Over-emphasis on language mistake can distract both learners’ and teachers’ attention from
the equally important aspects of content and organization.
It would seem reasonable to say that language mistakes should be ignored if there is a
danger that to correct them would hinder learning more than help it. We might correct only
mistakes that actually affect meaning, and those who are very basic.

Should learners rewrite, incorporating corrections?


Rewriting is very important, since it reinforces learning, but also because it is an integral part
of the writing process as a whole. It makes sense to see the first version as provisional, and
to regard the rewritten, final version as ‘the’ assignment, the one that is submitted to formal
assessment. This helps to motivate learners to rewrite and to appreciate the value of doing
so.

TEACHING LISTENING AND SPEAKING Shin and Crandall


We should use activities related to children’s interests and real lives including their lives in
other classes in school.
It is important to teach sts to communicate orally in real conversations, recognizing that with
real communicative acts it is impossible to separate the skills of listening and speaking.
The foundation of an effective approach for teaching listening and speaking in the EYL
classroom is the use of meaningful text types and a focus on building oral communication
skills.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR TEACHING LISTENING


This skill might be overlooked because it seems passive. When people listen they do not
move their lips or take any outward action that can be perceived. However, it is an ACTIVE
PROCESS that requires different kinds of skills and strategies. Actually, listening is used
more than any other skill. As the most used of the four language skills, it is essential to make
sure our young learners are able to listen well and gain meaning from listening input.
● WHAT IS LISTENING?
It is important to remember that the process of listening is ACTIVE. The listener must interact
with what is heard and interpret the message accurately in order to make sense of it.
Peterson described listening as “a multilevel, interactive process of meaning creation”.
Anderson defines listening comprehension in three stages: perceptual processing, parsing
(resolving into component parts and describing their syntactic roles; analysing a string of
symbols), and utilization. In the first stage, there is a sound encoded with language that is
perceived and recognized as language; then the language is decoded and stored in
short-term memory; finally, comprehension occurs in the utilization stage as the listener
matches the language heard with ideas stored in long-term memory.
● BOTTOM-UP AND TOP-DOWN LISTENING
Listening is an interpretative skill. Interpreting language is often broken down into two
psycholinguistic processes: bottom-up (language→ideas) and top-down (ideas→language).
Bottom-up processing starts with interpreting the sounds linguistically and gaining meaning
by decoding parts of the language, whereas top-down processing refers to interpreting the
message through the context in which the message is being delivered.
It is important to develop BOTH in our learners.
Bottom-up processing means that listeners are using linguistic knowledge to make sense of
an utterance, starting with smallest parts of language and putting them together to construct
meaning. Listening from the bottom up means a learner may proceed from sounds to words
to sentences to literal meaning. This means putting the smaller parts of language together to
figure out what someone is saying.
Some examples of listening activities for YL that focus on bottom-up processing skills are:
- Sts listen to a pair of words and circle if the words are the same or different
- Sts match a word they hear with its picture
- Sts listen to a series of sentences and distinguish the subjects from the vbs.
- Sts listen to a short dialogue and fill in the blanks of a transcript.

Top-down processing, on the other hand, starts with SCHEMATA or background knowledge
based on the context of the communication. It also includes the listener’s knowledge of the
text type within the context. Instead of focusing on linguistic parts of the utterance, learners
learn how to gain meaning from the context and might be able to predict what will be said.
In order to work on top-down techniques that focus on the activation of background
knowledge and the meaning of the text, teachers can do the following:
- Before sts listen to an announcement, they are shown the context of an airport and
predict what they might hear.
- Sts listen to some utterances and describe the emotional reaction they hear: happy,
sad, etc.
- Sts listen to a conversation between a doctor and a patient and choose a picture
showing the correct location of the dialogue with the correct people having the
conversation.
It is important to use both bottom-up and top-down techniques when teaching listening. With
YLs who are at the beginning stages, it could be easy to focus more on bottom-up
techniques that focus on isolated language structures, because they are learning the
building blocks of language from letter to word to sentence. Pinter points out that ‘in
comparison with adults, children have less developed schematic knowledge about many
topics; they know less about the world in gral and therefore guess and infer meaning with
more difficulty. The younger the children, the more this applies.’ Therefore, for YLs, teachers
need to also focus the listening activities on meaning and help them develop strategies for
top-down processing in the FL. Teacher of young learners should be sure to strike a good
balance between the two.

PRINCIPLES FOR TEACHING LISTENING TO YLs


In EYL classes there is an enormous amount of listening. It is the main source of
communication for instruction between teacher and YL students. For VYLs in particular there
is minimal reading since they are just beginning to gain literacy skills, so the majority of
language input for sts of through listening.
When designing activities for YLs, it is important to remember the following seven pples:
1. Prepare teacher talk carefully: children will spend most of their time listening to the
teacher giving instructions, modeling language, singing songs, doing chants, dramatizing
dialogues, and telling stories. Therefore, teachers need to carefully plan how they use
language in the classroom. When preparing teacher talk in Eng, think about both the level
and the amount as you prepare for your lessons. YLs have short attention spans, so long
stretches of input that is not comprehensible will likely be the cause of sts zoning out or
acting up. Try to prepare short segments of comprehensible listening input when giving
instructions, doing demonstrations, or explaining language. (Ts can start by teaching YLs to
understand and respond to some basic classroom lg)
2. Use listening activities that reflect real-life listening: activities should involve authentic lg
and real-world contexts as much as possible to make the learning more meaningful,
motivating, and useful for sts. Some often-used examples of text types that reflect real-life
listening and are motivating for YLs:
● songs
● chants and raps
● stories
● plays
● TV shows
● TV commercials
● Radio ads
● News reports
● Weather reports
● Announcements (school, airport)
● Cartoons
● Films
● Documentaries
● Jokes and riddles
● Tongue twisters
● Dialogues (conversations)
3. Use listening activities that are developmentally appropriate: if they are developmentally
appropriate, they will be more intrinsically motivating and comprehensible. All activities
should take into consideration learners’ age, background knowledge, and interests. It helps
to find out what cartoons, TV shows, and films interest children at different ages and try to
incorporate them or similarly themed activities into instruction.
4. Use a variety of techniques to make listening input comprehensible: because YC are still
new to our world and do not have a lot of background knowledge, it is important for teachers
to help make input comprehensible by preparing sts for the context. The T needs to consider
how to tap into sts’ background knowledge and build schemata that may not be there in
order to understand the listening context in an activity. In addition, YLs of English do not
have a high proficiency in Eng and their Eng voc is limited. Therefore. Ts should prepare sts
with vocabulary needed to understand the listening activity. Preparing context clues like
pictures and realia are helpful, too. Also, it was found that physical manipulation of objects
that are described in the story enhances listening comprehension and increases recall of info
more than the use of pictures. This supports the use of realia and hands-on activities with
YLs to support listening comprehension. Children are active learners and will gain more
comprehension and remember more when hands-on activities are used.
5. Check comprehension using a variety of response types: how can you know if sts truly
understand without sth concrete or observable? Ts can check comprehension using a
variety of response types that should be both verbal and nonverbal
Ways to check sts’ comprehension:
● Doing: listener responds physically (TPR, making a recipe)
● Choosing: listener selects from alternatives such as pictures, objects
● Transferring info into another form
● Answering questions
● Condensing: listener reduces the message (notetaking, summary)
● Extending: listener provides text that goes beyond what is given (giving the end of a
story)
● Duplicating: listener repeats the exact message
● Modeling: listener uses text as a model for imitation (ordering a meal after listening to
a model)
● Conversing: listener is active in face-to-face conversations
So there are three main categories that take into account level of difficulty
● NONVERBAL demonstration of comprehension
● NONVERBAL II II II but requiring some READING (listen
and choose, transfer, match, classify)
● Demonstration of comprehension WITH PRODUCTION.
6. Keep listening active -always give learners a listening task: every listening activity should
give YLs a purpose for listening and, better yet, a task to complete. YLs have short attention
spans and can’t always focus themselves on a learning activity. Giving them a purpose or
task will focus them on the listening and make them more active in the listening process.
7. Equip your sts with intelligent guesswork strategies: it is important to incorporate various
listening strategies in your instruction. Peterson wrote “when things are going well, the
listener is not conscious of using skills at all. At the point when the comprehension breaks
down for some reason, the listener becomes aware of the need for repair and seeks an
appropriate strategy for comprehension”. Equipping our YLs with a whole range of strategies
can actually help them improve their listening comprehension beyond the classroom, which
is one of our goals.
Using prediction strategies will help learners make intelligent guesses and then check
whether their predictions are correct. If the sts do not know all the voc or language structures
presented, they can still make sense of the listening text using these strategies and guess
meaning based on the context. The more you can connect these strategies with real-life
listening, the better it will be for listening that happens outside the classroom.
Strategies:
● Predict what a listening text will be about: any real-life listening will be embedded in a
context. If sts are presented with a context, they can probably predict what they will
hear.
● Predict what will happen next: in most contexts, it is possible to predict what sb will
say next.
● Use discourse markers or signal words to guess what happens next: real discourse
makes use of signal words such as first, then, finally, but, so, etc. to guide the
listener. Helping sts automatically recognize these signal words is a strategy they can
use to improve their listening.
● Use background knowledge of the context: sts’ own background knowledge of the
context can help them make sense of the story. If not, then the T has to build the
background knowledge before the story or through the story.
● Listen for the main idea: we listen for the main idea of a listening text to help gain
comprehension. Even if sts do not understand all the voc, they can still understand
the gist of the story. Then the T can help build comprehension of the language
starting with sts’ understanding of the main idea.
● Listen for specific details: listen to a description of a person and figure out in a picture
who is being described, for example. Sts can listen for specific descriptions that
match the different people in the picture.
● Listen for key words: in real-life listening, we can pick out key words that we
understand which can help us comprehend the message. For example if the listening
is a weather report, then you can get your YLs to listen for certain key words, like
sunny, rainy, cold, hot.
● Guess the meaning of unknown words: if YLs are listening to a commercial for a
department store, which might be a familiar context, they can catch the gist of the
commercial. Then, from different strategies working together, they may be able to
guess the meaning of difficult unknown words used repeatedly, like sale or clearance.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR TEACHING SPEAKING


Much of the listening we do in real life occurs as part of a two-way conversation that requires
speaking in response. Speaking is often considered a very difficult lg skill to learn to do well.
As Pinter says, “this is because to be able to speak fluently, we have to speak and think at
the same time. As we speak, we have to monitor our output and correct any mistakes, as
well as planning for what we’re going to say next.”

WHAT IS SPEAKING?
For most people, speaking is the language skill that represents the main mode of
communication. In the native language, the first skill parents work on teaching their babies is
speaking. YLs are still learning how to communicate effectively in their native lg, and when
they are VYL, they are still working on their ability to respond appropriately to questions and
explain their ideas. EYL teachers have to consider what kinds of oral communication are
appropriate activities for learners at certain ages, in addition to helping them communicate
orally in Eng.
It is important to check what kinds of listening and speaking skills are expected at different
ages.
In addition to listening how to listen and speak, to improve oral communication skills,
teachers also have to give sts skills to negotiate meaning and clarify any misunderstandings.

FLUENCY VS ACCURACY
Teachers are always concerned with both. We want our sts to speak accurately with respect
to grammar and pronunciation and to speak fluently with respect to speed and natural flow of
the lg. The fluency/accuracy issue often boils down to the extent to which our techniques
should be message oriented (use) as opposed to language oriented (usage). With YLs, our
approach is not focused on grammatical explanations, so the approach should be more
message-oriented. At the beginning levels, the lang being taught is in small chunks, so the
possibility of repetition and drilling for accuracy is just as possible while doing activities to
build vocabulary and practise meaningful expressions. Pinter says that the first building
blocks that allow children to move from listening to speaking and to begin to participate in
interactions with others are so-called UNANALYSED CHUNKS.
In terms or pronunciation, YLs have an advantage because they are excellent imitators.
Their ability to repeat after a model accurately is one aspect of speaking that should be easy
to develop with YLs. Providing them with plenty of models and chances to imitate is
important. Repetition is very important for them, but teachers have to make it fun, engaging,
and as meaningful as possible through activities like songs, chants, rhymes and games to
help them start to memorize new chunks and use them well.

PRINCIPLES FOR TEACHING SPEAKING TO YLs


The T needs to find every opportunity to build real communication into the classroom since
EFL contexts have a shortage of opportunities for communication in English outside the
classroom. Ts of out youngest Ls have to create fun activities that keep learners active; even
if they use repetition, it has to be meaningful
Seven pples:
1- Build classroom routines in Eng: this will ensure that every day you have sts using the
lang communicatively, such as greeting you and each other.
2- Use speaking activities that reflect real-life communication: it is good to use role-play and
drama, dialogues.
3- Use speaking activities that are developmentally appropriate: it is important to consider
the types of conversations children engage in:
● conversation with friend about favourite things
● asking sb for directions
● games like telephone
● discussion about a shopping list for a classmate’s birthday party
There are also one way speaking presentations that YLs like that can give them plenty of
practice with the lang. Presentational activities are good because they are still at a very
egocentric stage. They can make a presentation about the members of their family, for ex.
4- Use a variety of activities to improve both accuracy and fluency: activities can be
classified as controlled practice, guided practice, and independent activities. Speaking
activities that focus on accuracy are quite mechanical and controlled. The responses are
predictable, with little chance of making mistakes, the use of the target lg is completely
controlled by the t.
Act that are still structured but give sts some choice are considered guided.
Independent activities focus on fluency. They are open-ended and do not have predictable
responses. Focus more on meaning and communication than correctness.
5- Build classroom interaction by giving sts plenty of opportunities to participate
6- Keep the speaking environment active- do not correct errors explicitly
7- Equip your learners with negotiation strategies.

EFFECTIVE LISTENING AND SPEAKING ACTIVITIES:


When developing listening and speaking activities, ts can conceptualize them in three
distinct stages: before, during, and after listening. Activities before listening prepare sts for
the listening input in the presentation step. The activities for during listening consist first of
ways to make listening input comprehensible as the listening input is being presented. Then
there are a number of Listen and… activities that give the t different ways to check
comprehension both verbally and non-verbally. Finally, after listening activities are speaking
activities that move from more controlled to more independent.
● ACTIVITIES BEFORE LISTENING: prepare sts for the activity by activating
schemata, connecting the activity to their background knowledge, getting them to
predict what they will be listening to, and introducing useful words and concepts.
● ACTIVITIES DURING LISTENING: be sure that they are actively listening by using
visuals, such as pictures, facial expressions, body movement, asking them questions
and eliciting answers, having them respond to the listening by doing, choosing, etc.
Give them chances to understand the text through multiple exposures. Ts should try
to sequence the multiple exposures from easier to more challenging.
● ACTIVITIES AFTER LISTENING (practice and application stages): the post-listening
activities can flow smoothly into a speaking activity that practices the language
learned in the listening activity. They can integrate listening with other skills as well.
These activities will reinforce sts’ understanding of the text and new vocabulary and
grammar by getting them to apply the new language through controlled, guided, and
independent activities.

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