Summary

This document provides an overview of language skills, focusing on listening and reading. It discusses techniques and activities for improving these skills. It also includes a comparison between listening and reading processes and how to improve them.

Full Transcript

Language Skills Traditionally we speak of four language skills: two ‘receptive’ skills – listening and reading, and two ‘productive’ skills – speaking and writing. The receptive skills have number of things in common and the classroom techniques for listening and reading are often similar. In the sa...

Language Skills Traditionally we speak of four language skills: two ‘receptive’ skills – listening and reading, and two ‘productive’ skills – speaking and writing. The receptive skills have number of things in common and the classroom techniques for listening and reading are often similar. In the same way, there are a number of similarities between lessons that practice the productive skills of speaking and writing. Integrative Skills In real life the language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing are generally integrated rather than occurring in isolation. When taking part in a conversation, for example, we both listen and speak; when we fill in a form we read and write, and taking notes form a lecture involves listening and writing. A comparison between listening and reading: Listening Reading Before listening (pre-listening) Before reading (pre-reading) Before listening activity, Before reading activity, encourage students to talk about encourage students to talk about and discuss what they are going and discuss what they are going to hear. Or create a ‘need to to read. Or create a ‘need to know’ by telling them how the know’ by telling them how the 18 listening task fits in with a later reading task fits in with a later activity they are going to do. activity they are going to do. Use prompts such as realia, Use prompts such as realia, visuals, questions, references to visuals, questions, references to you or the students’ experience, you or the students’ experience, a short discussion task to arouse a short discussion task to arouse the student’s interest, to activate the student’s interest, to activate any knowledge they have about any knowledge they have about the topic and to help them the topic and to help them predict what they are going to predict what they are going to hear. read. The pre-listening activity The pre-reading activity must be entirely relevant to must be entirely relevant to what the students will hear. what the students will read. Don’t worry about Don’t worry about ‘mistakes’ during these lead-in ‘mistakes’ during these lead-in activities – the here is not to activities – the here is not to focus on accuracy but rather to focus on accuracy but rather to create real interest which will create real interest which will motivate the students to listen. motivate the students to read. 1. First Listening stage 1. First reading stage Set a task to help focus on Set a task to help focus on overall understanding. This can overall understanding. This can be in the form of two or three be in the form of two or three questions. questions. Example: These pictures tell a Example: These pictures tell a story. Listen and put them in story. Read and put them in the the correct order. correct order. 19 Don’t make the completion Don’t make the completion of the task dependent on the of the task dependent on the students catching every detail. students catching every detail. You may want to tell the You may want to tell the students that you don’t expect students that you don’t expect them to understand every word. them to understand every word. 2. Give the listening text for the 2. Give the reading text for the first time (either by the first time. recording or read the text). Students should ‘skim’ the text quickly to get the general idea of the reading passage. Whether you do read the listening text yourself or play a Tell students not to read recording, it is probably better everything. Just read the first not to pause – this is more sentences in each paragraph realistic and helps the students and try to get the general idea of concentrate on getting the whole what it’s about so that you can picture. answer the questions on the board. Feedback You have ‘two’ minutes Possibly ask the students to only to finish the task. (This discuss their answers and may discourage students from opinions in pairs or groups reading for detail when they before you elicit them. If the should be skimming. listening is recorded, you can ask the students whether they Feedback would like to hear the whole or part of the text again before you Possibly ask the students to they go on to focus on the text in discuss their answers and more detail. opinions in pairs or groups before you elicit them. While-listening stage 20 2. Second Listening While-reading stage 1. Set a task to focus on more 2. Second reading detailed understanding Again, give students some idea Usually, there will be six or of how long they have to do this seven questions which require and how they should set about long answers. the task. This time you may want to Intensive reading make the task easier by pausing – especially if the students have Intensive reading involves to write note, for example. learners reading in detail with Monitor and assess how well specific learning aims and tasks. they are doing the task. 1. Set a task to focus on more Feedback detailed understanding Again, encourage the students to Usually, there will be six or work together before eliciting seven questions which require their responses. long answers from the reading passage. 3. post-listening stage Feedback Checking and summarizing discussion, personal responses. Again, encourage the students to work together before eliciting Ordering according to their responses. criteria, 3. post-reading stage. De signing something. Checking and summarizing, discussion, personal responses. 21 Ordering according to criteria. For example, rearranging jumbled sentences. Writing a completion of a story (for advanced learners). Scanning You can set a task for students to practice ‘scanning’ by asking them to find out a number, a name, a date or anything by using scanning skill. Extensive reading This kind of reading is more suitable for pleasure reading. However, it will be difficult to answer questions that need some details. Speaking Skill Being a ‘good speaker’ requires a range of skills beyond accurate grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, though these are the basic building blocks that enable a message to be understood. However, speaking has many different aspects. It is useful to look at them under these headings: 22 1. Accuracy Accuracy involves the correct use of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. In controlled and guided activities, the focus is usually on accuracy and the teacher makes it clear from the feedback that accuracy is important. Ongoing corrections is often appropriate during accuracy activities. In free activities, the teacher is hoping for the correct use of language, but is also keen to encourage the students attempts to use the language they have in order to communicate. 2. Fluency Fluency can be thought of as the ability to keep going when speaking spontaneously. When speaking fluently, students should be able to get the message across with whatever resources and abilities they have got, regardless of grammatical and other mistakes. Normally, students should not be corrected during fluency activities. Here are some commonly accepted characteristics of fluent speech: Sounds and words are mostly connected rather than produced in isolation or with breaks between them; Ideas are conveyed without excessive hesitation. When hesitation exists, it is usually to look for ideas instead of attempts to find words; 23 Pauses are frequently filled with fillers and occur between sentences or clauses rather than halfway through them; Speech is relatively effortless on the part of the speaker, and can be followed without strain or discomfort by the interlocutor; It contains frequent use of formulaic language, or ready-made chunks that are accessed promptly. In that way, sentences are not built word by word by the speaker; Slips, hesitation and reformulation does not affect coherence, so the ideas conveyed are overall clear. Role of the teacher Rather than teaching words in isolation or grammar, consider teaching lexical chunks or phrases that can be more readily accessed by students. For example, an elementary student can learn that they could use “I’ve been to…” to refers to places they have visited without having to analyze (or “learn”) the present perfect. Help students become more confident with sounds, features of connected speech, word stress and sentence stress. Drills can be quite useful to help students get their tongues around the different sounds in the English language. Help students to use the communication strategies. Such as asking for clarification: I don’t understand. Do you mean? The ability to paraphrase - ‘put it another way’ or explain/ describe what they want 24 to say if they haven’t got the right language. This can involve using gestures or even mime. The use of common expressions like. I see what you mean. Never mind. What is the matter. The use of fillers and hesitation devices: Well, let me think. Let's see. Before the lesson: Decide on your aim: what you want to do and why. Try to predict what the students will bring to the activity and any problems they might have. Will they have something to speak about? Are they capable of doing the activity successfully? Do they have the necessary language? Will the students find the activity interesting, useful, fun? Work out how long the activity will take and tailor it to the time available. Prepare the materials. Work out your instructions. During the activity: Arouse the student interest through visuals, a short lead-in talk. Try to relate the topic to the students’ own interests and experience. You may want to remind students of any structures or vocabulary that might be useful – perhaps leaving them on the board for reference. 25 Set up the activity so that the students know the aims and the activity and what they are to do. This means giving clear instructions and checking that they have been understood. Make sure the students have enough time to prepare, perhaps in pairs or groups, before asking them to tackle the main activity. Don’t be tempted to cut down on the time needed for the activity. Don’t forget that the students are probably getting useful speaking practice at this stage too. Monitor the activity: don’t interrupt except to provide help and encouragement if necessary. Watch the pace – don’t let the activity drag on and remember to leave time for feedback. Evaluate the activity and the students’ performance in order to provide feedback later but don’t jump in with instant correction. After the activity: Provide feedback: Indicate how each person communicated, comment on how fluent each was, how well they argued as a group, and so on. Focus on possible improvements rather than mistakes. Note down errors in grammar, pronunciation, use of vocabulary. Individual mistakes might be discussed (in private) with student concerned. 26 Mistakes which are common to the class can be discussed and then practiced another day when you have a chance to prepare a suitable remedial lesson. Activities To Promote Speaking Discussions Students can become involved in agree/disagree discussions. In this type of discussions, the teacher can form groups of students, preferably 4 or 5 in each group, and provide controversial sentences like “people learn best when they read vs. people learn best when they travel”. Then each group works on their topic for a given time period, and presents their opinions to the class. Role Play One other way of getting students to speak is role-playing. Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles. In role-play activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are and what they think or feel. Thus, the teacher can tell the student that "You are David, you go to the doctor and tell him what happened last night, and…" 27 Information Gap In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs. One student will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners will share their information. Storytelling Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates. Story Completion This is a very enjoyable, whole-class, free-speaking activity for which students sit in a circle. For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few sentences he or she stops narrating. Picture Describing Another way to make use of pictures in a speaking activity is to give students just one picture and having them describe what it is in the picture. For this activity students can form groups and each group is given a different picture. Students discuss the picture with their groups, then a spokesperson for each group describes the picture to the whole class. Find the Difference For this activity students can work in pairs and each couple is given two different pictures, for example, picture of boys playing football and another picture of girls playing tennis. Students in pairs discuss the similarities and/or differences in the pictures. 28 Writing Skill While speech has a greater range of non-verbal means to express meaning, writing will need a greater accuracy as no immediate feedback is given to the writer. Writing is more precise and it should be more accurate than speech. As with speaking, activities to improve writing skills can range from very controlled/guided to free or creative. Controlled/guided practice activities can help improve accuracy whereas free or creative writing activities can help students to write more fluently. Writing involves many different aspects. It is useful to look at them under these headings: 1. Handwriting This may be a problem for students who are not familiar with Roman script: Far Eastern and Arabic-speaking students, for example. 2. Spelling Again, usually more of a problem for speakers of non-European languages. However, speakers of languages where the spelling and pronunciation are consistent, for example, Spanish, also need help with spelling as English pronunciation does not coincide with the various ways of spelling. 3. Punctuation 29 The conventions of English capital letters and punctuation are not universal and might have to be taught. 4. Sentence Construction The construction of sentences that are grammatically correct, using correct word order. 5. Organizing a text and paragraphing Dividing the information into paragraphs. Knowing when to start a new paragraph. Ordering the paragraphs to present logical argument, tell as story, etc., 6. Text Cohesion The appropriate use of linking words and phrases so that the organization of the text is clear to the reader. 7. Style and register Using language (structures and vocabulary) appropriate to the formality and style of the text. According to Rivers (1978) in the first stage writing is a mechanic process which he called ‘writing down’. The next stage would be writing in the language which revealed the grammatical, lexical and pragmatic rules and the awareness of the rules above. At the production stage sentences and paragraphs were formed. The last stage of developing writing skills was free or expressive writing which meant writing compositions in which a language learner could use the language code with necessary awareness and for a certain communicative purpose. 30 Gorman (1979) distinguished four stages of developing writing skills: 1. controlled writing, 2. directed writing, 3. guided writing, 4. free/creative writing. 1. Controlled writing controlled writing activities are copying and dictation. It is a good idea to use copying in a way which encourages students to think: this means using crosswords or matching pictures with captions or sequencing sentences. Teachers are expected to choose texts either for copying or for dictation which are age relevant and interesting. Dictation is a very safe type of exercise if you can keep the language elementary and simple, for beginners’ dictation should be short and interesting it should have a purpose and be connected to work which has gone before or comes after. 2. Directed writing Fill-in exercises are useful activities, especially at the beginner stages. They do not require much active production of language, since most of the language is given but they require understanding. Try to use meaningful exercises. Fill-in exercises can be used for lexical and grammatical practice. The purpose of guided writing at sentence level is to make students practice spelling, punctuation, new vocabulary and structures. 3. Guided writing Guided writing involves teacher working with a group of learners on a writing task. The aims of the task are based on what they have previously 31 been learning about the writing process. The teacher is working with the groups to guide them in the correct use of the target language. For example, this may include making suggestions (‘why don’t we start by saying…...? Agreeing and disagreeing (‘That’s a good idea), and asking for help (‘Is it right to say…?). 4. Free/Creative writing This type of writing activities needs a lot of creativity and imagination. Students can be asked to write a short story or a poem, or an article based on their previous experience. The importance of writing process at compositions and essays There are methodological steps leading students to essay writing: 1. As a first step, teachers should lead in the topic either with a picture or with some introductory questions. Students could be asked to come up with certain ideas about the topic in question. This step can be called brainstorming. The ideas suggested by the students must be put on the board and then classified according to certain criteria, for example, in case of argumentative essays arguments for a principle must be enumerated in a column while counter arguments must be listed in another one. 2. The next step is composing based on the listed arguments and counter arguments the students are supposed to make an outline of the composition together. The next step to do is making a first draft followed by editing. At this stage, it is very important to call the students’ attention to proper organization and to give them some prompts on how to make a text cohesive. Discourse markers and linking words must be in focus here. 32 The last stage of writing process will be making a final version. Only this step should be made at home. A piece of writing should contain certain parts Introduction, body and conclusion. Depending on the type of essay the basic parts mentioned above can be varied. In argumentative essays, for example, after the introduction of a problem background information and thesis are given. As a second stage supporting ideas should follow which means reasons to support the thesis, one paragraph for each reason. Refutation will follow this part. After refutation a proper conclusion must be given the function of this is to offer solution or a recommendation. It is important to remember that this part should not bring up a new topic. Coherence and discourse markers While writing an essay or a composition students must focus on unity. It means that each sentence in the paragraph relates to the same topic and develops the same controlling idea. Each paragraph within an essay has to be directly related to the thesis. If any sentence or paragraph does not relate to or develop that idea, it is irrelevant and should be omitted from the paragraph or essay. The next term to keep in mind while writing an essay is coherence. A coherent paragraph/essay contains sentences that are logically arranged and flow smoothly. Cohesion is the next term we have to define here. By cohesion we mean the linguistic devices with the help of which the writer makes the text coherent. The strongest cohesive 33 devices include pronominal references (e.g., s/he, them, it) and conjunctions (e.g., and, but and other discourse markers and connectives. Handwriting Instruction 5 Simple Tips for Teaching Handwriting Students use handwriting every day—so it’s pretty important to make sure they know how to write by hand! But with a million and one things to squeeze into limited classroom time, trying to fit in handwriting instruction may seem like a daunting task. However, we have good news for you: teaching handwriting doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. Here are a few tips to make handwriting instruction both simple and effective. 5 Simple Tips for Teaching Handwriting 1. Don’t assign practice without instruction. In order for students to effectively practice a letter, they first need to be taught how to properly form that letter. However, sometimes handwriting practice is assigned without any instruction actually taking place. (See #3 for a common consequence of assigning practice without instruction.) Before students ever pick up a pencil, the step-by-step formation of the letter should be thoroughly explained. Which basic strokes are used to make the letter? Where does the letter begin? Where does it end? Building this background knowledge of the letter will help students understand how to form the letter, which in turn makes handwriting practice much more meaningful and effective. (And here’s a secret: this important step only takes a few minutes to complete!) 2. Begin with the basics. Whether you’re teaching manuscript or cursive, always begin handwriting instruction with the basic strokes. It’s much easier for students to learn a few simple basic strokes than to learn to draw fifty-two shapes (letters)! Once they have mastered the basic strokes, students can then use those strokes to form letters. 34 The manuscript basic strokes can also help determine whether children are ready to begin formal handwriting instruction. If they can make horizontal lines, vertical lines, slant lines, and circles, they can put those together to make letters. 3. Remember: practice makes permanent. We all know the saying “practice makes perfect.” Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. If students write a letter incorrectly and continue to make that mistake repeatedly as they practice, they are effectively teaching themselves to forever write that letter incorrectly. To prevent students from developing permanent bad handwriting habits, proper instruction and immediate self-evaluation are key. This way, they recognize their errors immediately and correct them in subsequent practice. Which leads us to… 4. Pause to self-evaluate. Studies suggest that, following proper handwriting instruction, students should practice a letter six to eight times and then stop to evaluate their work. The reason for this is simple: students do their best work the first several times they write the letter. If they continue to write the letter 20 or 30 times, their work tends to deteriorate. They may start to experience hand fatigue. They might lose focus and begin rushing to complete the task. Regardless of the reason, this leads us right back to the “practice makes permanent” issue. After students complete one line of practice (writing the letter 6–8 times), have them stop to look at their work. Which letter did they write the best? Which one needs the most work? By identifying what they did correctly and what they need to work on, students can self-correct in their next line of practice. This simple step can prevent students from developing bad handwriting habits. 5. Create a print-rich environment. When students are learning how to write by hand, they may need a reminder of how to form the letters from time to time. Wall strips, wall charts, and desk strips provide accurate letter models for students to reference as they write throughout the day. Don’t forget to be mindful of your own handwriting as well. Modeling is teaching, so every time you write on the board or students’ papers, they look to your handwriting for reference, too! Try these simple tips for teaching handwriting to help your students master proper techniques and avoid bad handwriting habits. 35

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