Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Warm up
Express freely your opinion on the following:
1. I teach each unit of the book in the same way.
2. I talk too much in my lessons.
3. The best topic for a conversation is one that interests the teacher.
4. Mistakes are best corrected as soon as the students make them.
5. Competences are semantically identical with skills.
6.There is no difference between competences and objectives.
Language Systems
The sounds (phonology);
The meaning of the individual words or groups of words (lexis or vocabulary);
How the words interact with each other within the sentence (grammar);
The use to which the words are put in particular situations (function). Analysis of how
these sentences relate (or don't relate) to each other (known as discourse)
Questions to be considered when teaching English
2. Why do we teach? Aims:
1. to develop competences in the english language;
2. to increase the students general knowledge of the English language;
3. Why do students (or people) learn English?
Basically, to acquire new skills and to develop new competences in English (either
because they have moved to a new place or because they need English at school.
ELT METHODS
The grammar-translation method
The direct method
The audio-lingual method
The cognitive code approach
The notional-functional approach
The communicative approach
the total physical response
the natural approach
task-based learning
lexical approaches
Teaching Pronunciation
Sample activities:
1. minimal pair drills (made of two words which differ in only one sound), based on
sound differences. To use short lists of words associated with pictures:
bad bed
reach rich
live leave
Teaching Grammar
Two approaches: the deductive or the inductive approach.
The deductive approach: from theory (explanations, grammar rules) to examples
(phrases or sentences). The structure is introduced overtly, the teacher stating its name,
meaning, form, usage, exceptions, etc. and then giving examples to illustrate it.
The inductive approach: the students see examples of language and then work out the
rules.
Predictive skills = at the basis of the expectation principle. Efficient readers / listeners
predict what they are going to read / hear.
Teaching the receptive skills
Harmers model:
1. Lead-in the Ss and the T prepare themselves for the task and familiarize themselves
with the topic of the reading / listening exercise. Purpose - to create expectations
2. The teacher directs task to follow a During this stage the teacher makes sure that
the students know what they have to do;
3. Students read / listen and perform the task;
4. The teacher directs feedback helps the students see if they performed the task
successfully;
5. The teacher organizes a follow-up task asks them to create something based on
the text; work based on reading/ listening texts can lead to discussion or written work
in related areas.
PREDICTION
The following activities may be used for prediction:
minidiscussion on the topic;
discussion of a headline / title;
discussion of the first line / paragraph;
brainstorming related to the topic;
announce the topic and ask the students to think of questions they expect to be answered
by the text;
announce the topic and the characters involved and ask the students to predict their
attitudes and opinions.
While reading/listening
Tasks to be performed while reading / listening:
gap-filling exercises;
tables, charts, diagrams to be completed with information given by the text;
true / false statements;
note-taking;
find synonyms / antonyms for certain words in the text;
asking the students to guess the title;
asking them to answer a series of questions.
Teaching Listening
We may speak about:
intensive listening occurring in the classroom;
extensive listening occurring away from the classroom.
Teaching Listening
Principles:
Encourage students to listen as often and as much as possible.
Help students prepare to listen: have them look at pictures, discuss the topic, help them
get engaged with it.
Play the audio track or extracts of it several times, if needed.
Encourage students to respond to the content of a listening text, not just to the language.
New language structure
Scrivener (2005) differentiates three categories within the umbrella of
presentation:
1. teacher explanation;
2. guided discovery;
3. self-directed discovery.
TASK
Classify the following grammar-clarification activities as mainly (E) explanation,
(G) guided discovery or (S) self-directed discovery?
1 You write some sentences (all using the past perfect) on the board, but with the
words mixed up, then hand the board pen to the students and leave the room. S
2 You tell a story about your weekend. Every time you use a verb in the past simple,
you repeat it and write it on the board. At the end, you write 'past simple' on the board
and explain that you used all these verbs in the past because the story happened last
Saturday. E
3 You lecture about the construction of conditional sentences. E
4 You create a board situation, clarify a specific meaning and then elicit appropriate
sentences from the students or model them yourself. G
5 You hand out a list of twenty If sentences. You ask students to work together,
discuss and find out what the 'rules' are. S
Practice grammar
The following types of pattern practice drills can be used:
1. repetition drills;
2. substitution one word in the sentence is replaced by another of the same class:
We ate at the restaurant last week.
They at home yesterday. etc.
3. replacement the substitution of one word in the sentence triggers changes, but the
basic structure is preserved:
I come to school every day.
She
. yesterday.
4. transformation or conversion affirmative into negative or interrogative, active into
passive; singular into plural, present into past.
5. completion requires production of a sentence to make it complete:
I want a
I want to
6. question-answer: Do you learn English? Yes, I do. / No, I dont.
LISTENING
Listening may be practised for:
specific vocabulary,
specific information
or meaning and message.
The acquisition of each subskill requires the use of various activities.
Listening for specific vocabulary
In the case of listening for specific vocabulary - fill in the blanks or simply put down
certain words they hear in a text (like names of vehicles, names of plants etc.).
Listening for specific information
For listening for specific information - ask them to say if certain sentences are true
or false, or ask them to fill in a grid (with characters names, age, place and time of
certain events, etc.). It is not necessary for the students to understand the whole text.
Listening for meaning and message
In the case of listening for meaning and message, we may use multiple choice tasks,
asking them to choose the correct answer to a set of questions, for instance.
Procedure for listening
set the task;
play the recording;
check if the students performed the task;
if not, play the recording again as often as necessary.
If you suggest several tasks, set them in turns, and then play the recording and get the
students answers and offer feedback after each of them.
Teaching Reading
A distinction can be made between extensive reading, that students do away from the
classroom and intensive reading that students do in the classroom.
Other useful distinctions would be between authentic texts and adapted texts, and
between authentic texts and artificially created texts.
Different types of texts require different reading techniques: we may use - sentence-
level reading vs. global reading techniques
linear reading vs. skimming scanning,
reading aloud vs. silent reading.
Sentence-level reading and linear reading = reading each and every word and
sentence
The global reading techniques - scanning and skimming (silent reading techniques)
Skimming = reading fast to extract the main idea. E.g.: the way in which we read a
magazine or we evaluate a book to see whether we would like to read it or not.
A typical skimming question: Is this story set in a restaurant or in a school?
Scanning
In the case of scanning we photograph the entire page to perceive certain elements
that catch our eye. In this way, we locate specific information quickly, without reading
the whole text.
Typical scanning question would be What time does the museum open?
Reading tasks
The following ideas for reading tasks can be used:
put the paragraphs/ illustrations of the text in the right order;
insert the sentences in the appropriate places;
find words in the text that mean the same as those in the list;
act out the dialogues, story, etc.;
pick out the texts with missing sentences/ paragraphs;
decide whether information is missing before or after the text;
select a sentence/ paragraph that does not belong to the text.
Teaching Speaking
In short, the 6 characteristics of communicative activities are:
desire to communicate;
communicative purpose;
attention focused on content, not form;
variety of language;
no teacher intervention;
little materials control.
Communicative activities
Condition the existence of an information gap between the students - one S knows
something that another S does not.
PARTEA A- II- A
Testing
Testing is an intrinsic part of the learning process. It includes all the techniques and
procedures the teacher uses to promote and assess learning.
According to whether they take place before, during or after teaching, tests may be:
placement tests, given at the beginning of the learning process;
progress, diagnostic and achievement tests, given during the learning process;
proficiency tests, given after the learning process.
Placement tests
Intended to provide information which will place students at the stage or in the part of
the teaching programme most appropriate to their abilities.
Progress and diagnostic tests
Progress tests are small-scale tests meant to verify recent, short-term learning; short
duration.
Diagnostic tests are larger-scale tests, covering information taught during an entire
unit or even semester; longer duration.
Achievement (attainment) tests
Designed to establish how successful individual students, groups of students or even
courses have been in achieving objectives. They are comprehensive tests set at the end
of a school year, of a teaching cycle or of a language course.
Proficiency tests
Designed to measure students ability in a language regardless of any training they
may have had in that language.
Other topics
Subjective testing (it depends largely on the personal decision of the Marker) vs.
objective testing (there is a clear correct answer)
Discrete-point tests (testing specific individual language points; marked objectively)
vs. global-integrative tests (a number of items or skills tested in the same question;
marked subjectively)
Some common discrete-item testing techniques
Gap-fill (single sentence; cloze; multiple choice)
Sentence transformation (rephrase..)
Sentence construction/reordering - brother / much / he's / than / his / taller
True-false
Direct items vs. indirect items
Direct items actually performing the task; usually associated with productive skills
(speaking; writing)
Direct speaking item actually speaking in the foreign language; what would that
mean in writing?
Indirect items
Indirect items try to measure student
knowledge & ability by getting at what lies beneath their receptive & productive
skills.
Thus, if we believe that grammatical knowledge contributes to writing ability, then a
grammar test may be used as an indirect test of writing.
Indirect test item types
Multiple choice questions (MCQs)
The journalist was _____ by enemy fire as he tried to send a story by radio.
a wronged b wounded c injured d damaged
Advantages easy to score; elimination of error.
Disadvantages difficult to construct; time-consuming
CLOZE - the deletion of every nth word in a text (somewhere every fifth or tenth
word, ideally 9th). Procedure random.
Example: They sat on a bench attached 1 _____ a picnic table. Below them they 2
_____ see the river gurgling between overgrown 3 _____. The sky was diamond blue,
with 4 _____ white clouds dancing in the freshening 5 _____.
CLOZE
Dis.: - some items are more difficult to supply than others
- there may be several possible answers.
Adv.: - it shows understanding of the context
- a knowledge of that word and how it functions.
Cloze is not identical to fill-in the blanks. In cloze types, the deletion is systematically.
With filling-in, it is subjective.
Indirect items
Transformation items - Finish each of the following sentences in such a way that it is
as similar as possible in meaning to the sentence printed before it.
Im sorry that I didnt get her an anniversary present.
I wish___________________________.
Reordering items
Put the words in order to make correct sentences:
called / I / Im / in / sorry / wasnt / when / you.
The correct verbal form
Derivatives
Finding errors in sentences.
PLANNING
Types of lessons:
focusing on one skill: reading, writing, speaking, listening;
grammar lessons;
lessons of revision;
combined / mixed lessons, which are most common.
MISCELLANEA
Aim vs. objective:
AIM= general goal; it broadly focuses on what you plan to do and achieve with your
students in a lesson.
OBJECTIVE (OR LEARNING OUTCOME) = specific goal; smaller steps that make
up the aims.
Objectives classification
Cognitive
Affective
Physical
Aims vs. Objectives example
A Lesson on American Slang
Aim: to understand and become proficient at identifying the different types of spoken
English.
Objective: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to identify American slang
terms.
Objectives:
Cognitive: Students will identify and list 5 slang terms they have heard from
their peers.
Affective: Student will choose 3 of the most offensive slang terms from a list
developed by the entire class.
Physical: Students will create expressive gestures to go with their favorite slang
terms.