UNIT TEN

THE WRITING SKILL

Objectives
After studying this unit, attempting the questions and activities and doing the
required reading, you should be able to:-
1 differentiate between basic and secondary writing skills;
2 recognise and define a topic sentence;
3 explain how a topic sentence is expanded in a paragraph;
4 list the salient features of descriptive writing;
5 explain the difference between a narrative and a story;
6 define the term expository writing;
7 enumerate some expository writing sub-skills;
8 write we11-organised paragraphs.
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 In Unit 9 we considered the components of writing in general, and the
characteristics of communicative writing in particular. In this unit we shall be
looking at various kinds of communicative writing, and we shall investigate the
special skills involved.
1.2 Look at this diagram. It shows some of the skills that a writer has to learn:-
Initial stage Secondary stage

Orthography paragraph
Vocabulary - format
Spelling - main point
Punctuation - supporting details
sentence structure
sentence linkers style
- formal to friendly
presentation of logical
 functions
- descriptions
- definitions
- comparisons (and so on)

1.3 You will see that writing is a highly complex activity. First the learner must
recognise and produce the alphabet; next he must be able to combine those letters
together to represent words. He already knows how to combine these words to
form grammatical structures in the spoken version of his own language, but this
can present a problem when the learner comes to learn a foreign language.
Gradually he will increase his vocabulary and hie knowledge of spelling rules. He
will add to these the ability to punctuate, (punctuation being the written
equivalent of intonation patterns). These are the primary writing skills. Many of
these have been mentioned in Course 552, and we suggest that you take a quick
look through Units 8 and 9 of this course in order to remind yourself.
1 TIE PARAGRAPH AND ITS STRUCTURE
2.1 Here are two visual representations of paragraph design. In the first one,
(format A), the beginning is marked by leaving a few spaces. This is called
indentation. Such a layout is now thought to be somewhat old-fashioned, and
format B is now preferred by many people. Here, the indentation has gone, and
the start of a new paragraph is denoted by leaving a blank line after the previous
one.
2.2 Obviously, the length of a paragraph cannot be specified. It should
contain the development of a single idea or theme. As such, it may form a few
lines or, less likely, one or two pages. All that we can say is that usually it
contains more than one sentence. The sentences are joined thematically by
linkers.
2.3 As we have said, the content of a paragraph represents a unity of
meaning, or theme. Imaging, for example,- that we are writing on the topic of
health. Now, there are many major ideas linked to this topic that you might want
to write about: for example, you might want to write about physical and mental
health in general, about some of the major reasons for poor health, about the role
of physical exercise in staying healthy, and so on. Paragraph formation will help
you to divide your thoughts into smaller units, and thus to organise your written
text. Since most of our writing activities require us to break up our thoughts into
a series of paragraphs, it follows that if we can master the art of writing a well-
organised paragraph, we will have mastered the skill of good writing.
2.4 We have said that our ideas on any particular topic are divided into a number
of paragraphs as we write. It follows that the core of a paragraph is its main idea,
expressed in a topic sentence. The main idea is then expanded by using various
writing sub-skills, such as giving an explanation, an example, a reason, and so
on. Here is an example:-
Most of our village children suffer from ill-health, here are two main reasons for
poor health: poverty and ignorance.
The main idea, expressed in the topic sentence, is that village children are often
unhealthy. The second sentence supports the topic sentence by giving reasons. We
can thus say that this is a well-organised paragraph. (We may wish to continue it
by saying more about poverty and ignorance.) However, we must bear it in mind
that although in the short paragraph noted above, the topic sentence is also the
opening sentence, this position is by no means fixed. Sometimes, but less often,
you may find the topic sentence in a position at the end of the paragraph.
ACTIVITY 1
Read the following paragraph:-
My father is very strict with us. He says his prayers regularly. He goes to the
office punctually and he goes to bed early.
a. What is the paragraph about?
b. Which is the topic sentence?
c. What is wrong with the details?
This passage is confusing because it is not well-organised. The topic sentence is
not clear, since the other sentences do not support it. In fact all of the sentences
could be the topic sentences.
2.5 We have implied earlier that each paragraph in a piece of communicative
writing represents a module of thought. The way in which these thoughts are
organised within the paragraph depends on which of the writing sub-skills we are
using. These sub-skills are summarised here:-
Sub-skills used in organising a paragraph
Description Narration Expository Writing
Skills
people definition
places classification
objects comparison &
contrast analogy cause & effect
and so on....
3 DESCRIPTIVE WRITING
3.1 Writing descriptions is one of the most commonly used writing sub-skills.
Among the things that we describe are people we know, places we visit, and
things we buy or possess. Quite often our descriptions are highly subjective; our
choice of adjectives make clear to the reader our attitudes towards the things we
are describing. Look at this example:-
Subjective description: This is a gorgeous house; the rooms are big and airy. It's
wonderful to have so many cupboards in each room.
Objective description: The rooms in this house are 16 x 14 x 14, and each room
has two full length cupboards.
ACTIVITY 2
Here is a description which is subjective. Can you rewrite it in a more neutral
tone?
I bought a wonderful present for my father. It's a book called Pak-Iran Relations.
It's expensive - it cost Rs.200, but never mind! He thinks that anything published
by A B Samad must be marvellous.
3.2 In describing an object, we talk about its qualities or its physical features, but
we should remember that a descritiaa does not need to be 'photographic'. A
photograph represents all the visible features of the thing photographed, whereas
a description is usually more selective. In writing descriptions, we pick out only
those features which support the theme of the paragraph which we are writing.
For example, you may wish to describe your friend to someone. You will try to
pick out those points about him which are favourable, or most striking, You will
leave out any points which are irrelevant, or, since he is your friend,
unfavourable.
ACTIVITY 3
You have been given the object shown in the picture below as a present, but you
don't like it at all. Describe it to your friend. (Your friend did not give you the
present.)

ASK YOURSELF
Which features did you not mention,, because they would have made the object
seem desirable?
3.3 To write a' 'good' description it is important that you mention specific details.
General comments produce a hazy picture. For example, if you merely say that
your English tutor is 'good', it does not tell us much. But if you say that he is
punctual, that he always comes to class well-prepared, and that he always returns
your assignments promptly, then that means something.
ACTIVITY 4 -
Here are two general comments. Change them by giving specific details.
a. His new car was wrecked.
b. The furniture was worn out.
QUESTION 1
Why is a written description usually better organised than a spoken one?
3.4 Describing a person
We can describe a person's
- appearance
- physique
- personality
ACTIVITY 5
1/Dok at the photograph shown opposite, and follow the instructions.
a. Describe his clothes.
b. Describe his physique.
c. Describe his expression.
d. Do you think this person looks nice/ordinary/unattractive?
e. How is your view reflected in your descriptions?
3.5 Describing objects
When we describe an object we might say what it looks like, how big it is, what
colour, shape or texture it is, and so on. The writer may be using a number of
adjectives, and in this case he needs to know the correct order in which these
should be placed when they occur in strings. For detailed information about this,
you should consult Thompson and Martinet's A Practical English Grammar,
page 35.
ACTIVITY 6
Describe the surface of an object
a. made of wood;
b. made of glass.
1.6 Describing places
Typically, written descriptions of places occur in travel books, brochures, or in
-special geographical articles. But very commonly, brief descriptions of places
occur in letters we write to friends and relatives. We may describe a place merely
to inform, or to share our pleasure in it, or to explain to the addressee how to
reach it. Look at this description:-
Coming from Zero Point, it's a straight road that runs from Abpara to the Chinese
Embassy. As you approach the University, the hills are in front of you, and there
is open ground on either side of the road.
ASK YOURSELF
Do you think that you could find your way to the University, following this
description?
ACTIVITY 7
Study the map carefully, and write instructions so that your friend can reach B
from Point A.
SUMMARY
So far then, we have made the following points:-
In order to write well we have to be able to master
- use of words
- sentence construction
- paragraph structure
A paragraph is made up of
- a topic sentence
- supporting details
In descriptive writing
- we describe people, objects and places
A good description
- includes striking features
- gives specific details
T often encompasses the writer's point of view
4. NARRATIVE WRITING
4.1 Narrative is part of our daily lives. We tell people what happened yesterday.
We talk about what we did during our summer vacation. Some of us tell stories to
children. Thus we can see that narration can be
- the narration of one event;
- the narration of a series of linked events;
- the narration of a story.
4.2 Features of narrative writing
Let us look at two main features of narrative writing:-
4.2.1 Tense
As the event or series of events related in a narration usually occured in the past,
so a narrative account is usually written in the simple past tense. Let us look at the
following examples: -
(Stacy)
Once upon a time there was an old man who lived alone in the forest.....
(Event)
Last night there was a bomb blast in the fruit market; the bomb exploded at 4
a.m. As this was a busy time in the market, a large number of people were hurt.
(Events)
We reached London in the morning. It was cold and grey, but it didn't matter.
We were met at the airport by our friends. First they took us home, where we had
a light breakfast, and a hot shower afterwards. I couldn't sleep so.....
4.2.2 Sequencing of events
In the above examples, we notice that events always follow each other. Either
Event A happens before Event B, or it happens after it. When we write an account
of these events we have to show this sequential relationship by using words which
express time relationships. Here are a few example words:-
first before then next during' after while subsequently finally
(and so on....)
ACTIVITY 8
Write a short paragraph about your last tutorial, using some of the words listed
above.
4.3 Narrative writing usually includes some descriptive passages. In other words,
different kinds of writing do not exclude each other. For example, you will often
read in a newspaper a narration of an event, and a description of its
consequences.
SUMMARY
In narrative writing
- the past tense is usually used;
- the events are described in sequence;
- descriptive writing often occurs side-by-side.
5 EXPOSITORY WRITING
5.1 We shall now turn to a third, major writing sub-skill, namely expository
writing. This kind of writing concerns itself much more with facts and ideas, and
is the writing sub-skill most commonly used in academic life. If you look back
over some of the lists of objectives at the beginning of the units of this and other
MA TEFL courses, you will find words such as justify, explain, compare and
contrast, give reasons for, etc. These are the things that we hope you will be able
to do by the time you have completed your study. In other words, in your
assignments you will be asked to justify a statement, or to give an explanation,
and so on. These tasks involve special expository writing skills. We shall now
take a look at some of these skills in detail.
5.2 Definitions
Quite early in our academic careers we come up against the need to define
objects. A seventh grade student needs to define instruments and apparatus in his
science class. Definition is a method of explaining what things are, and as such, it
follows a fairly set, formulaic pattern.
 A B C
Person, place + verb General class Specific
or thing to be +
to be world characteristic
defined
An Used for
A pen Is
instrument writing

[This diagram is based on the work of R R Jordan, Academic Writing Course.]

5.2.1" We should point out here that it is all too easy to slip out of definition
writing, and to give examples or descriptions instead. Read the following: -
A university is a place like AIOU.
This is not a definition.
ACTIVITY 9
Can you define the following, according to the formula given in
5.2 above?
a. a university
b. psycholinguistics c the heart
5.3 Classification
Classification means the grouping together of people, places or things. according
to some criterion or principle. Let us take different: kinds of cars as our example
here. Cars can be divided according to many criteria, such as
- size - power
- colour - (and so on...)
- make
- country of origin
When making a classification, it is important to use only one
criterion at any given time. Imagine that you have to classify the following
assortment of cars:-
1 Red Suzuki car
2 White Suzuki pick-up
3 Black Mercedes
4 Green Toyota
5 Red Morris
6 White Fiat
7 Green Volkswagen
If we were to classify these cars according to their country of origin, then we
would have the following groups:-
Japan: 1, 2 & 4; Germany: 3 & 7; UK: 5; Italy: 6.
But if you divide them according to colour, then the groups will change.
ACTIVITY 10
Classify the following items according to one criterion, and write what its basis is.
Then suggest another criterion and re-divide them accordingly.
curry
pudding
apple
carrot
roast chicken
soup,
spinach
tomatoes
5.3.1 Classification often uses enumeration. We divide items into two or more
groups according to some criterion. Look at the following sentences:-
There are three kinds of books which I enjoy.....
This library is divided into three sections: junior, youth and senior.
This building has two parts: an east wing and a west wing.
The teacher told the class that there are two classes of animals: those that have a
back-bone and those that do not.

You will have noticed that the concept of classification is expressed through
words such as
kinds
sections
parts
classes
Other words frequently used are
divisions
aspects
reasons
types
categories
factors
and so on...

ACTIVITY 11
(a) Write six topic sentences (like the ones given in Section 5.3.1) using these
words:-
divisions sections categories
reasons factors types .
(b) Here are two ways of classifying the world's population. Write a sentence
about each one.
POPULATION —| young
Old

POPULATION — rich
poor

(c) Now suggest another criterion for classifying the world's population, and
write a topic sentence about it.
5.4 Comparison and contrast
These two thought processes often go together. Whenever we have to make a
choice we start by comparing and contrasting various items within a group. For
example, in choosing a pair of shoes, we may compare the design, the price, the
raw materials or the workmanship of various pairs before we finally select a pair.
5.4.1 While writing a comparison or a contrast between two items we can follow
different patterns. We can either take one item, (X), and mention all its qualities,
and then write about the item with which we are comparing it (Y). Or we can
compare and contrast the two items point by point. Here is an example:-
AIR AND ROAD TRAVEL
A Traveling by air is fast but monotonous It is expensive. On the other hand,
travelling by road takes longer, but it is often more enjoyable and it is certainly
cheaper. '
B Travelling by air is more expensive than road travel. If you do not have a seat
by a window, there are no views from a plane. It is monotonous, whereas when
travelling by road, you can see many towns and villages. However, air travel cuts
down on travelling time, while travelling by road takes much longer.
ACTIVITY 12
Compare and contrast two members of your family using the first method.
5.4.2 As in narration, comparison and contrast is expressed by using fairly
constant grammatical forms. In this case, they are the comparative and superlative
degree of adjectives, in addition to certain set phrases:-
Comparison: the same as
as ....... as
is/are similar to ...
Contrast: is/are different from
X, whereas Y (and so on)

5.5 Analogy
As teachers we make use of analogy when we try to explain something which is
unknown to our students by comparing it with something that is known to them.
For example, a child may ask you how an aeroplane flies. You may answer by
comparing it with a bird. This is a technique which is often used in expository
writing; an analogy is a comparison in which the similarity drawn is only
superficial, and the two items in fact belong to very different classes. Thus, for
example, if we are asked to describe the workings of the human heart, we might
begin by saying
The human heart is like a pump....
5.6 Cause and effect
5.6.1 Another commonly used method of organising given data logically is to
highlight cause and effect relationships. In academic writing, a student is often
asked to enumerate the causes which led to an event, or, conversely, to mention
the after effects of a given event.
5.6.2 In a paragraph which enumerates causes and effects,
these relationships should be made clear in the topic sentence. Once again, we
often make use of enumeration. Look at this paragraph:-
(Topic sentence): Many household fires can easily be avoided if we are a little
more careful. (Supporting details - causes): Sometimes people leave burning
cigarettes in ashtrays which then fall onto inflammable materials. Sometimes
stoves are left burning with cloths or wooden spoons nearby. Children also cause
household fires simply by playing with matches.
In this paragraph we enumerated three causes of household fires. We reasoned
from effect to cause, but we can also express the relationship the other way round.
Look at this example:-
(Topic sentence): There was no rain this year, and this lack of rain has had many
effects. (Supporting details -effects): The country has lost a good portion of this
year's crop. Many cattle have died for lack of drinking water. Many people have
become sick and some have died.
5.6.3 Language for expressing causal relationships
There are various expressions which typically express this relationship. Here are a
few of them:-
X causes Y
X, therefore Y
X happens because of Y
X occurs as a result of Y
X, so Y .
X results in Y
X, consequently Y
X, owing to Y
X happens for this reason.....
ACTIVITY 13
In the following sentences, box the causes, and underline the effects. The first
one is done for you.
(a)
Heat expands matter
(b) Many plants were affected by the same disease.
(c) The disease was the result of a virus which in turn was caused by importation
of diseased plant material into this country.
(d) Because it's the dry season, many homes are without water.
(e) In anticipation of the budget, prices rose.
ACTIVITY 14
Can you fill in the following chart, suggesting effects for this particular cause?
Cause Effects Concrete example

5.7 In this Unit we have tried to give you some basic, ideas about the organisation
of paragraphs. We now suggest' that whenever you read a text you should try to
observe the following points:-
- are the paragraphs well-marked?
- are they long or short?
- which is the topic sentence?
- how many supporting details are there?
- what techniques are used for developing the paragraph?
- which words are used to signal the type of writing (narration, classification, etc)
being used?

In this section on expository writing, then, we have said that

- expository writing means the kind of writing which explains, expands, defines,
exemplifies or justifies a point;
- the writer may use the following skills in expository writing:-
definition classification comparison and contrast analogy , cause and effect
(and so on...)
 FINAL ACTIVITIES
1 Here are two topic sentences. Underline the words which express the main idea.
a. Millions of people go to sleep hungry every day.
b. In spite of high divorce rates, people still get married in western societies.
2 Write a paragraph of not more than 100 words on one of the following:-
a. Planning a party.
b. Remaining calm.
3 Explain the idea of death by means of- an analogy.

REQUIRED READING
R R Jordan Academic Writing Course
pp. 28 - 52 144 - 153
R S Lawrence Writing as a Thinking Process pp. 100 -116
 UNIT ELEVEN
WRITING SKILLS IN THE CLASSROOM
Objectives
After completing the work of this unit and doing the required reading, you should
be able to:-
1 recognise that writing is an acquired skill, which needs practice;
2 show that writing is graded;
3 differentiate between controlled, guided and free writing;
4 use pictures and diagrams for teaching writing;
5 exploit a reading text as a stimulus to guided writing;
6 recognise the part played by maps, charts and diagrams in stimulating guided
writing;
7 use the same text or picture in several different ways as a stimulus to guided
writing;
8 discuss the use of authentic materials in writing classes.
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 In Unit 10, we discussed the various subskills used in expanding a paragraph.
However, we didn't make any suggestions as to how these sub-skills could be
learnt by your students. In this unit, we shall be looking at some of the
approaches, techniques and activities which the teacher may exploit in order to
teach the writing skill.
1.2 As teachers, we all too often make writing an unnecessarily difficult
task for our students. We assume that if they can write grammatically correct
sentences, they should also be able to write well-organised texts. Let us take a
look at the following diagram, taken from Ann Raimes's book Techniques in
Teaching Writing. This diagram shows the complex array of - tasks involved in
communicative writing.

READING ACTIVITY 1
In Techniques of Teaching Writing, Ann Raimes sums up various approaches;
(see pp. 5 - 11). Please read this section and then answer the following questions:-
.
a' Can a teacher use activities which reflect two different
approaches to writing?
b Suggest an activity which will reflect a controlled-to-free approach.
c Which sections shown in the diagram are given more emphasis within the
communicative approach to teaching writing?
d What is the relationship between an approach, a technique and an activity?

2 THREE STAGES IN TEACHING WRITING

2.1 Writing is a skill which the learner should ideally acquire in stages. We
may compare it to learning to ride a bicycle. A child usually starts with a tricycle,
which is made so safe that he cannot fall. Next, he may start to use a bicycle with
very small wheels (or stabilisers) fitted either side of the back wheel, which give
him some measure of protection. Finally he will have the confidence to cycle
away on only two wheels.
2.2 Similarly, a teacher following a good writing programme does not allow the
students to write whatever they want to straight away. This would not only be
daunting, but would lead to an excessive and discouraging number of errors, with
the consequent build-up of bad linguistic habits. The proficient teacher of writing
leads his students through three stages, namely controlled writing, guided
writing, and free writing

2.3 Controlled writing

Controlled writing exercises aim to make it difficult for the students to make
mistakes. Examples of such exercises would be substitution tables and copying
exercises. To return to our
cycling analogy, such exercises are similar to learning to use the pedals,
handlebars and brakes, without at the same time having to worry about
maintaining balance, cyclings most difficult feat for the beginner.
2.3.1 Here is an example of a substitution table:-
1 2 3 4

My brother sometimes reads in the evening

My sister often studies on Fridays
Mr Ahmed usually plays the guitar when he's free
He rarely watches television at around 6pm
It should be explained to the class that only one item is to be picked from each
column to complete a full sentence. This exercise can be made more challenging
by asking the students to think before they select a segment:-

1 2 3 4
He didn't go theatre because felt miserable missed his usual
to the party match he bus hated Shakespeare couldn't
office get tickets
Substitution tables help a student to perceive the 'blocks' from which language is
built.
2.3.2 Copying activities need not be boring and
unimaginative. Copying should involve some element of thought on the part of
the student. For example, the sentences of a short paragraph could be jumbled up,
and the students will first of all have to read, and having thought about the logical
connections between the sentences, they can then rewrite the text; so. that it will
be a coherent whole.
2.4 Guided writing
It is this intermediate stage, (not to be confused here with the Intermediate stage
in schools in Pakistan), the guided writing stage, which requires a great deal of
attention from the teacher. At this level, most of the written work should be
guided; the students are not yet ready to relinquish their props. Guided writing
exercises can be broadly categorised as follows:-
completion
reproduction
transformation activities
summarizing
Expansion
 Exercise 5
Guided writing
The activities which we shall suggest in this unit will
mostly fall within the category of guided writing
exercises and may belong to any one of the above
categories. Here is a good example of a guided
writing activity where the task is expansion. It is
taken from Anita Pincas's book Writing 2.
Your school is going on a camping holiday and you
are in charge Guided writing of the medical
preparations. One person must take a First Aid Kit.
Use the following information to:
(i) write a description of things to buy, for (lie First
Aid Kit. Write a series of nine notes, following the
chart. The first is done for you:
1 two medium padded bandages, and two large
sterilised gauze bandages.
(ii) write a page of explanation about what to do after
an accident.
Write sentences using the seven items of information
below. In each case, join the first two sentences into
one, starting' You should....' Then join the next three
sentences into one, so that you have one sentence with
two or three adverbials at the end. (Note: you may
have to change some adjectives to adverbs.) The first
two are done for you:
In case of accidents:
For bleeding wounds. They need protection against
dirt. Place a padded bandage over the wound. Be
careful. Do this as soon as possible.
You should protect bleeding wounds against dirt.
Place a padded bandage carefully over the won nil as
soon as possible.
I MANNER 1 ["PLACtfl . |TIME [
2 For small cuts. They need covering. Stick a plaster
across the wound. You must be exact. Do it after
choosing the right size.
You should cover small cuts. Stick a plaster exactly across the wound after choosing the right size.
3 For broken arms. They need supporting. Make a sling. Make the sling for the whole arm. Be
gentle but firm.
4 For open wounds. They need cleaning. Wipe the wound. Be thorough. Do this after washing
your own hands.
5 For strained muscles. They need supporting. Keep a bandage around the leg or arm. You must
be firm. Keep it there until the swelling disappears.
2.5 Free writing
This is the last stage of writing. Usually the teacher will give some guidance, but
it will mainly be in the form of pre-writing discussions of the topic. These will
often take the form of small-group discussion. During the writing phase the
student will be largely working from his own linguistic resources, and he will, of
course, receive further guidance from the teacher in the form of feed-back after he
has read the work. This feedback will be discussed at length in a later Unit (on the
c6rrection of written work) in this Course 553. The usual free writing activities
practised in class are compositions and essays. At this stage, the student needs to
practise study skills which help him to organise his writing work better. We
suggest that you turn back to Course 551, Unit 2. This Unit mentions the
important aspects of essay writing. Here are the main points:-
- read the questions extremely carefully and find the keywords and topic words.
- write an outline
- write the first draft
- revise the first draft
ASK YOURSELF
Which of these steps listed above do you consider to be the most important?
READING ACTIVITY 2
Read from Donn Byrne's Teaching Writing Skills, pp. 112 - 121.
3 TECHNIQUES FOR TEACHING GUIDED WITTNG
In this section you will find suggestions for classroom activities which will form
the basis of guided writing tasks.
3.1 Brainstorming session
How often have you set a topic for composition, and invited ideas, only to be met
by blank looks? A brainstorming or discussion group session is a better way of
helping the students to relax and start talking. Divide the class into fairly small
groups, (5 or 6 students to a group), and ask them to pool their ideas on the topic.
The teacher should move among the groups, giving encouragement at this stage,
and should not correct poor grammar and pronunciation, unless these are seriously
hindering communication. When students discuss together like this in small
groups, their ideas can be manifold. Now let us look at some writing activities that
could follow such a session.
CLASS ACTIVITY
1 Divide the class into groups of five. They should be sitting close enough td
each other so that they can talk easily. Ask the groups to make a list of all the
points that they can think of under the topic given as the title of the composition.
This will be their first writing activity.
2 Ask each group leader to read out the points mentioned by his group. You can
write them on the board as they come up, in a rough list.
3 Now all the points from the whole class will be on the board. Ask the students,
working individually, to put those points into some sort of order, according to
what each student finds important. Thus each student should have a list of main
points and sub-points. In this way, the class will produce a good outline for the
composition which has been set. (Look back to Course 551, Unit^ 2, for more
detail on essay outline writing.)
3.2 Using pictures, diagrams, charts and graphs
3.2.1 Pictures are most helpful in devising guided writing exercises. First, the
pictures help to determine the topic. The students' minds are focussed on a
particular point, and the teacher is enabled to bring something ,of the outside
world into the classroom. Pictures also help to bring the writing task to life. The
preparation and use of such pictures will be discussed in detail in your next
course, (554). Pictures, accompanied by a few stimulating and leading questions,
can start a good discussion. For example, look at the following picture.
At a simple level, you could ask the questions
What is the relationship between these people?
What is the older woman thinking?
Why do you think the old man is looking at the young woman?
and so on...
CLASS ACTIVITIES
1 By answering these questions, the class can talk and then describe the picture
as a very simple task.
2 Each group could then be asked to guess what the people in the picture might
be discussing. They could then write a simple dialogue based on this guesswork.
3 Next the teacher can give some information on the blackboard, such as
- date of marriage ~ their jobs
- city the bride comes from - where they will live
- city the groom comes from (and so on...)
4 In groups, the class can prepare a short report for a magazine.
The various groups can assume the roles of
(a) the bride
(b) the groom
(c) his father
(d) her mother
(e) a friend
They can write letters on their behalf, describing the marriage
5 With an advanced class, the discussion could lead to a free composition on the
topic of marriage.
3.2.2 Graphs and charts
These teaching aids lead to a kind of activity which we call transfer of
information. The information is all on the graph or chart, and the class has to
transfer it into a written form. Charts and graphs have an advantage in being
easier to produce on the board than some pictures. A chart or a graph can be the
starting point for many guided writing activities. Here, for example, is a weather
report chart:-
PLACE HIGHEST TEMP. LCWEST TEMP. HUMIDITY
Lahore Peshawar 42 23 20
Islamabad
Muzzafarabad 40 26 15
Karachi
36 20 12
37 20 11.5
32 28 25
CLASS ACTIVITIES
1 Ask the students to work in pairs. They should write a short weather report
based on the information in the chart.
2 The students can make imaginary telephone calls between Lahore and
Islamabad, in which they will discuss the weather. Or they could write short notes
to each other about the weather in their cities.
Here is another example:-
Price Fuel Seats Doors Power M.P.G. Parking

Large exp. High 5 5 high fewer difficult

car

Small car cheap Low 4 2/3 low more easy

1 The teacher warms up the class by introducing the topic of cars. He asks the
class if they would like a large car or a small one.
2 Either he gives copies of the chart shown above, or he writes it up on the
board.
3 In pairs the students talk about the information given in the chart.
4 The teacher writes a few expressions of comparison and contrast on the board.
5 Individually or in groups, the students write a short paragraph about the
advantages/disadvantages of buying a large/small car.
3.2.3 Maps
You can use either a world map, or a map of a country or city. Street maps are
useful for writing activities. They contain a great deal of information which can
be transferred into written paragraphs by the students.
CLASS ACTIVITIES
1 Hang a map on a wall, and show the students the city* they are going to
discuss; you could start off by reading a paragraph about that city. They can then
point out interesting facts about the city which are evident from the map.
2 In pairs they can write paragraphs about the city.
3 Individually they can write accounts of their home city, town or village.
4 Street maps can be exploited by asking for descriptions of how to get from one
point on the map to another.
5 In groups they could write a tourist guide of the city.
3.3 Using reading texts as a stimulus to guided writing
In everyday life, reading and writing skills often go hand in hand. We often write
in response to something we have read. One common example is when we read
one letter and write another one in reply. Similarly we read advertisements (for
example, situations vacant, or school or college admissions) and we write in
response to these. The teacher can create similar situations in the classroom.
Suitable materials for this purpose should be short, interesting and within the
reading capacity of your students. Apart from 'purpose-built' reading texts found
in language teaching course books, extracts from newspapers and magazines
provide interesting, up-to-date and varied material at little cost.
CLASS ACTIVITIES
1 A reading text as a model for writing: write a short text on the board, and ask
the students to use it as a model for writing a similar text. For example, you could
write a description of an object; the class would then write a similar description
for another object.
Reading can be vised for analysing syntactical relationships within a text. The
class can be asked to circle the link words within the paragraph.
The class can be asked to underline the main idea of a text. Once that is done,
they should then look for the supporting details. Such an analysis will help
students to write better -organised paragraphs.
Select a suitable news item or story. Remove the beginning and the end. Let the
class read the incomplete text individually. Then in groups they should
reconstruct the missing paragraph, keeping the rest of the text in front of them.
Give the class a paragraph of jumbled sentences with the vital sentence containing
the main point missing. Ask the class to rearrange the sentences and suggest what
might have been contained in the missing sentence.
Summary writing: this activity will help the students to concentrate on the
important information. The class should read a paragraph and take notes. The text
is then taken away, and they are asked to write a summary of what they have read.
The class reads a news item, for example, an item about a street accident. First,
ask the students to talk about the news item in pairs. Write any vocabulary which
you think they will need on the blackboard. Having discussed it, they can then
imagine themselves to be one of the characters involved in that accident, and they
write an account of it from their own point of view in a letter to a friend. The
same incident could be described in a dialogue between a reporter and the
witness.
4 WRITING TASKS FROM EVERYDAY LIFE
4.1 Communicative writing becomes truly communicative and purposeful if we
practise the actual writing tasks needed in everyday life. Students,usually find
such activities interesting and motivating.
4.2 Farm filling
4.2.1 Young people have to fill in forms for many and varied reasons; among
these are forms for college admission, for becoming members of societies, for
joining a club, and so on. Bring a few real forms into the classroom. On the next
page, for example, is an AIOU admission form. Explain to the students the
terminology used on the form, then ask them to complete it.
4.2.2. Now ask the students to discuss how forms designed for other purposes
will differ from the one they have just looked at. For example, how would a form
for a visa application differ from the one shown above? They could be asked, in
pairs, to construct, such a form, and this could be compared with the real thing.
Finally, they could be asked to write a short passage about the kind of information
required on a visa form. (Obviously, this type of exercise would not be
appropriate for younger learners.)
4.2.3 Students could fill in an admission type of form, and exchange forms
in pairs. Each student could then use the information given in order to write a
profile of his partner.
4.2.4 Students could construct survey forms. First of all the teacher will
set a topic, such as 'eating habits of Pakistanis'. Students can discuss in groups
the categories and questions which they want to set in order to find out about this
subject. For example:-
How many times a days do you eat?
twice CH
three times
more
Do you eat snacks? Yes/no
Do you like greasy food? Yes/no (and so on...)
Once the form is agreed on, the students move around the class filling in their
forms, and finally write group reports on eating habits. Then the teacher writes the
salient findings from each group on the board, from which the students write a
comprehensive report, which could even be submitted to a newspaper or
magazine.
5 LETTERS AND APPLICATIONS
5.1 In real-life, letters are written for a variety of reasons. Hence, in the classroom
they are invaluable as practice for a large number of language forms and
functions.
ACTIVITY 1
Suggest five different reasons for writing a letter, and show how each type of
letter will differ from the others.
CLASS ACTIVITIES
1 Collect as many letters as possible from other sources, and edit them if
necessary (especially the names of the senders and receivers). Photocopy these
and distribute them to pairs of students in the class. Ask the students to notice the
format, and copy the opening sentences for future use.
2 Then draw attention to the usual letter format on the blackboard:-

Address
Date
Name and address
of addressee, if a
business letter.
Greeting
Main body of the letter,
usually in paragraphs.
Ending or Ending
3 Now ask the students, in pairs, to write a letter in response to the letter which
they have been given, having first discussed the likely personalities of both sender
and receiver. The teacher can write a few helpful points on the board, such as:-
- opening sentences (either thanking for the letter or inquiring about the
addressee generally);
- saying something interesting about oneself;
- finishing off * 5.2 Letters of application
VENTED
Lady Secretary

An internationally affiliated organization requires the services

of a Lady executive Secretary aim office Manager at
Islamabad. The candidate should have attained, high degree of
proficiency in English and Urdu languages and be conversant
with the secretarial arid office management responsibilities
like handling and I drafting Correspondence, operation of telex,
Scheduling appointments, social functions and travelling of
Chief Executive and typing at a reasonable speed with minimal
errors. Please apply wifh fullv dotrJls and recent photograph to
P.O Rox ir.81 Islamabad. Candidates drawing salary less than
Rs. 5,000/- need not apply.

Letters of application are usually written in response to advertisements such as the

one shown above. The students should be given help in the use of the modern
formal language style appropriate to such letters:-
- In response to your recent advertisement in the Times,
- I should like to apply for the post
- I should be most grateful if you would send me further details and application
forms.....
While practising writing letters of application, you should point out that such
letters should be clear, to the point, and impersonal in style. Once the students
have understood the format, they should be asked to bring a newspaper job
advertisement to class, exchange their advertisements with those of other students,
and then reply to the one which they are given.
5.3 Letters to newspapers
Another type of letter is one to the editor of a newspaper. Such letters often
comment on news items or social problems.
CLASS ACTIVITIES
1 Distribute newspaper cuttings about problems such as water or electricity
shortages, or traffic jams, etc. Each student or pair of students should have a
cutting.
2 Divide the class into groups. Each student should describe his 'problem' to the
rest of the group, who will eventually select one problem which they want to
write about to the newspaper.
3 The groups will make notes about the problem and suggest possible solutions.
4 Finally each group produces a letter which is read to the rest of the class. The
best one could actually be sent to a newspaper.
6 STEPS TOWARDS FREE WRITING Beading Activity 3
We suggest that, having re-read Course 551 Unit 2, you also read from Ann
Raimes book Techniques in Teaching Writing pp. 115 - 138
7 UNIT SUMMARY
(a) As demonstrated in the diagram on page 36, writing is a complex task.
(b) Student writing tasks can be carried out in three stages:-
- controlled
- guided
- free
(c) Guided writing can be taught using the following techniques:-
- brainstorming sessions to discuss topics
- pictures, diagrams, charts and graphs lead to discussion and transfer of
information
- reading texts can be exploited as a stimulus to writing tasks
- real-life writing tasks such as form-filling, letter writing and so on, can also be
carried out in class.

REQUIRED READING
A Raimes Techniques in Teaching Writing
pp. 27 - 133
G Abbott & F Wingard The Teaching of English as an
International language pp. 143 - 168
UNITS TWELVE AND THIRTEEN
TEACHING AND LEARNING
VOCABULARY SKILLS
Objectives
After studying these units, attempting the questions and activities and doing the
required reading, you should be able to:- .
1. pinpoint shortcomings in the approaches to vocabulary teaching in your own
English language classes;
2. formulate criteria for choosing vocabulary items to be learnt;
3. assess the extent to which the literature-based course books in use at college
and university level are fruitful material for vocabulary learning;
4. formulate a policy for the treatment of new words found in school reading
texts;
5. distinguish between active and passive knowledge of words;
6. see the value of setting aside a short period of class time each week for the
enrichment of the students' vocabulary;
7. list the main problems encountered by vocabulary learners;
8. state the conditions which should be fulfilled in order to say that a student has
'learnt' a new word or phrase;
9. suggest ways in which words can be grouped together for convenience of
learning;
10. use these groupings in order to develop and use learning materials appropriate
to the learning level of your students;
11. list at least six teacher-centred strategies for presenting new vocabulary, and
three learner-centred methods of vncahuiarv arnnifiifirm!
12. discuss the theoretical aspects of memorising new words;
13. develop and use learning materials to aid student memorisation of
new words.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 You will see that this unit is a 'double' unit. This has been done because while
Vocabulary Learning is too large a subject area to fit into one unit, there is no
particular place in which it is convenient to divide the subject into two units. You
should therefore spend the same amount of time on this unit as you would on two
ordinary units.
1.2 The unit is largely based on two specialist texts: one is Michael Wallace's
Teaching Vocabulary, and the other is Gairns and Redman's Working with
Words. There are four Reading Activities from these texts.assigned in this unit.
Each of these activities requires you to read a fairly long extract, and these
extracts form an integral part of the unit's work. Tasks based on these texts are
therefore likely to be set in your assignments and your examination, so you should
not omit the activities.
1.3 Whether our students are learning listening, speaking, reading or writing
skills, they will constantly come up against the problem of unknown vocabulary.
In many foreign language courses, vocabulary is rarely explicitly taught for its
own sake. There is little class time given over to increasing the students' word
power. Instead, unfamiliar words are presented to the students as and when they
occur in learning materials designed for other purposes, (for example, in reading
comprehension passages). Such words are of ten presented as lists of items to be
memorised. The selection of these words often has little rationale other than their
occurence in the reading passage or dialogue which the students are studying.
DISCUSSION POINT
How is vocabulary taught, if at all, in your English classes? Ho\v are the words to
be taught selected? Do you feel that you are doing the best you can to develop
your students' vocabulary skills?
2. DOES VOCABULARY BUILDING DESERVE A PLACE OF ITS OWN
IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CURRICULUM?
2.1 Let us follow up the discussion point given in the introduction. If, as we
suspect, the main effort in teaching vocabulary goes into the learning of words
which the students meet in their reading texts, let us examine this activity, and try
to see if it is worthwhile.
ACTIVITY 1
Read the following passage from the BA course book East and West (Peshawar
University):
The England of the Tudors was a new country, even though in some respects it
was more mediaeval and traditional than most of Southern Europe; and it was
anew country out on the edge of things, as yet away from the main stream of
civilisation. Its famous long-bows had been ' made obsolete by gun-powder; it had
a militia but no real army; it had plenty of ships, boldly exploring, trading and
privateering, but as yet they hardly constituted a navy. True, its wealth was
rapidly increasing, London was growing fast; its new social order created by
Henry the Eighth and confirmed and stabilised by the adroit Elizabeth, was
proving effective and a source of new energy; and the nationalism of the age,
nothing strange to these islanders, was-triumphant and irresistible here. But too
much was happening all at once; enormous effort was required, as everyone knew
better than Elizabeth herself, to cope with every immediate situation. So those
first thirty years of her reign were years of effort, of solemn endeavour, of will
and purpose, all reflected in the writing of the time, in the didactic " prose work of
Ascham and Elyot, even in the little that was done by the splendid Sidney and in
the earlier poetry of the great Spenser.
a. Underline the words and phrases which you think a BA student might not
know. (Bear in mind that there is often a difference between what he should
know and what he does
know.)
b. How do you cope with teaching such words and phrases in class? (Please
discuss this with your colleagues in your tutorial group meeting, again bearing in
mind that there may be a difference between what in theory you feel you ought to
do and what you actually do in practice.)
c. Do the words you have underlined have anything in common? If so, wha|?
d. Are these words likely to be useful to your students in day-to-day
communication? List the words under the following heading^:-

a. Is there any point, for your students, in taking a great deal of trouble in
learning words such as the ones you have listed above, especially those in the
second and third column, (other than for examination purposes)?
b. What should the teacher do about explaining such words?
- ignore them?
- translate them quickly and move on?
- explain them carefully in the target language and make frequent checks to
ensure that the students remember them?
2.2 There will be many of you who say, quite rightly, that we cannot afford to
ignore such words, since the students do not feel confident about the literary texts
which they are examined on unless they know what every word in every text
means. We also feel that such words cannot simply be ignored, but we do feel that
the teacher has to make certain decisions about how he is going to spend the time
which he allocates to vocabulary learning. He has several options, the most
obvious of which are:-
- he can concentrate entirely on the new words found in the students' (literary)
texts;
- he can pick out the most useful words in the literary texts, and give them special
attention; the rest he can merely translate;
- he can give a quick translation of all the new words in the students' texts, but
plan his vocabulary learning session independently of the words found in the
texts, concentrating on groups of words which he feels will be of real use to the
students in everyday communication.
We think that a careful combination of the second and third approaches may be
the best one for your students. Thus, your students will have the passive
knowledge of the words they need to recognise for examination purposes, and an
active knowledge of words which they will need to" be able to use when they
actually begin to speak English in real-life situations.
2.3 Active and passive knowledge
As you passed through succeeding phases of learning English, there were
probably many words which you could recognise and understand when you read
or heard them, but which you would not have felt confident enough to use
yourself. Even the most proficient of English native speakers will own to
'knowing' a few words which he would not attempt to use in speech or writing.
ACTIVITY 2
Look at the following short passage, and underline any words which you
understand, but would not normally vise yourself:-
People usually prefer to talk about their hobbies rather
than their professions. Your neighbour [at the dinner table] may be a good
amateur pianist or a champion croquet player. He may grow rare roses or be a
collector of anything from postage stamps to old gramophone records. If his
individual interests are not too recondite for you, you will have an enjoyable and
informative conversation.
[From Debrett's Etiquette and Modern Manners]
2.3 (continued) If you have underlined any words in this passage, we can say
that you have a passive knowledge of these words. There may be some words
which you do not understand at all, in which case you have neither an active nor
passive knowledge of them. The remaining Words can be said to be part of your
active vocabulary. Deciding whether students need a passive or active knowledge
of vocabulary items is the choice which teachers face on behalf of their
students when planning vocabulary building exercises. If we return to the extract
from East and West, we shall probably decide that the student requires only to
recognise (for the examination) most of the words in that text. It would be much
better for the teacher to concentrate on building up a knowledge of groups of
more useful words, which he has carefully pre-selected. For this activity the
teacher need set aside only a few minutes of class time each day, or a longer
session once a week.
2.4 SUMMARY
What we have said so far, then, is that:-
a. vocabulary is usually taught, (if at all), as and when unfamiliar words are
found in the students' literary texts;
b. many of the words found in such texts are not very useful words to know;
c. the teacher should aim to give the students only a passive knowledge of all but
the most useful of these words;
d. Vocabulary building is an area of language learning which is worth giving
serious attention to;
e. therefore the teacher should set aside some class time, (little, but often), during
which carefully selected groups of words can be taught in a systematic way.
3. PROBUEM AREAS PCR VOCABULARY LEARNERS
READING ACTIVITY 1 •
Please read from Michael Wallace's book, Teaching Vocabulary, Chapter 1,
pages 9 - 26. This chapter falls into two parts; in the first part, Wallace describes
some of the things which can go wrong when people use a foreign language
vocabulary. In the second part he considers some aspects of vocabulary study
which have implications for us as teachers. For your own ease of reference, the
two parts of the chapter are summarised below:-
Part 1 [What can go wrong in vocabulary learning]
1. Student cannot recall the words he has been taught.
2. Student uses the wrong word in a particular situation.
3. Student uses words at the wrong level of formality.
4. Student learns words which he will never really need to use.
5. Student cannot use the words idiomatically.
6. Student can say the words, but doesn't really understand them.
7. Student does not use a dictionary correctly.
8. Student cannot use the word with the correct grammatical form, spelling,
pronunciation or stress.
Part 2 [Basic elements of vocabulary study]
1. One word may have more than one meaning; (word versus lexical item).
2. Word lists and their problems.
3. Availability and ESP vocabulary: although some words may be rarely used in
life in general, they are widely used within a certain context
4. Structure words and content words.
5. Meaning: denotation and connotation.
6. Relationships between words.
7. Productive and receptive vocabulary.
8. Pronunciation and spelling.
9. Stress,
10. Correct form.
11. Cognates (applicable where the learner's mother tongue is in some ways
related to the target language).
QUESTIONS 1-10
1. Which of these words, is likely to be more easily learnt by the foreign
language student? Why? -
work sparrow
2. What is the problem in including words like put, turn, keep, and so on, as
single items in a word frequency list?
3. Where would the following words have a high availability:-
counter, teller, cashier, balance, ledger, denomination, signature
4. Underline the structure words in the following sentence:-
the sure to buy me a very beautiful gold necklace.
5. Point out one common, and two technical meanings for the word beat.
6. Consider the word farmer. What different connotations is it likely to have in
different parts of the world?
7. List five words in the same semantic field as the word book.
8. What problems of misunderstanding might arise when some Pakistani speakers
of English pronounce the sentence
He is versed in Arab literature.
9. What misunderstanding could arise from this mistake in word stress:-
He injured the old man on the road.
10. What mistake would a learner be making if he coined the word childship
4. HOW DO WE KNOW THAT OUR STUDENTS HAVE LEARNT A
NEW WORD?
4.1 How do we know that a student has learnt a new word (or set of new words)?
Is it enough to ask him to translate that word into his mother tongue, or to explain
it to us in the target language? Can we say he has learnt it if he can still
remember it at the end of the class in which it was introduced?
4.2 In his book Teaching Vocabulary, Michael Wallace suggests the
following:- .
To 'know' a word in the target language as well as the native speaker knows it
may mean the ability to:
(a) recognise it in its spoken or written form;
(b) recall it at will;
(c) relate it to an appropriate object or concept;
(d) use it in the appropriate grammatical form;
(e) in speech, pronounce it in a recognisable way;
(f) in writing, spell it correctly;
(g) use it with the words it correctly goes with, i.e. in the correct collocation;
(h) use it at the appropriate level of formality; (i) be aware of its connotations and
associations.
QUESTION 11
Which of the items in the list above describe a passive knowledge of a word?
ACTIVITY 3
In each of the following sentences the speaker has made a mistake. These
mistakes represent failures to meet the criteria listed in 4.2 above. Can you match
the mistakes to the items in 4.2? (The first one is done for you.)
1. Tom writed letters to everyone who had wrote to him.
2. She ate the tablets which the doctor prescribed for her.
3. Jane is a tall thin girl* and everybody thinks she's beautiful.
4. It was the desent of the mountain which proved tricky.
5. Well, her father was a ... er .. umm ... you know, a man who drives planes.
6. Of fiber's with three or more kids will become eligible for family income
benefit.
4.3 We have now seen exactly what we mean when we say that our students have
learnt a series of new words. In the remaining part of this unit we shall look at
ways in which we as teachers can bring this learning about.
5. WHAT NEW WORDS SHOULD I TEACH?
In sections 2.2 and 2.3 we suggested that a good strategy for a teacher to adopt
would be to set aside a specific time for vocabulary building, and during that time
to concentrate on the teaching of groups of words which the teacher feels to be of
real use to his students. (Genuinely useful words met in the students' reading texts
can also be thoroughly taught during this time.) But how is the teacher to find
these groups of words which will be useful to the students? According to what
criteria is he to group- them together? In their book Working with Words, Gairns
and Redman suggest certain groupings which will be helpful to the teacher in
organising the mass of words available for learning, and in coming to a decision
as to what should be learnt. Let us see what they have to say:-
READING ACTIVITY 2
Read from Working with Words, pp.69-71. Here, for your quick reference, is a
summary of the major groupings:-
1. Items related by topic
2. Items grouped as an activity or process
3. Items which are similar in meaning
4. Items which form 'pairs'
5. Items along a scale or cline, which illustrate differences in degree
6. Items within 'word families' i.e. derivatives
7. Items grouped by, (a) grammatical similarity and (b); notional similarity
8. Items which connect discourse
9. Items forming a set of idioms or multi-word verbs
10. Items grouped by spelling difficulty or phonological difficulty
11. Items grouped by style
12. An item explored in terms of its different meanings
13. Items causing particular difficulty within one language community group.
ACTIVITY 4
Each of the following is an example of one of the items listed above. Match the
example with the item it illustrates. (The first one is done for you.)
a. bloke, guy, chap; 11
b. wool, would, will, wheel, wake, wheat, when;
c. bank, suit, park, hold, press;
d. although, however, because, therefore;
e. definite, probable, possible, impossible;
f. over the moon, walking on air, beside myself, thrilled to bits;
g. turn up, turn down, turn in, turn out, turn on, turn off;
h. waiter, singer, writer, bookeeeper, sailor, actor, operator;
i. cautious-prudent; menace-reassure; squeeze-stretch;
j cheque, chequebook, clerk, counter, cashier, deposit;
6. PRESENTING NEW WCRDS IN CLASS
6.1 Steps in presenting new words
For quick reference we shall begin with five steps in presenting new vocabulary.
However, subsequently we shall look at each of these stages in greater detail. In
order to present a new word then, we must complete the following steps:-
- introduce word by any chosen means;
- class practises orally; (teacher checks pronunciation);
- teacher writes word on blackboard;
- class uses the word in oral and written practice;
- teacher- asks for a translation of the word.
6.2 Ways of making the meaning clear -
How are we to explain the meanings of new words to our students? Should we
merely translate the words in to the mother tongue? We feel that although
translation undoubtedly has a part to play in vocabulary learning, (and more will
be said about this later), the teacher will be most successful in conveying the
meaning of a word if the explanation is in some way interesting and memorable.
A word which is merely translated is likely to be quickly forgotten, even though
the student may have written it down in his 'vocabulary notebook*. In their book
Working with Words, Ruth Gairns and Stuart Redman list several techniques
which the teacher can use for presenting new vocabulary; additionally, they
suggest some 'learner-centred' approaches: that is, ways in which the student can
be encouraged to discover meaning of new words for himself. Among the teacher-
centred approaches, they distinguish between visual techniques and verbal
techniques. What follows in this section is based on their approaches. But first,
let us break off for a moment, and consider the following question:-
QUESTIONS 12 - 15
Can you think of one example of teacher-centred learning, and one of student-
centred learning?
12. Describe ways in which the English classes in institutions using traditional
teaching methods could be considered teacher-centred?
13. What are the advantages of learner-centred activities?
14. Is there anything to be said for a teacher-centred approach?
15. Is there anything to be said against a learner-centred approach?
6.3 Visual techniques of presenting new vocabulary
Visual techniques of presenting new vocabulary are excellent for all but the more
abstract items. For example, it would be easy to explain words such as house,
shop, mosque, cinema, and so on, by showing pictures of these. But to explain
the word building only by showing a picture would be less easy. The teacher
would have to work a little harder for this, adding some verbal explanation as
well. Totally abstract concepts, such as mercy, blandness, or worry would be
almost (but not totally) impossible to convey by means of pictures. Bearing these
limitations in mind, let us see what is available to us if we want to introduce new
vocabulary by visual means.
6.3.1 Flashcards, photographs, blackboard drawings, wallcharts, pictures
from magazines and newspapers:
The main thing to remember here is that if you are working with the whole class,
any pictures you use must be big enough for the class to see. Many teachers over-
estimate the telescopic vision of their students! Pictures should make one point
only; in other words, there should be no distracting detail, and the students should
be in no doubt as to which word the picture is illustrating. If you make a
collection of pictures from newspapers and magazines, you should paste them
onto card. This makes them much easier to handle in class and preserves them for
future use. You can build up sets of. such pictures, (for example, sets of food
items, furniture, buildings, and so on). Sets of flashcards can be used by students
working in pairs:-
A: Do you need a hammer? B: No, thanks. Do you? A: Yes, I think I do.
A: Do you need some nails? B: Yes please. What about you? A: No thanks.
A: Do you need a screwdriver? B: No thanks. What about you? A: I don't need
one either.
(Much more, will be said on the subject of visual aids such as the ones described
above in Course 554.)
6.3.2 Mime and gesture
This approach is often used in conjunction with verbal techniques of word
presentation. For example, the teacher can explain the verb balance; he can say
that balance means that something will not fall over because one side is not
heavier than another. He can then demonstrate this either with hand movements,
or perhaps by miming the action of a tightrope walker. Or he could balance one
book on top of the other.
ACTIVITY 5
Can you think of a verbal explanation, accompanied by a mime, to explain the
word boring?
6.3.3 Realia
These are authentic items which are either around us in the classroom, or which
we can bring to the classroom. Realia can be used for teaching simple material
items, such as, in the earlier stages, book, desk, chair, door, floor, ceiling, knife,
fork, spoon, plate, glass, and so on. But they can also be effectively used in
conjunction with illustrative situations (see 6.4.1 below) for conveying more
difficult words and concepts. Among the most useful and versatile items of realia
readily available to the teacher are the students themselves. Their physical
attributes, (height, for example), their clothes, their possessions can all be used as
examples of various concept areas. For example, supposing you wanted to teach
the word flamboyant to a class of teenage girls; you could go about it in the
following way:
Teacher: Look at Shireen's suit. What colour is it?
Student: It's blue.
Teacher: Yes, that's right. It's dark blue, or navy blue.
It's very smart, Shireen. Now, what about
Saiqa's?
Student: It's pink and blue, with tiny flowers. Teacher: Yes Saiqa, that's a very
pretty suit you're
wearing today. Now look at Sameera's. Student: It's red! Student: It's red and
orange! Student: It's multi-coloured! Teacher: Yes, and it's got big patterns.
Sameera, I think
people will see you coming from a long way off!
Now, Shireen's suit is very smart; Saiqa's is very pretty, but we can say that
Sameera's suit is [teacher pauses slightly, in order to highlight the new word]
flamboyant. 'Flamboyant' means that it is brightly coloured and exciting to look
at. Say the word please: 'flamboyant'.
Class: Flamboyant.
Teacher: Again. .
Class: Flamboyant.
Teacher: Good! Now who else is wearing a flamboyant suit?
' (and so on....) , " -
" Of course, the teacher should always take great care that nothing is said about a
student which could have the effect of ridiculing him in front of his peers, or even
of making him feel bad. In the classroom scene shown above, the first student
could have felt bad because she was wearing such a plain suit, but the teacher
takes care to tell her how smart it is before moving on. Obviously, the teacher
should never highlight an attribute (for example, fatness) of which a student might
feel ashamed.-
ACTIVITY 6
Suggest ways of using realia to introduce the following words:-
a. natural - man-made
b. to get rid of something .
Can you think of any additional pictures which you might use?
.6.4 Verbal techniques of presenting new vocabulary
We should like to emphasise once again that there is no one 'correct' way of
presenting any one particular new word to your students. The meanings of most
words can be conveyed by any one of several means, or by a combination of
approaches. Thus most of the verbal techniques presented below can be used in
conjunction with any of the visual techniques discussed in section 6.3 above.
However, generally speaking, the more abstract the concept, the more the teacher
will have to rely on verbal rather than visual techniques. Let us now look at some
of the verbal techniques suggested by Ruth Gairns and Stuart Redman (op. cit. in
section
6.4.1 Illustrative situations
In this kind of presentation, the teacher conveys the meaning to the class by
inventing a situation which clearly illustrates the word or concept being taught.
The main pitfall for the teacher here is that he must remember to keep his
language simple. The words he uses to present the situation should not be outside
the comprehension range of his students. He should also do his best to ensure that
he is speaking clearly and at a pace at which the students can realistically be
expected to follow.
As an example, let us see how we could present the word confident using this
technique. The teacher can address the class as follows:-
Listen everybody! Let us imagine that two students, Ashraf and Akram are having
their FA mathematics examination tomorrow. Ashraf is not afraid. He has always
been good at mathematics. He knows he has studied hard for his examination. He
feels sure that he will pass. He feels [teacher pauses slightly in order to emphasise
the word.] confident about the result. But poor Akram is not happy about the
examination. In mathematics he is usually at the bottom of the class. He has never
really understood the subject. He thinks he will fail. He does not feel -[slight
pause] confident that he will pass the examination. He feels confident that he
will fail.
The teacher could combine this illustrative situation with a visual aid, thus:-

The teacher can now give another short example to make sure that the students
have understood the meaning correctly:-
Teacher: Imagine that an English teacher from Britain is coming
to your town. You have been asked to show him around.
Will you feel confident speaking English to him? Class: No!
Teacher: Why not? Why won't you feel confident? Student: Maybe I won't
understand his accent. Student: Maybe he won't understand what I say to him.
Student: Perhaps he will use very difficult words. Teacher: Ahmed, will you feel
confident with this teacher? Ahmed: I'll probably feel fairly confident because we
speak a lot of English at home. You s«e, my father's from Pakistan, but my
mother's English. Teacher: Well, you should all feel confident enough to try your
best!
[The teacher could then make a confident gesture, and say to the class "Be
confident!"]
ACTIVITY 7
Now you try to think of illustrative situations for these two words:-
improvise neglect
6.4.2 Synonymy and definition
You will see from the technique described above that the class will need to have a
reasonable command of the target language before the teacher can use the amount
of language needed to give an illustrative situation In this case he might try to find
a way of explaining a word without using too much language to do so. Such a
way could be by finding a simpler synonym for the word, or by giving a short and
simple definition. For example, the teacher can say that bold means brave; that a
coward is someone who is not brave; a generous man is a man who likes giving
things to other people; seldom means not often, and so on. But the teacher must
be careful not to present ambiguous synonyms and definitions. For example, to
say that to turnup means to arrive may lead the students to think that they can
say "The train turned up at 9 o1 clock." This would rarely be appropriate.
ACTIVITY 8
What simple synonyms or definitions can you think of for the following words:-.
handsome educated ascend
(Imagine that you are teaching students in Class VI.)
6.4.3 Contrasts and opposites
We can use these in a similar way to the synonyms and definitions discussed in
6.4.2. They also present the same dangers of ambiguity.
6.4.4 Scale -
This is useful for presenting either individual words or groups of words. In the
first instance, for example, the teacher might present two extremes hot and cold,
and introduce the word warm as being in the middle. This presentation could be
accompanied either by mimes of being hot, cold, or pleasantly warm, or by a
blackboard diagram, thus:
 hot----------warm----------cold
An example at a higher level could be provided by the words
expert-----;———capable——-----incompetent
This particular scale could be supported by illustrative situations as described in
6.4.1 above, or by visuals showing something done a)expertly, b)adequately,
c)incompetently.
Scales can also be used to show groups of words. For example, the relationship
between the common adverbs of frequency can be explained by means of a scale.
(+) always—usually—often--sometimes--rarely—never (-)
Another example, incorporating some colloquialisms for the advanced learner,
could be a scale of degrees of wealth:-
rolling in it
well-off
comfortable
struggling
down-and-out
ACTIVITY 9
Can you think of any scale on which the expression not enough would be an
item? (You should try to think of four more items for this scale.)
6.4.5 Superordinates, or examples of a type
This kind of presentation will often go hand-in-hand with the use of visual aids,
but let us on this occasion take a more abstract example: how could we use this
presentation technique ' for the word emotion? We could say that an emotion is
something we feel. But this definition is ambiguous. For example, we can feel
hungry or sick, but neither of these are really emotions. So we can tell the
students that love is an emotion; hate is an emotion; happiness is an" emotion;
sadness is an emotion; hope, despair, pity, surprise, are all emotions. Students can
then be - asked to supply some of their own examples.
ACTIVITY 10
Can you think of some examples for these two super ordinates? You might like to
refer back to Course 552, Block A, pp. 79 & 80.
duelling
beneficial (Note that superordinates are not necessarily nouns.)
6.4.6 Translation
We think that there are three situations in which translation is especially useful.
They are as follows:-
a. when a word or expression is so extraordinarily difficult or complex that it
would take a long time to explain it by
other means;
b. when the students require only a passive knowledge of that word; (see
section 2.3 above;) >
c. if you look, back to section 6.1 above, you will see that translation should in
any case always be used after a word has been presented by other means. This
may surprise you, and you may well wonder why we have gone to all the trouble
of using visual aids or- of constructing illustrative situations and so on if we
are going to translate the word anyway in the end. We have already said that for a
new word to make an impression on the students, it should be presented in a
memorable way. Most of the presentation techniques described in section 6 will
ensure that the new word makes a greater impact on the student than an
immediate translation would have done. By striving hard to understand what the
teacher is explaining to them, students are helping to impress the new words upon
their memories. However, it is always good for the students and* the. teacher to
check that the new word or expression has been correctly understood. For this
reason, at the end of the presentation phase of a vocabulary lesson, the teacher
will ask quickly "What is the Urdu (or Baluchi, Punjabi, Pushto, or Sindhi)
meaning of this word?" If nobody can come up with the answer, at least the
teacher will know that his best efforts to explain the meaning of the word have
failed, and that he has to try again, probably using a different technique.
6.5 Presenting new words: an example
Let us now take one new word, (or in this case, expression), and see how a
teacher might present it to a class. We shall go beyond the explanation stage, in
order to follow the steps given in section 6.1 above. Let us suppose that the
expression which we want to introduce is look forward to
6.5.1 Step 1: Introduce word or expression by chosen means
This seems to be a good expression to present through an illustrative situation,
so this will be our chosen means of presentation. Remembering to keep his
language simple, and to speak slowly and distinctly, the teacher will give one or
two situations. He might begin like this:-
Teacher: Listen everybody! You know that our principal has
told us that tomorrow is a special holiday. Well, I'm . going to use every moment
of that holiday to do something useful and enjoyable I'm going to get up at the
same time as usual. I'm not going to lie in bed. I'm going to get all the jobs done
which have been waiting for a long time. Then I'm going somewhere nice in the
afternoon. I'll have a long walk. And in the evening I'll take the family out to a
Chinese restaurant. I'm [teacher pauses slightly, to highlight the words] looking
forward to tomorrow. We always look forward to doing enjoyable things. Now
imagine that tomorrow you have to go to the dentist to have five fillings. Would
you look forward to that? '
Class: No!
Teacher: Why not?.
Student: Because we don't enjoy going to the dentist*
Teacher: Well, imagine that you love cricket, and your father has promised to take
you to watch Pakistan play England. Would you look forward to that?
Class: Yes!
6.5.2 Step 2: class practises orally; teacher checks pronunciation
At this stage the teacher is more interested in the sound of the new words, rather
than in their meaning. The students practise the pronunciation of the words before
they have seen them in their written form. This is because spellings, especially
English ones, can be very confusing and can influence the students towards
mispronunciation. For example, the spelling of forward bears little resemblance to
its pronunciation - (/rawad/)'. So the teacher continues:-
Teacher: Good. Now say it: Lock forward to
[Teacher has pronounced the words carefully and with the correct stress.]
Class: Look forward to.
Teacher: I'm looking forward to seeing my uncle.
Class: I'm looking forward to seeing my uncle.
Teacher: Good. Notice that the next verb ends in -ing.
I'm looking forward to [teacher pauses slightly] going to Murree.
Class: I'm looking forward to going to Murree.
Teacher: Good, but listen more carefully; some of you are getting it wrong. It's
forward [/fow> wad/], not foward [/fowad/]. Try again."
[The phonetic symbols are for your reference only. Obviously the teacher does
not use them in a class at this level.]
Class: Forward.
Teacher: Yes, good.
[The teacher will call on individual students at random and ask them to repeat.]
6.5.3 Step 3: teacher writes word or expression on blackboard
The word should be written up clearly, and it is a good idea to, give some
indication of stress. The students can copy the word at this stage or later, and
more will be said about ways in which students can keep a written store of new
vocabulary in Section 7 below. In a vocabulary learning session, the teacher is
probably teaching several new items, and so will be building up a list of new
words on the blackboard, writing each one up after its initial presentation and oral
practice.
6.5.4 Step 4: class uses the word in oral and written practice
Teacher: Now, we know that we look forward to something nice which is going to
happen. Now, Naila, is there anything that you're looking forward to?
Naila: Yes, I'm looking forward to finishing our examinations.
Teacher: Good. What about you, Muneera?
Muneera: I'm looking forward to my sister's marriage.
Teacher: That's nice. Now, Shaheena, is there anything that you're not looking
forward to?
Shaheena: Yes, I'm not looking forward to going home this afternoon.
Teacher: Why not?
Shaheena: Because my mother's angry with me.
Teacher: Oh dear! Now listen carefully. I want you to turn to the person next to
you and ask her to tell you two things she's looking forward to, and two things
she's not looking forward to. Then she can ask you.
[Teacher writes on blackboard:]
What are you looking forward to?
Is there anything you're not looking forward to?
Teacher: Don't forget that the verb after look forward to will have -ing.
[Class starts oral pairwork activity. Teacher walks around the class, listening and
checking. After one or two minutes, the teacher asks for some answers. She writes
two of them on the blackboard. She then tells the class to write the four things
which their partners told them in their notebooks.]
6.5.5 Step 5: teacher asks for a translation of the Word or expression
Teacher: Now, just to make sure we have all understood, what
does look forward to mean in our language? Class: [Gives translation]
Teacher: Good, that's right.
6.6 Finding out the meaning: student-centred learning
So far in section five, we have been looking at ways in which the teacher can
communicate the meanings of words and expressions to his students. But if you
look back to section 6.2, you will remember that we drew a distinction between
teacher-centred and student-centred learning. In Reading Activity .3, which
follows now, we shall be looking at ways in which the students can be encouraged
to discover for themselves the meanings of new vocabulary. While you are doing
this activity, it might be interesting for you to consider whether learner-centred
vocabulary activities are suitable for your particular students, given the teacher-
learner styles which are traditionally adopted in Pakistan.
DISCUSSION POINT
What exactly do you think are the implications of the question which has just
been asked?
READING ACTIVITY 3
Please read from R Gairns and S Redman Working with Words, pp.76-85, and
then answer the questions which follow.
a. Why is it a good idea to allow the students to work independently at
vocabulary building?
b. How do you think the strategy of 'asking others' would work in your classes?
c. Can you think of an ambiguity similar to the one quoted at the top of page 81,
which might arise through the use of a dictionary? .
d. The writers mention two particular benefits to be gained from using a
dictionary for vocabulary work. What are they?
e. Which do you think is a more valuable word-discovery strategy: consulting a
dictionary or trying to work out the meaning of the word from its context? Why?
7. MEMORISATION OF MEW WORDS
7.1 So far, we have talked about criteria for chosing the vocabulary items to be
taught, and considered ways of introducing them to a class so that their meanings
are understood clearly. But it is not enough to introduce new vocabulary and leave
it at that. We also have to ensure that our students can recall the words at will, and
use them appropriately when needed. (See section 4.2 of this unit.)
ACTIVITY 10
Try out this test on yourself: look at these numbers for not more than 30 seconds:-
35 54 901 6
Test yourself to see if you have remembered them
a. after 5 minutes;
b. after a day;
c. after a week;
d. after a month.
Do the results of your test have any relevance for planning the presentation,
recycling and testing of vocabulary items?
READING ACTIVITY 4
Read once again from Gairns and Redman, Working with Words, Chapter 6, pp.
86 - 100. This chapter is about memory and written storage of vocabulary. Here is
a brief summary of the points and topics of this chapter:-
1. Short term memory is very limited in its capacity.
2. Long term memory has a seemingly infinite capacity, but it is more difficult
for items of information to become stored there.
3. Psychological experiments indicate that the way in which we store words in
our memories is highly organised.
4. The same experiments show that we forget approximately 80% of what we
'learn' within 24 hours.
5. Mere repetition is unlikely to be sufficient to achieve long term memory
retention; the more the learner is required to analyse and process the new words,
the more likely he is to retain them. .
6. This factor has clear implications for the language teacher, and the following
are some of the strategies which he or his students can adopt:-
- meaningful tasks
- imagery
- rote learning
- recycling
- written information cards
- personal category sheets
- word field diagrams
- word trees
- category lists
- grids
- alphabetical indexes
- labelling;
QUESTIONS 6-10
6. What is the relationship between the kind of rote-learning which students
commonly do before examinations, and short and long term memorisation?
7. What do the writers mean by the term mental lexicon?
8. What is the point of the 'sextant' example given in section 6.2 of the reading
extract?
9. What is the effect of frequency and recency of use on ease of word retrieval
from the long term memory?
10. Do you ever suddenly remember something you thought you had forgotten
long ago? Is this an example of memory decay, or cue-dependent forgetting?
11. What is the relevance of theories of memorisation and forgetting to the
teacher of foreign language vocabulary?
ACTIVITY 11
a. Think of a meaningful activity which will help your students to learn
words related to positive human personality characteristics:- e.g. even-
tempered, calm, well-mannered, etc.
b. Write a word file card, such as the one shown at the top of page 96 of the
reading extract, for the word pretend.
c. Construct a word field diagram, such as the one shown on page 97 of the
reading extract, for the word airport.
d. Construct a word tree, such as the one shown on page 97, starting with the
word machines.
READING ACTIVITY 5
Read Michael Wallace's Teaching Vocabulary, Chapters 5 and 6. In these
chapters there are some suggestions for classroom vocabulary learning exercises.
You could use some of these
suggestions in order to construct your own classroom activities. They are grouped
together, closely following the 'problem' areas outlined by Wallace which you
read about in Reading Activity 1 of this unit. In this extract, Wallace groups
classroom activities under the following headings:-
inference exercises
synonym/antonym exercises
semantic field exercises
definition and dictionary exercises
word-structure exercises
collocation
cohesion
variety
You should be ready, in your examination and in your assignments, to give your
own example of each kind of exercise described in these two chapters.
TUTORIAL GROUP ACTIVITY
Choose one kind of classroom activity from those listed in Reading Activity 4.
Work together in a group to produce a short exercise. Present this to your other
colleagues in the group.
REQUIRED READING
R Gairns and S Redman Working with Words
(Assigned as Reading Activities within the unit.)
M Wai lace Teaching Vocabulary
(Assigned as Reading Activities within the unit.)
 UNIT FOURTEEN
INTEGRATED AND COMMUNICATIVE
SKILLS
Objectives
After studying this unit and attempting the questions and activities, you
should be able to:
1 Define the terms input and output in language learning.
2 Define and exemplify the terms roughly-tuned and finely-tuned with
reference to input.
3 Define and exemplify the terms controlled output and free output.
4 Outline an information-gap activity to develop communicative skills.
5 Distinguish between accuracy and fluency in language learning.
6 Outline an activity intended to practise and develop integrated skills.
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 In our Introductory Unit to Block A, we made it clear that language skills are
rarely used in isolation. In most cases, one skill necessitates the use of others; one
language activity often triggers off a whole chain of related activities. Let us take
an example from higher education; a student knowing that his professor is going
to give a lecture on the poetry of Keats, may decide to do some preparatory
reading on the subject; then he will listen to the lecture and write down several
key points in note form. He may then discuss the lecture with his friends, read for
himself some of the poems referred to, and finally settle down to write a report or
assignment on the lecture. The focal point of such a set of activities is the lecture
itself, and the central language skill used is doubtless that of listening, yet very
considerable demands are made on reading and writing with talking, on this
occasion, playing a secondary role.
1.2 This unit will concentrate on integrated activities which make use of more
than one language skill and do so for various communicative purposes, Our
student, in the example we have just given you, had a definite purpose for all his
related activities - he wanted to use all his linguistic resources in order to produce
a satisfactory report or assignment as the end product. Since we shall be dealing
with the very language skills that you have been examining in previous units, you
will not 'find anything particularly new here. Rather, you will be given a new
perspective, or a new orientation, on the development of language skills.
1.3 You will also be given the opportunity to relate the study of language skills
to current linguistic theory concerning the acquisition and learning of a foreign
language and to the balance of input and output in language-teaching
methodology. These, and other key terms, will be defined within specific contexts
later, but for the time being let us recall what has already been said about the first
pair of terms and then hazard'a guess as to the meaning of the second pair.
QUESTICN 1
Think of a two-year old beginning to speak his mother tongue and a sixth-class
pupil beginning to grapple with English. Which is the acquisition situation, and
which the learning?
ACTIVITY 1
Put the terms input and output into their right places in the FIRST line of blanks.
Ignore the second line of blanks for now.
PRODUCTIVE SKILLS RECEPTIVE SKILLS
1.4 We shall look again at communicative activities and see how they can be
made use of in the classroom for the development of language skills. By their
very nature, they must involve the use of more than one skill and lead to some
kind of social interaction. Under this heading we shall look briefly at the
contribution of such activities' as role-play and games in the whole process of
language-skills development.
1.5 We shall be looking at the place of all these integrated and communicative
activities in the well-balanced language lesson and, by doing so, anticipate a much
more detailed examination of lesson planning in Course 554. Certain activities are
much more useful in the earlier, and more controlled, part of the lesson and others
lend themselves rather more to a later stage of more creative language production.
In this context, we shall be introducing another pair of key terms, namely,
accuracy and fluency.
QPESTION 2
Think for a moment about activities that promote "accuracy' and others that
promote "fluency'; which of the two would you say was associated with language
drills?
1.6 It is often said that true communication only occurs when new information is
involved. From your study of sociolinguistics in Block B of Course 551, you may
wish to question this statement, but the fact remains that there is precious little
communication involved in the sentence this is a dog spoken by one person to
another when such a creature is wagging his tail directly in front of them! On the
other hand, if one of the two had said this is a strange-looking dog and the other
had replied yes, I believe it's a rare breed of sheepdog, we could justifiably claim
that true communication had taken place and that an information gap had been
filled. However, for any communication to take place, one person must send a
message and another must receive it with some degree of understanding. To use
another pair of terms that you will come across, one person must encode the
message and the other must decode the message!
ACTIVITY 2
Go back to the small chart in Activity 1 and put these two new terms into their
right, places in the remaining blanks. That is, try to decide whether they are
productive or receptive in character.
1.7 To summarise, our main concern in this unit will be to draw your attention to
further skill-developing activities and to relate them to the new terms that have
just been introduced.
2 INPUT AND OUTPUT
2.1 You will have gathered from Activity 1 that input is governed by the skills
.of listening and reading; likewise output is governed by our ability to talk and
write. In a language learning context, the concept of input and output is quite
crucial. You will remember from your study of Block 1 of Course 551 that the
behaviourists believed that a child could only produce language that he had
already been presented with. The audio-lingual approach to language teaching
made use of this theory by laying great emphasis on careful repetition and very
controlled response. In other words^, the common belief was that output equalled
input - what eventually came out was in direct proportion to what had been put in.
Viewed in this way, we could say that the learner produces for himself the
language given him by his teacher. .
QUESTION 3 (Revision)
What argument would you use to counter this input = output theory having in
mind the young child's language ability?
2.2 Let us now concentrate on the implications for TEFL contained in the
input/output' concept. What kind of input should the learner be subjected to, and
what kind of output should we expect? Can the eventual output be equal to more
than the sum of the separate parts of the input?
2.3 In 1.3 we reminded you of the twin terms acquisition and learning. A
young child acquires his mother tongue because he is already genetically
programmed to speak, but this programming proceeds at a natural pace. At a later
age (often at. about 12) the same child begins to learn another language. The big
question is whether the initial acquisition programme can in some way be re-
activated for the later language. An American writer, Krashen, has - suggested
that learners of a foreign language can acquire some of the new language
independently as long as the basic input is appropriate. Unlike the acquisition of
the mother tongue, the foreign language cannot be left to itself; it does need input
but of a kind that encourages a degree of creativity. Krashen suggests two kinds
of language input, each of which has a role to play in the development of the
learner's language skills.
2.4 Roughly-tuned input is the term he uses for the kind of language that the
learner receives (that is, that he listens to or reads) which is in part a little beyond
his current ability. It is input which is one step ahead of his existing knowledge
and of a nature that is challenging and stimulating. A good time for this kind of
input is at the beginning and end of a lesson when a teacher can use vocabulary
and structures that have not yet been presented. We are referring to those
occasions when the teacher is using language in its social functions or is using
language for purposes of classroom management. Here are two examples of what
we mean:
SITUATION: The present perfect tense has not yet been presented to the class
but the teacher wants to anticipate its introduction by means of this roughly-tuned
input.
EXAMPLE 1 The teacher comes into the class and sees that one student has a
bandage, on her hand and says What's happened; what have you done?. As
long as the teacher has made it fairly obvious what she is referring to, all the
students will understand the meaning of the question. Even if the answer is I
falling from bicycle, some language acquisition will have taken place.
EXAMPLE 2 During a writing activity the teacher asks the question Have you
finished? and later says I've seen some very good writing today.
We do not expect students to produce this new language; we do not expect them
to understand its structure, but we do expect them to comprehend its meaning and,
thus, involve themselves in a language-learning process along the lines -of first
language acquisition.
QUESTIONS 4-6
4 Would you say that learning by means of roughly-tuned input was
behaviourist or mentalist in character?
5 When acquiring their mother tongue do young children listen to a lot of
language which is of this roughly-tuned nature?
6 If students have had no experience of the present perfect tense, how can we
claim that they will understand the sentence I've seen some very good writing
today?
ACTIVITY 3
The teacher wants to anticipate the presentation of the passive voice. Outline a
simple context for it and give an example of its use.
SITUATION:
EXAMPLE............................,..........................
2.5 Finely-tuned input is the language that is carefully chosen for deliberate
learning and teaching. At the presentation stage of the lesson (when new language
is first introduced in a planned and systematic way) the teacher is concerned with
giving his students carefully controlled language in interesting contexts. They will
be asked to repeat new language forms and concentrate on accuracy. The teacher
plays a very central role at this stage, and all the questions and answers go
through him; he initiates the use of the new language and monitors, student
performance very carefully. Let us look briefly at how the present perfect tense
might be introduced by means of this finely-tuned input.
EXAMPLE The teacher puts a picture of a house up on the board and by its side
the picture of a man (both could be cut out of a magazine - we shall deal with the
use of magazine pictures in Course 554). If such pictures are. unavailable, the
teacher can draw the outline of a house and add a stick figure. Then the teacher
can point and say This is Rashid and this is his house. The new structure can
now be introduced - He HAS LIVED in this house for six years. To help bring
out the meaning, the teacher can write a date on the house which is six years
earlier than the current year.
ACTIVITY 4
Once the 1st person singular form has been introduced (probably by the teacher
referring to himself), students can begin to make truthful statements about
themselves and their friends and relatives. Write a simple exchange (a two-line
dialogue) between the teacher and a student to illustrate this new stage.
TEACHER:..................................................
STUDENT: .............................................
ACTIVITY 5
Suggest a context to present the use of the 3rd person plural with the same tense,
e.g. They HAVE GROWN sugar cane here for many years. Local crafts and
occupations might be used. Then write two model sentences for your context.
CONTEXT:......................................................
SENTENCE 1: SENTENCE 2:
2.6 Controlled output is at the practice stage of the lesson which follows the
presentation. If input is largely concerned with the receptive skills (although not
wholly, as we have just seen), then output is very much concerned with
production – with speaking and writing. However, before we encourage our
students to produce new language forms for themselves in. different contexts, we
need to give them controlled practice. That is, we need- to give them linguistic
prompts to which their responses are fairly predictable. That is, we want the
grammar of the responses to be predictable but leave scope for a basic level of
real communication. Let us compare two approaches:
APPROACH 1: Make sentences from the following table:

Tariq has lived Quetta in Six

Suraya have Jhelum For years, two
Those people I Karachi
APPROACH 2: Make TRUE STATEMENTS about your family and friends. Use
sentences like these:
a) My uncle has played hockey for Pakistan.
b) My sister has bought some new clothes.
c) My cousins have arrived from Parachinar.
QUESTION 7
What is the main difference between the two approaches?
ACTIVITY 6
Write a small substitution table to drill the use of the simple present tense together
with an adverb of frequency, e.g. Shagufta often takes her little sister to school
Use your notebook and base the table on APPROACH 1.
ACTIVITY 7
Suggest a question from the teacher that would elicit the following true statements
from a particular student:
QUESTION:.....................................................
a) She works for PIA as an air-stewardess.
b) She travels to different countries every week.
c) She enjoys her work very much.
2.7 Free output concentrates on use rather than usage. At this later productive
stage, students are concerned with communication. They are now much more in
control of the whole situation and more concerned about meaning than about
form. This being the case, the teacher can expect more mistakes and should be
much more tolerant of them when they occur. The students' thinking may be well
ahead of their linguistic competence, so they should be encouraged to "have a go'
at saying it in English, and be rewarded for successful communication. One of
the communicative activities at this stage could be a guessing game, which would
provide a degree of free practice and also provide a realistic context for question
forms and short answers using the Simple Present tense. Here is an example: .
GUESSING OCCUPATIONS
Student A has a card with the word pilot on it (it may also have a suitable picture
on it, such as a PIA jet). He tells his partner, or other members of his group, that
the mystery person is a man, and invites questions about what he does. He can
only give short answers (see example).Student B must ask questions beginning
with does he.... .and can use the form is he.....only once.
EXAMPLE: STUDENT B STUDENT A
Does he work at home? No, he doesn't. Does he work in a town?
No, he doesn't.
Does he like his work? Yes, he does.
Does he get a lot of money? I think so.
.? I don't know. ,.? Yes, he does. ..? Yes, he is!
Your turn now.
ACTIVITY 8
Complete the example by filling in the blanks.
2.8 The above example illustrates what is meant by the term information gap.
One student has a piece of information which is not available to his partner, so he
has to ask appropriate questions in order to get it. In other words, the two students
have to communicate meaningfully in order to bridge the information gap. There
is obviously no such information gap present where two learners are looking at a
picture of boys playing cricket, and one asks the other what are they doing?. If,
on the other hand, one of them has a second picture with some additional
information on it, an information gap activity is possible. Student B has
incomplete information and, in order to know the full story, has to question
student A. They both have to use language in order to negotiate together. The
next activity will attempt to illustrate this in a very simple way.
ACTIVITY 9
Think of a classroom situation where students are working in pairs with the
following pictures. What instructions would you give the class to enable the pairs
to attempt a simple information gap activity? Use your notebook.

2.9 In 1.5 we threatened you with two more of the terms used in TEFL
methodology - accuracy and fluency. We can now relate them to our two kinds
of output by saying that controlled output goes with accuracy and free output
with fluency. You will see that this association suggests quite clearly that fluency
is dependent on an. underlying accuracy in language. All learners make mistakes
when they shift their emphasis from accuracy to fluency, but they also learn and
gain in confidence. With this learning and confidence comes also a further
renewal of their accuracy; one supports the other and helps it develop.
2.10 A student should know that there are certain occasions in a lesson when
accuracy is the main aim. Repeating new language after the teacher at the
presentation stage of finely-tuned input must of necessity be such an occasion.
There are many ether, occasions when the message itself is far more important
than the medium - when putting across meaning in a socially-appropriate way is
more important than just getting the grammar right. Let us consider two
examples:
EXAMPLE 1 Focus on accuracy
The teacher has introduced sentences with two clauses of the following type: I
think (that) Lahore is the most interesting town and I know (that) Peshawar
is better. After giving several examples, the teacher gives the students some
controlled practice as follows:
TEACHER: Raazia, which is the most beautiful place in Pakistan? RAAZIA: I'm
thinking that Swat is.
TEACHER: You made one little mistake. Listen to me again and try to correct it.
All right?
EXAMPLE 2 Focus on fluency
Later in the lesson the students are at the free practice stage and discussing the
merits of different places. They are using the new language but doing so to put
across their own genuine .opinions:
SEEMA: ... and another reason is that Karachi is much bigger. AYSHA: Of
course I'm knowing that, but it's busy and noisy.
TEACHER: (later when they have finished): Very good both of you. You argued
very well.
ASK YOURSELF
Was the teacher right to correct on one occasion but not on the other? What would
you have done?
QUESTION 8
If Seema and Aysha later wrote down their dialogue, should the teacher correct
the verb form am knowing?
3 INTEGRATED LANGUAGE SKILLS
3.1 We have seen that a balanced mix of the two different types of input and
output is essential for the development of receptive and productive skills. With
this kind of mix, we believe that second language learners can also acquire some
new language somehow along the lines of the first language learner. To what
extent this is possible we do not yet know, but we do believe that L2 learners
should be given the opportunity to sort things out for themselves at some stage -
they need time to reflect on what they are learning and also to experiment with it.
Language activities which force learners to integrate their skills, and give them a
definite purpose for doing so are those which are most likely to lead to real
language learning. These are the activities that can have some transfer value, so
that language practised in the classroom can also be the kind of language used in
the bilingual world outside the classroom.
3.2 Consider the following situations:
1 The teacher is using objects in the classroom to practise the use of
prepositions. He is moving things about and asking questions so that the meaning
of the prepositions used is made abundantly clear.
TEACHER: Ahmed, where is the atlas? AHMED: It is in the cupboard.
TEACHER: Is it near the map?
AHMED: No, it is not near the map. It is between the radio and the cassette
player.
2 Bashir is walking home from work when a stranger speaks to him in English.
FOREIGNER: Excuse me, Where's the post office? BASHIR: It's in Station
Road. FOREIGNER: Is it near the station?
BASHIR: No, it isn't, It's between the mosque and the hotel.
QUESTIONS 9-12
9 Which dialogue is communicative and why?
10 Does Ahmed have the linguistic ability to speak to the foreigner as Bashir
did?
11 Do you think the kind of language practice he gets at school prepares him for
meaningful communication? (Remember that the teacher knows where the atlas is
- after all, he has just put it there!)
12 There is one major linguistic difference between the spoken language of the
two situations. What is it? (552:Block B)
ASK YOURSELF
Are we being too hard on Ahmed and his teacher? What is your .experience? To
what extent do you think that typical language practice in the classroom prepares
students for real language use? Is it significant that Bashir is on his way home
from work rather than from school?
3.3 Let us now examine a few more activities that aim to integrate different skills
and promote communicative -ability.
EXAMPLE 1: :
Here is an advertisement which appeared in a local English-language newspaper
recently: ■
1

PARTIAL TELEPHONE DIALOGUE

Having read the advert, students are required to complete one side of a telephone
dialogue. Here is a fragment of it:
Secretary: Extension 78. Mr Qadir's office. Can I help you?
Candidate: .....................___....................
Secretary: There have been many applications for that job.
Candidate: .......-.......................................
Secretary: Yes, of course you can. I suggest that you now put in a written
application as soon as possible.
Candidate:..............................................
etc. etc.
 2 WRITTEN APPLICATION
The candidate writes a letter of application.
3 INTERVIEW
A mock interview situation is set up in the classroom, first between the teacher
and a good student and then as pair work for the whole class. The teacher
monitors the activity.
4 LETTER OFFERING EMPLOYMENT.
Half the students write a letter offering the job to the candidate, and specifying a
salary. .
5 The other half reply to these letters - each student deciding for himself to
accept or reject the offer.
QUESTION 13
Which language skills are practised in the above activity?
ACTIVITY 10
Complete the partial telephone dialogue and extend it.
EXAMPLE 2 CUECARDS .
Basic information. for a communicative activity can be given in skeleton form on
cards. For simple pair-work each student needs his own information card and a
partner to work with. It is important that students should not see their partners'
cards -after all, this is the information gap.
CARD A CARD B
1 Ask your partner to 2. Ask him why he
lend you Rs.20. needs the money.
3 3 Give a reason 4 Ask for more
information.
6 Agree reluctantly.
5 5 Explain further
8 Give an appropriate
7 7 Show your gratitude. warning.
Notice that the numbers on the cards indicate how the speakers take turns to
speak. Notice also that the information on the cards is very much like a sequence
of language functions.
ACTIVITY 11
Prepare two similar cards for a different communicative activity.
EXAMPLE 3 A communicative writing activity
A great deal of the writing that is done in the language classroom has no obvious
purpose. Few people in real life write essays, yet long compositions on very dull
topics are often the norm when it comes to writing practice. Here is an example of
a writing activity that involves the following stages: reading and discussing in
groups a cloze-type exercise; filling in blanks in a creative fashion; writing a
second paragraph as a group activity; writing a third paragraph as an individual
activity; comparing and discussing again the finished product.
SUGGESTED PROCEDURE
1 The teacher prepares a paragraph with blanks in it - like a traditional guided
composition - with the intention that students should fill in the blanks with
appropriate descriptive language. Less able students will be able to use
single words and short phrases while their more able colleagues will be able to
expand the blanks in a much more productive and creative way. Here is a small
fragment of such a paragraph as a simple illustration of what is meant:
The evening was . ________i__________________________.
They walked____________ . along the road______^
'_____• ________until they came to the_____________.
restaurant that they had chosen. He
pushed open the ;-_____________^_____door and a
_________________, waiter greeted them_____________
Students, especially the more able ones, need not confine themselves to the size of
the blanks. They can rewrite the whole paragraph to give themselves additional
space.
The teacher demonstrates what is required by using a model sentence with blanks.
Here is an example:
Javed felt ,______________. ________as he
____________________ ______up the road.
You can see that such a sentence can be completed in various ways - from single
words to quite elaborate groups, as illustrated here:
a) Javed felt very happy as he walked up the road.
b) Javed felt only a sense of absolute failure and misery as he trudged heavily up
the road.
Students work in groups to complete the paragraph. In this way, group discussion
can, benefit the weaker students who might have made do with the minimal
changes that we have just illustrated in (a). Group leaders read out the completed
paragraphs and the teacher initiates some class discussion.
The teacher points out that the completed paragraph seems to be the middle part
of a story which is without both a beginning and an ending; Characters need to be
introduced and some kind of story hinted at; finally some kind of outcome is
required. He suggests that the paragraph can function as the middle paragraph of a
short three-paragraph story.
5 Students again work in groups to write the new introductory paragraph. When
completed, this is again discussed in class.
6 The third and final paragraph is done as individual writing for homework.
7 Certain completed stories are read out in class and discussed.
When we deal with Lesson Planning in Course 554, we shall return to this
example of a group writing activity and examine it again from the point of view
of class management and the allocation of time.
ACTIVITY 12
Fill in the blanks in the paragraph as illustrated.
(The key to this activity will include the whole paragraph)
4 CONCLUSION
4.1 Many, of the points discussed with you in this unit have already been raised
in those earlier units that focussed on the separate skills. In this unit we have tried
to show how these skills can be made to work together and support each other.
We have examined the development of skills with integration and
communication very much in mind.
4.2 Again, we must consider the special problems of large classes and resources
which are less than ideal. If we look back at the three communicative activities
outlined in 3.3, can we say that they would be much more difficult to set up with a
large class? Initially, they would be, but once a class is used to working in groups
and working in pairs, organization is no more difficult. Obviously, some kind of
duplication is necessary for the two letters in Example 3 but it is really no more
difficult to run off 60 copies than 30.
4.3 Do not decide in advance that this new methodology is not for you because
of any special difficulties you think you have.
New approaches are worth trying - even if there is an initial period of some
confusion and time-wasting. To keep up with current developments in teaching
and the world-wide demands that are made on the English language, you in your
own situation cannot afford the luxury of being outside the mainstream of TEFL
methodology. Communicative activities, are we have seen, build on accuracy and
foster fluency. By doing so, they give students confidence and the realization that
English is a language that they too can use in realistic situations. Far from being a
disadvantage when it comes to the set books, this newer approach will give them
additional skills to handle them more effectively.
4.4 In Unit 18, we shall examine ways of testing these integrative and
communicative skills.
READING
REQUIRED Susan Holden [ed] Second Selections from Modern English
Teacher, Longman. Chapter 5.
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman.
Chapter 8.
SUGGESTED Hubbard et al, A Training Course for TEFL, Oxford. Chapter 6.
SUM4ARY
1 Language skills are rarely used in isolation.
2 Receptive skills involve language input and productive skills involve output.
3 Receptive skills involve the decoding of messages and productive skills
involve their encoding.
4 Language teaching must cater for both accuracy and fluency.
5 The learner's output is greater than the input received.
6 Some L2 learning appears to duplicate LI acquisition.
7 Roughly-tuned input is at a slightly higher level than the learner's
comprehension ability at the time.
8 Finely-tuned input is carefully graded to match the learner's comprehension
level.
9 Controlled output is associated with the carefully-monitored practice stage of
teaching; it focusses on accuracy.
10 Free output is associated with the later production stage of teaching when
students are given more freedom to communicate in their own way; it focusses on
fluency.
11 At the stage of controlled output, correction is essential but at the free output
stage it should be minimal. .
12 At the free practice stage, meaning is more important than
form. . . . .
13 The encouragement of fluency will itself promote accuracy.
14 Integrated activities in language teaching allow students to utilise all their
language resources.
 UNIT FIFTEEN

THE TESTING OF LISTENING AND

SPEAKING SKILLS
Objectives
After studying this unit and attempting the questions and activities, you should be
able to:
1 Outline 3 different types of listening test.
2 Distinguish between global listening and detailed listening.
3 Design both global and detailed listening tests for a given text.
4 Design a listening test that is linked to note-taking.
5 Justify the use of a flexible marking system for use with multiple-choice tests.
6 Outline two different ways of using reading aloud as a partial test of oral skills.
7 Define and illustrate, the term interactive with reference to oral tests.
1 INTRODUCTION
...1 Units 15, 16, 17 and 18 are devoted to the testing and assessment of language
skills. However, in this Course (553) we. are more concerned with informal,
teacher-produced, tests than with carefully standardized formal tests. We are
concerned with what the teacher can do in the classroom to monitor both the
progress of his students and the effectiveness of his own teaching. In Unit 5 of
Course 554 we shall turn our attention towards the more technical aspects of
testing.
1.2 In this first Unit on testing, we shall focus on both listening and speaking
together. They are sometimes referred to as the aural and oral skills, but we think
it is more realistic and pragmatic to include both listening and speaking within the
oral skill. Although we are at pains throughout this course to stress the essentially
integrative nature of the language skills/ it is clear that listening and speaking are
more closely bound together than reading and writing, for instance. For testing
purposes, they undoubtedly belong together.
1.3 As far as listening is concerned, we shall follow up a distinction that was
made in Unit 2 (4.2) with reference to discrete and global listening - listening for
specific details and listening for overall impression and understanding. You will
recall that later in Unit 3 (2.1) we linked these two types of listening to finely-
tuned input and roughly-tuned input. Both kinds of input are essential for
testing purposes.
1.4 In our discussion of the testing and assessment of speaking we shall want to
examine the speaker's ability to both initiate dialogue and respond in an
appropriate manner. In this, the twin approaches of accuracy and fluency will
again be significant. We shall look at the continued use of reading aloud as an
instrument for the measurement of accuracy, and at unscripted dialogue with the
examiner as a means of evaluating fluency and social awareness.
QUESTIONS 1 AND 2
1 Which word in section 1.2 means much the same as practical?
2 Which would you call an interactive test, reading, aloud or unscripted
dialogue?
2 TESTING THE LISTENING SKILL
2.1 We have already seen how the L2 listener has to react instantly to both
individual, or discreet, sounds and to a continuity of combined sounds. That is, his
problem is sometimes the difference between fourteen and forty in an otherwise
perfectly intelligible utterance, and sometimes the sheer rapidity and fluency of
connected speech in a sentence such as Tell him to live with Les (See page 24 of
Block A).
2.1.1 Following this lack of comprehension, the listener might well have to ask
for a repetition of the information by means of such requests as Do you mean
ONE-POOR or POOR-ZERO? and Tell WHO to do WHAT?. Using the
telephone in L2 often throws up problems of this kind, and this is a useful area for
the integration of listening and speaking skills - as we hope to illustrate by means
of our first activity.
ACTIVITY 1
You are speaking on the telephone and you are not sure whether you have heard
choice (a) or choice (b) below. Ask the speaker to clarify it for you. Decide what-
you would say the first time and what you would then say if you needed a second
repetition. Note that in an authentic test you would listen to the utterance
containing the comprehension problem.
a. Can we meet on (a) Tuesday (b) Thursday?
1st:...........................................................
2nd: ........................................................
b. (a) I can't come any later. (b) I can come with a letter.
1st:....................___...................................
2nd:................................___...........___........
2.2 In 2.1 above, we referred to the listener having to react to what he hears. This
reaction to sound is very closely related to the essential difference between
hearing and listening; if we are deliberately listening to something, we are of
necessity reacting
to it in some way. This reaction can take a number of different forms according to
our listening purpose; are we listening for additional knowledge on a topic,
essential information, for directions, for social interaction, for pleasure, etc.?
ACTIVITY 2
What would your likely listening purpose be if you had deliberately chosen to
listen to the following:
a. A TV personality telling funny stories.
b. Someone explaining to you how to get to the railway station.
c. A PIA flight departure announcement.
d. A friend's description of a holiday.
e. A well-known literary authority lecturing on the poetry of Iqbal.
2.2.3 Because the kinds of listening outlined above have their different purposes,
they also have their different reactions or outcomes. The likely reaction to (a), is
laughter and a possible humorous comment. The reaction to (b) and (c) is certain
to be movement of some kind. The reaction to (d) is likely to be questions and
comment to indicate interest and social involvement. The reaction to (e), on the
other hand, might well be careful attention and note-taking. In addition to
subsequent movement (actually getting to the station), the reaction to (b) might
well include additional questions, requests for repetition and possibly a rough
diagram.
2.3 Let us now return to the testing of the listening skill. We have already
established that we listen to different things for different purposes and that this
diversity leads to different outcomes.
2.3.1 Listening and doing is probably the simplest and purest form of listening
test. In our introduction to the language skills, in Unit 1 of Block A of this
Course, we gave as our example Put the small yellow box on the blue tray. If
the student
is able to perform the action successfully, we can say that true listening with
understanding has taken place. As an activity it is related to our earlier example of
listening to street directions and then managing to find the railway station.
QUESTION 3
At what level of language learning do you think such listen and do tests should
be used?
2.3.2 Listening and drawing tests are an extension of "listen and do' since the
reaction or outcome is again non-verbal. However, the tasks can be more
demanding and often necessitate a limited amount of writing - if only to label a
diagram. In Unit 3 (pages 45 and 46) you were introduced to the idea of a picture
dictation as an example of an activity that demands very intensive and careful
listening.
QUESTION 4
Read again the pages referred to above (Block A, 45-46). What activities does
Penny Ur include under Obeying Instructions in her book Teaching Listening
comprehension?
2.3.3 Most listening tests require students to listen and write, especially if we are
concerned with testing at intermediate and advanced level. Within this category,
we must differentiate between global listening and detailed listening. You came
across a similar distinction in Unit 6 of Block A when you were introduced to
extensive reading and intensive reading.
a) Global listening requires the listener to identify the main theme of the spoken
passage, understand the gist of it and recognise its main function. Here are some
un-contextualised examples of global questions:
* What is the passage about? [from given choices]
* How many people take part in the conversation?
* Where do you think it all takes place?
* Do you think the writer of the passage is trying to inform us, amuse us, anger
us or shock us?
* Suggest a suitable title for it.
b-. Detailed listening requires the listener to react to specific items in the text by
answering questions that focus on individual points - on single ideas, words and
phrases. Such questions are often presented in some kind of multiple-choice
format. Instead of attempting to illustrate such questions without a context, we
shall now make use of a listening activity in order to exemplify both types of
questions.
ACTIVITY 3 (Cassette)
For this, and other cassette activities, please use the same cassette that you, used
for Block A. You will find the Block B activities on its reverse side, together with
full instructions.
GLOBAL-LISTENING
a) Underline what you consider to be the most suitable title: i. A Wise King. ii.
The Three Questions.
iii. Life in the Palace. iv. The Reward.
b) Underline the word which best describes the general nature of the passage:
HISTORICAL POLITICAL NARRATIVE RELIGIOUS
c) Does the content of the passage deal with modern times?
d) Underline the word which best describes its style.
JOURNALISTIC MORALIZING STORY-TELLING SATIRICAL
DETAILED LISTENING
e) Fill in the blanks:
The king wanted to know____ things. He wanted to know ___ begin something:
what people he ought to ____: what was the _____ for him to do.
f) How did the king intend to reward the person who gave him the right answers?
g) Some people said that the king needed a council of wise men. Is this TRUE or
FALSE?
h) Complete the following table to indicate the answers to the second question:
i) What was the king's final decision?
2.3.3 (Continued) Some of you may be familiar with the text that we have just
used for the cassette activity. It has been taken from Guided English for
Pakistan (Book 3) which is the prescribed text set by the Federal Textbook Board
for Class XII. It will be obvious to you that, if some students are already familiar
with a text, it cannot be used as a fair listening test. We have chosen
it only to show that some material intended for reading can be used for listening
purposes. In fact, one way to present a new reading text is by means of an initial
listening activity.
See APPENDIX 1 for the text.
2.4 Listening and Note Taking
In Activity 3 we tried to illustrate both global listening and detailed listening as
applied to the same text. We also made deliberate use of a reading text for
listening comprehension purposes. Sometimes, however, a student has to listen
intensively for detail and sustain such listening over a much longer period of time,
as when he listens to a lecture.
2.4.1 Such listening will differ from our earlier example (Activity 3) in two major
respects: there will be very little global listening and a conscious effort will be
necessary to rehearse the information for purposes of long-term memory.
QUESTIONS 5 and 6
5 Why is there much less global listening involved when a student has to listen to
a lecture On a given topic? [If you need some assistance with this, go back to
2.3.3 (a)]
6 How can a student ensure that new information is remembered when listening
to a lecture?
ACTIVITY 4 (Cassette)
This activity is set out as a fragment of a somewhat more formal test. Although
the text appears in APPENDIX 2, you should attempt the activity as a genuine
listening test.
LISTENING TEST
You are about to hear the first part of a lecture on Charles Dickens and you will
be tested on your ability to listen and understand. After the talk you will be
required to answer 15 questions on the subject.
To make the test more authentic, listen ONLY ONCE.
You will be allowed to make your own notes as you listen and you should use the
space provided below for this purpose. Your notes will not be marked or assessed
in any way. Your assessment will be based only on your answers to the questions
that follow the listening passage. Remember that your answers should be based on
WHAT THE SPEAKER SAYS - not on your own background knowledge.
NOTES
The questions that you will- have to answer after the lecture will be about the
items listed below. Write your own rough notes under each heading.
NOW LISTEN' TO THE CASSETTE AND WRITE YOUR NOTES
1 His early background and its effect on him
2 The historical background
3 His own character and way of life
4 Characterisation in his novels
5 Humour in his novels
You have just listened to the beginning of a lecture on Charles Dickens. You now
have 10minutes to answer the 15 questions that follow. Put a circle round the
appropriate letter in each case as the best answer to each question. The first one
has been done for you.
QUESTIONS
1 Dickens father was sent to prison because -
A. He was a hardened criminal.
B. He owed money.
C. He humiliated his son.
2 Dickens became a reporter and journalist after -
A. A great deal of education. B. A lot of hard work. C. Some very degrading
work.
3 The speaker said that one reason for the poverty and
hardship of the time was -
A. The move away from rural areas.
B. The industrial revolution C. Wealthy factory owners.
4 Dickens was -
A. An intellectual. B. A very energetic person.
C. A professional actor.
5 The speaker implied that in his characterisation Dickens -
A. Demonstrated a fine eye for detail.
B. Was usually unfair to women.
C. Based his characters on real people.
6 Dickens was able to write humorously because -
A. He was satirical. B. He was an energetic writer. C. He was able to handle a
vast range of comedy.
[Questions 7-15 not included in this sample]
QUESTION 7
This test was intended to be done with a live speaker. Assuming that you listen to
the talk only once, does the use of a recorded talk make the test easier or more
difficult? Give reasons.
ACTIVITY 5
After checking your answers in the key and looking over the text in the appendix,
write two alternative questions which you might use for similar listening
comprehension purposes.
3 DICTATION
3.1 Since dictation will be followed up in some detail in Unit 17, which deals
with the testing of integrative skills, we shall simply draw brief attention to it as a
now widely-accepted language test. It is now longer seen as a narrow test of
spelling and the accurate reproduction of studied text; it is viewed rather as a test
which forces the listener to make use of a range of language skills in an integrated
fashion.
3.2 Although we now see the value of dictation as being in its global or
integrative nature, it can still be used as a discrete test to focus on various detailed
aspects of language use. For this purpose, a partial dictation can be used, which
we shall illustrate by means of an activity.

ACTIVITY 6 (cassette)
Listen carefully to the cassette and write in the missing words:
........ be with you in a minute. ...... finished my
work now and ....... just clearing up. By the way, Hafiz
and Safia called and said........... going to Swat next
week. They said to tell you......... be calling to see
if........... all right after the accident.
(Adapted from Hubbard et al - Required Reading page 264)
QUESTIONS 8 and 9
8 What kind of discrete items does this partial dictation test?
9 If you wanted to make it easier for students, but keep, the same number of
blanks, what could you do?
4 MARKING
4.1 As far as the listening skill is concerned, we shall discuss the marking and
assessment of just one activity. Activity 4 involved answering five multiple-
choice questions on the content of Professor Fleming's lecture. If we allocate two
marks to each question and you got all five correct (As we are sure you did), you
ended up with 10 marks out of 10, or 100%. However, let us now consider two
cases where students scored 0 out of 10-by making the wrong choices each time.
If you accept our key as being valid, they could not be given any mark other than
zero. Or could they?
4.2 Look again at the multiple choices for each question. Once the best answer
has been identified and rewarded with 2 marks, are the remaining two answers
equally wrong. Let us examine one of the questions a little more closely.
4.3 Question 2 (page 110) .
Dickens became a reporter and novelist after -
A. A great deal of education. B. A lot of hard work.
C. Some very degrading work.
Although it is mentioned in paragraph 2 that he was forced to take on degrading
work, no link is suggested between that and his subsequent work as a reporter and
journalist. There is, however, a link between hard work and success as a reporter
in paragraph 3, where it is also clearly stated that he had only little education.
Thus, we must accept option B as being correct and judge option A to be totally
wrong. But, what about option C? It is correct as far as a strict time sequence is
concerned, and it certainly does not present totally misleading information in the
way that option A does. To answer the question that we asked ourselves at the end
of 4.2, No, choices A and C do not appear to be equally wrong.
4.4 If you look again at the three choices in all six multiple-choice questions, you
will see that one is always correct, one always totally incorrect and a third
somewhere in between and having an element of truth in it or, at least, a link with
sequential progression and coherence.
QUESTION 10
Can you suggest a more flexible marking scheme that would take into account
partially correct answers? Do not feel that you have to keep to a maximum of two
marks for each answer.
ACTIVITY 7 .
Using your new marking scheme, grade the following students:
Unit 5 of Course 554 will deal with the theory of testing and will offer you a
somewhat different perspective on these issues.
5 TESTING ORAL SKILLS
5.1 Let us begin by reiterating a few of the things that people have said about the
subject.
a. At all stages beyond the elementary levels of mimicry and repetition it [the
ability to speak] is an extremely difficult skill to test, as it is far too complex a
skill to permit any reliable analysis to be made for the purpose of objective
testing.
[J B Heatoh, Writing English Language Tests, Longman]
b. in many tests of oral production, it is neither possible nor desirable to separate
the speaking skills from the. listening skills. [as above]

c. Oral skills are the most difficult to test. It is easy enough to get an impression,
and probably a fairly accurate one, from just listening to our students talk, but it is
very hard to make an accurate assessment.

[Hubbard et al, A Training Course in TEFL, Oxford]

d. It is understandable that the testing of speaking has been so widely neglected. It
is time-consuming and administratively awkward. Problems of validity and
reliability have loomed large. But unless speaking is tested, it will continue to be
under-emphasised in teaching.
[Abbott & wingard (eds) The teaching of English as an International
Language, Collins]
e. Oral tests are difficult to administer since by their very nature they are very
individual ....... Oral tests
are very time-consuming and, for this very reason, usually neglected in schools
and colleges.
[This course. Block A, Unit 1, 3.1.2]
f. The typical English language learning experience in Pakistan is almost devoid
of any speaking practice at all, and indeed, this is reflected in the examination
system, which has no provision for the examination of oral skills. Such a situation
is found in many school courses throughout the world. .
[This course. Block A, Unit 4, 2.1]
5.2 After ail these rather negative views on oral testing, you must be wondering
why we are still pursuing the matter! Is it something that is worth trying? Look
again at the six excerpts. Are they truly negative in their assessment of the value
of oral testing, or are they critical of a certain lack of effort? We believe the latter.
QUESTIONS 11-15
11 To what extent are excerpts (a) and (d) in agreement?
12 What point do (d) and (f) make in common?
13 Which excerpt makes a similar point to the one we made in 1,2 of this Unit.
14 Do you think the excerpts emphasise the difficulty of oral tests or their
futility?
15 How would you differentiate between impression and assessment as the
terms are used in (c)?
5.3 Let us then admit that oral testing is time-consuming, difficult to organize,
awkward to administer and suspect in its degree of accurate assessment. It
is, nevertheless, true that many candidates for various jobs have to
demonstrate their ability to understand and reply appropriately to spoken English.
Interviews are oral examinations, and students have the right to expect to be given
practice in the listening and speaking skills that such interviews impose on them.
5.4 Although we would agree that the bulk of useful practice is gained by means
of well-designed communicative activities (such as those outlined in Unit 5),
students also need practice in the sort of one-to-one situation that is forced upon
them in an examination. More advanced students also need some experience of
the kind of tension that develops quite naturally in such a situation.
5.5 We shall now look at a range of oral tests, such as those used by various
international examination boards, and try to see what they aim to assess and how
they go about it. However, in doing so, we are painfully aware of the
limitations imposed on us by the constraints of distance education. In face-
to-face teaching the various kinds of speaking tests can at least be sampled and
demonstrated; we are forced to view them from a distance and rely on secondary
aids such as audio cassettes. However, one of the purposes of later workshops is
to try to overcome some of our present constraints by essentially practical
methods.
5.6. In our units oil reading, we were highly critical of the practice of reading
aloud around the class. Since the real purpose of reading is to extract meaning
from a text as efficiently as possible, reading aloud is counter-productive. It slows
down the feading process and encourages thoroughly bad reading habits. It
cannot, therefore, be a valid test of reading. But can it be a test of the candidate's
ability to produce acceptable speech sounds and patterns?
ASK YOURSELF
Can reading aloud be used as a test of pronunciation and fluency?
5.6.1 This is a very contentious issue. Some language teachers would agree that
reading aloud is bad practice when the emphasis is on understanding text, but
would defend it when used sparingly as an indicator of speech production.
Others would dismiss it completely and claim that reading aloud tests nothing
other than itself, insisting that there are better ways to test oral skills
ASK YOQRSELF
Which side do you tend to agree with? We would like to suggest this as a topic for
discussion at one of your tutorials.
5.6.2 Another problem is that EFL specialists (in the good company of a great
many other educationists) do not always practise what they preach. There is such
a tradition of using reading aloud for the testing of speaking skills that it is
difficult to initiate change - even when it is generally agreed that the procedure is
highly suspect. The result of all this is that many prestigious examination boards
(e.g. University of Cambridge Examinations Syndicate) still retain some form of
reading aloud as part of a wider oral test. However, the qualifying expressions
seme form of and part of a wider test are very pertinent.
5.6.3 What do these reading aloud tests consist of and how are they
administered? Basically, they are of two kinds: the first kind is a monologue
where the candidate is simply given a passage to read in isolation; the second kind
is a dialogue where the candidate and the examiner" share the reading of a
suitable text. Here are examples of instructions that might accompany both.
A MONOLOGUE
Candidates are given four passages for reading aloud and they have to choose one
of them. The passages usually represent different text types. For instance, they
might be a) a personal letter; b) a piece of narrative;
c) instructions for doing something;
d) a speech.
Candidates are told that they have 10 minutes to study the passage and prepare
themselves for the reading.
B DIALOGUE
Candidates are again allowed to choose a dialogue from a limited number and
given about 10 minutes to, prepare it. Again, the dialogues should represent
different situations and role relationships. For instance, they might be a) two
friends chatting; b) a salesperson and customer; c) employer and employee; d)
interviewer and celebrity.
Where a dialogue is used, the candidate usually has the more dominant part but
has to react appropriately to a developing situation, and a good candidate has to
be sensitive to the examiner's interpretation of his part.
QUESTIONS 16 and 17
16 What do you think is one major difference between this kind of reading aloud
and reading aloud around the class?
17 Which do you think is the more useful test, the- monologue or the dialogue?
Why?
5.6.4 How should such a test be marked? What should the examiner be looking
for? If you had set a reading passage as a est of a candidate's oral ability, what
would you be looking for.
ACTIVITY 8
Here is a list of various language features. Put a tick against
those which you would be looking for if you set a reading passage as a test of oral
ability.
a) Good pronunciation of individual sounds
b) Appropriate choice of vocabulary
c) Correct stressing of words
d) Correct grammatical patterns
e) Good features of connected speech (e.g. abbreviated forms, linking sr')
f) Appropriate intonation patterns
g) Appropriate pace h) Effective cohesion
5.7 Using a picture
Another format for an oral test is to require the candidate to talk about a picture. It
is important here to make a distinction between talk about and describe since the
latter term might suggest another monologue consisting of a long boring list of the
things that the candidate can see. What the examiner must do is to exploit the
shared picture in order to initiate and develop conversation with the candidate.
EXAMPLE
The candidate is given a picture showing an outdoor market scene. There are two
fruit and vegetable stalls in the picture and a woman can be seen weighing some
carrots. There are men and women customers with shopping bag. Most of the
vegetables have their prices marked.
The photograph in question is reproduced for you on the next page
Here is a suggested range of questions and topics for the examiner to develop with
the candidate.
Time allowed: 5 minutes.
1 What is the scene in the picture?
2 What are the people doing?
3 What is the woman oh the left doing?
4 Why do people buy from such places?
5 Do you ever shop in such a place, or does any member of your family? '
6 Is it useful to have all prices on view?
7 Do you think there would be any bargaining here?
8 Are outdoor markets an advantage or disadvantage?
5.7.1 In this kind of test the candidate enters into a communicative dialogue with
the examiner; he can answer certain questions quite briefly but elaborate on
others. It is, above all, an interactive test.
5.7.2 In practice, the examiner must be very flexible and not stick rigidly to his
list of questions. Since he interacts with the candidate, he must follow up what
the candidate says.
5.8 Role play
In this interactive test the candidate is given two or three situations to prepare
very briefly in advance and is told that he and the examiner will act their parts in
them.
EXAMPLE
You lent a friend ten rupees some time ago and he has not returned it. You think
he may have forgotten. Remind him politely and tell him that you need it.
(Remember that he may disagree with you).
QUESTIONS 18 and 19
18 How would you define an interactive test?
19 Look again at the language features that you ticked in Activity 8. Would you
do the same for a role-play test?
5.9 Event-based test
You will have seen from our small sample of oral tests that there are two extremes
- from the prepared, almost staged, reading as a monologue to a natural
interaction with the examiner. The interactive tests are an attempt to give a
communicative element to testing so that it matches more recent developments in
teaching.
5.9.1 This is what Keith Morrow (Techniques of evaluation for a notional
syllabus, Royal Society of Arts) had to say about it in 1977: [This quotation is
picked up again in Unit 18, 3.1]
Increasingly language teaching is becoming concerned with communication and
its objectives are being reassessed in those terms; language testing, however, has
still by and large failed to develop techniques for measuring effectively the use
which is made of language in a communicative situation.
5.9.2 In a further attempt to remedy the situation that Morrow was complaining
about, there is a growing interest in what is called an event-based test. Candidates
are tested in small groups on their ability to understand and react to an event or
incident seen in a video recording. Here is an outline of test procedure:
1 Three candidates together view a video extract.
2 After the first showing each candidate is handed a cue card to serve as a prompt
or stimulus for his later participation in the discussion.
3 The video is shown a second time.
4 One examiner is in charge of the video and acts as chairman to ensure that each
candidate has an equal opportunity to take part in the discussion.
5 A second examiner takes no part in the interaction but acts as assessor,
awarding marks to each individual candidate according to his performance in 5
areas:
a) pronunciation b) fluency c) grammatical accuracy d) choice of vocabulary e)
interaction routines.
ACTIVITY 9
Make a list of six interaction routines which the examiner might be looking for.
[If you need a little revision, go back to Unit 4 of Block A and do the reading
activity again on page 73]
6 MARKING
6.1 We have from time to time listed some of the language features that the
examiner should be concerned with, but what kind of weighting ought to be given
them? Are some more important than others? How should the examiner arrive at
an overall grade or mark for the candidate's oral performance?
6.2 In order to have them together for easy reference we have placed two samples
of assessment schedules together in an appendix at the end of this unit. You will
need to refer to them when doing the next activity.
ACTIVITY 10 (Cassette)
You are going to hear two candidates being given an oral test and you are
required to use the two assessment schedules (APPENDIX 3) to grade them.
Use schedule 1 to give them a mark out of 10 for their general communicative
ability.
Use schedule 2 to give them a similar mark for their pronunciation, stress and
intonation.
Both candidates will talk about the picture which was reproduced for you on page
119.
You will clearly need to listen to the recording-several times.
 SUMMARY
1 For test purposes it is very difficult to separate listening and speaking skills.
2 As with reading, listening can be tested both as an intensive and extensive
activity.
3 The simplest form of a listening test, and one which does not involve other
skills, is listening and doing.
4 A useful kind of listening and drawing test is a picture dictation.
5 Global listening requires the candidate to identify some of the major features
of the passage as a whole.
6 Detailed listening requires the candidate to pick up specific items of
information.
7 In a listening test based on a passage read aloud, global listening should come
first.
8 Listening to a talk on an academic subject requires sustained detailed listening.
9 Such listening should normally be accompanied by note-taking.
10 Dictation is now recognised as a valid language test which goes far beyond a
traditional listening test.
11 A partial dictation can be used as a discreet item test.
12 With multiple-choice tests a flexible1 marking system should be used where
possible.
13 There is a general consensus that oral testing is very difficult to administer
and assess; there is also a consensus that it should, nevertheless, be attempted.
14 The lack of oral tests tends to diminish the importance of oral practice and
development in the classroom.
15 Reading aloud continues to be used as a test of oral ability, in monologue
and dialogue form, but is of doubtful value.
16 Any test involving a picture should encourage candidates to talk about or
around it, not just to describe what they see.
17 Role play can be the basis of a good oral test since both candidate and
examiner interact together communicatively.
18 Event-based tests are now being used more and more, but they are very
demanding on resources.
READING REQUIRED
Hubbard et al, A Training Course for TEFL, Oxford.
Chapter 9 [sections on listening and speaking tests]
SUGGESTED: Heaton j B, Writing English Language Tests, Longman
Chapters 5 and 6.