教学法笔记精校版How to Teach English

How to Teach English

Unit One How to be a good teacher

What makes a good teacher?

How should teachers talk to students?

How should teachers give instructions?

Who should talk in class?

What are the best kinds of lesson?

How important is it to follow a pre-arranged plan?

What makes a good teacher?

Focus on moral education;

Teachers’ character and personality;

Care more about their students’ learning than their own teaching.

How to be a good teacher

How should teachers talk to students?

Rough-tuning:

Unconscious simplification which both parents and teachers make;

The modification of language that is suitable to students of different level

Physical movement:

Gestures, expressions, mime

How should teachers give instructions?

Rules: simple & logical

Check:

ask one to repeat your instruction

ask someone to translation your instruction into the students’ native language

Who should talk in class?

Maximise STT (Student Talking Time)

Minimise TTT (Teacher Talking Time)

Who should talk in class?

What is good TTT?

Good TTT must follow the rule of “comprehensive input”

The Input hypothesis is Stephen Krashen's attempt to explain how the learner acquires a second language. In other words, this hypothesis is Krashen's explanation of how second language acquisition takes place. So, the Input hypothesis is only concerned with 'acquisition', not 'learning'.

According to this hypothesis, the learner improves and progresses along the 'natural order' when he/she receives second language 'input' that is one step beyond his/her current stage of linguistic competence.For example, if a learner is at a stage 'i', then acquisition takes place when he/she is exposed to 'Comprehensible Input' that belongs to level 'i + 1'.

What are the best kinds of lesson?

Try your best to break boredom:

Change your clothes;

Bahaving calmly and slowly one day if you are normally noisy and energitec;

Variety of your class:

Set different tasks;

Keep balance between predictable safety and unexpected variety.

How important is it to follow a pre-arranged plan?

A balance has to be struck between teachers attempting to achieve what they set out to achieve on the one hand and responding to what students are saying or doing on the other.

Be flexible if your plan is interrupted by students.

How important is the students’ motivation?

What is motivation?

Motivation refers to elements that push students to do learning activities.

According to the source of motivation, it can be divided into intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.

Gardener and Lamber classified motivation of foreign language acquisition into instrumental motivation(工具型动机) and integrative motivation(融入型动机) from the perspective of social linguistics.

Learners with instrumental motivation aim to reach their goal and treat the language just as one kind of tool, such as finding a good job and so on.

Learners with integrative motivation desire to mix with the culture of the second/ foreign language and always show deep interest in the culture and people influenced by this language.

How important is the students’ motivation?

Conclusions of Gardner and Lamber’s theory:

Highly motivated students do better than ones without any motivation at all.

Integrative motivation was more powerful than Instrumental motivation.

How important is the students’ motivation?

How to provoke students’ interest and involvement in the class?

Choice of topic, activity and linguistic content that students are interested in;

Incentive mechanism: verbal commendation, honor, material reward, examination

How to help students?

Homework;

Reading assignment;

Practical activities

Who is responsible for learning?

Unit Four Lesson Planning

4.4.1 Teaching aims

The first thing to do in lesson planning is to decide the aims of a lesson, which include what language components to present, what communicative skills to practise, what activities to conduct and what materials and teaching aids to be used.

Questions:

What do you think are the aims of this part of the lesson?

Three different teachers are about to teach the lesson. Below are their introductions to the lesson. Which teacher has the clearest idea of the aims of the lesson?

Teacher A: Today we are going to learn Lesson 15. It’s question and answer practice using a substitution table.

Teacher B: Today we are going to practise present simple questions with “when…” and other time expressions.

Teacher C: Today we are going to practise asking and answering questions using the present simple tense, so that we will learn how to talk about everyday activities.

Unit 6 Teaching Pronunciation

1. The role of pronunciation in language learning.

2. The goal of teaching pronunciation.

3.The aspects of pronunciation we need to teach.

4. The ways to help student to improve pronunciation.

6.1 The role of pronunciation

Why do learners make pronunciation errors?

A particular sound may not exist in the mother tongue, so that the learners are not used to forming it and therefore tends to substitute the nearest equivalent he or she knows.

A sound does exist in the mother tongue, but not as a separate phoneme---the learner does not perceive it as a distinct sound that makes a difference to meaning.(sheep/ship)

The learners have the actual sounds right, but have not learnt the stress patterns of the word or group of words, or they are using an intonation from their mother tongue which is inappropriate to the target language.

What should be taught to the beginners, pronunciation or phonetic?

Pronunciation is more important than phonetic. Stress and intonation are as important as the sounds themselves and should be taught from the very beginning.

Whether pronunciation needs special attention or focus in language teaching depends on many factors especially learner factors.

Learners whose native language has similar sounds to English are less likely to have problems with pronunciation.

Learners who have more exposure to English need less focus on pronunciation.

Adult learners need more focus on pronunciation because they are more likely to substitute English sounds with sounds from their native language.

Beginning Chinese learners of English should focus on pronunciation and their ability to identify and

produce English sounds themselves, because phonetic transcripts are more abstract and less meaningful. When should we teach phonetic?

Phonetic rules regarding what sounds a letter or a cluster of letters should be pronounced are helpful for students to develop the ability to cope with English pronunciation and they should be introduced at a suitable stage. Beginners of English, specially young learners, should be avoided to teach phonetic.

Stress and intonation are as important as the sounds themselves and should be taught from the very beginning.

In the e xample below, different intonations for “Sorry” indicate different meanings. A neutral tone would

6.2 The goal of teaching pronunciation

1. What’s considered as a good pronunciation?

A good pronunciation means:

1) to pronounce correctly all the speech sounds of the language and all the combinations in their proper order not only isolated words, but also in sentences;

2) to pronounce sentences fluently at the speed required by the situation with correct stresses, linking of sounds, rhythm, pauses and intonation.

As a matter of fact, most Chinese learners of English do not have enough exposure to English to acquire native-like pronunciation.

2. Why most learners of English as a foreign language cannot acquire native-like English pronunciation?

Critical period hypothesis

The amount of exposure to English

Individual ability.

Critical Period Hypothesis

According to Chomsky’s theory, if humans do not learn a foreign language before a certain age, then due to changes such as maturation of the brain and speech organs, it becomes impossible to learn the foreign language like a native speaker.

The amount of exposure to English

It is another factor that determines if the students can acquire native-like English pronunciation. At the present time, most Chinese learners of English do not have enough exposure to English to acquire native-like pronunciation.

6.3 Aspects of Pronunciation

Stress

1. Single Stress i.e. important , complain, medicine

2. Main stress and secondary stress i.e. interpretation

3. Double stress i.e. thir teen, Chi nese

4. Varieties of English i.e. advertisement (Br. E) advertisement(Am. E)

5. Stress shifts i.e. import (n.), import (v.) record (n.), record (v.)

6. Stress for emphasis i.e. I’m a teacher because I like people.

7. Sentence stress: content words vs. structural words

Intonation

1. Falling intonation

(statements, special questions, exclamation, commands)

2. Rising intonation

(general questions, requests, remarks of concern and

apology, partings)

3. Combined intonation

(tag questions, compound sentences)

Read the following sentences:

You haven’t finished, / have you?

Where there is a will, / there is a way.

She can speak fairly well,/ but by no means perfect.

6.4 Practising sounds

Perception practice

Using minimal pairs

Which order?

Same or different?

Odd man out

Completion

Production practice

Listen and repeat

Fill in the blanks

Make up sentences

Use meaningful context

Use pictures

Use tongue twisters

Perception practice

Perception practice is aimed at developing the students’ ability to identify and distinguish between different sounds. Correct perception of sounds is vital for listening comprehension. Below are some examples of perception practice of English sounds.

Using minimal pairs.

Minimal pairs are two words which have only one different sound. The teacher reads either word

2. Which order?

The teacher reads each group of words in different order and the students mark the words with 1, 2, 3 .

The teacher can read the words several times in different order.

3. Same or different

The teacher reads pairs of words and asks the students to tell if the pairs of words are the same or different.

The words should not be written out.

Here is an example(D for “different” and S for “same”):

met meet (D)

well well (S)

well will (D)

4. Odd one out

The teacher reads a group of words a time and the students identify the different word or sound.

The words are not written out.

Below are some examples:

bit bit bit pit (No.4 is different.)

lid led lid lid (No. 2 is different.)

bag bag back bag (No. 3 is different.)

5. Completion

The teacher reads a series of words which have only one different sound. The students complete the words they hear.

Here is an example:

_ate _ate _ate _ate _ate _ate _ate _ate

For the words:

gate late mate fate date hate rate and Kate

Production practice

Production practice is aimed at developing students’ ability to produce sounds. Producing distinct and understandable sounds is very important for effective communication.

Here are some types of production practice activities:

Listen and repeat

Fill in the blanks

Make up sentences

Use meaningful context

Use pictures

Use tongue twisters

Listen and repeat

The students repeat what the teacher says, the content with taps or the English songs.

This activity can practice individual sounds, words, and sentences.

Fill in the blanks

The students fill in the blanks in sentences with words which contain certain sound.

Here is an example:

a. Children love to _play_ games.

b. Black and white make _grey_

c. After April comes _May_

d. Hurry up. Don’t be _late_for school.

e. We study in the same class. We are _classmates_.

Make up sentences

The students are given a group of words containing the same sound or similar sounds.

They should make up sentences as many from the given words as possible.

The sentences do not have to be realistically meaningful and logical.

Humourous sentences are preferred.

Use meaningful context

The sounds to focus on are embedded in a meaningful context and students perform meaning tasks. Students can role play the dialogue:

A: What’s wrong with you, Ann?

B: I hate this horrible job.

A: What job?

B: Washing socks.

A: What do you want to do?

B: I want a holiday.

Use pictures

The students produce meaningful language based on pictures.

Use tongue twisters

Tongue twisters are fun and motivating, and the relaxing atmosphere halps students overcome inhibition. Give students a few minutes to practice by themselves, then ask them to perform in front of the whole class.

Examples of tongue twisters

She sells sea shells on the seashore.

Five wives drank five bottles of fine wine.

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where is the peck of pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked?

6.5 Practising stress and intonation

Practising stress

Word-level stress: stress the proper syllable in multi- syllabic words

Phrase-level stress

The most important thing in practicing stress is making the students be aware of where to stress the word or phrase. Below are three ways to show the stress pattern of words, phrases and sentences.

Use gestures. The teacher can indicate the stress by clapping hands or using arm movements as if conducting music.

Use the voice. The teacher can raise the voice to indicate stress. This can be done with some exaggeration sometimes.

Use the blackboard. The teacher can highlight the stress by underlining them or writing them with colored chalks or in different size.

Practicing intonation

Intonation can greatly affect the invention of the speaker’s message. Intonation is used by native speakers to express meanings in many subtle ways such as surprise, complaint, sarcasm, friendliness, threats, etc. This is perhaps one of the last areas of language that foreign language learners can master and is very difficult to teach.

Ways to indicate change of intonation:

Use rising or falling arrows, such as and .

Mark change of intonation is to draw lines as shown below.

Unit7 Teaching Grammar

In this unit, we are going to discuss how to teach grammar. Although grammar is usually integrated with

the teaching of other language components, we stil l consider it necessary to introduce ways to “focus on form”. We will mainly talk about the following:

1. The role of grammar in ELT

2. Methods for grammar presentation

3. Methods for grammar practice

7.1 The role of grammar in ELT

Discussion:

Why do we learn grammar? (The importance of grammar)

B. Can’t we learn English without learning its grammar, as we do with mother tongue?

Before trying to find out how something can be done it is

necessary to decide whether it should be done, the value of

grammar in foreign language teaching has been a focus

of debate for decades and no conclusion is in sight.

Task 1:

Read the following assumption about grammar in English learning and decide if you agree with them or not. When you have finished, compare results with your partner. Try to give your

7.2 Grammar presentation methods

As we know grammar is so complicated that we need various methods to teach it. Among the methods for teaching grammar, the deductive method and the inductive method have been discussed and used most frequently.

.Deductive method (演绎法)

Present the rules Explain Example Apply the rules Conclusion

Example

a. 强调句句型结构It + is(was) +被强调部分+ that (who) + 句子其他成分

b. Take a sentence as an example to explain the structure

c. For instance

It was your sister that (whom) Tom met in the zoo yesterday.

It was in the zoo that Tom met your sister yesterday.

Read the two sentences and try to find the differences between them.

d. Apply in the practice

____________that the trade between the two countries reached its highest point.

A: During the 1960s B: That it was in the 1960s

C: It was in the 1960s D: It was the 1960s

e. Evaluate

Deductive method

⑴The deductive method relies or reasoning, analyzing and comparing.

⑵How to teach:

First, the teacher writes an example on the board or draws attention to an example in the textbook. Then teacher explains the underlying rules regarding the forms and positions of certain structural words. The explanations are often done in the student’s native language and using grammatical terms. Sometimes, comparisons are made between the native language and the target language or between the newly presented structure and previously learned structures.

Finally the students practice applying the rule to produce sentences with given prompts.

⑶The deductive method is often criticized:

a. it teaches grammar in an isolated way;

b. little attention is paid to meaning;

c. the practice is often mechanical.

⑷The method is not without merits.

a. it could be very successful with selected and motivated students.

b. it could save time when students are confronted with a grammar rule which is complex but which has to be learned.

c. it may help to increase students’ confidence in those examinations which are written with accuracy as the main criterion of success.

B. Inductive method（归纳法）

1.Present the rule in the contest.

2.Give more examples.

3. Ask students to focus on the use of the structure.

4. Apply the structure to produce sentences.

5. Get the students to work out the rule.

6. Elicit the rule from the students.

Inductive method

⑴In the inductive method, the teacher induces the learners to realize grammar rules without any form of explicit explanation. It is believed that the rules will become evident if the students are given enough appropriate examples.

⑵How to teach:

For exampl e, in order to present the two forms" this is” and “these are”, the teacher will first hold up a book, saying “This is a book.” He will do the same showing other objects.

Then the teacher holds up several books and says “These are books.” After several sim ilar examples, it is hoped students will understand “These are” is used with plural forms of nouns.

Then students are invited to apply the newly learned structure to produce sentences with given visual aids or verbal prompts. The teacher tries to say nothing except to correct when necessary.

Finally, but optionally, the teacher may elicit the grammar rule from the students.

⑶. It is believed the inductive method is more effective in that students discover the grammar rules themselves while engaged in language use. This is especially true with grammatical regularities which are easily perceived, understood and applied.

In practice, the distinguish between the deductive method and the inductive method is not always apparent. Perhaps a blend between the two is indeed more appropriate.

7.3 Grammar Practice

It is widely believed that practice is of vital importance in the teaching and learning grammar. But what is practice? What kind of practice is most effective? How can practice be conducted in a language classroom?

According to Ur. “practice may be defined as any kind of engaging with the language on the part of the learner, usually under the teacher supervision, whose primary objective is to consolidate learning” (Ur, 1988:11).

Before we make a further study of practice. We should remember that one way to teach grammar is by means of

Presentation

Presentation stage:

Introduce new language, focusing on its meaning, form and function. It’s important that the students understand the new language.

Practice stage:

Students work through activities from being controlled to being free in order to practice the new language in different situations. The emphasis at this stage is on accuracy.

Production stage:

Students have the chance to use the new language freely and incorporate it into their existing language. The emphasis at this stage is on use and fluency.

Ur further predicts that the following factors contribute to successful practice:

-learning. Practice is more effective when new language is clearly perceived and taken into short-term memory by the learners.

likely to learn. The learners should have plenty of time and opportunities to listen, speak, read and write.

-orientation. Practice is most effective if it is based on successful practice.

ifferent levels of answers from different learners.

hints and prompts.

ho are bored find it difficult to concentrate and their

attention wanders.

Mechanical Practice

Mechanical practice involves activities that are aimed at form accuracy. By doing mechanical practice, the students pay repeated attention to a key element in a structure. Substitution and transformation drills are most frequently used in mechanical practice.

In SUBSTITUTION DRILLS, the students substitute a part in a structure so that they get to know that

part functions in a sentence. Sometimes certain prompts are given. Below is an example:

Substitute the underlined part with the proper forms of the given words.

green lawn clean house pretty garden nice flowers

In this exercise, the students are expected to produce sentences like:

Mrs. Green has the greenest lawn in town.

Mrs. Green has the cleanest house in town.

Mrs. Green has the prettiest garden in town.

Mrs. Green has the nicest flowers in town.

When doing substitution drills, the students also need to change the forms of the given prompts. It is believed that substitution drills that involve changes in forms are effective than those in which students simply replace the target part with another word.

The transformation drills, the students change a given structure in a way so that they are exposed to another similar structure. The type of exercise helps the students to have a deeper understanding of how the structures are formed and how they are used. Below is an example of transformation:

Change the following sentences into the past tense. Use the adv. given in the brackets.

Now he lives in London.(last year, Paris)

We have English and math today. (Yesterday, music and P.E)

He gets up at seven. (This morning, eight)

Last year he lived in Paris.

Yesterday we had music and P.E.

This morning he got up at eight.

Meaningful Practice

In meaningful practice the focus is on the production, comprehension or exchange of meanings though the students “keep an eye on ” the way newly learned structures that are u sed in the process.

Meaningful practice usually comes after mechanical practice. For example, after the presentation and mechanical practice of adjective comparatives and superlatives.

Using prompts for practice

Using prompts has also proved to be an effective way of grammar practice.

The prompts can be pictures, mimes, tables or key words. Practice based on prompts is usually meaningful practice.

? Using picture prompts.

? Using mime or gestures as prompts

? Using information sheet as prompts

? Using key words or key phrases as prompts

? Using chained phrases for story telling

? Using created situations

①Using picture prompts: the students are asked to produce sentences based on the pictures provided.

②Using mime or gestures as prompts: the teacher can invite the students to ask questions like: “what were you doing at 7 o’clock yesterday evening?”or “What do you like to do in your spare time?”instead of answering the questions directly the teacher acts out the answers by miming and invites the students to guess the answers.

③Using information sheet as prompts: Students can be asked to describe each person using the

information provided and then add and tell each other their own likes.

④Using key phrase or key words as prompts: The students are asked to produce language based on pictures and key phrase provided by the teachers.

How many? playground

boys

girls

children

⑤Using chained phrase for story telling. The students try to tell a story based on given prompts. Here is an example:

7 o’clock –got up –had breakfast –hurried to school –school closed –surprised--?

⑥Using created situations. In classroom situations, it is very difficult to find a real need and a real purpose for genuine communication in English among the students. However, teachers can create a situation for students to practice the language in a communicative way.

Unit 8 Teaching Vocabulary

Aims of the unit:

Although vocabulary is usually integrated with the teaching of reading, we still consider it necessary to introduce ways to learn and consolidate vocabulary.

Assumptions about vocabulary and vocabulary building.

Methods for presenting new vocabulary items.

Ways to consolidate vocabulary;

Ways to help students develop vocabulary building strategies.

8.1 V ocabulary and vocabulary building

Unlike the controversial role of grammar in foreign language learning, the role of vocabulary seems to have received more consistent understanding. However, uncertainty still remains regarding what constitutes a vocabulary item, which vocabulary items should be taught and learned, and how vocabulary can be taught and learned most effectively.

Task I

Read the following assumptions about vocabulary in English learning and decide if you agree with them or not.

8.2 Presenting new words

Different teachers have different ways to present new words. Whatever methods are used, the following suggestions may help teachers:

Prepare examples to show meaning. Examples are best if they are created by the teachers themselves rather than taken from dictionaries.

Ask students to tell the meaning first.

Think about how to show the meaning of a word with related words such as synonyms, antonyms etc. Think about how to check students’ understanding.

Think about the context in real life where the word might be used. Relating newly learned language to real life promotes high motivation.

6) Think about possible misunderstanding or confusing that students may have.

8.3 Consolidating vocabulary

Some ways are more effective for students to consolidate their vocabulary, say in groups, through various activities and under the teacher’s supervision.

Below are some vocabulary consolidating activities that can be done in class.

Labelling

Students are given a picture. They are to write the names of objects indicated in the picture. A competitive element can be introduced by making the first student to finish the winner.

Spotting the differences

Students are put into pairs. Each member of the pair receives a picture which is slightly different from one another and then, by a process of describing, questioning and answering, discover what the differences are.

Describing and drawing

One student has a picture, the other a blank piece of paper and a pencil. The student having the picture must tell his partner what to draw so that the drawing ends up the same as the original picture.

Playing a game

Students are shown a picture or a tray with many objects on it, or a series of different flash cards or magazine pictures. They have one or two minutes to memorise as many of the objects as they can. The cards, pictures or tray are then taken away and the students have to say what they saw, or write down everything they can remember seeing, then compare their answers with the rest of the class.

Using word thermometers

These are useful for indicating different degrees in size, speed, age, distance, emotion and etc. Students are given a list of words in jumbled order. They have to place these words in the correct place on the thermometer.

Using word series

Students construct the series following an example.

Example: Cutlery: knife, fork, spoon

Vehicles: , , ,

Furniture: , , ,

Buildings: , , ,

Word bingo

The teacher thinks of an area of language (e.g. shopping) that the students have recently been studying. Students draw nine squares (3 *3 ) on a piece of paper and put nine words connected with shopping in the squares. The teacher then calls out, one at a time, words connected with shopping. If the students have the word in the squares, they cross it out. The first student to cross out all the words in the squares is the winner. The game can be played for more than one round.

Word association

The teacher says a key word, e.g. travelling. The students then have to write down all the words they can think of connected with travelling. They have a time limit, e.g. two minutes. When time is up, the person with the highest number of acceptable words in the winner.

Odd man out

The teacher writes a set of words on the blackboard and asks the students to find the “odd man out”. For example, in the set “cheese, eggs, oranges, bread, soap, and meat”, the word “soap” is the “odd man out”.

Synonyms and antonyms

The students are given a list of words and asked to find pairs of words, either synonyms or antonyms. The words in the box below are six pairs of synonyms and six pairs of antonyms. Can you find them?

Using word categories

Students put the jumbled words in the middle into the boxes marked with different categories.

Using word net-work

Students fill in the ovals in a network with words that are under the same category or sub-category.

Unit 9 Teaching Listening

English Language Teaching

Aims of the unit

1. Why is listening so difficult for students?

2. What do we listen to in everyday life?

3. What are the characteristics of the listening process?

4. What are the principles of teaching listening?

5. What are the common activities in teaching listening?

9.6 Classroom Model of Teaching Listening

1Pre-listening activities

2While-listening activities

3After-listening activities

listening Class:

1Pre-listening activities:

Introduction, Title guessing, Questions, Discussions, Key words, Visual aids

2While-listening activities

Syntactic problems, Discourse problems, Social problems, Cultural problems, Listening Strategies, Writing or reading activities

3Post-listening activities

Comprehension check-up, Oral reproduction, Written reproduction, Outside listening

Testing

listening Class

Activities for Pre-Listening Stage

Predict

Activate topic-related words

Set the frame

Tell true or false

Listen for a gist

Activities for While-Listening Stage

Listen and tick

Listen and fill

Listen and sequence

Listen and locate

Listen and repeat

Answer multiple-choice questions

Answer closed-ended or open-ended questions

Dictation

Activities for Post-Listening Stage

Note-taking and gap-filling

Answer open-ended questions

Reconstruct or summarize the passage

Do a role-play

Write on the same theme

9.6.1 Pre-listening stage

This stage is to prepare the listeners for what they are going to hear, just as we are usually prepared in real life (for example, we usually have expectations about the topic, and even the language).

Discuss a relevant picture

Discuss relevant experiences

Associate ideas with the topic

Associate vocabulary with the topic

Predict information about the topic

Write questions about the topic

Pre-listening activities

Aims for having Pre-listening activities

To spark interest and motivate students to attend to the spoken message:

To activate or build students' prior topical and linguistic knowledge:

To set purposes for listening:

Pre-listening activities:

Predicting

Setting the scene

Listening for the gist

Listening for specific information

Summary on pre-listening activities

Predicting

√using visual aids (pictures)

√asking leading questions

√students’reading the listening comprehension questions before listening

Setting the scene

Teachers can help provide the background information for students know more about the materials. So they will be better prepared to understand what they hear.

Listening for the gist

Important in real life;

Be similar to the concept of skimming a passage in reading;

The gist can be obtained from the tone of voices of the speakers

Listening for specific information

Flight;

Temperature;

price

While-listening activities:

This stage is to help the listeners to understand the text. The teacher should not expect the learners to try to understand every word but help the learners to process the information actively by involving them in practicing different listening skills .

The following are tasks for students to do while they are listening to a passage.

No specific responses

Recent research has shown that by not giving students any task the first time they listen to a passage, it can take the anxiety out of listening. This can work well with stories or with any kind of material that is interesting, humorous, or dramatic, because learners are likely to pay attention and try to understand in order to enjoy it.

Listen and tick

A large part of what makes a listening task easy or difficult is what the teacher asks the students to do with the material. The tick item is quite easy.

Listen and sequence

In this task, the students find out the order of things based on what they hear. Students can successfully

complete this type of task even when they do not understand every word they hear. This builds up their confidence and helps prepare them for the real world.

Listen and draw

Draw pictures according to what students hear;

Pair work;

Compare pictures each has drawn;

Give instructions before the activity

Notes: For this type of task, it is best to give it live rather than recorded.

Listen and fill

Fill blanks according to what the teacher read;

Do not overdo

Listen and guess

Guess according to the descriptions, such as animals, people, etc.

Post-listening activities:

This stage is to help the listeners connect what they have heard with their own ideas and experience, just as we often do in real life. It also allows the teacher to move from listening to another skill. For example, the listeners may practice speaking by role-play interviews similar to the one they have heard. Post-listening activities

Give opinions

Relate similar experiences

Role play a similar interaction

Write a brief report

Write a similar text

Debate the topic

Multiple choice questions

The most typical type of post-listening task is the multiple-choice comprehension question. While this type of task may prepare students to take traditional multiple choice tests, it does little to help them develop good listening habits and strategies. The teacher needs to decide what balance is best for the students, preparing them for traditional multiple-choice tests or preparing them to function in English in the real world.

Note-taking and gap-filling

First the students listen to a fairly long text (depending on the level). The students takes notes while they are listening. When the listening is finished, the students are given two or three minutes to tidy up the notes. Then the teacher gives the students an incomplete summary of the text that the students have listened to. The students complete the summary based on their notes. They do not have to use the original words from the text. This is a good activity where students reconstruct meaning from what they hear.

(TEM8 Listening Mini-lecture)

Dictogloss

Dictogloss is a recently discovered listening activity which requires the use of comprehensive listening skills. It has four stages:

Preparation. The teacher prepares the students by briefly talking about the topic and key words or asking general questions about the text they are going to hear. The teacher should also make sure students know what to do exactly.

Dictation. The teaching dictates the text twice. For the first time, students just listen an focus on the

meaning. For the second time, the students take extensive notes. The teacher should make sure that the dictation speed is almost at the speed of normal speech.

3) Reconstruction. Based on their notes, the students work in pairs or groups and reconstruct the text they have heard.

4) Analysis and correction. The students compare their version of the text with the original, sentence by sentence.

Summary on post-listening activities

Not demanding students remember more details than a native-speaker would in a real-life situation; Integrating listening tasks with speaking and writing;

Focus listening practice on real-life situation.

Unit 10 Teaching Speaking

Aims of the unit: Through learning and discussion ,students will get to know:

1.The purpose of learning speaking;

2.Two main factors affect the improvement of speaking ability;

3. the main characteristics of spoken language

4. principles for teaching speaking

5. Group work in speaking activities;

6. Common types of speaking activities.

Characteristics of spoken language

1Spontaneity

2Time-constraint

Spontaneity

In most situations, people do not plan ahead of time what they are going to say.

The fact that speech is spontaneous means that it is full of false starts, repetitions, incomplete sentences, and short phrases.

Teachers may be requiring their students to do more forward-thinking and planning than native speakers do in real life!（Bygate，1987）

Time-constraint

The students must be able to produce unplanned utterances in real time; otherwise people will not have the patience to listen to them.

IV. Designing speaking tasks

One important consideration: Proficiency level of the students (challenging but not too difficult.)

If the task is too easy or too difficult, the students may be demotivated.

Other factors which are common in successful speaking tasks:

Maximum foreign talk

Even participation

High motivation

Right language level

Maximum foreign talk

Try to avoid students’ talking in the mother tongue, and avoid too much Teacher Talk.

Even participation

Try to avoid outstanding students’ dominating discussions. Try to guarantee equal opportunities for students of different levels.

High motivation

Interesting topic, and clear objective. Make s ure that the task is in line with the students’ ability.

Right language level

The task must be designed so that the students can complete the task successfully with the language that they have. Otherwise the task will become frustrating and the students are likely to give up or revert to the native language.

VI. Types of speaking tasks

It is important to provide the students with a variety of speaking activities because:

1A variety of speaking activities will enable students to cope with different situations in reality.

2Variety helps keep motivation high.

3Variety may suit students of different learning styles.

4There are two major purposes for listening. One is to get information and the other is for social reasons. 5Since speaking is reciprocal of listening, the same is true of speaking.

6According to Littlewood, communicative speaking activities can be divided into two types: functional communication activities, and social interaction activities:

7For beginning students, pre-communicative activities are also necessary, which are more structural and allow the learner to practise the forms of the language. However, we should make speaking tasks as communicative as possible.

Some types of speaking activities

Information-gap activities

Dialogues and role-plays

Activities using pictures

Problem-solving activities

Other speaking activities

Information-gap activities

One excellent way to make speaking tasks communicative is to use information-gap activities, in which the students have different information and they need to obtain information from each other in order to finish a task.

Dialogues and role-plays

Two problems with most dialogues in textbooks:

Not authentic or natural. The natural speech of native speakers is often phrases or sentence fragments full of pauses, false starts, and repetitions.

The way most dialogues are taught. Teachers ask students to memorize dialogues by heart.

Activities using pictures

Pictures are invaluable in speaking activities. Appropriate pictures provide cues, prompts, situations and non-verbal aid for communication. Students from elementary level to advanced level can all benefit from using pictures in speaking activities.

Problem-solving activities

You are on a committee that is in charge of deciding what to do with a small amount of money that has been donated to improve your school. You have a list of things to do, but you only have enough money for 5 of the items. You must reach a consensus (agreement) in your group on which 5 items you will spend the money. Here is the list:

Problem solving activities require a higher level of language proficiency, but the difficulty levels can be controlled somewhat by the topic.

In problem-solving activities, “participants tend to become personally involved; they begin to relate the

problem as an emotional issue as well as an intellectual and moral one” (Ur 1996:128).

Other speaking activities

Find someone who …

e.g. Sand up and walk around the room. Ask your classmates what they like to do. Remember, you must speak in English only!

Bingo activities

Change the story

Step 1: Form groups of 3-5;

Step 2: The group together makes a list of about 20 random verbs.

e.g. go, sleep, teach, learn, jump, fall, look (at), hear, laugh, sing, etc.

Step 3: Each one writes a short story, and underlines all the verbs in the story;

e.g.

Step 4: Each one read his/her story, but pauses at every verb. The group then supplies one of the random verbs into that slot.

The results can be very funny.

A possible version may be:

No specific responses

The teacher calls out a verb and students hold up a letter card each and rush to spell a word. (This seems to be practising listening rather than speaking.)

VII. Organising speaking tasks

Advantages of using group work:

More opportunities. As compared with activities for the whole class, group work enables students to talk a lot because it increases the time for each student to practise speaking in one lesson.

More motivation. Group work helps students avoid losing their face in front of a whole class, and thus it makes students courageous to speak.

More authenticity. Speaking in a small group is more natural than speaking in a large group, because the latter is usually more formal and requires preparation.

Different levels. Students can naturally perform to their abilities more readily in small groups than in a whole class, i.e. students of different levels can participate.

More cooperation. Small group work helps students learn to work cooperatively and it helps develop interpersonal skill – fostering development of tolerance, mutual respect and harmony.

Unit 11

Teaching Reading

GROUP MENBERS:

Contents

The Nature of Reading

How do we read?

What do we read?

Strategies involved in reading comprehension

The role of vocabulary in reading